Tags: Doctor Who »»»» Season 11
With the 2018 season, Doctor Who has a new Doctor (!! a WOMAN !!), new companions, a new show runner, new writers, new this, and new that. The trailers released just before Comic-Con told us New Faces ... New Worlds .... New Times... leaving us wondering if this meant no old villians like the Daleks or Cybermen. In the Doctor Who panel at Comic-Con, Chibnall suggested there would be no Daleks this year. Instead the management wants the show to be as accessible as possible. Given the predicted backlash against a female Doctor, this may possibly be to offset any loss of viewership. Chibnall says the show is striving to be the most inclusive show on TV, but is likely to miss out on the chance to show a female Doctor with her female Wife (because ... New Faces, therefore no River Song).
When asked about Daleks - Chibnall said:
“We’ve got two weeks left of shooting, and we haven’t seen them yet.”
Later he said:
It’s a great moment to bring everybody on board. It’s a big, inclusive, accessible mainstream series of 10 really varied, exciting standalone stories. So you won’t see very much from the past.”
This is fitting with the read-between-the-lines I noticed with the trailers. The show runners want Doctor Who to be accessible to everyone, and to draw in as wide an audience as possible. Therefore the show is not focusing (as it did in the Moffatt/Capaldi era) on reliving the deep historical archive of Doctor Who lore.
New Faces ... New Worlds .... New Times... means just that -- new villians, not old villians, new places to go, not the familiar places, etc.
If that means no Daleks or Cybermen or whatever this year, that's fine. That means the issue of Gallifrey probably will not be revisited this year, and maybe not during Chibnall's tenure. Maybe that's okay, especially as Moffatt managed to get a decent reframing of The Time War and the place of Gallifrey in the universe.
Even later Chibnall said:
This year is the perfect jumping-on point for that person in your life who has never watched Doctor Who. I want you to go out there and recruit that person.
As for a Christmas Special:
We seem to be filming 11 episodes, and it’s only a series of 10…I would definitely think there’s another episode after the end of the series, yeah.
Another stated difference is:
We have the first writers of colour to write on Doctor Who this year – and we have two female writers and three male writers in the guest writers’ slots… We’re doing lots, but our plan across time is to do lots more. It should be the most inclusive show on television. The whole concept of Doctor Who is that anybody can go anywhere and do anything, and we want to reflect that on-screen and off.
Diversity is a good thing. The culture around us is very diverse, with all kinds of races and genders mixing together. Most of us believe this is good, and it is fair and proper for television shows like Doctor Who to reflect that reality.
LGBT diversity in Doctor Who
Speaking of diversity, Jodi Whittaker said some things which excited the LGBT community. First - the outfit has rainbow stripes on the shirt and trench coat, a nod to the LGBT community. And then Jodi Whittaker said:
You know what. Any age; any gender. Anyone can wear it
Meaning - the Doctor's outfit, and presumably the Cosplayers. And:
You’re not dressing as a girl, and you’re not dressing as a boy. You’re dressing as the doctor.
The Doctor is The Doctor. It's established Canon, thanks to Moffatt, that Time Lords can regenerate as either sex. For all we know Gallifreyans have multiple sexes but to human eyes they look like two sexes. Who knows.
It's interesting to witness the LGBT response to a female Doctor. LGBT is all about gender bending anyway, and here we have one of the most iconic TV characters bending gender in a big way.
Which gets back to the earlier comments. The BBC may be seeing that changing The Doctor's gender is proving to be challenging to some in the Doctor Who fan base. Therefore to avoid a decrease in viewership, the BBC wants Doctor Who to reach out to as many as possible to remedy any fans who abandon Doctor Who.
It's a shame that we have to consider this possibility. We should be looking forward to what the new actor does with the role. Each Doctor is different, and that's how it should be, and now we get to see another different portrayal of The Doctor, and that's how it should be.
LGBT diversity apparently won't extend to a meeting of River Song and Doctor #13
Speaking of LGBT connotations, think of River Song. We are extremely unlikely to see a return of River Song since this season is all about New Faces etc. However, The Doctor is married -- to a woman -- a woman who is comfortable in time traveling in her own right -- a woman who has a book with "all" the Doctor's faces. The Doctor is married.
Links
http://thedoctorwhocompanion.com/2018/07/22/doctor-who-series-11-no-daleks-and-no-two-parters/
https://www.radiotimes.com/news/2018-07-21/doctor-who-jodie-whittaker-alex-kingston/
