Jodie Whittaker is the 13th Doctor

[Shaka Zulu]

I wonder how the production might handle the situation if, mind you "IF", Whittaker were to become pregnant during her run? With Lucille Ball, they simply wrote it into the show. Doctor Who, being science fantasy, could get a bit more creative. I mean, if Chibnal and staff wanted to get strange, they could write it as the Doctor getting "infected" with a parasitical lifeform, one slowly growing over the course of the series. On the other hand, a real life pregnancy could be "ignored" with careful editing, cinematography, wardrobe and in some case, a bit of digital "jiggery pokery". Ironically, the arguably most daring choice would be to treat it as the condition it is, a "conventional" pregnancy (whatever might be considered "conventional" for Gallifreyans).

Simply let the Doctor be pregnant, have a boy (or a girl), raise the child, and we see what happens next. For all we know, it could be good..

 

[DimesDan]

as everyone wringing their hands wondering if Matt Smith was going to get good writing? Or Tennant? Or Capaldi?

Not that I'm aware, although with some of the lackluster stories Capaldi had were down to the writing and not his performance, I'm hoping for none of the same with Whittaker and maybe one or two new writers in the mix.

 

[Timelord79 (he/him)]

Did they audition any women in the past?

Not that I know of, but I would not be surprised if they at least considered it for the Twelvth.

 

[Allyn Gibson]

Was everyone wringing their hands wondering if Matt Smith was going to get good writing? Or Tennant? Or Capaldi?

After Matt Smith's departure, where I felt that Smith and his costars were very much let down by the writing, I wondered if Capaldi would fare any better. I thought he might, as I thought with his stature as an actor and a writer himself, he would have the power to say, "Moffat, this script is shite. I'm giving up other work to do this, and this is the shite you give me? I'm not doing this." But he apparently never did, and Capaldi, too, was, imho, let down by the writing.

 

[MadeIndescribable]

It's a little more complex than that - such as women who like to write sci-fi, if the showrunner likes the ideas the candidates pitch to them, and so forth. If no women are available in a needed timeframe, does the show not get made or do we rely on some other group to ensure enough manufactured product gets out for blissful consumption? I'm not a showrunner so I can't answer those. Showrunners can, and if they're all honest you'll get every answer under the sun based on how they do things.

I hope Chibnall's reasoning is more for a solid vision and direction than soulless pandering. We'll know next year.

Catherine Tregenna wrote two episodes for each of the first two seasons of Torchwood, was the only Torchwood writer to be nominated for a Hugo, and yet didn't write for Doctor Who until season 9.

Luckily Chibnall (who was heavily involved in early Torchwood, can't remember his exact role) will bring her back here again as well.

 

[Turtletrekker]

Barrowman!!

 

[Professor Zoom]

Not that I'm aware, although with some of the lackluster stories Capaldi had were down to the writing and not his performance, I'm hoping for none of the same with Whittaker and maybe one or two new writers in the mix.

To be honest, I'm bringing it up, because it seems to be a unique "hope" with Whittaker taking the role.

 

[DimesDan]

To be honest, I'm bringing it up, because it seems to be a unique "hope" with Whittaker taking the role.

And given the stories written for Capaldi (and some of Smiths and Tennents are deemed as such as some too) were seen by some as lackluster even though his performance was brilliant, it's not exactly an unfounded worry.

 

[YellowSubmarine]

Simply let the Doctor be pregnant, have a boy (or a girl), raise the child, and we see what happens next. For all we know, it could be good..

Well, she has a granddaughter.

 

[The Nth Doctor]

Barrowman!!

Gods bless John Barrowman.

 

[Spot261]

OR......

Given that Time Lords are by definition not all that concerned about the sequences of events, could they work it into the plot that said baby was to become Susan's mum or dad, that Hartnell's doctor had in fact been looking after a girl who was the granddaughter of a later incarnation?

Well, she has a granddaughter.

Thief! Plagiarism! Imminent IP claim!

 

[rocketdave]

I think I was quietly hoping for a female Doctor, so I was pleasantly surprised by this news, though I was simultaneously dreading the inevitable sexist backlash. I thought it was bad when I was reading about racist Trekkies who were mad over the diversity in Discovery, but now misogynistic Whovians seem to be trying to outdo them in terms of sheer horribleness. It's ironic to see supposed fans of a series rejecting the ethos of said series. If I were the Doctor and saw/heard some of the ignorant, hateful stuff being spouted, I might be asking myself why I even bother constantly risking my neck to save these miserable humans from alien invasion or self-annihilation.

It's especially disappointing to see some women on the side of the haters. I watched a tiny bit of a YouTube video in which a girl explained that because she's "not attracted to vaginas," she can no longer fantasize about the Doctor whisking her away and marrying her. Despite the fact that watching a show mainly because you entertain romantic notions about the main character strikes me as rather shallow, if I try to see it from her point of view, that may be the only argument I've heard or seen that comes close to almost being a valid excuse for being against this change. I mean, if I only watched DS9 because I had the hots for Jadzia and instead of Ezri, Dax's next host had been male... no, sorry, that's stupid; even though I liked Ezri, a male Dax would have been an interesting way to go.

 

[Ar-Pharazon]

Not that I'm aware, although with some of the lackluster stories Capaldi had were down to the writing and not his performance, I'm hoping for none of the same with Whittaker and maybe one or two new writers in the mix.

I think too, it can come down to the director not getting the most out of a scene or an actor. I don't think a producer has as much direct effect on the outcome, but a director is pretty hands on as far as I know.

 

[StCoop]

So with the SDCC kicking off today are we expecting Jodie to make her first public appearance at the Doctor Who panel on Sunday or will they not want to overshadow Capaldi and Moffat's farewell appearance?

 

[Captaindemotion]

Chibnall did say he wanted a woman didn't he? Obviously, as you say even if they wanted a woman that still left presumably half the actors in the UK as potential choices so it isn't quite the same as saying vote Hilary because you're saying we want a woman, now here's 35 choices and Jodi's the best one.

Edited to add, thanks @captainkirk that was what I was referring to.

Not that I know of, but I would not be surprised if they at least considered it for the Twelvth.

Moffat said that he only ever considered Capaldi. Of course, it's widely believed that Ben Daniels was his fallback position, so make of that what you will.

IIRC, he said that he intended to cast an older actor as Eleven but was convinced by Matt's audition.

 

[The Nth Doctor]

So with the SDCC kicking off today are we expecting Jodie to make her first public appearance at the Doctor Who panel on Sunday or will they not want to overshadow Capaldi and Moffat's farewell appearance?

Considering I believed the announcement was going to happen in August like Capaldi, I expect the reason the reason why she was announced Sunday was so she could appear at SDCC.

 

[StCoop]

Moffat said that he only ever considered Capaldi. Of course, it's widely believed that Ben Daniels was his fallback position, so make of that what you will.

Daniels confirmed it. To the extent that he was one name on a backup list if Capaldi fell under a bus or something.

http://www.digitalspy.com/tv/doctor...octor-who-and-the-search-for-the-12th-doctor/

 

[Professor Zoom]

And given the stories written for Capaldi (and some of Smiths and Tennents are deemed as such as some too) were seen by some as lackluster even though his performance was brilliant, it's not exactly an unfounded worry.

Given it's a new show runner, I don't know if I ageee.

 

[Timewalker]

I mean if the male companion ends up being a awesome character then why couldn't men be happy with that sort of representation.? You don't need a character to be the boss to be awesome or beloved.

The first male companion was awesome (and I don't throw this word around lightly). Ian Chesterton, after 54 years, is still considered to be among the best of the companions, and certainly the best of the male companions (with the possible exception of Jamie McCrimmon; ymmv on that). Jamie returned to the show twice - for The Five Doctors and The Two Doctors, and I know there are a lot of fans who were not pleased when some of the Capaldi-era stories took place at Coal Hill School and there wasn't so much as a mention of Ian Chesterton. Granted the actor might not have felt up to appearing on the show, but even something as simple as recording an announcement to be played over the school's PA system or a simple mention of him by one of the school staff or students would have been entirely appropriate and much appreciated.

Just look at Spock,Rodney McKay etc for that. The reverse argument of course could be made that a awesome woman companion could have as just much impact as a awesome woman doctor. Like I said above I felt Rose outshined the Doctor so to me it wasn't important that she was just a companion.

I'd say that Sarah Jane Smith took the top billing in that department. How many other companions ended up with their own show - not once, but twice?

Does that mean Anna Gunn would be the American Doctor should they try another go? Actually, I wouldn't mind that...

What "American Doctor"? I go by what I see on TV, and there has been no American Doctor. There's been an American Master, and he was awful.

Alot of people do boycott them, but they're still among the best sellers

Boycotting the product itself is one thing. Writing to the advertisers and saying that you won't buy their products if they continue to support the trashy publication they advertise in is something else.

If you're going to boycott a publication, at least tell them why. I've boycotted Reader's Digest (the Canadian edition) for years, ever since I found out they were accepting advertising for a fracking company. When I wrote to them and said I was canceling my subscription and wanted a refund for my unsent copies, I told them exactly why I was canceling.

The explanation whooshed right over their heads, of course. They kept babbling about "recycled paper" and I told them that wasn't the problem I was talking about. I explained that they were accepting advertising from a company that was engaged in fracking, which was causing severe environmental damage to what used to be perfectly good farmland and ranchland and I would not support a company that supported that. They continued to argue about it, but I finally got my refund. And I've never gone back.

So if the TARDIS is painted pink with yellow polka dots it's only changed 0.0000001% of its surface volume (in this dimension at least) so it shouldn't be very notable? Regardless of the chromosomes involved it's a major change, possibly a damned good one, it seems odd to downplay it.

Why is it that pink is automatically considered a "female" color? Take a look at old paintings from hundreds of years ago, particularly those of the European monarchs. Notice how much lace and other fancy fripperies the men are wearing... some of it pink. Even some Archie comics have Archie wearing pink pants in some stories.

What kind of outfit do you think she should wear. I kind of like the idea of something that looks 80's. Also what about a hat? Other than a few Fez jokes we haven't seen a modern Doctor wear a hat.

'80s women's fashion included gigantic shoulder pads, which always looked ridiculous, whether they were worn by some character on Dynasty, Sue-Ellen Ewing on Dallas, or by any Romulan character on TNG. So no, thank you. Let her outfit be somewhat stylish but overall it should be practical. Some of Romana II's outfits were like that - a bit odd for late 20th-century Earth, but she could still run and climb in them.

Actually, it would be a fun thing for this new Doctor to do what the Fifth Doctor did - explore some of the TARDIS closets to find a new outfit (since the old one no longer fit), taking a trip down memory lane, deciding, "Nope, not interested anymore," and settling on some new combination that's got a bit of style but is practical for someone who leads an adventurer's life.

Also do you think they will change the John Smith thing when the Doctor uses a fake name?

Why should they? Just let people assume that "John" is short for some other name. And lots of names that were considered as belonging to one sex or the other are now used interchangeably by both.

After all, if Romana I prefers "Fred" to "Romana," why couldn't the new Doctor be okay with being called "John"?

Although, I've seen lots of instances of being able to successfully shoot around a pregnant actress. After all these years, I still can't even identify the Seinfeld episodes where Julia Louis-Dreyfus was pregnant.

The character of Lulu Spencer on General Hospital had a major storyline about not being able to get pregnant. So when the actress showed up very obviously pregnant in spite of the gigantic outfits she was wearing and that most of them were black and bulky, I found out that yes, the actress is pregnant, and the show is trying (and failing) to hide it. So the viewers are expected to just ignore this very obviously pregnant actress who is playing a character who is physically incapable of getting pregnant, in a current story in which she meets her long-lost daughter who was conceived in vitro with a surrogate mother and nobody told Lulu that the child existed for many years.

Given that Romana sometimes came across as a "female Doctor," it makes me want to see Romana come back to the show more than ever just to see the distinct contrast between the characters' personalities despite their newfound physical similarities.

Romana was fresh out of the Academy on Gallifrey when she was assigned to help the Fourth Doctor find and assemble the Key to Time. This first Romana was arrogant, and assumed that just having top marks at the Academy meant that the job would be easy and she mocked the Doctor for his less-than-stellar Academy performance.

The first Romana was basically a snob, with no life experience. She wore impractical clothes (fashion over being able to run and climb; she just about fell off a damn cliff because she was wearing high-heeled sandals), and was hopelessly naive as far as trusting people went.

The second Romana shed most of that. She was still a snob, but had a firmer grasp of science. She still liked to be fashionable, but her choices weren't ridiculously impractical. At some point she made her own sonic screwdriver, too. About the only really stupid thing she did was tell K-9 to fetch a ball she threw into the ocean... which of course resulted in him shorting out when he came in contact with the water.

The second Romana decided at some point that she really didn't want to go back to the stiflingly closed society of Gallifrey, and took the first chance she got to go off on her own, in "Warriors' Gate." With K-9 and the blueprints for her own TARDIS, she probably did fine.

So I really wouldn't say she was basically a female Doctor. I would call her the first very confident, non-psychopathic Time Lady we saw who wasn't afraid to strike out on her own.

And yeah, it would be fun if the Doctor encounters a Time Lord who seems familiar... "Romana?" "Call me Fred."

Now if the past were any indicator, shouldn't this costume be the last one for 12? I guess we
have to wait for Christmas for that answer.

Also to my eye those clothes look too big for her.

It makes sense for the clothes not to fit. That's how it was for a lot of the new Doctors, if their predecessor was larger or taller. I never did notice how they handled the clothing issue between the Troughton-Pertwee regeneration. Essentially, it's the body that regenerates, not the clothes. So it's perfectly reasonable for the clothes not to fit.

And I will let nobody tell me what I have to like. I had 43 years to find out what I like and what I don’t. I’m pretty sure I know by now.

I don't think most people here are telling you that you have to like this. It's not as though you're in the nuTrek forum where people who don't like that franchise are eviscerated for not liking it.

All people are being asked to do is give the new Doctor a chance. I'm willing to do that, and I'm someone who got so disgusted with the show at the end of Capaldi's second season that I stopped watching. I haven't seen so much as a minute of his final season... and I don't even care. I've made it clear that if Clara turns up again, I'm out of it for good. I'll watch the pre-Clara material, I'll read the pre-Clara novels, but I'm not going to subject myself to more of that awful character.

So having this new Doctor put right in front of my nose in an “eat or die” manner makes me not happy. If anyone thinks that the world needs more good content for women, yes I agree and please go out there and create it. But don’t invade existing things. I want to decide for myself whether I want to watch something or not. Not being pushed to do so. If it were a new show with a new character, we would be discussing the character and the acting, and not whether it was right or wrong to put her there in the first place. We wouldn’t have anything to compare it to. Can’t anyone see how that would be so much better?

Again, nobody is forcing you. I voted with my cable channels and wallet when I decided to stop watching before. I'll do it again if this new setup is not to my liking.

It's like the modern Star Trek - I don't like the movies and Canadians (as far as I know) won't be allowed to watch the new series. So I'm sticking with the decades' worth of stuff I do like. There's so much material out there for the male Doctors - novels, comics, fanfiction... you don't need to stop being a Whovian just because the newest Doctor is a woman. Just explore what's already there, because I can pretty much guarantee there's a hell of a lot of material you've never even heard of.

Having their minds set on the get go that it had to be a woman – isn’t that the same like voting for Hillary just because she is a woman? A bit shallow.

Hillary is one specific woman. And she wasn't the only woman running in that election. No doubt there were people who cast votes for these women because they were women. But my perception of how American politics works (I'm Canadian) is that the party matters more than the candidate who represents it.

You may say now that I always can stop watching if I don’t like it. Except I can’t. If you have invested years into a fandom, and lots of money into action figures, you don’t just stop. You struggle on, thinking you owe it to them, hoping for it to get better again.

At that point you might ask if it's fandom or addiction. I've got scads of Doctor Who stuff - the novel adaptations of the Classic stories, most of the Classic DVDs, various miscellaneous things like a Fourth Doctor scarf and hat, an autographed picture of Sylvester McCoy (met him in Spokane almost 30 years ago), fanzines, a fleece TARDIS blanket I use in winter, and I have links for many thousands of fanfic stories. I don't think I "owe" Doctor Who anything, by this point. They've delivered decades of entertainment for me since I became a Whovian back in the fall of 1982. Most of it has been good, and it wasn't until it got very, VERY bad that I turned my back on it until given a good reason to give it another chance.

So it's really wasn't that hard to stop watching, once I realized how much there is that I still haven't explored with the Doctors I do like.

Same with Star Trek: I've got the series I like, I've still got a few dozen TOS novels in my collection that haven't been read yet, a huge bookshelf full of print fanzines, am following several long epics on fanfiction.net, and I love the Star Trek Continues fan films.

Watching Who should be fun, not a chore. Life’s too short to do things you don’t like. I already struggled with the show in the past few years, trudging on, hoping the change would spark new interest in me. Sadly it doesn’t. So here I am, feeling meh, while everywhere I look people are rejoicing. I feel left out.

I co-admin a forum for Tom Baker fans. The emphasis on that site is the Fourth Doctor. We do have areas in the forum for people who want to discuss other Doctors, even Torchwood and the Sarah Jane series. But when it comes down to it, we're Tom Baker fans.

So my suggestion - which you can take or leave as you see fit - is to find whatever fan communities or like-minded folks on TrekBBS you feel comfortable with and reach out to people. For me, my comfort zone is Classic Who, with a side of individual stories of the Ninth and Tenth Doctors. I absolutely loved the "Night of the Doctor" webisode (with the exception of Paul McGann regenerating into John Hurt; Hurt was a wonderful actor, but his presence in the 50th anniversary just felt intrusive to me).

So I don't feel compelled to watch nuWho. There are a few of the episodes I've never seen - hell, I never watched the last season at all - and I don't care. It's no longer a chore, but a choice. And I chose to watch other things.

Remember Tegan and how she left the Fifth Doctor? She was following her aunt's advice: If it's not fun anymore, stop doing it (paraphrase). Traveling in the TARDIS had ceased to be fun for her. So she decided to stop.

I am also afraid that no matter what they do, it will spark huge discussions. If they change the character to make her more compassionate, empathic, “female”, everyone will complain about clichés. If they carry on as before, everyone will ask why the need for change if it does not make any difference. They cannot win.

That's how it is with any SF/F show. A more compassionate, empathic Doctor isn't a problem for me, since there have already been more compassionate, empathic Doctors. Every new Doctor has a few elements of previous Doctors, plus they add one or two new ones.

I hated the way she was always talking down to him. All this rapid fired “Listen-listen-listen”. He’s not a baby. It was grating on my nerves. If that is what a strong woman is written like, they are doing it wrong.

Clara was basically a Mary Sue character who could do nothing wrong, and even if she did do something wrong it was either retconned or excused. That's a large part of why I absolutely hate Clara and consider her THE worst companion ever, even worse than the screechy Mel or the dimwitted Dodo or excruciatingly timid Victoria.

Clara is the only companion who I actually wanted to die, and actually cheered when she did die (for whatever that was worth since they retconned her into some sort of undead Doctor-wannabe with her own TARDIS and her own immortal companion).

So you're not alone in considering Clara to be how a strong woman should not be written.

Was everyone wringing their hands wondering if Matt Smith was going to get good writing? Or Tennant? Or Capaldi?

Actually, yeah. Maybe not "wringing their hands"... but definitely hoping. Unfortunately, they didn't get it for the most part. As I mentioned, there are individual stories/episodes I liked, but for the overall package, I loathed the Matt Smith era and gave up on the Capaldi era after the season of stories that were basically written for eight-year-olds, all the while having to use closed captioning to understand Clara's rapid-fire run-on sentences.

Simply let the Doctor be pregnant, have a boy (or a girl), raise the child, and we see what happens next. For all we know, it could be good..

I'm reminded of how they handled Lucy Lawless' pregnancy on Xena: Warrior Princess. It was written into the show, and the actress continued on with the role until the time came when there were scenes she couldn't handle - and they wrote around that by having Xena-lite episodes or even episodes where she was barely even there. Or they did a mind/body swap thing where another person played it as Xena's consciousness in a different body. They got around the whole Xena-raising-a-baby by having Xena and Gabrielle dying and being frozen for 25 years, and then waking up and discovering Xena's daughter as an adult.

IF this actress were to become pregnant, there are many ways a show about time travel could handle it. But it's something that I doubt would actually be an issue. Presumably the actress herself understands these issues far more than non-actors would and it's something the producers would have already worked out how to handle IF the situation ever came up.

It's frankly annoying to have this "OMG, what if she gets pregnant?" question come up. If she does, they'll figure it out - write it in, ignore it (and thus the audience will be expected to ignore it, much like we're expected to with the General Hospital actress), or fire her. If she doesn't get pregnant, she doesn't. Either way, that's something that is the actress' business

 

[Saul]

I've seen this suggested a few times, but I actually prefer Whittaker going with her natural brunette. Likewise, I would prefer the first ginger to be a natural ginger.

So a woman is good enough to play the Doctor but a blonde playing a ginger isn't. What a backwards world we live in.