Worlds Enough and Time

“Which season is your favourite with regards to the 12th doctor?” For thecatwriter

Series 10!

I liked some episodes in series 8 (Deep Breath, Time Heist, Mummy On the Orient Express, Flatline) and I thought series 9 was a step up in terms of Twelve’s characterization (The Magician’s Apprentice/The Witch’s Familiar, Zygon Inversion/Invasion, Heaven Sent/Hell Bent) with the magnificent, magnificent best in class episode in Heaven Sent.

Husbands of River Song was really really fun but it’s series 10, I think where Twelve as a Doctor has coalesced into the Doctor he’s meant to be. He’s not trying too much in either direction (Am I a Good Man? / And acting like a Teenager) Twelve is finally settled in himself. The 24 years with River and the 70 years with Missy and being around humans seems to have really help calm down.

And one of the best elements of series 10 is Bill Potts and her relationship with the Doctor, it’s a shame Bill’s story gets muddled into Twelve’s ending story and Missy’s redemption arc. But before it happened Bill Potts was amazing and Pearl Mackie had such great chemistry and dynamic with Peter Capaldi. I’m forever mourning Bill is a one season Companion, I would love for Bill to meet Thirteen.

I love how Twelve was with Bill, and I love that Bill questioned Twelve about his ‘if a person has a gun to his head, you have no time to mourn’ mentality to everything. Bill truly felt like Twelve’s student and a sort of parallel to Susan.

I will always remember the touching bittersweet scene in Twice Upon a Time :

Bill: I hope we talk about it loads. I hope we spend years laughing about it. Come back alive. Twelve: Be here when I do.

My heart. Then, of course, there’s Missy and her arc with Twelve, who at that point of her many lives is also making more than an effort to be friend Twelve. What started was a long con turned into something that slowly started to change her, only to be set back once again by her past self (Simm!Master) and unknowingly influence her past self by killing Simm!Master the way she did: Thinking of the Doctor and among Cybermen, which would explain Missy’s Cybermen plot in series 8. Bootstrap Paradox.

Twelve himself, who has gone a long, long way from where he started from in Deep Breath to The Doctor Falls (‘Just be kind’).

Peter Capaldi’s run was such a wild ride for me: I adored his initial casting, because, CAPALDI! And then was slowly disillusioned with his mean treatment of Journey, Danny, and Courtney. I stopped for a couple of years and then learned about his character arc.

I love a great character arc, it’s like a siren song to me, so I tentatively dipped my toe in with Husbands of River Song, loved it and then dove head long into a rewatch starting from Time of the Doctor. A terrible episode send off for Matt Smith, IMO but a great set-up to Twelve’s post-war trauma and just fell in love with, deliberately skipping the episodes that made me drop the run in the first place, and circled back to them until after ‘Heaven Sent/Hell Bent’ and building up a lot of good will. The Caretaker still felt like it was a rusty steel wool scrub over my skin, adding Kill the Moon to that mix, which was really unpleasant. They wasted Hermione Norris (HOW DARE THEY) Twelve’s continuous mistreatment of Courtney (his last minute compliments to Courtney were that, last minute and an after thought), and the way he was so condescending to Clara.

The only one and great thing about Kill the Moon was Clara’s scorching tongue lashing of Twelve, finally shaking him off that high horse and his ‘she’s my carer so I don’t have to’ attitude.

Then the brilliant Death in Heaven moment between Clara and Twelve and we finally see how much Twelve truly cares for Clara, once he, again, stops being so into his head.

Series 9 had all the fantastic episodes, culminating in series 10 with Twelve’s characterization making its completed run. I just honestly love how it all comes together. There are stumbles, of course: the Lie of the Land fan bait with the regeneration. Clara, Donna, and River needed to appear and give Twelve slaps because wow, was that cruel and undeserved.

(Unfortunately, much as I love series 10, I also feel like it gave Bill the cruelest thing to happen to a Companion ever. Sure she got her happy ending, what happened to her getting there? Yeah, I can’t forgive or forget that.)

Let’s focus on the awesome stuff tho: Twelve’s character arc, Bill! Missy, and the almost TARDIS team we got with them (and Nardole). Too bad they all kind of died on the first outing. Um, Team Disaster Go?