Peter Capaldi leaving Doctor Who in the Christmas 2017 episode

Peter Capaldi has announced he’s leaving Doctor Who in this year’s Christmas episode, but this will come as no surprise.

Showrunner Steven Moffat, who showed such great promise with episodes like Blink, but he gave us the interminably dull Clara-boyfriend Danny Pink, then severely let us down with many a lacklustre episode, not least in Kill The Moon when said celestial object turned out to be an egg(!)

While Capaldi is a superb actor, he’s thus been hampered with terrible scripts from Moffat and others, and even though they started off well, they soon fell down, and hit the lowest point last Christmas, since many of Russell T Davies’ episodes, with The Return of Doctor Mysterio.

But with Broadchurch‘s Chris Chibnall taking over in 2018, a new broom usually means a new Doctor – as the change over from RTD to Moffat meant a change from David Tennant to Matt Smith, so for Peter Capaldi to be leaving is no surprise at all. It’s just a shame he never reached his potential as a Doctor.

Of course, we’ve still got one more series to come and he could make his mark with that… but based on the clip with new assistant Bill (Pearl Mackie), I’m really not counting my chickens.

And ‘who’ will be the next Doctor? While an older Doctor is a good idea, these days, they don’t sell as toys, and money talks, these days.

That said, I’d still like David Warner as the next Doctor! Or Paul McGann! 😉