Who should be the next Doctor? ANYONE but a woman! With the next Time Lord tipped to be a Time Lady, our TV critic explains why it can't happen
- Current Doctor Who Matt Smith to quit role this Christmas after three series
- Was youngest Doctor Who so far, taking role aged 26
- Producer Steven Moffat said to be open to casting a woman, despite fans' disapproval
|
Queen of the Tardis: Helen Mirren has be rumoured to be up for the role of a lifetime. The actress said she would like the part of the Time Lord: 'I don't just want to be his sidekick'
Television’s best-loved hero has survived volcanoes, nuclear blasts, black holes and his own death — ten times — in his struggle against cosmic evil.
But after Matt Smith announced he intends to quit Doctor Who at Christmas, the character faces his greatest ever threat.
It comes not from the Daleks or sinister Weeping Angels, but from the man entrusted with the show’s future.
Steven Moffat, the show’s 51-year-old chief writer and executive producer, is threatening to fulfil an ambition that began as a joke more than a decade ago — and regenerate the Doctor as a woman.
Actresses linked to the role include Helen Mirren, who has admitted she would leap at the chance. ‘I would like to play the new female Doctor Who.
'I don’t just want to be his sidekick,’ she has said.
Other names put forward are Olivia Colman, who scored a double Bafta success last month following her sensational performance in crime thriller Broadchurch, and comedienne Miranda Hart.
The notion of Miranda galumphing around the Tardis is enough to dismay any Whovian — as fans call themselves.
Other female Whos in the frame are thought to include Ruth Jones, star and co-writer of Gavin And Stacey, and the Doctor’s former companion Billie Piper.
She hinted heavily, after leaving in 2006, that she would love to return in the title role. Her character, Rose, is expected to feature in the 50th anniversary special scheduled for November.
Great British Bake-Off host Sue Perkins said she was ‘beyond flattered’ earlier this year when a sci-fi website proposed her as a future Doctor.
But a woman Doctor would be more than a disappointment to the show’s legion of fans — it would betray a British tradition.
The character has been a role model for three generations of boys.
Unlike conventional muscle-bound superheroes, the Doctor relies on intellect and ingenuity to triumph over violence.
There is no one else quite like him on television. He’s proof that the sonic screwdriver is mightier than the sword. And in a Britain bristling with casual violence, that example is desperately needed.
Why must the Doctor fall victim to a politically correct trend for ‘gender neutral’ childhoods?
It may come as a surprise to many in these liberated times, but most little boys still grow up wanting to be men.
And what finer example of a man — brave, reflective, with a keen sense of heroic duty — is there than Doctor Who?
Departing: Matt Smith (pictured) is leaving the show after three series. He has been critically acclaimed for his portrayal of the Doctor and is the first actor to be nominated for a Bafta for the role
Tipped for the role: Great British Bake Off presenter Sue Perkins (left) writer and actress Ruth Jones (right) are both believed to be in line to be an unconventional Doctor
Potential Doctors: Actress of the moment, Olivia Colman (left) has been mentioned as a good fit for the role, while Miranda Hart (right) would give the part a comedic edge
Lady Who: Former companion Billie Piper (left) has hinted that she would love to return in the title role after she left the hit show in 2006. Actress Joanna Lumley (right) starred as the Doctor in a Comic Relief skit
Stephen Moffat, a childhood fan of the show, has done much that is praiseworthy since he took it over in 2009.
He has brought it new emotional depth and given the Doctor a love interest for the first time.
Moffat has revived a franchise that some had complained had grown too clever for its own good, others that it had become bogged down and boring.
But now he seems intent on destroying all he has achieved.
Last year, Moffat told an audience at the Edinburgh Television Festival that he had slipped a clue into an episode 12 months ago, an offhand line revealing that when a Time Lord regenerates, he could be reborn as a woman — a Time Lady.
‘It can happen,’ Moffat insisted. ‘The more often it is talked about, the more likely it is to happen some day.’
Warming to his theme, he asked for a show of hands at one convention in Cardiff to see how many would accept a woman Doctor.
About a quarter said they would stop watching, but Moffat was undeterred.
In fact, Moffat has already attempted it once, in a spoof starring Rowan Atkinson and Joanna Lumley, for the BBC’s Comic Relief night in 2009.
Broadcast in four five-minute episodes throughout the charity telethon, ‘The Curse Of Fatal Death’ was a send-up that paid homage to the show.
When the Doctor is killed by Daleks, he regenerates as a string of A-listers — Richard E. Grant, then Jim Broadbent, then Hugh Grant, before finally appearing as Lumley in a low-cut tunic and greatcoat. Doctor Lumley exits with her arch-enemy — played by Jonathan Pryce — on her arm.
Companions: The show has gone through its fair share of female side kicks. The current companion is played by Jenna-Louise Coleman (left) who has signed up for the next series in 2014. Actress Karen Gillian (right) also starred alongside Matt Smith
It was a marvellous joke. But to take it any further would be to swindle countless fans. The essence of the character — as an archetypal hero, not heroine — would be lost.
The Doctor’s strength is that he always wins through by thinking rather than fighting — an antidote to mainstream comic book and action movie heroes Batman, Spiderman, Conan the Barbarian, Tarzan, Rambo and Wolverine.
The Doctor was specifically created to counter that trend.
In 1963, post-war Britain was outstripped by technological advances in Germany, Japan and America. The country was experiencing a ‘brain drain’ as our most brilliant scientists and researchers emigrated to find better paid work.
So the BBC set out to invent a hero who could make the scientific seem heroic.
The first Doctor Who team working under then director-general Hugh Carleton Greene succeeded far beyond their hopes. As the Doctor saved the galaxy, science became as cool as The Beatles.
Greene urged his team to focus on thought-provoking story-lines with lots of history, chemistry and physics lessons woven into the scripts.
Favourites: David Tennant's time in the role, alongside companion Billie Piper is favoured by many of the show's loyal fans
Classic: Jon Pertwee's boundless energy as the Doctor has left a lasting impression on many viewers
For a generation of boys, this was eye-opening. They had a new figure to emulate: not just brave, but brainy.
Using only his brilliant scientific mind and his encyclopaedic knowledge, he tackled aliens armed with death-rays, and came out on top.
The first Doctor, played by William Hartnell, was irritable and impossible — softened only by his affection for his grand-daughter Susan, the earliest of his intergalactic companions.
The second, portrayed by Patrick Troughton, was a superman striving alone to hold back vast tides of evil.
But Jon Pertwee personifies the Doctor for me. With his silver curls and ruffs, he exuded a boundless energy.
For many, though, it was Tom Baker’s fourth Doctor who perfected the character with his charisma, eccentricities, humour, brilliance and lurking ruthlessness.
His performance strongly influenced David Tennant as the tenth Doctor.
After five decades, the Doctor remains unique in the pantheon of boys’ own heroes. There are other intellectuals, of course, but in the sports-mad hurly-burly of the schoolyard, they offer little to emulate.
Hercule Poirot is a pompous dandy. Sherlock Holmes is a drug-abusing loner.
With boys lagging ever further behind girls in school league tables and as the pressure intensifies on young males to reject education, we need the Time Lord as never before.
The greatest detective in Victorian London is Sherlock, not Shirley. Generations of grubby schoolboys have found much to admire in Just William, not Just Wilhemina. Agent 007 is James, not Jemima Bond.
Why can’t Steven Moffat see this distinction?
When I was six years old, peeping around the sofa at the Doctor outwitting cardboard monsters on a black-and-white TV, I was in awe of this towering hero and his adventures.
The Doctor taught me some of the most valuable lessons of my childhood. Years later, it has been a joy to share his adventures with my own son.
These tales enthral and educate, passing on crucial lessons about morality and the importance of learning.
They will continue to do so for generations unless the BBC kills off the Doctor by casting a woman in the role and depriving small boys of his example for ever.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2334893/Doctor-Who-Who-Doctor-ANYONE-woman-Says-TV-critic.html#ixzz2VBJ412xD
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook
No comments:
Post a Comment