Was anyone else slightly uncomfortable with the Doctor handing out what everyone thinks is a mode of suicide? I cannot see 10 or 11 doing this…maybe 9 but I really doubt it. Seems to me the Doctor would have recognized what those were (or thought they were) and smashed them.
Sure they were actually teleporters so it all worked out fine in the end, but it still struck me as something way outside the Doctor’s character.
For that matter what is the narrative cause of Capaldi’s “darker” Doctor? The way season 7 ended it sounded to me the Doctor was on a path to catharsis and fullfillment. He had hope for Gallifrey, wasn’t going to die afterall, and has entered into a whole new regeneration cycle. Clara is fine, with memory entact, and in the same easily tardisable timezone as he is. So why is 12 at first “afraid” (as 11 says in his phone call), and more importantly why is 12 back to acting like the grumpy John Hurt doctor who at the end of series 7, the Doctor has finally come to terms with?
I feel very confused by this potrayal of the Doctor and I think it does Capaldi a disservice as it makes him seem even more distant, remote, and removed from the character. He doesn’t seem more alien, only more alien to the Doctor’s core personality.
“Never cruel or cowardly, never give up, never give in.”
I feel as if we’ve already seen 12 act in a few of these ways.
