It'd be a shame to spoil anything, of course, but suffice it to say: "Heaven Sent" is by far the Twelfth Doctor's finest hour.īeginning with "The Eleventh Hour" - a sterling introductory episode for a Doctor and their companion - Series 5 leaps from strength to strength. This one-hander (Peter Capaldi is the only cast member present) sees the Doctor trapped in an eternal time loop, destined to die and live and die again. And we get to see this all through Series 9: the season in which Twelve brings a tank to an axe-fight, plays dodgems with the Daleks, and gives the mother of all anti-war speeches.īest of all, though, is "Heaven Sent," which is probably the only episode of "Doctor Who" to have given "Blink" a run for its money. Gone is the awkward, sometimes-grumpy-sometimes-wacky pseudo-Doctor, replaced instead by a hilarious, fascinating, guitar-wielding badass - this, finally, is the "100 percent rebel Time Lord" that Capaldi first envisaged when he took the role. But this season does at least take the show to fascinating new corners of the universe.Īfter a shaky start with Series 8, where Steven Moffat and the show's writers appeared a little lost when it came to the Twelfth Doctor's characterization, Series 9 has him down to a tee. In the end, the Twelfth Doctor's first collection of adventures may be a little unsteady. "Flatline," "Mummy on the Orient Express," and "Listen" make the most of wild concepts the latter in particular is a superb adventure that Neela Debnath of The Independent called "Steven Moffat's most terrifying episode to date." Series 8 also settles into a more consistent level of quality, with only "Kill the Moon" and "In the Forest of the Night" as low points - and even they surpass the highest-scoring episodes of Series 11 and 12. Series 8 is also marked by a string of standalone episodes that are bizarrely high-concept even for "Doctor Who." (The Doctor goes inside a Dalek! The moon is an egg! Trees take over London!) It's little wonder, then, why the fan reception seems to have been mixed.īut Series 8 did feature some impressive highs.
Twelve is a gruffer and scarier Doctor than his floppy, loveable predecessor, which might explain why many viewers had trouble getting into his first season. All in all, Series 12 may have failed in interesting ways - but, that provides consolation. Most significantly, efforts in "The Timeless Children" to fully explain the Doctor's childhood feels like a final nail in the coffin of the character's once-mysterious nature.
Little of Series 12 is worthy of note, unfortunately, although "Fugitive of the Judoon" did at least make headlines with the genuinely shocking introduction of the so-called "Fugitive Doctor." Sadly, Chris Chibnall's attempts to further toy with the show's canon (which drew so many complaints from viewers that the BBC was actually forced to respond) drag things down towards the season's end. "Spyfall," the action-packed two-part opener, offers a little hope that things are looking up, which would be quickly dashed by the much-maligned "Orphan 55." This episode, which finds the Doctor uncovering a deadly secret about humanity at an idyllic spa, is far and away the lowest-scoring of new "Doctor Who" on IMDb not even the original run's worst moments reached such devastating lows.
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