The absence of Jenna Coleman from Doctor Who is felt deeply by Peter Capaldi, but he has co-stars to keep him happy going forward.
The Twelfth Doctor may not be able to remember his former companion, Clara Oswald, but he does know of her, and acutely feels the absence of her in his life. Meanwhile, in our world, actor Peter Capaldi greatly misses his former co-star, Jenna Coleman, although he remembers her quite well. He describes his time on the show recently as being “sad and a bit difficult because was used to her being with all the time.”
Coleman must have really made an impression on the other members of her Doctor Who family. In September, showrunner Steven Moffat said that his decision to step down was partly influenced by how sad he was when Coleman left. In October, Eleventh Doctor Matt Smith talked about how he still regrets not doing a full season with her.
Things are not all bad for Capaldi, though. The Christmas special, ‘The Return of Doctor Mysterio,’ looks like it was a blast to film, with co-stars Matt Lucas (Nardole), Charity Wakefield (Lucy Fletcher), and Justin Chatwin (Grant Gordon/The Ghost). In a recent Q&A, he even talked about how much he admires Lucas, and the positive experience that they have had working together.
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Capaldi’s time working with his new co-star, Pearl Mackie (Bill Potts), has also cheered him up. She is not the companion for this year’s Christmas special, but her first episode, ‘A Star in Her Eye,’ will air in April of 2017. He describes her as “fantastic” and notes that her character brings “a whole new, different thing” to the show. He goes on to say that Series Ten is “almost like a reboot” in that “the show is more hardcore Doctor Who because it’s reduced to its classic elements, which is mysterious stranger from alien planet with time machine takes innocent and Earth-bound companion off to adventures and monsters.”
This jives with what Moffat recently said about how Doctor Who is more about individual adventures than it is about overarching storylines.
Next: The Doctor Sees Nardole as His Butler, Nardole Does Not