In all of Doctor Who’s 38 seasons, 861 episodes, 295 stories, and countless audio adventures, the Doctor has never had a trans person as a companion. That changes starting with Big Finish’s upcoming audio series “Stranded,” Nerdist reports, which will star actress Rebecca Root as Tania Bell, one of the Eighth Doctor’s companions.
“It would have been amazing to see a Trans person in a show like Doctor Who,” Root, who became the first trans actress to star in a sitcom for her work in Boy Meets Girl, told Nerdist. “In fact, to see a Trans person period would have been amazing. But I [grew] up in the ’70s and society was differently populated back then, and gender ID was not really ‘a thing.'”
In the interview, she described Tania as “much nicer” than the alien Sable, whom she played in Big Finish’s 2017 “Zaltys” story and called “a bit of a badass.” She also shared her hopes for future adventures starring the character beyond the “Stranded” storyline, “perhaps even in a spinoff too, somewhere along the line, somewhere in time…”
“I would love to see a story set in the distant future, in a different galaxy/universe, to see whether the human race got their crap together and survived being such idiots,” Root added, about a Doctor Who setting that she’d love to see the show tackle in the future. “Similarly, it would be fun to do something set in the past to see if you could influence humanity’s idiocy differently…”
Read the full interview here.
“Stranded” also stars Paul McGann as The Doctor, Nicola Walker as Liv Chenka, Hattie Morahan as Helen Sinclair, Tom Price as Sergeant Andy Davidson, and Tom Baker as The Curator. It arrives on Big Finish in June 2020. Here’s the official synopsis:
The TARDIS is gone. Stranded in one time and place, the Doctor, Liv and Helen seek refuge in Baker Street. But the house has changed: they now have neighbours – not all of them welcoming. And someone has a dire warning for the future.
The Doctor and friends face their greatest challenge yet: living one day after another, in 2020 London.
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