This Is Why It’s A Bad Idea To Have A Lady Doctor Who

Doctor Who isn’t the first science-fiction or fantasy franchise to mess around with a good formula by replacing a man with a lady. Let’s take a quick look at how that’s worked out in the past ...

In case you haven't heard, the 13th man to play the title role in the 54-year-old franchise Doctor Who is going to be ... a woman.

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A lot of people are none too happy about what's happening to their beloved TV show.

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And some are predicting that this is going to be the last gasp of a storied franchise.

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But this isn't the first time we've seen a mistake like this. Here are a just a few horror stories of failed franchises that made the same mistake as Doctor Who ...

Joss Whedon’s Huge Misstep With Buffy The Vampire Slayer

Although Whedon would later rectify his early mistakes by developing ABC’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., most people don’t know that he started out by almost ruining vampire-hunting for everyone by messing with a tried-and-true formula when he created a female vampire slayer named Buffy Summers.

WB / Shayna Brewer / monsterbrains.blogspot.com

The grand tradition of Bram Stoker's fearsome enemy of Dracula – the great Jonathan Harker – would almost certainly have ended with “Buffy,” had Whedon’s project been more mainstream. A lesson that Doctor Who would have done well to learn now that it is about to slide into irrelevance after more than 50 years of glory.

The Disastrous Reboot of Battlestar Galactica With Starbuck As A Woman

Everybody remembers the star turn by Dirk Benedict in the beloved 1978 series Battlestar Galactica as the dashing Lieutenant Starbuck, but what a lot of people don’t know is that there was an ill-advised attempt to revive the franchise in 2003 with a woman playing the role that Benedict made famous.

ABC / SYFY / Shayna Brewer

Looks like we’ll just have to live with our happy memories of Dirk and his daring crew, now that the disregarded reboot of BSG has been consigned to the dustbin of history.

Star Trek’s Precipitous Fall From Grace After Captain Janeway

Remember the long-running old space opera we used to love back in the early ‘90s? Ever wonder what happened to that franchise? You guessed it – they took a tried-and-true formula and threw it in the garbage by putting a woman in the captain’s chair in 1995.

NBC / UPN / Shayna Brewer

After Captain Janeway flew our beloved starship into oblivion, there wasn’t much hope for the storied and once-successful franchise, though God knows they’ve been trying to revive it ever since. Looks like a similar sad fate awaits Doctor Who!

The Mystifying (And Expensive) Mistake That Was Wonder Woman

See anything wrong with this sequence? Spider-Man, Spider-Man 2, Batman Begins, Spider-Man 3, Iron Man, Iron Man 2, The Amazing Spider-Man, Iron Man 3, Man Of Steel, The Amazing Spider-Man 2, Ant-Man, Batman v Superman … Wonder-Woman?

Warner Bros. / Shayna Brewer

Superhero movies had a perfect formula, right up until they threw it out the window. Fortunately, the big studios have learned their lesson, with Spider-Man: Homecoming out now, and Ant-Man And The Wasp, The Batman, and Man Of Steel 2 slated for the next couple of years. But will Doctor Who be able to steer out of this skid with the same dexterity? Only time will tell.

The End Of Dragons, Brought To You By Game of the Thrones

Everyone knows the famous story of Beowulf, who tried his prowess against a dragon at the end of the epic Anglo-Saxon poem that’s named after him. It’s a great formula that worked a treat in c. 700-1000 AD, but apparently nothing is sacred nowadays: That’s right – there’s a TV series on right now called Game of Thrones that’s trying things a different way, with a queen of dragons named "Daenarys."

HBO / Shayna Brewer / Via schoolworkhelper.net

Maybe this Daenarys and the new Lady Doctor can team up to ruin some other classic, once-sacred literary formulas after producers realize that there's just no public appetite for these shows?

The Attempted Second Reboot Of Star Wars

Everybody remembers George Lucas’s Star Wars series, featuring the great Luke Skywalker in the ‘70s and ‘80s, and followed by Anakin and Obi-Wan in the ‘90s and early ‘aughts.

Lucasfilm / Disney / Shayna Brewer

But the latest installment, called The Force Awakens, has gone and replaced our beloved Luke and Anakin characters with a lady named “Rey.” Guess we’ll just have to live with our happy memories of The Phantom Menace until someone turns this ship around and makes a Star Wars reboot that people actually want to watch.

So, Good Luck With Your Lady Doctor, Doctor Who!

Did you know that in Shakespearean times, if they needed a role for a woman, they had a man play the part? And yet somehow, what was literally good enough for Shakespeare himself apparently just won’t work for Doctor Who anymore. Are we EVER going to learn as a society what works and what doesn't?

BBC / Shayna Brewer / Via radiotimes.com