Doctor Who Episode “The Caretaker” Showed Peter Capaldi’s Twelfth Doctor at His Worst

Doctor Who has never avoided showing the Doctor at his worst. In “A Good Man Goes to War,” Eleven (Matt Smith) realizes his choices have made him nearly as monstrous as his enemies. In “The Waters of Mars,” Ten (David Tennant) is still reeling from the loss of his latest companion, Donna Noble (Catherine Tate). He wants to win for once, so he uses his power over time to save people whose deaths are fixed points in history, consequences be damned. It’s a shocking, villainous moment for the Time Lord.

One episode rarely gets credit for showing the Doctor at his most unhinged and hypocritical.

“The Caretaker,” which aired in 2014, is hardly a memorable monster-of-the-week story. Twelve (Peter Capaldi) goes undercover as a janitor at Coal Hill, the school where his companion Clara Oswald (Jenna Coleman) teaches. His mission is to deal with an alien robot called the Skovox Blitzer.

The robot can destroy Earth and looks cool, but it’s the least interesting part of the episode. Writer Gareth Roberts instead builds a character drama around the meeting between Twelve and Clara’s boyfriend, Danny Pink (Samuel Anderson).

We see the Doctor at his ugliest in “The Caretaker”

For most of the season, Clara has juggled two very different lives. In one, she’s an English teacher dating fellow teacher Danny. In the other, she travels through time and space with the Doctor. In “The Caretaker,” those worlds collide, and nobody enjoys the result.

The Doctor himself is the hardest part to watch. Since his introduction in season 8, this incarnation has been blunt and critical. He’s a sharp change from the sentimental, silly alien Clara knew as the Eleventh Doctor. That attitude peaks when Twelve meets Danny, who is a former soldier. The Doctor can’t see Danny as anything but a soldier. He dismisses his intelligence and reduces him to “a PE teacher.”

His opinion sinks further when he learns Danny is Clara’s boyfriend. Earlier in the episode, he assumed she was dating Adrian, another Coal Hill teacher. Adrian makes sense to the Doctor. He resembles Eleven, right down to the bow tie and elaborate hair, and he seems more emotionally stable because he’s a teacher. Danny is a teacher too, but he doesn’t fit the Doctor’s assumptions.

Roberts plays the Adrian and Danny mix-up for laughs. It’s funny to watch the Doctor trip over something so obvious. The misunderstanding also gives a window into his psyche and into how he reads Clara’s feelings for him. In the first episode of season 8, the Doctor accuses Clara of not really “seeing” him and of wanting Eleven back. Her apparent interest in someone who looks like his previous incarnation feeds his ego and seems to confirm that suspicion.

Learning that she’s with Danny upends his view of her and of their relationship. In the Doctor’s mind, the person Clara dates reflects on him. Danny becomes a dark mirror. The Doctor repeatedly says he abhors violence, yet violence has shaped his existence so deeply that one of his incarnations is called the “War Doctor.” Davros, the creator of the Daleks and the Doctor’s most hated enemy, made the point in the season 4 finale. He told the Doctor that he never carries a gun, but that “You take ordinary people and fashion them into weapons.”

Clara knows Danny used to be a soldier and loves him anyway. That makes her the audience’s clearest lens on the similarities between the two men. Without meaning to, she ends up caught between the two most important men in her life, who are more alike than either would admit. Danny even asks her whether she loves the Doctor. She says she does, but “not in that way.” When Danny presses her to explain, she struggles to find an answer.

The Doctor and Danny share enough that watching the Doctor mistreat him is difficult. It’s especially jarring given how many soldiers the Time Lord has befriended over the years, including members of active military organizations like UNIT. Still, the episode reminds viewers that, for all the good he does, the Doctor has an ugly side, even a monstrous one.

The Doctor and Danny don’t settle their differences by the end of “The Caretaker.” They do reach a grudging understanding, united by their love for Clara and by the terrible things they’ve both done and regret.

Roberts shows that the Doctor can also be jealous and petty, and that he won’t face those traits until he’s forced to. That’s what makes the Time Lord such a compelling protagonist in the first place. Who wants a perfect hero?

Doctor Who‘s seasons from 2005 to 2025 are available to buy via Amazon or Apple. They can also be streamed on AMC+. The two most recent seasons and some specials are available on Disney Plus.

Source: Polygon