As the newest season of Doctor Who slowly approaches, we learn new details about what Chris Chibnall’s first series as showrunner of the BBC’s longest-running show will look like. But if the Torchwood creator let us know something early on is how little fearful he was of giving the show a complete turn. He immediately, almost without a second thought, cast a woman –Jodie Whittaker– as the lead of a show that was pretty testosterone-controlled for the last fifty plus years, awakening anger and praise from fans and haters around the world.
But Whittaker’s casting was only the declaration of intentions. It marked a path that Chibnall seems adamant on not straying from –and so far, he’s delivering. When we talked to the cast and crew of Who at San Diego Comic Con, they promised us new adventures and bigger storylines, but they also assured us that diversity and parity would take center stage in front and behind the cameras.
And Chibnall, ladies and gentlemen, has not failed us.
The BBC just recently announced the new Doctor Who writers and directors, and all one has to do to realize that it’s all about inclusivity is look at their faces:
New Series Writers and Directors announced! #DoctorWho https://t.co/ZxPgRZdNp0 pic.twitter.com/fP6hzNwKML
— Doctor Who Official (@bbcdoctorwho) August 20, 2018
Inside the writer’s room, children’s books writer Malorie Blackman, Skins writer Ed Hime, playwriter Vinay Patel, Wentworth creator Pete McTighe, and Bargate Award-winner Joy Wilkinson will be in charge of writing Thirteen’s new catchphrases and moral dilemmas.
And showing The Doctor where to best hit her mark, directors Sallie Aprahamian, Jamie Childs, Jennifer Perrott, and Mark Tonderai will be in charge of giving the new series a much more cinematic approach and overall look and tone.
So it looks like Doctor Who is definitely on the right track to become one of this year’s most inclusive and racially diverse shows on television. Which, for a series that tells the story of acceptance across and beyond space and time, seems like the ideal way to turn.
Doctor Who returns this fall on BBC and BBC America.