Doctor Who: The Power of the Doctor aired on Oct. 23 on both BBC One and BBC America, which saw the departure of Jodie Whittaker as the 13th Doctor and reintroduced David Tennant as the 14th incarnation of the Time Lord. Not only did Whittaker's Doctor regenerate into her Broadchurch co-star who previously played the 10th Doctor between 2005 and 2010, but the episode marked the first time since 1966 that the Doctor's clothes changed along with their body. This naturally got fans to speculate on the in-story explanation for the wardrobe change, though the explanation show runner Russell T Davies offered was far less glamorous.
In an interview with Doctor Who Magazine #584, Davies revealed he didn't want Tennant to appear in Whittaker's costume out of concern that it would be a "mockery of drag." He elaborated by saying "the notion of men dressing in 'women's clothes', the notion of drag, is very delicate." He also expressed concern over how "some of the papers" (meaning the right-wing media) would twist an image of Tennant in Whittaker's costume with sarcastic and critical remarks about gender. Though Davies' intention was to avoid giving a bigoted press ammunition for transmisogyny, Doctor Who fans -- particularly from the LGBTQIA community -- found his comments equally harmful. Not only did Davies unwittingly validate the very toxic attitudes he was criticizing, but his comments about Tennant wearing Whittaker's costume being a "mockery of drag" makes even less sense in a discussion about a TV show in which the titular character is a gender-fluid alien.
The Doctor Changing Body & Gender Is Normal For the Time Lord
One thing both fans and the mainstream media alike are accustomed to is the idea of the Doctor being an alien who changes body with each regeneration. Though the idea of the Time Lord being able to change gender was only teased in previous decades, the idea was solidified by former Doctor Who show runner Steven Moffat in 2014 with the introduction of Missy -- the first female incarnation of the Master played by Michelle Gomez. Since then, Moffat normalized the concept of gender-fluidity with other Time Lords who appeared on the show, who changed gender and race with regeneration.
With Moffat firmly breaking the trend of Time Lords sticking to one race and gender, his successor, Chris Chibnall, capitalized on the concept by casting the first female Doctor with Jodie Whittaker in 2017, and the first Black female Doctor with Jo Martin in 2020. Additionally, both female incarnations of the Doctor were depicted wearing gender-neutral clothing that didn't emphasize their gender as much as their eccentric tendencies. Whittaker's Doctor is seen wearing queer-coded clothes with a largely blue color scheme and a long white overcoat, while Martin is seen wearing a largely blue pantsuit that calls back to the first two Doctors.
The Doctor Wearing Their Predecessor's Clothes Is Expected
Apart from the Doctor being a gender-fluid alien that can change gender and race with each regeneration, another thing fans and the mainstream media routinely expect is for the Time Lord to wear their predecessor's clothes. With the exception of the first depicted regeneration between the First and Second Doctors in the 1966 serial "The Tenth Planet," the Time Lord spending at least one episode in their predecessor's clothes has been the norm. In many cases, the newly regenerated Doctor has decided on a new look by the end of their first episode. As such, no one bats an eye at the idea of the Doctor looking silly in their previous incarnation's wardrobe.
Given the show's longevity and the number of regenerations the Time Lord has undergone, the Doctor wearing their predecessor's clothes has never a talking point amongst fans and the mainstream media. The regeneration from Peter Capaldi's 12th Doctor to Whittaker's 13th proved no different. Even with the latter spending her entire first episode in men's clothes, no one talked about Whittaker mocking drag kings because it never reflected in the writing for her character. Questions weren't even raised when the 13th Doctor said "it's been a while since I bought women's clothes" at the end of the episode since, by this point, the Doctor's gender-fluidity had been solidified. This may have been further helped by the fact the male Third Doctor wore women's clothes in the 1973 serial "The Green Death," when he posed as a cleaning lady to gain entry into a chemical plant.
Sacha Dhawan Was Never Mocked For Wearing Whittaker's Costume
To add to the point about the Doctor in gendered clothes, Sacha Dhawan wearing Whittaker's costume after his Master usurped the 13th Doctor's body in a forced regeneration was never a talking point. Not even the Daily Mail -- a prominent right-wing British newspaper -- mocked Dhawan for "wearing women's clothes" despite being a man of South Asian descent. All that Daily Mail reviewer Christopher Stevens said about Dhawan's Master in his review for The Power of the Doctor was that "he stole the Doctor's identity and swaggered around in a long, stripey scarf and a cricket jumper embroidered with question marks."
Of course, it could be argued that Dhawan not having David Tennant's star power is the reason the right-wing media didn't knock themselves out when he briefly sported Whittaker's garb. Another potential argument is that it's not unusual for the Master to wear women's clothes since Missy wore a Mary Poppins-inspired dress, and John Simm's Master also wore women's clothes in "The End of the Time" when he turned every human on Earth into himself. However, given the gender neutrality of Whittaker's costume, there's no reason to think the collective fan and media response to Tennant's 14th Doctor wearing it would've been different. To start with, Dhawan did not look like a man in drag when he wore Whittaker's costume. Instead, he looked like a college-aged young man. Tennant in the same costume would've similarly looked like he knocked some years off his actual age.
David Tennant Did Drag Twice, Even for a Doctor Who Parody
Even if Whittaker's costume was more gender-specific, it's hard to imagine David Tennant himself would've had an issue wearing it given his history of doing drag in British television programs. One of his first roles in drag was as Davina in the Rab C. Nesbitt Season 3 episode "Touch." In the episode of the Scottish comedy series, Davina is actually a transwoman who gets the attention of various men who question her gender. Tennant similarly did drag in a Doctor Who parody, in which he played the female companion to Justin Lee Collins' Doctor in a sketch for Friday Night Project.
While Tennant's comfort performing in women's clothes is clear, unfortuntely, both times that he did drag, it wasn't for respectful portrayals of the LGBTQIA community. His character in Rab C. Nesbitt was subjected to various transphobic jokes throughout the episode, even ending with a male character discovering she had male genitals. Even the Doctor Who parody Tennant did in Friday Night Project poked fun at gay men when the Doctor and his companion landed on the Pink Planet, which served as the home base of the villainous Gay Lord. With this kind of track record, Davies deciding against Tennant wearing Whittaker's queer-coded costume in a show that has been LGBTQIA-friendly like Doctor Who feels like a gravely missed opportunity for Tennant to positively represent the community.
Though Davies is, of course, within his right as Doctor Who's show runner to make wardrobe decisions as he sees fit for the stories he wants to tell, giving power to right-wing media and British tabloids by allowing their bigotry to inform his creative decisions is not a hill worth dying on. Since Doctor Who and the sci-fi genre in general has always been about pushing boundaries, it's far more likely fans and the mainstream media alike would've welcomed seeing Tennant in Whittaker's costume. The decision to keep the costume may have even celebrated since it would've stayed on-brand for the Doctor as a queer, gender-fluid character. It would've similarly validated male cosplayers of the 13th Doctor and queer fans of the show.
The Doctor Who 60th Anniversary Specials will premiere in Nov. 2023.