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Originally Posted by Stephen
Classic Who had a fair few male companions, so not strictly true.
Also they already gender swapped the Master so don't think they would do that with The Doctor.
Thirdly yes he does regenerate but it doesn't feel that long since Capaldi came on board. I'd have wanted one more season at least when Chris Chibnall takes over as show runner.
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The 1960s had a regular male companion, but from 1970 onwards the Doctor's regular travelling companions were almost all female (excluding the UNIT regulars, Pertwee's Doctor never had a female companion, Tom Baker's had Harry Sullivan for a brief spell in his first season then Adric at the tail end; Davison had Adric then Turlough. Turlough left the series in 1984 and was the last recurring male character billed by the show's producers as a companion in either the classic or the modern era, with the singular exception of Rory (when he wasn't getting killed). Actually I really liked the Smith/Gillan/Darvill Tardis, it was very Troughtonesque and IMO will likely come to be regarded as classic.
All that said, I think they probably have leant towards female companions as a balance for the character of the Doctor, who is male. However the thinking behind that doesn't apply if they cast the next Doctor as a woman, because that decision will have been taken for different reasons. The only reason for casting a woman to play a male role is a perceived need for gender equality. Those same reasons would permit two females in the Tardis while simultaneously frowning on two males in the show's lead roles.
Steven Moffat has spent the last 3 years furiously bending the show's continuity so as to provide a ready in-universe explanation for casting a female to play a character who has regenerated from male to male no fewer than 12 times. Nevertheless, such a radical change in the structure of one of the BBC's most lucrative properties isn't a decision that will be taken by Chris Chibnall alone. It will require consent from upstairs.
---------- Post added at 23:25 ---------- Previous post was at 22:59 ----------
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Originally Posted by Stuart
A female doctor seems to wind people up as much as a female James Bond.
I've had arguments online with people who claim either that it is not Canon, or it's PC gone mad.
Regarding the former, I have a couple of thoughts. - It's a series about a being who lives for thousands of years, can time travel, can change into a new body at death and lives in box that can appear instaneously wherever and whenever he wants, is the size of a Police box on the outside yet almost infinitely large on the inside. How much more of a leap of faith is it to accept the character can change gender?
- It is Canon. Romana changed into several forms (some of which were only humanoid in as far as they had two arms, two legs and a head) several times before she settled on the form of Lalla Ward. Also, David Tennant's doctor regenerated into himself. Finally, in one of the Peter Capaldi stories, a timelord did change gender during a regeneration, and the doctor has talked about his friends changing genders.
- How do we know that Timelords *have* any meaningful gender? They can clearly change form during regeneration, so how do we know they don't merely assume a gender to make dealing with other races easier?
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To take you point by point:
1. A story must be internally consistent. Yes, all those things are true of the Doctor, but all those things operate according to rules we have to feel we understand, otherwise it is not possible for us to be carried along with the sense of peril the show seeks to generate, or to find the eventual resolution satisfying. A show as long-running as this one has a lot of internal consistency to live up to and a lot of volunteers who will shout loudly if it doesn't. So leaps of faith don't come into it - either a gender-change is consistent with everything else we know about the Whoniverse, or it isn't.
2. It is now canon because Moffat has worked extremely hard to make it so. You can't really fashion gender change out of Romana's regeneration, which was silliness typical of that point in the show's history and in any case was intended to distract from the obvious failure of Mary Tamm to show up and shoot a regeneration sequence. The idea of gender-shifting Time Lords is entirely a work of the last 3-4 years, and has been done with the explicit aim of opening the role up to a female actor in future.
3. We know that Time Lords have meaningful gender because every single piece of relevant continuity from 1963 to date says that they do. Time Lords talk about their parents, they talk about being children; Gallifreyan children have been portrayed in the modern series more than once. With two very recent exceptions, Time Lords who regenerate always regenerate from male to male, or female to female. Everything we know about Gallifreyan society suggests that for one of them to change from a man to a woman or vice versa would be potentially problematic, certainly in a family setting where a couple are intending to have children.
Also, Time Lords have always sought to avoid direct relations with other races. I think it extremely unlikely they would inconvenience themselves with alien concepts of gender just to endear themselves.
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Regardless of race, gender, sexuality, age, disability or any other physical aspect.
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Sorry to be blunt but this is complete bollards. An actor's physical characteristics are often central to the casting decision. TV shows spend millions on finding precisely the right locations, building sets and on CGI to fill in the bits that can't be realised otherwise, just so that everything looks exactly the way the director wants it to. To suggest that the same considerations suddenly don't apply when putting a human actor in the centre of the shot is nonsensical - it's a mindless platitude that only sounds good because it sounds inclusive.