Getting Acquainted With “Doctor Who” – Five Iconic Twelfth Doctor Stories

To prepare for Doctor Who’s arrival on Disney+ this November, and as Laughing Place’s resident Doctor Who expert, I wanted to do a series of articles to get Disney fans acquainted with the world of the traveling Time Lord. We’ve made it to perhaps my favorite Doctor of the modern era, the Twelfth Doctor. After three relatively young Doctors brought the show back for the 21st century, it was time for an older actor to take a spin at things. In comes Peter Capaldi, who starts off as perhaps the most polarizing Doctor since the Sixth, but ends up as perhaps the Doctor that most closely personifies the character’s mission statement. But who is the Doctor, you might ask? Well he’s a traveling Time Lord from the planet Gallifrey. The line that best sums up the Doctor, no matter his portrayal is “Never cruel, never cowardly.”

In these articles, I will introduce you to what I think are the five stories from each Doctor that best represent that era, and also serve to move the show’s mythos forward. Would audiences gel with an older and darker Doctor? Let’s find out…

Mummy on the Orient Express

We begin with a story that on its surface isn’t anything too spectacular. Doctor Who had done Agatha Christie-style mysteries in space before, but “Mummy on the Orient Express” feels like something entirely unique. The use of the creepy titular Mummies that only their victims can see makes for a genius conceit, and an equally fun mystery to solve. The Doctor, who this season is constantly asking himself if he is a good man, is at his most flippant here – using the Mummy’s (or Foretold’s) victims to learn more about the creature, without much outward empathy.

We learn that the Foretold is really just a soldier being driven by malfunctioning technology. The true enemy is Gus, a sentient force looking to capture the Foretold, and have unwilling scientists, including the Doctor, reverse-engineer its abilities. In this story, we meet chief engineer Perkins, played by actor and Doctor Who fan Frank Skinner. His rapport with Capaldi is excellent and it would have been great to see more of the character.

The Doctor’s relationship with his companion Clara (Jenna Coleman) is on full display here, who was on the verge of leaving him forever following the events of the previous serial, “Kill the Moon.” They are separated here, allowing for some time apart and soul searching on Clara’s part. But we also get to see just how much the Doctor cares for her when it's known she is in danger. Another highlight of “Mummy on the Orient Express” is the futuristic 1920s inspired Orient Express space train, made to feel all the more alive with a brilliant jazz rendition of Queen’s “Don’t Stop Me Now” by Foxes.

Flatline

Immediately following “Mummy on the Orient Express,” writer Jamie Mathieson returned to pen the equally excellent “Flatline.” In this story, the TARDIS and the Doctor inside are shrunk down to miniature proportions, leaving it up to Clara to save the day as this story’s pseudo-Doctor. Set in modern day London, the story focuses around individuals who have gone missing, only to be reduced to two-dimensions by a creature that the Doctor dubbed the “Boneless.”

The CGI work on the Boneless is absolutely cracking stuff, quite unlike anything seen before or since in the show. Their lack of speech also adds to their ominous unpredictability. Are they evil or just misunderstood creatures? With the Doctor out of the way (this season’s Doctor-lite episode) and only able to communicate via earpiece to Clara, it’s up to her to round up the band of misfits she finds along the way and stop the Boneless. We get some really cool scenes with the Doctor’s hand sticking out of the tiny TARDIS to hand Clara things and also to try and move it across a train track with a train incoming.

“Flatline” is truly an imaginative story, one that really shows that Doctor Who can be anything it wants to be. I hope we get similar stories to this in the future, and hopefully some more contributions from Mathieson.

The Zygon Invasion / The Zygon Inversion

We move forward to Peter Capaldi’s second season as the Doctor, one where the Doctor is much more confident in himself. This neatly brings us to one of the defining moments of his character on display in “The Zygon Inversion.” But first, what is this story about? Well it sees the return of the shapeshifting Zygons, last seen in the 50th anniversary special, “The Day of the Doctor.” In that story, they all lost their memory, leading to Zygons as humans peacefully coexisting with regular old humans. Of course, it’s never that easy, and a fraction of Zygons decide to fight back.

The main enemy of the story ends up being a Zygon named Bonnie, who takes on the form of Clara, leading to Jenna Coleman giving a fantastic, villainous performance. The Zygons themselves are wonderful villains, criminally underused in the show. Their ability to shapeshift leads to some terrific story and character moments in all three serials they appear in. The Doctor manages to get the Zygons and humans, represented by UNIT, into one room to just talk, leading to the aforementioned speech that Doctor Who fans always note as a defining moment of the Twelfth Doctor. You can see the speech for yourself below.

There’s a lot of fun back and forth in this story, but I do wonder if perhaps it may have been better served as a condensed one-part story. You see, in Series 9, each story was two-parts, which came after two seasons of only single part stories. I applaud Steven Moffat and the creative team for the experimentation, but it is proof that not every story needs to be two episodes long.

Heaven Sent

If you ask any Doctor Who fan, they’re likely to tell you that not only is “Heaven Sent” the best story of the Peter Capaldi era, it’s one of the best episodes the show has ever produced. Upon first airing, I wasn’t too impressed by this story, as it truly is different from any other Doctor Who story. It’s absolutely a solo outing for Capaldi, who is the only actor present in the story with any speaking roles. The Doctor is trapped inside a Time Lord confession dial, where he ends up for over a billion years.

The episode begins as a typical mystery, with the Doctor trying to figure out where he is. The story looks bleaker and we realize that the Doctor is trapped, but things get far more interesting when we realize the Doctor is stuck in a time loop, forced to relive his steps over and over again. By following the same path over and over again, unwittingly mind you, the Doctor slowly chips away at an Azbantium wall, eventually freeing himself and arriving in, of all places, his home planet of Gallifrey.

Peter Capaldi acts his freaking socks off in this story, truly making you feel for him, and rooting for him to get out of this nearly impossible situation. Composer Murray Gold also provides one of his all-time greatest tracks, “The Shepherd’s Boy,” that is a perfect companion to a montage of the Doctor’s repeated attempts at escape. Unfortunately, the following episode, the finale of Series 9, “Hell Bent,” is nowhere near as good as this story. But looking at “Heaven Sent” as a one-part masterpiece, it truly is just that.

World Enough and Time / The Doctor Falls

Throughout the Twelfth Doctor’s final season, he is seen somewhat rehabilitating his former enemy, Missy (Michelle Gomez), a new female incarnation of the Master introduced in the Series 8 finale. She appears to have turned over a new leaf, and is being taken on a test run as “the Doctor” at the beginning of this story. It seems she wasn’t quite up to the task, as the Doctor’s new companion, Bill (Pearl Mackie), is shot and brought down to a lower level of a giant space station to heal. Unfortunately, and really cleverly from Moffat, time passes much slower the lower down you get.

This leads to what is essentially a genesis of the Cybermen story, where Bill is eventually turned into a Mondasian Cyberman, looking just as they did in their first appearance way back in 1966’s “The Tenth Planet.” And who is behind this? Just a previous incarnation of the Master, played once again by John Simm. From this, we get some terrific interactions between the two incarnations of the Master, as Missy is tempted by her more evil past. Eventually, she does repent, at least in this incarnation, standing with the Doctor – even if he doesn’t know it. In a wonderfully Moffat twist, each version of the Master ends up causing their counterpart’s death.

Speaking of the Doctor, we get another amazing speech here, as the Doctor tries to convince both of the Masters to help him in his plight against the Cybermen. He pleads with them to help by explaining his viewpoint, where he does what he has to do because it’s what is right, and above all, because it’s kind. Sadly, it was all in vain, and the Doctor heroically dies in a battle against the Cybermen. Although that death is put off slightly, as the Doctor has one more adventure, with his original incarnation, in “Twice Upon a Time.”

Classic episodes of Doctor Who from 1963-1989 are available to stream on BritBox, while the modern series is on HBO Max. Beginning later this year, all new episodes of Doctor Who will be available on Disney+.