Why is the Doctor A Man?

[Si Hunt]

Things change and we have to take on board the new information the show gives us. For a while now we have had hints that Time Lords can change gender. Now we've seen it happen! Which leads to another question- why has the Doctor always been a man? Interestingly the General also mentioned that he'd been a man in nine of his incarnations and a woman in only one. Why might this be? And does it mean the Doctor won't suddenly become a woman?

Maybe the Generals odd man incarnation was there to prime us for the fact that the Doctor has always been a man but might be a woman soon?

Si.

[Stuart Wallis]

We do now have to accept the possibility that Time Lords are hermaphridites (today's Word Of The Day, folks!). I suppose that it's a comment of how fair-minded we are round here that we've given time over to letting the idea sink in - and I think you know what other websites might be exploding as we speak! The main problems are 1) we've got used to the Doctor being a man; and 2) the idea of a female Doctor introducing Susan, played by Ben Wishaw as his granddaughter, and Susan introducing Helen Mirren as her grandfather.

Having said that, one only has to bear in mind that snails and some fish change sex; why not super-evolved aliens? People round here seem to have got used to Missy, give or take one or two of us round here at least, myself included, whose main problem with her is the characterisation. The other problem is largely only semantics, though A Boy Named Sue jokes might get a bit tiresome rather quickly.

Now we just have to get round the thought that the next Doctor could be Scary Spice...

[Dirk Gently]

I don't have a problem with the Doctor being a female per se but if the general public don't like it then there'll be a rapid regeneration & a lost 'life'.

[Andrew Curnow]

I don't really have a problem with it either, although I think it would actually have been easier in the old days - now that there is a hint of the Doctor being romantically interested, or at least interesting, to his companions (maybe not yer man Capaldi so much, but certainly Ten & Rose for example) it does muddy the waters slightly. If there's any suggestion that he might have wanted a love affair with Rose, it's a bit mean not to tell her up front that he could be a woman some day.

Don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with that (I'm sure it's not a problem on Gallifrey in the constellation of Kasterborous) but it's cruel not to make it clear to somebody who presumably wouldn't otherwise think about it. I mean, based on the spin off Billie Piper did, The Secret Diary of a Rose Tyler, she'd probably be up for the challenge, but even so.....

[Stuart Wallis]

Captain Jack certainly would!

[Si Hunt]

I'm going to pick up on Tim's concern over a "wasted life". Does this matter now the Doctor has superseded his initial 12 body regeneration cycle? We don't know how many bodies he has to use up in this cycle, and even if it's a finite amount what's to stop the Time Lords giving him a new cycle again? And another one after that? Interestingly the show seems to have managed to gloss over the loss of threat due to the lead character now effectively being immortal.

The life span of Time Lords has an impact on the Doctors rather reckless decision to shoot The General in "Hell Bent". When challenged, he shrugged it off as "that's man flu to a Time Lord!". In short, we have to conclude that either Time Lords have many, if not infinite, lives, or the Doctor is very morally dubious. If the General was indeed on his 10th life, the Doctor used up one of his remaining two just to escape.

Si.

[Rob McCow]

Well... when the Rani blasted the TARDIS at the start of Time and The Rani, she marches in and says very plainly "Leave the girl. It's the man I want." So she might have been expecting the Doctor to still be a man even though he was regenerating. Then again, maybe not!

The laws of regeneration do seem to have changed in the Time War. Then again, the 11th Doctor flatly contradicted himself when he said (flippantly) that he could regenerate 400+ times to Clyde in the Death of The Doctor Sarah-Jane Adventure. Later he admitted he could only regenerate 12 times, but that there was an extra one due to the incident with the Hand Doctor in The Stolen Earth.

But! Perhaps he was WRONG about the Hand Doctor and he's acutally on his last incarnation now. Or not.

In short - the Doctor could quite happily be female, feminine, you know, like yourself, in his next regeneration. Sadly the evidence suggests that he's unlikely to regenerate into a Silurian or a Centuar and we can be absolutely certain that he will never, ever regenerate into an American.

[Jon Masters]

To be flippant (coz I is bord) we've already had a whole sequence of female Doctors, running around being cool and saving the day. They were called Rose, Amy and Clara (with the occasional burst of Donna and Martha).

A more important question surely then is when will the Doctor actually get to be the Doctor ?

[Stuart Wallis]

and we can be absolutely certain that he will never, ever regenerate into an American.

Now that would be beyond the pail!