What we want from the new Doctor

Well, I got my wish, Doctor Who is an adult. In fact, you'd struggle to find a more adult adult among the bookies' favourites ahead of the big announcement this weekend that Peter Capaldi, of The Thick of It fame, was taking over the Tardis. It shouldn't have been, but it was a bit of a letdown that after all the pomp and ceremony - (Surely there's this live ceremony for some reason right? It's going to be someone totally different, isn't it? It's Idris Elba, isn't it? No, it's Helen Mirren, isn't it? No? Oh.) When all we got was someone who was on the bookies' list at all, but of them, Capaldi is a decent pick. He's everything Matt Smith isn't - older, wiser, darker. He probably isn't actually really sweary - that's Malcolm Tucker, a character he played, more's the pity - but he's definitely a grown up.

Now that the BBC has given everyone way too much time to think about what he's going to be like as the new Doctor, let's see if I can go two for two (since clearly, Steven Moffat and the Beeb were reading my blog and that's why they chose Capaldi). Here's what the new Doctor should be like, when he finally takes over at the end of this year:

1. Sartorially unchallenged: Fezzes, bow-ties, rainbow coats, scarves, Converse - the Doctor's worn them all and they've all been lots of fun. The outfit is one of the biggest things they get to do with the new Doctor and it should set the tone for his character, as it has always done quite wonderfully. In which case, Capaldi should not be in a mismatched gimmicky ensemble. Who can deny the chill along the spine when Christopher Eccleston first stepped out of the box dressed in nearly unrelieved black? That's what Capaldi needs too. An outfit that goes together and shows a little darkness. Some elegance, some tailoring, that would be fine, as would period dress. I mean, who says the Doctor has to dress like he's from this century or even the last? So, it can be an unusual outfit, just not one that allows for any hint of ridicule.

2. A little less romantically available: The Doctor is an unknowable ancient alien, not a wee boy that might be good for a snog. It's not that the love of the Doctor and Rose wasn't incredible and a lot of fun. Nor that the sight of Amy Pond throwing herself at the Doctor just cause she fancied him rather than because he'd stolen her heart wasn't a nice, if somewhat morally ambiguous, touch. Even River Song had her moments, although she had her other moments as well. But the Doctor is sort of supposed to be a step above the rest of the galaxy and that becomes harder to believe when relatively young women somehow feel confident enough around him to try to turn him into their boyfriend. So let's just stick to the friendship and companion bit with Clara (who's much too young for him anyway, whether you're talking about Capaldi or the Doctor) and anyone else who might come along.

3. Dark. Like darker-than-Christopher-Eccleston dark: I think we all want to be a little bit afraid of the Doctor again. We want the full weight of several lifetimes worth of pain to show up in his eyes a bit more often, we want him to get angry, we want him to do occasionally breathtakingly cruel things to aliens and people who maybe deserve it a little, but definitely weren't expecting it. We want mystery, independence, a sense of the solitude of being who he is. Clara should definitely make him laugh every now and then, of course, but let's have a Doctor who's really, really dark, who maybe steps over lines, wrestles with moral dilemmas, approaches things with a fierce and fiery intellect rather than a devil-may-care attitude. In fact, it wouldn't be an altogether bad option to have him step over the edge entirely, go to the dark side of the Force and have to be wrested back somehow.

So that's my recipe for the next Doctor, let's just hope that Steven Moffat and co are reading as assiduously as they did last time…