Re: Hmm
"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?"
I think I heard somewhere about a new Thor, God of Thunder being a woman in a re-make.
Jodie Who-ttaker? The Doctor is in
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, …
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Monday 17th July 2017 16:59 GMT Bob Hoskins
This is the BBC making a quota
I've nothing against Jodie - a fine actress but Dr. Who is a guy. What next? Recasting Jane Austin's characters as transgender? If you want a time lady then being back Romana (who incidentally was briefly black - no issues there, in fact Idris Alba for James Bond) - this though feels forced. *
* I love women, am not scared of them etc etc.
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Monday 17th July 2017 17:02 GMT diodesign
Re: This is the BBC making a quota
Lol, time travel, aliens, the TARDIS, all this fantasy, but a woman is too far fetched? What are you afraid of?
There's no rule to say Dr.W has to be a bloke. If someone wants to try another gender for a JA character, why complain? I wouldn't. It's art. It's entertainment. The world is a fluid place. Try new things.
What are you afraid of?
C.
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Monday 17th July 2017 17:22 GMT Bob Hoskins
Re: This is the BBC making a quota
Again. Absolutely. It just doesn't seem necessary. I'm not sure - I'm a bit torn like the first time the Daleks could climb stairs. It really isn't some sexist woman hating thing, sure it's just fantasy - one day I'm hoping that the Dr will transform and he'll be Jackie Chan and he'll be kicking the be-jesus out of those cybermen and they'll be like "Crap! It's Dr. Jackie Who!". I'd pay my licence fee for that.
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Monday 17th July 2017 19:06 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Funding Dr Who
You can choose not to fund it. Simply get rid of your TV and cancel your TV license.
Simple really should you choose to do so.
Pity that you have to stop viewing some other excellet programmes that the BBC make at the same time.
compared to the TV in many countries of thr world, the BBC is a breath of fresh air due to the stupid ad breaks. I hate all forms of advertising and especially those in the middle of TV programmes. But that is just the grumpy old man in me coming out so I can safely be ignored and downvoted.
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Monday 17th July 2017 19:44 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Funding Dr Who
>BBC You can choose not to fund it. Simply get rid of your TV and cancel your TV license.points of view
Why should I get rid of my TV if I don't want to fund your choice of BBC, if you want the BBC you pay for it by subscription. It's like asking me to fund your round of drinks just because I happen to be in the same pub. I don't ask you to pay my Sky subscription so I can watch live test match cricket.
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Tuesday 18th July 2017 11:01 GMT Mooseman
Re: Funding Dr Who
"Why should I get rid of my TV if I don't want to fund your choice of BBC, if you want the BBC you pay for it by subscription. It's like asking me to fund your round of drinks just because I happen to be in the same pub. I don't ask you to pay my Sky subscription so I can watch live test match cricket."
Really? So you actually pay for all of us to watch the tv of our choice? that's remarkably selfless of you. Silly me, I was under the impression that you paid a relatively small amount annually of which a tiny fraction went to each show, pence probably. But now I know better.
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Tuesday 18th July 2017 04:51 GMT Triggerfish
Re: This is the BBC making a quota
Reading this thread and thinking of some of the comments about William Hartnell being a great doctor, time traveling grumpy old man, I can't help thinking there should be no problem with a woman playing could you imagine Maggie Smith or Judi Dench doing a Hartnell like doctor, they'd be awesome.
They need to do some work on the storylines though some of them have been pretty poor.
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Wednesday 19th July 2017 10:53 GMT dajames
Re: This is the BBC making a quota
... Idris Alba for James Bond
(I hope that was deliberate, "alba" meaning "white")
Idris Elba is a fine actor, and I think he'd make a splendid "00" agent, but he's not Bond. James Bond is a specific (albeit fictional) person who happens to be male and white, and there's no reason to cast him as anything else.
Doctor Who is different. The Doctor has always (Joanna Lumley and Lenny Henry notwithstanding) been played as a character who is male and white, but is an alien whose appearance occasionally changes, sometimes quite dramatically. There's no reason for the Doctor not to be played by someone who is non-male or non-white. There is nothing in the canon that says that this can't happen (and some things that suggest it can) -- only audience expectation.
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Monday 17th July 2017 17:18 GMT Anonymous Coward
Ground rules
OK, so you've cast a female actor as the Doctor. No problem, but let's just lay down a few ground rules:
1. You can make the regeneration episode partly about the character coming to terms with their new gender. After that it should be scripted as if the Doctor has always been female.
2. You get one brief exception to rule 1 if a character who previously knew the Doctor as male is reintroduced. It's only natural that such a character would comment, but don't make them dwell on it.
3. Give the new Doctor some decent scripts and storylines. I felt the outgoing 12th was seriously let down in this regard.
4. Give the new Doctor time to get into the role - if you make this just a temporary flirtation with femininity then it really will only have been a gender politics stunt.
5. Don't make the new Doctor some kind of sex symbol - this isn't (and shouldn't be) the point of the character at all. IMO 10 and 11 both went too far in this regard, so perhaps this rule has already been thrown under the bus.
6. Give the new Doctor some decent scripts and storylines.
Thank you, that is all.
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Monday 17th July 2017 19:54 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Ground rules
Rule 2 to be reserved for the exclusive use of the Brigadier, even if it means getting someone in to impersonate a much younger Nicholas Courtney, with something along the lines of "Oh well, it was bound to happen one day" before proceeding to completely overlook the change.
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Thursday 20th July 2017 16:29 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Ground rules
"Rule 2 to be reserved for the exclusive use of the Brigadier"
I was thinking more of Kate Lethbridge-Stewart, as her reappearance is rather more likely. But yes, they would both do very well at shrugging and carrying on as if nothing had happened - much as everyone else should be doing.
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Monday 17th July 2017 18:48 GMT Bruce Ordway
I'm probably more interested in knowing about the next batch of writers.
If the stories are good, who cares what gender or color?
I think part of the charm from the Tom Baker era is light fun, tongue in cheek.
The last few years it seemed to me like Dr Who would occasionally try a little too hard to make us feel or awaken our social conscious.
Not that I'm not opposed to stories that deliver a message. I just want to be entertained while they are at it.
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Monday 17th July 2017 19:21 GMT Kimo
It's not so much the Doctor..
...it's the writing and showrunners that I've thought needed replacing for a while. Capaldi has had a few really good moments (chained up with Robin Hood was a joy to watch) but has generally not had great stories to work with. The actors in the role have been pretty good in general, but some got better scripts than others. Jodie Whittaker has done well in both comedy and drama, and I have no doubt she can handle the role well, given a good script and story arc. I have not seen all of the most recent series, but I liked what I have seen of the companions. I was getting sick of every companion being the most important person ever with some universe-saving destiny. I want to see more low-stakes but fun episodes, not super serious melancholy fatalistic musing all the time.
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Monday 17th July 2017 19:56 GMT sisk
As I've been saying for years, I've no problem with a female Doctor provided she got the role for the right reasons. If Whittaker happens to be the best one for the job in a fair decision process, great. In that case she'll be a great Doctor and we've much to look forward to. If they went into the process set on a female Doctor for the sake of PC and that's the only reason they picked her then I've a problem with it. "This role needs to be a woman because it's always been a man" is an absolutely stupid reason to cast a female actor for the role. "This actress will be great in this role that's always been a man" is a great reason for a gender swap.
I suspect that 3 or 4 episodes into the next season we'll all be able to tell which has happened.
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Tuesday 18th July 2017 12:44 GMT rh587
As I've been saying for years, I've no problem with a female Doctor provided she got the role for the right reasons. If Whittaker happens to be the best one for the job in a fair decision process, great. In that case she'll be a great Doctor and we've much to look forward to. If they went into the process set on a female Doctor for the sake of PC and that's the only reason they picked her then I've a problem with it. "This role needs to be a woman because it's always been a man" is an absolutely stupid reason to cast a female actor for the role. "This actress will be great in this role that's always been a man" is a great reason for a gender swap.
A thousand times this.
They've been hinting at it for ages and setting precedent for cross-gender regenerations. It was just a matter of when. The important thing is that they've done it because they think the time is right for the Doctor to have a female incarnation for story purposes and not PR purposes. We all know cases in other shows where they've felt it necessary to shoe-horn in a gay character or cast an actor from an ethnic minority simply for quota purposes, and it's usually quite obvious when they do so - they script a gay kiss or something that serves no plot purpose other than to emphasise that the character is gay. Because reasons.
Sexuality/gender/race should go entirely unmentioned unless there is a plot-relevant reason to mention it. I don't expect to see references to "Yes, but now I'm a woman you see. Look, a woman. Aren't I modern? Feminism (or something)."
Get through the usual post-regen inspection (Eccleston's big ears, Whittaker sizing up her inflated chest), and then that's it. They're the Doctor, on with the adventure.
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Monday 17th July 2017 20:01 GMT Not also known as SC
Big Reset Switch
As long as the writers don't fall back on the Big Reset Switch then I don't care about the sex of the Doctor. I'm still annoyed about the way "The Doctor persuades the Master to stop, and the Paradox Machine is destroyed. Time snaps back, and the events of the last year are erased and the Toclafane disappear." (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last_of_the_Time_Lords) type resets occur and nothing that happens matters because there are never any lasting consequences.
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Monday 17th July 2017 21:12 GMT d3vy
I can imagine describing the series to someone...
>>Its about an alien.
OK
>>They travel in space
Awesome
>> They travel through time too
Brilliant!
>> When they die they just shape shift into new bodies
GREAT!!
>> They've got two hearts
Stop talking Im sold, I just want to watch it now!
>> Oh, and boobs.
WHAT?!?!? Theres no way Im watching that shite.
Im fairly sure its been hinted at that the Dr doesn't even need to regenerate into human form - I might have imagined that though.
I've said it before... I've put up with several series of Capalldi* Im hardly going to tune out because of this!
* I dont have anything against him, he was alright but not great.
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Tuesday 18th July 2017 15:05 GMT sisk
Re: Was the Dr ever male or female?
The Doctor has always been decidedly of the male gender and mostly - with the exception of a couple incarnations - of asexual orientation. It least he's always seemed completely uninterested in romantic/sexual entanglements. Which, if you've ever read the book that deals with Time Lord reproduction (I'm not certain of the title right at the moment. Lungbarrow maybe?), makes perfect sense. 8 and 10 seemed heterosexual, 11 seemed omnisexual (in the sense that he was totally oblivious to gender beyond using it as a method to assign pronouns) but didn't have much of a libido. 12 has hinted a couple times at a mild, cautious attraction to Missy, but he's unwilling to explore it for, I think, obvious reasons.Though that may just be me reading into scenes something that wasn't there. And I think it quite obvious, especially in the last couple episodes, that Missy was very attracted to him.
I think we can safely say that Time Lords do indeed have male and female genders.
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Tuesday 18th July 2017 08:06 GMT unwarranted triumphalism
Hardly shocking
Given that the intellectual horizons of science fiction fans generally extend no further than Gor and Star Trek, I'm not surprised at the hateful and bigoted reactions to Jodie's appointment as the new Doctor.
In the meantime, I shall continue to enjoy more worthwhile pursuits, such as working for a living and going outside.
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Tuesday 18th July 2017 08:16 GMT Charlie Clark
An attempt to be relevant
Nearly all the Doctors have been played by fine actors, each brining something to the role. Well, perhaps Silvester McCoy really was out of his depth or maybe it was having to work with Bonnie Langford? The problems have always been related to poor writing.
Jodie Whittaker is a fine actress and, unlike say James Bond, there's not a long particularly masculine in the role, so there shouldn't really be any problems. Still, it's going to take some excellent writing and production to overcome any prejudices or suspicion of tokenism that the decision was taken for PR as much as anything else.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
