The list of creatives for Doctor Who‘s latest season has been revealed, and it’s looking particularly fantastic. Of the four new directors announced, two are women and one is a Black man. When it comes to the five new writers, we have a Black woman, a white woman, and a South Asian man. This is a wonderful display of diversity behind the scenes as well as in front of the camera. Season eleven, after all, features the first female Doctor and an array of new companions. It is important to have new voices behind the scenes so it is not just white men telling a woman’s story as well as the stories of men and women of color.
New additions in the writer’s room include Malorie Blackman, Vinay Patel, and Joy Wilkinson, along with Ed Hime and Pete McTighe. The directors are Sallie Aprahamian, Jaime Childs, Jennifer Perrott, and Mark Tonderai. All new additions boast impressive resumes and will no doubt add a great deal to the series, but personally, I am most excited for the new perspectives behind the camera.
This is a change that has needed to happen for a long time. Since the series was rebooted back in 2005, only eight episodes of 134 have been penned by women and none have been written by writers of color. That’s less than 1% of all episodes being written by women since the show was rebooted. Doctor Who might be groundbreaking as a science fiction series but is definitely dated behind the scenes, something that is slowly changing with the coming season and this announcement.
This is a healthy change especially given the fact that the show will have more diversity in front of the camera as well. Outside of the female Doctor, we’ll also see three new companions, only one of whom is white. That means that the team inside the TARDIS will have gender and racial parity; it is important that behind the camera, these voices are also reflected and amplified. It is also important to shatter the barriers behind the camera as well; we need to let young fans dreaming of flying off with the Doctor know that they can, regardless of race or gender.
This new Who is drawing back fans alienated by Stephen Moffat’s oftentimes problematic writing, and it is clear that the minds at work behind the series care about representing their audience both on and off screen. This could usher in a new era of Who that reaches the utopian ideals of the series itself, and we at The Mary Sue cannot wait to see what happens with the Thirteenth Doctor and her companions.
(Source: BBC; Image: BBC)
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