In the packed Hall H at San Diego Comic-Con on Thursday deafening cheers greeted current Doctor Peter Capaldi, co-star Jenna Coleman, and Michelle Gomez, who plays the new series’s major villain: the Mistress. The trio took the stage alongside showrunner Steven Moffat and teased Doctor Who fans with new footage from the upcoming season nine.
The trailer, after a images of new aliens, new planets, and the Doctor playing the guitar, ends with a shot of Game of Thrones actor Maisie Williams as one of the show’s new human (well, human-looking) characters.
#DoctorWho Season 9 premieres September 19th, 2015 on @BBCAMERICA! https://t.co/baBQKzVd90
— Doctor Who on BBCA (@DoctorWho_BBCA) July 9, 2015
Capaldi defended the choice to reimagine Gomez’s character (usually called The Master) as a female version called The Mistress. It has been a source of some controversy among fans of the long-running show, but Capaldi said that shouldn’t be the case. “A lot has been made of the agenda change, but I really think people should applaud Michelle for taking this role and filling it so completely,” he said.
“What’s your opinion on having a female Doctor?” a woman dressed as the Matt Smith Doctor asked Moffat. “I think I’ve expressed myself about as clearly as I could in the context of the show” he said, indicating Gomez.
“I will not be revealing myself as a man today,” Gomez added. Capaldi suggested a drag episode.
It was Capaldi’s first time at San Diego Comic-Con, and he put his theatre training to use straight away. “I’ve never been in front of 7,000 people before in my life. I can’t hear them all, though, properly,” he said. The crowd responded accordingly. “All those years in pantomime,” he said.
Practically no one moved an inch when the hall opened: most of the audience had been waiting outside for hours at least – days, in some cases – and simply packed a lunch and stayed all day to see Thursday’s lineup of panels. One man snoozed through the whole event.
What’s the Doctor like, moderator Chris Hardwick asked Capaldi. Is he a nice guy? “He’s a laugh, he’s great-looking, he’s terrifically lithe for his age,” Capaldi responded. “We live in a world where everyeone’s so easy and everything’s so accessible, and the Doctor’s mysterious! He’s a Time Lord, not a ‘guy’. But if he was a guy, he’d have my face and he’d be really nice.”
One of the fans took the microphone with a Muppet-style puppet, which she held up to the microphone. “Hello!” said Hardwick. “And what is your name?”
“Puppet Laura,” responded the questioner.
“That’s a very convincing human you’ve got with you,” Moffat said, who answered the deep-trivia question with a reference to the pre-hiatus version of the series, to scattered applause from the back of the room. “Ah, the sound of elderly fans clapping,” Moffat said. “It’s a little bit slower.”
“Why do you think he’s so enamoured of humans?” Hardwick asked Capaldi of The Doctor.
“Budgetary reasons,” Capaldi replied.
- This article was amended on 10 July; Peter Capaldi did not call Michelle Gomez “Melissa”.
