Goodbye Eleven… Hello Twelve
Patrick Kavanagh-Sproull prepares for today’s big announcement.
The Doctor Who fandom is like London in Aliens of London/World War Three; desolate, abandoned, fearful and excited. Whovians clutch their loved ones, and weep together as they watch The Eleventh Hour. Pro-female Doctor fans brace themselves whilst those apposing the drastic change cross their fingers. It’s a tense time in the world of Doctor Who but we must now play the waiting game.
What will Sunday’s announcement mean?
In the days following the bittersweet announcement (a lot of fans don’t want to let go of Matt, myself included) speculation will be rife. What will their first story be? How will Jenna Coleman work with them? Will the Doctor and Clara’s relationship change with the newcomer? But what the announcement really heralds is the departure of the Eleventh Doctor. Nobody likes saying goodbye to a Doctor; the Tenth Doctor’s farewell in 2010 broke the fandom’s heart and none of us want to go through it again. But as the old phrase goes, when one police box door closes, another opens.
Who will be the Twelfth Doctor?
Now this one is tricky, very tricky. The Twelfth Doctor could be absolutely anyone. Male, female, tall, short, blonde, brunette, who knows. Steven Moffat could have walked out of his house and asked the postman to become the next Doctor, it’s impossible to say although Postman Pat as the 12th Doctor might be quite groundbreaking. I’m in a neutral position when it comes to gender but I have a strong feeling that the next Doctor will be male. Call it intuition, whatever you like, it just seems a bit more obvious that Matt’s replacement will be following in the footsteps of the eleven previous actors in the role. But I’m not placing bets on it. Steven Moffat has dragged the show through everything; I wouldn’t put it past him to give us the first female Doctor, given how controversial he is.
Many names have cropped up in the non-compos speculation and people like Miranda Hart, Helen Mirren, Rory Kinnear and Russell Tovey have appeared on the list. Whether one of the aforesaid names or someone else will be crowned the latest Time Lord, I don’t know but I trust the BBC to deliver somebody stupendous.
What should fans do?
Stockpile lots and lots of jammie dodgers, stuff handfuls of Doctor Who DVDs into a shopping trolley, don your respective fezzes and make your way to the nearest UNIT bunker. Remain calm, stay in a light-hearted and forgiving mood. Don’t worry about a thing; just have faith in the BBC.
Everything will be fine, just keep buggering on.
