10 Things The Doctor Who Reboot MUST Do

2. Cast A Total Unknown As The Doctor

When it comes to the profile of the actors playing the Doctor, there’s no hard and fast rule. 

While we’ve never had an actual A-lister, we have had established actors who were already known for other shows (like Peter Capaldi in The Thick of It or Jodie Whittaker in Broadchurch).

At the other end of the spectrum we’ve had complete unknowns, like Tom Baker and Matt Smith, whose big break was Doctor Who.

Ncuti Gatwa was a weird mix of the two. While he wasn’t quite a household name before Doctor Who, his star was already on the rise. And even when he was playing the Doctor, he had other plates spinning – from the final season of Sex Education to stage plays, film roles and fashion campaigns.

How much more exciting would it be to have someone we only know as the Doctor, because we’ve never seen them as anyone else?

Going out and finding the next Matt Smith would be an ideal move for the new era. It gives us something fresh and different, something we've never seen before. It allows the actor to truly inhabit and become the Doctor, and aids the storytelling in the sense that there's no star power to distract from it.

It might also be easier to tie a newbie down to a longer deal and get them to devote more of their time to being an ambassador for the show.

Of course there are multiple ways to cast the Doctor and multiple ways to make it work, but for us the unknown route ticks more of the boxes we need right now.