Doctor Who Creator Considered a Female Lead as the Doctor Back in the ’80s

Whether or not the Doctor should get a gender-swapped regeneration can be a divisive issue—quite literally dividing fans between people who are jerks and people who aren’t, generally—but the ultimate authority on the issue already weighed in before a lot of us were born, and he’s 100% cool with it. Can we have Tilda Swinton!Doctor now?

The idea of a female regeneration for the show’s eponymous Time Lord has been a frequent topic of discussion lately.

No, really.

Like, a lot.

All the time, practically. In fact, the discussion practically consumes more of time and space than the Time War itself, and late Doctor Who creator Sydney Newman would probably be confused as to why a good part of the fandom seems so upset at the idea.

If we jump in our Internet TARDIS and head back to the ’80s, during Colin Baker’s time as the Doctor, Newman didn’t like how the show was going and went so far as to call it “largely socially valueless, escapist schlock,” in a letter to then-BBC One Controller Michael Grade, according to CultBox. His solution to regenerate the Doctor into a woman didn’t just beat all the current discussion surrounding the show to the punch, but he also wanted to portray a non-idealized version of a woman long before pop culture really got into that conversation, writing,

At a later stage, Dr. Who would be metamorphosed into a woman

…

[T]his requires some considerable thought—mainly because I want to avoid a flashy Hollywood ‘Wonder Woman’ because this kind of hero(ine) has no flaws—and a character with no flaws is a bore.

Sadly, Newman’s ideas never came to pass, but fans who would look to the series’ history to back up their anti-lady-Doctor crusade should remember that the person who created the show already destroyed your entire argument long before you ever started it.

(via Den of Geek)

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Dan Van Winkle

Dan Van Winkle (he) is an editor and manager who has been working in digital media since 2013, first at now-defunct Geekosystem (RIP), and then at The Mary Sue starting in 2014, specializing in gaming, science, and technology. Outside of his professional experience, he has been active in video game modding and development as a hobby for many years. He lives in North Carolina with Lisa Brown (his wife) and Liz Lemon (their dog), both of whom are the best, and you will regret challenging him at Smash Bros.

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