What is the earliest point that there could have been a Female Doctor Who?

JuliantheUnknown

We nowadays have Jodie Whittaker as the Thirteenth Doctor after years of the question. But historically speaking, the idea of a Female Doctor has been present for years. Famously, Tom Baker in a 1981 interview said that people were assuming the next Doctor was going to be a man and has even said "I wish luck to my successor whomever he or she may be."

Before people say this should go into Fandom AH, I'm talking about real world production concerns behind the show that is Doctor Who, not the in-universe canon and lore of the show itself. Basically, what is the earliest time possible that the Doctor could be played by a female actor?

Another question is that the idea of a man turning into a woman would definitely prove controversial but assuming it happened some time in the Classic series, what impacts on real world history could this have?

But basically is there a perfect storm of ideas and events that could lead to the Doctor being a woman perhaps as early as the Fourth or Fifth Doctor? Or is this just a pure fantastical idea?
 

Dathi THorfinnsson

Susan Foreman was the First Doctor's granddaughter. I could imagine that rather than inventing 'regeneration' to transform the Doctor, you could have Susan inherit the TARDIS. I mean she is, at minimum, one quarter Gallifreyan, possibly half or even full blood?
Do we actually have evidence that Gallifreyans and Homo sapiens are interfertile?

So, in short, the Second Doctor could have been female.
 
Guajolote

Guajolote

I think the most likely might be the Fifth. The Second and Third were cast without a particular sense that they had to be a great contrast to their respective predecessors, even though that's how it worked out. In casting the Fourth, Letts and Dicks initially seem to favour going back to an old man. They asked a lot of actors, I think if a woman was a possibility, they'd have asked one.

I'm not sure of the timeline of Tom leaving and Peter being cast, but Season 18 took a pasting in the ratings. Assuming S18 is being broadcast while a new Doctor is being sought, maybe someone decides a female Doctor is just the fillip the ratings need. If you're looking for a POD, maybe make the ratings for S18 (which I think were the worst in the show's history IOTL) even worse.
 

JuliantheUnknown

Guajolote said:
I think the most likely might be the Fifth. The Second and Third were cast without a particular sense that they had to be a great contrast to their respective predecessors, even though that's how it worked out. In casting the Fourth, Letts and Dicks initially seem to favour going back to an old man. They asked a lot of actors, I think if a woman was a possibility, they'd have asked one.

I'm not sure of the timeline of Tom leaving and Peter being cast, but Season 18 took a pasting in the ratings. Assuming S18 is being broadcast while a new Doctor is being sought, maybe someone decides a female Doctor is just the fillip the ratings need. If you're looking for a POD, maybe make the ratings for S18 (which I think were the worst in the show's history IOTL) even worse.
Click to expand...

I think you're probably right that the Fifth is the earliest we could likely have a female Doctor without it being a different person.
 
marathag

marathag

Banned
JuliantheUnknown said:
Wouldn't she have already played Romana and Princess Astra?

Unless Lalla Ward never plays Romana in this timeline...
Click to expand...
Doctor Regenerates, and after looking in the mirror realizing that Romana was too much in his thoughts.

Would love to see the look on Courtney's Brigadier on having the Doctor explain that He is now a She.
 
unclepatrick

unclepatrick

I agree with those that say after Tom Baker.
I toyed with a Timeline in which the BBC hired Diana Rigg in place of Peter Davidson .
It would have help with getting the show attention in the US since she a well known actress in the US.
 

Look More Closely Later

JuliantheUnknown said:
We nowadays have Jodie Whittaker as the Thirteenth Doctor after years of the question. But historically speaking, the idea of a Female Doctor has been present for years. Famously, Tom Baker in a 1981 interview said that people were assuming the next Doctor was going to be a man and has even said "I wish luck to my successor whomever he or she may be."

Before people say this should go into Fandom AH, I'm talking about real world production concerns behind the show that is Doctor Who, not the in-universe canon and lore of the show itself. Basically, what is the earliest time possible that the Doctor could be played by a female actor?

Another question is that the idea of a man turning into a woman would definitely prove controversial but assuming it happened some time in the Classic series, what impacts on real world history could this have?

But basically is there a perfect storm of ideas and events that could lead to the Doctor being a woman perhaps as early as the Fourth or Fifth Doctor? Or is this just a pure fantastical idea?
Click to expand...
I'd guess you could have a female title character in 1963 if you wanted to run the show as something like 'female governess takes people on adventures through time and space'. Mary Poppins (the film) was out in 1964, and for several years films at the very least with women in the lead role had been showing up.
Note that although I think it might have been possible to have had a 'magic' female lead character for a version of Doctor Who in 1963, I don't know if the culture of the time would have been quite ready for a female pseudo-scientist... (I think it might have been 1970 when 'Liz Shaw' turned up in the original timeline show as a female scientist type character.)
 

JuliantheUnknown

Look More Closely Later said:
I'd guess you could have a female title character in 1963 if you wanted to run the show as something like 'female governess takes people on adventures through time and space'. Mary Poppins (the film) was out in 1964, and for several years films at the very least with women in the lead role had been showing up.
Note that although I think it might have been possible to have had a 'magic' female lead character for a version of Doctor Who in 1963, I don't know if the culture of the time would have been quite ready for a female pseudo-scientist... (I think it might have been 1970 when 'Liz Shaw' turned up in the original timeline show as a female scientist type character.)
Click to expand...

I suppose that's technically true but I think I'm really thinking of when can the Doctor as we know them go from a male incarnation to a female one? Starting off as woman feels like we're just making a completely different character.

unclepatrick said:
I agree with those that say after Tom Baker.
I toyed with a Timeline in which the BBC hired Diana Rigg in place of Peter Davidson .
It would have help with getting the show attention in the US since she a well known actress in the US.
Click to expand...

A question would be if Diana Rigg is the kind of actress that they would hire. An unfortunate part wonders if they would want to hire specifically a young attractive actress (Diana Rigg was forty-three at the time that Tom Baker was finishing up) even if the male actors had been far older.
 

Look More Closely Later

JuliantheUnknown said:
I suppose that's technically true but I think I'm really thinking of when can the Doctor as we know them go from a male incarnation to a female one? Starting off as woman feels like we're just making a completely different character.



A question would be if Diana Rigg is the kind of actress that they would hire. An unfortunate part wonders if they would want to hire specifically a young attractive actress (Diana Rigg was forty-three at the time that Tom Baker was finishing up) even if the male actors had been far older.
Click to expand...
Well, characters have been switching gender since Tiresias/Teiresias (spelling seems to vary) in Greek mythology. I think Virginia Woolf may have written a book in the 1920's about a gender switching character, if you're interested in something more modern.
The thing is, for a long time, there was an actual narrative specific purpose for a gender switch in an actual gender switching story; it was trying to make some point, often about differences between the sexes. *
Simply having it happen to be edgy and controversial or to get some cheap publicity is something I can't see happening before 1989 when they killed the Classic version off, or not unless Michael Grade decided to use it as a reason/excuse to axe the show - do something controversial, then use the falling viewing figures which resulted to kill the show off after that one last season.

Edit:
* Hmm. I'm not sure how far 'male character pretends to be female or female character pretends to be male' counts as 'gender switching', although that's been around in stories for a while too, and perhaps some of the time touches on points that literal gender switch stories also focus on.
 
Last edited:

fasquardon

marathag said:
Doctor Regenerates, and after looking in the mirror realizing that Romana was too much in his thoughts.
Click to expand...

Or: Doctor Regenerates, and after looking in the mirror realizes that Romana was his future self all along!

Look More Closely Later said:
I'd guess you could have a female title character in 1963 if you wanted to run the show as something like 'female governess takes people on adventures through time and space'.
Click to expand...

A female doctor in 1963 would certainly have stood out...

Especially if we'd had a Servilan-esque situation where the part was written for a man and then a woman had somehow landed the role, and the showrunners had decided to tell the writers to keep writing the Doctor as if she were male to highlight her alien-ness.

fasquardon
 
Guajolote

Guajolote

Regenerating the Doctor into a woman was one of Sydney Newman's suggestions when his opinion was sought by Michael Grade in 1986.

Sydney Newman was behind the creation of Cathy Gale in The Avengers. If you really wanted an earlier POD, have Newman renew his BBC contract in 1967 and let him do his maverick thing and demand a woman Doctor when Troughton leaves.
 

Polish Eagle

I'm inclined to say that the 7th Doctor is the earliest time a woman can be cast in the role. Sadly, such a move would be seen as last-ditch floundering to save the show after the hiatus, the change to the 25-minute format, and the general decline it hit in the 1980s, and the actress, no matter how competent, would be overshadowed by the show's cancellation.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top
Top