As Steven Moffat spoke with Alan Yentob at the Hay Festival on Monday, he detailed the informal and secretive auditioning process for selecting 12th Doctor Peter Capaldi – which basically included inviting him to his house and making him read “daft” scenes – and promised a more surprising and different show for Doctor Who Season 8, premiering in August. According to Moffat, he felt that a change was needed from the successful but predictable formula that had governed the show since its premiere in 2005 and that casting someone a little different from the “handsome yet quirky young man with entertaining hair” was but a first step in that process.
While Whovians are always hungry for details and information to slavishly theorize over, the real mystery here isn’t what Moffat has in store for season eight – which keeper of the secrets Steven Moffat isn’t likely to give up in any detail any time soon – but why such vague ramblings about the future of the show is news at all. While Screenrant does an excellent job interpreting these ramblings into predictions for the coming season, these predictions are generic at best. So the new season is going to be “different” and “surprising” – and just to what extent that is true remains to be seen – and while its interesting to hear that Moffat is trying to take a new approach with the show, different and surprising applies to just about every new season post-regeneration. When the actor who plays your main character changes, different and surprising is a given.
It is, however, interesting to learn that Peter Capaldi was on everyone’s mind when casting for the new Doctor began, and that while there was a list being kept in mind, he was in fact the only actor auditioned for the role. One of the most important things for me in the casting of Capaldi as the 12th Doctor is that he is a massive Whovian himself who knows the history and style of the show. In my mind, that is part of what made David Tennant such a successful Doctor and the show so pitch perfect during his tenure. He took care of the show, took pains to argue when he felt something was wrong, and did his job with such boyish enthusiasm. It is my hope that Capaldi cares for the show in the same way that Tennant did and brings the same level of enthusiasm (but of course expressed in his own, unique way).
And to be fair, different and surprising would not be an unwelcome change for Doctor Who Season 8. As I began to grow weary of the direction the show was taking towards the end of Matt Smith’s reign, I am definitely looking forward to some fresh air and a different take on the Doctor. Now if only we could get Steven Moffat to retire and leave the show to Mark Gatiss…
Source – Screenrant
