Doctor Who fans debate whether Peter Capaldi was naked in his greatest episode
BBCThe Doctor Who fanbase can’t agree whether Peter Capaldi’s Twelfth Doctor was nude during his most acclaimed episode.
Capaldi first suited up as the Twelfth Doctor for a partial cameo in 2013’s 50th anniversary special, “The Day of the Doctor.” He then made his full debut in that year’s Christmas special, “The Time of the Doctor.”
From here, Capaldi headlined Doctor Who for three years, before passing the torch to his successor, Jodie Whittaker, in the 2017 Christmas special “Twice Upon a Time.”
Capaldi garnered considerable acclaim throughout his three-year run, and one of his adventures – Series 9’s “Heaven Sent” – was recently voted the greatest Doctor Who episode ever.
Doctor Who fans debate whether Peter Capaldi was naked in his greatest episode
Written by former showrunner Steven Moffat and directed by franchise veteran Rachel Talalay, “Heaven Sent” sees the Doctor trying to escape a mysterious castle. The Time Lord soon finds himself in a time loop – and fans on Reddit think they’ve spotted a hilarious plot hole with how said loop functions.
“Usually, [The Doctor] dresses himself with his past self‘s dry clothes after jumping in the lake, but on the first loop they wouldn’t be there,” noted one Doctor Who devotee. “Peter Capaldi was just running around and scrabbling through dirt with his bits flapping about for that first loop.”
“Maybe not the first loop, but I believe that at some point he did a nudie run, yes,” added a second. “[A]t some point he had to have left [his clothes] there,” agreed a third. “Either he was nude or dressed in something else.”
But not everyone is convinced that Capaldi was starkers (off-screen or otherwise) for his finest hour on Doctor Who. “Moffat talked about this,” wrote one naysayer. “He said the first few loops were drastically different to the ones we saw, with the Doctor spending significantly longer in them. With some of the Doctors not reaching Room 12 at all.
“It was only after [the Doctors] started leaving clues for himself that they settled themselves into the same cycle. So Moffat said that he imagines in the first few, [the Doctor] waited until his clothes dried, putting on something like a nightgown that he found. But then in one of the loops, he was forced to abandon his clothes, which left them for the next version of him to come along.”
Ncuti Gatwa’s revealing Doctor Who introduction
By contrast, the nudity – or rather, partial nudity – of Capaldi’s most recent replacement, Ncuti Gatwa, is unequivocally canon. Gatwa’s Fifteenth Doctor split out of the Fourteenth Doctor’s (David Tennant) body in 60th anniversary special “The Giggle,” taking half of the latter’s clothes with him.
The upshot of this is that the Fifteenth Doctor spent most of his first-ever appearance clad in just a button-up shirt and underpants. He eventually slips into some trousers for the special’s extended epilogue, before setting off for the upcoming Christmas special, “The Church on Ruby Road.”
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