a question:

[metaphorge]

So, why hasn't Doctor Who incarnated as a woman yet?

Comments

[raindrops.livejournal.com]

Because they'd have to explain the Companion relationship in a whole different light.

[quodlibetic.livejournal.com]

Beats the hell outta me. I've wondered that, myself.

[roadriverrail.livejournal.com]

Cause he's all man.

[drjon.livejournal.com]

There has.

[loxiearcane.livejournal.com]

Aw c'mon, parodies don't really count.... But man, would I love to see this!!

[loxiearcane.livejournal.com]

Great minds think alike: byroncaloz and I were just talking about this a day or so ago. It makes perfect sense - so why not, BBC? Hmmmmm?????

(PS: Hi, this is radiobastet - changed my username! Welcome back from the Burn!)

[metaphorge.livejournal.com]

Great minds think alike... and then, so do ours. ;)

(I'd noticed the name switch. Thanks for the welcome back.)

[drjon.livejournal.com]

I remember back in the early eighties this was a topic for much discussion...

[mojo-iv.livejournal.com]

Because all the good British actresses are contracted to do Harry Potter movies?

Well, except Joanna Lumley...

--m4

[t3knomanser.livejournal.com]

Hasn't he? Do we know the physiology of a Gallifrean well enough to establish what sex the Doctor is? The fact that, through some fluke of parallel evolution, the Doctor appears passably human in most incarnations beggars the mind. To require though, that an alien- despite the rough resemblance to a human externally- continues to resemble a human in other ways, well... it's rather anthropomorphic.

We can grant, at least, that the Doctor has an awareness and understanding of human genders- an important requisite for any Time Lord that wants to blend in. Note that Romana represented as a different human gender and carried herself as such.

With these two examples, we can determine that certain gross physical characteristics persist across regenerations. For example, in the case of Romana, there are a pair of organs similar to human mammiaries that adorn "her" chest. The Doctor lacks this feature, and it is then reasonable to assume that for Gallifreans, there is at least two body types that serve similar social roles to gender.

Now I'm going to really have to formulate this and build my own post on the topic.

[rougewench.livejournal.com]

Because the BBC are pussies.


D.

[lunza.livejournal.com]

People have a problem with female geekery.

[the-van-dyck.livejournal.com]

Correction: straight female geekery. Lesbians are fine. (see:Willow, Abby etc.)

[adameros.livejournal.com]

As if amberite's head wasn't already over flowing with Dr. who slash-fic ideas. ;)

[amberite.livejournal.com]

Actually, there's already a comm: girl_doctor.

I believe Russell T. Davies has said publically that he'd be happy to give the go-ahead to a female incarnation, if a woman auditioned and was right for the part.

[twopiearr.livejournal.com]

How much do we know about Time Lord physiology?

We know they have two hearts. From that it's safe to say that their internal structure is not identical to ours. In fact, we've never even seen a Time Lord naked, as far as I know. All we really know about them is that, fully dressed, the few we've seen are passably enough human to blend in with humanoid cultures.

For all we know the Time Lords have a combination of genders and gender identities that exceeds our own (for example, the alien species from the War of the Worlds TV series was known to have a third physical gender, referred to in narration from the alien POV as a "carrier" in the authorized novelizations). For all we know they're asexual and reproduce in petri dishes. All we know is that the Time Lords who are known to have regenerated (and we know that not all of them do, eg The Master) tend to have similar external characteristics from a strictly morphologic point of view, to the extent that we have in fact ever *seen* said external characteristics. If the body is simply recharging itself via regeneration rather than recreating itself, this actually makes a fair amount of sense to me.

Let's further assume that, as with humans, exterior form generally follows interior function. If that's so, one would assume that, if indeed Time Lord physical genders are analogous to human physical genders (which is something of a leap on the face of it) then the regeneration process would actually have to not just rejuvinate but actually replace some organs wholesale to achieve a gender change - otherwise you wind up with gender dysphoria or worse. I don't know enough about you, but I haven't seen enough canon information about how the regeneration process to make an informed assumption about whether this should even be possible, let alone successful.

Of course the trap here is that the first argument cancels out the second - if their reproduction is asexual then internal organ reassignment would not be necessary for reproduction, hence it would be entirely feasible for one Time Lord body to be born as Gender A and then gain the external characteristics of Gender B, because internal reassignment would be unnecessary if typical mammilian reproduction isn't on the table. On the other hand, if reproduction keyed to physical genders is an issue, then external characteristics tied to internal organs would be an issue as well.

So this leaves us with two valid answers:

1) Without knowing more about Gallifraian natives' physiologies, we cannot determine whether or not this is reasonable.

2) Because the writers say so. :P

[nhyrvana.livejournal.com]

I guess I always figured that he was a male of his race and that while his outside appearance might be mutable, perhaps his basic physiology wasn't. I mean, he never morphed to having two noses or no ears. He always had two hearts. So why would he loose a penis and gain a vagina?

-e

[radarlove.livejournal.com]

Pshhhh....girls can't be DOCTORS, stupid!!

=P

tongue+cheek

[caffeina.livejournal.com]

A woman doctor? I mean, jeez!!

[samael7.livejournal.com]

As others have mentioned: In parody-verse, he's been Joanna Lumley ("Look, I've got Dalek bumps!"). And though I hadn't heard him mention it (as another previous commenter has said), Russel "Queer as Folk" Davies is capable of anything along those lines. Give it time.

Besides, he's had his first man-on-man kiss (on the lips!) in the first season. And Captain Jack is getting his own series, with a supposed return somewhere in the third series. Mmmm, Captain Jack....

And I HIGHLY reccommend you read the recaps for the new series on Television Without Pity (http://www.televisionwithoutpity.com). The writer nabbed some things that escaped me. And any writer than can bring in Zoarastrianism and Sophia and alchemical unions into Doctor Who gets at least an eyebrow-raise in my book.