So, What If Jodie Whittaker Leaves Doctor Who?

Rumours are starting to swirl that the first female Doctor, Jodie Whittaker, may be regenerating by the end of the 2021 season of the BBC’s popular sci-fi series. The timing would not be out of the ordinary as many past Doctors have only stayed for three years (there was no 2019 season); David Tennant, Matt Smith and even Second and Fifth Doctors Patrick Throughton and Peter Davidson left the TARDIS after their third seasons. So if Jodie was to leave at the end of 2021 it would have precedent.

Also, I kind of wouldn’t blame her. Her tenure as the Doctor has probably been the most controversial in the show’s history. Not only did it incense the trolls who loudly cried about how making the Doctor female would kill off the series, new show runner Chris Chibnall decided to make series 11 (or 37 if you’re counting from the Classic series) “newbie friendly.” This meant that no classic villains would feature and the series would have no over arcing plot as previous ones had. The idea was that someone who had never watched an episode of Doctor Who before could randomly tune in to any episode of series 11 and be able to watch it and know what was going on.

Unfortunately, Chibnall’s plan didn’t really work. Having no classic monsters, or even really any references to the Classic series, alienated long time fans. The lack of a plot that threaded through the whole season for a big pay off in the last episode made the whole season feel anticlimactic and unimportant. Add to this that three new companions as well as a new Doctor padded out the episodes, meaning none of the characters really received the time on screen that they should have, and as a result we didn’t really get to know any of them.

After a strong start with series opener The Woman Who Fell to Earth, the writing took a bit of a hit as well. Rightly or wrongly some fans felt that the showrunners were more concerned with hitting some arbitrary PC target that delivering a good show. While I’m not sure I agree with that, some episodes written by writers better know for things other than science fiction did feel a little off. Two such examples would be the third episode, Rosa, co-written by Malorie Blackman, and episode six, Demons of the Punjab, written by Vinay Patel. Both are historical episodes which tell the stories of Rosa Parks’ refusal to…