Did Someone Call The Doctor?
How The Casting of Jodie Whittaker is Just What We Needed
The Time Travel!
The Brilliant Alien From Space with Two Hearts!
The Feels!
I’ve been a Whovian for over half my life. I won’t tell my age, but will say that I frequently bandied about a faux sonic screwdriver during my formative years. As a preteen, I even went what I considered to be hardcore and bought original Doctor Who episodes (starting with Peter Davison and Tom Baker) on iTunes, determined to fully educate myself on the Doctor Who legacy so I could be the ultimate Whovian.
I cried over the Doctor and Rose, wept even more over Amy and Rory, got chills during The Silence in the Library and Blink, adored River Song. So imagine my shock when I was sat on the sofa with my senile dog last year, watching a new episode of Doctor Who that I…
Felt nothing for.
Jodie Whittaker’s first episode debuted to an audience of 10.9 million across all devices— becoming the most successful debut of a Doctor in the rebooted series. Her second episode, “Ghost Monument,” was viewed by 7.1 million. These stats are pretty great, right?
Now, of course, there are those who don’t/won’t like the Thirteenth Doctor. It’s no secret that there is a group of extremely unhappy individuals who purport that The Doctor must be a man. Whittaker inherited a Doctor Who fanbase so divided that they were at each other’s throats before she even appeared on our screens.
Let’s think about the adjectives that immediately come to mind for The Doctor, in comparison to those that come to mind for James Bond.
The Doctor: Brilliant, insane, compassionate, conflicted, enigmatic, exciting.
James Bond: Sleek, strong, active, intelligent…macho.
Has there been any point where the singular masculinity of The Doctor overrode his defining traits? Not that I can think of.
When Matt Smith was announced as the Eleventh Doctor, everyone was surprised. At 26, he was the youngest actor to ever play The Doctor.
And wasn’t it great? His age may have piqued curiosity, but his performance created a whole slew of new Whovians. Not only was the new Doctor amazing, but the Doctor-Pond-Williams combo won hearts everywhere. Who wouldn’t be won over by a man who waited 2,000 years for love? Sigh.
Then, Peter Capaldi was announced as Matt Smith’s replacement. He lent gravitas, and an even more intense air of mystery (at least, in my opinion). Once the show hit season 10, there was nothing wrong, but…
I began to keep up with Doctor Who out of habit more than anything. All the episodes (or maybe most) were great, but I started to lack passion for it. I wouldn’t pinpoint anything as being bad, though the supposed failings of that time of Doctor Who have been frequently discussed.
Each person has the Doctor that they love the most. As fantastic as he is, Capaldi wasn’t mine. He was literally the first Doctor of the reboot whose sonic screwdriver I didn’t order from the BBC catalog.
At the end, the show felt tired to me…but I’m sure there are others who were sad to see the end of the Twelfth Doctor. I was mainly just worried that the show would be canceled after the Twelfth’s demise, especially since views were decreasing monumentally — reference below.
From the stats, you can see the Eccleston and Tennant seasons had the largest audiences. But when Matt Smith became The Doctor, friends who I know would never have been remotely interested in a sci-fi show began watching — mainly drawn in by the youngest cast in Doctor Who history.
On October 7, nearly 400,000 girls under the age of 16 tuned into Jodie Whittaker’s debut, compared to 143,000 during the last season opener. It’s clear that Whittaker’s fresh, lovable take on The Doctor is already ushering in a legion of new Whovians, appealing especially to young girls and reviving a diminishing fanbase.
She entered through the roof of a train, immediately made new friends, engineered her own sonic screwdriver, courageously leapt off the top of a crane, ended up floating in space. In the first episode, Whittaker displayed all the qualities that make The Doctor, The Doctor.
Chris Chibnall and Jodie Whittaker are the new set that Doctor Who needs. They’ve brought the excitement back.
And that’s what Doctor Who is supposed to be. Exciting.
