This has been bothering me. We didn't want the new Dr Who to be a woman.

[LynetteScavo]

The DC and I decided we wanted the new Dr Who to be a man (DH didn't seem to care).

Then DS2 said "I hope it's not a woman. I hope it's a man and white." At which DS1 and I were DS1 was jumping up and down, saying "You are so racist!" I said "Oh, yes, lets just hope it's another middle class, white male." None of us were jumping up and down saying "Oh, you are so sexist!"

I personally felt it would be easier for the Doctor to slip from one ethnicity to another, than one gender to another.....

Stephen Moffat can't write convincing female characters to save his life so as long as he's got the job, I can only imagine how awful a "female Doctor" would have been. Someone I think on Twitter said that the best thing would be to have him write all the scripts for the next series, sack him and then cast a woman in the role.

I don't "get" why more recently they've moved toward making the Doctor more sexy/sexual and relationships with companions have sexual undertones (or overtones) sometimes. The way Amy Pond and some of the other female characters were stylised in such a sexualised way was also pretty stunning.

It wasn't thus in the earlier days. I always thought David Tennant was just to pretty for the role. Even Peter Davidson struggled to hit that essential (quirkiness with a sinister edge) because he was too conventionally handsome, in my view. At least Matt Smith had that eccentric look and presence, but the scripts were just so crap that he seemed to just spend most of his time flailing his arms around. Peter Capaldi fits this mould and is a good actor, and is that bit older, but I predict the scripts will still be crap.

It's Sci-Fi and heaven knows enough so-called "rules" have been broken in recent series to try and give some plausibility to badly written story lines. If it were a historical piece, yes, you could argue against casting a woman or a person of colour as say Churchill or Henry VIII (not to say that it's impossible,) but with Dr Who, I disagree that there are such restrictions.

I heard Gene Roddenberry speak about 30 years ago about what he was up against, trying to cast actors of colour and women actors in the original Star Trek series and how how the story lines challenged the bigoted social conventions of the time in a subversive way. Nearly 50 years on, it's sad that Sci-Fi writers seem not to have that kind of courage interest in using the platform they have for social good.

I can't help thinking how wonderful it would have been to have Dr Who played by Pauline Black, or Tilda Swinton or Sophie Okonedo (yes, I know she was already in Dr Who, but so was Capaldi!) - all of whom could have done that quirky thing so well.

Have you seen some of the guff Neil Gaiman is spouting on Tumblr about why it's "not yet" time for a woman or person of colour to be cast as the Doctor? Gah!

Thanks KRITIQ - I just read it. I was disappointed by someone who writes good female characters (and such a big fan of Diana Wynne-Jones, who writes excellent ones) saying it's not the time. Based on....nothing. It's all very well saying it hasn't been set up, but whose fault is that?! He knows the other scriptwriters, they are writers FGS, they're making it up not transcribing something given down by the god of scifi.

I think Peter Capaldi will be great, but the thing is, we know what a sharp-talking, tall, thin, suited white guy being the doctor looks like. Wouldn't it be more interesting apart from anything else to have a woman playing it? Imagine Julie Walters as the Doctor, or Amelia Bullmore? Or Miriam Margolyes (a bit old for it now, sadly, but would be brilliant)? Or Honeysuckle Weeks?

Tbh I do agree that now is not the right time for a female Doctor, insofar as I'd stop watching rather than see Moffat butcher it. If we could get RTD a new main writer and relegate Moffat to a couple of episodes per series, however, there'd be no reason at all not to.

Elephant - that's your interpretation, not mine.

There was a thing in the Guardian about time travellers in popular culture always being male. There's one actress who's played a time travellers female non-time travelling partner in three films. And yes, one of them was The Time Travellers Wife, which I haven't seen but blow me, the book was shit.

Well to be fair to the book, the character's daughter then becomes a time traveller, so presumably at some point in the future there may be a Time Traveller's Husband who gets abandoned a lot as well.

The Time Travellers Wife really was shit, wasn't it? So good to hear that someone else feels the same way about it - so many people rave about it

If they had cast a woman I would have rolled over and died. Because Steven Moffat is absolutely not the right person to write that Doctor. I was really annoyed with him basically trolling everyone beforehand saying the Doctor could be a woman - it's clear now he never had any intention of casting a woman. It doesn't sound like they auditioned any.

It's interesting how sci-fi is often thought of as a progressive genre, yet the only screen sci-fi I can think of that truly was socially radical is the original series of Star Trek.

The Doctor that River married was Matt Smith, surely...

the doctor is a male character. He can be any colour but he is a he. It's just how it is.

(twirls long scarf and starts up toy Dalek)

it is FICTION!

I think a female Doctor could take the character in interesting directions, but the writers and audience aren't ready for it yet.

Melody has changed ethnicity at least twice: she was born white, at some point became the black girl Mels who was at school with Amy and Rory, then became white again when she regenerated in Berlin.

Melody became 'Mels', Rory and Amy's childhood friend in Leadworth, who was black. Dropped in from nowhere with no set-up in 'Let's Kill Hitler' and spent all of 5 minutes on screen, most of it being zany. She then regenerated into the River Song version of herself.

It's yet another example of how Moffat really shouldn't write anybody who isn't a white man - instead of treating the first speaking black Timelord as a proper character, he used her as a misdirection device.

Yes, she was - Amy named her daughter after her childhood friend Mels - but Mels was actually her daughter Melody.

Wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey stuff....

I would just be happy if the "assistants" or "sidekicks" or whatever their job description is weren't so fucking badly written.

Has there actually been any difference at all in the female assistants other than some superficial trait (e.g. the chavvy one, the ginger one, the black one, etc). They're all young, intelligent women who maybe have a little crush on the doctor and yet can never open him up fully. Any one of them could swap scripts and nothing would sound out of place.

I am glad it's not a woman because the scripts would be terrible. They'd play around her being a woman, not around her being a time lord.

Should add, if they got a decent writer who could write female characters well, then it would be great.

There was a thing in the Guardian about time travellers in popular culture always being male.

Wow, that's a cherry picked piece isn't it?

Sarah Connor single-handedly saves the world from machines twice BUT SHE DOESN'T TIME TRAVEL. Kind of missed the point there?

She's also completely ignored River and Rose/Donna/Amy/Clara, all of whom are time travellers, and got to mess about with the time lines.

What's a real shame is that there is already an excellent time travel show with a strong female lead that absolutely no-one ever talks about. It is, of course, the fantastic Continuum (showing on SyFy) which has recently been renewed for a third season.

Well, every character ever is a time traveller really, they just usually only travel forward at 100% speed.

I just find it bizarre the idea that he would change to a woman.

Firstly they have to decide if changing gender is a serious issue or not, to do with gender identity etc. If it's no big deal, then basically he turns into a woman and just carries on how he was before, no mention of the fact he was a man for centuries - which is pretty awful and offensive, IMO.

If it is a big deal, well, the doctor has always been male before and has never shown any kind of discomfort or feeling that he is in the wrong body. So then the doctor has to struggle with that which, firstly, takes away from the normal storylines etc (not that the other subplots haven't, but hey, this is pretty massive) and secondly, would probably be played out in an awful and offensive way.

I just can't see any way in which it could possibly be done well. There are too many issues with the portrayal of what is effectively a transgender person, one who doesn't get to make that decision for themselves.

I am all for more strong female leads but sometimes it's better to just stick to what is currently working in this particular show. A show can be feminist without the lead having to be female. Moffat isn't a very feminist writer anyway, so it's a moot point. The doctor being female would not make Moffat a less sexist writer.