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I honestly lost interest in Doctor Who in the middle of the Matt Smith era and maintain the opinion that it's sucked ever since then. (Except one or two episodes with Capaldi, who was a good doctor with mostly gak writing)
That being said, I despised the idea of Female Master and don't like the whole female doctor thing. To me it just feels too... tokenish. Like they're only doing it to appease all the feminist fans who cry out for a female doctor. I dunno, if she does a good job then fine, but it just feels too much like someone trying to fill a social agenda and appease feminists everywhere.
That's my input on the whole she-bang. Used to be a big fan of Tennant, but that's been about it for me.
I'm hopeful that this will work. I'm sure it will, excluding Capaldi I've been doubtful about the other doctors and in my opinion they've all worked fairly well. My fear is that this casting has been done for the publicity rather than because it was considered a good idea
Overlord Thraka wrote: I honestly lost interest in Doctor Who in the middle of the Matt Smith era and maintain the opinion that it's sucked ever since then. (Except one or two episodes with Capaldi, who was a good doctor with mostly gak writing)
That being said, I despised the idea of Female Master and don't like the whole female doctor thing. To me it just feels too... tokenish. Like they're only doing it to appease all the feminist fans who cry out for a female doctor. I dunno, if she does a good job then fine, but it just feels too much like someone trying to fill a social agenda and appease feminists everywhere.
That's my input on the whole she-bang. Used to be a big fan of Tennant, but that's been about it for me.
Tenant's era was for the most part bloody awful.
Not the actor, but the stories. The whole Rose thing wasn't The Doctor. It featured the worst ever take on Daleks, Cybermen and The Master. None were convincing threats.
Moffat has his flaws, sure, but nothing, nothing on RTD.
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She's a great actress, at least she was in broadchurch. My first reaction was she's too pretty and young the be the doctor. The doctor is attractive but in an unconventional way not super pretty like Jodie.
But on reflection I still think it's a great choice, it had to be different and a strange and oddly attractive female would be too much of a mimic of past male ones.
Its a shame this sort of thing cant be kept under wraps these days. If the BBC had not announced it themselves, some one would have leaked it. It would have been so cool to have the reveal in the first episode of the next series.
The sad thing is so are the other side of the aisle. If I have to read one more "yeah, OK, so it's a woman, but it's not a trans PoC woman so this show is still a tool of the patriarchy" hot take I might actually IRL scream.
She's a good actor and last time I checked you don't need a cock to be whimsical, so I'm happy, the reality is it's the writing that will make or break her as a Doctor so lets hope the new showrunner and the scripts they pick are solid, and that she gets a good companion.
"Your society's broken, so who should we blame? Should we blame the rich, powerful people who caused it? No, lets blame the people with no power and no money and those immigrants who don't even have the vote. Yea, it must be their fething fault." - Iain M Banks
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"The language of modern British politics is meant to sound benign. But words do not mean what they seem to mean. 'Reform' actually means 'cut' or 'end'. 'Flexibility' really means 'exploit'. 'Prudence' really means 'don't invest'. And 'efficient'? That means whatever you want it to mean, usually 'cut'. All really mean 'keep wages low for the masses, taxes low for the rich, profits high for the corporations, and accept the decline in public services and amenities this will cause'." - Robin McAlpine from Common Weal
Not familiar with her work (I think I've seen about 10minutes of Broadchurch), but she looks vaguely like a female David Tennant, so that works...
She's going to have to be bloody good to get over not just the usual 'new Doctor' hump but also the stigma of being the first female. Will be really interesting to see what they do with her.
"Your society's broken, so who should we blame? Should we blame the rich, powerful people who caused it? No, lets blame the people with no power and no money and those immigrants who don't even have the vote. Yea, it must be their fething fault." - Iain M Banks
-----
"The language of modern British politics is meant to sound benign. But words do not mean what they seem to mean. 'Reform' actually means 'cut' or 'end'. 'Flexibility' really means 'exploit'. 'Prudence' really means 'don't invest'. And 'efficient'? That means whatever you want it to mean, usually 'cut'. All really mean 'keep wages low for the masses, taxes low for the rich, profits high for the corporations, and accept the decline in public services and amenities this will cause'." - Robin McAlpine from Common Weal
Tamereth wrote:
I'm all for a strong female protagonist, but how about coming up with a new character instead of just making existing characters female.
Because then you lose the opportunity to explore what this character would bring to the table as a woman?
Or because if there is no intrinsic reason for the character to be a man, then what reason is there for them to not be a woman?
Or because we've explored a pretty wide range of different male archetypes in the last 50 years, and this is an opportunity to do something new?
Capaldi appealed to me because he channelled my favourite aspects of previous Doctors at different times.
Tom Baker's irreverence here, Troughton's clownishness there, and occasional glimpses of McCoy's manipulative streak.
Now, it's more of a blank slate. Previously The Doctor has (when not badly written....RTD) been avuncular in his approach. Will a female Doctor bring a more mothering feel to the relationship with companions?
Because it's the companions that lift the show. They're the lens through which we see The Doctor. When it's good, it's frankly superb (Ace, Perry in Caves of Androzani, Donna, Bill). When it's offkey (Mel, the absolutely god awful Clara) the show seriously suffers.
Capaldi for me was hamstrung by Clara, desperately trying to be the Doctor, and failing miserably. As I've said before, I don't know if it was the writing, the actress or the direction - possibly various combinations at different times, but she was a serious drag on the show. Mel likewise served no useful function other than to repeatedly get herself into scrapes and then scweam and scweam and scweam until my heads falls orf.
Rose? Bad writing gave us a bad Rose. Good writing improved it greatly. The whole love story thing just didn't work for me. But when she and The Doctor were written as equals, that relationship shone.
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As a massive fan of Capaldi, I've been really disappointed by his Doctor - though I think it's the stories that have been lacking rather than him. I'm all for a major change to freshen it up.
Bit sad I can't say the Doctor lives round the corner from me anymore, though.
I think the key thing will be consistency. For all the talk of a fresh start and a new dynamic, The Doctor still has to act and interact like The Doctor. As stated in the S10 finale, Time Lords exist beyond gender, and as such, the fact she's a woman now shouldn't come up in the script at all. The new Doctor's persona should be driven by what Whittaker can bring to the table as an actress, rather than as a woman.
Again, Missy is what they need to aim for; 90% of her lines would work just as well for Simm, and vice versa, I'm confident Gomez could pull off the script for Last of the Time Lords or End of Time more than adequately. The moment the script and tone start treating The Doctor differently because she's a woman, it'll struggle.
In any case, the next series will end up coming under so much scrutiny that the writing has to be absolutely stellar; if they can handle that then we're in for a great series, but if it's as patchy and inconsistent as, say, series 8, but with so much more attention being paid to it and more of a burden to be exceptional, it could be in serious trouble.
privateer4hire wrote:Joanna Lumley was the first, wasn't she?
Knockagh wrote:Doctor Donna, was actually the first female doctor. Two beating hearts and everything! Loved Donna, doktor Donna, doktor Donna, doktor Donna
Yeah, Joanna Lumley was the first, albeit in The Curse of Fatal Death. Counting that, and the two people who've stood in for William Hartnell, she's the 21st actor to play the Doctor on TV.
privateer4hire wrote:Joanna Lumley was the first, wasn't she?
Knockagh wrote:Doctor Donna, was actually the first female doctor. Two beating hearts and everything! Loved Donna, doktor Donna, doktor Donna, doktor Donna
Yeah, Joanna Lumley was the first, albeit in The Curse of Fatal Death. Counting that, and the two people who've stood in for William Hartnell, she's the 21st actor to play the Doctor on TV.
Pah, I'd say it definitely counts - The Curse of Fatal Death was written by Moffat after all .
Capaldi appealed to me because he channelled my favourite aspects of previous Doctors at different times.
Tom Baker's irreverence here, Troughton's clownishness there, and occasional glimpses of McCoy's manipulative streak.
Now, it's more of a blank slate. Previously The Doctor has (when not badly written....RTD) been avuncular in his approach. Will a female Doctor bring a more mothering feel to the relationship with companions?
Because it's the companions that lift the show. They're the lens through which we see The Doctor. When it's good, it's frankly superb (Ace, Perry in Caves of Androzani, Donna, Bill). When it's offkey (Mel, the absolutely god awful Clara) the show seriously suffers.
Capaldi for me was hamstrung by Clara, desperately trying to be the Doctor, and failing miserably. As I've said before, I don't know if it was the writing, the actress or the direction - possibly various combinations at different times, but she was a serious drag on the show. Mel likewise served no useful function other than to repeatedly get herself into scrapes and then scweam and scweam and scweam until my heads falls orf.
Rose? Bad writing gave us a bad Rose. Good writing improved it greatly. The whole love story thing just didn't work for me. But when she and The Doctor were written as equals, that relationship shone.
For what it's worth, my daughter who is 17 says a lot of young people hate Capaldi for being old, but all of them hated Clara for being Clara. (I hated the Clara character too.)
That said my daughter isn't really a fan and hasn't watched a single episode of this year's series.
I was thinking about what I would have liked 13's first lines to be, (for those interested I figure 'well this is going to take some getting used to' or similar would work quite well), which led me into wondering if they are going to use the fact the doctor changes sex during regeneration as a plot point in the Christmas special. 12 was going on about not wanting to change, so what if the only way he can deal with regeneration is to completely change every physical aspect of himself beyond the limits of his previous regeneration
statu wrote: I was thinking about what I would have liked 13's first lines to be, (for those interested I figure 'well this is going to take some getting used to' or similar would work quite well), which led me into wondering if they are going to use the fact the doctor changes sex during regeneration as a plot point in the Christmas special. 12 was going on about not wanting to change, so what if the only way he can deal with regeneration is to completely change every physical aspect of himself beyond the limits of his previous regeneration
I think the best way to handle it naturally and try to smooth over some of the backlash would be to simply not acknowledge it, as that reinforces that this is something The Doctor is perfectly comfortable with. Do the usual 'ooh, [insert feature here] is different', like Tennant's 'New teeth! That's weird!' or Capaldi's 'Kidneys! I've got new kidneys!', but avoid the obvious ones. Then, whoever else happens to be there can comment on the change in gender itself, and the Doctor can shrug it off like it's a perfectly normal thing.
For example (crap script is crap, but it's a 3-minute sketch to illustrate)
Spoiler:
Doctor: Huh... new hair! Shiny. Long. Saves me dying it, though. And ooh, the eyebrows are much less scary. Come back, small children and animals, the scary face is gone!
Other character: Err.. Doctor? Is that the most obvious... I mean... erm...
Doctor: What? Have I got 3 heads? You're looking at me like I've got 3 heads... I had a friend with 3 heads once, but then, regeneration is a lottery, as they say. [Checks mirror] No, no, no. Only the one.
Character: No, Doctor, you're...
Doctor: Still not ginger! I know, but you can't have everything. Come along.
Character: No, Doctor! You're... You're a woman now!
Doctor: Am I? Oh yes, so I am. That's nice, I suppose. Let's go save the world.
I don't think it's a coincidence that there won't be a companion across the regeneration. Not only does it create a clean slate creatively, like the Smith/Amy/Moffat setup did, but it means that whoever comes next, The Doctor will always have been a woman as far as they're concerned. The closest they need come to knowing is a throwaway gag about why she has a wardrobe full of men's clothes!
Also having old enemies immediately recognize the Doctor without having to be introduced would get the point across.
As I've been out of regular watching for several years, does this incarnation start off an entirely new regen cycle or is she the last of the first cycle.
Matt Smith was the last of the initial regeneration group. Due to apparently Tennant regenerating into himself once plus the war doctor.
Capaldi is the first of an unspecified number of a new cycle of regenerations with this being the first time he has regenerated.
Skinnereal wrote: Or that 12 concludes that Missy was ready to change because she became female.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Kilkrazy wrote: For what it's worth, my daughter who is 17 says a lot of young people hate Capaldi for being old,
Capaldi is hardly old, compared to some of them.
He was just preceded by the youngest so far.
Hartnell was 49 when he started, Patrick Troughton was 46, Jon Pertwee was 51, so Capaldi at 54 actually has been the oldest person in the role (excpting John Hurt's cameo). In the modern era, though, we had three very young actors followed by the oldest. I think that created an expectation in a young audience who probably never saw any of the old series.
Skinnereal wrote: Capaldi is hardly old, compared to some of them.
He was just preceded by the youngest so far.
Hartnell was 49 when he started, Patrick Troughton was 46, Jon Pertwee was 51, so Capaldi at 54 actually has been the oldest person in the role (excpting John Hurt's cameo). In the modern era, though, we had three very young actors followed by the oldest. I think that created an expectation in a young audience who probably never saw any of the old series.
They just looked older, then.
He played it very much like a mid-life crisis, though. Shades, guitar, etc.
As I've been out of regular watching for several years, does this incarnation start off an entirely new regen cycle or is she the last of the first cycle.
There was a mention a while back (possibly during Tennant's run, I don't recall for sure) that with the Time Lords gone all the old rules went out the window, and that he wasn't entirely sure what that meant for his regenerations.
So, basically, they set it up so that they weren't going to be hamstrung by a rule that was made by writers who probably never envisaged that it would ever actually be a problem...
She was great on Broadchurch. As long as the stories are good she'll kill it.
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