During Series 8 I had a huge amount of trouble with the 12th Doctor.
In Deep Breath, I enjoyed Capaldi’s grumpy, post-regenerative furiousness.  In, Into the Dalek, it was used to great effect.  Robot of Sherwood, though, annoyed me.  The Doctor was just being a miserable sod for the duration of the story and I got to the end of the episode with a distinct anxiousness about the way the scripts were taking the Doctor.  Does he even smile in Robot of Sherwood?  And so it continued into Listen, Time Heist and The Caretaker.  It’s only in Mummy on the Orient Express and Flatline that this ‘anger’ seems to have been toned down and balanced with the Doctorish traits we are more familiar with.

To be fair, the 12th Doctor is probably suffering in comparison to the 11th.  This marathon, and my general viewing of his 3 series have cemented him as one of my favourite Doctors.  I love Matt Smith’s twirly, whirly portrayal.  It’s taken me much longer to get used to Capaldi’s grumpy version – but I’m getting there.

The most recent episodes of the series have clearly been scripted to reflect the audience’s possible issues with this new version of the Doctor.  He is very different from the 10th and 11th, although not that far removed from the 9th, meaning we have needed reassurance.  That has been shown through Clara’s difficulties accepting this very different version of her special friend.  The Caretaker, Mummy on the Orient Express and Flatline have developed this and through those three episodes I think I’ve joined Clara on her journey of acceptance (it helped that Mummy and Flatline are two cracking episodes which will feature highly in my personal head rankings).

Now, I could write paragraphs about what I like and dislike in episodes such as The Caretaker (his attitude towards Danny, for one) but for now, we’ll stick with 1190 and Robot of Sherwood.

This is a fun episode.  It’s got a great script, good visuals and top-notch performances.  Jenna Coleman continues to shine as Clara.  Tom Riley is brilliant as Robin Hood – all swagger and derring do.  The spoon/sword fight across the river is inspired and I rather enjoyed Capaldi’s deconstruction of the Merry Men, particularly Ian Hallard’s Alan a Dale.  The scene in the dungeon was also a lot of fun (even if I didn’t like the 12th Doctor’s attitude) with Clara growing increasingly exasperated by the Doctor and Robin’s argument.  The archery contest is also a lot of fun, particularly the escalating arrow-shooting which ends with the Doctor blowing up the target with his sonic (how he does this will forever remain a mystery).  I also think the robots themselves are a brilliant design, particularly the idea of the cross-shaped laser beam, echoing the arrow slits you would find around castle battlements and towers.  The climactic battle between enslaved peasants and robots using reflective surfaces is also a lot of fun.

I’m not as keen on Ben Miller’s Sheriff.  There have been a lot of comparisons to Anthony Ainley’s Master and I don’t think that’s a particularly favourable thing.  The fact we have lost the ‘he’s actually a robot too’ bit because of terrible events in recent news, means his character seems a little lost.  He’s a bit ‘moustache-twirling’ for my liking.
The Maid Marian reveal was also a bit naff.  An underwritten character who we see briefly in a quickly forgotten scene near the beginning who suddenly reappears in the castle (in scenes heavily reminiscent of The Next Doctor) and then, suddenly reappears again hiding behind the TARDIS (where she must have been stood for sodding ages).  That reveal worked with K9 in School Reunion, here it just seems forced and not a little embarrassing.  Her character is also a bit redundant bearing in mind Clara is sort of fulfilling that role (particularly the more ‘active’ portrayal of Marian seen in modern interpretations of the legend, such as the BBC’s recent Robin Hood series).

And I really don’t like the 12th Doctor in this story.  Okay, so he thinks Robin Hood isn’t real.  But even when all the evidence points to the contrary, he digs his heels in and just gets grumpier and grumpier.  It makes him horribly unlikeable.  Even when it is being played for comedy, such as when he and Robin are locked together in the dungeon and Clara has been taken away to see the Sheriff, it just didn’t work for me.

But, overall, I did enjoy this story.  Coming to the end of Series 8, I’m realising that I’ve been on a bit of a journey with Capaldi’s Doctor.  Every now and again there was a glimmer of the character I knew and loved, but there was a veil of unlikeability which was refusing to budge.  I promised myself I would only make a judgement based on the whole series and resist the kneejerk reactions so prevalent around Gallifrey Base.  It was tough going.  People kept asking me whether I liked the new Doctor and I would um and ah.  What’s interesting is my son, very keen to see Capaldi before his debut, watched Deep Breath (skipping over the long talky scenes, admittedly), Into the Dalek and Robot of Sherwood.  We haven’t let him watch Listen and he didn’t really like Time Heist, giving up partway through.  He turned to me and said he didn’t want to watch the series any more and although he didn’t quite come out and say it, he was clear he was finding Capaldi’s portrayal difficult.  His interest has renewed lately after we told him about the hilarious TARDIS shrinkage in Flatline, but I think he’s found it difficult to understand how this grumpy, antagonistic old man can possibly equate to the Tennant/Smith portrayals he grew up with.  The irony is, he quite likes Jon Pertwee and initially saw Capaldi as echoing this version (something highlighted by his sudden use of Venusian aikido to knock the sword from Robin’s hands so they could be captured and find out the villain’s plans).

Now I see where the series was going and what Moffatt has been doing with the character.  It’s good to have a change and do something different with the Doctor and whilst I might not put the 12th Doctor near the top of the list, it isn’t going to stop me watching.  Just like Pertwee, who is my least favourite Doctor, there are stories which I really, really enjoy.  Robot of Sherwood isn’t necessarily one of those, but it is a fun romp and that’s never a bad thing.