Jim Treacher, on Peter Capaldi as the new Doctor Who

All week I’ve been trying to pin down what I like about this so much. I finally figured it out:

He’s menacing.

In one indelible image, we know who this Doctor is: an intensely unsettling weirdo who’s having none of it. “Why is he gesturing like a constipated Dr. Strange? Why is he glaring at me like that? [shudder]”

Because he’s a nearly thousand-year-old super-genius from another planet who can travel anywhere in time and space at his whim, who has had more distinct physical forms in the last 50 years than the United States has had presidents, who is held in fear and awe by bad guys all over the universe, and you’re not. That’s why.