Why Ncuti Gatwa Is The Perfect Choice For The Fourteenth Doctor

thegamer.com:

Late last week, it was announced that Ncuti Gatwa will be taking over Doctor Who, replacing Jodie Whitaker as the Doctor when her tenure ends this September. It's an interesting casting choice – on top of being the show's first Black current incarnation of The Doctor, Gatwa is mostly known for his comedic turn as the flamboyantly camp gay best friend Eric Effiong in Netflix's Sex Education.

While most fans are enthusiastic for what Gatwa will bring to the role, the usual crowd – who can't fathom this time-travelling alien as being anything other than a white male – have taken the unsurprisingly racist stance of a Black actor can't play the Doctor. Except, if those people stopped screaming on Twitter, and actually looked at how the show has progressed in the last 17 years, they'd see that it's not only an excellent, radical casting choice – it makes perfect sense for the character.

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In Doctor Who, the main character is The Doctor, an immortal alien who can survive death by changing every cell in their body. Devised as a way to survive William Hartnell pulling out of the role in the early 1960s, this 'regeneration' changes The Doctor's face, voice, and even personality – turning them into a new person with the same memories and core character development of the incarnations that came before.

Though regeneration is portrayed as random – as the Ninth Doctor said at the end of his life, "it's a bit dodgy, this process. You never know what you'll end up with" – there has been mounting evidence ever since the 2005 revival that there is some kind of guiding force choosing who The Doctor turns into next. The Doctor's forms appear to be based on their guilt