Moffat Finally Confirms The Doctor Can And Should Be A Woman

http://io9.com/steven-moffat-finally-confirms-the-doctor-can-and-shoul-1668433760

I love Missy but... I'm not sure if I can handle such a drastic change for the Doctor...

I think after been a fan for almost 30 years I'd turn it off.

I can handle a sex change with no problem, it's just I don't want any more butchered monsters.

Im so glad I'm not going to be watching anymore. Sigh.

Jump the shark? Sounds like they are aiming right for the mouth!

For the past few days, I've been reading reports about this on general sci-fi sites and it has unanimously been presented as a positive development. Writers and posters have been crowing about it as if it were some great victory for civil rights. Anyone opining that it was a dumb idea was "shouted down" and branded as an ignorant, sexist, scared little boy afraid to live in a world where gender doesn't matter. (This would be the same world in which America's "post-racial society" also exists.)

I get the feeling that the forum is going to predominately feature the opposite opinion. I hope that members who think that a female Doctor would be a good idea will feel free to post comments supporting their position. We've always been a more civil bunch than the average forum, and it would be nice to have a rational discussion about this regrettable inevitability. (Despite what my avatar might lead one to believe, I'm not thrilled at the prospect of the Doctor being called "mum.")

It really would mean the end of the show for me. If we need to feature a female lead, then end Doctor Who and replace it with another show. I can come up with five ideas off the top of my head, my favorite of which involves the Doctor having brought Gallifrey back, possibly retiring or dying in the process, and the Time Lords try to bring Jenny into their fold, only to have her take up her father's mantle as Champion of Time.

This, to me, is much more logical than a sex-change regeneration. I can accept it with the Master/Missy, because he's screwed with his own biology so much over the centuries that he's lucky he didn't regenerate as a hermaphroditic platypus.

Anyway, I'd rather see a new show about a new character.

Calixar wrote:

It really would mean the end of the show for me.

Me too.

Calixar wrote:

I can accept it with the Master/Missy, because he's screwed with his own biology so much over the centuries that he's lucky he didn't regenerate as a hermaphroditic platypus.

I agree with that statement.  We've already seen The Master steal bodies (Tremas, Bruce) to continue his existence (heck...maybe Missy is another example of this, since it was never explained...), so unless the Doctor must resort to this kind of change due to some kind of crisis...maybe.  However, i would have a hard time accepting a regenerative sex-change.

For me it's not a matter of civil rights or any of that. This is a television role, not the right to vote. And I hate to employ the now clichéd "You wouldn't cast James Bond as a woman," or "You wouldn't cast the Queen as a man," but it's completely true. Just because the Doctor can change every cell in his body doesn't mean he should change gender. It would be a low blow to the character, I think.

The Doctor is a man, it should stay that way. And that's not some sort of sexist bias favouring males, because I feel the exact same way about Romana, the Rani and River - they should not regenerate into men. You can't change a character so drastically like that.

I can completely understand it with the Master. Calixar, you put it perfectly. But this is something that just wouldn't work for the Doctor.

I am sad to say that it would also be the end of the line for me, too, and I would stop watching. I would create my own bubble where this new regeneration never happened and isn't canon, with the previous Doctor remaining the incumbent in my eyes. I guess my Whovianism would focus solely on the canon up until that point, but I wouldn't get involved in the new series.

I really don't know what I would do. I would most likely give it a shot, just to see what they did. And if it is brilliant, so be it.

But I do not want it to happen.

That could be Jenny's next regeneration.

Well, I can't really say anything that hasn't been said, but if the next Doctor - or any new Doctor for that matter - is a woman, I too would stop watching.

If the sonic screwdriver is now a magic wand that can get them out of any corner they've written themselves into, why not?

The new series "jumped the shark" a while ago.

A woman Doctor feels more like cheap pandering than anything else.

D84 wrote:

A woman Doctor feels more like cheap pandering than anything else.

It would literally be for no other reason than that. Would it develop the character? No, it would abolish everything up until that point and start the character completely anew. I will be extremely angry if they ruin a show that has been loved for five whole decades, and a show that I've personally loved for over half my lifetime, just so they can say, "Wahoo we've made the Doctor a female, look how progressive and 21st century and amazing we are."

Like I said, this is not the right to vote or the right to freedom of speech - this is not an issue of civil rights or gender equality at all - this is a male fictional character about to be unnecessarily and irrationally butchered. There is no need here at all for a gender change.

I'm glad at least that we got Capaldi before a woman Doctor though. At least I can enjoy him before my days of watching the show come to an end. Sigh.

Nice to see I'm not alone in my opinions on something, at least.

Scary wrote:

For me it's not a matter of civil rights or any of that. This is a television role, not the right to vote. And I hate to employ the now clichéd "You wouldn't cast James Bond as a woman," or "You wouldn't cast the Queen as a man," but it's completely true. Just because the Doctor can change every cell in his body doesn't mean he should change gender. It would be a low blow to the character, I think.

The Doctor is a man, it should stay that way. And that's not some sort of sexist bias favouring males, because I feel the exact same way about Romana, the Rani and River - they should not regenerate into men. You can't change a character so drastically like that.

I can completely understand it with the Master. Calixar, you put it perfectly. But this is something that just wouldn't work for the Doctor.

I am sad to say that it would also be the end of the line for me, too, and I would stop watching. I would create my own bubble where this new regeneration never happened and isn't canon, with the previous Doctor remaining the incumbent in my eyes. I guess my Whovianism would focus solely on the canon up until that point, but I wouldn't get involved in the new series.

Well, considering that ONE: The Doctor is an alien. TWO: The whole idea of regeneration being normal. THREE: We got the Doctor looking like an old fart one minute, and then looking like someone barely out of college the next.

I'd say anything goes.

Scary wrote:

I'm glad at least that we got Capaldi before a woman Doctor though. At least I can enjoy him before my days of watching the show come to an end. Sigh.

If the rumors of his new contract are true, you have at LEAST two more years of Capaldi!

And by then, Moffat should be gone.

I don't want The Doctor to be a woman, but I'm not totally against it either. It would take some getting used to. I really don't want Moffat to be at the helm if/when The Doctor does become a woman. I'm sure that'll be Moffat's swan song and he's already got it planned out though.

Ronpur wrote:

And by then, Moffat should be gone.  

Oh, please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please PLEASE!!!!
{fingers crossed, wishing hard}


The sooner the better.

The Castellan wrote:

Well, considering that ONE:  The Doctor is an alien.   TWO:  The whole idea of regeneration being normal.  THREE:  We got the Doctor looking like an old fart one minute, and then looking like someone barely out of college the next.

I'd say anything goes.

The only problem I see what that is that he's now regenerated, a dozen or so times. If it were possible for him to naturally regenerate as a woman, why hasn't it happened at least once already? To suddenly have a female Doctor now, as some have said, would appear to be politically-correct pandering.

Maybe we shouldn't read too much into Moffat's statements, though. Remember, JN-T famously said (years ago) that he didn't see why the 'next' Doctor couldn't be a woman, though behind the scenes, he had no intention of casting a woman, and admitted the whole story was to drum up publicity. This could just very well be a way to keep people talking about the show.