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I give an official thumbs-up to Scottish actor Peter Capaldi, who was named the new star of Doctor Who on Sunday during a live broadcast on BBC America.
He is an excellent choice!
Capaldi will replace the departing Matt Smith, whose time in the time-traveling police box the TARDIS ends later this year.
“It’s so wonderful not to keep this secret any longer,” said Capaldi, a lifelong fan of the show.
He then joked, “I haven’t played Doctor Who since I was 9 on the playground.”
The actor had been the bookmakers’ favorite to take on the role, with betting on him becoming the next Doctor suspended on Friday.
He added, “Being asked to play the Doctor is an amazing privilege. Like the Doctor, himself I find myself in a state of utter terror and delight. I can’t wait to get started.”
At 55, he is the same age as William Hartnell when he was cast in the role as the first Doctor in 1963.
Capaldi becomes the 12th man to play the Doctor since the cult show debuted in 1963 with star Hartnell and the fourth Time Lord since executive producer Russell T. Davies rebooted the series in 2005, following Christopher Eccleston, David Tennant and Smith.
Executive producer Steven Moffat had considered Capaldi when they were casting the 11th Doctor. “There comes a right time for the right person to play it,” he said.
“We all had the same idea and it was a quite different idea,” Moffat added. When he and his team made a video with Capaldi, “everybody saw it and was like, ‘That’s the Doctor.’ “
American audiences most recently saw Capaldi as a World Health organization doctor in the movie World War Z, and he also has big screen roles in the upcoming The Fifth Estate this fall and next year’s Maleficent.
The half-hour live special on BBC America hosted by British TV host Zoe Ball also featured past Who stars, including Peter Davison, the fifth Doctor (1981-84).
Doctor Who has long been a hit in the UK, but more recently the Doctor has gained a huge following in the USA, with the show becoming the highest-rated series on BBC America.
Capaldi will make his first appearance in the Doctor Who Christmas Special at the end of 2013, and it mark Smith’s final jaunt as the Doctor. Fans get to see him one more time, though, when Smith stars with Jenna Coleman, John Hurt and Tennant in the 50th-anniversary special airing on Nov. 23.
The main reason the series is still a fixture in global pop culture is because of anybody who has ever watched it, Capaldi said. “Doctor Who belongs to all of us. Everybody makes Doctor Who.”
Let us hope Capaldi’s story-lines are better than Smith’s…..At the time, I thought Smith was the perfect replacement for Tennant, but his ability to perform as the Doctor was crucified by the god awful scripts penned by Moffat!
Bring back Russell T Davies now!
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