Peter Capaldi is leaving Doctor Who

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Will be excited for this season then. Just please, please, please, please, dear God please, don't just change the Doctor into a woman just for the sake of it.

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Ben Whishaw.

This could be a good one.

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What's wrong with a woman as a Doctor? I think it's long overdue.

Then its not the Doctor anymore. You don't make James Bond a woman. You don't make Superman or Batman a woman. I am all for making the women characters stronger and stronger, but as soon as they do a Doctor sex change then it won't be Doctor Who anymore.

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Sounds like Kris Marshall is rumored to be the next Doctor.

https://www.thesun.co.uk/tvandshowbiz/3339851/new-doctor-who-revealed-as-kris-marshall-takes-over-from-peter-capaldi-and-has-already-joined-the-cast/

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Spoiler alert for anyone that wants to be completely surprised by the casting:

Phoebe Waller-Bridge is rising in odds for the position.

So we'll have a female Doctor after all...

Please no

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Seriously though, there is a new name that has risen in the odds very recently: Jodie Whittaker

Still sounds like we're getting a female Doctor.

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Couldn't be more disappointed. Jumped the shark.

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The sexism happening on social media, and just overall meaningless hate is horrific... how the f**k is it a bad thing that the Doctor is female?! It's not, ok, just deal with it
/rant

Maleness is at the core of the Doctor, as is generally understood. Females deserve more leading roles, but the best solution for that is new female characters, not messing with old characters that are historically male. It just robs a character of much-needed consistency.
It'd be like if they wanted to make James Bond a female. Such an effort would be terrible and bad.
The higher ups have made a bad decision re: the new Doctor, no doubt about it.  If Jodie was a good actor (I'll willing to believe that being the case) they should have made her a side character, a companion. And made her important, like how Romana was.

This, this, this, and again this.

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But its not a gendered role though!  Never has been (well, since the whole regeneration concept was invented... in 1966!), and now quite clearly never will be.  Your ludicrous comparison with James Bond (which is a gendered role - although I'm actually interested about how a James Bond film with a women lead would go) falls down purely because of that point.

I mean this is a level of closed mindedness about an always evolving TV series that's both very silly - but also expected considering who I'm talking to.

How can you say the doctor has never been a gendered role while James Bond has??? What about when he asked Clara if he was a good man? What about "The Husbands of River Song?" What about being the "mad man in a silly blue box?" Before Missy and that one Time Lord general there was nothing to suggest that Time Lord's weren't a specific gender, and over all those years the doctor was always a man. And no, comparisons to James Bond is not "ludicrous"... how were those two character's gender ever portrayed differently over all these years?