I find myself sharing thoughts with Russell T Davies this last week, which is nice. A day after I wrote about the jumping-off points for those who might not like the way the programme is going, I received the latest DWM. In his regular column, there was RTD2 writing along similar lines. He refers to "seismic shifts", which I've covered before in these anniversary posts. Like me, he suggests that you don't allow yourself to get too worked up about changes, as something new - hopefully more palatable - will be along shortly to replace them.
Without doubt, the biggest seismic shifts in the history of the series to date fall in the Chibnall era. (It could have been the half-human reveal of the TV Movie, but by failing to go to series to build on this notion we were simply able to ignore it). Chibnall's first upheaval is obviously the casting of the programme's first ever female Doctor after 55 years or so.
As we've said when considering the arrival of Missy, Chibnall's big move wasn't as radical as he'd have liked. He may not have given us the first lady Doctor but Steven Moffat had carried out all the groundwork with the female incarnation of the Master, and later the regeneration of the Time Lord General.
We could go back over the arguments about the nature and semantics of gender - but we won't, for that way madness lies. (Being female for five minutes doesn't necessarily make you a woman as you're devoid of the life experiences, prejudices and socio-political history which accompanies this. A lot of the pro- and anti-trans arguments revolve around this).
The Woman Who Fell To Earth does more than just change the gender of the Doctor. Chibnall elected to move the series away from its natural home on a Saturday evening; he decided not to feature the TARDIS at all, saving the reveal of the new design until the following week; and he also deferred the debut of the new opening titles.
The episode began a shorter season, but one with longer episodes, and there was much talk about the new camera equipment that was being deployed.
We also had the introduction of three new companions, supposedly reflecting the original TARDIS line-up - but ignoring the fact that Lambert and Whitaker had 48 episodes per season to play with, and even then characters like Susan went undeveloped.
In actual fact, when you look at it closely, The Woman Who Fell To Earth was not all that radical. A female Doctor attracted high audience figures - but they rapidly fell away over the next few weeks (disastrously so over the course of the season, week by week). Other than a female actor in the lead role, little else had really changed. Much bigger "seismic shifts" would follow soon enough...
It's not madness.
ReplyDeleteGender is somebody's identity that they know themselves to be, regardless of their outward appearance.
In this way, the people who created the characters for both Whitaker and Gomez are transphobic. As, both the Doctor and the Master had ALWAYS had 100 per cent male identities. Both had expressed sexist views. And even during the Master's body-hopping, HE had only ever taken possession of male bodies.
Even if Time Lords had ever been able to shift bodily sex during regeneration(something that had never even been hinted at prior to Moffat), a Master or a Doctor in a female body would and should still identify as a male.
Missy was the "This isn't Doctor Who anymore" point for me. When Whitaker was announced as being the new Doctor, many were incensed. Not because they were sexist or transphobic, but because that's not who or what the character is.