Quick PSA. I’m going to be discussing Doctor Who in a way that may cause you to infer
or have revealed to you certain things that may constitute spoilers depending on
how much of the show you have seen. End PSA.
One of the questions that commonly rears its head if you’re a Doctor Who fan is
Should we or should we not have a female Doctor?
Quickest of quickest info-dumps to get the uninitiated up to speed. In the fiction of
Doctor Who the main character, called the Doctor is a Time Lord from the planet Gallifrey.
Time Lords have the ability to, when suffering from extreme injury that would result in death,
completely REGENERATE every cell in their body and continue living. In the fiction of
the show this means the Doctor has a new appearance. In the real world it means the Doctor can
be played by a different actor. It is this mechanic that has contributed to the show’s
longevity. Normally this process can only occur 12 times but the show recently circumvented
that problem.
It’s established that regeneration could result in a change into any species
The Doctor: "I might never make sense again! I have two heads, or no head!"
"Imagine me with no head!"
Yet on the production side of things it’s obvious why we get a human-like appearance every time.
For example I don't think that an Ood or a Raxacoricofallapatorian would work as The Doctor
but maybe that's just me!
Bringing it back around to the point, one of the thing that all the Doctors have in common so far is that they have
all been played by male actors. While there are male and female Time Lords (sometimes called time ladies)
it wasn't until "The End of Time: Part 2" that we got official confirmation within the fictional framework of the show
that a change of gender during regeneration is possible.
The Doctor: "Chin?...blimey!
Hair?
I'm a girl!
No, No!
I'm not a girl!"
This was later reiterated in "The Doctor’s Wife"
The Doctor: "Fantastic bloke! He had that snake as a tattoo in every regeneration. Didn't feel like himself
unless he had the tattoo. Or herself a couple of times. Oho! She was a bad girl!"
and again in "The Night of the Doctor"
Ohila: "Time Lord science is elevated here on Karn. The change does have to be random.
Fat or thin?
Young or old?
Man or woman?
Finally in "Dark Water" we had our first official onscreen appearance of a female incarnation of a previously
male Time Lord, and this was later confirmed by Osgood in "Death in Heaven".
Osgood: "Who is she?"
The Doctor: "You'd never believe me if I told you."
Osgood: "Because I thought she might be the Master, regenerated into female form."
These moments brilliant because they objectively answer the question whether we can have a
female Time Lord or not in the fiction of the show. We can. End of.
It's not that easy though. When you return to the question
"SHOULD we have a female Doctor?", it gets much much more difficult to answer.
And I'm not going to answer it.
It's a question that provoke a lot of discussion
and sharing of interesting opinions on either side but it’s not a question that me nor anyone else
can have a definite answer to. If you’re desperate to know what I personally think, I would like
the Doctor continue being played by a male. I have reasons for thinking this
and maybe they can be the basis of another video, but right now I want to discuss something that's
much much much more fun, which is if we DID have a female Doctor, who would I want to play the role.
I don’t have a shortlist or a top 5 or anything because the person who I think should a female Doctor
if we have one came to me so clearly and so assuringly that now I just can't imagine it being anyone else.
It's quite bizarre I think, as someone who doesn't really want a female Doctor that I've got this vision and I
get excited thinking about how cool it would be for this particular actress to play the part.
So if we had a female Doctor, I think Tilda Swinton should play the role. This isn’t
down to her physical appearance because the Doctor can look like anyone. It's not down to her
acting ability because nobody is questioning that. It's down to the fact that
Tilda Swinton has this almost indescribable aura that is self assured without being arrogant. I choose her as well
because I also believe that the Doctor should not be played as a man in a woman's body.
Doing that would start to border on self parody and not only would it damage the show but it would damage the credibility of the
choice of having a female play the role in the first place. The change of gender should be no more or less dramatic
than any other charatastic that changes from one regeneration to the next.
I believe Tilda would be perfect for this transition. She wouldn’t play the
Doctor as a woman, she'd just play the Doctor.
All that being said, I still stand by my initial preference of there not being a female Doctor.
I know there's a huge amount of people who will agree with me but also most likely an equal amount
of people who won't. But the important to remember is we all have our reasons and no one is
definitively correct about this. I’m honestly just so excited for the future of the show whatever it may hold
and I'm sure if they did have a female Doctor, it would be brilliant.
Just don’t get me starting on whether we should have a child play the Doctor because that would be, and
I'm officially saying this as a fact, the WORST IDEA EVER.
Thank you all for watching! I hope I haven't been too controversial but it's discussions like this that I would hope bring people together
as opposed to divide them. Click below to see a video of me reviewing
every film I saw last year in quick succession if you haven't already.
And stick around after this end screen for an announcement from yours truly!
I'll just give you some time to stick around... or indeed leave if you're going to, so either stick around or leave.
I've given you that option.
Hello! I'm now addressing the people who decided to stick around so, Thank you!
This is just a quick thing from me it's nothing drastic. It's just something I've been thinking about for a while.
I've talked to people, pros and cons, weighing it up and in the end I've decided it can't really hurt.
I've set up a Patreon page and for those of you who don't know what a Patreon page is it's kind of like a permanent kickstarter.
People who watch creators online and enjoy their work can decide to make pledges to them and in return I can offer little perks.
There's not much on the page at the moment I will say. I've just set it up bare bones. More just to gage interest and see if there is any traction in it
and hopefully with time I can start expanding the roster of perks for you guys because that'd be cool.
There's a link for it down in the description so if you're at all interested you can just go have a read and a look.
Don't worry, all my content on here will continue to be free and available for everyone to enjoy.
This isn't a way of making people pay for content because that sound icky.
This is of course the "above and beyond" strategy. If you really like what I do and would love to support me even further than just tuning in, which is amazing
you can go and do that. I want to give you the option.
And who knows. Down the line if it got big enough I could start improving the quality of my content further than what it already is
because there are certain limitations in terms of what I can do right now in terms of content. That's kind of it.
I will say when I was talking to people about this I started to feel really guilty and I worry. I worry there's a problem with asking for this and setting it up.
But coming back to the point and, i might just be spewing nonsense, I'm not limiting anyone. I just want to have the option there.
Don't feel obliged. You know you can punch me in the face if you want. I should make that a perk! If you ever meet me you can just *boof*.
Anyway that's enough from me otherwise I'll talk forever. But I just want to say thank you for the support I've gotten so far just in general because that's brilliant.
And who knows where this may lead. Thank you so much. I just wanted to share that with you. Thank you for sticking around. You're awesome. Bye!