How the Twelfth Doctor Leads to the Future (Paid Content by BBC)

The TARDIS returns!

We’re celebrating the return of Doctor Who (Sundays on BBC AMERICA) with a rundown of what makes Doctor Who the world’s longest-running sci-fi series and a unique, ever-evolving franchise with generations of fans. You can explore the universe with the Ninth and Tenth Doctors in our first article here and travel through space and time with the Eleventh Doctor here. Whether you’re a passionate fan or a total beginner, BBC’s new DVD collections, featuring some of the most popular Doctors, will inspire you to join this epic adventure through space and time.

One of the little bits of Doctor Who magic that has kept the show alive for more than half a century is regeneration: the Doctor’s transformation into a new look and personality while still retaining the same essential characteristics. Thanks to this Time Lord ability, audiences meet the Doctor anew every few years, bringing new actors into the role and fresh outlooks to the series.

Each Doctor’s look, sound, and personality is extremely different from the next. Even so, there are elements that hold true no matter who steers the TARDIS and wields the sonic. With those in sight, it’s clear how more than a dozen actors can all be the same Time Lord at heart.

Twelfth Doctor Peter Capaldi took the reins at the end of 2013. This new Doctor, prickly on the outside but still as caring as ever, gives us an opportunity to find some common ground. So, what never changes about the Doctor?

The Doctor is clever

Whether it’s a matter of book-smarts, persuasion, or an excellent memory, the Doctor is extremely clever. That cleverness shows in different ways, depending on the Doctor. The Tenth preferred to play his intelligence close to his chest, while the Twelfth filled his TARDIS with chalkboards and workbenches so he’d always be ready to outline a plan.

What never changes is the Doctor’s ability to think quickly, down to literal nanoseconds. The Thirteenth Doctor’s ability to form a plan while she’s on her way to execute it is standard Doctor procedure — not only because the best plans often happen on the spur of the moment, but also because the Doctor is always assessing the situation.

In the episode “The Witch’s Familiar,” the Doctor’s eternal enemy explains this unique intellect to his current traveling companion. Missy — a villainous Time Lord known in previous incarnations as the Master — asks Clara Oswald to “consider the Doctor.” The thought experiment serves to demonstrate both to Clara and to us how swiftly and cleverly the Doctor’s mind works – until he runs into vampire monkeys, of course.

The Doctor is silly

The Doctor is a mysterious, millennia-old traveler through space and time, born of a race of beings who have perfected the sciences of immortality and time travel, and possessing knowledge and abilities that human beings could never hope to understand. This same Doctor has also cut a rap album, informed a student that the sky is made of lemon drops, and once flew Santa’s sleigh.

No matter how stoic or serious any Doctor may seem, there’s always an undercurrent of silliness and a desire for fun. After all, this is the Time Lord who stole a TARDIS and ran away from home. Fair play is the order of the day, of course, but at the center of the Doctor’s hearts is a desire for adventure.

That silly charm makes its way into everything the Doctor does, even in the direst of situations. Swapping bananas for guns and deliberately misinterpreting alien names as “Tim Shaw” is par for the course. Whether to defuse a scary situation or to take control of it, the combination of the Doctor’s cleverness and sense of humor is a powerful tool.

Of course, sometimes the Doctor just enjoys being silly. The Twelfth Doctor had his share of fun, even when his life was on the line. Take “The Magician’s Apprentice,” where he teaches an entire medieval village the word “dude” and gives an impromptu electric guitar performance on the back of a tank.

The Doctor is a hero to children

No matter the time or place, no matter who you are or where you’re from, the Doctor will sort things out and make them right. In particular, though, the renegade Time Lord is a hero to the youngest amongst us.

Doctor Who was originally made as a family show, to get kids into history and science and give them a hero to love. Every Doctor over the decades has, both on and off the air, shown a special loyalty to the youngest amongst the fans. And it’s no wonder why, considering the scary monsters our heroes face.

Kids may be afraid of monsters under their beds, but the Doctor takes great pride in being the one thing those monsters fear. That strange ticking noise that isn’t coming from your clock? The extra shadow on the wall? Whatever it is, the Doctor will set it right. Every fan can count on that — especially the children in the audience.

In the episode “Listen,” the Twelfth Doctor helps young Rupert Pink deal with a very real monster in his room. How? By explaining what it is to be scared. “Scared,” he says, “is a superpower.” It exists for a reason, and it’s all right. And while the Doctor will always help those in need and scare the monsters away, sometimes all a child needs to hear is that how they’re feeling is normal.

The Doctor believes in kindness

When faced with violent adversaries, the temptation for many heroes can be to fight back in the same manner. But given the choice, the Doctor will always err on the side of kindness, goodness, and understanding.

The Doctor is a rare hero who travels unarmed. Rather than weapons, the Doctor relies on wits, friends, and (of course) the sonic screwdriver. Even when faced with unforgiving foes or dangerous monsters, finding common ground is always the first step. And this has been a truth since the earliest days of the series; even when faced with the opportunity to stop the Daleks from ever being created, the Fourth Doctor questioned his right to do so. 

In his now-famous speech from “The Zygon Inversion,” the Twelfth Doctor makes this plea to aliens and humans as they prepare to decide the fate of Earth with the push of a button. To the Doctor, there’s no hero or villain in this moment. There are simply representatives of two scared worlds who the Doctor believes should, and can, coexist and handle things with kindness. Because the Doctor’s philosophy isn’t just a personal one: it’s a desire to see the universe at large act this way.

The Doctor is here to help

No matter the face, the voice, the look, or the mood, one thing in particular will always be true: the Doctor is here to make things right. Sometimes they make mistakes and need to try again, like anyone. But nevertheless, when things are bad, the Doctor shows up to fix them, regardless of what it takes.

The Doctor has a way of “owning a room” no matter the setting, thanks to a mix of intelligence, charisma, and motivation. But the goal is never authority — if anything, the Doctor hates being in that position (being President of Earth, even temporarily, is no fun and a lot of pressure!). Despite coming from a very powerful race of time travelers, the Doctor desires only to pitch in where possible to right the wrong, and then to move along.

Even the greatest hero can’t change the universe alone, though. That’s what their friends are for: people like the Doctor who want to see things go fairly, who have their own talents and ideas. Together, the Doctor and company can make a change wherever they go.

The Twelfth Doctor’s early episodes saw him questioning himself and his judgment, worried that he might have forgotten how to be a good person after his most recent regeneration. In the episode “Death in Heaven,” though, he remembered. Being the Doctor isn’t about being perfect or infallible: it’s about being there when needed.

The Twelfth Doctor’s regeneration led to Jodie Whittaker’s Thirteenth Doctor: hopeful, friendly, and ready to “sort out fair play” wherever she goes.

The Doctors may all seem very different at first, with personalities ranging from goofy to dark, and fashion sense ranging from bow ties and fezzes to velvet jackets and sunglasses. But the Doctor is always the Doctor in all their forms: smart, silly, helpful, heroic, and kind.

To own the Doctor Who DVD Collections click here and enter code 5OFFWHO12 for $5 off “The Peter Capadi Collection” on Amazon.

To continue to explore the world of Doctor Who, visit DoctorWho.TV.

Watch new episodes of Doctor Who Sundays at 8pm on BBC AMERICA.