‘Doctor Who’ Season 11 is weeks away from airing and will star Jodie Whittaker as the first ever female Timelord! Whittaker has said that this season will also see a return of more simple storylines in order to bring in newcomers and younger viewers. Peter Capaldi’s season suffered a drop in viewers, with numbers falling below five million.
Whittaker stated that the storylines will hope to engage a wider audience, saying:
“We absolutely want to engage with the eight-year-olds and the 80-year-olds, whether they are into ‘Doctor Who’ or not. Because we’re saying: if you’re not, you don’t need to know everything but I bet you’ll enjoy it. You don’t need an encyclopaedic knowledge.”
Capaldi’s season, as well as other recent seasons have been criticized for air episodes with complex plots and lengthy story arcs. Chris Chibnall, ‘Doctor Who’ showrunner, explained that this new season will be a very different situation. He said:
“It’s a massively accessible jumping-on point for anybody who has never seen the series, for anybody who has been there since ‘An Unearthly Child’ [the first episode in 1963], for anybody who has drifted away. You can come to it with no knowledge. But, equally, if you have got knowledge, we will pay that off as well.”
Chibnall also said that ‘Doctor Who’ is competing with similar US shows that boast bigger budgets, saying:
“This is ‘Doctor Who’ in the era of Netflix. You’ve got to keep up with ‘Black Mirror,’ with all the DC shows in the US.”
His solution to this problem? To “tell great stories with great actors, and tell stories that feel resonant to people’s lives.” He said:
“I mean, ‘Doctor Who’ is the greatest single idea anybody’s ever had in the history of television so just make that, really, and make it to the best of your ability.”
Whittaker also spoke about the Doctor being a female this time around,, saying:
“It’s 2018. Women are not a genre, we are just the other half of the population. So to see us doing things shouldn’t be such a surprise, but I know it is because I watch TV and film and things like that.”
When asked if this could serve as the springboard for a female James Bond, Whittaker said:
“I bloody well hope so! If this isn’t the start of something becoming more normal – to see women leading shows – then it’s really depressing…I just think now is the time to show children, boys and girls, that your role models and your heroes on the screen don’t all look the same.”
‘Doctor Who’ returns on October 7!
