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Originally Posted by thesheriff443
The question is, has he been chosen for his suitability for the role and acting ability or the need for the bbc to appear inclusive whenever comes to people of colour.
Not watched doctor who for a good while but it has gone down hill and that’s partly to do with poor choices of doctors.
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In all honestly I think it may well be a bit of both - I think they clearly did want a non-white Doctor next, however the fact that they apparently auditioned for the part rather than hand-picking an actor suggests that they did consider who is best for the role as well. Not something that can really be judged until seeing him on screen. Like I said above, for me he needs to be able to capture the energy and irreverence of the character (from his character in Sex Education I think he'll do this part fine) but also has to be able to switch to that serious, darker character capable of being cold and intimidating when the plotline needs that (this part is a bit of an unknown). To be fair I think thus far only Tennant and Smith have nailed both sides of the character for me - with Smith being marginally better at walking that line than Tennant (his anger is more controlled and thus more intimidating). Capaldi was great at being the Scary Doctor. He got a bit "stage school" when it came to the lighter side. Whittaker couldn't really pull off a dark side at the end of the day.
Ultimately though I think he should be given a chance.
It's really not important or new that they had a trait that they wanted before picking the actor - they clearly wanted "younger" actors for Tennant/Smith and made a very clear choice to cast an older actor with Capaldi... that doesn't mean they "only picked Capaldi because he's old" - but being older is one of the reasons he was in the running and no one had any issue with that
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As always I'm more concerned with it being plausible (for what it is... anyway...) and lore-accurate. e.g. like I said, The Doctor can't suddenly be gay because we know The Doctor is not gay (and in fact, as regenerations can gender-swap, the very notion is somewhat meaningless). For whoever asked above as to when that was suggested with Eccleston - it was the first Captain Jack episodes when he talks to Rose about how Jack isn't gay or straight per se he's just from so far in the future that he's not fussy at all (women, men, aliens, whatever). There's a clear implication that the same applies to Time Lords/he's perfectly comfortable with Jack kissing him, etc.
Secord point that I'm interested to see how they handle though, is historical storylines. They can't have a black Doctor going back to certain times/places and it not being commented on or completely affecting how he's treated by characters from that time period... it would be historically not accurate and frankly IMO offensive to black people to not acknowledge how it would have been. I'd rather it isn't hammered home constantly though -- they can get around that by having only one or two episodes set in eras where there would be race issues (and they probably should do at least one), but other than that it's easily enough solved by having most episodes be modern day/future or non-Earth. In all honesty I pretty much always prefer those to the "historical" episodes anyway.