Acceptable narrative reasons for a female Doctor.

Could it have been handled better than providing a few barely-cryptic references to a female future, then dropping it on the audience without any kind of in-universe coherent explanation?

Slightly more acceptable to me would have been:

- A temporary alt-universe swap based-upon a TARDIS crash; with an arc that leads to the two eventually meeting and finding a way to resolve the situation.

- A DNA residue device where the companion kisses the doctor on his deathbed (cheek only), only for his dick to drop off and become a fanny for a season or two.

- The Doctor is affected by some some kind of intergalactic malaise/poisoning, which can't be beaten by regeneration and Romana returns to take on his duties/name, while also searching the universe for a cure.

- A Doctor Who porno.

I think it could've just taken a single line.

Just explaining it that we know both the Doctor and Master got granted their second regeneration cycle by the Time Lords.

But that extending the Time Lord lifespan past its natural endpoint, with an artificial new regeneration cycle, might likely make some of the regenerations ahead become erratic and unpredictable, and gender-bending is a possibility. And that this is why it's happened to both the Doctor and the Master.

Not sure about dropping that explanation into a single line, but that's a far better explanation than what actually transpired.

I would have just had a line saying that the Doctor's regeneration cycle had gone wrong, especially with the new regeneration cycle. That's it, just one line to at least give a reason why there's The Doctor is female.

I'll be honest, I would have much much much preferred a Doctor being played by a black man over The Doctor becoming a woman. At least that the idea of a Doctor changing into a different ethnicity was established in The War Games. Even in Big Finish, Rassilon was played by a black actor, and it wasn't done for political correctness because the actor just oozed with charisma and coldness.

SomeCallMeEnglishGiraffe wrote:I would have just had a line saying that the Doctor's regeneration cycle had gone wrong

The problem with that is what it implies about womanhood - especially in today's culture. I'd avoid it for fear of causing a massive shitstorm.

SomeCallMeEnglishGiraffe wrote:I would have just had a line saying that the Doctor's regeneration cycle had gone wrong, especially with the new regeneration cycle. That's it, just one line to at least give a reason why there's The Doctor is female.

I'll be honest, I would have much much much preferred a Doctor being played by a black man over The Doctor becoming a woman. At least that the idea of a Doctor changing into a different ethnicity was established in The War Games. Even in Big Finish, Rassilon was played by a black actor, and it wasn't done for political correctness because the actor just oozed with charisma and coldness.

Don Warrington is fucking awesome in that role, yes. Hell, I’d say he’s by far the best actor in Rise of the Cybermen, in spite of his character being a little nondescript.

As for me, I can only concur with the rest of you. A mere expository line indicative of an atypical regeneration would have been satisfactory enough. Although my main problem with Whittaker isn’t that a female is playing the character so much as the motivations behind it (as made agonisingly plain in Twice Upon a Time where the First Doctor is horrifically ridiculed and humiliated as to further a pseudo-progressive message), and the sheer shiteness of her performance and Chibnall’s complete inability to construct an intelligent script. An inability as staggering as to make RTD and Moffat look like reincarnations of Oscar Wilde by comparison.

Cunnus Maximus wrote:

SomeCallMeEnglishGiraffe wrote:I would have just had a line saying that the Doctor's regeneration cycle had gone wrong

The problem with that is what it implies about womanhood - especially in today's culture. I'd avoid it for fear of causing a massive shitstorm.

Ah- I hadn’t considered that. Bollocks.

Just have Romana adopt the mantle, then. Or give her a separate series instead- I don’t see how that would offend anyone.

Or stop pandering to Twatter manhaters and keep a male character male.


Ooh, radical!

I don't think it would have ever worked. Sure you can come up with a better sci fi explanation than Moffat's bullshit about Time Lords being gender neutral, but even then what's the point?

If it is an accident or a mutation then you can surely only do it once, so its a pure novelty rather than a development of the character. Also how would you write her?

She'd have to be uncomfortable at being a woman, not because being a woman is bad LOL, but because we have a guy who has been happy being a guy, turned into a woman against his will. As I have said before its more like this Futurama episode where the characters genders are changed against their will, than a real life trans person. (Actually a female Doctor is more similar to a pre op transexual, IE being trapped in the wrong body.)



The whole thing would just seem silly, and out of place. Face facts its never been a good idea. That's why no one has been able to come up with a good creative reason for it in almost 40 years since Tom first made it up as a joke, hence why gits like Paul Cornell have to run with the "all change is good" argument as you can justify literally any shit with that argument.

Personally I still say a Romana spin off would be a brilliant idea, not just to get around a female Doctor, but in general.

Bernard Marx wrote:Just have Romana adopt the mantle, then. Or give her a separate series instead- I don’t see how that would offend anyone.

It wouldn't and it could have been a brilliant series, given us 11 leading ladies over a span of 50 years, introduced a whole new universe worth of mythology, and led to cool crossovers with the main show and expanded its franchise.

As I've said before as evidenced by their total lack of interest in any female led series, or leading ladies, or the iconic female singers of their generation, the SJWs had no interest in building up new roles for women, just in taking them away from men.

A Romana spinoff could have been cool... in the olden days. Nothing is cool these days.

The idea that he could or would change into a woman under normal circumstances clearly doesn't fit with what has been established, disregarding very recent retcons. So, they ought to provide a good explanation ... so much as they have thus far provided none.

I don't think anything would be nearly satisfying enough to mitigate the problems with making such a substantive change, and more so the obvious political motivation external.

The kind of retcon they seem likely to do next series - pretending that that Doctor has been a woman before, that we've only 'seen' some or even a minority of his incarnations and it's just (internally) a coincidence that they all happened to be men - is probably simultaneously the best explanation, but also the worst thing for the show and its fans.

So, it would be less offensive, but also much sillier to go for some anomalous regeneration device, in whatever form. It would still damage the Doctor's character present and future, but at least it wouldn't make implications on the character we've known before.

But it would be shit either way of course.