And a lot of the credit for the move is going to new series boss Chris Chibnall, who has taken a step apparently never considered by his predecessors – a fact that former showrunner Russell T Davies is happy to acknowledge.
“I simply didn’t think of it,” the screenwriter (who rebooted and ran the series from 2005-2010) explained in a new interview with Doctor Who magazine when asked whether he thought of adding a female Doctor to his notably progressive era on the series.
“We did a very, very good job in 2005 but it was a different world back then.
“What Chris Chibnall is brilliantly doing is making me and Steven Moffat look old-fashioned. We look like the past. And that’s exactly what we are – we are the past.”
And Davies said that he felt very positive about the show’s bright new future, with Whittaker impressing him in her TV appearances thus far.
“I don’t know Jodie, but whenever I’ve seen her interviewed on breakfast TV or whatever, she’s been really funny and vivid, not just spouting PR lines,” he said. “And that’s rare. That excited me.
“Someone who’s got an incredibly strong self is going to fit the Doctor perfectly.”
We’d say that’s quite the seal of approval from ‘Doctor Who’s past’ – and to think, it didn’t even need a TARDIS to get here.
Via Radio Times by Huw Fullerton
-----------------------------------------------------------
Former Doctor Who boss Russell T Davies says casting a female Doctor isn’t a “big political strategy”
Hearing that the BBC sci-fi series was bringing in the first female Doctor, they suggested the move was an attempt to tick boxes and be politically correct rather than for genuine storytelling purposes, and they signalled their disapproval to incoming series showrunner Chris Chibnall (who cast Whittaker) accordingly.
However, one of Chibnall’s predecessors has now poured cold water on such claims, with Russell T Davies (who revived and ran Doctor Who from 2005 to 2010) refuting the idea that there was some grand conspiracy behind the move.
“This isn’t some big political strategy by the BBC,” Davies said in an interview for the latest issue of Doctor Who Magazine (now on sale).
“This is one man, Chris, moving into the big chair and deciding that’s what he wants to do.”
Imagining the excitement that will generated by the upcoming change from Peter Capaldi’s Twelfth Doctor to Whittaker’s incarnation, he added: “There will be some kids sitting down on Christmas Day who don’t follow the news – and the Doctor will change into a woman and they won’t know.
“For those kids it will be as mysterious and as exciting as it was in 1966 when William Hartnell changed into Patrick Troughton. The programme has never been that original since.”
And considering all the other callbacks the Christmas special is including from that first regeneration story, we’d say it’s a legacy Doctor Who fans are very aware of. Fingers crossed Jodie Whittaker makes just as big an impact this December as Troughton did back in 1966 – even if a few fans do take a while to get used to it.
Via Radio Times
