As you all know, Matt Smith’s Doctor will regenerate during the upcoming Xmas special episode, “The Time of the Doctor,” and we predict there probably won’t be a dried eye in the house—aka, we’ll bawl our eyes out.

So it'll be out with the old Doctor (Matt Smith, who we think has been absolutely brilliant in the role, despite the naysayers) and in with the new (Peter Capaldi) to steer the TARDIS, traveling through time and space with his current companion, Clara (Jenna Coleman).

And if you worry Capaldi just won’t do it for you as the new Doctor, Doctor Who showrunner Steven Moffat is pretty confident that he’ll win us all over.

In an interview with SFX magazine, Moffat said:

“I’m confident that we’ll sell this Doctor to our existing audience and he will be different enough that people won’t just be miserable that they’re missing Matt.”

“There will be people who will come and have a look just because it’s Peter Capaldi. We’ll tell them “You never thought this would be your show, but it is your show.”

“I was very curious to know how he’d go down. I thought it would go down well, and I thought it was a big declaration of intent with Doctor Who. People do sometimes try to be cynical about Doctor Who, and try to say “It’s not what it was”, despite the fact that you arithmetically can’t prove that in any direction whatsoever.

“We’ve cast one of the most beloved, one of the most distinguished – and one of the few Oscar winning! - actors in the role of the Doctor. It’s such a statement of the importance of Doctor Who and the size of Doctor Who that Peter is so over the moon about doing it, and that we get him.

“Peter said: ‘This is all I’ve ever wanted, this is huge for me. I just want to be Doctor Who.’ You need someone who cherishes it, who loves it and will take it as seriously, if not more seriously, than anything else.””

Moffat also assures us that Capaldi’s Time Lord will be NOTHING like the foul-mouthed Malcolm Tucker, a character he played on the BBC series The Thick of It, saying:

“If you look at that publicity photograph he did for us, with the hand to the face, he’s instantly not Malcolm Tucker. He just banishes that, and you think 'He’s the Doctor.'”

We’re rather excited to see what Capaldi will actually bring to the TARDIS. He's a fantastic actor (he was absolutely riveting in Torchwood: Children of Earth), and we've a feeling he’ll be another marvelous—and different—Doctor.

What do you think? Do you agree with Steven Moffat that Capaldi will win Matt Smith's fans (and his detractors) over?

(via Doctor Who TV)