Our first look at the Twelfth Doctor is here! The clip features the Doctor both contemplating his own morality as he asks Clara, “Tell me, am I a good man?” and morality in general when he meets a “good” Dalek: “A dalek so damaged it’s turned good. Morality as a malfunction. How do I resist?”
Clara’s response to Twelve’s question about himself (“I don’t know”) shows her acknowledgment and trepidation in the fact that he is indeed a new and different man than Eleven—a step every companion and Doctor Who viewer must take after a new regeneration.
You can watch Eleven’s final words to Clara here or read them below:
“Everything you are gone in a moment, like breath on a mirror. Any moment now, he’s coming.”
“Who’s coming?”
“The Doctor.”
“You. You are the Doctor.”
“Yes. And I always will be. But times change and so must I…we all change when you think about it. We’re all different all through our lives and that’s okay. And that’s good, you’ve got to keep moving. So long as you remember all the people that you used to be.”
In this new clip it’s possible that Twelve isn’t asking Clara if he is a “good man” because he can’t remember, but because he does. Is this a Doctor more concerned with his relationship with morality? The question of being a “good man” certainly recalls the earlier episode “A Good Man Goes to War,” (S06 E07) where River Song stunningly calls this to the Doctor’s attention:
The Doctor: “You think I wanted this? I didn’t do this! This- this wasn’t me!”
River Song: “This was exactly you. All this. All of it! You make them so afraid. When you began all those years ago, sailing off to see the universe, did you ever think you’d become this? The man who can turn an army around at the mention of his name. “Doctor”: the word for “healer” and “wise man”, throughout the universe. We get that word from you, y’know. But if you carry on the way you are, what might that word come to mean? To the people of the Gamma Forests, the word “doctor” means “mighty warrior”. How far you’ve come. And now they’ve taken a child, the child of your best friends, and they’re going to turn her into a weapon, just to bring you down. And all this, my love, in fear of you.”
Only time will tell exactly what sort of “Doctor” Twelve will be. Of his character, Peter Capaldi states, “I was keen that he would be a little darker, less user-friendly. But he’s funny, you know. He’s still a very joyful character” (source).
The 8th season premiers August 23rd on BBC and BBC America.
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