A fair number of Whovians – aka devoted watchers of the long-enduring sci-fi series Doctor Who – were surprised when it was revealed that the actor replacing the beloved Matt Smith in the title role would not be another young heartthrob but veteran British actor Peter Capaldi. That’s quite an evolution for fans to get used to – and when the series returns to air its eighth season in August, showrunner Steven Moffat warns that Capaldi’s introduction isn’t the only change viewers will have to accept.
Speaking recently at the Hay Festival of Literature and the Arts in Wales, Moffat talked about the need to revamp Doctor Who, and why Capaldi was the right man for the job. He said:
“Can you imagine if we’d cast another handsome yet quirky young man with entertaining hair? It would sort of just have exposed the formula. And we’d have found someone great, people would have liked him, but the show would have become that little bit more ordinary… We’ve got a part that can be played by anyone, from a 20 year old to a 70 year old — John Hurt was in his seventies when he played it — you’ve got to use that flexibility, not ignore it.”
That’s certainly an interesting approach for Moffat to take, though I’m not sure if the majority of Whovians would agree with him. The appearance of both Smith and his predecessor, fan favorite David Tennant, is a large part of what sold the show to American audiences and contributed to it becoming a cross-over smash hit in its fifth and sixth seasons. Still, Moffat felt that the show needed to adapt and grow, or it would risk becoming stagnant:
“It needed to change. One of the hardest things ever to do, is to notice when your clever new idea is now your very old idea. We haven’t made much of a change to Doctor Who since it came back in 2005. It’s been the same show. It has maybe amped some things up and lowered some things, but it is basically the same. I just feel it needs to be a bit more different now, it just needs to be surprising again. We’ve got the hang of this, we need to change it. The rhythm has to alter, which it has.”
You can check out Moffat’s full talk below, but rest assured Doctor Who will still be an interesting watch when it comes back in August. The recent specials, “The Day of the Doctor” and “The Time of the Doctor,” wrapped up a lot of the series’ long-running plot threads, and now the Doctor has a new mission: finding his home planet of Gallifrey. It’s a new start for the series, which will hopefully make the new episodes feel fresher and more urgent than Doctor Who has since the Tennant era.
