Catfood220 said:
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!!!!!!!! The outrage to this has been delicious to behold. I've even had a text from a friend saying that he was done with Doctor Who.
I mean, who didn't see this coming, ever since it was revealed that Time Lords can swap gender? And then The Master turned into Missy and was generally well received. So I don't see The Doctor being a woman as being a problem myself, it is certainly going to add a new dimension to a character that has been an endless parade of men for the last 50 years.
As much as I love Capaldi in all his other works... he started DW as a schizophrenic mess, became a needy schizophrenic mess, became a pretty good schizophrenic mess ... then it felt like he just stopped evolving beyond being cryptic for cryptic sake. I genuinely enjoyed him when he was brilliant and there were moments he was brilliant, but somewhere along the line he sort of got stuck. I think he was have fitted better as a slightly less edgelord-y role ala his role in
The Thick of Things.
Jodie Whitaker seems like a breath of fresh air. I really hope they take this character into more the direction of my favourite doctor, Peter Davison. More like that lovely uncle you have that just glows with warmth... who seems refined, proactive, but is shown to suffer the weight of their actions because they are the only ones that can do something. The 5th Doctor could still kill ... but he didn't turn it into this elabourate circus of emotionality... he knew what he was going to have to do inevitably and because it didn't seem like this circus of wild emotion but rather was this internalized horror and pain, it felt real. He'd then paint over it with a quiet veneer of appearing as if the very vision of a close post-Edwardian schoolboy senior of quiet, smiling stoicism.
I hope Jodie Whitaker brings that idea of quiet, thoughtful integrity again. I get that NuWho is all about frenetic energy with boundless indirection... and painting Britons as if quirky and somewhat living that working class utopian visage of the airbrushed reality of London living... but it's old schtick.
Maybe by having a female lead they're trying to create a newtone beyond 2000+ year old manchild with a magical box? I'm hoping they're actually thinking; "Let's make a nuanced character that isn't merely a bipedal kitten surrounded by jiggling yarn..."
Also... as much as I love Missy (and I do) ... John Simm will always be the greatest Master. He just chews up the fucking scenery. Every scene. He realizes how insane the Master is as a character, that to make him genuinely threatening beyond all compare is to make him a ball of batshit fun. After all... what's more frightening than a Timelord who holds nothing, not even logic, sacred? John Simm has weird energy. Lanky without much height, brooding but frenetic, and he makes joyous laughter even feel inhumanly insane.