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Doctor who Series 10; He has been away for a while but he is back! Contains spoilers.


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The odds in betting are based on probabilities. There has to be some reason for it or bookmakers make no money.

Besides, the BBC had several better reasons for casting a woman than their own diversity requirements - lots of publicity for the show and new, fertile ground for the writers. Plus Chibnall wanted a female Doctor so he got one, doubt there was much of a conspiracy behind it.

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I don't think the BBC were forced at all but I guess they could have stoked such opinions when their own news channels pointed out that the BBC has a remit to be more diverse and that casting a female doctor would add to that.

Personally, I think/hope they did it because a) why not? and b ) it allows them to explore some different stories. I've mentioned before that the Doctor should expect to be treated differently by humans in many times/places now. Even if the Doctor makes very little of it.

I look forward to little things like whether the doctor will bother correcting people if they refer to her with male pronouns. I suspect not - given the history of the character it's other people assuming "he" is male based on appearance and as it means so little to "him", he's cool with it. They could have probably referred to him as "her" over the generations and he wouldn't have blinked. I think I'll stick with calling him "him" when referring to his history and "her" when it comes to talking about the new incarnation.

Thinking about it, as far as we know (or possibly as far as I know), some of his other incarnations could have been female. What's to say time-lords have distinct physical attributes according to their gender besides sexual organs. Have they ever established how time lords reproduce and whether they have penises/vaginas? Probably not on a BBC kids show. Much like the two hearts they'd maybe think it inefficient to bother with sexual reproduction. They could have hermaphrodite qualities.

Hopefully they don't bother explaining why the doctor is now female. Just have it as "it happens". The problem with coming up for a reason is that it'll potentially tie them down and they should always just cast who they think works or the gender the showrunner wants. If they were to say something like "After X regenerations, they have to swap" that's problematic as it locks in the female gender for X generations and also comes with the risk of implying the gender change is against the Doctor's choice. Because it sort of feels like there has to be a choice rather than it being random (14 male generations in a row is unlikely by chance) - unless my point that previous incarnations have been female too and we just didn't notice.

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Having a female master and a female doctor does seem like over egging the pudding however. Clearly there was a lot of social pressure on them to make it a female doctor, which is a shame, decisions should be made based on creating the best story, not pandering to pressure. I don't mind either way, I have no problem with a female doctor , the role is essentially gender neutral 

It doesn't look like the female Master and the female Doctor are going to overlap.
 

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2 hours ago, Starkess said:

 

 

It doesn't look like the female Master and the female Doctor are going to overlap.
 

We could have another female Master, Missy doesn't have to always be Michelle Gomez.

I think these people who are trying to argue politics and SJWs are reading too much into it. Chibnall wanted a female Doctor, so he got a female Doctor. That's basically it.

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On 18/07/2017 at 9:43 AM, Channel4s-JonSnow said:

Not really, the odds for these things are generally worked out from just looking around the media and seeing who people are putting forward as suggestions. They often have very little baring as to who is being considered, unless there is some inside information.

You just have to look at the media and the internet to see the level of pressure the BBC were put under here. They might have technically had a choice, but the backlash would have been huge.

You're all over the place here. The odds come from names put forward in the media: so you're saying the media were promoting lots of male candidates at the same time as they were insisting that it absolutely had to be a woman?

Really, just back down gracefully. You don't have to praise the BBC for the choice, but at least give them credit for making it freely.

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I'm happy with the new Doctor. Jodie Whittaker is a great actress and having her along with a new show runner should freshen things up. As much as I liked Capaldi Doctor things have been going a bit stale for a while now. A complete reboot and (hopefully) toning down the overly complicated stories seems like the way to go.

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7 minutes ago, mormont said:

You're all over the place here. The odds come from names put forward in the media: so you're saying the media were promoting lots of male candidates at the same time as they were insisting that it absolutely had to be a woman?

Really, just back down gracefully. You don't have to praise the BBC for the choice, but at least give them credit for making it freely.

That some people were discussing male actors doesn't mean there wasn't a huge wave of articles pushing the idea that it HAD to be a female doctor, and that those voices were getting louder and more angry with each iteration of the doctor.  

I know you don't want to consider the idea that maybe, just maybe, there are parts of the media that push these agendas, and that the BBC is scared of the fallout of angering them and giving off a poor image. 

 

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1 hour ago, john said:

 http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-40653383

News reports this morning reveal the real reason the BBC probably wanted to cast a woman - so they can pay her a lot less.

Lol yes. There are definitely some discrepancies there, especially amongst newreaders. Having said that  Chris Evans, Graham Norton and Gary Lineker are sought after presenters who would have to be compensated for the market rate. 

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I was kind of surprised Evans makes so much. He's a radio presenter being paid a fortune by tv watchers, how does that work? And Graham Norton owns the production company that makes his show, why does he need a presenting salary at all? But that the female presenters of Strictly Come Dancing get paid more than 1.5 million less than Evans seems the most ridiculous.

To keep this somewhat relevant - Capaldi apparently gets paid 200 grand, which seems surprisingly little given the show's footprint. You've got to imagine Whittaker has a lot less negotiating power than Capaldi had.

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50 minutes ago, john said:

I was kind of surprised Evans makes so much. He's a radio presenter being paid a fortune by tv watchers, how does that work? And Graham Norton owns the production company that makes his show, why does he need a presenting salary at all? But that the female presenters of Strictly Come Dancing get paid more than 1.5 million less than Evans seems the most ridiculous.

To keep this somewhat relevant - Capaldi apparently gets paid 200 grand, which seems surprisingly little given the show's footprint. You've got to imagine Whittaker has a lot less negotiating power than Capaldi had.

Evans and Nortons salaries I do not find surprising. Evans was brought in to fix the Top Gear mess (which he botched) and has history of being paid massive amounts so wouldn't consider a large pay cut. Norton is a big star of the BBC and hosts their flagship chat show, possibly the only celeb on British Tv capable of doing that successfully. 

I think the differences between Edwards and Fiona Bruce is probably the standout as both do very similar jobs. 

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3 hours ago, john said:

But that the female presenters of Strictly Come Dancing get paid more than 1.5 million less than Evans seems the most ridiculous.

Equally, Evans works what? 340-odd days a year? As opposed to the strictly crew who do what 2 days a week for 12 weeks?

 

Personally I'm not particularly surprised by the sizes of many of these premium salaries, more surprised that some, like Shearer or Inverdale are considered to be premium level

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I've put up the story in the UK Politics thread, it seems a more apprpriate place for this discussion. To be slightly on topic, I'm surprised Capaldi is not the highest paid actor on the list, surely Doctor Who makes more money than Casualty.

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My guess is, that the Doctor is arguably the most wanted acting job the BBC has to offer atm. It will make the actor (more) famous in relatively short amount of time, and opens a few doors in hollywood. Just ask Tennant and Smith. Or Karen Gillan. So they can probably negotiate with the actors a bit about their wages.

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I'd say that actually in defence of that 20% of 'haters', they are probably not offended by diversity per se, but by the forced diversity and retconning of established characters in the name of diversity. 

 

This is, of course, a weak "well, actually" excuse. Chibnall has come in wanting to completely shake up the show and do something different, and I think a lot of people agree that after the Davies and Moffat years, the show really does need that. This is part of that idea, to do something different with a character (but rooted in canon and precedent) that has been explored pretty thoroughly over the course of fifty-four years. The other changes sound significant and far-reaching, such as having a writers' room and a more collaborative approach to scripting, and revisions to the writing and filming schedules so the BBC can get a season out a year again.

If it works or doesn't work, then they can still go back to having male Doctors again and use the switch as a way to explore character and generate stories, or mix things up and have gender-blind casting each time out. But we'll see.

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2 hours ago, Werthead said:

 The other changes sound significant and far-reaching, such as having a writers' room and a more collaborative approach to scripting, and revisions to the writing and filming schedules so the BBC can get a season out a year again.

If it works or doesn't work, then they can still go back to having male Doctors again and use the switch as a way to explore character and generate stories, or mix things up and have gender-blind casting each time out. But we'll see.

The writers' room and intention to get a season out a year sound promising.

I also like the idea of gender blind casting down the road. Now it's established the Doctor can switch gender there's no reason to specifically choose a gender of actor from here on out.

I do think the BBC would have to be very careful about switching back to a male Doctor anytime soon. I think that would probably get a far bigger backlash than what we're hearing from those upset about Whitaker being cast.  I think a white male actor would have to blow the door off the hinges in casting for them to be in with a shot any time soon. That's not really a bad thing in my opinion, 60 years of white guys having dominion over the role means they can wait a decade or more before getting another crack.

I'm pretty sure we'll see Tenant/Smith/Capaldi/McGann team up with Whitaker at some point in the run anyhow for those desperate for a fix of white guy Doctor. Maybe they could even get Ecclestone on board - he seems to be softening in regards to the show over time.

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  • 5 weeks later...

I haven't seen this conspiracy thrown around yet.  

Spoiler

Does anyone think that season ten's storyline of the doctor trying to rehabilitate Missy (to have essentially two doctors in the universe) and the reason we're going all the way back to the first doctor in the Christmas special, is to set up the doctor's granddaughter Susan taking over the mantle of Doctor Who?  Peter's doctor towards the end of his run didn't seem to want to regenerate or keep going.  This could just be setting up a storyline of him being reminded that the universe needs him and he can't quit, or there's a bit more being set up.  Twice Upon a Time could be a foreshadowing of a second Doctor in the universe actually becoming a thing, and not just a nod to the fact that this has the Doctor teaming up with a previous incarnation.  

I don't know, any serious Doctor Who nerds out there want to completely rip this apart?  I started with the 2005 reboot so my knowledge of the original series is limited.  I'm not sure if that character's fate in the original series allows for this to even be possible. 

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9 hours ago, YoungGriff89 said:

I'm not sure if that character's fate in the original series allows for this to even be possible. 

Theoretically possible, but highly unlikely.

Spoiler

In particular, the special is set around the time of the Doctor's first regeneration, and Susan was long gone by then. So Twelve meeting One at that point in his timeline wouldn't be much more relevant to Susan than meeting Six or Seventeen would be. And in recent years the show has made a point of establishing that Time Lords can change sex during regeneration, which would be overkill as a red herring. The existence of regeneration makes it unnecessary to have a different character take over the mantle, unlike say Robin of Sherwood.

 

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