10) Sword… Spoonfight With Robin Hood
That’s not to say that the Twelfth Doctor was always a misery-guts, though. His third episode “Robot of Sherwood,” which saw him team up with Robin Hood, gave us one of his best comedy moments.
In a recreation of the classic scene where Robin fights with Little John on a log over a river, the dashing archer challenges the Doctor to a swordfight. Having not come prepared, though, the Doctor puts on a show of being fearless and presents his own deadly weapon – a dessert spoon. Somehow, thanks to his adventures with famous historical sword-fighters (“Richard the Lionheart, Cyrano De Bergerac, Errol Flynn), he’s able to come out on top. Though not without an unwanted dip in the lake.
The scene offers a great bit of swashbuckling fun and also gives us the immortal line: “I am the Doctor and this… is my spoon!”
9) “Scared Is A Super Power”
“Listen” will go down as one of the finest episodes of Peter Capaldi’s era, largely due to its chilling, ambiguous threat. The Doctor discovers that there might potentially be a race of super-evolved hiders, beings who wait under our bed and hide in the shadows.
When one of these creatures is possibly discovered hiding under a bed sheet in a young boy’s bedroom, the Doctor tries to lift the kid’s spirits. “Scared is a superpower,” he tells him, explaining that being scared heightens your senses. “Do you think he’s scared?” the Doctor says of the creature. “Nah, loser!”
This is a terrific example of the Doctor’s kindness, to children in particular. Despite the Twelfth Doctor’s prickly exterior, he’ll still help out a terrified child and make him feel powerful in the face of what is likely, a horrible monster.
