What should the next Doctor look like?

Him changing race would open up a bit of a fun moment.

"Black? Black before Ginger?"

Fresh-eyed movie blog

This.

I think people are just worried they'll give it to some hot piece of ass to bring in more male viewers.

We've had eleven male Doctors who were all immensely talented and varied in their attractiveness, whereas a female Doctor is going to stick pretty tightly to Hollywood standards of beauty. Hence the calls for her to be talented.

edited 4th Dec '11 1:15:55 PM by Medicus

It's not over. Not yet.

Betty White. Make it so.

"Teebs is a total grump, but he's usually right." - NLK

Betty White is the First Doctor in the alternate universe genderswapped show Doctor Who: Medicine Woman.

Fresh-eyed movie blog

Betty White would be the best Doctor. Except for that whole "not from the British Isles" thing.

Always, somewhere, someone is fighting for you. As long as you remember them, you are not alone.

"Okay, regeneration explains what happened to your penis, Doctor, but what happened to your accent?"

"When you're as old as I am you really just don't give a shit about that kind of thing."

"Teebs is a total grump, but he's usually right." - NLK

The implication is there because it was brought up in the first place. Again, absolutely no one outright said they'd like a female Doctor/Doctor of color at the expense of acting ability or writing, so why even bring it up? And just to be clear before it's brought up, I'm not claiming you intentionally made a racist/sexist comment with that, but pointing out that those overtones are subconsciously there whether you realize it or not.

I'd direct you towards Catherine Tate and Alex Kingston as examples of Doctor Who's producers casting women who fall outside conventional, Hollywood standards of beauty. And for girls who fall a little more under those standards, Karen, Freema, and Billie showed no signs of being incompetent actors (whatever you may think of how their characters were written).

Point is, I don't see a female Doctor's actress's acting ability as much to worry about given past female characters.

edited 4th Dec '11 7:36:18 PM by piccorotto

To be fair, neither Tate nor Kingston are exactly ugly, though.

Oh no, definitely not. But they're very much not your standard Hollywood hotties (which is a plus in my book).

There are some corners of the fandom who feel the Doctor should only hang out with 20-something-year-old blondes with negative waist sizes. Fans who like the Doctor having a wife/girlfriend/whatever River is, but prattle on and on that Kingston is too old. These fans must be shot.

edited 4th Dec '11 6:54:17 PM by piccorotto

piccorotto: While I'm in general agreement with you (and complete agreement that these sorts of implicit race/gender ideas need to be confronted), it wouldn't be the first time that "Let's put underrepresented demographic X into role Y!" has turned into "Let's cast the first/hottest/most well-known member of demographic X!"

Moot from our perspective since we're not actually casting the 12th Doctor, but mentioning that you wouldn't want that to happen is perfectly reasonable.

Could we please stop with the allegations of sexism? Seriously.

Those are the fans that just want to shag the Doctor.

Then there are nutjobs like me who'd prefer him to remain totally celibate. Like that's really any better.

edited 4th Dec '11 11:04:45 PM by Medicus

It's not over. Not yet.

No I am not I know nobody is saying that I am simply not talking to anyone in specific hence the reason I mentioned that. Just to be clear I am not antifemale doctor nor "taking sides".

My only point is that acting personality should be a priority over gender. The tradition is that the doctor is a white English guy. To break that a female actress has to be good to make the audience believe she is the doctor.

Yes a female actress would have more to proof than a male actor, for breaking what the character has been for almost 50 years and what the character means for many people. That's not sexism at all.The same would happen if a male actor would try to play a traditional female role.

male actor as a gender reversed Ariel from The Little Mermaid ?, Could it work? of course, but not just with any actor.Of course I believe a woman could do this by being good, not just by being female. I say this to hear proposals of female actresses because many people are just impying that female will equal good doctor when in fact it all will depend to wich female actress we are talking about.

Now about subconcious mind... I would only trust a licenced psychologist to say it's "subconcious racism"

edited 4th Dec '11 11:16:21 PM by FallenLegend

Make your hearth shine through the darkest night; let it transform hate into kindness, evil into justice, and loneliness into love.

Let me teach you something The doctor is an interpretatice character.That means that as long as long as you keep the basic elements of a character (their essence) you can have infinite variations of the same character.Without those elements, you' would have a completely different character rather than a new version.

Even tough we have 11 different doctors they all have had the same basic traits of a good alien that travels through time and space with a blue box. Change any of that and he wouldn't be the doctor anymore

The doctor has been a male white guy for almost 50 years, that trait has been a synonym the doctor for that much time, of course it's perfectly normal to think of the doctor as a male white British guy just like it's normal to think of batman as guy named bruce wayne that uses a bat suit and fights crime... Thats not sexism that's what the character represents and in fact has represented for generations.

Think of Mistique from the Xmen she could technically be male character (shapeshifting and all). But traditionally part of her character is that she isa blue female shapeshifter. A male actor that wanted to play her would have a lot to proof aswell.In fact only '''ONE''' version of her character has been male an it was just a one-shot character

I am not against a female doctor. But if a female actress is changing what the doctor has meant for 50 years and for many people. She would have a lot to proof, given that a basic trait of a character is changing. Something a male British guy wouldn't have a trouble with.

I would love a female doctor if she is able to make the role hers and make it amazing or as the tenth doctor would say if she is "brilliant".

edited 4th Dec '11 11:49:22 PM by FallenLegend

Make your hearth shine through the darkest night; let it transform hate into kindness, evil into justice, and loneliness into love.

I'm crushed on Alex Kingston from her time on ER when I was a kid. She was funny, pretty, and that accent, oh zod yes.

Untitled Power Rangers Story

I really disagree. In some instances, the Doctor is presented as a creature that happens to look like us, but has an alien /Blue-and-Orange Morality outlook. To the extent this is true, he could be any human gender, race, or age.

I would agree that he generally is a very British alien, but I don't see how much him being male, or especially him being white is important. The male might be more important since the idea of him being asexual hasn't been scrupulously maintained, and he does seem to be a heterosexual male, which would be kind of off if he ended up in a female body. I can't see any reason though he has to be white*

. and how it would change his personality if he wasn't.

edited 5th Dec '11 8:37:14 AM by Jordan

Hodor

It's important because it's a tradition. But I agree that tradition could be broken without problem, traditions aren't rules after all.

If a female doctor is as the ninth doctor said "absolutely fantastic" or as the tenth doctor said she needs to be "brilliant"

edited 5th Dec '11 12:45:22 PM by FallenLegend

Make your hearth shine through the darkest night; let it transform hate into kindness, evil into justice, and loneliness into love.

Sensitive much? Nobody brought it up just now but you. We're talking about latent cultural assumptions about race and gender. Bit more complex.

Since the Doctor redefines many aspects of his personality,he's effectively changing who he is far more than, for example, James Bond, who basically remains kind of the same guy despite having a different appearance every now and then. Now,since I don't believe that skin colour or gender are more defining characteristics than basic temper and personality, I would have no problem whatsoever with a change on those points - as long as the core nature of the Doctor is respected: "The Mad, Brilliant And Wonderful Time-Travelling Alien Adventurer With A Blue Box". Anything else is just, well... packaging.

Change, my dear, and not a moment too soon.

Yeah. Basically, the next Doctor has to still be The Doctor.

He's like fire and ice and rage. He's ancient and forever. He burns at the centre of time. Rory punched him in the face.

John Barrowman should play the next doctor...then make out with Capin' Jack.

Untitled Power Rangers Story

Next Doctor is Nick Scovell.

I kind of wish there was some way to switch it all up and make an actor playing one of the companions the Doctor and then making Matt Smith a companion. And shuffling the rest of the cast too.

I have no idea how this could be done, but it would be the best thing.

Always, somewhere, someone is fighting for you. As long as you remember them, you are not alone.

Mindswap episode.

"Teebs is a total grump, but he's usually right." - NLK

I meant besides that.

Maybe anyway though.

Always, somewhere, someone is fighting for you. As long as you remember them, you are not alone.

Reality swap episode then.

Everything starts with some one-off character waiting for the Doctor to come and fix something/everything. The TARDIS lands and... out steps the Doctor's current companion. S/he whips out a Sonic, proceeds to be awesome, and the current Doctor's actor steps forth to gush about how awesome "the Doctor" is.

Cue title sting, opening credits, things being all hunky dory for a while, maybe even some role-swapped enemies, then the eventual realization that something's wrong.