In Defence of the Twelfth Doctor

Reflections on “Mummy on the Orient Express”

I’m going to be real with you.

I’ve had a hard time loving this new season of Doctor Who. Oh, I’ve enjoyed it certainly, I’ve found things to like, I’ve admired it even but each week I’ve ended up feeling curiously empty. Flat. Underwhelmed. Far from elated.

The Doctor will always be at the centre of it for me and even though Peter Capaldi is an amazing actor with an obvious passion for the role, the decision to turn the Doctor, my Doctor, into a cold, calculating Machiavellian trickster left me feeling kind of shut out. My trusty comfort blanket of joy and wonder had been stuffed unsolicited into a washing machine at 60°C.

It had come out crisp, clean and beautiful.

But it wasn’t soft anymore.

It felt coarse and scratchy and it didn’t smell right. It was still my blanket of course, still the thing that had seen me through so many adventures but it had lost its specialness somehow.

Bummer, right?

Then last week it all began to change.

That ending.

Clara screaming at the Doctor. His actions so clearly cast as NOT OKAY. Andrew Ellard (@ellardent) in his excellent tweet notes hit the nail on the head. People have been cross with the Doctor before, but the programme itself, those glimpses we get of author intention — those are unfailingly with the Doctor. Those who take umbrage are sneered at or hand-waved away — petty, arrogant, foolish.

Not this time. This time — as Clara screams herself ragged, railing against his arrogance, his high-handedness, as she turns her back and walks away … we walk with her, the TARDIS door slams and instead of an interior shot, a quip and another switch thrown — all of us, the whole human race, stay on Earth and watch the TARDIS fade from view.

Good riddance.

That was the start of it for me. Perversely, at that moment, when I hated the Doctor more than I ever had before, it hit me. This was new. This was exciting. We weren’t in Space Kansas anymore. We were charting new territory.

And that was when I fell in love with the Twelfth Doctor. Not because of who he is (at least right now) but what he is allowing the programme to be.

And thus Mummy on the Orient Express, continuing as it does in the same vein, is by far my favourite of the new era.

The script is tight and witty and delivers on its sky-high concept. The supporting cast is uniformly brilliant (Frank Skinner is a special case, I’ll get to him) and the monster is creepy, complex and astoundingly realised. I mean really astounding. Even the denouement feels earned and punchy. The Doctor, mind racing, with 66 seconds to SAVE EVERYTHING.

It takes the trajectory that this season has flung the Doctor on and adds layers of juicy character development and a proper relationship with Clara (coming into sharp focus even as it comes to an end). The Doctor is still cold, calculating and arrogant. He is still above it all, willing to sacrifice lives for the greater good while barely registering a flicker of emotion.

But near the end, he gets to do something properly crazy and selfless and heroic. He gets to be the Doctor.

And the best bit is later, when Clara asks him if he’s really as heartless as he seems? Oh boy, he doesn’t sugar coat it. He is real with her (as I was with you, dear reader) — he says he wishes it were true but that’s just not him anymore.

I loved that character moment, this guy — he’s been so many people — the innocent, the clown, the lover, the gallant — he remembers, dammit, he remembers how it feels TO FEEL but he can’t access that anymore. And just for a moment we see it, we see the frustration, the horror of waking up as someone else. He’s trying to do what he’s always done — save lives, vanquish evil, win the day — but he’s got an entirely new tool box now. He’s wired differenlyt and he knows there’s nothing he can do about it.

Oh man, what great television! I can love the Doctor again because he’s in there somewhere, my childhood hero — trapped in the stiff cage of a new body and slowly. Oh. So. Slowly. He’s breaking out.

Peter Capaldi creates this nuanced performance with such care and such attention to detail. It’s quite breath-taking — he is bulletproof yet wounded, in control and spinning wildly away. I love the details — the Tom Baker voice that creeps into the conversations he has with himself and I almost died at “Are you my Mummy?”. I mean bravo, sir, bravo.

Frank Skinner can’t really act but for the character he is given it doesn’t really matter. He seems almost apart from the story, a mysterious puckish being with one foot either side of the 4th wall and in this context his undoubted charisma and glee at the whole endeavour allows him to shine.

Anything I didn’t like? Not really. I thought the literal explanation for Clara’s change of heart didn’t make sense but the emotional clout the episode has built up made it seem entirely plausible.

My head was like WHAT?

My heart was all ABSOLUTELY.

Some of the train effects were dodgy but we were in ROLLICKING ADVENTURE WHO mode and the exaggerated BEAUTIFUL production design got away with it.

Also, Clara was SO wearing that dress.

That’s about it, I think. It was quite a ride. And this week we DID end with a quip and the flip of a switch. How my heart leapt in my chest. How I rejoiced.

My Doctor, our Doctor, who he was, is and shall become — all wrapped up in a shiny blue box, spinning off into adventure.

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Chris Mead is co-host of the The Ood Cast.

Inspired by a show that can go anywhere and do anything, The Ood Cast is not your average podcast.

We aim to express the joyful chaotic glory of Doctor Who through laughter, rhyme and song.

You can find and download episodes here.

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