Jodie Whittaker will be the Thirteenth Doctor.

For the first time in the history of Doctor Who, central character The Doctor will be female. In a trailer broadcast at the end of Sunday’s Wimbledon men’s final, the BBC announced that Jodie Whittaker will be taking over the role, making her debut as the 13th Doctor in the upcoming Christmas special. Here’s the trailer:

Whittaker has played plenty of prominent parts across stage and screen, including Beth Latimer in ITV’s Broadchurch (alongside David Tennant, who was the tenth Doctor; that show was also created by Chris Chibnall, who’s the new Doctor Who showrunner). She also appeared in short-lived 2014 ABC miniseries The Assets and Sky’s The Smokeand has been in numerous movies, from Venus to Attack The Block. She told the BBC she can’t wait to take up the role:

“I’m beyond excited to begin this epic journey – with Chris and with every Whovian on this planet.

“It’s more than an honour to play the Doctor. It means remembering everyone I used to be, while stepping forward to embrace everything the Doctor stands for: hope. I can’t wait.”

Plenty of people freaked out about a female Doctor on Twitter, but not with any good cause. The show has long explained that the Doctor changes appearance with each regeneration, and also previously introduced the idea of Time Lords (the Doctor’s race) being able to change gender with his archenemy, The Master (portrayed by eight different actors over the years, including Michelle Gomez from 2014 through this year). So this works just fine from an in-universe standpoint. And while the complainers were loud, there were a lot of great owns of them:

Oh, and the show itself owned people freaking out about this in an episode last month:

So well done, Doctor Who.

[BBC]

About Andrew Bucholtz

Andrew Bucholtz has been covering sports media for Awful Announcing since 2012. He is also a staff writer for The Comeback. His previous work includes time at Yahoo! Sports Canada and Black Press.