It’s been quite a week for British television. Peter Capaldi has just been announced as the next Doctor on Doctor Who, which is a British show that is broadcast exclusively on Tumblr:
The 55-year-old Glasgow-born star will be the 12th actor to play the Doctor, replacing outgoing lead Matt Smith.
Capaldi is best known for his role as foul-mouthed spin-doctor Malcolm Tucker in the BBC series The Thick of It.
“It’s so wonderful not to keep this secret any longer, but it’s been so fantastic,” he said after the news was revealed on a live BBC One show.
I do not watch Doctor Who, although I have a deeply Doctor Whovian temperament, inasmuch as I have an unpleasant habit of correcting others in conversation and think I look good in scarves. Also, I watched the entire series run of Torchwood, one of the worst shows ever made, just for Jack and Ianto. As an American, of course, I am forbidden from having an opinion on the BBC’s casting choices and am only allowed to reblog sexual Doctor Who fan art. I have, however, repeatedly enjoyed watching this video of Capaldi swearing magnificently as Malcolm Tucker on The Thick Of It.
Whether or not you watch the show, it’s nice to sort of follow along, seeing as how the Doctor is a secular Pope for the English-speaking world. I sleep more soundly at night knowing that at least one British actor is employed for the coming year fighting outer space and experiencing homoerotic tension with Roman centurions. Do you have Doctor Who opinions? You may speak freely here. We are not being watched.
A rebuttal from Nicole, who watches Doctor Who all the time: Wait, let me talk! I watch ALL the Doctor Who, and lost, like, a week of my life to The Thick of It, which is why I had to go in and remove your faulty usage of In [The Thick of It]. BADLY DONE, MALLORY. I was talking about this casting and Doctor Who in general last night with my dad and his girlfriend, because having friends your own age is so middle school, and we are all profoundly on the fence about Doctor Who. The percentage of nights I turn off BBC America and look at my husband and say “well, that one was a real dog” has been increasing, even though the overacting, scenery-chewing, eye-popping torture of the David Tennant years are behind us.
Capaldi will be great. In time, we will wonder how we did without him. He is not a woman, nor is he Idris Elba in a dress, which is probably what most of us really want. Perhaps that day will come, but no one knows, because Steven Moffatt has a Woman Problem, and we all know it, and he cannot disguise it by writing eighty different episodes in which the love of a mother kills Daleks or some shit like that.
A partial but by no means exhaustive list of Dr. Whos we would have also accepted:
André 3000
Charlotte Rampling
Eamonn Walker
Sophie Okonedo
Janelle Monáe
Richard Ayoade
Courtney Love before she got sober
Chiwetel Ejiofor again
A very flustered hat
A picture of the ship Firefly from Firefly
A bowl of strawberries and cream watching Wimbledon
The boxed set of The Chronicles of Narnia
A Keep Calm and Carry On poster wearing a greatcoat
That scene from Love Actually where Bill Nighy finally hugs his manager
Also, here is the new trailer for the upcoming third season of Sherlock. I think John’s mustache suits him, actually, but if you’re going to make a joke about it, make it a good one.
< http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=llGXWICGsD4 >
Nicole does not have normal human reactions to Sherlock, she feels about Sherlock in the manner one would if one had been brainwashed in a fake day spa to love Sherlock, so there’s been a lot of excited hand-flapping and squee-ing around these parts. It’s helped build some Toast-excitement for September 2nd, a day which is both Nicole’s birthday and The Toast’s first-ever-and-probably-last “All Benedict Cumberbatch Day,” for which we are taking submissions at the current time. All questions will be answered, including “why is the show so good, but the second episode of the first season so horrible?”
