The Doctor Is In

I was wondering when this would happen.  I wasn't really getting antsy yet, because I have a history with the Doctor.  I can appreciate the old show: the terrible, laughable "special effects" and the impossibly campy dialogue.  I have learned to deal with regeneration, which means watching a character you have come to love change into a different character, which is supposed to be the same character but not.  I have to say, when Ten changed into Eleven, I wasn't sure I would get over it, but Matt Smith won my heart with his speeches, like the Rings of Akhaten, and with that damn Van Gogh episode that freaking makes me cry.
I know better than to jump to conclusions, but to tell you the truth Peter Capaldi as the Twelfth Doctor was leaving me a little flat sometimes.  I mean I know he's a good actor, and there was that thing about the "attack eyebrows," in his first real episode. But I think, sort of like Clara, I didn't really trust him.  To tell you the truth, I found myself wishing that they had cast Michelle Gomez as the first female Doctor, instead of as his nemesis, the Master (now Missy, short for Mistress).  But really, I think that's just because really good villains are always more fun than heroes, especially grumpy, old, Scottish heroes.
I think the writers of the show have been messing with our emotions, because they can.  I think they're doing something rather skillful, and maybe a little bit beyond what you would expect from a show that centers around a time travelling police box and it's mad scientist pilot.  They're letting the character of the doctor grow and adapt, and actually really be regenerated.  They have learned, I think that you can't really go around just repeating the same character with different actors (think Becky from Roseanne, that was just weird).
We have seen the Doctor evolve from 9 through 12. And we have even seen the John Hurt "War Doctor" who doesn't get counted in the official roster, but it is this character that is really at the center of the changes, it is the experience of the Time War, which we mostly only hear about in the canon of the show, that changes the Doctor.  It changes Ten from a warrior into someone who can love, it changes Eleven from a madman with a box always on the run into a man who settles in to fight his long last battle in the defense of Trenzalore, and it points us towards Twelve, a more mature, less whimsical, but also at times conflicted Doctor, who "saves people" and worlds even, from themselves if need be.
It's a complicated story to tell to be sure.  We have been doing a lot of the leg work with Capaldi over the past season and a half, and I know it was wearing a lot of fans out a little.  I was starting to hear complaints from the fandom about this "new" Doctor.
Until Saturday, when Twelve arrived as Time Lord in Full. I won't go into too much detail about the plot, because spoilers, and probably because if you're not a Whovian, you just won't understand too much to explain, but let's just say there's going to be a war started with two characters pushing buttons on boxes at opposite ends of a table.  The Doctor is trying to talk them out of it.  He starts with the futility of violence and the necessity of forgiveness and the way that violent cycles never end, and if you're at all a fan, you start to get that tingly feeling, like you know he's about to break out of the funk you have both been in for a while.  The argument is crowned with this:

This is a scale model of war. Every war ever fought right there in front of you. Because it's always the same. When you fire that first shot, no matter how right you feel, you have no idea who's going to die. You don't know who's children are going to scream and burn. How many hearts will be broken! How many lives shattered! How much blood will spill until everybody does what they're always going to have to do from the very beginning -- sit down and talk! Listen to me, listen. I just -- I just want you to think. Do you know what thinking is? It's just a fancy word for changing your mind.

I could give you more, but I don't want to spend the whole morning typing out dialogue, and actually I hope you'll invest an hour into watching The Zygon Inversion, because this speech is something we need to hear.  In a story, truth is speaking to us, truth about war and the stupidity thereof.  This is one of those moments when truth is not contained by mere reality.  The futility of violence an power is on full display, on a timey-wimey TV show.
Would it win you to Doctor Who if you don't like Sci-Fi? Probably not.
Would it convince a War Monger to change their ways? Probably not.
But all the same I believe that we need to tell stories like this, even if they take a little longer to unfurl and may try the patience of the fans.  When you get to a moment like this, it is so worth it.