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Should the Next 'Doctor Who' Be a Woman?
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes "Jennifer Finney Boylan writes in the NYT that for those who did not get beaten up in high school, 'Doctor Who' is a beloved British sci-fi series about a character called the Doctor who is able to regenerate into a new body whenever a mortal would die or whenever an actor grows tired of the gig. The Doctor has been played by 11 different men since the show went on the air in 1963 and with Matt Smith, stepping down this Christmas, many fans had hoped that this time, a dozen cycles in, the Doctorship would finally go to a woman. 'Maybe it was the election of Barack Obama that made it seem, fleetingly, as if there were no more glass ceilings, for offices from president to pontiff,' writes Boylan. 'Whether the 45th president is a woman (Hillary Rodham Clinton?) or a Latino (Marco Rubio?), it still feels, on a good day, as if we've entered a time when there are fewer limits on what men and women can aspire to.' But unlike presidents or popes, we may not get that many more chances at a glass-shattering Doctor. According to long-held Doctor Who mythology, the character's 13th regeneration could be his last. 'As the producers think about whom they want to take on the role next, they should keep in mind the way people's hopes are lifted when they see someone breaking the glass ceiling, even when it's for something as seemingly trivial as a hero on a science-fiction program. Equal opportunity matters — in Doctor Who's universe as well as our own.'"
Why not a vegan tranny black lesbian Muslim in a wheelchair?
That is just absurd !!
It seems there is a subset of people out there who just can never be happy unless they are going against the grain. There will be people out there who make a big deal about who the next Doctor is regardless of who gets it. Not everything has to be groundbreaking or new. Sometimes tried and trusted are the way to go.
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
No, because that means Samuel L. Jackson would be out of the running. (Admit it, you'd watch that.)
The Dr had a wife and child. Unless you are going to make the time lords all capable of changing sex, and boy could that get confusing with some times straight some times gay families, he cannot we a woman.
When you cant win, ad hominem.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Do-wDPoC6GM This already happened.
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You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
It seems awful to me. The writing is bad. The characters are bad. The plots are bad. The props/special effects are bad.
Is it something we Ironically like because its so bad or does it have good aspects I've over looked?
Don't get me wrong. I love science fiction. But this seems like garbage.
Anyone have an idea as to what I'm missing here?
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In Curse of the Fatal Death.
It's not cannon, but it was the first Doctor Who "episode" of sorts that Steven Moffat wrote, and I have seen some minor gags in the series since Steven took over as show runner taken from Curse of the Fatal Death.
Will they be brave enough to do a Colin Baker on a female Doctor?
You know, Colin's first appearance as The Doctor was pretty psychopathic and violent toward his female companion.
David Tennant often displayed un-heroic tendencies against some of the monsters.
Hell, the very first Doctor was a barely human character who was definitely not a sympathetic or even mildly heroic character.
Would they be brave enough to not only show a woman Doctor, but show one who was as far from Dudley Do-Right as the male versions have been?
If you want a sci-fi story with a strong female protagonist, then feel free to write one. Leave the doctor alone. He is a he, has been a he, and should remain a he. He's had complex relationships that would be all too complicated and distracting to bring up and try to weave into a "she". And this isn't that kind of story. It's not meant to be going into social situations and analysing them. It's sonic screwdrivers, weeping angels, tardis and interesting companions. Go away with your politically correct nonsense.
I think that people who want to see the next Doctor be some sort of handicapped post-op lesbian hermaphrodite never watch the show but just want to push some sort of agenda to get some checkbox filled somewhere. They would never watch a single episode with their politically-corrected Doctor but that's not really the point.
If you want to kill what is left of the show.
If you ignore the reincarnation aspect and treat it as separate actors playing the same role you might ask if it's time for James Bond to be female?
It might be time for stories to be written about female secret agents, but that doesn't mean the one agent you've written about has to change genders.
BTW, nothing wrong with changing genders and in scifi scenarios where it was already written (lots of Ian Banks books for instance) it's welcome that the character might become female or male. If anyone wants to tackle Culture stories as a serial scifi show I would love it (as long as they didn't ruin it)
I think there is plenty of things wrong with doctor who currently (plot wise) that don't involve gender bending. If they introduced a female doctor it would mean at least two years of stories pretty much devoted to aspects and repercussions of the change. Even if they choose not to address it there would be an uproar from fans about not addressing it, and there would always be the undercurrent of novelty from it.. hehe, look at us we're edgy because we recast the Doctor as female.
There is a giant untapped group of people, the gallifreyans who are all time travelers. Some of them were female. They could get their own spinoff show. I know they're all dead now in the doctor who universe but there was a time when they weren't dead and the spinoff could be during that period.
I wasn't taking this seriously before The One showed up, but when she invoked him? Total Nonsense.
the character's 13th regeneration could be his last
Okay, first, the article means his TWELFTH regeneration, his thirteenth INCARNATION. Secondly, it's already canon that doctors can regenerate far more than twelve times.
The clue is in the title. Who ever heard of a "Time Lady"?!
Um, everyone who ever watched season 16?
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face
Dude. I can understand someone with only a double-digit IQ misspelling "closet", but misspelling "is"?
So somehow changing an indubitably male character into a woman is a 'victory' for women?
Perhaps we could just work on creating an interesting, engaging, successful female character and celebrate her? Or celebrate one of the many strong female characters already present in media?
Perhaps there's a moral in here for the whole feminist movement.
-Styopa
Romanadvoratrelundar (A.K.A. Romana).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romana
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Surely a science fiction concept with a female lead can be developed outside of the current Dr. Who franchise. Or, a spin-off series featuring a female timelord can be developed in parallel, like Star Trek did with Voyager. The can have separate adventures and then guest star from time to time on each others' shows. Seems like you get more audience that way. Why is there a need to take an established character and turn it into something completely different?
Dr. Who will always be Tom Baker in my imagination anyway.
Romana, played by the rather lovely Lala Ward.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
The idea of a female Doctor comes up every single regeneration since Tom Baker hinted at the possibility (presumably in jest). It's no longer an amusing idea, and it is obviously not going to happen (since they have managed to resist the idea ever since then).
I think Doctor Who stands out these days for not having a female martial arts specialist who would blow over in a strong wind as the main character. I know, gross over-generalisation, but still . . .
Well, we've seen Superwoman/girl, Batgirl, Spider-woman, Wonder Woman, Power Girl, etc. so a female so Dr. Who wouldn't be such a big deal...
I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all I can think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do.
Jennifer Finney Boylan writes in the NYT that for those who did not get beaten up in high school...
Whining about diversity and coming out with the stereotyping right out of the gate(and yes, it's a quote from TFA, I did check). Maybe she thought that was cute?
I had a nice rant with lots of big words about diversity not about messing with established characters and missing the point and all that, but you know what? Screw it.
Why should we bloody-nosed, inhaler puffing masses give a fuck what this imbecile has to say?
Why not? What other roles have been played by multiple actors that could have a little gender-bending?
Help! Help! I'm being repressed!
Really?
You of all commentators on the new Doctor might just be able to understand why regenerating as a woman, outside of a gag short involving a very elaborate fart joke juxtaposed with crossdresser jokes, might cause a problem for the character.
Who knows? Maybe that's what you're getting at?
I still remember throwing your book She's Not There across the room after you did something that's remained unobtainable for me for the past 10 years apparently without a single damned problem or setback. I guess maybe the real "glass ceilings" in this world are just fine for folks who need a damned job to keep a roof over their head because they don't have a way of making money rain from the sky like manna from heaven.
Look, you want a female Doctor? Dr. Song's pretty much outlived her character's story. Excuse my lack of knowledge about classic Doctor Who. What about Romana? Hell, there's a regenerated female clone of the Doctor out there somewhere galloping about the cosmos. Why not bring the Doctor-Donna out of retirement?
This has absolutely nothing to do with "glass ceilings" and you know it. The only glass ceilings womyn-born-womyn have are the their own self-imposed ones; I've seen it enough times myself to become physically ill. And don't you dare try to drag a womyn-born-womyn through her own self-imposed glass ceiling! She'll call you "mean" for trying to make her move past "math is hard!" I am so utterly sick of hearing this line from womyn-born-womyn who truly believe this. What the hell am I supposed to do about it when they're too busy viewing me as "all men" and when feminism views me as a metaphysical rapist every time I take my estrogen in the morning?!
The only glass ceilings rich trans women have are... I don't know, you tell me? When you're rich enough, does that promote you out of the category of a rapist appropriating the female form into a position where you can use feminist buzzwords like "glass ceiling?"
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It's been confirmed that the Doctor is now more or so immortal http://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2010/oct/12/doctor-who-immortal-reveals-bbc
maybe it would make up for great story ? Sory , but i don't see why the doctor who could not be a lesbian tranny black Muslim in a wheelchair.
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Half Dalek, Half Timelord! Time stream cross-species re-integration! Just kill off Dr Who and make the show about his kid. Then stick it in the Firefly universe for half the season until it learns how to use a Tardis properly. SHOVE IN ALL THE OPTIONS!
.. why? If gender doesn't matter any more why are we fixating on it here?
....just saying.
Anyone have an idea as to what I'm missing here?
Everything after 2005 that was written by Russell T. Davies.
You do make some points that I agree with - the sonic screwdriver has become the Deus Ex Machina of the series. He solves just about every problem with the fucking thing.
But, as an American, I find a character that solves problems using brains, cunning, and the 'bad guys' weaknesses against them refreshing.
Entertainment here in the US is all about brute force - usually a gun. The 'good guys' win because they are just stronger, better shots and luckier. It doesn't take much brains to pull a trigger.
It takes brains to trick your opponent into defeating himself. And that at least from 2005 - 2010 was the theme - or while Davies was the writer.
Or a man. Or black, or white, or latino, or asian.
I think the next Doctor should be the right person for the role. Everything else is irrelevant.
In SOVIET RUSSIA... erm...NSA AMERICA, the Internet logs onto YOU!
I realize she's pushing for gender equality here, but the Doctor is male.
He had a wife and kids, and in the newer series someone made a partial clone of him which is now kind of his daughter. There were female time lords, be he isn't one. So why would his regenerations turn him into a female?
Now, I don't know how they'd drum up a TARDIS for her, but Jenny should still be out there in the universe.
I realize that with Doctor Who you may not need to worry about being strictly canonical, but there's never been anything to suggest (that I know of) that regenerations could flip your gender.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
The answer is: Yes. Next question please?
Helena Bonham Carter for one
Buffy. Tru Calling. Dollhouse. Birds of Prey. Dark Angel. Sarah Connor Chronicles. The Bionic Woman.
Any more?
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
It is probably a fluff opinion piece, just to stir up some mild controversy -- so she got paid this week. Ever noticed how Magazine articles on BBC news are similar, ask some brain-dead question with a hint of controversy, discuss it a bit, then back down from the controversy without reaching a definite conclusion. This is obviously what keeps 'magazine' readers entertained, and everyone gets paid. It is not to be taken seriously in any way.
The Doctor should never be a woman. We have seen how that turns out in the spoof "Doctor Who and the Curse of Fatal Death", where the female Doctor notices the sonic screwdriver has "three settings".
Links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctor_Who_and_the_Curse_of_Fatal_Death
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p18DKN27IZQ
Really, do we need an entire run with the TARDIS crashing into everything?
Margaret Thatcher was in power here 1979-1990. She fucked over the arts during that time. It will take a few more years to get over it.
That was a *woman*?
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Doctor, not Dr
rewriting history since 2109
If The Doctor had started out as a women, I think I'd be just as much a fan. Now, keeping in mind that regeneration is fantastical to begin with, to me, the doctor becoming a woman would be like turning James Bond into a women. Different actors or not, James Bond is James Bond, and The Doctor is The Doctor. As Stephen Moffit said, the different Doctors aren't different people; they're all the same man who just can change his appearance. From a genetic point of view, I'm assuming his DNA doesn't change much when he regnerates, and that in Time Lord DNA, there are markers for gender like there are for humans. So turning into a woman would be a more substantial rewrite. And would he really be a woman, or would it be more like a sex change operation? (This is not a debate on gender reassignment, because as far as I'm concerned, people should have control over their appearance and identity. Even The Doctor, I guess.)
I feel that Doctor Who has done much weirder things, and much of the series from the beginning (if you really want to be honest) has been kinda lame, particularly Series 7 Part 2. I mean aside from "The Name of the Doctor" (which was awesome), the most of the rest of Series 7 has been dreadful. And I could point out more than a few classic serials that were pretty darn awful as well. If they do pick a woman for the role in the future, I'll just continue to watch the show like I always have, on the lookout for those few episode gems, like I always do. However, I might be inclined to assume that they chose a woman mostly because of social pressure, not necessarily because it's a good idea. It MIGHT INDEED be a good idea, but any indication that the producers reasoned based on anything but coersion would not be evident.
This isn't any different from all the pressure to write a multi-Doctor episode. Stephen Moffit addressed this issue when he (as I mentioned above) pointed out that they're all the same man who can change his appearance. He was only willing to write a multi-Doctor episode if it make a really good story (which is ironic given some of the recent episodes). So likewise, the producers should be willing to gender-change The Doctor only if it's going to do something really good for the series. And that being said, there are LOTS of female actors who could do a fabulous job in the role. Given that any woman they'd pick would be under much closer scrutiny by the fanbase (many of whom would blame the actress for what is really just bad writing), I think the producers would be smart enough to (a) carefully choose an actress who epitomizes the role, and (b) do a better job on the script writing to avoid misdirected criticism.
And given that last bit of reasoning, I think I'd rather like to see it done. It'll force the writers to do a better job and make the show all-around a lot better.
BTW, as for the number of times he can regenerate, the producers have said they're not going to respect the limit of 12. In a Sarah Jane Aventures episode, he said he could generate 507 times, which I assume to be just a big number be picked to be funny. Another suggestion I've heard is that because of the time war, the Time Lords reengineered themselves to have no limit on regeneration.
I didn't have to read the abbreviation.
I wouldn't object if the BBC chose a woman or a person of color, etc... however, I DO object to such a strong American Point of View on this summary and in the article.
"""
'Maybe it was the election of Barack Obama that made it seem, fleetingly, as if there were no more glass ceilings, for offices from president to pontiff,' writes Boylan.
"""
yeah, because this completely USA-centric view of the universe is topmost on the BBC's and series creators minds.
Seriously people, I've been a Dr. Who fan since Tom Baker was still playing the role, and I've loved and cherished it for all its quirky British sensibilities, and I for one believe that the show's been doing fine for the better part of 50 years (Colin Baker's run notwithstanding)
I just would hate to see more US-Centric views spilling over onto the show.
Take, for instance the BBC America version of the show openers during Amy Pond's run - if you were new to the series, the opening would make you think that it was the Amy Pond show and that the Doctor was just the Mad Man with a Blue Box as a plot device for her. That was BBC America "Americanizing" it a bit to try and appear to the US audience.
Good gods, have any of you seen the American version of Top Gear? It's rubbish... completely and utterly fails to capture the charm and wit of the British version.
American IT Crowd? The Office? Coupling? Maybe I'm going to piss some folks off, but I think that Americanizing British stuff simply never ends well.
The Digital Sorceress
... may be a transmogrification too far.
Maggie has already appeared in Who, though... http://tardis.wikia.com/wiki/Helen_A
has everybody forgotten Jenny??
i would love to see the "Hi dad whats new??" scene
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Mr. Pickens, you do realize that the UK had a female PM in the 80's? Or that Dr Who is British so why would American polotics matter so much? Or at the very, very least; that Barack Obama is not a woman.
I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
Yes.
Dude. I can understand someone with only a double-digit IQ misspelling "closet", but misspelling "is"?
To be fair though he is able to spell "is" correct 50% of the time.
Why is it so hard to only have politicians for a few years, then have them go away?
I think having the doctor regenerate into a woman would break Who canon.
The Doctor is a male, so he always regenerates into a male. Unless they wanted show a regeneration gone wrong, and a transgendered woman doctor, he will always be a man.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
What we do know from the series so far is males stay male, and females stay female.
If genders were dynamic then you would wind up with some very inconvenient time lord marriages. They could end up the same sex depending on how the regenerations go. What do you do then? Suicide until you get a compatible one? It definitely would cause psychiatric issues if they ended up preferring one particular set of equipment. What happens when they die giving birth ans switch sexes?
It opens too many well, boxes, that would make a mess of the show. NO TRANSGENDER DOCTORS PLEASE. And if they do go through with it, it will be seen as copping to some social equality agenda. Don't politicize our show and trash it in the final regeneration.
Thank you.
Slashdot's rate-of-post filter: Preventing you from posting too many great ideas at once.
Art should be personal. Government paying for it is a travesty.
Based on what was revealed in the last episode before the 50th special, Peter Capaldi is regeneration #13. However, he can be still considered the 12th Doctor, because John Hurt's character is said to have rejected that title.
The Doctor is a man with an almost all powerful tine/space ship that picks up companions... usually pretty girls and runs about time and space having adventures. Come on... don't try to tell me that the viewers aren't mostly geeky males who enjoy that sort of show because they secretly fantasize about BEING The Doctor! (or at least like him) Making The Doctor a woman would be awesome for a couple of episodes, just to shake things up but would quickly alienate the core audience if it continued beyond that. Likewise, a short-lived regeneration would only severly piss off the 'break the glass ceiling' types that want to see a female doctor.
Don't get me wrong, there are female geeks who would enjoy their turn. But.. even if they were equal in number with the male ones (no way that is true) it wouldn't make any sense to change an already existing show for them. You don't spend decades building up your presence in one market just to leave it and start from scratch in a new one! It would be much better to make a new product (show) for the new market while maintaining the old one.
So.. As RobertLTux says... Bring Back Jenny!!!! I'm thinking giver her a big role for a season and then spin her off if all goes well. If she gets spun off, make sure to have crossover episodes, those are always fun.
But, is a spinoff good enough to imply the glass ceiling is broken? Well.. would that be the same glass ceiling that other's have pointed out didn't stop Buffy, Lost Girl, the Underworld movies, Resident Evil and others from being made? Give it a rest already!
Of course... I'm not Brittish so maybe my ideas of ratings, etc are inapplicable. Maybe things are different over there.
The USA didn't give a poop about Dr. Who until 'recently'. It isn't a lame show made in the US with nice PC characters. Dr.Who can kill, lie, and deceive, and make monumental blunders. If it was written in the US he'd be nice and strong. He is male, and regenerates as a male, to regenerate as a female would mean a gender change, just to please a small whiny few. OFFS! The US networks kill good Si-Fi so leave the rest of us alone.(Firefly).
There was an unknown error in the submission.
That's Amerikkka you jackass!
It would seem so.
Seeing as how they already announced the new Doctor last week and all?
I was dead set against it until I realized it would make an interesting River Song episode. Would we get an episode where that British Doctor from ER kisses another girl?
The general population here is incapable of conceiving of woman as equals.
That's hardly the "general population." Just a core group of vocal "feminists" parroting tired old saws about women needing protection from the big bad geeks.
I have to disagree about Indy. Maybe, if they'd gone batshit insane and made a horrible 4th "passing the torch" type movie with Indy past his prime and aliens and shit, you'd have a point.
Daniel Jackson, though? Not exactly a high bar to clear.
Doctor Who is a creative work. To ask if a new Doctor should be anything aside from meeting certain plot points or general variety would be to ask if "Harry Potter should have been a female..." or "The lead animated character in Cars should have been an automobile made in India."
The creative works do not belong to "the people" and thus doesn't have any obligation to meet their self-imposed standards of fairness or equal representation.
That said, I thought the next Doctor should have been Sue Perkins partially because female, but mostly because her personality is inline with the Doctor's.
I think the gender issue is really a non-issue. Good writers could make a plausible explanation (though some fans will still complain) and a compelling character.
Considering that both Colin Baker and Peter Capaldi played supporting characters on the show before taking The Doctor role, I'm sure we could find some past supporting female actors up to the task. My suggestions in order of preference:
BTW, does anyone remember the campaign for a female Boba Fett? The site is gone, but here it is on the Wayback Machine.
I can see why you're an Anonymous Coward.
PHEM - party like it's 1997-2003!
Then they should definitely do it next time round provided (a) they can get a good actress and (b) come up with some good scripts. In the show's "reality" there's no reason why it couldn't happen*, and this is exactly the sort of debate that SF/Fantasy can and should provoke.
Female Doctor + male space-marine type companion could be fun.
*Aside from the whole Corsair transgender-regens-do-happen thing, they've missed an opportunity this time to get round the 12-regen limit: they could have had the current Doctor really die and let another character take up his mantle. Plenty of candidates: Clara's now all twined up in his timeline, Jenny (female clone) is still out there, as is Donna (human/doctor mashup - if she can somehow remember without her brain exploding) and although River is technically dead, she's still available for download.
However, they've gone for Peter Capaldi. I don't doubt he'll do a good job. Actually, nobody out there seems to doubt that he'll do a good job. Maybe they've played it a bit too safe?
In a survey of 100 programmers, 111111 thought that duck-typing was a good idea.
We've had female timelords before in earlier Dr Who storylines.
Why all the sudden need to change the sex of the lead character - why not just do a spinoff. Just because you can do something doesn't mean you should do it.
A nice self-contained mini-series expanding the storylines for Romana (who stays female), or The Corsair (who changes sex).
...and Mary Tamm.
"Wrath of Eukor" does it seriously, "Curse of Fatal Death" does it humorously. It does work. It's fine. It doesn't matter. Also, not worth making a big deal about. Since the community can't seem to be gender neutral, if I were a programming officer at the BBC, I would probably advise against it...just to avoid the banal public discussion.
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To the guy from the last episode of the Key of Time series with Tom Baker. I don't remember his name, but he was a dropout from the Academy who was working for the Dark Lord while trying to get his own tardis up and running?
Seems like he'd be a perfect candidate for a spinoff. Y'know other than his actor being like 70-80 if he's not already dead :D
Margaret Thatcher was in power here 1979-1990. She fucked over the arts during that time. It will take a few more years to get over it.
On what do you base that conclusion, when we had TOM BAKER as the Doctor from 1975-1981 followed by PETER DAVIDSON from 1981-1985? Then we had such other Britcom greats as Blackadder, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Blake's 7, Red Dwarf, Antiques Roadshow, East Enders, The Young Ones... plus the rise of British New Wave and Heavy Metal, etc.? Okay, the Bond franchise went from four solid Moore films to the questionable Living Daylights and awful License to Kill starring Tim Dalton, but surely that wasn't all Maggie's fault! And we did get The Elephant Man, The Empire Strikes Back, Chariots of Fire, Excalibur, Gandhi, Pink Floyd's The Wall, Monty Python's The Meaning of Life, Henry V, Highlander...
46. The Hobo smiles, his eyes glaze over, and he burps. "Beware the man who has lived longer than the Wasteland."
I assumed they did that to add a possible "sexual tension" at some point in the future. Sigh.
It is not the job of any particular work of art or entertainment to tick all of society's many well-intentioned boxes. My suggestion is to go out and create that vision of art that you want to see.
If you want to see those characters, create 'em. Say something new. Make a new world with new stories to tell.
---- The above post was generated by the Turing Institute. Maybe.
Mary Tamm is the first who comes to mind as a Doctor I'd like to have seen. She would have been much better than many who came after Tom Baker who sent the series into hibernation. Terribly sad that she's gone.
Screw that! Elizabeth Warren or Wendy Davis, maybe.. Or even better Chaka Khan. Hillary always leaves me with that 'not so fresh feeling'.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Can we do a poll on this, Slashdot? It would be interesting to see how the community as a whole stands on this.
Get a really hot actress (I nominate Eve Green) to play Dr. Who. The time machine could destroy her clothing every times she uses it, so she would have to spend a few minutes naked on each show. I think it would be really popular.
In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.
the decades of lore suggest that he changes his appearance and personality when he dies... nothing in there suggests that hes able to change sexes... and honestly, one would think if he WERE capable of changing sexes, wouldnt it be a 50% chance?
Ah, why is this being posted on /. now? They announced on Sunday that the next doctor will be an actor named Peter Capaldi. http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0134922/?ref_=sr_1
This is about as stupid as can be. Its as if /. posted a story announcing Obama was elected president for a 2nd term, or that Bin Laden was dead.
"The first time I got drunk, I got married. The second time I bought a chimpanzee, after that I stayed sober" Arian Seid
But why change the sex of a character? Personally, I always wanted more of the *first* Ramana.... Another thought would be to find some way to regenerate Donna into a Timelord body....
mark
These sidekicks are hot by the standards of women on British TV where the extremes in cosmetic dentistry, dermatology, and plastic surgery are not followed as rigorously as in Hollywood.
So would the female Dr. Who have a beefcake dude sidekick? Would the female Dr. Who be a babe or perhaps a mature woman in the tradition of Helen Mirren, Judy Dench, or Amanda Richardson? Or maybe a West Indian babe with a delicious regional accent as the police captain who thinks Holmes is a dangerous vigilante and medler into police business as in that Sherlock Holmes reboot (and gosh no, not the Robert Downey Jr. one).
My take is that the DNA of The Doctor is male. Regeneration will recreate his body when damaged, but should obey the programming within his DNA. It shouldn't go changing chromosomes around.
There may be a lot of bending the rules of various fields of science, but the core basic stuff should remain in order for the sci-fi element to even begin to feel plausible. When writers mess around with the basics, I certainly turn off. I hate watching sci-fi and thinking "hey, you can't do that -- that just wouldn't work!!". For me, changing the gender of The Doctor is that thing which just wouldn't work.
That assumes he at least know what letters are in the word... Which, it appears, he doesn't!
Not that TV or movies have ever been more beneficial to society than damaging, but the direction has been DOWNWARD for decades and one can only guess at what point it will degrade into "Ow My Balls!" (not that it hasn't already come close with a few shows already.)
The BBC needs to fix some the Americanization influence harming their programming and be less commercially influenced as well. If Dr. Who was in the USA, they'd have ruined the show within a few seasons; not capable of going even 1/3 as long. Ratings down? put in more sex. Watch next week when the Doctor installs Windows XP and saves the world! (sponsored by Microsoft.) Doctor gets a new sonic screw driver .. the iSonic... made out of an iPhone (sponsored by Apple.)
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
The comments on this story are absolutely revolting. This is supposed to be a community of intellectuals, and what we get is a heap of knee-jerk, xenophobic reactions under the guise of reasonableness vs. some political correctness boogyman. If you believe that the article is saying that having a white-male Doctor is unfair, then I really think it is worth it to take another look.
That the article is whining and complaining is a strawman . Look at what the author says:
-"Mr. Capaldi is a capable actor, and come his debut, I’ll be right there with my teenage boys, drinking Mountain Dew and cheering him on."
-"As the producers think about whom they want to take on the role next, they should keep in mind the way people’s hopes are lifted when they see someone breaking the glass ceiling, even when it’s for something as seemingly trivial as a hero on a science-fiction program."
This isn't a zealot's rant against an exaggerated oppression. This is someone saying they think a female doctor would be cool - and pointing out that it would mean a lot to a lot of people. The Doctor isn't male, so really, what's the big deal?
He used the word "is" twice in the post.
Only failed to spell it correctly once.
50%
Why is it so hard to only have politicians for a few years, then have them go away?
One of the strengths of the 21st century reboot has been the consistently good fit of actors to the role. If the franchise did decide it was time for the Doctor to be performed by an actress...who would be the best candidates for the part?
When you know that a character is going to spawn a duplicate who is an evil white guy, you do not make that character anyone other than a white guy. To do so is to invite the sort of brouhaha that serves no purpose and leaves everyone angry.
Once the Valeyard is out of the way, sure. Could have been done before now, too, with basically any incarnation other than the 12th. But this was very uniquely not the time to do that sort of thing.
The only other thing is that such a step should not be mere tokenism: they should do something interesting with the change, rather than having The Doctor not be a white guy just for the sake of having The Doctor not be a white guy. There are plenty of opportunities to do something interesting with this kind of change, going in any of hundreds of different directions. Most of the arguments I've seen for a female or minority Doctor smack of exactly this sort of tokenism -they just want The Doctor to look like them- and that's not a good reason to make creative decisions. Do something creative.
... is part of the fun. Who wants a Doctor who stops and asks people for directions?
If at first you don't succeed, so much for skydiving.
Forced gender change is debasement, mutilation, and torture of the highest degree.
Dr is an abbreviation for Doctor...relax.
If you ignore ACs because they are anonymous - you're an idiot.
Imagine living as a male for 1200 years, and suddenly you are a woman. That would cause... issues...
Nothing wrong with women of course, but the doctor is male. End of story. Why do we have to extend this PC crap to everything in life?
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Either or both could be anomolous, I think the data set is undersampled.
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
After Matt Smith's regenerative comment about having "two legs," I wonder if the Doctor shouldn't come back as a dog, or some mythical CGI centaur type thing. Why limit ourselves to humanity? Where is your imagination?
Oh, right. For the same reason Peter Capaldi is chosen as the next Doctor. The novelty of any such change wears off too quickly, and then you're stuck with a world of fan expectations and a never-ending cycle of ridiculous fan service. Better to keep the formula locked away in a vault, even if it isn't such a secret any longer, eh?
I heartily support Moffat's decision to keep it simple.
Joanna Lumley played the 13th Doctor in "Doctor Who and the Curse of the Fatal Death" back in 1999. Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctor_Who_and_the_Curse_of_Fatal_Death
If a balance of genders is ever achieved, people will simply stop caring but that's clearly not the case.
Men's rights activists are working on this as you speak.
"we are all atheists about most of the gods that societies have ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further."
If you're going to regenerate Doctor Who to the female variety, how about keeping some nice female companions around? Now that WOULD be interesting, and politically correct to the vilest degree.
Be More, Be Manly, The Manly Geek Ubergeek Extraordinaire Blogger: www.manlygeek.com/blog Podcaster: podcast.man
The name of the main character in the series "Doctor Who" is neither "Who" nor "Doctor Who". That character is referred to as "the Doctor". Calling him "Doctor Who" is like saying that Darth Vader is a Jedi or that Picard was captain of NCC-1701-C. The name of the Doctor is not known but to a few within that universe, and calling him "Doctor Who" simply reveals lack of research on the topic at hand. Please see http://tardis.wikia.com/wiki/The_Doctor
No, it shouldn't. It's a male character, what's wrong with that?
There's a line where a quest for equality becomes a quest for dominance. Many feminists have already crossed it, and this is another example of genderism taken too far.
There are some Hollywood movies where all the cast is male except for the hot girl that the main character gets to fuck halfway through the movie. That's a justified complaint for gender-based discrimination.
On Doctor Who, there are plenty of women and in core roles, too. The Doctor's companions, River Song, about half the adversaries, plenty of minor characters. On many episodes, the female main characters get more screen time then the Doctor himself. Complaining about "equal opportunity" in Doctor Who is batshit crazy.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
I watched a few episodes in the late '70s. They were supremely boring and had dreadful special effects. (Even when compared to other British sci-fi of the era, such as Space: 1999.) Has the show improved since then?
That that is is that that that that is not is not.
Starring Barbara Benedetti as the Doctor. Quite good she was, too!
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xnc46g_doctor-who-the-wrath-of-eukor_shortfilms
If the BBC truly wanted to do something different, they'd make the next Doctor Who a Dalek.
Well, a lot of the men in England are queens....
In that list, name just one, please. As for Empire, haven't you ever wondered why Elstree Studios is in the credits? IT WAS SHOT THERE.
46. The Hobo smiles, his eyes glaze over, and he burps. "Beware the man who has lived longer than the Wasteland."
What? Are you saying that the Britain she inherited from James Callaghan was somehow a paradise? It was a MESS, as was the US when Reagan took the reins from Carter! Her economic reforms are the reason why today Britain's economy doesn't look like Italy's!
46. The Hobo smiles, his eyes glaze over, and he burps. "Beware the man who has lived longer than the Wasteland."
...until you change the batteries in your sarcasm detector.
PHEM - party like it's 1997-2003!
ABSOLUTELY NOT!
There are 2 groups of people you can make fun of on the Internet without fear of attack. The illiterate, and the Amish.
Witness River Song.. Being "The Doctor" certainly doesn't pull more weight than being his equal., and I think River demonstrated being his equal, amply already. or is equality *not* enough? In the real world it takes nothing less than an operation to change sexes.. No less here. Certainly a time lord can be a woman, just not *this* time lord. He was born a man, so he be stook wit it, mon... Or, is it "equality" for the "actresses", instead of characters, we're referring to? It's setting a bad precedent to ater the basic foundation of a well established fictional universe to satisfy the demands of the actor's wishes. There's plenty of fine leading roles for women in Sci-fi.. in fact they have at least parity, andf possibly precedence over male leading characters. The only "switch" i could ever see occuring, would be a regeneration screwup, for perhaps "the master", as a glitch in artificial regeneration.. which he continually uses as he ran out of natural regens some time ago...
There's a social obligation to represent everybody.
There was a The Kids In The Hall episode where the art teacher caught hell for using a beautiful white woman as a nude model. Exasperated, he said :
"But it's hard to find a fat, black cripple dyke on short notice"...
Alex Kingston would make an awesome Doctor.
Why does everything that has traditionally been done a certain way (and successfully) have to automatically be subject to the whims of those who want to do it another way, "just to see what would happen"? The Doctor has traditionally been Male. And people have been just fine with that. What are the motivations to make The Doctor female? There are none, save for one: because we live in an age where certain types of people cannot just let something be what it is or let those who enjoy something just enjoy it as they like it.
I, for one, am against making The Doctor a woman if just for the reason that it won't stop there. Already I heard on BBC radio someone suggesting that The Doctor could be a Transgendered Lesbian if they wanted. And that's the problem: I don't want The Doctor's sexuality to become part of the show. If you make The Doctor a woman, then Doctor Who will have reached it's "Moonlighting" moment. And then every group will want their own version of The Doctor and the show will be less about the adventures of the Last Galifreyan and all about, "Oooo, will we have an Asian Female this time around? What about an African Homosexual?"
Leave The Doctor's gender alone and concentrate on writing great stories.
Besides, "Madman with a box" sounds a lot better than "Crazy lady with a box".
While there aren't enough respectable female characters in lead roles, unfortunately a female Doctor would just be made into a joke. It would be viewed as a pointless gimmick which would only hurt the modern feminist cause, which is more or less to be respected as something other than sexual objects. Get a companion other than a petite hot chick.
'Genderism' is going too far when women are mocked for wanting to be and see more females in positions that are not normally available to them. No one cares what color The Doctor's hair is, so why should we care what skin color, age, or gender "he" is? Gender based discrimination is the fact that the roles women receive are hardly ever lead heroes and are pretty much always sexualized.
A change in appearance and personality leaves open the possibility of a female Doctor. Nothing suggests that he's unable to change sexes, and gender streaks happen.
http://www.times-standard.com/ci_23828455/all-boys-club-couple-welcomes-12th-son
A female doctor? Everyone knows women aren't doctors. Oh!, wait....never mind!
My karma is bad. Don't get too close!!!
parroting tired old saws about women needing protection
Women need respect; respect that they are not getting. They want to be something other than a supporting character or sex object. Women make up less than 30% of speaking roles, and of those, over 1/3rd are sexualized. The remaining 20% are typically hired based on physical attractiveness and are contractually required to maintain excessively low weights. Even Doctor Who has started running the Hollywood course of prodominately casting petite, young, and attractive females, while The Doctors more closely resemble the average man. http://www.dailylife.com.au/news-and-views/dl-opinion/why-women-arent-essential-characters-in-movies-20120924-26ged.html
Modern feminists are not the bra-burning man-haters that they are portrayed as. They want an end to the objectification of women. They want natural beauty to be the norm. They want sci-fi that they can relate to. They want to be the protectors.
Huh. I didn't think the writing for the first episode was very good (still waiting for the season to come out on Netflix to evaluate the rest). But I thought casting Lucy Liu as Watson was brilliant, and I am looking forward to seeing if they made it work. Angela Lansbury didn't, IIRC, regenerate, so casting a male in that role would be different, although not necessarily weird.
Time travel plays hell with periods. If she gets pregnant she might have to give birth to an adult.
Heavy is the head that wears the tinfoil hat.