‘Doctor Who’ Thirteenth Doctor reveal nominated for BAFTA must see award

BBC America announced yesterday that Doctor Who was nominated for the British Academy Film and Television Awards (BAFTA) Must See Award.

The nomination was for the Thirteenth Doctor Reveal teaser that aired after Wimbledon in 2017, starring Jodie Whittaker as the Thirteenth Doctor.

This is what Virgin Media says about the BAFTA Must See Award:

"Voted for by the public, Virgin TV’s Must-See-Moment celebrates the television that got the country talking.Our shortlist – handpicked by our high profile jury panel – recognises the funniest, most heart-stopping, life-affirming, edge-of-your-seat and totally unforgettable television scenes of 2017."

This year, Doctor Who ‘The Thirteenth Doctor Reveal’ is up against Love Island, Game of Thrones, One Love Manchester, Blue Planet 2, and Line of Duty.  You can vote for Doctor Who here!

Why is the [Thirteenth] Doctor reveal important?

For any new Whovians or non-Whovians who stumbled into this article, the Doctor is an alien of the species called Time Lord, and Time Lords have a biological mechanism that gives them more than one life. When they’re dealt a fatal blow, their bodies rewrite themselves on the cellular level, rebuilding and reconstructing everything, a process we call regeneration.

The knowledge and experiences remain, but personality and aesthetics change a bit. (On a ‘meta’ level, it allows the show to continue through different actors’ faces, as we come upon this November celebrating 55 years!)

What’s even more important is, technically, we should have been done with our allotted regenerations, but Steven Moffat did something clever (see video below) in the 2013 Christmas Special ‘Time of the Doctor’ and got us a whole new cycle of regenerations.

via GIPHY

*I must note that there is evidence in Capaldi’s tenure in two separate episodes that we haven’t been told explicitly how many regenerations were granted to the Doctor during the War on Trenzalore in the 2013 Christmas special.

He threatens in “Kill the Moon” during season 8, “You’ll have to spend a lot of time shooting me because I will keep on regenerating. In fact, I’m not entirely sure that I won’t keep on regenerating forever.”

In “Hell Bent,” season 9, Rassilon says to him, “How many regenerations did we grant you? I’ve got all night.”

(You can check out this “clever thing” from ‘Time of the Doctor’ here)

When Peter Capaldi was announced as a new Doctor, they threw a Doctor Who Live party.

When Matt Smith was announced as the new Doctor in 2009, they revealed him on a special episode of Doctor Who Confidential, according to the BBC.

Check out the extended interview after the announcement

I remember July 14, 2017 when they dropped this ringer of a teaser for the Thirteenth Doctor Reveal

Somebody mentioned on Twitter that each of those monuments was feminine, and so obviously the new Doctor would be a woman. I’ve just spent the last two hours scouring Twitter and Google for that tweet, and can’t find it, so if you’re an anthropologist, let me know if that’s true!

Either way, I felt the excitement in my bones. The potential for the first female Doctor since the start of the show! What a huge step forward for female empowerment, representation, and equality.

I sat in front of my TV on the finale day of Wimbledon, and I watched more tennis than I ever have in my life. I didn’t know if it would be announced, like if Jodie was going to run out onto the tennis courts to confetti and fireworks, or if it was going to be a trumpeted affair, a commercial, what!

All I knew was it was taking far too long for them to get to the good stuff.

I think I watched tennis players talking to their coaches and news people for a good 45 minutes, refreshing Twitter and BBC Doctor Who homepage on all my devices, listening as everyone cried out for information. It was a frenzy.

And then it happened.

We saw boots. Hands. A jacket. A hood. More boots. Small stature. Then a fist. The fist raised. The fingers started to open,  “MANICURE!!!” I yelled. “THOSE ARE DELICATE, MANICURED HANDS.”

The tears started to well hardcore now. They were about to spill over.

I looked to my left and right for somebody to yell toward, but I was alone in my living room.

Then we saw the TARDIS key materialize, and a pan up to a face.

“MASCARA!!!” I yelled with all the exclamation points.

And she took off her hood, saw the TARDIS, and I cried and cried for the future of feminism, Doctor Who, and humanity.

I haven’t seen most of what’s nominated, but I have seen Game of Thrones, and I have to say, it ain’t got nuthin’ on this. It doesn’t just represent a change in a big-time, long-running British TV show. It’s a significant step in the world of social justice.

The future is female! Remember to vote for Doctor Who here!

via GIPHY