Honestly, I’d thought that the last time I wrote about Doctor Who would be the last time I’d write about Doctor Who until he regenerated into a new actor. Boy, was I wrong. The latest Doctor Who series starring Peter Capaldi and Pearl Mackie is stellar sci-fi stuff.
It’s no secret that I’m not a fan of the Peter Capaldi version of Doctor Who. I thought his Doctor was a self-centered, mean-spirited bully. At least I did until the new season started and I now admit – my mind has been changed. That change seems to start with the episode, The Husbands of River Song. In it, Capaldi’s Doctor shows himself to be fun-loving and caring about his wife, River Song (Alex Kingston). Their verbal banter is great stuff particularly when you realize she doesn’t recognize him because he’s regenerated into his current body. Fate has decreed that this will be the final time they meet before she travels to the Library where she will die. The Doctor gives her the sonic screwdriver she will use in the episodes, Silence in the Library/ Forest of the Dead and comforts her as they spent their last night together – a night that will last 24 years.
Fast forward to the season 10 opening episode, The Pilot. The Doctor is now a university professor who has been teaching at the school for more than seven decades. He comes across a woman, Bill Potts (Pearl Mackie), who attends all of his lectures, but isn’t enrolled in the school. She reminds him of his granddaughter, Susan and he warms to her. He convinces her to enroll and she becomes his student. At the end of the episode, when he attempts to wipe her mind of their adventure, as he’d wiped Donna Noble of her memories in Journey’s End, she stops him. The old Doctor of the Clara Oswald days would have wiped her memory, anyway because he knew best. This Doctor did not. This Doctor is now one who cares, in part because he cared, really cared for River Song and that empathy has remained.
The series now looks to be one worth investing in, at least, until Capaldi leaves or until the old bullying, mean-spirited Doctor returns. I hope it’s the former and not the later.
