Moffat to Disregard Peter Capaldi’s Animal Magnetism, Will Cut “Flirting” From Doctor Who

I imagine a lot of you will be happy about this, not least because a decrease in the Doctor’s, er, romantic tendencies will probably also mean he’ll stop grabbing people and kissing them without their consent. So romantic. So cute. Not at all a skeezy thing to write the Doctor doing.

Said Steven Moffat of Peter Capaldi‘s new Doctor:

“He’s not a human being, however much he larks around pretending he is. He is different and it’s time to stop play-acting. He’s not apologising, he’s not flirting with you—that’s over.”

The whole thing was nestled in an interview with Radio Times where Moffat spoke a bit about his reasoning for casting Capaldi, because I guess he feels he needs to give more explanation than “Did you see that ‘I will tear your f**king skin off‘ speech in The Thick Of It? Did you?!” You don’t, Steven. There’s “something about [Capaldi’s] eyes, his attitude—he’s tremendously bright and that comes off on screen,” said Moffat. Further, while Matt Smith‘s Doctor was a floppy-haired goofball with occasional moments of “Wow, yeah, this guy really is a centuries-old Time Lord who’s murdered countless of people,” Twelve will have it the other way around:

“I like the Doctors to have mixed messages about what age they are – you can’t really pin them down. The Doctors are all the same Doctor really, at the end of the day, but you can slide the faders up and down. And to emphasise the senior consultant over the medical student for once reminds people that he’s actually a terrifying old beast. Typically, Matt’s method would do that, too: occasionally just turn cold and you’d think, ‘You’re not really a puppy are you?’ Just like Peter Capaldi’s Doctor will sometimes remind me he’s a big kid at heart.”

What do you think? The sexualization of the Doctor has been something of a hallmark of New Who, and while the fact that Moffat’s choosing to go off that path coincides so neatly with there being a physically older Doctor is a little eye-rolly for me (of course people wouldn’t be falling all over the Doctor once he’s no longer a young, hot dude, of course—note the sarcasm, please), I personally would welcome the return of a Doctor who doesn’t care about romance. But that’s just me. What about you?

(via: Blastr)

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