"When Whittaker’s casting was announced, legions of Whovians made both their excitement and displeasure known," says Caroline Framke. "To some, this female Doctor is way overdue; to others, it represented a concession to wokeness by denigrating a classic character. 'The Woman Who Fell to Earth' doesn’t spend too much time trying to justify its existence to the latter camp, which is smart. Anyone who made up their mind based solely on her casting is unlikely to change it. But the script from new showrunner Chris Chibnall nonetheless squeezes in a few canny moments to acknowledge the shift, wink at the show’s past, and ably make its case. As the episode itself stipulates — both implicitly and even a little explicitly — it doesn’t actually matter what form the Doctor takes. The Doctor is an alien time traveler whose life spans thousands of years, regenerating when one form wears out like a snake shedding skin. The real question isn’t 'why does the new Doctor have to be a woman?', as some have gotten stuck on, but 'why has the Doctor always regenerated into a white British man?' If nothing else, the previous casting has showed a remarkable lack of creativity for a series that’s long prized itself for its incredible intergalactic imagination."
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TOPICS: Doctor Who, BBC, BBC America, Chris Chibnall, Jodie Whittaker