Peter Capaldi done with BBC's Doctor Who on BBC First in a shock announcement; will leave the Tardis at the end of 2017.

Peter Capaldi is done with the BBC's Doctor Who, becoming the latest exit for the BBC facing an ongoing exit of high profile on-air talent from TV shows ranging from Top Gear to The Great British Bake Off.

Peter Capaldi (58) made the shocking and surprising announcement on the BBC's BBC Radio 2 on Monday saying that "I've never done one job for three years before and I feel it's time for me to move on to different challenges".

Peter Capaldi's exit from Doctor Who comes after a dramatic viewership loss for the science fiction series the past few seasons, with Capaldi blaming the BBC for moving it to a later timeslot, and slamming the BBC for "undoubtedly" taking Doctor Who for granted.

The Scottish actor will finish out the year at Doctor Who, seen in South Africa and 6 other Southern African countries on BBC Worldwide's BBC First (DStv 119) on MultiChoice's DStv satellite pay-TV platform.

The new season of Doctor Who will start in April, and Peter Capaldi will leave after the conclusion of the Christmas 2017 special episode.

Peter Capaldi told the shocked BBC radio presenter that his upcoming last season of Doctor Who will be "a huge event" with an "unexpected" turn of events. The season will "roll along in a vintage way" before it turns dark and emotional.

After three seasons of playing the space and time traveller since 2013, Peter Capaldi will exit the British science fiction series at the same time at the end of 2017 as the Doctor Who showrunner Steven Moffat who has been with the show since 2010 as lead writer and executive producer.

Peter Capaldi is the fourth actor to play Doctor Who since the BBC relaunched the sci-fi series in 2005, taking over after Christopher Eccleston, David Tennant and Matt Smith played the inhabitant of the British blue police phone box.

In a statement that Steven Moffat released after Peter Capaldi's announcement, Moffat says "Peter's amazing, fiery, turbulent Doctor is still fighting the good fight, and his greatest adventures are yet to come. Monsters of the universe, be on your guard - Capaldi's not done with you yet!"

"Like Peter, I'm facing up to leaving the best job I'll ever have, but knowing I do so in the company of the best, and kindest and cleverest of men, makes the saddest of endings a little sweeter."

Now viewers are wondering who the 13th Doctor will be, and whether the BBC will finally cast a woman, a black man, or someone other than a white man in the iconic Timelord role.

SHOCKER. Africa not good enough for Doctor Who, as the British scifi TV show goes on a 'global' 7 cities tour but blatantly shuns one continent.

Not the Face of Boo. Just Boo. Despite being able to regenerate and travel through time and space there's very clearly one place that blue box and Doctor Who can't and won't go: to Africa.

Doctor Who on BBC Entertainment (DStv 120) shown on MultiChoice's DStv pay-TV platform across Africa is going on a "global" 7 cities tour - London, New York, Seoul, Mexico City, Rio de Janeiro and Sydney in August.

But see if you can spot the conspicuously absent city and the missing continent on the list of BBC Worldwide's "global" Doctor Who tour.

Yes, Africa, Africans and a big African city like Johannesburg, Lagos, Cape Town or Nairobi simply do not feature - because clearly Africa doesn't matter or exist to Doctor Who, or it would have been included.

While South African and African viewers are apparently just good enough to watch Doctor Who on the telly, they're not up to standard to actually ever meet him in person.

The 12th Time Lord, Peter Capaldi and Jenna Coleman are visiting the seven cities on their "global" tour over 12 days in August and executive producer Steven Moffatt will join them in some of the cities (but not all).

It is really utterly pathetic of BBC Worldwide and Doctor Who to say the least, to cut out Africa and African viewers from this "global" experience.

It's shocking in fact, to so arrogantly and with blatant global discrimination make it painfully obvious that Africa is apparently "not good enough" for British science fiction and a British sci-fi TV show.

Is Mexico City and people watching Doctor Who there better than Johannesburg? If so, why?

Is Rio de Janeiro better than viewers watching this show in Nairobi? How?

It's mind-boggling that Sydney in Australia can be included in a Doctor Who stop-over but not Cape Town in South Africa.

This TV critic has been to Sydney and lives in Cape Town. The cities are almost identical.

This TV critic has been to several cities in several South American countries. They're very much the same to the several African cities I've been to across the African continent.

If you can go to Seoul, Sydney and Mexico City you can at the very least also go to Johannesburg, or Cape Town.

We also drink tea and eat scones, watched Kate Middleton's wedding and want to bring butlers back because we've seen it on Downton Abbey. And wouldn't you know, we even have running, save-to-drink water coming out of (gasp!) taps (true).

Grow up BBC, grow up BBC Worldwide, and grow up Doctor Who.

On what godforsaken place were those nine and thought lost forever episodes of Doctor Who found last year? In Africa. In a friggin storeroom in Africa. In Nigerian in a TV station. Episodes from 1967 and 1968.

That's how long back Doctor Who has been shown on African television.

Are you scared of Africa? Are you scared of Africans? Is it too far, too difficult, too logistically challenging or is the BBC show deemed to have too few fans in South Africa and Africa to make an African visit and stop-over worth your while?

I thought a T.A.R.D.I.S. could go anywhere and do anything. Now Doctor Who and the people behind it just look tardy.

Please come to Africa and to South Africa, Doctor Who.

Please visit this remote place in the universe and acquaint yourself with the people, the fans and the many viewers of the show who live here, and who knows what that thing is that we call te-le-vi-sion that we watch with this thing called e-lec-tri-ci-ty.

We don't have Daleks (promise!) but we do have many, many dialects. And I promise you, you will love them.

In a press statement Amanda Hill, the chief brands officer at BBC Worldwide, says: "We were so bowled over by the global reaction to the 50th episode last year that we thought what better way to introduce the new Doctor than to take the team around the globe".

The saddest thing and most disappointing thing is that BBC Worldwide is taking Doctor Who around the globe but not the full globe. Not to Africa.

The irony is that the BBC and Doctor Who requires fans to embrace every subsequent regeneration of the Doctor (and we do!) when the actor changes.

Unfortunately BBC Worldwide and Doctor Who are showing themselves as being much slower to embrace a prosperous, growing (and Doctor Who watching) continent called Africa; a continent in the midst of a wonderful regeneration of its own.