It’s as seasonal as Turkey, Santa Claus and squabbling with relatives. The Christmas special of Dr Who is on BBC tomorrow and it should be a particularly special special since Mr David Tennant is stepping down from Timelord duties. So who will be taking his place in the swirling time vortices of BBC central? The smart money at the moment appears to be on David Morrisey with Robert Carlyle on the outside track. While these are both worth recipients of the keys to the Tardis I want to give a shout out for Tilda Swinton.
I truly believe Ms Swinton would be a timelord to remember. She played an excellently disturbed turn recently in Michael Clayton and her other worldliness is without question after her performance as the Angle Gabriel in the otherwise average Constantine. She is stylish, elegant and an excellent actress. So who could be better for the most important role of our age?
There may well be nay sayers who point out that Ms Swinton is in possession of an awkward set of XX chromosomes. I say being a lady of the female persuasion is no problem. Firstly, she is no stranger to androgyny. The aforementioned Angel Gabriel was a fella angel and the more seasoned Swinton watchers among you will remember Orlando - the entire premise of which was based on shifting sexuality. Secondly, this is science fiction. Someone changing gender a little bit is hardly beyond the realms of what goes on in the genre. So long as Dr Who doesn’t descend into Deep Space Nine levels of ludicrousness then that’s OK by me.
Furthermore Tilda meets the most important prerequisite for Doctorhood. She is British. Whilst I think that most Whovians would quite happy to accept a bit of gender reassignment during a regeneration – if the Doctor was to become more trans Atlantic then thousands of geeky sci-fi fans would recoil in horror. An American Doctor would be a step too far. It would see us putting down our Games Workshop bags, manning the barricades and throwing our shoes at George Bush.
I truly believe Ms Swinton would be a timelord to remember. She played an excellently disturbed turn recently in Michael Clayton and her other worldliness is without question after her performance as the Angle Gabriel in the otherwise average Constantine. She is stylish, elegant and an excellent actress. So who could be better for the most important role of our age?
There may well be nay sayers who point out that Ms Swinton is in possession of an awkward set of XX chromosomes. I say being a lady of the female persuasion is no problem. Firstly, she is no stranger to androgyny. The aforementioned Angel Gabriel was a fella angel and the more seasoned Swinton watchers among you will remember Orlando - the entire premise of which was based on shifting sexuality. Secondly, this is science fiction. Someone changing gender a little bit is hardly beyond the realms of what goes on in the genre. So long as Dr Who doesn’t descend into Deep Space Nine levels of ludicrousness then that’s OK by me.
Furthermore Tilda meets the most important prerequisite for Doctorhood. She is British. Whilst I think that most Whovians would quite happy to accept a bit of gender reassignment during a regeneration – if the Doctor was to become more trans Atlantic then thousands of geeky sci-fi fans would recoil in horror. An American Doctor would be a step too far. It would see us putting down our Games Workshop bags, manning the barricades and throwing our shoes at George Bush.
No comments:
Post a Comment