Ncuti Gatwa Has the Potential To Be a Great Doctor

Casting done right

A few days ago, the news broke out: Ncuti Gatwa has been cast as the new Doctor in the BBC series Doctor Who.

After watching him in the Netflix series Sex Education, I think he is perfect for the role. He has the talent, the swag, and the personality for it. This, my friends, is casting done right, mainly because The Doctor is a very particular role to play, an enormous assignment for any performer who dares wear his shoes and funny coats.

First of all, there’s a huge legacy behind the character, decades of storytelling that fans worship and do not wish to see tainted. As if that wasn’t enough, the show constantly threads the fine line between comedy and drama, many times in the same scene, so whoever is playing the role must have impeccable comedic timing while, at the same time, be able to break our heart with their delivery of a specific line.

Not an easy task.

Playing Politics?

Our favorite Time Lord used to be a white guy for the first few decades of the show’s existence. After all, with very few exceptions, that was the case with most TV shows and movies: white males playing the lead roles. Sadly, this situation was a product of the time.

However, as society has evolved, so has our understanding that not only white people can play the leading role in a TV show or movie. Still, for some, diversity remains a new concept. Worst of all, it means nothing but an attempt to be “woke,” as if having people of color playing leading roles were something abnormal, done just to profit from whatever is in vogue right now.

For so many decades, if a performer belonged to a particular nationality, most of the time, they would be stuck playing the same type of characters. But luckily, every day, more and more, we can see nonwhite people playing people and not mere archetypes.

This brings us to The Doctor.

This is a show about an alien.

When Jodie Whittaker was cast as Doctor number 13, there was outrage. In fact, it never really died down, with some claiming this as one of the worst Doctor Who eras. They claimed wokeness had attacked once again, this time against one of the most beloved shows in history.

Frankly, I don’t care about any of that.

What I care about when I watch a movie or a TV show is to feel something, to see the characters evolve in a way that, although not predictable, makes sense within the universe the storytellers have built.

And, the thing with Doctor Who is that this is a show about an alien who travels around time and space and every so often regenerates into a whole new body.

The Doctor can be old or young, short or tall, but always generous and brave and, above all, never dull…and that is why Ncuti Gatwa is perfect for the role. The second I heard the news, I visualized him doing very Doctor Who stuff and realized he is made for this.

If you have watched Sex Education, you know he is one of the best things about the show. He can inject seriousness when needed, but he also has the comedic timing, the attitude, and a healthy dose of sass, all crucial elements to give us a good Doctor.

It perplexes me that some people are blaming his casting on so-called “wokeness,” when the truth is he is simply a fantastic performer who ticks all the boxes of what we need in our Doctor. It seems too many people are ignoring his qualities as an actor.

Yes, his casting could indeed bring forth a whole new legion of viewers. However, the question is, just why exactly would that be bad?

To me, this is very simple: The Doctor has to be played by a person with a specific set of skills, and judging from the work I have seen him do on the screen, he has them all.

Hopefully, he will get better writing than Jodie Whitaker did. Also, I trust the naysayers will understand that, given the nature of the show, we can expect The Doctor to take on any given appearance. Except, of course, that of a ginger…