It'll be interesting to see who they pick. Once again there's speculation that it will be a woman.  I, personally, just don't think that would work out well.

I wonder who does the casting?

Pretty muich every time there's been a new Doctor, I recal myself saying, "this guy is no Doctor Who" yet in just a few episodes I'm proven dreadfully wrong.

The Doctor seems quite heterosexual to me (once you get past the interspecies thing).  If the new Doctor is female, would she be a lesbian?

Hi Witch,

Casting is important.

I wonder if the writing might be more a factor.

Matt Smith riding a gravity enhanced motorcycle up the side of a skyscraper seems appropriate Christopher Eccleston would have seemed fish out of water.

The good thing about regenerating is that the personality of the doctor changes just as the appearance does.

Which means we don't have Eccleston or Smith trying to impersonate Hartnell or Baker

Grace and peace to you.

John

I suspect Stephen Moffat, the current head of things for Dr. Who, has a pretty strong hand in the casting as would the Beeb executives above him. The Casting Director would help find candidates, but likely the final decision will come from higher up.

A female Doctor would be interesting but iffy. Apparently Tilda Swinton has done it in a charity production and there's some desire among fans to see her do it for real.

I'd like to see them skew back older again. Phil Plait of Bad Astronomy joked in a Tweet that with the declining ages of actors playing The Doctor, they might have to cast a fetus in the part.

Martin Freeman and Benedict Cumerbatch of Sherlock would both have been good candidates a couple years ago but are now likely too big and too busy (Freeman plays Bilbo in The Hobbit while Cumerbatch is turning into a cinematic heavy, playing Khan in the new Star Trek and voicing Smaug in The Hobbit).

Andrew Lee-Potts of Primeval, another British s-f series, might be an interesting choice. He's 3 years older than Matt so probably in the right age range and has a bit of a following in geek culture already due to Primeval. Of course, that could also work against him.

If he wasn't already playing an established recurring character (Jack Harkness) in the Who-verse, John Barrowman would make a great Doctor (aside from the American thing, that is).

Mendalla

So "this" is where the Dr Who fans hang out.

Actually, we usually hang out in the "The Waters of Mars" thread but given that that is really more focussed on actual episodes (and is getting rather old), I decided to start a new thread about the latest cast turnover.

Mendalla

Doctor Who is a show that my 16 year old son and I watch together. He doesn't like any of the old ones, the special effects suck.

BBC SFX budgets have certainly improved, haven't they? I don't watch Dr. Who for the fx though. It's always been for the stories and the characters, esp. the various incarnations of The Doctor and his companions. While I have watched some New Who and thought David Tennant was a terrific Doctor, I'm still very old school. Jon Pertwee and Tom Baker (Doctors 3 & 4) remain my favorites and I rather prefer the old serial format to the current 1 hour drama.

Mendalla

Thanks Mendalla, I may look those two Doctors up on Netflix. I do like how the arch enemy of the Time Lords, the Daleks, haven't changed much since 1963.


"Exterminate! Exterminate! Exterminate..."

All things change except the embodiment of evil, eh? Though the new Daleks can handle stairs .

Alas, the Beeb still hasn't released much of the classic episodes on video so Netflix has only a smattering of them that have been released. They do have Pyramids of Mars, though, which is one of the best Tom Baker episodes (and presages Stargate by having the Egyptian gods as ancient alien visitors). For Pertwee, they have "The Three Doctors" in which you get the 3rd Doctor sparring with the 2nd while the 1st tries to keep them on track to save the universe. Forget what other episodes they have for these two. If they have the Key to Time series (which I think they might), it's worth a watch. Basically six stories that have the Fourth Doctor and a lady Time Lord named Romana battling a character known as the Black Guardian for the pieces of an artifact.

Mendalla

So the 12th Doctor is to be played by Peter Capaldi. He's older than Matt Smith for sure and probably older than Tennant. He was born in 1958 in Glasgow.  Mainly seems to be know for his part in a British comedy called The Thick of It. Sound like the change will happen during this year's Christmas Special. Kleenx time again.

At 55, he is tied with the late William Hartnell (the original Doctor from 1963) as the oldest actor to assume the role so definitely older that Tennant (who, by the way, is getting great notices for his new series, a detective show on the Beeb). Second is Jon Pertwee, my favorite, who was 50 in 1970 when he started his run as the Third Doctor. Matt was the youngest with David second.

Full list of Doctor Who actors with their ages on taking the role (minus Capaldi of course): http://reprog.wordpress.com/2010/04/05/ages-of-doctor-who-actors-on-thei...

What is interesting is that Capaldi is probably the first Doctor to have a strong connection to the Doctor's universe before assuming the role. He played Caecilius in Fires of Rome and a major role in Torchwood's "Children of Earth" series. Phil Plait, the blogger of Bad Astronomy, quipped that it was probably getting hard to find Doctors and companions who didn't have previous connection to the show.

Mendalla

I assume that you're referring to Broadchurch. I've only seen the first episode. It seem to be a very good show, well written with interesting realistic characters. I am certainly planning to watch the rest. Like so many British shows it's got a weird number of episodes making up a 'season' - 8 in this case. Tennant's very different when looking scruffy and speaking with what I presume is his native scots accent.

I saw a very positive review in either the Globe or the Post (probably the former). I liked what I saw of Tennant in Who (which, alas, wasn't much) so I'm interested in seeing Broadchurch as well.

Which is part of why I think they end up so much better than traditional American shows. They do just the number of episodes they want/need and don't have to worry about padding it out to a full 26 episode season. For example, Fawlty Towers, one of my all-time favorite sitcoms, only has 12 episodes split across 2 seasons and packs more laughs into those 12 episodes than you get in a full season of many American sitcoms. The Americans, both cable and broadcast, seem to be finally clicking on to this but it's sure taken a long time.

One of the comments I heard about the new Who (Capaldi) is that the writer hoped they would let him keep his Scots accent rather than making him do an more generic "British" one like they did with Tennant.

Mendalla