Good point but Romana hasn't featured at all in new Who.

Couldn't have put it better myself.


Not really. We've seen female Time Lords as far back as 1977.

Not as protagonists, we haven't.

Well I'm not always agreeing with the Capt., but in this case, I most fervently do. The doctor is a male timelord (whether male in this case is the same thing as human male is irrelevant). The timelords seem to have a similar gender concept to humans (at least that's what we are made to believe), as such it would be rather weird if he turned female. So I'd rather he would not (even if their gender distinction isn't quite the same as the human gender distinction, if this makes sense).

Romana was the main character in Big Finish's 'Gallifrey' series, so yes we have. Anyway, it's irrelevant: the Doctor is not female.

Here's the thing - I've always kind of looked for things in Dr Who that are relevant to real life - this is one of the reasons I enjoyed the RTD/DT era because they brought a lot of very real emotion and relationship themes into it.
I've always drawn a parallel between the regeneration of the Doctor in Dr Who with the concept of reincarnation in real life - ( which most of humanity believes in ).
I believe that as souls, we don't have genders - and we've been both males and females before, in past lives. This is getting a bit deep and spiritual, I know, but that's why I think that, far from being "ludicrous" , the doctor regenerating into a female would be exploring a very meaningful theme.

You've already admitted that you would be unwilling and unable to accept a female Doctor. That's fine - don't speak for anyone else though.

But if these characters changed race that too would effect the show. I think the same would happen with Doctor Who.

(P.S I'm not racist! )

'Most of humanity' believes in reincarnation? I don't think so. And Doctor Who is sci-fi, it doesn' t need all that religious stuff shoehorned into it.

I think you'll find that if you ask a bunch of people - more people will tell you they believe in reincarnation than not.
Also - there's a difference between a spiritual/philosophical theme and a religious theme.

The danger in doing something as major as that is that a) it would come across as radical change for the sake of radical change and would be perceived as a gimmick, and b) removing that general similarity to the previous Doctors would harm viewer's identification with the character.

On the other hand, as has been said before, the Doctor has expected to be male, or female, or two heads, or no heads at all. No matter how much he's exaggerating, it seems that change that radical would technically be possible for him.

Whatever. Not convinced by either statement. Depends on the circles you move in, I would think.

Maybe Custard Creamed holidays in Tibet quite alot?

maybe he could have a sex change operation or just drag it up a little bit lol

maybe david tennant should had played some of the episodes as "Davina" that would've been good

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xB-M_tYhLGU

No, but I will admit that the backward mentality being exhibited by a couple of people on here is a little bit foreign to me.
And what would be so wrong with a Doctor that makes you "rigid" ?
You know you'd dig that. It's all good, imo.

He makes quite a pretty Davina

Hey, if the idea of a female doctor appeals to you then fair enough...but those that dont like the idea are free to say how abhorrent they find the concept. And I do.

I hope by 'backward' you're not implying any sort of sexism or misogyny on my part or anyone elses. Because that couldnt be further from the truth.

You can speak for yourself and that's fine, but you don't know that nobody else on here is a misogynist and some of the comments on page 2 were a bit dodgy.

Why you find the concept of a female Doctor so abhorrent is beyond me, but each to their own.

I think the question is whether the doctor (as a male timelord) should turn into a female (as there are already female timeladies about - e.g. Romana). I'm not questionning your beliefs about reincarnation, but I don't think the timelords' regeneration is quite the same as our concept of reincarnation. If Gallifrey did not have some kind of gender distinction then I could see where you are coming from (e.g. the doctor may turn into either a female or male).

IMO stating that the doctor should remain male is not mysogyny, however, stating that females are too stupid to ever be a timelady or to have the same abilities as the doctor would be . However, you never know maybe your wish will someday come true and you can watch this board descend into anarchy.

That's a decent point about Gallifrey, but we are talking about fiction here, and for fiction, or any art, to be good - it has to express something about real life.
I still do see the regenerations as kind of an expression of reincarnation, and don't see why it couldn't be a girl next time.
( I think whether it is or not would depend on who the writer is. No matter what they do, somebody is going to be complaining about it on here anyway so THAT shouldn't stop them ! ).

There are other parallels I draw too - I guess another theme I find relevant to life would be that time is the 4th dimension. In fact, watching Dr Who helped me get my head around that, when some of my geekier friends had been trying to explain it to me for years to no avail - but there really is a lesson in it about the actual quantum nature of time, for those who are ready for it.

But I think that the doctor remaining male in his physical incarnation expresses real life. I might have misunderstood you here.


Well fair enough, I can't argue with your viewpoint here, although the way I understand the regeneration is slighty different (e.g. body and mind are inextricably linked and both change in the process rather than two separate entities (our soul gets a new body), which is based on Descartian dualism and has been heavily criticised in philosophical circles).


Well this is the beauty of Who, it can be very educational

I'm having trouble seeing what reincarnation has to do with 'real life'. Unless some startling scientific discoveries about the nature of the universe have been published which I'm not aware of, it's pure fantasy.

Reincarnation is part of many people's religious belief (Hindus, Buddhists), and as such should be respected.

However, regeneration is totally different. We don't know how it works, and I suspect the writers of DW now and past don't either. It's a handy plot device, and as such, it does whatever the writers want it to do, that they think the fans will like and accept.

I think it would be such a risk changing the sex of the Doctor, in terms of ratings, that they won't do it.

At least I hope not!

Its interesting you mention that.....as now that reminded me of how the third Doctor regenerated into Number 4! There was quite a huge buddist symbolism going on there in Planet of the Spiders....


I've kind of styed out of this debate, as really it seemed to go nowhere at times. I personally wouldn't want the Doctor to be female, mailnly because i like him as a male...but the show, and especailly Moff, hasn't shyed away from the possibilty of the Doctor being female, wether that be the jokey Curse of the fatal Death, or the eleventh Doctor thinking he was a girl....why would he think that if he could never became a female? So it still could happen...and who knows....I wasn't happy with David taking over the role, and now he has become the best Doctor ever for me, so I am not going to pre-judge anymore


As for the whole other Misogyny debate....well persoanlly I don't think that is the case in Doctor Who....women have been protrayed all sorts of roles and so have the men....they have been shown as kind and compassionate, as the Doctor's best friends...and they have been shown to have the capabilities to be monsters...and the same goes for the men. Making the Doctor into a female will not show that the programme is definitely not misoginist.....because they have already show that by showing the companion as sometimes the biggest hero of the stories....not just the new series, but classic too. So there is no need for it to prove itself further than that. Personally I like the fact that sometimes the women are bad, because they are easy as capable of being evil, but its not shown in the same light as Myra Hindley, where everyone is judging her evil actions on the basis that she is a woman so how can she do that...in Doctor Who, its about the person, not the fact they are female that they are evil....its a bit like when someone says that Doctor Who protrays disabled people as evil (Davros, Lumic).....no, that isn't the case at all....what it shows is that disability doesn't limit the minds of these genuises...and that we shouldn't pity or underestimate someone with a disability....they are as strong as an able bodied....and the fact that we have plenty of able bodied "evil" people...shows that there isn't a vendetta agaisnt disabled people either...

I suspect that if you asked a bunch of people (men and women) if they would like the Doctor to be played by a woman they would say no. The character has been established as male. As a programme Doctor Who has a ton of great roles for women, the majority of companions have been women. So I don't see the need to change the gender of the Doctor.