I think this is a huge gamble with really nothing to lose. Peter Capaldi is a great actor, but a very bitter Dr. Who to me, rude and kinda a jerk.
Hmm...sounds a lot like many of the older Doctor's, especially the First Doctor who continually (and usually on purpose) got Ian Chesterton's name wrong (one of his first companions), locked his granddaughter out of his TARDIS and left her on a 22nd century Earth just recently freed from the Daleks, etc....and the second Doctor who acted like a space hobo to trick people into underestimating him...and the Fourth Doctor, who often reminded his companions that he wasn't a human...and the Fifth who didn't try to go back in time to save Adric...and the sixth who actually tried to strangle his companion when he first regenerated (of course, said companion WAS Peri, so...)...and the Seventh, who serials started revealing a darker past...can't remember much on the third, or I would have commented on him as well...
Combine those traits that are already there with the events of the Time War, and everything that's happened since...
I personally had no issues with Capaldi's Doctor being a tad Scottish in outlook...
;)
They lost a lot of ratings with casting of him. This will make more fans come back to the show then it will lose over the casting of her.
I hope she does well. Its just a actor playing the doctor to me rather they are a woman or a man....that is how you are supposed to look at it. But most people are not looking it like that. She has some big shoes to fill in the role, to keep the show going and bring fans back to that with out ruining it.
Me personally the show needs better writers with a better direction then it is right now. That is what turned me off to the show.
We'll just have to see how the direction, writers, and Ms. Whittaker do with the show, and judge them on their own merits...
Ruger