10 Biggest Controversies In Doctor Who History

Jodie Whittaker was announced as the Thirteenth Doctor in July 2017, and officially replaced Peter Capaldi at the end of that same year.

As is always the case when a new Doctor is announced, the reaction was all over the place: there were those who hated her immediately, those who were willing to give her a chance, and those who didn't care either way. But the comments that drew the most heat were the ones made by the Fifth Doctor, Peter Davison.

Shortly after Whittaker's casting was announced, Davison stated that changing the Doctor to a woman was a "loss of a role model for boys", and that he felt "a bit sad about that". He also said that he liked the idea of the Doctor as a male.

As you might expect, the former Time Lord was met with a swift and vocal backlash once his comments started doing the rounds, with many people calling him sexist. Even Colin Baker spoke out against Davison, telling him he was "talking rubbish".

This public firestorm eventually resulted in Davison being bullied off Twitter, and to this day, he hasn't sent out a single tweet since July 2017.

The frustrating thing about this debacle is that people often seem to overlook some of the comments that Davison made in support of Whittaker.

He called her a "terrific actress" who he thought would do a "wonderful job", but because those quotes wouldn't make for a juicy headline, most outlets just ran with the negative bit and ignored the rest. That's the mainstream media for you.