There’s never a dull day with Doctor Who is there?

On Sunday the news got wind that Olly Alexander, the lead singer from Years and Years and the actor who played the main character in It’s a Sin may be the next Doctor Who actor and this caused an uproar online.

There were a lot of opinions sprouting about this choice and I felt I wanted to weigh in on those opinions as well as give my own about what I think this could mean, not only for the future of Doctor Who, but also the future of mainstream actors.

A lot of people are concerned that if a woman does not follow Jodie Whittaker’s Doctor then people may assume that a female Doctor is not a good choice and so the show will stick to men here on out. I do not see this however, I saw Jodie’s Doctor as absolutely fantastic, she bought a breath of fresh air and new ideas to the show but I think the people that let her down were the writers and the creators of the show because their ideas were just a bit ridiculous and rubbish. I feel when you bring in a new actor like this there’s always going to be an uproar about who follows them and I feel it would be wrong to cast another woman just to keep up that female lead story line rather than casting an actor or actress that could be really good for the role. I feel in this situation gender shouldn’t be a factor bought into it.

What I like about Jodie and Olly is that they both seem like very eccentric characters, they are very fun and they’re great actors. Watching them both on screen in different shows is a delight and I feel they both have the same quirkiness, so if we went from a quirky Jodie Doctor to an eccentric Olly Doctor, that could work really well and it would make the transition between the two quite seamless, as long as the writing was right for both of them.

Another question was about him being the first gay Doctor and how great that representation would be. I agree that, that is great representation but I go back to my point about casting another female doctor – it has to be the right actor for the right character, you can’t shoehorn people in if they’re not right for them just to give people representation. But I feel with the Doctor, their character is written in such a way that they could be literally anything or anyone, even cast as an alien rather than human too, so I feel putting Olly into the spotlight of their shoes would be really interesting to watch and be both a good representation for LGBTQ+ actors as well as Olly himself, who is a brilliant actor in his own right.

Doctor Who has such an enormous fan base that everyone is going to have an opinion and you cannot please them all. I feel that the actor has to be right for the Doctor and with how great Jodie has been and how quirky she has been I feel bringing in another quirky person like Olly would be a great transition to a new person. I do just worry that with how bad the writing has been since the Peter Capaldi days it’s going to be a shame to have such a brilliant actor come into this role and still not be very good because other aspects let them down.

I personally welcome Olly Alexander as the next Doctor if he does take the role. I think he is an absolutely brilliant actor, he shines in everything he does and he is so versatile. I feel him being quite young too will bring a great breath of fresh air to the show that we need. With him being an outwardly gay man I think it would be nice to have that representation on the show, especially if they bought that into the storyline too. There was speculation between Jodie’s Doctor and Yaz but that was all speculation and nothing ever seemed to come of it. However if Olly did have an openly gay relationship with another character I think that brings brilliant representation to the LGBTQ+ community and makes them feel less marginalised and gives them a voice in such a huge production like Doctor Who. The question is do they have the balls to do it?

What do you think of Olly Alexander possibly being the next Doctor Who? Who would you like to play that role?

Until next time.

Published by shonaharding

Media graduate with a passion for reviewing film and TV. View all posts by shonaharding