Keoul said:
As long as there isn't any sexual tension I'll be okay with it.
IF we're talking about the Doctor and the Master, there should be sexual tension. If only because it was already there.
Even before the revival, the Master struck me as a lover scorned on occasion.
Colour Scientist said:
I think Moffat basically said or implied that he didn't want a female Doctor anytime soon but Moffat also thought that the fish fingers and custard and bow tie jokes were hilarious for over three years. Maybe Stephen Moffat should regenerate as a better executive producer or at least get a writing companion to help him sort his shit out.
Moffatt also didn't want Karen Gillan because she was "dumpy" and changed his mind primarily because she gave him a boner.
I'm pretty sure a female Doctor is out, but mostly because Moffatt's got issues. A female Master, however, gives him a chance to throw down some more of his usual approach to wimminz, so it's probably more plausible. Whether it will be good or not....
BrotherRool said:
I think there's a lot of writers who wouldn't screw it up. Russel T Davis would have been great at it (think of the whole Martha thing), RTD also has a much better history of writing women as people than Moffat and a much better history of making his random characters female, whereas Moffat almost always chooses guys when he needs an extra in his script.
Davies writing his characters as humans? That's a funny one. the bigger issue there is that Davies very likely would turn the Master into a woman scorned, since in RTD's version of Doctor Who literally everyone is in love with the Doctor (except Donna) and exist entirely to tell the Doctor how awesome or fearsome he is (except Donna, though to a lesser extent). Martha would have been a better character had she not spent the entire arc moping over how the Doctor didn't love her.
But, as someone else said....
thaluikhain said:
True, when RTD got it all wrong, it wouldn't have anything to do with gender or sexuality or race.
Moving on.
MeChaNiZ3D said:
Whatever the lore says. If regeneration is a blank slate, fine, the Doctor probably should have been a female and a black guy and a few other things by now. If there are some kind of continuity rules, which there could be, I'm not into it enough to know, then as long as it sticks to that, cast whomever you like.
The rules of regeneration are basically "whatever we want them to be," where "we" is whoever's writing at the time. We've had implied gender swaps during regeneration, including The Corsair, who BrotherRool mentioned 11 specifically said was a man and sometimes a woman. Further, we've got at least one case of a little white girl eventually regenerating into a black girl, so that seems to be kosher, too. More importantly, both the Corsair and the little girl were from the new series under Moffatt, so the rules applied on his watch.
....Just for the record, I'm writing this specifically to confirm, not to be adversarial. The more you know and all that.
Anyway, I'm sure that the rules could change in the future, but they've never particularly been hard and well-defined. What we've got now (and had in the past) would indicate it's possible.
TheVampwizimp said:
The only way the Master can come back is if the Doctor returns Gallifrey to our universe.
Never, ever, ever say "the only way."
Have you seen how many times they've brought back the Daleks and cybermen and, hell, Rose? They can undo the Master's final moments, they can introduce a previous version, they can even pull something completely out of their ass. In fact, I would wager on the last one, possibly combined with the first one.
Hell, think of all the times the Doctor has stopped being "The last of the Time Lords," even if briefly.