Question The 13th Doctor is going to be a woman

Femur at TGComics.com has just posted the link:

www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/doctorwho/entries/39...83-8bd3-e6874d09579f

I really wish they'd kept it a mystery till Christmas. I really don't want to spend the next five months listening or reading from trolls about how this is going to destroy the franchise.

I've been wanting this for ten years, but I'm going to have to avoid any Doctor sites in the near future.

I just hope she has a good long run and is not a one season wonder.

I also wish they'd kept Bill around for the next season so we could have watched her swallow her tongue the first time she got a good look at the Doctor's new body.

oh, and apparently she was on some crime drama called Broadchurch, with David Tenant, and that was directed? by the new Doctor Who show runner.

So she had an in.

As long as they don't just pat themselves on the back for having a woman and ignore things like pacing, plot, story, etc, it should be OK.

In more than a few of the earlier transformations the Doctor goes on a bit of a freak out about how unfortunate his new features and body are.

I'm sure we'll see some of that, but as this is his first time as a female I really hope they don't just brush that all under the carpet after five minutes. There should be scenes throughout the first few episodes where the Doctor runs face first into some aspect of the facts of female life. Hope she gets a companion that will drag her into a few situations, such as shopping for undergarments and the right bathroom. Not to mention a spa.

In other words I hope they remember that she's been male for two thousand years and might need a bit more than a day to acclimatize.

Domoviye wrote: As long as they don't just pat themselves on the back for having a woman and ignore things like pacing, plot, story, etc, it should be OK.

This is the BBC.
Fat hope.

Astrodragon wrote:

Domoviye wrote: As long as they don't just pat themselves on the back for having a woman and ignore things like pacing, plot, story, etc, it should be OK.

This is the BBC.
Fat hope.

Joy.
So Ghostbusters all over again.

I was hoping Rupert Grint would get the role, but this is good too.

The body thing will probably be "Still notginger" and "Much better eyebrows"

As for the rest, they did it with River in "Lets kill Hitler"

Kristin Darken wrote: Ah, but wouldn't it be both more amusing and ironic if in THIS incarnation she talks about how much better this body is?

Think of all the Tropes they could do: "Damn is my makeup running?" "Is that Dalek cute?" "Where's the chocolate?" "Damn the upper lip, to the feminine isle."

And her side kick if female goes. "Now you know why we always wanted to stop at a store at times." "I want a raise by the way. And you can't use the sonic screwdriver like that, it doesn't work." Giving a sh**eating grin.

edit: Hey you know someone was going to bring it up, eventually.

When I saw that announcement, I was just really surprised. It's a massive deviation, perhaps? ... It reminds of this quote from "The Magician's Apprentice". And he's still not a ginger.

CLARA: Since when do you care about the Doctor?

MISSY: Since always. Since the Cloister Wars. Since the night he stole the moon and the President's wife. Since he was a little girl. One of those was a lie. Can you guess which one?

Malady wrote: When I saw that announcement, I was just really surprised. It's a massive deviation, perhaps? ... It reminds of this quote from "The Magician's Apprentice". And he's still not a ginger.

CLARA: Since when do you care about the Doctor?

MISSY: Since always. Since the Cloister Wars. Since the night he stole the moon and the President's wife. Since he was a little girl. One of those was a lie. Can you guess which one?

The last one has to be a lie. as Clara goes back and sees the Doctor's childhood and he was most definitely a boy. Or at least everybody referred to him as such. And I'm pretty sure they'd have to do some serious retconning to fit is a previous female regeneration.

That said we have seen some flexibility in how old the Doctor looks after regenerating, which does beg the question of whether he / she could end up being a child again.

It's not 100% confirmed, but River must have regenerated to a child at least once.

Amy knew Mel from a young age, Mel had darkish skin. Amy and Rory are both Scottish, therefor slightly blue skin. So their baby should have had a similar skin colour. Indeed the one shot of a child in the astronaut's suit from Lonely Astronaut shows a pale skinned girl.

annachie wrote: It's not 100% confirmed, but River must have regenerated to a child at least once.

Amy knew Mel from a young age, Mel had darkish skin. Amy and Rory are both Scottish, therefor slightly blue skin. So their baby should have had a similar skin colour. Indeed the one shot of a child in the astronaut's suit from Lonely Astronaut shows a pale skinned girl.

River was the little girl that phoned Richard Nixon. The video explains it.

We shall see where they go with this. General consensus among the friends I talk about Doctor Who with is "it's the right time to do this" and "this pisses all the right people off".

I'm highly optimistic; certainly more than when I first heard Chibnall was going to be showrunner.

Meh. Every change has pissed some people off, and really there's no right time to do it.

I'm just glad it's being done.

They had great success with the Master being female, which probably gave them the courage to do this now, and there was a couple of other cross-gender regenerations done to further test it too, so its not as though they are taking the leap blind.

Hope this woman can pull it off though, this has to be as hard a task as Eccleston faced bringing back the Doctor to begin with, and it'll need as good a performance to bring it off.

One thing to recall is that this isn't entirely a new thing: I seem to remember that pre-reboot, before the Time Wars events made a hash of things, it was implied that the Doctor's 13th (and supposedly final) regeneration was female, and specifically IIRC, there was some speculation that the Inquisitor in "Trial of a Time Lord" was actually the Last Doctor. Why the other Timelords would allow someone to prosecute their own former self if that were the case isn't entirely clear. I assume that this was all Fanon anyway and never part of the actual plotting.

In any case, this was clearly retconned later as the stories about how many regenerations the Doctor has had (and how many remained) shifted around over the course of the series; the unseen War Doctor is mentioned, for example, and at least one story claims the Doctor had to give up a regeneration at some point as well, but then others indicate there have been more than 13 already and that there are more still to go.

Still, the idea of a female Doctor does go back to the mid-1980s, at the very least, even before the very non-canon Rowan Atkinson parody episode "The Case of the Fatal Death" (which ended with a female 13th Doctor heading off with a male Master for what was implied to be an intimate rendezvous).

They are already past the 12 regenerations limit. This is the thirteenth doctor, but the fourteenth regen.

The eighth doctor regened into the war doctor who regened into the ninth doctor, and also the tenth doctor did a regen, but retained the same body.

This made the tenth to eleventh doctor the twelfth regeneration, and the Time Lord council basically gave the doctor another set of twelve regents again because they need him to bring back Gallefrey into this universe and he was dying.

And I don't give a flying flip. Is there a story reason or is the plot premise amenable? Okay, so what? Good for true equal opportunity. Or is someone doing it just to be PC? Some group screams and hollers that they want "one of theirs" in a role despite history, plot premise, character name, etc? Then what the hell?

I can't wait until some PC twinkie decides to do a remake of "Patton" casting Vanessa Redgrave as the general, only in the new version, she doesn't swear, but is loving and caring and understands the Nazis, making them friends that way, instead of having to kill them.

This isn't the first time they have shaken up a series/established IP by recasting key roles as women. Look what they did to the Battlestar Galactica reboot. A female Starbuck...Gtfo! Since when is a big black man suddenly turn into a asian girl...RIP Boomer. And i'm sure there are a ton of others across the rest of the Sci-fi genre as a whole.

elrodw wrote: I can't wait until some PC twinkie decides to do a remake of "Patton" casting Vanessa Redgrave as the general, only in the new version, she doesn't swear, but is loving and caring and understands the Nazis, making them friends that way, instead of having to kill them.

Patton: Well the war shouldn't be over! We should stop pussyfooting about the God damn Russians! We're gonna have to fight them sooner or later anyway. Why not do it now, when we got the the army here to do it with? lnstead of disarming these German Troops we oughta get them to help us fight the damn Bolsheviks.
I'll tell you something Bedell, up until now we've been fighting the wrong people. Look, you and Ike don't have to get involved, you're so damn soft about it. You leave it to me. In 10 days I'll have us a war with those sonsofbitches and I'll make it look like their fault!

Yolandria wrote: This isn't the first time they have shaken up a series/established IP by recasting key roles as women. Look what they did to the Battlestar Galactica reboot. A female Starbuck...Gtfo! Since when is a big black man suddenly turn into a asian girl...RIP Boomer. And i'm sure there are a ton of others across the rest of the Sci-fi genre as a whole.

Another IDGAF situation. I liked the original (BG-80 SUCKED!!!), so seeing Starbuck and Boomer changed? That wasn't the reason I was skeptical. It was the reboot concept itself. But those two being female? Didn't break the premise (although it badly dented some of the old interactions and characterizations.) Would Star Trek have been wrong to do Spock or McCoy as a woman in a reboot? No, there's no intrinsic reason the series couldn't work that way. But the existing fans who know of the legacy characterizations and interplay might (probably) have a hard time accepting the new ones.

Dr. Who is different - it has the whole "regeneration" thing built in, so there's no intrinsic reason it can't be done, but there should be an explanation of WHY, after all those times sporting an outie, Dr. Who now has an innie. Just because? Then why in all the previous times wasn't he a she? (calculate the odds if you want - possible but not probable).

I suspect the Dr. Which fans (oops - Dr. Who) won't care so much as long as the actress plays the doctor the same way as it's been characterized through the previous n instances. If, however, she's not accepted, it's most likely NOT because of misogyny, but because of poor choices by the producers, directors, and actress in how to portray the doctor.

I wish them luck, sort of. I'm not a fan of Dr. Which. (er, Dr. Who. Someday I'll get it straight).

My problem with the new female Doctor isnt the changing sex.

It's the likelihood that the BBC will use it as an excuse to ram yet more radical feminist/PC/left wing garbage into the plots.
Its very possible that their desire to ram their agenda down everyones throats will kill the series, which would be very sad.

I hope I'm wrong, but experience of the BBC makes me worry.

Astrodragon wrote: My problem with the new female Doctor isnt the changing sex.

It's the likelihood that the BBC will use it as an excuse to ram yet more radical feminist/PC/left wing garbage into the plots.
Its very possible that their desire to ram their agenda down everyones throats will kill the series .....

You say that like it would be a bad thing

I've been thinking on this for the last few days.

While the Doctor's regeneration is often the result of a mortal wound, or his body simply running down, it has also happened because he was simply tired and needed to rejuvenate his soul, or spirit.

Now the twelfth doctor is actually the thirteenth I think. He was not supposed to happen. Whether for their own reasons or because Clara shamed them into it, the Time Lords reset the Doctor's clock and gave him another twelve regenerations.

But this first one got off to a very rocky start. He took days, if not weeks, to become comfortable, and fully functional.

But that was not the start of his troubles. Clara was murdered and there was nothing he could do to change that. Even worse he had hours to know she was going to die and could not prevent it. The fact that she found a get out of death card does not matter. He did not know that.

Then River Song had her last meeting with him, in his time line. He's never going to see her again.

He was charged with watching over Missy for a thousand years and seems to have pretty much just existed for most of that period. I'm firmly convinced that one of Nardo's jobs was to act as a suicide watch in case the Doctor decided that thirteen lives was more than enough.

Then he got dragged out of his shell but a bright intelligent girl, Bill, who got him interested in doing more than being a caretaker for a vault/prison.

Then she got turned into one of the first Cyber men, a fate worth than death. Again, nothing so simple as a quick death. He had to live with the knowledge that he had failed her, when she is standing right there, converted into a souless creature.

Again, she found a way out of her situation, but he did not know this.

So here is the doctor, thirteen times a male, and this last time was one of the worst regenerations yet. He doesn't just the restorative effect of a new body and character, he needs a total and complete reboot.

I think he choose to become female for that reason.

As for regenerations being total random and the odds saying he should have been a female a few times already.

Back in the time of the Forth Doctor , his companion, another timelord, Romanadvoratrelundar, demonstrated that not only could she select what body she wanted, she could try them on for size one after another as if she was choosing a dress. So I'm saying that while the Doctor might have left a random factor in his regeneration, he, for whatever reason, choose up till know to go male.

I don't think this is how the writers will explain it, but to me it makes a certain amount of sense.

Another thing I've considered, and a I'm afraid is all too likely. The writer's won't allow the Doctor to indulge in 'girly' behavior. You won't see her clothes shopping, looking for the perfect bra, indulging in the joy of a hot shower, or bubble bath. she'll never visit the planet of spas for a girl's night out.

All of those things would be seen as sexist and stereotypical. She'll have to act in a way that pretty much ignores any significant difference between the genders in the sort of things they might have to indulge in. Which sort of negates the whole reason for having him go her.

I really, really, hope I'm wrong.

Astrodragon wrote: My problem with the new female Doctor isnt the changing sex.

It's the likelihood that the BBC will use it as an excuse to ram yet more radical feminist/PC/left wing garbage into the plots.
Its very possible that their desire to ram their agenda down everyones throats will kill the series, which would be very sad.

I hope I'm wrong, but experience of the BBC makes me worry.

Why change now after 50 years of doing it.

Lets be honest here, after the first couple episodes with a doctor, which is as much us finding out who the new doctor is, as the new doctor learning who they are, I don't think they will dwell on it much, maybe a few nods here and there, especially when a recurring character shows up, maybe a bathroom joke, but they never dwell on it, for a simple reason, outside of key personality traits and values, as the Tenth Doctor said to Wilfred in the End of Time two parter, paraphrasing every incarnation is their own person, the new doctor will be no more Capaldi than Capaldi was Tom Baker, and so on, yes there are often nods to previous incarnations, but they are not the same, excluding the Curator and the 4th Doctor, but the even the Curator is not the 4th doctor, he's what the 4th doctor would be in retirement, it is also worth noting that while not common, it certainly isn't a rare occurrence for this to happen in regeneration, many many lines of dialog have alluded to this, even before we ever had an on screen example. If anything they can use it to remind us how not human the doctor is by her NOT making a big deal about it, UNIT friends can make all the fuss they like about it, that would be fun.

peter wrote: Another thing I've considered, and a I'm afraid is all too likely. The writer's won't allow the Doctor to indulge in 'girly' behavior. You won't see her clothes shopping, looking for the perfect bra, indulging in the joy of a hot shower, or bubble bath. she'll never visit the planet of spas for a girl's night out.

The Doctor's visits to department stores have tended to be disastrous (e.g., "Rose", "Closing Time"), and his visits to spas (e.g., "Midnight") not much better.

null0trooper wrote:

peter wrote: Another thing I've considered, and a I'm afraid is all too likely. The writer's won't allow the Doctor to indulge in 'girly' behavior. You won't see her clothes shopping, looking for the perfect bra, indulging in the joy of a hot shower, or bubble bath. she'll never visit the planet of spas for a girl's night out.

The Doctor's visits to department stores have tended to be disastrous (e.g., "Rose", "Closing Time"), and his visits to spas (e.g., "Midnight") not much better.

Its Doctor Who! Name one place he has visited where it didn't all go to hell! The TARDIS has an agenda and always drops the Doctor in the thick of it.

elrodw wrote: I can't wait until some PC twinkie decides to do a remake of "Patton" casting Vanessa Redgrave as the general, only in the new version, she doesn't swear, but is loving and caring and understands the Nazis, making them friends that way, instead of having to kill them.

Gen. Patton giving the BattleFatigued soldier a hug, and a teddy bear to comfort him.

Phoenix Spiritus wrote:

null0trooper wrote: The Doctor's visits to department stores have tended to be disastrous (e.g., "Rose", "Closing Time"), and his visits to spas (e.g., "Midnight") not much better.

Its Doctor Who! Name one place he has visited where it didn't all go to hell! The TARDIS has an agenda and always drops the Doctor in the thick of it.

There was that one party with Marilyn Monroe ...

But every once in a very long while, everybody lives.

peter wrote: As for regenerations being total random and the odds saying he should have been a female a few times already

You know, his odds of randomly coming out male twelve times in a row are actually higher than the odds of manifesting as a mutant in the WU. If you had a population of 7.5 billion Time Lords and made them all flip their coins twelve times, almost two million would end up never switching gender. But yeah, I doubt it's totally random.

Kettlekorn wrote:

peter wrote: As for regenerations being total random and the odds saying he should have been a female a few times already

You know, his odds of randomly coming out male twelve times in a row are actually higher than the odds of manifesting as a mutant in the WU. If you had a population of 7.5 billion Time Lords and made them all flip their coins twelve times, almost two million would end up never switching gender. But yeah, I doubt it's totally random.

It isn't completely random, usually from what little lore there is on it, though as they progress towards and reach or exceed the regeneration limit it tends to get more and more random, but it also seems to be sometimes guided consciously (Romana 2) or subconsciously (Dr 12) which also plays a factor, the Master becoming Missy was probably more random than anything, the master has done more to cheat death in various ways than any other time-lord, so something was bound to go screwy in regeneration, I imagine that Dr 13 is more subconsciously guided to gender swap, and the fact that this is an entirely brand new regeneration cycle and the Doctor has been holding it back for FAR too long, also plays a factor. There is also the practical factor for why the doctor wouldn't have been female in the past, he travels to and spends much of his time in a largely patriarchal society, and he needs authority to get people to listen when he's trying to save them. I also imagine it can happen when the local demographic on a planet becomes either too male or too female, when the population is Gallifreyan, or when the subconscious decides that one is needed over the other (the General in Hell Bent)

You know, I think the BBC has really missed an opportunity here. For one shining moment they could have made EVERYONE happy!

YES!

Think if they had just cast Caitlyn Jenner! The I want a man crowd would be happy because Y chromosome! The I want to be progressive and have woman crowd would be happy because Post Op! And the Alt lifestyle folks would be happy because Tranny!



I'm kidding of course, can you just IMAGINE the hue and cry if they had done that? You'd think they'd resurrected Churchill to have a second London Blitz! LOL

E. E. Nalley wrote: You know, I think the BBC has really missed an opportunity here. For one shining moment they could have made EVERYONE happy!

YES!

Think if they had just cast Caitlyn Jenner! The I want a man crowd would be happy because Y chromosome! The I want to be progressive and have woman crowd would be happy because Post Op! And the Alt lifestyle folks would be happy because Tranny!



I'm kidding of course, can you just IMAGINE the hue and cry if they had done that? You'd think they'd resurrected Churchill to have a second London Blitz! LOL

over at Huff post there is an article about people complaining that she's a white woman.

And if they had cast Caitlyn they'd have complained that she's not a real woman. And this is just a way to cast yet another white male. And the protestors would likely be the same crowd that is active in promoting Transexual rights.

I think there is huge potential for story telling in this decision. I just hope they take advantage of it.

Damn, I really, really, wish they'd kept this under the rug and sprung it on us at Christmas time. And I'm afraid that she's going to show up in the last thirty seconds of that episode and we'll have to wait another six months to see her first episode.

Caitlin Jenner wouldn't be eligible for a much simpler reason -- she's not a Brit. I simply cannot see them giving the role to a... a... colonial (shudder).

Why not? We can fake british accents just as terribly as they fake ours.

We just need Brad Pitt to do the voice over using his Italian accent from Inglorious Bastards.

Phoenix Spiritus wrote: Its Doctor Who! Name one place he has visited where it didn't all go to hell! The TARDIS has an agenda and always drops the Doctor in the thick of it.

The Singing Towers of Darillium

Phoenix Spiritus wrote: Its Doctor Who! Name one place he has visited where it didn't all go to hell! The TARDIS has an agenda and always drops the Doctor in the thick of it.

The Singing Towers of Darillium

konzill wrote:

Phoenix Spiritus wrote: Its Doctor Who! Name one place he has visited where it didn't all go to hell! The TARDIS has an agenda and always drops the Doctor in the thick of it.

The Singing Towers of Darillium

One night, 43 years long River Song!

I just don't believe that went right.

Also, there was that whole thing before they even settled down to the night that happened.

Phoenix Spiritus wrote:

null0trooper wrote:

peter wrote: Another thing I've considered, and a I'm afraid is all too likely. The writer's won't allow the Doctor to indulge in 'girly' behavior. You won't see her clothes shopping, looking for the perfect bra, indulging in the joy of a hot shower, or bubble bath. she'll never visit the planet of spas for a girl's night out.

The Doctor's visits to department stores have tended to be disastrous (e.g., "Rose", "Closing Time"), and his visits to spas (e.g., "Midnight") not much better.

Its Doctor Who! Name one place he has visited where it didn't all go to hell! The TARDIS has an agenda and always drops the Doctor in the thick of it.

A large percentage of them, they have already gone to all hell before he arrives.

Given that the Doctor is now female, and we already know the TARDIS is female...

What could possibly go wrong...?

Astrodragon wrote: Given that the Doctor is now female, and we already know the TARDIS is female...

What could possibly go wrong...?

Do Time Lords or TARDIS' get PMS? Can they synchronise?