The Doctor Who debate regarding a female playing the Doctor is nothing new. Now, Peter Davison, the fifth Doctor, weighs in.
Peter Davison, who played the fifth incarnation of the Doctor in the early 1980’s isn’t keen on the idea of a female Doctor. In a video interview with ABC Australia, Davison commented that he was fine with the idea of female Time Lords, but he doesn’t feel that the Doctor, specifically, should be played by a woman.
Davison is in Australia promoting the musical event, Doctor Who Symphonic Spectacular, that Australia has had for the past several years. Well aware that his statement would be controversial, Davison stressed that his comments were his personal opinion as a fan of the show, not the opinion of the fifth Doctor. They are also not the official position of the BBC and/or showruner Steven Moffat.
Davison felt that what viewers want is down to personal taste. He explained his choice by stating, “What you have with the modern Doctors is an unsure, uncertain troubled Doctor, with a very strong female companion. It seems to me if you reverse that, if you have an uncertain, fallible female Doctor with a really strong male companion, you’ve got more of a stereotype than anything else.”
There was one flaw in Davison’s logic, that was not down to personal taste, as he continued to explain, “I have trouble with the idea of a female Doctor, only because I reckon if you’re born on Gallifrey a man, you’re probably a male Time Lord.” Given that Michelle Gomez just played the Master last season in Doctor Who, an arch-nemesis of the Doctor who has historically been male, there is no longer a restriction on birth gender. The fact that Time Lords can regenerate into the opposite sex is now hard canon.
Throughout the interview, Davison continued to reiterate he was just speaking about his personal preferences as a fan. At one point, he jokingly stated that there should be a spin-off of a female Time Lord starring his own daughter, Georgia Moffett, who played Jenny in the episode “The Doctor’s Daughter” during the time of the tenth Doctor, David Tennant. Coincidentally, Moffett and Tennant have since married after meeting on that episode.