GET WOKE, GO BROKE: Doctor – What Is That? Switching Genders Of Major Characters Always Runs The Risk Of Alienating Fans For Whom Attraction Plays A Part In Their Fandom.

If Penthouse suddenly switched all of its glossy double-page spreads to abs and cocks, you’d expect some backlash. A few awkward silences. Probably a sharp drop in subscriptions.

Does this make its readers a pack of bigots, misandrists, and man-hating homophobes burdened by fragile sexuality? No. They were simply looking for something else. The magazine’s target audience has an established sexual preference, confirming the old adage ‘sex sells!’ is as true for Penthouse as it is for a fifty-year-old science fiction show.

Doctor Who is the James Bond of the geek world – men want to be him, and girls want to shag him. I can’t speak for the boys, but who doesn’t want a gorgeous, older boyfriend with a time machine, infinite bank balance, no job, endless adventure, and a demi-god status in the universe? He is an inconvenient sexual fantasy that contradicts the preferred social politics of the BBC, despite being its flagship show.

It is no accident that ratings soared when Scottish heart-throb David Tennant took over the role in 2005 alongside his young, attractive female companion Billie Piper. Their will-they, won’t-they romantic tragedy elevated the BBC production out of the fringe geek world and into the mainstream market of swooning teenagers. The onscreen sexual tension made the international arm of the network a fortune in the US, propping up their less successful social justice vanity projects.

Until the BBC decided what the world needed was a female Dr. Who: