The thirteenth season of "Doctor Who" was released, and I couldn't be happier with all of it. This might be a little biased.
When they announced that the next Doctor would be a woman, I lost it (in a good way). I had a small feeling that they were going to announce this gender-swap soon, but I wasn't expecting it for another season or two.
I had never even heard of Jodie Whittaker before the announcement, but I knew that she had worked alongside David Tennant before, so there wasn't a lot of worry about how her performance would turn out.
In fact, I don't think I was worried at all about whether or not I would enjoy Whittaker's first season as this iconic character. The "Doctor Who" writers, along with others in charge, have a pretty good track record when choosing the next actor and continuing the storyline well.
The only time I had a tiny bit of doubt was when I heard that along with Peter Capaldi, Steven Moffat (the head writer for the past decade or so) was also stepping down.
Moffat has been with the new series since almost the very beginning. Taking over with his choice of Doctor, the fan favorite David Tennant, Moffat wrote some of the most popular episodes of the new series — maybe even of all time. These episodes often featured now-legendary monsters and villains, like the weeping angels shown below (on the episode titled "Blink").
Naturally, when fans found out that both he and Capaldi, the twelfth Doctor, were leaving the show, we were all a little worried. Thanks to the announcement of the first female Doctor, however, some of our spirits were lifted, but only some.
There were, and are, so many people who reacted horribly to the announcement of Jodie Whittaker taking over the feature role. Most of these fans reacted this way because of the sexist traditions the show has held up previously — even though a few other timelords in the series have changed sex during regeneration.
One of the Doctor's most important enemies/friend is a good example of this. The Master (known as Missy now) was depicted by a white male throughout the old series, and started out the same in the new as well. In recent seasons, however, regeneration occurred and the Master became Missy - who is just as amazing, if not better, than her male predecessors.
Since this major shift with one of the central villains, I've been waiting for the day they would announce the actress portraying a female Doctor.
Jodie Whittaker, after watching the first two episodes of season 13, has already done amazing. She gave me the same feeling I had when Tennant first came along — a sense of dorky, quirky boldness (and, maybe in future episodes, a bit of internal torture and sadness?).
Even though I've only seen two episodes as of today, I can't wait to see how she develops her style and how she plays the character, along with how the writers choose to grow and evolve the series even further.
Right now, though, it feels as if Whittaker can do no wrong.
