Well as an "angsty Male fan" myself, which honestly if we're told the sex and gender of the DOCTOR shouldn't matter, then my sex and gender as a fan shouldn't matter either with my point of view, for me the execution of the first female Doctor was the issue. Yet, Throwing something like that statement out there at that time lead to immediate shark attacks by self styled moralists who could read your character and soul by texts and words online alone!
While not being necessarily opposed to the idea of a female Doc as it does fall in line with my own spiritual beliefs on reincarnation and past life implications on modern day gender choices or "in-born" feels, it is the way that it was handled that I have grievances about. When the announcement was made way back when, with all the media coverage stirring up controversy, and the automatic lableing of those opposed as a conglomerate of Male bigotry, the writing on the wall was that Season 11 was going to be a load of steaming PC agenda and social justice story telling, at the expense of truly good and magnificent science fiction. The stories were lackluster, boring, and heavily spent on companion feels. Lots of slow corridor conversations about feelings, for reasons, and no real over arching storylines. Subpar acting, I was never a fan of Jodie doing a tenant and smith impression, complete with compulsive nose scrunching, and sonic wagging. For me, again initially, my "angst" was more about what the show ended up proving, was that my initial fear and dread about the new direction was actually right. It was predictable, I mean peoples with that mentality tend to be transparent and their agenda easily predictable. You could have almost made a bet on the outcome of it all. To be frank, the female Doctor could have been an epic restart. But the voices who felt that there was a better way were ignored, and chatized for even suggesting as much, and that is the real failure of it all. People who do matter in all of this were silenced for the most abject and superficial way, simply for not towing the line. (Poor Peter Davison) That is unfortunate, and to get those viewers back is going to have to take some much needed out reach and healing. But for something like that to occur, would require some kind of admittance of fault and a course correction, which I don't foresee happening either by Chibnall or the BBC. I expect season 12 to be just as disappointing (even with Cybers and Jadoon) and would be pleasantly surprised if it wasn't. But that I know isn't likely given the current mindset. I never liked Jodie as an actress. I don't see her as the Doctor, she is more of a cosplay parody of tenant and smith. Tilda Swinton would have been my pick. Make it weird, strange and fantastically outlandish, crazy and a bit dark. I yawned through much of Season 11. Tho the New year special that was a bit better. A female junkyard Dalek didn't quite hit the wow factor for me. I almost felt like I saw that story in so much as it reminded me of the Female Cyberlady from Torchwood. (a cheap Chibnall gimmick akin to the "mystery box" tropes of JJ Abrams. Make the Dalek or Cyberman a female, score!! brilliant writing.. sure.. sure..) As a fan, I was hoping for a lot more. But I got ultimately what I feared most would happen, and like old faithful, the mindset and ideology behind the push for the 1st female Doctor showed up in all its splendor, and well..that's just where we are now, succeed or fail, it's what we have to deal with. Those who love it, will be upset by those who didn't and those who didn't, many unlike me, walked away entirely. I have Long time Doctor who fans I know who don't care anymore, and by the looks of this thread, or Doctor Who section on trekbbs even in season 11 at it's height, the traffic and message counts are much much less then they were back in the Smith days, and early Capaldi. I feel like Doctor Who is back to niche' status, and the current Direction has done nothing to improve or change that aspect.
