Expect a classic, darker Doctor from Peter Capaldi in DOCTOR WHO

It’s a new year, and with it, time for a new Doctor. With Matt Smith gone and Peter Capaldi here to stay, the question on everyone’s lips right now is Doctor Who exactly? What kind of a Doctor will we see save the universe on a weekly basis, now that the Time Lord has had a reset and is ready to jump into his blue box?

Well prepare yourselves, because the Doctor is coming back for a full circle performance, that’ll be both classical and dark.

Speaking to io9, director Ben “A field in England” Wheatley described how Capaldi’s Doctor would operate:

He’s so good. I was relieved, pretty much. It would have been a very different situation if it had been another kind of Matt Smith character. A guy who you don’t know. Molded from the start. But with Capaldi, you look at his career and you look at his performances they are all so brilliant, and all so different as well. It was a lucky break for me, I think that.

It was something I sought out. I got my agent to kind of badger them about doing, because I was a fan as a kid. But also because my kid was a fan of the show and I wanted to make something that he could see, for a change. That was it. And it’s been very geeky indeed. Going into the TARDIS, I held the Sonic Screwdriver the other day, and that was a particular thrill. All sorts of stuff. Also stuff I can’t talk about, that’s been very, very exciting for me.

Doctor Who is pretty dark, I think. Generally it’s dark, it’s always been dark. Even in the more modern ones. If you look at the Tom Baker stuff, it’s especially dark. When he leaves Leela — who’s a very beloved assistant — he just laughs after it. There’s none of the [breaking down and crying]. He just laughs, and “on to the next one,” you know. It’s a bonkers show. It’s a monster.

To have a unity that runs eight years [of the new series]… it’s pretty crazy. They’ve done everything, they’ve tried all sorts of stuff. It seems to me the episodes that we’re doing now seem more like classic Who. We’re going back to that style. But you’ll have to wait and see.

Wheatley will be directing the first two episodes of Doctor Who’s eighth season, that stars the Time Lord and his pal Clara getting involved in something with aliens. You’ll have to wait though, because that show takes time to film and will most likely only be seen in the second half of the year, as the BBC wants to run all episodes filmed on a weekly basis, instead of splitting them up like they did with season seven.

Allon-Sy!

Last Updated: February 4, 2014