Doctor Who – New Dawn: Essays on the Jodie Whittaker era 9781526151889

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Doctor Who – New Dawn

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Doctor Who – New Dawn Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to distribute or copy this document

Essays on the Jodie Whittaker era Edited by

Brigid Cherry, Matt Hills and Andrew O’Day

manchester university press

Copyright © Manchester University Press 2021

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While copyright in the volume as a whole is vested in Manchester University Press, copyright in individual chapters belongs to their respective authors, and no chapter may be reproduced wholly or in part without the express permission in writing of both author and publisher. Published by Manchester University Press Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9PL www.manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 978 1 5261 5187 2 hardback First published 2021 The publisher has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for any external or third-party internet websites referred to in this book, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate. Cover image: TARDIS photo courtesy of BBC/Steve Schofield

Typeset by Servis Filmsetting Ltd, Stockport, Cheshire

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Dedications

Brigid Cherry In memory of Colin Desmond Grenfell Cherry (1929–61). ‘I wonder what he would have thought if he could see me now.’ Matt Hills To Emma and Noodles the cat, one of whom decided to give the thirteenth Doctor a try. Andrew O’Day To my two closest friends, Tim Harris and Richard Harris.

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Contents

page ix x

List of figures Notes on contributors Introduction: New Dawn, new moment – Brigid Cherry, Matt Hills, and Andrew O’Day

1

Part I: Creating Thirteen   1 Variations on a theme: temporal and cultural diversity in Segun Akinola’s music for Doctor Who – David Butler   2 ‘She is wise and unafraid’: writing the first female Doctor and a diverse universe for her to protect – Rosanne Welch   3 Shooting stars: modes of TV spectacle in the Jodie Whittaker era of Doctor Who – Dene October   4 About time: addressing intersectionality in the casting and performance of Chris Chibnall / Jodie Whittaker era Doctor Who – Christopher Hogg

27 41 54

72

Part II: Diversifying Doctor Who   5 Casual queerness and desire lines in Doctor Who – Lorna Jowett 87   6 Post-racial amnesia: Doctor Who in the Brexit era – Susana Loza 104   7 All in the ‘fam’: interrogating kinship networks with the thirteenth Doctor – Hannah Hamad 121 Part III: Fan responses   8 Doctor Whumour: Internet meme culture, Chris Chibnall’s Doctor Who, and fan mockery – Brigid Cherry

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  9 Braces, culottes, and coloured stripes: constructing and characterizing Doctor Who’s Thirteen in fashion design and cosplay – Nicolle Lamerichs 10 Regendering and the chaos of translation: fan practices and reception of the female Doctor in Spanish fandom – Saida Herrero

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Part IV: Beyond the text 11 By any other name: gender and Doctor Who Barbie dolls, adventure dolls, and 1:6 scale figures – Victoria L. Godwin 12 Outside the box in the Chris Chibnall / Jodie Whittaker era: Doctor Who’s experience economy and tourism – Paul Booth 13 The thirteenth Doctor during UK lockdown: paratexts of hope and care – Matt Hills

189 206 222

Appendix: The Chris Chibnall / Jodie Whittaker episodes 238 Index240

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Figures

0.1 Audience figures for series 11 to 12 0.2 Audience share for series 11 to 12 0.3 Audience Appreciation Index (AI) for series 11 to 12 8.1 ‘13th Doctor Casting Comments Bingo’ meme 8.2 Flesh moth meme 8.3 ‘Dr who story writing’ meme 9.1 Diana Mon in Thirteen cosplay. Photo: Pat Loika. Reproduced with permission 9.2 Rowena Rovers as Thirteen. Photo: Promixus Photography. Reproduced with permission 9.3 Niki Haringsma with Thirteen ear cuff. Reproduced with permission 12.1 Experience realms, adapted from B. Joseph Pine II and James Gilmore

8 10 11 143 148 151 169 170 172 212

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Notes on contributors

Paul Booth, PhD, is Professor of Communication at DePaul University, Chicago, Illinois, and has published numerous books, including Watching Doctor Who (with Craig Owen Jones, 2020), Poaching Politics (with Amber Davisson, Aaron Hess, and Ashley Hinck, 2018),  Companion to Media Fandom and Fan Studies (2018), Crossing Fandoms (2016), Controversies in Digital Ethics  (with Amber Davisson, 2016),  Game Play  (2015), Playing Fans  (2015),  Fan Phenomena: Doctor Who  (2013), and  Digital Fandoms  (2009). He also contributed a chapter to the collection Doctor Who: Twelfth Night (2019) amongst others. David Butler, PhD, is Senior Lecturer in Drama and Screen Studies at the University of Manchester. He is the editor of Time and Relative Dissertations in Space: Critical Perspectives on Doctor Who (2007) and author of Fantasy Cinema: Impossible Worlds on Screen (2009), and has written widely on the role of music in film and television with a particular interest in the music of fantasy, film noir, and science fiction. He is currently one of the lead researchers and curator of the Delia Derbyshire Archive, housed at the John Rylands Library,  and a co-founder of the music education organization Delia Derbyshire Day (https://deliaderbyshireday.com). Brigid Cherry, PhD, is an independent scholar, retired from the position of Research Fellow in Screen Media at St Mary’s University, Twickenham. She is the author of Cult Media, Fandom and Textiles (2018). She has published work on  Doctor Who  fan fiction in  Doctor Who:  Twelfth Night  (2019), fan discourses in Doctor Who: The Eleventh Hour (2014), and fan handicrafting in Doctor Who: Fan Phenomena (2013). Other recent publications include studies of Twin Peaks memes in Twin Peaks: The Return (2019), fan totems in Beasts of the Deep: Sea Creatures and Popular Culture (2018), and feminine identification in Clive Barker: Dark Imaginer (2015). She is also the author of a book on the TV series  Lost  for the ‘Constellations’ series (2021).

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Notes on contributors xi

Victoria L. Godwin, PhD, is an Associate Professor of Languages and Communication at Prairie View A&M University, Texas, and has ­published  multiple articles on fan  customization of action figures, dolls, and  other products. Her publications also explore immersive theme parks  and expressions of fan identity via merchandise. Her earlier research examines anti-fans of  Twilight, vampires and narcissism, and media witches.  She has articles published in Transformative Works and Cultures,  Film Criticism,  Interactions: Studies in Communication & Culture, and the Journal of Fandom Studies, as well as book chapters in  Media Depictions of Brides, Wives, and Mothers  (2012) and  The Twilight Saga: Exploring the Global Phenomenon (2014). She is Assistant Editor for the Journal of Fandom Studies. Hannah Hamad, PhD, is Senior Lecturer in Media and Communication at Cardiff University, School of Journalism, Media and Culture, and has published Postfeminism and Paternity in Contemporary US Film: Framing Fatherhood (2014) among many other chapters and articles on popular film and television. Saida Herrero is a doctoral candidate at the University of Seville. She has participated in international conferences on fandom studies, popular culture, and transmedia storytelling. She has done some academic research about Doctor Who and other media culture, and has had an essay published in Timey Wimeys (2014). Matt Hills, PhD, is Professor of Media and Film at the University of Huddersfield. He has published widely on  Doctor Who  and media fandom, including  books such as  Fan Cultures  (2002),  Triumph of a Time Lord  (2010),  New Dimensions of Doctor Who  (2013),  Doctor Who: The Unfolding Event (2015), and chapters in Doctor Who: Twelfth Night (2019) and Doctor Who: The Eleventh Hour (2014). His more recent work has focused on journalist-fans and Doctor Who Magazine  (in  The Handbook of Magazine Studies, 2020) as well as including contributions to  The Routledge Companion to Media Fandom  (2018) and the WileyBlackwell  Companion to Media Fandom and Fan Studies  (2018). He is currently working on a follow-up book to Fan Cultures for Routledge, this time entitled Fan Studies. Christopher Hogg, PhD, is Senior Lecturer in Television at the University of Westminster and has published the book Acting in British Television (2017) and the edited collection  Exploring Television Acting  (2018), both in collaboration with Tom Cantrell at the University of York. Chris’s

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­monograph Adapting Television Drama is forthcoming. Chris has also published a range of film- and television-related chapters and articles in journals such as  Critical Studies in Television, the  Journal of British Cinema and Television, Media International Australia and Senses of Cinema. Lorna Jowett, PhD, is  Reader  in Television Studies  at the University of Northampton, and is author of Dancing With the Doctor: Dimensions of Gender in the Doctor Who Universe (2017), Sex and the Slayer: A Gender Studies Primer for the  Buffy Fan  (2005), and (with Stacey Abbott)  TV Horror: The Dark Side of the Small Screen (2013), and editor of Time on TV: Narrative Time, Time Travel and Time Travellers in Popular Television Culture (2016) and Joss Whedon vs. The Horror Tradition (2018). She has published many articles on science fiction and horror television, film, and popular culture, focusing on genre, gender, and representation. Nicolle Lamerichs, PhD, is Senior Lecturer and team leader at  Creative Business  at HU University of Applied Sciences, Utrecht. In her book  Productive Fandom  (2018) she  explores intermediality, affect, costuming,  and creativity in fan cultures. She has published widely on participatory culture and new media, specifically the nexus between popular culture, storytelling, and play. Susana Loza, PhD, is an Associate Professor of Critical Race, Gender, and Media Studies at Hampshire College, Amherst, Massachusetts. Her publications include ‘Imperial Fictions:  Doctor Who, Postracial Slavery, and Other Liberal Humanist Fantasies’ (2017), ‘Steampunk Style and the AfterLife of Empire’ (2017), ‘Hashtag Feminism, #SolidarityIsForWhiteWomen, and the Other #FemFuture’ (2014), and ‘Playing Alien in Postracial Times’ (2013). Professor Loza’s recent book Speculative Imperialisms: Monstrosity and Masquerade in Postracial Times  (2017) explores the resurgence of ethnic simulation in science fiction, horror, and fantasy in a putatively postcolonial era. Her next project,  Settler Colonial Gothic, excavates the (settler) colonial ideologies and gothic elements of contemporary US horror television and film. Dene October is a Senior Lecturer at University Arts London, and has published widely on Doctor Who, including the monograph Marco Polo (2018), the co-edited collection  Doctor Who and History  (2017), entries on all the Doctors in  Bloomsbury’s Encyclopedia of Film and Television Costume  (2022) and chapters in the books  Twelfth Night  (2019);  Mad Dogs and Englishness  (2017);  New Worlds, Terrifying Monsters, Impossible Things  (2016) and  The Language of Doctor Who  (2014).



Notes on contributors xiii

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His writing on David Bowie has appeared in I’m Not a Film Star: Bowie as Actor  (2021);  David Bowie and Transmedia Stardom  (2020); the journal  Celebrity Studies  (2019), and the books  David Bowie: Critical Perspectives (2015) and Enchanting David Bowie (2015). Andrew O’Day, PhD, is an independent scholar. He is co-author (with Jonathan Bignell) of the book Terry Nation (2004) and editor of Doctor Who: The Eleventh Hour (2014) and Doctor Who: Twelfth Night (2019). He has contributed to a range of edited collections on Doctor Who, both classic and new, such as Doctor Who and History (2017), The Language of Doctor Who (2014), and New Dimensions of Doctor Who (2013). He has published more widely on television and cultural studies, especially on Jack the Ripper, as well as on LGBTQ issues, and can be found on the Web at www.hrvt.org/andrewoday. Rosanne Welch, PhD,  is  Executive Director of the MFA in TV and Screenwriting at Stephens College, Colunbia, Missouri. Television writing credits include  Beverly Hills 90210,  Picket Fences,  ABCNEWS: Nightline and Touched by an Angel. She has published Why The Monkees Matter (2016); edited When Women Wrote Hollywood (2018), named runner-up for the Susan Koppelman Award honouring the best multi-authored book in feminist studies by the Popular Culture Association of America; co-edited  Women in American History: A Social, Political, and Cultural Encyclopedia, named to the 2018 Outstanding References Sources List by the American Library Association, and chapters in Torchwood Declassified: Investigating Mainstream Cult Television  (2013) and Doctor Who and Race (2013).

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Introduction: New Dawn, new moment Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to distribute or copy this document

Brigid Cherry, Matt Hills, and Andrew O’Day

When officially promoting series 11 of BBC Studio’s Doctor Who, a brief teaser featured the tagline ‘It’s About Time’. In part, this self-consciously referenced the programme’s history: a similar slogan (‘He’s back … and it’s about time!’) had been used to market the show’s return in 1996, with Paul McGann playing the new Doctor on that occasion. But the highly selfreflexive advertisement in 2018 surely traded on Jodie Whittaker’s casting as the first female incarnation of the Doctor, just as another 20-second trailer in the ‘It’s About Time’ campaign did – this time, Whittaker’s Doctor was depicted as breaking a glass ceiling and muttering ‘oops’ after a cloud of slow-motion SFX shards had spectacularly settled. However unsubtle the sight gag may have been, this self-consciously positioned 2018’s series 11 of the BBC SF TV series (2005–) as a new beginning for Doctor Who, especially since its change in lead actor was accompanied by new companions, a new TARDIS design for both interior and exterior, a new logo, and a new title sequence complete with, yes, a new arrangement of the theme tune. Added to which, Jodie Whittaker had been cast by a new showrunner, Chris Chibnall, with whom she had previously worked on the post-Nordic-Noir crime series Broadchurch (2013–17). The symbolic handover from previous showrunner Steven Moffat to Chris Chibnall was thus just one part of a major rebranding for the show where, as Matt Hills has argued, ‘re-invigorating Doctor Who has meant a display of “professional distinction” on the part of [incoming] production teams. Not only is Who’s narrative re-oriented as a kind of palimpsest, and its characterization reworked, but the show’s icons are visually reconstructed: it is literally given a new look’ (2015: 321). Such changes have always been a part of the programme’s history – its ‘classic’ incarnation having run from 1963 to 1989 – leading John Tulloch and Manuel Alvarado in Doctor Who: The Unfolding Text, the first academic monograph on Doctor Who in the early 1980s, to suggest that ‘it is the … ­companions and … actorial expression of the Doctor himself who are regularly expelled in the programme’s search for idiosyncrasy and  … ­individualism’ (1983: 97). This periodic

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Introduction

casting of new lead actors – along with other dimensions of rebranding – enables changing production communities to perform the ‘“good television” discourse of television ­professionals … [i.e.] that “something similar but different” is required to re-invigorate a “tired” format’ (Tulloch and Alvarado, 1983: 63). From the perspective of Doctor Who production discourse, then, and its institutional placement as public service TV and a BBC ‘global flagship’ production, it is plausible to view Jodie Whittaker’s casting as the thirteenth Doctor as a new moment, if not a ‘New Dawn’, for the programme, and hence as a textual regeneration which can be discerned, even at this relatively close range, as the initiation of a new phase in the show’s longer history. Writing in ‘Periodising Doctor Who’, Paul Booth cautions against treating the division of the programme into distinct phases as an ‘ontological assessment’ (2014: 196). The danger is that this can lead to a reductive and ‘totalising principle’ which interprets the corpus of Doctor Who purely via discrete and favoured (or disliked) eras (Booth, 2014: 205), thereby tending to discipline fan and academic readings alike. Contra such assumptions, and such reading protocols, Booth argues that ‘we must see Doctor Who as both a continuous programme split into fragmented parts and as a series of fragments cohered [in]to a whole at the same time’ (2014: 197), and it is just such an approach that is adopted here. Consequently, the ‘New Dawn’ of our book title represents both a self-reflexive moment of textual rupture, change and discontinuity for Doctor Who and, at the same time, a moment of textual sameness and continuity – as Tulloch and Alvarado noted, the ongoing ‘success of the programme (its audience size and longevity) must depend on this other “success” (its tension between novelty and sameness)’ (1983: 63). With this kept in mind, James Chapman has sought to periodize Doctor Who into different historical ‘moments’, drawing on Tony Bennett and Janet Woollacott’s Bond and Beyond: The Political Career of a Popular Hero (1987) as an analytical template. Chapman’s ‘moments’ are not merely textual, however, and instead start to bridge text and cultural context. He argues that the programme’s history can be separated into four broad phases – 1960s ‘Dalekmania’ (2014: 47) (an intense moment of ­commercial/consumerist and public service popularity), 1970s ‘institutionalised ritual’ (2014: 49) (or mainstream TV and UK cultural success), the 1980s shift from mainstream to cult (2014: 52), and then a noughties reimagining as a ‘global brand’ (2014: 54). Chapman’s analysis has the benefit of not entirely following standardized fan discourses of periodization, which tend to be based around lead actor or producer/script-editor teams, but it also demonstrates the importance of articulating textual, ­institutional, and reception contexts.

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New Dawn, new moment 3

The chapters which follow focus on the current (fifth?) ‘moment’ in Doctor Who history, which following Chapman (2014) we would dub ‘Doctor Who as inclusive brand’. The programme and its latest creative leads have quite clearly responded to contemporary debates around Who’s prior masculinist hegemony and the ‘longer-term arc of meaning in the series … [displayed by] its privileging of a white male perspective’ (Jowett, 2017: 179). Arguably, this latest version of Doctor Who has sought to emulate progressive regenderings already carried out by other major SF franchises such as Star Wars (1977–) and Battlestar Galactica (2004–9), making it more of a pop-cultural emulator, perhaps, rather than a public service TV groundbreaker. It is crucial to contextualize this most recent format of Doctor Who in terms of contemporary media production cultures, particularly considering it as an example of the casting of female actors in traditionally male roles. Doctor Who can be placed as an example of ‘gender swapping’ developments, or what has been termed ‘gender-blind’ casting, alongside an array of examples such as the Ghostbusters reboot (2016) as well as characters including Thor, 007, Starbuck, Doctor Smith in Lost in Space (2018–), and Watson in Elementary (2012–19). Such regendering has become an important aspect of gender representations more broadly, but it has also proved divisive amongst sections of the audience. As Pauline Maclaran and Cele Otnes point out in ‘Reinvigorating the Sherlock Myth’ in Contemporary Consumer Culture Theory, what they term ‘gender bending’ in the TV series Elementary can ‘reinforce or subvert gender norms’ whilst ‘­reinvigorating a brand’s mythology’ (2017: 153). Extending this argument, Doctor Who – New Dawn further considers the unfolding brand narrative or identity of Doctor Who in the light of J.P. Telotte’s discussion (2014: 109–14) of the regendering of Starbuck and Boomer in Battlestar Galactica, considering how narrative and characterization in Doctor Who are, in some senses, comparably affected. However, we would argue that Doctor Who acts as a distinctive example of textual gender-swapping: this remains diegetically integral to the previously established science fiction character and narrative developments of the series, in comparison to other SF franchises where remakes and new adaptations have instead allowed for recasting, or where entirely new characters have taken on a storyworld prominence, e.g. the figure of Rey (Daisy Ridley) in Star Wars. In contrast, Doctor Who has facilitated rather different genre and storyworld opportunities for gender-swap casting which operates within established continuity, given that the character of the Doctor has been played by many actors across the history of the series thanks to the narrative concept of regeneration. Jodie Whittaker’s Doctor is, hyperdiegetically speaking, the exact same character as played by Peter Capaldi,

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Introduction

Matt Smith, David Tennant, and Christopher Eccleston before her, with all the narrative memories of their incarnations’ adventures and psychologies. Prior to Chris Chibnall’s decision to cast a female Doctor, the notion had previously been treated in the programme’s cultural history as a vague provocation or as somewhat comedic, such as when John Nathan-Turner teased the press and public with the notion of a female actor replacing Tom Baker in the classic series in the 1980s, or when Joanna Lumley very briefly played the role in ‘The Curse of Fatal Death’, a non-canonical Comic Relief special written by Steven Moffat in 1999. And despite the nuances and structures of Moffat’s gendered representations in his scripts sometimes being called into question for alleged sexism, when he was showrunner of the series from 2010 to 2017 he nevertheless introduced narrative developments that prepared for the possibility of a future female Doctor. This included referring to ostensibly male Time Lords having female incarnations, showing the onscreen male-to-female regeneration of a Time Lord General, and introducing an incarnation of the villainous Master played – as Missy – by Michelle Gomez from 2014 to 2017. Recalling Paul Booth’s (2014) cautionary note, this collection of essays nonetheless considers how the female thirteenth Doctor opens up the range of receptions of the programme (for example, attracting and inspiring new audiences). Repositioning Who as a more ‘inclusive brand’ is not only a matter of performing progressive cultural politics, of course, it is also a (potentially commercial, transnational) strategy aimed at targeting and maintaining a diversity of new viewers and fans. Indeed, this illustrates that textual and institutional analyses are never sufficient by themselves – the reception of Doctor Who’s self-reflexive new era, and its rebranding and regendering, also needs to be studied. To this end, the collection analyses memes that were created and circulated in reaction to Whittaker’s casting and performance in the role, as well as detailing fan creativity in the forms of thirteenth Doctor cosplay and action figure collecting or customizing. But as well as discussing specific fan responses and practices, this collection also engages with the social-media-cultural context in which the latest era of Doctor Who is compelled to operate. By this, we mean that Doctor Who’s new dawn confronts an increasingly ‘fractured fandom’ (Reinhard, 2018) where divisions between fan ‘haters’ and appreciators have become especially pronounced around the work of Chris Chibnall as showrunner and Jodie Whittaker as lead actor. So-called ‘Big Name Fans’ such as Ian Levine have symbolically attacked the production team headed by Chibnall, publicly lamenting on Twitter (10 August 2019) that ‘tiny minorities of SJWs will always shout the loudest’ in defence of the programme’s regendering and creative decisions. Yet, as Adrienne Massanari and Shira Chess have argued, ‘the emerging “alt-right” has repositioned … [“SJW”] to imply a

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New Dawn, new moment 5

kind of monstrous feminine: unwieldy and out of control’ (2018: 2). Where ‘SJW’ becomes a label of abuse, the term is othered in ways which align it, implicitly or explicitly, with alt-right concepts of the ‘social justice warrior’ as irrational, or as an overly emotional ‘crybaby’ (2018: 9). In this reception context, and drawing on common social media discourses, Doctor Who fandom starts to become very visibly and affectively ‘fractured’ along cultural-political faultlines. Doctor Who’s regendering also places it squarely in the domain of what Sarah Banet-Weiser has analysed as ‘popular feminism’, with feminist politics manifest ‘in popular and commercial media … [via] an accessibility that is not confined to academic enclaves or niche groups’ whilst simultaneously becoming ‘a terrain of struggle, a space where competing demands for power battle it out’ (2018: 1). This popularity is frequently countered by a patriarchal backlash, or what Banet-Weiser terms ‘popular misogyny’ (2018: 2). Both popular feminism and popular misogyny are ‘networked’ discourses, moving through broadcast or social media and everyday life. Similarly, Suzanne Scott has analysed the emergence of ‘spreadable misogyny’, circulated online within media fandoms (2019: 83), with fanboys tending to label or dismiss ‘female fans’ affect as performative or inauthentic’ (2019: 85), i.e. (newbie) female fans supposedly do fandom all wrong. From these influential theoretical positions, it can be seen that gendered discourses are as much a critical aspect of Doctor Who fans’ contemporary and social media reception contexts as they are a matter of textual ­regendering or industrial rebranding. In terms of this book’s overall approach, and the sections which follow, our main aims and objectives are hence to position this self-reflexively, paratextually promoted new ‘era’ (Booth, 2014) or ‘moment’ (Bennett and Woollacott, 1987; Chapman, 2014) of Doctor Who in its tripartite contexts of industry or institution, textual meaning-making, and fan or audience reception. In particular, this means remaining cognizant of current production discourses of franchise and brand management (and thus the shift to an ‘inclusive brand’ as a matter of franchise renewal and now-ness as much as a matter of cultural politics). And it means considering current social media discourses of fandom (and anti-fandom) within which ‘popular feminism’ and ‘popular misogyny’ or ‘spreadable misogyny’ have been enacted around, and in relation to, Doctor Who’s textual regendering and industrial rebranding. Accordingly, and since the regendering of the Doctor represents an attempt to redress gender imbalance in terms of recasting the lead, whilst Chibnall’s role as showrunner has meant overseeing a more diverse production team, Doctor Who – New Dawn also pays attention to David Peetz and Georgina Murray’s account of gender gaps in the workplace in Women,

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Introduction

Labor Segmentation and Regulation (2017). We link their approach to how series 11 resisted TV production’s operational ‘norms that privilege males and male behaviours at the expense of females’ (2017: 238). Perhaps the most important rationale for this collection is that it sets out an account of this inclusive-brand ‘era’ of Doctor Who not only in relation to the regendering of the Doctor but also via more progressive production contexts articulated with representations of diversity in the series. This incarnation of Doctor Who has at last begun to move away from the series’ intense and typically unmarked whiteness of creatives or narratives, and towards episodes written by people of colour as well as focusing on topics such as racial segregation in the US and the historical Partition of India and Pakistan. A related term of abuse levelled by sections of conservative or reactionary fandom is that the show has become too ‘PC’ or politically correct under Chibnall’s guidance. Like ‘SJW’, this also operates as a form of everyday othering, and, although ‘PC’ is difficult to define conclusively, as Geoffrey Hughes has argued in Political Correctness: A History of Semantics and Culture, it involves ‘discouraging judgmental attitudes and outlawing demeaning language. In this process a new framework of values and morality has arisen’, which opponents of PC characterize as proscriptive and/or as a form of censorship (2010: 58–59). ‘PC’ is therefore characterized by those othering it as an imposition – a restrictive or reorienting exercise of symbolic power which supposedly limits the free expression of (usually) right-wing common sense and ideology. Once more, this era of Doctor Who finds itself being interpreted within an intensely politicized and divisive reception context of ‘fractured’ fandom. Thus the issue is not simply one of whether or not Who has suddenly become more textually political than ever before (McKee, 2004) – spoiler: it hasn’t! – but rather that its fan interpretative communities have arguably become more likely to read the programme politically (via popular feminism or popular misogyny) in the contemporary ‘moment’ of Chris Chibnall’s creative oversight and Jodie Whittaker’s innovative casting. The new dawn here is not only a positive one to be textually celebrated, however, and, as such, it is vital to take a critical approach to the emergent and reactionary cultural politics of sections of fandom, including those who seek to problematically claim that ‘SJW’ and ‘PC’ are merely apolitical, everyday terminologies. Doctor Who – New Dawn therefore agrees with official, paratextual publicity that ‘It’s About Time’. It is about time in a whole series of intersecting ways: textually, industrially, interpretively, and in terms of social media practices, popular feminism and everyday sexism, as well as via cultural politics of diversity and inclusion. This latest incarnation of Doctor Who may well have become readable as a newly inclusive brand, but of course there are still hegemonic limits to projected inclusivity, and the

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New Dawn, new moment 7

programme brand remains, as Banet-Weiser notes following the cultural studies’ theorist Stuart Hall, very much the terrain of pop-cultural (and fangenerated-content) struggle. So, although this edited collection remains strongly cognisant of Paul Booth’s (2014) warning against any overly strict periodization of Doctor Who, where the division into ‘eras’ threatens to be (problematically) treated merely as part of the ontology or essence of Who, in a series of ways the work gathered together here argues for the analytical and heuristic importance, as well as the cultural-political and contextualist significance, of treating series 11 and 12 – as per the book’s subtitle – as part of ‘the Jodie Whittaker era’. Of course, this could also be the ‘Chris Chibnall era’ – or the combined ‘Chibnall/Whittaker era’ to take in both on-screen and offscreen changes – but in our overall subtitle we both simplified and, deliberately, consciously opted for the feminized gendering of this ‘moment’ of the series.

Quantities and qualities: evaluating the Chibnall/Whittaker era One issue that arises in relation to the new dawn of Doctor Who and concomitant changes is the impact this might have had, if any, on the show’s audience ratings. Putting aside the negative reactions in some quarters of social media and those fans who were vocal in saying they were no longer watching, have the qualitatively changed aspects of the series under Chris Chibnall’s production had a quantitative impact? This is especially important in the context of regendering a long-established brand, of course, though other factors may also be important in terms of changing audience ratings. Chibnall has stated that ‘series 11 was about recruitment to Doctor Who’ (Hearn, 2019: 13), and the audience figures for early episodes of series 11 (see Figure 0.1) suggest that Chibnall very much succeeded in his stated aim of ‘taking a big leap by casting the first female Doctor, and we had to make everyone want to come and have a look’ (ibid.: 13–14). At 10.96 million viewers including iPlayer views in the week of first transmission, the audience for ‘The Woman Who Fell to Earth’ means this episode had the largest audience of any series premiere and the largest of any episode since ‘The Time of the Doctor’ in 2013. This might well be indicative of the curiosity value of a female Doctor. However, has this worked in the longer term? The audience figures across series 11 and 12 show a downward trend, with only episodes towards the end of series 11, the new year special and the start of series 12, and then ‘Fugitive of the Judoon’, interrupting an overall decline. It might be hypothesized from this that some of the ‘new recruits’ did not continue to watch the ongoing series,

0.1  Audience figures for series 11 to 12

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New Dawn, new moment 9

or that pre-existing viewers were lost. Without further research, however, it cannot be deduced what reasons there might be for this, and, while personal taste may be an element, many other factors could also be involved. It could also be noted that television audiences for mainstream channels in general are falling amongst some demographics, alongside a rise in streaming services and other competing forms of entertainment, and that a fall in the Doctor Who audience is therefore likely to be part of a general decline in mainstream television viewing. However, the audience share (see Figure 0.2) for Doctor Who also declined during series 11 and 12, suggesting that the programme is losing more viewers relative to other programmes in the same time slot (although it is not clear from the audience figures whether this loss is compensated for by increases in viewers who are watching outside the week of broadcast via streaming services or upon the release of DVD and Blu-ray box sets). Whilst this is not a question that can be definitively answered without further audience data or research, it does raise the question of whether the series currently faces some problems retaining viewers amongst segments of its audience at least (and, unhelpfully, BARB figures do not include demographic or psychographic data). Factors such as the move to the Sunday evening schedule, the lack of returning (and thus familiar) monsters or villains in series 11 (amplified by the entirely new main cast), and the relative scarcity of pre-publicity may all have had an impact. A niche programme brand attracting a smaller, but highly appreciative, audience is not necessarily a problem, of course. However, the audience appreciation index (see Figure 0.3) also indicates that Chibnall’s Doctor Who is not being received as well as the series has been in previous years. Only three episodes in series 11 – ‘The Woman Who Fell to Earth’, ‘Rosa’, and ‘Arachnids in the UK’ – had an appreciation index above the average across all BBC programmes (an AI of 82), and these were all near the beginning of the run. Subsequently, only one episode after this – series 12’s ‘Fugitive of the Judoon’ – achieved an above-average rating. All four episodes rated only 1 point higher than the AI average, at 83. Overall, these AIs – averaging 81 – are significantly lower than in previous years of Doctor Who: the average AI for Peter Capaldi’s episodes was 83, itself a fall from 86 for the Matt Smith episodes. The indication is that aspects of Chibnall’s production – even with the embrace of diversity on-screen and behind the camera, and the ‘big leap’ forward with the series that this represents – are not sustaining or increasing viewer enjoyment (which had already been falling off prior to Chibnall’s appointment as showrunner). It can only be concluded that Chibnall’s attempts to refresh the rebooted series after 15 years have not been entirely successful, at least if measured in terms of audience ratings.

0.2  Audience share for series 11 to 12

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0.3  Audience Appreciation Index (AI) for series 11 to 12

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12

Introduction

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There are other ways of evaluating success, however. Another of the more notable changes made in the latest ‘era’ has been series 12’s revisionist approach to canon. And as Lance Parkin has observed, canon – the agreedupon events, histories, and backstories that officially exist in franchise texts – offers a way for fans to manage the proliferating texts of Who, deciding or debating what should count as fandom’s shared culture: The key to understanding the importance of ‘canon’ to a Doctor Who fan is that it represents investment. Fans spend a great deal of time and money on Doctor Who … For this level of commitment to work, they have to know the stories matter. Fans want the writers to demonstrate at least some of the care and attention to detail that they possess. For the emotional, time, and ­financial investment of being a Doctor Who fan to pay off, they have to contribute to and inform, in some way, the wider Doctor Who universe. They – the stories and the fans – have to matter. (Parkin, 2007: 259)

This is a curiously neoliberal approach, though, in which fandom seems to be about securing a decent ‘return on investment’. It also concludes, rather strikingly, by blurring together or aligning canon and fandom – contra Parkin, then, to instead indicate that canon is somehow unimportant is seemingly to devalue fandom at one and the same time. This, perhaps, is the trap that series 12 partly fell into when it presented a radically new origin story for the Doctor in ‘The Timeless Children’. Established canon wasn’t ignored or carelessly trodden over, though; if anything, it was very carefully reworked with a showrunner-fan’s eye for detail that even involved incorporating a brief sequence from ‘The Brain of Morbius’, originally broadcast in 1976. Yet by rewriting the Doctor as a non-Time Lord who was central to granting the power of regeneration – in effect, extending her ‘fam’ to all Time Lords ever – ‘The Timeless Children’ sparked complaints and agitation in some quarters of long-term fandom. Revising canon in such a marked way, regardless of the new story possibilities it opened up, seemed for some fans to amount to a blatant disregard for their long-accumulated fan cultural capital or fan knowledge. This situation moves perilously close to Paul Cornell’s argument that, in fact, canon has become about claims to authority that can never truly exist, given that Doctor Who’s canon has no ultimate Papal writ. Or, worse still, that fans’ defence of well-established canon can sometimes become a way of ‘bullying people’ (Cornell, 2007). This is strong stuff, but Cornell does accurately link canon debates with performances of (claimed) fan-cultural authority; protecting one’s ‘investment’, in Parkin’s terms, means treating canon as exclusionary, i.e. certain fans behave as if their views are more important purely because they have invested time, money, and emotion in amassing knowledge about the details of the (frequently shifting) Whoniverse. In effect, these audiences extend the

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New Dawn, new moment 13

same equation that Parkin sets out – a rewriting of canon is perceived as a devaluation not merely of fans’ investments but as some kind of cultural or symbolic attack on those fans. Rather than framing canon revision as some fannish entry into a culture war (canon war?), we would argue that Chibnall’s approaches to canon in series 11 and 12 are, in fact, entirely of a piece. Ignoring details of canon (old monsters, etc.) in order to make series 11 a jumping-on point for new audiences means rendering canon accessible rather than exclusionary (a decision that’s very similar in spirit to Russell T Davies’s minimalist and emotive approach via the Time War back in 2005). And reworking canon in series 12 to open up many new mysteries and questions (what race does the Doctor belong to? just how many pre-Hartnell Doctors were there, and what are they up to, scattered through the timelines?) makes canon less a matter of learning Doctor Who lore through long hours of commitment, and more about playing with possibilities in the show’s present. That is, if contemporary Doctor Who’s cultural moment and context can be characterized as one of ‘brand inclusivity’, as we’ve suggested, then this is not only a matter of diversity of representation and production personnel. Twisting ‘canon’ into a newly open form also makes it more inclusive, more accessible, and less about fan hierarchies or claimed authorities: the new fan who joined with series 11 knows substantively as much about the Doctor’s current origin story as the lifelong fan who started watching back in 1963, meaning that performances of ‘new fandom’ and (allegedly) ‘true fandom’ can potentially collapse together in novel ways. Ignoring ‘fanwank’ levels of continuity in series 11, and then promptly invoking them in series 12 in order to significantly rewrite Gallifrey’s past, both suggest that Doctor Who should be mindfully loved and appreciated in the moment (and arguably, Chibnall’s approach to spoiler control is part of the same coherent strategy) rather than treated, via extensive fan knowledge or fan cultural capital, as a neoliberal fan’s ‘return on investment’. It could be suggested that, by implying a coherent brand management strategy, we are falling prey to a version of the ‘intentional fallacy’. This has its roots in literary theory, addressing the danger that critics might falsely attribute intentions to an author when all they have to go on are the attributes of the text itself. To avoid the fallacy is to avoid speculating over (or making pronouncements upon) what the author or showrunner ‘really meant’. Previous scholarship on Doctor Who has occasionally run into this issue; reviewing work by James Chapman and Kim Newman, for instance, Mark Broughton (2008: 209) argues that ‘the intentional fallacy springs to mind’ when analysis of Doctor Who ‘does not … register the extent to which the finished programme [has actually] realised the ideas put forward’ during planning, production, and brand management. Indeed, concepts of

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14

Introduction

intention recur across this volume – Dene October discusses ‘intentional spectacle’ in Chapter 3, while in Chapter 5 Lorna Jowett analyses the current show’s ‘statement of intent’ in terms of how it represents sexualities. However, like our examination of Doctor Who’s current historical ‘moment’ here, these discussions don’t replay the ‘intentional fallacy’ of merely inferring authorial intent from a complex aesthetic text. All are grounded in paratextual evidence (industry interviews for commercial fan magazines; publicity and promotion; previously published analyses and so on), but more importantly, all accept and indeed prioritize exploring the gaps between paratextually mediated ‘intent’ (which cannot always be accepted at face value) and textual complexities. Chapter 3 considers how personalized audience responses to Doctor Who’s current filming style can reinflect its bids for spectacle, for example, and Chapter 5 refuses to accept progressive statements of intent in order to assess the problematic limits to Doctor Who’s representations of sexuality. Our discussion of Who as an inclusive brand should similarly not be seen as making a strong or pure claim for showrunner intent – it is rather that this interpretation offers one way of articulating a range of textual qualities which may otherwise seem disconnected or contingent, e.g. representations of diversity and approaches to canon. A further challenge to any ‘intentional’ assumption lies in the fact that a long-running franchise such as Doctor Who can attain analytically discernible ‘historical moments’ of its own only through an array of dialogues with other aspects of prevailing cultural contexts. Thus, the casting of a white female Doctor and the narrative introduction of a female Doctor-of-colour have both intersected with the cultural politics of the #MeToo Era and the Black Lives Matter movement, as we’ll now consider.

Moments and movements: framing the Chibnall/Whittaker era #MeToo represents one dramatic instance of ‘popular feminism’ (BanetWeiser, 2018: 1) seeking to expose and contest the everyday misogyny, harassment, and abuse that have been ingrained in patriarchal power ­ structures. However, as Karen Boyle argues, ‘popular feminism can be … ­ambivalent for a wider feminist politics, … because of the emphasis on visibility over action. Popular feminism in this iteration is fundamentally about being seen—as a feminist, supporting feminist issues – rather than, necessarily, about doing feminism’ (2019: 2). There is a sense in which media visibilities such as the casting of Jodie Whittaker as the Doctor might thus be dismissed as moments of neoliberal or ‘inauthentic’ feminism – a branded, franchised performance of feminist cultural politics rather than

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New Dawn, new moment 15

‘real’ feminist political action. Very much countering this perspective, Heather Savigny’s analysis of ‘cultural sexism’ reminds us that media ‘are not just technologies of communication, but systems of communicating values and beliefs … Media tell us who we are and who it is possible to be … In essence, media … whether we like it or not “shapes the limits of our imagination”’ (2020: 49). This argument, that Doctor Who conveys ‘who it is possible to be’ for its fans, is reflected in Neta Yodovich’s (2020) empirical work studying feminist fans of the show. Yodovich carried out ‘22 … in-depth interviews with self-identified feminist female fans of Doctor Who between the ages of 19 and 55’ (2020: 5) as they looked forward to Whittaker’s performance in series 11, following these up with email correspondence after her interviewees had seen series 11’s run of episodes. Yodovich’s analysis demonstrates how these fans sought to defend their interest in a female Doctor, responding to the online criticisms of male fans by emphasizing that the possibility of a female Doctor had been well established in canon, and so possessed a diegetic rationale rather than being feminist per se. Such canon-related justification (Yodovich, 2020: 7) performed the same fan cultural capital and authority wielded by longterm male fans, and often drawn on by reactionary fans, to ‘fight against P[olitical] C[orrectness] claims’ (ibid.). As well as deploying discourses of ‘canon’, these self-identified feminist female fans also implicitly agreed with Savigny’s argument, sharing how ‘male fans lamented the loss of a positive male role model for young boys during arguments and discussions’ while suggesting that women had become more accustomed to relating to male characters, in comparison to men with female characters. Participants discussed a plethora of male characters and actors they looked up to over the years, from Han Solo (Star Wars) to Bruce Lee, but asserted that men seldom appreciate or identify with female characters. Zoe (32, UK) thought the regeneration of the Doctor into a woman was an opportunity for men to learn how to relate to female characters and women in general, claiming: ‘women had to mentally gender-swap themselves into lead roles forever. If there are really good female characters, why wouldn’t you want to be them?’ (Yodovich, 2020: 8)

As Yodovich summarizes, this debate demonstrated ‘feminist female fans’ struggle to find their place in fandoms of franchises that are traditionally associated with and created for men. After quietly embracing and looking up to male protagonists for years, interviewees wanted protagonists that looked like them’ (ibid.). Here, being seen or mediated – and hence a female Doctor enabling new imaginations of self – was precisely about doing feminism. And in their nuanced analysis of YouTube reactions to the 2017 reveal of Whittaker as the new Doctor, Sophie Eeken and Joke

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Introduction

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Hermes suggest that we still need to supplement ‘popular feminism’. They consider how reactionary, negative responses to Whittaker’s initial casting may not have only stemmed from ‘controversy over feminism’ but were also readable as transphobic: a significant portion of the flood of negative comments took the television series as an occasion to express transphobia rather than misogyny. … There can be little doubt that the reveal functioned as the kind of ‘incitement to discourse’ [… where it was] made meaningful, at least in part, as a symbol of the loss of a well-ordered, recognizable world in which men are men and women do not attain the status of the Doctor. For the vocal … [and angered] fan base, we claim, the instability of gender was supremely upsetting. (Eeken and Hermes, 2019: 14–15)

Somewhat akin to #MeToo, the #BlackLivesMatter movement has formed another crucial part of our contemporary ‘digital dissensus’ (Andrews, 2020: 1–2) where even filter bubbles and ideological positions have fragmented further and further, and where progressive and reactionary voices clash seemingly incessantly via social media. (Though it could be suggested that the Black Lives Matter movement has been played out on the streets – in protests, marches, and demos – rather than through Tweets, it has also possessed a significant social media component in terms of its activism, and first emerged as an online movement via its hashtag.) And as Penny Andrews (2020: 1) has pointed out, intensified digital dissensus makes any ‘retreat to the comforts of fandom … no longer untroubled’. Where ‘political correctness’ has been one major discourse used by reactionary fandom in an effort to undermine trends toward social justice, then ‘identity politics’ has been another. Nesrine Malik has argued that ‘the myth of damaging identity politics’ (2019: 134) involves either failing to see whiteness as an identity (and so treating it as an entitled or default self-identity), or spuriously claiming a ‘victim’ status for whiteness. The end results of this reactionary interpretative process imply that fans of colour and their allies should simply accept white-centred media and stop complaining or campaigning. Doctor Who, along with much other TV science fiction, remains significantly white-centred: despite progress involving characters such as Mickey Smith, Martha Jones, Bill Potts, and now Ryan Sinclair and Yasmin Khan, the Doctor had always been white prior to series 12. Perhaps, just as Missy prefigured the thirteenth Doctor’s regendering, Sacha Dhawan’s Master will prefigure an ethnic-minority Doctor in the regular lead role. In Where No Black Woman Has Gone Before: Subversive Portrayals in Speculative Film and TV, Diana Adesola Mafe argues: ‘Notably, white female characters and (less frequently) black male characters continue to find more empowered lead roles in … speculative [i.e. SF] television shows, but black

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New Dawn, new moment 17

female characters rarely do’ (2018: 141). In this representational regard, Star Trek: Discovery has stolen a march on Who, although series 12’s reveal of the black actor Jo Martin as a previously unknown and earlier incarnation of the Doctor – along with multiple ethnicities of actors performing as the ‘timeless child’ – enabled Chris Chibnall to retroactively bring greater diversity into the Doctor’s past. Nonetheless, Jo Martin’s Doctor, for all her brilliance, remains a kind of retconned ‘guest star’ rather than playing the programme’s lead role in narrative or structural terms: the current era of Doctor Who continues to be effectively white-centred. The introduction of Jo Martin’s Doctor resembles what Ebony Elizabeth Thomas has analysed as ‘racebending’, a ‘restorying of identity [that] seems to be particularly visible in the fandom practice of bending [i.e. rewriting] characters to make them more diverse’ (2019: 162). This is not to argue that showrunner-fan Chibnall has adopted a form from fanfic wholesale, but rather to suggest that the new dawn of current Who continues to image and imagine Black and British-Asian performers in secondary, supporting roles – whether as friend, foe, or even as a ‘restoried’ and newly canonical Doctor. Such brand inclusivity is always only inclusive up to a point; for example, it would be interesting if series 13 – reconfigured and shortened due to the COVID-19 pandemic – featured a number of stories without Jodie Whittaker altogether, and where Jo Martin could instead take on a genuinely leading role. But even something as unlikely or as radical as this in production or contractual terms would still leave the thirteenth Doctor in place as the ‘default’ current incarnation, with Martin reading more as an ‘alt Doctor’. (The same problem of connoted secondariness would persist if Martin were to lead a spin-off commission focused on her battles with The Division, say). Until the programme’s title role is played, week in and week out, by a performer who is not a white male or a white female (as has so far always been the case), then restorying, reworking, and racebending the Doctor in fanfiction will continue to offer fans a way to embrace ever more diverse and inclusive storytelling, albeit outside the realms of official canon. Of course, the thirteenth Doctor’s story continues; this edited collection covers series 11 and 12, and has been completed just as ‘Revolution of the Daleks’ nears our screens. According to publicity photographs and information, the (reverse engineered?) new-look Daleks will be diegetically deployed by the British government alongside its police forces. Due to broadcast on 1 January 2021, the calendrical beginning of the United Kingdom’s move outside the European Union after a highly fractious period of national politics dominated by the Conservative Party’s move towards far-right agendas, aligning the Daleks in such a way (and on such a day) seems to presage a wholly unambiguous critique of current UK statecraft. At the same time, however, the avowedly progressive politics of this era of

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18

Introduction

Doctor Who have repeatedly been muddled, as Sam Maleski has noted in his (2020: 68) analysis of ‘Arachnids in the UK’. Rather than systemically opposing (capitalist) forces of oppression, the thirteenth Doctor has instead recurrently focused on an ‘ethic … [that] is strictly person-based’ (Maleski, 2020: 97), helping or saving particular groups of characters rather than enacting wider, or even revolutionary, social change. Hence this incarnation of the Doctor leaves Jack Robertson to go free in ‘Arachnids’ (and reappear in ‘Revolution of the Daleks’) as well as leaving the vast and vastly problematic Amazon-analogue Kerblam in place in the episode of that title. It remains to be seen whether ‘Revolution’ will shift the Chibnall era towards a less neoliberal, individualized narrative view of contemporary politics. The showrunner has summarized series 12 as being ‘all about identity’ (in Scott, 2020: 28), at least in terms of challenging the thirteenth Doctor’s sense of self. Yet even this remained set as a largely canonical challenge rather than a political one (the previously unknown Doctor has presumably been involved in all manner of reactionary missions for The Division, but this narrative possibility is not really opened up, and remains somewhat opaque). Still, after any new dawn comes the light of day, and the need for thoughtful, precise, and critical analysis rather than an easy embrace of brand distinction (as per marketing discourses) or a fall back into the comforting fan tenets of beloved continuity versus fears of disrupted canonicity. So, by way of drawing this Introduction to a close, we’ll now sketch out the book’s structure and upcoming arguments.

Chapters and contents: thirteen explorations of the thirteenth Doctor The first part of the collection, ‘Creating Thirteen’, looks at how the universe of the thirteenth Doctor has been crafted through production techniques. As the title sequence and Doctor Who theme are the first things that we see and hear, it is appropriate for the collection to commence with a focus on music. David Butler takes up this challenge, drawing on new interview material with the British-Nigerian composer Segun Akinola. Butler begins by looking at Ron Grainer’s famous theme music for the ­programme  – realized by Delia Derbyshire at the BBC Radiophonic Workshop with the assistance of Dick Mills – showing how Akinola’s rearrangement of the theme has hauntological links to the past while simultaneously moving innovatively forwards. Butler proceeds to examine the exceptional score for the episode ‘Demons of the Punjab’, including its variation of the endtitles music, before considering the thirteenth Doctor’s theme, and how

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New Dawn, new moment 19

the Doctor Who title theme has also been played at key moments within episodes to provide authenticity. By contrast, and enabling a musical sense of inclusion and diversity, in ‘Rosa’ the Doctor’s theme is at times usurped by that of Rosa Parks. This analysis paves the way for Rosanne Welch’s examination of how Chris Chibnall and his team of writers collectively developed the series, with a particular focus on the character of the thirteenth Doctor and her companions. By undertaking close textual analysis and tracing Chibnall’s track record in writing for female characters, Welch homes in on how the screenwriting tools of dialogue and action form this new Doctor, alongside other racially diverse characters. Following that, and contributing to an academic field that is beginning to appreciate spectacle in television drama, Dene October’s chapter on filming the new series focuses on three main areas. In his analysis of the contemplation of setting, curiosity and criticality of content, and personalized viewing pleasures, October sets out the ways in which spectacle enhances audience engagement and agency. The opening section then concludes with a chapter by Christopher Hogg looking at the intersections of gender, race, ethnicity, and regionality as these are expressed through actors’ performances. Just as the section began with original interview material, it likewise ends with previously unpublished interviews, this time with on-screen and behind-the-scenes talent. Hogg speaks to Doctor Who’s casting director Andy Pryor, as well as Mandip Gill who plays Yaz, and Julie Hesmondhalgh (Judy Maddox in ‘Kerblam!’), attentively focusing on the experiences, perceptions, and creative processes involved in embodying Who’s narratives. The second section of the volume, ‘Diversifying Doctor Who’, looks further into aspects of representation with chapters focused on analysing the text. Opening this section, Lorna Jowett builds on Welch’s earlier examination of the diversity of writers and argues that this leads to the potential for more inclusive representations of sexuality. Jowett explores the ‘casual queerness’ which follows on from the era’s statement of intent to become more inclusive and diverse. By looking at story choices and character dynamics, Jowett shows how series 11’s ensemble cast signals some of its new directions. Jowett further argues that series 11 and 12 offer visual cues that allow the audience to follow desire lines between characters, though the text draws clear limits to this – especially in relation to the Doctor and Yaz – and thus remains constrained by tensions between progressive statements of intent and the constraints of mainstream TV. Following this, Susana Loza and Hannah Hamad both undertake approaches to representations of race, adding further to Butler’s and Hogg’s discussions of this as an aspect of production in Part I. Loza points out that, although Doctor Who may appear to offer a progressive vision,

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20

Introduction

multiculturalist images can disguise the violent racism of Britain’s imperial past and the ‘racial amnesia’ surrounding this past, issues which have returned in specific ways in relation to Brexit Britain. And although Loza’s argument could be made in not-unrelated terms through the analysis of earlier eras and moments of Doctor Who, her focus on contemporary cultural politics demonstrates how we need to pay close attention to what today’s progressive TV industry narratives of ‘inclusion’ may still exclude, over-write or displace. Hamad, meanwhile, zooms in on the character of companion Ryan. She argues that the series perpetuates stereotypes of black families by introducing the trope of the absent black father, but goes on to consider how this absentee black father is replaced by the nontraditional, non-nuclear ‘fam’ of the TARDIS team. The third part of the collection shifts away from analysis of the programme’s episodes to focus on ‘Fan responses’. Brigid Cherry opens the section by looking at the ways in which Doctor Who fans make and use Internet memes to mock the programme under the stewardship of Chris Chibnall, often fondly, but sometimes cruelly. Taking her data from the Reddit group DoctorWhumour, as well as Facebook and Twitter, Cherry begins by looking at the responses that were crafted in the wake of series 11’s pre-publicity, some of which were overtly negative, particularly in response to the casting of a female Doctor, but which also included affectionate mocking of the thirteenth Doctor’s costume. She then goes on to analyse a range of memes responding to specific aspects of broadcast episodes that fans mocked, including both aspects of the text and extratextual elements such as Chris Chibnall’s writing. The section then continues with a focus on gendered fandom with a chapter by Nicolle Lamerichs drawing on online data collected from Instagram and a small qualitative sample of Dutch cosplayers. Lamerichs looks at how some fans have responded to the programme through cosplay, but, rather than mocking Thirteen’s costume, Lamerichs looks at how cosplayers celebrate and interpret it. She sets out how some queer and female cosplayers see much of themselves in this version of the Doctor, becoming involved in ‘affective reception’. The section then concludes with a chapter by Saida Herrero who explores the Spanish Doctor Who fan community. Herrero conducted an online questionnaire to map out the reaction to a female Doctor from Spanish fans, along with their views on translation issues. Herrero points out that, in the absence of translated televised Who, AudioWho provided Spanish versions of official Doctor Who comics, investigating the linguistic problems in Spanish translation when a character changes from male to female. Spain was selected here as a case study for national Who fandom outside the more usually analysed UK and US contexts because it offers a situation where official translations of Doctor Who have been unavailable, and have been supplanted by unofficial

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New Dawn, new moment 21

sources, whilst Spanish grammar also directly poses the interesting issue of how the thirteenth Doctor should be correctly gendered. Lamerichs’s and Herrero’s chapters are appropriately placed side-by-side as they both concentrate on an international non-Anglophone context which has hitherto been largely ignored in Doctor Who fan and academic studies in favour of concentrating on North America and the UK. Whilst Lamerichs draws her data from Dutch cosplayers, Herrero approaches the issue of translation head-on, also including interview material with translators. The fourth and final section of the book takes us ‘Beyond the text’. This section opens with a chapter by Victoria L. Godwin which continues the focus on gender, this time by looking at toys and collectibles, such as the thirteenth Doctor Barbie doll. Godwin argues that different marketing names such as ‘dolls’, or even ‘adventure dolls’, can be linked to anxieties around ‘feminizing’ fandom, whereas toys for boys have typically been positioned as ‘action figures’. There is a commonly held belief that boys will not play with toys aimed at girls, and Godwin interrogates the restrictive gendering of specific Who merchandise. From branded goods, the section then follows a ‘spatial turn’ with a chapter by Paul Booth that travels beyond a conventional scholarly focus on ‘fan tourism’ – where fans journey to a location familiar from the diegesis of a media text – to examine the tourism of commodified fan experiences aiming to commercially discipline what it means to be a fan. Following a discussion of The Doctor Who Experience, Booth takes us on a tour of four Who-themed exhibitions and interactive events, placing them in various categories of experience where one ‘tries on’ the fandom of the new series. Following this, the collection concludes with a chapter by Matt Hills. Where Lamerichs and Herrero introduced an international context, and Booth’s previous chapter looked at visiting exhibitions, Hills places us back in the home during the 2020 COVID-19 first-wave lockdown in the UK. There were many Doctor Who responses to this UK lockdown (for instance, a scene from the 2008 episode ‘Journey’s End’, accompanied by Murray Gold’s emotive music, carries the caption ‘Earth Returns Home’ on the news with celebratory fireworks going off; this was replaced in a fan edit by ‘Covid-19 Lockdown Ends’). Hills’s focus, however, in keeping with the remit of this collection, is on how the ­thirteenth Doctor appeared in lockdown fiction, extras, and short-form videos, both those that were officially branded by the BBC and those that moved beyond BBC authorization. Rather than being paratextual additions to a main TV text, unusually these gift-texts became central online experiences for fans seeking solace. Hills examines how such texts mirrored lockdown experiences and provided ‘ontological security’ and ‘sperosemic interpretations’ by offering reassuring sources of inspiration, comfort, and hope. And although these attributes have been especially useful during the

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Introduction

upheavals of COVID-19, as a whole this edited collection argues for the inspirational, hopeful energies of Doctor Who’s new dawn, and contemporary cultural moment, as an inclusive brand complete with an accessible rather than exclusionary sense of canon.

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References Andrews, P. (2020). ‘Receipts, Radicalisation, Reactionaries, and Repentance: The Digital Dissensus, Fandom, and the COVID-19 Pandemic’, Feminist Media Studies, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/14680777.2020.1796214. Banet-Weiser, S. (2018). Empowered: Popular Feminism and Popular Misogyny. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Bennett, T. and J. Woollacott (1987). Bond and Beyond: The Political Career of a Popular Hero. Basingstoke: Macmillan. Booth, P. (2014). ‘Periodising Doctor Who’, Science Fiction Film and Television, 7 (2), pp. 195–215. Boyle, K. (2019). #MeToo, Weinstein and Feminism. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Broughton, M. (2008). ‘James Chapman, Inside the TARDIS and Kim Newman, Doctor Who’, Journal of British Cinema and Television, 5 (1), pp. 206–10. Chapman, J. (2014). ‘Fifty Years in the TARDIS: The Historical Moments of Doctor Who’, Critical Studies in Television, 9 (1), pp. 43–61. Cornell, P. (2007). ‘Canonicity in Doctor Who’, 10 February, available online at www.paulcornell.com/2007/02/canonicity-in-doctor-who/ (accessed 27 August 2020). Eeken, S. and J. Hermes (2019). ‘Doctor Who, Ma’am: YouTube Reactions to the 2017 Reveal of the New Doctor’, Television & New Media, DOI: https://doi. org/10.1177/1527476419893040. Hearn, M. (2019). ‘Executive Decisions’, Doctor Who Magazine, 546 (December), pp. 13–16. Hills, M. (2015). ‘Rebranding Doctor Who and Reimagining Sherlock: “Quality” Television as “makeover TV drama”’, International Journal of Cultural Studies, 18 (3), pp. 317–33. Hughes, G. (2010). Political Correctness: A History of Semantics and Culture. Malden: Wiley-Blackwell. Jowett, L. (2017). Dancing with the Doctor: Dimensions of Gender in the Doctor Who Universe. London: I. B. Tauris. Maclaran, P. and C. Otnes (2017). ‘Reinvigorating the Sherlock Myth: Elementary Gender Bending’, in J. F. Sherry, Jr, and E. Fischer (eds), Contemporary Consumer Culture Theory. London: Routledge, pp. 152–172. Mafe, D. A. (2018). Where No Black Woman Has Gone Before: Subversive Portrayals in Speculative Film and TV. Austin: University of Texas Press. Maleski, S. (2020). The Black Archive: Arachnids in the UK. Edinburgh: Obverse Books. Malik, N. (2019). We Need New Stories: Challenging the Toxic Myths Behind Our Age of Discontent. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson.

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Massanari, A. L. and S. Chess (2018). ‘Attack of the 50-foot Social Justice Warrior: The Discursive Construction of SJW Memes as the Monstrous Feminine’, Feminist Media Studies, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/14680777.2018.1447333. McKee, A. (2004). ‘Is Doctor Who Political?’, European Journal of Cultural Studies, 7 (2), pp. 201–17. Parkin, L. (2007). ‘Canonicity Matters: Defining the Doctor Who Canon’, in D. Butler (ed.), Time and Relative Dissertations in Space: Critical Perspectives on Doctor Who. Manchester: Manchester University Press, pp. 246–62. Peetz, D. and G. Murray (2017). Women, Labor Segmentation and Regulation. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Reinhard, C. (2018). Fractured Fandoms: Contentious Communication in Fan Communities. Lanham: Lexington Books. Savigny, H. (2020). Cultural Sexism: The Politics of Feminist Rage in the #MeToo Era. Bristol: Bristol University Press. Scott, D. (2020). ‘Serving Time’, SFX Magazine, 334, pp. 22–31. Scott, S. (2019). Fake Geek Girls: Fandom, Gender, and the Convergence Culture Industry. New York: New York University Press. Telotte, J. P. (2014). Science Fiction TV. New York and London: Routledge. Thomas, E. E. (2019). The Dark Fantastic: Race and the Imagination from Harry Potter to the Hunger Games. New York: New York University Press. Tulloch, J. and M. Alvarado (1983). Doctor Who: The Unfolding Text. Basingstoke: Macmillan. Yodovich, N. (2020). ‘“Finally, we get to play the doctor”: Feminist Female Fans’ Reactions to the First Female Doctor Who’, Feminist Media Studies, DOI: https:// doi.org/10.1080/14680777.2020.1810733.

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Part I

Creating Thirteen

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1

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Variations on a theme: temporal and cultural diversity in Segun Akinola’s music for Doctor Who David Butler One of the most striking ways in which the Jodie Whittaker era of Doctor Who is distinct from its predecessors is through its music. Doctors come and Doctors go, as have companions, nemeses, showrunners, producers, directors, and writers. Yet there has been one constant throughout the eras of the ninth, tenth, eleventh and twelfth Doctors: Murray Gold, the composer for every story in the live-action television show since its revival in 2005 until Peter Capaldi’s final adventure in 2017. The only other composer in the show’s history with a comparable run to Murray Gold is Dudley Simpson. It is difficult to summarize concisely the scores for ten series and multiple ‘specials’ but Gold’s music, with strong melodic writing and a frequently joyous fusion of large-scale orchestra, electronics and popular idioms, has been characterized by Matt Hills as ‘Hollywood fantasy-epic’ (2010: 198) with Gold acknowledging the influence of Hollywood composers like Danny Elfman (Bell, 2007), often heightening emotion through emphasizing melodramatic and comic moments. Segun Akinola, Gold’s successor as composer for the televised adventures of the thirteenth Doctor, has brought a fresh perspective to the music of Doctor Who and a set of scores that have explored new possibilities for the show’s music whilst also embracing its rich sonic and musical heritage. Via an original interview with Akinola, which took place on 23 March 2020 following the broadcast of the final episode of series 12, this chapter explores the ‘fantastic’ encounters between past, present, and more diverse musical worlds in the music for series 11 and 12, focusing in particular on Akinola’s arrangements of Ron Grainer’s famous main title theme for Doctor Who. Akinola came to prominence with his music for David Olusoga’s acclaimed documentary series Black and British: A Forgotten History (2016), receiving a BAFTA Breakthrough Brit award the following year. His scores for Doctor Who have revelled in the potential for a system of leitmotifs to advance comprehension of the show’s over-arching narrative and the evolving relationships of the central characters (the Doctor, Ryan, Graham, and Yaz), which furthers Gold’s use of leitmotifs throughout

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his tenure as composer (see Hurst, 2015, for an extended study of the use of leitmotifs in Gold’s music). But although fulsome in his praise for Gold’s work – which, for Akinola, ‘changed British TV music in a way’ – Akinola has also taken inspiration from the close involvement of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop with the ‘classic’ eras of Doctor Who, a partnership that goes back to the origins of the show and the innovations of Delia Derbyshire, Brian Hodgson, and Dick Mills. The long-standing association of the Radiophonic Workshop with Doctor Who was consciously avoided by the initial producers of the revived show, with Gold noting that there ‘was only one type of music they specifically didn’t want, and that was Radiophonic Workshop-style electronic stuff’ (Bell, 2007), although that unease around substantial electronic sounds would ease, particularly in the Peter Capaldi era. Akinola, however, has enthusiastically endorsed the ethos of the Radiophonic Workshop and the freedom to be creative with sound, noting that there is ‘a direct correlation’ between what is perceived to be a modern and contemporary approach to film music in something like Steven Price’s award-winning score for Gravity (2013), which incorporates manipulations of found sound and processed orchestral recordings, and the approach of the Radiophonic Workshop fifty years ago. Having studied the Radiophonic Workshop at school and electroacoustic music at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire, Akinola has integrated his love of melody and thematic development, reminiscent of Murray Gold’s approach, with the spirit of experimentalism and sonic invention that informed the music and sound design of the Radiophonic Workshop, a spirit most audible in his delight in creating his own synths – one of Akinola’s ‘cornerstone sounds’, as he puts it, to make the music for the series sound cohesive is a synth generated from a plucked piano string. For Akinola, this blend is unique to Doctor Who: ‘I can’t think of another series on TV for which one could be quite so traditional in the approach to themes and motif … and yet room to be so experimental’. In this respect, Akinola’s music appears to correspond with Emilie Hurst’s thesis that the music of Doctor Who is ‘emblematic’ of the show’s ‘contradictory tendencies’ that see it ‘continually caught between the tension of the old and the new, the need to repeat and the need to differ’ (2015: 3). Where Akinola is concerned, however, he was actively encouraged by the executive producers, Chris Chibnall and Matt Strevens, to differ from the approach of his predecessor: ‘My remit was simply to bring myself to the series. That was it. Don’t do what’s been done previously … not because it isn’t great, that was great but we were doing something new.’ Akinola’s music has certainly broken new ground for Doctor Who, particularly in his exceptional score for ‘Demons of the Punjab’ informed by research into Hindustani music and a collaboration with musicians of South

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Variations on a theme 29

Asian heritage. In his discussion of the music for science fiction film and TV, Jeremy Barham notes the difficulty for science fiction on screen to escape the ‘romanticizing’ of the genre and ‘society of the spectacle’ in the wake of Star Wars (1977) and its sequels, citing Annette Kuhn’s 1990 vision of a radical form of science fiction cinema that would ‘celebrate and empower the multiplicity of the marginalized, the colonized’ (Barham, 2009: 269). Barham reflects that it ‘remains to be seen’ how the genre might meaningfully take up Kuhn’s call in sound and image (ibid.). Musically, Doctor Who has tended not to answer Kuhn’s call. I have written elsewhere about the overriding Eurocentric nature of the vast majority of the music of Doctor Who, including the show’s post-2005 revival with its emphasis on ‘Western tonality’ and the post-romantic flourishes of the large-scale orchestra being at odds with the show’s potential to travel all of space and time (Butler, 2013). Segun Akinola’s music for Jodie Whittaker’s era has provided the first sustained decentring of that tendency and, in doing so, this chapter argues that Akinola’s music also provides the most extensive engagement with the fantastic premise of Doctor Who through its movement across cultures, eras, and genres. By fantastic, I am referring to Bliss Cua Lim’s definition of the term, in her postcolonial study of the relationship between fantastic cinema and temporality, as a narrative that juxtaposes two (or more) radically different worlds. This encounter with a forked world is registered within the narrative as an experience of limits, whether these be limits of epistemological certainty, cultural transparency, or historical understanding. Because the unfamiliar world most often takes the form of a supernatural realm in which the linear chronological time of clock and calendar does not hold, the fantastic has a propensity to foreground a sense of temporal discrepancy. (Lim, 2009: 28)

For Lim, this juxtaposition of worlds gives the fantastic the potential to destabilize assumptions about the perceived status quo of the reality and society we live in, exposing the imposed and constructed nature of what might otherwise have seemed ‘natural’ institutions and ideologies (Lim’s work focuses on the dominance of homogeneous, linear time). An encounter with the past – typically through the presence of a ghost or, where Doctor Who is concerned, a traveller from another time – can encourage us to think differently about the present and stimulate ‘a radicalized historical consciousness’ that is more aware of ‘the past’s entanglement with immediate concerns’ (Lim, 2009: 160). Akinola’s scores repeatedly generate sonic encounters between different musical worlds and temporalities, travelling in time (e.g. using Baroque string quartet for the seventeenth-century setting of ‘The Witchfinders’ or the evocation of Aaron Copland’s m ­ id-twentieth-century Americana in ‘Rosa’), space (e.g. the use

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of Hindustani music for ‘Demons of the Punjab’ or traditional Irish music in ‘Ascension of the Cybermen’) and genre (e.g. the John Barry or James Bond inspired cues in ‘Spyfall’) and are thus genuinely postcolonial scores, reinforced by Akinola’s perspective as a British-Nigerian composer.

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Regenerating the main title theme Perhaps the most prominent example of different sonic worlds interacting and an encounter with the past is Segun Akinola’s arrangement of the main title theme for Doctor Who. Composed originally by Ron Grainer but realized by Delia Derbyshire at the BBC Radiophonic Workshop with the assistance of Dick Mills, variations of Derbyshire’s arrangement accompanied the opening and closing of televised Doctor Who from 1963 until 1980. The theme tune has been arranged subsequently by Peter Howell ­(1980–85), Dominic Glynn (1986), Keff McCulloch (1987–89), and John Debney (1996) followed by a series of different arrangements by Murray Gold across 2005–17. It is the Derbyshire arrangement, however, that remains the most celebrated and has had a major impact on the British public’s awareness and understanding of electronic music. Combining electronically generated sound, through various oscillators and white noise, with tape manipulation of recorded sound informed by Derbyshire’s expertise with musique concrète techniques, the arrangement is, as Murray Gold puts it, a complete ‘piece of electronic art’ (Bell, 2007), fusing popular culture – in the form of a prime-time family adventure series and theme tune with a clear melody and propulsive bassline (released by Decca as a commercial record in 1964) – and methods of creating music more familiar at the time to experimental and avant-garde composers such as Pierre Schaeffer and Karlheinz Stockhausen. Akinola’s arrangement combines tradition and innovation by repurposing elements of Derbyshire’s editions, applying some of the principles of sonic invention practised by Derbyshire and her Radiophonic Workshop colleagues but also introducing techniques not heard in previous interpretations of Grainer’s composition. This decision to use elements of Derbyshire’s arrangements came from both Akinola and Chris Chibnall. Akinola had already composed the themes for the main characters, including the thirteenth Doctor’s theme, before he began work on the title music, feeling that it was important to establish the show’s overall soundworld first so that the main theme arrangement could be more integrated with that core approach. When the time came to work on the main title theme, Mark Ayres, composer and archivist of the Radiophonic Workshop, supplied Akinola with digital copies of the isolated components of Derbyshire’s

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Variations on a theme 31

arrangements as he had done for Murray Gold when the show was revived in 2005. Gold’s initial arrangement incorporated Derbyshire’s version of the central melody, the bassline and ‘scream’ that ran into the 1970s closing  titles alongside grandiose orchestral embellishments and driving timpani that became more prominent in later Gold mixes as the Derbyshire elements were gradually phased out. The tone of Akinola’s arrangement is more mysterious, in keeping with the original, darker and pared back, now emphasizing electronica. This is not a straightforward, nostalgic sampling of Derbyshire’s material, as tended to be the case with Gold’s iterations of the theme tune in his first four series, but a genuine engagement with the show’s Radiophonic roots and methods rather than pastiche. Akinola processes found sound (i.e. the isolated elements from Derbyshire’s arrangements) through similar approaches to sonic manipulation: stretching, pitch-shifting, filtering, and looping sounds and pre-existing recordings of music just as Derbyshire had done with her work for productions like Amor Dei (1964) and Tutankhamun’s Egypt (1972), both of which transform recordings of music. The arrangement thus creates a strong sense of continuum between past and present and kinship between Derbyshire and Akinola due to their shared methodology as well as shared sounds. As Akinola explains: Other than the actual melody, every other sound you don’t hear it in its original form – so I’ve messed around with it a lot, I’ve really done all sorts of things to it! Other than the main melody, which I’ve done less to, to kind of retain a sense of cohesion and obviously a link to the past as well. … It was a daunting task but at some point you have to just let go of the fact that it’s Doctor Who and just play around with it and try and come up with something that’s your own, so that’s what I tried to do.

These links to the past – some more recognizable than others – give Akinola’s arrangement of the Doctor Who theme a potent hauntological dimension. Sound is particularly effective at creating a sense of being haunted, especially through the use of samples, traces and resonances of recordings from the past – perhaps with certain frequencies filtered out or reverb added to create a tension around sonic absence and presence, all of which applies to Akinola’s treatment and transformation of the elements from Derbyshire’s arrangement. As Mark Fisher has identified, music is at the core of hauntology, a concept introduced by Jacques Derrida in his book Spectres of Marx (1993), which emphasizes anachronism and the return or persistence of elements of the past (Fisher, 2012: 16), with key exponents being artists like the Caretaker and the Ghost Box label. There is something inherently hauntological about tape-based music and musique concrète, due to its construction from ‘found sounds’ and recordings, which

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might be augmented (filtered, sped up, reversed, pitch-shifted), spliced apart then rearranged, so that the resonances of an object are transformed, perhaps beyond recognition, but still present all the same. If the use and transformation of Derbyshire’s elements creates a dialogue and continuum with the past then the most overt innovation of Akinola’s arrangement is the bass drop, which occurs as the title theme’s traditionally relentless and insistent bassline plunges and forward momentum is suspended, just prior to the statement of the melody. It’s a remarkable moment within the arrangement, distinct from any of its predecessors. The introduction of the bass drop connects the theme tune to developments in contemporary electronic dance music (EDM) and DJ culture which, as Ragnhild Torvanger Solberg has charted, ‘expanded post-2010 in newer EDM genres such as dubstep, trap and electro-house’ (2014: 65). Akinola has acknowledged that the bass drop is the aspect he gets asked about most and yet it was not something that was radical for him: It’s just a normal part of music and writing for me. … The bass drop is about a world opening up because you get this first part of it and the point is that world – that musical world – then opens up at the end of that bass drop and that’s what it’s there to do. … In Delia’s version it’s one octave higher but in mine I dropped it all and did lots of other things to it to make it more aggressive, for want of a better word!   Making it … full throttle and being big and wide and cinematic … and a bit more ‘this is new and different but it’s also old and celebrating everything that has come before as well’. So there’s something of maybe making people comfortable that there is a clear lineage to the past but also slightly uncomfortable because we’re going to take them in new directions.

Fisher’s suggestion that ‘Haunting can be seen as intrinsically resistant to the contraction and homogenization of time and space’ (2012: 19) corresponds with Lim’s thesis about the fantastic possessing the potential to disrupt the dominance of homogeneous time, which has been so integral to the expansion of imperialist powers and their possession, control, and assimilation of other territories and cultures, by drawing attention to the existence and persistence of other ways of being and experiencing time and reality. For Fisher, haunting happens ‘when a place is stained by time, or when a particular place becomes the site for an encounter with broken time’ (2012: 19). Akinola’s inclusion of the bass drop furthers this sense of the theme tune disrupting the dominant perception of linear, homogeneous time (the hissing rhythm in Derbyshire’s arrangement, generated by filtered bursts of reversed white noise, also conveys a sense of time being manipulated). It’s a perfect evocation of the core premise of Doctor Who as a show about time travel – the forward thrust of time can be suspended and



Variations on a theme 33

the articulations of Derbyshire’s earlier arrangement enable the past to be revisited and play out again in alternative configurations – engineering and manipulating time is thus integral to Akinola’s temporally heterogeneous arrangement.

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Materialising culture: arrangements, themes, and leitmotifs There is a far more radical arrangement of the theme tune, however, in Akinola’s music for the closing credits of ‘Demons of the Punjab’, the sixth episode of series 11, written by Vinay Patel. The story takes place on the eve of the Partition of British India in August 1947. At home in Sheffield 2018, Yaz, a second-generation British South Asian, receives a broken watch as an heirloom from her grandmother, Umbreen, who refuses to tell the story behind the watch (‘I don’t want to talk about it any more’). Yaz pleads with the Doctor to take her back in time so that she can meet her grandmother when she was younger and learn more about her past, suggesting a destination of Lahore in the 1950s. Instead, the TARDIS lands in a rural part of the Punjab in 1947 just prior to Umbreen’s wedding to Prem, a man Yaz has no knowledge of and does not recognize as her grandfather. Prem’s younger brother, Manish, a Hindu nationalist, betrays Prem and Umbreen, in an attempt to prevent his brother marrying a Muslim. These events are observed intermittently by two unsettling and seemingly silent presences from the planet Thijar. Formerly a species of telepathic assassins, the two Thijarians are the last of their race, following the destruction of their planet, now committed to travelling across time and space in order to bear witness and honour those who would die alone. As that overview indicates, Patel’s script is rich with metaphors and explicit statements about silence, untold stories, and forgotten or unknown histories as well as the impact of witnessing traumatic events. Silence has been a widespread and enduring response to Partition, both within South Asian nations and the South Asian diaspora. In her study of the response of Bombay cinema to Partition, Srijana Mitra Das concludes that ‘cinematic Punjabiyat … began and continues to be dominated by a significant silence stemming from self-censorship of Partition as experienced in Punjab’ (2006: 468). Gita Viswanath and Salma Malik, addressing both Indian and Pakistani popular cinema, also identify a tendency towards silence and subtext among Hindi filmmakers and note that it has only really been ‘from 2000 onwards that partition was directly confronted in the domain of mainstream cinema’ (Viswanath and Malik, 2009: 63). Similarly, Kavita Puri, whose 2017 BBC Radio 4 series Partition Voices was part of a long-overdue increase in British public discourse about the Partition, has

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observed that ‘so many of the survivors who now live in Britain have kept quiet for decades about their experiences. They are only beginning to speak about what they witnessed seventy years ago’ (2019: 4). That silence is not surprising given the extent of the trauma of Partition. As Das summarizes, in the space of two months, over twelve million people switched between the two newly independent countries. … Nearly 1,000,000 people died, including hundreds who took their own and their (usually female) relations’ lives rather than undergo violation, capture and/or killing by those of another faith. Property, honour, values, lives and even a basic trust in humanity were all lost. Crucially, so too was ‘memory’. Even some 50 years after 1947, researchers confronted silence from victims and their families while attempting to unearth experiences of Partition. (Das, 2006: 456)

The Partition is challenging material for any television programme to explore, not least a prime-time TV adventure series like Doctor Who, although not without some precedent in the show’s history with the 1966 William Hartnell story ‘The Massacre’ addressing the religious violence between Catholics and Protestants in sixteenth-century France. Unlike ‘The Massacre’, however, ‘Demons of the Punjab’ focuses on an epochal event that is still in living memory and impacts on the lives of millions of people today. Puri argues that ‘It is impossible to grasp the make-up of contemporary Britain without understanding Britain’s place in India leading up to 1947, and how it extracted itself’ (2019: 4). ‘Demons of the Punjab’ thus exemplifies Lim’s argument about the temporally heterogeneous nature of the fantastic helping to stimulate an enhanced historical understanding of ‘the past’s entanglement with immediate concerns’. That significance is heightened within the context of British TV drama and Doctor Who in particular, which continues to be made from a primarily white perspective. In her much-needed collection Doctor Who and Race (2013), Lindy Orthia notes how ‘it was only in the last few years [of the original 1963–89 production of Doctor Who] that black and Asian actors were given prominent roles […] on anything like a routine basis’ (2013: p. 3) but the instances of black or Asian writers and directors contributing to the show have been even less frequent. Prior to series 11 and Vinay Patel’s script for ‘Demons of the Punjab’ and Malorie Blackman’s script for ‘Rosa’, every Doctor Who story from 1963 until 2017 was written by a white writer and scored by a white composer. Akinola’s approach to the score for ‘Demons of the Punjab’ recognizes the story’s significance and the need for the music to correspond with the socio-cultural and historical specificity of the episode’s principal setting. Having already studied Indian classical music and ragas, Akinola conducted substantial research into Hindustani music as well as consulting with the



Variations on a theme 35

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episode’s writer, Vinay Patel (‘I didn’t just want the facts, I wanted the subjective “what does it feel like” of parents who had gone through it’). This extended research and development process is extremely unusual for an episodic TV series like Doctor Who where the logistics of TV production mean that there is, typically, an intense schedule and turnover between episodes. For Akinola, however, the score had to be accurate and authentic: For me it is so, so, so important to respect other cultures musically. I would say I’m 100 per cent British and 100 per cent Nigerian … I think that gives me a unique approach to music from other cultures. When a film like Black Panther [2018] comes out it’s always a bit like ‘what’s it going to be ­musically?’ … For me, it is the epitome of a Hollywood score with not just influences from another culture but really based upon music from another culture done not the right way but the best possible way. I have so much respect for Ludwig [Göransson, the score’s composer] – he went to Africa for, I think, a month and a half of his life and researched and recorded. The amazing thing for me about that is that it’s not his culture … and rather than saying ‘only a few people will notice if this isn’t right’ he’s going to the lengths of saying ‘one person noticing that it’s wrong is just too many’. So he’s making sure that it is absolutely right. For me, watching Black Panther it was a feeling of ‘oh my gosh, someone has taken care of African culture so well, and looked after it, celebrated it but also pushed it on with … a Hollywood approach’. Now my job is to do the same thing for anyone, particularly of South Asian descent – but specifically of Indian descent – to feel the same way. That’s the standard – that is the bar – and it’s an extremely high bar – and I’m going to have to do so much work but that’s the only way that I can do it because it’s just so important to me that they feel that way.

That commitment to accuracy and research is rare in compositional practice within the dominant screen industries. Mainstream fiction films often fall back on crude and essentialist musical signifiers as a quick and efficient means of establishing where and when a scene is taking place (e.g. bagpipes for Scotland). These signifiers can be wildly inaccurate and generalized (Bernard Herrmann’s use of the Javanese pelog scale in his score for The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad (1958) brings a fantasy exoticism to an adventure set in Baghdad and, one assumes, islands in the Arabian Sea) and can take place in an otherwise progressive film. The 2005 geo­ political thriller Syriana is admirable in being one of the first Hollywood films post-9/11 to critique US foreign policy in the Middle East but tellingly still makes an astonishing cultural blunder around music when a scene set in the Shia sector of Beirut uses a Sunni Muslim call to prayer from Jordan as a source cue. The Lebanese filmmakers, Rana Eid and Nadim Mishlawi, have discussed how this brief moment of inaccurate source music underlines the perception that the ‘West’ does not really understand the situation

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in the Middle East and the diversity of Muslim people and culture (2015). The equivalence of Sunni and Shia prayer calls betrays an Orientalist assumption that Middle Eastern Muslims are one homogeneous mass who all sing and listen to the same songs. The choice of music can thus reveal much about where a film or TV show’s sympathies and biases are to be found, whether conscious or unconscious, including the ideological beliefs of the characters, the people making the film or show and the principal audience in mind. Ella Shohat and Robert Stam note how John Barry’s sweeping score for Out of Africa (1985) and its ‘choice of European symphonic music tell us that [the] emotional “heart” [of the film] is in the West’ (1994: 209) despite the Kenyan setting. For Shohat and Stam, ‘Music is crucial for spectatorial identification. … In whose favour [does this process] operate? What is the emotional tonality of the music, and with what character or group does it lead us to identify?’ (ibid.). Akinola is acutely aware of these pitfalls, and his score for ‘Demons of the Punjab’ excels in avoiding them: The last thing I wanted to do was use a sitar and then play a Western scale on it – it had to be authentic. … You have to have supportive people as well who are willing to go on a journey – ‘we’re going to do this and get this musician in and it’s going to be wonderful’ – but I think you also have to fight for it a bit in the most polite and diplomatic way! A lot of people just don’t think about it and they don’t care, for others they just don’t think in that way. I’m in quite a unique position – having the background that I do means that I care so much when people take care of anything to do with my African heritage really well, I love it. So I have such a high standard if we’re doing anything with another culture, another country. One thing I avoid doing is anything gimmicky – ‘oh look we’re in the Middle East let’s just make it sound a bit Middle Eastern’. I don’t know what that is. Are we in Bahrain? Are we in Oman? And if we are, I don’t want to do something for three seconds – let’s really do something that is accurate and authentic – it’s so important to me that I take that with me wherever I go. It has to be something that is important to you to get the detail right. … It’s not straightforward or easy – in series 12 in episode 9 – there’s all the stuff in Ireland and that was quite hard as I  really  didn’t have much time to research Irish music but I felt it was important to do so … it has to be right and fortunately I was able to get there in the time [with the County Clare style of playing being a particular influence]. So it applies to all sorts of areas and all sorts of places but, again, it’s about doing it for that one person who really will notice and a richer experience even for people who don’t. But I think it’s something you have to dedicate time to, to try and get right.

A crucial part of that process of ‘trying to get it right’ with the score for ‘Demons of the Punjab’ is the involvement of musicians from South

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Variations on a theme 37

Asia or South Asian heritage with expertise in North Indian music: Shahid Abbas Khan on vocals, Surjeet Singh on sarangi, and Kuljit Bhamra on tabla. The score integrates the performances of Khan, Singh, and Bhamra with ambient synths (primarily Akinola’s aforementioned ‘cornerstone’ Doctor Who sound) and writing for strings performed by the Chamber Orchestra of London. Akinola’s approach thus results in an intercultural, hybrid score. Referring to Homi Bhabha, Janet Staiger sees an authentic cross-cultural hybrid as being an encounter between two or more languages and one where ‘To recognise a hybrid forces the dominant culture to look back at itself and see its presumption of universality’ (2000: 72). That recognition is most evident in Akinola’s suggestion to replace his regular arrangement of the Doctor Who theme and recommend closing ‘Demons of the Punjab’ with a unique arrangement which foregrounded Shahid Abbas Khan singing Grainer’s melody: We had this narrative problem where we couldn’t just go slamming into the end credits and so then having to do this other version of the theme – it could’ve gone a few different ways so it wasn’t necessarily going to be the vocalist doing the main theme – it was a case of just working with the players to get the best out of it and then choose the best bits to go into it.

Rather than South Asian cultures being absorbed into the soundworld of Doctor Who (as is more the case with a cue like ‘Hanging on the Tablaphone’ from Murray Gold’s score for ‘The Stolen Earth’ (2008)) ‘Demons of the Punjab’ conveys more a sense, especially in the closing credits, of Doctor Who recognizing and acceding to the traditions, idioms, and cultural authority of South Asian music instead. The collaborative nature of the development of this new arrangement of the Doctor Who theme between Akinola, Khan, Singh, and Bhamra is an example of what Marcus Cheng Chye Tan, drawing on Erika Fischer-Lichte’s argument about interweaving performance cultures, identifies as a process that does not contribute to homogenization but rather enhances diversification (2012: 212–13). In an episode concerned with the silencing of voices affected by the Partition and the need for those voices and stories to be heard, Akinola’s recommendation to leave the final musical statement to the voice of Shahid Abbas Khan, an exponent of music from the region featured in ‘Demons of the Punjab’, takes on a profound added resonance. In focusing on the theme tune, this chapter has not been able to address Akinola’s intricate development of leitmotifs for the central characters of the thirteenth Doctor, Ryan, Yaz, and Graham as well as their shared ‘team theme’ but, in these closing moments, a brief consideration of his approach  to scoring the thirteenth Doctor would be fitting. Akinola’s theme for the thirteenth Doctor is intended to convey ‘heroism, joy,

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warmth, and hope’. The theme’s heroism is established instantly with its opening leaps (evocative of John Williams’s motif for Luke Skywalker/the main title theme for Star Wars) and furthered in some of its key iterations by the use of French horn and Hollie Buhagiar’s wordless vocals that, for Akinola, convey ‘a lot of attitude’ and contemporary pop influence for a character ‘who is fierce and not to be messed with but is also lovely and warm as well’. Akinola has also resurrected an earlier tradition from the ‘classic’ era, instigated by Dudley Simpson for the Doctor’s regeneration in ‘Planet of the Spiders’ (1974) and first appearance in his trademark scarf and hat in ‘Robot’ (1974), to affirm the Doctor’s authenticity by incorporating the main title theme within a score for key moments in the Doctor’s life (her first appearance in ‘The Woman Who Fell to Earth’ and her mental discharge of the memories of her past incarnations in ‘The Timeless Children’). As Akinola explains, ‘It’s not then “oh here’s the thirteenth Doctor”, it’s the Doctor – that’s it – end of discussion. … There is a connection to the past and the present and the future and the history of the show.’ Yet Akinola has also demonstrated sensitive judgement over when the Doctor’s presence should not be foregrounded. The Doctor’s theme is notably absent from the score for ‘Rosa’, guarding against the Doctor potentially appearing as a ‘white saviour’ figure in a story focusing on the African American civil rights activist Rosa Parks and her momentous refusal to give up her seat to a white passenger on a Montgomery bus in 1955. The ‘team theme’ is heard at various points and Yaz’s theme plays as she and Ryan discuss the racism at home in the UK but the Doctor is sonically silent in the score. Instead, Akinola’s score emphasizes a new heroic motif, for Rosa Parks. Played primarily on solo trumpet with a disjunct melodic leap in its initial phrase, Rosa’s theme is in the ‘open’ Americana style that Aaron Copland developed in the 1940s as a response to the Great Depression and connecting with wider audiences (in pieces such as Lincoln Portrait (1942) and, most famously, Fanfare for the Common Man (1943)). The rejection of elitism in Copland’s music of this era and its connection with notions of the heroism of ‘common’ people are potent intertextual associations for Akinola’s score in emphasizing Rosa Parks’s status as an American hero.

Conclusion: sound persisting through space and time That openness and awareness of the past in the score for ‘Rosa’ runs across Akinola’s writing for Doctor Who, whether orchestral or electronic, and not just obvious ‘historical’ episodes like ‘Demons of the Punjab’. The decision to create a new synth out of the sound of the extractor fan in

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Akinola’s kitchen is an inspired one for ‘Orphan 55’ and its portrayal of a toxic future Earth ravaged by global warming: the score for ‘Orphan 55’ is haunted by the manipulated sound of processed air and machinery from our post-industrial present, a sonic ghost of what humans once were. By making more use of ambient electronics and electroacoustic sounds, often spatialised so that they are distant or reverberant in the mix, there is an added sense of sound persisting through time with prominent examples including ‘The Haunting of Villa Diodati’. The extensive use of multiple leitmotifs that recur throughout both series also has a temporal dimension. The musico-dramatic impact of variations in the motifs’ different iterations is dependent on one’s memory of their ‘typical’ form and application (e.g. the sombre minor key rendition in the strings of the Doctor’s theme, as she takes in the sight of Gallifrey in ruins at the end of ‘Spyfall’, provides a ‘voice’ for the Doctor, who is otherwise silent in the scene, at odds with the theme’s characteristic confident steps and leaps). Yet although these scores are often haunted by and respectful of the past they are not in thrall to it. Asked how he hopes the music of Doctor Who will continue to develop, Akinola’s response reiterates his commitment to finding new approaches: The important thing for me … is that the music gets better, hopefully, and that it keeps being bold … that was the remit when I came on. … Push at the seams. … And the series can take it and I would argue that the series demands it as well because it really does go to all of these wonderful places so, for me, the important thing is not necessarily that it needs to be bigger and better but … to keep making brave decisions – that maybe people wouldn’t have expected but seem right for the story that’s being told. And to keep pushing forward, not looking back. I wouldn’t want to be able to just take a cue from series 11 and then just slot it into series 12 because I really want 12 to be its own thing whilst also being connected. To be distinctive in wherever the story’s going. … That would be what I hope for each and every series of the music for Doctor Who.

Akinola’s openness to different musical cultures stems from the diverse soundworlds he encountered in his formative years at home and school, taking in church music, rock, big band, symphony orchestra, and musicals, with his studies ranging from Indian ragas and Pat Metheny to the Radiophonic Workshop and traditions of film music. Those principles around cultural and temporal diversity have contributed to Segun Akinola’s music for Doctor Who being not just remarkable within the programme’s 57-year history but significant within the prevailing tendencies in compositional practice for the dominant Anglophone screen industries and a model for practitioners in the future.

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Acknowledgements This chapter is indebted to the help of Jade Akinola, Segun Akinola, Mark Ayres, and Joyce White.

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References Akinola, S. (2020). Zoom interview with D. Butler, 23 March. Barham, J. (2009). ‘Scoring Incredible Futures: Science-Fiction Screen Music, and “Postmodernism” as Romantic Epiphany’, The Musical Quarterly, 91 (3–4), pp. 240–74. Bell, M. (2007). ‘Murray Gold: Composing for Doctor Who’, Sound On Sound (June), www.soundonsound.com/people/murray-gold-composing-doctor-who (accessed 3 July 2020). Butler, D. (2013). ‘A Good Score Goes to War: Multiculturalism, Monsters and Music in New Doctor Who’, in M. Hills (ed.), New Dimensions of Doctor Who: Adventures in Space, Time and Television. London: I. B. Tauris, pp. 19–38. Das, S. M. (2006). ‘Partition and Punjabiyat in Bombay Cinema: The Cinematic Perspectives of Yash Chopra and Others’, Contemporary South Asia, 15 (4), pp. 453–71. Eid, R. and N. Mishlawi (2015). The Soundscape of Conflict. Talk at the School of Sound, Purcell Room, London, 10 April. Fisher, M. (2012). ‘What Is Hauntology?’, Film Quarterly, 66 (1), pp. 16–24. Hills, M. (2010). Triumph of a Time Lord: Regenerating Doctor Who in the Twenty-First Century. London: I. B. Tauris. Hurst, E. (2015). Adventures in Time and Sound: Leitmotif and Repetition in Doctor Who. MA Thesis, Carleton University, Ottawa, Ontario. Lim, B. C. (2009). Translating Time: Cinema, the Fantastic, and Temporal Critique. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Orthia, L. (2013). ‘Introduction’, in L. Orthia (ed.), Doctor Who and Race. Bristol and Chicago: Intellect, pp. 1–12. Puri, K. (2019). Partition Voices: Untold British Stories. London: Bloomsbury. Shohat, E. and R. Stam (1994). Unthinking Eurocentrism: Multiculturalism and the Media. London: Routledge. Solberg, R. T. (2014). ‘“Waiting for the Bass to Drop”: Correlations between Intense Emotional Experiences and Production Techniques in Build-up and Drop Sections of Electronic Dance Music’, Dancecult: Journal of Electronic Dance Music Culture, 6 (1), pp. 61–82. Staiger, J. (2000). Perverse Spectators: The Practices of Film Reception. New York and London: New York University Press. Tan, M. C. C. (2012). Acoustic Interculturalism: Listening to Performance. Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Viswanath, G. and S. Malik (2009). ‘Revisiting 1947 through Popular Cinema: A Comparative Study of India and Pakistan’, Economic and Political Weekly, 44 (36), pp. 61–69.

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‘She is wise and unafraid’: writing the first female Doctor and a diverse universe for her to protect Rosanne Welch Chris Chibnall faced many challenges as both a screenwriter and a showrunner in introducing Jodie Whittaker as the thirteenth Doctor. Nevertheless, he forged a strong female voice for the show while avoiding the pop-cultural pitfalls of the strong female lead (Reilly, 2020). Several factors contributed to this success: he had a track record of writing for and showrunning programmes rich with strong female characters such as Torchwood (2006–11) and Broadchurch (2013–17); those experiences helped him focus the screenwriting tools of dialogue and action (sometimes more controversial for female authority figures) to form this new strong female character; and he respectfully managed the emotionality of Jodie Whittaker’s Doctor, creating a persona that could take charge against major, often male, v­ illains. Chibnall used the screenwriting tools at his disposal, but at the same time Doctor Who’s production in this new era was shaped by a ‘group of individuals who, collectively, … [were] responsible for developing the screen idea’ in terms of breaking stories (Macdonald, 2013: 72). By inviting in new writers of various backgrounds, showrunner Chibnall creatively utilized this process. One of the story challenges stemming from creating a time-travelling female Doctor was that Chibnall would be sending a female lead character into historical eras where the Doctor’s brash authority might be hard for locals to accept from a woman. However, Chibnall managed to give this Doctor an emotional core without resorting to stories that were reliant on companion relationships (à la the tenth Doctor and Rose); this was achieved by moving away from the loner or male saviour trope in favour of a feminized team approach to leadership. Chibnall further kept the female gaze (contra Mulvey 1975 on the ‘male gaze’) sharply focused by making sure to flip the gender of many of the other characters this new Doctor ­encountered. Where earlier Doctors worked or matched wits with male ­scientists, terrorists, historical figures, and aliens, Chibnall’s incarnation met female scientists, soldiers, and sorcerers. Finally, Chibnall did not stop with issues of gender. By creating companions of African and

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­ akistani-Muslim descent, he opened up stories about topics that had not P been as prominent in past Who. Making these choices enabled Chibnall to tackle three sensitive ­subjects – gender, race, and religion. My case studies begin with ‘The Woman Who Fell to Earth’, written by Chibnall, and include other sole-authored episodes as well as those co-­written or singularly written by other writers under his guidance as showrunner. Particular attention will be paid to ‘The Witchfinders’ (by Joy Wilkinson); ‘Rosa’ (co-written by Chris Chibnall and Malorie Blackman); and ‘Demons of the Punjab’ (by Vinay Patel). And I will draw on series 12 examples from ‘Spyfall’, ‘Fugitive of the Judoon’ (co-written by Vinay Patel), ‘The Haunting of Villa Diodati’ (by Maxine Alderton) and the two-part series 12 finale ‘Ascension of the Cybermen’ and ‘The Timeless Children’, both written by Chibnall. These episodes highlight Chris Chibnall’s handling of issues of race and gender and illustrate his continued interest in tackling female-centric stories. Screenwriting studies will be considered, to establish a stronger sense of the showrunner role versus specific scriptwriters. But I will also be writing from a practice-based position, having taken part myself in several writers’ rooms as stories were being broken. From the moment the BBC announced that this new showrunner had decided to create a female Doctor, there were questions about how, exactly, this would work. Writers of time travel stories often struggle with how the types of stories they tell need to change depending on which type of character takes the audience into that story. It had happened on Doctor Who in smaller ways in earlier eras, including the handling of how the first companion of African descent, Martha Jones, would travel to times and places where people of colour were mistreated – be it Shakespearean London or a school for boys in Farringham in 1913. Chibnall would now be taking a female hero into eras where females had no power or standing in society, which could potentially hobble his ability to let the Doctor be taken seriously by other characters. While facing this challenge, Chibnall also confronted other writing landmines. One of the difficulties when crafting a female hero is to make sure that supporting male characters around her don’t lose a sense of charismatic masculinity. The successful management of this can be seen in Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997–2003), created by Joss Whedon, the recent film reimagining of Wonder Woman (2017), written by Allan Heinberg, and even in the original TV spinoff of The Six Million Dollar Man (1973–78), The Bionic Woman (1976–78), created by Kenny Johnson. Each involved investing male co-leads or supporting characters with enough confidence and sensitivity to render them capable of watching the female lead save the day every time, while they merely acted as facilitators or foils. This includes both Angel and Riley on Buffy, Steve Trevor of Wonder Woman, and the dynamic duo of Oscar Goldman and Dr Rudy Wells on Bionic Woman.



‘She is wise and unafraid’ 43

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Training matters: towards the female lead A look at Chibnall’s training in TV writing illustrates how he grew into a writer of strong female characters. His first television programme, Born and Bred (2002–5), co-created with Nigel McCrery, focused on a father and son running a cottage hospital under the new National Health Service in a fictional Lancashire village. Though written in the early 2000s, the writers set the show in the 1950s so the doctors’ wives, head nurse, and local pub owner are the major female characters. Lack of creative research left out a female doctor, though census records in Britain in 1951 show women counted for 16 per cent of active medical practitioners (Elston, 1986: 63). Likewise, the next show on which he freelanced, Life on Mars (2006–7), offered a stereotypical female, Annie Cartwright, whom we meet as a lowerlevel Woman Police Constable still in uniform among a group of male plainclothes detectives. Like many female characters, Cartwright serves mostly as a sounding board for the male lead and as his instructor in the ways of the world in which he finds himself. As with many such female supporting characters, Cartwright has no visible family herself, defining her problematically through her support of the protagonist, Sam Tyler. Torchwood turned the tables by making the female police officer or alien investigator the lead and her husband the stay-at-home civilian, though this decision has to be credited to the show creator Russell T Davies. In interviews, Davies has commented on the act of watching TV with friends of various ethnic and gender identities, noting that ‘the real pity is to see how badly women are represented on television’ (Welch, 2011: 28). He configured Torchwood to change that, and Chibnall took the day-to-day showrunning duties. Chibnall helped build Field Agent Gwen Cooper into an independent leader who managed the team while their ostensible leader, Captain Jack Harkness, often found himself the one in need of rescuing. Finally, by creating and writing the majority of the episodes of all three seasons of Broadchurch, Chibnall found the final ingredient that would bring the first female Doctor to life. Actor Jodie Whittaker played Beth Latimer, the mother of a murdered child and friend to one of the investigating detectives, DS Ellie Miller. Both female characters, as written, are strong in the face of ultimate emotional devastation. This definition suits the modern-day Doctor, envisioned by Davies for the reboot of the series as the sole survivor of the Time War that destroyed the Time Lords, and specifically utilized across series 12’s story arc. As Beth Latimer, a mother undergoing powerful grief and loss, Whittaker notably displayed the emotional depth needed to portray the modern Doctor. Casting her became Chibnall’s first distinctive step as the new showrunner, and a further part

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of his professional screenwriting trajectory, travelling from the marked absence of female (medical) Doctors in Born and Bred to the presence of a female (Time Lord) Doctor in Doctor Who. Creating the new female Doctor meant taking very careful consideration over what type of companions would join her in her travels. Here, in terms of allowing the female lead to perform the bulk of the heroics, Chibnall notably gave the otherwise young and vital Ryan a disability, Developmental Co-ordination Disorder (DCD), also known as dyspraxia, a condition affecting physical co-ordination, whilst giving the older Graham both age and a lingering cancer diagnosis to hinder his heroics. Being a police officer in her non-time-travelling life allows Yaz, as the female companion, ostensibly more narrative agency, although it is questionable whether the series has really exploited this possibility. The next showrunner decision came in choosing to change the costumes this new character would wear based on the actions in which she was engaged. In her first full episode, the new Doctor realizes she’s lost her sonic screwdriver but, ‘I could build one. I’m good at building things. Probably.’ While this humorous punchline is clearly calculated, one wonders if even Chibnall knew that it would give birth to the welder cosplays that soon took over Who-cons around the world. Of note, a welding outfit is more often conventionally associated with tough masculinity, as is the grease-monkey gear Whittaker’s Doctor  wears when she works on the TARDIS. Finally, both the Doctor and Yaz were also seen donning tuxedos with trousers in ‘Spyfall’, with the Doctor’s tuxedo, in particular, clearly being intended to emulate James Bond’s style. Male Doctors rarely changed from their iconic outfits, so all these costume choices paired with their matching actions (welding, repairing, high-class spying) help confer on to Whittaker the Doctor’s well-­ established image of expert (masculine) authority. Knowing there were audience members and Internet trolls alike who would laugh at the very notion of a female Doctor, Chibnall had to make sure his new Doctor would retain both the heroism and the humour inherent in the character. That required great showrunner care in selecting both the stories that would introduce this revolutionary change and the storytellers he would hire to help integrate Whittaker’s Doctor into the show’s set-up and history.

Gendered stories matter: ‘The Woman Who Fell to Earth’, ‘The Witchfinders’, ‘Spyfall’, and ‘The Haunting of Villa Diodati’ Chibnall began the female-centric focus of the show by writing ‘The Woman Who Fell to Earth’ himself. This introduction to a new Doctor

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‘She is wise and unafraid’ 45

was not as comedic as Moffat’s introduction of Matt Smith’s Doctor, but Chibnall was dealing with the delicate issue of not wanting anyone to laugh at the existence of a female Doctor. Instead, he leaned towards drama with a hint of levity, adding in as many ‘Easter eggs’ in the form of homages to past Doctors as he could. He wrote this episode in the form of a pilot, as episodes introducing a new Doctor tend to be, which meant he also had to introduce three new companions. While doing this, Chibnall made sure to start with a female focus and keep that focus in the forefront of the story. ‘Woman Who Fell to Earth’ opens on Ryan talking about the most important woman he knows, with the twist that he is speaking not of the Doctor – as we perhaps assume – but, as revealed at the end of the episode, of his grandmother, Grace. (Indeed, this assumption of the Doctor’s centrality is mirrored in the episode title and its relocation of meaning from the Doctor to Grace once again.) From there, we meet Grace’s second husband, Graham, and this loving, older interracial couple try to help Ryan, who has dyspraxia, ride a bike. Ryan tosses the bike over the cliff in anger and when he wanders down to retrieve it, he finds a female cop (reminiscent of Gwen Cooper in Torchwood), Yasmin Khan, who recognizes him from their primary school, quickly establishing a deeper connection. Soon we see Grace and Graham on a train under alien attack. Here the female proves more daring than the male as Grace moves to investigate. Graham asks, ‘What is it?’, a question often reserved for female characters, and nicknamed a ‘dumb lamp’ question by screenwriters (Samuel and Burnett, 2018). Already Chibnall is flipping the roles female characters tend to play in action or science-fiction screenplays. He also has the new Doctor respond to audiences’ imagined reception in a very ‘meta’ way: ‘All of this is new to you and new can be scary’ she says and, later in the episode, ‘I’m not yet who I am.’ Indeed, at this point she is still wearing the costume of Peter Capaldi’s previous Doctor, all in tatters. When this new Doctor makes the dramatic leap required at the story’s denouement, two things are accomplished by Chibnall as writer. He reminds the audience that this Doctor is still adjusting to her new body via the line ‘these legs definitely used to be longer!’, but, more importantly, he explicitly positions this latest incarnation as a continuation of the character’s essence: ‘I know exactly who I am. I’m the Doctor – sorting out fair play throughout the universe.’ Echoes of the audience response are repeated in ‘Fugitive of the Judoon’ as the thirteenth Doctor confesses ‘I’m confused’ when confronted with a previously unknown version of herself, giving voice to likely fan or audience disorientation at this point too. Expanding on the non-violent history of the Doctor, Chibnall has her describe the sonic as a sort of Swiss Army knife, minus the knife, because ‘knives are stupid’. Likewise, when she learns that the newest alien, a

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Stenza  warrior, is using weaponized bio-tech ‘on a hunt’ for humans, then the anti-weapon or anti-hunting underlying theme is strongly in line with Doctor Who’s established identity and lore. Writers know that small moments make a difference, so the fact that throughout the episode the new female characters, Yaz and Grace, do all the driving of vehicles, including the crane, and not the male characters, is likely to be no accident. At the moment Grace kisses Graham before she moves to climb the tower she says, ‘Is it wrong to be enjoying this?’, illustrating just how much she loves adventure. When her risk proves fatal, her final words to Graham are ‘promise me you won’t be scared without me’, inferring that he will be frightened by such a personal loss. This leaves Graham alone to teach Ryan to ride the bike, then wait for his dad to come to the funeral. The Doctor attends, respectful of the emotional loss her new friend has experienced, while Graham eulogizes his lost wife, saying ‘Grace was a better person than I could ever be’. The episode thus emphasizes human rather than alien female bravery, allowing a male character to admit this about his female partner, and resonating with Ryan’s video description of Grace as the ‘greatest woman I ever met’. While the Doctor now presenting in female form served as the focus of Chibnall’s pilot episode, the freelance writer Joy Wilkinson resurrected the issue in ‘The Witchfinders’. While Chibnall did not share writing credits, his position as showrunner means he would have had all final decisions on story and execution, beginning with hiring Wilkinson. This choice seems based not only on his wish to hire more female writers but also on the previous historical subjects she had tackled in her work as a playwright. In The Sweet Science of Bruising (2018) Wilkinson explored the world of underground women’s boxing in mid-nineteenth-century London with a lead character hoping to be England’s first female medical doctor, and Best Recruiting Sergeant (2015) told the true story of a twentieth-century male impersonator who, during the Great War, lured hundreds of young men into signing up to fight in the trenches. Showrunner and freelancer addressed the issue of a female Time Lord landing where and when human females possessed little agency in ‘The Witchfinders’. Here, the female Doctor ends up in a witch trial in ­seventeenth-century Lancashire. The TARDIS crew finds a town celebrating the end of a trial held by Mistress Becca Savage who fears that ‘Satan stalks this land’. On this day, the character of Mother Twiston sits on the ducking stool. Rather than allowing a drowning, the Doctor heroically dives in to save this latest victim – only to find Mother Twiston’s body has disappeared. When she is questioned as to her identity, the Doctor boldly proclaims, ‘I’ll tell you who I am’. This is surely the ‘meta’ voice of the showrunner-screenwriter again reminding the audience that Jodie Whittaker is our new Doctor. Then she proffers the psychic paper which

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‘She is wise and unafraid’ 47

reports that the Doctor is in fact the ‘Witchfinder General’, something that amazes Savage: ‘It’s very difficult in these times, especially for a woman.’ Shining a light on the time travellers’ classic dilemma, King James notes that their odd garments indicate they must be actors. Again the psychic paper comes out, but this time a man steeped in the culture of patriarchy can only see that the elder male among them, Graham, must be the Witchfinder General. The female Doctor must only be his assistant, helping by ‘using … innate talents of gossip and snooping’. Our female Doctor will have none of that, defining what she does as ‘investigating’, pushing the audience to think about how negative words often describe the actions of women while positive ones describe men’s actions. Later the Doctor expounds on this idea: ‘these are hard times for women. If we’re not being drowned we’re being patronized to death’. We soon learn that Mother Twiston was a medicine woman and cousin to Mistress Savage, who herself ‘married up’ to own land and become patriarchally anti-witch. Soon Savage suspects the Doctor of being a witch as well to which the Doctor replies, ‘Honestly if I were still a bloke I could get on with this without having to defend myself.’ One wonders if that sentiment is also shared by Chibnall and Wilkinson, because, if the new Doctor were a man, such exchanges would not be necessary. When danger looms for her companions, language again becomes an interesting point. Rather than order ‘Run!’, as every other recent Doctor has done – from Eccleston in ‘Rose’ (2005) through to Capaldi in ‘Kill the Moon’ (2014) – this female Doctor shouts ‘Everybody out of here. Get away from here!’ Again, vocabulary proves worth analysing. This female Doctor does not yell the iconic ‘Run!’ because ‘run’ would simply be an order. By instead telling everyone to make themselves safe while she faces off against the monster of the week, this female Doctor performs a gendered linguistic act of protection, placing herself between the narrative threat and her human companions. Chibnall has this Doctor make that same choice again and again, up to ‘Ascension of the Cybermen’, when she demands her companions go off with the last remaining humans on the planet while she baits the Cybermen. In ‘The Timeless Children’, Yaz yells ‘Run!’, but not the Doctor, who again heads off to act as a final line of defence between the Master’s scheming and her companions. Relatedly, a new phrase has crept into the Doctor’s vocabulary, as language frames how she and her companions work together. This Doctor typically utilizes a culturally feminized leadership style, claiming that the TARDIS crew operate with ‘a very flat team structure’. It is a term Graham repeats as he gives the Doctor back the witchfinder hat, emphasizing her as leader of their team. When telling her companions that it’s time to investigate something, this female Doctor gestures ‘with me’. It’s not a phrase that characterizes any other Doctor, being an order borrowed from the military

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or the police. ‘With me’ gives the female Doctor another level of gravitas while perhaps being a discursive leftover from Chibnall’s previous work on the cop show Law & Order: UK (2009–14). Language connotes personality and in ‘Witchfinders’ Wilkinson writes the Doctor as swaggering much like Steven Moffat’s Matt Smith version. With her companions safe, the Doctor faces interrogation tied to a tree but declares, ‘If I was Satan’s agent do you seriously think a bit of rope would stop me?’ Yet this Doctor also voices the type of emotional strength and perceptiveness generally credited to women. When Mistress Savage expresses surprise that the Doctor knows details of her early life, she responds: ‘I know because we’re all the same … The secrets of ­existence start with the mysteries of the heart.’ Still frightened, Savage has the Doctor tied to the ducking stool but the Doctor speaks like a defiant feminist: ‘the ducking stool was invented to silence women who talk too much’. As expected, the Doctor escapes and soon saves the day. When Yaz asks Mother Twiston’s granddaughter Willa what she will do now as the episode ends, Willa replies: ‘Find a new home. Take Granny’s potions and be a healer. Be a doctor.’ Her nod to the Doctor on the last word provides a solid example of women inspiring women, and a concluding emphasis on female agency. If the audience had any qualms about the showrunner/writer choices Chibnall made in Whittaker’s first series, he maintained a focus of female agency in the two-part series 12 premiere, ‘Spyfall’. Chibnall knows that narrative moments matter, so he opens on a female soldier in action. Then, when we re-meet the Doctor, she presents as the female mechanic of the TARDIS ‘fixing the rainforest floor’. She is soon seen in a Mission Impossible-style action sequence, and when MI6 men come to find the Doctor they assume Graham must be the new regeneration (echoing King James in ‘Witchfinders’). When he points back to the real Doctor, the MI6 head says, ‘Don’t be ridiculous … the Doctor is a man’, and she smilingly replies, ‘I’ve had an upgrade’. In ‘Spyfall, Part Two’ the Doctor is thrown back in time and meets Ada Lovelace, recognized as one of the first computer programmers, and Noor Inayat Khan, the first female wireless operator dropped between enemy lines in Paris in the Second World War. Together these three women commence saving the world. Along the way, other females keep assisting this new female Doctor, or standing up to save male characters, as Mary Shelley does for an endangered Percy Shelley in ‘The Haunting of Villa Diodati’. As part of his showrunning duties here, Chibnall hired Maxine Alderton, who had won a Yorkshire Royal Television Society award for Best Writer, as well as being nominated twice for a Writers’ Guild award, to pen ‘Villa Diodati’ and bring the TARDIS crew to the villa on the night that gave

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‘She is wise and unafraid’ 49

birth to Frankenstein (1818). In a nod to problematic gender behaviours, this episode also contains an exchange involving Lord Byron attempting to seduce the female Doctor with ‘may I just say you are quite lovely in a crisis?’ She shuts him down immediately: ‘No you may not.’ At the end of the episode, Claire Clairmont – who has had a crush on Byron – finally stands up for herself and berates him for flirting with another woman in her presence, again demarcating female agency. When they encounter the Lone Cyberman, and that Cyberman threatens to kill her lover, Mary steps in front of Percy, emulating the Doctor’s action of defending those she cares for. In a diplomatic, emotionally intelligent and writerly way, Mary tries to talk the danger down with words about feelings and relationships: ‘I still see a soul in there. I see the man who spared my son. Were you a father before?’ This does not succeed, however, and the Doctor is forced to recognize, under great duress, that ‘sometimes the team structure isn’t flat. It’s mountainous with me at the summit in the stratosphere, alone. Left to choose. Save the poet, save the universe. Sometimes even I can’t win.’ The episode ends with a chastised, contrite Byron reciting Darkness, a poem seemingly dedicated to the Doctor: ‘Darkness had no need of aid from them. She was the universe.’

Representation matters: ‘Rosa’, ‘Demons of the Punjab’, ‘Fugitive of the Judoon’, and ‘The Timeless Children’ In writing for the first female Doctor, showrunner Chibnall had to consider how the stories he could tell might need to change because a female would be engaging with historical prejudices. He addressed the issue of Yaz and Ryan being people of colour most noticeably in ‘Rosa’ when they meet Rosa Parks in the segregated South of the United States. For ‘Rosa’, Chibnall, who served as co-writer along with Malorie Blackman, focused on the sensitive handling of both gender, race, and even nationality by tackling a beloved historical figure from the United States. Chibnall purposefully enlisted the help of a female writer of African descent. Born in London with parents from Barbados, Blackman had been awarded the OBE for her services to Children’s Literature, having written over sixty books for young adults. In writing ‘Rosa’, Blackman became the first black writer to pen an episode for the series (Eyre, 2018). Chibnall clearly felt that this subject matter required sharing the episode’s creation with a writer of colour, just as he had sought to facilitate writing credits for female writers (and did so again here). Each such decision stresses a cultural-political awareness that Chibnall’s own writing subjectivity is likely to be contextualized by his white male subjectivity; each such decision indicates a commitment to

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portraying issues of race and gender in not only inclusive but also, most vitally, convincing and credible ways – for Rosa Parks as much as for the thirteenth Doctor. That choice, along with every writer’s greatest tool, research, would prove to be key to crafting Rosa as a character. Chibnall and Blackman made sure to showcase how she trained to be a protestor as opposed to the myth that she was simply tired that night. Yes, she was tired: she was tired of segregation and so had worked with activists, as seen in the episode when Ryan is introduced to her guests, the civil rights attorney Fred Gray and civil rights icon the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. Chibnall and Blackman also set Rosa up to be a hero in the TARDIS team’s first encounter with her when she essentially saves them from an encounter with a racist white man who threatens to turn violent. Finally, Chibnall and Blackman highlighted the female voice of the Jodie Whittaker era via the episode’s ending where the Doctor told her team that Rosa Parks didn’t just change her country, ‘she changed the world’. More pertinent to the Whoniverse, Rosa is said to have ‘changed the universe’, with the Doctor opening the TARDIS doors to reveal they are in space overlooking the asteroid named for Rosa Parks, 284996. The episode’s theme – ‘tiny things can change the world’ – emphasizes that tiny pronoun change from ‘he’ to ‘she’, and the ending links the universe to femininity, prefiguring the poetic conclusion to ‘Villa Diodati’. Chibnall greenlit another largely female-focused story for series 11, ‘Demons of the Punjab’, written by Vinay Patel. Patel came to Who from playwriting, earning a Bafta nomination for Best Single Drama on his TV script, Murdered by My Father (2016), about honour killings in Britain (Delgado, 2016). ‘Punjab’ tells the story of the day Yaz’s grandmother got married, which fell on the day of the Partition of India. Patel explained how ‘it was a period of history that the audience, particularly a British audience, might not know a whole lot about. But there are so many compelling and rich stories from that time. I’d known about partition for most of my life so I just wanted to bring that to a wider audience’ (Bond, 2018). The episode opens with Yaz’s family celebrating her Nan’s birthday. When her Nan, Umbreen, presents gifts to her granddaughters, Yaz receives a watch that ‘must never be fixed’. Yaz then asks the Doctor to take her back to the day of her Nan’s wedding; this is 17 August 1947, recognized by the Doctor as the date of the Partition. Upon arrival, the TARDIS crew meets someone named Prem bringing flowers for the wedding. Yaz is confused – he is not her grandfather and, more confusingly, ‘Prem is a Hindu name; we’re Muslim’. The audience learns that on that day ‘Pakistan has been created for Muslims’ while ‘Hindus have India’. Prem’s brother, Manish, agrees with Partition and disagrees with this wedding between people of

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different faiths. A science-fiction element comes into play when we meet the aliens of the week, apparent assassins of the holy man on his way to officiate. Prem has seen them before, in the war when his older brother died alone on the battlefield. The Doctor soon figures out that the assassins are in fact Thijarians, an ancient species known (mistakenly) for mass killing. Again, this female Doctor demands that the dangerous aliens: ‘Leave these people alone. They are under my protection now.’ Similarly, all the female guest characters exhibit strength in the face of danger, with Yaz’s Nan being among the strongest. When there is no one available to marry Umbreen and Prem, they realize, ‘You’re a doctor. You could marry us’, and she remarks, ‘Haven’t officiated a wedding since Einstein’. This female-centric story continues when we learn that the Thijarians have ceased to be murderers: ‘Now we seek the unacknowledged dead. To honour life as it passes.’ It cannot be missed that women are usually the family members who prepare the dead for burial in many cultures and who perform mourning in public by wearing black and sometimes jewellery that commemorates lost relatives. The Doctor realizes the Thijarians are now ‘aliens with compassion’, but also learns that they have come to mourn Prem, who will die today. As is typical in time travel to someone’s actual past, à la Rose saving her father in ‘Father’s Day’ (2005) and creating a lethal paradox, Yaz cannot save Prem or she, herself, will never be born. For the same reason, she is intent on saving her Nan. At the wedding, Prem offers Umbreen the watch Yaz received in the opening scene, but it falls to the ground, broken and stopped. When Prem says he will have the watch repaired, Umbreen refuses: ‘This is us forever. Our moment in time.’ As this is a moment frozen in time, Prem insists the women leave the area while he will face his brother, Manish, and the other men alone. The Doctor assists Umbreen’s escape, but as time and history require, Prem dies. Returning to the present, Yaz asks her grandmother if she’s had a good life, to which her Nan replies, ‘Yes.’ Yaz says, ‘I love you, Nani’, and her Nan responds: ‘And I love you, too, Bheti.’ Hence this episode ends on the matriarchal love between a grandmother and granddaughter; another feminized moment of power and connection. The co-written ‘Fugitive of the Judoon’ had Chibnall and Patel contributing perhaps the most inclusive moment of Whittaker’s second series when they brought to life another female Doctor and chose to make her a woman of colour. In this story, the writers also included a female Time Lord leader, Commander Gatt, and a female Judoon leader to whom the Doctor utters a phrase never before heard on Who: ‘We can solve this, woman to woman.’ Finally, the return of Captain Jack Harkness, even for a moment, allows him to kiss Graham, mistaking him for the Doctor as part of a critique of patriarchal assumptions.

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Chibnall closed out the second series by cramming diverse gender and ethnic representations into its final episode, ‘The Timeless Children’. Beginning with the casting of Sacha Dhawan, an Englishman of Hindu descent, as the Master (who first appeared in ‘Spyfall, Part One’), Chibnall then boldly changed series’ lore to explain that the Doctor herself first appeared in Gallifrey as a dark-skinned young girl adopted by Tecteun, an indigenous female inhabitant of the planet. Tecteun discovers that this child can regenerate, and in her very first regeneration this child version of the Doctor turns into a female of Asian descent and then into a dark-skinned boy. While Tecteun worked tirelessly to create a formula to give other Gallifreyans the power of regeneration, Chibnall gave his audience a female scientist who gave birth to the Time Lords, replacing the male, Rassilon, who had previously represented the programme’s patriarchal origin for Time Lord technology and society. In a final focus on gender in the episode, Yaz proves to be the most heroic of the companions and Graham even takes the time to tell her so: ‘You said to the Doc she was the best person you ever met but, you know what Yaz, I think you are.’ We are turned full circle, then, back at the confusion between Time Lord and human female agency which ran significantly through ‘The Woman Who Fell to Earth’.

Conclusion: the forging of a strong female voice I would argue that Chris Chibnall summarizes how he hopes to represent a female Doctor by writing this line of dialogue in ‘Spyfall’: ‘She is wise and unafraid and I believe in her.’ Through his screenwriting background and training, casting and construction of companions, precise feminist dialogue choices and facilitation of more inclusive representation, including a focus on telling moments of female power, Chibnall has wielded a practised hand as both showrunner and episode writer. In doing so, he has not only forged a strong female voice for the Doctor but created an inclusive universe for his time traveller to protect. He did this both in episodic and arc storylines and in small moments such as opening ‘Fugitive of the Judoon’ on an interracial couple after opening series 11 with a focus on Graham and Grace. In order to respectfully tell the stories of younger companions of African and Pakistani-Muslim descent, Chibnall hired female writers and writers of colour to tell the sorts of stories that are still not prominent in mainstream television. All of these are deliberate showrunner choices: ‘With a more diverse cast, we get to tell more stories that people who may not be of that background can learn about and identify with’ (Bond, 2018). It seems clear that, for Chibnall as Doctor Who’s showrunner, fashioning episodes to make gender and racial inclusivity a reality has been a key goal. In an



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interview for Deadline on 6 December 2019, under a month before the premiere of his second series, Chibnall admitted, ‘The success of last year really emboldens you. All that audience we gathered up last year, we’re now going to take them on a journey into the toy box of Doctor Who.’ But that toy box is no longer watched over by the patriarchal lore of Rassilon, it would seem.

References Bond, K. (2018). ‘“Diversity is in Doctor Who’s DNA” – Series 11 Writer Vinay Patel Celebrates the Chance to Tell New Stories on a Very Old Show’, Radio Times (9 November 2018), www.radiotimes.com/news/tv/2018–11–23/doctorwho-series-11-diversity-bame-actors-writers-vinay-patel-episode-6-demons-ofthe-punjab/ (accessed 2 March 2020). Delgado, K. (2016). ‘“Honour-based abuse” Survivor Jasvinder Sanghera on the Reality of Murdered by My Father’, Radio Times (5 April), www.radiotimes. com/news/2016–04–05/honour-based-abuse-survivor-jasvinder-sanghera-onthe-reality-of-murdered-by-my-father/ (accessed 2 March 2020). Elston, M. A. C. (1986). Women Doctors in the British Health Services: A Sociological Study of Their Careers and Opportunities. PhD Thesis, University of Leeds. Eyre, C. (2018). ‘Malorie Blackman Joins Doctor Who TV Writing Team’, The Bookseller (21 August), www.thebookseller.com/news/malorie-blackman-joinsdoctor-who-writing-team-847751 (accessed 2 March 2020). Macdonald, I. W. (2013). Screenwriting Poetics and the Screen Idea. Basingstoke: Palgrave. Mulvey, L. (1975). ‘Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema’, Screen, 16 (3), pp. 6–18. Reilly, K. (2020). ‘Brit Marling Just Shut Down the “Strong Female Lead” Trope’, New York Times (7 February), www.nytimes.com/2020/02/07/opinion/sunday/ brit-marling-women-movies.html (accessed 2 March 2020). Samuel, F. and K. Burnett (2018). ‘10 Ways to F#up Your Female Characters’, The Journal of Screenwriting, 9 (2), pp. 135–51. Welch, R. (2011). ‘The Doctor Is in America: Interview with Russell T Davies of Doctor Who and Torchwood’, Written By: The Magazine of the Writers Guild of America West, Summer Issue (July), p. 28.

3 Shooting stars: modes of TV spectacle in the Jodie Whittaker era of Doctor Who Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to distribute or copy this document

Dene October

‘Moment of truth,’ says the Doctor, as she prepares to sonic the iPad and transport herself to the TARDIS in ‘The Woman Who Fell to Earth’. ‘Deep breath,’ she says, explaining to her companions, ‘Not you lot … me!’ But when Ryan, Graham, and Yaz vanish alongside her in a spectacular ‘blaze of energy’, and reappear in a star field, the viewers also wait with bated breath, gazing ‘wide-eyed’ in sublime enchantment as ‘the cliffhanger scream kicks in’ and the credits roll (Chibnall, 2018). It is a fitting end to the first episode of series 11, where the emphasis has been as much on epic locations as dazzling effects and gazing upon the new Doctor. This chapter addresses the commitment to spectacle in Doctor Who series 11 and 12, observing its role in a new TV paradigm, a phase that Mareike Jenner (2018), following Roberta Pearson’s discussion of American TV (2011), describes as ‘TV IV’. Until relatively recently, ‘televisual style’ has been critically neglected, subject to hierarchical comparison with cinema and – as part of the historical suspicion of the media – assumed to pacify viewers. In this chapter, I consider how TV spectacle has been theorized before identifying three discrete modes where, I argue, televisual spectacle enhances audience engagement. These three modes of visual spectacle activate: contemplation of setting; curiosity and criticality of content, and (through recognition of diversity) personalized viewing pleasures. My focus on viewer agency is intended to recognize how TV can be understood as a dispersal of agencies, from production through to reception, including the key authors of visual style (such as camera crew and designers), the technologies that enable their operations, and how audiences respond to spectacle in ways that evidence diversity, selectivity, creativity, and pleasure in TV as an artform.

Theorizing televisual spectacle Chris Chibnall’s reign as showrunner happens at a time of increased competition for TV audiences, where subscription models like Netflix and digital

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technologies are bringing televisual spectacle to the fore. Series 11 and 12 seek to create immersive and spectacular virtual travel through global historical locations, but Doctor Who’s focus on visual spectacle has also tended to align with key transitional points in the show’s history: the introduction of colour TV, glossier effects in the 1980s, the 2005 reboot … and, now, the introduction of a regendered Doctor. As Shawn Shimpach (2010) notes, however, TV has always been in transition, reordering the spatial reach and temporality of broadcast, as well as the ephemerality of programmes. Thus an economy of scarcity has been superseded by ‘deregulated competition and technology’ leading to an economy of abundance and increased emphasis on visual style as a way for brands and programmes to stand out (2010: 1–5). Pearson aggregates these complex changes by periodizing TV I (1950s to 1980s) as one of mass audience and network hegemony, TV II (1980s to 1990s) as one of network expansion, availability of VCRs and remote controls, and ‘quality television’, and TV III (1990s to c. 2010) as one of digital distribution and audience fragmentation. While these are simplifications, the eras ‘highlight that speaking of television at different times means speaking of different kinds of television’ (Pearson, 2011: 10). As Jenner says, TV is an unstable concept, marked by lively debates about its cultural meaning, ‘implications and potentials’ (2018: 13–14), into which Netflix has emerged as the ‘dominant challenger’ to established concepts of TV. Netflix can be conceptualized as typifying what Derek Johnson identifies as a ‘struggle between legacy channels adapting to new conditions … and the new portals that threaten to replace them’ (2018: 8), one, as Jenner points out, which shapes ‘how viewers understand themselves within media systems’ (2018: 17). Thus Netflix ‘plays an important part in reconceptualising television in a TV IV era’ (Jenner, 2018: 269), and it is in this context that Doctor Who has to remain competitive, up-to-date, and distinctive as a brand. Debates in TV studies about viewing pleasures have also shifted, having tended to privilege the ‘cinematic’ over the ‘televisual’ with theorists pointing to the large-scale presence of cinema (King, 2000: 5) as a social space imbued in rituals of ‘sensory immersion’ such as the dimming of lights and muted conversations (Britton and Barker, 2003: 21), whereas the everyday ‘flow’ of images and sounds (Williams, 1974) competes with household tasks, reducing spectatorial engagement from a fixed gaze to a ‘glance’ (Ellis, 1982). Such views fail to take account of how TV has become more ­‘cinematic’ through convergence, offering greater visual pleasures to its audiences. Concepts such as ‘high end’ TV have promoted choice and control to the extent that ‘quality television’ has become the marker of a brand, even a genre in itself. These are some of the factors that shape how, as Shimpach argues, new Doctor Who circulates and signifies (2010: 177–178).

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For example, Matt Hills has examined how Doctor Who’s return in 2005 was accompanied by production discourses that recontextualized the programme as ‘quality’ TV (2010: 147–49) including ‘high-end’ casting, highcultural referencing, political engagement, and social realism – as advocated by Robin Nelson (2007) in calling for twenty-first-century TV to represent the culturally marginalized. Series 11 and 12 further evidence this through casting choices, the regional focus (Sheffield), political content, and use of spectacle as commentary, yet, as Hills points out, ‘quality’ is relational and contested, and the discursive struggle with such classifications is evidenced by some fans continuing to insist that ‘classic’ Doctor Who is about ‘adventures’ rather than ‘politics’ (2010: 166). Although ‘quality’ and ‘cinematic’ TV has been normalized in the new TV paradigm, part of the programme’s disputed sense of ‘quality’, I will argue, arises through how it responds reflexively to its own use of spectacle and popular aesthetics. Doctor Who’s current visual style reflects the transition away from what John Caldwell (1995) had termed ‘zero-degree’ production of banal visual treatment to a more exhibitionist televisuality, one which recognizes the need for a sustained ‘afterlife’ in which it will be viewed ‘multiple times in  multiple contexts for years to come’ (Shimpach, 2010: 27–28). Jason Jacobs says that certain TV content elicits ‘intense viewer proximity and concentrated attention’ allowing the kind of critical focus found in art (2001: 431); similarly, Helen Wheatley advocates for a contemplative mode of viewing (2011: 237). All the same, Milly Buonanno suggests it remains problematic to endorse the idea of the television buff due to a pervading sense of TV’s low-cultural status or artlessness (2008: 38). Whereas film enjoys academic prestige, TV has struggled to overcome being seen as an ‘inferior kind of cinema’ (Williams, 1974: 28) which is ‘less dense, less complex’ (Lury, 2005: 8). Compared with narrative, the study of televisual mise en scène has been almost non-existent (Britton and Barker, 2003:  8) until recently, meaning aesthetic judgements have ignored the media-specific standards and techniques of TV (Creeber, 2013: 7). Latterly, calls to evaluate TV content through an ‘emphasis on aesthetic features’ (Cardwell, 2006: 77) and stylistic specificities have been made and met by theorists including Bignell (2014), Britton (2016), and Hansen and Waade (2017). Despite these moves towards taking TV aesthetics and mise-en-scène seriously, critical debates on spectacle have tended to view it as a disruptive force to narrative and viewer agency, positioning spectacle in popular culture as gratuitous rather than challenging. Neil Postman worries that spectacle suppresses ‘the content of ideas’ and audience agency, as part of a peek-a-boo electronic media that ‘does not permit us to do anything’ (1985: 77, 94), a view informed by the Marxist philosopher and filmmaker Guy Debord in assuming a lack of critical engagement, since all content

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becomes ‘mere representation’, pacifying the senses and producing ‘commodity desire’ (1994: 26). Spectacle has added to the popular conception of TV as addictive, part of the ‘mesmeric appeal of screens’ (Cashmore, Cleveland, and Dixon, 2018: 63) in an age of alleged zombie ‘screenagers’. The increased reliance on advanced computer special effects, and autonomous image production, has also led to comparisons with the Hollywood blockbuster, itself derided as a theme-park thrill ride (King, 2000: 179) and realm of faked CGI simulation. Such ideas are articulated by the thirteenth Doctor in ‘Orphan 55’ when the spectacular holiday resort Tranquility Spa turns out to be a simulacrum or ‘fakation’ produced by cutting-edge visual technologies to disguise the wasteland of post-apocalyptic Earth. The story also relies on spectacle in the form of wide location shots, dynamic action sequences, and unusual – almost Hitchcockian – jumpy camera work, changing the proximity of the equally spectacular monsters (‘Dregs’) rapidly from medium shot to close up. Ironically, when the Doctor warns viewers to stop arguing over the  washing up while the ‘house burns’ (referencing the climate activist Greta Thunberg), for many on social media this speech was too on the nose, disrupting their narrative immersion, just as the hotel’s guests were disruptively made to realize the reality of Tranquility Spa. Immersion in visual effects is arguably a punctuating moment for the viewer at the end of series 11’s first episode, which envisages bodies floating in a state of enchantment, a pause that must be broken in order for the action to recommence. This is the very danger Laura Mulvey has highlighted (1989, originally 1975), insisting that spectacle threatens the coherence of narrative. Yet this objection overdetermines mesmeric visual effect and underplays visual affect. Yvonne Tasker criticizes theory that places ‘inordinate emphasis on the operations of narrative’ and argues that viewing pleasures include wanting to see the narrative through to its resolution but also to ‘stop and stare’ (1993: 9, 6), while Wheatley defines spectacular TV as that ‘which is designed to be stared at’, but also ‘­contemplated and scrutinised’ (2016: 1–2). Indeed, Piers Britton has rebuked this ‘disruption fallacy’ altogether, noting that TV design orientates viewers to the kind of narrative (genre) they are watching and contributes to how the story unfolds (2016: 118–19). Compare Britton’s observations about designed spectacle with Jane Bennett’s broader definition of enchantment, in The Enchantment of Modern Life, as ‘a momentarily immobilizing encounter’ which leaves one ‘transfixed, spellbound’ (2001: 5). Yet this notion of deferral is similar to the definition of the fantastic, provided by the literary theorist Tzvetan Todorov, as a moment of hesitation, where the reader cannot decide whether to interpret what she faces as supernatural or actual; the moment represents ‘a frontier between

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two adjacent realms’ – the uncanny and the marvellous (1973: 41). Series 11’s episode one cliffhanger thus presents an opportunity to consider Chibnall’s era as emphasizing spectatorial engagement through a ‘TV IV’ version of the HD, branded spectacular, rather than treating spectacle merely as narrative d ­ isruption or transfixing distraction.

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Mode 1 of televisual spectacle: the contemplation of location ‘We are alive, right?’ asks Ryan, tumbling out of a medipod aboard the battered spacecraft of Albarian pilot Angstom. As the second episode of series 11 opens, we are catapulted into a thrill ride of explosive action sequences, and awesome tumbling visual effects. In ‘The Ghost Monument’ our time travellers are separated into two spaceships, competing in the Rally of the Twelve Galaxies; facing catastrophic power failure in the race across space, they ultimately crash-land on the expansive Star Wars-style planet Desolation. This visual set-piece shows Chris Chibnall’s commitment to continuing the sense of awe and wonder of the series opener, adding a blockbuster action sequence achieved by rapid edits, DNEG’s visual effects, and shooting with anamorphic lenses for a 2:1 aspect ratio (first used for RKO Superscope format in the 1950s and suited to contemporary HD widescreen television formats). The tonal shift is important in moving the story forward but also in conveying us between modes of spectacle, from slow contemplation (where we pause to marvel at exotic locations, apocalyptic worlds, alien technologies, and terrifying monsters), and action modes (where the commitment to visual storytelling includes fast-moving action sequences and rapid changes of scene). In 2005 Russell T Davies brought Doctor Who back, also committed to creating big pictures (Cook, 2005: 13), foregrounding high production values and borrowing conventions familiar to audiences of big-budget American telefantasy such as Joss Whedon’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997–2003). Unlike the classic series, which used multiple cameras, the reboot used a single mobile-camera set-up, filmed in high definition digital video, relying on shorter shots and elliptical editing, helping to create a faster pace, seamless use of computer special effects, and dynamic action, all within an impressive scale suited to widescreen reception (see O’Day, 2013; Hills, 2010). The approach reduced static dialogue but sustained emotional depth, yet its spectacular pretentions attracted criticism. Graham Sleight (2011) warned against over-reliance on CGI, and David Butler c­ autioned that strict adherence to spectacle was unproductive in guaranteeing the show’s future (2012: 20). These responses fit a notion of televisuality that draws on the nostalgic, such as evidenced in the 2001 pitch to bring the

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show back with ‘stories that rely on atmosphere and imagination rather than costly special effects’, avoiding ‘all-rayguns-blazing Hollywood science fiction’ (Gatiss, Roberts and Hickman, 2001: 66). Nevertheless, spectacle is one of strategies used to show what television technologies are capable of, and a key lure in competitive multi-channel broadcasting (Corner, 1999: 35). Debbie Rodan (2009) notes how promoting wide-screen TV sets resignifies the living room as a ‘public gallery space’ (2009: 371), yet reception technology also drives visual quality and ‘stimulates television makers to exploit its capabilities’ (Bignell, 2014: 125). Particular spectacular genres – such as nature documentary and ­ telefantasy – are brought to the fore when expensive technology needs to be sold to the public (Wheatley, 2011: 234), while long-lived shows, like Doctor Who, may recruit new viewers conventionalized into expecting visual immersion. Wheatley’s study of British landscape programmes suggests viewing pleasures are enhanced, but not entirely determined, by high-definition technologies. Programming can be understood as post-digital in simultaneously drawing from a palette of CGI effects but equally evidencing ‘slow television’, allowing for the contemplative gaze more associated with art (Wheatley, 2011: 233–37). Extended location shots using high definition, such as the shot of Niagara Falls that opens ‘Nikola Tesla’s Night of Terror’, engender slow consumption even amid dialogue and exposition, thus denying that visual spectacle must inevitably be associated with ‘thrill-ride’ TV. According to Brian Minchin, executive producer between 2013 and 2017, location filming helps the programme ‘look as incredible as we can manage’. Although it is expensive, it is less so ‘than building an entire city in CGI’ (quoted Cook, 2016: 39). It also adds authenticity, even where, as with ‘Rosa’, South Africa doubles for a period Montgomery setting. In Locating Nordic Noir, Kim Hansen and Anne Waade indicate the way real, geographic space is used in planning, production, critical reception, and international branding, pinpointing ‘a conspicuously spatial modus operandi, a topography, in the accentuation of place’ – an approach that acknowledges ‘present-day TV fiction’s constant negotiation with the apprehension of real spaces’ (2017: 8–10). In Scandinavian crime drama, setting and lighting serve aesthetic purposes in adding to perceived quality and production values, as well as marketing ‘Nordic Noir’ to international audiences. Stylistic characteristics, along with climate, language, and ­melancholy, are foregrounded as essentially Nordic yet are equally inspired by  a ‘cross-over’ between television and film, resulting in a more inter­ national and ‘cinematic’ visual style. Martin Lefebvre similarly argues that strategies such as the use of characters ‘enraptured’ by their settings ‘can lead the spectator to contemplate

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the same space as an autonomous landscape’ (2006: 29–33). When Ryan searches for the bicycle he has, in frustration, thrown over a steep rocky precipice, in ‘The Woman Who Fell to Earth’, it is not just the appearance of a luminous, floating alien square that is visually striking but also the Peak District location, a ‘vast valley, surrounded by hills’ with ‘burnt-orange low-winter sun’, which becomes ‘otherworldly, spooky’ when he finds his bike stuck in a tree (Chibnall, 2018). Ryan’s gaze, like our own, is distracted by the eerie landscape where familiarity is skewed through telefantasy spectacle, and where the rebranding of this era of Who is given – like Nordic Noir – an intensely spatial modus operandi. Genre is both the result of representations of place in Doctor Who, and the means through which place is framed. Place can insinuate the inner psychological world of the character and serve as a recognized character in itself – particularly through the seriality of TV dramas – contributing to the narrative ‘becoming familiar and homely’ (Hansen and Waade, 2017: 29). In his work on British TV and the ‘hinterland’, Felix Thompson makes the point that rural settings can be empty, enabling anxious ideas of home to be projected (2010: 65–66), while Tim Edensor points out that ‘mundane  spatial features’ of quotidian landscapes are important in the construction of the national imaginary, yet remain open signifiers (2002:  50). Russell T Davies chose London as ‘home’, setting familiar tourist iconography a­longside urban reality (for Rose’s family), whilst Steven Moffat opted for ‘the sleepy hamlet of Leadworth as a recurring setting [for] fairy-tale tropes’ (Knox, 2014: 118). Because Sheffield is not well-used in television dramas, it is at once strange yet vaguely familiar in serving as a site of the national imaginary of ‘home’, thereby creating a reflexive sense of space. For Lefebvre, the distinction between modes of narrative and landscape engagement accounts for the way ‘spectacle halts the progression of narrative for the spectator’ (Lefebvre, 2006: 29). Yet, as I have argued, spectacle need not always be disruptive and indeed contributes to genresignposts and distinctive visual style as part of the strategy of coherent narrative. ‘The Woman Who Fell to Earth’ includes an extended montage sequence where  the Doctor creates a new sonic-screwdriver from spare parts, where  the cinematic style of dolly moves is refreshed with handheld camera  work and rapid edits. Such visual storytelling is spectacular yet facilitates the narrative. The Bond-esque two-parter ‘Spyfall’ relies on multiple spectacles such as continually refreshed global and historical settings, thrill ride sequences (like the motorbike chase), dazzling appearances from the light-based Kasaavins, and the surprise introduction of a new Master. Here spectacle complements a complex narrative, and character ­development, while ­offering various modes of spectatorial engagement.



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Mode 2 of televisual spectacle: viewing curiously and critically Spectacular locations on screen, whose increased frequency is promoted by the production and reception technologies that make them possible, encourage us to stop and stare, but when Lefebvre argues they bring stories to a halt ‘absolutely’ (2006: 29) the implication is of diminished viewer agency.  The suspicion that spectacle disrupts or stalls narrative has been magnified through visual and media hierarchies, leading to the role of landscape on the ‘small screen’ (Ellis, 1982) being under-explored. Meanwhile, we need to remember that Doctor Who involves adventures in time as well as space, and TV’s seriality means its stories and vistas flow into the living room, discussed across the week (Creeber, 2005). Britton compares the ‘fast acting fuse’ of film design to the ‘slow fuse’ of longform TV series, suggesting that TV design accrues meaning through audiences’ repeated engagement (2016: 117–23) as well as impacting on how long-term viewers and fans feel at home with familiar sets. An example of durable viewer curiosity in the TARDIS design, for example, was the addition of stairs to the interior’s console room at the outset of series 12, where social media and fandom buzzed with speculation about the semiotic implications of this change: would new areas or structures of the TARDIS be introduced? Yet new twists on familiar TV design may also yield a ‘shock’ impact, such as the spectacle of cyber-head drones flying over a human settlement in ‘Ascension of the Cybermen’. The spectacle of the TARDIS must not be underplayed, either as an immersive iconic presence or in how it engenders viewer agency by sparking visual curiosity. The BBC’s official Doctor Who website once included a TARDIS app which, upon being refreshed by the web-user, showed the TARDIS rematerializing in a new landscape (a new version lets you land it in a real location, using augmented reality technology). Its addictiveness lay in the pleasures of a tourist gaze, and in seeing the familiar Police Box amid varied, spectacular landscapes or terrains. The TARDIS, like TV itself, refreshes the spectacle of space. This continues in the Chibnall era such as with the visual effects team DNEG’s kaleidoscopic lighting for the Time Vortex sequence in ‘Arachnids in the UK’ and in instances such as the stunning forest setting where the TARDIS comes to rest in ‘It Takes You Away’, along with the sandy HD vistas of ‘The Ghost Monument’. Perhaps not coincidentally, then, this latter story reintroduced the TARDIS amid a spectacular, exotic and touristic setting. Whilst landscape is culturally mediated, and always ‘a work of the mind … built up from strata of memory as from layers of rock’ (Schama, 1995: 6), it is also associated with the pleasures of the tourist gaze and sense

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of discovery. The TARDIS is an emblem of how TV transports viewers, ­spectacularizes location, and brings epochs and people vividly alive through public history. This is never more clearly demonstrated than in the travelogue where televisual spectacle presents opportunities for intentional, authored movements as well as curious but accidental ones. The movement of the camera provides a visual sense of travel that has been associated with the kinetic thrills of modern transport in the visual arts since the turn of the twentieth century, particularly noticeable in the trope of travel as experienced upon the screen. Such ‘travelogue Who’ has been marked in the Chibnall era via the repeated use of rapid cutting (and/or diegetic teleporting) between distant, globalized locations, often accompanied by large-font captions specifying the new destination. Episodes such as ‘Resolution’, ‘Spyfall, Part One’ and ‘Praxeus’ have all demonstrated this tendency to conflate fastpaced narrative and a ‘global thriller’ regentrification of the programme with a sense of televisual spectacle. In these examples, it is narrative focalization rather than a time-space-hopping TARDIS which transports viewers. At the same time, stepping into intentional spectacle can also function so as to activate audiences to pay critical attention to a political subtext. In the case of ‘Orphan 55’, this is environmental, and, as Hills has pointed out, setting can take the place of the monster as a show-stopper (2010: 125). In this episode, environment and monster necessarily vie for attention in ways that some viewers have considered clumsy or ‘politically correct’. However, as Wheatley (2011) points out of the landscape genre, spectacular presentations of the environment can be awesome while still reinforcing messages about green or environmental management. The look, whether a visual or spoken declarative, directs the audience at a spectacle or contextualizes it. Visual spectacle is thus reinforced when Ryan asks us to ‘Look at the size of [the spider]’ revealed hiding under a bed in ‘Arachnids in the UK’, or tells us, ‘Look, it’s like the ground’s moving’ when the Remnants attack in ‘The Ghost Monument’. In the same story, Ryan tells us ‘They’ve found the hatch’, cueing the shot where sniper-robot hordes are seen giving chase. Spectacle may be visually exciting but uncertain, as when the Doctor needs to explain the unstable appearance of the TARDIS as ‘stuck in a loop’. At other times, the look is a cue to detail – expressed in close up – as when Yaz asks the Doctor to read the packing slip in ‘Kerblam!’ and when Ryan says he’s seen someone in the boarded-up cottage in ‘It Takes You Away’. Camera focalization techniques, where the audience adopts a character’s point-of-view, can induce interesting visual effects such as the Doctor’s dizzy spell in ‘The Tsuranga Conundrum’. Another occurs when Ruth in ‘Fugitive of the Judoon’ realizes she is a previous incarnation of the Doctor: amusingly, she is a tour guide, but events visually disorientate us and

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throw doubt onto our initial glimpses into her inner thoughts. Focalization ­techniques allow us to understand how characters see things. One powerful instance of this comes in ‘Rosa’ where the ‘Whites Only’ notice outside Sahara Springs Motel leads Ryan to comment, ‘I’m getting pretty sick of seeing that sign’. Historical spectacle is an advantage which public history has over academic books, since characters can serve as identifying figures in allowing us to witness events emotionally. Ryan’s experiential burden is shared with the viewer in linking history with the present, such as in ‘Rosa’, where although ‘history is very delicate’, it needs to be acknowledged. Sometimes, as in the case where millions died during the Partition, such historical reality becomes too burdensome, difficult and painful to visualize. Thus in ‘Demons of the Punjab’, the Thijarian mission to witness the dead, and restore honour, means we – along with Manish – are permitted to look away as Umbreen’s lover Prem is slaughtered. Such moments of spectacle draw attention to the viewer’s role as witness – as Scott Bukatman notes, visual exhibitionism can carry a powerfully Brechtian alienation effect (2006: 80). The result is that we are compelled to view history critically through TV spectacle, even where certain material is judged to be unshowable (or too emotionally powerful) within Doctor Who’s branding as family entertainment. Episodes such as ‘Rosa’, by aligning us with Ryan’s experience, or ‘Orphan 55’ and its monstrous Dregs, similarly use TV spectacle to position viewers as critics of contemporary cultural-political realities. At other times, though, it is the mobile camera’s peripheral view that ignites our curiosity, accidently inviting viewers to indulge in peripatetic wandering, just as the time travellers often find themselves cut adrift from any set route. The camera can make sudden movements that activate our gaze, some with the intention of directing it, and others where our eyes simply wander at the frame’s edge, stimulated into curiosity by uncertain motivations of camera tracking (October, 2018: 119). This is a nomadic and occasionally unintended spectacle. Such exhibitionism again brings a consciousness to viewing, which, as Lefebvre notes of the experience of landscape, might also occur when watching for a second time (2011: 66). For example, in ‘Praxeus’ high winds created difficulties for filming on the beach, making Jodie Whittaker’s windblown hair an unexpected focal point in a number of shots. And in ‘The Haunting of Villa Diodati’ the movement of the camera is erratic, but, in keeping with the genre of ghost stories; apparently unmotivated shots allow tension to build, while in ‘Orphan 55’ quirky camera work is effective in boosting the spectacle of the monster. If classic Doctor Who was perhaps slow TV, this was not because the programme was somehow defeated by available technologies of the ­1960s–80s, but because its visual storytelling ambitions always opened space up, encouraging the viewer to imaginatively step in to the s­ pectacle,

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look around, scrutinize, and even metaphorically wander off (as fan rewatchers are also arguably prone to do). Such overt deviations into spectacle are not entirely what the makers of the programme had in mind. When the BBC first commissioned reports into the potential for a 1960s science-fiction series, Alice Frick and Donald Bull cautioned in April 1962 against the American focus on an ‘activating idea’ and ‘ironmongery’ rather than character, while, in July 1962, Frick and John Braybon warned against ‘Bug-Eyed Monsters’ since the audience would not be able to get past their awareness that ‘there’s a man in there’ (BBC, 1962). These alleged dangers of spectacle evidence fears of American vulgarity – a cultural panic noted in the reception to lurid pulp covers, comics, and cinema posters – in addition to the prospect of failure thanks to the limitations of TV technologies. Yet these fears were really about the audience, and it is to this topic that I will now turn. Contra Doctor Who’s historical emergence against the presumed dangers of ‘American’ spectacle, the current version of the show is marked instead by a desire for (branded, TV IV) spectacle.

Mode 3 of televisual spectacle: private viewing pleasures ‘Whoa!’ the Doctor says as her hands flicker with light. ‘Did you just see that?’ The question is directed at the Solitract, a sentient energy form, apparently blind to how the spectacular overlay of dimensions it has created has a destabilizing effect on reality. ‘It Takes You Away’, set amidst the lush fjords of Norway, depicts the power of visual deception to overwhelm personal emotions, and serves as a cautionary tale about not getting carried away with spectacular effects. ‘Someone got a bit over-excited with the DIY’ says Graham, looking at the boarded-up cottage, home to blind girl Hanne, and a hidden portal leading to a reverse mirror world full of garish effects which ‘shouldn’t look like that, all these weird shards of light’, as the Doctor warns. Ryan, in sparing Hanne from spectacular horrors, attempts to restore the natural setting while the director Jamie Childs and director of photography Denis Crossan opt for soft neutral tones and cold northern lights appropriate to the visual aesthetic of Scandinaviannoir (before letting loose with garish colours, lights and CG effects once outside the ‘natural’ setting). The story lends itself to analysis through the concept of ‘local colour’ as deployed by Hansen and Waade in their study of the Scandinavian crime genre, where place is recognized through exotic and touristic stereotypes, and where plot connects eerily with a beautiful landscape that conceals a horrific reality (2017: 30–32; 71). The story is a further example of Ed Hime’s writing on illusory space, where – as in ‘Orphan 55’ – place serves as a screen for a Utopian setting based on

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memory and notions of ‘home’. The tonal shifts thereby imply questions about control and judgement, as the Doctor warns the Solitract, echoing historical BBC fears about the management of intentional spectacle. However, BBC standards of taste have continually been tested by audiences, such as when Sydney Newman’s warnings about pulp-cover monsters went unheeded in the 1960s, and audiences lapped up the Daleks. Today, as Ryan evidences at the start of ‘The Woman Who Fell to Earth’,  TV entertainment is an integral part of a screen-based society where users take charge of technologies to educate and entertain themselves, whether making YouTube videos or reconfiguring official content in fan textual production (such as ’shipping – where two characters are romantically linked through fan fiction). This also means television is increasingly viewed in contexts which threaten the impact of intentional spectacle. In response to a tweet at 6.02 pm on 5 January 2020 by Doctor Who Official – the Twitter account run by the BBC – viewers shared how they experienced the second part of ‘Spyfall’ across a variety of devices and platforms. Although most watched at the time of broadcast and on domestic TV sets – p ­ rimarily in the front room (surrounded by family) or in the bedroom (so as not to be disturbed) – it was significant that many reported using ‘catch-up’ services, in a variety or sitback, sit-forward and even multi-tasking modes (such as live-­tweeting). Some immersed themselves in technologies such as surround-sound, while others streamed on mobile phones, tablets, or laptops. Equally, some watched in theatres on large screens, a reminder of ‘event television’ where TV is used to receive as well as enhance live anniversary specials (Hills, 2015). Doctor Who is made with this range of reception techniques and technologies in mind, demonstrating its commitment to convergent technologies and marketing of the programme across global and temporal boundaries, as well as transmedia storytelling ones. As Bignell notes of the BBC’s use of the programme in branding itself in the consciousness of young social-media adopters, such ‘factors affect what Doctor Who episodes look like’ (2014: 124–25). Whilst programme-makers may intend particular spectacular viewing outcomes, these also fall within the BBCs objectives, as set out by the Royal Charter, including the need to reflect public diversity, focusing on femaleled programmes and ‘questioning heteronormativity’ as Jenner observes of Netflix’s output (2018: 266). Compounded by television’s technological transitions that place an emphasis on viewer control and the programme’s afterlife, these are changes which have gone to the very heart of audience identification, including how the Doctor is positioned in relation to the viewer, ‘within the historical world of politics, sex, and difference, rather than  morally and critically outside’ (Shimpach, 2010: 178). When the Doctor says she’ll need to take a ‘proper look’, in ‘It Takes You Away’, she means break through the spectacle and get to the heart of the illusion. For

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Graham, however, this is a hollow distinction, such is the intensity of his emotional connection to Grace, even as a spectacular apparition. Private pleasures are often ones we stumble into and which relate to our diverse and different personal histories. As he tells the spectre, ‘All my life, I was looking for you’. Graham evidences how spectacle is not always the result of intentional visual framing, but can equally be a private fascination, and potentially an erotic one. As the alien Ribbons suggests, ‘No horns, one mouth’ is hardly a personal erotic delight, even if ‘such nice big boots’ are. The recognition of private erotic spectacle via televisuality has been made by Helen Wheatley in her study of contemporary TV dramas like Game of Thrones (2011–19), arguing that erotic spectacle may be located in ‘“unlikely” places on television’ as moments, images, and representations of characters are stumbled upon accidentally (2016: 190). Wheatley draws on Roland Barthes’s term ‘erotic intermittence’ in taking account of the interplay between private and public, or, as Barthes says, ‘the intermittence of skin flashing between two articles of clothing’ (1975: 10). Intensely private moments thus occur in TV that is otherwise assumed to be under authorial control, and as a consequence of the intimate proximity of the medium. Serial TV, in particular, allows viewers to become familiar with and fascinated by favourite characters, while utilizing production techniques like the close up, and playback technologies, in the explorations of private contemplation, not solely with explicit subjects or themes in mind, but, as Wheatley reports of respondents in her study, ‘in the power of a glance or a minute facial movement’ (2016: 217). Since the first moment the viewer sets eyes on Jodie Whittaker, in the worldwide reveal of the thirteenth Doctor, they are encouraged to scrutinize her, first in every detail of the mysterious hooded figure, and her hands, for clues to her gender and identity. Ray Holman’s costume is purposely ­gender-ambiguous, being made up of a grey, buttoned long coat with masculine tailoring, much in the tradition of male Doctors, and then a contemporary touch, a zipped black hoodie drawn over the Doctor’s head, pulled back to unveil the first woman to play the role. Decoupled from story and dialogue, the reveal is seemingly pure spectacle, but one that surprises the viewer by bringing to a halt the succession of white male leads as part of a wider cultural conversation about women’s starring roles (October, 2019). This intersection was marked by online speculation and responses, ranging from delight to anger, thus demonstrating the diversity of viewing pleasures. With new reception technologies, this fascinated focus on Jodie Whittaker is ambiguous, her star body contributing to a matrix where the viewer may pause and disrupt the televisual flow to experience a moment of personalized meaning-making. The spectacular threat of feminine disruption is the basis for Laura Mulvey’s exploration of erotic spectacle in Hollywood cinema

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(1989, originally 1975), arguing that female characters are made to play an exhibitionist role within patriarchy, coded as erotic spectacle connoting a to-be-looked-at-ness that ‘freezes’ narrative flow. Mulvey’s thesis suggests approaching with caution the notion of any private erotic spectacle. Indeed, the spectacular and sexually objectified representation of women in Doctor Who has been a familiar, if inconsistent, feature of the show. Successive waves of female companions, young, fashionable, and attractive, have screamed at moments of danger and depended on being rescued by the male Doctor, whose narrative role in turn appeared to reflect a highly patriarchal BBC, his performative lexis suggesting that he was acting as their spokesperson (October, 2014: 9). Yet the private consumption of stars and spectacle may occur regardless of gender; male Doctors can also serve to sabotage narrative through spectacle. David Tennant’s Doctor was, for instance, ‘clearly identified within the narrative as desirable’ (Britton, 2011: 101). The thirteenth Doctor is similarly spectacularized when she acquires her signature outfit. Her costume-change moment comes in a charity-shop fitting room after she jokes, ‘It’s been a long time since I wore women’s clothing’. Her charity-shop recycling, in the spirit of her predecessors’ bricolage, is part of a remix aesthetic, as evidenced in sci-fi cosplay, where historical classics are souped-up, resignified, and stitched into the discursive seams of the programme’s inclusive ambitions. The fastenings and masculine cut of the reveal are gone, the new signature costume instead promoting androgyny and flow of movement. References to the show’s history are brought up to speed, as ‘a coded response to the way some fans were reluctant to identify with a female Doctor, one inspired by a fashion shoot from Sassy magazine, of a woman in a tee-shirt, her trousers held by braces, striding purposefully’ (October, 2020); costume references include a nod to the Suffragettes in the violet flash of lining to her light blue long coat. This outfit pervades the show’s narratives as a spectacular element, much in the same way that previous Doctor’s outfits have done. Whittaker’s Doctor rarely changes costume to befit the occasion – ‘Spyfall’ being a notable exception, where, like Helmut Newton’s celebrated fashion photograph of designer Yves Saint Laurent’s Autumn/Winter season 1966 ‘Le Smoking’, an appropriation of the male tuxedo underlines the commitment to diversity and gender-equality. These outfits signify in the extra-diegetic rebranding of the series as inclusive, acting as a knowing comment upon the show’s frequent sexual objectification of female companions via their costuming and treatment as erotic spectacle. In Afterimages, an afterword to her earlier polemical writing, Mulvey acknowledges that she ‘could have found complicity between the woman as spectacle and a female spectator that would be pleasurable but not dominating’ (2019: 245), working, that is, outside ‘the controlling male gaze

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within the screen scene’. As Mulvey rightly concedes, queer spectators have been reading against the grain throughout media history, ‘finding their own pleasure’ (246). The ‘real strides’ made in gender politics, partly inspired by Mulvey’s essay, have brought these pleasures into the critical foreground, articulated through a newly visible audience in the cultural mainstream. Jodie Whittaker’s presence and photogénie, while filtered through the programme’s visual strategies and aesthetics, may not be entirely free from historically inscribed patterns of gendered viewing relations, yet equally they may be read as a site of multiple affects, identifications, and interpretations, materializing in diverse and discrete modes of spectatorship, and ones given affordance by new(er) TV technologies. Drawing attention to private viewing pleasures, erotic and otherwise, suggests new ways to consider Jodie Whittaker’s star performance, and indeed spectacular locations and effects, for their resonances with heterogeneous, intermittent, and private audience entanglements. TV’s ongoing focus on intimacy and seriality indicates how Doctor Who might be further studied in terms of how its reception engenders viewing pleasures that can be intensely private, and perhaps eroticized to varying degrees. At the same time, Mulvey’s original formulation of the male gaze is concerned with gendered looking relations, an important point to remember when considering the arrival of the first female Doctor. But perhaps Doctor Who, as a key BBC brand which the Chibnall era has repositioned as inclusive, is now concerned less with any version of a gendered gaze, and more with inciting a fan gaze that’s keen to re-view or pore over details of teasers, trailers, and reveals – given that anyone in the audience, of any age, gender, ethnicity, and sexuality, can become a fan.

Conclusion: the multiple modes of spectacle As the camera tracks back from the star field reflected in the thirteenth Doctor’s eye, in ‘The Woman Who Fell to Earth’, a demonstration of several facets of televisual spectacle occurs simultaneously. Firstly, we are struck by the commitment to spectacle, which passes as ‘cinematic’ such are the capabilities of TV production and reception. Secondly, the viewer recognizes how she has been interpolated into ‘endless space’ through the Doctor’s point-of-view, in a surprise take on the tradition of shot-reverseshot wherein viewers are encouraged to take up the look of an identifying character. Here, spectacle insinuates that moment between dreams and waking where, as per Todorov’s (1973) definition of the fantastic, the supernatural is negotiated, and where a moment of slow contemplation sits alongside the thrill-ride mode, both of which allow the viewer to step in to the story, and enjoy the kinetic sensation of virtual travels. Finally, the

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setting of endless space serves as a metaphor for shooting stars since not only is the viewer looking through the eyes of the Doctor, she is also gazing upon her. The close up on the Doctor’s face allows us to indulge behaviour rarely permitted through other social spheres, and without embarrassment. These modes of spectacle are part of the contemporary growth in technical televisual mastery, yet – as with unmotivated camera movements or onscreen contingencies – spectacle can be unintentional, reminding us of the pleasurable part we play as viewers. As I’ve explored here, modes of TV spectacle are multiple – c­ ontemplative, curious or critical, and personalized – emerging through adventures in space (e.g. location or landscape) and time (e.g. TV’s seriality and familiarity). There is no singular version of TV ‘spectacle’ which can be contrasted to narrative or assumed to work as a disruption or distraction. Far from being a cultural/narrative danger, spectacle is in fact what the current brand of Doctor Who, competing in the media-technological world of Netflix and TV IV, is committed to via its anamorphic lenses, lens flare, production and costume design, televisuality, and casting. This branded desire for spectacle is, in the thirteenth Doctor’s words that I started with, another ‘[m]oment of truth’.

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Space: Critical Perspectives on Doctor Who. Manchester: Manchester University Press, pp. 19–42. Caldwell, J. T. (1995). Televisuality: Style, Crisis and Authority in American Television. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. Cardwell, S. (2006). ‘Television Aesthetics’, Critical Studies in Television: The International Journal of Television Studies, 1 (1), pp. 72–80. Cashmore, E., J. Cleveland, and K. Dixon (2018). Screen Society. New York: Palgrave. Chibnall, C. (2018). The Woman Who Fell to Earth camera script, http://down loads.bbc.co.uk/writersroom/scripts/DW11-EP1-The-Woman-Who-Fell-toEarth.pdf (accessed November 2019). Cook, B. (2005). ‘Tooth and Claw: The Russell T Davies Interview’, Doctor Who Magazine 360 (October), pp. 12–19. Cook, B. (2016). ‘The Making of a Hit TV Series’, Doctor Who Magazine 503 (October), pp. 38–44. Corner, J. (1999). Critical Ideas in Television Studies. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Creeber, G. (2005). Serial Television. Big Drama on the Small Screen. London: BFI. Creeber, G. (2013). Small Screen Aesthetics:  From Television to the Internet. London: Bloomsbury. Debord, G. (1994). The Society of the Spectacle. Trans. D. Nicholson-Smith. New York: Zone Books. Edensor, T. (2002). National Identity: Popular Culture and Everyday Life. Oxford: Berg. Ellis, J. (1982). Visible Fictions: Cinema, Television, Video. London: Routledge. Gatiss, M., G. Roberts, and C. Hickman (2001). A Proposal for the Return of a TV Legend (quoted in Doctor Who Magazine, 500 (July)). Hansen, K. T. and A. M. Waade (2017). Locating Nordic Noir: From Beck to The Bridge. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan. Hills, M. (2010). Triumph of a Time Lord: Regenerating ‘Doctor Who’ in the Twenty-First Century. London and New York: I. B. Tauris. Hills, M. (2015). Doctor Who: The Unfolding Event: Marketing, Merchandising and Mediatizing a Brand Anniversary. Basingstoke: Palgrave. Jacobs, J. (2001). ‘Issues of Judgement and Value in Television Studies’, International Journal of Cultural Studies, 4 (4), pp. 427–47. Jenner, M. (2018). Netflix & the Re-Invention of Television. New York: Palgrave. Johnson, D. (ed.) (2018). From Networks to Netflix: A Guide to Changing Channels. London: Routledge. King, G. (2000). Spectacular Narratives: Hollywood in the Age of the Blockbuster. London: I. B. Tauris. Knox, S. (2014). ‘The Transatlantic Dimensions of the Time Lord: Doctor Who and the relationships between British and North American Television’, in A. O’Day (ed.), Doctor Who: The Eleventh Hour. London: I. B. Tauris, pp. 106–20. Lefebvre, M. (2006). ‘Between Setting and Landscape in the Cinema’, in M. Lefebvre (ed.), Landscape and Film. London: Routledge, pp. 19–59. Lefebvre, M. (2011). ‘On Landscape in Narrative Cinema’, Canadian Journal of Film Studies, 20 (1), pp. 61–78. Lury, K. (2005). Interpreting Television. London: Hodder Arnold. Mulvey, L. (1989). Visual and Other Pleasures (Language, Discourse, Society). New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

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Mulvey, L. (2019). Afterimages: On Cinema, Women and Changing Times. London: Reaktion Books. Nelson, R. (2007). State of Play: Contemporary ‘High-End’ TV Drama. Manchester: Manchester University Press. October, D. (2014). ‘Doctor Who? What’s He Talking About?: Performativity and the First Doctor’, in J. Barr and C. D. G. Mustachio (eds), The Language of Doctor Who: From Shakespeare to Alien Tongues. London: Rowman and Littlefield, pp. 1–20. October, D. (2018). Marco Polo. Edinburgh: Obverse Books. October, D. (2019). ‘Hit or Miss? Fan Responses to the Regenderation of the Master’, in A. O’Day (ed.), Twelfth Night: Adventures in Time and Space with Peter Capaldi. London: I. B. Tauris, pp. 235–59. October, D. (2022). ‘Doctor Who’, in D. Nadoolman Landis (ed.), Bloomsbury Encyclopedia of Film and Television Costume Design. London: Bloomsbury, forthcoming. O’Day, A. (2013). ‘On Speed: The Ordering of Time and Pace of Action in Doctor Who’, in M. Hills (ed.), New Dimensions of Doctor Who: Adventures in Space, Time and Television. London: I. B. Tauris. pp: 112–33. Pearson, R. (2011). ‘Cult Television as Digital Television’s Cutting Edge’, in J. Bennett and N. Strange (eds), Television as Digital Media. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, pp. 7–17. Postman, N. (1985). Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business. London: Penguin. Rodan, D. (2009). ‘Large, Sleek, Slim, Stylish Flat Screens: Privatized Space and the Televisual Experience’, Continuum: Journal of Media and Cultural Studies, 23 (3), pp. 367–82. Schama, S. (1995). Landscape and Memory, New York: Knopf. Shimpach, S. (2010). Television in Transition: The Life and Afterlife of the Narrative Action Hero. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell. Sleight, G. (2011). ‘The Big Picture Show: Russell T. Davies writing for Doctor Who’, in S. Bradshaw, A. Keen, and G. Sleight (eds), The Unsilent Library: Essays on the Russell T. Davies Era of the New Doctor Who. London: The Science Fiction Foundation, pp. 15–27. Tasker, Y. (1993). Spectacular Bodies: Gender, Genre and the Action Cinema. London: Routledge. Thompson,  F. (2010). ‘Is There a Geography Genre  on British Television? Explorations of the Hinterland from Coast to Countryfile’, Critical Studies in Television, 5 (1), pp. 57–68. Todorov, T. (1973). The Fantastic: A Structural Approach to a Literary Genre. Cleveland: Press of Case Western Reserve University. Wheatley, H. (2011). ‘Beautiful Images in Spectacular Clarity: Spectacular Television, Landscape Programming and the Question of (Tele)Visual Pleasure’, Screen 52 (2), pp. 233–48. Wheatley, H. (2016). Spectacular Television: Exploring Televisual Pleasure. London: I. B. Tauris. Williams, R. (1974), Television: Technology and Cultural Form. London: Fontana.

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About time: addressing intersectionality in the casting and performance of Chris Chibnall / Jodie Whittaker era Doctor Who Christopher Hogg In 2017, the announcement that Jodie Whittaker had been cast as the first female Doctor initiated a period of heated debate surrounding the current production phase of Doctor Who under the showrunner Chris Chibnall. The debate continues to this day across online and print media, and in the contexts of both more focused fan discussion and wider industrial and socio-cultural commentary. As Alec Charles (2020) notes, the crux of this extended debate concerns whether Doctor Who has adopted a ‘politically correct direction’ at the expense of its storytelling or whether series 11 onwards marks a triumphant crystallization of the show’s progressive sensibilities. Thinking more along the commercial and technological lines of an international ‘franchise in transition’, Lynette Porter argues that Doctor Who must ‘confront the challenges of changing times’ (2012: 167). Surely attending to such challenges must also extend to acknowledging and tackling systemic inequalities of access, inclusion, and representation within the TV industry and society more generally – but this entails some controversy. Indeed, Charles recognizes that many of the full-blooded arguments raging around the show’s current representations of not only gender but race (and their intersections) are signposts towards the broader attitudinal schisms within contemporary Brexit Britain: ‘The current disagreements amongst [Doctor Who] fans – once a group which unambiguously embodied the liberal consensus … mirror those larger societal divisions, and may prove of greater significance as indicative of those broader ideological shifts and splits’ (2020: n.p.). As Danny Nicol’s Doctor Who: A British Alien? (2018) elaborates, the status of the show as a reflection of the ever-evolving complexities of Britain and Britishness is nothing new. Whilst some of the recent debate has developed around storylines and new selections for the creative team, such as Segun Akinola’s appointment as Doctor Who’s regular composer,1 the locus of attention has undoubtedly been casting, initially focusing on Whittaker then subsequently on the choice of Mandip Gill and Tosin Cole as the Doctor’s new companions, and more recently during the run of series 12 on the reveal of Sacha Dhawan

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as the Master and Jo Martin as a hitherto unknown black female incarnation of the Doctor. As Lorna Jowett’s (2014) work on Doctor Who and gender emphasizes, the show’s casting has been a long-standing point of critical attention and contention, in both popular and scholarly contexts. However, the current amplitude of such discussions is loud and clear, and of particular interest because of the ways in which these discussions relate to intersections of gender, race, ethnicity, and regionality in the casting and performance of Doctor Who. Since being coined by Kimberlé Crenshaw (1989) in the context of black feminism, ‘intersectionality’ has been mobilized within a range of discourses to express and examine the complex ways in which elements of one’s social and political identity, such as gender, race, class, and sexuality, can combine to create particular modes of discrimination. Calls for a greater recognition and exploration of these intersections continue, in the context of postfeminism, for example, in order to ‘expand the notion beyond a focus upon young, white, middle-class, heterosexual western women’ (Gill, 2017: 609–10). As Kristen Warner’s (2015) work begins to consider in relation to the cultural politics of ‘colour-blind’ casting in the US, intersectionality has clear applications for understanding television drama’s persistent systemic inequalities of access and representation. Indeed, both Ofcom’s thematic review, ‘Representation and Portrayal on BBC Television’ (2018), and its subsequent ‘Review of Regional TV Production and Programming Guidance’ (2019) identify ongoing issues in the diversity of representation on British TV. However, both could themselves go further in acknowledging the ways in which some of these problems are complicated and compounded by intersections of identity of various kinds. This chapter seeks to call attention to such complex intersections through considering casting and performance in Chibnall/Whittaker era Doctor Who. Other chapters in this collection very ably examine the aforementioned controversies around Doctor Who from text-based and reception-based perspectives, and – recognizing the metaphorical significance that Nicol (2018) identifies – in recent years there have been numerous studies of the show in relation to gender (e.g. see: Amy-Chinn, 2014; Jowett, 2014; October, 2019), race (e.g. see: Orthia, 2013; Mafe, 2015; Asif and Saenz, 2019), and regionality (e.g. see: Kilburn, 2014; Nicol, 2018; McNaughton, 2019). This chapter aims to enrich understandings of Doctor Who’s representational strategies through the particular focus of casting and performance in series 11 and 12, drawing on the perspectives of those involved in the production of the show. To this end, the chapter utilizes original material taken from a telephone interview on 18 October 2019 with Doctor Who’s casting director since 2005, Andy Pryor, along with insights from actors Mandip Gill (playing companion Yasmin Khan since 2018) and Julie Hesmondhalgh

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(who plays Judy Maddox in series 11’s ‘Kerblam!’) taken from telephone interviews on 28 October 2019 and 17 November 2019 respectively. Building on my previous work investigating television acting (Cantrell and Hogg, 2016, 2017, 2018; Hogg and Smith, 2018), this chapter consciously foregrounds the experiences, perceptions, and creative processes of those working within the casting and performance of Doctor Who, avoiding the ‘analytical trap’ (Hewett, 2015: 74) of aiming to comprehend the complexities of these production elements through the consideration of an end-text and its reception alone.

‘I’m from Hoodezfield’: regionality and the decentring of Doctor Who In October 2018, much was made online and in the British press (e.g. see: Cocking, 2018; Corner, 2018) of Whittaker’s interview on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert (2015–) in the US, after a mistake in subtitling Whittaker’s northern English accent led to her hometown of Huddersfield being spelt as ‘Hoodezfield’. No more than an innocent (and amusing) error, this moment nevertheless underlines the significance of regionality as a component of Whittaker’s identity as an actor and, more specifically, as the Doctor. Although previously noted controversy and cynicism around Whittaker’s casting focused almost exclusively on gender, her regionality signals an equally bold new direction for Doctor Who more broadly. There is clear performative antecedence to Whittaker’s northern Doctor, although made manifest in markedly different ways. In the opening episode of the show’s relaunch back in 2005, Christopher Eccleston’s Salfordtongued Doctor is asked, ‘If you are an alien, how comes you sound like you’re from the North?’, to which he replies, ‘Lots of planets have a North!’ This question is levelled by Rose Tyler in her own unmistakably broad South London accent. Although not addressed again in such explicit fashion, this exchange demonstrates how accent and its associations of regionality work to compound the sense of Eccleston’s Doctor as ‘alien’ to London: the home, the base, the ‘norm’ which is established for the show at that point. As both Matt Hills (2010: 48) and Douglas McNaughton (2019: 54–55) recognize, despite being a BBC Wales commission, Russell T Davies era Doctor Who presented a distinctly London- and English-centric view of Britishness, not only in narrative terms but also increasingly in much of its key casting and/or performance. This was perhaps made most apparent by David Tennant replacing his natural Scottish accent by a London one during his tenure as the Doctor. McNaughton (2019) argues that the subsequent Steven Moffat era, with a Scottish companion (Karen Gillan as

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Amy Pond) and later (although never on screen together) a Scottish Doctor (Peter Capaldi), goes somewhat further in broadening-out the show’s inclusion of UK national and regional diversity. However, what is significant and distinct about the latest diegetic and performative developments under Chibnall is that not only does the Doctor speak with a clear northern English accent, so too do two of her regular companions, along with relocating the Earth-based narrative centre of the show for the first time from London to Sheffield. Such a shift is identified as noteworthy by all three of this chapter’s interviewees. Pryor, for instance, in discussing his work in casting series 11 and 12 of Doctor Who, states that [Chris Chibnall’s] decision to relocate the Earth-based elements to Sheffield was a pleasing and exciting shift of tone. To have two of the three companions rooted in Sheffield and with that accent, and then to cast incidental characters in that way too, really felt like a fresh voice and new direction. It adds a greater texture and breadth.

When asked about whether saleability to a global market factored into discussions about regionality and accent, Pryor adds: We were conscious about being unconscious about it, if that makes sense … It’s nice to show that not all people in the UK sound RP or like they’re from London. On an international level, it feels good to be opening people’s eyes to regions and cultures which extend beyond the national stereotypes of Britain that tend to circulate globally.

In 2010, Shawn Shimpach argued that ‘the Doctor is incrementally losing his particular cultural perspectivism’, adopting conventionally masculine heroic traits ‘to circulate and signify more like American Quality Television’ (178). Whilst acknowledging McNaughton’s (2019) assertions regarding the show’s opened-out representations of Scottishness, the Doctor as commodified English hero, appealing to mainstream US sensibilities, certainly continued to predominate through the Moffat era too. This was most notably embodied by Matt Smith’s Doctor as the dashing young eccentric who looked and sounded like he might not be long out of Eton. By contrast, Pryor’s comments stress the extent of Doctor Who’s more recent rejection of such sensibilities, effectively decentring not only the casting and performance of the Doctor but also the broader ensemble and narrative base of the entire show. More than, as with Eccleston, positing a northern Doctor as ‘outsider’ to the London-based norm, series 11 and 12 performatively present most of their regular characters as a ‘fam’ of outsiders to that s­ outhern-centric norm, offering – as Pryor puts it – ‘a fresh voice’ for articulating the complexities of a more diverse and complicated contemporary English culture.

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Indeed, the value of such decentring, typified by Whittaker’s Doctor, and allowing for the expression and celebration of more diverse forms of Englishness, is also recognized by the cast members interviewed. For example, Gill notes: I had worked on Casualty [1986–] the year before and it was filmed in the same building as Doctor Who. We walked past a door and someone said, ‘Through there is where they film Doctor Who.’ It seemed very exclusive from the outside of that door. I remember thinking, ‘I’ll never be in that anyway.’ It never felt to me like an option for a young Asian girl with a northern accent to be in something like that. All that changed. And it wasn’t a gradual change … [Chris Chibnall] had decided on Sheffield very early on and had a clear idea that he wanted northerners involved. That was very obvious to me right from casting. It felt very natural for me to come in and just be northern … Working on Doctor Who is such a celebration of using your own accent. And working with people like Jodie – who properly owns her northern accent – I’ve really learnt to embrace it myself. Of course, I want to have versatility and to be able to do other accents when required but I won’t soften my accent unless it’s required by the part. Doctor Who has encouraged me just to own it.

Here, Gill reveals the ways in which the show’s narrative relocation broadened its potential for inclusion, not only in terms of its representations on screen but also in production for the actors involved. A seemingly ‘exclusive’ production space, once viewed by Gill from the outside as closed-off, both literally and in the intersectional sense of her perceived exclusion as northern, Asian, and female, became a site of professional acceptance and empowerment for her. Supporting this, Hesmondhalgh observes: I do think about what it must mean to be a young Asian girl in Yorkshire and see Mandip on screen or to be a young black lad from Sheffield and see Tosin, and think, ‘Oh yeah, there I am!’ Not only are they seeing characters they can recognize, also they’re seeing an industry which becomes a possibility for them, creatively and professionally … It’s so exciting and has added a renewed energy to the show.

In discussing Whittaker’s place in these changes, Hesmondhalgh continues: it’s not just about challenging gender stereotypes. When I first spoke with Jodie, I was really shocked at how strong her natural Yorkshire accent is. Her accent is so central to who she is and what she’s about. Jodie comes across as just so authentically herself. What a message for kids watching.

Thus, Hesmondhalgh further emphasizes how Doctor Who’s recent regional  shift has initiated a process of addressing broader intersectional exclusions in the show’s casting, performances and representations of its



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regular characters. Hesmondhalgh recognizes the progressive potential of this beyond just the show, in promoting wider viewer identification with characters and stories but also in encouraging a widened sense of accessibility to the creative industries. Furthermore, both Gill and Hesmondhalgh hone in on Whittaker as a catalyst for such changes, as not only a female Doctor but a northern female Doctor, doubly ‘alien’ to the show’s prevalent historical norms but also doubly welcomed by many in heralding more nuanced forms of inclusion for Doctor Who.

‘Mate, I’m from Yorkshire. That’s a love letter!’ Mandip Gill – an actor’s perspective on Doctor Who During series 12’s concluding episode, ‘The Timeless Children’, the action is punctuated by a poignant moment between companions Graham and Yasmin: GRAHAM: … You ain’t got a time machine or a sonic but you’re never afraid and you’re never beaten. You know, I’m gonna sound like a proper old man – you’re doing your family proud, Yaz, you really are. In fact, you’re doing the whole human race proud … YAZ: You’re not such a bad human yourself either. GRAHAM: … Is that it?! I’ve just said all them lovely things about you and all you give me is ‘You’re not such a bad human’! YAZ: Mate, I’m from Yorkshire. That’s a love letter!

Having spoken with Gill not long before watching this exchange, it clearly chimes with the elements of the role which most appeal to her as an actor. Reflecting on her training, Gill shares: Most other people at university sounded sort of the same. I was really notably northern and I didn’t want to sound like everyone else. To this day, it’s still something that’s commented on often. Maybe it’s the combination of the strong northern accent and being Asian that particularly grabs people as being noteworthy or surprising – but it’s a big part of who I am.

When asked about her hopes for developments in TV casting and inclusion in the future, Gill continues: ‘I hope I get to the point where I’m consistently auditioning for parts because I’m right in more ways than one. Not “Asian Girl” but “Girl”! It does still feel sometimes like people struggle to see past the Asian bit.’ Gill describes her role as Yasmin in Doctor Who as ‘an exceptional opportunity’ because of the ways in which the show is pushing beyond more tokenistic approaches in casting and performance in order to offer complex characters who are ‘more than just one thing’:

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It’s not about political correctness – a character is Asian, a character is dis­ abled and so on – instead every character in the show, as in life, is more than just one thing. For example, Ryan is a young black guy from Sheffield with dyspraxia. He’s more than just a racial or gender stereotype because of the ways those character elements combine to create someone unique and very human.

Indeed, this approach is echoed by Pryor in discussing his current thoughts on ‘diversity’ versus ‘inclusion’ in casting: ‘Recently, I’ve moved away from the term “diversity” and prefer to talk about inclusiveness. “Diversity” implies to me a degree of box-ticking and something that’s approached from the outside in. To think inclusively, however, seems to me to be about everyone being involved with the same shared purpose.’ Graham and Yasmin’s heart-felt exchange is an apt example of these inclusive strategies in action. In making regionality the more up-beat ‘pay-off’ of their conversation, the dialogue foregrounds and celebrates a facet of Yasmin’s (and Gill’s) rich identity which is of equal significance as, for example, race or gender. Moreover, despite Graham’s light-hearted retort, in complimenting one another as ‘humans’, the characters are interacting at a level of inclusion befitting of Doctor Who’s current level of ambition. As I have examined elsewhere (Cantrell and Hogg, 2016; 2017; 2018), an actor’s preparatory work in developing their performances for TV is often private. In line with this, Gill shares further insights as to how she constructed a backstory for Yasmin: The original character brief suggested they were looking for an actor’s own interpretation. It was a very open, unstructured brief. So, I worked on a backstory as to why she would be a police officer – not the most common job for a young Asian girl. I know this from my own experience. I thought about becoming a police officer when I was younger. I used to see a lot of things happening around my family newsagents relating to racism that never got sorted out … So, I thought about joining the police to do something about all those things. Ultimately, I didn’t do that but I gave that story to Yaz. She wanted to help people.

Here, Gill reveals how the flexibility of Yasmin’s initial character brief allowed her to make better sense of the character’s motivations through building her own more elaborate set of ‘given circumstances’ (Stanislavski, 2008), by which is meant the facts that enable an actor to develop their performance physically and psychologically. Noteworthy is the extent to which Gill was empowered in bringing her own parallels of experience to bear – as northern, Asian, and female – in fleshing-out Yasmin as an authentic, multifaceted character. By series 12’s ‘Can You Hear Me?’, Gill’s internalized backstory for Yasmin is given external narrative form, of sorts, when we



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are shown a flashback to a younger Yasmin attempting to run away from bullying at home, only to be persuaded back by a uniformed police officer who reaches out and helps – and who also happens to be northern, Asian, and female. This is not to suggest that Gill’s preparatory work on Yasmin’s backstory was entirely autobiographical, however. For instance, referring to early conversations about the episodes ‘Rosa’ and ‘Demons of the Punjab’, Gill also notes: One thing that I did clarify with [Chris Chibnall] in our initial meeting was that he knew I wasn’t of the same religion as Yaz. Not that it matters, but I wanted to stress where I was coming from regarding the role, and that I would be putting in the necessary research, just as he was reassuring us that the writing team were. So, those early discussions were very much about gauging each other and establishing that everyone was coming at those stories in a thoughtful, informed, responsible way.

Gill’s account of her opening meeting with Chibnall reinforces the findings of my previous research (Cantrell and Hogg, 2016; 2017) regarding the importance of founding relationships of trust and shared intention between key creative ‘stakeholders’ early on within the production process. Once cemented, those foundational relationships and collective aims and values enable creative decisions to develop more tacitly and organically amongst cast and crew. Indeed, as Gill adds: ‘The eventual scripts do change a lot over the process of production … A lot of things are discussed on the floor.’ In this instance, the common purpose being established at the outset relates to ensuring ‘thoughtful, informed, responsible’ strategies of representation and inclusion for Doctor Who. Moreover, equally echoing my earlier work (Cantrell and Hogg, 2016; 2017), Gill relates the ways in which knowledge can be more informally shared between television actors ‘on the floor’. ‘The actress who played my grandmother was of Pakistani heritage so I could ask her things like, “How would you say that word?” So, you can work together to check a lot of things and to problem-solve on the floor – and that happens a lot.’ These informal practices make sense within the context of intensive TV production schedules, during which there is often simply no time to request clarifications from above. What is particularly noteworthy about this example of collaborative problem-solving amongst TV actors ‘on the floor’ for the effective execution of performance is that such collaboration can extend to the exchange of cultural insight amongst cast members, very much in the spirit of the show’s inclusive production values.

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Confronting monsters head-on: racism and postcolonialism in the Chibnall/Whittaker era In examining post-2005 Doctor Who’s representations of race and the show’s relationship with postcolonialism, Saljooq M. Asif and Cindy Saenz (2019: 321) assert that it ‘rarely touches upon power dynamics based on racial differences … Doctor Who, ultimately, is guilty of offering a whitewashed and revisionist history filled with harmonious diversity.’ This is by no means an isolated critique. For instance, it builds upon similar observations in Amit Gupta’s (2013) work tracing a longer history through classic Doctor Who, and is reaffirmed in Lindy Orthia’s (2013) edited collection addressing Doctor Who and race. Asif and Saenz (2019) substantiate their appraisal through a detailed analysis of the show’s treatment of Martha Jones, the show’s first black female companion. Asif and Saenz (2019: 316) recognize that ‘Martha is often subject to revisionist timelines that deprive her Blackness of historical context. She finds herself in situations alluding to historical slavery and anti-Black racism, only to have her concerns easily dismissed by the Doctor.’ The authors acknowledge that Martha’s overall story arc ‘can be interpreted through the lens of Afrofuturism’, with her journey as a healing medical professional constituting ‘anticolonial and even liberatory doctorhood’ (2013: 316). Even so, such interpretations are not readily perceptible on the narrative surface without applying a fair amount of critical pressure. Alongside more nuanced representations in character construction, the Chibnall/Whittaker era has already gone some way in more explicitly redressing such criticisms in terms of its narrative strategies. Most notable in this regard are the series 11 episodes ‘Rosa’ and ‘Demons of the Punjab’, transporting the TARDIS crew to Alabama in 1955, where they meet Rosa Parks, and to the Punjab in 1947, the day before the Partition of India, respectively. Discussing her thoughts on these episodes as a viewer, Hesmondhalgh comments: It’s a boldness of story as well as character. Children in this country don’t get taught about the Partition of India in school but there’s an episode about that: let’s have a conversation and learn more about that. Children do learn about Rosa Parks but as something from the past – something that’s gone now, that’s sorted. Rosa Parks did what she did and the world changed. Even though it happens when they’ve travelled back in time, having Tosin get smacked in the face for handing a glove back to someone in that episode brings it bang into the present and is a really creative way of highlighting that those prejudices haven’t gone away.

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In sharp contrast to Asif and Saenz’s observations of Doctor Who’s whitewashing revisionism of history, these episodes consciously and ­explicitly address systemic racism and the complex consequences of colonialism head-on, through the crafting of narratives around specific moments which are pivotal within the history of black civil rights and India’s colonial past. Not only do these narratives actively encourage a more inclusive awareness of historical significance beyond dominant white-western accounts and perspectives, they also – as Hesmondhalgh recognizes – dovetail with the show’s concurrent aims in exploring the complex nature of contemporary intersectional identities. The episodes achieve this through an effective combination of casting, performance, and storytelling. By transporting Ryan and Yasmin to key historical moments which connect with their race and/or heritage (directly for Yasmin, given that she meets her grandmother as a young woman preparing to marry), Doctor Who offers characters who are simultaneously ‘alien’ to those worlds and very much part of them, because of different aspects of their multifaceted selves as twenty-first-century Britons. Indeed, the moment of action which Hesmondhalgh pinpoints, in which Ryan does a good deed only to be slapped in the face because of the colour of his skin, typifies the ways in which Doctor Who is able to confront directly the monsters of the past and to acknowledge their lasting impact on the present, even if the show has not always chosen to do so. Thus, as with earlier examples of regionality, Doctor Who’s current approaches in casting and performance contribute to a broader decentring of the show’s perspective and address to viewers, allowing for a richer, more inclusive range of characters and stories which better speak to contemporary, diverse, multiracial, multicultural audiences. It is important to stress the presence of such strategies behind the screen as well as on it, with, for example, Malorie Blackman’s input on ‘Rosa’ constituting the first credit for a black female writer in the history of Doctor Who.

Conclusion: loving the alien Reflecting on being a lifelong fan of Doctor Who before she appeared in the show, Hesmondhalgh comments on its enduring appeal: Doctor Who has always been about social justice … This is just the next step … I’m sure this is a big reason why so many people who feel like social outsiders in some way, particularly gay men, have made such strong connections with the show as viewers and fans. You have to ask yourself why that has happened over decades … people saw something in that show which spoke to them directly.

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If Hesmondhalgh’s astute observations hold true, then the Chibnall/ Whittaker era is surely the apotheosis of the show’s celebration of the ­‘outsider’, the ‘alien’, in a broader intersectional sense. Series 11 and 12 have courted such levels of controversy precisely because of the ways in which they actively seek to challenge and redress systemic inequalities of access, representation, and perspective within Doctor Who, TV drama, the TV industry and society more generally, inequalities that have been normalized over many years. Through foregrounding the insights of the show’s Casting Director and two of the actors involved, this chapter has examined how Doctor Who is now beginning to tackle intersectionality in its strategies of casting and performance, in ways which connect to the broader progressive agenda of the show in the Chibnall/Whittaker era. Bold and decisive change never comes without resistance, however. As Charles (2020) states, conflicts of opinion in response to the production of Doctor Who since 2017 are reflective of larger attitudinal divisions during a period of marked transition both for the creative sector and for Britain more broadly. Regardless of the controversy, Chibnall/Whittaker era Doctor Who not only offers viewers an otherworldly outsider to the ‘norm’ in the form of Whittaker’s Doctor but also a ‘fam’ of regular supporting characters who are each in their own way ‘alien’ to the prevailing traditions of televisual representation in the UK, but united across time and space, and – more importantly – across gender, age, race, ethnicity, and regionality. Although Shimpach (2010: 178) once recognized that the Doctor had gradually gravitated towards the codes and conventions of a more mainstream masculine hero, by series 12’s final episode, ‘The Timeless Children’, when Jo Martin’s black, female incarnation of the Doctor rhetorically asks Whittaker’s Doctor, ‘Have you ever been limited by who you were before?’, the resounding answer has to be, ‘Not any more!’

Acknowledgements This chapter is indebted to the help of Mandip Gill, Julie Hesmondhalgh, and Andy Pryor.

Note 1 Although Charles (2018) argues that online viewer criticism of this appointment on ‘political correctness’ grounds was overstated by the popular press.



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References Amy-Chinn, D. (2014). ‘Amy’s Boys, River’s Man: Generation, Gender and Sexuality in the Moffat Whoniverse’, in A. O’Day (ed.), Doctor Who: The Eleventh Hour – A Critical Celebration of the Matt Smith and Steven Moffat Era. London: I. B. Tauris, pp. 70–86. Asif, S. M. and C. Saenz (2019). ‘Colonialist Pasts and Afrosurrealist Futures: Decolonizing Race and Doctorhood in Doctor Who’, Journal of Medical Humanities, 40 (3), pp. 315–28. Cantrell, T. and C. Hogg (2016). ‘Returning to an Old Question: What Do Television Actors Do When They Act?’, Critical Studies in Television: The International Journal of Television Studies, 11 (3), pp. 283–98. Cantrell, T. and C. Hogg (2017). Acting in British Television. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Cantrell, T. and C. Hogg (eds) (2018). Exploring Television Acting. London: Bloomsbury. Charles, A. (2018), ‘Not a Moment Too Soon’, Medium (5 October), https:// medium.com/peter-lang/not-a-moment-too-soon-98ec02fdfeb3 (accessed 1 March 2020). Charles, A. (2020), ‘Doctor Who: Fan Reaction to First Black Time Lord Exposes Britain’s Deep Divisions on Race and Gender’, The Conversation (3 February), https://theconversation.com/doctor-who-fan-reaction-to-first-black-time-lordexposes-britains-deep-divisions-on-race-and-gender-130962 (accessed 1 March 2020). Cocking, L. (2018). ‘Why Hoodezfield Is the Best Town in England’, Independent (9 October), www.independent.co.uk/travel/uk/huddersfield-yorkshire-englandjodie-whittaker-hoodezfield-a8573701.html (accessed 6 April 2020). Corner, N. (2018). ‘“I’m from Hoodezfield”: Jodie Whittaker’s Yorkshire Accent Baffles the Subtitle Writer During a US Talk Show Appearance’, Daily Mail (5 October), www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-6243311/US-subtitles-flash-biz arre-attempt-spelling-Hoodezfield-Jodie-Whittaker-appearance.html (accessed 6 April 2020). Crenshaw, K. (1989). ‘Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory and Antiracist Politics’, University of Chicago Legal Forum, pp. 139–68. Gill, M. (2019). Telephone interview with C. Hogg, 28 October. Gill, R. (2017). ‘The Affective, Cultural and Psychic Life of Postfeminism: A Postfeminist Sensibility 10 Years On’, European Journal of Cultural Studies, 20 (6): pp. 606–26. Gupta, A. (2013). ‘Doctor Who and Race: Reflections on the Change of Britain’s Status in the International System’, The Round Table: The Commonwealth Journal of International Affairs, 102 (1), pp. 41–50. Hesmondhalgh, J. (2019). Telephone interview with C. Hogg, 17 November. Hewett, R. (2015). ‘The Changing Determinants of UK Television Acting’, Critical Studies in Television, 10 (1), pp. 73–90. Hills, M. (2010). Triumph of a Time Lord: Regenerating Doctor Who in the Twenty-First Century. London: I. B. Tauris. Hogg, C. and C. L. Smith (2018). ‘Well-Being and the Television Actor: Challenges

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and Coping Strategies’, in C. Hogg and T. Cantrell (eds), Exploring Television Acting. London: Bloomsbury, pp. 171–86. Jowett, L. (2014). ‘The Girls Who Waited? Female Companions and Gender in Doctor Who’, Critical Studies in Television, 9 (1), pp. 77–94. Kilburn, M. (2014). ‘Genealogies across Time: History and Storytelling in Steven Moffat’s Doctor Who’, in A. O’Day (ed.), Doctor Who: The Eleventh Hour – A Critical Celebration of the Matt Smith and Steven Moffat Era. London: I. B. Tauris, pp. 52–69. Mafe, D. A. (2015). ‘It’s The Master! (Step in Time): Hearts of Darkness and Postcolonial Paradoxes in Doctor Who’, The Journal of Popular Culture, 48 (3), pp. 443–63. McNaughton, D. (2019). ‘“I’m Scottish … I can really complain about things now”: Discourses of Scotland and Scottishness in Doctor Who’, in A. O’Day (ed.), Doctor Who: Twelfth Night – Adventures in Time and Space with Peter Capaldi. London: I. B Tauris, pp. 28–60. Nicol, D. (2018). Doctor Who: A British Alien? London: Palgrave Macmillan. October, D. (2019). ‘Hit or Miss? Fan Responses to the Regenderation of the Master’, in A. O’Day (ed.), Doctor Who: Twelfth Night – Adventures in Time and Space with Peter Capaldi. London: I. B Tauris, pp. 235–59. Ofcom (2018). Representation and Portrayal on BBC Television (25 October), www.ofcom.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0022/124078/report-bbc-representa tion-portrayal.pdf (accessed 24 March 2020). Ofcom (2019). Review of Regional TV Production and Programming Guidance (19 June), www.ofcom.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0024/152466/statementreview-of-regional-tv-production-and-programming-guidance.pdf (accessed 24 March 2020). Orthia, L. (ed.) (2013). Doctor Who and Race. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Porter, L. (2012). The Doctor Who Franchise: American Influence, Fan Culture and the Spinoffs. Jefferson, NC: McFarland. Pryor, A. (2019). Telephone interview with C. Hogg, 18 October. Shimpach, S. (2010). Television in Transition: The Life and Afterlife of the Narrative Action Hero. Malden: Wiley-Blackwell. Stanislavski, C. (2008). An Actor Prepares. London: Methuen Drama. Warner, K. (2015) The Cultural Politics of Colorblind Casting. New York: Routledge.

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Part II

Diversifying Doctor Who

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5 Casual queerness and desire lines in Doctor Who Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to distribute or copy this document

Lorna Jowett

[G]enerally ‘queer’ means to resist or reject the idea that being ‘normal’ is valuable or ideal, and to seek other ways of existing. (Cáel Keegan, 2019) DOCTOR: Why are you calling me madam? YASMIN: Because you’re a woman. DOCTOR: Am I? Does it suit me? (‘The Woman Who Fell to Earth’) So, if Doctor Who is married to River Song and Doctor Who is now a woman, is Doctor Who gay? Or NB (non-binary)? (fan tweet cited in Leighton-Dore, 2018)

New Doctor, new series, new companions … new challenges. It shouldn’t, perhaps, be too challenging. After all, science fiction is supposed to be about the new, the strange, the alien; defamiliarization or estrangement are key strategies for the genre. For various reasons, of course, science fiction, especially in mainstream media such as TV, tends not to live up to its potential of creating new worlds and new ways of thinking. However, I would answer Sara Gwenllian Jones’s question ‘Is fantastic genre cult television perhaps inherently queer?’ (2002) very much in the affirmative. Discussing queer temporalities, Evangeline Aguas describes how Jose Muñoz ‘theorizes a queer futurity that is “not an end but an opening or horizon,” a vision of new worlds laden with potentiality. Within contemporary queer theory, then,’ she continues, ‘the queer experience is marked not only by a lingering in the past but also a pull towards the future’ (2019: loc 1369). This suggests an affinity between queerness and science fiction, which frequently envisions ‘new worlds laden with potentiality’. Matt Hills has observed that since its return in 2005 Doctor Who ‘is premised on an avoidance of normative heterosexual “social practice” such as settling down or childrearing’ (2010: 37), aligning the series with Keegan’s definition of queer in the first epigraph to this chapter. ‘I would say that being oriented in different ways does matter,’ argues Sara Ahmed, ‘precisely because of how spaces are already oriented, which makes some bodies feel in place, or at home, and not others’ (2006: 563).

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The Jodie Whittaker era of Doctor Who is, I suggest, ‘seek[ing] other ways of existing’, moving away from centres and towards margins and validating viewers who, as the slogan puts it, ‘can’t even think straight’. Series 11 brought not only the first female Doctor but also three new companions, all British, two male and one female, one white, one black, and one Asian, as well as episodes featuring US civil rights campaigner and icon Rosa Parks, a pregnant man, companion Yasmin Khan discovering her grandmother’s personal history during the Partition of India, the Doctor wearing rainbows, and the first episode since the 1980s with both a female writer and a female director (‘The Witchfinders’). Diversity of all kinds was highlighted in the publicity before, and during, the series’ run, and featured in a BBC trailer for new drama titled ‘welcome to the revolution’. The opening episode of series 11, and indeed the whole series, was stuffed full of statements of intent. Yet sustaining and exploring diversity in the complex, satisfying ways now expected by viewers of serial TV drama is tricky. Stating intent is one thing, but fully realizing it may be another (Jowett, 2018). This chapter explores how introducing, and developing, the Doctor as (nominally) female has repercussions for queering all identities in the series, and serves to unsettle dynamics established since 2005, not least the privileging of white male experience and the frequent presence of heterosexual romance (as unrequited longing) within the TARDIS. Some of this queering is less overt, such as Thasmin (thirteenth Doctor–Yaz ’shipping), while other elements (camp King James in ‘The Witchfinders’ or Adam and Jake’s marital problems in ‘Praxeus’) announce themselves clearly. Applying aspects of Ahmed’s ‘queer phenomenology’ (2006) and understandings of queerbaiting (Brennan, 2019), I attempt to unpick some aspects of this new ‘era’, beginning with story choices, moving on to character dynamics, and finishing with an examination of how the series’ terms for its ensemble signals its new direction. Ahmed observes ‘that in landscape architecture the  term desire lines is used to describe unofficial paths, those marks left on  the ground that show everyday comings and goings, where people deviate from the paths they are supposed to follow’ (2006: 570). She links this to the ways queer desire ‘helps generate a queer landscape, shaped by the paths that we follow in deviating from the straight line’ (2006: 570). Ahmed’s emphasis on desire lines that ‘mark’ deviation from norms, normative identities, and relationships, and on the ‘unofficial’ nature of such deviations, chimes with recent debates about queer representation and queer fandom, particularly in terms of the reinvention of the term ‘­queerbaiting’, as ­discussed in the second section of this chapter.



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Story choices ‘It’s mesmerizing,’ says one review of series 11, ‘to see a show written, run, and mostly acted by white men for decades suddenly populated by so many people of color. And it’s just as hypnotizing to see how casually it treats queerness’ (Hogan, 2018). Both are hallmarks of series 11 and what I call its statement of intent. The intent, as I see it, is to shift the series towards a more inclusive representation, achieved not only through more conscious casting and storylines but also by taking positive action to address the white, male domination of previous series, and indeed the TV and media industry more widely, in recruiting and appointing writers and directors who are female, black, and Asian. It is perhaps unsurprising that the series attracted criticism for ‘messy’ or ‘bad’ writing. Admittedly, the hype around the series was bound to set trolls and traditionalists complaining. Reviews aggregators like rottentomatoes.com provide evidence of the positions here: a Google search for ‘Doctor Who series 11 bad writing’ brings up Rotten Tomatoes on the first page of results, with the search entry highlighting the phrases ‘trying too hard to be PC’, ‘not good’, and ‘bad writing’ (2020). I have been personally engaged in several conversations about this ‘bad writing’ by (male) colleagues, some of whom seem determined to push me into admitting that I think the writing is bad. (Of course, there can be many reasons for ‘bad writing’: here I am highlighting systemic rather than individual failings.) My response, personally and professionally, is that giving writers and directors who have been sidelined by the TV industry simply because of their gender or race the opportunity to work on a major flagship BBC series must be a long-term benefit. This benefit lies in modelling more inclusive industry practice (something that is incumbent on a public service broadcaster like the BBC); and in providing the experience that such writers and directors have been unable to gain because of deeply embedded inequalities in the British TV landscape. Previous arguments ‘justifying’ the lack of women or people of colour behind the scenes were that the production team had to pick the ‘best person for the job’ in order to maintain the quality of such an important series, ignoring how industry inequalities mean that the most high-profile jobs go to those with the most experience, inevitably those with most privilege and social capital, i.e. white men (Jowett, 2017). And although accusations of ‘bad writing’ have also focused on the work of showrunner Chris Chibnall, such critique has frequently occurred in relation to his own professed cultural politics as someone who is pro-diversity. Such criticisms sometimes seem to be aimed at shutting down Doctor Who’s current moves toward greater inclusion, even – or especially – when these developments are supported by a white male showrunner.

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Simply having more diverse writers and directors on board has already made some difference in terms of negotiating characters and stories, providing new perspectives on society and identity. Focusing episodes on Rosa Parks and on British colonization and the Partition of India has a knock-on effect for the regular characters – the Doctor and those who travel with her – who must respond to serious oppression or inequalities encountered in these until-now unvisited parts of history. As Kelly Connolly notes, ‘From a storytelling angle, pitting the Doctor against various, often faceless systems yielded mixed results; taken as a whole, the series felt directionless’ (2018: n.p.). So, in terms of a story arc, this may not be so much ‘bad writing’ as a return to episodic narrative structures that viewers accustomed to such arcs may find disappointing. Yet Connolly points out that ‘the best stories, which were almost invariably the histories, leaned into how frustrating it was, for both the audience and the Doctor, that she couldn’t save the day by defeating a single enemy’ (ibid.). Accepting this line of argument indicates that series 11 presents an alternative type of hero, continuing the way science fiction as a genre of ideas encourages us, through the estrangement of aliens and other worlds, to confront our own social problems. This happens through conscious revisiting of neglected histories. ‘Rosa’, ‘Demons of the Punjab’, ‘The Witchfinders’, and series 12’s ‘Spyfall’ episodes (featuring Ada Lovelace, first computer programmer, and Noor Inayat Khan, Second World War heroine) all showcase female and/or subaltern history. As a review of ‘The Witchfinders’ for The Mary Sue notes, ‘The history episodes of classic Who were meant to teach basic history to the children watching the show, but now, especially in Jodie Whittaker’s era, the histories are there to provide us with a culture shock’ (Leishman, 2018: n.p.). Connolly concludes that the Doctor’s ‘inability to find a quick fix for pervasive social problems is just a result of the show’s increased willingness to actually engage with those problems – the same ones it once hand-waved away with a “Just walk about like you own the place”’ (2018: n.p.). Here Connolly cites the tenth Doctor’s dismissive response to companion Martha Jones’s expression of concern about being black in the time of Shakespeare (‘The Shakespeare Code’ (2007)). As several scholars have noted (see 2013’s Doctor Who and Race, among others), Martha, the first primary companion of colour, was undermined by her storylines. Her presentation, along with that of sometime companion Mickey Smith, Rose’s boyfriend (series 1 and 2; last seen in the 2010 Christmas special), and Danny Pink, Clara’s boyfriend (series 8), followed identifiable trends for characters of colour on TV. This is a rather different way of reading the new Doctor from that put forward by Michael G. McDunnah:



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the show has largely addressed this change in the most empowering way: by almost completely ignoring it. Throughout Whittaker’s first series, Chibnall and the other writers have treated the Doctor’s being a woman as no big deal, barely even waving at the issue in their scripts. They clearly decided that the best way to make the point that a woman can be a hero was by simply letting her get on with being a hero. (McDunnah, 2019: n.p.)

By series 12, the gender swap is the subject of casual (queer) humour when the time traveller Captain Jack Harkness, the most openly queer recurring character in Doctor Who to date (Barron, 2010; Porter, 2012), returns, teleports companions Graham, Ryan, and Yaz on board his ship to pass on an urgent message. Following some confusion about which of them is the new incarnation of the Doctor, Ryan clarifies: ‘She, not he’, to which Jack delightedly responds, ‘Oh, this I gotta see!’ Regendering the Doctor means that the series cannot continue the way it has done, and I would certainly contest the idea that however casually it is treated within the text, and particularly by the Doctor herself, it cannot help but have wide-ranging effects. The ‘casual queerness’ identified by Hogan is evident from the second episode (‘The Ghost Monument’) in a brief exchange between Graham and a female pilot encountered by those from the TARDIS. ANGSTROM: You know the Stenza too? GRAHAM: My wife died because of them. ANGSTROM: Mine too. I’m sorry.

Angstrom had a wife and this is unremarkable. The fifth episode returns to a familiar if not entirely frequent science fiction plot or trope: the pregnant man story. Yoss, the male Gifftan in question, tells Graham that he got pregnant ‘On holiday. Got involved with someone. Didn’t take precautions, like an idiot’ (‘The Tsuranga Conundrum’). When Yoss shows Graham, Ryan, and Yaz his ultrasound pictures, Ryan is entranced, marvelling,  ‘Mate, you’re growing a person’. Pushing the reversal as far as possible, the episode sees Ryan and Graham called upon to deliver Yoss’s son while Yaz and the  Doctor are busy elsewhere. Estranging ‘normal’ relationships further, the episode also features a family rift between two siblings, one of whom has a synthetic human as her ‘consort’. ‘The Witchfinders’ is set in 1612 during witch hunts endorsed by monarch James I;1 I would argue that James is another example of casual queering and deliberate inclusion. In casting Alan Cumming, the episode benefited from a gleefully camp performance (‘Careful,’ he warns Ryan as the latter picks up a witch-detecting device, ‘That’s my pricker’). Cumming’s performance could, admittedly, be seen as a (negative) stereotype of the predatory and arch gay man; however, Cumming’s work for LGBTQ+ causes, his current marriage to a man, and his publicly acknowledged bisexuality

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indicate layers of authenticity, or at least self-parody, to his King James. (Similar factors apply to the openly gay actor John Barrowman’s camp performance of Captain Jack.) Directly following this episode comes another (‘It Takes You Away’) that, perhaps more subtly, critiques the myths of heteronormative romance, particularly the drive to define oneself by a partner, going to any lengths to be together. Arriving in Norway, the group discover a blind teenager, Hanne, abandoned by her father Erik, who, it is revealed, is sneaking into another universe where he can be reunited with his dead wife, Trine. ‘She can’t leave,’ Erik explains to the Doctor, ‘We’ve tried, but she can’t go through the mirror. I know I stayed away from Hanne too long, but I kept thinking, what if I go and I can’t come back? I can’t lose Trine again.’ ‘You’ve got get your priorities straight, mate,’ retorts Graham, ‘Your daughter needs you. Come on.’ Ironically, Graham himself is then drawn to stay when his dead wife Grace appears, though unlike Erik, Graham eventually realizes that Grace would never encourage him to stay with her and neglect his other relationships. It is certainly refreshing that Graham appears to be the only (token?) white, cisgendered, heterosexual, older male in the TARDIS. Graham seemed to be immediately popular. Perhaps this is because he is played by Bradley Walsh, one of the few better-known actors cast as a regular in series 11 and 12. Graham is the most traditional companion and most often serves as ‘straight guy’ to the Doctor’s explanations or admonishments. Whilst he inhabits privilege in ways nobody else in the TARDIS does, he is shown to be quite happy following the Doctor’s lead, and orders, and is quite open to non-normative relationships, as indicated by his acceptance of Yoss’s pregnancy and his relationship advice to Jake. Graham is also largely defined by his grief for his dead wife, Grace. Admittedly, the ‘fridging’ of Grace in the debut episode of series 11 was not an encouraging sign in terms of female characterization (see Hills, 2018; Jowett, 2018), but the way Graham continues to be defined by his past heteronormative relationship and his role as Ryan’s ‘grandad’ indicates another kind of gender swapping. Several series 11 episodes focus on Graham and Ryan’s challenging family relationship, culminating in the 2019 New Year special when Ryan’s absent father returned. Consequently, this character arc gave both Graham and Ryan more prominence and resulted in less focus on the Doctor or Yaz. Opinion on Yaz’s more low-key presence was mixed. Some, like Adi Tantimedh, argued that it meant ‘we didn’t get to know what made Yaz tick all season. We still don’t know what her hopes or dreams are or what her own inner life is about: she’s still a bit of a cipher’ (2019: n.p.). Max Farrow tended to agree: ‘there’s too much of a gap between her first appearance and these explorations of her life. Furthermore, after these episodes establish Yaz’s family situation, they have no bearing on what follows. As



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such, she continues to be the least fleshed-out member of the TARDIS crew’ (2018: n.p.). Others read Yaz’s position rather differently: ‘Yaz stands out when compared with Graham and Ryan. She has a family and a career and a fleshed-out character, whereas Graham is defined by his past (as both a widower and cancer survivor) and Ryan has friends we’ll probably never see again’ (Fraze, 2020: n.p.). The final episode of series 12 seems to acknowledge this when, thinking they will all die, Graham tells Yaz: You said to the Doc that you thought she was the best person you’d ever met. But you know what. Yaz? I think you are. You ain’t got a time machine or a sonic but you’re never afraid and you’re never beaten … you’re doing your family proud, Yaz … In fact, you’re doing the whole human race proud. (‘The Timeless Children’)

Thus, Yaz is defined by the career and the family she leaves behind and also by embodying the best things about humanity, while Graham and Ryan are seen primarily in relation to (lost) family and (present) emotion, much as previous female companions from 2005 were. In one of the many interviews before series 11 aired, the executive producer Matt Strevens responded to a question about LGBTQ+ and other representation by saying: ‘Since the show came back in 2005, I think Doctor Who has been amazing at blurring the edges of sexuality and being quite gender fluid about the characters and relationships’ (in McEwan, 2018). He cites the gay writer Russell T Davies’s role in bringing the series back to the BBC here but Strevens’s take is certainly not shared by the many viewers who critiqued some previous series for poor treatment of female characters and queerbaiting. As Emma Nordin notes, current social media culture means that ‘critical voices [often fans] are expected to be heard and taken into consideration’ by producers of popular media (2019: loc 953). This seemed to be happening as promotion for series 11 began but, perhaps predictably, the BBC contradicted its own positive publicity about diversity before series 11 aired. During 2018 San Diego Comic Con a photo of Jodie Whittaker and Alex Kingston appeared on the official BBC America Twitter feed, captioned ‘The Doctor and her wife’. This caption was altered later to ‘Jodie Whittaker meets the Doctor’s wife, Alex Kingston’ (McDunnah, 2019; Duffy, 2018). It is hard not to read this as a reluctance to fully embrace the queer potential of a female Doctor, at least in the US.

Character dynamics and queerbaiting The move to an ensemble cast rather than the previous dynamic of the (ostensibly male) Doctor and one (female) companion, established in the

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2005 relaunch and more or less unchanged until series 11, did manage to avoid the unrequited love trajectory of almost every previous female companion. This has not gone unnoticed: ‘Chibnall has chosen to ditch one classic Doctor Who trope; the idea that the companions are just there as “eye candy”’ (Bacon 2018). Of course, having a nominally female Doctor does not rule out romance with a companion, male or female, in the same way that having a heterosexual romance undercurrent in previous series did not rule out queering of the post-2005 Doctors played by men. Both Piers Britton and Catherine Johnson noted the way the series seemed to restrict male–female interaction to heteronormative romance, ruling out any other relationships (Britton, 2011: 140; Johnson, 2014). During the years that Steven Moffat was head writer, the series came under fire for queerbaiting as well as for underrepresenting women. Scholarly analysis of queerbaiting has developed in the years since the series has returned. Judith Fathallah summarizes: Queerbaiting may be defined as a strategy by which writers and networks attempt to gain the attention of queer viewers via hints, jokes, gestures, and symbolism suggesting a queer relationship between two characters, and then emphatically denying and laughing off the possibility. Denial and mockery reinstate a heteronormative narrative that poses no danger of offending mainstream viewers at the expense of queer eyes. (Fathallah, 2015: 491)

In Doctor Who, this was most obvious with the eleventh Doctor, particularly in the interactions between the Doctor and Craig Owens in ‘The Lodger’ (2010) and ‘Closing Time’ (2011) as noted by Britton (2011). More recently, academics have revisited queerbaiting, with Joseph Brennan arguing that ‘conceptualisation of the active viewing process behind the term encourages reconsideration of “queerbaiting” and the more recent shift toward a “harm” view of texts that employ it’ (2018: 193). In years gone by queer relationships on TV may have been required to operate at the level of subtext for fear of censorship or withdrawal of support from sponsors or execs, yet in the early twenty-first century this is no longer the case. In her article on queerbaiting in BBC’s Sherlock (2010–), Fathallah states: ‘While I do not wish to exonerate such writing, I wish to investigate alternative methods of reading its queer textual moments that open rather than foreclose queer possibilities. Queer moments onscreen … can be read as ruptures in the performance of heterosexual masculinity’ (2015: 491). Similarly, Brennan suggests that, whilst subtextual cues might be seen as queerbaiting since the relationship in question is neither fully realized on screen nor recognized in the narrative, the tone and accumulation of such cues means that ‘producer intentionality aside, [they] invite viewers to see queerly’ (2018: 193). Debates about the differences (if any) between subtext

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and queerbaiting have revolved around issues of intentionality and purpose (queerbaiting seeks commercial gain from attracting a queer audience with the promise of queer characters). In the introduction to the first edited collection on queerbaiting and fandom, Brennan states that queerbaiting ‘is a means of holding texts and the producers of these texts to account, and it is both a concept and a condition of this historical moment’ (2019: loc 98). As Eve Ng argues, queerbaiting or queering with two female characters highlights intersectional inequalities: ‘queerbaiting discourses address the character of producer/viewer interactions, and for queer female narratives in particular, serve as a touchstone for greater mainstream recognition of the subordinate status of sexual minorities and women in both representational and real-life contexts’ (2017: 1.4). It is not until two main female characters take up residence in the TARDIS, then, that a major lesbian ’ship is created: Thasmin (the Doctor and Yasmin). Despite an out lesbian companion appearing in series 10, and the promise of a relationship with Heather, a student attending the university where Bill works, Bill Potts never actually had any on-screen lesbian relationships since she travelled with the twelfth Doctor alone. This relationship could be validated when Heather appears to a dying Bill in ‘The Doctor Falls’ (2017), and the two go travelling together as disembodied entities but this character arc is equally open to a much less positive interpretation. ‘Predictably, yet still infuriating, she ended up right where every bad trope would suggest a proud lesbian and woman of color would: dead’, concludes one understandably frustrated viewer (Lieberman, 2017). Here Lieberman refers not only to erasure of characters of colour in the narrative of the series (what TV Tropes calls ‘Black Dude Dies First’) but also to the trope known to fans as ‘Dead Lesbian Syndrome’ or, more generally, ‘Bury Your Gays’. This identifies a trend where if queer characters are identified as such in the text, and have queer relationships depicted on screen, this is likely to quickly result in their untimely death. This tendency has become so pervasive that it is now used as a narrative twist, or to ‘heterobait’, as Leyre Carcas puts it in a discussion of how the series Black Sails showcases ‘the unmaking of the … “bury your gays” trope’ (2019: loc 1447). Something similar happens in ‘Praxeus’. The estranged couple Jake and Adam’s marriage is on the rocks, and, when Adam is infected with a deadly alien virus, Bury Your Gays seems the inevitable outcome. In what seems to be a highly conscious move, the episode sees the Doctor not only cure Adam’s apparently fatal infection but also rescue him from a suicide mission (piloting the spacecraft spreading the antidote across the atmosphere) by materializing around him in the TARDIS so that Adam and Jake can live happily ever after. ‘You see, things never really happen in a straight line with the Doc,’ says Graham to an enquiry about his time with the Doctor in ‘Spyfall, Part One’.

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As the BBC’s response to the Kingston/Whittaker ComicCon photo demonstrates, the series may not be entirely comfortable about major statements of sexual orientation in relation to the Doctor. Yet, by neither presenting Yaz in heterosexual romance relationships, nor referring to any in her past, her sexuality remains undefined, and thus fans reject the ‘straight’ line, embracing Thasmin. Scenes from various episodes might suggest ‘a budding romance between Ryan and Yaz’ (Bacon, 2018: n.p.) but by the end of series 11 this hasn’t developed, and the series 12 two-part opener has the pair joking about whether Yaz should give her sister Ryan’s number. ‘I’d make a great brotherin-law,’ Ryan jokes (‘Spyfall, Part Two’), seconds before asserting that he won’t let anything hurt Yaz. This oscillation between hints of romance and presenting the two as close friends may indicate a reluctance to close down options, but it nonetheless leaves an interpretative space for Thasmin. Tantimedh recounts, ‘LGBTQ fans coined the term after the third episode when Yaz’ mother first asked Yaz if she was dating Ryan, and after they both said no, she asked if Yaz was with The Doctor’ (2019: n.p.). This exchange certainly suggests that such a relationship is possible, articulating a lesbian romance as casually as Yaz’s sister Sonya asked if Ryan and Yaz were seeing each other. In addition, the Doctor’s response to Najia’s question, ‘I don’t think so. Are we?’, was far from a robust denial. As Tantimedh continues: ‘That Jodie Whittaker played the line “Are we?” like she was perfectly willing to give it a try added fuel to the lit match of slash fiction that was about to be launched across fandom’ (ibid.). Thasmin has since had much material to work with, albeit via subtext, context, or as Brennan puts it, ‘seeing queerly’. Eve Ng’s analysis of lesbian relationships and queer context in TV drama takes the US crime drama Rizzoli & Isles (2010–16) as one key example. The relationship between Jane Rizzoli and Maura Isles is not enacted at a textual level yet visual and narrative cues, Ng argues, help actualize the relationship for viewers: The contrast between the two characters’ appearance and demeanor evokes a butch/femme dynamic, especially combined with Jane’s repeatedly protecting Maura from danger. Jane, a tomboy from childhood, favors pants, T-shirt, and blazer, while Maura is typically clad in conventionally feminine fashion. (Ng, 2017: 5.2)

This kind of representation led to debates about ‘differences between subtext, queerbaiting, heterosexism, and poor representation’ (Nordin, 2019: loc 664). A not dissimilar dynamic is established in Doctor Who, with the Doctor continually protecting all her travelling companions from danger, though costume is less clearly gendered. The Doctor’s signature

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costume tends to mix traditionally masculine and traditionally feminine signifiers. In ‘Spyfall, Part One’ the Doctor and her companions attend a themed birthday party in a James Bond-styled episode wearing tuxedos. The Doctor retains her iconic long coat and short trousers but wears a dress shirt and black bow tie, while Yaz wears a sequinned tux jacket with a white blouse and a bow tie necklace,2 effectively playing femme to the Doctor’s (at least semi-) butch. The blurriness of such distinctions returns when they leave the party in pursuit of a suspect using Harley-Davidson motorbikes. The Doctor rides alone, in front, as the hero should; Yaz rides further back but is not consigned to pillion, in fact, she drives with a male passenger hanging on behind. Thasmin, then, is a sign of the times in that it appropriates visual cues and extrapolates from short exchanges of dialogue (and looks). It is notable, for example, that, as the Doctor prepares to sacrifice herself to save the world in ‘The Timeless Children’, it is Yaz who protests most violently: ‘We’re not letting you go. You’re not doing this!’, indicating that she has a particular investment in the Doctor. Holding queerbaiting to account is, as Nordin points out, ‘not just about meaning and interpretation but … just as much about representation and visibility’ (2019: loc 703). Given the BBC’s reluctance to queer the Doctor publicly at ComicCon, and its (commercial and reputational) stake in exporting the series internationally, it seems unlikely that Thasmin will ever be realized in canon text. The thirteenth Doctor and Yaz may well be mapping positive queer ‘desire lines’, yet the opening episodes of series 12 introduced a more problematic character: the Doctor’s archnemesis, fellow Time Lord, the Master. The Master had been gender-swapped in series 10, played by Michelle Gomez and calling herself Missy. This created its own ripples (Jowett, 2017). Johnson notes that making the Master female and having Missy flirt with the twelfth Doctor not only erased ‘some of the queerness of the Doctor/Master relationship’ but ‘the implication of a sexual relationship between Capaldi and Gomez equally contributes to the series’ continuing inability to imagine male/female relationships outside of a sexual framework’ (2014: n.p.). Or, as Whovian Feminism’s review of the episode(s) put it: ‘it’s pretty insulting to take one of the most popular gay relationships in the fandom and make it canon as a straight relationship’ (2014). Genderswapping the Master works against the choice of many viewers to ‘see queerly’ and reintroducing the Doctor’s old foe in the two-part ‘Spyfall’ did nothing to rectify this, since Missy has regenerated and the Master is now played by Sacha Dhawan. Queer and gay viewers’ responses to this tended to focus on the closing down of desire lines regarding the Master and the Doctor:

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I’m disappointed by the new Master because I was looking forward to Michelle Gomez’s version of the Master interacting with Jodie Whittaker’s Doctor. And by interacting I mean flirting …. THIS all feels like a let down because my gay ass was looking forward to two women circling each other, throwing one-liners at each other, and getting to know each other in a way that men and women can’t. That’s why the new guy feels like a cop out by a BBC that wouldn’t ever fathom queer action like this coming from the Doctor. (lyrahale, 2020)

This echoes disappointment with the recaptioning of the Kingston/Whittaker ComicCon photograph despite there being little chance of Kingston returning to the series to reprise her role as River Song and queer Whittaker’s Doctor. Other viewers, however, signalled some approval for the new version of the Master that indicated seeing him queerly was still possible: Dhawan’s Master is camp in a purely Doctor Who sense, from his fannish excitement at meeting a new Doctor to showing off tricks new and old, like his classic penchant for shrinking people. (Fraze, 2020) the master is such a dramatic bitch and I love him already #doctorwho (@cxpxldi, 2020)

Naming and name calling While Missy once encouraged others to refer to her as a ‘Time Lady, thank you. Some of us can afford the upgrade’ (‘The Witch’s Familiar’ (2015)), such contentious terminology has been avoided in series 11 and 12. As well as awareness of context and subtext, attention is being paid to the gendered language of everyday interactions. In ‘Arachnids in the UK’ this is highlighted more than once. When giant spiders invade a new hotel complex being built by the American billionaire businessman Jack Robertson, the Doctor directs the action. ‘Why are you asking her?’ Robertson queries. ‘Cos she’s in charge, bro,’ replies Ryan, and when Robertson challenges, ‘Says who?’, all three companions present a united front: ‘Says us!’ A little later, when Robertson complains to the Doctor, ‘You are not authorized to go in here!’ she replies, ‘Dude, I’ve all the authorization I ever need’, with the aside, ‘I call people “dude” now’. As a mature, privileged white male, Robertson’s idea of his own status has rarely, if ever, been questioned, and his overbearing manner – demonstrated by his treatment of several employees, including Yaz’s mother, Nadjia – is ripe for puncturing by ­ the Doctor and her friends. The way Ryan calls Robertson ‘bro’ and the Doctor follows up with ‘dude’ draws attention to Robertson’s blustering, ­old-school US masculinity.



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Gendered language is also emphasized in ‘Spyfall, Part Two’ when the Master, threatening a roomful of bystanders to force the Doctor’s submission, orders her to kneel and say his name, taunting, ‘can’t hear you, love’. In an interview shortly after her debut, Whittaker spoke about how the Doctor being female would change things for the series: The interesting thing about being a woman is – although it’s irrelevant as the Doctor – it makes for interesting storytelling when it affects the time period you’re in, or the moment you’re in, or the interactions you have. It’s not the Doctor’s response, it’s other people’s response. And as a woman, that’s often the thing: We’re not surprised we can achieve things as women, it’s often other people who are. (in Ivie, 2018)

The Doctor is basically the same, and her being female only changes how others perceive her. I have been calling Yaz, Ryan, and Graham ‘companions’ here, adopting the traditional usage for those who travel with the Doctor. In series 11 and 12, however, the Doctor tends to introduce them as her ‘friends’. After her regeneration and meeting the three she tried out various ways to refer to them collectively. ‘Right then, troops. No, not troops. Team, gang, fam?’ she mumbles in ‘The Woman Who Fell to Earth’, or ‘Look at you. My fam. No, still doesn’t quite work. Team TARDIS?’, and after notably not drowning after ducking as a witch, ‘Hi, team! Gang! Fam? No.’ (‘The Witchfinders’). But by ‘The Battle of Ranskoor Av Kolos’, she has won Yaz over: DOCTOR: … Come on, fam. RYAN: I thought we weren’t doing fam. YASMIN: I like it.

In ‘Resolution’, the 2019 New Year special, ‘fam’ is established enough that the Doctor can remark, ‘Well done, team. Gang. Extended fam’ – a joke about the usual three being joined by Ryan’s father. Of course, there has previously been a biological family aboard, or at least adjacent to, the TARDIS. Amy Pond met the eleventh Doctor on the eve of her wedding to Rory (‘The Eleventh Hour’ (2010)), and both spent time travelling with the Doctor while also leading a ‘normal’ married life on Earth. ‘Timey-wimey’ plot twists provided them with a child, Melody Pond, kidnapped at birth and eventually revealed to be the time-travelling River Song (‘Let’s Kill Hitler’ (2011)): this elided any family life they might have had together, even after Amy and Rory discovered that River was their daughter. During Amy and Rory’s tenure as companions their relationship was played for laughs, undermined, and occasionally valorized: heteronormative romance and social practice were shown to be, as per Hills quoted in the ­introduction, incompatible with the series’ overall trajectory.

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Series 11 and 12 continue to avoid heteronormative social practice and seem to use ‘fam’ as the means to this end. The reasons for rejecting ‘troops’, ‘gang’, and even ‘team’ might be obvious; ‘fam’ reorients the group from pressure to belong to deliberate choosing of a ‘fam’ beyond biological family. This returns me to Ahmed’s queer phenomenology: After all, it is possible to follow certain lines (such as the family line) as a disorientation device, as a way to experience the pleasures of deviation. ­ For some, for instance, the very act of describing queer gatherings as family gatherings is to have joy in the uncanny effect of a familiar form becoming strange. The point of the following is not to pledge allegiance to the familiar but to make the ‘familiar’ strange, or even to allow what has been overlooked, which has been treated as furniture, to dance with renewed life. (Ahmed, 2006: 569)

The Doctor’s slight awkwardness in using ‘fam’ initially, signalling her alienness, makes the familiar strange, that convention of science fiction. I am most struck, in early 2020, by a usage of ‘fam’ that hasn’t yet been adopted in Doctor Who: its use as singular rather than plural, a version of ‘bro’ or ‘bruv’ that is closer to ‘cuz’ (cousin) in its lack of gender specificity. In the series 12 finale, a black female Doctor re-energizes the thirteenth Doctor by asking, ‘Have you ever been limited by who you were before?’ The Doctor’s on-screen adventures haven’t been ‘limited’ by who he was before. To me, ‘fam’ signals – in a small but significant way – the changes that come, in front of and behind the cameras, when the Doctor is no longer a privileged white man.

Conclusion: intentions and limitations In this chapter, I’ve explored the casual queerness which follows on from this era’s statements of intent to become more inclusive and diverse. At the same time, I have also considered how audiences can ‘see queerly’ by following the ‘desire lines’ of Thasmin, or a queered Doctor–Yaz relationship. Very clear limits remain around this canonical female Doctor, however – she is depicted as asexual, with apparent BBC nervousness hovering around any denotative implications or representations of a queer Doctor, whether in relation to Yaz or River Song. There are many promising, progressive statements of intent in this new era of Doctor Who, yet they seemingly remain enclosed within the challenging force fields of mainstream TV science fiction.



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Notes

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1 More properly, James VI and I. Although the BBC documentation refers to James I, this is problematic. Scottish fans remarked on the error and joked about the episode featuring the earlier, and less well known, medieval James I of Scots. 2 See Ray Holman, ‘Team TARDIS Suit Up’ at www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/ p07zh1zb (accessed 6 January 2020).

References Aguas, E. (2019). ‘The Queer Temporalities of Queerbaiting’, in J. Brennan (ed.), Queerbaiting and Fandom: Teasing Fans through Homoerotic Possibilities. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, pp. 57–59. Ahmed, S. (2006). ‘Orientations: Toward a Queer Phenomenology’, GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies, 12 (4), pp. 543–74. Bacon, T. (2018). ‘Why Doctor Who Has Completely Divided Fans This Season’, ScreenRant (27 November), https://screenrant.com/doctor-who-fan-divide-sea son-11/ (accessed 6 January 2020). Barron, L. (2010). ‘Out in Space: Masculinity, Sexuality and the Science Fiction Heroics of Captain Jack’, in A. Ireland (ed.), Illuminating Torchwood: Essays on Narrative, Character and Sexuality in the BBC Series. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, pp. 213–25. Brennan, J. (2018). ‘Queerbaiting: The “Playful” Possibilities of Homoeroticism’, International Journal of Cultural Studies, 21 (2), pp. 189–206. Brennan, J. (2019). ‘Introduction: A History of Queerbaiting’, in J. Brennan (ed.), Queerbaiting and Fandom: Teasing Fans through Homoerotic Possibilities. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, pp. 1–23. Britton, P. D. (2011). TARDISbound: Navigating the Universes of Doctor Who. London: I. B. Tauris. @cxpxldi (2020). ‘the master is such a dramatic bitch and I love him already #doctorwho’, Twitter (2 January), https://twitter.com/cxpxldi/status/1212686 453232295937 (accessed 6 January 2020). Carcas, L. (2019). ‘“Heterobaiting”: Black Sails and the Subversion of Queerbaiting Tropes’, in J. Brennan (ed.), Queerbaiting and Fandom: Teasing Fans through Homoerotic Possibilities. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press: pp. 60–63. Connolly, K. (2018). ‘The Radical Helplessness of the New Doctor Who’, The Atlantic (10 December), www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2018/12/ doctor-who-radical-helplessness-jodie-whittaker-season-11/577741/ (accessed 6 January 2020). Duffy, N. (2018). ‘The Doctor and Her Wife’, Pink News (21 July), www.pinknews. co.uk/2018/07/21/the-doctor-and-her-wife-doctor-who-stars-jodie-whittakerand-alex-kingston-meet-at-comic-con/ (accessed 6 January 2020). Farrow, M. (2018). ‘The Problems with Jodie Whittaker’s First Season of Doctor Who’, ScreenRant (8 December), https://screenrant.com/doctor-who-problemsjodie-whittaker-first-season-disappointing/ (accessed 6 January 2020).

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Fathallah, J. (2015). ‘Moriarty’s Ghost: Or the Queer Disruption of the BBC’s Sherlock’, Television & New Media, 16 (5), pp. 490–500. Franklin, M. (2019). ‘Queerbaiting, Queer Readings, and Heteronormative Viewing Practices’, in J. Brennan (ed.), Queerbaiting and Fandom: Teasing Fans through Homoerotic Possibilities. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, pp. 41–52. Fraze, S. (2020). ‘“Spyfall, Part 1” Marks a Masterful Return for Doctor Who’, Women Write About Comics (5 January), https://womenwriteaboutcomics. com/2020/01/spyfall-part-1-masterful-return-doctor-who/ (accessed 6 January 2020). Hills, M. (2010). Triumph of a Time Lord: Regenerating Doctor Who in the Twenty-First Century. London: I. B. Tauris. Hills, M. (2018). ‘Doctor Who: Jodie Whittaker Excels and Inspires as the BBC’s Time Lord’, The Conversation (7 October), https://theconversation.com/doctorwho-jodie-whittaker-excels-and-inspires-as-the-bbcs-time-lord-104515 (accessed 6 January 2020). Hogan, H. (2018). ‘The New “Doctor Who” Is Casually Queer and Brilliantly Hopeful’, Autostraddle (8 November), www.autostraddle.com/the-new-doctorwho-is-casually-queer-and-brutally-hopeful-439442/ (accessed 6 January 2020). Ivie, D. (2018). ‘Jodie Whittaker’s Regeneration: After Five Decades, Doctor Who Has Its First Female Doctor. What Took So Long?’, Vulture (8 October), www. vulture.com/2018/10/jodie-whittaker-doctor-who-season-11.html (accessed 6 January 2020). Johnson, C. (2014). ‘Spinning the Doctor: New Cast, Old Characters in Doctor Who’, CST Online (27 November), https://cstonline.net/spinning-the-doctor-newcast-old-characters-in-doctor-who-by-catherine-johnson/ (accessed 6 January 2020). Jones, S. G. (2002). ‘The Sex Lives of Cult Television Characters’, Screen, 43 (1), pp. 79–90. Jowett, L. (2017). Dancing with the Doctor: Gender Dimensions in the Doctor Who Universe. London: I. B. Tauris. Jowett, L. (2018). ‘An Adventure in Representation: Doctor Who and “The Woman Who Fell to Earth”’, CST Online (12 October), https://cstonline.net/an-adven ture-in-representation-doctor-who-and-the-woman-who-fell-to-earth-by-lornajowett/ (accessed 6 January 2020). Keegan, Cáel M. (2019). ‘Seems Legit’, Facebook (28 August), www.facebook.com/ photo.php?fbid=10156817056941795&set=a.57440381794&type=3&theater (accessed 6 January 2020). Leighton-Dore, S. (2018). ‘LGBTIQ+ Viewers Are Loving the New “Doctor Who”’, SBS (8 October), www.sbs.com.au/topics/pride/fast-lane/article/2018/10/08/lgb tiq-viewers-are-loving-new-doctor-who (accessed 6 January 2020). Leishman, R. (2018). ‘Doctor Who Perfectly Calls Out the Silencing of Women’, The Mary Sue (26 November), www.themarysue.com/doctor-who-alan-cum ming-king-james/ (accessed 6 January 2020). Lieberman, S. (2017). ‘Doctor Who Season 10 Finale Review: Let’s Talk About Bill Potts’, TVOM, www.tvovermind.com/doctor-season-10-finale-review-lets-talkbill-potts/ (accessed 6 January 2020). @Lizardbethart (2019). ‘news from a fifteen year old boy I tutor …’, Twitter (9 June), https://twitter.com/lizardbethart/status/1144976132116221952 (accessed 6 January 2020).

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lyrahale. (2020). ‘“Doctor Who” 12x01 Review: Spyfall – Part One’, Fangirlish (1 December), https://fangirlish.com/2020/01/01doctor-who-12x01-review-spyfallpart-one/ (accessed 6 January 2020). McDunnah, M. G. (2019). ‘Doctor He, She, or They? Changing Gender, and Language, in Doctor Who’, Conscious Style Guide (16 January), https://con sciousstyleguide.com/doctor-he-she-or-they-changing-gender-and-language-indoctor-who/ (accessed 6 January 2020). McEwan, C. K. (2018). ‘Doctor Who series 11 Will Feature LGBTQ+ Representation and Characters “from across the spectrum”’, Digital Spy (17 September), www.digitalspy.com/tv/cult/a866258/doctor-who-series-11-lgbtq-gender-fluid/ (accessed 6 January 2020). Ng, E. (2017). ‘Between Text, Paratext, and Context: Queerbaiting and the Contemporary Media Landscape’, in J. L. Russo and E. Ng (eds), Queer Female Fandom, special issue, Transformative Works and Cultures, 24, https://journal. transformativeworks.org/index.php/twc/article/download/917/793 (accessed 6 January 2020). Nordin, E. (2019). ‘Queerbaiting 2.0: From Denying Your Queers to Pretending You Have Them’, in J. Brennan (ed.), Queerbaiting and Fandom: Teasing Fans through Homoerotic Possibilities. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, pp. 25–40. Orthia, L. ed. (2013). Doctor Who and Race. Bristol: Intellect. Porter, L. (2012). The Doctor Who Franchise: American Influence, Fan Culture and the Spinoffs. Jefferson, NC: McFarland. Tantimedh, A. (2019). ‘Doctor Who’s Mandip Gill Is Totally Cool with “Thasmin”’, Bleeding Cool (20 February), www.bleedingcool.com/2019/02/20/doctor-whogill-yaz-thasmin/ (accessed 6 January 2020). Whovian Feminism (2014). ‘Whovian Feminism Reviews “Dark Water” and “Death in Heaven”’, Tumblr (13 November), http://whovianfeminism.tumblr. com/post/102580814837/whovian-feminism-reviews-dark-water-and-death (accessed 6 January 2020).

6 Post-racial amnesia: Doctor Who in the Brexit era Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to distribute or copy this document

Susana Loza

The Chris Chibnall / Jodie Whittaker iteration of Doctor Who imagines a multiracial British nation where the revered alien is a savvy white feminist and her human companions are a middle-aged white man, a young black man with dyspraxia, and a 20-something South Asian woman. In this chapter, I explore the disjunction between a racially divided Britain and the progressive, integrated vision of Doctor Who. I contemplate how Doctor Who’s post-racial optimism obscures the corrosive and continuing effects of race in the Brexit era (Squires, 2014). My analysis examines how these seemingly benign multiculturalist images disguise, if not wholly erase, the violent racism of Britain’s imperial past. The liberal humanist whiteness of Doctor Who is laid bare in historical stories like ‘Demons of the Punjab’ (set in 1947), ‘Rosa’ (depicting 1955), and ‘Spyfall’ (via its representations of the Second World War). It is in such episodes that it becomes evident that the show is filtered through the Doctor’s cosmopolitan, colonial, and colour-blind gaze and thus tells stories ‘from an uncontested White British viewpoint’ (Malik, 2002: 146), not from the perspective of her companions of colour. This chapter ultimately argues that Doctor Who’s amnesia when it comes to British racism – of the past and present – may, in fact, bolster white supremacy.

From classic Who to new Who to Chibnall/Whittaker Who Born in 1963 amidst the turmoil of decolonial struggles in Africa, South Asia, and the Caribbean, Doctor Who is a product of ‘those dying days of empire’ (Charles, 2007: 115). As Lindy Orthia elaborates in the introduction to Doctor Who and Race, the serial emerged from and continues to dwell in the post-empire period British history, a potent time when formerly colonized people were migrating to Britain in larger numbers than ever before as well as reclaiming their cultural heritage



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and political independence elsewhere in the world, transforming conceptions of Britishness, the meaning of ‘race’ on the global stage, and the ways in which the western media understand and deal with racism. (Orthia, 2013b: 4)

From its inception, Doctor Who has envisioned itself as an anti-imperialist, postcolonial, and multicultural antidote to entrenched ethnocentrism. However, as Danny Nicol argues in Doctor Who: A British Alien?, the show actually functions as ‘an imaginary substitute for the country’s imperial might’ with the Doctor ‘exporting Britishness throughout the cosmos’ (2018: 48) and rescuing alien races from oppressive regimes as needed (Asif and Saenz, 2017: 1). For Alec Charles, the Doctor represents ‘the ideal of colonial liberalism: an objective, asexual saviour-explorer – a scientist whose only greed is for knowledge – a [person] who’s out neither for [themselves] nor for a bit of the Other – a post-gendered gunless wonder – an upper-middle-class eccentric licensed by the establishment – a revolutionary who can’t change history’ but does (2007: 117). Thus, as Doctor Who scholars have observed, the serial’s ontological and ideological perspective is more accurately described as a combination of liberal humanist colonialism and colour-blind universalism (Orthia, 2013a). Doctor Who continues to enthusiastically embrace the values of liberal humanist whiteness but the place of race in the Whoniverse has undeniably shifted since the 1960s. While the original series was resolutely monochromatic, the 2005 reboot is awash in colour. The reinvented Who is a multiracial world in which humans differ in colour but are oddly untroubled by racism or bias. Under the direction of Russell T Davies (2005–10) and Steven Moffat (2010–17), Earth is ‘a place of happy and benign diversity. Depression-era New York contains mixed-race shanty towns led by a black man, while black women populate the streets and royal courts of Victorian England and Enlightenment France’ (Orthia, 2010: 214). The 1920s, 1940s, 1950s, even slavery-era Elizabethan England are inhabited by well-to-do people of colour. These multicultural tableaux establish ‘human diversity as an unremarkable and timeless fact’ (ibid.). The appropriate metaphor for this brave new realm, opines Orthia, ‘comes from Doctor Who’s most famous foodstuff: humanity is so many coloured jelly babies inside a colourless (white) paper bag’ (ibid.: 215). New Who’s colour-blind vistas simultaneously deny the political importance of race while superficially embracing racial difference. The thirteenth Doctor is accompanied by Graham O’Brien, Ryan Sinclair, and Yasmin Khan. The casting of Bradley Walsh, Tosin Cole, and Mandip Gill respectively demonstrates the series’ ongoing commitment to colour-blindness, one that it shares with the BBC. As the network reaffirmed, shortly after the publication of Doctor Who and Race, ‘Reflecting

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the diversity of the UK is a duty of the BBC, and casting on Doctor Who is colour-blind. It is always about the best actors for the roles’ (Hastings and Sheridan, 2013). But, as the Davies and Moffat eras of Doctor Who have already shown us, colour-blind casting does not necessarily result in colour-conscious storylines that acknowledge how socio-historical contexts and skin colour shape the racial-cultural experience of a given individual (Warner, 2015: 25). Therefore, it is not sufficient that Chibnall’s Doctor Who incorporate more people of colour ‘because the issue that matters most is how [they] are represented and what kind of racial messages are conveyed’ (Bonilla-Silva and Ashe, 2014: 73). Instead of prematurely celebrating the cosmopolitan and colour-blind visions of the latest iteration of Doctor Who, we must remember that the symbolic inclusion of diversely hued humans does not ‘necessarily challenge the logic and the structure of an unequal racial order’ (Doane, 2014: 19). Before we consider how race does – or does not – function during the Chibnall/Whittaker era of Doctor Who, let us contemplate how it operates in contemporary Britain and its relationship to Brexit.

Post-racial amnesia, white ignorance, and Brexit In June 2016, the United Kingdom held a referendum in which 51.9 per cent voted to leave the European Union. The British government announced its withdrawal in March 2017, starting a process that concluded with Britain exiting the EU on 31 January 2020. Brexit – a portmanteau of ‘British’ and ‘exit’ – was driven by disagreements over national identity and its compatibility with multiple citizenships; racism and xenophobia were substantial factors in the Leave vote (Bhambra, 2017b). As the cultural theorists Richard Ashcroft and Mark Bevir note: Immigration, multiculturalism, race, and security were frequently conflated in public discourse during the campaign, most succinctly in the UK Independence Party’s notorious ‘Breaking Point’ poster depicting a massed column of mostly nonwhite, young male migrants in southeastern Europe. This played into the narrative that multiculturalism has damaged social cohesion, making Brexit part of a broader contest over national identity. (Ashcroft and Bevir, 2019: 37)

If further confirmation were needed that Brexit was intimately bound up with questions of race and nation, it can be found in the wave of racist hate unleashed against migrants as well as long-established black and brown British citizens. In total, six thousand racist hate crimes were reported in the month following the referendum (Virdee and McGeever, 2018: 1808).

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As the criminologist Jon Burnett reminds us, ‘post-referendum racism [was] rooted in and sustained by the structural racism of “old”’ (2017: 89). The calls to ‘go home’, the threats to ‘take our country back’, are ‘intricately connected to Britain’s unaddressed and unredressed imperial past’ (El-Enany, 2017). British colonial rule subjugated people on the basis of race in order to profit financially from their bodies and lands; it was a system maintained through the brutal and systematic violence of colonial authorities. The imperialist nostalgia espoused by Brexiteers speaks to Britain’s inability to cope with the ‘aching loss’ of Empire (Gilroy 2005a:  95) and its tendency to romanticize the days ‘when Britannia ruled the waves and was defined by her racial and cultural superiority’ (El-Enany, 2017). Britain has yet to come to terms with scars – material and psychic – that centuries of European colonialism left upon the world and how the legacy of Empire continues to shape the uneven development of global capitalism in the present, compelling refugees to migrate to Western economies as a racialized reserve army of labour (Virdee, 2014). The British might be suffering from what the political scientist Barnor Hesse christened ‘white amnesia’ (1997). Building upon Stuart Hall’s work on cultural memory (1978: 26), Hesse defines white amnesia as ‘the profound historical ­forgetfulness … which has overtaken the British people about race and Empire since the 1950s. Paradoxically, [this] native, home-grown variety of racism begins with [the] attempt to wipe out and efface every trace of the colonial and imperial past’ (1997: 91). According to the sociologist Remi Joseph-Salisbury, it is white amnesia’s denial of the histories of British racism that allow white supremacy not just to endure but to flourish (2019:  65). White amnesia is thus quite similar to the ‘chronic, nagging’ condition Paul Gilroy diagnosed as ‘postcolonial melancholia’ (2005b). White amnesia and postcolonial melancholia are virulent manifestations of what political philosophers call ‘white ignorance’ (Mills, 2015). White ignorance is ‘a form of not knowing (seeing wrongly), resulting from the habit of erasing, dismissing, distorting, and forgetting about the lives, cultures, and histories of peoples whites have colonized’ (Bailey, 2007: 85). ‘Racial erasure’ (Mills, 2015) is a key component of white ignorance. In addition to expunging white racism as ‘the ideological driver of modernity’, racial erasure whitewashes white atrocities, eliminates non-white contributions, and denies white supremacy is ‘a system … as opposed to “merely” interpersonal ill-will’ (Bain, 2018: 14). White amnesia’s erasure of the depth and breadth of British imperialism allows its citizenry to believe that race has ‘nothing intrinsically to do with the condition of [contemporary] Britain’ (Hall, 1978: 26), thus obscuring Britain’s role in the construction and maintenance of white supremacist hierarchies (Joseph-Salisbury,

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2019: 65). By examining the white ignorance of the Chibnall/Whittaker era of Doctor Who, its post-racial amnesia when it comes to Britain’s imperial past, I hope to reveal how the ‘spectre of race’ continues to haunt the postcolonial present and emphasize the remarkable capacity of white supremacy to mutate and survive (Finlay et al., 2019: 22).

‘Demons of the Punjab’: Partition, imperial amnesia, and the politics of remembrance On 11 November 2018, the BBC broadcast Doctor Who’s episode on Partition, ‘Demons of the Punjab’. It doesn’t seem coincidental that the network chose Remembrance Sunday, a day that commemorates British and Commonwealth military and civilian service, to (mis)remember the British Empire’s role in the division of India and Pakistan into separate nations. Before we join Doctor Who on its jaunt to the summer of 1947, let us consider what pushed the South Asian subcontinent towards dissolution. As William Dalrymple recounts in The Anarchy: The Relentless Rise of the East India Company (2019), the Indian subcontinent was already divided into various regional powers – Sikhs, Marathas, Rajputs, and Afghans – when the British arrived in the 1600s. The British exploited cultural differences and religious beliefs, especially the caste system, to further divide the populace until they were the sole rulers (Malviya, 2019). Colonial administrators pitted groups against each other ‘in accordance with their political preferences and with complete disregard for the lives of the people themselves’ (Nanu, 2019). In the British Raj, ‘identity politics were not merely endorsed; they were mandated’ (Von Tunzelmann, 2017). The divisive legacies of imperial rule came to fruition in 1947 when Lord Mountbatten, the last Indian viceroy, attempted to negotiate the British exit from the subcontinent. Given until October to execute a deal that would leave a united India if possible, a divided India if not, Lord Mountbatten callously accelerated the British departure to the ‘ludicrously early date’ of 15 August 1947 (Mishra, 2019). This announcement rendered Partition, the cleaving of Muslim Pakistan from Hindu-majority India, imminent and unavoidable. The British Empire’s high-speed exit enabled the myth that colonial rule of India was relatively functional and that things fell apart only once the col­ onizers left. But the blame for a catastrophe of this magnitude cannot be chalked up to the ‘malign incompetence’ of a handful of colonial administrators (Mishra, 2019), the tragedy of Partition must be seen as the result of decades, even centuries, of chaotic, violent, and wilfully divisive rule (Von Tunzelmann, 2017).

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Partition played a critical role in crystallizing Indian, Pakistani, and (eventually) Bangladeshi national identities; it laid the groundwork for the apparently irreconcilable cultural differences which continue to plague the region. Not all of South Asia’s current problems can be traced back to the  ‘illogical and tricky boundaries’ created by the Radcliffe Line (Khan, 2017), that is, the boundary line enforced between India and Pakistan by Partition. However, it is hard not to see the Modi government’s use of draconian colonial-era regulations in December 2019 to persecute those protesting against the Citizenship Amendment Bill and the National Register of Citizens (Biswas, 2019) as the culmination of the British Empire’s divisive logics. As the Indian journalist Shivam Vij has mused, ‘It is as if the Partition is still taking place’ (2019). Now, let us turn our attention to how Partition was memorialized in ‘Demons of the Punjab’. The episode opens with Yaz, the Doctor’s first South Asian companion, being gifted a broken watch by her nan Umbreen. Yaz assumes the men’s watch belonged to her deceased grandfather. In hopes of learning how the timepiece was shattered and more about her nan’s past, she begs the Doctor to visit Lahore, Pakistan, in the 1950s. The TARDIS lands in the Punjab on 17 August 1947. It is the time of Partition. It is also the eve of Umbreen’s wedding to Prem; she is a Muslim and he is Hindu. A voice from the radio announces: ‘After much delay, and amid escalating communal violence, Lord Mountbatten has finally released the specific details of the borders which will separate the two countries.’ While Umbreen’s Muslim mum mourns the fact that ‘India is officially cut into pieces!’, Manish, Prem’s younger brother, is thrilled that Pakistan has been created for Muslims because this means that ‘Hindus have India [and] we both feel safe’. Of course, as the Doctor reminds her companions in a sidebar, ‘It’s not just the land that gets divided. Rioting in the cities, tens of millions of people about to be displaced, more than a million about to die.’ Unfortunately, the Doctor’s brief aside does not adequately implicate the British Empire in this massive humanitarian disaster. Later in the episode when Prem criticizes the British for making a ‘mess of my country’ and ‘carving it up slapdash in six weeks’, the Doctor blithely offers to make a note of his thoughts and ‘pass them onto Mountbatten if I ever bump into him again’. While critical of the British, Prem seems more concerned with radicalized Indians who ‘spend too much time reading pamphlets, listening to angry men on the radio’. After the radio announcer reports that ‘more villages burned, more homes ransacked. It seems these savage mobs cannot be satisfied.’ Ryan asks: ‘Who’s doing this stuff?’ Prem replies: Ordinary people who’ve lived here all their lives, whipped into a frenzy to be part of a mob. Nothing worse than when normal people lose their minds.

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We’ve lived together for decades, Hindu, Muslim and Sikh, and now we’re being told our differences are more important than what unites us … I don’t know how we protect people, when hatred’s coming from all sides.

Graham pats Prem on the shoulder and tells him: ‘Well, all we can strive to be is good men. And you, Prem, are a good man.’ Shortly after this scene, Prem learns that Manish is a Hindu nationalist and that his brother murdered a holy man to stop him from blessing Prem’s wedding to Umbreen. It turns out that Manish and his fellow partisans are the real ‘Demons of the Punjab’ not the alien assassins. This is a classic liberal humanist Doctor Who message: the true evil is prejudice, extremism, fundamentalism. And, according to the Doctor, the only way to combat such hatred is through love: ‘Love, in all its forms, is the most powerful weapon we have.’ By focusing on the evils of radicalism and the redemptive force of love, Doctor Who glosses over the ‘malign incompetence’ of the British Empire and how centuries of divide-and-rule set the stage for Partition’s worst sectarian horrors. Monsterizing Manish, a young South Asian man radicalized by the social media of his age, also allows Doctor Who to simultaneously invoke and validate contemporary UK fears about Muslim terrorists being indoctrinated via the Internet. Facebook, WhatsApp, and Reddit have provided and continue to provide key platforms for extremists to propagandize, proselytize, and organize (Barrett, 2020). However, the focus on Manish unintentionally erases the fact that these platforms are also spaces in which white supremacists gather to plot and scheme about racial genocide (Wilson, 2019). Finally, the villainization of Manish also allows viewers to blame the media (the radio and pamphlets) for the radicalization of young brown-skinned men instead of the alienation and anger caused by Western imperialism. Obscuring the racism, violence, and brutality of British colonialism, and its ongoing dispossessing effects, allows imperial nostalgia to fester and spread. It also leaves Doctor Who’s viewers wholly unequipped to understand the context of colonialism and how it continues to shape the world they live in (Nanu, 2019). Instead of whitewashing the British role in Partition, Doctor Who could have visited Umbreen in ‘exotic’ Sheffield. The series could have chronicled how the British Nationality Act of 1948, intended to facilitate immigration of white settlers from Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and South Africa also enabled the arrival of British colonial subjects from Africa, India, and the Caribbean (Paul, 1997: 22–23). Doctor Who could have dramatized how racist British politicians saw the migration of non-white people like Umbreen as ‘an unfortunate but necessary byproduct of maintaining the relationship between Britain and the Old (white) Dominions’ (El-Enany, 2017). The Umbreen episode could have documented how black and Asian

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migrants, later dubbed the Windrush generation, filled severe postwar labour shortages, highlighting the tragedy that at least 83 of such British subjects were rewarded for their service by being racially targeted for deportation as part of the 2018 Windrush scandal. In depicting how Umbreen came to be the self-described ‘first Muslim woman to work in a textile mill in South Yorkshire’ (‘Demons of the Punjab’), the series could have delved into the sexism, racism, and religious bigotry that she likely experienced. This would have opened up a moment for her granddaughter Yaz to discuss how racism and Islamophobia remain fraught issues in Britain. By portraying Umbreen’s migration story, especially the difficult moments, Doctor Who could have unravelled the links between race and nation in England and how its identity is still bound up with imperialism (Virdee and McGeever, 2018: 1809). As the postcolonial scholar Priyamvada Gopal reminds us, ‘the history of [British] migration cannot be separated from that of empire. The presence of African, Caribbean and Asian communities in this country is tied to the great and lasting upheavals of British colonialism including economic hardship, land dispossession, ethnic and social cleansing, labour exploitation and wealth loss’ (2019a). To paraphrase A. Sivanandan’s famous aphorism: Umbreen is here, because the British were there. This is the story that Doctor Who could have told. This is the story that a nation afflicted with imperial amnesia and toxic xenophobia needs to remember.

‘Rosa’, or the problem with minimizing racism and locating it in the past In Racism without Racists, the sociologist Eduardo Bonilla-Silva identifies the four central frames of colour-blind racism as abstract liberalism, naturalization, cultural racism, and minimization of racism (2014). In ‘Rosa’, we see a definitive example of the ‘minimization of racism’ frame, which emphasizes that ‘discrimination is no longer a central factor affecting minorities’ life chances (‘It’s better now than in the past’)’ (Bonilla-Silva, 2014: 77). The episode takes place in Jim Crow Alabama days before the Montgomery bus boycott is ignited by Rosa Parks’s refusal to give up her seat to a white passenger. Krasko, a white supremacist from the future, has escaped the galaxy’s maximum-security prison Stormcage to stop Rosa from kickstarting the US Civil Rights movement. Through ‘tiny actions’ – a missed bus, a different bus driver, a smaller set of passengers – the racist fugitive is hoping to prevent the moment when ‘things started to go wrong’. Of course, the Doctor, Yaz, Ryan, and Graham make sure that history stays on track.

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To its credit, ‘Rosa’ does not shy away from showing the racial violence of the segregation era. Ryan, the Doctor’s young black male companion, is slapped in the face and threatened with a lynching after he tries to return a white woman’s glove. Yaz, who is mistaken as Mexican, is also eyed with suspicion by the white locals. Ryan and Yaz are refused service in restaurants and forced to board buses by the back door. They have to sneak in through windows and hide during police inspections of white-only hotels. While holed up in an alley together, Ryan and Yaz have the following conversation: RYAN: This ain’t history here, Yaz. We’re hiding behind bins. I’m having to work so hard to keep my temper, every second here. I could’ve slapped that guy back there as soon as we arrived. Thank God me Nan taught me how to keep my temper. Never give them the excuse. YAZ: Yeah? My dad tells me the same. RYAN: Yeah, see? It’s not like Rosa Parks wipes out racism from the world forever. Otherwise, how come I get stopped way more by the police than my white mates? YAZ: Oi, not this police. RYAN: Tell me you don’t get hassle. YAZ: Course I do, especially on the job. I get called a Paki when I’m sorting out a domestic, or a terrorist on the way home from the mosque. RYAN: Yeah, exactly. YAZ: But they don’t win, those people. I can be a police officer now ’cos people like Rosa Parks fought those battles for me. For us. And in 53 years, they’ll have a black President as leader. Who knows where they’ll be 50 years after that? But that’s proper change.

While it is refreshing to see Doctor Who explicitly link the racism of the past to the present through its discussion of racial profiling, it immediately undercuts itself by having Yaz tell Ryan that the racists ‘don’t win’ because there are good cops and a black US president, never mind the fact that American police continue to disproportionately kill people of colour (Mapping Police Violence, 2020) and Barack Obama lost the white vote in both of his elections (Phillips, 2016). The Doctor further reinforces the notion that Rosa’s battles mortally wounded white supremacy when she tells Ryan: ‘She changed the world. In fact, she changed the universe.’ Whilst the episode attempts to acknowledge and critique contemporary racism while looking back at its historical manifestations, the triumphalist conclusion suggests that the most virulent forms of white supremacy have been vanquished, thus minimizing the stark racial inequalities of the present (Bonilla-Silva, 2014: 125). ‘Rosa’ conveniently ignores the fact that the United States elected a white nationalist as its President in 2016. It certainly doesn’t grapple with the fact that Britain’s current Prime Minister, Boris

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Johnson, is a racist who has referred to black people as ‘piccaninnies’ with ‘watermelon smiles’ and Muslim women as ‘letterboxes’ (Younge, 2019). Although ‘Rosa’ was written in the era of Trump and Brexit, it ignores the frightening resurgence of white supremacy, Islamophobia, and antiSemitism as evidenced by the staggering rise in race-based hate crimes, and the targeted deportation of racial minorities and refugees (Bhambra, 2017a; Sian, 2017). Perhaps this refusal to reckon honestly with the racist present is not surprising given Doctor Who’s investment in the post-racial myth of harmony and pluralism that is only conceivable by erasing and denying the continuity of white supremacy. Unfortunately, the combination of white amnesia about Britain’s racist past and the post-racial minimization of Brexit racism coalesces in Doctor Who to obscure the depth, breadth, and longevity of white supremacy in the UK.

‘Spyfall’: despotic brown Masters and white saviours in Doctor Who In the final minutes of ‘Spyfall, Part One’, which opens series 12 of Doctor Who, we learn that ‘O’, the former MI6 agent who has been helping the Doctor and her team track down genocidal alien spies, is actually the Master. Although presumed dead, the Doctor’s arch-enemy and fellow Time Lord has been resurrected as a South Asian British man. Played by Sacha Dhawan, the new Master has been described as ‘psychopathic, insane but also very much in control’ and ‘one of the most dangerous incarnations of the Doctor Who villain that we’ve had in years’ (Aggas, 2020). Whilst the Master was famously incarnated by Roger Delgado, a British actor of French and Spanish descent known for playing suave ethnic villains throughout the 1960s and 1970s, Dhawan is the first non-white actor to play the Master. In a recent interview, Dhawan praised Doctor Who for its willingness to cast an actor of colour as the iconic ‘nemesis alien time lord’ (in Hewitt, 2020). But, let us ruminate upon the racial implications of this colour-blind casting choice in the Brexit climate of intensified xenophobia. How does Dhawan’s cunning and crazy Master reactivate Orientalist tropes of ‘wily, despotic, and fanatical Arab and Muslim males’ (Maira, 2008: 321)? What are the ideological consequences of having a South Asian man play an alien terrorist mastermind who blows up his homeland and seeks to inflict ‘maximum carnage’ on Earth? In a nation in which Muslims are often figured as culturally incompatible with being British (Virdee and McGeever, 2018), as ‘regressive, misogynist, violent, proselytizing, and, perhaps most invidiously, as fecund, protean and ungrateful’ (Valluvan and Kalra, 2019: 2396), how do we read Dhawan’s performance? Finally, how does race-swapping the Master, converting

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him from a white supremacist Prime Minister who once proudly bore the moniker Harold Saxon to a brown tyrant, play into white fears of reverse racism and colonization? In hopes of exposing the racial ramifications of this casting choice, I will briefly discuss two scenes in ‘Spyfall, Part Two’ in which the white female Doctor ­encounters the brown male Master in the historical past. The first scene takes place in 1834 at an inventors’ exhibition in London, England. The Doctor has been pulled there from the alien world of the Kasaavin by Ada Lovelace. Just as the Doctor is getting her bearings, the  Master bursts in and begins threatening the innocent white attenders and murdering those who dare to disobey his commands by miniaturizing them. When the Doctor asks the Master what he wants, the following exchange occurs: MASTER: Kneel. Kneel, or they all die. (She kneels.) Call me by my name. DOCTOR: Master. MASTER: Beg your pardon? DOCTOR: Master. MASTER: Can’t hear you, love. DOCTOR: Master.

Whilst a white feminist reading of this scene would rightly note its deplorable sexism and misogyny, a colour-conscious postcolonial reading would be cognizant of the vital role that white women played in the maintenance of empire (Shohat, 1997), and thus might focus on the racial optics of having a white British woman being forced to kneel before an authoritarian South Asian man to save the lives of innocent white bystanders. A raceconscious reading emphasizes how the positioning of the white Doctor as saviour and the brown Master as an amoral and mad terrorist triggers contemporary Islamophobic fears and conveniently obscures the nasty racial realities of British imperialism in India at the time. Depicting the South Asian Other as the real racist, showing him relishing the torture of innocent white humans, encourages Doctor Who’s audience to conclude that, given the opportunity, the colonized would prove to be even more brutal in their oppression than the British had been. The second confrontation between the Doctor and the Master takes place in Nazi-occupied Paris in 1943. The white Doctor is a fugitive hiding from fascists under floorboards, thus coding her as an innocent Jew. The brown Master is a Nazi soldier. The improbability of a South Asian man being able to do this was explained by a ‘tiny Teutonic psychic perception filter’ that allowed the Nazis to see what they wanted to see. Whilst this is a clever narrative trick, what the Doctor Who audience sees is a brown man ordering Nazis to kill hidden Jews. We hear the brown Nazi Master gleefully take

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credit for activating an army of alien sleeper agents (the Kasaavin). We listen in horror as the evil South Asian Other tells the white Doctor of his plans to destroy ‘your precious human race in the process’. The white Doctor is there to frame him as a British double agent and weaponize the brown Master’s race against him by disabling his Teutonic filter, thus ‘leaving him open to both the retribution and the racism of the Nazis’ (Hudson, 2020). In ‘Doctor Who and the Complications of Color-Blind Casting’, Nicole Hill spoke for many progressive fans when she denounced this disgusting moment as an ‘unnecessary narrative choice made without any thought to the racial dynamics at play, or how diverse viewers might experience it’ (2020). By characterizing the brown Master as a racial extremist bent on human elimination and the white Doctor as a saviour of humanity, ‘Spyfall’ rescripts the white supremacist past so that the villain looks like the historically subjugated, whilst the liberal humanist hero is white. Like the scene of subjection in London, the confrontation in Paris is a racial reversal fantasy. Preeti Nijhar suggests that such fantasies are a form of postcolonial projection, a process by which the white Imperial subject attributes to the colonized Other the ‘intolerable passions and inclinations’ that they are unable to accept in themselves (2015: 76). Postcolonial projection allows the racist white self to deny and disavow their fears and feelings, repressing and projecting them on to othered racial groups (Nijhar 2015:  76). Like white amnesia, postcolonial projection is a tool for protecting the illusory innocence upon which whiteness is built.

Conclusion: post-racial fantasies versus Brexit realities Whilst the Chibnall/Whittaker era of Doctor Who calls out the racism of Hindu nationalists (‘Demons of the Punjab’), white supremacist Southerners (‘Rosa’), and German Nazis (‘Spyfall, Part Two’), it strategically erases or minimizes British racism from the past and present. Its time-shifting of racial bigotry to other places and periods – Partition India, Jim Crow Alabama, and Nazi-occupied France – expunges racism from UK history and deracialises a nation built on white supremacy and racial capitalism, thus conveniently relieving contemporary whites of their historical guilt for imperialism. The sharp contrast drawn between Britain’s modern multicultural cosmopolis and these other times and spaces on Doctor Who also promotes the erroneous notion that the UK is exceptionally liberal and that race is a minor issue in present-day Britain. Ultimately, like its predecessors, Chibnall’s Who is ‘guilty of offering a whitewashed and revisionist history filled with harmonious diversity’ (Asif and Saenz, 2017: 7). The show never fully unpacks the histories and experiences of race in historical settings,

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addressing them only superficially (Mafe, 2015: 446). Whether Doctor Who wishes to acknowledge it or not, ‘privilege, and notions of who is important, has a colour. Similarly, systemic power and notions of belonging and what is deemed acceptable also has a colour’ (Reddie, 2019: 400). It has been the argument of this chapter that Doctor Who’s post-racial amnesia regarding the British past propagates the same dangerous colonial mythologies that made Brexit possible. White amnesia and postcolonial melancholia can be cured only by reading ‘history through a racial lens’ and by producing and consuming ‘race-conscious revisionist histories’ (Bailey, 2007: 82), histories that do not obfuscate ‘the structural and systematic forms of racism that continue to oppress black people and other minority ethnic people in Britain’ (Reddie, 2019: 400). The project of developing a more accurate relationship to history on Doctor Who must go beyond the performative largesse of casting ethnic and cultural minorities as companions and villains. Colour-blind casting and gender swapping won’t solve the problem; rather Doctor Who needs to tell new stories shaped by new visions. Instead of pretending that Britain is a race-free society, it must dare to ‘use the programme to meet the transformation of racial issues in the 21st century head-on with stories that bring up the continuing challenges … faced in creating truly multiracial societies’ (Gupta, 2013: 49). To undo the tenacious colonial mythologies that haunt Brexit and Doctor Who, we must tell Other stories, stories of dissent and opposition to Empire. In Insurgent Empire, Gopal documents such narratives, focusing on how resistance in the periphery helped radicalize the metropole, how insurgent acts abroad hastened the demise of the British imperial project (2019b). From India and Jamaica to Egypt and Kenya, ideas of freedom, independence, and self-determination were at the core of these anti-colonial movements. Gopal suggests that telling such stories disrupts the ‘seamless national mythologies’ that Britons are invited to consume, ‘lay[ing] claim to a different, more challenging history, and yet one that is more suited to a heterogeneous society which can draw on multiple historical and cultural resources’ (2019b: 448). When Jodie Whittaker, the first white woman to play the Doctor, was asked to respond to the claims that the show had become ‘too PC’, she retorted: ‘What’s the point of making a show if it doesn’t reflect society today?’ (in Powell, 2018). On 26 January 2020, Doctor Who introduced its first black female Doctor in the show’s 57-year history. Will she be the culmination of Doctor Who’s colour-blind approach to race, further entrenching the series’ white amnesia about the histories and legacies of British imperialism? Or will she be used in colour-conscious storylines that expose the racism of Britain past and present; stories that reflect the ugly realities of Brexit?



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All in the ‘fam’: interrogating kinship networks with the thirteenth Doctor Hannah Hamad At the outset of ‘Spyfall, Part One’, the opening episode of the twelfth series of the revived Doctor Who, the Doctor contacts her friends with the following greeting: ‘I’m just calling to say, “Hi, fam!”’ The (pseudo-)familial relationship to which this refers had been fully cemented by the relational character dynamics and events of series 11, such that by now the Doctor’s friends could be routinely addressed in this familiar and explicitly familial manner. There are various ways in which the  Doctor Who universe, across its lifespan, has been noteworthy for depicting non-traditional (i.e. nonnuclear) kinship networks (Nicol, 2020). As has been well documented by sociologists, the term ‘nuclear family’ usually refers to a kinship unit whose members live in a household comprised of a heteronormative married couple and their biological children. Most commonly, it is associated with hegemonic ideals around Western family life and structure (i.e. that fathers should hold the public sphere provider role of ‘breadwinner’ and that mothers should hold the domestically located private sphere roles of ‘homemaker’ and ‘nurturer’) that were normalized and negotiated in the postwar decades of the 1950s and 1960s. This period marked the culmination of the growth of industrial society, the transition to which heralded an erosion of the extended kinship networks that had previously characterized both family life and economic production (Giddens, 1982: 121–22; Giddens with Griffiths, 2006: 238), although not to the extent once believed. Research has since shown that the so-called ‘nuclear’ model as an ideal and a social formation long predates the postwar coining of this term (Giddens with Griffiths, 2006: 208). And as feminist critics of this ‘nuclear’ model of family life went to lengths to make clear in the 1970s and 1980s, it operates in the service of hetero-patriarchal capitalism; inequalities and the potential for exploitation are thus inherent to it (Oakley, 2019, originally 1974; Hochschild, 1989). As indicated, though, the ‘nuclear family’ is rarely at the forefront of the kinship networks given representational prominence in Doctor Who.

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Rather, the programme fosters audience engagement with relationships between characters in ways that lend themselves to familial or pseudofamilial readings. Principally this has taken place, of course, via the relationship between the Doctor and the Doctor’s companions; and since 2005 this has increasingly included the relationships between companions and their own kinship networks on Earth. In fact, the  narrativization  of companions’ family (or symbolically familial) relationships, and how those narratives intersect with the adventures in time and space centred on the Doctor’s travels, have arguably been defining characteristics of Doctor Who and its cognate shows from the Russell T Davies era onwards, running into Steven Moffat’s time as showrunner (Jowett, 2017) and now into Chris Chibnall’s creative leadership. As Danny Nicol has recently argued: [T]he three show runners do not have identical ideas. Davies’ commitment to including family pervasively is particularly strong and is reflected in his subsequent family-centred dystopian series Years and Years (2019). Part of Moffat’s ‘conservative agenda’ is a prizing of biological parenthood (his depiction of Amy’s parents and the memory of Bill’s mother is more favourable than his portrayal of Amy’s aunt and Bill’s foster mother) whereas Chibnall appears to relish non-blood relationships. (Nicol, 2020: 8–9)

Nothing more vividly highlights this in the Chris Chibnall era than the thirteenth Doctor’s self-reflexively recurring use of the epithet ‘fam’ to refer to the members of her companion group, which comprises Graham O’Brien, his step-grandson Ryan Sinclair, and Ryan’s old school friend Yasmin Khan. ‘Fam’ is a colloquial term, a truncation of the word ‘family’, which refers to a kinship group that can comprise relatives (whether blood relatives or not), or closely bonded friends, or indeed both. This chapter is therefore concerned with exploring and interrogating the nature of the relationship between the thirteenth Doctor and her companions, viewed through the lens of ‘fam’, its associated meanings, and its status as an inclusive alternative to the cis-hetero-normative (white) nuclear family. Sociologists have argued that this was never as much of a social reality in the postwar period as normalizing cultural negotiations of it as an ideal had us believe (see Coontz, 1992). Counter-hegemonic viewpoints that shine a more illuminating light on the diversity of kinship networks and alternative family structures, and which defamiliarize or push back against the normativity of the cis-hetero-white nuclear model privileging directly shared genetic information between family members, can thus be enabled. Such counter-hegemonic kinships abound in twenty-first-century society and have commensurately risen to prominence in sociological understandings of family beyond the nuclear model (e.g. Baca Zinn and Eitzen, 2002; Giddens with Griffiths, 2006; Berardo and Shehan, 2007; Coontz, 2008).

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Furthermore, this chapter views the kinship network of the thirteenth Doctor through a specific and particular focus on the character of Ryan. This focus is adopted with a view to arguing that through the character of Ryan, and with series 11’s narrativization of his relationship to family members on Earth (in particular his grandmother, and his biological father Aaron), the show at once confronts and attempts to push back against some persistent and often pernicious stereotypes that have historically characterized media representations of black families in both the US  (see Torres, 1998; hooks, 2004; Leonard, 2006;  Gammage, 2016)  and the UK (see Malik and Newton, 2017). However, in some ways, the show ultimately succumbs to perpetuating these discourses. My particular emphasis here is therefore on the cultural ubiquity of the trope of the absent black father (Coles and Green, 2010), and the negotiation of this trope in series 11. In this respect, I aim to contribute to the burgeoning body of work devoted to interrogating Doctor Who and its cognate texts in terms of the cultural politics of race (Orthia, 2013).

The discursive prominence of ‘fam’ … and absentee black fatherhood The Doctor’s first use of the term ‘fam’ comes in the first full episode of Jodie Whittaker’s tenure as the Doctor, ‘The Woman Who Fell to Earth’, when she addresses companions Yaz, Ryan, and Graham collectively, for the first time, and struggles to settle on an epithet that seems to sit well with everyone. She tries ‘team’, but is dissatisfied. She then tries ‘gang’, but is still dissatisfied. Finally, she tries ‘fam’, posing it as a question which is left hanging. The question is subsequently revisited in ‘The Witchfinders’ when the Doctor greets her friends in this way again: ‘Hi Team. Gang. Fam.’ And in the series finale, ‘The Battle of Ranskoor Av Kolos’, the situation underpinning her use of the term ‘fam’ – that for the Doctor, the friends she travels with in the TARDIS are her de facto family – is fully cemented by a brief exchange that they have about the phrase. Just prior to entering the TARDIS and departing from the planet on which the episode has taken place, the Doctor says ‘Come on, fam’, to which Ryan responds ‘I thought we weren’t doing “fam”?’ Yaz then proclaims the matter decided, announcing ‘I like it’. The matter seemingly settled, they then enter the TARDIS together, and so ends series 11. The familial circumstances of Ryan are key to the relationship dynamics of this iteration of the show, and to the discursive prominence of ‘fam’, which is in part an expression of the fact that ‘[g]iven the culturally diverse

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character of the United Kingdom today, there are considerable variations in family’ (Giddens with Griffiths, 2006: 212), as opposed to more traditional understandings and set-ups of family that view it as ‘consisting of a father, mother and dependent children’ (Giddens with Griffiths, 2006: 208). So much so, in fact, that series 11 itself begins by contextualizing Ryan’s family circumstances, orienting the audience to the situation via an introduction to his grandmother Grace, with whom he lives, and her husband Graham, making a point to communicate Ryan’s steadfast resistance to calling him ‘grandad’. This sticking point is reiterated in the following episode, ‘The Ghost Monument’, when Graham attempts to revisit the issue: ‘So, we’re sticking with Graham are we? Not grandad?’, to which Ryan curtly responds, ‘yes, Graham’. Graham is undeterred, to the extent that in ‘Rosa’ he refers to Ryan repeatedly as ‘my grandson’ during an encounter with some segregation-era racists in the American deep South (specifically, in Montgomery, Alabama, in 1955, ahead of their encounter with the historical figure Rosa Parks, who famously instigated the Montgomery bus boycott – a landmark protest in the American civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s). Two things are thus established: Ryan has been raised by his grandmother, and Graham is keen for Ryan to have a paternal influence in his life. And in the absence of Aaron, Graham is determined to act in this capacity himself. Absentee black fatherhood thus emerges as a key discourse underpinning Ryan’s characterization from the outset. Writing about what he viewed as the social scourge of absentee fatherhood in the United States, and focusing his ire in particular on black families, the former Democratic US senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan famously wrote that From the wild Irish slums of the 19th century Eastern seaboard, to the riottorn suburbs of Los Angeles, there is one unmistakeable lesson in American history: a community that allows a large number of men to grow up in broken homes, dominated by women, never acquiring any stable relationship to male authority … that community asks for and gets chaos. (Moynihan, 1987: 9)

From these views came the notion of what scholars would call ‘cultural Moynihanism’ (Reeves and Campbell, 1994: 92–93, 99). This refers, in part, to the belief that an underclass of Americans had emerged in the country’s black population as a result not of entrenched, endemic, and ongoing structural and social inequalities born of centuries’ worth of racial discrimination, but rather from an absence of patriarchal values in black families and kinship networks. Absentee black fathers were (and arguably still are) seen as both cause and symptom of this social ill. Roberta L. Coles and Charles Green refer to the phenomenon of fatherlessness in black families simply as ‘the myth of the missing black



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father’ (2010), while the masculinity studies scholar David Marriott writes that Theorizing the lack of fathers in black familial structures (and the consequent dominance of matrilineal relations) as an emasculation of black men, race relations focuses on the structuring absence of black fathers in the psyche of young black men, whose violent aggressivity towards and alienation from white patriarchal authority and white hegemonic masculinity, instanced in a black criminal counterculture and avoidance of paternity, provides … a telling psychosocial narrative for the underachievement of the black underclass in … private and public spheres. (Marriott, 2000: xiii)

Thus, as I have argued elsewhere, in contemporary culture – ­encompassing media that now includes Doctor Who – black fatherhood tends to be depicted ‘via a default position that assumes its entrenched absence’ (Hamad, 2014: 114). To take one famous example, when the US sitcom The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air (1990–96) directly confronted the politically and emotionally charged issue of absentee black fatherhood in its 1994 episode ‘Papa’s Got a Brand New Excuse’, it resulted in one of the show’s best remembered scenes from across the lifespan of its six-year run. Having been let down and abandoned by his father again, after he unexpectedly reappears in his life, Will collapses in tears into the arms of his Uncle Phil. As the show’s iconic title sequence makes clear, through Will’s rapped introduction to his situation, Will’s single mother enforced his relocation from West Philadelphia (connoting poverty, urban violence, and fatherlessness) to a chaperoned life with relatives in Bel Air (connoting wealth, privilege, and the presence of a stable nuclear family). This followed a violent altercation that prompted fears for Will’s future in line with Marriot’s ­characterization of the perceived social stakes for young black men of absentee fatherhood. Thus, although it is rarely directly remarked upon, it is established at the outset of each episode that Will grew up without his father, and that having Uncle Phil act in the capacity of a surrogate to him is viewed as vital by his mother, vis-à-vis Will’s chances of being able to transcend his social circumstances. In the context of twenty-first-century TV in the UK, shows like the one-off drama Shoot the Messenger (2006) in which David Oyelowo plays a teacher accused of sexually assaulting one of his pupils, and the crime drama Top Boy (2011–13; 2019), about rival drug gangs operating out of deprived social housing estates in East London, have drawn criticism from scholars of race and representation in UK media culture. They have been subjected to critique on a number of grounds, including that they present scenarios in which ‘absent black fathers are the norm’ (Malik, 2017:  98) and in

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which women are shown to be ‘raising a son without the father around,’ (Andrews, 2017: 120) thus perpetuating ‘disreputable myths’ connected to perceptions of paternal irresponsibility on the part of black men in the UK (Burton, 2017: 78–79). Even within the Doctor Who universe, there are obvious comparisons to be made here between the scenarios described above, Ryan’s narrative of absentee fatherhood, and those of the young black male characters of Mickey Smith in earlier series of Doctor Who, and Clyde Langer in the spin-off series The Sarah Jane Adventures (2007–11). As Lorna Jowett notes, Clyde Langer’s mother is ‘a single parent’ (2017: 30), his father having also abandoned him, and Mickey Smith ‘was raised by his gran’ (2017: 44), having been likewise subject to paternal abandonment. There is thus a pattern that has emerged in the characterization of young black males of  the  Doctor Who universe – a pattern that troublingly aligns with some ideologically problematic discourses associated with ‘cultural Moynihanism’ concerning fatherlessness and paternal irresponsibility in black communities. It is also noteworthy that the fatherlessness of these characters becomes increasingly a part of their narratives and characterization over time. With Mickey, his fatherlessness was depicted relatively matter-of-factly. With Clyde, it was actively narrativized across two episodes. And with Ryan, it underpins the relational dynamics of lead characters across the whole of the eleventh season, building up to the climax of his brief reunion with his father in the 2019 New Year’s Day special episode ‘Resolution’. To elaborate, the two-part story of The Sarah Jane Adventures, ‘The Mark of the Berserker’ (2008), is strongly reminiscent of the aforementioned iconic episode of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, in that it deals very heavily with the relationship (or lack thereof) between Clyde and his estranged father, Paul. Early in part 1, Paul suddenly reappears in Clyde’s life following an extended period of absence, during which time he had apparently relinquished all paternal responsibility, ostensibly in order to effect a reconciliation between father and son, and thereby to attempt to forge a new and improved paternal relationship. A narrative scenario is contrived that puts Paul in possession of an alien pendant giving him control over the thoughts and actions of others. In a misguided attempt to re-forge his now irreparably damaged bond with Clyde by targeting his son’s affection for, and devotion to, his best friends Luke and Rani, Paul uses the pendant on Clyde, telling him to forget his friends and that he ever even saw them. Paul and Clyde then abscond together, while Paul starts exploiting the pendant’s powers in (initially successful) attempts to buy back Clyde’s affections, as well as to have Clyde forget about Paul’s mistreatment of his mother, whom Clyde is also

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instructed to forget. Sarah Jane’s absence from these episodes (she has been away for the weekend dealing with another alien situation elsewhere) easily enables a deus-ex-machina narrative resolution to this situation when she returns, whereupon Paul is freed from the hold that the pendant now has over him, and Clyde gradually recovers his memories, remembering who the important people in his life really are. He makes a final attempt to effect a reunion between his parents, but, upon discovering that Paul has (inadvertently) started a new family with someone else, abandons these efforts, telling Paul that he no longer needs him, and entreating him to be a better father to his new baby than he has been to him. In this way, The Sarah Jane Adventures lays some of the groundwork for Doctor Who’s later imagining of an alternative kinship structure that the show arguably places higher in its hierarchy of discourses than the normative nuclear family. In series 11, as indicated, we see this most clearly through the narrative trajectory and discourse of absentee black fatherhood that underpins Ryan’s characterization. The first major narrative development for Ryan in this regard comes when Grace dies during the series opener, having been killed by the hostile alien Tzim-Sha. This leaves both Graham and Ryan devastated and bereft, but facilitates an ensuing narrative strand of pseudo-filial/paternal bonding between the two, forcing the issue of absentee fatherhood to the fore. Ahead of her funeral at the end of the episode, Ryan is seen staring out of the window of the family home he shared with Grace, hopelessly awaiting the arrival of his estranged father, Aaron. It is revealed that Aaron’s presence was promised and expected when the Doctor asks, ‘What time did your dad say he’d get here?’, to which Ryan replies resignedly ‘two hours ago’. He elaborates on his father’s known and lamented irresoluteness, explaining: ‘He says a lot of things … He’s never been the best at being reliable.’ Despite this, the fatherless Ryan still craves Aaron’s presence in his time of grief: ‘I want him here.’ Later, in the fourth episode ‘Arachnids in the UK’, Graham finally returns to the home he shared with Grace for the first time since her funeral. Following this, Ryan, who did not accompany him, asks him about it. Graham gives a perfunctory answer before producing from his pocket an envelope, which he hands to Ryan, telling him that he found it on the mat. ‘It’s your dad’s handwriting, isn’t it?’ he asks him. Ryan looks troubled and puts the envelope away in his own pocket, unopened, and tells Graham that he does not intend to open it. He does, of course, and tells Graham about it later: ‘He said he’s sorry for not being there. For me. For us. For nan.’ He continues: ‘He wants us to reconnect. Says that I can live with him now, being that he’s my proper family … “proper family”?! He’s not proper!’ This is also the episode in which, having been home, they commit to staying

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with the Doctor to continue their adventures. The Doctor is delighted by this development: ‘Look at you?! My fam!’ In this way, their companionship serves to debunk the disingenuousness of the idea that ‘proper family’ depends upon shared genetic information. In ‘The Tsuranga Conundrum’ the ‘fam’ meet an alien male named Yoss, who appears human besides the fact that he is manifestly pregnant (in Yoss’s species both sexes can gestate a foetus and give birth to babies – women have the girls, and men have the boys). At this stage in his pregnancy, Yoss is planning to give his baby up for adoption. This does not sit well with Ryan when he learns of it: ‘But, won’t you miss him?’, he asks Yoss. Reflecting on Yoss’s situation with Yaz, Ryan tells her: ‘He’s the same age my dad must have been when he had me. Same age as I am now. I never really thought about it like that. I wouldn’t be able to cope, having a kid now.’ Yaz asks him when the last time he saw his own father was. He tells her it was a year ago: ‘Didn’t go well. I got angry with him.’ She asks him why he was angry. Ryan replies: ‘He ducked out when I needed him. He’s like … a gap in my life.’ This conversation also prompts Ryan to tell Yaz about the death of his mother when he was 13 years old. As a f­atherless black boy who lost his mother to an untimely death during childhood, Ryan thus bears comparison to equivalently drawn characters from film and television of recent decades, like Principal Wood in Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997–2003) and Chris, protagonist of the film Get Out (2017). Subsequently, at Yoss’s bedside when he is going through labour, Graham attempts to reassure the patient by telling him that Ryan is descended from a nurse, and that he himself has ‘seen every episode of Call the Midwife’. This intertextual reference to another flagship BBC series is significant because, like this season of Doctor Who, Call the Midwife (2012–) is notable for offering up a celebratory depiction of a kinship structure that presents itself as an alternative to the hegemonic cis-het nuclear family, i.e. the community of nuns who reside at Nonnatus House convent, and the cohabiting female friendship of the nurses. It also gestures towards Graham’s post-feminist masculinity, as does his determined attempt to be a good surrogate father to Ryan, although its counter-hegemonic potential is somewhat contained by Graham’s insistence that ‘I always looked away at the squeamish bits’. We are left to infer that Graham is referring to the moment of birth. After the baby is born, Ryan tells the new father: ‘You don’t have to be perfect. You just have to be there’, clearly referring to his own feelings about his situation with regard to his absentee father. Graham and Ryan then cut the baby’s umbilical cord together. Graham invites Ryan to celebrate the occasion with him by, rather awkwardly, offering his hand for a fist bump. Ryan declines.

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Later, in ‘It Takes You Away’, the Doctor and her friends are in Norway when they happen upon Hanne, a young girl who ordinarily lives with her father, alone in her home, her father apparently missing. It is noteworthy here that Ryan’s immediate assumption is that the girl’s father has abandoned her, rather than gone missing. Due to his own experience with Aaron, abandonment is his only frame of reference for understanding absentee fatherhood. He is forthright in his assessment of the situation, and incredulous of Hanne’s explanation: ‘Her dad’s done a runner, and she’s making this monster stuff up.’ This is also the episode in which Ryan cements his pseudo-filial relationship with Graham by finally consenting to address him (albeit playfully, and by no means consistently) as ‘Grandad’. In the following episode, ‘The Battle of Ranskoor Av Kolos’, it is cemented further when Ryan tells an alien ‘Don’t diss my Grandad. Ever.’ He even goes so far as to say to Graham directly, ‘You’re family. And I love you.’ In the above described ways then, the whole of Ryan’s series 11 narrative arc can be understood as a gradual build-up towards the showdown with his father that comes in ‘Resolution’.

Counter-hegemonic ‘fam’ versus hegemonic fatherhood: the irresolution of ‘Resolution’ Early in the episode, at Grace’s family home, the doorbell rings. Graham gets up to answer it, but immediately closes the door in the face of the person standing there, telling the others that it was a ‘wrong number’. It rings again. This time, Ryan gets up to answer it. Unsurprisingly, the mystery person at the door transpires to be his father, Aaron. Ryan introduces Aaron to Yaz and the Doctor. Aaron and Graham exchange a curt nod (although Graham declines to make eye contact with him), and Aaron is met with a cool reception by all. The Doctor wastes no time in calling Aaron out on his absentee fatherhood and his irresponsibility as a parent, immediately telling him: ‘You weren’t at Grace’s funeral. Ryan waited for you. You let him down.’ There is an awkward silence before Aaron attempts to extricate Ryan from his newfound ‘fam’: ‘I was thinking maybe we could grab a coffee.’ Ryan reluctantly agrees. In their absence, the Doctor observes to Yaz merely: ‘Ryan’s dad.’ Yaz responds, ‘It’s complicated’, to which the Doctor counters: ‘Yeah. Dads are. So I’ve heard ….’ Out in the corridor, Graham takes Aaron to task for his sudden reappearance in Ryan’s life, something which he clearly views as disruptive. Aaron claims to be ‘turning over a new leaf’, but Graham is keen to communicate to Aaron that his absence has negatively impacted on Ryan’s

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life: ‘You have no idea [what and how much Ryan has been through].’ Aaron appears chastened and does not deny Graham’s words, but appears ­steadfast in his determination to parachute in and repair the broken bond: ‘I just want me and him to be a family again.’ Graham’s reply to this entitled presumption reveals much about the representation of family in this season of Doctor Who, and about the counter-hegemony that’s inherent in its celebratory depiction of kinship networks pushing at normative boundaries to offer an alternative defined by togetherness, mutual support, and presence. As Graham explains: ‘Family isn’t just about DNA, Aaron. Or a name. It’s about what you do. And you haven’t done enough.’ At this point, Ryan returns and stakes his own claim in the familial dynamic by referring to Graham as ‘Gramps’ in the presence of Aaron, much to his father’s dismay. Graham, on the other hand, smiles broadly and chuckles to himself, referring to Ryan in turn as ‘son’. Their pseudo-­paternal/ filial bond is further cemented. Beyond this, the relationship between Ryan and Graham is positioned in a binary against Ryan and Aaron – a binary opposition which very much favours Graham. The equivalent relationship between Ryan and his father is contrastingly defined by Aaron’s abrogation of paternal responsibilities, straightforwardly conveyed using pathos and inviting a reading of Ryan’s life situation as a tragic outcome for him. This illuminates an ambivalence and an ideological tension in the ostensibly counter-hegemonic negotiation of ‘fam’ in ‘Resolution’, in so far as it is the failure of the hegemonic family that rises to discursive prominence here, arguably over and above the favourable alternative that the ‘fam’ provides. The hierarchy of discourses of family established in series 11 is disrupted and ultimately left unresolved, as is made clear in the following discussion of the way that the negotiated relationship between Ryan and Aaron unfolds in ‘Resolution’. Having agreed to go with his father, Aaron and Ryan are next seen at the nearby café suggested by Yaz. Their body language, as they face each other across a table, is instructive. Attempting to be the good father, or to perform good fatherhood, Aaron is leaning in towards Ryan, looking directly at him as he speaks. Ryan appears uninterested, his arms folded, seemingly in an attempt to keep a bodily physical barrier between them, and declining to make unbroken eye contact. He occasionally looks off to the side while he speaks, which he does with clipped delivery and a flat tone, regarding his father with suspicion and thinly veiled contempt. Aaron broaches the subject of his paternal shortcomings and his determination to change things with an oblique explanation to the effect that he has been ‘examining [his] life choices’. When Aaron finally gets around to asking a question that even suggests the possibility of an interest in his son’s life, ‘so, how you been doing?’,

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Ryan is affronted. He is taken aback by the insensitivity it displays towards his grief over Grace’s death, and the indifference that’s shown for the ­damaging impact of Aaron’s own absence on his well-being both before and after the loss of Grace. Ryan firmly, but very calmly, starts to disassemble the flippancy of his father’s glib question: ‘Seriously? That’s where you start? That’s all you got? How do you THINK I’m doing?!’ When Aaron attempts to offer up a feeble defence via the suggestion that their experiences of loss have been equivalent, Ryan stops him immediately: ‘I don’t care how it’s been for you. This ain’t about us commiserating with each other. This is about you making things right.’ In this way, just as Graham’s words had done in the preceding scene at the house, Ryan re-centres the focus on Aaron’s absentee fatherhood, and Aaron’s need to take responsibility for his parental shortcomings. Aaron, however, is not receptive to having his failings called out in this way, and makes a cheap attempt to turn the tables of accusation on Ryan: ‘This is how you talk to your dad?!’ Ryan is unmoved by this weak attempt to shame him on the grounds of insufficient filial deference, and is steadfast in steering the conversation back to the undeniable fact of Aaron’s absentee fatherhood: ‘I don’t know, ’cos he ain’t been around. So don’t come walking back in, demanding respect, ’cos that ain’t where we are.’ Aaron is only briefly silenced by this. He contemplates Ryan’s words for a few moments, and then switches tack, this time towards negotiation and conciliation: ‘What do you need me to say? Because I want to say it.’ With an astonishing level of magnanimity and emotional literacy for such a youthful person, Ryan proceeds to do all of his father’s emotional labour for him, with this heart-breaking reply: You say, ‘Ryan. I’m sorry. I’ve messed up. I haven’t been good enough. I’ve let you down. A lot. And I know that’s made life hard for you. And if it meant that, over the years, you ever felt lonely, or abandoned, or didn’t know where to turn, or who to talk to, or how to be, then, I’m sorry. ’Cos … ’cos you mustn’t ever think that you didn’t deserve my love.’

Even now, confronted with the reality – stated with heartfelt candour by Ryan – of the situation that he brought about by abandoning his child, denial continues to remain Aaron’s default position: ‘You didn’t ever think that.’ Eventually something vaguely resembling regret, even remorse for his failures as a father, is obliquely offered up: There are things you’ve done in your life, to others, the decisions you’ve made, maybe when things were difficult, and you get it wrong. But by the time you realise you got it wrong, it’s too late. You can’t fix it because the damage is done. And so you run. ’Cos you’re too ashamed to make it right. That’s what I did.

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Unsurprisingly, Ryan rejects this appeal to victim status made by Aaron, and tells him so without hesitation: ‘No.’ For the first time since their ­conversation commenced, Ryan leans in towards his father: ‘You hid when I needed you. First mum. Then nan.’ The series and Graham are more empathetic towards Aaron and his attempts to make up for his past mistakes than Ryan, but ‘Resolution’ never fully lets Aaron off the hook. Symptomatic of this is that, when he subsequently makes himself useful in the TARDIS, the Doctor offers the following piece of heavily qualified praise: ‘Oh, you’re good, Ryan’s dad. You’re almost making up for your parenting deficit!’ In order to shift Ryan from his seemingly unforgiving position towards his father, the narrative of ‘Resolution’ contrives to put Aaron in mortal danger due to a Dalek attack, thus forcing Ryan to confront the possibility of losing him permanently. He realizes the stakes immediately, begging the Doctor to take action that will save his father’s life. As the situation reaches its climax, with Aaron under the control of the parasitical Dalek, Ryan reaches out to him, first with words of absolution – ‘Dad. Dad, I know you can hear me … Dad. Dad, I’m here for you. I forgive you. I love you, Dad’ – and then with his hand. Just as it seems Aaron is about to fall through the doors of the TARDIS into oblivion, their hands find one another, and Ryan and his father are momentarily reconciled. Ryan elects to stay with his friends (and his Grandad) in the TARDIS, rather than go and live with his father. But the episode has served its (and arguably the whole of series 11’s) purpose in effecting a rapprochement between estranged father and son. Aaron implores Ryan to call him upon his return from his adventures. Ryan insists that he will. They embrace by way of goodbye, parting ways (for now) with smiles.

Conclusion: the conflicts of counter-hegemonic kinship In some noteworthy ways, then, Chibnall-era Doctor Who, through its normalization and celebration of the counter-hegemonic kinship network characterized by ‘pluralism’ (Berardo and Shehan, 2007: 291), ‘diversity’ (Baca Zinn and Eitzen, 2002: 24) and ‘change’ (Coontz 2008, 3), and encapsulated by the depicted ‘fam’ of the ensemble cast, operates to refuse the damaging, discriminatory and patriarchal cultural logic of so-called Moynihanism. However, as the analysis in this chapter has made clear, it has not found a way to do so without re-invoking the ubiquitous and damaging cultural figure of the absentee black father, implying that fathers must fulfil their social responsibilities as fathers in line with the demands of hegemonic family values, and thus ambivalently complicating its counter-



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hegemonic view of the ‘fam’. In addition, it continues the pattern established earlier in the series and its spin-offs, in relation to the characters of Mickey Smith and Clyde Langer, of depicting young black British men and boys as perennially fatherless.

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References Andrews, K. (2017). ‘The Iconic Ghetto on British Television: Black Representation and Top Boy’, in S. Malik and D. M. Newton (eds),  Adjusting the Contrast: British Television and Constructs of Race. Manchester: Manchester University Press, pp. 111–31. Baca Zinn, M. and D. S. Eitzen (2002). Diversity in Families. Boston: Allyn & Bacon. Berardo, F. M. and C. L. Shehan (2007). ‘Family Sociology in the 21st Century’, in C. D. Bryant and D. L. Peck (eds), 21st Century Sociology: A Reference Handbook, Volume 1. London: SAGE, pp. 289–96. Burton, J. (2017). ‘Reframing the 1950s: Race and Representation in Recent British Television’, in S. Malik and D. M. Newton (eds), Adjusting the Contrast: British Television and Constructs of Race. Manchester: Manchester University Press, pp. 71–89. Coles, R. L. and C. Green (eds) (2010). The Myth of the Missing Black Father. New York: Columbia University Press. Coontz, S. (1992). The Way We Never Were: American Families and the Nostalgia Trap. New York: Basic Books. Coontz, S. (2008). The Way We Really Are: Coming to Terms with America’s Changing Families. New York: Basic Books. Gammage, M. M. (2016).  Representations of Black Women in the Media. New York: Routledge. Giddens, A. with S. Griffiths (2006). Sociology, 5th Edition. Cambridge: Polity. Giddens, A. (1982). Sociology: A Brief but Critical Introduction. Basingstoke: Macmillan. Hamad, H. (2014). Postfeminism and Paternity in Contemporary US Film: Framing Fatherhood. London: Routledge. Hochschild, A. R. (1989). The Second Shift: Working Parents and the Revolution at Home. New York: Viking. hooks, b. (2004). We Real Cool: Black Men and Masculinity. New York: Routledge. Jowett, L. (2017). Dancing with the Doctor: Dimensions of Gender in the Doctor Who Universe. London: I. B. Tauris. Leonard, D. J. (2006).  Screens Fade to Black: Contemporary African American Cinema. Westport, CT: Praeger. Malik, S. (2017). ‘Black British Drama, Losses and Gains: The Case of Shoot the Messenger’, in S. Malik and D. M. Newton (eds), Adjusting the Contrast: British Television and Constructs of Race. Manchester: Manchester University Press, pp. 90–110. Malik, S. and D. M. Newton (eds) (2017). Adjusting the Contrast: British Television and Constructs of Race. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Marriott, D. (2000). On Black Men. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

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Moynihan, D. P. (1987). Family and Nation: The Godkin Lectures, Harvard University. Orlando, FL: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. Nicol, D. (2020). ‘Doctor Who, Family and National Identity’, Entertainment and Sports Law Journal, 18 (4), pp. 1–11. Oakley, A. (2019 [1974]). The Sociology of Housework. Bristol: Policy Press. Orthia, L. (ed.) (2013). Doctor Who and Race. Bristol and Chicago: Intellect. Reeves, J. L. and R. Campbell (1994). Cracked Coverage: Television News, the Anti-Cocaine Crusade, and the Reagan Legacy. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Torres, S. (1998). Living Color: Race and Television in the United States. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

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Part III

Fan responses

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Doctor Whumour: Internet meme culture, Chris Chibnall’s Doctor Who, and fan mockery Brigid Cherry Doctor Who fans have long been known for making fun of the programme that they love so much. As Paul Cornell states in his collection of excerpts from print fanzines, fan discourses often contain ‘oddly fond but also mocking bits’ (1997: 117). He goes on to say that such ‘bits’ (examples of which include tongue-in-cheek or satirical articles, cartoons and jokes, fake news reports and agony aunt columns, or silly poems, and sometimes even entire ’zines dedicated to mockery) demonstrate a ‘very complicated relationship with their subject matter’, this being the ‘typical fandom stance of loving something so much we can take the piss, both fondly and even cruelly, because we own it’ (ibid.). It is only to be expected that fan mockery has continued on beyond the Who ’zine into online fan culture. Fans still parody or subvert the programme for humorous ends in their discussions on forums and social media, but one of the key ways in which they now produce ‘mocking bits’ is through the use of Internet memes. In this chapter I explore the ways in which Doctor Who fans make and use memes to mock, often fondly but sometimes cruelly, the programme under the showrunner Chris Chibnall. If, as Cornell’s account illustrates, mockery is a recognized practice in Doctor Who fandom, it is important to consider the forms it takes in online fan culture and what it communicates in respect of fans’ attitudes and opinions. Fans, of course, are typified – if not stereotyped – as enthusiastic consumers of cult media who express excessive adoration for the fan object. However, this does not mean that they do not also pinpoint its perceived flaws. It has been recognized, for example, that ‘haters’ might take up positions as anti-fans (Gray, 2003) or indulge in forms of ‘snark’ fandom (Haig, 2013). However, even fans who unashamedly express their love for a text might not always be entirely uncritical of it (Tulloch and Jenkins, 1995). They might not like certain episodes, characters, or aesthetic styles, or recognize that certain aspects of the production are flawed, and at particular points in time. But (and this relates to Cornell’s point about fans’ sense of ownership) this does not necessarily mean that they stop loving their series.

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This raises an interesting question about the nature of being a fan. A binary opposition of fan and anti-fan is problematic and fails to account for dissatisfaction with elements of a text. This is certainly the case with the complex affective relationship that many Who fans had with the series at various points in its run since 1963, as with the infamous ‘JN-T must go’ headline (see Tulloch, 2005). In this sense, ‘the anti-fan within the fan’, to borrow a phrase from Vivi Theodoropoulou (2007: 316), is always present or threatening to emerge. In her discussion of anti-fandom, Louisa Stein ponders the question of how we can ‘understand the role of avatar, meme, GIFset, and comment (not to mention fan fiction, art, and video) within a palette of engagement that includes a full range of positive and negative, and, most important, mixed response’ (2019: 97). In this chapter I therefore explore the ways in which dissatisfaction with Chibnall’s Who emerges not as hate or rejection (although this does take place) but as fan mockery. Specifically, I analyse the making and use of memes as evidence of fan dissatisfaction that arises out of the tensions within the fan between their fandom and anti-fandom. Like fanzines before them, memes making jokes about or mocking the series reveal discourses around dissatisfaction circulating within the fan community. The memes that are discussed in this chapter reflect a range of affective responses to Chibnall’s series. Whilst some do incorporate the same kind of ‘hurt, anger, rejection, bitterness, critique, and disgust’ that Stein observes in the Glee fan community, they also encode the same kind of humour Cornell suggests arises from the fans’ sense of ownership of the text and affection for it. In the first half of the chapter, I analyse the way memes were employed both to communicate overtly negative responses in the wake of the pre-publicity around Chibnall’s Who and also to counter these displays of anti-fandom with mockery. Then in the second part of the chapter, I consider the specific aspects of the programme that fans mocked through the use of memes, and how this might allow them to negotiate their inner anti-fan.

Memes in space and time: theorizing meme culture In the era of the social web, Internet memes have become a key component of online communication, forming a shorthand method of conveying emotional reactions and opinions, as well as simply being jokes (Davison, 2012). They are a commonplace and effective means of communication on social media and in online discussion forums, and, as such, they are widely employed by fans. In a previous discussion of the use of memes in the Twin Peaks (1990–91; 2017) online fan community (Cherry, 2019), I explored the ways in which fans create and use memes to communicate their

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­reactions to the series, process possible readings of the text, raise expectations for upcoming episodes, acknowledge (or judge) the creative process with respect to authorship or production values, and position themselves as viewers vis-à-vis both the text and the wider viewing community. Such fan memes reveal similar patterns of fan mockery that Cornell observed in Doctor Who ’zines, as for example making jokes about Lynch’s complex narrative style, or their own solutions to the enigmas he presents. An important consideration here in terms of fan mockery is that Internet memes are typically a form of humour (Davison, 2012: 122). In addition, Knobel and Lankshear define memes as ‘collaborative, absurdist humour in multimedia forms’ and as ‘geek kitsch humour’ (2007: 210). It is the linking of meme humour with geek (and by extrapolation fan) cultures and with collaborative (and thus fan) works that are important considerations for this research in terms of how fans make use of memes, specifically to make jokes about the fan object. Ryan Milner’s point that the humour, irony, and play in memes ‘can counter dominant antagonisms, even if they predominantly reinforce those antagonisms’ (2016: 137) is equally pertinent. The responses of contemporary Doctor Who fans, some of whom have not wholly embraced Chibnall’s vision for the series or Jodie Whittaker’s Doctor, to this run of the programme afford an ideal opportunity to explore how this is conveyed in memetic mockery. The research project undertaken for this chapter categorized and analysed the memes fans employed to communicate their conflicted responses to Chibnall’s Who. Initial observations were made of memes posted on Facebook and Twitter during the pre-production for series 11, largely in response to the announcement that Jodie Whittaker had been cast as the Doctor, and then during subsequent media publicity and trailers. This preceded the main phase of data collection for this project, which was principally undertaken via content analysis of the subreddit /r/DoctorWhumour on the social network Reddit. This group was chosen as the main focus since it is a dedicated humour group and a central repository for the posting of Doctor Who memes and other ‘light-hearted’ content. /r/DoctorWhumour was created after the main Doctor Who subreddit /r/DoctorWho banned memes and this in itself is an interesting consideration. Miltner states that ‘Internet memes are an increasingly widespread form of vernacular communication’ (2014: n.p.). However, the banning of memes on /r/DoctorWho due to the fact that the large number being posted was overwhelming the group indicates that memes might, in fact, impede computer-mediated discourse. Nevertheless, the setting up of a subreddit specifically for memes and humour suggests that this aspect of Doctor Who fandom retains importance. Defining the group as one dedicated to memes in this way also positions the group as part of a meme culture that facilitates active ­involvement

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in creating and adding to largely visual-based humour (Borzsei, 2013). In this way, /r/DoctorWhumour fits into Adrienne Massanari’s account of how subreddits ‘reflect a geek sensibility’ (2015: 330) and are ‘invested in geek culture and humour’ (2015: 24). As with other studies of open – and largely anonymous – online fan communities it is difficult to ascertain the demographic profile of the fans taking part. However, this community has, as far as it is observable at all, a majority of male contributors. /r/ DoctorWhumour thus also replicates the ‘geek masculinity’ often observable on Reddit (Massanari, 2017). Moreover, given the fan competencies expressed in many of the memes, a large proportion of the community are long-term fans with considerable knowledge of post-2005 Who, and in many instances of classic Who and Big Finish as well, delineating this community as an intersection of geek masculinity and fan culture (Shifman, 2014: 34), and therefore as a meme-centric imagined audience (Wiggins, 2019: 111–12). The main focus of the data collection took place during series 11 itself. The content of memes in response to each episode was analysed and a taxonomy constructed in order to identify the main themes and elements that the fans mocked. During this stage of the research, observation was also undertaken of Doctor Who groups on Facebook, Twitter, and the Gallifrey Base and Planet Mondas Doctor Who fan forums. This acted as a control, allowing for tracking of the potential spread of memes or categories of meme across online fandom, but also permitted comparative analysis with fan discourses. The final stage of the research observed memes posted during series 12 in order to verify the categories of mockery identified during series 11, and to further identify any new categories that were emerging. Given the volume of memes posted it is possible to discuss only a small representative sample that best characterizes fan mockery in response to Chibnall’s Who. The following discussion of Doctor Who memes is therefore only a snapshot, but it nonetheless illustrates which aspects of the Chibnall production fans predominantly mock, the kinds of humour displayed, and what this tells us about the fandom.

#notmydoctor: memetic circulation pre-series 11 and a focus on Whittaker By way of background to case studies of fan mockery during series 11 and 12, it is an important preliminary to address the memes circulating when the announcements of Jodie Whittaker and Chris Chibnall as lead actor and showrunner respectively were made. In one important respect, a large number of memes that were posted at this time are not indicative of typical

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fan mockery, and indeed some contain little that might be termed humour. This cannot be discussed, indeed nor can the analysis of meme-based discourses around series 11, without acknowledging the reactions to the casting of a female actor in the role of the Doctor (see also Phillips, 2020: 218–24). These early contexts of reception reflect sex-based attitudes typical of a patriarchal, not to say misogynistic, worldview. For example, a meme with a high degree of spreadability (it was posted on the non-Who specific subreddit r/funny/ for example) was of the TARDIS partially embedded in a wall and captioned ‘She’s only had it for a day …’1 Other versions of the meme read ‘Fucking hell she’s only had it for a day’, making the response to a ‘woman driver’ taking control of the TARDIS and crashing it rather more exasperated. The wide circulation of this meme illustrates how such content is highly replicable. It is an example of how memes work as spreadable media, or ‘a self-perpetuating phenomenon’ (Jenkins, Ford, and Green, 2013: 28) in that it is made from a photograph of a Halloween display on a New York brownstone known as the Perry Street TARDIS. A version of this meme had circulated in Who fandom for some time, originally with the caption ‘Go home, TARDIS, you’re drunk’,2 an amusing reference to an anthropomorphized, though genderless, TARDIS misbehaving itself. The meme thus illustrates the ways in which memetic discourses can be collaborative due to their fluidity, hybridity, and spreadability. This permits immediacy, instant reaction, and dynamic discourses, making them extremely useful in fast-moving online fan discourse such as here with responses to the casting. This example illustrates, as do many that follow, how meme culture depends to a large extent on the remix meme, or memes that are ‘replicated via evolution, adaptation or transformation’ (Knobel and Lankshear, 2007: 206). The use of meme captioning sites such as Meme Generator (https://memegenerator.net/) make it exceptionally quick and easy for fans to adapt an extant meme to reflect the immediate response. The remix of the crashed TARDIS, for example, taps into the sexist discourse surrounding the casting by suggesting a female Doctor will be a bad driver purely because she is female. Several thematically similar memes also encoded sexist discourses or gender stereotypes including women belonging in the kitchen, subject to gendered division of labour, requiring everything to be pink, and even having emotional episodes related to menstruation. Several memes suggested the series title would now have to change to ‘Nurse Who’, primarily via the hashtag meme #nursewho on Twitter. Variants of a kitchen meme circulated, typically consisting of a kitchen showroom picture, usually with a central island which can be read as representing the console, and captioned with text such as ‘13th Doctor’s TARDIS interior’ or ‘New TARDIS interior revealed’.3 Others photoshopped the thirteenth Doctor into Bessie,

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the third Doctor’s car, which is recoloured pink, with the number plate changed to Who 13.4 A similar recolourisation occurs in an image of a pink TARDIS with hanging baskets and the notice ‘wipe your feet’ at the foot of the doors.5 Much coarser examples of sexist humour are typified by a meme consisting of an edited screen shot from an interview with Whittaker showing her holding up an oversized box of tampons with the caption ‘BBC announces series 11 will only air 3 times a month, as on the 4th week the Doctor will have PMS’.6 While some of these, like the crashed TARDIS, may have been intended as off-hand jokes (albeit ones which might not have been amusing to many female fans and progressive male fans), others – such as the tampon meme – were deliberately and provocatively sexist. As such, they were an unavoidable part of the toxic fan discourses following the casting announcement. In one respect these memes can be seen as the tactics of misogynistic fans who, as Woods and Hahner have pointed out of the alt-right’s use of memes (2019), are seeking to push an agenda. This hostility was also reflected in the memes circulating at this time which indicate rejection of Whittaker as the Doctor, with the #notmydoctor hashtag being used to assert this (just as the similar hashtag meme #notmychristian was used for the casting of the character in the 50 Shades of Grey (2015) film). Several memes consisted of a montage, often of all the Doctors, with a large X or ‘no entry’ sign drawn across Whittaker’s face, and even one where a paper bag was photoshopped over her head.7 Such memes indicated an attempt to eradicate the female Doctor from the series (or the fan’s) history. By and large, it does not seem that the intent of such memes is fan mockery, and certainly not in the affectionate way that Cornell argued. Rather they appear to reproduce misogynistic discourses, reject feminism and progressive politics, and are potentially trolling in nature. By contrast, fans supporting Whittaker’s casting posted memes that mocked the sexist responses that were marring fandom at this point. Inevitably, a variant of the Hitler Rants video was shared on social media, now with Hitler ranting about the Doctor becoming female.8 This can be read in oppositional terms to the #notmydoctor since such attitudes are here being lampooned as, and thus inciting laughter over, fascistic views. Several variants of the bingo card meme9 were also circulated. In one example, the bingo squares on the ‘13th Doctor Casting Comments’ card (see Figure 8.1) parodied the various responses of fans upset by the casting, including ‘It’s DOCTOR Who, not NURSE Who’, ‘He’s a Time LORD, not a Time LADY’, ‘What’s next, Jane Bond’, ‘When can I expect a male Wonder Woman?’, ‘Ruined. Just like Star Wars’, and ‘RIP Doctor Who, 1963–2017’.10 The first two of these reflect the sexist response to the casting in circulation at that time, whilst the Jane Bond, Star Wars, and Wonder Woman ones are references to the wider discourses circulating around other

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8.1  ‘13th Doctor Casting Comments Bingo’ meme

examples of popular culture being regendered. The last refers to the idea that the programme was now dead (for the fan), tapping in to the #RIP hashtag. A variant on the bingo card – ‘“13th Doctor is female” Starter Pack’ – also includes (alongside the Jane Bond type references) ‘RIP Doctor Who’ accompanied by an angry face emoticon and several quotes, such as ‘No [sic] watching anymore, lol’, indicating Doctor Who is over for the disgruntled fans.11 The bingo card and starter pack memes thus confront – and, appropriately, mock – the sexist responses expressed by some fans. In this way one set of memes works to counter another set. In rather more affectionately mocking memes made at this time, fans expressed responses to the pre-publicity for series 11. The most prevalent category amongst these were comments on the new costume. Primarily, Whittaker’s costume was likened to Mork’s from Mork and Mindy (1978–82), as for example in the ‘Mork and the Doctor’ meme which juxtaposed a picture of Mork on the left next to the new costume ­publicity

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still on the right.12 This drew attention to the similar colour scheme and detailing of the costumes: the teal blue of Mork’s t-shirt sleeves and the Doctor’s culottes, the rich yellow of his t-shirt and her braces, the rainbow on her top and his braces, the lighter neutral of his trousers and her coat. This suggests the costume was inspired by, and with the caption ‘Nanu Nanu’ might even have been approved by, Mork. This creates an expectation that the new Doctor’s personality will be quirky and zany, just like Mork’s. Further examples made connections to other similar costumes from popular culture and cult media. Among these were Wesley Crusher’s jumper with multicoloured striping around the yoke worn in Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987–94) – with one reading ‘I want my shirt back’, Jesus in the film version of Godspell (1973), and the children’s television show Rainbow (1972–92) – this meme photoshopping the Doctor in amongst the presenters who are all wearing rainbow waistcoats or tank tops. More significant in terms of Doctor Who fandom however were memes comparing Whittaker’s costume directly to that worn by Colin Baker – mocked in its time for being clown-like. In one, Whittaker’s head is photoshopped on to Baker’s body, while another extrapolates the clown theme by photoshopping a bright orange clown wig and red nose on to Whittaker. These memes are more parodic in the way they can be read as some fans expressing dislike of the costume, but they conversely work to (re)establish, and remind fans, that the Doctor has always worn old-­fashioned styles, odd conjunctions of clothes and accessories, and – certainly with the sixth Doctor – clashing colours. Overall these costume memes do not comment negatively on Whittaker or the costume as such (as the sexist memes do), but rather they represent affectionate – and possibly wry – mockery as the fans wait for the new series to air. Memes prior to series 11 thus form part of the oppositional discourses around the change to a female Doctor. In so doing they also form part of the negotiation fans undertake when accepting (or not) and getting used to any new actor in the role or change of production team, as my previous account of fan responses to Matt Smith highlighted (Cherry, 2014). Whilst these memes facilitate fan expectations, they are largely unconnected with the narrative and storyworld. The memes made and circulated in response to the episodes of series 11 and 12 as they were broadcast, on the other hand, encode responses (both affective and as narrative reading) to various aspects of the text. Many of these are simply jokes made at the expense of plot and character; a number of different memes made jokes of the flying Cybermen heads in ‘Ascension of the Cybermen’ by replacing them with Judoon heads or giving them Zebedee from The Magic Roundabout (1965–77) bodies, for example. Others, however, mocked disappointing or flawed aspects of performance, design, and story. It is the



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latter in p ­ articular that illustrate the ways in which fans use humour to deal with their frustrations or dislike of the text.

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She scronch she face: Whittaker memes and the embodied thirteenth Doctor Jodie Whittaker continued to be a key element of memes during the early episodes of series 11, reflecting the fact that fans were ‘getting used to’ the new Doctor and to the changes she brought to the series. One dominant category of meme commented on Whittaker’s performance and her facepulling in particular, referred to as ‘scronching’ in the memes. ‘Scronch’ is an invented word (already in use in the world of surreal memes to mean destroy, kill, or screw up), but here appropriated by Who fans to describe Whittaker’s facial expressions. Typical scronch memes composited three vertical screen grabs of Whittaker, the top two of which show her firstly smiling and then looking composed, the bottom one of her screwing up her face, with the text ‘She’s style’, ‘She’s grace’, ‘She scronch she face’ beside each picture. The deliberately incorrect grammar is also common in surreal memes, but in many of these scronch memes the ‘mistakes’ are often corrected, indicating the eliding of surreal meme culture as the memes are taken up across the wider social media, but also suggest an acceptance, if not positive appreciation, of Whittaker’s scronching. Through memes comparing it to the similar ‘gurning’ (this term having been in the classic Who fan lexicon) in the performances of David Tennant, Jon Pertwee, and Patrick Troughton, it is taken as a sign of her authenticity as the Doctor, and also indicates that fans found Whittaker’s scronching endearing. Such memes can be polysemic, however. Whittaker’s scronching was regarded as excessive, as opposed to the earlier actors for whom gurning was a signifier of jeopardy or pain, or when the Doctor was toying with an enemy, by some fans who are aggravated by it. One image was used to compare her performance to Monty Python’s Upper Class Twit. A banner heading for the ‘Arachnids in the UK’ episode discussion thread on Gallifrey Base, which used a picture of the Doctor pulling a face with mouth wide open, nose wrinkled and top lip pulled up to expose her upper teeth, had a picture of Eric Idle making the same expression inserted alongside her. This is an ironic montage in a number of ways. Firstly, Whittaker’s performance as a quasi-working-class Northern Doctor is at odds with the idea of the Upper Class Twit (and indeed with the concept of the elite Time Lords). Secondly, the Upper Class Twit’s expression is a signifier of stupidity, whereas the Doctor is always already established as an intelligent and accomplished character. Similarly, a montage is edited together in the video ‘thirteenth doctor

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| scronch counter’.13 The count runs to 60 and the soundtrack pings each time the number advances. The clips are also accompanied by Yakety Sax, the piece of music more commonly known as the Benny Hill theme. This undercuts genre contexts of Doctor Who and suggests Whittaker’s Doctor is more slapstick comedian than alien genius. As with the policing of what women wear, which can be read as tapping into negative sex-based ideologies, negative stereotypes about appearance and demeanour are key issues here. The scronch memes encode criticisms about what are and are not suitably feminine expressions, and relate to harassment of women by being told to ‘smile, it might never happen’ or ‘cheer up, love’ cat calls. Nonetheless, the prevalence of affectionate mocking of Whittaker’s performance suggests the fans taking part in the meme culture on /r/ ­doctorwhumour have embraced her as the Doctor. Indeed, the majority of other classes of memes, which mostly mock other aspects of the production, do not blame the perceived flaws in the text, or the fans’ own disappointments in it, on Whittaker. The conflicted responses of the fans were by and large focused on mocking the plots and stories of the series.

Antizones in a nutshell: outsiders to meme culture … and insider jokes It must be noted in this respect that much of this mockery is affectionate and certainly playful. Paul Booth’s (2015) argument that imaginative engagements with media are acts of play (and this includes making animated GIFs and memes) is relevant here. It is therefore important to explore the ways in which memes focused on the text’s perceived flaws or failures to live up to expectation are often jokey in tone and intent. The examples explored in this second part of the research include many clear examples of the type of fan play that Booth (2015: 2) categorizes as pastiche. This includes mimicry – ‘the deliberate imitation of … a text’, and the fans employ this in order to mock Chibnall’s new aliens in series 11. The memes mocking the concepts and design of new alien creatures introduced by Chibnall can be viewed in the context of his statement that series 11 would not feature any returning aliens. These memes made fun of the creatures’ resemblances to characters in other cult media. For example, a number of memes highlighted the physical similarities between the Pting from ‘The Tsuranga Conundrum’ and Nibbler from Futurama (1999–2003) or Perk Upchuck from Ben 10 (2005) – both also characters with similarly voracious appetite – as well as Stitch from the Disney film Lilo & Stitch (2002), and the Glow Fish from Spongebob Squarepants (1999–). Similarly, sets of memes also compared the Solitract from ‘It Takes

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You Away’ to Hypnotoad from Futurama, Kermit, and a stone garden ornament, whilst ‘Tim Shaw’ (as the memes commonly refer to Tzim-Sha) from ‘The Woman Who Fell to Earth’ was depicted as ‘the tooth fairy of Predators’. Whilst such memes do draw attention to intertextual connections the fans are making, these are not responses to intertexts in the narrative itself (either as genre codes or as acknowledged antecedent texts). Rather they mock the perceived lack of imagination and originality in the concept and design,  the disappointing nature of Chibnall’s new creatures and villains, and the derivativeness of his writing. Moreover, the referencing of characters from cult animation, several from children’s films or TV, draw attention to the fans’ wider sets of cultural competencies. The references to perceived intertexts extends both to secondary Who texts and to other aspects of online culture, again highlighting how Chibnall’s Who is seen as unoriginal. In terms of an episode’s storyline, the Spider-man pointing at Spider-man meme14 is remixed with the first Spider-man labelled ‘The Haunting of Villa Diodati’ and the second ‘The Silver Turk’.15 Chibnall’s episode is deemed a carbon copy of a popular Big Finish story in which Mary Shelley, companion to the eighth Doctor, has already encountered a damaged Cyberman. Fan knowledge of Big Finish in this instance seems to exacerbate irritation that Chibnall’s stories seem to be ‘cannibalizing’ the series’ own expanded universe. Another interesting example illustrates how story elements can seem weak or tired next to the fans’ wider sets of interests. In particular, the flesh moths from the Antizone become a source of amusement in the context of a meme that had been widespread in meme culture a few months before series 11 launched. The fans showed their knowledge of meme culture when the moth image macro16 (see Figure 8.2) was predictably reused in response to ‘It Takes You Away’. Along with the borrowing of the term ‘scronch’ from surreal meme culture discussed above, this illustrates that the /r/DoctorWhumour community is part of the technocultural space of geek masculinity on Reddit discussed by Massanari (2015). One moth meme remix added the text ‘Bröther may I have some flesh’,17 the extraneous umlaut in ‘brother’ and the word ‘flesh’ printed in Zalgo text conveying the language and chaos of meme culture (Borzsei, 2013). Zalgo text, in which multiple diacritical marks above and below the letters create vertical bars of overlapping text obscuring the original, is frequently used in meme culture to suggest hacked or glitched postings, but also to convey a sense of eldritch horror. The original meme – created from a creepy photo of a large moth with glowing eyes looking in a window – is in keeping with the horror of the flesh moths from the episode, but it also mocks Chibnall’s Who by connecting it with what is regarded in meme culture as an overused, and thus dank, meme. It has comic effect with the post title ‘Antizones in a nutshell’ and comments such

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8.2  Flesh moth meme

as ‘I’m convinced this episode was written when möth [sic] memes were still in fashion’. This not only works to dispel any horror in the flesh moths, but pokes fun at the writer (Ed Hime, or possibly Chibnall) for jumping on the bandwagon too late (they are thus cast as outsiders to meme culture). Whilst these memes mock the alien creatures and villains by looking outwards from the series to the wider realm of cult media and popular culture, others – like the Diodati one – look backwards into the history of Doctor Who itself, and often back to the original series (indicating that these are fans who were first drawn to Doctor Who in its original run, or are the kinds of avid fans who have gone back and consumed all the preexisting stories even if they did not watch them at the time). Fans picked out the bubblewrap in ‘Kerblam!’ for mockery, sarcastically celebrating the return of the ‘monster’ from ‘The Ark in Space’ (1975). Memes depicting the green painted bubblewrap on Noah’s hand as he mutates into a Wirrn fondly mock past production values as a distraction for disappointment in a current episode. These examples can all be viewed in the context of ‘knowledge culture’ (Jenkins, 2006: 140), where fans demonstrate and undertake collective exchange of knowledge, not just about Doctor Who but about a wide range of cult media that informs the meme culture. The knowledgeable fans on /r/DoctorWhumour often explain these intertexts when others don’t get the joke and ask. What also emerge in a wider sense, however, are judgements of the perceived quality of episodes during Chibnall’s run,



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particularly in comparison to past Who. Quality thus becomes the subject of another significant category of memes emerging during series 11.

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Orphan 55 is worse!: discourses of (low) quality Who Some of the memes in this category poke fun at contradictions in the plots, consistency between episodes, or overall continuity in the series. In judging the quality of the scripts, the perceived underuse of the companions emerges in several memes, again suggesting that they are not well written – or that Chibnall’s decision to include three full-time companions is a flaw. In particular, Yaz’s seeming invisibility in several episodes is the focus. One meme, for example, is a pastiche of the scene in ‘World Enough and Time’ (2017) when Missy impersonates the Doctor, introducing Bill and Nardole with ‘And these are my disposables, Exposition and Comic Relief’.18 In the context of that scene, and Missy’s character, this is an overt joke. In the meme, which pastes the Doctor’s, Graham’s, and Ryan’s heads over Missy’s, Nardole’s, and Bill’s faces respectively, this dialogue makes explicit fans’ opinions that the companions have a reduced function in Chibnall’s Who. Moreover, it also implies that Whittaker is performing a caricature of the Doctor just as Missy did, or even that she is a fake Doctor, and could be read either as encoding some fans’ failure to accept her in the role or that Chibnall has failed to create a believable Doctor in the writing. Most significantly though, Yaz’s head is pasted into the image in such a way that it floats off to the far left in the background, half out of the frame. This makes fun of how much she is often sidelined in the plot, as expressed in a meme from ‘Resolution’, captioned ‘Fun Fact: Did you know that Yaz was actually in The Doctor Who New Years Special? It may not seem like it, but look closely and you’ll spot her!’19 The image is a screenshot of Graham talking to the Doctor inside the TARDIS. Yaz is in deep shadow behind him, barely visible, but circled by a red, hand-drawn line with a large arrow pointing towards her. It is interesting here that fans posting these memes are pointing out what could be considered a structuring absence in the narrative, explicitly stating that Yaz – as a British-Asian woman and therefore doubly marginalzed – is made invisible. The first meme implies she does not even have a specific plot function, whilst the second suggests she is often forgotten or cast aside in the writing and production of the stories. This again highlights inconsistencies in the plots – having too many companions to adequately develop – but crucially this undermines the discourse that Chibnall’s Who is more reflective of contemporary attitudes on diversity. Fans also mocked the uneven quality of stories, especially during series 12. Overall, the series received a more positive reception than had series

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11 – ‘Spyfall, Part One’, ‘Nikola Tesla’s Night of Terror’, and ‘Fugitive of the Judoon’ in particular – but this served to increase the level of mockery directed at other episodes deemed highly disappointing. ‘Orphan 55’, for example, precipitated a large number of memes pointing out just how bad the episode supposedly was. These consisted of an image from a commonly derided past story with a caption along the lines of ‘Orphan 55 is worse!’ One of these is of Chibnall’s Cyberwoman from Torchwood (2006–11), but others include the fish people from ‘The Underwater Menace’ (1967), the titular ‘Creature from the Pit’ (1979), Icthar from ‘Warriors of the Deep’ (1984) – ‘Orphan 55 is worse’ being the answer to ‘Why is Icthar smiling?’ – and Soldeed from ‘Horns of Nimon’ (1979–80) who ‘is chuffed … Can you guess why?’ Again, all of these display cultural competencies and knowledge of the fan canon, and are already laughing about how ‘Orphan 55’ might eventually be rated at the bottom end of this canon. As with the creature intertexts discussed above, these memes around quality also demonstrate fan competencies. Furthermore, they represent the kinds of pleasure Jenkins outlines in terms of mastery over the text (2006: 129). Making these memes allows fans opportunities to match wits with Chibnall, demonstrate detailed knowledge, and prolong pleasure by playing with the text. It should be noted that, while many of the memes discussed in the above categories are focused on the characters and stories, they are not necessarily critical of them. None of them indicates much in the way of critical analysis of the stories or attempts to create meaning (as the Twin Peaks fans used memes to), but nor do they indicate that fans necessarily dislike the characters or stories, rather they express the fans’ disappointment in the writing and plotting. As such they connect to examples of another major category of memes mocking Chibnall directly and in particular, in terms of authorship, his writing.

In the era of Captain Exposition: Chris Chibnall as anti-auteur? This can be seen in the ‘Dr who (sic) story writing’ meme20 (see Figure 8.3) which consists of an image of a craftsman making a traditional wood carving above an image of a workman making a hole in a wall with a sledgehammer. Each element of the two images is labelled: the craftsman is ‘Russell T Davies’ and the workman is ‘Chris Chibnall’, the chisel and the sledgehammer are both ‘ethical/political message’, whilst the intricate carving above is ‘A well crafted story’ and the rough hole in the wall below ‘Plot holes’. Again, discourses here indicate that fans feel Chibnall’s work is derivative and merely attempts to emulate past achievements – Davies’s in this instance – rather than displaying any unique personal vision for the

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8.3  ‘Dr who story writing’ meme

series. It is not that the fans dislike the messages expressed in the stories, but that they do not respect the delivery of these in Chibnall’s work. In this respect, and in contrast to the memes circulated by the Lynch fans, Chibnall is jokingly (and cruelly) positioned as the antithesis of the auteur. Accordingly, these fans mock the way Chibnall includes too much expository dialogue and for this reason he is sometimes referred to in memes as ‘Captain Exposition’. It is worth noting that Who fans tend to use nicknames when referring to the showrunner or producer – previous examples

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include Rusty, The Moff, and JNT. Such nicknaming is used with a mocking tone as Chibnall is variously referred to as Chipmonk and Chinballs, both of which have a pejorative tone and are used by fans who do not love his Who, though Chibbs and Chibbers do come across as more affectionate. Captain Exposition, though, encapsulates a specific problem the fans have with his writing. A post titled ‘In the era of Captain Exposition …’ contains an image macro of Steven Moffat with the caption ‘Miss me yet?’,21 ironic in light of the fact that some fans complained that his stories were too convoluted. Over and above the opinion that Chibnall’s writing is of low quality in general though, some fans direct their disappointment, or concern over the way he treats past narrative developments, into their memetic discourses during series 12 in particular. For example, a meme captioned ‘Gallifrey falls, again’ superimposes an Uno reverse card over the Gallifrey Falls ­painting from ‘Day of the Doctor’ (2013).22 This sends a message that Chibnall is treating his position as showrunner like a game, using the lucky draw of a card to wipe out the intricate plotting achieved by his predecessors with his own unsubtle plots. Whilst comments under memes poking fun at Chibnall’s destruction of canon dispute the fact that Doctor Who even has a canon, this does not invalidate the concerns  that others have that Chibnall is changing past narrative developments and, their primary concern, that he is not a good enough writer in comparison to Davies and Moffat to do so in any accomplished way. The discourses around memes of Chibnall being a bad writer often culminate in the circulation of footage of him from Open Air in 1986, when he was 16, criticiizng ‘The Trial of a Time Lord’. Although the entire footage on YouTube is linked, rather more than can be considered for a mimetic GIF, the footage is referred to so often and spread so widely that it takes on memetic status nevertheless. It is often given a jokey caption with text such as the ironic ‘Archival footage of Chris Chibnall slating classic Who, completely unrelated to the Battle of Ranskoor Av Kolos’.23 It can be assumed that a screen shot of the younger Chibnall criticizing the writing during that period in Who history is well recognized across these Who fan communities, achieving iconic status and spreadability as a meme. The ‘Archival footage  …’ posting links to a YouTube video that already established the fan discourse of Chibnall being a bad writer from the early years of the post-2005 series with the title ‘Doctor Who – Chris Chibnall reviews “42”’ – one of his scripts when Russell T Davies was showrunner, indicating that negative fan opinions on his writing were already established before series 11. Screenshots from the footage are also used to create ­community-specific meme commentaries. One such, with the title ‘He was once so great’, juxtaposes an image from Open Air in the top half of the meme captioned ‘You either die a hero’ alongside a publicity shot of the

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older Chibnall filling the bottom half continuing the caption ‘or live long enough to see yourself become the villain’.24 Chibnall is thus positioned in the John Nathan-Turner role as the antagonist to the fans (of whom Chibnall himself was one) as arbiters of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ Doctor Who. The ironic humour of Chibnall the critic becoming Chibnall the criticized is foregrounded in a remediation of the Open Air footage, ‘16yr Old Chris Chibnall reviews 48yr old Chibnall’s “The Woman Who Fell To Earth”’. In this video, shots of Whittaker and screen grabs from the first episode are intercut for comic effect in order to mock Chibnall directly.25 When Chibnall says the Trial season has ‘silly monsters’ and ‘routine stories’ and is ‘boring’, shots from ‘The Woman Who Fell to Earth’ are inserted, ­suggesting that this episode – his episode as writer and showrunner launching the new Doctor – suffers from these same criticisms too. After Chibnall says ‘She seems very theatrical at the moment. She just has to restrain herself a bit more’ (originally in reference to Bonnie Langford’s performance as Mel), a shot of Whittaker scronching is inserted. Not only does this again parallel Chibnall with Nathan-Turner in terms of poor casting and writing choices, it also compares Whittaker’s performance to Langford’s overacting (hence tapping into a common fan complaint about Nathan-Turner’s Who being too pantomime-esque in nature). Just as Langford’s performance is unpopular amongst fans, so too, this suggests, is Whittaker’s. In light of Jenkins’s account of fans justifying their fascination with the text through appeals to authorship (2006: 217), these memes form an oppositional discourse to that of Twin Peaks fans’ respect for David Lynch. Despite the mockery of Chibnall’s writing however, and as the earlier case studies indicate, these fans remain committed to the series and to the fandom. This was strongly evidenced in response to ‘Spyfall, Part One’, with the return of the Master, and ‘Fugitive of the Judoon’, with the return of Jack Harkness and the arrival of an alternate Doctor. Fans were excited, often to their own surprise given their low opinions of Chibnall’s writing, by ‘Fugitive’, and they made memes expressing their joy at Jack’s return. Their enjoyment – and acceptance – of Jo Martin’s Doctor also came across in memes incorporating the Star Wars line ‘Now there are two of them’ and further remixes of the Spider-man pointing at Spider-man meme, this time labelled ‘13th Doctor’ and ‘Ruth Doctor’. Discourses around Chibnall came to a head, however, with the final episode of series 12, ‘The Timeless Children’. There was some divergence of opinion over whether or not Chibnall had somehow ‘ruined’ Who, or at least disrespectfully undermined the history of the series, but this was mostly expressed in terms of memes continuing the mockery of Chibnall on the one hand, and a playful reworking of multi-Doctor story titles and imagery on the other. In terms of the former, for example, several memes used the title

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card from ‘The Death of Doctor Who’ (episode 5 of ‘The Chase’, 1965), thematically echoing the earlier hashtag meme #RIPDoctor but this time signalling an end to the fans’ interest in current Who because the narrative might have ‘jumped the shark’ in their minds. Another example was made from an image of the War Doctor captioned ‘Chris Chibnol [sic]’ contemplating pushing the big red button on the Moment which was captioned ‘55+ years of lore’,26 which in the light of ‘The Day of the Doctor’ narrative should not have been enacted. The meme of a picture of a cat holding a kitten’s face in a bowl of food, with the cat labelled ‘Chris Chibnall’ and the kitten ‘Me not wanting to know about the Time Lord’s past’, with the caption ‘Did I ask?’, makes an even more impassioned affective response, equating the viewing experience to being force-fed something unpalatable.27 Other memes displaying dislike of Chibnall altering the Doctor’s backstory mock him for recycling the so-called Cartmel masterplan in which the seventh Doctor was given a godlike mysterious past, and the Doctor precursor character the Other from the novel Lungbarrow (Platt, 1997). With the repeated references to ‘lore’, this group of memes suggest some fans are very unhappy that Chibnall’s narrative developments have undermined an aspect of the character or expanded universe stories which they hold to strongly. Through acts of mockery fans thus reclaimed the character, and the series, for themselves.

Conclusion: affectionate (or anti-fan) mockery and fan ownership Ultimately, the memes posted in response to Chibnall’s Who mirror the mocking bits Cornell observed in print fanzines. It is clear that this fanoriented meme culture shares many of the traits of other online fan communities in terms of its shared knowledge culture and mastery over the text, as well as an ability to laugh at the series (and themselves). The fans in this community continue to appreciate Doctor Who, feel a sense of ownership of it, and find viewing pleasures, especially in the characters, actors, and adventures in time and space depicted on screen. However, this does not mean that fans blithely accept every aspect of the production. They give appreciation where they feel it is due, but do not hold back from mocking what they see as flawed, weak, contradictory, or silly. This exposes a contradiction in discourses around the female Doctor and the perceived regendering of Doctor Who. Whilst memes circulating in the early days of the casting announcement focused attention on the apparent sexism and misogyny of the male audience, the memes discussed here – many made by male fans – are rarely concerned with Whittaker’s sex. Fan mockery is (mostly) not directed at Whittaker, in fact it is often affectionate when it does. Whilst there is little evidence that the Doctor

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Who meme ­community are necessarily progressive fans, their humour does not, in the main, reject the programme’s widening representation. Rather, as with the fan backlash to Nathan-Turner in the 1980s, the problem these fans  have is with Chibnall, and he is blamed for a perceived drop in the quality of the series. The examples discussed above illustrate – as Stein also observed (2019: 81) – that fans of a series do not (necessarily) drop their fandom even though they might exhibit negative fan engagements. Fan hurt, rather than precluding fan commitment, is woven into it and can even reinforce it. It must therefore be recognized that fans do not uncritically love every aspect of their series. As these case studies of fan mockery acknowledge, individual tastes and preferences, critical faculties, judgements of quality, as well as the fan’s history, their affective investments in the series or parasocial relationships with the characters, all play a part in expressions of fandom and the negotiations with the anti-fan in the fan. In fact, it is this, expressed through fans’ sense of ownership of the text, that gives them the right to mock. On the whole, they are not antifans making sexist memes that reject a female Doctor. Rather they are fans experiencing the ‘negative emotion and frustration, dislike, distaste, ­disapproval – and sometimes even deep hurt’ that, as Stein points out, ‘fit within the ebb and flow of fan engagement, fan communities, and fan production’ (2019: 81). Accordingly, Who meme culture is seen by some of its members as being outside the toxicity present in other fan communities. This can be seen in a ‘Hulk vs Hulkbuster’ remix meme of images from Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015) with the Hulk labelled ‘Toxic feminists’ and Hulkbuster ‘toxic anti-feminists’. In the lower half of the montage, bystanders being knocked down during the fight are labelled ‘Casual viewers’, ‘Fans’, and ‘Viewing figures’, suggesting that viewers – the fans and the viewing public alike – are negatively impacted by the clash of ‘alt-right’ and ‘social justice’ ideologies and that the series’ popularity is suffering as a result. This meme thus echoes the point that Cornell made in his discussion of print fanzine mockery, namely that ‘The best people in the universe … are a culture who do nothing but laugh at themselves’ (1997, 194). Following this pattern, at least some fans in Who meme culture choose not to participate in the contemporary ideological melee, but neither do they explicitly claim an apolitical or depoliticized space for themselves. Rather they choose to laugh at it.

Notes  1 See www.reddit.com/r/funny/comments/6npztr/shes_only_had_it_for_a_day/ (acc­essed 20 November 2019).

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 2 See https://aminoapps.com/c/doctor-who/page/blog/this-what-happens-if-youma​ k e-the-tardis-crash-into-walls/8Rtm_uW7L5lZvbz4JdzmNmqn8dJ1g (accessed 20 November 2019).  3 See https://me.me/i/13th-doctors-tardis-interior-17326524 and https://me.me/i/ new-tardis-interior-revealed-17061293 (accessed 22 November 2019).  4 See https://twitter.com/doctorwho809 (accessed 23 February 2018).  5 See https://twitter.com/Vaxalon/status/1061776510514814978 (accessed 20 July 2018).  6 See https://twitter.com/Pzzadude92/status/915927723515764737 (accessed 23 February 2018).  7 See www.facebook.com/MaleDoctorWho/photos/a.800936476746008/800936 413412681/ (accessed 29 July 2018).  8 See www.youtube.com/watch?v=mGMFiE6ucR8 (accessed 21 May 2018).  9 See https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/custom-bingo-cards (accessed 16 December 2019). 10 See https://twitter.com/smuppet_usa/status/887126262862532610 (accessed 22 February 2018). 11 See https://me.me/i/13th-doctor-is-female-starterpack-rip-doctor-who-1963–20 17-i-17661133 (accessed 21 July 2018). 12 See https://me.me/i/mork-and-the-doctor-who-and-the-poctor-nanu-nanu-1937 4763 (accessed 21 July 2018). 13 See www.youtube.com/watch?v=RaTao6h6mUU (accessed 17 December 2018). 14 See https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/spider-man-pointing-at-spider-man (acc­ essed 19 February 2020). 15 See www.reddit.com/r/DoctorWhumour/comments/f4ysiq/any_big_finish_ner ds_here/ (accessed 18 February 2020). 16 See https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/moth-lamp (accessed 19 November 2019). 17 See www.reddit.com/r/DoctorWhumour/comments/a2h4q5/antizones_in_a_nu tshell/ (accessed 17 December 2018). 18 See www.reddit.com/r/DoctorWhumour/comments/9w8coa/okay_im_a_little_ ashamed_of_this_one/ (accessed 20 November 2018). 19 See www.reddit.com/r/DoctorWhumour/comments/abxfwy/fun_fact_did_you_ know_that_yaz_was_actually_in/ (accessed 3 January 2019). 20 See www.reddit.com/r/DoctorWhumour/comments/enthc1/dr_who_story_sub tly_recently/ (accessed 13 January 2020). 21 See www.reddit.com/r/DoctorWhumour/comments/9u8k85/in_the_era_of_cap tain_exposition/ (accessed 6 November 2018). 22 See www.reddit.com/r/DoctorWhumour/comments/ekm3xl/so_much_for_no_ more/ (accessed 8 January 2020). 23 See www.reddit.com/r/DoctorWhumour/comments/a4ojqf/archival_footage_ of_chris_chibnall_slating/ (accessed 10 December 2018). 24 See www.reddit.com/r/DoctorWhumour/comments/9wu24z/he_was_once_so_ great/ (accessed 20 November 2018). 25 See www.youtube.com/watch?v=PaHcZ8SPowU (accessed 10 October 2018).



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26 See www.reddit.com/r/DoctorWhumour/comments/fcmagw/the_moument_has_ come/ (accessed 3 March 2020). 27 See www.reddit.com/r/DoctorWhumour/comments/fd67mg/did_i_ask/ (acc­essed 4 March 2020).

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References Booth, P. (2015). Playing Fans: Negotiating Fandom and Media in the Digital Age. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press. Cherry, B. (2014). ‘“Oh, no, that won’t do at all … It’s ridiculous!”: Observations on the Doctor Who Audience’, in A. O’Day (ed.), Doctor Who, The Eleventh Hour: A Critical Celebration of the Matt Smith and Steven Moffat Era. London: I. B. Tauris, pp. 204–27. Cherry, B. (2019). ‘“The owls are not what they meme”: Making Sense of Twin Peaks with Internet Memes’, in A. Sanna (ed.), Critical Essays on Twin Peaks: The Return. London: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 69–84. Cornell, P. (1997). Licence Denied: Rumblings from the Doctor Who Underground. London: Virgin Books. Davison, P. (2012). ‘The Language of Internet Memes’, in M. Mandiberg (ed.), The Social Media Reader. New York: New York University Press, pp. 120–34. Gray, J. (2003). ‘New Audiences, New Textualities: Anti-Fans and Non-Fans’, International Journal of Cultural Studies, 6 (1), pp. 64–81. Haig, F. (2013). ‘Critical Pleasures: Twilight, Snark and Critical Fandom’, in W. Clayton and S. Harman (eds), Screening Twilight: Critical Approaches to a Cinematic Phenomenon. London: I. B. Tauris, pp. 11–25. Jenkins, H. (2006). Fans, Bloggers, and Gamers: Exploring Participatory Culture. New York: New York University Press. Jenkins, H., S. Ford, and J. Green (2013). Spreadable Media: Creating Value and Meaning in a Networked Culture. New York: New York University Press. Knobel, M. and C. Lankshear (2007). ‘Online Memes, Affinities, and Cultural Production’, in M. Knobel and C. Lankshear (eds), A New Literacies Sampler. New York: Peter Lang, pp. 199–227. Massanari, A. (2015). Participatory Culture, Community, and Play: Learning from Reddit. New York: Peter Lang. Massanari, A. (2017). ‘#Gamergate and the Fappening: How Reddit’s Algorithm, Governance, and Culture Support Toxic Technocultures’, New Media & Society, 19 (3), pp. 329–46. Milner, R. M. (2016). The World Made Meme. Cambridge, MA: Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press. Miltner, K. M. (2014). ‘There’s No Place for Lulz on Lolcats: The Role of Genre, Gender, and Group Identity in the Interpretation and Enjoyment of an Internet Meme’, First Monday, 19 (8), DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5210/fm.v19i8.5391. Phillips, I. (2020). Once Upon a Time Lord: The Myths and Stories of Doctor Who. London: Bloomsbury. Platt, M. (1997). Lungbarrow. London: Virgin Books. Shifman, L. (2014). Memes in Digital Culture. Cambridge, MA: Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press.

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Stein, L. (2019). ‘Dissatisfaction and Glee: On Emotional Range in Fandom and Feels Culture’, in M. A. Click (ed.), Anti-Fandom: Dislike and Hate in the Digital Age. New York: New York University Press, pp. 81–101. Theodoropoulou, V. (2007). ‘The Anti-Fan within the Fan: Awe and Envy in Sport Fandom’, in J. Gray, C. Sanvoss, and C. L. Harrington (eds), Fandom: Identities and Communities in a Mediated World. New York: New York University Press, pp. 316–27. Tulloch, J. (2005). ‘“We’re Only a Speck in the Ocean”: The Fan as Powerless Elite’, in S. Redmond (ed.), Liquid Metal: The Science Fiction Film Reader. New York: Columbia University Press, pp. 281–97. Tulloch, J. and H. Jenkins (1995). Science Fiction Audiences: Watching Doctor Who and Star Trek. London: Routledge. Wiggins, B. E. (2019). The Discursive Power of Memes in Digital Culture: Ideology, Semiotics, Intertextuality. Abingdon: Routledge. Woods, H. S. and L. A. Hahner (2019). Make America Meme Again: The Rhetoric of the Alt-right. New York: Peter Lang.

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Braces, culottes, and coloured stripes: constructing and characterizing Doctor Who’s Thirteen in fashion design and cosplay Nicolle Lamerichs It should be no surprise that the thirteenth Doctor has inspired many fans, including queer and female fans. Inspired by Thirteen, some fans have reenacted the character in cosplay, a form of dressing up as and play-acting fictional characters. Cosplay is always a form of productive reception, which reworks and transforms an existing text materially. By embodying a character, cosplayers always make it their own and bring something of themselves to the character. To portray a character in the flesh means assigning new meanings to them. Through interviews and case studies of Thirteen cosplayers, this study explores how the character is performed in cosplay. By close-reading Thirteen’s initial look for series 11, I discuss how costumes and fashion shape identity and what aspects of the Doctor’s look might resonate with fans. In other words, this study aims to find out how fans and cosplayers interpret Thirteen, what affect they feel towards the character, and how they relate to her. The focus is on how cosplayers appropriate and perform the character for the purpose of identity play. I argue that the fluidity of the Doctor, whose body is never stable, allows for a unique and exceptional form of affective reception and play. When fans cosplay Thirteen, they express their own affect, including their hopes and expectations of the character, and use her to form their own identity. The fan body itself plays a key role here as well, but is aligned with that of the Doctor, and their gender. How do fans reconcile the fluidity of the Doctor with the gendered history of its lore?

Fan fashion and cosplay studies Cosplay is one way in which fans express their feelings for fictional characters, and is thus a material, embodied expression, based on existing story worlds, and a form of intermediality (Lamerichs, 2018). The process of creating costumes can be understood as a critical making process (Crawford and Hancock, 2019) in which fans often learn from each other

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(Okabe, 2012). Cosplay performances may take place in private photo shoots, but the primary stages for cosplay are fan conventions, where fans gather to socialize. One can encounter Doctor Who cosplays at large events like San Diego Comic Con and London MCM Comic Con, but also at local fan clubs all over the world, including the Dutch Time Travellers’ Association. The eventual cosplay performance is a form of imaginative play and re-enactment, through which fans form social communities and ties (Mountfort et al., 2018; Winge and Eicher, 2018). To portray a character in the flesh in self-made costumes means assigning new meanings to them (Lamerichs, 2018). I therefore understand cosplay as embodied practice, or as Ellen Kirkpatrick (2015: 4.5) writes, an ‘embodied translation’ of the text in a physical form. In this sense cosplay is always a transformation of the existing text, and a way for fans to play with their body and identity. In this sense, fans construct their identity actively, for instance in terms of gender (Lamerichs, 2011), sexuality (Gn, 2019), or age (Skentelbery, 2019). The performative aspects of cosplay are well documented in other studies (Mountfort et al., 2018), but most importantly forms of cosplay such as crossplay allow audiences to experiment with their identity, body, and gender. In other words, cosplayers experiment with new roles, material, performances, and forms of belonging (Jenkins and Lamerichs, 2019; Lamerichs, 2018). These performances may spill over into real  life,  or  be  radically distant from other social settings that the fans engage in. By  using Goffman’s terms ‘role embracement’ and ‘role distance’, Crawford  and Hancock (2019) explain how cosplay allows the participants to distance themselves from the roles that they have in society. The recreation of Thirteen’s outfit, then, is not a neutral activity. Cosplayers themselves interpret and add to the character in their fan performance. Thirteen’s outfit is eclectic, colourful, and second-hand. When she is introduced in ‘The Woman Who Fell to Earth’, she chooses her outfit in a charity shop. In a hilarious scene, she throws different garments out of a closed dressing room, until her primary outfit is revealed. Her companions look at her confused: ‘That’s what you are going with?’ Thirteen smiles and says: ‘Yup! Got any cash? Empty pockets …’ Thirteen in her first outfit and episode is not only androgynous but purposely made to look camp. She is still thinking like a male-embodied alien and does not quite know how to dress like a woman. Her look is a disaster. Clothing in this sense tells a story about the character. Through fashion, Thirteen is purposely performed as youthful, feminine, and spunky. In her article on Stranger Things, Gackstetter Nichols writes that fashion and gender are intimately related when analysing media texts and characters:



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The choices each of us make in getting dressed each day communicate a great deal about the identity that society expects from us, also the identity we would like to embody. Additionally, in fictional story worlds, the appearance of skin, hair and clothing is an important element of a character’s representation. (Gackstetter Nichols, 2019: n.p.)

Like Stranger Things’ Eleven (‘El’), Thirteen starts out as a character who still has to develop her identity, and clothing is fundamental to expressing her gender identity. In this sense, performing characters like El or Thirteen has a double performativity. Fans express the performativity of a complex coded female character, and engage in cosplay to personalize, augment, and transform a character’s features. They use characters like Thirteen to construct their own identity and empower themselves. In line with Judith Butler’s theory of gender performativity (1990), cosplay can be understood as a form of  drag  as well, which parodies gender, and draws attention to its constructed nature through behaviour, makeup and fashion. By expressing themselves through a multitude of costumes and characters, fans are consciously constructing their identity (Lamerichs, 2011; Gackstetter Nichols, 2019). This construction of gender is at once repetitive and ironic, as empowering.

Methodology This study is constructed through a mixed-method approach that combines close-reading of the text and fan reception with online data collected from Instagram cosplay profiles and interviews with a small sample of Dutch cosplayers. Thirteen’s performance and aesthetic are fundamental to how the character has been received, and how fans have remixed these elements of the character in cosplay. Fan works are understood as examples of productive reception – they are not only creations in their own right but also signs of how audiences make sense of a text. The close-reading of Thirteen’s costume as a text in its own right is therefore carried out alongside analysis of fans’ accounts of cosplaying Thirteen. For an overview of Thirteen cosplay, I undertook a small-scale content analysis of Instagram, a popular platform to upload cosplay photographs. This provided insights on the popularity of Thirteen’s character, and expressions of her in cosplay. I searched the first 500 hits on #thirteenthdoctorcosplay (2,046 posts in total, sorted by recent posts) from 25–29 November 2019, which show diverse fans dressed up as Thirteen. I surveyed the photographs, descriptions, and first 10 comments on each post. This informed

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a small sample of interviews with Dutch cosplayers of Thirteen: with Diana Mon on 14 November 2019, Niki Haringsma on 18 December 2019, and Rowena Rovers on 14 February 2020. I asked them about their own emotional engagement with the character, the practice of cosplay and dressing up, and thoughts about the Doctor overall. These interviews were kept relatively short in order to focus on the key areas revealed by the Instagram survey, and for convenience these were conducted online through mail or chat services like Messenger (textual or audio, depending on the interviewee’s preference). Although the interview sample is very small in number, the selection of interviewees being chosen from the relatively small population of cosplayers from the Netherlands, many interact with the wider Doctor Who community and therefore participate in the wider international cosplay community. Overall, this qualitative method, also drawing from gender studies, fan studies, and fashion studies, can be seen as indicative of the character’s reception in the fan community. It provides insights into social media communities as well as local Doctor Who fan cultures. Due to the small scale of the research, these insights cannot be generalized out to the wider fan culture, but they do illustrate the way to share stories from the Doctor Who community at a particular time when the franchise is in transition. Overall, this chapter is exemplary of how participation, play, and creativity are explored in contemporary media culture.

Thirteen as a character Characters are not just fiction, they mean something to audiences on a personal, emotional level. A common view is that a character is an entity in a storyworld, but transmedia characters like the Doctor are more complex and best understood as multiform. They are expressed in different versions, are rewritten time and time again, and are connected to their fandom in intimate ways. In a series like Doctor Who, the fluidity of the character and their body is even an explicit part of the lore. Such characters have real social, economic, and political impact, and cannot be read through historical literary studies ideas on character which focus solely on the textual level and representation. It is important to note that a character like the Doctor is a highly networked, relational character, which is a key quality of many transmedia characters today (Pearson, 2007; Booth, 2012). When interpreting transmedia characters, both the reception and the production side must be taken into account. Affective reception does not occur only during viewing; it is possible to reflect on these emotions, and pair them with critical reception. This

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can take on different forms, such as anticipation before new Doctor Who episodes are released, or consuming old episodes together on Twitch. ­ Affective reception is shaped as much by the context in which an audience operates, as by the way a character is written. This is not stable when dealing with franchises. One version of a text or character might impress us, another might disappoint. Reception of characters is also increasingly shaped by politics, and movements that oppose diverse characters, such as #gamergate and #comicsgate. In this sense, characters are always political, as the critic Sam Maleski (2019) reflects upon. He is very explicit in stating that he does not dislike Thirteen because of political views, but because of how she is written. The emphasis on social contexts also implies that affect is never neutral, and is constructed partly by socio-political discourses and identity politics. Affective reception also encompasses examples of transformative and productive fandom. Affect is crucial when studying the relationships between fans and fictional characters. These relationships are dynamic ones that require constant emotional and critical work. Affective reception is one tool to study characters and what they mean to their audience. Fan works, including cosplay, allow us to go deeper into the emotions that we feel for characters (see also Lamerichs, 2018). The creative practices of fans, such as writing and drawing, have often been understood as affective engagement or investment. Fans themselves also describe their activities as a ‘labour of love’, signifying that textual love predominantly inspires their activities. Affect is crucial in fandom, but also personal since it relates to particular tastes, repertoires, and competences. Different viewers of Doctor Who, for instance, have different emotional experiences based on their cultural backgrounds, preferences, and knowledge of the series. My own involvement and passion for Doctor Who started with Christopher Eccleston, while my interest by now revolves around fan-driven, expanded-universe spin-offs like Faction Paradox. In other words, what a queer woman in her thirties such as myself sees in Thirteen will undoubtedly differ from what an older man who grew up with the Doctor perceives. In this sense, reception always has a strong subjective component. In my previous work, I found that audiences actively construct and develop their emotional relationships to fictional characters through their own fan works, including cosplay (Lamerichs 2011; 2018). By dressing up as fictional characters, fans embody and nurture the relationships to characters. They choose carefully which character they represent and how. Social aspects matter as well. When cosplaying with a partner or a friend, fans carefully select the characters that work as a duo. Affect in media culture does not just happen, but audiences make it happen through the social construction of specific emotions, and the amplification of those emotions in

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practices like cosplay. Thirteen cosplay does not take place in isolation, but depends on interpretations of Thirteen’s embodiment on screen.

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Close-reading Thirteen’s costume Thirteen’s costume, designed by Ray Holman, contains many call-backs to previous versions of the Doctor. As Joanna Robinson writes for Vanity Fair, ‘you can see elements of both Tom Baker (1974–1981) and Peter Davison (1981–1984) in Whittaker’s bright look’ (2017: n.p.). Overall, costumes are meaningful references in Doctor Who, as Robinson illustrates: The franchise did the same thing last season when costuming Pearl Mackie’s Bill Potts, the show’s first openly gay, full-time companion. Dressed to look like Ace McShane …, a companion to the Seventh Doctor who was written to be ‘a fighter, not a screamer,’ Mackie made quite the splash during her oneseason arc. (ibid.)

The thirteenth Doctor’s outfit is riddled with references to the history of the Doctor. The rainbow is for instance reminiscent of the stripes on Tom Baker’s scarf. The yellow braces call to mind Matt Smith’s version of the Doctor, who was also fond of braces. And what would the Doctor be without an impressive coat or jacket? Her coat creates an impressive, classic silhouette. Thirteen’s costume echoes the TARDIS as well; the colour palette of her costume contains a lot of blue, including the teal blue of her culottes. The costume design really stands out in details like this. The emphasis on stripes – the yellow braces and rainbow – are similar to the fifth Doctor’s red stripes, from his hat to the trimmings of his coat. These stand in strong contrast to the soft colours of the rest of his outfit. Similarly, Thirteen’s pale lilac blue coat balances the different stripes and blues (though it should be noted that under photographic lighting the coat registers as soft grey, which is the colour many cosplayers and merchandise versions have adopted). In her coat, the same stripes as on her shirt are echoed in the trimmings in a very subtle way, only truly noticeable in close ups. There are also intertextual, androgynous, and inclusive touches to this look that resonate with fans. The stripes on her shirt are an allusion to the LGBTQ+ rainbow which codes her explicitly as queer. The culottes are another playful historical touch that is deeply feminist. The fashion critic Véronique Hyland describes the history: ‘The style first emerged at the turn of the last century, owing in part to the era’s bicycle craze. Thanks to what was essentially a split-leg skirt, women were suddenly much more independently mobile’ (2015: n.p.). In Paris, Hyland describes, women were arrested for wearing them in public. The garment was popularized as a

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fashion item by Elsa Schiaparelli as trousers for women. The designer wore divided skirts, a forerunner of culottes that were popularized in the 1960s. However, her designs were not appreciated by fashion critics and journalists. In an article about her avant-garde fashion, Hunter Oatman-Stanford writes: ‘In 1931, tennis fans were shocked when champion Lilí Álvarez wore a “divided skirt” (also known as culottes) created by Schiaparelli’ (2015: n.p.). According to Vogue, the British press called Schiaparelli’s design ‘manly, with hints of lesbianism’ but adds that Vogue itself considered them fashionable, and declared that ‘culottes and country are synonymous’ as early as 1936 (Borrelli-Persson, 2019). In the 1960s, culottes gradually became more acceptable and mainstream. I would argue that garments like culottes still give a unique and feminist appearance today. In a piece for the Radio Times, Whittaker (2018) herself acknowledges this androgyny in the outfit, and describes how she collaborated with Holman on a look with historical and gender-neutral touches: I created my Doctor’s costume with Ray Holman, the costume designer who worked on Broadchurch. I had an initial meeting with him and brought lots of images and bits and pieces that I’d seen. For example, I found an old blackand-white image on Google that spoke to me. It’s of a woman walking with purpose in crop trousers, boots, braces and a T-shirt, and she just looks so comfortable and non-gender specific – that was my style point.

The overall style of Thirteen’s outfit indeed reads as quirky and comfortable, as Whittaker states. In a blog entry of Sartorial Fandom, Jordan Ellis (2019) discusses the pockets of the coat: Pockets became a bit of a cult obsession in Doctor Who fandom after Donna repeatedly berated the Doctor in ‘The Runaway Bride’ [2006] for assuming she could carry anything at all, given that wedding dresses never have pockets. In the lead-up to the reveal of Whittaker’s new costume, women fans were asking ‘But will her costume have pockets?’ only half-jokingly. Holman was more than aware of this issue and has tweeted out articles examining the history of pockets in women’s fashion. Though we don’t know exactly how many pockets the Thirteenth Doctor will have, she has two large pockets clearly visible on her jacket.

Still, the devil is in the details. Thirteen has few accessories in her signature look, except for a detailed ear cuff, designed by Alex Monroe. This piece is a distinctive earring — two clasped hands, linked with a chain to a cuff made up of seven clustered stars. This echoes the science-fiction and space motifs of Doctor Who. The two clasped hands can be interpreted as a symbol for regeneration, or a peace motif which fits the Doctor well. Whittaker’s hair is done in a short blonde bob cut which draws attention

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to the ear cuff, and creates a great look overall. The costume is playful with bright colours, which fits the spirit of this version of the Doctor. The look is quirky, has a teenage touch, and androgynous elements. Perhaps it is not a completely flattering, feminine look, but that is exactly the point. This is an alien who does not know quite how to dress up as a woman, and it shows.

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Becoming Thirteen When the first trailer was revealed by BBC on 16 July 2017, fans did not know much about Whittaker’s final look. All that they saw was a shot of her in a generic grey coat slowly pulling back her black hoodie. However, the full costume reveal was met with enthusiasm by some, and many fans cosplayed it before the new series aired. Her outfit has a youthful appeal. The printed shirt and culottes are certainly not as classic as some of the outfits that the Doctor has worn in the past. Still, the many colours and prints also made it look like fast fashion. Even though there are quirky details, these individual pieces look like something that consumers can buy in a chain like Zara or H&M. The fact that the costume is so modest is perhaps also what speaks to fans, and why it has such a broad cosplay appeal. It is designed as a statement of inclusivity, as if to say, you can wear this too, and buy the individual parts if need be. In fact, parts of the outfit have been sold by known brands. Her Universe has created a reproduction of the Doctor’s rainbow shirt as well as the coat, sold by the official site and stores like Hot Topic. Thirteen’s Her Universe coat sells for US$79.90 (as of 16 November 2019) at Hot Topic and its description reads: Allons-y! Your cosplay can’t wait! This grey trench will turn you into the Thirteenth Doctor – no regeneration necessary! This hooded trench coat features navy blue piping at the seams, snap buttons, a rainbow strip at the interior, and an interior TARDIS print. It’s got two waist pockets, and an internal chest pocket. Brilliant!1

As the BBC (Hunter, 2018) has reported, fans can also buy the renowned jewellery of the designer Alex Monroe who designed the ear cuff the Doctor wears: ‘Via Monroe’s online site, the Galaxy Single Ear Cuff, a replica of the costume piece (£135), is now available alongside the Companion Single Stud Earring (£75) and the Galaxy In-Line Necklace (£150).’ There are numerous costume guides online with helpful links on where to buy parts of your Thirteen outfit cheaply, ranging from blogs to Pinterest boards. Paul Booth has studied the playfulness of ‘digital cosplay’ as a form of re-enactment which ‘appears to mimic fan practices by using a

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form of digital economy’ (2015: 151) to produce media play. He studies the site Polyvore where fans digitally create character outfits inspired by popular culture, but do not actually dress up in it, or embody it. He argues that ‘these users enact particular competencies that might be based more in fashion culture, constructing “looks” and “outfits” rather than “costumes”’ (2015: 152). These looks and moodboards are common in Doctor Who fandom as well. For instance, Carbon Costume details each accessory in a pin (108 pins) and where a fan can buy each part of the outfit.2 Overall, the charms of Thirteen’s look have to do with her easy and accessible-looking androgynous wardrobe. It is no wonder then that the outfit has inspired many fans to engage in cosplay. For female fans, Thirteen is an empowering character. Though some female fans have engaged in ‘crossplay’ (dressing up as characters of the opposite gender) of the Doctor, Thirteen arguably makes the character more accessible and relatable to some women. Cosplay is exemplary of self-presentation in fandom but also showcases the passion that audiences feel for characters. In a broader sense, it is an example of how media imagery can be embodied, but this embodiment is never neutral. For instance, what does it mean for fans to represent the white female-coded body of a non-binary alien? Whilst a character like the Doctor stands for inclusivity and has diverse aspects, and can be regenerated in infinite body types, Thirteen is a white woman. Whilst cosplayers could technically also represent many characters through makeup and wigs, there is a lot of gatekeeping in the community around who can cosplay what. When a black woman uploaded a happy picture of herself in her first cosplay as the character Nezuko, she was assaulted on Twitter.3 It is still the case that marginalized fans are often excluded from participating fully in fandom and from expressing themselves (Pande, 2018). Their bodies, some fans literally say, do not belong in these spaces. On Instagram, Thirteen cosplay is popular. Most of the first 500 hits on #thirteenthdoctorcosplay (2,046 posts, sorted by recent posts) showed white female fans dressed up as Thirteen. Among the cosplayers of colour are yona_kuromatoki and ricksyspiritcosplay presenting as Thirteen, whose outfits seem well-received on Instagram (in contrast with the Nezuko example discussed above). Going forward, it will be interesting to see how cosplayers respond to the introduction of a black Doctor in ‘Fugitive of the Judoon’, and how both black and white fans navigate the cosplay opportunities this opens up (or closes down). Complementing the fem!Doctor crossplays of past male Doctors, it is already the case that several Instagram accounts portray men and non-binary fans dressed up as Thirteen. For instance, thespacestudent uploaded a photograph in 2019 of himself as a male-presenting Thirteen with a replica of the outfit, as well as an extra

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rainbow knitted scarf as his own addition. He gathered 487 likes (29 November 2019).4 The male French cosplayer and Whovian thomasdoguerthy also has two photographs of himself in different Thirteen outfits that are well-received. A post5 with a photograph of him in a suit with a Thirteen wig, borrowed from a friend, received 62 likes (29 November 2019). One user comments: ‘Oh mon dieu! J’adore’ (Oh my God, I love it) and adds many smiley emojis. On a personal level, Thirteen means a lot to fans individually. To gain some deeper insights, I asked some fans to share their fashion and costumes, as well as their experiences of the character. The costume designer and creative Diana Mon, for instance, has worked across the globe for shows like Indian Summers (2015–16) and brands like Victoria’s Secret. She is a Doctor Who fan, and took some time to tell me about her love for the Doctor and Thirteen specifically. Diana was born and raised in the Netherlands, and has cosplayed Thirteen at different comic conventions (see Figure 9.1). She tells me: ‘My friend always thought I was Doctor Who with my travel stories. When the thirteenth Doctor was announced, and she had short blonde hair like I do, everyone started to comment on it. This cosplay just had to be done.’ Thirteen does not just signify the Doctor, or Doctor Who fandom in general, but is considered her own person whom fans are drawn to. For Diana, Thirteen in particular is a meaningful incarnation of the Doctor. She has been inspired by the character in her daily life for a long time, and for instance sees parallels in her nomadic and global lifestyle. Both the Doctor and Diana are adventurers, and Diana often refers to her friends and relationships through the notion of ‘companions’. This first female regeneration of the Doctor was full of meaning to her, and the fact that the character literally looked like her resonated. In other words, her reception was deeply personal, and dependent on different interpretative communities, such as her friends. A similar answer was provided by Rowena Rovers, known as Gallifreya Cosplay in the community and on Instagram.6 She is a Thirteen cosplayer who is very active in the Dutch Doctor Who fan community (see Figure 9.2). Her partner is also active in the fandom, and they often discuss the Doctor Who fandom together, for instance in the Dutch fan podcast Supercast.7 Rowena explains: In the beginning I had my doubts about a female Doctor … but once we saw more material, I was very excited! I decided to cosplay the Doctor myself. I could finally be the Doctor! Many people say that I could have cosplayed the Doctor earlier, but I am someone who loves accuracy, so you won’t see me genderbend or something like that. Now I could finally be the Doctor myself!

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9.1  Diana Mon in Thirteen cosplay

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9.2  Rowena Rovers as Thirteen



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Overall, Rowena is very pleased that she can now cosplay with her husband, who often dresses up as the tenth Doctor. Being the Doctor was an empowering and deeply affective experience for Rowena: When I wore my outfit for the first time to a convention, it felt so good. I felt so great to stand in the shoes of my favorite character. It felt very empowering in some way or the other. Perhaps that’s because Doctor Who has meant quite a lot to me …, that I could really become part of something I love so much. I even feel a little stronger when I’m walking around in her outfit. It’s not ‘fake courage’ or anything like it, but in some ways I feel stronger, more protected. It really boosts my self-esteem.

In other words, for cosplayers like Rowena, becoming a character like Thirteen is a transformative experience, that shapes the way that they look at themselves and their bodies. Cosplay in this sense is always identity play, but also identity work. Many cosplayers learn a lot about themselves, and gain more confidence, by dressing up. When asked about her costume, Rowena is detailed. In general, she loves the look of Thirteen and thinks the collaboration between Holman and Whittaker worked out very well. When putting her cosplay together, she paid a lot of attention to getting the outfit exactly right. Initially she created the ear cuff herself, but later bought the official version. Most parts of the outfit are commissioned from Cosdaddy and Magnoli Clothiers, but Rowena instructed them in detail. She made the trousers herself, but let a professional create the pattern. The boots that she has for the cosplay are not the official ones, but ‘those are £350!’ She adds: ‘Although the thirteenth Doctor got her clothing from a thrift shop, she has incredibly expensive taste.’ Thirteen inspires many different people, and many also frame her as part of Doctor Who’s history. Thirteen is not a fundamentally different Doctor, just a new version of a character that has been near and dear to them for a long time. For the Black Archive author and creative writer Niki Haringsma, the Doctor has always been a source of inspiration. The Doctor and their companions mean a great deal to Niki, who owns a large Big Finish audio collection and many Doctor Who novels. Niki is deeply emerged in Faction Paradox, a set of stories based on a rebel group that Lawrence Miles originally created in the Doctor Who novels. Similar to Thirteen, Niki has short blond hair, and often wears a replica of the ear cuff (see Figure 9.3). Niki does not own a full Thirteen cosplay, but has cosplayed other characters and occasionally engages in Doctor Who closet cosplay. Doctor Who is a lifestyle for him. Niki shares his view on Thirteen with me:

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9.3  Niki Haringsma with Thirteen ear cuff What fascinates me about Whittaker’s interpretation is a rejection of the casual cruelty that was seen in many other regenerations. I’m looking forward to all the ways in which the franchise (both on TV and in its countless spinoffs) will explore what her compassionate attitude means to others – the situations in which kindness can save the day, but also all the stories in which that sunshine-and-rainbows attitude can turn out to be the wrong answer in the end. In any case, the ease with which Thirteen carries herself is inspirational. She’s a female icon, she’s a trans icon, and she’s a beautiful disaster of a fashion icon.

While Niki focuses on Thirteen’s personality, he also describes her as a ‘beautiful disaster of a fashion icon’. He emphasizes the uniqueness of her looks, and her inspiration for the trans community. Whilst the responses towards Thirteen are diverse, it becomes clear that Thirteen can be a source of inspiration for her audiences. The Dutch fans in this chapter feel drawn to the character, her looks, her quirks, and the performance of Whittaker herself. Parts of the outfit, such as the ear cuff,



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also work well individually and can be combined in an everyday look. Whilst this small-scale study is not representative of the whole Dutch Doctor Who community, these results are indicative of the complex reception of Thirteen, especially in light of the wider Doctor Who canon and its gendered history.

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Conclusion: gender construction and performance in cosplay In this chapter I have analysed the fashion of Thirteen, and how audiences engage with Thirteen through their own costumes and accessories. This ‘sartorial fandom’ is embodied, performative, and affective. In general, affect provides a fruitful lens to examine Doctor Who. In such a longstanding franchise, affective reception may differ depending on the stories, actors, interpretations of characters, the writing team, and one’s personal taste. The formula of Doctor Who in itself allows for exceptional forms of affective reception and play. With each iteration of the Doctor, fans go through a period of transition, and face affective disruption. Fans mitigate these positive and negative feelings consistently. Despite the long history of the Doctor, the show emphasizes her newness, and augments her androgynous nature and quirky behaviour. Whilst some  audiences are critical about this soft reboot, it is clear that the  ­character herself can inspire them. Many queer and female fans see much of themselves in this female version of the Doctor, which also reaffirmed the gender-fluid, non-binary qualities of the character. Her representation, and the introduction of her look in a thrift shop scene, can even be read as a form of drag. She is not a woman, but a gender-fluid alien performing a woman, and she slowly becomes more and more feminine by repetition and c­ onditioning. Her costume is as much fashion as a makeover. Still, the details of former regenerations are woven into the outfit subtly, revealing this seemingly young character to be one with a rich history. Ultimately, this chapter shows how fans explore Thirteen’s potential in their own creations, and with their own bodies. By cosplaying Thirteen,  fans can perform their identity as Doctor Who fans at large as well as fans of Thirteen herself. This is not just a form of play, but a homage in which fans create an intimate relationship between the character and their own identity. Thirteen offers an example of how gender is constructed and performed, both in-text as well as by its audiences. Dressing up like Thirteen, then, is best understood as a deeply e­ mpowering, affective moment.

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Notes 1 See www.hottopic.com/product/her-universe-doctor-who-thirteenth-doctor-tren ch-coat/11431709.html (accessed 5 August 2020). 2 See https://pin.it/tmz37jeigi4ukz (accessed 5 August 2020). 3 See https://twitter.com/ChibiTifa/status/1198939134355804162 (accessed 5 August 2020). 4 See www.instagram.com/p/B4PmSQHjiCN/ (accessed 5 August 2020). 5 See www.instagram.com/p/BxIJlL7DsU2/ (accessed 5 August 2020). 6 See www.instagram.com/gallifreyacosplay/ (accessed 5 August 2020). 7 See www.audiogeeks.nl/podcast/supercast-doctor-who-special/?fbclid=IwAR14k yTkb6QK8yNmAtnZrmNYN7wl2dUo0ipStjYrifQz1ukE_1C1jB_j9Is (accessed 5 August 2020).

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Hyland, V. (2015). ‘The Feminist Past – and Present – of Culottes’, The Cut (14 June), www.thecut.com/2015/06/culottes-feminist-past-present.html (accessed 19 November 2019). Jenkins, H. and N. Lamerichs (2019). ‘Fan Materiality and Affect: Interview with Nicolle Lamerichs’, Confessions of an Aca-Fan (8 September), http:// henryjenkins.org/blog/2019/9/8/interview-with-nicholle-lamerichs-part-3–9d928 (accessed 9 September 2019). Kirkpatrick, E. (2015). ‘Towards New Horizons: Cosplay (re)imagined through the Superheroes Genre, Authenticity, and Transformation’, Transformative Works & Cultures, 18, DOI: https://doi.org/10.3983/twc.2015.0613. Lamerichs, N. (2011). ‘Stranger than Fiction: Fan Identity in Cosplaying’, Transformative Works and Cultures, 7, DOI:  https://doi.org/10.3983/twc. 2011.0246. Lamerichs, N. (2018). Productive Fandom: Intermediality and Affective Reception in Fan Cultures. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. Maleski, S. (2019). Sheffield Steel: Essays on the Thirteenth Doctor. Elkhart, IN: Arcbeatle Press. Mon, D. (2019). Interview with N. Lamerichs, 14 November. Mountfort, P., A. Peirson-Smith, and A. Geczy (2018). Planet Cosplay: Costume Play, Identity and Global Fandom. Bristol: Intellect Books. Oatman-Stanford, H. (2015). ‘A Shock of Schiaparelli: The Surreal Provocateur Who Forever Altered Fashion’, Collectors Weekly (2 February), https://medium. com/hunter-oatman-stanford/a-shock-of-schiaparelli-the-surreal-provocateurwho-forever-altered-fashion-174eeac2f70a (accessed 19 November 2019). Okabe, D. (2012). ‘Cosplay, Learning, and Cultural Practice’, in M. Ito, D. Okabe, and I. Tsuji (eds), Fandom Unbound: Otaku Culture in a Connected World. New Haven: Yale University Press, pp. 225–48. Pande, R. (2018). Squee from the Margins: Fandom and Race. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press. Pearson, R. (2007). ‘Anatomising Gilbert Grissom: The Structure and Function of the Televisual Character’, in M. Allen (ed.), Reading CSI: Crime TV under the Microscope. London: I. B. Tauris, pp. 39–56. Robinson, J. (2017). ‘Pearl Mackie Revolutionizes a Sci-Fi Institution’, Vanity Fair (15 April), www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2017/04/doctor-who-pearl-mackiethe-pilot-who-is-bill-potts-gay-companion (accessed 28 August 2020). Rovers, R. (2020). Interview with N. Lamerichs, 14 February. Skentelbery, D. (2019). ‘“I Feel Twenty Years Younger”: Age-Bending Cosplay’, FNORD (2 July), https://readfnord.wordpress.com/2019/07/02/i-feel-twentyyears-younger-age-bending-cosplay/ (accessed 15 January 2020). Whittaker, J. (2018). ‘Doctor Who’s Jodie Whittaker Reveals how the Thirteenth Doctor’s Outfit Was Chosen’, Radio Times (19 October), www.radiotimes.com/ news/tv/2018–10–19/jodie-whittaker-reveals-the-story-behind-her-doctor-whooutfit/ (accessed 30 July 2020). Winge, T. M. and J. B. Eicher (2018). Costuming Cosplay: Dressing the Imagination, London: Bloomsbury Academic.

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Regendering and the chaos of translation: fan practices and reception of the female Doctor in Spanish fandom Saida Herrero This chapter explores how the Spanish Doctor Who fan community negotiates aspects of language and translation. The lack of official translation in some international markets has encouraged fans to undertake their own translations, thus crossing language barriers and making the programme available to the transnational fan community (Chin and Hitchcock Morimoto, 2013; Establés and Guerrero-Pico, 2017). In undertaking this form of fan production, linguistic problems may be encountered when characters change from male to female, as the Master did in series 8, 9, and 10, and as the Doctor has done under Chris Chibnall’s production. In Spanish, grammatical issues arise due to the gendering of proper nouns in formal or job titles, thus requiring a name change for a character addressed as ‘doctor’. This issue with gendered language presents problems for fan translators attempting to accommodate the nature of the character due to the programme’s regendering. In this chapter, I discuss the ways in which fan translators solve these language differences, while also examining the responses of fans to the Doctor’s gender change.

Methodology: researching fan translation and gender In order to research aspects of Doctor Who fan translation in Spain, especially issues raised by differences in grammar such as gendered nouns, data was collected via an anonymous questionnaire composed of open-ended questions, providing qualitative data that were then combined with selfdescribed demographic data. The online questionnaire was shared on Twitter and Facebook groups dedicated to Doctor Who in Spanish between December 2019 and January 2020. It received 254 responses: 58.7 per cent identified themselves as male, 39.4 per cent as female, and 2 per cent as nonbinary, with ages ranging between 15 and 60. In terms of the age demographics of the respondents, the majority fall into two clusters, between 22 and 28 years of age, and between 40 and 50. In fact, these age ranges

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coincide with the broadcasting of the series in Spain when the respondents were children or adolescents: the younger group when the post-2005 series was screened on Boing, with national coverage, and the older group when the classic series was broadcast on local networks. This can be related to the emotional affinity that Chin and Hitchcock Morimoto observe, that ‘fans become fans of border-crossing texts or objects not necessarily because of where they are produced, but because they may recognise a subjective moment of affinity regardless of origin’ (2013: 99). My sample may not have been representative (for example, reaching only online fans), and it is relatively small, but it provides an indication of the reception of the female Doctor by Spanish fans, as well as their views on translation issues. Additionally, qualitative data from personal in-depth interviews supplemented the quantitative questionnaire findings. Questions focused on ascertaining the experiences of the Whovian community in Spain, with a focus on the programme’s accessibility, but also considered the reception of the thirteenth Doctor in order to examine issues surrounding translation into the Spanish language. Interviews were conducted with Pedro J. Medina, editor of the comic books published in Spanish by Fandogamia, on 24 January 2020, and Liza Pluijter, the Spanish translator of these, on 25 January 2020. At the same time, I also conducted interviews with prosumers Scnyc, creator of the AudioWho website, on 27 January, and Nonne, a fan translator of the thirteenth Doctor comic books into Spanish, on 27 January 2020.

The TARDIS lands in Spain: a symbiosis of industry and fandom? Since the research undertaken for this chapter focuses on the Spanish Doctor Who fan community, it is useful to put this into the context of the series’ availability and its expanded universe in Spain. The massive support of the Spanish Whovian community is paradoxical considering that no channel has broadcast the series in its entirety, not even the current series that began in 2005. Doctor Who was first broadcast in Spain during the 1980s, although the Doctor Who and the Daleks film was released in 1967 (Muñoz and Gálvez, 2013). In the 1980s, season 12 of the classic series, Tom Baker’s first, aired on local networks. The programme would return to Spain only with the 2005 revival, running for two years from 2011 on the national network Boing, a children’s channel, and strongly suggesting that Doctor Who was clearly seen as family viewing. Subsequently, the programme was made available via pay TV stations like SyFy Spain, or through streaming content platforms like Netflix or Amazon Prime Video, though never in a complete run. The first three years of ‘nu’ Who have been available on DVD, though

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these releases are now discontinued. The most recent series of Doctor Who with Jodie Whittaker (series 11 and 12) have not been screened or released in Spain and do not yet have an air date. Doctor Who fans are therefore able to access these episodes only through Internet sites such as TVPlayer.com, or with the use of a VPN to watch the English-language original. Despite the lack of access to the series, the Spanish fan community has continued to be active. Fan events dedicated exclusively to the series take place, for example Doctor Who Day BCN in Barcelona in 2015, with international guests such as Andrew Cartmel, script editor from the late 1980s (Herrero, 2015). Petitions have also been organized by the fans to keep the series on air (for example, by Hannibal Who in 2015)1 or to have special theatrical screenings such as those in other countries (by La Vueltas del Amor in 2014 for instance).2 Spanish fans also created the hashtag #SpainWantsSpecialOfDW to put pressure on Spanish cinemas to screen the fiftieth anniversary special ‘The Day of the Doctor’, a move that was successful when the Cinesa movie theatre chain agreed to screen it. The premiere of series 8 led to further requests and the hashtag campaign #DoctorWhoVuelveACinesa (‘Doctor Who come back to Cinesa’) again successfully applied pressure for a Spanish theatrical release. This situation in Spain illustrates the point that the sometimes very limited transnational circulation of media can make access to fan objects difficult in different nations and languages (Hitchcock Morimoto, 2017). Fan practices such as fan translations seek to overcome these barriers of formal distribution. Matt Hills has suggested that Doctor Who fans became ‘cult fans’ after the programme’s cancellation although the durability of ‘cult fandom’ preceded cancellation in 1989 (Hills, 2002: ix). On this basis, the Spanish Whovian community in particular could be framed as a type of ‘cult fandom’ struggling to gain access to ‘their’ show. Further, as Harrington and Bielby suggest, access to key elements of fan culture can also be more constrained for foreign fans than for home-based fans (2005: 847). This encourages specific forms of access-oriented fannish activities and, as with the UK fan community in the 1990s and early 2000s, the lack of available episodes has led fans to become ‘the custodians of the Doctor Who legacy, safeguarding’ and expanding it (Robb, 2013: 202). Hence, fan-produced subtitles and ‘scanlations’ (scanning and translation by fans) have become the only way to view the series in Spanish. These practices are similar to those amongst anime and manga fans, operating as a ‘necessary condition for access to the foreign cult media’ (Ito, 2017: 333). In this research, I will focus on scanlation since it permits access to transnational media where this is otherwise unavailable. Digital technology facilitates such transnational cultural exchanges and the creation of fanworks (Booth, 2010; Jenkins, 2012). One example of

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this is AudioWho (www.audiowho.com/), created in 2010 to make fan translations of the expanded universe novels, which cannot otherwise be accessed in Spain, available to Spanish fans. AudioWho aim to translate Doctor Who texts from all sorts of BBC-licensed transmedia storytelling including comics, novels, and audio adventures. The ‘fan desire to be a bridge between languages’ as Ian Condry argues (quoted in Hills, 2017: 83) means that AudioWho is now one of the most important communities for sharing fan translations of Doctor Who in Spain and beyond: ‘Even Portuguese people tell us that they prefer to read our content because they understand it better than English’ says Scnyc, creator of the website. In this way, these fan translations are a vital part of fandom’s gift economy and, as Turk points out, ‘they are meant for everyone who wants them, and once presented, all in attendance are welcome to help themselves’ (2014: n.p.). These translations allow fans ‘to share [across national borders], to experience together, to become alive with community’ (Paul Booth, quoted in Chin and Hitchcock Morimoto, 2013: 104). In the absence of the programme being made widely available to Spanish viewers, the expanded universe has arguably taken on a much greater importance for Spanish fans. This means that novels, comic books, and audioplays are a significant component of their access to Doctor Who. AudioWho’s creator Scnyc explained that the limited opportunities for viewing Doctor Who in Spain meant that attention turned to the novels. He said that: It all started because I wanted to read these stories, but I didn’t know English. I was 14 years old and, in a forum, I managed to get a group of people together to start translating while I dedicated [myself] to editing the novels and maintaining the community.

The demand for such fan translations also meant that the Spanish publisher Fandogamia announced in 2017 that it had obtained a licence for the publication of Titan’s officially licensed Doctor Who comic books. This does raise issues of copyright, and in general there is a ‘“rule” that fansubbers should discontinue their work when an official release occurs, therefore avoiding direct competition with the industry’ (Hills, 2017: 86). However, AudioWho continues to carry the fan translations, although the site also includes adverts for the licensed comic and a link to the publisher’s website, with Fandogamia’s consent, in order to promote the sale of official comics. There are further transnational access issues that Scnyc explains: I would have preferred to remove the [fan translation] links out of respect for the publisher, but we have Latin American readers who would not be able to access the [comics published in Spain], so we keep [the fan translations]. We contacted [the publisher] and they were fine with it.

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So on this occasion a good relationship has been established and maintained between the industry and Spanish fandom. Pedro J. Medina, the comic book publisher of the Spanish-licensed comics, values this relationship, stating in a personal interview for this research conducted on 24 January 2020 that it was ‘a commendable task because in the end it’s about making the works known and sometimes the cultural products that don’t arrive, otherwise you have no other way of knowing them’. He added that ‘scanlation was the only way to consume this content at the time, so many publishers can be thankful for the fan phenomenon that this type of practice has generated’. This illustrates the way that fan translations have provided new overseas markets for media (Hills, 2017; Ito, 2017). As Ito states, ‘fan culture begins with the love of professional media content’ (2017: 336), but, as this introductory account of Doctor Who in Spain has illustrated, Spanish fans have sought to make the original content available in their own language in the absence of other forms of access.

Spanish fan receptions of regendering The following analysis of collected data focuses on issues that were raised about Spanish translations concerning the regendering of the series, questioning whether this has affected the reception of the programme in Spain, as well as ascertaining whether there have been disagreements over translated nomenclature amongst Spanish fans. The study also aims to consider whether the lack of access to the series overall has influenced perceptions of the Doctor now being female, especially considering the complex storyworld and extensive narrative which the series has established. I will briefly summarize my results before further exploring how Spanish fans were prepared for a female Doctor, and how the official Spanish translation into ‘la Doctora’ has been understood by fans. The fans who responded to my questionnaire were resoundingly in favour of a female actor being cast in the role of the Doctor, with over 90 per cent of the respondents approving of the change. Of those who did not like a female Doctor (6.7 per cent of the total), half believe the Doctor is quite simply a man and do not think of the character as having a flexible gender identity. In addition, 10.6 per cent of the total respondents did not expect the character to change into a woman, but 81.9 per cent of them believed that this could plausibly happen diegetically, precisely because the Doctor is an alien ‘Time Lord’. These findings suggest that the large m ­ ajority of viewers positively understood and shared in the vision of casting Jodie Whittaker, though some did still find it difficult to accept the regendering. Although it might be expected that female and

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non-binary viewers would be more interested in the character’s gender change, possibly identifying more strongly with a female or gender-fluid Doctor, this is not necessarily the case. Among 149 males surveyed, only 7 expressed a preference for the Doctor to always be a man, in comparison to 8 out of the 105 female and non-binary respondents. These data do suggest that male viewers are as open to a female Doctor as any other gender grouping. Further, 46.1 per cent of the respondents overall expected that the series would opt for such an evolution sooner or later. This is to be expected given the fact that the programme has continually evolved since its inception in the 1960s, and viewers of recent Doctor Who episodes would have seen the female version of the Master already. The regendering of the Master is thus a useful starting point for discussing the issues that a female Doctor has raised for Spanish translation, and I will examine this next.

Missy as the trial run for a regendered Doctor The majority of respondents approved of the Master becoming Missy, with 80.3 per cent being in favour of the character change; 17 per cent stated it didn’t matter to them and only 2.7 per cent (5 respondents) did not like it. It should be noted that of these five, three were female. It is also worth noting that one female respondent thought the Doctor should have remained male as well, arguing that ‘this gender change is merely a matter of ideology and … is forced’. However, this opinion remains an outlier in my data;  as another female participant wrote, ‘what is really forced here is that being Time Lords and given their nature, both the Master and the Doctor have always been men’. Overall, the general response indicates that viewers were accepting of these changes, particularly as they had been prefigured in the storyworld. Clearly, Missy prepared these viewers for a similar change in the Doctor. As Pedro J. Medina, editor of the comic books, says: On the one hand, it’s a way of generating a new empathy for a character you have with a certain personality and so you try to instil a new charisma in them. [This change] was well received, so I guess you’d say if this works, why not change the Doctor? I don’t think it [the Master to Missy] was the first conscious step towards doing the other one [the Doctor], but it did encourage them to do it.

As Liza Pluijer, the translator of the Titan comics, adds, ‘if the Master could, the Doctor too’. Among the 43.7 per cent of questionnaire respondents who liked the change to a female Doctor, one directly commented

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that they thought Missy was a trial run to see if the change of gender could work. This regendering does cause problems, however, when translating into Spanish. In relation to her name, the Master regenders her adopted title to Missy, short for ‘The Mistress’, on regenerating into a woman. Unlike nouns specifying a professional title, most of which are gender-neutral in the English language, the name ‘master’ does have a feminine form in English. Thus, the narrative negotiates the character’s regendering by addressing it head on – master to mistress – while at the same time sticking with the character’s habit of hiding her true identity and adopting a false name. In contrast, there is no necessity to consider such a solution for the Doctor, since in English ‘doctor’ is a neuter form of the noun. Regenerating as a woman therefore does not affect the character’s name in English; it is the pronouns used in relation to the Doctor (she/her) that define her as female. However, a female Doctor raises problems in translation, and there has already been some confusion. The Spanish release of the comic book changes her name to the feminine form ‘La Doctora’, for example, respecting the linguistic gendering of titles. Although the TV series has not yet been broadcast in Spain, this comic book translation directly conflicts with the Portuguese translations of the TV series – sharing the same linguistic problem as Spanish – which retain the masculine form for the Doctor (Globoplay, 2020). It is important, therefore, to consider the decisions which have been made by translators in this respect. The names ‘Master’ and ‘Doctor’ are aliases rather than given names. Although this has been discussed throughout the series, especially in Steven Moffat’s time as showrunner, the questionnaire respondents accept ‘Doctor’ as a proper name. 80.5 per cent of respondents did not agree that the name should be feminized for a female Doctor. Whilst the 19.5 per cent who did agree supported their choice by referencing the Master’s change to Missy, some of the respondents who preferred retaining the masculine form of ‘doctor’ felt that their viewing experience would be altered by changing the character’s name to ‘la Doctora’. They felt that this would make her a different character. These responses suggest that the gendered linguistic name represents a significant affective, fannish connection between viewer and character, and may be even more important than the Doctor’s physical appearance.

‘La Doctora’ as a feminist claim in professional translation … and ‘hybrid’ fansub solutions Since slightly more than a quarter of the questionnaire respondents (27.56 per cent; 48 males, 21 females and 1 non-binary) consume one or

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more ­secondary texts in the Doctor Who expanded universe, including the comics, it is important to consider the Doctor’s change of title in the Spanish comics further. Translating the Doctor’s name as ‘la Doctora’ (instead of the masculine form) in the authorized comic book can be viewed as an act of feminist translation, signposting the regendering of the programme via a female Doctor. This is also in keeping with the Doctor referring to herself as a woman in the TV series, even correcting herself when she mistakenly speaks of herself as a man out of past habit. Considering ‘the Doctor’ as an alias rather than a given name means that it is perfectly possible to adapt it to fit the gendering of the Spanish language. This is not without nuance, however, and the Spanish translator of the comics had to decide how to approach that translation, as Pluijter explains: From the first moment, I thought that the gender representation of the Doctor was key if it was going to be openly feminine and it was important to represent it in Spanish as well. In the series we have dialogue where [characters] refer to her as she/her and she refers to herself as a woman. Therefore, we also have to define that change to be faithful to what the TV programme established. For me, it’s also important from a feminist and gender point of view, so anything related to this Doctor would have to be referred to in the feminine.

The questionnaire respondents, by contrast, had mixed views: 42.1 per cent agreed with this translation, while 26.8 per cent thought the name should be retained in the masculine form, and 31.1 per cent felt it did not matter. Amongst those respondents who did not express a preference about the name were those who stated they did not know which name was best, or had doubts about the correct (masculine/feminine) Spanish translation. In contrast, those who approved of the change gave reasons such as the fact that it was the correct grammatical form in Spanish, or that the name change from the Master to Missy justified a similar change for the Doctor. Amongst this group, using the feminine form of the name was also not considered as a problem at all, since ‘Doctor’ was assumed to be an alias which could easily be changed. These views reflect Pluijter’s, who said that as the official or professional translator It was one of the decisions we made when we started translating. But apart from standing firm on ideological issues, I took into account the background of the series with Missy’s change. If the canon changes names and gender, as a translator I think I have to remain faithful to the concept presented in the storytelling of the series.

In contrast, comments by female or non-binary respondents who did not agree with the Doctor taking the feminine form ‘la Doctora’ were based on

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their assumption that ‘Doctor’ is a proper noun and hence should not be changed. One said that ‘the female body is circumstantial and temporary’. This disagreement carries over into the Spanish fansubs, where there is no consistency amongst fan translations from different fansubbing groups. Some respect the original name ‘Doctor’ – www.subdivx.com/ for example – and others – such as www.subtitulamos.tv/ – translate it to ‘Doctora’. In an attempt to resolve the issue, the AudioWho community even consulted the Spanish Royal Academy of Language for advice, receiving guidance that ‘la Doctora’ would be more accurate (reporting this to their Twitter feed on 8 October 2018).3 Scnyc explained that ‘It was both an internal and public debate and we finally decided on “la Doctora”. We also had the Missy gendered name change, so if they had translated it, so would we.’ Inconsistently, however, the numeral indicating the Doctor’s incarnation (thirteenth) is left in the masculine form in the fan translations, thus ‘decimotercer Doctora’ remains, instead of the more grammatically correct ‘decimotercera Doctora’. The fan translator Nonne states that she chose that hybrid form ‘because the previous Doctors were men and changing the gender of numbering would mean that those before the thirteenth Doctor were also women’. A larger number of the questionnaire respondents (43 per cent) disliked this hybrid approach of masculine-number-feminineDoctor, particularly because it was grammatically incorrect in Spanish, while 26 per cent preferred it for the continuity it offered with previous male Doctors (the remaining 31 per cent did not have a preference). These findings suggest that observing the rules of the Spanish language is important to fans, but this can be at odds with their emotional connection to the character of the Doctor, as he had been portrayed for many years. Following on from this, some respondents expressed concerns that the title of the programme may also be changed. Some felt that with a change to the way the Doctor was addressed – to the feminine form ‘Doctora’ – the title of the series itself would no longer be consistent and hence there would be a loss of continuity or brand/storyworld coherence. However, others felt that this was not relevant since the title Doctor Who has actually never been translated into Spanish – the programme had always been broadcast in Spain with its English title. Since fans have always known the programme by this title, no translation was required to accommodate gendered nouns. It is worth noting, though, that, where the programme title has been translated in other Spanish-speaking countries, such as ‘Doctor Misterio’ in Mexico, other approaches to fan translation might be required. In fact, other compromises are already becoming established; one fan translation already popular within the Spanish Whovian community is another hybrid, ‘La Doctor’, changing the article to reflect the female Doctor but keeping a masculine form of the noun that acknowledges previous male



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Doctors. Fansubs thus continue to adapt by creatively and fannishly engaging with the difficulties of canonically oriented translation.

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Conclusion: focusing attention on language As this chapter has shown, the regendering of Doctor Who has incited a debate in Spanish fandom because of the particular use of gendered nouns in languages other than English. Spanish fans faced the possibility of the Doctor’s name being changed, along with the concern that this would loosen or disrupt their emotional connection to the long-running, canonical character. Henry Jenkins has pointed out that ‘[f]ans particularly dislike major shifts in the program format not adequately explained or justified within its narrative logic’ (2012: 106), and this seems to be readily applicable to the Spanish situation, even if it is an unintended consequence due to national differences in gendered forms of language. This research has served to focus attention on the relevance that translation has acquired in the current era of transnational and transcultural Doctor Who, illuminating factors that will need to be taken into consideration in future translations, whether these are fansubs or authorised releases of the programme and its transmedia texts.

Notes 1 See www.change.org/p/mediaset-que-emitan-doctor-who-en-abierto-ya (accessed 1 December 2019). 2 See www.change.org/p/cinesa-doctor-who-8x01-en-cines (accessed 1 December 2019). 3 See https://twitter.com/AudioWho/status/1049074011026743299 (accessed 1 December 2019).

References Booth, P. (2010). Digital Fandom: New Media Studies. New York: Peter Lang. Chin, B. and L. Hitchcock Morimoto (2013). ‘Towards a Theory of Transcultural Fandom’, Participations. Journal of Audience & Reception Studies, 10 (5), pp. 92–108. Establés, M. J. and M. Guerrero-Pico (2017). ‘Los fans como traductores y distribuidores de contenido en el ecosistema transmedia: promocionando series de televisión españolas en el extranjero’, in S. Torrado Morales, G. Rodenas Cantero, and J. G. Ferreras Rodríguez (eds), Territorios transmedia y narrativas audiovisuales. Barcelona: Editorial UOC, pp. 59–73.

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Globoplay (2020). ‘Nota aos Whovians’, Twitter (1 February), https://twitter.com/ globoplay/status/1223669655711121410 (accessed 1 February 2020). Harrington Lee, C. and D. Bielby (2005). ‘Flow, Home and Media Pleasures’, The Journal of Popular Culture, 38 (5), pp. 834–54. Herrero, Saida (2015). Crónica de la convención ‘Doctor Who Day BCN’, La Casa de EL, www.lacasadeel.net/2015/04/cronica-de-la-convencion-doctor-who-daybcn.html (accessed 1 December 2019). Hills, M. (2002). Fan Cultures. London: Routledge. Hills, M. (2017). ‘Transnational Cult and/as Neoliberalism: The Liminal Economies of Anime Fansubbers’, Transnational Cinemas, 8 (1), pp. 80–94. Hitchcock Morimoto, L. (2017). ‘Transnational Media Fan Studies’, in S. Scott and M. Click (eds), Routledge Companion to Media Fandom, DOI: http://dx.doi. org/10.17613/M6X83D (accessed 2 March 2020). Ito, M. (2017). ‘Ethics of Fansubbing in Anime’s Hybrid Public Culture’, in J. Gray, C. Sanvoss, and C. L. Harrington (eds), Fandom: Identities and Communities in a Mediated World, 2nd edition. New York: New York University Press, pp. 333–53. Jenkins, H. (2012). Textual Poachers: Television Fans and Participatory Culture (2nd ed.). New York: Routledge. Medina, P. J. (2020). Interview with S. Herrero, 24 January. Muñoz, M. and M. N. Gálvez M. N. (2013). Algo nuevo, algo viejo, algo prestado, algo azul. Barcelona: Mil Monos. Nonne (2020). Interview with S. Herrero, 27 January. Pluijter, L. (2020). Interview with S. Herrero, 25 January. Robb, B. J. (2013). Timeless Adventures: How Doctor Who Conquered TV. Harpender: Kamera Books. Scnyc (2020). Interview with S. Herrero, 27 January. Turk, T. (2014). ‘Fan Work: Labor, Worth, and Participation in Fandom’s Gift Economy’, Transformative Works and Cultures, 15, DOI: https://doi.org/ 10.3983/twc.2014.0518.

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Part IV

Beyond the text

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11

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By any other name: gender and Doctor Who Barbie dolls, adventure dolls, and 1:6 scale figures Victoria L. Godwin Soon after the announcement of Jodie Whittaker’s casting, Mattel, Character Options (CO), and BIG Chief Studios (BCS) each publicized their own posable toy versions of the thirteenth Doctor. Interestingly, each employs different terms: doll, adventure doll or adventure figure, and 1:6 scale figure. Different toys target different markets. Yet the variety of descriptive terms for similar toys highlights their awkward positioning in highly gendered markets. Boys’ toys are ‘action figures’ to differentiate them from ‘dolls’, a word considered undesirable due to its association with girls and their toys. Modifying these gendered terms creates less freighted labels, avoiding the hyper-masculinization typical of ‘action figures’ and their associated franchises. However, Doctor Who never was a hyper-masculinized programme or protagonist. Fans and producers highlight the Doctor’s reliance on cleverness instead of violence to solve problems. Both character and toys challenge gender norms and notions of gender as fixed. Drawing on fan studies approaches, this chapter explains why some Doctor Who fans distance their fan objects (series, character, and toys based on both) from Whittaker and dolls to avoid feminization and pathologization. Positive fan comments and popular press coverage both emphasize that girls and women finally can identify with the Doctor and be interested in her adventures, as if that is possible or permissible only now that Whittaker portrays her – but somehow not previously, with male actors in the role. Discursively, repeated comments welcoming the addition of female fans erase the presence of females who already were fans. Although women and girls bought, collected, and played with Doctor Who toys for decades, marketing materials and plans traditionally did not include or acknowledge them. Toy industry officials perceive female interest in a franchise as disadvantageous, and dolls as unappealing to boys because girls play with them, feminizing and thus stigmatizing any toy labelled as a doll. However, ‘[d]olls tend to do twice the business of action figures, so there has always been plenty of incentive’ (Thompson, 2017: n.p.) to include dolls, women, and girls in marketing plans. Nonetheless, society,

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industry, and fan ­preconceptions lead to the denigration and neglect of this potential market. Marketing by Hasbro for G.I. Joe in the United States and Palitoy for Action Man in the UK and Australia exemplifies such trends. Fashion doll Barbie debuted in 1959. In 1964, Hasbro borrowed Mattel’s concept to create its own basic toy that encourages customers to buy additional clothing and accessories. The sizes of Barbie and G.I. Joe are similar in part because Hasbro carved Barbie’s boyfriend Ken into the first G.I. Joe prototype. Hasbro believed that boys would not play with dolls, since dolls are for girls. To avoid the word ‘doll’ and its feminine connotations, Hasbro invented the terms ‘action figure’ and ‘movable fighting man’, and Palitoy renamed its licensed copy of G.I. Joe ‘Action Man’ (Michlig, 1998: 27–31, 38, 133). The label ‘action figure’ spread to other so-called ‘boys’ toys’ for similar reasons. ‘Widespread misperceptions that dolls are just for girls encourage such fine lexical distinctions’ (Godwin, 2015: 121), despite evidence to the contrary that young boys frequently enjoy playing with dolls (Calvert, 1992: 117; Formanek-Brunell, 1993: 28; see also Lord, 1994; Rand, 1995; Thomas, 2003). However, parents, advertising, and other sources discourage such interests. Children soon learn toys are gendered (Kimmel, 2000: 124). Typically, regardless of size or scale, ‘[i]f its detail is all sculpted and’ it includes a weapon, ‘it’s an action figure aimed at boys. If it has rooted hair and cloth clothes, it’s a doll aimed at girls’ (Thompson, 2017: n.p.). Barbie, G.I. Joe, and Action Man illustrate that the current situation with Doctor Who is not the first time that names for posable toys have expressed such tensions. The variety in descriptive terms (doll, adventure doll, 1:6 scale figure) for thirteenth Doctor toys of similar size and degree of articulation indicates the challenge of adjusting promotional materials for highly gendered objects. One of many reasons for such textual confusion is that any posable toy’s ‘masculinity is always already compromised and conflicted by the feminine genre within which his body is situated’ since ‘toy miniaturizations of the human form fall into [the doll] category’ (Hall, 2004: 43), which is highly feminized. With smaller-scale action figures, manufacturers attempt to counter this perceived feminization by ‘framing’ both toys and their originating franchises ‘as battle- and conflict driven … hyper-masculiniz[ing] the toys’ in commercials and ‘the packaging itself, which inevitably depicted young boys at play, not young girls. And toy stores often completed the gendering, by grouping the toys with other “boy” toys’ (Gray, 2010: 186). The producer of a successful children’s TV series advised: ‘Don’t show an eight-year-old boy playing with an eight-year-old girl. For boys, that’s an unreal situation. Girls will emulate boys, but boys will not emulate girls. When in doubt, use boys’ (Schneider, 1989: 107) to advertise toys. Similar

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assumptions also impact Doctor Who’s original concept and casting, with the ‘staff writer Cecil Webber’ claiming in 1963 that ‘characters … could not be girls because boys would not watch’. Susan’s eventual inclusion seems acceptable since an older teenager offers ‘a figure of identification and aspiration for young children’ (Bignell, 2005: 86). In contrast to toy manufacturers who continue to follow such advice, advertisements for a sonic screwdriver and smaller-scale action figures of the eleventh Doctor, Amy Pond, and assorted opponents from series 5 feature both a boy and girl playing together (see CO 2010 Doctor Who toy commercial).1 Nonetheless, retrograde attitudes persist, as evidenced by accounts that Lucasfilm executives insisted upon Rey’s removal from proposed Star Wars tie-in merchandise, justifying their decision with the claim ‘No boy wants to be given a product with a female character on it’ (Scott, 2017: 145). Likewise, Melissa Segal, head of global licensing for the Jim Henson Company, ‘laments that in dealing with licensees, she is often forced to choose between a property’s appeal to boys or to girls’ (Santo, 2019: 133). On the basis of such comments, Avi Santo identifies significant ‘challenges for entertainment brands directed at both boys and girls’, arguing that ‘[t]oy buyers privilege products and franchises pitched at boys or at least imagined as appealing to them’. This is due to ‘stereotypical assumptions about boys’ desire for action, which elevates the desirability for certain products like action figures and toy cars’ and also configures ‘so-called girls’ toys either in opposition to selective understandings of “action” or as improved by their affiliation with boys’ action categories’ (2019: 133–34). In a similar effort, GoldieBlox dubs its toy an action figure ‘to claim greater value for its product compared to the feminized doll … while trying to newly apply that typically masculinized term to the play of girls’. Unfortunately, ‘in seizing onto terms of action long valued in articulation to boys without interrogating those values, GoldieBlox contributes to the continued devaluation of dolls on the basis of them being “for girls”’ (Johnson, 2014). A 1970s Denys Fisher Toys TV ad featuring two boys playing with action figures of the Doctor, Leela, and various monsters, as well as the TARDIS,2 is consistent with such industry beliefs. Previous assumptions persist that girls watch shows and play with toys developed for and targeted to boys, but boys do not watch or play with material for girls. Both toys and their advertising function as paratexts, which ‘reflect and refract franchises’ gendered valuation of their (imagined) audience’ and also ‘function to codify gendered franchising discourses, even in the midst of a franchise’s attempt to adopt more progressive representational strategies and acknowledge the diversity of its audience’ (Scott, 2017: 139). Despite conscious efforts to diversify casting, writers, and behind-thescenes personnel for Doctor Who, society, industry, and fan a­ ssumptions

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continue to position (straight, white) males as the default for both protagonists and fans. Thirteenth Doctor posable toys and their appeal to female and male fans challenge those assumptions. However, the textual diversity of names for these posable toys (doll, adventure doll, 1:6 figure) highlights how deep-seated fears of feminizing and pathologizing fandom and dolls still are.

Negative reactions: feminization, anti-fandom and geek hierarchies Negative popular press and fan comments frame Whittaker and toy miniaturizations of her human form as unacceptable because they feminize the Doctor, the programme, and fans of both. A fan studies approach offers insight into why fans attempt to distance their fan objects (Doctor Who and its main character) and fan practices (collecting toy representations of the Doctor), especially now that both incorporate Jodie Whittaker and toys based on her likeness. The recent inclusion of feminized fan objects such as dolls (even when dubbed ‘adventure dolls’) increases the perceived threat to the franchise and its fans. Fans in general already are ‘feminized and/or desexualized through their intimate engagements with mass culture’ (Jenkins, 1992: 10). As one means of self-protection, fans ‘construct some feminized aspects of a fandom as less valuable than others. This defends against pathologization of the entire fandom’ (Godwin, 2015: 128). Already feminized and pathologized by their fandom of Doctor Who,  fans  of the programme attempt to avert further feminization and pathologization by denigrating supposedly inferior fan objects. Negative comments conform to normative perceptions of women and dolls as inferior or unimportant. Male Doctors are acceptable fan objects, but female Doctors are unacceptable. Action figures are suitably gendered, but dolls are not. Attacks on dolls in general and Doctor Who Barbie doll in particular function as self-protective moves consistent with anti-fandom. Such ‘antifandom counters negative stereotypes that feminize fans in general, especially fans of toys resembling dolls’ (Godwin, 2015: 131). It also wards off the potential loss of fans’ recently gained status of acceptability, which is not guaranteed to last. More importantly, society typically reserves  approval only for ‘the less explicitly fannish (or, one might argue, the less explicitly female fannish) elements’. Mainstream acceptance ‘redefines fans as a positive term yet excludes anything too affective, too invested, or too communal’. This is ‘representative of the way fans themselves border police definitions of fandom’. Fans establish a geek hierarchy ‘by finding someone

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who is more unusual, less mainstream, more out there’, to use as an Other against whom ‘fans can raise their own status’ (Busse, 2013: 77, 83, 80). In this situation, the unacceptable Others for Doctor Who fans are Barbie and dolls. This seems an odd choice given Barbie’s decades of mainstream appeal. However, ‘fans replicate negative outsider notions of what constitutes fannishness, often using similar feminizing and infantilizing concepts’ to accuse other fans ‘of being too attached, too obsessed, and too invested’ and condemning ‘such affect … for being too girly or too juvenile’ (Busse, 2013: 75–76). The Doctor Who Barbie doll therefore represents a double threat, both girly and juvenile, as evidenced by comments in popular press articles such as ‘while Jodie Whittaker’s Doctor is a positive role model for impressionable young girls, Barbie’s collectible incarnation sends a slightly mixed message to some already quite weird grownups’ (Pass Notes, 2018: n.p.). Yet again, popular press coverage pathologizes fans, dismissing adult fans  both of Doctor Who and of Barbie as ‘weird’ for their emotional and financial over-investment in a TV series and/or a toy framed as appropriate for children, despite evidence to the contrary that both appeal to adults. Such articles also classify both Doctor Who and Barbie dolls as appropriate for ‘impressionable young girls’. There is no consideration of boys playing with this toy, enforcing the same gender norms as p ­ romotional material portraying boys but not girls playing with action figures. This feminizes and pathologizes fans not only as weird but also as immature. Similarly, by denigrating Doctor Who Barbie, fans use geek hierarchies and border policing to ward off perceived threats to mainstream acceptance. Related fandoms offer more productive models. ‘Action figure fans regularly incorporate dolls into their fandom’ even while simultaneously denigrating them and differentiating from them. ‘For example, “head swaps” remount fashion doll heads on … articulated action figure bodies. Such hybrid creations draw upon the best features of both categories. … Yet they no longer belong exclusively to either.’ By incorporating and including such related but supposedly opposed objects, this fandom blurs imagined boundaries and ‘creates more complicated readings of its fan practices and their feminized pathologization’. In a parallel to discursive moves already evident amongst one-sixth scale action figure fans, ‘[t]he respect given to (or withheld from) … dolls illustrates … fans’ negotiation of the gendered pathologization of fans in general with their own fandom’s incorporation of feminized fan practices’ and fan objects such as dolls (Godwin, 2015: 128, 122).

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‘We’re all capable of the most incredible change’: change and consistency This need ‘to counter negative stereotypes of fans in general, and specifically those who collect and play with “dolls”, as feminized’ (Godwin, 2015: 122) explains contentious posts about Whittaker and her toy likenesses. Both reflect a need to make sense of gender and to revise our understandings of gendered lives to include fluid identities (see Eeken and Hermes, 2019: 12 for a more recent discussion). The Doctor was male for over fifty years. If she can change, what other seemingly stable elements of society could as well? BCS’s promotional copy for its 1:6 scale figure on social media prominently includes the following quotation on the importance of change from Whittaker’s debut episode ‘The Woman Who Fell to Earth’: ‘… ’cause we’re all capable of the most incredible change. We can evolve while still staying true to who we are. We can honor who we’ve been and choose who we want to be next.’3 This quotation emphasizes continuity in the midst of change. Through multiple regenerations and changes of appearance, the Doctor still has the role of protecting the universe. Promotional materials for different companies draw on several identical phrases which emphasize constant aspects of the Doctor’s identity: the Doctor is ‘exploring the universe in her time-­travelling TARDIS’, with ‘sonic screwdriver in hand’. Whilst Barbie ‘is ready to overcome evil forces’ and the Adventure Doll ‘is ready to sort right from wrong’, both do so to ‘save civilizations throughout the galaxy’ (see CO 2018 ad ‘Unveiled … Character Options’ new 10 thirteenth doctor figure’; Mattel 2018 ad ‘Doctor Who Barbie doll’).4 Such uniformity is typical of the highly consistent brand management practices established for the 2005 return of the programme, which require ‘a coordinated approach – saying the same simple things (such as a tag line about ‘Adventures in Time and Space’ for example)’ (Grutchfield, 2005: 39). It also emphasizes that the Doctor is still the Doctor. Negative fan comments do not focus on such constant aspects of the Doctor’s identity. Instead, they emphasize superficial changes in physical appearance which seem threatening: from male to female. Doctor Who’s Barbie doll and similar toys become lightning rods for fan discourse, a synecdoche for fears of pathologization and feminization of fans and fandom. Long-term fans, especially when used to insular fan communities, can gain a sense of entitlement, reacting with hostility to deviations from their perceptions of what both their fan object and its fans should be. (On a related note, online mockery of CO’s 5½-inch version of Graham could be interpreted in the light of perceptions of both character and toy as standins for older male fans.) Negative fan reactions to Whittaker’s casting and

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­ erformance have not reached the frenzy and extent of #GamerGate, Sad p Puppies, and their ilk, but still function similarly as backlash. Not every fan comment is negative. Many fans react positively, and many new or casual viewers become fans. Fans note that Whittaker’s ‘casting seems to have attracted and energized many more female fans than before (my sister among them), and probably enough to make up for the male fans who have abandoned it’. However, ‘[g]iven all the noise from both extremes, it is hard to get a real gauge on the popularity, or not, of the latest incarnation’.5 Not surprisingly, negative fan comments are the ones that attract publicity in the popular press. After all, they reinforce normative gender roles and expectations for fan behaviour. For example, an article on the Doctor Who Barbie doll characterizes fans of the programme as ‘Not all happy. “The Doctor has been a female less than 12 hours and they reduced her to a cliché plastic plaything”, said one. “Not all girls need to be Barbies”’ (Pass Notes, 2018: n.p.). As usual, the actual situation is more nuanced. Popular press articles, and the social media and other comments attributed to Doctor Who fans they quote, re-hash the same points which have been made about Barbie for decades. Other scholars have already addressed unrealistic body types, reified gender roles, and many other concerns about Barbie, G.I. Joe, and Action Man (Bignell, 2003; Lord, 1994; Rand, 1995) in far more detail than is relevant for this chapter. Furthermore, Doctor Who Barbie doll is not and never was the only option for sale.

‘Who am I?’: naming and gendering Doctor Who toys Thanks to Dalekmania, the first Doctor Who toys actually were monsters rather than the titular character or human companions. Although toy Daleks appear as early as 1964 (Bignell, 2005; 2007), the first toy version of the Doctor doesn’t arrive until 1977: the 9½-inch (24 cm) tall Denys Fisher version of the fourth Doctor, Tom Baker. From 1988 to 2002, Dapol targeted a niche/cult fan market with 4-inch tall versions of multiple Doctors, companions, monsters, and playsets. In 2010, Tonner Doll Company offered larger-scale 16–17-inch fashion dolls of the tenth Doctor and Martha Jones, as well as Captain Jack Harkness and Gwen Cooper from spin-off series Torchwood. CO offered several 12-inch action figures of the tenth Doctor, Martha Jones, and various monsters from the 2006–7 seasons. However, in 2011 CO scaled down the number and size of its larger offerings: only two 10-inch articulated action figures with fabric outfits were made of the eleventh Doctor, either clean-shaven or with a beard. CO’s more extensive line of 5½-inch Doctor Who action figures now includes a thirteenth Doctor.

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CO also offers a 10-inch Adventure Doll, infrequently dubbed an adventure figure, in Whittaker’s likeness. In 2018, Mattel announced a Doctor Who Barbie Doll, featuring a new head sculpt based on the ‘onscreen character’ as part of its more expensive collectible Signature line (Mattel, 2018).6 By January 2019 BCS announced its plans to produce a thirteenth Doctor 1:6 scale figure if it received sufficient pre-orders. The thirteenth Doctor also appears in a wide variety of toys and collectibles available from other companies, including plushies, vinyl figurines, statues, and maquettes. However, such items offer little or no articulation or range of movement. This chapter focuses specifically on the wide variety of approximately 1:6 posable figures on offer, since their different descriptors highlight ongoing efforts to shape the gendered discourse around children’s toys and adult collectibles. Posable dolls and figures, especially in 1:6 scale, have been highly gendered for decades. Yet now companies must navigate a market more sensitive to the need for a variety of role models for young girls and boys, and to the nuances of using restrictive gendered terms, especially to describe an alien who changes gender. Paralleling Hasbro’s efforts both to avoid and to exploit gendered assumptions by coining a new name for its toy, companies now find themselves trying to use or to invent gender-neutral terms to counter previous deliberate uses of highly gendered ones. The question is whether this new nomenclature will succeed to the extent ‘action figure’ did. The ways in which online sales sites classify CO’s offerings illustrate how pervasive toy gendering continues to be, even with efforts to coin new terms to avoid restrictive normative categories. CO’s smaller 5½-inch thirteenth Doctor toy appears under ‘Action Figures’, while the 10-inch version and Mattel’s offering share the ‘Dolls’ category on both Amazon and Forbidden Planet websites. No matter how articulated, posable, flexible, mobile, realistic, or hyper-masculinized a toy is, if the category is ‘a miniaturized model of the human form: a doll’ then ‘the style of embodiment cannot protect [the toy] from feminization, even when the style privileges combat realism’ (Hall, 2004: 43) or action and adventure, as with G.I. Joe or Action Man. Avoiding gendered terms such as ‘doll’ and ‘action figure’, companies seek less freighted terms to describe toys resembling Whittaker in order to widen their marketing appeals to include both boys and girls. One of the more notable efforts comes from CO. In 2018, CO offered a 10-inch version of the thirteenth Doctor. The July 2018 announcement on CO’s website never uses the word ‘doll’. It consistently refers to the toy as a ‘figure’, and once as a ‘10-inch Adventure Figure’ (2018). By the time the toy reached store shelves, promotional copy on the packaging dubbed it an ‘Adventure Doll’. Both of these terms, and especially the switch from one to the other, illustrate how the thirteenth Doctor toy occupies an awkward space liminally straddling action figures and dolls. CO seems to

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be ­attempting a similar neologism to Hasbro’s invention of the term ‘action figure’ to differentiate its G.I. Joe toys for boys from dolls, a word considered to have negative connotations due to its association with girls and their toys. Dolls, like girls, are framed as passive. Play involves changing their clothing and posing them, supposedly only to show off how pretty they look. However, the Doctor has adventures. Both ‘Adventure Doll’ and ‘Adventure Figure’ evoke Hasbro’s Adventure Team. This rebranding effort distanced G.I. Joe from war toys when they decreased in popularity for a time due to US involvement in Vietnam. Instead of marketing G.I. Joe figures as soldiers wielding guns in wars, Adventure Team members came packaged with accessories ‘like a shark or mummy – to make it into a story. A trigger for [children’s] own fantasy’ (Michlig, 1998: 155–57, 168). Palitoy likewise embraced non-military adventures: sports, rescue, and exploration in mountains, the Arctic, and deep-sea environments. Hasbro embraced imaginative play, a key term in promotional material for CO’s Doctor Who Adventure doll.7 These dolls were designed and framed to encourage creativity and storytelling, as children could invent and act out their adventures. However, ‘action figures forcefully suggest the fictive limits of toys as paratextual objects, both in the stories they structurally suggest we might tell with them, and in who is the presumed storyteller’: specifically males (Scott, 2017: 141), with an assumed emphasis on action, adventure, and combat in contrast to stereotypical passivity for girls and dolls. To guard against further pathologization and feminization, fans demonize and so dissociate themselves and their fandom from Others perceived as inferior and thus as threats to fan social status. One vitriolic fan reaction on amazon.com ­positions the CO Adventure Doll as a means to ‘recreate all of the boring scenes where The Doctor politely talks the human bad guys to death’.8 This single review contrasts with multiple others that mention how happy daughters and granddaughters were to receive the CO Adventure Doll as a gift, and how happy one fan is finally to be able to display a female Doctor. More importantly, such criticisms ignore the Doctor’s actual history of verbally distracting or dissuading villains, as in ‘The Happiness Patrol’ (1988). Fans and producers consistently emphasize the Doctor’s ability and preference to solve problems without resorting to physical combat. Doctor Who is not and never was a hyper-masculinized or combatdriven protagonist or programme. As a male, the Doctor never was limited to restrictive gender scripts for behaviour. The Doctor’s core principles appear in the 1976 edition of The Making of Doctor Who: ‘He never gives in, and never gives up, however overwhelming the odds against him. The Doctor believes in good and fights evil. Though often caught up in violent situations, he is a man of peace. He is never cruel or cowardly’ (Cook, 2017: 10). Televised episodes such as ‘The Day of the Doctor’ (2013) continue

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to reference these values. The equivalent section of the 1972 first edition of The Making of Doctor Who states that the Doctor ‘is never cruel, and he never carries a gun or other weapon. He is often in battles, but he hates war.’ The Doctor is ‘a hero who carries a screwdriver instead of a gun’ (Cook, 2017: 20). Guns, one of the most common accessories for action figures since the debut of G.I. Joe, are off the table and completely out of character for the Doctor. Also absent is the hyper-masculinized aggression typical of, and criticized in, G.I. Joe and other ‘boy toy’ action figures. Fans tend to devise multiple explanations for any exception to this ‘no guns’ sense of the character. Comments by a fan posting as ‘Cryer’ at the fan-blogging site Probic Vent are typical. A fan list of the Doctor’s violent acts ‘are taken out of context and not explained properly’, according to Cryer, who assures readers that the Doctor ‘hates violence. He usually only ever uses it as an absolute last resort.’ Examples of violence ‘are either last resorts or have other influencing factors’ (Luca, 2010). Likewise, out-ofcharacter behaviour such as the second Doctor gleefully gunning down opponents while yelling ‘Die, hideous creature … die!’ in 1967’s issue 800 of TV Comics is rationalized as follows: ‘The comics writers didn’t always have the greatest familiarity with the actual show they were adapting, and so the Doctor’s personality tended to vary widely from story to story’ (Brian, 2011). Fans use similar explanations for other tie-ins’ attempts to exploit the popularity of both character and programme with little or no understanding of or regard for either. In later years, the BBC took a more involved role in brand management and actively discouraged such violent or hyper-masculinized distortions. For example, according to Jason HaighEllery, Big Finish’s audio licence allows it to ‘do just about anything so long as it remains true to the spirit of Doctor Who. … No sex. No gratuitous swearing. No gross violence’ (Cook, 2003: 11). Accordingly, the inclusion of a gun accessory with the BCS War Doctor 1:6 figure feels wrong somehow, as did the character’s prominent use of that gun during the fiftieth anniversary episode ‘The Day of the Doctor’. Aptly, the War Doctor is a placeholder name since he refuses to call himself the Doctor, acknowledging that this behaviour is out of character. Within the programme’s diegesis, hyper-masculinized gunplay is so out of character for the Doctor that he cannot and will not use the name during that phase of his life. Promotional material for previous male Doctors and toys based on them did not emphasize weapons or hyper-masculinized battle, reflecting the programme’s consistent emphasis. In the new series, characters do tend to wield the sonic screwdriver like a weapon or magic wand in episodes and promotional images. The War Doctor’s dialogue highlights and mocks this tendency: ‘Why are you pointing your [sonic] screwdrivers like that? They’re scientific instruments, not water pistols.’ Here,



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s­ upposedly gendered behaviour is undercut and infantilized by referencing children’s toys.

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Fashioning 1:6 scale figures: distinctive clothing and masculinized ‘fabrication’ Referring to toys as dolls, adventure dolls, or 1:6 figures is not the only way that marketing Whittaker’s likeness differs from sales of toys modelled on male lead actors. BCS has continued to use its already established ‘1:6 scale figure’ nomenclature. However, it did not simply list its thirteenth Doctor 1:6 scale figure for sale on its website as it had for its prior releases of classic and new-era Doctors and companions. Instead, its 10 January 2019 announcement directed customers to the company’s ‘Launch Pad’, which was not set up until 4 February 2019. Launch Pad projects require ‘customers … to support a product by pre-paying in advance’ by depositing a Reservation Fee during a 60-day window. If there are not a sufficient number of pre-orders during that time, ‘then the Mission is not green lit and the associated product will not be manufactured’ and ‘all customers will receive a full refund’.9 This parallels platforms such as Kickstarter and GoFundMe. It also apparently signals less confidence in the appeal and marketability of the thirteenth Doctor compared to her predecessors. None of the previous Doctor Who releases from BCS was subjected to the Launch Pad process. In addition, prior Launch Pad projects had not been green lit. BCS did not announce it definitely would sell a thirteenth Doctor. Instead, it announced that a Whittaker likeness might possibly be released, but only if enough customers pre-ordered to fund the project. Fan comments indicate that this creates the impression of a company in financial difficulties. Fans also note problems with delays (such as an eighth Doctor figure announced in 2015 but not released until 2020, two or three years after receipt of full payments), inconsistent quality, high price (£239 / $316 if one pays in full, or £259 / $342 if one pays monthly instalments), poor marketing, and poor communication (Collector Freaks, 2018),10 all of which contribute to their hesitation to commit to a figure regardless of the appeal of the character and actress upon which it is based.The thirteenth Doctor figure was green lit in March 2019 but had not been released as of March 2021. In contrast to BCS relegating the thirteenth Doctor to the Launch Pad, Mattel demonstrated more confidence in both the character and her ability to move merchandise by investing in a new head sculpt for its Doctor Who Barbie instead of reusing an existing one. Many Signature line dolls now boast new head sculpts based on characters or celebrities, instead of Mattel’s tendency in past years to reuse existing head sculpts which often

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bore little or no resemblance to each doll’s inspiration. Obviously such corporate decisions are based on maximizing profits by minimizing new expenses. However, this Mattel policy also illustrates the importance of distinctive clothing to establish a character or brand. The correct outfit establishes a character far more effectively than an accurate head sculpt, as demonstrated by the Denys Fisher version of the fourth Doctor. Its minimal resemblance to Tom Baker led to inaccurate rumours that it reused a head sculpt of Gareth Hunt as Mike Gambit from The New Avengers (McGown, 2017: 32). To help people to identify the prototype as the fourth Doctor, the Denys Fisher graphic designer and product developer Ruth Elliot made [the toy] ‘look as much like him as possible’ by ‘making the Doctor’s clothes, including knitting his scarf’ (McGown, 2017: 31). John Nathan-Turner likewise recognized the importance of distinctive clothing to establish a character or brand. For example, part of his efforts as incoming producer ‘to transform and update the style of Doctor Who’ included authorizing a redesign of Tom Baker’s costume. The new costume’s ‘more stylized, uniform look’ was ‘partly due to Nathan-Turner’s desire to create a readily marketable image’, and resulted in the question mark motif that endured until the end of the original run (Howe, Stammers, and Walker, 1996: 8), to the frustration of each of the lead actors. Rather like a superhero logo, the question marks indicate a costume instead of clothing, however old-fashioned or eccentric. The BCS website’s treatment of clothing indicates further tensions in promotional materials for highly gendered objects. The ‘Specification’ entry for each classic and modern Doctor and companion first lists the portrait head, then the body, and then provides a detailed breakdown of every item of clothing, followed by a list of Accessories such as a sonic screwdriver or TARDIS key. Although descriptions of Doctors emphasize their distinctive outfits, the credits do not mention who developed the patterns or fabrics to make any of this clothing, and certainly do not mention the factory labourers who sew it. This lack of credit is consistent with ‘mainstream attitudes [that] dismiss fashion, like fandom, as trivial, feminized knowledge’ (Godwin, 2015: 127). Fans and companies that market to them practise this strategy to avoid further pathologization, neglecting or dismissing fan objects perceived as inferior to one’s own due to feminization. In contrast, masculinized creative work on head sculpts, 3D digital modelling, paint, photography, and package design all receive credits. Yet fan comments on various forums and social media platforms including BCS Facebook page and the Collector Freaks forum indicate dissatisfaction with the accuracy of multiple BCS head sculpts and with the quality of factory paint applications.11 A ‘Paint Decoration & Fabrication’ credit on

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multiple BCS 1:6 scale figures lumps together ‘a lot of the painting of the prototypes, the heads, and the costume development as well’, all performed by Gregg Andrews, the brother of one of the company founders (Ruddock, 2017: 87). Whilst other credits list legal names, this credit identifies Andrews as ‘Greggo’, his user ID on fan forums such as Collector Freaks. Neither the interview nor the BCS credit specifies whether costume development involves pattern drafting, designing prints for fabrics, sewing pattern pieces into prototype clothing, or any other aspects of tailoring or fashion design. More importantly, the choice of the word ‘Fabrication’ for the relevant credit erases any reference to feminized knowledge and skill, replacing it with a word denoting manufacturing and building, not tailoring or fashion design. An emphasis on descriptions of the thirteenth Doctor’s clothing in BCS promotional material does not differ significantly from that of her predecessors. Like John Nathan-Turner, BCS’s consistently meticulous descriptions of garments illustrate that distinctive costume elements mark a brand. As with the Denys Fisher toy, attire likewise marks a figure as a representation of a character, even if some fans do not see a facial resemblance. Since 1:6 scale figures remain a niche market, BCS announcements do not garner articles in the popular press like Mattel’s Barbie version. Lack of publicity means many fans might never know about this iteration. Furthermore, action figure fans question whether enough long-term Doctor Who fans or new (assumed female) fans will be ‘willing to shell out over $240 for a BCS figure … especially if they’re not already collectors like us who are used to these ridiculous prices’ and especially when Mattel and CO make ‘these other, pretty decent looking figures available for a lot cheaper’.12 In contrast to the expensive exclusive market for collectible 1:6 scale action figures, a fan object like Barbie has long-standing widespread appeal. Thus the release of Mattel’s Doctor Who Barbie doll gains extensive press coverage, with little or none for the version by BCS. Fan identities’ more mainstream status makes them more visible. However, some fan objects and fan practices are more visible than others. Criticism of Doctor Who Barbie dolls, as well as other companies’ avoiding the word ‘doll’ by using or inventing alternative terms such as ‘1:6 figure’ or ‘adventure doll’, illustrate how some fans try to protect their own fandoms by framing other fan objects as more feminized and thus more pathologized.

Conclusion: challenging gendered constructions of toys Doctor Who isn’t the only media franchise to offer both dolls and action figures. Mattel had similar offerings for the Wonder Woman film (2017).

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Hasbro’s ‘Forces of Destiny’ line combines aspects of both dolls and action figures for 11-inch toys of key female Star Wars characters: Princess Leia, Rey, Jyn Erso from Rogue One (2016), and Sabine Wren from Rebels (2014–18). Hasbro dubs these ‘Adventure Figures’, continuing its ­avoidance of the word ‘doll’. On the basis of ‘consumer data that shows 60% of online sales of superhero merchandise can be attributed to women, Mattel launched DC Super Hero Girls in 2015, … a female-skewing line that featured both “dolls” and “action figures”’ (Thompson, 2017: n.p.). These and similar toys reflect ‘a whole generation of gender-inclusive “nerd culture”’ that has recently ‘been calling out toy companies … on the relative dearth of figures of and for strong women’ (ibid.). The thirteenth Doctor toys discussed in this chapter do so too. Such toys promise the potential to redefine gender roles. However, they still tend to assume that girls play with dolls, not action figures. Franchises attempting to attract female viewers, or finally to acknowledge existing female fans, move away from relying on gendered norms, coining new terms to somewhat uneasily indicate inclusivity. The use of so many different terms to describe posable thirteenth Doctor toys challenges decades-long gendered constructions of action figures as different from dolls, just as the character who inspires them challenges notions of gender as fixed. A character who changes gender undermines attempts to gender that franchise’s toys. Similarly, by constantly changing her outfits and appearance, Barbie ‘suggests that roles are only as fixed as costumes’ (Rand, 1995: 2) and demonstrates an ability to adopt ‘any of a wide variety of identities’, such as model, astronaut, or veterinarian (Phillips, 2002: 130). Like Barbie, Action Man and G.I. Joe also assume and discard ‘identities through clothes’, and might even ‘express or disguise their apparent sex and gender by taking on the dress of one or the other sex’ (Bignell, 2003: 45, 46). Barbie can be a doctor, or the Doctor. Like Barbie, Action Man, and G.I. Joe, the thirteenth Doctor and toys modelled on her suggest that bodies and genders are only as fixed as costumes. Negative comments from fans and popular press articles reflect s­ocietal discomfort over such challenges to essentialist perceptions of gender as fixed, stable, and natural rather than constructed. For more than fifty years, the Doctor changed bodies, but each new body was still male and Caucasian. A female body ­undermines societal expectations about who gets to be the hero of the story, who gets to save the day, who rescues and who is rescued, and whose authority gains automatic acceptance. As the Doctor observes in ‘The  Witchfinders’, ‘If only I was still a bloke, I could just get on with the job without having to constantly defend myself’. The current textual confusion over whether to call thirteenth Doctor posable toys dolls or action figures, or whether



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some new term ‘needs’ to be invented for these toys highlights how both the ­thirteenth Doctor character and toy challenge contemporary gender norms.

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Notes  1 See www.youtube.com/watch?v=kUgRcqauwgU (accessed 19 June 2019).  2 See DVD Extra on Doctor Who: The Face of Evil (Story 89, 2012).  3 See www.facebook.com/BigChiefStudios/posts/10157530545281002 (accessed 16 January 2019).  4 See www.character-online.com/new-10in-thirteenth-doctor-figure; https://barb ie.mattel.com/shop/en-us/ba/pop-culture-movies/doctor-who-barbie-doll-fxc83 (accessed 16 January 2019).  5 See www.sideshowcollectors.com/forums/general-collectibles-action-figures/19 3042-chief-studios-1–6-doctor-13-jodie-whittaker-23.html (accessed 1 March 2019).  6 See https://barbie.mattel.com/shop/en-us/ba/pop-culture-movies/doctor-who-b​a​ r​b​ie-doll-fxc83 (accessed 16 January 2019).  7 See www.amazon.com/Doctor-Who-Thirteenth-Adventure-Doll/dp/B07FFQC NBB (accessed 15 January 2019).  8 See customer reviews at www.amazon.com/Doctor-Who-Thirteenth-AdventureDoll/dp/B07FFQCNBB (accessed 15 January 2019).  9 See www.bigchiefstudios.co.uk/launch-pad (accessed 4 March 2019). 10 See www.sideshowcollectors.com/forums/general-collectibles-action-figures/19 3042-chief-studios-1–6-doctor-13-jodie-whittaker-23.html (accessed 1 March 2019). 11 See www.facebook.com/BigChiefStudios/posts/10157530545281002; ‘Big chief studios 1/6 doctor who – #13 jodie whittaker’ at www.sideshowcollectors.com/ forums/general-collectibles-action-figures/193042-chief-studios-1–6-doctor13-jodie-whittaker-23.html (accessed 16 January 2019). 12 See www.sideshowcollectors.com/forums/general-collectibles-action-figures/19 3042-chief-studios-1–6-doctor-13-jodie-whittaker-23.html (accessed 1 March 2019).

References Bignell, J. (2003). ‘“Where Is Action Man’s Penis?”: Determinations of Gender and the Bodies of Toys’, in N. Segal, L. Taylor, and R. Cook (eds), Indeterminate Bodies. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 36–47. Bignell, J. (2005). ‘Space for Quality: Negotiating with the Daleks’, in J. Bignell and S. Lacey (eds), Popular Television Drama: Critical Perspectives. Manchester: Manchester University Press, pp. 76–92. Bignell, J. (2007). ‘The Child as Addressee, Viewer and Consumer in Mid-1960s

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Doctor Who’, in D. Butler (ed.), Time and Relative Dissertations in Space. Manchester: Manchester University Press, pp. 43–55. Brian (2011). ‘Die, Hideous Creature, … Die!: Why Is the Doctor Killing that Hideous Creature, Exactly?’, Die, hideous creature, … die! (6 January), http://die hideouscreaturedie.blogspot.com/2011/01/why-is-doctor-killing-that-hideous. html (accessed 17 February 2019). Busse, K. (2013). ‘Geek Hierarchies, Boundary Policing, and the Gendering of the Good Fan’, Participations: Journal of Audience & Reception Studies, 10 (1), pp. 73–91. Calvert, K. (1992). Children in the House: The Material Culture of Early Childhood, 1600–1900. Boston: Northeastern University Press. Cook, B. (2003). Doctor Who the New Audio Adventures: The Inside Story. Maidenhead: Big Finish. Cook, B. (2017). ‘He Never Gives In, and Never Gives Up … He is Never Cruel or Cowardly’, Doctor Who Magazine, 508, pp. 9–22. Eeken, S. and Hermes, J. (2019). ‘Doctor Who, Ma’am: YouTube Reactions to the 2017 Reveal of the New Doctor’, Television and New Media, DOI: https://doi. org/10.1177/1527476419893040. Formanek-Brunell, M. (1993). Made To Play House: Dolls and the Commericalization of American Girlhood, 1830–1930. New Haven: Yale University Press. Godwin, V. (2015). ‘G.I. Joe vs. Barbie: Anti-fandom, Fashion, Dolls, and OneSixth Scale Action Figures’, Journal of Fandom Studies, 3 (2), pp. 119–33. Gray, J. (2010). Show Sold Separately: Promos, Spoilers, and Other Media Paratexts. New York: New York University Press. Grutchfield, I. (2005). ‘Brand Aid!’, Doctor Who Magazine, 364, p. 39. Hall, K. J. (2004). ‘A Soldier’s Body: GI Joe, Hasbro’s Great American Hero, and the Symptoms of Empire’, The Journal of Popular Culture, 38 (1), pp. 34–54. Howe, D. J., M. Stammers, and S. J. Walker (1996). Doctor Who: The Eighties. London: Virgin Publishing. Jenkins, H. (1992). Textual Poachers: Television Fans and Participatory Culture. London: Routledge. Johnson, D. (2014). ‘Calling “Action” in the Goldieblox Franchise’, FLOW.TV (26 November), www.flowjournal.org/2014/11/calling-action-goldieblox-franchis (accessed 31 May 2019). Kimmel, M. (2000). The Gendered Society. New York: Oxford University Press. Lord, M. G. (1994). Forever Barbie: The Unauthorized Biography of a Real Doll. New York: Avon Books. Luca, A. (2010). ‘Ten Moments of Shocking Violence in Doctor Who – by the Doctor’, Probic Vent (24 March), http://probicvent.co.uk/2010/03/ten-momentsof-shocking-violence-in-doctor-who-by-the-doctor (accessed 18 February 2019). McGown, A. (2017). ‘Intrepid Explorers of the Galaxies!’, Doctor Who Magazine (Special Edition 46 – Toys & Games), pp. 28–33. Michlig, J. (1998). G.I. Joe: The Complete Story of America’s Favorite Fighting Man. San Francisco: Chronicle Books. Pass Notes (2018), ‘Doctor Who Barbie: Time-Travelling Back to the Sexist 1970s’, The Guardian (14 October), https://theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/short cuts/2018/oct/14/doctor-who-barbie-time-travelling-back-to-the-sexist-1970s (accessed 21 January 2019).

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Phillips, K. R. (2002). ‘Textual Strategies, Plastic Tactics: Reading Batman and Barbie’, Journal of Material Culture, 7 (2), pp. 123–36. Rand, E. (1995). Barbie’s Queer Accessories. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Ruddock, M. (2017), ‘Hail to the Chief’, Doctor Who Magazine (Special Edition 46 – Toys & Games), pp. 84–87. Santo, A. (2019). ‘Retail Tales and Tribulations: Transmedia Brands, Consumer Products, and the Significance of Shop Talk’, Journal of Cinema and Media Studies, 58 (2), pp. 115–41. Schneider, C. (1989). Children’s Television. Lincolnwoon: NTC Business Books. Scott, S. (2017). ‘#wheresrey?: Toys, Spoilers, and the Gender Politics of Franchise Paratexts’, Critical Studies in Media Communication, 34 (2), pp. 138–47. Thomas, J. B. (2003). Naked Barbies, Warrior Joes, and Other Forms of Visible Gender. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press. Thompson, L. Y. (2017). ‘With “Forces of Destiny”, Hasbro Makes its Biggest Push Yet Towards Female-Skewing Star Wars Toys’, Forbes (13 April), www.forbes. com/sites/lukethompson/2017/04/13/hasbro-forces-of-destiny-star-wars-rey-leiajyn-erso-sabine-celebration/amp/ (accessed 8 March 2019).

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Outside the box in the Chris Chibnall / Jodie Whittaker era: Doctor Who’s experience economy and tourism Paul Booth In the realm of fan studies, a discipline focusing on the strong emotional attachments viewers have to particular media texts, ‘fan tourism’ has traditionally focused on fan travel as pilgrimage; or, the way that fans journey to a location familiar from the diegesis of a media text (or the non-diegetic history of said text) to explore imaginatively the surrounding area (see Linden and Linden, 2016; Geraghty, 2018; Williams, 2018). One can be a ‘fan tourist’ of any location (e.g. fans of The Prisoner visit and stay at Portmeirion where the show was filmed; Harry Potter fan tourists visit Oxford to see locations from the film series; Dallas fans take trips to Southfork). In this sense, a Doctor Who tourist might embark on a pilgrimage to Cardiff, St Fagan’s National History Museum in Wales (Farringham in ‘Human Nature’ and ‘Family of Blood’), or Aldbourne (Devil’s End in ‘The Daemons’), and other places where Doctor Who has been filmed. Indeed, whole books of ‘fanfac’, fans’ factual accounts of their own fandom, have been published focusing on this type of fan tourism (see Airey and Haldeman, 1986; Bignell, 2001; Hills, 2014a). In this sort of tourism, fans ‘learn more about fan objects, immerse themselves in fictional worlds, and make connections with others who share their interests’ (Williams, 2018: 98). Thus, as Christina Lee (2012: 53) notes, the specific cultural-historical actuality of the site becomes transformed into ‘imaginary geographies’ where the physical becomes displaced by the diegetic. In this chapter, I argue that the current showrunner Chris Chibnall and the Doctor Who production team have ushered in fan tourism not of locations but of commodified fan experiences. Through four themed exhibitions and interactive events, the Doctor Who production team shows interested tourists what it means to be a (particular type of) Doctor Who fan, shaping a specific kind of fan-experiential tourism or commodified-fandom tourism. The paratextual mediation of Doctor Who through these experiences offers another way to become a tourist of Doctor Who – one predicated on, and mediated by, the role of knowledge in Doctor Who fandom. Fan studies views of tourism need to take into account not just the physical travel to

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a filming location or the ‘symbolic’ travel of a viewer to an imaginative landscape (Brooker, 2007) but rather how today’s experience economy inculcates tourism of particular fan practices. Matt Hills (2016:  247) has demonstrated how ‘(re)visiting an imaginary world in the form of a commercial set tour, walking tour, immersive theatrical play, or walkthrough experience can enable fans to have their feelings of enchantment ­authenticated’ – that is, the experience serves to accentuate their viewers’ fandom. But as Chibnall’s era of Doctor Who rewrites and revisits much of the history of the series, four branded experiences created for series 11 and 12 create discourses about fandom. Although these events are often called experiences (i.e. events that one experiences), what they ultimate demonstrate is the experience of being a fan. These events are all happening at a time when Chibnall has clamped down on the release of spoilers and ‘pre-textual’ interactions (Hills, 2015), significantly reduced the length of series (from 13 episodes to 10), and increased the time between series (over a year between series 11 and 12). There is far less information about Doctor Who from the production itself (or even from fans spoiling the series) and so there are fewer ways for newer fans to latch on to ongoing, contemporary fannish knowledge. Thus, these different experiences – all of these different ways to immerse oneself within the landscape of Doctor Who – function as authoritative denotations about what Doctor Who can be at a moment with less televisual Doctor Who. And they engender a view of Doctor Who not as meaning the programme per se but as a tourist experience, where visitors can step foot into, but never become part of, a specific world. Through the experience economy, a system in which people use money to purchase time involving specific sensations rather than for any particular good or service (Pine II and Gilmore 2011: 17), visitors to Chibnall’s Doctor Who become tourists of a created and heightened sense of an authentic text, thus ushering them into a more tightly controlled diegetic world. Each of the experiences examined in this chapter – Madame Tussauds’ Doctor Who exhibition in Blackpool, the Doctor Who themed escape room Worlds Collide, the virtual reality experience The Edge of Time, and the planned Doctor Who immersive theatre event Time Fracture – exists at the nexus of corporate branding and authorial control, and yet each also gives the appearance of individualized and potentially interactive participation. I certainly don’t want to intimate that only new viewers of Doctor Who are attending these four destinations (in fact, as I will discuss, it appears as though these experiences are more formally intended for returning Doctor Who audiences), but rather that each experience (re)presents an initial ‘crossing the threshold’ into fandom for returning audiences to the programme. In other words, each experience encourages audiences to ‘try

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on’ fandom of a new series, where so much has changed that the traditional fans may feel alienated and are (perhaps) at risk of ‘leaving’ the fandom. Although each experience is largely spatio-temporally based (meaning, they are fixed in locations or moments), information about these experiences can be found online by fans across the globe. So at a moment when Chibnall’s ban on spoilers prevents news from leaking out of the diegetic world of Doctor Who and when both new and old audiences are colliding, the BBC can offer experiences that simulate (if are not generative of) audience control over the fan experience. At the same time, these experiences reveal the authoritative BBC control across the paratextual universe and dictatorial insights about how they are conceptualizing fans.

Fandom and the Doctor Who Experience Experiences can be a rich sensorium of delights; an overwhelming immersion in a particular moment; a tour through a manufactured exhibition; a dalliance with the unexpected. B. Joseph Pine II and James Gilmore define them as ‘memorable events that a company stages … to engage [people] in an inherently personal way’ (2011: 3). They are at once immensely personal and intimately shared: no one can have the exact same reaction to an identical experience, as each moment of the experience is filtered through the lifeexperience of the individual. At the same time, these experiences are often immediate: they take place in a particular time and space and cannot – with some exceptions – be replicated. Much the same can be said of fandom. Although fan studies research has attempted to examine the multitudinous ways that fans can engage with a media text through active behaviours (e.g. writing fan fiction, designing cosplay, etc.), little research shows how individual fans have non-replicable emotional attachments to media texts that cannot be extrapolated to a particular fandom. Partly, this dearth of research exists because it is so hard to measure accurately this sort of fan engagement. Ask a fan how they may feel about a text and one will get a huge number of different answers, but, as Hills (2002) points out, how can we trust this sort of self-reported data? It’s not that fans lie, but rather, how can anyone even know themselves well enough to dig into some of these larger emotional responses? Hills (2014b: 10) examines two different narratives of ‘becoming-a-fan’ – a stereotypical transformative experience where individuals have a ‘conversion’, wherein fandom changes everything about person, and a (more common, he claims) transferable experience, where fandom is simply a ‘part of a routinised, habituated way of interacting with pop culture’. Transformative stories posit a singular moment where the fan’s fandom seemingly spontaneously

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emerges, an immaculate conception of emotional intensity. Transferable stories show that fandom develops over time, moves from text to text, and can be gradual rather than explosive. Both narratives rest on the temporal emergence of fandom as a mode of human experience; although they posit different ways of becoming a fan, they both also rest on fandom as a lived experience, shaped by both emotional response and memory. Research in the tourist industries, similarly, has shown that experiences that encourage tourism may engender stronger emotions and a greater sense of memory, exactly the types of resonances from which fandom can be  built. The site of fan tourism traditionally takes on an emotional resonance because of the pop culture connection, affecting the behaviour of the fan as well as the fans’ experiences of the location (Lee et al., 2017). The affective fan experience becomes a highly motivating factor for visiting a location; the tourist experience of the ‘cult geography’ (Hills, 2002: 155–56) becomes a way of seeing how the extraordinary gets layered on top of the ordinary. Tying this form of emotional or memorable tourism more directly to fandom, Lee et al. (2017: 2) articulate that the connection between pop culture and its audience can encourage greater attendance, attention, and economic impact on particular tourist sites. Tourism, like fandom, fosters emotional resonance through experiential engagement. If affective memory becomes a mode of identifying fandom and fan tourist experiences are generative of that particular emotional resonance, then it makes sense for BBC Worldwide to focus on ways to produce emotional moments that encourage a type of fan-like tourism. Ubiquitous branding is one of the most effective ways to garner affect towards products: both mediated and non-mediated brands can develop fans rather than customers through discursively constructing the types of engagement that viewers and users experience (see Fraade-Blanar and Glazer, 2017). According to Arvidsson, brands represent more than marketing: they are ‘an omnipresent tool by means of which identity, social relations and shared experiences … could be constructed … [and] spun into the social fabric as a ubiquitous medium for the construction of a common social world’ (2006: 3). In other words, brands shape social activity (Lury, 2004: 1). Like tourism, the process by which brands construct social discourse is different from merely turning an object into a commodity (e.g. selling Doctor Who figurines) – ‘this is about turning cultural experiences into organised, themed services (Banet-Weiser, 2012: 5), a key factor in tourist discourse’ (Booth, 2020: n.p.). Of course, there have been many Doctor Who exhibitions before it (see Gullidge, 2020), but the most obvious example of this type of fan-like participation is the recently closed Doctor Who Experience, a museum-cumadventure ‘tourist draw’ (Beattie, 2013: 177) in Cardiff. It is also the most

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recent forerunner to the Chibnall-focused experiences. The Experience, which ran in Cardiff from 2012 to 2017, housed three different areas, two of which were updated to coincide with what was happening on the show. The first was an interactive experience that guided the visitors through a themed episode-like narrative. The Doctor (first played by Matt Smith, and then by Peter Capaldi) appeared on screens to provide entertainment and also ‘placed the participants in the role of companion for the Doctor: we obeyed his instructions, followed his voice, and ultimately did what he commanded. We were treated, then, as followers rather than interactors with the Experience’ – as viewers of an ‘event’ (Booth, 2015: 113; see also Hills, 2016: 249). The second part of the Experience was a museum which housed exhibitions of material objects from the series, including original costumes from the Doctors and companions, prosthetics and masks, props like the sonic screwdriver and TARDIS keys, historical overviews of Daleks and Cybermen, and the TARDIS interiors belonging to the first, fourth, fifth, and the ninth/tenth Doctors. Although elements from all different Doctors and eras were represented in the museum section of the Experience, it most heavily concentrated on the newest series at the time, indicating a more presentist engagement with the show, emphasizing the Moffat-produced episodes of the show (Booth, 2015). The third area of the Experience was the gift shop. As Teresa Forde (2013) explores, even from the entrance of the Experience, visitors were turned from flâneurs into ‘shoppers’ (see also Geraghty, 2018): they were hailed as such by the Doctor during the interactive exhibition, engaged with material objects during the museum section and then completed the tour by entering a massive gift shop that literalized this identity. But what they are buying – what the BBC was ‘selling’ – wasn’t so much the t-shirts, posters, and mugs in the gift shop, but rather the experience of being a Doctor Who fan itself. Beattie shows that visitors enter the Experience three times: ‘first when they come into the building, second when they are ushered into the viewing room, and ultimately … “inhabiting the world” of new Who’ (2013: 177). For Hills, the Doctor Who Experience ‘disciplines “cult” fans by installing diegetic images of the programme’s “mainstream” popularity’ (2010: 217). Each exhibit emphasizes a different takeaway about what Doctor Who itself means. The Doctor Who Experience wasn’t so much about celebrating the programme as much as it was about offering a chance to tour through the fandom of Doctor Who – ‘albeit a specific, authorised one’ (Booth, 2015: 109). For the contemporary experiences I discuss in this chapter, a similar sort of manufactured exposure furnishes, for series 11 and 12, explicitly designed activities that encourage particular tourist-focused readings of the



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programme and its fandom. In other words, the four Doctor Who experiences discussed below invite the visitor into a tourist-like relationship with a specific experience of fandom, effectively both introducing Chibnall’s take on the programme to a new audience and reintroducing the new Doctor Who to a familiar audience.

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Doctor Who and the experience economy Pine II and Gilmore’s (2011: xiii) discussion of the experience economy highlights a number of ways that companies can refocus their attention away from the ‘production of goods’ and towards the ‘innovative methods’ of ‘mass customization’ of customer experiences. Their discussion allows us to demarcate the ways these contemporary Doctor Who experiences offer tourism of fandom, while also ‘materializing and dematerializing aspect of fan-cultural authenticity’ (Hills, 2016: 247). In their discussion, Pine and Gilmore II provide a reappraisal of ‘value’ in the contemporary marketplace, where the most valuable elements become the experiences that people have, rather than any individual good. They articulate four realms of experiences ‘differentiated by the level and form of customer involvement’, and which serve to delineate and categorize the type of experiences individuals might have (2011: 45). These realms are demarcated by two dimensions: how participatory experiences can be and how immersive experiences can be (see Figure 12.1). Of course, as Oh, Fiore, and Jeoung (2007) remind us, no particular experience will fall directly into one of these four categories, and classifying any experience fully into any direct type of immersion or participation runs the risk of removing any nuance with particular experiences – for example, the Cardiff Doctor Who Experience is at once an educational museum and an interactive experience. Pine II and Gilmore (2011: 56), in fact, note that ‘Companies can enhance the realness of any experience by blurring the boundaries between realms’. That being said, however, the four types of experiences that emerge from these dimensions roughly line up with the different ways people can interact with the Doctor Who themed experiences I discuss below. Framing this in tourist terms, Oh, Fiore, and Jeoung (2007: 122) use these dimensions to articulate what they call the ‘goodness of destination ­offerings’ – meaning both the values that tourists recognize in themselves and those that they particularly seek out in their choice of destination. The first dimension measures the level of participation: ‘At one end of the spectrum lies passive participation, in which customers do not directly affect or influence the performance … At the other end of the spectrum lies active participation, in which customers personally affect the performance or

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12.1  Experience realms, adapted from B. Joseph Pine II and James Gilmore

event that yields the experience’ (Pine II and Gilmore, 2011: 45). The other dimension is the kind of connection or relationship that binds customers to the experience: ‘At one end of this spectrum lies absorption – ­occupying a person’s attention by bringing the experience into the mind from a ­distance – and at the other end is immersion – becoming physically (or virtually) a part of the experience itself’ (Pine II and Gilmore, 2011: 45–46). Using Pine II and Gilmore’s terms, the intersection of these dimensions creates four categories of experiences: • ‘Entertainment’, where tourists enjoy ‘increasingly unusual experiences’ (Pine II and Gilmore, 2011: 47) that ‘catch and occupy customers’ attention and readiness’ (Oh, Fiore, and Jeoung, 2007: 121). Entertainment experiences most closely align in this reading with the Doctor Who Madame Tussauds exhibition that ran in Blackpool starting in 2018. • ‘Education’, where ‘the active participation of the individual … active[ly] engages[s] the mind’ (Pine II and Gilmore, 2011: 47–48) while also ‘absorb[ing] the events unfolding before [them] at a destination’ (Oh, Fiore, and Jeoung, 2007: 121). Education experiences most closely align in my assessment with the Worlds Collide escape room, from Escape Hunt, which started in 2019. • ‘Escapist’, which ‘involve much greater immersion than do entertainment or educational experiences’ (Pine II and Gilmore, 2011: 49), allow

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‘tourists participating in escapist experiences [to] not just embark from but also voyage to a specific place and participate in activities worthy of their time’ (Oh, Fiore, and Jeoung, 2007: 121, emphasis theirs). Escapist experiences most closely align with the discourse surrounding Doctor Who – Time Fracture, an immersive experience that was announced to run in London in 2020. • ‘Esthetic’, which ‘connect[s] individuals and the (immersive) reality they directly (albeit passively) experience’ (Pine II and Gilmore, 2011: 54), present environments to appreciate. ‘Tourists … passively appreciate, or are influenced by, the way the destination appeals to their senses … Many experiences just let them be there’ (Oh, Fiore, and Jeoung, 2007: 121, emphasis theirs). ‘Esthetic’ experiences most closely align in this chapter with the Doctor Who – The Edge of Time virtual reality experience, first released by Maze Theory in 2019. In the next sections I outline how each of these four experiences creates a ‘tourist impulse’, wherein the branding of the specific experience helps foster a ‘fan identity’ via BBC Worldwide’s inculcation of Doctor Who to the visitors.

Madame Tussauds exhibition As an experience, the Madame Tussauds Doctor Who exhibition in Blackpool uses ‘entertainment’ to present a type of fandom tourism of Doctor Who to visitors. It presents the thirteenth Doctor and her first series as the quintessential Doctor Who experience through erasure of Doctor Who’s history. In doing so, it refocuses attention for viewers on the introduction of key elements of Doctor Who to first-time viewers and highlights three iconic elements of the series for long-time fans. Both of these focuses allow those visitors to ‘tour’ through a fandom of the then-current series 11 of Doctor Who. In style, the Madame Tussauds exhibition most closely matches the Cardiff Doctor Who Experience’s museum. Visitors walk through a forest to search for the Doctor’s sonic screwdriver, at which point they see a wax sculpture of the thirteenth Doctor standing in front of a version of her TARDIS used in filming (Nolan, 2019). Turning the corner, they then see a number of blank-faced mannequins (presumably not Autons) dressed in costumes from Chibnall’s first series as showrunner. The exhibition offers little in the way of interactive materials, as visitors cannot interact with much – in fact, they are discouraged by signs near the costumes that read ‘do not touch’ (thus falling on the more passive end of Pine II and Gilmore’s

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experience chart). Additionally, rather than a fully immersive atmosphere, the exhibition encourages viewers to view the area as more considered – ­literally an exhibition rather than a performance. Visitors are encouraged to take photos with the waxworks and develop an appreciative stance for the show: it is billed as ‘the ultimate Doctor Who fan’s dream’ (see Madame Tussauds, 2018). As a tourist attraction, the Madame Tussauds Doctor Who exhibition presents a way of viewing the show as an introduction to Doctor Who fandom. It doesn’t particularly educate visitors about the production of the show, the diegetic (non)canon the show possesses, or any of the expansive history that the Cardiff Doctor Who Experience encompassed. There are no figures of previous Doctors, no figures of any companions, and no background on the show. Rather, it glances over the surface of the current Chibnall-produced run of the show. Yet, on the descriptive website for the exhibition, the manager of the Blackpool Madame Tussauds location notes that ‘the new area will be a must-visit destination for all Doctor Who fans, offering the chance to get up close and personal to all things Whovian’ (Madame Tussauds, 2018, emphasis mine). The then-current series of Doctor Who is presented not as a snippet of a much longer history, but rather as the entirety, a synecdoche for Doctor Who. The Madame Tussauds experience gives a sense of connection to the series through its aesthetic form (Whittaker’s likeness is extraordinary) and authenticity (the series 11 costumes and the TARDIS are the ones used during filming). First-time viewers of Doctor Who will not be challenged by seeing exhibits that references the show’s immense history, and are thus encouraged to view all of fandom as this particular incarnation. Longtime viewers who attend see the meticulous detail of the costumes and the screen-used TARDIS as evidence of the attention of the crew on the series. It becomes an experience generative of a fandom tourism itself.

Worlds Collide escape room The Doctor Who themed escape room Worlds Collide uses a form of active education to inculcate players of the game into a fan-like experience of Doctor Who. It offers players of the game a number of Doctor Who themed moments that reveal strong connections between the diegetic history of the series and the experience of the tourists. As I described in a 2020 article about branded escape rooms: Throughout the room, specific Doctor Who branding gives the escape room a particular essence of Doctor Who through both semantic elements



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(sonic screwdrivers, the voice of current Doctor Jodie Whittaker, the Fourth Doctor’s iconic scarf) as well as licensing thematic content. (Booth, 2020: n.p.)

The escape room gives players a chance to learn about Doctor Who through activity – finding a number of the Doctor’s objects and a Cyberman head links the experience to more than just series 11 and 12. That being said, Worlds Collide also begins with the thirteenth Doctor calling players on a mobile phone, and it is her series that dominates the discourse of the game. Escape rooms are immersive puzzle games where players are ‘locked’ in a room and use clues to solve puzzles in order complete a task and ‘escape’ the room. As puzzles, escape rooms fit into a larger framework of ludic activities, game-like experiences where players can interact and play with their environment. Adding a Doctor Who brand to this type of ludic activity engenders a type of ‘ludic fandom’, wherein both media texts and fan activities are gamified ‘to harness the productive potential of fandom and also to market fandom as a particularly relevant and profitable identity’ (Booth, 2017: 268). The specific Doctor Who references in Worlds Collide ‘can offer the veneer of immersion in a favoured media text for fans of that text, while also refocusing fan engagement on particularly authorized experiences (Booth, 2020: n.p.). In other words, the escape room presents an active experience for tourists to learn about Doctor Who, but what they learn is directed from the top-down: they will get an authored and authorized experience. To play the room means to follow the rules of the game – one is not allowed to venture outside the confines of a particular style of fandom. For Doctor Who novices, the room educates them about the extended history of the show, and for long-time fans, it presents hints that tie the current series to the show’s past. But in having to play the game correctly in order to solve the puzzles and ‘save the Doctor’, it also hooks into a larger framework that positions viewers into being particular types of fans. One of the consequences of this disciplining is ‘the “taming” of the fan into a consumerist role’ (Booth, 2020: n.p.). In experiencing this form of f­an-experiential tourism, they are presented only with a commodified fan identity.

Time Fracture – immersive experience The immersive theatre event  Time Fracture  was  scheduled to open in London in 2020, however the COVID-19 lockdown means it is uncertain if and when it will premiere (at the time of writing it has been provisionally scheduled to open in 2021). Although this makes it impossible to view the performance, exploring some of the online material surrounding the

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e­ xperience and drawing on previous research on immersive theatre provides a satisfactory, if cursory, look at how this event fits  into  the paratextual framing of fan-experiential tourism. Immersive theatre actively engages audiences through participation. Rather than experience a show on a stage where there exists a distance between the actors and the audience, immersive theatre erases the stage and puts the audience in the middle of the action. As Josephine Machon describes, immersive theatre moulds audiences ‘as co-authors of their experience’ (2013: 23). Often, physical locations are designed to be theatrical experiences, as actors walk in amongst the audience, often interacting directly with them, and audiences themselves can move from room to room to experience different elements of a play (Biggins, 2017). Immersive theatre is sensory and can offer new ways of viewing classic theatre (Kershaw, 1999). As an example of an escapist experience, branded immersive theatre offers unique challenges towards immersion: one is always reminded of the fiction via the (re)telling of the story but expected to experience it as if it were happening in the moment. For example, Secret Cinema’s production of participatory film screenings engages in fan tourist activities. During these events, audiences view a film in unique locations while also interacting with diegetic elements (via actors, staging, and props) based on the film’s narrative (see Kennedy, 2017: 178). In terms of branding specifically, Hills (2016: 259–60) likens immersive theatre to ‘a distinctive recombination of ordinary world, media world, commercial world, and fan world’ where audiences pass through one world to the next via ‘symbolic thresholds’ of video monitors, audience interaction, meta-diegetic commentary, and other strategically placed elements. This ‘n+1’ world, as he calls it, both authenticates and builds ‘fan-visitors’ affective relationship to the Whoniverse as an imaginary world’ (Hills, 2016: 261). As Emma Pett (2019: 168) describes, Secret Cinema’s iconographic use of Star Wars branding helped create authenticity for its immersive Empire Strikes Back event. A previous Doctor Who-branded immersive theatrical event, The Crash of the Elysium, focused on ‘pervasive game-playing’ (Machon, 2013:  4). Developed by the famous group Punchdrunk in 2011, Elysium featured interaction with the eleventh Doctor via a series of video messages. In addition, audience-­participants solved puzzles, as in an escape room, and were led by actors through the experiences, à la the themed guides of the Doctor Who Experience (Hills, 2016). Although currently very little exists in reference to Time Fracture, the group putting it on, Immersive Everywhere, has previously created The Great Gatsby, another immersive theatrical event. In The Great Gatsby, audience members attend a vast party at Jay Gatsby’s house and are

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plied with drinks while dancing. They are encouraged to come dressed in period costume and the actors mingle with them, improvising some scenes and articulating connections to an underlying plot based loosely on the Fitzgerald novel. This antecedent, combined with what little does exist about Time Fracture, hypothesizes what the adventure might be like. According to its web description, ‘a gateway open[s] beneath the streets of London, with time as we know it collapsing and the fate of the universe at stake’; in addition, a 30-second promotional video promises ‘you are our only hope. It’s time to be the hero’ (Immersive Everywhere, 2019). For fanexperiential tourist purposes, we can expect that Immersive Everywhere’s Doctor Who event will usher guests through a scattered narrative, engaging in a prescribed experience, using branded elements (the sonic, the TARDIS, a memorable monster) to introduce the story and a recording of the Doctor to cement the fan, tourist, participant, or audience’s engagement. At the same time, there will be more room for the commodified-fan tourists to play freely in the realm of the series. As an opening for Doctor Who fandom tourism, the immersive theatre event has the opportunity to promote an active, engaged audience as an escapist event, where they can see the ­expansive nature of the series.

Edge of Time – virtual reality Released in 2018, the Doctor Who virtual reality game Edge of Time provides what Pine II and Gilmore (2011: 53) call an ‘esthetic’ experience, where ‘individuals are immersed in an event or environment but have little or no effect on it’. As a virtual reality game, it is presented as though it were an episode of Doctor Who, placing the participant in the middle of the action. As such, it creates a type of passive fandom tourism of Doctor Who to players of the game who may be new to the series, or may be older fans returning to a newer world. Players wear headsets that replace the physical world with a digitally created, navigable environment. In doing so, it creates perhaps the most immersion of all of these paratextual experiences, given that players feel as though they are literally inside an episode of Doctor Who. Jodie Whittaker’s dialogue speaks directly to the player and all the action is centred on the player as they navigate the worlds. Different levels present different environments: In one, players investigate a crashed spaceship on an alien planet; in another, players are menaced by Weeping Angels; in a third, players drive an empty Dalek down paths, shooting active Daleks in their way. The immersion is all-encompassing. The Weeping Angels in particular are harrowing. In addition, it has the strongest narrative of all four of these experiences: an ancient being who

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helped create the universe at the start of time has returned to destroy her creation, and the Doctor has left her TARDIS or sonic for you to use to aid her in negotiating with the being. The game instructs players into how to experience Doctor Who. First, players have to find the Doctor’s sonic screwdriver. The sonic becomes the players’ interactionable item: they use it to open doors, unlock boxes, move mirrors, and rotate objects (among many other things). And while a good portion of the game involves the manipulation of objects, very little in the structure of the game actually changes anything (see Murray, 2012). Like the escape room game, players cannot change the game state, they must play by the rules. But unlike the escape room there are whole swaths of the game that are additionally untouchable: some doors do not open, some areas remain unexplored, and almost no alien can be interacted with. And even with some manipulation of objects, there is little more for players to do in the game than simply watch or be instructed about what relatively simple task to do (e.g. manipulate a box to open to grab a flashlight). As such, the game brings players deeper into the world of Doctor Who while also holding them at arm’s length. As in the Madame Tussauds exhibition, they are brought into the narrative of the show but not allowed to touch once they get there. They are tourists of the show, taught to be fans of a series that has radically changed over time. They become immersed but never participatory in their own fandom. Importantly, Edge of Time is played solo – no companions join you on the journey and even the Doctor abandons you half-way through (another character voices instructions to you for the majority of later levels). You are alone, but you are in Doctor Who: a space BBC Worldwide cultivates for the fan.

Conclusion: discursive constructions of fandom as tourism What these four different paratextual experiences of Doctor Who reflect is the tight control of branding over the Doctor Who fan experience itself. Each one of them, from the most immersive VR environment to the most interactive playfulness of the escape room, brings in different elements from Chibnall’s view of Doctor Who to help usher viewers through the process of being a fan of his series. In the view of these experiences, this fan experience is about appreciating the aesthetics of a series, understanding key commodities within the franchise, and guided, authorized exploration of the history of the series. As the earlier Cardiff Doctor Who Experience, as well as the four experiences described in this chapter, reveal, the experience economy has become increasingly central to how BBC Worldwide highlights and brands Doctor

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Who. Since the closure of the Cardiff Experience, the Chibnall era of Doctor Who has expanded the notion of conventional fan tourism, turning it from a feeling of ‘visiting a diegetic world’ to one where visitors instead interact with the feelings of fandom generated by the programme. Whilst doing so opens up the scope of tourist experiences, it also further packages and commodifies fandom itself, making this a specific kind of fan-­experiential tourism, or commodified-fandom tourism. It should be no surprise that fully licensed and branded products discipline fans into being more pliant consumers (see Stanfill, 2019). Branding is all about bringing diverse groups of people together under one banner. But the immersive and participatory nature of these experiences augments our understanding of branding by imbricating a tourist discourse upon and within the fan discourse as well. Tourists are not necessarily passive (Linden and Linden, 2016: 109), as they can interact and engage with the landscapes and environments they inhabit. But as viewers are discursively constructed as tourists, they are put in a receptive role by the organizers of the ­environments to which they sojourn. Tourists tour, they do not alter. During Chris Chibnall’s tenure as Doctor Who showrunner, a number of new practices have caused more information about the series to be hidden from viewers – when the show is airing, any spoilers from the filming, even episode titles. Given this slow meting out of information from the production side, one way to create a stronger fan audience is to offer new experiences that augment what little has been released. These four immersive experiences offer a space for a fandom to grow and develop – albeit a demarcated and contained space that shapes the type of growth desired. We may have the opportunity to experience Doctor Who in many new ways, but whose Doctor Who is it?

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Booth, P. (2017). ‘Playing by the Rules: Storium, Star Wars, and Ludic Fandom’, Journal of Fandom Studies, 5 (3), pp. 267–84. Booth, P. (2020). ‘Between Fan and Player: Branded Escape Rooms as Authorised Media Texts’, Popular Communication. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/1440570 2.2020.1772972. Brooker, W. (2007). ‘A Sort of Homecoming: Fan Viewing and Symbolic Pilgrimage’, in J. Gray, C. Sandvoss, and C. L. Harrington (eds), Fandom: Identities and Communities in a Mediated World. New York: New York University Press, pp. 149–64. Forde, T. (2013). ‘“You Anorak”: The Doctor Who Experience and Experiencing Doctor Who’, in P. Booth (ed.), Fan phenomena: Doctor Who. Bristol: Intellect, pp. 62–70. Fraade-Blanar, Z. and A. Glazer (2017). Superfandom: How Our Obsessions Are Changing What We Buy and Who We Are. New York: Norton. Garner, R. (2016). ‘Symbolic and Cued Immersion: Paratextual Framing Strategies on the Doctor Who Experience Walking Tour’, Popular Communication, 14 (2), pp. 86–98. Geraghty, L. (2018). ‘Passing Through: Popular Media Tourism, Pilgrimage, and  Narratives of Being a Fan’, in C. Lundberg and V. Ziakas (eds), The Routledge Handbook of Popular Culture and Tourism. New York: Routledge, pp. 203–13. Gullidge, B. (2020). Doctor Who Exhibitions: The Unofficial and Unauthorised History. Canterbury: Telos Publishing. Hills, M. (2002). Fan Cultures. New York: Routledge. Hills, M. (2010). Triumph of a Time Lord: Regenerating Doctor Who in the Twenty-First Century. London: I. B. Tauris. Hills, M. (2014a). ‘Doctor Who’s Textual Commemorators: Fandom, Collective Memory and the Self-Commodification of Fanfac’, Journal of Fandom Studies, 2 (1), pp. 31–51. Hills, M. (2014b). ‘Returning to “Becoming-a-fan” Stories: Theorising Transformational Objects and the Emergence/Extension of Fandom’, in L. Duits, K. Zwaan, and S. Reijnders (eds), The Ashgate Research Companion to Fan Cultures. Farnham: Ashgate, pp. 9–23. Hills, M. (2015). ‘Location, Location, Location: Citizen-Fan Journalists’ “Set Reporting” and Info-War in the Digital Age’, in L. Geraghty (ed.), Popular Media Cultures: Fans, Audiences and Paratexts. Houndmills: Palgrave, pp. 164–85. Hills, M. (2016). ‘The Enchantment of Visiting Imaginary Worlds and “Being There”: Brand Fandom and the Tertiary World of Media Tourism’, in M. J. P. Wolf (ed.), Revisiting Imaginary Worlds: A Subcreation Studies Anthology. New York: Routledge, pp. 246–65. Immersive Everywhere (2019). ‘Doctor Who Time Fracture: An Immersive Event’, Immersive Doctor Who, www.immersivedoctorwho.com/ (accessed 24 March 2020). Kennedy, H. W. (2017). ‘Funfear Attractions: The Playful Affects of Carefully Managed Terror in Immersive 28 Days Later Experiences’, in H. W. Kennedy and S. Atkinson (eds), Live Cinema: Cultures, Economics, Aesthetics. London: Bloomsbury, pp. 167–84. Kershaw, B. (1999). The Radical in Performance: Between Brecht and Baudrillard. London: Routledge.

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Lee, C. (2012). ‘“Have Magic, Will Travel”: Tourism and Harry Potter’s United (Magical) Kingdom’, Tourist Studies, 12 (1), pp. 52–69. Lee, S., H. Song, C. K. Lee, and J. F. Petrick (2017). ‘An Integrated Model of Pop Culture Fans’ Travel Decision-Making Processes’, Journal of Travel Research, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0047287517708619. Linden, H. and S. Linden (2016). Fans and Fan Cultures. London: Palgrave. Lury, C. (2004). Brands: The Logos of the Global Economy. London: Routledge. Machon, J. (2013). Immersive Theatres: Intimacy and Immediacy in Contemporary Performance. Houndmills: Palgrave. Madame Tussauds, 2018. ‘Just What the Doctor Ordered’, Madame Tussauds Blackpool (17 October), www.madametussauds.com/blackpool/en/latest-news/ new-figures/just-what-the-doctor-ordered/ (accessed 24 March 2020). Murray, J. (2012). Inventing the Medium: Principles of Interaction Design as a Cultural Practice. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Nolan, P. (2019). ‘Madame Tussauds Adds Host of Series 11 Costumes to Blackpool Exhibit’, Blogtor Who (12 April), www.blogtorwho.com/madametussauds-adds-host-of-series-11-costumes-to-blackpool-exhibit/ (accessed 24 March 2020). Oh, H., A. M. Fiore, and M. Jeoung (2007). ‘Measuring Experience Economy Concepts: Tourism Applications’, Journal of Travel Research, 46, pp. 119–32. Pett, E. (2019), ‘“Real Life Is Rubbish”: The Subcultural Branding and Inhabitable Appeal of Secret Cinema’s The Empire Strikes Back’, in W. Proctor and R. McCullough (eds), Disney’s Star Wars: Forces of Production and Reception. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, pp. 166–78. Pine II, B. J. and J. H. Gilmore (2011). The Experience Economy. Updated ed. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Stanfill, M. (2019). Exploiting Fandom: How the Media Industry Seeks to Manipulate Fans. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press. Williams, R. (2018). ‘Fan Tourism and Pilgrimage’, in M. Click and S. Scott (eds), The Routledge Companion to Media Fandom. New York: Routledge, pp. 98–106.

13 The thirteenth Doctor during UK lockdown: paratexts of hope and care Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to distribute or copy this document

Matt Hills

In ‘Periodising Doctor Who’, Paul Booth cautions against treating the show’s division into eras as ‘the lens through which all Doctor Who is interpreted’, since this ‘reductively facilitates … reading[s] … based on … [a] totalising principle’ (2014: 205). The danger of splitting Who into eras is that this forces fan debate into limited parameters. But under certain circumstances we might be less suspicious of Doctor Who ‘eras’. For example, the emergence of COVID-19 occasioned such a profound disruption in global cultural, social, and economic life that the announcement of a UK lockdown on 23 March 2020 marked a clear ‘before’ and ‘after’. It seems unsurprising that this radical shift would take on its own demarcation for Who fans – ‘Doctor Who lockdown’, or what was playfully termed the ‘Emily Cook era’ (@bowtieanimation, 4 April 2020), named after Doctor Who Magazine’s editorial assistant who had begun to organize tweetalongs to bring fans together at this time of considerable anxiety. So, despite scholarly caution around the branded periodization of Doctor Who (Hills, 2010: 26; Booth and Jones, 2020: 99), I’m going to analyse the Emily Cook era alongside official BBC Doctor Who responses to the UK’s COVID-19 lockdown. This official response involved making ‘public information films for the BBC’ (Chibnall, 2020b: 6), alongside the wider writing team creating new short stories, released online, which aimed to reassure Who fans of all ages. By contrast, the ‘Emily Cook era’ was not bound into BBC authorization, and yet was still able, due to Cook’s fan social capital (knowing the right people), to unite previous showrunners under the ‘lockdown Who’ banner. It also temporarily reduced the social distance between fans and showrunners, who returned to Twitter (Steven Moffat), or used it for the first time (Russell T Davies). Despite its unofficial status, the ‘Emily Cook era’ also featured the thirteenth Doctor in a sequel to Paul Cornell’s ‘Human Nature’ / ‘The Family of Blood’ (2007), in a multi-Doctor story by James Goss, and as a subtextual implication in Steven Moffat’s coda to the Capaldi era.

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Although my focus is on the thirteenth Doctor’s appearances in lockdown fiction, extras, and shortform videos, ‘lockdown Who’ formed just one part of a broader turn to the livetweeting of beloved TV shows. Torchwood became the focus of tweetalongs, publicized by John Barrowman, whilst Life on Mars, Robin of Sherwood, and Blakes 7 received similar treatment from producers or fans. ‘Spyfall’ was livetweeted via BBC America’s Twitter account, though contractual issues seemingly prevented Emily Cook from focusing on Jodie Whittaker’s episodes. As well as Twitter, other platforms were utilized: Fantom hosted innovative ‘virtual conventions’ on YouTube under the ‘Time-Space Visualiser’ moniker, whilst the Doctor Who Appreciation Society made footage from convention panels available to fans as a series of ‘CONtact has been made’ videos. My analysis of the thirteenth Doctor during lockdown therefore needs to be understood as part of a wider, possibly temporary, shift in cultural participation: ‘The habits of everyday life … often fail to serve in an emergency. But in the absence of our ordinary habits, a special repertoire of alternative habits may suddenly come forward’ (Scarry, 2011: 15). Two elements of media theory unify this chapter. One is work on paratexts; these are the bits of publicity, promotion, or ancillary material which circulate around a TV text, aiming to focus audiences’ readings (Gray, 2010). I have drawn on this theoretical approach in previous analyses of the eleventh Doctor era (Hills, 2014a), and the twelfth Doctor’s tenure (Hills, 2019). In this third instalment, I will focus on what characterized Doctor Who lockdown, namely that what would usually have been paratextual additions to a main TV text – online short stories; uploaded shortform videos – instead became the central texts that fandom (at least on social media) appeared to become focused on, enacting ‘paratextual superiority’ (Gray, 2010: 45). Jonathan Gray has observed that for transmedia ‘texts that destabilize any one media platform as central, each platform serves as a paratext for the others’ (2010: 42). However, although Elizabeth Evans has argued that Doctor Who’s contemporary transmedia or franchise presence makes it difficult to define as a ‘TV programme’ which fans interact with via ‘television engagement’ (2020: 22–23), I would argue that TV episodes continue to constitute a ‘textual centre of gravity’ (Hills, 2015a: 40). As a result, Who released on other platforms (officially or unofficially) remains somewhat paratextual, playing a supportive role rather than reshaping Doctor Who as a text that destabilizes any central media platform. Consequently, with no new Doctor Who TV episodes broadcast during UK lockdown, it was paratextual Who on other platforms which became ­textually central for a time. Alongside paratextual theory, I will draw on Roger Silverstone’s (1994) work on TV and ‘ontological security’. Silverstone argues that TV, through

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its routines and schedules, helps to reinforce a sense of ‘basic trust’ in the ongoingness of the world (1993: 578). When we maintain a sense of ontological security, we are able to trust in the constancy and continuity of the world around us, and our self-identity in that world. Fandom can offer one route to sustaining ontological security, both through the affiliation of being part of a fan community but also through the energy that fans invest in their favoured fictional universes. Amassing knowledge about the Whoniverse means that storyworld continuity (however much in need of retconning) can sustain fans’ ‘basic trust’ in the franchise (Hills, 2002: 104). Significant threats to routine, and the world’s ordering (or media ordering) constitute threats to ontological security, and media or fan studies has explored a number of these, including the casting of Jodie Whittaker as the Doctor, which for some fans matters because it (de)stabilizes identity and community. Until now, the recurrent character of the Doctor has offered structure and the promise of ­continuity – what … Silverstone (1994, 5–8) … terms ‘ontological security’. Changing the Doctor’s gender exposed the fragility of [this] social order. (Eeken and Hermes, 2019: 12)

If recasting or radically breaking with established continuity can undermine fannish ontological security, then fan studies has addressed other threats such as the ending or cancellation of beloved TV shows (Williams, 2015), and the regendering of franchises other than Doctor Who (Proctor, 2017). Of course, TV was theorized as a source of ontological security before Web 2.0’s rise, and more recent work has analysed web search (Sanz and Stancík, 2014) and social media use (Areni, 2019) as sources of ontological security. However, threats to some fans’ sense of ontological security – franchise regendering or series’ cancellations – are relatively minor impingements in comparison to the routine-shattering restrictions of lockdown, and the threats to mortality as well as forms of cultural or scientific uncertainty (Horton, 2020: 110–11) that are represented by COVID-19. As Charles Areni has argued (2019: 76), ontological security can be challenged in two ways: firstly, there are threats to a past self. These involve accepting ‘the loss of a cherished … thing’ and finding a way to move on. This type of loss has been theorized in fan studies, where memories of a ‘cherished’ fan object are undermined by changes in, or the loss of, that object. But Areni highlights a second threat to ontological security that has not been considered in media or fan studies: ‘A threat to the future self, such as an event that makes mortality particularly salient, leads people to maximise happiness in the present moment …, or reflect on their personal pasts as a source of psychological comfort’ (ibid.).

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This is the distinctive threat to ontological security represented by COVID-19; it combines the first sense of loss – lost freedoms, everyday routines, and social interactions – with the second sense of radical uncertainties surrounding mortality, as ‘people are restricted in their movements, fearful of the health of themselves, family and friends, and facing uncertain futures’ (Hermes and Hill, 2020: 2). Against such a backdrop of exceptional challenges to ontological security, I will consider how the unusual paratextsturned-texts of Doctor Who lockdown sought to restore some sense of hopefulness, suggesting that fans could attain resilient ontological security by holding on to Doctor Who itself.

‘Hope would always win’: The thirteenth Doctor mirroring The Doctor Who production team responded rapidly to the announcement of UK lockdown on 23 March, and within a few days a short story written by showrunner-fan Chris Chibnall had been posted to official Who websites (Chibnall, 2020a). ‘Things She Thought While Falling’ recounted the thirteenth Doctor’s interior monologue between the concluding events of ‘Twice Upon a Time’, as she was ejected from the TARDIS, and her entrance in ‘The Woman Who Fell to Earth’, crashing on to a train. Linked to the fanfiction subgenre of ‘recontextualization’ that involves supplementing TV shows through ‘short vignettes’ that ‘fill in … gaps in the broadcast material’ (Jenkins, 1992: 165), the showrunner-fan’s c­ontribution was ­prefaced by an introduction: With people staying home, and families stuck together, I thought maybe a few little presents from Doctor Who might help. Something to read, together or alone. New treats, from the people who make Doctor Who. We’ll try and post things here once or twice a week. Tomorrow, we’ll have a never-beforepublished piece written by Russell T Davies …   Stay safe.   Chris x (Chibnall, 2020a)

Positioned as ‘little presents’, these stories were distanced from any commercial relationship and directly (pre-)figured as gifts from the show’s official producer-fans to its consumer-fans. Such a move renders these paratexts part of a public service ethos for ‘strange times’ (Chibnall 2020a) rather than discursively framing them as a matter of commodified brand management, even whilst they simultaneously insert the Doctor Who brand into consumers’ experiences of lockdown life. Thought of as gifts, these BBC short stories (Chibnall, 2020a; Davies, 2020a; McTighe, 2020; Moffat, 2020a; Cornell, 2020a; Wilkinson, 2020) were marked as ‘public

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things’ (Honig, 2017: 4) which fans could ‘constellate around’ (Honig, 2017: 5). There was clearly also a routine promised from the beginning – to ‘try and post things here once or twice a week’. Though not quite offering the ontological security of a fixed TV schedule, perhaps, there was ­nonetheless a sense that these ‘little presents’ would be ongoing, and that fans could look forward to them at regular intervals. By attempting to establish a lockdown routine whilst looking ahead to the next instalment then the ‘basic trust’ in an ongoing world of routine, so central to maintaining ontological security, could be cultivated. The same routine-promoting pattern was shared by Emily Cook’s tweetalongs, which typically billed each following event shortly after fans had united around a specific episode on Twitter, and by events-organizer Fantom’s ‘Time-Space-Visualiser’ series of virtual conventions. With the exception of Russell T Davies’s (2020a) ‘Doctor Who and the Time War’, all the published BBC short stories focused on the current TV team of the thirteenth Doctor, Yaz, Ryan, and Graham, and even Davies introduced his text by referring to the events of series 12’s finale, ‘The Timeless Children’: Chris Chibnall emailed me, saying we need the Doctor more than ever these days, and could I think of any material?   … This chapter only died because it became, continuity-wise, incorrect. But now, the Thirteenth Doctor has shown us Doctors galore, with infinite possibilities.   All Doctors exist.   All stories are true. (Davies, 2020a)

All these short pieces serve a ‘subordinate function. They refer to, point to, address in some way a “work” that provides their reason for existing’ (Barker, 2017: 241), with that work being the current TV incarnation of Doctor Who. And as well as paratextually ‘point[ing] towards the work they are attached to’ these short stories also ‘suggest … a mode of participation in it’ (Barker, 2017: 242), as I’ll show. Media studies has long theorized the ‘polysemy’ of texts, that is, the ‘many meanings’ that can be made through different readings. The best application of this to Doctor Who is probably Alan McKee’s ‘Is Doctor Who Political?’ (2004), which shows how broadly right-wing and left-wing interpretations of the show are made by various fans. Fan studies, however, has moved beyond assessing polysemy to posit that fan texts can be treated as ‘neutrosemic’ by their fans. Here, ‘in the practice of fan consumption, texts are emptied of meaning and take on a mirror-like function’ for their fan readers (Sandvoss, 2005: 127). By this, Cornel Sandvoss means that fans manipulate what they count as textual boundaries (excluding some

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paratexts or even particular versions of a text) and read highly selectively to produce a version of their fan object which corresponds to and, crucially, mirrors their self-identity. For instance, misogynistic fans would potentially discount the Whittaker era as ‘not real Doctor Who’ in order to preserve a thoroughly patriarchal version of the programme (as has arguably happened with #NotMyDoctor social media agitators and right-wing YouTubers; see Phillips, 2020: 222–23). However, neutrosemy involves fans reshaping texts to render them mirror-like for different subjectivities. In the case of the BBC lockdown short stories, a variant kind of neutrosemy was arguably encoded in the texts. Here, designed neutrosemy sought to deliberately mirror lockdown experiences that were projected on to audiences, using the figure of the thirteenth Doctor as a vehicle for these mirroring projections. So we encounter a version of the Doctor who rewatches her own adventures in Pete McTighe’s ‘Press Play’ so as not to feel lonely, with these recordings having been instigated by her companion and granddaughter Susan (from the 1960s era of the first Doctor): ‘she was happily distracted with the gift that Susan had left behind; an endless supply of stories; a comfort blanket of fond memories and old friends. And a reminder. That she was never, ever alone’ (McTighe, 2020). Comforting herself by choosing an old adventure to watch, the thirteenth Doctor connotes and mirrors imagined fans in the audience, suggesting that they too can ‘press play’ to be comforted by texts and memories of Doctor Who’s storyworld. The mirroring of Doctor and fandom is highlighted by the fact that, just as some early Doctor Who episodes are missing from the BBC, McTighe has Susan’s hologram amusingly tell the Doctor, ‘Some of the early ones might have gaps, sorry about that’ (McTighe, 2020). Steven Moffat’s (2020a) ‘Terror of the Umpty Ums’ finds a different way for the thirteenth Doctor to mirror the imagined audience. Focusing on a ‘DeathBorg 400’ cyborg killer, Karpagnon, that appears to be disguised as the hologram of an anxious young child, David, Moffat’s short story is primed to offer the ontological shock of a world-altering twist. And though the reader anticipates that David will prove to be real, with the ‘DeathBorg’ becoming an imaginary comfort, this reversal provides an element of misdirection, covering for the story’s extremely ‘meta’ twist, that this Doctor is aware of herself as TV drama: [David Karpagnon:] ‘You’re a character … in a TV show.’ [The Doctor:] ‘Yes, that’s right, I am. But really, I’d like to direct.’   David stood in silence. He barely felt the cold now.   ‘Do you like the music by the way? Always scares me. Umpty-um umptyum, umpty-um umpty-um.’   ‘I don’t understand …’

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  ‘Well it’s a scary noise, isn’t it? I always get wound up when I know I’m about to hear it. That’s why I start shouting towards the end of episodes.’ (Moffat, 2020a)

The Doctor suggests that the ‘woo-hoo’ of the show’s theme tune after the ‘umpty ums’ represents her ‘riding to the rescue’ (Moffat, 2020a). The story ends with David admitting to his anxieties, only for the Doctor-ascomforting-story to respond, ‘Woo-hoo’ (Moffat, 2020a). Akin to ‘Press Play’, ‘Terror of the Umpty Ums’ narrates Doctor Who itself as a comfort blanket or as ‘riding to the rescue’ as a source of ontological security for fans, but, in a further mirroring, the Doctor admits to her own fear – of the Umpty Ums, and of the episode ending. As long as she’s in a story (about herself) she feels safe. Moffat’s meta-fiction implies that it’s OK for younger viewers – or fans of all ages – to admit that they are scared by the COVID19 pandemic, but that Who can still offer some respite. Paul Cornell’s ‘The Shadow Passes’ (2020a) has the Doctor and friends subjected to a three-week stay in underground shelters on the planet Calapia, while a ‘Death Moon’ moves past. The science-fictional coding of a parallel for lockdown is self-evident, and the thirteenth Doctor once more provides readers with a model for coping with these trials. Cornell depicts her treating connotative lockdown as ‘a task. I’m good at tasks’ (2020a), at the same time as reflecting on her memories and past actions: [‘]I sometimes think that’s why I change personality instead of just making my body younger. I need to switch myself off and on again so I can handle all the memories, so a lot of it feels like it happened to someone else. I get a different perspective on what I’ve done. I’ve been thinking a lot about that lately. There’s this girl in a mirror. Where I put her. That doesn’t suit who I am now. When we get out of here … Oh, this is getting deep and meaningful.’ (Cornell, 2020a)

Just as Charles Areni suggests that threats to one’s future self – i.e. the sudden salience of mortality amid a pandemic – can result in people seeking ontological security by reflecting ‘on their personal pasts’ (2019: 76), Paul Cornell’s lockdown Doctor reconsiders her past and achieves a whole ‘different perspective’ while restricted to the Calapian shelter. Joy Wilkinson’s ‘The Simple Things’ was the final official lockdown short story, uploaded on 22 April, although doctorwho.tv introduced ‘Staying in the TARDIS’ the following week as a source of Doctor Who activities for children during lockdown. And though the thirteenth Doctor was explicitly presented as a pedagogue in video content made to promote the UK government’s social distancing guidelines and reassure audiences (Chibnall, 2020b), she operated as an implicit pedagogue in the BBC’s short story paratexts. ‘The Simple Things’ was no different, representing the Doctor



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as appreciating life’s small pleasures whilst educating a female Draconian about the rules and skills of football:

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The Doctor smiled. She doubted a quick kickabout could ever lead to saving the Earth, but sometimes the simplest things were the greatest things – like her favourite race, and like those beautiful, perfect spheres, on the pitch and spinning in all the solar systems. And if she’d learned one thing about the future, and the past, and the present, it was that she never really knew what would happen next. Which was why hope would always win. (Wilkinson, 2020)

This is the final sentence of the BBC’s paratextual ‘little presents’, and it perfectly captures their thematic strategy. Utilizing the thirteenth Doctor as a vehicle for fan reassurance, in effect she watches old Doctor Who as a kind of ‘comfort blanket’, analyses Doctor Who itself as a rescue from anxiety or terror, positively experiences a version of lockdown, and maintains an ultimately hopeful demeanour. Aiming to tutor fans in the maintenance of resilient ontological security, these stories all reread Doctor Who as a source of hope, offering what I have called sperosemic interpretations (Hills, 2015b), from the Latin ‘spero’ for ‘to hope’. The screenwriter Jimmy McGovern attacked BBC Wales’s Doctor Who in 2010 for its lack of social relevance: McGovern … criticized … broadcasters’ preference for ‘drama that doesn’t matter’ – he mentioned in particular the revival of Doctor Who … – and asserted the need for urgent contemporary subject matter: ‘The only way to tell stories on TV is to convince people that what they are seeing is actually happening now and is real … I just can’t handle the tongue-in-cheek approach, the kind of thing you see on Dr Who.’ (Chapman, 2020: 2)

Yet there is nothing ‘tongue-in-cheek’ about the lockdown Doctor Who short stories. Contra McGovern, these are examples of drama that does matter; they use the thirteenth Doctor as a sincere proxy for imagined audiences’ struggles with lockdown, reflecting on ‘urgent contemporary subject matter’. The Doctor containing her own fear – she’s safe as long as she’s in an episode of Doctor Who (Moffat, 2020a) – or appreciating the ‘simplest things’ in life that underpin hopefulness (Wilkinson, 2020), or watching back through her own adventures as a source of comfort (McTighe, 2020), or treating a connotative version of lockdown as a ‘task’ to be carried out and a chance for positive self-reflection (Cornell, 2020a): none of these is merely escapist fantasy. All are designed to speak back reassuringly to their cultural context, offering emotional realism (Hills, 2010: 100) during the COVID-19 pandemic, but also proffering versions of coded lockdown realism which convert neutrosemic mirroring (of the audience) into

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s­ perosemic rereadings of Doctor Who as a source of inspiring, comforting, and reassuring hope. Despite the lack of new, broadcast Who episodes during lockdown, Jodie Whittaker appeared as herself in the Comic Relief / Children in Need / BBC The Big Night In charity event (23 April 2020), beginning and concluding a message of thanks to frontline NHS and care workers from many actors who have played the Doctor (Tom Baker, Peter Davison, Colin Baker, Sylvester McCoy, Paul McGann, David Tennant, Matt Smith, Peter Capaldi, and Jo Martin took part). With lines and repetitions (‘the Doctor’  … ‘together’ … ‘thank you’) allocated to and across different performers in the edit, it is striking not just that Whittaker, as the current incumbent, tops and tails the sequence but also that she voices a section thanking ‘care homes and hospices’, linking her Doctor directly to notions of care (something that I will consider further below). At the same time, Jo Martin’s involvement cements her place as part of the paradigmatic class of current and former Doctors. Whittaker also appeared in character as the Doctor in a couple of BBC public service films – providing information on 8 April on social ­distancing1  and prior to that, on 25 March, performing an ‘emergency transmission’ scripted by Chris Chibnall (Chibnall 2020b).2 This public service message traded on the heroic character of the Doctor, not just to inform, educate, and entertain viewers but also to offer comfort and hope at a moment of emergency. Its explicit message of hopefulness was deftly on-brand – not only did the Doctor’s archetypal eccentricity shine through but the concept of ‘fam’ was expansively opened out to include everyone: ‘in the end, we’re all family’. At the same time, Chibnall’s Enlightenment emphasis on the value of science (e.g. the Doctor’s paean to engineering in ‘The Tsuranga Conundrum’) was restated: ‘listen to science. And listen to Doctors.’ The message ends with phatic communication stressing the resumption of normality at some future point, and hence the trusted ongoingness of Doctor Who and the thirteenth Doctor herself: ‘I will see you very soon.’ In the next section, I will consider unofficial Who responses to the challenges of lockdown, such as the tweetalongs organized by Emily Cook and the bonus paratexts that she produced for these. Where the BBC short stories read as if constructed to a brief – they strategically recount tales of the Doctor as a hopeful mirror for fans enduring lockdown’s disruptions to ontological security – then the livetweeting of stories from the Russell T Davies and Steven Moffat eras represents another way of paratextually sustaining fans’ ‘basic trust’ in the world through Doctor Who and the figure of the thirteenth Doctor.



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The ‘Emily Cook era’ as a neo-gift economy: the thirteenth Doctor caring There is no hard and fast dividing line between official and unofficial incarnations of Doctor Who lockdown: Russell T Davies, Steven Moffat and Paul Cornell contributed new material across initiatives from Chris Chibnall and Emily Cook. Cornell even intertextually connected his stories, as the thirteenth Doctor in ‘The Shadow Passes’ (2020a) gains a new understanding of her imprisonment of ‘Daughter of Mine’ which she then acts on in ‘The Shadow in the Mirror’ (2020b), produced to accompany the ‘Human Nature’ / ‘The Family of Blood’ tweetalong. And in a ‘dovetailing of plans’ (Guerrier, 2020: 36) between the official Doctor Who website and Cook’s tweetalong for ‘Rose’, Russell T Davies published ‘Doctor Who and the Time War’ for the BBC (2020a), and then had a sequel to the 2005 story, ‘Revenge of the Nestene’ – featuring Boris Johnson as a scheming, evil Auton – uploaded to YouTube as an extra produced by Cook (Davies, 2020b). The blurring of official and unofficial strands of Doctor Who lockdown was due, in part, to Cook’s position as a journalist-fan working on Doctor Who Magazine; this meant that she was trusted by lead actors and showrunners to arrange and produce material on behalf of Who fandom, as well as being able to reach out to former senior production team members. Indeed, contra a sense of current Doctor Who being the ‘Chibnall era’, lockdown Who’s temporarily enhanced gift economy – where all sorts of media professionals and professionalized fans gave their time and labour freely to Who fandom alongside fellow fans – meant that multiple showrunners were engaged with the BBC’s initiative (including Chibnall) and with Cook’s tweetalongs. The result was a carnivalesque space suspending typical power relationships and cultural distancing between producers and fans, collapsing together different showrunners’ eras and bringing showrunner-fans closer to consumer-fans. As well as a multi-Doctor story being created (Goss, 2020), Doctor Who lockdown was marked by its highly unusual capacity to unify eras of the show, hence also becoming a multi-showrunner story, of sorts. And with the likes of Matt Smith and David Tennant getting involved alongside Russell T Davies, Steven Moffat, and Neil Gaiman among others,3 there was again a temporary sense installed here of Doctor Who as a genuinely ‘public thing’ (Honig, 2017) rather than a controlled brand. As Mark Banks has cautioned, such ‘a view of culture as public “giving” might … e­ ncourage us to disclaim our obligations to offer due compensation to the cultural worker – professional cultural work is not a hobby or a g­ iveaway’ (2020: 6). But for

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the duration of lockdown, and in a carnivalesque ­suspension of industrial norms, Doctor Who fandom became a neo-gift economy uniting professional producer-fans and consumer-fans; professional cultural work was, for a brief time, recontextualized as a hobby, as Davies, Chibnall, and Moffat created new content freely for fans (like themselves). And livetweeting made the imagined community of fandom, including professional cultural workers, visible to itself (Stewart, 2019: 5). The spectacular blurring of unofficial and official versions of lockdown Who was also recognized by the publication of Doctor Who: Adventures in Lockdown later in 2020. This collection of short fiction – put together as a charity fundraiser for Children in Need – republished, and united side-byside, content from ‘the official Doctor Who website as part of a lockdown initiative led by Chris Chibnall’ and material that ‘first appeared online as part of the Doctor Who: Lockdown! series of watch-alongs organised and produced by Emily Cook’ (Cole, 2020: n.p.). The collection also included three new stories, from Neil Gaiman, Vinay Patel, and Mark Gatiss, though these tended to less intensively recode and metaphorically explore experiences of isolation, loneliness, and/or disrupted time compared to the mirroring narratives of reassurance that were directly commissioned for immediate online publication during the UK’s first-wave lockdown. And if the thirteenth Doctor short stories curated by Chris Chibnall for BBC sites tended towards sperosemic readings of Doctor Who – treating the programme as a source of hope in difficult times – then this strategy was also refracted in unofficial thirteenth Doctor lockdown content, most notably in Joseph Lidster’s ‘The Next Best Thing’ (2020). This short story featured on YouTube as part of Fantom’s first ‘Time-Space Visualiser’ virtual ­convention on the initial Saturday of UK lockdown, 28 March, and was performed by Debbie Chazen. Lidster didn’t use the Doctor herself as a vehicle to mirror fans’ possible reactions to the pandemic, but instead focused his narrative of hope on a new character, Bunny Driver, who was rescued from total isolation in a ‘shadow dimension’ by the Doctor. Bunny recalls how she was trapped in ‘an eternity of just darkness. … Wasn’t a fan’ (Lidster, 2020). Later, she talks of having a cry, using the same colloquial invocation of fandom to mean simply liking something: ‘I don’t usually cry. Not a fan’ (Lidster, 2020). The repetition sets up a punchline-type structure, and, after the Doctor’s intervention, with ‘bubbles’ of shadow-dimension dwellers now being able to converse, Bunny concludes, ‘and who knows, maybe one day someone can fix this whole weird, crazy, unimaginable thing, but until then, we’re together. We’re getting through it together. Hope. Now that I am a fan of’ (Lidster, 2020). This articulation of hope and fandom through an original secondary character smartly signals to the Who fan audience that their communal fan identities, and their shared

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love for Doctor Who, can offer a way of ‘getting through it together’. Where ­official short stories act as on-brand articulations of Doctor Who and comfort or ontological security, unofficial fan activities and fanfic instead position fandom, and experiences of fan community, as spaces for the maintenance of ontological security and hopefulness. Rather than seeming to provide a pedagogic mirror for fans’ coping strategies, the thirteenth Doctor as she appears in unofficial lockdown ‘extras’ tends to reflect on the faults of her earlier selves, displaying a greater ethic of care for her enemies, selves, and companions than ever before. Related to the fanfiction subgenre of ‘emotional intensification’ (Jenkins, 1992: 178), this could also be read as a popular-feminist retooling of the Doctor, with previous male incarnations being explicitly or implicitly critiqued for their lack of emotional intelligence, or for making poor decisions. This manoeuvre is already present in official transmedia paratexts: in At Childhood’s End (Aldred, 2020: 285), the thirteenth Doctor finally breaks with the seventh Doctor’s manipulative attitude to companion Ace; and, in Jody Houser’s work on the thirteenth Doctor Titan comics, the thirteenth Doctor apologizes to Martha (or rather the fan-reader, on behalf of Martha) for the tenth Doctor’s obliviousness to her unrequited feelings (Houser, 2020: 21). Continuing this paratextual representation of the thirteenth Doctor as more emotionally attuned to an ethics of care, in Paul Cornell’s lockdown bonus text, ‘The Shadow in the Mirror’ (2020b), the thirteenth Doctor learns to express mercy for one of her previous antagonists as a result of her lockdown experience in ‘The Shadow Passes’ (Cornell, 2020a): She’d been locked in with some friends somewhere, she’d considered her sins. … She said then that mercy had nothing to do with fairness, that mercy set fairness aside and said there was no getting even, no balancing the scales … She said she didn’t need me to be sorry … And then she held her hand out to me … [S]he had made this decision for me and for herself and for all her other selves. (Cornell, 2020b)

The thirteenth Doctor’s intensified sense of care is also on show in James Goss’s unofficial multi-Doctor story, ‘Doctors Assemble’ (2020). Different incarnations are voiced by a range of impersonators, along with David Bradley participating as the first Doctor. Debra Stephenson voices the thirteenth Doctor, and whilst this riotous tale concerning the fourth Doctor becoming trapped in the TARDIS and calling upon his other selves continues, like any multi-Doctor story, to ‘bridge and unify Doctor Who’s proliferating textualities’ (Hills, 2014b: 105), it also contrasts the thirteenth Doctor to her male selves. While they snipe at one another, the current Doctor announces, ‘honestly, if I wanted to listen to a lot of men shouting,

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I’d go on the Internet’ (Goss, 2020). And perhaps predictably, she praises all her prior selves as ‘fam’, much to the sixth Doctor’s demonstrative dismay (Goss, 2020). Extending ‘fam’ to her selves suggests a degree of self-comfort or self-care; by contrast, the other Doctors engage in fractious dialogue, especially the second and third. Care is also subtextually emphasized in the thirteenth Doctor’s implied appearance in Steven Moffat’s ‘The Best of Days’ which concluded the lockdown material produced by Cook. Here, Bill Potts (Pearl Mackie) voices her current life on Earth, mid-pandemic: [T]here might be someone new. Ah, you should see her – the most beautiful pair of eyes I’ve ever seen from two metres away, and I’m confident that the bottom half of her face will be just as lovely when I eventually get to see it. (Moffat, 2020b)

But despite this positive news, Bill – who is communicating with Nardole (Matt Lucas) – is clearly yearning to see the Doctor again, feeling a sense of loss in her life after the Time Lord: I know he’d be different now, I get it … But if he just suddenly showed up, you know, a brand new man with a brand new face. … Would you even know it was him? I swear I would. You know what? There’d be a serious chance I’d just snog his silly face off. Well, I would if he wasn’t a man. (Moffat, 2020b)

Moffat therefore craftily seeds the possibility – which hinges on fan desire rather than any direct clues – that, of course, Bill has already met the thirteenth Doctor in the form of her new love interest, and has failed to consider regeneration’s gender switch. Maybe there really is a ‘serious chance’ that Bill will snog this Doctor’s ‘face off’, but, if so, this scenario also portrays the thirteenth Doctor as caring about her female companion and actively returning to see her (not something that earlier male Doctors have made a habit of). Care is thus threaded through the ‘Emily Cook era’ and its explicit, fleeting, or implied images of the thirteenth Doctor: merciful care for enemies, self-care for the ‘fam’ of earlier incarnations, and subtextual care for former ‘companions’. Although one might argue that this is a gendered stereotyping of the first female Doctor (at least as encountered by fans, if not in the revised hyperdiegesis of the ‘timeless child’), I would argue that it paratextually speaks to the COVID-19 pandemic and its threats to ontological security. By figuring the contemporary Doctor as consistently attentive to her significant others/selves, unofficial lockdown Who stresses the importance of surrendering self-centred, thoughtless self-identities in favour of emotionally relational selves, responding to the COVID-19 threat not merely by staying alert but by attentively taking care.



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Conclusion: paratextual contributions to value change By critiquing earlier versions of the Doctor, this incarnation does, ultimately, offer a second pedagogic model for fans after all. Rather than the official on-brand narrative of Doctor Who’s TV texts as a ‘comfort blanket’ (McTighe, 2020) or an Intellectual Property (IP) source of ontological security, the unofficial take implies that attaining ‘basic trust’ in the world, and hence a restored experience of ontological security, means genuinely investing in care-for-the-world via ‘emotional intensification’. As such, I have argued that unofficial paratexts participate just as much as official branded content in the ‘value changes’ of the series. When ‘a new Doctor regenerates, or a new showrunner replaces an old one, there comes with it an inherent comparison that other shows … may not have’ (Booth and Jones, 2020: 151). This comparison with, or critique of, the ‘old’ has unavoidably become entangled – via the paratexts-turned-texts of official and unofficial UK lockdown Who – with the COVID-19 pandemic. Paratexts of hope and care have positively positioned the thirteenth Doctor as a mirror and a model for today’s fans and their coping strategies at a time of disruption, anxiety, and threat. As Chris Chibnall (2020a) wrote ahead of the first lockdown short story: ‘With people staying home, and families stuck together, I thought maybe a few little presents from Doctor Who might help.’ But more than this, the neo-gift economy of fans, showrunner-fans, media professionals, lead actors and events organizers, all producing Doctor Who together as a ‘public thing’ (Honig, 2017) rather than a brand, made this brief, distinctive era of Who perhaps one of the finest to date.

Notes 1 See www.radiotimes.com/news/tv/2020–04–09/doctor-who-jodie-whittaker-lock down/ (accessed 17 June 2020). 2 See also www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p087nx4l (accessed 17 June 2020). 3 See https://tardis.fandom.com/wiki/Doctor_Who:_Lockdown (accessed 17 June 2020).

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Banks, M. (2020). ‘The Work of Culture and C-19’, European Journal of Cultural Studies. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/1367549420924687. Barker, M. (2017). ‘Speaking of “Paratexts”: A Theoretical Revisitation’, Journal of Fandom Studies, 5 (3), pp. 235–49. Booth, P. (2014). ‘Periodising Doctor Who’, Science Fiction Film and Television, 7 (2), pp. 195–215. Booth, P. and C. O. Jones (2020). Watching Doctor Who: Fan Reception and Evaluation. London: Bloomsbury. Chapman, J. (2020). Contemporary British Television Drama. London: Bloomsbury Academic. Chibnall, C. (2020a). ‘Read “Things She Thought While Falling” by Chris Chibnall’, doctorwho.tv (25 March), www.doctorwho.tv/news/?article=read-the-firstthoughts-of-the-thirteenth-doctorwww.doctorwho.tv/news/?article=read-thefirst-thoughts-of-the-thirteenth-doctor (accessed 17 June 2020). Chibnall, C. (2020b). ‘Production Notes’, Doctor Who Magazine, 551, pp. 4–6. Cole, S. (ed.) (2020). Doctor Who: Adventures in Lockdown. London: BBC Books. Cornell, P. (2020a). ‘Read “The Shadow Passes” by Paul Cornell’, doctorwho. tv (15 April), www.doctorwho.tv/news/?article=short-story-the-shadow-passespaul-cornell (accessed 17 June 2020). Cornell, P. (2020b). ‘The Shadow in the Mirror’ (24 April), www.youtube.com/ watch?v=J0U_QD568iw (accessed 17 June 2020). Davies, R. T (2020a). ‘Read “Doctor Who and the Time War” by Russell T Davies’, doctorwho.tv (26 March), www.doctorwho.tv/news/?article=russell-t-daviesprequel-doctor-who-rose (accessed 17 June 2020). Davies, R. T (2020b). ‘Revenge of the Nestene’ (26 March), www.youtube.com/ watch?v=CpFoOkSDgnc (acccessed 17 June 2020). Eeken, S. and Hermes, J. (2019). ‘Doctor Who, Ma’am: YouTube Reactions to the 2017 Reveal of the New Doctor’, Television and New Media (19 December), DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/1527476419893040. Evans, E. (2020). Understanding Engagement in Transmedia Culture. London: Routledge. Goss, J. (2020). ‘Doctors Assemble’ (23 May), www.youtube.com/watch?v=26 UFq8RGVOs (accessed 17 June 2020). Gray, J. (2010). Show Sold Separately: Promos, Spoilers and Other Media Paratexts. New York: New York University Press. Guerrier, S. (2020). ‘Contact Has Been Made’, Doctor Who Magazine, 551, pp. 34–37. Hermes, J. and A. Hill (2020). ‘Television’s Undoing of Social Distancing’, European Journal of Cultural Studies, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/1367549420927724. Hills, M. (2002). Fan Cultures. London: Routledge. Hills, M. (2010). Triumph of a Time Lord. London: I. B. Tauris. Hills, M. (2014a). ‘Hyping Who and Marketing the Steven Moffat Era: The Role of “Prior Paratexts”’, in A. O’Day (ed.), Doctor Who: The Eleventh Hour – A Critical Celebration of the Matt Smith and Steven Moffat Era. London: I. B. Tauris, pp. 181–203. Hills, M. (2014b). ‘When Doctor Who Enters Its Own Timeline: The Database Aesthetics and Hyperdiegesis of Multi-Doctor Stories’, Critical Studies in Television, 9 (1), pp. 95–113.

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Hills, M. (2015a). Doctor Who: The Unfolding Event. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Hills, M. (2015b), ‘Afterword: The Hope of the Doctor’, Implicit Religion, 18 (4), pp. 575–78. Hills, M. (2019). ‘“Please Welcome the Twelfth Doctor”: The Paratextual Branding of Peter Capaldi’s Tenure’, in A. O’Day (ed.), Doctor Who: Twelfth Night  – Adventures in Time and Space with Peter Capaldi. London: I. B. Tauris, pp. 153–79. Honig, B. (2017). Public Things. New York: Fordham University Press. Horton, R. (2020). The Covid-19 Catastrophe. Cambridge: Polity. Houser, J. (2020). Doctor Who: The Thirteenth Doctor – Tenth Doctor Team-Up No. 1. London: Titan Comics. Jenkins, H. (1992). Textual Poachers. New York: Routledge. Lidster, J. (2020). ‘The Next Best Thing’ (28 March), www.youtube.com/ watch?v=uI5vAiIfaFc 1:56:00–2:03:56 (accessed 17 June 2020). McKee, A. (2004). ‘Is Doctor Who Political?’, European Journal of Cultural Studies, 7 (2), pp. 201–17. McTighe, P. (2020). ‘Read “Press Play” by Pete McTighe’, doctorwho.tv (1 April), www.doctorwho.tv/news/?article=new-doctor-who-short-story-press-play-petemctighe (accessed 17 June 2020). Moffat, S. (2020a). ‘Read “Terror of the Umpty Ums” by Steven Moffat’, doctorwho.tv (7 April), www.doctorwho.tv/news/?article=short-story-umpty-umssteven-moffat (accessed 17 June 2020). Moffat, S. (2020b). ‘The Best of Days’ (7 June), www.youtube.com/ watch?v=XOJ0OU6Odh4 (accessed 17 June 2020). Phillips, I. (2020). Once Upon a Time Lord: The Myths and Stories of Doctor Who. London: Bloomsbury. Proctor, W. (2017). ‘“Bitches Ain’t Gonna Hunt No Ghosts”: Totemic Nostalgia, Toxic Fandom and the Ghostbusters Platonic’, Palabra Clave, 20 (4), pp. 1105–41. Sandvoss, C. (2005). Fans: The Mirror of Consumption. Cambridge: Polity. Sanz, E and J. Stancík (2014). ‘Your Search – “Ontological Security” – Matched 111,000 Documents: An Empirical Substantiation of the Cultural Dimension of Online Search’, New Media & Society, 16 (2), pp. 252–70. Scarry, E. (2011). Thinking in an Emergency, New York: Norton. Silverstone, R. (1993). ‘Television, Ontological Security and the Transitional Object’, Media, Culture and Society, 15, pp. 573–98. Silverstone, R. (1994). Television and Everyday Life. London: Routledge. Stewart, M. (2019). ‘Live Tweeting, Reality TV and the Nation’, International Journal of Cultural Studies, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/1367877919887757. Wilkinson, J. (2020). ‘Read “The Simple Things” by Joy Wilkinson’, doctorwho. tv (22 April), www.doctorwho.tv/news/?article=the-simple-things-joy-wilkinsonshort-story (accessed 17 June 2020). Williams, R. (2015). Post-Object Fandom. London: Bloomsbury.

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Appendix: The Chris Chibnall / Jodie Whittaker episodes

S = Special Note: Jodie Whittaker made a brief appearance as the Doctor at the close of ‘Twice Upon a Time’ (2017).

Series 11 (2018) 11.1 ‘The Woman Who Fell To Earth’ 11.2 ‘The Ghost Monument’ 11.3 ‘Rosa’ 11.4 ‘Arachnids in the UK’ 11.5 ‘The Tsuranga Conundrum’ 11.6 ‘Demons of the Punjab’ 11.7 ‘Kerblam!’ 11.8 ‘The Witchfinders’ 11.9 ‘It Takes You Away’ 11.10 ‘The Battle of Ranskoor Av Kolos’ S. ‘Resolution’ (2019)

Series 12 (2020) 12.1/12.2 ‘Spyfall, Part One’ / ‘Spyfall, Part Two’ 12.3 ‘Orphan 55’ 12.4 ‘Nikola Tesla’s Night of Terror’ 12.5 ‘Fugitive of the Judoon’ 12.6 ‘Praxeus’ 12.7 ‘Can You Hear Me?’



Appendix 239

12.8 ‘The Haunting of Villa Diodati’ 12.9/12.10 ‘Ascension of the Cybermen’ / ‘The Timeless Children’ S: ‘Revolution of the Daleks’

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To be continued …

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Index

Note: Figure locations are in italics. Aaron 123, 124, 127, 129–31, 132 see also absentee black fatherhood absentee black fatherhood 20, 124–25, 126–27, 128, 129, 130–32 accents 74–75, 76, 77 see also regionality Adam and Jake 88, 92, 95 see also ‘Praxeus’ Akinola, Segun 18, 27–39, 72 see also music Alderton, Maxine 42, 48 see also ‘Haunting of Villa Diodati, The’ Angstrom 91 ‘Arachnids in the UK’ 9, 18, 61, 62, 98, 127, 145, 238 see also Robertson, Jack ‘Ascension of the Cybermen’ 30, 42, 47, 61, 144, 239 see also music audience appreciation index 9, 11 audience ratings 7, 8, 9, 10 AudioWho 20, 177, 179, 184 Ayres, Mark 30–31 ‘bad writing’ 89–90 Baker, Colin 144, 230 Baker, Tom 4, 164, 177, 195, 200, 230 Barrowman, John 92, 223 see also Harkness, Captain Jack; Torchwood (2006–11)

‘Battle of Ranskoor Av Kolos, The’ 99, 123, 129, 147, 152, 238 Battlestar Galactica (film) 3 BBC Radiophonic Workshop 18, 28, 30, 31, 39 see also music Bhamra, Kuljit 37 Big Finish story 140, 147, 171, 198 Bionic Woman, The (1976–78) 42 black fatherhood see absentee black fatherhood black female doctor see Martin, Jo Black Lives Matter movement 14, 16 Blackman, Malorie 34, 42, 49, 50, 81 see also ‘Rosa’ Bond, James see ‘Spyfall Part One/Part Two’ Born and Bred (2002–05) 43, 44 branding see Doctor Who brand Brexit era 20, 72, 104, 106–7, 113, 116 British Empire 104, 107, 108, 109, 110, 111, 114, 116 Britishness 72, 74, 104–5 Broadchurch (2013–17) 1, 41, 43, 165 Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997–2003) 42, 58, 128 Byron, Lord 49 see also ‘Haunting of Villa Diodati, The’

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Index 241

‘Can You Hear Me?’ 78, 238 Capaldi, Peter 3, 9, 27, 28, 45, 47, 75, 97, 210, 222, 230 Captain Jack Harkness see Harkness, Captain Jack Cartmel, Andrew 154, 178 casting colour-blind casting 73, 104, 105–6, 113, 115, 116 female doctor 7, 14, 20, 114, 141, 154, 194–95 gender-blind casting 3 gender-swap casting 3 inclusivity 73, 78–79, 89 intersectionality 66, 72, 73, 76, 81, 82 Jodie Whittaker 1, 2, 4, 6, 14, 16, 43, 72, 74, 142, 180, 189, 194, 195, 224 representation 73, 76–77, 78, 82, 89, 93, 105–6 see also Dhawan, Sacha; Gill, Mandip; Hesmondhalgh, Julie; memes; Pryor, Andy CGI 57, 58, 59 Chazen, Debbie see ‘Next Best Thing, The’ Children in Need 230, 232 Childs, Jamie 64 cinematic television 55, 56, 59, 60, 68 ‘Closing Time’ (2011) 94 Cole, Tosin 72, 76, 80, 105 see also Ryan colonialism 81, 104, 105, 107, 108, 109, 110, 111, 115, 116 see also ‘Demons of the Punjab’; Partition of India and Pakistan; post-colonialism Comic Relief 4, 230 comics 177, 179, 180, 181, 182, 183 Commander Gatt see Gatt, Commander contemplative mode of viewing 56, 59, 69 Cook, Emily 222, 223, 226, 230, 231, 232, 234 see also tweetalongs

Copland, Aaron 29, 38 see also music Cornell, Paul 12, 137, 138, 139, 142, 154, 155, 228, 231, 233 cosplay and cosplayers affective reception 20, 159, 162–63, 173 black fans dressed as the thirteenth Doctor 167–68 crossplay 160, 167 digital cosplay 166–67 Dutch cosplayers 161–62, 168, 172 fan conventions 160, 168, 171 identity construction 161 males dressed as the thirteenth Doctor 168 San Diego Comic Con 93, 160 virtual conventions 223, 226, 232 welder cosplays 44 see also costume of thirteenth Doctor; Haringsma, Niki; Mon, Diana; Rovers, Rowena costume of thirteenth Doctor androgyny 67, 96–97, 160, 164, 165, 166, 167, 173 braces 67, 144, 164 charity shop clothing 67, 160 coat 66, 67, 97, 144, 164, 165, 166 culottes 144, 164–65, 166 ear cuff 165, 166, 171, 172, 172–73 Mork, resemblance to 143–44 pockets 165, 166 previous Doctors, resemblance to 144 rainbow 88, 144, 164, 166 signature outfit 67, 96–97, 165 Suffragettes, violet coat lining 67 tuxedos 44, 67, 97 welding outfit 44 see also cosplay and cosplayers; Holman, Ray COVID-19 lockdown in the UK BBC public message films 230 BBC short stories 223, 225, 226, 227, 228, 229, 232, 233, 235

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COVID-19 lockdown in the UK (cont.) media platforms, use of 223 neutrosemic fan texts 226–27 ontological security 223, 224–25, 226, 228, 229, 230, 233, 234, 235 shortform videos 21, 223 see also Cook, Emily; ‘Next Best Thing, The’; ‘Press Play’; ‘Shadow Passes, The’; ‘Simple Things, The’; ‘Terror of the Umpty Ums’; ‘Things She Thought While Falling’; ‘TimeSpace Visualiser’; tweetalongs COVID-19 pandemic 17, 21, 22, 215, 222, 224, 225, 228, 229, 234, 235 Crossan, Denis 64 cultural diversity 36, 39 cultural Moynihanism 124, 126, 132 Cumming, Alan 91 Cybermen 47, 49, 144, 147, 210, 215 see also ‘Ascension of the Cybermen’ Dalekmania 2, 195 Daleks 17, 65, 132, 195, 210, 217 Davies, Russell T 13, 43, 58, 60, 74, 93, 105, 106, 122, 150, 152, 226, 230, 231, 232 Davison, Peter 164, 230 ‘Day of the Doctor, The’ (2013) 152, 154, 178, 197–98 Debney, John 30 Delgado, Roger 113 ‘Demons of the Punjab’ 18, 28–29, 30, 33, 34, 36–37, 38, 42, 50, 63, 79, 80, 90, 104, 108, 109, 110, 111, 115, 238 see also Manish; music; Partition of India and Pakistan; Patel, Vinay; Prem; Thijarians; Umbreen Derbyshire, Delia 18, 28, 30, 31, 32–33 see also music desire lines 19, 88, 97, 100 Desolation (planet) 58 Dhawan, Sacha 16, 52, 72–73, 97, 98, 113 see also Master

discrimination 73, 111, 124, 132 Division, The 18 ‘Doctor Falls, The’ (2017) 95 Doctor Who brand brand consistency 200 brand inclusivity 3, 4, 5, 6, 13, 14, 17, 22 brand management 13, 198, 225 clothing, importance of 200, 201 rebranding of Doctor Who 1, 2, 4, 5, 60, 67, 197 see also Doctor Who experiences Doctor Who Experience, Cardiff 21, 209–10, 211, 213, 214, 216, 218, 219 Doctor Who experiences active participation 211, 212, 214, 216 The Crash of the Elysium (immersive theatre event) 216 educational experiences 212, 215 entertainment experiences 212, 213 escapist experiences 212–13, 216, 217 esthetic experiences 213, 217 immersive experiences 212, 213, 214, 215–17, 218, 219 passive participation 211, 213, 217 tourist experience 207, 209, 219 see also Doctor Who Experience, Cardiff; Edge of Time virtual reality experience; Madame Tussauds Doctor Who exhibition, Blackpool; Time Fracture, immersive theatre; Worlds Collide, Doctor Who themed escape room Doctor Whumour 20, 139, 140, 146, 147, 148 see also memes Dregs 57, 63 see also ‘Orphan 55’ ducking stool 46, 48, 99 Eccleston, Christopher 4, 47, 74, 75, 163



Index 243

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Edge of Time virtual reality experience 207, 213, 217–18 ‘Eleventh Hour, The’ (2010) 99 Faction Paradox 163, 171 ‘fam’ 12, 20, 75, 82, 99, 100, 121, 122, 123, 128, 129, 130, 133, 230, 234 family see ‘fam’; nuclear family fandom anti-fandom 5, 138, 192 anti-fans 137, 138, 155 audience engagement 19, 54, 55, 58, 60, 122 becoming a fan 209 Collector Freaks forum 200, 201 commodified fan tourism 21, 206, 215, 217, 219 cult fandom 178 fan-experiential tourism 206, 215, 216, 217, 219 fan tourism 206–7, 208, 209, 211, 213, 214, 216, 217, 219 fan translations 176, 177, 178–79, 180, 184 female fans 5, 15, 142, 159, 167, 173, 189, 195, 201, 202 feminization of fans 189, 193, 194, 197, 200 feminized fan objects 190, 192, 193, 196 fractured fandom 4, 5, 6 ludic fandom 215 ownership, sense of 137, 138, 154, 155 scanlation 178, 180 see also AudioWho; Doctor Who experiences; geek; memes fansubs 179, 184, 185 fantastic, the 27, 29, 32, 34, 57–58, 68 Fantom see ‘Time-Space Visualiser’ ‘Father’s Day’ (2005) 51 female gaze 41 feminism black feminists 73

feminist clothing 164, 165 feminist fans 15 feminist politics 5, 14 popular feminism 5, 6, 14, 15–16, 233 post-feminism 73, 128 white feminists 104, 114 see also MeToo era Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, The 125, 126 ‘Fugitive of the Judoon’ 7, 9, 42, 45, 51, 52, 62, 150, 153, 167, 238 Gaiman, Neil 231, 232 Gallifrey 13, 39, 52, 152 Gallifreya Cosplay see Rovers, Rowena Gallifrey Base 140, 145 Gatiss, Mark 232 Gatt, Commander 51 geek geek culture 139, 140 geek hierarchies 192–93 geek masculinity 140, 147 geek sensibility 140 German Nazis see Nazis ‘Ghost Monument, The’ 58, 61, 62, 91, 124, 238 Gill, Mandip 19, 72, 73, 76, 77, 78–79, 105 see also Yaz Gillan, Karen see Pond, Amy Glynn, Dominic 30 Gold, Murray 21, 27, 28, 30, 31, 37 Gomez, Michelle 4, 97 see also Missy Grace 45, 46, 52, 66, 92, 124, 127–28, 129, 131 see also Graham; Ryan Graham cancer diagnosis 44, 93 mistaken as Doctor 47, 48, 51 relationship with Grace 45, 46, 52, 66, 92, 124, 129 relationship with Ryan 45, 46, 94, 122, 124, 127, 128, 129–30, 132 relationship with Yaz 52, 77, 78, 93 see also Grace; Ryan

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Grainer, Ron 18, 27, 30, 37 see also music Hanne 64, 92, 129 see also ‘It Takes You Away’ ‘Happiness Patrol, The’ (1988) 197 Haringsma, Niki 162, 171–72, 172 Harkness, Captain Jack 43, 51, 91, 153, 195 Hartnell, William 13, 34 ‘Haunting of Villa Diodati, The’ 39, 42, 44, 48, 50, 62–63, 147, 148, 239 see also Alderton, Maxine; Byron, Lord; music; Shelley, Mary; Shelley, Percy Hesmondhalgh, Julie 19, 73–74, 76, 77, 80, 81, 82 see also Maddox, Judy Hodgson, Brian 28 Holman, Ray 66, 164, 165, 171 see also costume of thirteenth Doctor Hoodezfield 74 Howell, Peter 30 identity politics 16, 108, 163 imperialism 20, 33, 104, 105, 107, 108, 110, 111, 114, 115, 116 inclusion 6, 19, 20, 72, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 89, 106 see also casting intentional fallacy 13–14 ‘It’s about time’ tagline 1, 6 ‘It Takes You Away’ 61, 62, 64, 65, 92, 129, 147, 238 see also Hanne; Norway, location Jake see Adam and Jake James Bond see Bond, James James I 91, 101n.1 Jones, Martha 16, 42, 80, 90, 195 Kasaavin 60, 114, 115 see also ‘Spyfall Part One/Part Two’ ‘Kerblam!’ 18, 19, 62, 74, 148, 238 see also Maddox, Judy

Khan, Noor Inayat 48, 90 Khan, Shahid Abbas 37 Khan, Yasmin see Yaz ‘Kill the Moon’ (2014) 47 King James 47, 48, 88, 92 Kingston, Alex 93, 96, 98 ‘la Doctora’ 180, 182–83, 184 see also language Langer, Clyde 126–27, 133 see also Sarah Jane Adventures, The (2007–11) language body language 131 gendered language 98–99, 176, 182, 183, 185 language barriers 176, 178, 182 translations 176, 177, 178–79, 180, 184 see also ‘la Doctora’ Late Show with Stephen Colbert, The 74 ‘Let’s Kill Hitler’ (2011) 99 Levine, Ian 4 Lidster, Joseph see ‘Next Best Thing, The’ Life on Mars (2006–7) 43, 223 ‘Lodger, The’ (2010) 94 London ‘as home’ 74–75 see also Sheffield ‘as home’ Lovelace, Ada 48, 90, 114 Lumley, Joanna 4 Madame Tussauds Doctor Who exhibition, Blackpool 207, 212, 213–14, 218 Maddox, Judy 19, 74 see also Hesmondhalgh, Julie; ‘Kerblam!’ male gaze 41, 67–68 Manish 33, 50, 51, 63, 109, 110 see also ‘Demons of the Punjab’ Martin, Jo 17, 73, 82, 100, 153, 230 ‘Massacre, The’ (1966) 34

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Index 245

Master 4, 16, 47, 52, 60, 73, 97–99, 113–15, 153, 176, 181–82, 183 see also Dhawan, Sacha; Missy McCoy, Sylvester 230 McCulloch, Keff 30 McGann, Paul 1, 230 McGovern, Jimmy 229 McTighe, Pete 227, 228 memes #notmydoctor 142, 227 #nursewho 141 #RIPDoctor 154 alien memes 146–47 bingo card meme 142, 143, 143 bubblewrap meme 148 Captain Exposition 151, 152 Chibnall, bad writer 150, 152–53, 154 Chibnall, Open Air (1986) 152–53 costume of thirteenth Doctor 144 Doctor Who story writing meme 150, 151 episode quality memes 149–50, 152 gender stereotypes 141 Hitler ranting meme 142 Hulk vs Hulkbuster (Avengers: Age of Ultron) meme 155 Jane Bond 142, 143 meme culture 141 memes pre-series 11 140–41, 144 mockery 137, 138, 139, 140, 141, 142, 144, 146, 148, 150, 153, 154, 155 Mork and the Doctor meme 143–44 moth memes 147–48, 148 ‘Orphan 55’ memes 150 plot inconsistencies 149 scronch memes 145, 146, 147, 153 sexist discourses 141, 142 Spider-man meme 147, 153 starter pack meme 143 TARDIS 141, 142 ‘Tim Shaw’/Tzim-Sha 147 Twin Peaks (1990–91; 2017) 138–39, 150, 153

Upper Class Twit (Monty Python) meme 145 Yaz, absence memes 149 Zalgo text 147 see also Doctor Whumour; fandom MeToo era 14, 16 Mills, Dick 18, 28, 30 Minchin, Brian 59 mirroring 45, 154, 225, 227, 228, 229, 230, 232, 233, 235 misogyny misogynistic fans 142, 154, 227 popular misogyny 5, 6 Missy 4, 16, 97, 98, 149, 181, 182, 183, 184 see also Gomez, Michelle Moffat, Steven 1, 4, 45, 48, 60, 74, 75, 94, 105, 106, 122, 152, 182, 210, 222, 227, 228, 230, 231, 232, 234 Mon, Diana 162, 168, 169 Monroe, Alex 165, 166 see also costume of thirteenth Doctor Mother Twiston 46, 47, 48 see also ‘Witchfinders, The’ Mountbatten, Lord 108, 109 see also Partition of India and Pakistan Moynihanism see cultural Moynihanism Mulvey, Laura 66–67 music ‘Ascension of the Cybermen’ 30 cornerstone sounds 28, 37 ‘Demons of the Punjab’ 28–29, 30, 33, 34–35, 36–37 end-title music 18 ‘Haunting of Villa Diodati, The’ 39 hauntology 31, 32 Hindustani music 28–29, 30, 34–35 leitmotifs 27–28, 37, 39 musique concrète techniques 30, 31 ‘Orphan 55’ 39 Out of Africa (1985) 36 ‘Planet of the Spiders’ (1974) 38 ‘Robot’ (1974) 38

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music (cont.) ‘Rosa’ 29, 38 The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad (1958) 35 ‘Spyfall Part One/Part Two’ 39 Syriana (2005) 35 team theme 37, 38 ‘Timeless Children, The’ 38 title theme music 27, 30–33, 34–39 ‘Witchfinders, The’ 29 ‘Woman Who Fell To Earth, The’ 38 Yaz’s theme 38 see also Akinola, Segun; BBC Radiophonic Workshop; Bhamra, Kuljit; Copland, Aaron; Derbyshire, Delia; fantastic, the; Grainer, Ron; Khan, Shahid Abbas; Singh, Surjeet Nadjia 98 Nathan-Turner, John 4, 153, 155, 200, 201 Nazis 114–15 see also ‘Spyfall Part One/Part Two’ Netflix 54, 55, 65, 69, 177 ‘Next Best Thing, The’ 232 ‘Nikola Tesla’s Night of Terror’ 59, 150, 238 Nordic Noir 59, 60 Norway, location 64, 92, 129 see also ‘It Takes You Away’ nuclear family 121, 122, 125, 127, 128 O’Brien, Graham see Graham ‘Orphan 55’ 38–39, 57, 62, 63, 64, 150, 238 see also Dregs; music; Tranquility Spa Owens, Craig 94 Parks, Rosa 19, 38, 49, 50, 80, 88, 90, 111, 112, 124 see also racial segregation; ‘Rosa’ Partition of India and Pakistan 6, 33–34, 37, 50, 63, 80, 88, 90, 108–10, 115

see also ‘Demons of the Punjab’; Mountbatten, Lord; Patel, Vinay Patel, Vinay 33, 34–35, 42, 50, 51, 232 see also ‘Demons of the Punjab’; ‘Fugitive of the Judoon’; Partition of India and Pakistan PC (political correctness) see political correctness Pertwee, Jon 145 Pink, Danny 90 ‘Planet of the Spiders’ (1974) 38 political correctness 6, 16, 62, 72, 78, 82n.1, 89, 116 Pond, Amy 75, 99, 191 Pond, Melody see River Song post-colonialism 80, 105, 107, 108, 114, 115, 116 see also colonialism; ‘Demons of the Punjab’; Partition of India and Pakistan Potts, Bill 16, 95, 234 ‘Praxeus’ 62, 63, 88, 95, 238 see also Adam and Jake pregnant man see Yoss Prem 33, 50–51, 63, 109–10 see also ‘Demons of the Punjab’ ‘Press Play’ 227, 228 production team 1, 4, 5, 89, 144, 206, 225, 231 pronoun change, female Doctor 50, 182 Pryor, Andy 19, 73, 75, 78 quality television 55, 56, 59, 89, 148–49, 150, 155 queerbaiting 88, 93–95, 96, 97 queering 88, 91, 94, 95 queerness, casual 19, 87, 89, 91, 97, 100 queer phenomenology 88, 100 racebending of the Doctor 17 racial segregation 6, 50, 112, 124 see also Parks, Rosa; ‘Rosa’

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Index 247

racism 21, 38, 50, 78, 80–81, 104–5, 106, 107, 110–16, 124 see also Brexit era; British Empire; Britishness; colonialism; imperialism; Parks, Rosa; postcolonialism; racial segregation; ‘Rosa’; white amnesia; whiteness; white supremacy Radiophonic Workshop see BBC Radiophonic Workshop Rally of the Twelve Galaxies 58 Rassilon 52, 53 ratings see audience ratings rebranding of Doctor Who see Doctor Who brand regendering of Doctor Who 4, 5, 6, 7, 16, 55, 61, 143, 154, 176, 180–82, 183, 185 regeneration of the Doctor 4, 12, 15, 38, 48, 52, 99, 165, 166, 167, 168, 172, 173, 182, 194, 234, 235 regionality 19, 56, 73, 74–75, 76, 78, 81, 82 see also accents representation see casting ‘Resolution’ 62, 99, 126, 129, 130, 132, 238 reveal of thirteenth Doctor 15–16, 66, 67, 166 ‘Revolution of the Daleks’ 17, 18, 239 River Song 87, 98, 99, 100 Robertson, Jack 18, 98 see also ‘Arachnids in the UK’ ‘Robot’ (1974–75) 38 ‘Rosa’ 9, 19, 29, 34, 38, 42, 49, 50, 59, 63, 79, 80, 81, 90, 104, 111–13, 115, 124, 238 see also Blackman, Malorie; music; Parks, Rosa; racial segregation ‘Rose’ (2005) 47 Rovers, Rowena 162, 168, 170, 171 ‘Run!’ (phrase) 47 Ryan absent father 20, 92, 94, 99, 123–24, 126, 127, 128, 129–30, 131, 132

dyspraxia 44, 45, 78, 104 racism 38, 63, 112 relationship with Graham 45, 46, 94, 122, 124, 127, 128, 129–30, 132 relationship with grandmother 45, 46, 94, 123, 124, 127, 131 relationship with Yaz 45, 81, 96, 112, 122, 128, 129 Ryan’s ethnicity 49, 78, 81, 123 see also Aaron; absentee black fatherhood; Grace Sarah Jane Adventures, The (2007–11) 126–27 see also Langer, Clyde Savage, Mistress Becca 46, 47, 48 see also ‘Witchfinders, The’ Scottish Doctor see Capaldi, Peter Scottishness 75 segregation see racial segregation sexism 4, 6, 15, 96, 111, 114, 141, 142, 143, 144, 154, 155 ‘Shadow in the Mirror, The’ 231, 233 ‘Shadow Passes, The’ 228, 231, 233 Shakespeare 90 ‘Shakespeare Code, The’ (2007) 90 Sheffield ‘as home’ 33, 56, 60, 75, 76, 78, 110 see also London ‘as home’ Shelley, Mary 48, 49, 147 see also Big Finish story Shelley, Percy 48, 49 ‘Simple Things, The’ 228–29 Simpson, Dudley 27, 38 Sinclair, Ryan see Ryan Singh, Surjeet 37 SJWs 4–5, 6 Smith, Matt 4, 9, 45, 48, 75, 144, 164, 210, 230, 231 Smith, Mickey 16, 90, 126, 133 social justice warriors see SJWs Solitract 64, 65, 146–47 sonic screwdriver 44, 45, 60, 191, 194, 198–99, 200, 210, 213, 218

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spectacle audience engagement 19, 54, 56 as commentary 56 danger of spectacle 64 erotic spectacle 66–67, 68 filming style 14, 57, 63 historical spectacle 63 intentional spectacle 57, 65, 66 of the TARDIS 61, 62 telefantasy spectacle 60 TV spectacle 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 62, 63, 64, 68, 69 unintended spectacle 63, 69 visual spectacle 54, 55, 59, 60, 62 woman as spectacle 67 see also Mulvey, Laura ‘Spyfall Part One/Part Two’ 39, 42, 44, 48, 52, 60, 62, 65, 67, 90, 95, 96, 97, 99, 104, 113, 114, 115, 121, 150, 153, 223, 238 see also Bond, James; Kasaavin; music; Nazis Star Wars (film) 3, 15, 29, 38, 58, 142, 153, 191, 202, 216 Stenza warrior 46, 91 stereotypes black families 20, 123 Britain, of 75 fans, of 137, 192, 194 gay men, of 91 gender 76, 78, 141 racial 78 women, of 146 Strevens, Matt 28, 93 TARDIS design 1, 61 locations, spectacular 61–62 spectacle of 61 see also memes Tecteun 52 Tennant, David 4, 67, 74, 145, 230, 231 ‘Terror of the Umpty Ums’ 227–28 Thasmin 88, 95, 96, 97, 100

Thijarians 33, 51, 63 see also ‘Demons of the Punjab’ ‘Things She Thought While Falling’ 225 Time Fracture, immersive theatre 207, 213, 215–17 Time Lady see Missy ‘Timeless Children, The’ 12, 38, 42, 47, 49, 52, 77, 82, 93, 97, 153, 226, 239 ‘Time of the Doctor, The’ (2013) 7 ‘Time-Space Visualiser’ 223, 226, 232 Time War (2005) 13, 43 Torchwood (2006–11) 41, 43, 45, 150, 195, 223 tourist gaze 61 toys 1:6 scale figure 189, 190, 193, 194, 196, 198, 199, 200, 201 action figures 4, 21, 189, 190, 191, 192, 193, 195, 196, 197, 198, 201, 202 Action Man 190, 195, 196, 202 Adventure Doll 189, 190, 192, 194, 196, 197, 199, 201 Adventure Figure 189, 196, 197, 202 Amy Pond doll 191 appeal to male and female fans 191–92 Barbie doll of thirteenth Doctor 21, 190, 192, 193, 194, 195, 196, 199, 201, 202 Captain Jack Harkness doll 195 Collector Freaks forum 200, 201 design credits 199–200 dolls 21, 189, 190, 191, 192, 193, 194, 195–96, 197, 199, 200, 201, 202 gendering of toys 190–91, 193, 195, 196 G.I. Joe 190, 195, 196, 197, 198, 202 Graham doll 194 guns and weapons 198 head sculpts 196, 199–200

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Index 249

Launch Pad projects 199 Martha Jones doll 195 Signature line doll 196, 199 sonic screwdriver 191 Tom Baker doll 195, 200 Tranquility Spa 57 see also ‘Orphan 55’ Troughton, Patrick 145 ‘Tsuranga Conundrum, The’ 62, 91, 128, 146, 230, 238 TV IV 54, 55, 58, 64, 69 tweetalongs 222, 223, 226, 230, 231 see also Cook, Emily Twin Peaks (1990–91; 2017) 138, 150, 153 Tyler, Rose 74 Tzim-Sha 127, 147 Umbreen 33, 50, 51, 63, 109, 110, 111 see also ‘Demons of the Punjab’ Walsh, Bradley 92, 105 see also Graham Webber, Cecil 191 Whedon, Joss 42, 58 white amnesia 107, 113, 115, 116 whiteness 6, 16–17, 104, 105, 115 white supremacy 104, 107, 108, 110, 111, 112, 113, 114, 115 Whoniverse 12, 50, 105, 216, 224 Wilkinson, Joy 42, 46, 47, 48, 228 see also ‘Simple Things, The’; ‘Witchfinders, The’ Windrush generation 111 Witchfinder General 47 see also ‘Witchfinders, The’

‘Witchfinders, The’ 29, 42, 46, 48, 88, 90, 91, 99, 123, 202, 238 see also Mother Twiston; music; Savage, Mistress Becca; Wilkinson, Joy; Witchfinder General ‘Witch’s Familiar, The’ (2015) 98 ‘With me’ (phrase) 47–48 ‘Woman Who Fell To Earth, The’ 7, 9, 38, 42, 44, 45, 52, 54, 60, 65, 68, 87, 99, 123, 147, 153, 160, 194, 225, 238 Wonder Woman (2017) 42, 142, 201 ‘World Enough and Time’ (2017) 149 Worlds Collide, Doctor Who themed escape room 207, 212, 214–15 Yasmin see Yaz Yaz family background 92–93 personality 92–93 police officer role 44, 78, 112 relationship with Doctor 19, 44, 88, 97, 100 relationship with Graham 52, 77, 78, 93 relationship with grandmother 33, 50, 51, 109 relationship with Ryan 45, 81, 96, 112, 122, 128, 129 sexuality 96, 97, 100 tuxedo clothing 44, 97 Yaz’s ethnicity 33, 35, 78, 104, 109, 112, 149 Yaz’s theme 38 see also Gill, Mandip; memes; Nadjia; Prem; Thasmin; Umbreen Yoss 88, 91, 92, 128