“We’re billions of years beyond your petty obsession with gender and its associated stereotypes.” With that quote from the latest episode of Doctor Who in mind, let’s move onto the actual news itself…
Jodie Whittaker. BIFA nominated, powerhouse Northerner barnstorming actress Jodie Whittaker is the 13th Doctor. The star of Black Mirror, St Trinian’s, and The Smoke is the new Doctor Who. She’s an actress as at home with the grit of a Jimmy McGovern serial as with the cutesy joy of something like Get Santa. She’s exactly the kind of performer capable of carrying Doctor Who and that’s no mean feat. Whittaker has already travelled back in time to play Izzy Huett in the BBC’s glistening Tess of the D’Urbervilles and fought aliens out of Brixton Joe Cornish’s Attack The Block. And in last year’s charming Adult Life Skills she lived in a shed, so she should be perfectly at home in the confines of the TARDIS.
Jodie Whittaker is an actor of extraordinary depth and range and I, for one, can’t wait to see her reunite with Chris Chibnall (Doctor Who’s incoming showrunner and former CO of Boradchurch) to deliver what promises to be a fresh, energetic and exciting new take on a decades old character.
Oh, and as for that other thing? To quote Hope Van Dyne, “It’s about damn time”.
Doctor Who returns for a Christmas Special on December 25.