Thirteenth Doctor
| The Thirteenth Doctor | |
|---|---|
| Doctor Who character | |
| Portrayed by | Jodie Whittaker |
| Information | |
| Chronology | |
| Preceded by | Peter Capaldi (Twelfth Doctor) |
The Thirteenth Doctor is an incarnation of the Doctor, the fictional protagonist of the BBC science fiction television programme Doctor Who, and will be portrayed by Jodie Whittaker. Within the series' narrative, the Doctor is a time travelling, humanoid alien from a race known as the Time Lords. When a Time Lord is critically injured, they can regenerate their body, and in doing so gain a new physical appearance, and with it a distinct new personality. This plot mechanism has allowed the Doctor to be portrayed by a series of actors over the decades since the programme's inception in 1963. Whittaker is the first woman to play the lead role.
Upon the announcement that Steven Moffat would leave the show after the tenth series in December 2017 and be replaced by new showrunner Chris Chibnall, this decision led to speculation if Peter Capaldi would either remain in the role of the Twelfth Doctor for an eleventh season or leave alongside Moffat. On 30 January 2017, Capaldi confirmed that the tenth series would be his last. Following his announcement, several media reports and bookmakers had speculated as to who would replace Capaldi as the Thirteenth Doctor. Bookmarkers' favourites included Ben Whishaw,Phoebe Waller-Bridge,Kris Marshall, and Tilda Swinton.
The concept of a female Doctor was first mooted in the 1981, when Tom Baker suggested his successor may be female, after announcing the end of his tenure as the Fourth Doctor. Producer John Nathan-Turner later discussed the possibility of casting a woman as the Sixth Doctor to replace the departing Peter Davison's Fifth Doctor. In October 1986, during the transmission of Colin Baker's final season as the Sixth Doctor, series creator Sydney Newman wrote to BBC Controller Michael Grade, asking to take over as the show's executive director, with a plan to bring back Second Doctor actor Patrick Troughton to "steady the TARDIS", and a suggestion that "at a later stage Doctor Who should be metamorphosed into a woman". In the event, Scottish actor Sylvester McCoy was cast to replace Baker.Joanna Lumley later appeared as a satirical version of the Thirteenth Doctor in the 1999 Comic Relief spoof The Curse of Fatal Death. Arabella Weir also played an alternate Third Doctor in the Doctor Who Unbound Big Finish episode Exile. Neither portrayal is typically considered to be within the show's main continuity. Prior to the show's return, different women had been considered for the role of the Ninth Doctor and Twelfth Doctor.
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