Doctor Who: Peter Capaldi’s 12 Greatest Moments As The Doctor

8) Arriving On A Tank

For the Twelfth Doctor’s second year, he underwent a massive transformation. Out went the grouchy sourpuss and in came a kind of aging punk rocker. Like a kind of cool, kind of embarrassing uncle who uses the word “dude” and plays the guitar. This revamped Doctor needed a big entrance to reintroduce himself and he definitely got that in season 9 premiere, “The Magician’s Apprentice.”

Locating the Doctor in Medieval England, we watch as he rides into an arena on a tank while playing the guitar and rocking some Ray Bans. It’s a brilliantly memorable and audacious re-entrance for this Doctor, and from that point on, the character would be totally different from what we’d seen before.

7) “Who Frowned Me This Face?”

Fans made a lot of the fact that Capaldi had previously turned up in Doctor Who when he was cast as the Doctor – he’d appeared as Roman family man Caecilius in David Tennant episode “The Fires of Pompeii.” Showrunner Steven Moffat promised that this wouldn’t be ignored in the show itself, and it was eventually addressed in this dramatic scene.

After the death of plucky Viking girl Ashildr (Maisie Williams), the Doctor has had enough of letting people die in order to uphold the rules of time travel. This reminds him of the time in his tenth incarnation when he broke the rules to save Caecilius and his family from Mount Vesuvius. The Doctor realizes that he chose this face subconsciously to remind him to always save people. It’s a big moment for the Twelfth Doctor and a nice explanation for Capaldi’s dual roles.