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Doctor Who's 13th Time Lord Announced: Actress Jodie Whittaker (bbc.co.uk)
Peter Capaldi, the 12th Doctor Who, had said that he wanted to see a woman replace him in the Tardis, and so did former Doctor Who stars Billie Piper and Karen Gillan. And today it's official: "the 13th incarnation of Doctor Who will be portrayed by an actress," writes Slashdot reader Coisiche -- specifically Jodie Whittaker, who American viewers may remember from her performance as CIA officer Sandra Grimes in the 2014 mini-series "The Assets." The BBC reports:
She was revealed in a trailer that was broadcast on BBC One at the end of the Wimbledon men's singles final... She will make her debut on the sci-fi show when the Doctor regenerates in the Christmas Day show... Whittaker said: "I'm beyond excited to begin this epic journey...with every Whovian on this planet. It's more than an honour to play the Doctor. It means remembering everyone I used to be, while stepping forward to embrace everything the Doctor stands for: hope... Doctor Who represents everything that's exciting about change."
Doctor Who's new showrunner said the 13th Doctor was always going to be a woman -- and that Whittaker was their first choice. "Jodie is an in-demand, funny, inspiring, super-smart force of nature and will bring loads of wit, strength and warmth to the role." Doctor Who #12 added that Whittaker "has above all the huge heart to play this most special part. She's going to be a fantastic Doctor." And Will Howells, who writes for the Doctor Who magazine, said "I don't think it's a risky choice at all but if a show that can go anywhere and do anything can't take risks, what can?"
Doctor Who's new showrunner said the 13th Doctor was always going to be a woman -- and that Whittaker was their first choice. "Jodie is an in-demand, funny, inspiring, super-smart force of nature and will bring loads of wit, strength and warmth to the role." Doctor Who #12 added that Whittaker "has above all the huge heart to play this most special part. She's going to be a fantastic Doctor." And Will Howells, who writes for the Doctor Who magazine, said "I don't think it's a risky choice at all but if a show that can go anywhere and do anything can't take risks, what can?"
When do we get new episodes? Why isn't there a daily episode? MORE MORE MORE!!!!
Well she's a fine actress, an inspired choice. We can only wait to see what she does with it
It's as if millions of fanboys suddenly cried out in butthurt and were suddenly silenced.
I am excited about this! They needed to do something new and fresh. This should work well and Jodie is a fantastic choice.
My only complaint about Doctor Who (all BBC shows actually) is they don't make enough episodes per season.
Mike @ The Geek Pub. Let's Make Stuff!
yeah i thought so
FIRST!
and you can't have a female Dr. Who. This is another example of PC bullshit taken too far.
I see they've taken the easy choice and cast the Doctor as yet another human. Was hoping for a chihuahua this time.
No no NOOO!! It was MY turn!
Every Whovian has seen the BBC Rowan Atkinson comedy short, so it has been done.
But while it had to happen eventually and in a fun natural way I dislike that it feels like they waited so long it seems to be under pressure now. As though it is 'their' turn which spins it dissapointingly unfeminist unless the Doctor must be female for 50 years now.
I hope they do a good job with it, but how do you beat the well set up story of #11, Amy Pond, River Song, and Rory?
My only complaint about Doctor Who (all BBC shows actually) is they don't make enough episodes per season.
Because, unlike Americans, they know it will turn to shit if they make too many.
destroy another good show.
Awesome choice, but can we replace the whole cast. The Doctor, Peter Capaldi is alright, not great but just alright. But the rest of the cast with him are horrible. Very bad actors and just don't work for the parts. I truly miss Jenna Coleman, fantastic actress and perfect for the part.
I don't know what you're talking about I enjoyed Doctor Who with Matt Smith, David Tennant and Christopher Eccleston. The only Doctor I didn't like was the more recent Peter Capaldi, I didn't enjoy a single second of watching him, though I did kept watching in hopes he'd either die or they'd come to their sense and recast him, sadly no one seemed to want to get rid of him and must not have realized just how much he ruined the role since the only reason he is leaving was by his own choice.
I'm going to go out on a limb here and predict that the new companion will be a Young, male, gay, Muslim.
Mark my words.........
Notice how within the mere announcement of a female Doctor Who, the people doing the announcing have pushed a gender issue narrative.
This isnt in response to anything public. The public didnt know yet. The announcement is telling us that the producers are insisting that there be this "controversy."
"His name was James Damore."
Once every male hero has become a woman we'll finally have equality.
Wanting fresher content AND a higher quantity of episodes is mutually exclusive...
Because it is the BBC not Hollywood. And after these people become Stars on BBC, they get hired away by Hollywood, thus hard for them to get back.
Just look at Benedict Cumberbatch.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
My only complaint about Doctor Who (all BBC shows actually) is they don't make enough episodes per season.
If you think they don't make enough, then they're making just the right amount.
Always leave the audience wanting more.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
I know, they don't have to screw this up. But this seems like a cheap gimmick. I'm not familar with the actress. Does she have a body of work that would lend itself well to playing a Doctor? On the plus side I don't expect them to try and go all action hero-y with her. I always hated it when the Doctor got violent.
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I'm a gay man who hates seeing gay characters hammered in to a show just so they have a gay character -- Sulu in the last Star Trek movie being an obvious case in point.
So I'm not sure about changing the Doctor to a woman just because the BBC need more diversity. To me, the Doctor is a male character, and I think should remain so. It's seems like feminism going to far (again?). (Jodie even said herself that she is a feminist).
With Missy, they introduced the idea of a male Time Lord regenerating as a woman, so it's been obvious for some time that this was coming. I'm just not sure I like it.
It happened to Thor too, so.I'm guess James Bond will be next.... Sigh.
I've nothing against woman and strong lead woman characters, it's just changing something because it's the "in thing" or because they feel they have to that does my head in. Like, should Wonder Woman become Wonder Man? Should Aunt Beru become Uncle Stew in the next version of A New Hope just so Star Wars can have a gay parent couple?
We'll see once we see her as the Doctor. I may change my mind. But for now, I'm not sure...
I've stopped watching the show because Moffat killed the ideals of the Doctor anyway but I'm tired of people trying to reimagine heroes as someone new (a woman, black, Muslim, etc). I know Hollywood is pretty much brain dead for new ideas, hence the endless reboots, but the solution for having your hero not being what you want isn't to change them but to create new ones. Or did the people 50 years ago use up all of the imagination?
The Doctor was never about his gender, so switching it up shouldn't be cause for alarm.
However, as another poster mentioned, let's just hope this doesn't result in the writers going on a full "Patriarchy" writing binge, where the Doctor saves women from the evils of men in every episode.
There's so much potential for fun with the gender switch, I just hope they exploit that instead of going all "WOMENZ RULEZ THE WORLDSS!@!!!!1".
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
The only Doctor I didn't like was the more recent Peter Capaldi, I didn't enjoy a single second of watching him
I tend to agree. I think they were trying to make him a throw back to the original character, but it never worked out. He is a good actor so I suspect they just never got the story quite worked out that well.
It could also be that there was no real overarching story like Tennent (Bad Wolf) and Smith (the crack) had to help tie things together. The best Peter had was Missy, but that didn't really tie anything together and the episodes just felt like disconnected adventures with no greater meaning.
So I too am glad for X-Mas to come so we can put the unfortunate 12th Dr behind us.
Yes, it's true all the previous Doctors have been male.
But if they were striving for true equality, they wouldn't simply commit to having a female Doctor. They would say, "we're going to pick the best person for the role... whether they are male or female is irrelevant."
How is she the 13th Doctor? She should be the 14th. Capaldi was 13th.
I second the motion
I'll give you 5 bucks for it. I would use my low UID to amaze my friends.
I have lost interest in the doctor years ago as it started to morph into UK's superhero / mythology show. Harry Potter seems to have contributed to the sonic screwdriver becoming more of a WAND as well.
I suppose they will have to compensate and will make it worse while they go over the top to shoe how PC they are?
They could simply stop having the assistants be helpless woman needing help -- maybe a man assistant who is extra helpless... and have nothing gay about two men... but sex change for the doctor? WTF? .
The 14th Time Lord needs to be a minority and in terms of gender the good doctor should be transsexual. He/she/it should have been born with male genitalia but should have transitioned to a femal without the desire to have surgery to change his (now her) penis to a vagina. He/she/it should be gay so even though he/she/it looks like a female (with a wang) he/she/it should be sexually attracted to men. Then we can change the name of the show from âoeDr. Whoâ to âoeDr. Gender Nonconformistâ
Really. Does anyone care? I had been a Whovian for nearly 40 years but stopped watching Dr. Who when the Doctor started having sex with anything the moved. Homosexuality is one thing but other creatures such as lizards and such is just plain sick
Dr. Who performs a beastiality act will probably the premier episode for a lesbian doctor.
A GINGER!
John
Getting a low UID is certainly one use for a TARDIS.
Is River Song coming back too? Should be interesting.
...And I'll call this one for the record: next will be a minority, the following one will be transgender.
There will never again be a white, male Dr Who.
-Styopa
to crazy lady in a box - will she now keep cats?
Dude just bought if for $500! Damned if he's gonna let it go for under that.
The real reason is that British TV shows tend to be written by the show creators, a relatively small team. In the US the creators outline the plot and characters, but most of the episodes are written by others. Lots of others in fact, and different groups for each episode.
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SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
I just hope Dr. Who treats her as an actual Doctor, not just use her to virtue-signal for SJW cred.
I hope so too but given that the last series contained a two-dimensional companion whose only known character feature was that she was a lesbian which came up multiple times (in contrast to most other companions where their sexuality was not known) it seems very unlikely that the writers are going to be capable of this.
So in the Dr. Who Universe, this particular Gallifreyan regenerates 12 times into a male. But poof! Number 13 is a woman! Kind of stretches the suspension of disbelief a bit. If viewed through the lens that any Gallifreyan can regenerate into either a male or female, then why only one out of 13 for this particular Gallifreyan? Does the lack of "diversity" in regenerations indicate that Gallifreyan DNA favors males?
Back in the real world, many will view this as preachy SJW fodder, and the show will now always have that hanging over it. I refused to watch the last season because of their introduction of a homosexual companion, which I feared would be nothing more than SJW virtue signalling. Reading over the comments here, apparently that's exactly what happened.
Now that they've had their "token" homosexual, the BBC now has to have their "token" woman take on the Doctor's mantle. What's next, a transgender Doctor?
Unfortunately, they appeared to reach the "too many" point about two seasons ago. I think we have now reached the Colin Baker era again. Time for a hiatus and reset.
The question on whether the Doctor is capable of regenerating into a woman has been one of those little mysteries about the character that has gone on for decades. He was originally male and every single time he regenerated he came back as another man. 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, war, 9, 10, meta-crisis (yes, it was sort of a cloning rather than a regular regeneration, but it still cost a life and was part Donna so it could have justifiably have gone either way), 11, 12 - that's 13 regenerations in a row, all men. It was confirmed in The Doctor's Wife it was confirmed that Time Lords can change sex when they regenerate, but at the same time it also confirmed that individual Time Lords can have a certain trait that persists through every regeneration, leaving open the possibility of the Doctor in particular being necessarily male. I suppose there's some appeal to having some long-standing mysteries about the Doctor, but in my opinion that one had more than enough of a run and needed to make way to allow the producers to pick whatever act(o)r(ess) they like best for the part.
I hope they have a bit of fun with the reveal, like the Doctor rushing to a mirror, staring wide-eyed at her reflection and saying something like: "I can't believe it. I'm... STILL not ginger? Come on!"
What would be risky about it? Yes. The doctor has always been male, it takes awhile for a new doctor to feel like the doctor and that is challenging enough with another male. Since the reason is undoubtedly the same as the implication behind whether or not it is risky, sexist feminist extremists pretending anyone else CARES about the junk of the person stepping into most any role or position as an excuse to make sure men can't face an even shot at important and public positions, it is certainly annonying, but hardly risky.
Getting a low UID is certainly one use for a TARDIS.
I would do this first before going back in time to kill Thomas Edison.
That's what this is : incapable of creating interesting female characters in SF, they need to steal male ones :-)
True, but Star Trek has a far better format to deal with and present social issues than Doctor Who does. It has humans struggling to grasp and then deal with similar issues to those we face today but in a completely different setting so that we can look at it with a fresh perspective. Some of the best episodes had morally ambiguous endings where nobody was quite sure that they had done the right thing.
Doctor Who, on the other hand, is a lighthearted, action-packed jaunt with a kindly alien. There is far less scope to really present and explore social issues and there is very little moral ambiguity. The focus of the show has always been on entertainment and not pushing a social agenda. The most recent gender change on the show - Master to Missy - was a complete flop. Missy was about as scary as a strict school teacher and the recent openly gay companion was so two dimensional it was laughable - about the only thing we knew about her character was that she was a lesbian which kept coming up again and again and again foro no reason that to push a social agenda.
Star Trek could make you re-evaluate your position on a social issue. All Doctor Who's treatment will do is entrench the people you want to reach further by pissing them off that their favourite show has been sacrificed to "political correctness gone mad". Save the SJW stuff for shows like Star Trek, let Doctor Who be a bit of non-controversial fun.
Well they seem to be also repainting the police box color to pink, so what do you think will happen?
They could even rename the show "Nurse Who".
This show has been going downhill for sometime, no surprise that they are trying a female doctor now. I mean it worked so well for the Ghostbusters reboot, surely it will be a smashing success for Dr. Who. I have my serious doubts that any actor, male or female could rescue this show.
Can she jump high enough over the Shark to avoid getting hurt...
5 out of 6 people enjoy Russian Roulette & 6 out of 7 Dwarfs are not Happy
There will be a box like the TARDIS, but the show will take you in directions you've wished Dr. Who would take for 30 years now.
Next the BBC will do a series of Sharon Holmes then Jane Bond followed by Bitch Cassidy...
The one that made it feel like you werte being lectured by your mother every episode?
10 years from you will see "Where Are They Now" The Thirteenth Doctor Who.
Moffat did a good job of turning the show to shit during Series 6 and 7 and the fiftieth-anniversary specials.
And wouldn't you know it -- he's Scottish.
Keep your eyes to the sky.
Capaldi already sucked and I stopped watching. SJW and PC will kill the show for good. Good riddance.
This sucks. Why the fuck do they got to go and ruin a perfectly good thing? The doctor is a MAN and always has been. If they want a woman, they should have made a Doctor Who spinoff or something. Better yet, maybe they could try creating something entirely new and unrelated.
Nope, Doctor is an alien, not a man.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
The best thing about this is the whiny men complaining.
Time to grow a pair guys and join the 21st century.
XML is a known as a key material required to create SMD: Software of Mass Destruction
> Nope, Doctor is an alien, not a man.
A Time LORD, not a TIme Lady!
> Nope, Doctor is an alien, not a man.
A Time LORD, not a TIme Lady!
They've been called "Time Lords" thus far because their incarnations have all been men. The very fact that there is already a feminine equivalent to "lord" implies that there's nothing odd about there being a "Time Lady."
For your security, this post has been encrypted with ROT-13, twice.
>They've been called "Time Lords" thus far
>because their incarnations have all been
>men.
One word:
Missy!
What if they use their toilet plungers to rape the Doctor? Tjat would be awesome. Seeing a toilet plunger ripping up throug her uterus
I think OP means the show is pretty dumb.
Play Command HQ online
Given that the Master has already appeared as a part-female character, it's just a small step for the Doctor to go all the way... "they're not breasts, they're Dalek bumps!".
I thought it will be Dr Trump the science guy lol...
WHY is everyone ignoring John Hurt (RIP)? Capaldi was the 13th Doctor. They even mention it in The Day of The Doctor and show all 12 with Hurt standing there next to Matt Smith.
The Lady Doctor spends the entire time redecorating the Tardis interior. Second episode is blogging on Jezebel about male privilege.
Oh, you cheeky bastard! Mod this up!
With Capaldi, my interest in Doctor Who somehow plummeted. I can't even say why. I was a big, big fan of Christopher Eccleston and David Tennant. While Matt Smith was ok, I felt he was already a step down from Tennant, and I never warmed to Capaldi.
That's why I would've been outraged had they made The Doctor change gender at the 12th incarnation, but now it's just one more reason not to watch the show anymore.
Why? Because it's forced. It's an obvious deviation from the character development for no reason at all except submission to feminist outcry.
But hey, maybe the next Wonder Woman can be a man? It's not about gender, right? Of course it is about gender. We are human beings. Gender is one if not the first thing we notice about another human being, instinctively. There is nothing that is not about gender. Let's stop pretending that the sky is yellow and pigs fly. Doctor Who is a male character, and that is a part of who he is, just like him having two hearts. Gender is not some random biological detail that you can change like a hat. Any biologist can tell you that its effects on the body go beyond primary and secondary sex organs. Its effect on the mind are less clear, research is ongoing, but nobody with any knowledge on the matter would claim that there are none.
To change the gender of the character is to make him another character. And that's total bullshit in a series named after its character. They could've made a spin-off with a female doctor, a different character, and that would've been completely fine. I probably would've watched it. Or a spin-off based on River Song or Idris or even on Missy.
But hey, let's wait for the Wonder Woman movie starring Orlando Bloom and we'll see what all the people now shouting me down with "gender doesn't matter" will say then. :-)
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
British TV shows tend to be written by the show creators, a relatively small team
I should add that roughly half of Doctor Who episodes are written by “guest writers”, but Doctor Who is not a typical British TV example.
OK, he's a wer.
Ezekiel 23:20
Time to grow a pair guys and join the 21st century.
Wow. What a Sexist thing to say...
to the next date with River Song :D
I don't mind a woman doctor as long as it doesn't become a queer-fest like Torchwood
Another for you: Romana
Too bad they weren't able to get Pamela Anderson for the role; scheduling conflicts. She's be playing the lead role in the re-imagination of the Blade movies (all 3 of them, and maybe a fourth).
When the copyright term is "forever minus a day", live every day like it's the last.
Romana would tend to disprove that assertion.
All this crap is just stuff made up by writers and you guys argue like this crap is real life. No wonder the real world ridicules nerds.
The UK is 92% white. LGBT folks make up between 2-10% of any population. These are facts.
I watch for entertainment, not to have some loudmouth with a cause wrapped up in a false narrative force their views at me. The only narrative I'm interested in having presented is the plot.
Capaldi got got screwed by the writers. This last season was much better than the one before, but they REALLY need to step it up.
The issue is quite simple, the writers are incapable of a writing an original female lead character. They have to appropriate an established character.
Case in point, the master. In an incredible WTF moment, the writers decide to do a gender bender and make the Master a female and give the character the ridiculousness name Missy - can't call a female character Master eh boys...given the fact that the Master character was basically written off in the End of Time episode, the writers having incredible writers block decided to bring back the Master with a gender change. Why? To have a female lead? To have a female counter part to the Dr? There's just one problem.
THEY ALREADY HAD A FUCKING FEMALE LEAD CHARACTER, A TIME LORD WHO WAS A COUNTERPART TO THE DR! THE RANI !!!!
The Rani appeared in The Mark of The Rani (third serial of the 22nd season ). A character with more depth than the Master. But the brain dead writers couldn't think of using an established female lead character. Good creative writing would have tapped into this vain. But no, somehow gender bending is more creative.
When you have Thor as a woman and Starbuck as a woman and endless shows that have dealt with characters switching sexes and the ramifications, DW is just another program doing what has already been done. Boring.
Here's a thought, kill off the Dr. and continue the show with a different character. You know his daughter Jenny (Series 4 Ep 7), she's a time lord. But that would be too creative and risky right...
Not sure I'll even watch it now. It's been in a downhill slide for the past few years since it became 'hip' and mainstream.
Now they're pulling politically correct strings to ruin it.
I would have loved to see a show spin off based from the Doctor's Daughter. Perfect tangent right there.
But this? No. I'm sorry. I won't be part of some politically correct crap just to do it for doing sake. It's no longer about the story then.
Big Bang Theory and Dr. Who are the biggest offenders in the pop culture bastardization/appropriation of nerd culture
Oh wow, so you mean all of those "actors" were really space aliens?
Seriously kid, it's a TV show. Aliens aren't real.
Cue the misogynistic, micropenis wielding, death & rape threatening trolls to come out of the woodwork. Morons.
...would have been a much better choice with the whole Doctor/Donna link. There is always a way to write a way out of the "if she remembers she'll be irrevocably damaged" nonsense. Moff could have done it. After all, people died and came back on his watch all the time.
Tate has the frenetic energy that we've come to associate with the Doctor ever since Patrick Troughton's tenure, and she's well loved by most fans. It would have been fun to see another show runner's take on her.
Donkeys aren't monkeys! Stop messin with me!!
Moffat did a good job of turning the show to shit during Series 6 and 7 and the fiftieth-anniversary specials.
I thought series 6 was brilliant. I agree with you on 7 though. The writing went to crap, and it was clear at that point that he could not do both Sherlock and Who without one of them suffering. Series 10 was even worse than 7 in my humble opinion. The writing was awful; the stories were rushed, poorly explained, and uninteresting. The layer of political correctness slathered onto this dog's dinner of a season was just plain unappetizing. I expected much better from Moffett. We've seen much more cunning, clue-strewn story arcs from him during his tenure. This season was in no way up to scratch.
I don't care who the new doctor is, we need a new writer. Moffat is killing the show with his sloppy plots and almost-ignorant silly pop culture references. Once in a while he has a gem, but most of it is junk.
A really talented writer who doesn't make the sonic screwdriver the deus ex machina to every plot, combined with a talented doctor actor will revitalize the show.
He just did another season of Sherlock.
I used to like Doctor Who. But now it seem's to be the BBC's way of pushing a gay, genderless agenda on young people. It's like the LGBT+3.1415926 people have taken over and are using it to push their own ends.
Might as well destroy another British institution while we are at it!
Can't we just pretend Eccleston never happened? Please! His playing "Wallace" to Billy Pipers "Gromit" is a memory no one needs.
The Doctor and The Master can braid each other's hair and have pillow fights across the cosmos, and he can now nag his adversaries into submission.
(And don't ask about the cyberman in the closet that always needs to batteries)
And yet, somehow, they manage to put out a lot of mediocre episodes anyway, speckled with some really shit ones and an occasional really good one.
In the episode where the Dr. bashes his way through the diamond prison over millions of years, the Chancellor get killed and then regenerates as a woman, and quips about how "oh, I'm a woman again!" (that is also where the Dr. is granted unlimited regenerations for saving Gallifrey from destruction.)
So, this is hard-core cannon in the Dr. WHO universes. Time-Lords can (and do) swap genders during regenerations.
I for one will give it a chance. It might be great, or it might be the second-coming of the 6th Doctor (shudder, the less said about that the better.)
The actress is DEFINITELY talented and experienced enough to pull it off, it all depends on the WRITING! (as always.)
After 50 years of character development as a man, would fans accept it? I doubt it.
Nice way of killing off the franchise...
I stopped watching Doctor Who halfway through Matt Smith's tenure and I could not recall a single Tennant episode except from the Weeping Angels one. The writing was terrible and the pacing worse. And yet I liked Smith because he was able to go from manic to sad and back in the blink of an eye, but the writers could not make use of him. Never saw Capaldi's Doctor. I wonder why we should have Doctor Who in the 21st century for that matter. SF as a genre is stagnating anyway as more and more people become aware that no, we will not reach the stars and no, things will not get better. The future once held promise, excitement and even dread, but now it's only the boredom of decay. We don't need the Doctor anymore and have not needed him/her/it for a long time. If this is to be the final nail in the coffin, it's welcome.
There is no such thing as nerd "culture". And if there were, it would be rape culture.
that sounds much more exciting
This will have no effect on the already abysmal quality of the last few seasons.
(I still puke a bit when I think about the robots of Sherwood).
They could have made him any size, any colour of hair, eye and skin. They could have made him a dog. Sex change is where I draw the line.
They already tested the waters when they corrupted the Master.
One could imagine a convoluted explanation about his mental case.
(Sex change relates to mental illness and often leads to depression and suicide, as far as humans are concerned of course).
As far as I'm concerned, there will be no drop in the ratings : I've stopped watching this incoherent plot ridden show a while ago.
Because it is the BBC not Hollywood.
No they're not, they literally have to do nothing to get their money and fill most of their airtime with pensioners going to car boot sales.
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I have no basic problem with the Doctor being female; it was always on the cards, and I personally don't even care if it's canon or not; it's a TV show, for goodness sake, and if it's fun to watch, I'll watch it. If I have DO any concern with it, it's that I wait with some trepidation to see what sort of Doctor, Jodie Whittaker is actually allowed to be by the writers/director(s) (will she always, not to put too fine a point on it, be a female Doctor - which would be disastrous - or can everyone forget that she's a woman and let her become, simply, The Doctor?). I also. more to the point, wait to see whether a female lead actually WORKS within the format (it could; it probably ought to; but it's possible that it simply won't gel). Either way - I certainly think one of the biggest mistakes the team could make, would be to keep rubbing our faces in the fact that Whittaker is a woman, in the way that, as others have said, they kept so clumsily reminding us that Bill was gay. (Yes, we got that, way back in her first episode. Very PC of you, have a sweetie. But frankly it added precisely zilch to the story lines or to her character; it felt like it was basically only there so that the team could feel smug about it. Yawn, nothing to see here, move on.)
Oh, and on the evidence, I'd say the money is probably odds-on for an "ethnic" casting of some sort for her successor, too. My only surprise is that they didn't go for that this time as well as a woman, and kill two birds (so to speak) with one stone.