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Next Time Lord could be female
DOCTOR Who producers have hinted that the next Time Lord is likely to be another woman.
Production notes for the new run of the BBC sci-fi series suggest it will be a female star who takes over from Jodie Whittaker as the 14th Doctor.
Entertainment industry website Production Weekly lists the next episodes as “a fantasy action saga of a mysterious alien time-traveller, Doctor Who, who picks up human companions, faces evil foes with little more than her wits and a sonic screwdriver and journeys throughout time and space in a police phone booth called the TARDIS”.
Whoever becomes Jodie’s successor will be working with returning show-runner Russell T Davies, brought back for the telly icon’s 60th anniversary next year. In 2017, Whittaker was named as the first woman to play the Doctor.
The bookies’ current favourite to replace her is Lydia West, who starred in Davies’ Bafta-winning Channel 4 series It’s a Sin, about the 80s Aids crisis.
Last month Jodie, 39, said she would love to see Lydia take over.
She added: “If we had the power to choose, I’m going to pick an actress who is really exciting and would be phenomenal – an actress called Lydia West.”
Later, Russell wrote on Instagram: “Noted.” Lydia, 28, who played caring Jill
Baxter in It’s a Sin, has said it would be “an honour” to play Doctor Who while her co-star Olly Alexander ruled himself out for the role, after being made an early favourite.
But another co-star, Omari Douglas, has also been tipped, with Russell saying recently: “He’s just got everything you need in a leading actor, he’s fearless and limitless.”
Many fans believe the new Doctor will be from It’s a Sin after the show’s casting director Andy Pryor was hired for Doctor Who.
Other possibles include Jo Martin, who arrived as the Fugitive Doctor in 2020, and Michaela Coel, who said she’d “never say never” to the role. Others in the mix include Starstruck’s Rose Matafeo and Game of Thrones star Hannah JohnKamen, who worked with Russell on drama Cucumber.
Production of the new Doctor Who series, to air in autumn 2023, begins in spring.
This year BBC One will screen two feature-length specials featuring Whittaker, with the regeneration due in the autumn as the BBC celebrates its 100th birthday. Russell, 58, said auditions for the 14th Doctor had begun.
If I could choose I’d pick an exciting actress.. Lydia West JODIE WHITTAKER ON HER SUCCESSOR