HAVING served my time watching television from behind the sofa and between my fingers some 50 plus years ago, the choice of the next Doctor Who would not normally exercise me.

However, Mark Smith’s critique of the appointment of Jodie Whittaker as the new Doctor was astounding (“Casting a woman as the Doctor isn’t clever, it’s sad and predictable”, The Herald, July 17).

Had he criticised the appointment on purely artistic grounds, one could have respected his views. However, to base the criticism purely on unreconstructed chauvinism more relevant to less enlightened times was unforgivable. I had to check the date of my Herald to see it is actually 2017 and not 1957.

The show, we are told, “has been run by gay men for much of its time on television”. So that’s ok then; it has ticked the societal minority box; it has genuflected to the shrine of political correctness so it can ignore all other steps to promote equality and diversity. One almost expected Mr Smith to use the pejorative 1950s and 60s term to describe these “gay men”.

On the one hand he says the show has become “tired, samey and confusing”. Presumably this confusion will be perpetuated by the thought that a female can actually be a heroic role model to boys. Mr Smith obviously has no degree in logic.

Apparently, boys can only have male heroes to look up to. A female hero does not send a strong enough message nor form an appropriate role model.

And do girls as well as boys not need a strong role model on television rather than the aspirational trash often served up by the television in the likes of Matilda and the Ramsay Bunch – an abhorrent piece of television, shamefully on BBC, featuring Gordon Ramsay’s daughter and her wealthy family and friends for those fortunate enough to have missed it?

If we were to listen to Mr Smith, boys would continue to play in their cowboy outfits and girls in their nurses’ uniforms. Stereotypes are what give us security, it seems, so let’s not go rocking the boat.

Let’s give him the benefit of the doubt. Maybe he was just pitching for a role in the new series for when The Doctor travels back to the Dark Ages when arguments like his were thought to be acceptable.

William Thomson,

25 Lithgow Place, Denny.

SO, Dr Who is now a woman? It's about time – ironically.

Jimmy Higgins,

Levern Brim, Gateside Road, Barrhead.