Thoughts and Reactions to the Casting of the Thirteenth Doctor

If you don’t know who it is and don’t want to know, head out now.  Best of luck.

Okay, so in the weeks leading up to the new Doctor announcement, the name I kept hearing over and over was Kris Marshall, and, remembering how people were whispering about Peter Capaldi right before he was cast, I was preparing myself for that.  The idea did not thrill me.  To be fair, I haven’t seen Kris Marshall in much, and in the chatter I did hear, people kept bringing up Death in Paradise as a project of his that they like.  But for me, he was intrinsically linked to two characters:  the “chemist” in Death at a Funeral who inadvertently gives Alan Tudyk hallucinogenic drugs and the guy in Love Actually who wants to go to America in the expectation that his accent will make him a “sex god.”  Not that Doctor actors can’t have played non-Doctory roles – look at Peter Capaldi in The Thick of It, for goodness’ sake! – but for me personally, I just wasn’t enthused.

So, I was pretty stunned at the hard right turn, Jodie Whittaker from Broadchurch.  Even if it wasn’t Marshall, the rumors I’d heard were indicating that it was definitely a male, so I really wasn’t expecting that.  My first reaction, then, was simply :jaw drop:  I wasn’t quite sure how to feel about it – I’ve really only seen Whittaker in Broadchurch (and then just the first season,) and while I thought she was excellent in that, there wasn’t enough input for my brain to bridge the gap to picturing her as the Doctor.  As time went on, though, I started getting more and more ready for the idea, and within the hour, I was pretty pumped as I walked through the grocery store, thinking, “The Doctor’s going to be a woman!”

Not that I think the Doctor would’ve had to be to avoid claims of misogyny.  I understand the fans who want it, but I also understand the caution against doing it purely for the sake of doing it (those who have now declared the show “ruined,” sight unseen, are a different matter.)  And in light of that, Whittaker feels like a pretty solid choice for this particular moment.  She has a strong working history with new showrunner Chris Chibnall, so she’s clearly an actress he has a lot of respect for and believes in.  She in turn, I’m sure, trusts him as a writer (which would have to be a big consideration for any actress in the role – she’s gotta know what a minefield of public opinion it’ll be, and the greatest actress in the world won’t be able to make this work if the writing doesn’t back her up,) and I imagine there’s a good level of comfort between them in their working relationship.  Both likely feel that they’re in good hands.

And as for acting, again, I’ve seen only a snippet of Whittaker’s work, and I’ll have to remedy that, but I think the show has earned my faith on that front.  The writing has been up and down, but the casting has pretty much always been rock-solid.  I remember my initial misgivings upon hearing about Matt Smith – the ol’ “who’s this kid?” Whovian scoffing – but he knocked my socks off within his first ten minutes on the show.  I’m hoping that any lingering bits of doubt will handily show themselves to the door as I get a more varied sample of her talent, and either way, new Who has never let me down where casting is concerned.  I have to believe they won’t start now.

Honestly, the more I think about it, the more (tentatively) excited I get.  Tentative because, as much as it sucks, I know Whittaker’s Doctor is going to be judged by a harsher metric than her predecessors, and so the show is going to really have to keep its game face on.  But excited because I think this could be wonderful.  We’re living in a good time for compelling female characters (in my aforementioned happy-grocery-store-musings, I thought, “First Wonder Woman, then Doctor Who, next…”), and I’ve loved all the awesome ones I’ve had the pleasure of getting to know on my screen, but the Doctor is a very different sort of character.  The Doctor is a different sort of hero in general, but particularly where female characters are concerned, I don’t think I’ve ever encountered one like the Doctor:  the brilliance, the earnest joy of discovery, the ages-old gravitas, the manic excitement, the Last-of-the-Time-Lords take-no-prisoners moments, the wholeheartedness friendship, the reckless abandon, the boundless compassion, all wrapped in one glorious package.  This could potentially be like something I’ve never seen before, and that has me so excited.

I’m curious about companions now.  If they wanted to do a solo male companion, this would probably be their best opportunity, but a female Doctor-female companion duo would rock, too.  It’d be really interesting to keep Bill around, just because it’d be neat to have someone who already knows the Doctor be a part of this storyline, and I feel like she’d handle it pretty well.  Hopefully, the Thirteenth Doctor is terrifically well-done, and the BBC and Whittaker both are happy with her sticking around for several seasons, so we get a chance to see different TARDIS configurations.

Last note:  I know the little video the BBC made was mostly about holding back the reveal of her face (and masking her silhouette so we wouldn’t know she was a woman until the last moment,) but the little smile when she heard the TARDIS sound?  There’s my Doctor.