Moffat: Gender is Fluid on Gallifrey 

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Like it or loathe it the subject of a female Doctor is not going to go away. Usually the mainstream media jump on the matter the second a Doctor leaves, but in light of the Master to Missy change this has come to the forefront once again recently.

Peter Capaldi, Steven Moffat and Michelle Gomez have all been discussing the subject.

First up, in an interview with Wales Online, Moffat said: “No-one says you can’t [have a female Doctor]. It’s actually only since I took over the show that we have said it’s actually possible within the logic of the show.”

He adds: “The very first lines I wrote were Matt Smith checking if he had become a girl and then I put some dialogue in The Doctor’s Wife about it and in Night of the Doctor.

“And now of course we have had the female Master, with the Doctor not reacting to that fact at all. He doesn’t seem to register the fact that his old friend is now a woman. So obviously, he doesn’t think it’s a remarkable thing to happen. We must assume that gender is quite fluid on Gallifrey.”

Capaldi told SFX: “There easily could be a female Doctor. I think the next time might be a female Doctor. I don’t see why not. I think it’s good to do that.”

He continues: “I think with Missy that was just a great idea. You wanted to keep it a surprise and that was the best way to do it, but yes, it does suggest all kinds of interesting stuff. They have a total love/hate relationship anyway but they were both men for a long time, and still have that love-hate relationship, and we will see more of that probably. It’s interesting, being able to swap like that. I think it’s good.”

Meanwhile Michelle Gomez  in a video interview says: “I don’t think now is the time to talk about it. I think it’s in poor taste to discuss having any new Doctor, when we have just been delivered one of the finest performances by Peter Capaldi.”

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Well the show has been cancelled before and when this "gender" change happens we will see it cancelled again. Many fans WILL leave the show and not enough will be left to sustain it.

Not enough new fans will come on board to make up the HUGE loss that will occur. Too many have said they will leave if the Doctor becomes female, some may give it a go but the FACT is too many wont and the death of Doctor Who will be plain to see. I say it is a fact because we are being told if the change happens they will walk away from the show, now that is up to individual and rightly so but who are we to call them closed minded or idiots for not wanting the worlds greatest sci-fi show to change ?

I myself am an old timer fan (early 70s) and I myself do not want the change because I also feel we will lose an abundance of fans, would I walk away from over 40 years of Doctor Who ? if I am honest, yes I think I would. To me it is a step too far and it dose not need to happen we have change all the time don\'t we ? but why now when it works as well if not better than it ever has.

I have seen on this site and others many arguments for and against the gender change and if anything it is defiantly causing a split with the fans, so what Moffat is actually doing is turning the fan base against each other and to me that is the saddest part about all this because it did not and dose not need to happen.

Some have been sexist on the matter but for the most part many simply do not see the point of change, ok The Doctor is an alien so why shouldn\'t he be able to change or why not are not good enough answers to the question, what about the Doctors past and his family that we know about ? it dose not make sense for him to become female, all that will be cast to one side just to make the show "modern" or "different"  come on get real.

It is great to see new fans come along and enjoy the show we all love, but with respect do they feel the same as the older fans who have been brought up with Doctor Who ? I don\'t think they do, I am not saying they are any less a fan but the generation gap here is often seen through the comments or views they have on the shows future. my point here is the gender change dose not need to happen because those who don\'t want it and those who don\'t mind if it happens old fans or new will not be upset if the Doctor remains male BUT many will if the change dose happen and for what reason ? so the fans can fall out as is clearly happening now and that\'s before any change of the Doctors gender has even happened.

We have gone over 50 years now if we want another 50 then leave it alone Moffat because it is guaranteed we wont get another 5 if you rip apart a fan base like no other on earth (or beyond).

The more I read the arguments against a female Doctor, the more I realise what a challenge it would be for the writers and actors to get it right, to show the viewers that such a change can work. Thus the more I\'m interested to see how would they deal with such a challenge, and thus the more I actually want a female Doctor to happen!

We WILL have a female Doctor sooner or later. Probably not with Moffat as a showrunner though. But next showrunner will have a lot more freedom doing whatever he/she feels will be best, thanks to Moffat preparing the audience now.

Personally, right now, when I try to imagine what the Doctor after Capaldi (may he keep the role for long !) could look / feel like, it\'s a woman I picture. But we are far from this moment, and things may change.

If you had asked me a few years ago, I would have said \'no\' to a female Doctor, now I\'m excited about the idea of it. Michelle is a perfect example of how a gender-swap can challenge writers and audiences to remember what they love about their favourite characters and, like The Doctor says in Deep Breath, to \'see them, just see them\'.  There\'s nothing like sitting down and writing on a screenplay:

and typing the words, \'THE DOCTOR\' -- because you can say anything, but regardless of what you say, it\'s always the same voice, the same person and I think you do your very best as a writer when you really believe that. 

I think we\'ll get a non-white male Doctor before getting a female Doctor, but it\'s definitely coming. I\'m curious, who do you think would make a great female Doctor ? I\'m thinking Tilda Swinton, Emily Blunt, Catherine Zeta-Jones or Rachel Weisz, (I think they\'re all British)

I just realized how interesting the dynamic of a female Doctor versus Michelle Gomez\'s Mistress could be.

When Eleven first appeared after the regeneration, he actually thought he was female (because the hair was slightly longer than Ten\'s) - until he checked his Adam\'s apple. 

a girl (& ginger!). So, what does that tell you?

Now Capaldi has gone on record to state that he doesn\'t want to regenerate "for a while". And, being a true geeky Whovian himself, he seems quite open-minded about the Doctor having a gender change. Won\'t be surprised if Capaldi\'s successor ends up being female.

This is one thing that intrigues me about the fandom the most. No other show sees as much "change" as DW does - be it Doctors, Companions, writers, timelines, etc. Yet, why is it that fans find it so difficult to deal with "change"? The reaction borders on hostility almost. 

Capaldi\'s casting itself was met with a verdict of "too old & unattractive to play the Doctor". And, he\'s a guy. So, I can only imagine the kind of hostility that a female Doctor could encounter. 

Or, does the fandom prefer its Doctors to be "young" (gender being a non-issue)?

I think it\'s such a good idea to introduce a good idea to introduce the idea of gender fluidity into the Whoniverse. For a show about change and open-mindedness, a lot of Whovians are very narrow-minded

Blimey, I vanish for a few days and what do I come back to? Instant flame war. You know, I\'ve lost count of the number of times I\'ve given my opinion on the matter, argued about it and produced it in a typically witty (...and humble) way, so I shall once more flee into my shelter, and see you all soon when something less polarising comes up...

But before I go I will just reiterate, I don\'t really care whether an actor for a role identifies as male or sticks two extra letters before the word instead, if they\'re a good actor playing a good role I will always be happy.

Assuming Moffat is playing the long game to make it possible to introduce a female Doctor, he is playing that game very well.  At least to my mind.  Eleven checking himself out and mentioning the Corsair were just enough to get the conversation started.  Let the issue lie dormant for a couple of years then gradually introduce Missy as the not-surprising big surprise of the season.  The Doctor treating the gender change as no big deal seals the canonicity of the change as it sets a boundary:  If the Doctor doesn\'t think Time Lords switching genders is a big deal it implies that the viewer should also not treat it as a big deal.

Now we\'ve got Moffat and Capaldi, probably the two biggest Who geeks officially associated with the show, lay more groundwork by saying out-of-universe that the same could happen to the Doctor.  Moffat is probably deep into the scripts and story arc for S9 right now, so he judge fan reactions and alter those scripts to address people\'s concerns long before the show has to cast a new Doctor (which will hopefully not occur for at least a couple of years).

It has to fit the story in my opinion.  Switching the Doctor to a female really doesn\'t seem to fit his personality, at least at the moment.  If Moffat could come up with a good story and good reason for The Doctor to show up as a female, I don\'t mind it, but I\'d hate to see something like that just to support feminists and not be sexist or some B.S. like that.  The Master being female makes a lot of sense for the story.  First off the Master has always been psychotic.  Second she\'s had a very weird relationship with the Doctor over the years so it makes sense that she has an obsession for him.  Ontop of that with their last meeting and how it went down he clearly had a messy friendship/respect/rivalry that could easily have left the Master with a warped mind and the small desire to become female to make it more of a relationship relationship but also to mess with the Doctor.  I also stand by my theory about regeneration that most Time Lords can control their regeneration since you see people like The Master being able to control being younger or Romana "trying on faces."  My theory is that the Doctor just never learned or was not good at controlling it in the academy (we know he clearly didn\'t do the best in the academy by comments Romana made.)  So I think for the Doctor it has a lot to do with his surroundings and the current situations he\'s in, it\'s entirely believable that 12 got a scottish accent because he was thinking about Amy while regenerating.  However I believe he has a strong subconscious of being a fatherly figure mixed with an ego that likes to impress people, specificaly young females.  Therefore I think his subconscious should always keep him from regenerating into a female because while a female could still have an ego, it just wouldn\'t be the same type as the male ego trying to impress the female.  And again Female\'s could be a mother figure, but mother figure\'s are also quite different, usually kind gentle and nurturing as opposed to the over protective doing what it takes to protect type thing.  To me a female Doctor just doesn\'t make sense, political correctness and feminism and sexism has no place in a science fiction story.  A story should only be changed by the story, not to make a statement.

For a show that promotes acceptance and change I am so baffled by the strictness to western gender binary in the fandom today.

The only woman i would like to see play the Doctor would be Joanna Lumley, she was excellent as the Doctor in the comic relief special. To be honest, i would like the Doctor to remain male but the theme of the show is regeneration.... it could be very interesting!

Not sure why Moffat thinks he came up with the idea... Hasn\'t he seen Romana I become Romana II? 

let\'s take Patrick Troughton\'s Doctor For example, he is offered to decide how he will look like he does not get a lady suggestion I therefore believe that it is normal to his home planet to be what they are Doctor Who is not gender related and will never be that

Humans can be intersex, with no obvious \'male\' or \'female\' sex. Humans can be gender-fluid, with no obvious \'male\' or \'female\' gender. It\'s really not that unbelievable to have an advance humanoid species to blend those together each time they regenerate. We could have a stone butch Time Lady next time, or a camp Time Lord, to really shake those gender stereotypes up. Just a suggestion, Mr Moffat. :D

I think first there should be a black Doctor. Or maybe a black female Doctor.... That\'d be cool... but genuinely I think the Doctor should not be chosen for their age, race, gender, etc. but if they are right for the part. Take Gomez for example; her character was written ground up for her because she was so brilliant!

I would like to know what percentage of fans are female these days? Actually there should be a couple of polls along these lines as well as which female actors could be successful.

I agree with Michelle Gomez. Let\'s give it a rest and enjoy Capaldi for the time being.

Mr Moffat has always had this idea of a female Doctor in his mind, look at the curse of the fatal death. One thing that does worry me slightly, is that it will have to be one hell of an actress to top Michelle as Missy.

@Clara Bosswald I\'m on for Emma Thompson. Perfect mix of class, humour, drama, and intellect. I remember her saying somewhere she\'d love to go for the role too. 

@divya12 I breathed a sigh of relief when Capaldi\'s Who was announced: at last, a chance of DW actually trying to "fix" those past mistakes, maybe, instead of playing the dashing young flirt with Clara.  I\'m sure there are plenty of other older viewers who\'ve had a similar reaction.

  We sort of already *have* a female Doctor, actually, although she\'s basically a homebody as well as a fearsome warrior: Madame Vastra, and of course Jennie, her wife (both of whom many DW fans say they dislike).  We\'ve also had a stab in that direction with Emma Peel/Dianna Rigge in "the Avengers", companion and all.  I enjoyed that show, but Rigg\'s character was ultimately unsatisfying, all surface shine and none of the turbulence of an inner life.  That was in the days before long "story arcs", so character development in a series was forbidden, as with the crew of the Enterprise who always had to go back to their normal selves at the end of the episode.  I can\'t think of any open-ended, long-lasting comedic/dramatic series with a strong, non-stereotypical woman as protagonist.  Which makes the idea of trying it with DW attractive (if any show could succeed at this, it would be DW, surely!).  I just don\'t think we\'re "post-feminist" enough as a culture to do this without massive loss of viewers, which might be fatal to the show -- and none of us wants that.  

@divya12  Change is a big part of Doctor Who, but it doesn\'t therefore follow that every conceivable change the writers may or may not implement must be welcomed and embraced by the fans. Some change is good for the show, some bad. Any instance of change will be supported by some and opposed by others. You can\'t expect or demand that all change be embraced by everyone simply by virtue of it being change, especially when the proposed change in question is the most fundamental shakeup of the show\'s formula since Hartnell regenerated into Troughton in 1966.

If the Doctor doesn\'t think Time Lords switching genders is a big deal it implies that the viewer should also not treat it as a big deal. 

After watching Dark Water again last night I thought it was a big deal for the Doctor. When she puts his hand on her chest to listen to her hearts he stands shocked and motionless for ages until Clara snaps him out of it. Even after feeling that she has 2 hearts he still refuses to believe in the possibility and she has to spell it out for him. He then stands there stunned in disbelief again. So the Master being a woman is a huge shock for the Doctor :)

@Rani Nose Hopefully Capaldi stays those couple of years!

@Timhogan Uh -- "The Master being female makes a lot of sense . . . (since?) the Master has always been psychotic"?  Being psychotic is a female trait?  You didn\'t mean to say that, right?

@SANTA-ran17 agent of C.L.A.R.A nah it\'s just people don\'t like to get outside there comfort zone when it comes to this debate ( ironic cause the show is all about that)

@MikeFalino I think people tend to willingly forget that sequence.

@AnEarthlyChild To tick all the PC boxes that I\'ve read/heard in recent years that some people want out of a Doctor one day, they\'d need to pick someone like Wanda Sykes: she\'s not British, she\'s black, she\'s a lesbian, she\'s older than most Doctors have been, and she\'s a she. Those things have cropped up before.

@Polyphase  Most fans wouldn\'t want a female Doctor according to polls.

@91 Queen of Evil You don\'t think it would have been better if she was less over the top/  Maybe more realistically evil instead of just totally insane like Simm

@divya12 Sorry, I can\'t edit in this format, so -- lots of older viewers, and plenty of young ones too (end of Para 1).  And I\'d paragraph for easier reading if I could figure out how to reliably do that.  Sorry for clumsiness.

@Polyphase @Rani Nose That honestly seems like a bit of a hamfisted conclusion, he didn\'t even know that Missy was The Master at that point. He just knew that she was a Time Lady. His initial shock came from the fact that she has two hearts and the possibility of her being a Time Lord and then just from the fact that The Master was still alive and somehow escaped Gallifrey giving him his final confirmation that Gallifrey was indeed out there somewhere, where as before he was unsure.

In that scene he didn\'t yet know she was the Master. The shock was that she was a Time Lord (since they were all supposed to be lost on Gallifrey). I don\'t think gender had anything to do with it.

@Polyphase @Rani Nose Yeah, but he could just be shocked by the fact (s)he still alive.

@Notsosmartguy Agent of C.H.R.I.S.T.M.A.S. @SANTA-ran17 agent of C.L.A.R.A Exactly my point, Thankyou! (Also give up on that troll down below, he\'s just being excessivley rude, giving up no points and no backing to his or her arguments. Let them go rant at stupid blogs like STFU Moffat - There\'s no point giving them the time of day when they present their views like that. 

@Malohkeh @MikeFalino It doesn\'t help that the EU has tried several different explanations for it.

@Scootersfood, agent of C.O.M.P.A.N.I.O.N.S. @Angel Percy  Those advocating a female Doctor have the burden of giving reasons for why it must happen. "Why not?" isn\'t good enough I\'m afraid.

For the record I\'m not deadset against a female Doctor but I have significant reservations. My "why?" was more directed towards Moffat\'s hit-and-run extra-curial pontifications like this.

@Scootersfood, agent of C.O.M.P.A.N.I.O.N.S. @Angel Percy That is a truly great answer!

@ElyotWren @AnEarthlyChild How would non-British be PC? She\'s American, surely that would be less PC considering their media dominance?

@joe4 @Polyphase That was a poll taken over a year ago, a lot of things could happen in a year to change one\'s mind. 

@joe4 @Polyphase Yeah but it\'d still be interesting how many fans have changed their minds after Missy. I know quite a few who have. 

@SANTA-ran17 agent of C.L.A.R.A @Notsosmartguy Agent of C.H.R.I.S.T.M.A.S. to be fair it would be a big change for a lot of people but if they give it a chance I\'m sure most will realise it\'s not.that big a deal.

@Rani Nose Moff can stay out of it. I was forwarding my own theory :)

@Polyphase @Rani Nose I think he was probably more surprised by the fact that she was a time lord, not that the master was now a woman. The Doctor didn\'t even realise that she was the master until she told him, at which point the Doctor was surprised that the master had somehow returned and was terrified. At no point did it suggest that he was shocked she was a woman.

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