Helen Mirren Wants To Be The First Female Doctor In ‘Doctor Who’

Posted Wednesday, December 21st, 2011 07:00 pm GMT -4 by 0

Helen MirrenShe played a Mossad agent in ‘The Debt,’ a retired CIA operative in ‘Reds’ and even the Queen of England in ‘The Queen,’ but now Oscar award winner Helen Mirren has set her sights to play the next Doctor in the long running British television show ‘Doctor Who.’

Mirren has been quoted by the Daily Star as saying “I would like to play the new female Doctor Who. I don’t want to just be his sidekick.”

The idea of a Doctor other than a male Caucasian has been discussed throughout the years and it has already been hinted in the episode “The Doctor’s Wife” that Time Lords can regenerate into a woman (remember the comment about the Corsair?).  It would, however, bring about a new dynamic into the show should the next Doctor happen to be a woman.

Oddly enough, Matt Smith had listed Mirren as one of the celebrities he’d like to see join him in the TARDIS saying, “Helen Mirren would be great in Doctor Who….” Although I don’t think he meant as his replacement.

So unless Mirren changes her mind about not wanting to be a companion (as the Ponds will be leaving and there is an opening for that position), she may have to wait a while as Smith has another year or so in his contract until the Doctor will be regenerating.

So what do you think? Is the universe ready for a female Doctor and should it be Mirren?

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  • Yousuf Khan

    I’d absolutely support Helen Mirren as the next Doctor, but I just hope she commits to it long term, and not just for one season.

  • Anonymous

    Love the idea!

  • Jax

    NO FEMALE DOCTOR – that would be wrong!!!!

  • Steve

    I just wouldn’t watch Doctor Who any more if there was a woman as the Doctor – that would just be plain wrong!!!

  • Duncan Keeling

    Yep – She should be the first woman to play the Doctor. The first woman to play Sherlock Holmes too. And Matt Smith could be the first man to play Miss Marple.

    • http://drwho.virtadpt.net/ The Doctor

      …hot.

  • http://twitter.com/notakittykat k lor

    Why all the hate? What’s so intrinsically ‘male’ about somebody running around defeating monsters? The show’s said Time Lords can regenerate into different genders, Moffat wrote a parody episode where the Doctor ends up as Joanna Lumley…
    Or is it just that most of you cannot fathom a prime time kids show about defeating evil that might *gasp* have a woman in the lead role rather than as the plucky sidekick. (Casual misogyny in a comments section, how unthinkable!)
    There is literally nothing that says that the Doctor cannot ever be male apart from your own prejudices.
    Helen Mirren is a wonderful talented actress who could definitely do the role justice.

  • Eric Waters

    I think that a female doctor is a fantastic idea. I don’t know how Doctor Who fandom will take to it, and I don’t know that Helen Mirren is the right choice, but I love the idea.

    There’s nothing in the canon that says Time Lords can’t shift genders during regeneration, although all the examples tend to indicate that they generally don’t. Mirren, however, seems to be a bit old for the part – assuming that Smith stays through at least the end of 2013, she would be 69 upon assuming the role, and 70 before her first season began. By comparison, William Hartnell was 55, Patrick Troughton 46, Jon Pertwee was 51, Tom Baker 40, Peter Davison 30, Colin Baker 43, Sylvester McCoy 44… well, you get the idea.

    I love Helen Mirren, but she’s not the right woman for the part. 70 is simply too old to play a millennial Time Lady. With the Doctor being played by much younger folks today, by 2014 Emma Watson might be a more likely choice (since we already know that she can play a quirky, insufferable know-it-all).

    For my part, I don’t care who they pick, whether it’s a man or woman, or what color he/she happens to be. I’ll tune in every week regardless. Gender and race concern me not a wit, as long as the scripts are good. I personally don’t want to speculate on who the next Doctor will be: I’d rather not find out before it’s revealed in the show.

    • Janice Kay

      Spoken like a true Whovian! Well said Eric!

  • Dnlovkatz

    I think that Helen Mirren would be a wonderful Dr Who and bring an exciting new element to the DW series.  I have been watching the series since 1964 and the time has come for this regeneration.

  • Dr. O

    If it’s going to be a female Doctor, let it be a flexible one. Someone that has at least some physicality without them having the possibility of breaking a hip.

  • guest

    If it were to be an Emma, then please, Thompson, not Watson. I miss the slight edge of gravitas that Eccleston or even Tennant brought to the role. One could believe, when they were Doctoring, that the situation was dire and that the doctor was intelligent and cared—and that’s what sold a story like The Empty Child or The Girl in the Fireplace. Mirren is an actor with the scope to sell the best, most intense and most twisty scripts, and it’s thrilling that she has expressed an interest. Please, no hesitation, take her up on it before she sees another Matt Smith episode and changes her mind.

  • Anonymous

    Tilda.

  • Jon Skocik

    Look, I have no problem with a strong female lead in a sci-fi or fantasy show. Hello, Buffy fan over here! It’s just that I don’t like tampering with an established character like that. I would no more want to see a female Doctor than I would want to see a male Buffy. You want a female Time Lord running about in a TARDIS and saving the universe? Done. I give you The Adventures of Romana. But don’t switch the Doctor’s gender. It would be just plain wrong.

  • Tworightshoes

    Not if she refers to the character of The Doctor as Doctor Who…that’s just…awful.

  • http://www.facebook.com/justin.cipriano.988 Justin Cipriano

    Ok I’m sorry but why did they establish male and female time lords in the first place I understand the whole time lords having different gender definitions and all but I agree it would be odd with things like the already set characters such as romana seeming to define certain characters gender. Also I know the possibility has been alluded to in recent canon but it seems to me to much of a new idea to feel right. With the entirety of the series up until its original hiatus began in ’89 seeming to establish male and female time lords this seems a little bit to gimmicky and call me mysoginistic or whatever (which I’m not I adore strong female charcters) it smacks a little to loudly of just trying to make people happy. I’m with the others bring Romana back if you will but please don’t do this or at least let me know what Mr. Davies would say. And I’m sorry but make it a non Brit. I prefer a Brit to play the part but really if he can change his sex why is he always from the UK? Or bring Romana back as well as changing his sex to a female but have her be a male so we could see a simultaneous switch but please keep her (well it would be his at that point) name as Romana because that doesn’t indicate a specific gender or anything. I know what canon means but 20 odd years of it seem to outweigh few recent lines.

  • TrevorAGreen

    no

  • Bubble

    I would really hate that, i think being a male is a basis the tv show is build upon,.. Now what could be an interessting way to gring things together is to get the doctor’s daughter back and maybe give her an internship with her father in the tardis then get her one of jack harkness’s watch thingy traveling through space and time and done !!!
    I noticed that there is a lack of strong female figures on tv but please, don’t do as religious people did back in the xixth century when they draw clothes on the portraits because it was deemed “obscene”. Dont’t mix feminism and stuboness!
    …btw i’m a girl !!