Doctor Who Star Peter Capaldi Knows How To Save The Struggling Sci-Fi Series

As “Doctor Who” fans (aka Whovians) are no doubt aware, the show is in a bit of a bind. Since its debut way back in 1963, the series has sustained itself with a clever sci-fi concept that has allowed multiple actors to canonically play the title role of the Doctor. The character, you see, is a time-traveling alien known as a Time Lord, and when they die, they’re able to regenerate into a new person. Each time the Doctor regenerates, their personality changes a bit, although they still have the same memories, intellect, and enthusiasm

Unfortunately, after running for so long, “Doctor Who” has developed a bad habit of falling back on stale tropes. A Whovian friend of mine has agreed that “Doctor Who” is in a bad place right now, and the franchise’s future is uncertain in the wake of Disney ending its partnership with the show due to its relatively low viewership. As my friend put it, the series is, indeed, in a “tepid” place, and no one knows where it will go moving forward.

Peter Capaldi, however, has some suggestions. The actor, who played the Twelfth Doctor from 2014 to 2017, shared his ideas during his recent appearance on the “Half the Picture” podcast, explaining that he thinks the show needs to get back to basics. He added that it would do well to reorient itself by returning to its lower budgeted origins and tapping back into the shoddy charms of its earliest days.

In the same interview, Peter Capaldi clarified that he is fine with no longer being associated with “Doctor Who,” as there are other ventures he would like to pursue. “Doctor Who,” he noted, is the kind of show that takes over your life, adding, “You can’t do it […] as a part-time role.” When it comes to the property’s future, though, Capaldi is uncertain, stating:

“What it’s got to be, I don’t know. I was thinking about this […] I don’t know what people want from it. Because my love for the show was the old show. That’s what I grew up with. And that’s not going to work. I can’t come in and say ‘Let’s set it in the ’60s. Let’s make it black-and-white with very wobbly sets. Let’s make more cheaply. Or with less ambition.’ I mean, ‘Doctor Who’ has always had ambition, it’s just that budgets haven’t always met that.” 

Capaldi then mused out loud if audiences might want “David and Kylie.” He was, of course, referring to David Tennant’s highly popular iteration of the Doctor appearing with a character played by Kylie Minogue on “Doctor Who” in the 2007 Christmas special “Voyage of the Damned” (which brought in an impressive number of viewers). Or maybe they’re more interested in previous “Doctor Who” stars like Christopher Eccleston or Jodie Whitaker. Basically, Capaldi is very unsure what fans really want out of the series.

All he can say is that he enjoys “Doctor Who” the best when it experiences what he calls a “ripple” from the old show. Not a reused monster, necessarily, but a specific tone that sometimes breaks through. Something humble and old-fashioned.

Although “Doctor Who” is a time-travel series that involves aliens, monsters, major historical figures, and ineffable, universe-ending technologies, Peter Capaldi feels that it’s actually a “small” show. It’s about a small group of characters and their time-traveling TARDIS, which looks like a police box that, via advanced technology, is larger on the inside than on the outside. Capaldi added that if the series could focus on those basics, it could sing once again, explaining:

“It’s the Doctor and the assistant-slash-assistants in the TARDIS. Quite contained. Kind of balming. And like in ‘The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe,’ they step out the door to this drama. And those dramas change shape, and they’ve got monsters in them. Magical, strange, weird, sad. It’s that central core of that small group of people with the Doctor at the center of it.”

I have personally watched enough of the show to know that most of the best “Doctor Who” episodes embody what Capaldi talked about. The problem, then, is that many of the series’ seasonal storylines climax with some sort of supervillain threatening to destroy the universe, unwrite history, or commit some other kind of massive sci-fi cataclysm. And if those types of cataclysms are regularly happening, then it’s no surprise that fans are experiencing a sense of fatigue (or that the show’s creatives may be running low on ideas).

Time will tell if the minds currently behind “Doctor Who” take Capaldi’s advice and scale the series back into a cheaper, more humble form. It certainly wouldn’t hurt, what with the series being adrift following its short-lived Disney era and the planned 2026 Christmas special being canceled. Capaldi might just be onto something.