"and we had a female prime minister in 1979"
And on the subject of John Simm, gender and (potential) time travel - there's a Gene Hunt quote for that!
The timelord of Doctor Who, a man since 1963, will be portrayed by a woman – actress Jodie Whittaker – for the first time. Peter Capaldi, Doctor number 12, will regenerate after four years in the BBC's Christmas 2017 special to take on his new, female form. We last saw Capaldi's Doctor fighting his regeneration in Series 10, …
Past doctors have been tall by the standards of leading men (cf T. Cruise Esq. and similar midgets), so we might have expected a tallish woman for the part. JW is only average at a non-metric 5'5", which is going to make setting up face-to-face confrontations with villains a whole new ballgame, as we say here.
This may bring back platform boots!
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Lets face it, if the doctor had never married Riversong and had a kid, or indeed started coupling up at all, this would be throughly normal. But since the Doctor has already done so, now there's a bit of a mess.
There's plenty of SJW possibilities: Riversong could be pissed off she's made into a lesbian without consent, or could embrace it and have her own sex change. But then she might be homophobic!
I suspect the more this crap goes on, the fewer people will watch, and then the next Doctor will have to exit a shower asking what he missed :-)
My only complaint is that she looks too BBC. Stand her between Laura Kuenssberg and Emily Maitlis and spot the odd one out. That and every youtube video I've found of her has her acting far too restrained to be the doctor.
That said, she has enough time to fix that, I look forward to seeing her be anything but normal and restrained.
P.S. She's still playing a male timelord, just temporarily in a female body. Same way the general was always female.
You mean she looks like a Redgrave or a Richardson. Not to disparage her, but if you wanted a Redgrave or a Richardson and you couldn't get one, you might wind up with the first actor who looked like one. Perhaps those dynasties have had the effect of spawning a generation of lookalikes.
See Jemma Redgrave's turn as Kate Stewart, and indeed the spin-off portrayal.
I kind-of meant she looks like her stylist is the BBC wardrobe department.
No, I wouldn't accept Kate Stewart as the Doctor, but then I wouldn't have accepted Nicholas Courtney playing one either.
Hopefully she'll make the break from her current professional persona and turn into something awesome. It's got to be stressful but on the plus side the more improbable you are the more it works.
So please, Jodie, be awesome. And writers, don't you dare let her down, you thunderfish!
It always bugs me that certain "fans" accuse the BBC of doing this to further some kind of "lefty PC agenda", while being completely ignorant of how casting in done for TV shows. The Beeb don't hover over Doctor Who like some nebulous Big Brother, pointing at Chibnall and intoning "Thou Shalt Cast a Female Doctor for Lo it is the next stage in the great LGBT Master Plan".
Chibnall has total control of who he auditions and who he casts. Yes he's admitted he's always wanted a female Doctor, because he like strong female roles, and wants to see what JW will do with it.
Oh and the other complaint is that he's picked her because she was in his show Broadchurch. Well, duh, yeah why not? He'll contact the agents of actors whose work he is familiar with and ask them to come in and audition. Same reason why RTD auditioned and cast Tennant, who he'd worked with on "Casanova". If Whittaker hadn't pleased him in the audition he wouldn't have cast her, simple as that. But apparently she aced it, so she's the 13th Doctor.
Sometimes (probably most times) there isn't a hidden agenda. There isn't a plot. Sometimes actors get the job because they're damn good at it.
Personally I've never look forward to a new series of Doctor Who this much since 2005.
I'm just wondering when the BBC bods will actually learn to count?
1 - Hartnell
2 - Troughton
3 - Pertwee
4 - T Baker
5 - Davidson
6 - C Baker
7 - McCoy
8 - McGann
9 - Hurt
10 - Ecclestone
11 - Tennant
12 - Smith
13 - Capaldi
14 - Whittaker
She's the 14th, not the 13th...?
Or are they trying to ignore either McGann or Hurt?
If your'e gong to complain about the numbering, please get it right.
10 - Ecclestone
11 - Tennant
12 - Tennant
13 - Smith
14 - Capaldi
15 - Whittaker
> She's the 14th, not the 13th...?
Tennant used up a regeneraton healing injuries, so appears twice.
The War Doctor wasn't given a number.
So she is the 15th regeneraton, but referred to as number 13.
Now where's my anorack?
She is the 15th incarnation (14th regeneration), but referred to as number 13.
The Five Doctors
First Doctor: Regeneration?
Fifth Doctor: Fourth.
First Doctor: Goodness me! So, there are five of me now!
I actually prefer leather coats to anoraks (AKA Atmospheric Density Jackets - The Web Planet).
"If we're going to be picky, didn't Tate effectively become a quasi-Doctor until it started to burn out her brain and she got wiped?"
Well, being picky, she gained some Time Lord power but didn't actually become The Doctor. As did Rose before her. You're probably being mis-led by Donnas comments about gaining the powers where she hysterically referred to herself as Dr Donna.
She was also in the truly wonderful Attack The Block. A very under-appreciated British sci-fi film. And the equally brilliant Venus alongside Peter O'Tool.
She's a terrific actor who's done a lot of different stuff. If the scripts are good then I fully expect her to do an excellent job. I'm really looking forward to seeing her in action.
And frankly, I'm just glad to finally see the back of Moffat. It's just a shame we only got one series of Bill and Nardol, they were great.
I dont watch it nor give a hoot about it (not that I have a problem with others enjoying it). But I have been very amused at the many news articles (as if TV is news but I dont understand reporting of XFactor or bake off either) proclaiming how wonderful it is to have a vagina as the lead to Dr Who.
I feel really sorry for the actress. I dont know if she was hired for her acting ability or because she has 2 humps on her chest but the reporting of her appointment does seem to reduce her to female bits. The start of this article running through her career was good but things like- "Finally, at least one of those boxes been ticked and we can move on." makes me cringe.
I get bothered when stupid ideas are floated like a gay bond or black spiderman etc only because it cheapens the role to PC bull. The rantings that WW was the first female heroine was quickly shot down with a list because people can and deserve to do things on their own merit. Shoehorning for PC sake is irritating and 'buying' viewers instead of earning them. I really hope for Jodie that is not what they are doing to her as it would be unfair to anyone. Best of luck to her.
I agree that gay Bond would be a bit daft, given how ingrained the character's sexuality is to the role. Similarly a wheelchair bound Captain America wouldn't work - that also doesn't go with the fundamental essence of the character. But what's wrong with the idea of a black Spiderman? Nothing fundamentally white about that character, it just happens to be the way the comics were originally drawn. If rebooting the franchise is OK at all, why couldn't it be a black science geek who gets a dose of radioactive spider venom this time around?
None of these gender or race issues applies in the case of Doctor Who. Due to the regeneration meme the Doctor could quite literally be played by anyone the show's creators want to hire for the role. The show runner just has to play it straight, not treat it as some kind of big novelty themselves.
The new Doctor is female - so what? Best of luck to her - I'm looking forward to seeing what she'll do with the role. If she's anything like as good as Michelle Gomez was as Missy then we're in for a treat.
It seems to me that there are two main/likely versions of a "black spiderman".
a) the original Peter Parker, but re/written as black
b) A black teen, who gets spiderman-like powers
I'm not much fussed either way, but I reckon that (a) would be more likely to irritate, and that (b) would actually give the (new) character, the powers, and the storyline a great deal of valuable freedom from the existing spiderman canon.
"b) A black teen, who gets spiderman-like powers"
Yes, I think you raise a good point. There's no need to mess with "history" to re-create long running characters as something different to what they are and/or have been for generations of kids growing up. Create new dynamic, heroic roles, be inventive instead re-booting the same stuff again and again. (although to be fair, many of the original TV and film incarnations of superheroes from Marvel and DC in the 60s, 70s and 80s were pretty crap even at the time. Original Captain America anyone?