Doctor Who revealed Matt Smith’s replacement today on the live television special The Next Doctor. Show runner Steven Moffat teased, “Three words to describe the new Doctor: different from Matt.” After much lead up, host Zoe Ball finally announced the 12th Doctor would be Peter Capaldi, who appeared on stage to a light show that simulated a time vortex.
Ball did a little time traveling on her own. She dug up a fan letter by Capaldi published in Radio Times way back in 1973 when he was just 15-years-old. He joked that he’s been hiding it from his wife all these years.
Capaldi isn’t a newcomer to the series. He’s made appearances in the Doctor Who episode “The Fires of Pompeii” as Caecilius and in Torchwood: Children of Earth as John Frobisher. You might also recognize him from World War Z, in which he played a World Health Organization AKA W.H.O. Doctor (clever boy).
The actor said he still doesn’t see himself as the Doctor when he looks in the mirror but he’ll surely do the role justice as “life-long Doctor Who fan.”
“I think Doctor Who is an extraordinary show and the thing that strikes me about it is that it’s still here after all this time,” Capaldi opined. “And the reason that I think that it’s still here is because of the work of all the writers, the directors and the producers who have worked on the show. The work of all the actors, and I don’t just mean the fabulous actors who have played the Doctor but also those actors who have sweated inside rubber monster costumes and those who had to wear futuristic lurex catsuits. But the real reason, the big reason Doctor Who is still with us is because of every single viewer who ever turned on to watch this show at any age, at any time in its history and their history and took it into their heart because Doctor Who belongs to all of us. Everyone made Doctor Who.
In a recorded message Smith said good luck to his successor who he called “really canny choice.”
Peter Capaldi will debut as the Twelfth Doctor in the Doctor Who Christmas Special 2013.
