The New Doctor Who is a Woman!

[griffgriff]

I think it's had its day , should be sent to the same place blue Peter went

I really think you should give him a break. I know he did a lot of swearing in 'The Thick of it' but to stereotype him as 'blue' is a bit much

 

Griff

[APOLLO]

Women drivers !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

 

Brit15

[Ozexpatriate]

Women drivers !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

A like for the picture - not the stereotype.

[tomparryharry]

Well done Titan, I knew Dr Who has already been a woman played by Joanna Lumley, thanks for finding the link. Wouldn't Rowan Atkinson make a great future Dr Who.

I like the idea of Mr Bean as Doctor Who. Or, even better, John Cleese as Doctor Who. A touch of Monty Python meets the Daleks, who are staying at Fawlty Towers.... Margaret Thatcher playing as Davros...

 

Yes, that's the one... Got my vote.

 

Ian.

[Dick Turpin]

Politically correct stuff reminds me of the alien from the Alien franchise movies, because with acid for blood, 'you don't dare kill it', and likewise, with anything politically correct, the fear of looking hopelessly out of touch means you don't dare criticise it! At least that's the way it always feels to me. Oh, did the someone say the doctor is to be woman, Who cares! 

[Colin_McLeod]

Gladly,

 

I refer to the notion prevalent in 'la-la land' and elsewhere that it is necessary to incorporate explicit sexual activity - of all types - into each and every form of broadcasting.

 

I have a completely laissez-faire attitude to all shades of sexuality, but I do not recognise the need to explicitly expose it at every turn - and I definitely include heterosexuality in this.

 

Regards,

John Isherwood.

Clear as mud to me. John I thought this post was meant to clarify: or am I missing something?

 

Regards Colin

Edited July 17, 2017 by Colin_McLeod

[Tim R-T-C]

I do worry that anyone who tries to legitimately criticise the actress for her performance or the writer for the storylines in the next series will risk being shot down by the PC brigade saying they are only criticising because it is a female lead.

 

Personally I think 'The Doctor' was best when played as a Grandfatherly role by Hartnell, Pertwee and Cushing (yes, my favourite forgotten Doctor), never really liked the younger actors on the role. I also much preferred the old 'serial' format, with four or five 30 minute episodes - let you get your teeth into a story.

[Peter Kazmierczak]

Apart from the BBC, who are milking this for all its worth, is anyone actually bothered?

Edited July 17, 2017 by Peter Kazmierczak

[Mark Saunders]

Apart from the BBC, who are milking this for all its worth, is anyone actually bothered?

There are far more important things to get concerned about!

 

When are the Bachmann Warflats arriving and what liveries are the GVH Januses going to appear in next year?

 

Mark Saunders

[phil-b259]

Apart from the BBC, who are milking this for all its worth, is anyone actually bothered?

 

Based on several fan sites, most definitely! https://forums.digitalspy.com/categories/doctor-who

 

However once you move more into the what might be called the 'joe public' there is far less reaction.

 

Quite like Model / Heritage Railway matters in some respects.....

[Moggs Eye]

I'm pleased they've chosen a woman. I don't think it's political correctness, I think it's inclusivity - though the two concepts are very similar. The difference between them depends largely on your viewpoint.

[QWILPEN]

helpline for those effected by the New that the Doctor is to be played by a female actor

 

 

.https://youtu.be/PMSIe6WfXYE

[Zomboid]

I do worry that anyone who tries to legitimately criticise the actress for her performance or the writer for the storylines in the next series will risk being shot down by the PC brigade saying they are only criticising because it is a female lead.

Sadly that is an aspect of modern society - criticise a minority for their performance and you run the risk of getting accused of one ~ism or another.

It's probably a growing pain that we've got to go through on a societal level.

 

Hopefully she'll get some good scripts and put in a good performance and keep the critics quiet that way.

Edited July 17, 2017 by Zomboid

[t-b-g]

I do worry that anyone who tries to legitimately criticise the actress for her performance or the writer for the storylines in the next series will risk being shot down by the PC brigade saying they are only criticising because it is a female lead.

 

Personally I think 'The Doctor' was best when played as a Grandfatherly role by Hartnell, Pertwee and Cushing (yes, my favourite forgotten Doctor), never really liked the younger actors on the role. I also much preferred the old 'serial' format, with four or five 30 minute episodes - let you get your teeth into a story.

 

Speaking of which, in the early days, the Doctor was a grandfather and had a granddaughter. Unless I missed something, there should have been, at some point, a Mrs Doctor (never mentioned nowadays) and they must have had a child (unless that is the one "created" when David Tennant was in the role - my favourite so far). Somebody is going to have to explain to the poor girl (who is likely to be a grandma herself now) that not only is her granddad now her grandma but she is a grandma who looks a lot younger than her granddaughter.

 

The poor grown up child will be well and truly baffled.

 

I have no idea whether a female Doctor is a good or bad thing. I do know that it can't be "wrong" because the character was created by the BBC and if the BBC have decided that a gender change is possible, then it must be so.

 

My problem with recent series has been the writing, not the casting. Get that sorted and a female Doctor could work out as a welcome change. If the poor actress has the level of material that Peter Capaldi has had to deal with, she could be remembered for all the wrong reasons.

[Ozexpatriate]

Somebody is going to have to explain to the poor girl (who is likely to be a grandma herself now) that not only is her granddad now her grandma ...

I suspect that sort of thing already happens more often than most of us think. I don't think young children struggle with the idea at all. Children don't care about such details until they are taught to.

Edited July 17, 2017 by Ozexpatriate

[t-b-g]

I suspect that sort of thing already happens more often than most of us think. I don't think young children struggle with the idea at all. Children don't care about such details until they are taught to.

 

The gender change perhaps. It happens enough and more in the open than it used to be for it to be no longer such a shock (I hope).

 

The age difference? Not so sure that happens in real life! The granddaughter must be around 70 years old now (unless she has lived many hundreds of years like The Doctor). The person who used to be Granddad (and looked as if the age gap was about right) and is now Grandma but looks around 30 (but is still, of course older than the Granddad when he was an old looking man).

 

Now if my granddad re-appeared not only as a woman but one looking much younger than me, I might just scratch my head a bit!

[Tim R-T-C]

Given the Doctor's different internal systems and presumably DNA, would he even be able to sire a human child? I always just assumed that Hartnell's Doctor had formed a close bond with the girl's grandmother (a companion in earlier adventures?) and had assumed the name of grandfather as a politeness.

 

Was this ever covered by the show directly? I have not seen the earlier episodes for many years.

Edited July 17, 2017 by Tim R-T-C

[Ozexpatriate]

The age difference? Not so sure that happens in real life! The granddaughter must be around 70 years old now (unless she has lived many hundreds of years like The Doctor).

What I find amusing is that for an entity who is supposed to be 900 or so years old, the Doctor has regenerated 13 (approximately) times in the last half century. That first generation must have lasted for a long time.

 

It begs the question of whether the Doctor ages with time travel (meaning does time spent in the past of future accumulate in one's personal timeline) or is there a Universal equivalent to Greenwich Mean Time that Time Lords' age is measured against - like Singularity+14BY?

 

Now of course we have the issue of pronouns. Hopefully they will write that into scripts in a humourous way.

 

For tenses refer to "Dr. Dan Streetmentioner's Time Traveler's Handbook of 1001 Tense Formations", (oops crossing the streams there).

[Nick Gough]

Following the next regeneration I think the BBC should also change the 'dynamics' of the companion role.

 

Two strong willed, independent, intelligent female characters in the Tardis, together, isn't going to work. Even if it is"bigger on the inside".

 

Instead the companion should now be a male actor cast from the same 'mould' as Norman Wisdom, Frank Spencer or Count Arthur Strong.

[jjb1970]

All fiction depends to a certain degree on the audience suspending disbelief and embracing the story. This is especially true for sci-fi, which tends to be riven with contradictions, absurdity and continuity issues. While people get sucked into the story non of this matters as you just enjoy the drama, comedy and the ride. If that falters and people start thinking about what they're watching, realising how silly it all is then it's like a house of cards collapsing. I don't know of much sci-fi that doesn't fall apart very quickly if you start thinking about what you're watching or reading. Unfortunately I found it increasingly difficult to suspend disbelif over the last few seasons of Doctor Who as a result of very weak stories, made worse by an increasing feeling of "haven't they been here before?". That wasn't down to the cast, in some ways the casts have never been better, Capaldi is an actor of real quality and he was partnered with plenty of quality talent.

I'm hoping Whittaker will herald a total refresh and that new ideas return to the show.

[ejstubbs]

Given the Doctor's different internal systems and presumably DNA, would he even be able to sire a human child? I always just assumed that Hartnell's Doctor had formed a close bond with the girl's grandmother (a companion in earlier adventures?) and had assumed the name of grandfather as a politeness.

 

Was this ever covered by the show directly? I have not seen the earlier episodes for many years.

 

Google it: there are quite a few theories out there, and there doesn't seem to be a clear answer based on the accepted canon sources.  The consensus seems to be that Susan was his biological grandchild, and from Gallifrey, but might not be an actual Time Lord (you have to choose to stare into the Untempered Schism, a gap in the fabric of reality that looks into the time vortex, in order to become a true Time Lord, apparently).  In any case, it's fairly generally agreed that she wasn't just a human along for the ride like most subsequent of the companions were, and probably was biologically related to The Doctor.

Edited July 18, 2017 by ejstubbs

[t-b-g]

Google it: there are quite a few theories out there, and there doesn't seem to be a clear answer based on the accepted canon sources.  The consensus seems to be that Susan was his biological grandchild, and from Gallifrey, but might not be an actual Time Lord (you have to choose to stare into the Untempered Schism, a gap in the fabric of reality that looks into the time vortex, in order to become a true Time Lord, apparently).  In any case, it's fairly generally agreed that she wasn't just a human along for the ride like most subsequent of the companions were, and probably was biologically related to The Doctor.

 

I did! Lots of fan based guesswork and a few inconsistent bits from later plot lines. I think some people actually think it is real!

 

All fiction depends to a certain degree on the audience suspending disbelief and embracing the story. This is especially true for sci-fi, which tends to be riven with contradictions, absurdity and continuity issues. While people get sucked into the story non of this matters as you just enjoy the drama, comedy and the ride. If that falters and people start thinking about what they're watching, realising how silly it all is then it's like a house of cards collapsing. I don't know of much sci-fi that doesn't fall apart very quickly if you start thinking about what you're watching or reading. Unfortunately I found it increasingly difficult to suspend disbelif over the last few seasons of Doctor Who as a result of very weak stories, made worse by an increasing feeling of "haven't they been here before?". That wasn't down to the cast, in some ways the casts have never been better, Capaldi is an actor of real quality and he was partnered with plenty of quality talent.

I'm hoping Whittaker will herald a total refresh and that new ideas return to the show.

 

Spot on!

 

I used to prefer Dr Who when the storyline was spread over several episodes, with a cliff hanger at the end of each show. The stories were allowed to develop over several hours of viewing and didn't need resolving within 40 minutes.

 

They only needed one or two storylines per series instead of 8 or 9, so they didn't end up repeating the limited range of available types of plot so quickly.

 

Recent series have, to me, been let down by plot rather than acting ability. Changing the main actor won't alter that but the other changes going on with the series, behind the scenes, might improve things.

Edited July 18, 2017 by t-b-g

[Roger Best]

I know it's not about trains but this has been one of the funniest threads I have read for a long time. I've even been prompted to post a reply. Who would have thought there would be so much Whovian knowledge amongst we modelers?

 

Like a few on here, I confess to being an avid watcher of Dr Who, and being baffled by the latest series' story lines. I look forward to being equally baffled by the new Dr.

 

Anyway, my vote is for Peggy Mount (I'm sure the BBC can do some imaging trickery). I only got 6d per week, the chap that got 2/6d was very lucky.

 

You've made my morning folks - keep up the good work.

 

R-

[Karhedron]

Now if my granddad re-appeared not only as a woman but one looking much younger than me, I might just scratch my head a bit!

If we assume that Susan (the Doctor's granddaughter) was genuinely his biological granddaughter then she would also have come from Gallifrey and presumably would not be bothered by this as it would have happened all the time.

 

Whether she is really his granddaughter was never directly addressed in the show but it was covered in the audio story "An Earthly Child". Considering this story starred Paul McGann as the 8th Doctor and Carole Ann Ford (the original actress) as Susan, this is probably as close to canon as we will get. Susan left the Tardis and settled in 21st century earth after falling in love. She had a son, Alex, who is (unknown to him) part-gallifreyan so the Doctor has a great-grandson as well. The Doctor was bemused to discover that Alex was more interested in art than science.

 

http://tardis.wikia.com/wiki/An_Earthly_Child_(audio_story)

Edited July 18, 2017 by Karhedron

[Tim R-T-C]

If we are discussing (in good nature) plot inconsistencies, I always found it odd as a kid when The Doctor would joke with a frequent acquaintance (like The Brigadier) about times they teamed up to defeat a foe - then mention one that "has not happened for you yet", but it never seemed to occur the other way around.

 

Thinking about it makes me want to watch the first three Doctor's episodes again, I just love the old grainy film stock and black & white filming of the early series, they give such an inadvertently documentary-style quality to the episodes. The Spearhead From Space genuinely traumatised me as a child, was scared of mannequins for years!