Peter Capaldi will end his tenure as the Twelfth Doctor on Doctor Who in the 2017 Christmas Special. Capaldi just finished filming the episode, which means at least the production part of the Doctor Who experience is now behind him.
Looking back on his three-season run as the Doctor, which episode does Capaldi see as the one that most defined his Doctor? Den of Geek US was part of a group of reporters at San Diego Comic Con today who were given Capaldi’s answer…
I think Listen, in the first season because it’s the first time we clearly see this kind of obsessive quality about him. Because, in that episode, he has a compulsion that there’s a creature that exists that you can’t see, and he sets off to find it, even though you can’t see it and there’s no evidence of it, and he’s absolutely committed to that idea.
Listen (read our review here), written by showrunner Steven Moffat and directed by Douglas Mackinnon, was Season 8, Episode 4 of the show. It sees Clara struggling to balance her relationship with Danny Pink with her travels with the Doctor. For his part, the Twelfth Doctor spends his time hunting down a creature with the perfect ability to hide.
Why does Capaldi find this episode so important for the Twelfth Doctor? Capaldi says…
And it’s also, slightly, he looks a little more kind of Gothic-y [and there’s] a little hint of The Cabinet Of Dr. Caligari in how he is. I liked all the candles in the TARDIS and that stuff. I liked all that. So, for me, that was really one of the first [episodes] of, oh, this is really how this Doctor is. He was quite brutal with people, but he was also kind and he was also funny and acidic. I think that was the first one where he really first appears.
Which episode of the Twelfth Doctor’s run do you think most defined him as the Doctor? Let us know in the comments below.