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Jodie Whittaker is the 13th Doctor

For all of those people complaining about Bradley Walsh's casting, I have to point in the direction of Catherine Tate. So many people complained about her casting and most of those people now love Donna.

Tate, Lucas and even Skinner show that judging Walsh on his previous is a bad idea. But that isn't why I have an issue, it's pairing the first female Doctor with an older white male actor who's better known than she is at the moment.
 
Tate, Lucas and even Skinner show that judging Walsh on his previous is a bad idea. But that isn't why I have an issue, it's pairing the first female Doctor with an older white male actor who's better known than she is at the moment.
I'll have to take your British perspective for what it's worth since Walsh and Whittaker are equally known to me, but I don't know anything about all of the shows Walsh's been a presenter for. With that in mind, I agree that's a possible concern, but I'm not bothered by it because Whittaker has gotten a lot of press as the first female Doctor on an international level.
 
Reading the Radio Times story again Walsh is the only one who's actually called a Companion.

Given the claims about how radical a change this is going to be I wouldn't take anything for granted at this point.

Msybe we have a change from years gone by were the youngsters worry about dear old Dad off in Time N Space with the Doctor instead of parents worrying about the kids (Alf/ Jackie/Martha's mum).
 
I'll have to take your British perspective for what it's worth since Walsh and Whittaker are equally known to me, but I don't know anything about all of the shows Walsh's been a presenter for. With that in mind, I agree that's a possible concern, but I'm not bothered by it because Whittaker has gotten a lot of press as the first female Doctor on an international level.

Just to clarify, I don't have any issue with Walsh per se, Tate, Lucas, Skinner et al have all proven any naysayers wrong, and I could see him playing a Duggan like character and I think that'd be great. I'd just rather he was her second year's companion rather than an initial one.

Still no one has answered this. Has any incoming Doctor had an initial companion older and/or better known than them other than when said companion had originally been with the previous Doctor (so you could fit Billie, Lis etc. in here) And whatever people say about how well known Jodie/Bradley are if you'd stopped 1000 people in a UK high street before Jodie's announcement (maybe even since her announcement) more people would know who Bradley Walsh is than her.

Obviously that'll change. I'm just flagging the impression it potentially gives when you hire the first female Doctor then decide to give her an older male companion, and I know I'm not the only person to have raised this as a concern.

Doesn't mean I'm not looking forward to the new series, and I'm intrigued as to what the Tardis dynamic will be and I'll choose to trust that Chibnall knows what he's doing until there's evidence to the contrary.
 
Just to clarify, I don't have any issue with Walsh per se, Tate, Lucas, Skinner et al have all proven any naysayers wrong, and I could see him playing a Duggan like character and I think that'd be great. I'd just rather he was her second year's companion rather than an initial one.

Still no one has answered this. Has any incoming Doctor had an initial companion older and/or better known than them other than when said companion had originally been with the previous Doctor (so you could fit Billie, Lis etc. in here) And whatever people say about how well known Jodie/Bradley are if you'd stopped 1000 people in a UK high street before Jodie's announcement (maybe even since her announcement) more people would know who Bradley Walsh is than her.

Obviously that'll change. I'm just flagging the impression it potentially gives when you hire the first female Doctor then decide to give her an older male companion, and I know I'm not the only person to have raised this as a concern.

Doesn't mean I'm not looking forward to the new series, and I'm intrigued as to what the Tardis dynamic will be and I'll choose to trust that Chibnall knows what he's doing until there's evidence to the contrary.

Given his commitments to ITV, do we know he will appear as himself on the programme, or could he just be something similar to K9 or Mr Smith etc and just uses his voice.
 
Just to clarify, I don't have any issue with Walsh per se, Tate, Lucas, Skinner et al have all proven any naysayers wrong, and I could see him playing a Duggan like character and I think that'd be great. I'd just rather he was her second year's companion rather than an initial one.
Doesn't mean I'm not looking forward to the new series, and I'm intrigued as to what the Tardis dynamic will be and I'll choose to trust that Chibnall knows what he's doing until there's evidence to the contrary.
Yeah, I figured that's what you meant. I just don't see it as a problem, at least as an American.

Still no one has answered this. Has any incoming Doctor had an initial companion older and/or better known than them other than when said companion had originally been with the previous Doctor (so you could fit Billie, Lis etc. in here) And whatever people say about how well known Jodie/Bradley are if you'd stopped 1000 people in a UK high street before Jodie's announcement (maybe even since her announcement) more people would know who Bradley Walsh is than her.
Again speaking from the American perspective, but wasn't Billie Piper well known as a pop artist before Rose? How did her fame compared to Christopher Eccleston's? He's a well-known character actor but he doesn't strike me as a big star, or at least at that time. Could be wrong, of course.

Otherwise, with the exception of Jon Pertwee, all of the classic Doctors inherited his predecessors' companions, so it's hard to compare. And I'm guessing Caroline Johns wasn't more known than Pertwee.

Likewise, all of the companions tended to be considerably younger women to the older male Doctor, although Janet Fielding is only two years younger than Peter Davison, Daphne Ashbrook is three years younger than Paul McGann, and Karen Gillan is five years younger than Matt Smith.

Obviously that'll change. I'm just flagging the impression it potentially gives when you hire the first female Doctor then decide to give her an older male companion, and I know I'm not the only person to have raised this as a concern.
I understand your concerns, and maybe I'm being naive, but I honestly don't think it's going to be a problem, at least within the realms of fandom. There have obviously been outliers against Whittaker's casting (and their voices are louder than their numbers, if that makes any sense), but most of fandom has been very welcoming and I don't see that changing due to Walsh's casting, nor his presence overshadowing her in their eyes. That might be different with the general public, but frankly, I don't give a tosh what they think (to borrow a Britishism).
 
I think you mean Toss rather than Tosh :lol:

Billie is the only possibility, but even then Billie's stint as a pop star was very brief as far as I recall, and she'd only just begun acting (she did Canterbury before Who I believe) and Eccleston was a very renowned character actor. By season 2 I'd say she was better known than DT.
 
Damnit! Leave it to me to screw it up! I blame still waking up. Yeah, that's it. :shifty:

Ah, okay, I didn't know Billie's stint as a pop artist was brief, although I'm guessing a certain part of the target audience would know her better than Eccleston.
 
I'm not sure, if you're talking 8 year olds in 2005 it's worth noting that Billie's biggest hit was "Because we want to" which came out in 1998, and her last UK #1 was in 2000. I guess the older kids may have been aware of her, and obviously adults were aware of her, although much of this was down to her marriage to Chris Evans and subsequent divorce.

But by the same token I'm not sure kids would have know who Chris was, again it might have been mainly adults due to his film roles and things like Cracker and Our Friends in the North.
 
Very much so, but she wasn't David Tennant's first companion and he was well established in the role by the time she joined.
 
I had never heard of Jodie but Bradley hosts The Chase and when I used to watch Coronation Street ages ago he was on that.
 
In Australia Broadchurch is well known (well, relatively), but L&OUK and Corrie not so much, therefore Whitaker has a slightly higher profile. Probably same in US.
 
The Chase is relatively well known, or I'm just around people who can watch afternoon TV. After all, Seven made an Australian version without shifting the UK version.

L&OUK broadcast the first year on Ten before shifting to a pay channel. (Looking at Wikipedia, Chibnall and Walsh are both exec producers on it. Huh. May explain some things.) Broadchurch was primetime ABC. Get knowledge of Coronation Street through osmosis from UK quiz shows.
 
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