I don’t really see NuWho as being sexist, aside from the continuing cavalcade of cute girls as companions (but at least we get some cute guys too, like Captain Jack and Rory). Another thing I like about Who compared to most American shows is that they’re not afraid to have women who aren’t young and conventionally gorgeous in featured roles. It’s refreshing to see women like Donna and Harriet Jones among all the young hotties–still attractive, but obviously middle aged and not size 0. Again, I don’t watch a lot of American TV, but it seems like the Brits are much more accommodating of different types of people in many roles than the Americans are. It’s nice.
We’ve never had a female incarnation of the Doctor. It’s been established that regenerating into a female form is a possibility and assuming that Time Lord sex ratio is approximately 1:1 then the Doctor—on his tenth regeneration—has been bucking the odds: P=0.5[sup]10[/sup]=0.0009765625
The next Doctor should be Billie Piper. Moffat can invent some timey-wimey [del]bull-shit[/del]workaround for the similarity to Rose. And then we can bring back River and get this so-called marriage consummated! 
Yes. When a story calls for an ugly person, the Brits go right out and find a butt-ugly person. They don’t do the Hollywood Ugly crap.
I just want to say, I’m a woman and I don’t really want a female Doctor. I like my Doctor to be a man. BUT I wouldn’t mind, say, another Time Lord who was a female…like Romana in the old days.
I put myself in the position of the Companion, like many people, and I’d rather travel around with a guy than a girl, is all.
I hadn’t noticed. I guess I just don’t see people like that.
David Tennet companion Martha Jones was played by Freema Agyeman, who is black-ish. (What? You all get upset when I said “quadroon”) Although you will notice they had Martha be a medical doctor instead of a shop girl like Rose, an office temp like Donna, some sort of gogo dancer / catalogue model like Amy or a au pair like Clara.
According to the people who published the book that started this, there were several essays dealing with the subject, and they ranged from saying yes, to saying no, not at all. The Radio Times only picked one.
I notice all the time when white people are cast as ethnic actors and I won’t watch those movies. Breakfast at Tiffany’s is almost ruined completely by Mickey Rooney. Who was it who played Genghis? And Ben Kingsley annoyed me as Gandhi, too. At least he is half Indian - but he doesn’t look very much like it! And Jake what’s his face as a Persian actor in Prince of Persia. Fisher Stevens as Ben Jabituya in Short Circuit. And Avatar the last Airbender.
It doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy lots and lots of movies or demand Asian actors in every movie. But it still bothers me when an Asian or black character needs a race upgrade to become white to appeal to the Everyman.
I agree with this. I’m about as feminist/egalitarian as they come, but I don’t want to see a female Doctor either. Mostly because I don’t trust the writers not to turn her into some kind of buffoon or damsel in distress or leering sex joke. The Doctor is a man. I agree that another female Time Lord would be great (I liked Romana I, not so much Romana II), especially if she could hold her own against the Doctor. But not the Doctor himself.
Now seeing the Master regenerate into a woman could have possibilities…
With me, this isn’t an issue. I actually tend to identify more with the Doctor than the companions, so by that logic I should want a female Doctor. But I don’t.
It’s why I said vaguely. It’s lots of slightly annoying things like Sally Sparrow being so damn awesome and intelligent and then the episode ending with her arm in arm with the slightly sadsack brother of her lost friend (Who married a guy in Hull that refused to stop following her. Romantic.) without any sort of hint that she is attracted to him. It’s Miss Evangelista in the library who is so pretty but so dumb and then in the computer world is so intelligent but so ugly because I guess you can only be one or the other. It’s the fact that from The Doctor Dances on down to River in the computer, it seems that the appropriate way to end any woman’s story, regardless of her character, is for them to be taking care of children and also, hopefully married. It’s Nefertiti ending up with Riddell. It’s quotes like this from Moffat “There’s this issue you’re not allowed to discuss: that women are needy. Men can go for longer, more happily, without women. That’s the truth. We don’t, as little boys, play at being married - we try to avoid it for as long as possible. Meanwhile women are out there hunting for husbands.”
Dr Who writer blasts ITV show Primeval for ‘too white’ cast
He can regenerate on command, and some other Time Lords can regenerate into any form they choose, but the Doctor hasn’t shown the ability to regenerate into anything other than a seemingly random man. No women, no lizard people, no black people. Just relatively minor changes, like being northern.
I saw a discussion on another board where the consensus was that Carey Mulligan would be the perfect female Doctor. But he’s only got one incarnation left, and that was established in oldWho as being the villainous Valeyard. Who was seen, and not female. I assume that’s where John Hurt comes in. I suppose the Doctor’s daughter is still out there somewhere. Might make an appearance. Doesn’t have to be Georgia Moffett, although her only observed regeneration maintained the same physical appearance.
It’s a little more than that in Dr. Who, I am fairly sure almost every single couple is interracial. Specially secondary one episode characters.
Right, but it has been shown that it’s a possibility and doesn’t seem to be under his control. There may be other examples but I’m thinking of when 10 regenerated into 11. The Doctor felt his longer hair and for a brief moment thought he might have been female.
Does he only have one left? Somehow I thought when he absorbed River’s regenerations in “Let’s Kill Hitler”, he got whatever she had left.
I’ve always just assumed he had as many left as long as he remained profitable.
I think the “only 12 regenerations” thing was imposed by the Time Lords, right? No other Time Lords, no limit on regenerations!
Wow, have these researchers ever really watched the show? Doctor Who was one of the earliest show to reject the monster of the week story. Theres been many stories were the Doctor empathized and eventually understood characters that initially seemed evil. The Doctor has always avoided violent conflict whenever possible.
I’m not sure how any drama story can be told with conflict between characters.
I guess the researchers missed Martha’s season? A very self assured woman, a trained physician, and happened to be black. This show is not racist.
Given Doctor Who’s fifty year history, and the vast number of differnt people who have been involved with it over those fifty years, I think it would be nothing short of miraculous if the show didn’t have some incidents of racism or sexism. Remember that when we say “Doctor Who,” we’re not talking just about the slickly produced BBC Wales show that just concluded its seventh season. We’re also talking about decades worth of wobbly sets, shoe-string budgets, and yes, the occasional white actor playing a Chinese man. It costs us nothing to admit that it wasn’t always as forward-thinking as we might like it to have been.
That said, the book in question appears to be much more nuanced than the article linked in the OP would indicate. Here’s a response to a similar article in the Daily Mail (which seems to be the ultimate source of the controversy). This is from Philip Sandifer, author of the very interesting Doctor Who blog “Tardis Eruditorium,” who was one of the book’s peer reviewers.
http://www.philipsandifer.com/2013/05/shockingly-daily-mail-is-evil.html
He makes the book sound like one that I would very much like to read.
You need to post more, you old Trekker librarian!
Yes! Nearly every piece on this book that has spread virally over the 'net was based on one (1) article from The Daily Mail. Nobody else has actually read the book–if the Mail writer actually did. Or did he skim a bit in search of shocking headlines?
I’ve noticed the phenomenon before. A journalist (very often from The Daily Fail) will clip a few phrases from an interview–out of context. More supposedly respectable media will run articles, repeating those phrases verbatim. Sometimes the original source is mentioned–more often, not.
From MrAtoz’s link:
In one of the Comic Relief specials (Curse of Fatal Death), the Doctor (variously throughout that special, Rowan Atkinson, Richard E. Grant(!), Jim Broadbent and Hugh Grant) regenerates into Joanna Lumley, which I thought was brilliant, especially as the companion was Julia Salawha (Sapphie on AbFab).
Thanks. I admit that I’m mostly a lurker, but I happened to read Sandifer’s piece just yesterday, so linking to it seemed appropriate.