Doctor Who Virtue-Signaling: A Non-Binary Doctor Was on the Table

Television

Doctor Who is a franchise that is no stranger to meaningless virtue-signaling to satisfy the woke ideologues of the world, going so far as to value their woke preening over good storytelling and compelling character work. This priority of wokeness over the quality of the content was perfected during the Chris Chibnall run, which saw men giving birth, climate change propaganda, anti-colonialism sermons, and the advent of the first female Doctor played by Jodie Whittaker, who we will lovingly call Doctor Karen. However, this woke-first perspective was not born under Chibnall; the first signs of its infection prominently appeared during the Capaldi era, with Bill constantly reminding us that she was a lesbian. The next chapter in the Doctor Who virtue-signaling saga comes from an interview with incoming showrunner Russell T. Davies with Doctor Who Magazine via Radio Times, who pined:

“As ever, we turned to Andy Pryor [casting director] and said, ‘Bring us the best in the land.’ We saw all backgrounds, all genders.”

No benefit is afforded to RTD from this revelation beyond its virtue-signaling benefits. This could be a retroactive response to anyone upset that The Doctor would no longer be a woman after Jodie Whittaker. Perhaps it was in response to people who felt that a black man was simply not diverse enough. Regardless of the motivation, the only result is a brief influx of buzz from the Dory-minded ideologues and the continued driving away of any legitimate fans who had mustered a semblance of hope for the future of the franchise. Phil Collinson, another Doctor Who veteran returning for the new era, went on to clarify:

“We saw men, we saw women, we saw one non-binary actor. I think, as a rule, we were looking for younger – most of the people we saw were under 30 – but not as a definite rule, and kind of new talent.”

It is the “non-binary” revelation in these comments that many sites and Twitter ideologues have latched onto. The future of The Doctor is not in his established identity any longer. In the eyes of the creators behind this franchise, The Doctor is nothing but an all-inclusive, genderless, raceless blob meant to service whatever applicable virtue-signaling affords the creators the most clout at that time. If who The Doctor is doesn’t matter, then the quality of the story is not the priority of these creatives, and this show can no longer, in good conscience, be called Doctor Who.