Moffat interview, DWM 417

[kateorman]

Teh Moff feels gingerly around the Doctor's gender the way you might wiggle around a loose tooth you can't quite get to fall out:"... dozens of other actors [besides Matt Smith] were seen - of many different ages and backgrounds... not all of the actors who went for the role were white... What does Steven make of those who opposed the idea of the

Comments

[antikythera]

Only a TV producer would think that avoiding emotion and being restless and tinkering with engines are 'blokey' things. He's not thinking about all the women out there who identify with male characters like that and who wish someone would bother to write a woman that way.

[kateorman]

Not just TV producers - I think those characteristics are generally understood as "masculine" in our culture. ("Top Gear" is built around it!) I think it's useful for teh Moff to try and pin down specifically what's "masculine" about the Doctor. He can't quite make the imaginative leap himself, but his puzzling over it does point the way for others. (Including me, it's going straight into the novel.)

It sounds like he didn't audition actresses, which is a shame - he might've been surprised as hell by someone, just as he was by Matt. Wasted opportunity there.

[antikythera]

Generally understood by men, and unacknowledged to be anything else by TV producers. Women understand that those are not masculine characteristics, but nobody believes them.

[antikythera]

All of this just confirms to me that TV is still not being made for me. I don't fit into the audience that they want to talk to. Fine, I won't watch. Fanfic ahoy!

[qthewetsprocket]

Someday I'll bite the bullet and get a subscription to that damn magazine, so I can actually get the issues somewhat on time...the Portland Border's let me down catastrophically last month by not having the issue I wanted the very most in the whole world (416) and I had to scramble to find even a single copy anywhere else. Bless you, Rich's Cigar Shop, and your extensive magazine selection

[lemon_cupcake]

Would you actually think, 'That's still William Hartnell'?

William Hartnell is the Doctor.

That is all.

[wirrrn]

I don't think the Doctor could ever change genders, because we've canonically seen that Gallifreyans are Dioecious, with Time Lords and Time Ladies. It would certainly be an interesting move though...

my favourite quote about sex and the new WHO:

Janet Fielding (Tegan): "They're fucking all over the TARDIS!"

btw- icon! QUANTUM LEAP was actually rather disappointing whenever Sam leaped into a female body...

[kateorman]

Little-known ('cos I just made them up) facts about sex on Gallifrey:

• The individuals we take to be Time Ladies are actually neuter males. One of their regenerations will be male and fertile, and one will be female and fertile, but they never know in advance which one.
  
• All Time Lords are male for their first twelve incarnations, then female in their final one.
  
• Time Lords and Ladies are obligately exogamous; both sexes are fertile, but not with each other, only with members of other species.
  
• What a Time Lord or Lady has below does not always match what he or she has above.
  
• All Gallifreyans have identical intersex genitals. Their male or female appearance is left over from their pre-genetic engineering days.
  
• Time Lords can only produce sperm, but Time Ladies can produce both eggs and sperm, as required, and in fact organise most of the breeding between themselves.
  
• There are four sexes of Gallifreyans. So far, we've only seen the most common three.
  
• Time Lords reproduce and regenerate technologically, not biologically, using their

[wirrrn]

- I find it interesting that canonically (DESTINY OF THE DALEKS) Time-Ladies have far more control over the physical appearance of their regenerations than Time Lords do.

I hear there was meant to be a race of cat-people in the desert regions of Gallifrey at one time, according to Barry Letts. I guess they got sick of Time Lords being so stuffy, and moved to Pandora *g*

So the Emaciated Master from DEADLY ASSASSIN and KEEPER OF TRAKEN was actually a rotting, undead, desperate and evil *woman*? Suddenly Mary Whitehouse makes a lot more sense!

[pbristow]

"There are four sexes of Gallifreyans. So far, we've only seen the most common three."

TRUFAX!! I must now re-watch all the Gallifrey stories and see if I can tell who is which. BEST EXCUSE FOR A WHO-ATHON EVAR!!! =:o>

4th sex is obviously the Shaboogans (N.B. I stand by Georg Pravda's pronunciation!), whose role is to commit acts of petty vandalism that annoy the other Gallifreyans to the point of furious three-way socio-political arguments about what's to be done about the state of society which can only be resolved by lots of loud & aggressive shagging. [NODS]

Thus, for Timelords, detached socio-political analysis is foreplay. See "State of Decay" for numerous examples. God, that Romana was such a flirt! Or the bit in Deadly Assassin, where Borusa's cheekily trying to woo his next boyfriend right there on the floor of the Panopticon, and Runcible the Gooseberry just keeps wittering on about some trivia involving a freshly deceased president...

There. Glad we cleared that up. =:o}

[wantsacracker]

Helen Mirren could do it.

[pbristow]

Oh, hell, yeah!! =:o>

Just so long as it isn't anyone too young and cute next time. Sexy is good, especially "behind these fabulous eyebrows" sexy... [PAUSES TO DREAM FOR A MOMENT] ... but any hint of "bimbo" is absolutely verboten.