I Watched Every Doctor Who Episode With Peter Capaldi's Twelfth Doctor – These Are The Best

By the time Matt Smith had left the TARDIS, the honeymoon period of Doctor Who’s return had firmly worn off. While the show was still beloved, viewership wasn’t what it once was the fanbase was becoming more critical. So, after too beloved and somewhat similar styles of Doctor, it was a challenge for the older, grumpier Twelfth Doctor to take the mantle alongside Steven Moffat staying on as showrunner.

Still, regardless of what you thought of his run overall, there are some undeniable gems of episodes that anyone should check out.

If you want to know what we thought of other actor's TARDIS tenure, then check out our lists of the best David Tennant Doctor Who episodes and the best Matt Smith Doctor Who episodes.

Deep Breath

The first episode for a new Doctor has a bit of a template by this point, but that template works, so who’s to argue? Lie is predecessors, Capaldi’s Doctor spends much of the beginning of this story high on regeneration energy and it honestly gives us some of the Twelfth Doctor’s funniest ever lines right out of the gate.

As always it establishes the new Doctor with their new personality and traits while reassuring us that they are still the hero we know and love at their core – something we always need when a new actor becomes the iconic Time Lord.

Mummy on the Orient Express

Capaldi’s first series plays around with a lot of overarching themes and plots, but arguably the series’ best episode is one that doesn’t play around with any of it. Instead, it forces the Doctor into a crowded space with people he needs to save and forces him to solve a mystery before they’re all picked off one by one. It’s got great action and very tense moments that challenge the Doctor’s intellect in the most entertaining way possible.

Flatline

the Doctor out of commission is always going to make for an interesting episode – it’s how we got such great adventures as Blink and Turn Left in earlier seasons. Flatline does wonders with the concept too, letting the Doctor sit on the sidelines and guide Clara through her own adventure. Twelve and Clara’s banter has never been better than it is here and the monsters are a genuinely interesting foe.

The Zygon Invasion & The Zygon Inversion

This story is an example of how one scene can turn a good story into a great one. This Zygon two-parter is a thrilling story that picks up on some of the loose threads that Day of the Doctor left dangling, but the final scene in the Black Archives is the main reason to come back and watch it. The Doctor’s speech against the horrors of war and how it should be avoided at all costs is something truly unforgettable and what makes Doctor Who continues to stand out against all its contemporaries.

Face the Raven

Clara is a polarizing companion among Doctor Who fans for reasons that are far too complex to discuss here, but what most agree on is that this episode does the character justice. After traveling with the Doctor for so long and often doing the dangerous things he does without consequence, things finally catch up with her and she has to face her own mortality like never before. It puts the Doctor in a very dark place too, setting up something specular in the next episode.

Heaven Sent

If you ask any modern Doctor Who fan what their favorite episodes are, this will probably be somewhere in their top three, and it’s easy to see why. Grieving the loss of his best friend while trapped in an incomprehensible maze, this episode features Peter Capaldi monologuing for 45 minutes straight and it’s an absolute masterpiece.

Heaven Sent not only interrogates the nature of grief in a careful and meaningful way, but it sets up a whole host of mysteries for the Doctor to solve one by one, leading into a fantastic cliffhanger for a series finale that…dropped the ball in a major way – but we’re not here to talk about that.

Extremis, The Pyramid at the End of the World & The Lie of the Land

That’s right, a three-part story. Whether it actually needs all that time is arguable, but it allows things to breathe like few other Doctor Who stories get time to. The Monks are one of the stranger threats the Doctor has ever faced, as their mind-warping methods make for great conflict between our main characters. It doesn’t necessarily do anything special as an episode, it’s just a really enjoyable adventure.

World Enough and Time & The Doctor Falls

Bringing back John Simm’s incarnation of the Master to work alongside Missy, who had fought Twelve up until this point, was an interesting move, and brought Missy’s redemption story into focus. Admittedly it was fumbled a little bit along the way, but this episode makes sure it ends in the right place, along with Twelve’s time in the TARDIS. He goes out on his feet, fighting against an unwinnable situation, but doing what he can anyway.

Twice Upon A Time

While this episode was just shoved in at the last second to save the Christmas Doctor Who slot on BBC One, it’s still a nice little capper to Capaldi’s run as the Doctor. David Bradley’s take on Hartnell’s First Doctor is a joy to watch, and it gives us a nice little story that interrogates the nature of the Doctor’s heroism. It may not exactly be new ground at this point in the series, but it’s well done nonetheless.