The guessing game cycle of working out who the next lead in Doctor Who is upon us again. You know, the one where we shout out names of actors we like and then when the character is finally cast look baffled and go, “Who? Who even is he? My show is RUINED FOREVER!”
I use he/him pronouns here, because despite much of the wishlist of dream castings being women, the role will almost certainly go to a man. Which, at the moment, is probably a good thing.
Now, I fervently disagree with the Daily Mails and Louise Mensches of the world, adding their voices to the cavalcade of squawking from the misogynistic fanboys that the Doctor has to be played by a man. These whines about a potential threat to male supremacy, dressed up as false concerns about political correctness and the integrity of canon are nonsense. They’re completely fucking nonsense. A woman Doctor could be really, really fucking cool. Or, indeed, a genderqueer Doctor, a non-binary identified Doctor, or anywhere across the beautiful rainbow of gender. There are so many actors I would love to see in the role: Tilda Swinton as a circumspect Doctor; Sue Perkins as an exuberant Doctor; Judi Dench completely schooling the children in how to get shit done.
However, this all depends on the writer and who’s in charge of deciding the Doctor’s destiny.
And unfortunately that person right now is Stephen fucking Moffat.
As you might gather, I am hardly the Moff’s biggest fan, thinking him something of a colossal sexist. I can see, nightmarishly clearly, just how badly he would fuck up a woman Doctor. She would regenerate, and upon realising she is a woman, announce proudly “I’ve got boobs! Marvellous, exciting boobs!” She would take up with a male companion, because I cannot see Moff allowing women to travel space and time without some male supervision. And she’d fall in love with this male companion, because that’s how women work on Planet Moff. The fact she had regenerated as a woman would become a great, plot-driving mystery, as women are mysterious on Planet Moff.
I cannot see any way that a woman Doctor handled by the Moff would be written and characterised well. All I can see is car crashes.
So not yet, I don’t want a woman Doctor just yet. Not under Moff. He’s got to go before a woman Doctor would stand a chance at being anything other than simultaneously the butt of a joke and the Greatest Mystery In The Universe.
Another angry woman 
It’s Danny Dyer or I’m not paying the licence fee.
Hilariously in an LOLSOB sort of way, when this showed up on my twitter feed, my brain went, “because she would be written by Stephen Moffatt, obviously.”
It’s the obvious answer, really.
[MOD NOTE: snipped for tedious irrelevant whine about token women, much the same as the Mail article]
But you know what would be cool? Ignoring everything I just said [MOD NOTE: I did], it would be so cool if they wrote all the scripts on the assumption that it would be a man cast next, and then cast a woman.
OMG, Judi Drench as the Doctor… you have made my day. If only…
i honestly haven’t paid much attention to the Doctor. Didn’t have cable for a few years, and then when I got a chance to catch up, Rose Tyler was a major turn off. (Did she exist for any reason other than to be helpless and need rescuing?) For Judi Drench I’d give the show another chance.
Sadly your description of Moffet makes it sound like in spite of what several Whovians I trust have told me, if I started watching now I would see more of what made Rose drive me crazy.
Rose Tyler was a major turn off. (Did she exist for any reason other than to be helpless and need rescuing?)
There were some reasons, but they are spoilers so I wont go into them. However basically you’re right, and that’s been the case since day 1 of Doctor Who and it’s never been entirely got over.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susan_Foreman#Conception_and_development
The did do something different with the 4th Doctor (Tom Baker) and Leela, the jungle hunter from a post apocalyptic Earth, and with 7th Doctor (Sylvester McCoy) and Ace, the 80s punk who likes to hit stuff with a baseball bat. I think the aggressive & impulsive companion plays well of the calm and wily Doctor, but the people who run the show don’t seem to want to use that.
At this stage in the evolution of Doctor Who, I spend more time fantasising about a woman being given the writer/show runner job in place of Steven Moffat, rather than which actress would be my ideal Doctor.
(none of which should be taken to mean I don’t spend a lot of time fantasising about my ideal Doctors, male or female, my ideal companions, my ideal opening credits, TARDIS interior design…)
People need to stop suggesting Sue Perkins to play Doctor Who. Sue Perkins is a great comedian, and an engaging and likeable TV presenter, but as an actor she is adequate and nothing more. Did people not see her sitcom?? The only reason people suggest her is because she looks a bit like David Tennant.
You’re assuming that Moffat would write the regeneration epsiode. Trouble is, if – for example – Mark Gatiss took over as showrunner, would that solve the problem or would the focus simply become ‘Doctor Who needs a female showrunner’ (as well as a female Doctor…and a female companion…and the return of the Rani…and so on)?
On the other hand, I can imagine the regeneration taking place and the Doctor simply saying: ‘Well, this is new’ (cue theme music; roll end credits) and then everybody will spend the next few seasons acting as if nothing had happened beyond ‘Oh, you’ve regenerated’ (and yes, that includes River Song’s reaction despite being married to the 11th Doctor).
Failing that, there’s always Tilda Swinton as Orlando.
I have to agree. Moffat writes traditional female characters well enough, but it’s not like we have a dearth of Spunky Ingenues, Stalwart Loyal Wives, Worried Mothers, and Mystery Love Interests in media. He has a way of introducing these concepts at first in a way that makes them seem strange and new (Mystery Woman Love Interest? Let’s have her last meeting with the Doctor be his first, before he had actually met her! Ooh!) only to ruin them when he drags them back in for the long run (oh here’s River Song again, ooh she’s in love with the Doctorzzzzz…. *coma*).
And actually he has written a female Doctor — in the Curse of Fatal Death short, only she came in at the very end, and went away arm in arm with the (still male, despite Dalek boobs) Master. It was very funny for a bit of temporary froth, but I shudder to think what would have happened if that story had gone on until we were sick of the sight of Joanna Lumley and Jonathan Pryce. (I would kill anyone who made me sick of Joanna Lumley.)