Time And Relative Definitions Of Fired

The Sun, the Baron Von Munchausen of British journalism, has announced that Pearl Mackie has been fired from Doctor Who.

Okay, let's do this...

I mean, THIS is what we're dealing with, folks!

The Sun, a famously racist and homophobic hate rag, has declared that the co-lead of Capaldi and Moffat's final season will not be returning under the new production team. They use the word “fired” for sensationalism when the pretty obvious reality is that she was probably on a one year contract to start with.

I can't say I'm surprised. In fact, just yesterday I said I didn't think she'd be doing a second season. Considering past form, its likely that she has a self-contained arc that'll run through the season designed so that Chibnall (who has not made any casting decisions for his series eleven as yet) could choose to retain or drop her as he wished with the balance of probability being that he'd want to introduce his own characters to better fit his vision of the show.

There is really nothing to panic about.

Yet.

I mean, for all I know Chris Chibnall is planning to start his era by revealing that the Doctor has always been a secret Nazi and his new companions are thinly veiled stand-ins for Richard Spencer and Nigel Farage. Absent that information, however, I feel no reason to panic about the idea of a one season TARDIS crew, an idea that was the norm for the first four seasons of the revival.

Also, its The Sun, given their past form we'll probably find out tomorrow that Pearl Mackie has been offered a five year contract or that she is the Thirteenth Doctor or something...

Time And Relative Dimension In Gayness

SPOILERS (sweetie), for the coming season of Doctor Who, do not proceed beyond the picture.

So the new companion, Bill Potts played by Pearl Mackie is going to be the first openly gay Doctor Who companion. Now, this comes with some caveats that I am not really interested in rehashing but it is a major step. This is the series' co-lead we're talking about and we're told her sexuality will be an open, confirmed thing.

This isn't going to be a bunch of jokes about Jane Austen (Clara), a character who will disappear after five episodes (Jack), a recurring guest star (River), a set of tropes in a school uniform (Turlough) or an expanded universe character comparatively few fans will ever hear of (Oliver Harper, Chris Cwej, Fitz Kreiner). This is an out and proud, one hundred percent definitely gay character holding down the second most prominent role in the show.

Also, she's a gay woman of colour, which is a combination that doesn't happen often enough in fiction because of a strange psychology that makes people think “That's too many extra things!” deviating from the straight white male template that is, of course, the pure and unaltered human being.

What's more, given Moffat's track record on these things she's unlikely to end up dead at the end of the season. Okay, all of Moffat's companions have confirmed deaths but Amy, Rory and Clara all had long, full lives before the end. They didn't just drop dead when the Doctor was done with them, is what I'm saying.

(Okay, no, I don't think she's going to be in more than one season. I think Chibnall, like Moffat, will want to start with his own Doctor and his own companion to tell his own story and I can't hold that against him. I could be wrong, but the BBC certainly seemed to like the clean break of Series Five/One/Fnarg and I reckon they'll want the same for Series Ten.)

I look forward with immense anticipation to Bill meeting Missy. I really want to see the Master doing her “seduce the companion away from the Doctor” routine with a companion who might actually view is as seduction.