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[Thad]

Much the same here.  Though I suppose if they want to go female/minority, the time for a major shakeup would be after whatever deus-ex-machina gives him his next regeneration.

I've never seen The Thick of It but I hear it's good and he's good.

[Bal]

He was in Fires of Pompeii, and apparently he played a WHO Doctor in World War Z. COINCIDENCE? yes.

[Thad]

Man they sure love recasting people from Fires of Pompeii.

EDIT: And Torchwood.  He was Frobisher, the weaselly government agent in Children of Earth who [spoiler]killed himself and his family[/spoiler] in a scene that was supposed to be dramatic but made me literally laugh out loud.

EDIT 2: For those of us in the Colonies, The Thick of It is on Hulu.

[Malikial]

I love Peter Cabaldi!

[Smiler]

Malcolm Tucker is a sci-fi fan.

[Beat Bandit]

As amazing as he is, this is how I'll always be imagining him.

Sid's Dad's Greatest Hits - Peter Capaldi in Skins

[Mothra]

Can you fucking imagine?

[Bal]

The Master: Yes, it is I, your most-
Doctor: Oh for fuck's sake! I saw yeh die like three different ways the last time you fucking cockroach. You're like an old woman's period, just when you think it's finally gone for good! Fucking hell!

[Smiler]

Malcolm Tucker IS Dr Who!

[Mothra]

The Master: Yes, it is I, your most-
Doctor: Oh for fuck's sake! I saw yeh die like three different ways the last time you fucking cockroach. You're like an old woman's period, just when you think it's finally gone for good! Fucking hell!

Now I'm just picturing Danny Devito waddling out of the Tardis and throwing a tarp over it to keep it hidden.

Adventures include The Doctor siphoning gas out of a starliner, The Doctor mercilessly hitting on the heart of the Tardis, and every episode beginning with The Doctor fleeing debtors with a suitcase of money in tow.

[Thad]

A couple from io9 on the "another white guy" point:

Neil Gaiman says a black actor was offered Doctor Who but said no.  Gaiman doesn't say who or when (but seems to imply it's not Paterson Joseph, who purportedly almost got the role but was never offered it).

Gaiman adds that he wouldn't cast a female Doctor for the Twelfth but thinks the Thirteenth is the perfect time to do it.

Within the plot of the show, that makes sense -- we're coming up on the Doctor's final regeneration and they're going to have to deal with that in some way.

(There are people who say that's just fans grasping at straws and they're not even going to bring up the regeneration limit because it's not like the new series has up to this point.

I don't know what show those people have been watching, but the one I've been watching has never passed up an opportunity to have the Doctor face his own inevitable death and then find a way out of it.)

There's going to have to be some explanation for why this is a big deal, the Doctor getting more regenerations -- and it could easily tie into a major change like a female Doctor.

The second piece, A unified theory to explain the casting of every new Doctor Who, draws the same conclusion from a thematic perspective, arguing that each Doctor on the new series has served a specific casting purpose:

Eccleston showed the audience that the Doctor can be cool.
Tennant showed the audience that the Doctor can be human.  (I mean that metaphorically, as in feeling relatable emotions, but he also showed that the Doctor can literally turn into a human.)
Smith showed the audience that the Doctor can be weird.
And Capaldi shows the audience that the Doctor can be old.  He brings the series full circle -- where Eccleston was a deliberate departure from the Doctor's usual depiction in the original series, Capaldi would seem to be a deliberate reflection of it.

And, having reintroduced all these different interpretations of the Doctor, the audience should be well and truly comfortable with the idea that the Doctor can be anything and anyone.

So what the hell -- maybe next time.  In the meantime, I'm sure Capaldi will do a great job.  (I watched the first episode of The Thick of It.  I enjoyed it!)

[Bal]

Smith wasn't just weird, he was a raw nerve. I think he showed the audience, much like Tom Baker did compared to Pertee, that the Doctor most definitely ISN'T human. He also pulled off old/tired very well in his weaker moments. I think Capaldi is going to represent the Doctor as he sees himself at what he assumes is going to be the end of his life. Smith was young, one could argue, because The Doctor didn't want to admit that he was on his second to last go, and was by far the oldest we've ever seen him. Capaldi, I think he's going to be less in denial, but no less railing against the inevitable.

[Thad]

Sure -- you could see Smith's youth ITSELF as a sign of the Doctor in denial and Capaldi as a sign of the Doctor embracing his age.

Notably, Capaldi, at 55, is the same age Hartnell was when the show began.  Though I gotta say, Hartnell LOOKED a whole lot older than Capaldi does.  (Richard Hurndall played the First Doctor at the age of 72, and bore a pretty striking resemblance to Hartnell at 55.)

In fact, what the hell -- here's a rundown of the age each actor was during his run.  (I'm going by airdates; I realize that doesn't necessarily reflect the actual age the actor was when the episode was filmed, but it should be within a year, anyway, and that's close enough that I'm not going to go to the effort of looking up actual shooting dates.  Also, source is Wikipedia, so of course any of this information could actually be bullshit.)

Hartnell: Born January 1908; played the Doctor November 1963-October 1966 -> aged 55-58 (and appeared in The Three Doctors in December 1972/January 1973, aged 64)

Troughton: Born March 1920; played the Doctor October 1966-June 1969 -> aged 46-49 (52 in The Three Doctors, 63 in The Five Doctors in November '83, 64 in The Two Doctors in February '85)

Pertwee: Born July 1919; played the Doctor January 1970-June 1974 -> aged 50-54 (64 in The Five Doctors)

Tom Baker: Born January 1934; played the Doctor June 1974-March 1981 -> aged 40-47

Davison: Born April 1951; played the Doctor March 1981-March 1984 -> aged 29-32 (56 in Time Crash in November 2007)

Colin Baker: Born June 1943; played the Doctor March 1984-December 1986 -> aged 40-43

McCoy: Born August 1943; played the Doctor September 1987-December 1989 on series, May 1996 TV movie -> aged 44-46, 52

McGann: Born November 1959; played the Doctor in the movie -> aged 36.  To date we've never seen his regeneration; if the rumors are true and he's going to show up this year, he'll be 54.

Eccleston: Born February 1964; played the Doctor March-June 2005 -> aged 41.

Tennant: Born April 1971; played the Doctor June 2005-January 2010 -> aged 34-38; returning in November at age 42.

Smith: October 1982, represent!  Played the Doctor January 2010; concluding in December 2013 -> aged 27-31.

Capaldi: Born April 1958; begins playing the Doctor in December 2013, aged 55.

And, for the hell of it:

Richard Hurndall: Born November 1910; was 72 in The Five Doctors
Richard E Grant: Born May 1957; appeared in Scream of the Shalka in November-December 2003 -> aged 46
John Hurt: Born January 1940; age 73


SO:

Oldest by start date: (Hurt, Hurndall,) Hartnell/Capaldi, Pertwee, Troughton(/Grant), McCoy, Eccleston, the Bakers, McGann, Tennant, Davison, Smith.

Oldest by end date: (Hurt, Hurndall, Capaldi?,) Hartnell, (Capaldi?,) Pertwee(/McGann if he shows up in November and we count that), McCoy if reckoning by the movie, Troughton, Tom Baker, McCoy if reckoning by the last episode of the show(/Grant), Colin Baker, Eccleston, Tennant, McGann if only counting the TV movie, Davison, Smith.

So mostly the same list except, as you'd expect, Tom Baker's extra-long run, Eccleston's extra-short one, and the ambiguity of how to count the movie.

[Sharkey]

I just want them to bring Bernard Cribbins back to kill Matt Smith.

Wilf: 2
Doctor: 0

[McDohl]

Starting season 7.  Really liked the foreshadowing that happened throughout Season 6, but I haven't been as wowed by it as I have other seasons.

River Song is interesting, but I don't really know what to make of her.  So, somehow she's [spoiler]part Time Lord?  And she burned out all our regenerations to fix the doctor?  I do love the call-back to the 15-hour time window between one regeneration and the next, where a Time Lord has enhanced healing.[/spoiler]

I love how the episode titled "Let's Kill Hitler" [spoiler]just shoves Hitler in to a closet and ignores him for the remainder of the episode.[/spoiler]

[Smiler]

Let's Kill Hitler is a pretty bad episode despite the title.

[Sharkey]

Maybe they'll finally get a new intro theme next season. That other one is getting pretty old, you know?

Faith of the Heart

[Smiler]

Man, you just reminded me of the Enterprise intro with Don't Stop Me Now over it.

Star Trek Enterprise Intro - Don't Stop Me Now

It's a shame that all of the Doctor Who videos with it suck.

[Sharkey]

Thank you so much for getting the taste of that out of my mouth. I actually regret checking to see if someone had already done it without a shred of irony. I almost wish putting Faith of the Heart over popular TV intros became a thing, just so I wouldn't have to suffer alone. Meanwhile, Don't Stop Me Now is pretty much the perfect opposite of that. Kind of like sped-up video with Yackity Sax or slowed-down with Enya for adjusting anything on the comedy/tragedy scale.

[Thad]

Or that Daily Show where they demonstrated the difference between liberals and conservatives by displaying the same military footage with Carmina Burana over it and then again with God Bless the USA.