New Who 8.11 Dark Water

[strange_complex]

Cor, is it really season finale two-parter time already? This season has gone fast! And although there have been two episodes which I found weak (Kill the Moon and In the Forest of the Night), on the whole it has been pretty strong - above all for the key themes and motifs developed and explored from different angles from episode to episode

Comments

[strange_complex]

Sorry, yes - you're quite right that sex and gender identity are different, and I should have drawn that distinction properly in my previous comment. Still, though, I think we're already used to a similar thing happening when the Doctor changes his age. There, a physical change also forces an identity change - a Doctor who has been used to thinking of himself as an old man, or a young man, may suddenly become the opposite, and have to readjust to the new identity (including things like how other people respond to and interact with him). I don't think a sex change is fundamentally different from that.

I completely agree with your reservations about how well it is being handled this time, or might be in the future with the Doctor, though. During the period when David Tennant had announced his departure but Matt Smith hadn't yet been selected, one of the actors rumoured to be in the running was Paterson Joseph. I remember thinking at the time (and probably wrote it on LJ somewhere, but can't be bothered to go back and find it now!) that while it would be great to have a black Doctor, the way other black characters were being handled on the show didn't convince me that the production team were capable of tackling the issues that a black Doctor would present seriously and sensitively. Unfortunately, I think that's probably still true for both a black Doctor and a female Doctor. Certainly, Moffat's female characters to date don't inspire much confidence.