Twelfth Doctor star Peter Capaldi has expressed his support for his successors in the lead role in Doctor Who, saying he doesn’t know why some people take it “so seriously”.
A lifelong fan of the show – having spearheaded the Scottish branch of the sci-fi show’s fan club in the ’70s – Capaldi played the Doctor between 2013 and 2017, before the role was taken on by Jodie Whitaker, who became the first woman to play the character in the mainline show.
After a brief return for Tenth Doctor star David Tennant, who played the Fourteenth Doctor in the show’s 60th anniversary episodes, Ncuti Gatwa took on the role, and became the first Black actor to play the part.
Both Whitaker and Gatwa’s castings provoked a backlash among some subsections of the fandom and elsewhere online, which Capaldi was asked about in an interview with The Times.
Defending their casting, Capaldi said of the sci-fi series: “It reflects its times and it’s a good thing in the world, though it’s become a bit too big, too important for the BBC or whoever. When I was a kid and watched it, it was just a monster show in the corner of the room. I dunno why people take it so seriously.”
Capaldi isn’t the only prominent figure involved in the show or its history to speak out against some Who fans who have labelled the show too ‘woke’ in recent years.
Last year, current showrunner Russell T Davies said while being interviewed on Radio 2: “Someone always brings up matters of diversity. And there are online warriors accusing us of diversity and wokeness and involving messages and issues. And I have no time for this. I don’t have a second to bear. Because what you might call diversity I just call an open door.”
Meanwhile, Varada Sethu, who played Belinda in the show’s most recent season, said: “There’s been a couple of Doctor Woke [references] or whatever, but I just think we’re doing the right thing if we’re getting comments like that.
“Woke just means inclusive, progressive, and that you care about people. And, as far as I know, the core of Doctor Who is kindness, love and doing the right thing.”
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This isn’t the first time Capaldi has suggested the show has become “too big” over time. Earlier this year, while speaking on the Half the Picture podcast he said: “The show became very, very big. And it was never like that when I loved it. So it became a different thing. I think the responsibilities of playing the part became more… there were more of them.
“There were more things that you had to do rather than just… I mean, I think in the old days, if you were John Pertwee or Tom Baker or something like that, you spend most of your year making it and then a bit of your year promoting it.
“But it wasn’t this in-your-face kind of thing that suddenly was really important to the BBC, or suddenly really important to a brand that had to be maintained.
“It was just a show that some kids really loved, and other kids didn’t care about, but wanted to watch football, or you grew out of. It became this sort of very important thing – I think less in a cultural way and more in an economic way.”
Doctor Who will return this Christmas on BBC One and BBC iPlayer.
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