50 Actors Who Could Play the Next Doctor on Doctor Who

Tatiana Maslany in one of her roles in “Orphan Black”. (Photo: BBC America)

Tatiana Maslany

Look, we’ve already seen that Tatiana Maslany can play something like eight roles at one time. Moving on to playing the Doctor would probably be like a vacation for her, right? Honestly, Maslany’s incredible performance on Orphan Black has set a new bar for what’s possible in sci-fi television. She’s amazing. There’s basically nothing she can’t do as an actress. So there’s no doubt that she would be an incredible Doctor. Let’s put it this way: She got an Emmy nomination for starring in a sci-fi show. That’s so rare it’s like finding a unicorn in your backyard. Just think about what she could do with this part. There’s no direction that the show couldn’t take.

Of course, it also goes without saying that Maslany would be the first female Doctor. And as much as we all want to see a Time Lady regeneration happen, the show basically needs to knock it out of the park, casting-wise, for this to work. (You just know there will be plenty of people waiting to pounce and criticize every detail of everything the first time the show casts a woman.) So it’s great that not only is Maslany super talented, she’s apparently also a huge Doctor Who fan. So much so that she says she’d be nervous about starring in it.

And, since so many of the corporation’s concerns about this next Doctor seem to be about what kind of audience they can attract, the BBC can rest easy in knowing that Maslany also comes with her own built-in fanbase. The Clone Club is super dedicated, and will likely follow Maslany en masse to her next project. Sure, a lot of those folks might be Who fans already. (The Venn diagram of geek shows is complicated, after all). But a lot of them probably aren’t. What better way to get them to start watching?