Ruminations, Peregrinations, and Regenerations : A Critical Approach to Doctor Who [1 ed.] 9781443821032, 9781443820844

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Ruminations, Peregrinations, and Regenerations

Ruminations, Peregrinations, and Regenerations: A Critical Approach to Doctor Who

Edited by

Christopher J. Hansen

Ruminations, Peregrinations, and Regenerations: A Critical Approach to Doctor Who, Edited by Christopher J. Hansen This book first published 2010 Cambridge Scholars Publishing 12 Back Chapman Street, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2XX, UK British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Copyright © 2010 by Christopher J. Hansen and contributors All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. ISBN (10): 1-4438-2084-9, ISBN (13): 978-1-4438-2084-4

TABLE OF CONTENTS

List of Illustrations ..................................................................................... ix Introduction ................................................................................................. 1 Timely and Timeless Chris Hansen Part I. Who is the Doctor: Constructing an Identity Chapter One................................................................................................. 8 Who is The Doctor?: The Meta-Narrative of Doctor Who Michelle Cordone and John Cordone Chapter Two .............................................................................................. 22 Davies, Dawkins and Deus ex TARDIS: Who Finds God in the Doctor? Dee Amy-Chinn Part II. Changing (or not Changing) History Chapter Three ............................................................................................ 36 Who Needs Family? I’ve got the Whole World on My Shoulders: How the Doctor’s Non-Domesticity Interrupts History Todd Comer Chapter Four.............................................................................................. 47 Benevolent Whogemony: Doctor Who and the Transmedial Time Traveler Joshua Louis Moss Part III. National and International Identity Chapter Five .............................................................................................. 68 Rebooting and Re-branding: The Changing Brands of Doctor Who’s Britishness Barbara Selznick

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Chapter Six ................................................................................................ 85 Aliens of London: (Re)Reading National Identity in Doctor Who Matthew Jones Part IV. Companions: Gender and Race Chapter Seven.......................................................................................... 102 “But Doctor?”–A Feminist Perspective of Doctor Who Richard Wallace Chapter Eight........................................................................................... 117 Gender Redux: Bionic Woman, Doctor Who and Battlestar Galactica Noah McLaughlin Chapter Nine............................................................................................ 130 Intergalactic Girlpower: The Gender Politics of Companionship in 21st Century Doctor Who Lee Barron Chapter Ten ............................................................................................. 150 Agency, Action, and Re-Action: The Black Female Presence in Doctor Who Timothy Mark Robinson Part V. Intertextuality and Metatextuality Chapter Eleven ........................................................................................ 164 When Worlds Continue: The Doctor’s Adventures in Fandom and Metatextuality Balaka Basu Chapter Twelve ....................................................................................... 177 Cultural Circulation and Circularities in Doctor Who: Bardolatry and the Time Vortex of Intertextuality Bruce Wyse

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Part VI. Audience Studies Chapter Thirteen...................................................................................... 192 Regeneration of a Brand: The Fan Audience and the 2005 Doctor Who Revival Douglas McNaughton Chapter Fourteen ..................................................................................... 209 Squee, Retcon, Fanwank and the Not-We: Computer-mediated Discourse and the Online Audience for NuWho Brigid Cherry Chapter Fifteen ........................................................................................ 233 The Moral Economy of Doctor Who: Forgiving Fans and the Objects of Their Devotion Joshua Vasquez Chapter Sixteen ....................................................................................... 249 Doctor Who Fan Videos, YouTube, and the Public Sphere Jeremy Sarachan Part VII. Other Considerations Chapter Seventeen ................................................................................... 264 Towards a Definition of Satire in Doctor Who Andrew O’Day Chapter Eighteen ..................................................................................... 283 The Suffering of the Skin: The Uncanny Nature of the Cybermen in the Russell T. Davies Era of Doctor Who James Rose Chapter Nineteen ..................................................................................... 299 Interference, the Doctor, and the Good Life Courtland Lewis Chapter Twenty ....................................................................................... 312 Author Who?: Masterplanners, Scribermen, and Script Doctors; The Producers, Writers, and Script Editors of Doctor Who Tom Steward

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Contributors............................................................................................. 328 Bibliography............................................................................................ 334 Notes........................................................................................................ 365 Index........................................................................................................ 384

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Figure 14-1: Patterns of posting on the evening of 15th March 2005 for the 50 second trailer premier. Figure 14-2: Patterns of posting on 26th and 27th March 2005 around the broadcast of “Rose.” Figure 14-3: Whogasm video.



INTRODUCTION TIMELY AND TIMELESS CHRIS HANSEN

I have been a fan of Doctor Who since I first discovered it on Georgia Public Television with my brother Jim back in the early 80s. There, I said it. I'm a fan. It feels a little like I'm admitting something that I should not be admitting here. But should that be? Is there something improper about a fascination with a pop culture artifact? And does that make it less worthy of study? The answer, of course, is no. There are plenty of examples of popular culture being examined by the academy. And Henry Jenkins and other authors have written much of great interest about that very subject, so I do not believe it needs further defending here. Doctor Who, though, is one piece of popular culture that hasn’t been examined all that much. While this book certainly is not the first of its kind, there haven’t yet been too many like it. And that somehow seems appropriate, because there are not too many television shows like Doctor Who. Unlike other television serials, Doctor Who manages to go on and on. Since it first entered the public consciousness on November 23, 1963, as a new science fiction serial on the BBC, it has exhibited features dared by few other serials, from its controversial content, to its public ranking in the 1970s as the most violent programming produced by the BBC, to its constant re-casting of the lead role, the adventurous Doctor, whose alien biology conveniently allows for regeneration. These controversies and innovations, along with the evolution of a complex Whoniverse of audio stories, novels, and entries in various other media (the canonicity of much of which is still in question), not only have turned the enigmatic Doctor into a cult figure but have interwoven time and history through grand adventures that address issues of human existence and the meaning of civilization. The newest edition of the series,

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Introduction

often differentiated from the original or “classic Who” with the tag “new Who,” continues the storyline and timeline from the original, and features the Doctor interacting with historical figures (making wry commentary on current events in the process) and exploring more deeply the dilemma of the character as a lonely traveler who will outlive any human companion who joins him or who falls in love with him. In the fickle world of fiction television serials, any show that has lasted as long as Doctor Who is worth considering, even if only to figure out what keeps drawing people in. And any show that has lasted this long is bound to yield a wealth of possibilities for analysis. In fact, as I was creating the index for this book, I was struck by how daunting a task it was precisely because Doctor Who has forty-six years of characters, locations, and plots – some recurring and some appearing only a single time. Fortysix years of data and details about which scholars and fans can ponder, ruminate, and theorize. The Doctor is clearly a man of science, yet his function on the show is often God-like, with occasional explicit references to him as a Christfigure. How does the Doctor’s dual role comment on the role of science in society? In its travels through human events, what does the show say about the construction of history? What does it say about national/British identity in the new millennium? There are so many valid questions to ask, but most of them ultimately represent our attempt, in some way or another, to come to terms with what makes the show so noteworthy to forty-six years’ worth of audiences. And as I consider what else I want or need to say with this introduction, I find myself coming back over and over to Doctor Who’s fans. They are varied and appear in every walk of life, from blue-collar prison guards to scholars in every field. Various, too, are their levels of obsession, from the casual fan who finds the unusual Time Lord amusing to the compulsive fan who must collect every piece of merchandise to the creatively zealous fan who recreates his or her favorite episodes on video with cardboard sets that remind one of the show’s own humble origins. So, why are all of these people so engaged with this show? Is it the Doctor's love for humanity? Or his inability to die? Perhaps it lay in his capacity to save lives in virtually every phase of human history while never really being political. I don’t know the answer, but the question fascinates me of late. What draws us to a piece of popular culture like Doctor Who? Why do we care so deeply about the fictional adventures of an alien being that we tear up at the thought of a particular actor leaving the role? The actors – maybe on some level it is connected to those actors who become the Doctor for each



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of us. Whether you first started watching Doctor Who when Tom Baker was interpreting Harpo Marx or when the dashing Peter Davison turned the Doctor into a romantic figure or when David Tennant stepped in to become perhaps the most popular actor to play the role, someone will always be “your Doctor.” And, even if you’re not a fan, the question remains: what draws everyone else to Doctor Who? My questions and the other areas I mentioned above are all ripe for exploration and, in fact, are currently under consideration by scholars of popular culture around the world. Doctor Who has long been considered “just a children’s show,” but the children of the 1960s and 70s have grown up, and the show has reinvented itself, and as a result, it must now be considered a legitimate cultural touchstone, an icon worthy of consideration, both in its content and in terms of understanding the show’s audience and its experience of the show. The essays in this book do just that, taking on Doctor Who from a number of different angles, including, in Part One, the construction of the Doctor’s identity itself. Michelle and John Cordone’s “Who is the Doctor?” starts the book out with some fundamental questions regarding how the Doctor retains his essential identity in spite of the casting changes and subsequent personality adjustments necessitated by the character’s periodic regeneration. What, they want to know, are his immutable traits? And what traits will, if they are adjusted, serve as too great a change to the character, taking him too far from his essential self? “Davies, Dawkins and Deus ex TARDIS: Who finds God in the Doctor?,” Dee Amy-Chinn’s contribution, considers the issue of the Doctor as a Christ-figure, as he is seen by a growing number of fans of faith, in conflict with the scientific rationalism exhibited by the character (and by executive producer and atheist Russell T. Davies). The series often makes explicit reference to the Doctor as a deity, often the only person who can save the Earth (or any other planet or society) from destruction, and religious groups are, more and more, co-opting the figure of the Doctor for purposes of religious instruction. So how do we reconcile the authorial intent represented by Davies’s statements with the abundant theological references within the series itself? In any show about time travel, history will likely play a key role. The chapters in Part Two explore this critical area. Todd Comer’s piece, “Who needs family? I’ve got the whole world on my shoulders”: How the Doctor’s Non-Domesticity Interrupts History,” examines the show’s positioning of the Doctor as specifically not domestic, a figure whose only



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home travels with him wherever he goes and who rebels against any attempt to domesticate him. And yet he is often placed in situations or in interaction with other characters whose domesticity underlines the contrast. Comer considers this rebellion against domestication through both content and formal analysis. “Benevolent Whogemony: Doctor Who and the Transmedial Time Traveler,” by Joshua Moss, explores the notion of time travel not only as a primary narrative element of Doctor Who but also with regard to the show’s ability to time travel within its own history, a fact made possible, according to Moss, by the decades of production history, allowing it to continually renegotiate its relationship with the culture from which it emanates. Part Three brings us to considerations of national and international identity within Doctor Who. Barbara Selznick considers these issues from the perspective of an American audience member in “Rebooting and Rebranding: The Changing Brands of Doctor Who’s Britishness,” while Matthew Jones considers the national identity of the show from a perspective within Great Britain’s borders in “Aliens of London: (Re)Reading National Identity in Doctor Who.” Doctor Who would hardly be the same show without its many companions, those lucky few who travel with the Doctor for a time and serve as his friends and, often, as a surrogate for the audience member, providing for the Doctor a reason to explain aloud any given episode’s exposition. Part Four considers the issues raised by these companions, especially with regard to gender. Richard Wallace performs an excellent feminist reading of the show in “”But Doctor?” – A Feminist Perspective of Doctor Who,” while Timothy Robinson examines that further and adds in a racial perspective as well, in his chapter, “Agency, Action, and Re-Action: The Black Female Presence in Doctor Who.” Noah McLaughlin builds on those ideas by examining Doctor Who’s female characters in the context of other science fiction females in “Gender Redux: Bionic Woman, Doctor Who and Battlestar Galactica.” Finally, Lee Barron, in his chapter “Intergalactic Girlpower: The Gender Politics of Companionship in 21st century Doctor Who” explores the contrasting representations of females in classic Who and new Who. Doctor Who doesn’t exist in a fictional void, and Part 5 of the book features authors examining the show in conversation with other texts. First, Balaka Basu’s “When Worlds Continue: The Doctor’s Adventures in Fandom and Metatextuality” interrogates the show in conversation with its own fans, exploring how interaction with fans – and the fans themselves



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becoming producers – has impacted the text of the show and its relationship to its fan base. Bruce Wyse’s “Cultural Circulation and Circularities in Doctor Who: Bardolatry and the Time Vortex of Intertextuality” discusses the series in conversation with none other than Shakespeare himself, specifically examining the 2007 episode “The Shakespeare Code” as “one of the most playfully intertextual of Doctor Who episodes.” Part Six finds us turning to the fans themselves, as Douglas McNaughton observes the role of the fan audience in the regeneration of the show, in his chapter “Regeneration of a Brand: The Fan Audience and the 2005 Doctor Who Revival.” Brigid Cherry takes a sociological look at the behaviours of the Who audience in "Squee, Retcon, Fanwank and the Not-We: Computer-mediated Discourse and the Online Audience for NuWho." And Joshua Vasquez’s “The Moral Economy of Doctor Who: Forgiving Fans and the Objects of Their Devotion’” is an excellent look at how fans deal with problematic elements – such as stereotyped and potentially offensive depictions of race – in a show they otherwise adore. Jeremy Sarachan looks at how fans are taking fandom to the next logical step – by repurposing the show into their own creations, in “Doctor Who Fan Videos, YouTube, and the Public Sphere.” Finally, Part Seven of the book deals with a variety of other issues – villains, genre, philosophy, and production concerns. Andrew O’Day moves us “Towards a Definition of Satire in Doctor Who” as he looks at the occasional use of the satirical mode in both classic and new Who. James Rose contributes a fascinating examination of the nature of the Cybermen and their desire to divest themselves of humanity – skin and emotions – in “The Suffering Of The Skin: The Uncanny Nature of the Cybermen in the Russell T. Davies Era of Doctor Who.” Court Lewis’s chapter, “Interference, the Doctor, and the Good Life,” takes on the Doctor from a philosophical perspective, investigating what Doctor Who might be able to teach us as a philosophy for our lives. Finally, Tom Steward, in “Author Who?: Masterplanners, Scribermen, and Script Doctors – the producers, writers, and script editors of Doctor Who,” has constructed an excellent and thoroughly researched history of the production of the show with regard to the roles of the writers and script editors who controlled the direction of it through its various eras. When we’re making interpretations and seeking to understand the impact of something like Doctor Who, it’s useful to consider the production issues that help shape any creative artifact. The creative minds behind the show – with their own agendas and issues, not to mention budgetary and other production realities – helped shape it into what it is.



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Introduction

*** That’s an awful lot of creative and analytical minds dedicated to a show that was once thought of as just a series for children. But it’s plain to see that this former children’s show has, over its forty-six (and counting) year history, engaged the minds of many a writer, researcher, and creative individual – not only the authors and fans-turned-authors represented in this book, but also the fans-turned-producers (such as Russell T. Davies himself) and even a fan-turned-Doctor, in the form of tenth Doctor David Tennant. As I said earlier, the children reared on classic Who are all grown up, and they are trying to make sense of the things that shaped their childhood. Some do that by emulating the show itself – pursuing film and television careers, writing science fiction, etc. – and others do it through aggressive fandom – becoming writers of fan fiction and creators of fan videos. Still others become academics, and the authors here are making sense of the popular culture around them through the absorbing and fascinating work they’ve done here. As for me, I am honored and grateful that I have been able to work out my own childhood (and adulthood) fascinations by reading and selecting these challenging and stimulating essays about a show that has interested me since that first discovery on Georgia Public Television, and I'm especially glad that I volunteered to coordinate the Doctor Who area at the 2008 Film & History Conference in Chicago, where I met and enjoyed the company of a number of these scholars as we engaged in a sort of miniDoctor Who conference within the larger event. I offer my thanks to Cynthia Miller, Director of Communications for Film & History, for allowing me to chair the area and for her support throughout the process; to the authors themselves, for their hard work, intelligent analysis, and patience in putting up with me; and to my wife, Sherry, for her editorial assistance while learning more about a quirky British science fiction show than she ever thought possible – or even wanted to.



PART I. WHO IS THE DOCTOR: CONSTRUCTING AN IDENTITY



CHAPTER ONE WHO IS THE DOCTOR?: THE META-NARRATIVE OF DOCTOR WHO JOHN CORDONE AND MICHELLE CORDONE

Doctor Who's first episode, “An Unearthly Child,” broadcast on November 23, 1963, poses the question, “Who is the Doctor?” While this question is answered in part within the storyline of the series, scholars continue to discuss the nature of his character. This analysis has been problematized by the fact that ten different actors have played the role of the Doctor, each interpreting the character in his own way. Yet, the Doctor's character remains recognizable, in spite of these varied interpretations. Scholars discuss core traits that thread their way through each incarnation, but these traits are often discussed disjointly, without an overarching meta-narrative. We argue that these traits can be organized under the meta-narrative that the Doctor is a lord. He is a Time Lord, which makes him a member of the aristocracy, and therefore a lord in the feudal sense as well. In his studies on aristocratic rulers, scholar Jonathan Powis defined the aristocracy as “hereditary ruling groups” (Powis 1984, 1). Powis also stated that the term carries with it the association of authority and leadership (Powis 1984, 3). Lords maintain order and determine the law (Strayer 1956, 17). The role of the Time Lords, and the Doctor in particular, satisfies this definition. In the narrative, the Doctor makes decisions involving time, as a Time Lord. In the meta-narrative, the Doctor is simply a lord. His primary traits stem from this fact and are immutable, while other traits stem from the social context or the desire of the producers at the time of production and can evolve. The Doctor's intelligence is his most distinguishing trait. It was a trait originated for historical reasons. The post-World War II era was a time of rapid scientific advancement and technological development that showcased intelligence as a valued asset. The number of discoveries from the decade leading up to the 1960's were staggering: the polio vaccine was developed, DNA was discovered, computer technology advanced with the

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Univac system and the creation of programming languages, color television came into being, the integrated circuit was invented, Styrofoam and plastic wrap were produced, the hydrogen bomb and the nuclear submarine were created, and men went into space. Although the shift of the locus of control from brawn to brains had already begun with the Industrial Revolution, these new advancements required a much deeper theoretical understanding. In this environment, the British Broadcast Corporation (BBC) was struggling to compete against Independent Television Commission (ITC) for market share. The BBC needed shows that would remove its stigma of “being out of touch with popular culture” and run by a “paternalistic elite” (Leach 2009, 3-4). At the same time, it refused to produce programming that would compromise its high standard of intelligence. Doctor Who creator, Sydney Newman, met these criteria by envisioning a show in which the main character traveled throughout time and space in a “Wellsian time machine” in order to learn more about historical periods and solve problems through “proper science” (Newman 2005, 2). The show was to alternate between science fiction and historical drama from week to week, as opposed to being a show with the premise of fighting silly space monsters. Once Newman left the show, monsters, particularly the Daleks, became more prevalent. In fact, Dalek-mania, akin to Beatlemania, swept through Great Britain. While Newman might have argued that the show had been “dumbed down,” the Doctor himself remains intelligent. Over time, he evolves into an explorer with the heart of a crusader who fights against oppression, but tempered with the scientific mind of an engineer, who understands that his decisions could affect the very existence of civilizations. He is not merely a tinkerer, but rather a brilliant theoretician, with a firm grasp of science, who could navigate this new world of advanced technology. Beyond the science, the Doctor's superior intelligence also mirrors the mentality of the Cold War, which was at its apex at the time. Doctor Who was created in an era of tit for tat politics and mutual assured destruction. Cold and calculated decisions were continuously made that would affect all of humanity. Dispassionate, naked intellect suppressed moral reasoning as the mode of decision-making. It would now be impossible to conceive of the Doctor without his superior intelligence. It has become the nucleus of his character. This is important because his intelligence is fundamental to the program, not merely as a reflection of the time in which it was created, but as the power that backs his birthright as a lord. We argue that Doctor Who is based upon an aristocratic framework derived from the British feudal system. Under the feudal framework, land was the primary resource of the



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aristocracy. The material value of land carried with it “potent noneconomic associations of prestige and authority” (Powis 1984, 25). In Doctor Who, time supersedes land as the primary resource of the aristocracy, thus the title Time Lord. Instead of maintaining control of their domain through brute force by raising armies, Time Lords maintain control of their domain through the machinations of their superior intelligence. The Time Lords' birthright is their intelligence. It is what empowers them, and grants them the right of leadership. Powis argued that “sheer force was hardly adequate, and if nobles lacked the wit to rule, there were no doubt others ready to replace them” (Powis 1984, 46). Leadership under feudalism is associated with “wisdom, prudence, and a wide general knowledge” (Powis 1984, 46). Doctor Who updates the notion of lord to conform to the modern technological world, replacing the hereditary lines of land ownership with the hereditary lineage of superior intelligence. The ruling elite is transformed from wise landlord to brilliant technocrat. Using feudalism as the framework for Doctor Who contrasted it with American science fiction, which generally relied upon a space western motif to reflect the American idealization of exploring new frontiers and rugged individualism. The creators of Doctor Who, being British, developed a show with a character who, although ostensibly an alien, is clearly British. And, while the first Doctor was not formally defined as a lord, it is easy to understand why, based on his bearing and behavior, this characterization was formalized during the time of the second Doctor. His British sensibility is integral to his being a lord, so much so, that in the 1996 Doctor Who movie, which was produced by Americans for a predominantly American audience, the Doctor was still British. The movie goes so far as to have a character ask him if he is British, to which the Doctor replies, “Yes, I suppose I am.” Although every other lead role, including the Master, was played by an American actor, the Doctor was played by British actor Paul McGann and the character maintained his British sensibility. In the new series, which is produced for a joint British/American audience, the Doctor also remains British. In order to continue the feudal framework that his character relies on, he must maintain that British sensibility. One of the primary aspects of his lordliness is his sense of entitlement. The Time Lords are aristocrats, and that gives them the birthright to wield power and authority as they se fit. As a lord, specifically a Time Lord, the Doctor was born with the “distinctive, innate power of command” (Powis 1984, 22). His entitlement goes even deeper when one considers the original meaning of the term “aristocracy” as defined by the Greeks: “rule



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by the best” (Powis 1984, 6). The Doctor understands his birthright as a Time Lord, but viewers can also see in his character a belief that he is the best. As he says to Professor Kettlewell in the 1975 episode “Robot,” “You may be a doctor, but I am the Doctor. The definite article, you might say.” He expects the rights and privileges due his station. This includes the right of unrestricted access. Given that he has the ability to travel, not only anywhere in the universe, but also to any era in time, this does not seem to be an unreasonable expectation. The Doctor is not bound by the laws or rules of others. When he wants access to places and things, he simply takes it, without permission. Even when there is a clear barrier, such as a lock to prevent access, he uses his sonic screwdriver to unlock it. Because of this sense of entitlement, he becomes indignant when someone tries to deny him access. In “The Five Doctors,” Troughton's Doctor becomes angry when he is denied access to Colonel Crichton's office. When told he is not allowed to enter, the Doctor exclaims, “Not allowed? Me? I'm allowed everywhere!” This sense of entitlement is often read as simple non-conformity. The June 1979, issue of Starlog, described the Doctor as a “blatant non-conforming individualist.” However, as a lord, the Doctor does not need to conform to the rules and regulations of those beneath his station. This sense of entitlement extends beyond his freedom of travel and access. He believes that it is his right to not only make unencumbered decisions for himself, but to also make decisions that affect the lives of others, sometimes even entire civilizations. The Doctor is not a time keeper, a time merchant, or even a policeman of time. He is a lord, and he has the final word in all matters. During 1950's Conference on Feudalism at Princeton University, Joseph R. Strayer summed up the role when he said, “The feudal lord is not merely one of a group of men who influence the government; he is the government in his own area” (Strayer 1950, 18). The Doctor illustrates his absolute authority, which his companion, Donna Noble, challenges in the episode, “The Fires of Pompeii.” DONNA NOBLE. What time does Vesuvius erupt? When's it due? THE DOCTOR. It's 79 A.D. 23rd of August; which makes Volcano day...tomorrow. DONNA NOBLE. Plenty of time. We can get everyone out, easy. THE DOCTOR. Yeah, except we're not going to. DONNA NOBLE. But that's what you do. You're the Doctor. You save people. THE DOCTOR. Not this time. Pompeii is a fixed point in history. What happens, happens. There's no stopping it. DONNA NOBLE, Says who? THE DOCTOR. Says me.



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Chapter One DONNA NOBLE. What, and you're in charge? THE DOCTOR. TARDIS, Time Lord...yeah!

This exchange with Donna not only illustrates the Doctor's firm belief that he should be obeyed without question, but also shows that his decisions are neither arbitrary, nor self-serving. While he does have rights as a lord, he also has responsibilities and obligations. He believes it is his responsibility to preserve the greater good, and he has taken on the obligation to protect the human race. As he explains in the 1967 episode “The Moonbase,” “There are some corners of the universe which have bred the most terrible things. Things that act against everything we believe in. They must be fought!” He can be likened to a feudal lord repelling invaders and settling disputes within his domain. But, unlike a feudal lord, he is not vying for dominance in his struggles, but rather, trying to restore order. As Tulloch and Alvarado stated, “The narratives of Doctor Who are invariably about ‘slavery,’ but the narrative struggle is always for the restoration of 'balance', where each kind has its natural place” (Tulloch and Alvarado 1983, 80). In “The Masque of Mandragora,” the Doctor states that it is “part of a Time Lord's job to insist on justice for all species.” However, his actions often contradict this statement, because he is not able to provide justice for all. He has the ability to travel throughout time and systematically eradicate all forms of oppression, but he does not. Instead, he specifically fights to end oppression and behaviors that threaten the time line. Above all else, the sanctity of the time line must be preserved, even if that means allowing oppression to survive. In the episode “Remembrance of the Daleks,” the Doctor sits at a bar drinking a cup of tea, pondering a world without sugar. He wonders what would happen if he went back in time and changed people's tastes so they did not crave sweetness. How would the world be different? The barman responds that if no one had ever used sugar, then his great-grandfather would not have been kidnapped, chained up, and sold into slavery to cut sugar cane. He exclaims, “I'd be an African!” The Doctor muses, Every great decision creates ripples, like a huge boulder dropped in a lake. The ripples merge, rebound off the banks in unforeseeable ways. The heavier the decision, the larger the waves, the more uncertain the consequences.

Although the Doctor contemplates how different the world would be if he removed humans’ desire for sugar, and therefore the slave labor required to harvest it, in the end, he does not change it. He fights slavery and



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oppression, but not if it will change the past. As he says in the episode entitled “The Aztecs,” “You can't rewrite history. Not one line!” The Doctor grapples with intentionally changing time when he agrees, for the greater good, to go to the planet Skaro and exterminate the Daleks at the dawn of their creation in the 1975 episode, “The Genesis of the Daleks.” SARAH JANE SMITH. Well, what are you waiting for? THE DOCTOR. Just touch these two strands together, and the Daleks are finished. Have I that right? SARAH JANE SMITH. To destroy the Daleks, you can't doubt it! THE DOCTOR. But I do! You see, some things could be better with the Daleks. Many future worlds will become allies just because of their fear of the Daleks. SARAH JANE SMITH. But, it, it isn't like that! THE DOCTOR. But the final responsibility is mine, and mine alone. Listen, if someone who knew the future pointed out a child to you, and told you that that child would grow up totally evil . . .to be a ruthless dictator who would destroy millions of lives, could you then kill that child? SARAH JANE SMITH. We're talking about the Daleks, the most evil creatures ever invented. You must destroy them. You must complete your mission for the Time Lords. THE DOCTOR. Do I have the right? To simply touch one wire against the other, and that's it, the Daleks cease to exist? Hundreds of millions of people, thousands of generations, can live without fear, in peace, and never even know the word Dalek. SARAH JANE SMITH. Then why wait? If it was a disease or some sort of bacteria you were destroying, you wouldn't hesitate. THE DOCTOR. But if I kill, wipe out a whole intelligent life form, then I become like them. I'd be no better than the Daleks. SARAH JANE SMITH. Think of all the suffering there'll be if you don't do it!

The Doctor is spared from having to make the decision, but this incident gives viewers insight into both the moral and ethical sides of the Doctor. Had he been forced to make the decision, it seems likely that he would not have killed the Daleks because, in spite of the good that it would have brought to untold millions, his moral side balked at committing genocide, and his ethical side recoiled from changing the time line. The Doctor believes the time line to be so sacrosanct that he would not have manipulated it, even to eradicate the Daleks, who, in the Doctor Who storyline, are the most evil force in the universe. While the Doctor may despise the Daleks, he has an affiinity for humans. He builds an easy camaraderie with them, even referring to “the indomitable human race” as his favorite species in the 1975 episode “The



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Chapter One

Ark in Space.” However, referring to them as a “favorite species” shows that he does not think of them as equals. Like the lords of old, who would protect their serfs from outside invasion, but also expect servitude from them, the Doctor has taken on the obligation to protect the human race from harm, but in return, he also expects that he has the right to use members of the human race as he sees fit, often to violent ends. Ironically, the Doctor's pacifism is a trait that is often mentioned in the literature. In the 1979 episode “The Horns of Nimon,” The Doctor states, “Have you noticed how people's intellectual curiosity declines sharply the moment they start waving guns about?” One can easily understand that someone whose identity is based upon his intelligence would see fighting as foolish, and beneath him. In the episode “Doctor Who and the Silurians,” from 1970, UNIT Brigadier, Sir Alistair Gordon LethbridgeStewart blew up the Silurian base, unnecessarily annihilating the population. The Doctor is saddened, ashamed, and repulsed by the Brigadier's actions. For the first time in the series, the Doctor distances himself from humanity's violence and “small-mindedness” (Newman 2005, 68). Yet, the Doctor's aversion to violence does not ring true. When it is not necessary to fulfill his obligations, he abhors violence. However, he has committed horrific acts of violence when he deems it absolutely necessary. As a lord, though, he likes to keep his hands clean by avoiding work that is beneath his station. Unlike the lords of old, it is not manual labor that he is concerned with, but rather tasks that he finds morally objectionable, such as fighting or killing. Whenever possible, he uses others, including his companions, to do his dirty work. Scholars Joseph R. Strayer and Rushton Coulborn stated that, “feudal lords have usually, perhaps always, been supported by the labor of their peasants...” (Coulborn and Strayer 1956, 7). Yet, the Doctor uses his companions to commit violent acts. It is hard to understand how, for someone who allegedly tries to outwit his enemies, he allows situations to devolve into violence with such frightening regularity, until one understands that the Doctor ultimately places people in situations where they commit violence by proxy, on his behalf. By fighting for their survival, they advance his goals, and free him from having to do the dirty work himself. Davros pointed out the hypocrisy of the Doctor's pacifism in the episode “Journey's End” when he says to him, “The man who abhors violence, but this is the truth: you take ordinary people and fashion them into weapons... How many have died in your name?” Given the Doctor's responsibility to protect time, and his necessary, but often callous treatment of humans, one can easily understand why he does not form intimate relationships with them. His aloof and asexual bearing,



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like his intelligence, was initially derived from the circumstances present at the time of the show's creation. While his intelligence and detachment mirror the mentality of Cold War intelligence, he was originally desexualized because the show was produced for children. The first Doctor, William Hartnell, explicitly forbade “sex and swearing” (Leach 2009, 34). Peter Davison explained that the golden rule was that there would not be any “hanky-panky” and confessed that he did not believe that children would like to see kissing on the show (Haining, 1984, 230). However, in an interview with the Daily Star in May of 1982, Davison stated that he often received suggestions from fans that he should become romantically involved with one of his female traveling companions. Rejecting that idea, he asserted that, “The audience – especially the children – has to believe that men and women can be close friends sharing a home without sex.” This meant that each actor had a responsibility to maintain the strict morals (Haining, 1984, 230). Yet, the Doctor presumably had a past romantic liaison that led to offspring, since the first Doctor traveled with his granddaughter, Susan. Of course, that is assuming that Time Lords reproduce sexually. The paradox of the Doctor as asexual, yet having a granddaughter, stems from the fact that, at that time, it would have been unseemly for an elderly gentleman to travel with a young girl to whom he was not related. In an ironic twist, by trying to remove sexual undercurrents, the producers created a situation that required a sexual past. Once Susan left the show, his intimate past is not mentioned until the tenth Doctor said “I was a dad once” in the 2006 episode “Fear Her.” Susan's character presents an inconsistency, not only by showing that the Doctor had a romantic past, but also because she married a human. When Carol Ann Ford, the actress who played Susan, decided to leave, the writers had to find an acceptable way to write her out of the show. A new actress could not take over the role, because the producers had not yet invented regeneration as a means of transferring a character to a new actor. Killing her off would have been disturbing to the children watching, and, as a young woman in the early 1960's, she could not be left by the Doctor to live independently. In the case of Susan Foreman, the producers had little choice but to marry her off, so her character marries a human. Of course, at the time, that was not a problem, because much like regeneration, the Doctor's origins had not yet been established. Although the viewers know that he is an alien, it is not established that he is a Time Lord from Gallifrey until after the Doctor regenerates for the first time. Once Ford had left the show and the Doctor's lineage is determined, the idea of humans and Time Lords becoming romantically involved is dropped, until



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the 1996 movie, when the Doctor mentions that his father had been a Time Lord, and his mother had been human. Assuming the biological absurdity of cross species breeding could be explained, this mixed parentage is something that had never been mentioned before, but seemed to be a plot contrivance used to explain the Doctor's romantic attraction to heart surgeon Grace Holloway. A Doctor with romantic feelings was a clear deviation from the original program. Although he always travels with companions, often young women, there are never romantic attractions between the Doctor and his companions. In early seasons, the Doctor's companions look upon him as a father figure, rather than a potential love interest. To make it perfectly clear that he is a paternal figure, the women often dress and behave like children, rather than adults (Newman 2005, 47). From 1963 until the present, views on female sexuality have changed dramatically. It is no longer taboo for a young unmarried woman to be sexual. Rose Tyler and Martha Jones, companions of the ninth and tenth Doctors, do not see the Doctor as a father figure, but rather as an object of their desire. The new series, with Martha, and especially Rose, leverages the Doctor's asexuality as a source of tension to drive the storyline. In “Doomsday,” Rose tells the Doctor that she loved him, and he seemes to be on the verge of telling her that he loves her too, but the dimensional breach between them closed before he replies, separating them. The next scene shows him with a tear rolling down his face. It is unclear whether the Doctor is crying because he did not tell Rose that he loved her, or because he could not return her feelings of love. Martha too falls in love with the Doctor, but eventually has to stop traveling with him when she realizes that he will never return her love. In 2008's “Partners in Crime” the Doctor tells Donna that, “the last time, with Martha, it got complicated. And that was all my fault. I just want a mate.” Although both Martha and Rose are beautiful and intelligent women, the Doctor does not enter into romances with either of them. He simply wants a traveling companion. He does, however, develop a kind of schoolboy crush on Madame de Pompadour in 2006's “The Girl in the Fireplace” when he triumphantly announces, “I'm the Doctor and I just snogged Madame de Pompadour!” She is not titled royalty, but as the mistress of Louis XV she is a highly influential member of the aristocracy. Although the Doctor is still vastly superior simply by dint of her being human and him being a Time Lord, in terms of the meta-narrative, they at least have the commonality of being upper class aristocrats.



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Even so, the Doctor does not become romantically involved with her either. If the Doctor was a conventional character in a conventional series, the writers would have more leeway to add romantic elements. Clearly, even back in Peter Davison's tenure, viewers were interested in seeing romantic elements added to the show. As the times change, passionate romance is becoming more commonplace, and maybe even expected, on the BBC. The romantic tensions between the Doctor and humans seen in the new series mark it as a different program from the much more sterile original series. Romance as a plot element brings the show to a broader audience, rather than making it a show for children, like the original series. Adding romantic tension to Doctor Who changes the show, but does not weaken it. However, the Doctor himself must not give in to the romantic tensions. His lack of intimacy with humans is not merely a relic of the past. It is an immutable characteristic that stems from the fact that he is a Time Lord. Although he looks human, he is an alien. The writers could easily eschew romance in their story lines by focusing on the Doctor as nonhuman and therefore, unencumbered by human sexual desires (Leach 2009, 17). In the episode “City of Death,” Tom Baker's Doctor says to Countess Scarlioni, “Ah. Well, you're a beautiful woman, probably...” and when Peter Davison's Doctor is told that his companion is a very beautiful woman in the episode “Enlightenment,” he responds, “Is she?” Whether the Doctor has sexual desires comparable to his human companions is almost irrelevant, however, when one considers his life span compared with the life span of a human. In the episode“School Reunion,” the Doctor tells Rose that he regenerates instead of aging, while humans “wither and die.” He explains that while she could spend the rest of her life with him, he would outlive her by centuries, so he could not spend the rest of his life with her. From a narrative standpoint, a cross species pairing does not make sense on biological grounds. The staggering intelligence gap between the Doctor and a human would be another deterrent to romance. Not only does the Doctor have superior intelligence, but he has had centuries of development that have included numerous regenerations and experiences that humans would find inconceivable. In the 2008 season finale, “Journey's End,” Donna inadvertently acquires the Doctor's knowledge, and becomes a partial Time Lord. The Doctor has to immediately remove his knowledge from her mind. Furthermore, he has to completely purge any memories of himself and their travels together because, bearing the capacity of his mind has so damaged hers, that any return to these memories would kill her.



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His superior intelligence puts the Doctor into the position of mentor and protector of the human race. He can be viewed as a sort of father figure who protects his children, so that in a moral light, a relationship with one of them may be considered incestuous. But beyond that, he could not abandon his responsibilities in favor of “true love.” This is illustrated in the episode “Journey's End,” when a series of events creates a second, half human Doctor. At the end of the episode, the true Doctor leaves Rose with the inferior, half human Doctor to “live happily ever after.” The true Doctor would not be able to live such a life without abandoning his responsibilities, therefore compromising his integrity and abdicating his lordliness. The possibility of the Doctor compromising his integrity is the strongest argument against romance with a human. As a lord, he has a duty to protect the time line, at all costs. Sometimes that means letting people suffer, or even die, in order to maintain time. If he were romantically involved, he would not be able to adhere to that commitment, as illustrated by his interaction with River Song. River is introduced in the two episode storyline “Silence in the Library” and “Forest of the Dead.” She implies that she has a future relationship with the Doctor. Although the Doctor had not yet met her, River proves that the two have some sort of close, personal relationship in the future, by showing him the sonic screwdriver that he had given her, and by whispering his name into his ear. The Doctor responds that there was only one time that he would, or could, tell someone his name. This ambiguous statement leads many viewers to surmise that he is referring to marriage. The writers reinforced this assumption by having another character chastise River and the Doctor for “squabbling like an old married couple.” By the end of the episode, the Doctor is ready to sacrifice himself in order to save the people in the library. River refuses to allow him to die and denies her the future they would have together. Her impending sacrifice causes the Doctor to cry out, “Time can be rewritten!” This is antithetical to Hartnell's Doctor stating, “You can't rewrite history. Not one line!” The Doctor is willing to reject his most basic principle to save a potential love interest. This is not an evolution of the Doctor's character, but rather a refutation of his most fundamental belief. The traits mentioned thus far are the immutable aspects of the Doctor. As discussed, it can be seen how they fit into the meta-narrative, and either are in support of, or arise from, the fact that the Doctor is a lord. The Doctor also has other traits that change over time. As social norms change, and different actors portray him, the Doctor evolves. In this way, the actor can interpret the character, and the producers and writers can keep him



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relevant in a changing world. However, these mutable traits are secondary characteristics and, in order to maintain the Doctor's integrity, they must not supersede his primary characteristics. These traits do not specifically stem from the Doctor's lordliness, and can manifest themselves differently in each incarnation. Some of these traits have disappeared altogether, without affecting the continuity of the character. One such trait is the Doctor's quirkiness. Scholars Tulloch and Jenkins stated, “there is a ‘different,’ ‘eccentric’ and ‘idiotic’ side to the Doctor which is inflected differently in different eras of the show...” (Tulloch and Jenkins 1992, 126). Although the actual idiosyncrasies vary from Doctor to Doctor, they tend to counteract the stuffiness the Doctor would have if the actor played the character straight, as a lord. For example, there are the comic antics that Patrick Troughton borrows from Charlie Chaplin, or those that Tom Baker borrows from Harpo Marx. The quirks are usually used for comic effect, by foiling some aspect of the authority that underpins the Doctor's lordliness. To foil his intelligence, he is sometimes put into the cliché of the absent minded professor, presenting him as someone who is theoretically brilliant, but who misses the obvious. In “The Invasion of Time,” the Doctor looks at his palm and declares, “I know this TARDIS like the back of my hand." His companion, Leela, has to turn his hand over, so that he is indeed looking at the back of his hand. Of course, some of his blunders are much more serious, as in 2005's episode “Aliens of London” when he uses the TARDIS to return his companion Rose to her home 12 hours after he picked her up. Unfortunately, he miscalculates, and Rose has actually been away for 12 months, rather than 12 hours, leaving her friends and family on Earth frantically searching for her during that one year span. Another cliché used in the series to foil his intelligence is that of an eccentric genius. The most well known quirk in this regard, and the one that fans and scholars comment on most often, is the Doctor's attire. For all of his intelligence, the Doctor cannot pick appropriate clothing that will help him to blend in with his surroundings. His attire identifies him as the “other,” someone who is different. However, instead of standing out by dressing as an aristocrat, the Doctor wears outfits that make him look ridiculous. At the sight of Colin Baker's bizarre outfit, one would not take him seriously. At the narrative level, this quirk foils his authority. His dress is a barrier that he must overcome. At the meta-narrative level, he is above the rules of attire. He cannot be bothered with societal norms, because he does not need to be. Another characteristic that defines the earlier incarnations of the Doctor is his rebelliousness. In early story lines, the Time Lords refuse to



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intervene in the lives of lesser beings. Contrary to their wishes, the Doctor rebels against them, and is considered a renegade Time Lord, because of his self-imposed obligation to protect and restore the time line. As the series progresses, however, the Time Lords follows the Doctor's lead, and also begins to police the time line (Newman 2005, 27). It is especially difficult to see him as a rebel after the Doctor holds the office of president of the Time Lords in “The Invasion of Time”. In the new series, this aspect of his character is no longer relevant, especially when he believes he is the only Time Lord left. This rebellious characteristic seems to have mirrored the rebelliousness of the 1960's, and then faded away with the end of that era. Other traits that may change are the Doctor's gender and race. Although there aer several female Time Lords, including Romana, the Rani, and Susan Foreman, the Doctor never regenerates into a woman. He has always been male, but masculinity is not a prerequisite. Executive producer, Russell T. Davies, stated in the December 18, 2008 The Daily Telegraph that he had lobbied for Welsh actress Catherine Zeta Jones to become the eleventh Doctor. He said, "Signing her up would make television history because women have been relegated to the role of the Doctor's companion since the BBC One sci-fi show began in 1963.” This same article also listed Billie Piper, the actress who plays Rose Tyler, as a potential candidate for the role. In the 1980's, Joanna Lumley was considered for the role, causing Daily Express reporter David Wigg to say, “After all, there is no reason why the Doctor should always be a man” (Haining, 1984, 240). In the early days of Doctor Who, changing the character's gender would have been extremely controversial. Even into the 1980's, fans would have perceived such a change as a feminist statement. However, the rigid moral code differentiating gender roles has eroded, so that it is now possible for a mainstream audience to accept a strong, authoritative female character, without the associated identity politics of past decades. Fans embraced Starbuck as a woman in the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica series, without questioning her authority, and they would likely accept a female Doctor as well. The show could tackle historical issues with a brilliant female leader, and explore new romantic tensions to see how the other characters would react to her. The only caveat to having a female Doctor would be that the change in gender did not affect her superiority and lordliness. The focus would have to be on the character as “the Doctor” not on “a woman as the Doctor.” Similarly, the Doctor's race could change. Obviously, the character's race is set as a Time Lord. However, the race of the actor portraying the



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Doctor need not be Caucasian. Davies told the Telegraph, on December 18, 2008, “The more it's talked about, the more likely it is to happen.” A racial change would only jeopardize the character if the immutable British aspects of the character were compromised by shifting the focus away from the Doctor as a lord. Such a change could also drive story lines into new, and much more difficult terrain. It would be interesting to see how the writers tackled the issue of racism through history, while retaining the Doctor's authoritative superiority. Regardless of the actor's race or gender, the character would have to retain the hauteur of a lord. In conclusion, the reason the Doctor has remained recognizable during Doctor Who's unprecedented 46-year run, is because of his immutable traits, which stem from the fact that he is a lord. His other traits evolve over time, and allow the character to adapt to changing attitudes and social mores, keeping the character relevant to changing audiences. The interplay between these mutable and immutable traits allows different actors to successfully play the Doctor. The mutable traits allow each actor to interpret the character in his own way, while the immutable characteristics maintain the Doctor's integrity.





CHAPTER TWO DAVIES, DAWKINS AND DEUS EX TARDIS: WHO FINDS GOD IN THE DOCTOR? DEE AMY-CHINN

… a text is made up of multiple writings, drawn from many cultures and entering into mutual relations of dialogue, parody, contestation, but there is one place where this multiplicity is focussed and that place is the reader, not, as was hitherto said, the author. —Roland Barthes ‘The Death of the Author’ (1977, 148) Doctor Who works at many levels. For millions of viewers and for me God is alive and at work in Doctor Who – let’s hope Christians can have the imagination to make this connection and help people take a second look at some of the messages and storylines. —Rev. Andy Myers, Vicar of St Aidan’s Leeds, UK

In the spring of 2008 the Church Army, a Church of England proselytising organisation founded in 1882, ran a one-day conference on Spirituality and Doctor Who. Organised by Church Army member, and lifelong Who fan, Andrew Wooding, the aim of the day was to encourage clergy to draw on the series, using examples from the programme in their sermons to make Christianity more relevant to teenagers. As with anything Who related, the event attracted media attention, with coverage in United Kingdom (UK) newspapers from the right wing Daily Telegraph to the left of centre Guardian. In keeping with the global reach of the show, the conference also received international coverage, for example in Australia’s Herald Sun. However, the disparate nature of the coverage highlighted the issues raised when attempts are made to appropriate a popular and muchloved television programme in support of a set of beliefs that has less than universal support. For while no one disputes that the Doctor is both mythical and heroic, in a world in which religion is no longer seen unequivocally as a force for good, claiming credit for his virtue leads into an ideological battleground.

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The coverage in The Daily Telegraph consisted of a straightforward report of the event, at which vicars watched clips from the post-2005 show (new Who) that were said to illustrate themes of resurrection, redemption and evil, analysed the supposed similarities between the Doctor and Christ, and considered whether Daleks were capable of change. According to the report, the Doctor’s time-traveling vehicle, the TARDIS (an acronym for Time and Relative Dimensions in Space) was seen as equivalent to a Church, an ordinary object that points to something higher, while the Doctor was likened to Christ in his willingness to sacrifice himself for others. Andrew Wooding was quoted in the report as saying “There are countless examples of Christian symbolism in Doctor Who, which we can use to get across ideas that can otherwise be difficult to explain” (WynneJones 2008), and the Rev Andy Myers, vicar at St Aidan’s Church in Leeds, is reported as saying “We saw the Doctor persuaded to save a family of Pompeians in one of the most recent episodes, surely a reference to Genesis, and Abraham’s bargaining with God over the fate of Sodom and Gomorrah”. But Alex Stein of The Guardian was not convinced, seeing the conference as a sign of desperation, an ailing Church jumping on a bandwagon. While recognising that, at a superficial level, connections could be drawn between the Doctor and religion, Stein noted that religion has provided us with such a “rich tapestry of magical stories” that it would be hard for any popular series to avoid some tropes that might be seen to have religious resonance. But he went on to note that, for the Doctor, “everything is explainable by recourse to reason, with religious sentimentality rejected everywhere it rears its ugly head” (Stein 2008). What both reports agreed on was that Doctor Who’s executive producer and head writer (known usually by the American term ‘showrunner’), Russell T. Davies, was an atheist. But while The Daily Telegraph focused on Davies’ comment that religion was a primal instinct and a very good one, The Guardian saw this as a piece of diplomacy, and noted that one of the guest stars of the fourth season was to be celebrity atheist Richard Dawkins, described by Davies as having “brought atheism proudly out of the closet” (Moreton 2008). Moreover, for Stein, “Superstition is rejected at every stage, [and] scientific knowledge is held up as the only supreme being in the universe.” So how reasonable is it to read Doctor Who as a religious text for a secular age? Are there religious messages hidden within the text waiting to be discovered? Is the parallel between the Doctor and Christ defensible through reference to the text, or is this a misleading appropriation of a character intended as the embodiment of a postEnlightenment scientific rationalism?



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To seek an either/or answer to this question is to ignore thirty years of scholarship into the way in which audiences respond to their encounters with texts. In pronouncing the death of the author, Roland Barthes issued a direct challenge to the classical criticism which argued that there was a single, fixed and true meaning to any given text, and that was the meaning intended by the author. Applied to the new Who of Russell T. Davies, classical criticism gives us a straightforward answer – Alex Stein is right, and Doctor Who both foregrounds and privileges science and rationality. But, looked at in the light of Barthes insight that meaning resides with the reader and it becomes clear that the answer is not quite so straightforward. The Rev. Andy Myers, amongst many others, is adamant that the text does contain the kernel of the Christian message. Unlike Stein he does not adopt a monolithic reading of the text. Examined closely, the quote with which I opened this chapter demonstrates that Myers does not see religion as the only lens through which to read Doctor Who. Drawing (perhaps inadvertently) on the tradition of Barthes, he notes that the show works “at many levels” and that, in order to respond to the Christian message of the storylines it may be necessary to use our imagination and take “a second look”. The possibility of a purely secular meaning to the text is not denied, rather the case being made is that an alternative reading is at least available and accessible without exceeding what Umberto Eco (1990) has called the limits of interpretation. The Church Army is not breaking new ground in finding parallels between the Doctor and Christ. In 1983 John Fiske published his structural reading of the four-part story ”The Creature from the Pit,” first broadcast in October/November 1979 and featuring Tom Baker as the fourth Doctor. Fiske identifies a number of discourses that he claims are critical to the show, one of which is morality. The BBC, he states, “is specific and precise about the morality of the show, the Doctor must be clearly good, and his adversaries clearly bad” (1983, 81). He then goes on to locate this morality within a religious framework by arguing that “The significance of the Doctor lies partly in his structured relationship to gods and man,” a relationship in which the Doctor occupies a mediating category between the two (81). With non-human origins and many non-human abilities, yet a human form and many human characteristics, Fiske sees the Doctor as occupying the place of Christ in mediating between God and man. Other shared characteristics identified are the cleansing of a society of evil and setting it on the path of justice and goodness, the intergalactic timelessness of the Doctor (equivalent to the eternal heaven of Christ), a dislike of violence, and sexual abstinence. Fiske goes on to see more specific religious tropes in this particular story including the iconography of



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Romana, dressed in white flowing robes with connotations of angels and the vestal virgins, the contrast between the ”angelic” Romana and the black, satanic Adastra, and the motif (with Adastra) of woman as the bringer of evil into the world (Fiske 1983, 81-2). Without doubt, the Doctor Who text most widely recognised as having religious meaning is Doctor Who: The Movie, a 1996 one-off US/UK coproduction intended to reinvigorate the franchise within the United Kingdom and gain a mainstream audience for the show in the United States. James Chapman has noted how the film attempts to reconcile the contradictory discourses of scientific rationality and religious faith, quoting an article in The Guardian which described the film as making the Doctor “a gentlemanly Jesus come to save the world as it prepares to party on December 31, 1999” (Chapman 2006, 180), the millennial date being far from incidental to the Christian overtones of the movie. In his more detailed analysis of the Doctor’s 1996 adventure, Peter Wright pays considerable attention to the religious iconography that permeates the text. Although recognising that director Geoffrey Sax claimed the Christ motif was not intended, Wright considers this is “open to doubt given the apparent artistry with which the parallel seems contrived” (2004, 76). In support of his reading, Wright notes that the newly-resurrected Doctor first appears in a white shroud (the sheet covering his supposed corpse), the presence of “crown of thorns” imagery at the film’s climax, in which the Doctor “is manacled to a crucifix and garlanded with a crown of nails” (Chapman 2006,180), the Doctor’s ability to resurrect the dead, and the clear parallels between the Master and Satan. Wright concludes: When the Doctor falls to his knees and cries “WHO AM I?” from the depths, according to the screenplay, of his “very soul”, the desperate, agonised question presents the Doctor with his arms widespread, crucified by his own incomprehension. He looks up (to Heaven? To God?) and folds himself in the white sheet he has worn from the morgue. With his wild hair and robe- like costume, the Doctor is framed authoritatively and unequivocally as Christ (76).

From Wright’s perspective things get even worse when the text seeks to establish that the Doctor is, in fact, half human on his mother’s side. Wright makes it very clear that he does not endorse this appropriation of the Doctor. Indeed he lamblasts Doctor Who: The Movie as epitomising “the worst quality of much popular cultural production: an intellectually numbing, politically complicit, and culturally stagnant sameness” (2004, 86). The hybrid status of the 1996 movie (the only TV outing for the Doctor between the show’s cancellation in 1989 and its 2005 resurrection)



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has led many fans to discount the text as part of the official canon, so perhaps it would be wrong to read too much into this one adventure. So, might there be a broader evidence base for those seeking to find God in the Doctor? While recognising that the Doctor/Jesus parallel is made most explicit in The Movie, more generically and, this time, approvingly Steve Couch, Tony Watkins and Peter Williams have identified 15 parallels between the Doctor and Jesus (2005, 36-7). But do any of these stand up to scrutiny? And, do they make the Doctor a religious figure or, more straightforwardly, someone who seeks to behave ethically in often difficult circumstances? One parallel identified by Couch, Watkins and Williams is the claim that the Doctor sacrifices his own life to save others from evil referencing, in particular, the ‘deaths’ of the fifth and ninth Doctors (Peter Davison and Christopher Eccleston), both of whom sacrifice themselves to save their companions (Peri and Rose, respectively). And the ninth Doctor’s selfsacrifice is one of the key events of the first season picked up on by the Church Army. Yet these are actually the only two occasions on which the Doctor’s reincarnation is brought about in order to save another. Indeed, the death of the seventh Doctor, which facilitates his Christ-like resurrection, is the result of a random street crime. Moreover, as I have noted elsewhere (Amy-Chinn 2008), while the Doctor is frequently willing to sacrifice himself for the greater good, in the event, it is almost always someone else–and generally a woman–who ends up making that sacrifice. So, looked at on a rather grander scale, the point being made by the show, I would argue, is that altruism–which may, on occasion, require selfsacrifice–is a virtue. But, importantly, this virtue is not the preserve of the Divine, or even of those acting from a religious motivation. On the contrary, it is part of the condition of humankind. Other parallels noted by Couch, Williams and Watkins include the fact that the Doctor always turns up at just the right time to make a difference, although if he turned up a time when there was nothing for him to do it would hardly make good television. Other claims that the Doctor is motivated by a strong sense of good and evil, that he tries to achieve his goal by making a reasoned, ethical appeal to those who will listen, and that he resorts to force only when all other options have failed are all undoubted virtues but again, they should not be claimed as the preserve of religion, and they most certainly do not make the Doctor a modern-day Jesus. None of this is to question that the show has a strong moral discourse. Fiske is undoubtedly correct when he identifies morality as being at the heart of the show. Similarly, when Alan McKee researched fan understandings of the show, and asked the question ‘Is Doctor Who



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Political?,’ the responses he received “were insistently about morality rather than politics: individual behaviour rather than social organisation” (2004, 207 my emphasis). So when John Fiske identifies a very clear and specific ethical discourse as underpinning Doctor Who, and gives examples of religious iconography within a single story, this is not a sufficient basis on which to appropriate the whole canon as a religious text. ”The Creature from the Pit” followed immediately on from the four-part story ”City of Death,” a story with no religious allegory, in which the villain is male, and (far from looking like an angel) Romana romps through the story dressed in school uniform. Religious readings of more contemporary episodes might also be subject to scrutiny. It was noted earlier that the Rev. Andy Myers saw, in the Doctor’s saving of the family of Caecilius (in the season four episode ‘The Fires of Pompeii’), a parallel with Abraham’s bargaining with God over the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. Yet this seems an unconvincing parallel. In the Genesis story, God responds to Abraham’s intervention by saying that the city will be spared if He finds that there are righteous people within it. Yet none of the citizens of Sodom are righteous, as evidenced by their treatment of the angels who come to the city and seek hospitality with Lot. The city is therefore punished for its iniquity. Is there any parallel between this and the circumstances encountered by the Doctor and Donna in Pompeii? The city perishes not because its citizens are sinful; indeed there are various small incidents that show the city’s inhabitants to be similar to the inhabitants of a modern day city. Twenty-thousand die because their deaths are the lesser of two evils (the alternative being the end of the world). And, the destruction is brought about by the Doctor and Donna acting in unison, as the burden of taking the momentous step of raining down destruction on the city is one that no one should have to bear alone. Donna does intercede for the Doctor to “just save someone,” but she seems an unlikely candidate for the role of Abraham, patriarch of all three monotheistic faiths. Rather, picking up on my earlier point that altruism and self-sacrifice may be virtues without being the sole preserve of those acting from a religious motivation, the point that the show seems to be making, both here and at numerous points throughout the canon, is that the bravest, most heroic and compassionate acts are frequently performed by the most ordinary of people who choose the most ethical course of action from a purely human motivation. Moreover, it should be remembered that Donna was the one who sought to curb the worst excesses of the Doctor’s power in her first adventure with him. In ”The Runaway Bride” it is her intervention that makes him stop his destruction of the Rachnoss in order



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to make his escape. And in ”Turn Left” we see what would have happened had Donna not intervened – the Doctor would have died without time to regenerate. So perhaps the real lesson from both “The Runaway Bride” and “The Fires of Pompeii” is not that the Doctor is a metaphor for Jesus, but that mercy and compassion are most fully embodied in the very human companions that accompany the Doctor on his travels. This is something the Doctor himself recognizes, that sometimes he needs someone who will argue with him and it is on this basis that he welcomes Donna as his new companion. Ironically, at the end of “The Fires of Pompeii” both the Doctor and Donna have become gods, the household gods of the family of Caecilius. And, going back to Fiske’s identification of Romana with the iconography of the vestal virgins, it should be noted that the virgins were a pagan, not Christian, order. But as the Doctor points out, this is the age of official superstition. Indeed, the deification of the Doctor and Donna could be seen as an ironic comment on the ease with which people are willing to attribute divine cause to purely human—or, at least, Gallifreyan—actions. In fact, contrary to seeing the inexplicable at work, the episode makes considerable effort to frame all the events taking place within a rationalist framework, whether that be in regard to the circumstances which cause Vesuvius to erupt or the alleged gift of prophecy possessed by Evalina. Yet, despite my skepticism regarding the possible religious allegory in this episode, there are images that could be read as invoking religion. Most obviously this would include the white light that emanates from the TARDIS, bathing the Doctor in its glow, as he returns and holds outs a hand, inviting the chosen family into the salvation—albeit temporal rather than eternal—that the TARDIS offers. Perhaps the most convincing—or at least the most sustainable— parallel identified by Couch, Williams and Watkins is that both Jesus and the Doctor have “disciples” who travel with him and support his mission. It could be added that many of them also appear to be awaiting his return. In “School Reunion” Sarah Jane speaks of waiting for the Doctor to come back for her, and Captain Jack’s work with Torchwood initially seems a holding exercise until he can reunite with the Doctor. Both, moreover, continue to invoke the Doctor, whose presence haunts their respective spin-off series. Nowhere is the trope of discipleship more apparent that in the final episode of season three, “The Last of the Time Lords,” in which Martha spends a year in the wilderness preaching the gospel of the Doctor. Indeed, if any episode in new Who might be said to be steeped in religious overtones, then this is surely the one. After all, this is the season finale in which the Doctor is required to confront his former arch-nemesis, the



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Master. In their readings of the Doctor as Christ, both Wright (2004) and Couch, Watkins and Williams (2005) cite the Doctor/Master iconography. Indeed, the latter make specific reference to the visual representation of the Master in the classic series, with his “goatee beard and widow’s peak hairline” (37) as embodying traditional representations of the Devil. Of course, visually, John Simm’s version of the Master has a very different iconography too. And, while earlier Masters were clearly the embodiment of evil, Mister Saxon (Master No. Six as astute fans worked out very early in the season) might more accurately be characterized as a power-hungry political lunatic. However, it is clear that there are elements of this storyline that can be read as religious metaphor, despite the authorial intention to the contrary. Interviewed by Doctor Who Confidential, Russell T. Davies, who wrote the season three finale, invokes religious tropes when he refers to the Doctor’s “absolute humiliation”—being turned into a 900 year-old homunculus and kept in a bird cage—as necessary to making his “huge return” bathed in white light “all the more glorious.” And, what initiates this huge return is what the Master terms “prayer,” a worldwide telepathic plea to the Doctor, at a single point in time, prompted by Martha’s “preaching.” Yet, the Doctor himself characterizes this very differently, as the power of thought, telling the Master that, for all his power, “the one thing you can’t stop them doing is thinking.” And even here, science is at work. Within the diegetic world of the show, what saves the day is not “prayer,” but a telepathic field bound and amplified by the archangel network, a series of satellites put in place by the Master as a means of surveillance. Moreover, for all the religious iconography that dominates the climax of “Last of the Time Lords,” it needs to be noted that the Doctor plays only a facilitating role in saving the world. Surely the point of Martha’s quest is to convince the world that by working together humankind can save themselves from tyranny, and bring about the circumstances of their own salvation. Nevertheless, the image of a newly ”resurrected” Doctor, bathed in white light and floating God-like over the Master, surely relies for its impact, if not its meaning, on familiar, classical, images of divine ascension. And the Doctor’s forgiveness of the Master must invoke Jesus’ forgiveness of Judas Iscariot in the minds of those with the imagination, and desire, to make the connection. If seeking religious meaning in the text of Doctor Who, particularly if the intention is to find parallels between the Doctor and Christ, requires a metaphorical reading of the text, the opposite is true of attempts to see in the Doctor the embodiment of scientific rationalism. From its inception in 1963, the show was designed to have a strong scientific basis. Looking



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back to the origins of the show, John Tulloch and Manuel Alvarado see Doctor Who as a deliberate attempt to avoid the overt Christian moralizing of 1950s heroes such as The Eagle’s Dan Dare. The original intention was for Dare to be a “trouble-shooting flying padre,” although the concept settled on was that of the “clean-cut space colonel” (Tulloch and Alvarado 1983, 48). A decade on from the heroics portrayed in The Eagle, the British Empire was in decline and what was required was a hero who, while emphasising the (assumed traditionally British) values of fair-play, law, order and decency, would showcase the virtues of brain over brawn. In particular, according to Nicholas Cull, the BBC was looking for a character who would embody the characteristics of the “ever-resourceful backroom boffin,” the type of individual that had helped win the Second World War by inventing bouncing bombs (Cull 2001, 100). Moreover, in keeping with the BBC’s public service broadcasting mission to entertain, educate and inform, Doctor Who was to serve the pedagogic function of sparking the interest of its young audience in history and science. Indeed it was this function of combining entertainment and education that led to some of the early stories being located at key junctures of history (the journey of Marco Polo to the East, the St Bartholomew’s Day Massacre, the French Revolution), and having, as two of the Doctor’s first companions, a history and a science teacher. Making science seem fun and interesting was therefore central to the original conception of the programme. In keeping with the idea of the heroic boffin, the epitome of scientific rationalism in Doctor Who was the Doctor himself who, throughout his many incarnations, sought consistently to unmask superstition and belief in unseen power by seeking out the factual explanation for all manner of events, however far-fetched and unlikely. Yet those seeking to find religious iconography within new Who will be quick to note that there is one occasion on which the Doctor, at certain points, seems to hedge his bets and err on the side of ambivalence. This is his encounter with the Beast in the second season episode “The Satan Pit.” Certainly this episode debates explicitly the existence of Satan, a Satan common to all religious faiths. For when the Doctor asks “which Devil are you?” after listing many religions, with Christianity alongside Pash-Pash, New Judaism and the Church of the Tin Vagabond, the answer given is “all of them.” And, the Doctor acknowledges the iconography of the horned beast shared by all religions. But while the Doctor is willing to accept the physical existence of the Beast he nevertheless refuses to accept the meaning the creature appropriates to itself. Nor will he believe that the creature emanates from before the universe, a possibility that falls outside what the Doctor describes as his “rules.” If the Doctor comes to any



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conclusion about the Beast he encounters at the bottom of the Satan Pit, it is that the danger from it lies not in its physical presence but in the very idea of its existence, “the thought emanating at the back of every sentient mind.” The danger posed by the Devil is ideological, not corporeal, thus the danger can exist without any object to which it refers. Ultimately, when challenged, the one thing the Doctor claims to believe in is not a transcendental entity, either of good or evil, but the very human Rose Tyler. And, it is through thought and human agency, not any divine force for good, that the Beast is vanquished. Indeed, lest viewers are left in any doubt about the potential of myths and legends to emanate from the secular, when asked at the very end of the episode by the survivors from the Sanctuary Base to identify themselves, the Doctor and Rose opt for the heroic, but non specific, “we’re the stuff of legend.” As Alex Stein noted in his Guardian article, one of the celebrity guest stars in Season Four of new Who was to be the high profile atheist Richard Dawkins. Dawkins is the former professor for the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford University and the author of a number of popular and accessible books on science. He first came to prominence in 1976 with The Selfish Gene, Chapter 11 of which is “Memes: the new replicators.” For Dawkins, memes are the mechanism of cultural transmission in much the same way as genes are the mechanism of genetic transmission. The theory is not without its critics, but in terms of Doctor Who, its significance lies in the appearance, in the second episode of new Who (“The End of the World”), of the Adherents of the Repeated Meme as one of the races present to witness the end of the world from Platform One in the year 12,500. While the Adherents do not play a key role in the episode, their appellation,in an episode scripted by Davies, highlights an awareness of Dawkins’ work. Moreover, their presence is relevant in a less obvious way in that this episode contains the first direct mention of Bad Wolf, arguably the meme that repeats itself throughout the first season and is at the heart of the season finale. By the same token, Torchwood (Season 2), Mister Saxon (Season 3), and repeated references to planets having gone missing (Season 4) are all “memes” whose significance becomes apparent in their respective season finales. From this it could be argued that long before the Season 4 finale, Richard Dawkins was making his presence felt on the show, with the very idea of the meme itself functioning as the repeated cultural trope on which new Who is built. Much of Dawkins’ recent work has argued strongly against those who believe in creationism or intelligent design, culminating in the publication in 2006 of The God Delusion, a book that sparked considerable controversy. While Dawkins acknowledges that some form of religious



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belief is common to all cultures and societies, The God Delusion is a powerful polemic which argues that all deistic faiths are morally problematic and ontologically unfounded. One of the arguments the book advances is that the inculcation of religion is a form of child abuse (Dawkins 2006, 349-387), so it seems reasonable to assume that, in inviting Dawkins to guest star in a show that has a significant young audience, neither Davies nor Dawkins saw Doctor Who as having any, even covert religious sub-text. Although much was made of the guest slot, Dawkins’ appearance in the first part of the season four finale is remarkably brief. He appears as himself on the programme ‘Universally Speaking’ bringing his scientific rationalism to bear on the state of affairs by explaining, “… but it’s an empirical fact. The planets didn’t come to us, we came to them. Just look at the stars, we’re in a completely different region of space. We’ve travelled.” Yet while the appearance may be short, for Davies it is undoubtedly sweet. In an interview with UK newspaper The Independent, Davies is quoted as saying of Dawkins, “People were falling at his feet. We’ve had Kylie Minogue on that set, but it was Dawkins people we’re worshipping” (Moreton 2008). For Davies, Dawkins’ appearance on the show was clearly a coup. While Russell T. Davies may have been quoted as saying he viewed religion as a primal instinct and a very good one, more recent interviews have seen him vehemently deny any religious overtones or intention to new Who. In an interview with Gabriel Tate for the London listings magazine Time Out to promote the 2009 Easter special ”Planet of the Dead,” Davies responds to the rumour that Doctor Who has biblical parallels by saying: Who came up with that one, in a godless world? People are so dumb about religion. Doctor Who is mythic, so it happens in a drama that naturally has things like bright shining lights and people rising in the air, and people go: “Oh, that’s Christian, therefore the whole programme is Christian!”. I’m saying the exact opposite of that (Davies in Tate 2009).

So, in the case of new Who, authorial intent is clear. But is this the end of the story? After all, it is now over 30 years since Roland Barthes wrote his essay declaring the death of the author (Barthes 1977), in which he argued that meaning resides not in intention but interpretation. While, as noted above, the emphasis of Doctor Who has always been the promotion of a scientific agenda and a rationalist world view, one of the speakers at the 2008 Church Army conference was Barry Letts, who produced Classic Who in the 1970s when the Doctor was played by Jon Pertwee. In addition, Steve Couch, Tony Watkins and Peter Williams quote seventh



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Doctor Sylvester McCoy as making an explicit parallel between the Doctor and Jesus (Couch et. al. 2005, 36). But perhaps more importantly, as noted at the beginning of this chapter, the intent of those involved in the production of the text is only part of the process in the creation of meaning. Writing in a very different context, Alexander Doty has drawn attention to the way in which audiences seek to make meaning from mass cultural texts, arguing that the most “slippery and elusive terrain” to be negotiated is the way in which fragmented, polymorphous and contradictory audiences are able to draw on shared resources to create individual meaning (Doty 1993,1). Doty’s framework is that of queer cultural criticism, and in Making Things Perfectly Queer his goal is to interpret mass cultural texts “against the grain,” offering what David Morley (1980) would describe as a “negotiated” if not “oppositional” reading of the text compared to more mainstream “straight” readings. Finding meanings that make personal sense, even where this is clearly contrary to the intention of the text’s author, is now widely recognized as a technique that has been employed by marginal groups who find little to reflect their lives in prime time television. James Chapman has noted (2006,187) classic Who played a key role in gay male subculture, a point made much of by Russell T. Davies himself in his breakthrough series Queer as Folk, where Vince Tyler, one of the three central characters, is an avid Doctor Who fan. Nicholas Cull (2001, 106) has also noted the gay fan base of the show. I noted earlier that for John Fiske one of the parallels between the Doctor and Jesus was sexual abstinence. Interestingly one of the elements of the Doctor that Cull sees as meaningful to a gay audience is the way in which, by being “beyond sex,” the Doctor opens up space for the audience to make their own meaning around the reasons for this. Could there be a more perfect example of two very different and, in some ways, opposed groups drawing on the same element of the text to make two very different meanings? As, at least in the UK, formal religious programming is in decline, and finds it hard to attract a mainstream audience (Channel 4 2008, 9) it is no surprise that individuals seeking religious meaning in mainstream culture turn for inspiration to texts whose origins are secular and where the preferred meaning lies in the discourse of post-Enlightenment scientific rationalism. Stewart Hoover argues that the media should be viewed as a “symbolic marketplace,” and that there is every reason to expect that some unexpected sources might well be significant for those “seeking” or “questing” for religious meaning (Hoover 2006, 56). Hoover’s work develops that of Wade Clark Roof (1992, 1999), who proposed that the so-



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called “Baby Boomers” had a very different relationship to religion than earlier generations in that they were keen to seek out their own symbolic resources in order to make meaning of the world. It is undoubtedly ironic that in appropriating Doctor Who as the text of choice for religious meaning in the twenty-first century, the Church Army is making use of the work of a gay atheist who, in his youth, may well (like many gay fans of the show) have appropriated the Doctor as a queer icon in a culture dominated by representations of heterosexuality. By contrast, Davies has recently spoken about the way in which Doctor Who is now able to encompass all kinds of sexuality without any fuss (Moreton 2008). Looked at in this light, attempts to see the Doctor as a metaphor for Christ, although clearly at odds with authorial intention, offer an insight not only into the way in which texts work as sites of meaning but also give a new perspective on those cultural identities that now see themselves as marginalized. The Church Army is planning a second conference on Doctor Who to be held in the spring of 2010, around the time that Matt Smith embarks on his travels as the eleventh Doctor. No doubt the conference will deal with the demise of the tenth Doctor. While, at the time of writing, the circumstances of this are a closely guarded secret, it seems fair to expect that the event will be both mythic and heroic, but what it might actually mean will remain open to interpretation, with viewers from many different persuasions each finding what they need in the text.





PART II. CHANGING (OR NOT CHANGING) HISTORY



CHAPTER THREE WHO NEEDS FAMILY? I’VE GOT THE WHOLE WORLD ON MY SHOULDERS: HOW THE DOCTOR’S NON-DOMESTICITY INTERRUPTS HISTORY TODD COMER

To be domestic. To be domesticated. Two slightly different phrases with different, yet related senses: to be domestic is, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, to be “at home,” “familiar,” and in a “family” (2nd ed., 1989). The phrase brings to mind giggling children, crackling logs in brick fireplaces, and well-read books resting on thick comforters. Unlike the cozy connotations of “domestic,” to be domesticated ushers in a series of grave political issues. The OED defines domesticate as “to naturalize,” “to civilize,” and to “attach to home and its duties.” This second phrase suggests that the option of domesticity may be less a “personal” choice, and more a socialization process intent on limiting freedom. The Doctor of the 2005 series is not domestic. This is obvious, and perhaps not that interesting, except for the fact that Russell T. Davies has, arguably, gone to extreme lengths to accentuate his non-domesticity as a critique of the obsessive human tendency to domesticate the world, both ideologically and more concretely through colonialism. The ultimate form of domesticity is imperialism, a rationalizing ideology that justifies its more concrete counterpart, colonialism (McLeod 2000, 7). Colonialism might be defined as an obsession with homemaking, that is, forcing all places into a home for an imperial self. This is interesting first because of Great Britain's imperial past and present, which I see Doctor Who as in part effacing on the level of content and form, and, second, for what it says about the nature of violence. Since the Doctor is above all a time traveler, I address the issue of imperialism’s domesticating violence

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within the context of history. I argue that it is because the Doctor cannot be “naturalize[d],” or made “familiar” (OED), that he disrupts those stories which are too quickly writ large as history. As David Tennant’s Doctor puts it, in the 2006 series, "Who needs family? I've got the whole world on my shoulders" (“The Age of Steel”). It is best to begin at the beginning, even though Doctor Who puts every "beginning" in scare quotes. In this case, the beginning I have in mind is the first episode from the 2005 series (the Doctor Who canon is enormous and, admittedly, unmanageable at this point, therefore what follows deals exclusively with the post-2005 Who). In “Rose,” written by Davies, Rose Tyler and the Doctor first meet in the midst of an enemy invasion of Earth. The name of this villain? The Doctor refers to it as a "Nestene Consciousness." Throughout "Rose," the Doctor is harsh on humans, attacking a terrestrial existence characterized by food, sleep, television, and obliviousness to the "war" being fought all around them. When the Doctor invites Rose on board the TARDIS, he explains that she has the option to travel anywhere in time and space, or choose the mundane, which, for Rose, entails remaining on Earth and finding another dead-end job. Ultimately, in this episode, it is Rose's lack of a job, future, or A-levels— that is, her lack of success at being “at home” or domestic—that compels her to take action against the Nestene Consciousness. When Mickey is transformed by a malevolent plastic trash can, the Doctor, busy trying to save "every stupid ape" on the planet, hardly notices. What’s more, he tells Rose to leave the "domestics outside" when she and Mickey, discovered to be still alive, are noisily commiserating. Apparently, the Doctor can only think in generalities and loses sight of the particular as he attempts to save the world for the hundredth time. Even so, in the “Rose” episode it would seem that the problem is less the particular than the way that the particular is linked to the domestic scene. Here the Doctor’s enemy is a "consciousness" whose primary activity is "nest[ing]," making it logically consistent for him to criticize Rose for exhibiting a self-centered nesting consciousness. Who is the Doctor if he is not a nesting consciousness? And what does this term or state of being suggest? In another conversation with Rose, he reminds her of the first time she heard that the world was "turning," and how remarkable that knowledge was "because everything looks like it is standing still." But then, remarkably, she forgot this truth, while the Doctor is incapable of forgetting it. The Doctor "feel[s]" the "turn of the earth" and "ground beneath [his] feet spinning." He says, "We are falling through space, you and me, clinging to the skin of this tiny little world,



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and if we let go...." [original's pause]. With this conversation in mind, a nesting consciousness appears to be an entity that is incapable of living with movement, that likes identity to be grounded, desires stasis and domesticates chaos, and, as the example of the "nesting consciousness" indicates, inevitably creates violence as it domesticates space. By contrast, the Doctor's consciousness does not nest; it does not force reality into neat, static boxes, but remains forever alive to the dynamic movement of the world. As his "final" comment to Rose suggests—"That's who I am. Now, forget me, Rose Tyler. Go home” (my emphasis)—the Doctor considers his own being to be just as difficult to bear for humans. Forgetting the Doctor is linked with domesticity, an erasure of reality because that is what humans do when faced with chaos. The entire first series is framed by the fairy tale of the “Three Little Pigs,” a.k.a., “Bad Wolf.” In “The Parting of the Ways,” the Doctor and all humans on Earth are about to be destroyed by the Daleks. Worried about Rose’s safety, the Doctor sends her home in the TARDIS. Back in her own time, Rose is despondent, even while Mickey and her mother try to make her feel at home. They try to sell her on Earth, on eating chips and having a “proper life,” but she will not have it. At the moment that Mickey is wooing Rose with a proper [domestic] life, Rose looks up and sees “BAD WOLF” written in front of her on the pavement. In the typical version of this tale, the wolf destroys the first two pig’s homes, only to be killed in the end by the third pig. But in Doctor Who, the “Bad Wolf” functions not as an enemy, but a reminder of the dangers of domestic life. “Bad Wolf” keeps Rose from the naturalization that is synonymous with domesticity. Here “naturalization” points to the process by which aliens become socialized into a new communal home. However, I am also gesturing toward its use in ideological theory: If something is naturalized, it is not questioned. Who, after all, questions that which is natural, biological, or grounded in God? Such things are common sense (Althusser 1994, 119, 129). By contrast to a proper life, the Doctor's identity is open-ended, not naturalized. He has a name, but he does not share it. He is simply the Doctor. Following the overt allusion to1988’s The Last Temptation of Christ (the last temptation being the temptation to lead a normal, domestic life), the writers of Doctor Who have connected the Doctor's nondomesticity explicitly to divinity (“The Family of Blood”). It is difficult not to see the Doctor as god-like in the manner in which his core identity takes on many different personas (and even—based on the conversation regarding the Doctor’s regeneration in “The Parting of the Ways”—seems to change itself at its core). While a typical notion of the Cartesian subject



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is that it is localized, focused around a center of being, the Doctor seems to exist with no fixed center. His various faces suggest a dynamic center, and when, as eventually happens, we see two Doctors on the screen at the same time, it is difficult not to see him as complicating identity in much the same way as some Trinitarian notions of God. Such theories suggest that the Judeo-Christian God is much more linked and affected by the world than traditional notions of God warrant.1 Such a Trinitarian God exists in a non-exclusive relation to others as befits a God with no home, no walls to shield “him” from otherness. It is worth asking whether this state of non-domesticated being is an “essential” fact of the Doctor, or whether this state of being is a product of the traumatic destruction of Gallifrey? In other words, if the Doctor still had a home world (and family), would he embody a critique of domesticity? Or, must we see Gallifrey in its prime as a home that is defined by an essential homelessness? Clearly, the answer to the latter question is negative based on our experience of the Master, who, in his domestication of space, is as obsessive as a Dalek. Of course, the Doctor still has a “home” that predates the trauma of his home world's loss and whose nature is telling. As a home, the TARDIS violates domestic or metaphysical notions of an inside and an outside, which have historically operated in Western thought as domesticating metaphors (the inside of the TARDIS is larger than the outside, and this is the epitome of horror for many—consider Mark Z. Danielewski's House of Leaves). Along with this strange spatiality, the TARDIS travels not only in time, but also through space, serving as a concrete metaphor for the Doctor's own essential groundlessness. In fact, the TARDIS suggests that the Doctor appears to have always experienced the world as in constant flux—trauma and turmoil over the destruction of Gallifrey aside. The TARDIS represents how humans exist in the world. The Western tradition has generally tried to remove humans from existence by privileging a god-like individual whose basic nature implies that it has no relation, no connection with anything outside of itself (Nancy 1991, 4). This monadic, domesticated self then became the basis for a whole series of binary oppositions and exclusions. Given that the TARDIS’s exterior is a police box, it for that reason suggests order, control, and the law. In short, as a box, as a home, as an object connected with the police, it should operate as an image of this individualistic and exclusionary Western tradition. But within that box, we find all of these things bracketed by scare quotes. This police box cannot police anything in a simple manner, because policing requires borders with insides and outs, and this police box



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questions all such spatial constructions. The TARDIS embodies on the outside how we look as supposedly monadic and non-relational individuals. Once we step inside, we realize that the inside appears to be on the outside; if the exterior walls are in fact the size that they appear to be, the inside is on the outside. In the work of Jean-Luc Nancy, this sort of spatiality—in which the self finds itself outside itself and in others—is an indication of the breakdown of the Cartesian individual (Nancy 1991, 19). This breakdown demonstrates how essentially social and un-domesticated our identities are no matter how high our home’s walls. *** The Doctor is provided with many villains who operate like the “Nestene Consciousness” as figures of domesticity. In “The End of the World,” his foil is the “last human,” an utterly selfish, purity-obsessed person who will do anything to live forever. When she dies, the Doctor states simply that everything dies. The Davies era overflows with such enemies: there is the god of the Daleks at the end of the first series who claims that he is immortal, and the family in “The Family of Blood” that wants to “consume” the Doctor so that each one of them will live forever. The latter example is telling because it connects the family to immortality, and all of its related corollaries: domesticity, exclusion, and violence. Daleks, as the Doctor’s primary foil, represent domesticity to the extreme. Daleks never leave their “homes,” but roll around tank-like, peering xenophobically at the world from behind small picture windows. Purity and the eradication of difference is their defining obsession. Theirs, clearly, is a world of simple insides and outsides. Their obsession with a purifying symmetry is ironic (or, rather, unsurprising) as their actual bodies are far, far from symmetrical, but look instead like a mélange of different and indifferent body parts. Not only do Daleks never leave their homes, they also want to domesticate the universe in their own image, that is, in conformity to their illusory symmetrical conception of their being. Their law—lex—must be made to work here—da—and everywhere is here for the Daleks. The best example of Dalek control of domestic space occurs in “Bad Wolf” where humans (often) gladly participate in murderous reality television programs. Beamed into one of the house programs, the Doctor is shocked to find how easily humans have bought into a system predicated on their own control and the death of themselves and others. One “contestant” is so controlled by the game that he believes that the Doctor is a “plant, only brought in to stir things up.” The Daleks control viewing



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habits at home, but also are able to choose contestants at will from among the human populace, whether in public or in the privacy of their own home. One show similar to Big Brother makes clear the importance of home for the Daleks: to be evicted from the home is to be literally murdered. By controlling others’ homes, the Dalek Emperor has essentially made his own home secure. Having said that, this correspondence between eviction and death clearly underwrites all Dalek ideology. By desiring to be at home, Dalek ideology violently others everyone else. Ultimately, the best way to think of the Dalek species is to see it as an imperial power as it spreads across and domesticates the universe. They are quite the opposite of everything that the TARDIS represents. While the TARDIS demonstrates how identities are connected to others even when borders appear insurmountable (remember: the inside is bigger than the outside), Dalek identity will always be on the side of the impassable border. The notion that the self is connected to and owes its identity to others is “blasphemy,” according to the Daleks in “The Parting of the Ways.” The fact that the Daleks exist to elide the complex identitarian metaphor that is the TARDIS is vividly demonstrated in “Doomsday” (2006) when the Daleks use TARDIS technology to mount an offensive against Earth. Their power is built upon the control of everything that the TARDIS reveals about identity. Against the monolithic Dalek Empire, the Doctor affirms the importance and, implicitly, the ethics of transience, as does Rose. In “The Parting of the Ways,” Rose adopts the powers of (and beyond) a Time Lord and says, “everything must come to dust; all things. Everything dies.” If immortality is connected to domesticating violence, living in the face of mortality appears to impede the violence of Daleks and those like them. The Doctor is not immortal; he simply appears to be so. His regenerations are just as much markers of transience and change as they are suggestive of permanence. At his core, in other words, the Doctor embodies the chaos and mortality that domesticity seeks to elide as it reaches toward immortality. But it is probably inaccurate to emphasize either end of the opposition—mortality or divinity—because one without the other is more liable to be domesticated and, certainly, the series has been intent on emphasizing both simultaneously. *** Faced with this considerable theorization and critique of domesticity, how does the Doctor’s difference from domestic ideology make a



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difference in terms of history? And, secondly, how does Doctor Who, the series, make a difference in terms of its content and form in the lives of its viewers? In the first season, “The Long Game” deals most directly with narrative and history during the “Fourth Great and Bountiful Human Empire.” The Jagrafess and its human proxy, the Editor, control all information in the “human empire” through a sort of mega CNN media station (of course, as we learn later in “Bad Wolf,” the Dalek Emperor is controlling them). The episode is a commentary on how the centralization of information leads to homogeneity and a non-thinking populace. As Cathica, one of the workers, explains, they do not merely “broadcast” the news, “We are the news. We’re the journalists. We write it, package it, and sell it […] Nothing happens in the whole human empire without going through us.” Even this underling understands (without understanding) that the real world is not being represented in Satellite 5’s news channels. She already understands that the broadcasters are representing themselves and implicitly filtering out a much more dynamic reality. The human proxy for the Jagrafess states, “We can rewrite history” and keep humans from ever developing. History, in this sense, is understood to be a construct, a creation of those in power, which is wielded in such a manner that the status quo power structure is never questioned. The Editor explains, “For almost a hundred years mankind has been shaped and guided, his knowledge and ambition strictly controlled by its broadcast news, edited by my superior.” All events are filtered through this media station. Information is molded, revised in a manner that is most useful for those in power. If humans are the sum total of our information inputs, this is an amazing power because this narrative builds invisible walls around human actions. To what end? For the Jagrafess, the purpose is primarily life support, that is, its need for a stable, properly air-conditioned home. For bankers, this control creates lucrative opportunities. For the Dalek Empire, it means domesticating control of humans. Inextricably connected with this domesticating work, Satellite 5 is used to “create a climate of fear” that makes closing the borders to the outside much easier. The resultant absence of outsiders such as, for example, the Doctor assists in stabilizing the power structure. The Doctor enters this world and almost immediately can tell that something is wrong. His “history is perfect,” he says, as it should be; he has seen this (as opposed to a parallel) Earth at the point of its death. Setting aside his own potentially subjective point of view, the Doctor has empirical knowledge of the real history of the Earth as opposed to that filtered by Satellite 5. Based on his surroundings, he explains that humans



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have been set back a hundred years. When the Doctor enters the scene, the power structure immediately realizes that something is wrong, “something fictional.” In this context, that means that the real has somehow not been representationally domesticated in accordance with power. How could it be when a very real space-time ship has just materialized across borders that were supposed to be impermeable? Confused, this power structure, which has every “fact” in its memory banks, does not even notice the Doctor at first, taking an undercover anarchist to floor 500 instead. He and Rose are “no one,” we are told repetitively, and this appears to be part of the reason that they are not at first noted. Indeed, once they are discovered, the Editor, in amazement, says, “how can you walk through the world and not leave a single footprint?” The Editor goes on to explain, “Knowledge is power,” making the point that the Doctor, being “unknown,” is therefore dangerous. Hence, the Editor’s repeated question: “Tell me who you are?” Faced with the ideological control of Satellite 5, the Doctor does not take on these corrupt shapers of history in a head-on manner. He attacks oppression by remaining other to the system. His alien identity cannot be naturalized, domesticated, or narrated, and this is the worst possible adversary to an enemy who exercises ideological control through narrative. The Doctor impedes the domesticating narrative, not only because the narrative cannot digest the Doctor, but also because the entire narrative becomes denaturalized. People around the Doctor begin to see that they are trapped in a narrative or life that is not natural, but constructed. The naïve and opportunistic Cathica, when confronted with the Doctor’s idiosyncratic way of being, begins to ask incisive journalistic questions. She begins to think for herself. How, then, does the Doctor constitute a difference? He enters History, which makes possible the home of the Jagrafess, and in so doing punches a hole in its narratival walls. The Doctor is that which disturbs domesticating narratives and suggests that things are not quite that simple. He is that which demonstrates the limits and dangers of the rationalizing mind. He is that alienating event that cannot be rationalized and put to work by power. While the Doctor is combating the Jagrafess, the supposed genius Adam is capitalizing on history in a similar fashion. Using Rose’s juryrigged cell phone, he phones home with a message inclusive of the entire historical development of the microprocessor. Adam’s dream for power is much the same as that of the Jagrafess. He wants to be gloriously at home in the world, but, just like the Jagrafess, fails in his power grab. Adam gets in over his head and cannot quite handle the forbidden fruit, cannot handle



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having an information port placed in the middle of his forehead. Instead of being able to create a seamless domestic space through historical narrative, Adam is left with a giant hole. This liminal space points to the spatiality described earlier; the hole demonstrates the impossibility of being at home in the world—the impossibility of living behind walls (Nancy 1991, 19). Based on this close content-level analysis of the first series, if the Doctor is a doctor, he does not make us whole. He demonstrates, instead, the dangers of wholeness, which is merely another word for domesticity. He shows us how wholeness does not stop at the borders of the self, because these borders do not exist; they are open like exploded diagrams in a car repair manual, or like the interior of a TARDIS. *** The above analysis does not touch on any of the formal aspects of Doctor Who, which are arguably just as crucial as content in the reproduction of ideology. As John Fiske argues in Television Culture, a realistic television program: . . . is ‘realistic,’ not because it reproduces reality, which it clearly does not, but because it reproduces the dominant sense of reality. We can thus call television an essentially realistic medium because of its ability to carry a socially convincing sense of the real. Realism is not a matter of any fidelity to an empirical reality, but of the discursive conventions by which and for which a sense of reality is constructed (Fiske 1987, 21).

How does realistic television reproduce this reality effect? By doing everything it can to suggest that it is an “unmediated picture of external reality.” Realistic television hides its constructed nature—its status as a historical-cultural artifact—and contextualizes its representation as “natural” and in this way does the sort of ideological work that bolsters the status quo. In general, this sort of foregrounding of artifice or constructedness is a crucial content-level theme in the new Doctor Who. Indeed, the series provides its own thematization of the problem of a mediation that is naturalized into forgetfulness (or domesticity). But the series also does much on the formal level to undermine the work of realism. “The Long Game” opens with Rose playfully deceiving Adam. The TARDIS has just materialized, and she reports on their space and time as if she were a Time Lord. In fact, she had just been informed of their coordinates by the Doctor seconds earlier (crucially, we see them construct the news that will then be taken for unmediated truth). And, she



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and the Doctor are wrong. The world they describe does not match their narrative. This same disjunction between representation and the real is the subject of the entire episode. By excessively reminding its viewer of narratives and the distance between representation and the real, the episode undermines its own realism. This narrative that would domesticate us in order to provide a home for its own creator (to follow the Jagrafess example), reminds us in its very form that it is artifice. If the goal of realism is to produce the illusion of an “unmediated” portrayal of reality, this illusion also founders in “Bad Wolf”as the Doctor and his companions find themselves on television shows reminiscent of The Weakest Link, and What Not to Wear, and Big Brother. To view a television show, which represents its main characters as viewers of and participants on television, is to dissolve the illusion of realism. It foregrounds our own position as outsiders, as viewers, and denies any easy unthinking identification with the content of the show. By showing all of the above and the behind-the-scenes-production of these shows reminds us that what we see in front of us is a constructed thing, not a natural creation. Doctor Who, of course, is not a realistic television program, as many have noted. While the above analysis remains operative, Doctor Who is (most of the time) science fiction, and science fiction operates much differently than realism, as Darko Suvin explains in his Metamorphoses of Science Fiction (1979, 8). He writes, SF [science fiction] is, then, a literary genre whose necessary and sufficient conditions are the presence and interaction of estrangement and cognition, and whose main formal device is an imaginative framework alternative to the author’s empirical environment (original’s emphasis).

Suvin’s point then is that the essence of science fiction is denaturalization. By showing us another “empirical” world, science fiction allows us to (cognitively) leave home, and imagine that our “empirical” home could be different than it is. We are unsettled, estranged from our homes, and are thereby able to grasp the possibility of changing our own world (because, clearly, it is now no longer the only natural option). Other worlds with vastly different social organizations are constantly on view in Doctor Who, so this argument appears to work. Suvin takes pains to show how the mixing of mythic elements with science fiction undermines this estranging work as religious thematizations imply another world that is, yes, a foil, but also eternal and unchanging. Such a mythification of science fiction undermines the radical reinterrogation of reality that Suvin understands as the essence of science fiction. Suvin



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sees science fiction as a genre that brings its viewers and readers to an awareness of the “variable” nature of reality; mythic elements are imbued with “constan[cy]” and, even, “authoritarian social norms” by contrast (1979, 27, 35). There is much evidence of this sort of mythic fixing of reality in the 2005 series: Floor 500 in “The Long Game” is mythologized as a place with walls of gold, and the Jagrafess is “holy.” In “Bad Wolf,” people are “chosen” from the population to be contestants as if they are being swept off to heaven, and we should not forget that the Dalek behind all of this considers itself God, and forbids the very mention of racial mixing. Power does like to naturalize itself, or, in this case, eternalize itself so that it is beyond question. But what about the Doctor? While the Doctor is not God or a god, he is often thematized as such. Even if he is a god, he is a god that has absconded, escaping any human assimilation to myth (it is almost as if Davies is attempting to dramatize the consequences of two different types of religiosity). Neither is the Doctor some simple “empirical”—to use Suvin’s word—reality. In science fiction, Suvin has in mind the juxtaposition of two very concrete worlds whose juxtaposition allows our “real” world to be rethought. The Doctor, who has no home world, is a paradoxical power: he is “mythic” and yet “empirical” at the same time. Arguably, this complexity leads to an even more profound denaturalization as he cannot neatly fit into any dualistic system that would make sense of his being. It is this classificatory confusion that interrupts history, and opens us up to other stories. In his afterword, Davies writes that while Doctor Who: The Inside Story is a history of the show, “there is no such thing as history. There’s just people. All with different voices, all talking and remembering […] each one colouring the history of Doctor Who with their own personality” (Davies 2006, 254). Davies understands that history is just a story, reflective of its writer’s perspective, not a cozy, domesticated history beyond question. Davies explicitly discusses the importance of “demystif[ying]” TV, showing, in other words, that Doctor Who and television in general are not natural growths, but the result of an artificial process in which many men and women participate. His description of the Doctor Who set is telling: the crew behind Doctor Who Confidential stakes out one corner, the crew behind Blue Peter invades the other corner, while David Tennant is ready at any instant to whip out his own camcorder. Sharing the creative process with the public in this manner, “opens up TV.” It is a “democratis[ing] [. . .] process.” Multiple levels of narrating and publicizing Doctor Who reveal how very constructed, open, and democratic the final product is. “[A]nyone can do this job!” he writes, and he appears to mean it.





CHAPTER FOUR BENEVOLENT WHOGEMONY: DOCTOR WHO AND THE TRANSMEDIAL TIME TRAVELER JOSHUA LOUIS MOSS

People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect. But actually, from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint, it's more like a big ball of wibbly wobbly... time-y wimey... stuff. —David Tennant, Doctor Who (“Blink” 2005) Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana. —Groucho Marx

Every child has heard that famous cliché, “time flies when you’re having fun.” The child is taught this as an expression of empowerment. Time’s ability to “fly,” to be mediated and controlled, is within the grasp of any child who is willing and able to “have fun.” This configures an understanding of time without a fixed temporal rhythm imposed upon the child by an outside structure. Instead, time is posited as a spatial journey with active participation, a journey of “flight” guided and controlled by the agency of human subjectivity. The child is taught that time can deviate from its normative rhythms. Time can be controlled, sped up and slowed down. This ability is invoked when one ceases to be regulated by the linearity of the apparatus (the clock) and the quantification of imposed structures of time segments, like chores, schooling and parental dictates. In the similarly playful language of Groucho Marx, quoted above, the concept of time’s “flight” becomes a commentary on the limitations of the descriptive metaphor. When the scientist states that, “time flies like an arrow,” he is attempting to describe complex ephemera through simplified visual analogy. For the scientist, “time,” that which we can neither see nor direct, moves like an arrow, a signifier of controlled spatial direction. By placing the emphasis on the word “flies,” Marx exposes the limits of

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language systems attempting to describe experience. For Groucho, the metaphor of time travel as a directional signifier is condescending and simplified. The “arrow” makes about as much sense to describe the subjectivity of time as an attempt to comment on the taste preferences of the fruit fly. Or, let us consider the classic vaudevillian groaner, “Why did the person throw their alarm clock out the window?” And, its punch line is, “to see time fly.” As with Groucho’s quip, the notion of attempting to reduce time to the register of the visible/quantifiable is rendered ludicrous. The uncontainable subjectivity of human experience supersedes the quantified world of the objective and linear unit. Each of these examples of linguistic play suggests a desire to articulate reconciliation between objective linear time and the consumptive pleasures of the subjective experience. This point of contact between “time” and “space,” in all of their configurations, tasks us to examine one of the central concepts of the fantastical narratives of modernity—“time travel.” In 20th century time-travel narratives, the act of rupturing or deviating from a linear or causal “timeline” exemplifies this conceptual crisis between the agency of human subjectivity and the methodology of the apparatus. Specifically, in Britain’s recent historical period of leisure time and the rise of a complex multiracial and educated middle class, how did consumers learn this notion of empowerment over the imposed, quantified, time-units of modernity? As with the child having “fun” or throwing the alarm clock out the window, our “play time,” our act of consuming entertainment, empowers us to utilize our agency to see “time fly.” But how do we learn to see “time fly” through the medium of commodified mass-culture entertainment? By following a time traveler, of course.

Fruit Flies, Bananas and the Time Arrow Doctor Who opens this area for critical inquiry along three distinct axes of investigation. Firstly, as a long running program, Who offers us over four decades of texts engaging textual representations of time travel, time rupture and time paradox. Secondly, as a fictional world involving a “Time Lord” who polices native worlds found in the galaxy, Doctor Who asks us to critically examine its tropes using postcolonial and neocolonial frameworks of dominant and marginalized cultures. Finally, Doctor Who is both transnational and transmedial; transnational in its international reach and multitude of fictive formats, and transmedial in its liberal borrowing from historical myths, monsters and legends as its intertextual source material.



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Yet, it is not simply within the representational, but within depictions of time travel itself, that Doctor Who exposes the crisis of late 20th century British colonialism, shifting understandings of Laura Berlant’s concept of the “National Symbolic,” and, as David Morley puts it, the “construction of the landscape of national iconography” (Morley 2004, 421). To unpack these configurations, we must first realize that the rules of time on Doctor Who are never fixed. “Time” is a constantly renegotiated series of permeable and porous “laws,” bent in service of plot development, character arc, and mythic reconfiguration. The fact that these rules can be violated, often to the surprise of the Doctor, suggests a flexible and contested space for ideological renegotiation. In her examination of cinema, time and modernity, Mary Ann Doane builds off Anne Friedberg’s scholarship on the mobilized gaze to examine how the technologies of early cinema (the motion picture camera) and mechanized travel (the train) affected not just understandings of space, but a shifting understanding of temporality itself as “assault, acceleration, speed” (Doane 2002, 33). Doane’s examination of a concept of time reconfigured as value in a neo-Marxian quantified labor/capital exchange at the turn of the 20th century parallels the understandings of our rebellious person throwing their alarm clock out the window. If we accept that representing time on Doctor Who can be unpacked as a space for the expression of anxieties engaging Doane’s labor, capital and modernity time-unit, then this flexibility of “law” is an intriguing and vital space for cultural deconstruction. “Time travel,” two words suggesting movement along two distinct axes (space and time), offers a conceptual collision of ideas when time travel is depicted as fictively possible. If time can be controlled via apparatus, and time is a signifier of labor capital in modernity, as Doane argues, than what is being challenged when time is represented as being ruptured, fragmented, and paradoxically violated? The prevailing ideological superstructure. Henry Jenkins, in his work on fan culture and Star Trek, describes the science fiction “cult” show as one that encourages active fan agency as part of a complex and layered Birmingham School circulation of meaning between production, consumption, and audience reclamation (Jenkins and Tulloch 1999, 19). Because Who contains such a varied historical, theatrical, fantastical, and global milieu, the many texts of the “Whoniverse” can overwhelm the critical scholar. In describing this staggeringly complex canon, Lance Parkin argues that so many permeable sites of logistical rupture, built up over decades, have led to a “super-fragmented” Whoniverse in which neither fan nor producer can encapsulate, nor account for, the many inconsistencies of the meta-chronology of adventures



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(Parkin 2007, 256-257). In examining the Big Finish produced audio dramas, Matt Hills notes that extensive sound design can both replicate a nostalgia for the televisuality of the BBC’s Who while also creating new, distinct spaces for the world to expand into (Hills 2007, 287). James Tulloch argues that the central underpinning of the show is a “drama of reassurance for children and as a reassuring drama of ‘balance’ (between order and chaos) for adults” (Jenkins and Tulloch 1995, 61). In each of these analyses, Doctor Who is positioned as a complex transmedial diegesis engaged in perpetual renegotiation between producer and an actively engaged cult fandom (19). But the “balance” of Who is not simply a binary between children and adults within the diegesis, nor simply a circulation between producer and dedicated audience. Who is also a balancing act between a historical milieu and the fictive reassurance of a global British cultural aristocratic hierarchy, even in the face of its late 20th century decline. John Kenneth Muir notes that “if one were to name any Doctor Who serial, it would certainly center around two races locked in a life-and-death struggle. One race would be seen as the ruthless exploiter, the other as the exploited or repressed” (Muir 1999, 43). It is between these two areas of discourse, as a circulation of meaning between the colonialist narratives and the structures of time itself, that we find the contested space between Doane’s objective and subjective time in the age of modernity. We can articulate the parameters of this inquiry into “time” by returning to the jokes we started with – the empowered subjectivity of the pleasure of consumption, of watching “time fly.” Doctor Who marks its use of time travel into history as distinctly contemporary, negotiating a transformative Britain that, like the show, begins in mid 20th century social, ideological, and neocolonial crisis. Doctor Who’s thematic, and rather unsubtle, colonialist structure of dueling races/cultures operates as the central driving concept. But it is time itself, its representations and its ruptures, that gives voice to these cultural concerns. It is here, within Doctor Who’s flexible central mythic constructions—the laws (and ruptures) of “time” and “travel”—that we can locate a framework for mapping a crisis of time and travel neither distinctly within the text, nor at the point of consumption. It is in this permeable and perpetual renegotiation of dual layers of time—the chronological time of broadcast and the diegetic time within the narrative—that we find representations of Doane’s time/labor interplay. We can map this configuration along two distinct, but complimentary, concepts that only a time travel diegesis can articulate—Telememory and Telemyth.



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Telememory In the 2007 Doctor Who episode, “The Fires of Pompeii,” the Doctor and his companion, Donna Noble, land in ancient Rome (Ep. 4.3, 2008). Emerging from their time machine, the TARDIS, the Doctor and Donna begin their adventure as passive, observational, and non-interventionist tourists on a sight-seeing vacation. Within moments, the story reveals that they have miscalibrated and are actually in ancient Pompeii at the moment of its legendary destruction. Thus begins, as so many adventures do in Doctor Who, the open-text examination of the historical as fodder for the fictive, in which the Doctor and his companion(s) are inadvertent witnesses and reluctant participants to historical trauma. This classic Who narrative, marked by the Doctor’s ability to travel non-linearly in time, makes no distinctions between the historical, the mythological, and the textually specific inventions of the show’s mythos itself. The eruption of the volcano in Pompeii, a real historical event, is described as the result of an alien race living inside the volcano, a Who-specific invention. Daniel O’Mahony describes these interactions with history as “pseudohistoricals,” a place where history cannot be changed on a macro level, but can on smaller or more individual planes (O’Mahoney 2007, 57). O’Mahony notes that if “history in Doctor Who is a form of genre, then the nature of ‘historical’ can only be understood in terms of the evolution of the series itself” (63). O’Mahony argues that, by the 1970s, Doctor Who utilized a pastiche of the historical and the unfamiliar to demand a “previewed familiarity on the part of the audience in order to tell a story” (61). O’Mahony’s notion of an entanglement between the fictional and the historical narratives of its broadcast year creates a space for ideological contest; one that Matthew Kilburn notes was intended to be neither “nostalgic nor reverential” (Kilburn 2007, 71). While Kilburn’s point about a lack of nostalgia for history was certainly true in early Who adventures, a second layer of nostalgia also begins to develop through the Doctor’s time traveling timeline ruptures. We can locate this nostalgia outside of the national-historical, a televisual nostalgia for earlier iterations of the program and previously visited lands and monsters, entangled as they are with the historical moment of the prior broadcast. This interplay between history, myth, and Whoniverse in the liminal space between the familiar and the unfamiliar that O’Mahony describes, suggests an unstable historical depiction very much in line with historiographical trends in the academy of the 1970s.1 As new modes of historiographical analysis rose to challenge the orthodoxies of the 1960s, so too were the Doctor’s time-



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traveling adventures delving into an historical plateau untethered and destabilized by televisual pastiche. Lynn Spigel argues that the 1960s featured a series of “fantastic sitcoms” in American television that, despite appearing vacuous and shallow, actually examined complex cultural anxieties of technology, NASA, and cold war politics (Spigel 2001, 108). Spigel contests David Marc’s thesis that these shows “de-politicized” cultural anxieties, arguing that despite a superficial veneer, these texts coded complex cultural challenges to orthodoxy as well as anxieties of class, gender, and the national-historical. While neither a situation comedy nor American, Doctor Who’s fantastical milieu supports Spigel’s thesis that the fantastical television program could operate as a site for a complex and shifting examinations of national and political anxieties. But, whereas the shows Spigel examines maintained singular casts over runs of no more than seven or eight years, by the 1970s, Doctor Who offered a decade-plus world of long running texts untroubled by cast turnover and with the distinct diegetic ability to re-explore its own “past” via the mechanism of time travel. By the 1970s, time travel on Who became codified on three distinct levels. Firstly, an ability to visit place for times, places and events of the show’s own past broadcast periods, as seen in 2006 when the Doctor revisits 1960s swinging London to examine the impact of television on British youth in “The Idiot’s Lantern” (2.6, 2006). Secondly, an ability for nostalgic revisits with characters, creatures, and locations seen in previous iterations of the program, as when the various actors who have played the Doctor get to meet each other in specials like “The Three Doctors” (RRR, 1973) and “The Five Doctors” (6K, 1983). And thirdly, the ability to suture the historical with the fantastical to create a mythic world neither historical nor fictional, but distinct and wholly original. This exploration of “the past” through the spatial journey of a time machine opened up Doctor Who along a complex discourse unavailable to other shows. John Kenneth Muir argues that the 1969 ten-part spectacle, “The War Games,” was one of the first Who adventures to depict the wars of historical record within a fantastical and distinctly Who rearticulating and distancing effect (Muir 1999, 170-171). The Second Doctor, played by Patrick Troughton, arrives with his two companions, Jamie and Zoe, on a desolate alien land in which Earth’s many wars are each being recreated so that one of the Doctor’s own people, a Time Lord termed “The War Lord,” can build a perfect army. The Doctor summons other Time Lords to help, but, to his surprise, the Doctor is instead put on trial by the Time Lords. During the trial, the Doctor argues that he has fought many enemies while the Time Lords were passive and did nothing to help the human race.



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Despite his depiction as a renegade, and his indictment of the passivity of the dominant institution of which he is a “Lord,” the Doctor loses his case and is punished, forced to regenerate into a new persona. His companions have their minds erased and are sent back to their original times. As Muir describes the show’s first full articulation of the mythos of the Doctor’s own people, The Time Lords, Muir notes that they are not depicted as heroic, but as “the ultimate enemy” (172). This visitation with its previously unseen power structure allows Who to offer a critique of British passivity to colonial massacres in the form of an ambivalent race of bureaucratically inept Lords. By representing past wars yet coding the British empire through the alienating effect of the “Time Lord” fantastical, the show could critique late 1960s British Empire as well as the emasculated powerlessness of the youth generation to challenge them. Unlike Spigel’s 1960s American sitcoms, Doctor Who was able to use the fantastical milieu to textually articulate complex issues of war, British Empire, and generational conflict with barely coded panache. But, it is not simply in representation of the Time Lords that the crisis of fading British Empire found articulation. At the end of “The Fires of Pompeii,” the Doctor’s companion, Donna Noble, demands that the Doctor rescue one family from certain death at the hands of the volcanic eruption. The Doctor objects, stating that he cannot interfere with history or the world will face tragic repercussions. Yet, Noble insists, and the Doctor relents, using his TARDIS to transport the family to safety, breaking the existing timeline in which they perished. Noble’s insistence that the Doctor break the laws of time to commit an act of rescue reminds the Doctor that empathy can, in fact, allow for temporal rupture. Noble’s successful challenge to time orthodoxy and the Doctor’s authorial status results in the saving of a fictional family’s life. In Who stories as chronologically disparate as 1969 and 2006, articulations of historical tragedy are the means by which the limited understandings of the Time Lords,to control the very time structure they believe is “natural law,” operates as both an indictment of hierarchical assumptions of normativity by the dominant power structure as well as a critique of British Empire specifically. It is in this space of rupture between the historical and the program’s own complex mythos that we find a new form of televisual memory. This is a memory of pastiche, located within the show’s own past, its previous iterations of time law, and its unstable relationship with the diegetic present. This conflation of multiple timelines, both diegetic and nationally inscribed, allow the show’s chronological past to be reexamined through the act of time travel just as the historical is reconfigured through



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recreation. Utilizing time travel and paradox, to engage prior Doctors, historical worlds and storylines, allows Doctor Who to acquire landscapes of this blurred multi-platform memory with every subsequent season. This space of articulation operates across both chronological and fictive timelines in a form of recall that we will label telememory.

Telememory Telememory can be located at the moment when a program reconfigures its own broadcast chronology at the same moment that it comments on the open-world texts of its distinctly televisual present. This new memory is an entanglement between fictive world and prior broadcast, invoked at the moment a program runs long enough to repackage and repurpose its earlier representations as a form of return to its earlier iteration. This can only occur when a show has the ability to time travel into its own past and usurp its chronological show history within its diegetic present. This time rupture places both the memory of the prior broadcast and the liveness of its present story in conversation with the dual time periods of the narratives, anxieties, and crises of the culture that consumes it.2 In Doctor Who, Telememory is invoked through three structuring methodologies: 1. Invocation of prior Doctors via casting stunts or special episodes. 2. Return of previous companions as guests or rejoining the cast. 3. Revisits with prior worlds and villains, continuing long-running storylines. Telememory is therefore marked by this conflation between the narratives of Who’s complex mythos and the non-diegetic and segmented historical time marked and informed by the years of its broadcast. Every time a new Doctor is cast, the costume and casting choice is positioned distinctly in opposition to the previous iteration of the character. If the last Doctor was known for eccentric performance and vaudevillian flare, as Tom Baker was during his run as the Doctor (1974-1981), then the next Doctor is cast in opposition to these tropes, as Peter Davison was (19821984). Davison’s Doctor was written and portrayed with gravitas and textual seriousness, an understated performance that belied the Tom Baker Doctor’s overacting and pantomimic style. Davison was blond haired and slight, a visual contrast to Tom Baker’s large, dark curly haired, persona. Baker’s Doctor wore an iconic colorful twelve foot scarf, whereas Davison’s



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Doctor was dressed in a light tan cricket suit, with only a strange stalk of celery where the flower should go to mark his eccentricity. Alec Charles describes this “ideology of anachronism” as a utilization of “ideological contradictions” and “U-turns” as a way to address the nation’s “postcolonial ambivalence” (2007, 117). For this rhythm of rupture to function, the show requires a telememory located both inside and outside of narrative, found in the dedicated, and now nostalgic, recall of the audience but also in the show’s diegetic return to previous worlds. The show’s unique structure of casting changes, Doctor to Doctor and companion to companion, suggests a complex interplay between liveness, nostalgia, and chronological linearity that connects the show across its nearly five decades of production. When the actress Elizabeth Sladen, who portrayed companion Sarah Jane Smith from 1972 to 1976, makes a guest appearance in “School Reunion” (2.3, 2006), she is performing with her third different actor to play the Doctor (Jon Pertwee, Tom Baker, David Tennant). Now in her fifties, she does not recognize the new Doctor until he reveals himself to her. Her nostalgia for “her Doctor” infuses the show with its own nostalgia for her years as companion in the 1970s. This interplay between actor and role showcases a telememory in which nostalgia is embedded both normatively (in Sarah’s love for the Doctor) and extra-textually, in Elizabeth Sladen’s return to the show. Sladen’s real world aging is chronological – she has aged the exact amount of years that separate when her episodes were broadcast. This time travel is attuned to the markings of BBC broadcast in concert with the memory of the year of its airing. But while telememory allows the show to travel into its own past simultaneously inside and outside the diegetic timelines and non-diegetic segmentation of yearly broadcast, there is another blurring of historiography and myth at work that requires a distinct articulation. In “Terror of the Zygons” (4F, 1975), we see the fourth Doctor, Tom Baker, discover that the Loch Ness Monster is actually a robot operated by an alien race. This convergence of the myth of Loch Ness and the creation of a specific textual Doctor Who myth (the Zygons who control “Nessie”) create a multimedial mythos and open text framework that is distinct to the televisual. Telememory does this by working in concert with its complimentary concept, telemyth.

Telemyth Telemyth can be thought of as the conflation of the distinct mythos of the Whoniverse with myth structures drawn from outside of the diegesis;



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the overlapping and blurring of the historical, mythological, and fictional worlds previously located outside of the text. This allows Who to invoke the myth of the national in what Roland Barthes understood as a process of transforming “history into nature,” the reducing of complex fragments of colonialism not by hiding them, but by addressing them and “purifying” them in an “abolition (of) the complexity of human acts” and elimination of all binaries (Barthes 1987). Doctor Who invokes this Barthesian framework of the national myth through time paradox and subsequent narrative resolution. If the “laws of time” prevent intervention when traveling into the historical, and ruptures of these laws create crisis, then it is in the resolution of these crises that the myth becomes codified. This use of fictional narrative conflated with historical representation moves the historical into myth along Barthes’s myth-making process. This reprocessing of historical myth into the realm of the fictive Who-centric diegetic myth is what I will term “telemyth.” In the show’s first few seasons, the Doctor’s adventures mainly took place in the ancient world (“The Aztecs” 1964, “The Romans” 1965) giving the BBC a chance to reuse many of its costumes from other historical programs. In 1966’s “The Gunfighters,” The Doctor and his ompanions journey to the OK Corral and meet the legendary gunfighters of the Old West. These articulations of myth maintained a singularity and compartmentalization of source. But by 2006, the Doctor was meeting werewolves with Queen Victoria (“Tooth and Claw” 2.2) and witches with Shakespeare (“The Shakespeare Code” 3.2). After decades of production, the ruptures of years of diegetic time travel and telememory served the function of blurring distinct cultural myth strands into a sort of “myth soup.” The time travel capability of the narrative functioned as privileging an agency of telemyth that punctured and ruptured any distinctions between medium, myth, historical, and factual. The ability for the myth of the diegesis to step into the myths of both fictive literature and recorded history, while entangling both, created a conflation of the fictional and the historical-national both reassuring but also destabilizing. If we understand telememory and telemyth as forms of intertextual, multimedial discourses created as the show travels both chronologically in broadcast cycles and diegetically through ruptures in space/time, then it is in the show’s articulations of “breaks” in time, events that the Doctor argues are impossible, that the show critiques the authorial power of the Doctor, the Time Lords, and, by proxy, the British Empire. This has an obvious narrative function. For the Doctor to be surprised, his knowledge must have limits; he cannot be omniscient. Time fractures operate as plotpoint crisis and allow the narrative to find ways of placing the Doctor and



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his companion into danger. But, time fracture also speaks to an understanding of time as ideological mythic superstructure in which time operates as a conceptually imposed membrane, with permeable and porous boundaries, rather than fixed framework. If “paradox” can be breached in ways the Doctor does not understand (and frequently rejects as “impossible”), than his position as authority figure is ultimately unstable and open to critique. If “time” is the superstructure that maintains the universe’s hierarchies, then breaches of time represent its ideological crisis. Telememory and Telemyth allow the text to engage transnational and transmedial cultural fragments outside of the show’s prior diegetic history, while the depictions of time paradox provide the space for oppositional challenge to this articulations of the national-historical. It is here, in this fracturing of time structure, that “paradox” foregrounds the entanglement between present and past, fictive and real. This occurs both within the mythos of the show’s own chronological nostalgia, but also outside the text, in the cultural frameworks of its myth production. Once it articulates time crisis, Who invokes these discourses by negotiating an ongoing dialectic between a figure positioned in authority, The Doctor, and a figure of youthful and generational opposition, a companion. Time fracture leads to a conversation between Doctor and companion that foregrounds the dialectic of cultural renegotiation between institution and opposition; the critique of the fan.

The Companion and the Fan Unlike most sci-fi television with a diegesis set in the fantastical, Doctor Who inscribes a representation of the program’s audience itself as a central trope of its mythic structure. The program does this in the form of the companion, depicted primarily as the Watson-like questioner of the Doctor’s Sherlock Holmesian investigative authority.3 With a few notable exceptions (including Romana, a “Time Lady” meant to be the Doctor’s equal, in the late 1970s), the Doctor’s companions are depicted as contemporary British youths, late teens to late twenties, living an anonymous middle class existence. Upon first meeting the Doctor and being introduced as a recurring character, each of the Doctor’s companions become mobilized outside of the linear, causal time of “normal” life. They are encouraged to throw the proverbial “alarm clock” out the window and to watch “time fly,” by having fun and joining the Doctor on his reconfiguration of causal time limits. By making the companion the proxy audience representation caught between the worlds of childhood and adulthood, Doctor Who is able to function through what Jonathan Bignell



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describes as lessons in “growing up” and “leaving home” by engaging a world of danger and peril (Bignell 2007, 47-48). The Doctor is able to liberate the companion from chronological repetition (the boring life of work) by rupturing their linear timeline via time travel. The Doctor is able to disrupt time literally as a time traveler, but also subjectively, through the privileging of his companion to escape segmented time and to be able to see “time fly” by having fun. The companion does this by joining him on his adventures just as we are. This proxy fandom eventually became non-diegetically inscribed as well. Giving the long running nature of Who, actors who grew up as fans of the program found themselves being cast as Doctors and companions within the very show of which they had once been fans. As the fan site Gallifrey One notes, teenage actor Matthew Waterhouse, cast as the Doctor’s companion, Adric, in 1980, had grown up a fan of the program (Gallifreyone.com, Production Notes “Full Circle” 5R). By 2006, the episode “Love and Monsters” (2.10) is told entirely from a “fan’s” point of view as he attempts to piece together the Doctor’s story from clips found on the internet and his own hazy childhood memories. This offers us a compelling textual and representational field to study points of contact between fan agency and production. But, it also asks us to challenge the distinctions drawn between producers and audience. Are fan culture and authorial intent distinct areas for the production of meaning? Or do these boundaries become permeable over a long historical period of show production and fan circulation? The key to untangling this complex and permeable interplay between authorial ideology and consumptive response lies not simply in deconstructing cultural representations within the text, nor in audience studies of the active fan culture activity that supports it, but as a circulating mythos both within and without each area of critical discourse While the companion is not an actual voice of the audience, the space for oppositional discourse roots firmly in audience identification with one of its own entering the diegesis. Companions find themselves removed from an often dreary depiction of British class-system hopelessness. This wish-fulfillment fantasy operates as a proxy fandom that positions the agency of the fan not simply at the point of consumption, as with Jenkins’s examination of Star Trek subculture, but as a centrally located textual address. This notion of the highly transitory flâneur suddenly able to engage a newly mobilized trans-temporal gaze via fantastical technological apparatus suggests interplay between producer and fan in which meanings generated at the point of consumption become subsequently rearticulated within the narrative. The rupturing of the “laws of time” by the companion



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challenging or ignoring the Doctor’s admonitions represents a site for contested ideological challenge, as we saw in our earlier example from “The Fires of Pompeii.” In this reading, the Doctor functions as textual and authorial British “Lord,” while his companion contests this hierarchy as the representation of the “fan,” the anonymous British citizen. Meaning is created within these two oppositional and contested polarities as a reflection of the circulations outside of the text, between producer and audience. This is reflected through secondary texts, fan conventions, and casting choices, and then answered once again within the diegesis in a discourse of comment and response. But this is too simplified a reading. To place the Doctor as simply an agent of hegemony and the companion as youthful opposition to hierarchy does a disservice to the complexity of this configuration. Let us return to Alec Charles’s point about the contradictions and uturns representing the nation’s “postcolonial ambivalence” (2007, 199). In his critique of the myth of Superman, Umberto Eco describes a subjective time structure that “breaks down” due to the limitations of the individual stories and the need to return Superman to state of eternal return, to reboot for the next story (Eco 1979, 113-114). For Eco, these stories avoid sequential story time by denying the development of a linear serialization that could disrupt individual stories. This is done by creating what Eco terms an “oneiric climate,” a liminal stasis structure in which events that came before and after the individual story remains perpetually “hazy” (114). Eco critiques this “ever-continuing present” as removing the concept of planning, of cause and effect, and of macro-change. The omnipotent Superman does not affect political change at the level of the nation (say, by killing a dictator or removing nuclear weapons). Instead, Superman only participates in “civic consciousness,” helping those he sees in trouble in front of him or in his community, and only by returning to the oneiric space at the end of each story (123). In its original construction, Doctor Who operated similarly. The Doctor would intervene only when accidentally discovering a crisis that needed tending to. Yet, both the Doctor and Superman follow Eco’s critique of non-interventionism at the macro or political level. The Doctor remains anonymous on Earth, a shadowy figure acting only when he has to, to stop damage to the British Empire, and less directly, the world. Like Superman, The Doctor does not run for office and has a general distaste for political visibility.4 In 2007’s “The Sound of Drums,” (3.12) it is the Doctor’s arch nemesis, The Master, who runs for political office and becomes the Prime Minister of Britain. The Master, like Lex Luthor, takes the political step that Eco critiques Superman for refusing to attempt. The Doctor, like



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Superman, functions with a “civic consciousness” but without any political consciousness (Eco, 123). As Superman is to the national iconography of America, the Doctor functions as icon of Britain. The Doctor is an individual doing good through voluntary action, rather than social or collectivist structural shift. It does not take a nuanced reading to detect a classic Benjaminian understanding of the Doctor as bourgeois flâneur, enjoying the exotic fruits of the world brought to his four-dimensionally accessible global bazaar. The Doctor does not travel the world on a heroic mission to save as many alien and human lives as he can, as Superman does. The Doctor is a wanderer, a “tourist” of the universe, only accidentally entering a crisis in which he has no moral choice but to become involved with. In this sense, the Doctor operates ideologically in concert with Superman, in a state of observance and reluctant intervention only at the point of witnessed crisis. Yet, the Doctor as upper-class British aristocratic signifier, his status as Time Lord of the universe, renders him culturally distinct from Superman’s middle-class Clark Kent, everyman and anonymous. It is here where icon conflates with the nation. Superman comes from Smallville, a product of an American longing for small town life, even as he works anonymously in Metropolis. The Doctor is urbane, cosmopolitan, and always traveling, a member of the British aristocracy signified by his citizenship as one of the elite lords of the planet Gallifrey. This has the ideological function of coding the British Empire as benevolent, passive, and non-interventionist, what Charles deems “typically and radically postmodern, and classically, tragically British” (2007, 121). Gallifrey, a barely concealed metaphor for the stodgy aristocracy of the British Empire, represents an historical Britain as a world of repressed scholars of the universe, but also those who do not actively seek to rule. Their one and only responsibility is to the preservation of the laws of “time.” When the Time Lords sees a time paradox, they must do everything they can to restore “order” to the hierarchy of the existing timeline. Yet, in so many texts, Doctor Who argues that this feared destruction of space/time never comes. For the Time Lords, “Time flies like an arrow.” For the companion to partake in oppositional challenge to this time structure, one might say their response is that fruit flies like a banana. The limit of Time Lord knowledge echoes Groucho Marx’s indictment of condescending scientific metaphor. The audience is positioned as satirist, and the ruptures of time become a critique of British neocolonialist impulse. But the Doctor’s antipathy towards Time Lord orthodoxy problematizes this hierarchy. As a figure originally depicted as the “traditional colonial



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hero” (Charles 2007, 117), it is no surprise that, even in his many iterations and costumes, the Doctor is marked by the iconographies of the late-19th century British stage magician. The highly stylized and theatrical touring magic productions of 19th century Victorian carnivals featured illusions of spectacle presented in tents across the British countryside. The iconographies of the touring magician who had brought back his illusions from the exotic lands of the Far East tied together notions of tourism, spectacle, mobility, and exoticism.5 Stage magic features a form of illusory time travel as its central trope, in which the magician disappears and reappears in different locations in ways that would appear to move faster than the laws of physical space.6 The gender roles of the 19th century stage magic show featured the magician as gentleman traveler, eccentric, genteel and presumably wealthy.7 His show would feature either one, or a number, of young, beautiful female assistants that would present themselves as object, and without agency, for the gaze of the audience. The female assistant appears on stage and participates, without resistance, in whatever dangerous contraption the magician would feature.8 It is in the codes of the magician that the Doctor’s colonialist signification finds challenge. The Doctor, a renegade Time Lord, has fled his commitments to the people of Gallifrey to seek personal adventure. While portrayed as stodgy, frozen, and bureaucratic, Gallifrey suggests the romantic version of British self-understanding regarding its history of colonialism. The Doctor’s role was originally paralleling the iconic Doctor Livingston, sent to the primitive planets to bring medicine to the masses and rescue his compatriots in their time of crisis. But this simplified reading unfairly reduces and overdetermines the Doctor’s codes. By 1969, the Doctor’s rejection of Gallifrey and Time Lord Society by violating the rules imposed on him by his culture marked the Doctor as a product of the 1960s counter-culture. This costumed shift occurred as early as the second Doctor, Patrick Troughton, who sported a Beatles wig and was short, stocky and sarcastic. Gallifrey is thus positioned antithetically to the Doctor’s rebellion. Gallifrey is the declining, aristocratic old England, while Patrick Troughton marked the new British mods. Given his complex relationship with Gallifrey and willingness to challenge the “laws of time,” we cannot reduce the Doctor to simply an authority figure of a romantic and ahistorical colonialism. These representations are far too complex to be overdetermined based simply on costume or apparatus. It is notable then that in the 2004 reboot, series show runner Russell Davies decided to eliminate Gallifrey altogether, creating a back-story in which it was destroyed in a “time war” with the Daleks. In 2004, the lords who regulated time have now been removed



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entirely from the equation, leaving only the Doctor to follow his own understanding of morality and action in the universe. This suggests a transformation of British understanding of empire in which decline and paralysis have shifted into traumatic absence. This structuring lack, coded in a primal trauma back-story in which the Doctor made the decision to destroy both Gallifrey and the Daleks, reconfigures the Doctor a traumatized survivor of genocide and war. The British Empire of Gallifreyan Time Lords is no more. The Nation has been reconfigured from a world that the Doctor rebelled against into the corporeal body of the Doctor himself. Let us return to Doane’s configuration of time as labor marker in early modernity. If the Doctor is both engaging and critiquing Doane’s understanding of segmented time through the ruptures of non-linear time travel and a complex relationship to the British Empire in its neocolonial historical moment, then what of the apparatus that both marks this dominant hegemony yet also provides the ruptures for historical challenge? What technology can offer this liberation potential by challenging the impositions of segmented time? It has to be fantastical. It must go beyond Doane and Friedberg’s mobilized gaze and depict a gaze both highly mobilized and yet temporally untethered. A device of postmodernity. For this, we turn to the iconic technology that defines the Doctor’s ability to renegotiate and control time and spatial travel, the TARDIS.

Time And Relative Dimensions in Space The acronymic TARDIS (Time And Relative Dimensions In Space) first “materialised” at the beginning of the program’s run in 1963, and quickly became an icon— a spinning, flying, disappearing “police box.” While casts, styles, looks, and even title sequences of the program have undergone many makeovers during the run of the show, the TARDIS has remained visually unchanged for fifty years. Yet despite its fixed exteriority, the signification of the TARDIS has undergone a complex series of transformations. First appearing during the global social and cultural upheavals of the early 1960s in Britain, the TARDIS functioned as a signifier of institutional authority, a police box, as well as a mobilized form of non-linear rebellion (the ability to subvert time’s “fixed” events). In the show’s dual significations of both the police and the Doctor’s ambiguous medical title, two iconographies of dominant institutions of the British Empire are brought together. As a mechanism of colonialist impulse (the ability to travel to exotic, often primitive worlds), but also



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offering liberating breaks from the linear orthodoxy of those worlds it visits, the TARDIS problematizes neocolonial historical linearity even as it transgresses literal timelines through its travel. If “time” is a commodified chronology in the age of modernity, then the TARDIS provides the apparatus of a subversive ideological rupture. It is both icon of modernity and also enabler of postmodern challenge. As the BBC program travels through the decades of the 1970s and 1980s, the fixed iconography of the exterior TARDIS reinforces the very temporal linearity that the device is able to rupture. This places the TARDIS within our concept of telememory, positioning the “fixed” police box as able to travel both diegetically and chronologically through two timelines; diegesis and broadcast. This complex interplay between the narratives of time travel and the movement of the show through five decades of chronological history requires the TARDIS to remain “fixed.” If the cast can regenerate and change, and diegetic chronology is permeable, than the TARDIS itself must offer a structuring icon of sustainability. The more the TARDIS travels through time episodically, backwards and forwards through history, the more the consistency of the TARDIS’s police box reaffirms the show itself as reassuringly and nostalgically linear. In 1963 or 2009, one thing can be sure on Doctor Who, the TARDIS is the TARDIS. For this central icon, time doesn’t move at all. Yet, for all its fixed exteriority, the TARDIS’s interiority is frequently redesigned, often radically so. The 1970s TARDIS featured a clean, white interior, a simple television view screen, two large doors, a central control panel, and little else. Shot in a studio, it had the over lit brightness of a theatrical stage. By the 1980s, the control panel had become redesigned, featuring increasing televisual spectacle, Caldwell’s cinematographic turn in the age of cable narrowcasting (Caldwell 1995, 9). By the time of the 1996 BBC-Fox coproduced TV movie, the TARDIS’s interior had become transformed into a visually stunning, rustic, wood paneled echo of 19th century antiquity. In the 2004 BBC/Sci-Fi Channel coproduction reboot, the interior had become an organic visual lightshow spectacle, with high arching columns and illuminated flooring referencing a retro 1960s Jules Verne oceanographic vessel. This concept of fixed exteriority and shifting interiority illuminates Doctor Who as operating along the dual axes of telememory. It is an interiority of ever-present liveness and an exteriority of fixed nostalgic broadcast memory. The exterior links the program across time via iconographic consistency, while the interior’s transformations, along with the Doctor and Companion’s casting changes, update to the specificities of



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the cultural moment. This collision in time between the past and the present in the aesthetics of the TARDIS places the long-running program as the very balancing between “order” and “chaos” that Tulloch argues is at work in the narrative (1995, 61). But this balancing act extends outside of Tulloch’s textual analysis, into the realm of the historical, the cultural and the national. National historical myth structures can change even as they reassure the coherency of the nation as a whole, just as the TARDIS reassures that despite the turnover of its interior, its outward appearance is reassuringly fixed. But the TARDIS does not simply function as a technological totem signifying Friedberg and Doane’s apparatuses linking time and travel in the age of modernity. In the 1970s, frequent references were made that the Doctor and the TARDIS shared a form of empathic, almost spiritual, relationship. In the 1996 TV Movie, the mystical “Eye of the TARDIS” became a central plot point. In the central climax of the second season of the BBC reboot, the Doctor’s companion, Rose Tyler, stares into the heart of the TARDIS and becomes possessed by its mystical energy (“Doomsday” 2.13, 2006). This mystification of the previously technological artifact of time commoditization and travel speaks to shifting notions of time in the postmodern. No longer strictly mechanical, the Doctor’s vessel of travel becomes infused with an otherworldly consciousness. This speaks to a new understanding of time, travel, and the subjective that is no longer rooted in the mechanized and commodified. This new form of technology echoes Freud’s understanding of the subconscious and Walter Benjamin’s entanglement of historical materialism, conflating the technological and the subjective outside of human consciousness (Benjamin 1941; Freud 1989).9 This empathic link between the Doctor and his time travel apparatus supports both Doane and Freud by suggesting time travel and consciousness are inextricably linked within the subjective. This reconfiguration of the TARDIS begins during the fourth Doctor’s adventures in the early 1970s, locating the TARDIS apparatus as transgressing the dominant, commodified, time structures of mechanization and moving into the realm of the subjective and psychoanalytic. The Doctor is able to travel through space-time because his subconscious (subjective/time) is linked to his technological apparatus of travel (space/time). By the 1970s, time travel on Doctor Who was echoing a Foucauldian spatial and technological shift as well as subconscious-emotive subjectivities outside the realm of the commodified. The clock had been thrown out the window. Segmented time history and diegetic timelines had become usurped by the power of subjective agency, the proxy-fan companion having fun. But the rupturing



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of linear time was also empowered by the subjectivity of the apparatus itself.

Conclusion In the 2007 BBC interstitial Doctor Who adventure, “Time Crash” (“Children In Need Special, 8 min), the tenth Doctor, played by actor David Tennant, pilots the TARDIS into a temporal disruption field. Set entirely inside the TARDIS and notably traveling without a companion, the Doctor finds his TARDIS materializing in the exact same time and place as another TARDIS, traveling along a supposedly unreachable time stream. A paradox brings the two time traveling vehicles into the same exact location in time and space. Tennant looks up from the console to reveal the actor Peter Davison, the fifth Doctor, also operating the very same TARDIS. The plot gimmick of a time rupture brought together two actors who have played the same character nearly thirty years of broadcast time apart. While the actor Davison looks much older than when he originally played the Doctor, the original costume compensates, suggesting the two have now collided by crossing over their distinct timelines. As they attempt to extricate themselves from the situation, they recognize each other. This playful ambiguity is done on purpose – are they recognizing each other narratively, as different iterations of their shared self? Or, is this recognition that of actors, having seen each other playing the Doctor on the BBC? Tennant’s monologue to Davison engages this playfully ambiguous meaning: You know, I loved being you. Back when I first started, at the very beginning, I was always trying to be old and grumpy and important—like you do, when you're young. And then I was you, and it was all dashing about and playing cricket and my voice going all squeaky when I shouted. I still do that, the voice thing, I got that from you. Oh, and the trainers. And... [putting his glasses on] snap! 'Cos you know what, Doctor? You were my Doctor (Wikipedia).

The thirty-three year old actor, David Tennant, nearly the exact age when Davison played the part, is speaking not as Doctor but as textually inscribed fan. This sequence utilizes time rupture to break the diegesis and to address nostalgia for the show’s past within its production—producer as fan. Tennant is not performing in character as the tenth Doctor, but as David Tennant, childhood fan of the program’s fifth Doctor, Peter Davison. Jenkins’s active fan has become fully realized in the imaginative realm, not just as the Doctor’s companion, but as the Doctor himself.



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Time travel paradox functions to fulfill what the objectively marked and linear broadcast time cannot – the resurrection of the fifth Doctor in the flesh and the inscription of the fan as responding appreciatively, the “fan as Doctor.” The bent rules of diegetic time travel can supersede the imposed units of segmented BBC broadcast time. Decades of production history and the diegesis of time travel allow this exchange to configure itself in this realm between diegesis and chronology, in telememory. Only a long running show, with distinct periods marking the historical, the nostalgic, and the narrative means of time travel itself, can create such a space for cultural renegotiation and renewed understandings of the national historical. Via time travel, Doctor Who has been able to open its own prior texts and entangle them with the historical and the mythic, and in so doing, to function as an act of televisual historiography. If the Doctor is marked complexly as both authorial figure of British hegemony and oppositional critic of crumbling aristocracy, the companion functions as both oppositional subaltern voice of challenge, but also as marker of the generational consistency of British youth. Blurring the boundaries between the historical, the mythological, and the textual through ruptures in time, Doctor Who functions as a distinct cultural artifact. By using a paradox configuration of time in which time is both objective and subjective, Who is able to fragment normativity through representations of highly permeable and problematic constructions of empire, authority, and oppositional challenge. Who does this within a circulation of discourses neither distinctly authorial nor textually generated; a world operating along the dual axes of space and time both inside and outside the text, the fan and the historical, the mythic and the fictive. Doctor Who’s consumptive pleasures are powerful, to collectively throw the TARDIS “alarm clock” into space and, by rupturing the imposed segmentation of objective broadcast time and open-text chronology, to take control of the apparatuses of modernity into the realm of the postmodern. To destabilize history and, through the act of consumptive pleasure, to accompany the British Nation on a collective journey of reassurance in the age of historical destabilization. To reconfigure the mythic, the historical and the televisual and, by having fun, to see “time fly.” An act in which the pleasures of time rupture, opposition and the privileging of multimedial textual fragments actually serve to reinscribe a national coherency. A national coherency ultimately rooted in the pleasures of a time journey found in the televisual myth making of the national symbolic.





PART III. NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL IDENTITY



CHAPTER FIVE REBOOTING AND RE-BRANDING: THE CHANGING BRANDS OF DOCTOR WHO’S BRITISHNESS BARBARA SELZNICK

One of the most fascinating qualities of Doctor Who is its ability to be analyzed on so many different levels. Doctor Who can be read as science fiction, history, philosophy, comedy, drama, and more. One common element that cuts across all of these studies is the importance of the fact that Doctor Who is undeniably British, not just in its production location, crew and cast but also in its themes, style, and character. Although national origin and culture is important for Doctor Who, the latest incarnation of the program (2005-present) must still sell to international markets in order to support its relatively high production budget.1 The U.S. market is one of the most potentially lucrative, where a program like Doctor Who has the opportunity to earn back a great deal of its production costs. U.S. audiences, however, have a complicated relationship with Doctor Who, which is often discussed in the U.S. as a campy, low budget sci-fi program for geeks. The 2005 reboot, however, has somewhat changed this image. While not a runaway hit in the U.S., the contemporary Doctor Who has flourished here more so than the long-running original series, which aired in the UK from 1963-1989, and the one-off television movie co-produced by the BBC and Universal Pictures for Fox in 1996. This chapter explores the reasons for Doctor Who’s newfound success in the U.S. by considering changes in the media industries, the socio-cultural context of U.S. audiences, the program and its marketing. One of the key elements that will be explored is the way that Doctor Who’s representation of the concept of the nation of its origin has, at times, made it difficult to sell in the U.S. market. In the end, this examination illuminates some of the tensions that exist between the industrial push for national and international textual qualities in television programs, and ultimately how

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U.S. reception of a television show can be shaped by the mobilization of nation-brands, such as the brands of Britishness.

Branding the British The goal of branding is to shape an identity for something – such as a product, a film, a corporation or a nation – that is appealing and that will ultimately foster brand equity. Brand equity is defined as “‘added value’ with which a given brand endows a product” (Farquhar, 24). In other words, to build brand equity, a brand must be known to users and must be considered favorably when making decisions about purchasing, viewing, traveling etc. (Keller, 9). Generally, the creation of this kind of positive brand equity is tied to “fostering a number of possible attachments around the brand, be these experiences, emotions, attitudes, lifestyles, or most importantly, perhaps, loyalty” (Arvidsson, 239). Brand equity, in the end, leads to consumer loyalty. For a product, this might mean that a consumer continually buys one particular brand; for a television show, it might lead to regular viewing; and, for a nation, it might increase tourism, exports and/or foreign investment. The concept of Britishness certainly has particular connotations in the U.S.. Although not officially sanctioned (the British government’s attempts in the 1990s to re-brand the nation will be discussed later in this chapter), there are three familiar “brands of Britishness” in the U.S. that are frequently attached to British media: heritage, cool, and eccentric. This is to say that when hearing that a film or a television show is British, one of these three images of Britishness might come to a viewer’s mind. As a type of shorthand, media producers and marketers may actively attempt to connect (or disconnect) particular media texts with these brands in order to appeal to specific audiences. A film or television show branded as heritage, cool, or eccentric may not actually be any of those things. So, a film branded as heritage may not be a heritage film, and a television show branded as cool may not be cool (though this category has not been as thoroughly theorized as the concept of heritage). Rather, these are associations that are made with the text through elements such as narrative, style, themes, and marketing to help potential viewers identify the text and fit it into one of the well-known images of British media. Part of Doctor Who’s recent success in the U.S., arguably, is the re-branding of the program to move away from the images associated with heritage (and to some extent the extreme eccentricity of later seasons) and toward the concept of cool. A brief discussion of each of these brands will lead into a



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discussion of how Doctor Who mobilized these brand associations to help U.S. viewers make sense of Doctor Who, thus encouraging viewership. The heritage brand trades primarily on nostalgia by harking back to the (British) past. These texts are often set in the past, but heritage branding can be applied to texts set in present day, such as Four Weddings and a Funeral or Keeping Up Appearances, that focus on the kinds of people associated with old England, such as the British gentleman or the privileged upper classes. Texts branded as heritage, which are generally beautifully shot with scenery that shows off the lush British countryside, are imbued with a sense of quality. The discourse surrounding these texts often focuses on their quality acting, quality cinematography, and quality writing, proven frequently through their connection to literary classics. In terms of themes, a longing for clearly defined social roles often pervades these texts, resulting in more conservative images of class and gender. Marketing the heritage brand may consist of references to the British royalty, behaviors associated with the British (such as drinking tea or the wearing of extravagant hats), or focusing on the beautiful British scenery within the text. The heritage brand, which can be seen as a melancholy reaction to shifts within contemporary society and changing cultural hierarchies, ultimately associates Britain with the qualities of elitism, high culture, reason, classic literature and orderly society. Writing about Upstairs, Downstairs, a miniseries that was certainly branded as heritage, Carl Freedman observes that the England depicted in this 1970s miniseries, is an England that well corresponds to what England in the early seventies dearly wished itself to have been and perhaps even to be once again: an allwhite society unified by certain generally accepted English values, and one in which class struggle, for the most part, could be charmingly sublimated into domestic foibles… (82).

This conservative vision of society plays well within the U.S., particularly since the conservative desires can be displaced onto another country. According to Martin Hipsky, heritage films, as embodied by the Merchant Ivory films of the 1980s and ‘90s, “provide North American viewers with a kind of sanitized nostalgia” (106) that allows people in the U.S. to look back to the past without the sense of guilt that is tied in with their own history. As a result of their glorification of the British past, the heritage brand (and the texts that utilize this brand) often glamorize the idea of nation and wistfully look back at a time when England was the center of a great empire. The cool British brand, on the other hand, is in many ways an attempt to forcefully break away from the heritage brand and its idealized vision of



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the nation. To be certain, British film and television are cool in a particular sense in that they are often expected to deal with the real world in an intelligent and perhaps witty manner. This is not cool in the same sense that Jack Black’s films might be considered cool (nor would Mr. Bean be considered cool). These media texts question authority and order, reflecting the desire to escape the everyday, working, and middle class life of family and labor. The cool brand problematizes the traditional image of proper English society in myriad ways, and the kinds of texts that fall into the cool brand vary, particularly over time. For example, Look Back in Anger (1958), The Prisoner (1967-1968), The Avengers (1961-1969), the James Bond films and more recently the “Brit-grit” films of the 1990s, such as Trainspotting (1996) and The Full Monty (1997), can all be tied to this brand of Britishness. Commonalities between several, though certainly not all, of these cool texts include a use of the realist aesthetic, a focus on the working or under class, a sense of anxiety surrounding gender roles (generally masculinity), and a youthful anti-establishment (and sometimes anti-nationalistic) stance. Although they may be comedies, cool British texts deal with significant themes of family, unemployment, and corporatization. Writing about the Brit-grit of the 1990s, John Hill explains that these films explore the “demise of the ‘traditional’ working class associated with work, community, and an attachment to place in the face of consumerism, mass culture and suburbanisation” (250-251). Ultimately, the question of the nation and the role of the nation in everyday lives has become an undercurrent in many of these texts, with the observation that in many cases the nation has failed to take care of its people and therefore the people have to become more resourceful personally and within their local communities in order to survive. The focus on the youth market has led to marketing campaigns that highlight the cool texts’ dynamism, intelligence and distinctive “cool” characters. The individualistic nature of the cool characters may also connect some of these films and television shows to the eccentric brand, which will only be discussed briefly here. According to Julia Saville, the English have embraced the “eccentric” stereotype, “tak[ing] pride in being wacky or harmlessly bloody-minded” (781). This stereotype has developed into a particular brand of Britishness that offers a special form of brand equity to those for whom a lack of conventionality and a questioning of authority are most valuable qualities. Branding texts such as Mr. Bean or even The Office as eccentric marks them as unusual and quirky, creating a context for understanding their difference. Often texts that are branded solely as



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eccentric are comedies, though there are few texts that do not also reach out in some way to the heritage or cool brands for their marketing. Certainly these brands of British media do not accurately reflect British society (or even the range of British media). These are, rather, categories often used within the U.S. to help viewers understand Britain and in turn British films and television programs. In their representations of a certain kind of Britishness, within the texts and their promotional materials, these films and television shows employ the difference of Britishness to appeal to particular U.S. viewers who will be attracted to the various forms of cultural distinction attached to these distinct brands. For branding purposes, it should be noted, the idea of the cultural distinction of Britishness is considered important and is used to set British texts apart from others both in the British market and in the U.S.

The British Who Doctor Who, from its beginnings in the 1960s, relied on Britishness to differentiate it from U.S. imports and ITV programs intended for the international market (Gregg, 656). Even within the British market, the program’s Britishness became a significant means of distinction (Gregg, 656). From the beginning then, as Nicholas Cull explains, “Although the Doctor was supposed to be an alien, his manners and adventures were deeply embedded in the stories that British people told themselves about themselves” (55). Featuring a paternalistic and intelligent hero rather than the sexualized and action-oriented stars of U.S. based science fiction shows like Star Trek (1966-1969) and Battlestar Galactica (1978-1979), Doctor Who forged an identity that indelibly connected it to Britain. The program’s Britishness, however, is not sufficient to explain its near absence from U.S. television throughout the 1960s and most of the 1970s. After all, the 1960s saw runs of The Avengers, The Prisoner and The Saint (1962-1969) on U.S. commercial broadcast networks. That a U.S. network did not pick up Doctor Who can be explained by several additional industrial and sociocultural reasons. For example, the program’s low budget special effects, particularly in comparison to the U.S. space shows of the time, such as Star Trek, limited interest from U.S. buyers. The staginess of the program and its use of video production in early seasons combined with the program’s slow pacing generated a nostalgic feel for the show rather than evoking futuristic science fiction. Additionally, the Doctor’s age – he started out as a grandfather and got only slightly younger through the first few seasons – also limited the program’s appeal to the youth-obsessed U.S. television networks of the



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‘60s and ‘70s. And, the program’s long story arcs, which could range from two to six to ten episodes, along with the awkward 25-minute running time of the show, made Doctor Who difficult to program in the U.S. Within the U.S., Doctor Who could not compete with the sexiness of The Avengers or the philosophical quirkiness of The Prisoner. The program was not quite suitable for the Masterpiece Theatre crowd searching for cultural distinction or the young, cool audience of the ‘60s and ‘70s. Doctor Who’s themes and subjects may also not have been expected to appeal to U.S. audiences. Doctor Who, like other BBC programming of its time, often dealt with social themes in more complicated ways than did U.S. television. Undoubtedly, the tensions within classic Doctor Who reflect the period of its production. Doctor Who was created in the postWorld War II period when anxieties about the future of the nation were connected to the decline of British scientific supremacy, thus making science fiction a nexus for discourse about the nation. Within the United Kingdom, concerns developed in the 1950s and 1960s about the declining British Empire and that a lack of technological development would continue this decline. Discussing British engineer Barnes Wallis and his quest to promote technological development after World War II, Waqar Zaidi writes, England, it was commonly argued, was a diminishing international power in terms of military strength, international weight, and economic productivity. Science and technology in particular often played the central role in these narratives, the mismanagement of which was identified as both a cause and a symptom of national decline (69).

The connection between feelings of British cultural superiority and the nation’s institutionalization of science are well documented (Greenfeld, 83) and seem to be undercurrents in many plotlines of Doctor Who, which reflects deep nationalistic concerns about rampant U.S. capitalism and ambivalence about the British government’s role in scientific and technological advances. These themes can be seen in a range of different episodes and story arcs such as “The Daleks,” (1963-1964), which depicts the Thals, a species that abandons technological development in the wake of a devastating war with the Daleks to focus on the cultivation of the land and food. The Daleks on the other hand take over the city and all its scientific facilities. In the end, the Thals need the Daleks’ science to survive and have to rediscover their willingness to fight in order to get this technology. Other episodes also explore the relationship between science, technology, and the nation. In “Carnival of Monsters” (1973), the people



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on Inter Minor look at all other species as inferior and unclean. This xenophobia fosters treason and terrorism that are enabled by the misuse of technology for political ends. In “Vengeance on Varos” (1985), the state controls people by keeping them poor and overworked. In an eerie premonition of reality television, the state airs real torture and executions using television technology along with the science of torture to scare citizens into submission. And, in one final example, Doctor Who brings its questioning of nation home in “The Curse of Fenric” (1989) in which officers of the British navy during World War II are involved in a plot to use scientific equipment to kill mankind and unleash evil on the world. In what appears to be an indictment of the current Thatcher government, the world is saved when British soldiers disobey their orders to work with the Russian soldiers to fight the evil forces. In all of these examples, nations are shown to be naive at best and malevolent at worst, frequently misusing technology and science in their efforts to maintain, or gain, control. These insecurities, which connected Doctor Who with a more antiestablishment stance than may be initially expected, were in sharp contrast to the generally optimistic view that existed in the U.S. where futuristic science was depicted as the last frontier that would be dominated by a U.S. led federation. The show displayed a quiet uncertainty and anxiety about the future at a time when people in the U.S. were generally optimistic, particularly about the future of space travel and science. As John Cook and Peter Wright observe, While America was assured of its leadership role in the emerging space race and could look with confidence to the stars as an extension of the utopian frontier possibilities of the American dream, Britain was having to cope anxiously in the same period with the loss of empire and general decline as a world power (4).

The original version of Doctor Who did not speak to U.S. audiences in part because the majority of U.S. viewers were more confident and hopeful about science and technology and their national importance within these realms. The “cool” themes of Doctor Who, therefore, would not appeal to U.S. viewers particularly as they were wrapped up in a heritage style text. Doctor Who became more widely available in the U.S. in the 1970s. The program aired across much of the U.S. in the late 1970s and early 1980s on approximately 112, primarily public, television stations where the program reached a small but cultish audience by the 1980s (Cull 6162). With Tom Baker as the fourth Doctor (1974-1981), the program featured its youngest and most unorthodox Doctor to date, one who frequently questioned authority and the status quo. Tom Baker’s Doctor,



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the first Doctor seen in the U.S. and the most popular Doctor among U.S. audiences for a very long time, could be most closely connected with the cool brand. His trademark extra-long scarf and his love of jelly babies, along with his wild hair and irreverent sense of humor, provided an image of anti-establishment that had not been seen in any of the previous Doctors. The scripting and plots frequently moved the program toward the eccentric, aligning the program with an identifiable and distinctive brand of Britishness (Tulloch and Alvarado, 160). Chapman partly explains changes to Doctor Who starting in the late 1970s as a reaction to the new crop of science fiction films and television shows such as Star Wars (1977) and Battlestar Galactica (1978-1979). These U.S.-based productions featured high-end special effects that the BBC could not, or did not wish to, match. Instead, Chapman explains, Doctor Who developed a “strategy of product differentiation” (123). This strategy, Chapman writes, “stressed its ‘quirky’ characteristics and, as there was no one more quirky than the Doctor himself, this entailed allowing Baker scope to accentuate the eccentricity and individuality of the Time Lord” (123). Ultimately, the eccentricity (some say campiness) of the program established Doctor Who’s image with mainstream U.S. audiences. Additionally, by airing on (the) Public Broadcasting Station (PBS) in many markets, Doctor Who may have become associated in some viewers’ minds with the older, more established order of Masterpiece Theatre and educational television. Certainly, in many ways, the classic Doctor Who supports this heritage image of patriarchy and chivalry, displaying the benefits of a society regulated on reason and logic and a sense of hierarchy within the social order. At the same time, however, classic Doctor Who is also frequently anti-establishment, questioning the effectiveness of the government, promoting the importance of individuality and eccentricity, and reflecting anxieties about the role of science and technology. The association with eccentricity and camp, however, would dominate Doctor Who’s branding in the U.S., with the 1996 television movie somewhat embracing this image and the reboot working to replace it.

The U.S. Invasion After 7 years of being off the air, a one-off Doctor Who television movie was co-produced by the BBC and Universal Television for the Fox Network in 1996. Simply titled Doctor Who in the United States (subtitled in the UK as Enemy Within), this television movie limited the show’s British connection by landing the Doctor in San Francisco, where he is surrounded by Americans. The movie further “Americanizes” Doctor Who



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in tone by focusing on action (including chase scenes and a gun fight) and providing the Doctor with a love interest, Dr. Grace Holloway. The attempt to ground the program in the United States rips away any of the contemporary, cool, and hip elements that might have been associated with Doctor Who and retains its British distinction primarily through the eccentricities of the main character, played by Paul McGann. As James Chapman notes, “McGann’s Doctor represents an American idea of the modern British gentleman: courteous, mild-mannered and slightly foppish” (178). There are a few instances in the movie that connote Britishness, such as the Doctor’s British accent, his sharing of jelly babies (a classic Who reference), his suggestion that he and Grace sit down and have a cup of tea, and Grace’s attempt to explain his strange behavior to a police officer by saying “he’s British.” For the most part, however, these occurrences are used to highlight the Doctor’s eccentricities rather than connect the movie to British culture. This disconnection from British culture is one of the main criticisms of this version of Doctor Who (Chapman, 8; Cull, 66); however, one of its more serious flaws is that it is not just too American, but that it is actually out of date. While much U.S. television programming of this period had already been influenced by what John Caldwell termed televisuality, this television movie, released the same year as Trainspotting, feels as if it was produced in the 1980s. The program’s pacing is slow, the plot is slim and the characters are poorly developed. Shades of grey are eliminated for a clear delineation between good and evil. The end of the world narrative avoids any significant social or contemporary issues in favor of inexplicable grand-scale threats of Earth’s annihilation. As I have discussed elsewhere, this evacuation of national concerns is not uncommon in international co-productions, as they attempt to appeal to global audiences by avoiding national specificity (Selznick). Frequently, however, these texts fail in their efforts because they so completely remove most interesting and complicated themes. So, although U.S. television had gone through changes and somewhat more complex programs such as ER, The X-Files and NYPD Blue were popular in the U.S., Fox, Universal and the BBC relied on the wrong brand of Britishness to attract U.S. viewers. Fox’s promotion of the movie is indicative of the branding strategies for Doctor Who at this time. In a promotional piece that was aired as a behind-the-scenes short, the stereotypical deep-voiced narrator declares, “In the city of San Francisco, on the eve of the new millennium, a time traveler dropped in from another world.” The narrator briefly explains that the Doctor can be reborn (significantly, the canonic term “regenerate” is



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not used) and must face an old enemy (the Master) who is “more deadly than anything the Earth has ever seen.” Although the preview itself does not mention a connection to British television, interviews within the larger promotional piece do include information about Doctor Who’s history in the UK. Overall, however, the clips focus on action and large scale special effects. Additionally, clips of Eric Roberts as the Master seem to play up the campy, eccentric elements of the movie. In an interview segment, Roberts describes his role as melodramatic and likens his role to what it is like to play a bad guy when you are eight years old. He says, “It’s fun, it’s like being a little boy again.” The narrator ends with the fittingly melodramatic line, “Good and evil are about to wage war…and the battle ground is Earth.” This promotional piece does little to explain Doctor Who to U.S. audiences. While using elements of classic Who (such as the TARDIS, the Doctor’s ability to regenerate, and the Master), the promotion (and the movie itself, in fact) does not explain these things and seems to assume that truly understanding the nuances of the plot is unimportant. All that matters are the special effects and the campy, fun feeling. Rather than making Doctor Who appear cool and intelligent, this promotion concentrates on the eccentric brand of Britishness, while at the same time severely limiting the Britishness and, therefore, any brand equity that may have come from this association. While the movie did well with UK audiences who have a cultural connection to Doctor Who, it did not succeed in the U.S. Despite being tailored for U.S. audiences, viewership was low, with the program coming in 75th in the ratings (Wallace, 11). Although the movie was created as a backdoor pilot for a new series, the lack of support from the U.S. industry prevented the movie from developing into a new series (Wallace, 11).

Rebooting and Re-branding In 2005, the BBC, with funding from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, reinvented Doctor Who without a U.S. buyer. As mentioned above, the Sci-Fi Channel in the U.S. initially rejected the series because it was too British (Cull, 67). In 2006, though, Sci-Fi picked up the program, where it became a cornerstone of the network’s Friday prime time line up of original programming. The success of Doctor Who on the U.S.’s Sci-Fi Channel can be seen in the context of changes within the U.S. and British television industries as well as sociocultural shifts that generated greater interest in the complex themes of Doctor Who.



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The existence alone of niche cable networks such as the Sci-Fi Channel offered shows like Doctor Who a programming option in the U.S. other than the commercial broadcast networks or public television, thus changing the television marketplace. More and more programming is required to fill time on all of the specialty channels. Sci-Fi, which is, at least in name, dedicated to a genre that can be relatively expensive to produce, often looks for television shows that it can acquire cheaply. Doctor Who’s costs have remained relatively low for the Sci-Fi Channel. The network reportedly paid $100,000/episode for Doctor Who’s fourth season, a fraction of the program’s actual production costs (Thielman, 26). Sci-Fi, therefore, gets a show that is first run in the U.S., inexpensive to purchase, and has the appeal of being British, which, as Jeffrey Miller explains and which has been discussed, creates a distinction that increases the program’s “visibility to viewers and advertisers” (171). Furthermore, the Sci-Fi Channel puts a more mainstream, less geeky face on science fiction, thus allowing more and less cultish viewers access to the program. Niche channels like Sci-Fi offer better distribution options for shows like Doctor Who that do not meet the mass audience goals of the major networks but may get lost within the world of public television. The number of viewers that are attracted to the cultural capital of British programming may be low, but it is enough to create a ratings success for the smaller Sci-Fi Channel. As Christopher Anderson explains with his theory of the “long tail,” the changing economy, particularly powered by the Internet and other digital technologies, allows smaller, more specialized products to make money by attracting niche audiences. So, although Doctor Who may not be a huge, broadcast network level success, the Sci-Fi Channel does not require such high ratings. In its first season on Sci-Fi, Doctor Who averaged 1.5 million viewers/week. This marked a 44% increase from the network’s ratings in that time slot before Doctor Who premiered (Thielman, 26). Furthermore, Doctor Who attracts a desirable audience of young, technologically savvy viewers who follow television shows across media formats. The emergence of what Amanda Lotz refers to as the post-network era in the mid-2000s requires that television executives seek out ways to customize their programs for particular audiences, allowing them to access television texts anywhere at anytime. Targeted viewers must be encouraged to create communities who will follow television programs across media formats. Doctor Who fans are certainly seen to contribute to this economy. As one writer in the Boston Herald notes, Doctor Who fans were once the nerds at the bottom of the sci-fi geek food chain. Even Trekkers picked on them. A new generation of fans now is



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emerging. There are Facebook groups, Twitter accounts and MySpace pages all dedicated to the hipper incarnation of the show (Burke, 37).

Doctor Who’s viewers, therefore, are amongst the more profitable audience sectors that will follow a text across media, buy DVDs, purchase novelizations, download podcasts, and attend conventions. Industrial changes within the British television industry are also important as they created opportunities, and perhaps the need, for the production of programs more similar to U.S. shows in style and format. In the 1990s, the British government began to focus on the export of British television (Freedman 2003, 27). This decision was part of the re-branding of Britain as a nation, a process that started with Tony Blair’s New Labour government in the 1990s and a campaign that the media termed “Cool Britannia.”2 In this effort to reshape the image of Britain from old and stodgy to cutting edge and modern, the British government highlighted the creative industries as a means to demonstrate Britain’s innovative, forward-looking culture. Ken Urban writes that, by placing ‘creative industries’ and ‘lifestyles’ at the centre of a government-sponsored campaign, Blair hoped that Britain’s image would change, accentuating a vitality and creativity at odds with the old nostalgic vision of Merrie England (356).

The government at this time also wanted to create a more “competitive and internationally focused broadcasting system” (Freedman, 28). As a result, British television increased its production of “American quality television” programs (Chapman, 185), particularly as the BBC’s international arm, BBC Worldwide, expanded. The BBC now produces television shows with an eye toward overseas distribution and franchise creation (Chapman, 186). Within this context, Doctor Who came to be viewed as a superbrand that, if put together properly, could generate international sales of the program as well as ancillary media and merchandise. To appeal to the younger British audience and international viewers, the new version of Doctor Who moved away from the campy, low budget image of the original, spending more on special effects; it retained the 45 minute length of the original run’s later years, rather than the 25 minute length of the initial seasons; and shortened the length of the story arcs so that, while elements of the story might be incorporated throughout the season, complete stories were told within one or two episodes. These elements fit more closely with the U.S. style of television storytelling and programming



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and resulted in a show that according to its Variety review “can easily travel” (Adams, 37). Most significantly, the 2005 update of Doctor Who returned the Doctor to the UK, beginning the first episode of the new series with a shot that zoomed in from a view of the Earth from outer space to London, clearly marking the series’ home. The slick style and fast pacing of the program, particularly illustrated in the opening of the first episode, which is a montage of the Doctor’s soon-to-be companion Rose’s everyday life, reflect the shift toward an American style of production at the BBC and offer material for branding the program as cool rather than heritage. The bright colors, the pulsing music, and the short shot length all create a frenetic rhythm for the show. Undoubtedly the program does depend, to some extent, on heritage to mark the program’s Britishness. The show often employs generally well-known locations (Big Ben, the Thames), historical figures (Charles Dickens, Queen Victoria), and cultural markers (fish and chips, the blitz). The common understanding of these references as British allows international viewers to feel “in the know” rather than alienated and imbues the program with cultural capital. The handling of these subjects, however, marks this program as contemporary rather than nostalgic. History is re-written with a wink at nostalgia. Shakespeare, for example, is scripted as bi-sexual; an alien spacecraft destroys Big Ben; and, Queen Victoria is bitten by a werewolf/alien, suggesting that the entire royal line since Queen Victoria is part werewolf. Perhaps nothing did more to re-brand Doctor Who as cool than the portrayal of the ninth Doctor by Christopher Eccleston. In his understated jeans and leather jacket, Eccleston used his own Northern accent to give his Doctor less of a polished, upper-class feel. The lone survivor of the Time War between the Time Lords and the Daleks, this Doctor, as described by Chapman, is a “traumatized war veteran” (190) who can be connected with the cool brand and its suspicion of domesticity and stability. This characterization can be seen clearly in the first season episode “Dalek” (2005) in which the Doctor encounters a Dalek who survived the Time War and is being imprisoned and tortured by an egomaniacal American capitalist. The Doctor finds the Dalek in a sparse, dark room in which the Dalek is held captive by chains. The Doctor is filled with rage at the Dalek due to the death of his people in the Time War. When the Doctor discovers that the Dalek is broken and cannot exterminate him, he rails against the Dalek, “If you can’t kill then what are you good for, Dalek? What’s the point of you? You’re nothing…” He then informs the Dalek that the rest of his species has been destroyed, “Your race is dead. You all burned. All of you. Ten million ships on fire. The



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entire Dalek race, wiped out in one second!.. I watched it happen. I made it happen.” The Dalek accuses the Doctor of destroying all of his people and the Doctor appears guilt ridden and traumatized by his own actions saying quietly, “I had no choice.” The Doctor again gets gleeful as he responds to the Dalek’s comment that he and the Doctor are the same in that they are both alone in the world. At first the Doctor is angry at the suggestion that he is like a Dalek, but then he smiles saying, “Maybe we are. You’re right. Yeah. Okay. You’ve got a point. ‘Cause I know what to do. I know what should happen. I know what you deserve. Exterminate!” He then begins to electrocute the Dalek and is stopped only by the American’s guards. The Doctor’s movement between rage, agony, and frenzied delight indicate his pain from the loss of his people and his guilt caused by his actions during the war. This is a darker, brooding Doctor Who with a dim view of the future. With the Doctor’s characterization, costuming, and accent, the contemporary Doctor Who moves away from the stereotype of the British gentleman and closer to the image of the angry young man.3 Doctor Who’s connection to the cool brand can also be found in its overt rejection of the ordinary and domestic. Like his forefathers in the angry young man films, the ninth Doctor actively rejects home and family, telling Rose that he does not do “domestic.” His discomfort around Rose’s family is clear. Of course, the program suggests that this is a defense mechanism related to the fact that all of the Doctor’s family and friends were killed in the Time War. Whatever the reason, the Doctor, like many other angry young men, is forging his own path, one that is different than what is expected of most men (job, family, money, house, etc.). Doctor Who further refreshingly suggests that women might also be dissatisfied with the everyday domestic life. Rose, a young working class woman, as opposed to the upper/middle class professionals that often served as the Doctor’s previous companions, ultimately rejects the life that is set out for her. In the last episode of the first season, “The Parting of the Ways” (2005), the Doctor sends Rose back to her mother in London while he battles the Daleks with little chance of surviving. Rose, who did not want to leave the Doctor, says to her mother and ex-boyfriend, Mickey, in frustration, “But what do I do every day, Mom? What do I do? Get up, catch the bus, go to work, come back home, eat chips and go to bed? Is that it?” When Mickey accuses Rose of thinking that she is better than everybody who lives this kind of life, she defends herself saying, No, I didn’t mean that. But it was. It was a better life. And, I don’t mean all the traveling, seeing aliens and spaceships and things. That don’t matter. The Doctor showed me a better way of living your life. You know, he showed you, too. You don’t just give up. You don’t just let things happen.



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Through her experiences with the Doctor, young, working class Rose becomes dissatisfied with the typical, domestic life of a shop worker into which she was born, and desires to be “better.” Unlike some of the more recent cool Brit-grit films, Doctor Who, however, does not descend into nihilism or take solace in stereotypical gender roles. Rather, Doctor Who is a bit more hopeful. This hope is found, though, not in the nation or even in the community. Most frequently, hope is found in the actions and contributions of brave individuals. As with other seasons of Doctor Who, the ability of the nation or the state to make the world better is frequently questioned within the world of the new Doctor Who. The show explores characters within the government who are not what they seem, and characters that act questionably for the sake of the nation. Particularly in later seasons, Doctor Who overtly questions the ability of the government to manage technology in the face of rampant nationalism and muddled bureaucracy. The creation of the topsecret agency, Torchwood, designed by Queen Victoria to defend Earth against aliens, specifically the Doctor, best illustrates the cynical and suspicious view that Doctor Who takes on the nation. In “Army of Ghosts” (2006), viewers are introduced to Torchwood and its director, Yvonne Hartman. Torchwood’s purpose is to find alien technology and use it to strengthen the British nation. Torchwood’s motto, according to Hartman, is “If it’s alien, it’s ours,” and its goal is to “defend our border against the alien.” She tells the Doctor, “Anything that comes from the sky, we strip it down and we use it for the good of the British Empire.” Jackie, Rose’s mother, points out that there is no British Empire, to which Hartman responds, “Not yet.” Hartman is also very careful to point out that the technology that is found is to be used for Torchwood’s militaristic goals “not the general public.” Of course, Torchwood’s meddling with technology “for the good of the British Empire” eventually causes an enormous rift in time and space that has catastrophic consequences for Earth in general and the Doctor and Rose in particular. While this mistrust of the nation and concern about the use of technology and science to promote its aims was present in classic Doctor Who, as discussed above, these concerns were not shared by the majority of the U.S. audiences from the 1960s through the 1980s. In 2005, however, these concerns resonated with U.S. audiences, as they well may have in 1996. According to Chapman, the U.S.’s own The X-Files provided executive producer Russell T. Davies with the framework for the idea of “a government building a defence system cannibalised from alien



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technology” (201). Even more so since 9/11, apprehensions about terrorism and the economy have combined with observations about the declining role of the U.S. in industrial and technological developments to generate techno-nationalistic worries amongst U.S. citizens (Ostry and Nelson, 31). Notions about the decline of the U.S. have been connected with the nation’s diminishing significance within advances in science and technology. Doctor Who, therefore, has been able to develop British themes that are meaningful for a shifting U.S. audience. The producers could create a show that Davies says is “very, very British,” but is also at the same time, according to executive producer Julie Gardner, “an internationally friendly series because the stories are universal” (Clarke, 20). The solution seems to lie in how the program is branded for U.S. audiences. As with the 1996 television movie, the promotional spots for the Doctor Who reboot offer interesting examples of the show’s branding. One fifteen second spot from the Sci-Fi Channel features a deep-voiced narrator: “Who is an eternal Time Lord. Who is the last of his kind. Who is coming to Sci-Fi.” During this narration very quick cuts of action shots from the first season appear on the screen. These are intermixed, however, with shots of Eccleston, featuring a close up of his eyes and in profile, and a long shot of the Doctor holding Rose’s hand. No mention is made of the show being British, and there is little connection to any kind of British heritage. These very quick shots create a sense of excitement and mystery, focusing as much on Eccleston as on the story of the Doctor. Rather than eccentric, however, the Doctor is presented as intriguing and fascinating. A longer, thirty-second promotional spot takes a more humorous approach, with the narration: “He’s over 900 years old. A legendary adventurer in space and time, whose limitless power fuels an endless quest for…the perfect vacation.” Throughout this spot, there are clear images of the Doctor and Rose, including a clip of the Doctor telling Rose that they can go forwards or backwards in time. Along with action shots from the series, the piece features clips of the Doctor smiling and images of his standing with Rose, both wearing contemporary and urban clothing. The piece ends with the narration: “The British smash hit comes to Sci-Fi. Doctor Who, the all new series.” This promotion clearly brands the show as British and through inclusion of shots of the Doctor and Rose indicates that it will be exciting, young, fun and, generally, cool. The result of the shift to the cool brand is to create a Doctor Who that is decidedly British and still appealing to younger U.S. and international television viewers. Doctor Who is able to attract these audiences because it does not rely on notions of heritage and tradition that would do well to



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bring back older viewers but would not interest the more technological savvy science fiction viewers that relate to the moral uncertainty and flawed characters in Battlestar Galactica (2004-2009) and Lost (2004-). Changes in the characterization of the Doctor and the re-branding of the program, then, allow Doctor Who to work in the contemporary U.S. television environment. The show’s continued use of British sets, slang, locations, actors, etc. limit the program’s appeal with a mass audience, though perhaps increase its interest for those seeking distinction. Within the fragmented post-network marketplace there are enough viewers who value the cultural capital of watching British television and who relate to the British science fiction themes to make the show a relative success for a niche network. By fitting into the cool brand of Britishness, the program offers a fresh image of Doctor Who for the fragmented U.S. audience in the midst of the niche-focused environment of the contemporary U.S. television industry.





CHAPTER SIX ALIENS OF LONDON: (RE)READING NATIONAL IDENTITY IN DOCTOR WHO MATTHEW JONES

A Patchwork History There are bombs falling on England. From high in the night sky large balls of flame rain down over the landscape and explode on impact. Off in the distance we see one crash to the ground and scorch the earth. People gather together in whatever shelter they can find, their frantic conversations almost drowned out by the blasts. This, however, is the rural English countryside, far from the coastal town of Great Yarmouth, where the first German bombs fell in 1915 or the bustle and the smoke of London where the bombing focused later in the war. Rolling hills and fields stretch as far as the eye can see and, in the distance, flames illuminate a large wooded area. The bombs shouldn’t be falling here, history tell us that much. And besides, this is 1913. War has come early to England. The bombing in “The Family of Blood” (2007) is not, however, displaced from reality solely in terms of geography and chronology. Stranger events are afoot. There are no German planes in the sky. In fact, from what we can see from our location, huddled in an abandoned cottage with a group of heroic misfits, there are no planes in the sky at all. The bombs keep falling, but the only aircraft nearby is grounded, invisible, and alien in a distinctly galactic sense. This episode of Doctor Who is steeped in the familiar iconography of the British homefront during the first World War and yet much of it appears bizarre and out of context. Even ignoring the alien incursion, things are not all as they should be. Fundamental images of this moment of British history are appropriated, from the bombing raids to the boys training to fire weaponry on school lawns, but

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the ways in which these images are reconstructed produce anachronism and incongruity. Somehow the pieces of this temporal jigsaw just don’t fit. The bombing is several years early, several miles off target and of alien origin, but history is under threat not just from playfully misplaced details and the fantastic, but also from the future itself. It is not merely imagery from the first World War we are seeing, but a peculiar amalgamation of contemporary war images and those of familiar conflicts from the past. Into a patchwork simulacra of the British war experience, cobbled together in a deliberately absurd form, the Doctor steps forward, straps a young man to a wooden post and places a sack hood over his head as a form of punishment. The historical British setting of the episode, already disrupted by discontinuity with recorded history, is here shattered by a visual reference to the widely circulated images of abused inmates in Abu Ghraib, the American-controlled detention centre in Iraq. It seems that the collision between history and fantasy is not the only destabilising force in this episode; the war we see, ostensibly the British home front of the first World War, collides with familiar images of notorious activities from the War on Terror that has characterised the early years of the 21st century. What is at stake here is not the veracity of the historical setting, an idea that has not troubled Doctor Who since its early days, but rather the relationship between the programme and Britain itself. If, as Russell T Davies, head writer and executive producer of the programme from 2005 to 2009, has claimed, there exists a “desire to make the series essentially British,” then “The Family of Blood” raises a challenge to this belief. 1 Relying heavily on familiar images from Britain’s past, this episode sees no problem in both addressing important imagery from other nations, in this instance the United States, and deconstructing and destabilising the very fabric of British history itself, striking here at one of the most singular and unifying challenges the nation has endured, made all the more significant to the British psyche by its status as a historic precursor to the Blitz. The relationship between Doctor Who and Britain, for so long seen as a defining element of the series, seems far more complex than much of the discourse that surrounds the programme allows for.2 With the new series so clearly raising the issue of the connection between Doctor Who and Britain, it seems that an examination of the nature of this connection is required to understand what is at work in such episodes as “The Family of Blood.” It would, of course, be impossible to describe fully the relationship between Doctor Who and Britain, especially given that the series enjoys a long history in which neither it nor Britain have remained static. As such, this chapter does not intend to be a full history of this relationship, if such a history could ever be written in full,



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but rather intends to highlight some of the ways in which British national and cultural identities were written into the very fabric of the programme during its original run (1963-1989) and how these signifiers have reemerged and mutated since its return in 2005. As such, three particularly significant moments in the series’ history have been selected for examination in terms of the programme’s presumed British identity, but many, many more remain in need of critical attention before the complete story can be told. To begin that story, however, we must examine how Doctor Who came into being. Emerging amongst a number of other programmes that shared similar traits, as we will see, the British identity of the programme can be read in a dialogue of design and genre that exists between Doctor Who and a number of other British television productions of the era.

A Collective Discourse: The Mid-1960s In the second half of the 1960s, the UK saw the onset of the “Swinging London” phenomenon, a resurgence of interest in British fashion and cultural output. This was the decade that witnessed the rise of The Beatles, the miniskirt and the Mini-Cooper, each of which helped to reconstruct Britain’s image, both at home and abroad. After a difficult economic recovery, post-war austerity finally seemed to be retreating as London once again laid claim to being the centre of the cultural universe. Emerging from this unique context, it is not difficult to see the classic British espionage series, The Avengers (1961-1969), as a product of these particularly design-conscious times. The iconic costume items from this series, namely Emma Peel’s black cat suit and boots and John Steed’s bowler hat, embodied the “mod/trad duality” that was the cornerstone of Britain’s cultural reinvigoration.3 However, as Britton and Barker suggest, if these particular items “could represent the stylistic distinctiveness of The Avengers, the principal characters’ costumes were certainly not the be-all and end-all of the designers’ visual originality”.4 There was more to The Avengers than a design aesthetic that utilised the prevalent trends of the time. The particular design choices made in the series “created a flexible idiom in which generic conventions as diverse as gothic horror and drawing-room comedy could appear to be natural bedfellows.”5 The achievement of the programme was not in merely aping the fashions of London’s Carnaby Street, but rather in constructing an aesthetic for the programme through which the narrative could blend genres in a seemingly unproblematic manner, allowing the series to break out of the generic boundaries erected around espionage programmes such as The Man from



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U.N.C.L.E. (1964-1968) and Mission: Impossible (1966-1973). The 1965 Avengers episode “Too Many Christmas Trees,” for example, tells the story of a group of psychics who attempt to kill Steed during a costume party at a gothic mansion house themed around Charles Dickens novels in order to uncover secret information from his mind. First broadcast on Christmas Day, this story’s resistance to generic classification is obvious, displaying tendencies towards spy fiction, gothic horror, fantasy and comedy, with the tradition of the Christmas special episode and the Dickensian spirit of the holiday also in evidence. In a series whose generic borders were more rigidly policed, or whose design aesthetic was less open to playful inconsistencies, this remarkable episode would be impossible. The Avengers’ aesthetic constructed a space where the restrictions of genre were simply irrelevant. In this respect, it is not difficult to trace streams of influence from The Avengers to early Doctor Who. As Matt Hills points out, the latter programme was originally given a dual remit by the BBC of both informing and entertaining its audience through “historical settings for its time-travel narratives rather than featuring ‘bug-eyed monsters’”.6 This split identity, a function to the BBC’s role as a public broadcaster, had the effect of dividing the early series down the middle, with historical, educational stories, such as “Marco Polo” (1964) and “The Aztecs”(1964), on one side and futuristic adventures produced primarily for their entertainment value, such as “The Daleks” (1963-4) and “The Sensorites” (1964), on the other. Though the principle conceit of the series, the TARDIS’s ability to travel through time, belongs to the science fiction genre, and indeed owes a debt to one of the genre’s pioneers, H. G. Wells, beneath this superstructure the programme’s two distinct traditions complicate the series’ relationship to generic classifications in a similar way to that seen in the design elements of The Avengers.7 If half of the episodes are dominated by a generic tendency towards the historical drama while the other half owe their greatest debt to science fiction and fantasy then the programme as a whole is clearly engaged in the same type of genre manipulation and hybridisation that allowed The Avengers so much narrative freedom. Indeed, if Doctor Who’s longevity is derived in part from its “durability and reinvention,” both of which rely on its malleability as a format, then its ability to mix generic conventions, picking and choosing its cultural reference points to suit each serial’s needs, is not merely peripheral but is actually vital to the success of the series.8 In line with this view of the programme, David Butler sees the greatest achievements of Doctor Who in its engagement with “the uncertainty of the fantastic,” in



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holding back for as long as is possible from identifying as either a piece of science fiction, fantasy or “the marvellous.”9 It is in the hesitancy between the real and the unreal, that space in which the viewer is not sure if what they are seeing is possible or impossible, that both Doctor Who and The Avengers find common ground.10 It is not entirely accurate, however, to argue that this attitude to genre was a trait that emerged exclusively out of 1960s Britain. There have, of course, been programmes that have utilised a similar approach both before and after these two series, both in the UK and elsewhere. What is unique, however, is the collective dialogue of genre and design that is present between these programmes, evolving their shared ideas as they progressed. Indeed, the early episodes of The Avengers present a more stable identity, dealing in a much less chameleonic iteration of espionage fiction. The years before the arrival of Emma Peel in 1965 were marked by a relatively staid approach to the subject matter that, while still quirky and unusual in terms of television programming, is surprisingly sober when viewed through the filter of the later years. Similarly, Doctor Who evolved into its later, more familiar incarnation, with the historical episodes gradually becoming less frequent as the series developed a taste for the weird and wonderful creatures it would subsequently become synonymous with. There is a collective progression between these programmes, both gradually abandoning the more restrained aspects of their original premises to construct a peculiarly permissive and broad-minded attitude to both genre and design. The attitude towards generic distinction that these two programmes developed seems to have come about partially through a dialogue between these British shows. Though there is little evidence to suggest that the production teams of these two programmes were actively engaged in any such endeavour, the fact that such similar attitudes are simultaneously apparent in two extraordinarily popular British series that were broadcast alongside each other for over half a decade is suggestive of at least a subconscious discourse of design taking place between these two programmes.11 What is certain, however, is that a unique, and indeed uniquely British, identity was being forged in UK genre television in the mid 1960s, with Doctor Who playing an important role in its conception. 12 There is, it seems, a British identity written into the very construction of the programme, beginning at its very roots, in the way it views its generic identity and the way is presents its narratives. Allegories of Postcolonial Britain: 1974-1981. There is, however, further evidence of a British identity present in the programme, distinct from its approach to genre. Tom Baker’s time as the Doctor (1974-1981)



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has been seen as a period of particular engagement with notions of British history and current affairs. As far back as 1983, in the first extended critical analysis of Doctor Who, this era of the programme was being read in the light of specific events in Britain’s past. In their influential book, Doctor Who: The Unfolding Text, John Tulloch and Manuel Alvarado quote Philip Hinchcliffe, the show’s producer from 1975 to 1977, claiming that Tom Baker’s Doctor came to symbolise the “general whittling down of Britain’s world role after Macmillan and Eden’, and that he ‘reflected what was going on in England after Suez and the decline of Empire.”13 Hinchcliffe’s argument can be supported by an analysis of the series itself during this era. In contrast to his predecessor, Baker’s Doctor drew back from sustained involvement with the UNIT (United Nations Intelligence Taskforce, renamed the Unified Intelligence Taskforce after the series returned in 2005) and his own people, the Time Lords, both symbols of authority in the series. In a marked contrast to the fourteen serials the UNIT shared with the third Doctor, Baker’s fourth Doctor only appeared alongside them in three. During Baker’s tenure as the Doctor, it seems, the series made a concerted effort to distance itself from the establishment and its authority. Instead of operating within these predefined power structures, Baker’s Doctor favoured individualism, championing freedom of choice and selecting his own course of action, notably demonstrated by his decision not to eliminate the Dalek race in Genesis of the Daleks (1975) against direct Time Lord instructions. If, after the 1956 Suez crisis and the long process of decolonisation, Britain was no longer recognised as the world power it once had been, then Baker’s isolated wanderer was a suitable metaphor indeed for these new conditions. Both Baker and Britain had to make their own way in the universe, independent of their ancestral authority. Though Hinchcliffe’s comments usefully demonstrate a deliberate engagement with the representation and interpretation of British history by the programme’s production crew, the role that British history plays in this series is subtler than is allowed for by this representational model. The notion of a shared national history is not merely reflected by the programme, but is actually put to use by it. Though by the mid 1970s, British influence had been in decline for a significant time and the Empire was, to all intents and purposes, defunct, Baker’s Doctor embodied a rather more optimistic outlook that Hinchcliffe believed associated him with the “bohemian, student rebellion and youth challenging authority.”14 The country might have been losing international sway but Baker’s performance was a deft piece of misdirection, asking us to focus instead on the rebelliousness of the era and its promises of a brighter, less



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inhibited future. The promise the series made was that ordinary Britons, too, could be the wandering, carefree traveller they saw on screen. Without the baggage of history and ancestry, both Baker’s Doctor and Britain’s citizens could embrace their new circumstances. No longer were these troubling times of declining influence; instead, refracted through the lens of the TARDIS, this shrugging off of responsibility was the beginning of something truly wonderful. It is no coincidence that Baker’s final year as the Doctor also saw the end of the lengthy decolonisation process of the British Empire with the independence of Belize, formerly British Honduras, in 1981. Baker’s Doctor emerged and perished in the twilight of the Empire, and, in so doing, helped Britain remain optimistic through this transition and into its brave new world. If we accept Hinchcliffe’s interpretation of the character then the very figure of the Doctor was at work smoothing over and disguising tensions in British national identity, fractured under the weight of the collapse of Empire. For Hinchcliffe, this Doctor embodied a particular stance on British identity at this point in history, a particular ideology of “Britishness.” This meaning can be attributed to the programme only in light of particular events in Britain’s history. If it weren’t for the viewer’s knowledge of Suez and the retreat from Empire then these meanings would be lost.15 Only by understanding the context out of which this incarnation of the character emerged could we arrive at this interpretation. In short, history itself is a force that binds Doctor Who to its country of production, and in turn constructs the programme as a fundamentally British show. One can, of course, raise a challenge to this interpretation in terms of the representation of other nations and their histories within the programme. If this were a series that dealt in exclusively British history then episodes such as “City of Death” (1979) would be difficult to explain. It would be nonsensical to argue that this serial was not concerned with other nations or their histories, since most of the episode is set in Paris, where portions of it were also filmed, and since we see the Doctor visit Renaissance Italy in search of Leonardo da Vinci. It is clear that this serial is at least partially concerned with these countries and with a particularly significant time in Italy’s past. Comparing the presentation of these foreign events and location with current events in Britain at the time of the serial’s broadcast in late 1979, however, reveals another possible interpretation of this story. In early June that year, the European Parliament had held its first elections. British citizens had witnessed their first direct involvement in the process of a supranational organisation assuming (limited) authority over national governments. This was the first step in a process that British Eurosceptics



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now see as the handover of power from London to Brussels. This unfavourable attitude to Europe was attested to at the time by very low UK voter turnout in this historic election, with the United Kingdom showing the lowest participation by its population of all the member states. Shortly afterwards, the new Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, went on to negotiate a drop in the financial contribution made by the UK to the budget of the European Economic Community. In times such as these, when Britain was somewhat skeptical of European integration, “City of Death” began to tell its British audience a story about an evil alien from the continent. Count Scarlioni, the alien in question, can be read as an evocation of the supposed threat that Europe posed to Britain’s political and economic sovereignty. As such, the Doctor’s visit to Paris and Florence does not engage with these cities on any meaningful level and actually only serves to refocus the viewer’s attention on the UK. The locations in which the story takes place are simply not important. Consequently, the mise-en-scène reduces Paris to a collection of iconic building exteriors and sights while the portions of the original script of the serial that were set in Monte Carlo were unceremoniously relocated to the French capitol. Europe became, for all intents and purposes, one entity that looked a lot like Paris. The exact location of the story itself does not matter because it is Britain that we are there to discuss. Though Tom Baker’s time as the Doctor serves as a good example of how Doctor Who has negotiated its engagement with British history, this is not a facet of the programme that is limited to this era. Indeed, as Tulloch and Alvarado indicate, the planet Peladon in the Jon Pertwee era serial “The Monster of Peladon” (1974) serves a similar purpose. This serial was first shown “in the year of the British miners’ union confrontation with the Heath government” and “had the Doctor discussing miners ‘grievances’” with workers on another planet.16 Once again the series uses a non-British setting, though this time somewhat further away than Paris, as a forum for a debate of British current affairs. Just as, for all the comment that “City of Death” makes on 16th century Italy and 20th century France, the Doctor might as well never have left London, yet the Doctor left the Earth altogether only to find himself arriving in a particularly British nightmare.17 Similarly, Kim Newman has identified the early 1970s as an era of Doctor Who that displayed a strong tendency towards the use of alien worlds to comment on contemporary British affairs, suggesting that the programme’s entanglement with British national identity is not a phenomenon unique to Tom Baker’s time in the lead role. Newman highlights how the Doctor was



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occasionally whisked off to other planets to intervene in situations that echoed 1970s concerns: capitalist exploitation of the third world (‘Colony in Space’ [1971]), Britain’s entry into the Common Market (‘The Curse of Peladon’ [1972]), racist treatment of native peoples (‘The Mutants’ [1972]).18

Though the Peladon stories address specifically British events, the exploitation of the third world and the treatment of native peoples, both truly international concerns, also gain particular significance in the light of Britain’s colonial past. Though these are indeed issues that are of concern outside the UK, they have specific relevance to a country that has engaged in both racist and exploitative practices on a global scale in its history through the pursuit of empire. Once again, Britain stands right at the heart of the meaning of these episodes, with the specific relevance of these stories being lost on a viewer without knowledge of Britain’s past. In this sense, the worlds that the Doctor invited the British audience to visit were, beneath all the costumes and quarries, home. Even before Tom Baker, the series’ British identity was being written into its stories at a fundamental level. This preoccupation with the allegorical representation of British concerns did not, however, end in the 1970s, nor did it leave with Tom Baker in 1981. Newman goes on to suggest that in the late 1970s and through the 1980s Doctor Who continued to engage in socio-political commentary by “expressing the grumbles that led to Thatcherism” in “The Sun Makers” (1977), which he describes as “a whinge about income tax,” before lambasting Thatcher herself by caricaturing the 1980s leaderine as Kara (Eleanor Bron) in “Revelation of the Daleks” (1985), who simultaneously supports and plots the assassination of Davros in order to further her own power plays, and Helen A (Sheila Hancock) in “The Happiness Patrol” (1988), head of a totalitarian state which insists on the feel good factor and uses a liquorice allsort killer robot to enforce a decree that everyone must smile.19

Newman’s reading of these characters as direct representations of Thatcher might seem too contrived for some. There were almost eleven years of Doctor Who broadcast during Thatcher’s time as Prime Minister (every episode between her taking office in May 1979 to the programme’s end in December 1989). Since Thatcher has become such a monolithic figure in British history, it would be easy indeed to attribute every adversarial woman within these episodes to her influence, constructing a cast of villains in her image. Though Newman has identified something in the episodes that Kara and Helen A. appear in that could connect them to



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this interpretation, there is nothing to stop one for seeing the point of connection between the target of the parody and the character in the series simply being the fact that they are both evil women. Why not turn our attention to the Rani, who appeared twice during Thatcher’s reign, once in “The Mark of the Rani” (1985) and once in “Time and the Rani” (1987)? Surely the fact that this villain was a renegade Time Lady, thereby casting the men of the species as the saviours of the universe and the female of the species as powerful but deadly beasts, was enough to suggest that women of power, and particularly women of power like Thatcher, whose voluminous hairstyle mirrored that of the Rani, were not to be trusted. Can “The Mysterious Planet” (1986) from the “The Trial of a Time Lord” cycle not also be seen in this light, as the queen of its local tribe is its villain? Any female scoundrel could be read in this flimsy allegorical manner, drawing connections that are not necessarily there.20 Such revelations, allowing one to redeem a weaker story as a piece of political commentary, are satisfying but illusionary, and the only conclusion that one could draw would be that there is a mistrust of powerful women festering beneath the surface of this era, though this does not quite equate to a calculated assault on the first female British Prime Minister. There is certainly evidence of a growing number of female adversaries in the series from 1986 onwards, a time of great concern over Britain’s leadership after Thatcher’s battle with the trade unions had begun in earnest in 1984, but to connect these two ideas would be premature since Thatcher was popular enough to be returned to power by the public in the 1987 election. Perhaps the series is displaying a general, and rather ugly, suspicion of influential women, and perhaps this was fed in part by a growing dissatisfaction with the woman who was running the country, but any claim of a direct link would be insubstantial. Though the series cannot be shown to be directly lambasting the Prime Minister of the era, however, that is not to say that is it disconnected from political commentary. The series is still displaying a general mistrust of women, and as such is directly engaged in debating gender politics, a prevalent issue both then and now, indicating that Doctor Who’s ability to comment on issues of concern to Britain did not lessen in the 1980s after Baker’s departure. Though the systems by which the programme engaged with British history and current events might have evolved as the years passed, it seems clear that the original run of Doctor Who maintained an interest in this topic. This is a programme that retained an enduring awareness of its national roots, displaying this preoccupation through the sustained metaphorical and allegorical representation of Britain, both historical and contemporary.



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A Broader Network of References: 2005 and Beyond Much has been made of the BBC’s desire to export the series to foreign markets since its 2005 return. The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) donated development funds in order to offset the BBC’s production costs, with the useful side effect that the series would receive a guaranteed broadcast in Canada. So keen on the series were the CBC that the gap between the first UK and Canadian broadcasts of each episode was initially only a few weeks. The Sci Fi channel, in the United States, provided an American distributor that was committed to broadcasting the series nationally and in order on a reliable, weekly basis, something that had eluded the BBC during the series’ earlier manifestation. In Australia, the Australia Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) provided a similar, reliable broadcast of the revived series. Though the programme had always been broadcast overseas, in the new millennium it would achieve this end in a more robust, far-reaching and consistent manner. The potential for international success that Doctor Who now wielded would, however, have serious implications for its status as an innately British series. At first glace it seems that the changes made to the series by the BBC have altered it in a fundamental way and have created a new, international product divorced from its national roots. James Chapman, for example, believes that “the new Doctor Who can be situated in this context of British-made equivalents of AQTV [American quality television]”.21 This is, he claims, “a term applied to popular fictions, including both fantasy and realist genres, characterised by their high production values, glossy visual style, literate scripts and psychologically realist characters,” and include such programmes as The X-Files (1993-2002), Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997-2003), The West Wing (1999-2006), The Sopranos (19992007), CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (2000-) and 24 (2001-).22 Chapman cites the fact that Doctor Who is now seen as authored by a single writerproducer, initially Russell T. Davies, and its reliance on narrative arcs and high quality special effects as evidence of its assimilation into the AQTV model. 23 The original series, however, also made occasional concessions to its international audience, notably the inclusion of an Australian companion, Tegan Jovanka, from 1981-1984. It seems too much of a coincidence that Australia had provided Doctor Who with a loyal fan base and then, of all of the countries in the world, it also provided a companion. Similarly, the inclusion of Peri Brown, an American companion who featured from 1984-1986, might well have been aimed at garnering a larger US audience.



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Perhaps the appeal that the 2005 series makes to the international market through its use of the codes of AQTV is nothing new but is actually just another facet of the programme that has long sat alongside its British sensibilities. Perhaps this is a series that has always been capable of commenting on its home country while still appealing to audiences abroad. Perhaps, despite all the alterations that have been made to the form of the programme, nothing fundamental has changed. The series has, after all, displayed an interest in resurrecting its ability to critique UK politics. Over the four seasons that have been broadcast up to the time of writing there has been a plethora of stories that engage in often thinly veiled commentary on British current affairs. While “World War Three” (2005) lampooned the British Government’s “dodgy dossier” that provided supposed justification for the 2003 invasion of Iraq by making mention of “massive weapons of destruction” that could be launched within “forty-five seconds,”24 “Turn Left” (2008), a story that depicted a national crisis giving rise to extreme nationalistic sentiment, was broadcast at a time when there was concern that terrorist attacks around the globe were producing support for far-right parties such as the British National Party (BNP).25 In “Turn Left,” a new law that intended to preserve “England for the English,” used to facilitate the deportation of foreign nationals, had echoes of Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s promise to preserve “British jobs for British workers” made in 2007, only nine months before the episode broadcast.26 It seems clear that, despite the years that it was absent from television schedules, Doctor Who has not lost its interest in British current affairs. There has also been little change in the methodologies that the series employs to provide its commentary on its country of origin. Alec Charles has noted that “in a genre that prefers its politics at the level of analogy, Davies’ Doctor Who often proves uncharacteristically direct in its political references.”27 This, too, was a characteristic of the classic series. “The Monster of Peladon,” with miners and their grievances, was hardly an indirect representation of the miners’ strike that hit the UK in 1984 and 1985. As we have seen, the series has long engaged in the type of direct, explicit metaphors that Charles sees within the new series. This method for providing commentary on UK affairs has remained intact through both eras of the show. In much the same way as Tom Baker’s Doctor became part of postcolonial discourse, the new Doctors themselves also serve as a commentary on the nature of modern Britain. When Christopher Eccleston’s Doctor stepped onto our screens in 2005, gone were the eccentric outfits that had adorned the Doctor’s previous incarnations and



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instead we were faced with a “minimalist, contemporary look, consisting of leather jacket with plain sweater and trousers.”28 This was a pared back, modern hero, free from the trappings of his past, which was appropriate considering that since the last time we saw him his planet had burned and his people had perished. The Doctor was at once a man with a long and colourful history and a man dislocated from his own past, but his new incarnation’s costume served to foreground his newness without making reference to what had gone before. In this way his outfit constructs him as a metaphor for modern Britain. The UK, too, had once had to forge itself a new identity, disassociating itself from the colonialism and exploitation that had been the hallmark of its historical reputation, a past it also sought to suppress. London is still a major world city, but this is a new reputation built on multiculturalism, diversity, and just governance, not conquest and dominance. London is still a powerful economic centre, but this is enacted through being at the heart of the service industry, the global financial sector and being an international business centre, not through the exploitation of a vast empire. As much as Eccleston’s new Doctor sought to distance himself from his past via his outfit, Britain had also dressed itself in the clothes of modernity rather than her questionable history. This attempt to present an image of modern Britain is also observable within the programme’s attitude to regional identities within the UK and its mirroring of the devolution of power to the home nations. While London is still the seat of UK government, the Northern Irish Assembly, the National Assembly for Wales, and the Scottish Parliament have each had significant power devolved to them. Regional identities, now recognised through this transfer of power, are central to the way that many British people identify themselves; they have become part of an authorised and widely recognised image of Britain. During “Rose,” when Eccleston’s Doctor claims that he sounds like he comes from the North of England because “lots of planets have a north,” not only is he dressed in the clothes of British modernity but he is singing from its hymn sheet, too. If British authority has been devolved away from London to the extent that even the Doctor, an icon of British popular culture, could be from the North, then both this programme, whose hero has traditional spoken in Received Pronunciation or with a London accent, and Britain herself have truly let go of their pasts. Similarly, David Tennant’s Doctor, the successor to Eccleston’s, occasionally makes metatextual use of the actor’s own Scottish accent to signify a divergence from an outdated London- or England-centric model of national identity. Alec Charles has identified a moment at the end of the Season 4 finale, “Journey’s End” (2008), in which Tennant’s “voice slips,



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just for a moment, from his character’s usual London lilt into the actor’s own Scots tones.”29 Though Charles uses this to demonstrate how the character’s own grief is here allowed to permeated beyond the boundaries of the series itself, it also serves the function of destabilising the longstanding affinity between the Doctor and London. Unlike Eccleston’s natural Salford accent that is used throughout his tenancy in the role, the London accent that Tennant adopts permits this affinity between the character and the capitol to re-emerge, only for it to be shaken by its revelation as false in this moment of “Journey’s End.” Indeed, this recalls a moment in “Tooth and Claw” (2006) in which Queen Victoria notices that the false Scots accent the Doctor has adopted to merge into the Highlands setting has faded and been replaced by his usual, London twang. The fact that the Doctor had been unaware of this slip, presumably too distracted by the werewolf chasing him around, creates a complex metatextual puzzle. The actor is performing a character by using his own accent that, in the reality of the fiction, is false, only for the actor to adopt a false accent that, in the fiction, is real. The series draws on the audience’s extratextual knowledge of the actor’s identity to perform the type of destabilisation of the London/Doctor connection that is repeated later in “Journey’s End,” suggesting a Doctor who could feasibly be from any part of the United Kingdom. Though the Doctor has had a longstanding kinship with the British capitol, signified both by the accents of the classic series’ Doctors and the character’s repeated return to the city, both Eccleston and Tennant work to undermine this by using their own accents to a greater or lesser degree and, in doing so, create a hero for the whole of Britain, a man of many identities in the same way that modern Britain is a union of multiple countries and regions. Just as the Doctor has come to embrace the whole of the UK, so Britain in the modern age has understood the need to recognise the complexity of its own identity and to devolve power to its constituent parts. Just as Baker’s Doctor had been at work smoothing over ideological tensions in British national identity, so have the Eccleston and Tennant Doctors been showcasing Britain as a united, diverse and thoroughly modern country. Once again the Doctors themselves are spearheading the programme’s reflection of and intervention in discourses of national identity and current affairs. Doctor Who is today using the same techniques as it always has done to provide commentary on the history and current affairs of its home country. Political allegory and explicit metaphor have always been the tools of this programme’s trade, and the reincarnated series is no different from its predecessor in this respect. So, too, the Doctors fill the same



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function now as they did decades ago, covering the emergent cracks in British national identity and presenting a particular image to both UK viewers and audiences abroad. Though now the series is expressly constructed to appeal to an international audience, with the trappings of AQTV adorning its familiar premise, this type of internationalism also has a pedigree in the classic series. Though much has changed in the way the series presents itself, Doctor Who has proven itself to still be a product of the UK, about the UK, but not necessarily exclusively for the UK, just as it always has been. Russell T. Davies and his team might have toyed with some superficial elements of the series, but they have not yet let these alterations affect the core facets of the programme that have been examined here. The sets might be a little more stable, the explosions might be a little more vivid and the aliens might look a little more robust, but beneath all the bluster this is still the same programme that we have been watching for decades and will hopefully be watching for decades to come, wherever in the world you may be.





PART IV. COMPANIONS: GENDER AND RACE



CHAPTER SEVEN “BUT DOCTOR?”— A FEMINIST PERSPECTIVE OF DOCTOR WHO RICHARD WALLACE

Between 1963 and 1989, Doctor Who, British television’s longest running science fiction series, was a near permanent fixture on television screen across the nation, a situation that has returned following 2005’s incredibly successful re-launch. As a result, Nicholas Cull’s assertion that the programme’s “sustained popularity...provides the cultural historian with a window on the culture that created and embraced it” remains as true today as it ever has.1 One area on which scholars have repeatedly commented has been the “gender politics of Doctor Who…[which demonstrates] both the potential and the limitations of popular culture as a vehicle for responding to social change.”2 When discussing the show, it is almost impossible to ignore the way in which its female characters are depicted, and yet no major work on the series has investigated the full extent of this facet of the programme, and this is something that I wish to begin to address here. Anne Cranny-Francis divides the potential viewing positions of a spectator into two modes of reception: the “reading position” and the “subject position.” The first is “the position assumed by a reader from which the text seems to be coherent and intelligible,” and is a position that is created by the text itself, producing a textually inscribed audience. 3 The subject position is assumed by a reader who approaches the text from a preconceived ideological or theoretical standpoint created by discourse located outside of the text. Accepting this dichotomy, a feminist reading of Doctor Who is possible if one assumes a subject position as constructed by feminist film and television discourses, which are “predicated on the experiential recognition of contradictions and injustices generated by the dominant gender discourse of patriarchy.”4 My intention here is to assume just such a subject position in order to analyse Doctor Who from a fresh perspective, using the tools of feminist film and television theory, which

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has mainly concerned itself with three aspects of a text. The first, located at the level of production, addresses the involvement of women within the film and television industry. The second area concerns the position of a female audience in relation to a text. The third area concerns the issue of the representation. I examine the first two aspects through an analysis of the third, demonstrating why these representations exist and the implications that these representations might have for an audience. In 1972, Sharon Smith summarised the role of women in cinema up to that point as “[revolving] around her physical attraction and the mating games she plays with the male characters,” whilst the position of the men is “not shown purely in relation to the female characters, but in a whole variety of roles.”5 The representation of women as “confused, or helpless and in danger, or passive, or as a purely sexual being” can be seen to be the result of the appropriation of stereotypes which reflect the ideology of a male-dominated society.6 Claire Johnston states that, “Within a sexist ideology and a male-dominated cinema, woman is presented as what she represents for man” and this notion, that the reality of “woman” is transformed into a masculine idea of “woman,” is important as it creates a direct link between society and representation.7 The structuring of meaning through visual and verbal signs is particularly problematic because it is within these structures, generated by the male-dominated ideology, where meaning is produced. As a result, their deployment perpetuates that ideology, as they are depicted throughout a media which “shape cultural attitudes, as well as reflect them.”8 As the film and television industries themselves tend to be male dominated, this only exacerbates the problem because the stereotyping of women’s roles is limited to those seen appropriate by the “sexist ideology itself.”9 It is, therefore, interesting to examine the ways in which the representations seen in Doctor Who adopt these stereotypes, and whether these representations are indeed a reflection of the chauvinistic attitudes of the men making the programme or whether they emerge for other reasons. To achieve this I analysed the female companion in Doctor Who.10 Other than the character of the Doctor, and his space/time craft, The TARDIS, the female companion is one of the few constants in a constantly changing universe of characters and situations.11 Therefore, even at a very basic structural level, the companion has a very important place within the history of the programme and, thus, can be seen as one of the most important areas in which feminist approaches to Doctor Who can be fruitfully exploited. It is worth noting that the programme has featured a few significant female characters in addition to the companions; however, these usually appear in supporting roles, often as cold, asexual scientists,



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surrogate companions or occasionally, as scheming villainesses. However, the number of significant and well-realised female roles is far outnumbered by similar male roles, so whilst an examination of these characters would certainly be useful, the companion figure is a more fruitful starting point.12 In the 1994 documentary More Than 30 Years in the TARDIS (Kevin Davies, BBC, UK, 1994), Nicola Bryant, who played Peri, between 1984 and 1986, notes that “apart from being lovely to look at,” the role of the companion is to “ask a lot of questions…to make the Doctor look very clever…to let the audience know what’s going on...[and] to reaffirm the patently obvious.” This description epitomises the popular view of the companion, and is aligned to writer and script editor Terrance Dicks’s understanding that “the companion is a plot device first and foremost and a character second.”13 This view does not fit comfortably with a positive feminist reading of the series, as the companion is constrained by the narrative and rendered passive. This is problematic, because the more the companion fulfils their narrative function, the less independent they become. However this assertion does require some clarification. Although the companion figure always fulfils this narrative function, it is not true that all of these figures immediately slip into the passive role it suggests, with some actively combating these restrictions. I have identified three broad categories of female companion, which demonstrate the ways in which Doctor Who has attempted to negotiate the problem of placing women within the Doctor/companion dynamic, which by its very nature favours The Doctor and therefore the male figure. These three categories can be described as the screamer, the equal, and the intermediary, and I discuss each in relation to a specific companion from the series to demonstrate how the plot device of the companion is given different character embodiments, which respond to this problematic situation in different ways. The screamer is the most recognisable type of companion, and the one who fulfils the narrative functions most efficiently. As a result, this type of companion is also the least effective representation of women the series has to offer. Polly (Anneke Wills) can in many ways be seen as the first in a long line of companions of this type; although previous female characters had fulfilled the narrative functions of the role, almost all were depicted as child-like teenagers and, “though physically attractive, were consistently desexualized.”14 In an attempt to make the show more contemporary, the characters of Ben (Michael Craze) and Polly were introduced in the 1966 adventure “The War Machines” at the behest of incoming producer Innes Lloyd, and “for the first time…represented young adults rather than either teenagers or mature males.”15 Polly,



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therefore, was the “first female companion to exhibit any degree of sex appeal,”16 bringing with her “the miniskirt and the permissiveness it represented, and by extension she established the Doctor’s girl companions as an object of the male gaze.”17 This idea is problematic within a programme specifically aimed at a family audience. As there was little narrative motivation for Polly’s attire, and since it is clear that Polly was specifically introduced to attract a contemporary audience, it could be assumed that Polly dressed for that audience. E. Ann Kaplan posits that, dominant…cinema is seen as constructed according to the unconscious patriarchy, which means that film narratives are constituted through a phallocentric language and discourse that parallels the language of the unconscious.18

This, in turn, brings into focus the notion that “work using psychoanalysis and semiology has demonstrated that the dominant cinematic apparatus is constructed by men for a male spectator.”19 Polly, as a sexualised female companion, is therefore presented as a spectacle for a male audience. Laura Mulvey argues that the pleasure in narrative cinema derives from the aligning of three different “gazes”: the view of the audience, the view of the camera, and the view of the character with whom the camera’s gaze is aligned. These pleasures are almost always structured for men, as the conventions of cinema tend to align the gaze of the camera with the male hero. For a female viewer, the three gazes are therefore not aligned and so do not allow the pleasure afforded to men; thus, women are silenced and become objects of the gaze. In order to take pleasure from the cinema-going experience, women are therefore forced to either align their gaze with the view of the camera, essentially becoming masculine in order to engage with the text, or else they must take up a masochistic standpoint, distancing themselves from the representations apparent on screen and gain pleasure from the knowledge that they themselves have not become the subject of the gaze.20 Mary Ann Doane suggests a third viewing position, which involves the female spectator becoming more feminine in order to engage with the subject of the view.21 This wearing of femininity as a mask…can allow the female spectator to create a distance between herself and the image on the screen. Rather than overidentifying with it, she can play with the identifications offered by the film, manipulating them for her own pleasure and purpose.22



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It is difficult to believe that many female viewers saw the weak female companions as figures of identification; as Janet Fielding who played Tegan in the 1980s notes, “Who wants to identify with a woman who is stupid enough to climb a cliff in two-inch high-heels and a tight skirt?”23 Therefore, it does seem to suggest that a female audience would either have to attempt to identify with the Doctor, and cross the gender boundary, taking pleasure in the shortcomings of the companion, or adopt a position of increased femininity in order to empathise with characters such as Polly. Polly represents a shift from one form of representation to another, a shift which not only aligns itself with a rebalance in the relationship between the companion and the Doctor, but also with the change of producer as Verity Lambert was succeeded, after a four serial gap, by Innes Lloyd.24 One of the key narrative roles of the companion is to provide a “source of viewer identification.”25 As an alien, the Doctor is unknown to the audience, whilst the companion shares the audience’s alienation, and therefore ”the viewer is invited to empathise with the companion whose experiences and attitudes are much closer to [their] own.”26 However, despite the similarity in narrative function, Ben and Polly’s relationship with the second Doctor (Patrick Troughton) is vastly different to that evident between the first Doctor (William Hartnell) and his earlier companions. During the first two seasons, the Doctor was not just a mysterious alien, but also fairly dislikeable, permanently allying the audience’s viewpoint with the school teachers, Ian Chesterton (William Russell) and Barbara Wright (Jacqueline Hill). As the original companions left the series, and the mystery of the Doctor was backgrounded, this relationship began to change and the character of the Doctor became a much more amiable figure. The requirement for the companions to provide insight into the Doctor’s character was therefore significantly diminished, resulting in a repositioning that led to these figures becoming secondary characters in the narratives. As Britton and Barker note, Doctor Who started out rather well in its representation of women… However, the treatment of main female characters became ever more patronizing and retrogressive. By virtue of knowledge, experience, and wide-ranging abilities, the Doctor always took an authoritative stance, while his female assistants tended to be, if not actually inept, certainly dependent and passive.27

The composition of the original TARDIS crew (the Doctor, his teenage granddaughter Susan (Carole Ann Ford) and two of her teachers Ian and Barbara), was designed to appeal to as wide an audience as possible,



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fulfilling the criteria that Doctor Who should be a “loyalty programme,” in a sense providing a televisual reflection of the family at home. Susan and Barbara “were to be the loyalty” characters for female viewers, whilst Ian would fulfill the role of the action-man hero.28 The initial character outlines supplied by BBC Script Department writer C.E.Webber support this notion to some extent. Webber’s document suggests that: Child characters do not command the interest of children older than themselves. Young heroines do not command the interest of boys. Young heroes do command the interest of girls. Therefore, the highest coverage amongst children and teenagers is got by: The handsome young man hero.29

A “handsome well-dresses heroine aged about 30,” who would become Barbara, was also suggested to appeal to “the older woman.”30 The character who would become Susan was added shortly after as a result of Head of Drama Sydney Newman’s response to Webber’s document, a scribbled note in the margin suggesting, “Need a kid to get into trouble, make mistakes.”31 The young female companion can therefore be seen as a narrative device from her inception, even if it her status as an inexperienced teenager rather than as a woman, that causes her to “get into trouble,” and although clearly being used for audience identification purposes, that role was primarily allotted to Ian and Barbara.32 Susan, however, does not become completely passive by virtue of the fact that she was the Doctor’s granddaughter, so that, as Lambert suggests, “you had a character who in one sense was a young girl with all that growing up to do, but in another was extremely knowledgeable because she came from a planet which was much more advanced.”33 Doctor Who’s first producer, Verity Lambert, is a particularly important figure in the show’s history as she oversaw the show through its first two seasons, almost from its inception (she was directly responsible for casting the leads) to an assured position of popularity. At twenty-eight years of age she was not only the youngest and least experienced producer at the BBC but also the only woman holding that position in the Drama Department.34 Lambert was particularly keen on upholding the educational slant of the show, and the presence of the youthful Susan, a science teacher, and a history teacher meant that no matter where the TARDIS took its crew, Paris during The French Revolution or the Daleks’ home planet of Skaro for example, there was always a pedagogical aspect to the relationship between the TARDIS travellers. With the departure of Lambert, however, the educational slant to the show diminished and the age of the young female companion was raised slightly, the focus now



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being on young adults as opposed to older children, meaning that the paternal and educational roles of Ian and Barbara were unnecessary; the companion was now only needed to attract an audience and then serve as a narrative device, and it was specifically a choice of the new, male, producer, Innes Lloyd, that shifted the status of the companion from that originally envisioned by Verity Lambert. Because of her age and fashion sense, Polly was introduced to appeal to a modern audience, suggesting that it was the attractive, idealistic notions of 1966 femininity, and not the strong role models, that were now being used to promote the programme. This was the first time that Doctor Who sold itself on the appearance of the female companion, something that would later become standard; after Polly, “it proved remarkably easy to backslide into a mode of sexism that denied women any function other than that of being purely decorative.”35 Although Polly was represented as a contemporary woman in terms of her image, “Emancipation in dress was not matched by an attempt to make the female protagonists into progressive role models.”36 Whilst the contrast between the positive female characters presented by Verity Lambert and the less positive characters created under Innes Lloyd is clear, it was partly actress Anneke Wills’ decision to portray Polly as a “complete coward,” 37 who would be the antithesis of the current trend of “sexy, yet active and challenging heroines,” epitomised by The Avengers’ (UK, ABC Weekend Television, 1961-1969) Cathy Gale (Honor Blackman) and Emma Peel (Diana Rigg).38 Polly was, therefore, more along the lines of a “conventional screaming heroine who usually needed rescuing,” Doctor Who’s stereotypical damsel in distress.39 The character therefore embodies the fears apparent in Sharon Smith’s 1971 article “The Image of Women in Film,” when she argues that in order for negative representations of women to change three things need to happen. Firstly, women need to become more integrated within the industry; the replacement of Lambert by Lloyd negatively impacted on the series’ representation of women. Secondly, men need to be made aware that the stereotypes of women that have persisted need to be changed; Lloyd reverted back to traditional stereotypes following Lambert’s initially promising representations. Thirdly, many of the women who already work within the industry do not think in terms of rethinking traditional sexual roles; Wills’s desire to locate Polly within the tradition of the classical heroine had a negative effect on successive companions. The idea that Polly was out of her depth, and therefore easily terrified, easily confused, and preferred to make coffee, as she does frequently in “The Moonbase,” than get involved in the action, .



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tacitly endorsed the prevailing idea that a woman’s prime function is to attend to men’s needs. Because of the way Polly was represented, the adoption of a miniskirt could all too easily be seen as dressing simply to please the opposite sex.40

At the other end of the scale, Dr Elizabeth Shaw (Caroline John), an example of what I call the equal, can be seen as a reaction to the type of companion initiated by Polly. As a Cambridge-based scientist, recruited, against her wishes, to the position of scientific advisor to the secret military organization, the UNIT, Liz is “rational, sceptical and very far from the screaming bimbo stereotype of some of her predecessors.”41 As well as featuring a strong intellect Liz also demonstrates a much stronger temperament than the screamers, frequently clashing with the Brigadier (Nicholas Courtney), the leader of the UNIT, when requested to undertake menial jobs; and, she is a much more physical character than many of her predecessors.42 Liz is a much stronger female lead than the majority of the Doctor’s other companions, however, she also embodies a paradox in that her strengths as a character are also her limitations as a companion. As James Chapman notes, “her obvious intelligence proved ill-suited to the main narrative function of the assistant in Doctor Who: to ask the questions that allow the Doctor to show off his superior knowledge and intellectual prowess.”43 Liz’s intelligence, therefore, made it difficult for writers to find a way of imparting vital knowledge to the audience, because Liz would already know what was happening so would not have to ask questions. The fact that Liz was significantly older than many of the previous female companions also meant that “the character was thought not to appeal to younger viewers,” and although attractive and certainly fashionable, the character was not presented in an overtly sexualised way.44 As a result of all of these factors, Liz Shaw was quickly replaced after only one season by the character of Jo Grant (Katy Manning) who “reverted to the screaming bimbo type…a well-meaning but rather accident-prone dolly bird.”45 The characters of Polly and Liz Shaw demonstrate remarkably well the tension between positive and negative representations of female companions and their narrative purpose. Thus, the Brigadier’s comment when introducing the Doctor (Jon Pertwee) to Jo Grant in “Terror of the Autons,” “What you need Doctor…is someone to pass you your test tubes and to tell you how brilliant you are,” can be seen to be as much a comment on the show’s format itself as it is an assessment of the Doctor’s character. First seen on televisions screens in January 1977, Leela (Louise Jameson) was the series’ most obvious attempt to negotiate the tension between the positive representation of the female companions and their



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essential narrative functions. Leela was a direct response by the production team to criticism that the show was becoming increasingly sexist, as much as it was a reaction “to the second wave of feminism in the 1960s and 1970s, and the new roles for women in TV and film.”46 Like Liz Shaw, Leela responded much more positively to dangerous situations. As a member of a warrior tribe, she is virtually fearless and, unlike Polly, is clearly drawn from the pool of strong fighting females, epitomised by Emma Peel, a change in emphasis that had a significant effect on the plotting of the stories themselves, since another function of the companion is to slow down the narrative “by splitting it into two complementary strands,” therefore not revealing too much of the overall story too quickly.47 The strong female companions still had to fulfill this function, however they tended to endanger themselves through their curiosity and intelligence, not their stupidity and carelessness.48 In “The Talons of Weng-Chiang,” for example, Leela endangers herself by jumping onto the back of the villain’s departing coach at the start of Part 3, splitting the narrative in two for the duration of the episode. Leela was also marginally more successful in adapting the way companions responded to danger. Screaming is one of the most common character traits of any companion, however Matthew Jones makes it clear that the action of the scream should not necessarily be read as a sign of weakness, legitimating the reaction by stating that, “for [the audience] to feel the threat posed by the monster we need to see and hear the companion’s fear and to identify with it…If companions didn’t scream, how would we know to be scared?”49 The fact remains, however, that it is still the female companion’s role to do the screaming. Leela readdressed this notion by hardly ever screaming, a trait which matches her strong character. Instead, when she is scared she says so, often making the situation much more threatening and increasing the drama. She, therefore, manages to fulfill the narrative function of the companion fairly well whilst also being a strong woman in her own right. However, “when…a real attempt was made to create a positive role model for girls, it backfired.”50 Leela’s costume, which was little more than a leather leotard, was clearly designed to emphasise her figure and thus treat her as a spectacle for the male viewer, and her background as a savage was foregrounded.51 As Louise Jameson states, “They gave Leela a lot of energy, a lot of intelligence, a lot of action shots – but they took her clothes off to do it!”52 This is problematic because it infers that the female companion can only be a strong or intelligent woman if she is also either a savage or made to be a spectacle. The character drew a lot of press attention and once again the series was sold to the media through the



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sexiness of the companion; emphasising the popular view that the female character, as well as being a positive role model for the females in the audience also had to appeal to older male members of the audience.53 Leela, therefore, perpetuated the image of the “Doctor Who girl” as a strategy directly deployed to attract an older male audience.54 The difficulties, which occurred with Leela, were the result of both the expositional role of the companion, and the notion that the personnel responsible for creating the character were not acting with the intention of creating a positive, coherent character. Louise Jameson was particularly stringent in ensuring that her character acted in the way that was originally intended, making sure than she was never seen to scream.55 However, although Philip Hinchcliffe originally envisioned the Doctor (Tom Baker) and Leela to have a Professor Higgins/Eliza Doolittle type relationship, moving from savagery to civilisation, Hinchcliffe’s successor, Graham Williams, did not advance this idea and Leela’s character stalled before it had really begun to develop. The character can therefore be seen as a positive attempt to negotiate with the structure of the programme, ultimately failing because of the limits places on the companion figure, compounded by a change in production personnel once again undermining any positive action, despite the best efforts of the actress playing the part. These three companions demonstrate that the standard format of Doctor Who itself does not allow for well-rounded, positive representations of female characters. However, I would suggest there have been several occasions in the programme’s history in which a balance between narrative and character has been achieved. Vital to this, however, has been a significant restructuring of the programme, with the companion gaining a more prominent position within the series, coinciding with a change of emphasis in the Doctor’s character. The three companions which these moments of transit seem to apply to are: Barbara, the original companion in 1963; Ace (Sophie Aldred), the final companion of the classic series; and, Rose Tyler (Billie Piper), the companion who helped to resurrect Doctor Who in 2005, who in many ways adopted the blueprint which had been initiated by Ace prior to the series’ cancellation. Common to all three examples is an increased emphasis on the mysterious nature of the Doctor. Between 1963 and 1987, the Doctor became increasingly less mysterious as more was learnt about his background. This was addressed between 1987 and 1989 when the writing team, led by script editor Andrew Cartmel and a core group of writers including Ian Briggs, Ben Aaronovitch and Marc Platt, attempted to return the mystery to the character, now played by Sylvester McCoy, by once again making him the unknowable, powerful and alien figure of his formative years. By portraying



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the Doctor as a more omniscient figure, manipulating events from the background, it allowed Ace to take a central role, responding in a way that would accentuate the mystery, questioning the Doctor’s motives in an attempt to uncover who, or what, he is. Throughout the twenty-fifth and twenty-sixth season Ace undergoes one of the most successful companion narratives in the series’ history, transforming from a youthful teenager, manipulated by forces (including the Doctor) beyond her comprehension, to a woman who has not only faced some of her greatest fears (including revisiting the haunted house in “Ghost Light” which she had burnt down as a young girl), but has actually become an equal partner in the doctor/companion relationship, driving the narrative and occasionally derailing The Doctor’s plans, not through stupidity or ineptitude but because he has underestimated her intelligence and resourcefulness. The final two seasons of the original run of Doctor Who can be clearly seen as a template for the post-2005 incarnation of the programme. The mystery of the Doctor has been one of the defining aspects of the Christopher Eccleston and David Tennant Doctors, particularly the frequently mentioned but as yet unresolved events of the Time War and the destruction of the Doctor’s home planet, Gallifrey, providing an overarching structure and a long running subplot. This has been partly responsible for a dramatic change in direction for the show, moving it closer to the characteristics of soap opera, a televisual form, which is almost always written about as a genre specifically aimed towards a female audience than it had previously been. Until the end of the 1970s, a season of Doctor Who could last for anything up to six months; therefore, in its structure, the programme already shared some aspects with the soap opera; however, it is by demonstrating some of the other similarities that it is possible to locate a female audience for Doctor Who. Kate Orman argues that Doctor Who is, and always has been, as much for women as it is for men. This argument is partly supported by the loyalty characters of the original TARDIS crew, and its evolution throughout the 1960s and 1970s does go some way to explaining why the majority of the Doctor’s companions were female. Once the educational slant of the programme had been all but abandoned, the knowledgeable teachers were surplus to requirements and the character of Barbara was not replaced once Jacqueline Hill left the series. Thus, the TARDIS crew was reduced from four to three: the older Doctor, the athletic young man and the attractive female. Once Jon Pertwee became the Doctor the second male character was also dropped, as Pertwee was more than capable of taking on the action-man role himself and the alien nature of the character has been significantly toned down. Therefore, it can be argued that one of



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the reasons why the majority of the Doctor’s companions are female is because it was felt that a female presence was needed in order maintain the interest of the female viewers, whereas the male audience members already had somebody to identify with in the figure of the Doctor. As Orman notes, the fact that the companion is almost always a woman is not necessarily a negative thing; If a companion is weak or timid or foolish…it’s almost always going to be a woman. But…if the companion gets to do something brave or important, if they use their muscles or their brain, it’s also almost always going to be a woman.56

This hints upon a notion that is implicit throughout the series; that the Doctor only travels with the best, and that therefore generally women must be more suitable than men. The new series of Doctor Who is quite explicit that this is the case, in the way it shows suitability for companion status. Rose’s tenacity in following the Doctor, and the fact that it is her intelligence which ultimately saves him at the end of her debut, earns her a place on board the TARDIS. By contrast the episode “The Long Game” introduced a male companion named Adam (Bruno Langley), purely, it seems, to demonstrate how difficult it is to gain the Doctor’s acceptance. In his very first adventure he succumbs to temptation and takes up the offer of a free mechanical implant which allows him to receive electronic data directly into his brain, compromising the Doctor’s plan. As a result, immediately after rescuing Adam, the Doctor returns him home, ending his association in dramatic style and depriving the character of a magical experience.57 The fact that the majority of the companions are female is, therefore, a sign that women are more likely to possess the necessary strengths than men. Rose brought domesticity to the TARDIS and for the first time ever the Doctor did not simply pick up the companion and leave. Instead, during the 2005 season, the TARDIS was very much tied to contemporary Earth, with six of the thirteen episodes having portions of them set in and around Rose’s home.58 This has the result of creating a story arc, not just for the Doctor and Rose, but also for Rose’s boyfriend and mother, and for the first time the audience is able to see how traveling with the Doctor affects those who are left behind. These ongoing relationships create an emotional and multi-leveled narrative, which ties the series in to the soap opera tradition, fulfilling former producer Barry Letts’ notion that it “is absolutely essential [that] the audience [are] involved in the emotional lives of the characters.”59 In the post-2005 incarnation of Doctor Who, the developing relationships between the Doctor, Rose and her family, and



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more recently the tension between the Doctor and Martha, who believes that he sees her as a poor replacement for Rose, are extremely prominent. These ongoing storylines align the series to a soap opera style of storytelling and, as a result, now more than ever Doctor Who appeals to a female audience. Gilbert and Taylor suggest that “girls and women take pleasure in ‘the perpetual sense of irresolution’ in soap opera, and ‘in the ongoing personal involvement which the cyclical nature of the programme allows.”’60 As Tulloch and Jenkins note however, despite its lengthy seasons, classic Doctor Who “offers a perpetual sense of resolution, linearity and repetition,” with the Doctor arriving at a new location at the start of each serial.61 Whilst retaining some of these features, the new series is much more coherently structured, its ongoing story arcs aligned with the soap opera form which is “not only…directed at female audiences…[but is] also actually enjoyed by millions of women.”62 If, as Annette Kuhn states, soap opera is defined by “its construction of narratives motivated by female desire and processes of spectator identification governed by female point-of-view,” and if Doctor Who is beginning to align itself to a soap opera style, then is does suggest that the programme is moving away from its patriarchal nature.63 The fact that two entire seasons of the series have been constructed around the character of Rose, and the latest season to date has placed the character of Donna Noble firmly in the centre, demonstrates that in many ways Doctor Who is now a female led show, with the companion becoming the central character as was originally the case in 1963. Classic Doctor Who also deviates from soap opera conventions because its nature as a family show meant that it “has felt unable…to engage with precisely the currency that soap opera deals in (i.e. emphasize love/sexual relationships).”64 Once again, this is not an issue which the new series has to face. For the first time, there is sexual tension evident between both the Doctor and Rose, and the Doctor and Martha, and this is compounded in his relationship with Rose by the presence of a jealous boyfriend, Mickey (Noel Clarke). Whereas, previously the Doctor had shown “no romantic or sexual interest in his female companions… [freeing] them from the girlfriend role,” in the new series this boundary is much more blurred.65 Although it is reasonably explicit that the Doctor and Rose are in no way romantically linked, it is frequently presented, or interpreted by other characters, as if they are. This allows the narrative to develop in typical soap opera fashion, with the audience wondering which direction the relationship will head in next, or how any disruption might interrupt the ongoing storyline. The fact that both the leading roles have been filled by comparatively young actors also breaks the mould set by the



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old series and makes a potential relationship between the Doctor and his companion much less incredible. The casting of David Tennant in particular is interesting in that for the first time the sex appeal of the actor playing the Doctor has been used as a marketing tool in much the same way that the female companions had been in the past.66 It is clear that examining Doctor Who from a feminist reading position is a useful way of understanding certain aspects of the programme. It helps to explain the reasoning behind many of its representations of women, and more importantly, it enables us to understand why these representations often failed. Perhaps most clearly of all, the use of feminist theory helps to enlighten some of the changes both in form and style that the programme has undergone throughout its history, and particularly since its resurrection in 2005. It is clear that Doctor Who, particularly in its 1963-1989 form, cannot be entirely devoid of the accusation that it is sexist; however, this approach helps to demonstrate that it was not always the programme makers’ intentions to create a text filled with negative representations of women, but that a number of factors did amass which resulted in a formula out of which very few successful representations were allowed to emerge. The new series has attempted to address this, and so far it has been successful. Two pertinent questions do remain, however, as we look to the future of the series. Although Rose, Martha and Donna have been reasonably successful attempts to create strong characters, the imminent arrival of both a new Doctor (Matt Smith), the youngest actor to date to play the role, and a new executive producer (Steven Moffat) does raise the question of how successful the representation of female characters will remain as the series continues. In the same way that the centrality of the companion figure deteriorated in 1965 once original companions Ian and Barbara, and then producer Verity Lambert, parted company with the Doctor, there is the possibility that the Doctor will once again become the focal point of the audience’s attention, at the expense of the companion. If this is the case, and the fact that more information about the Doctor’s mysterious past comes to light each week seems to suggest that it might be, then the show could be in danger of repeating the practices which initially caused these problems. The introduction of Lady Christina de Souza (Michelle Ryan), a physically and mentally strong, intellectual character with no apparent family ties, in the latest Doctor Who special “Planet of the Dead” also suggests a movement away from the soap opera elements that have made the show so popular, and if Lady Christina is reintroduced the lack of earthbound ties might remove this element, paradoxically creating a strong female character who does not appeal to a female audience as well as some previous characters. The other question,



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which raises itself, is whether there will ever be a female Doctor and, if so, how this will affect the structure of the programme? I have suggested that one of the reasons why the companions were almost all female was to continually offset the male lead for audience identification purposes. If a woman were to be cast as the Doctor then, theoretically, the companions would become predominantly male.67 These however are hypothetical questions, and it remains to be seen how well Doctor Who’s new incarnation will continue to negotiate with the representational problems which plagued its previous regeneration, whilst also remaining truthful to the spirit of the original show, which by its very nature caused these structural bonds to appear in the first place.





CHAPTER EIGHT GENDER REDUX: BIONIC WOMAN, DOCTOR WHO, AND BATTLESTAR GALACTICA NOAH MCLAUGHLIN

In his 2002 Decoding Gender in Science Fiction, Brian Atterby remarks: “SF fans note that sci-fi in the movies is typically thirty years behind printed SF, which means that movies should start discovering gender exploration any time now” (Atterby 2002, 175). While we might still be waiting for inspirational figures on the silver screen, characters such as Elizabeth Weir (Stargate: Atlantis), Rose Tyler (Doctor Who) and Kara “Starbuck” Thrace (Battlestar Galactica) have begun to fulfill Atterby’s prognostication on television. Remarkably, each of these shows is either a remake, or a spin-off. How have recent television remakes depicted women?1 The present study uses Sherry Inness’ ideas about “tough women” as a rubric to investigate how these shows treat gender. I begin with an overview of these ideas and then proceed to apply them to the recent reincarnations of Bionic Woman, Doctor Who and Battlestar Galactica in turn. Each section first investigates the gender attitudes of the original show and then takes a close look at how the new versions represent women. With the popular and critical failure of Bionic Woman, the sustained popularity of Doctor Who and the dramatic success of Battlestar Galatica, my conclusion posits that contemporary attitudes towards gender are evolving in a positive way.

Inness’ “Tough Women” Sherry Inness investigates the ever-growing presence of women in science fiction and fantasy in Tough Girls: Women Warriors and Wonder Women in Popular Culture, looking at roles that place female characters in the heretofore unusual position of power, both physically and

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psychologically. Inness works through to a malleable but useful definition of what is means to be “tough,” a label that includes “body, attitude, action, [and] authority” (Inness 1999, 26). Tough women are often a synthesis of physical fortitude and intelligence, combined with the will to act and projecting a moral authority, one that often includes sacrifice. I consider this last attribute to be heroic, evidence of character that is often missing from typical tough men in science-fiction and fantasy. However, it also allows for a paradox in popular culture, for sciencefiction’s depiction of tough women offers a new way to conceptualize gender roles and what it is meant to be a woman. Yet, at the same time, science fiction films and television shows often reinforce the notions that tough girls are essentially softies, notwithstanding their tough demeanor, and can seldom compete with the “true” toughness of men (Inness 1999, 103). Characters like Ellen Ripley (Aliens) are often depicted as a punished exception. We may revel in their bold actions and unconventional demeanor, but the narrative ultimately contains these gender aberrations, even erases them, and the status quo of the masculine/feminine gender division remains intact. Thus, the tough woman inhabits a “paradoxical position: she both contests gender norms and reaffirms them” (Inness 1999, 27).2 Inness finds this paradox again and again, more complicated but always present in one manner or another. Is there a way out? While Bionic Woman and Doctor Who seem to continue traditional attitudes towards gender, I suggest that a possible exit path is the treatment of gender in Battlestar Galactica.

Bionic Woman The original Jaime Sommers, played by Lindsay Wagner from 197677, is slightly ahead of her time, pushing the envelope of gender conventions of TV shows in the 1970’s. She is a fighter, but also a thinker, and for however brief a time (only two seasons) demonstrates that women can be tough, smart, and still keep their hair perfectly coiffed. Though the show’s special effects, especially the signature slow-motion and “nuh-nuhnuh” sound effect, have become objects of popular derision, Sommers herself is an inspiration for a generation of women. Wagner’s Jaime Sommers is “a far more independent and central character than most women in 1970’s shows” (Inness 1999, 47). She is both a teacher and a secret agent, and the producers made a deliberate decision to emphasize her brains over her bionic brawn (48). She thinks before busting through a wall to take down the bad guys, and this places her in contrast with shows



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like the action-centered Six Million Dollar Man (Steven Austin) and the sex-ploitive Charlie’s Angels. Jaime is intelligent, principled and physically tough; and thus “seem[s] to subvert typical gender stereotypes – but only on the surface” (Inness 1999, 46). She remains constrained by a male-dominated world that expects her to come home from her adventures with make-up intact and to follow orders, which are always delivered by men. Thus, she fully embodies Inness’ paradox of tough women in popular media, “a combination of the taboo and the socially acceptable” (45). This tantalizing but ultimately contained element is an important aspect that led to the show’s success and lasting popularity, in contemporary culture if not on the air. This popularity is so sustained that we can fast forward nearly 30 years to the reimagining of the show by David Eick (executive producer of Battlestar Galactica). The basics remain: a woman suffers a terrible accident and a top-secret government agency (The Berkut Group instead of the OIC) replaces her damaged organs and limbs with bionic parts; she is now, forcefully, a secret operative. Gone are the cheesy special effects; instead of a superman, Jaime Sommers’ predecessor is a woman, Sarah Corvaus (BSG's Katee Sackoff). Instead of a teacher, Sommers is a 20something bartender with a sharp intellect and a teenage sister in her care. The show remains a feminist slant on the übermensch myth. Initial reviews were guardedly positive. Bionic Woman had “considerable potential” (Lowry 2007, 77) and many of its creators, cast and crew were overtly sensitive to questions its premise might allow them to explore. “Accepting that women can do what men can do, how do we feel about that?” asks Eick, while Executive Producer Glen Morgan (The X-Files) looks around at folks using Bluetooth and GPS, then wonders, “How much are we machine?” (Pastorek 2007, 92).

Meditations on gender equality in contemporary society could lead to even deeper explorations of what it means to human. Star Michelle Ryan is simple but lucid about the ideas at the heart of the show: “People either expect you to be weak or a bitch. And actually, there are lots of women who are strong and nice” (92). Bionic Woman seemed poised to follow in the footsteps of Battlestar Galactica, turning a corny cult hit into a dark drama that uses its science-fiction premise to investigate contentious issues of contemporary society. Entertainment Weekly critic Gillian Flynn poses the question left unanswered by the series pilot: “Will this be a clever commentary on current sexual dynamics? Or just imaginative storytelling?” (Flynn 2007, 60). Alas, Bionic Woman falls short of even the latter possibility. The new



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Jaime Sommers is hobbled by so much self-doubt and superficial drama that she never realizes any exciting potential. Her bland character contrasts with her somber, conflicted predecessor, Sarah Corvus, who though only a minor character, consistently overshadows her meek replacement. This is not simply a matter of physical strength or combat proficiency. Corvus resonates with a gravitas that draws and sustains both attention and curiosity while Sommers grapples with matters that are entirely mundane – a tentative romance, a rebellious teenage ward, fitting in at the office populated with tyrants and lechers. The setting and premise of this remake were indeed promising for insightful conflict that is the hallmark of exceptional drama, but the show relegates most of that to the effective villain, Corvus, and then almost inexplicably sweeps those shadows aside to make way for the sunnier, meeker Sommers as she muddles her way through each episode. Weak ratings, the WGA strike and the Thursday night behemoth that is American Idol suspended and then halted production in mid-November 2007. While the original Bionic Woman is a product of her time and thus a limited, even paradoxical exploration of gender, she is still a positive role-model. She pushes the bounds of traditional gender roles and though constrained within a masculinist paradigm to look good over taking charge, she manages to do both and we can credit her with making some cracks in the glass ceiling of popular culture. The new show fails to live up to even this meager gain. Michelle Ryan’s incarnation can still punch a hole through a concrete pillar and run faster than a car on the highway but she never overcomes the layers of doubt and banal conflict piled upon her character.

Doctor Who The original Doctor Who is even more of a cultural phenomenon than the first Jaime Sommers. It is among the longest-lasting and certainly the most imaginative shows in Anglophone television. One reason for this longevity is its mutable nature, which allows the show to change theme, tone and even lead actors over decades of continuous airing. Another reason is the Doctor’s fetching female companions. For ill or good, these short-skirt-wearing screamers are an integral part of the show. Thus, when Russell T. Davies regenerated it in 2005, a female companion for the Doctor was included per force. However, this new version takes an erstwhile feminist liability and, channeling such works as Buffy the Vampire Slayer, recasts the companion as a tough woman in a dynamic relationship that changes the Doctor as much as herself.



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Ironically, the most stable aspect of the original Doctor Who is its mercurial nature. Its short, serialized format and basic premise of unfettered travel though time and space permits for nearly endless possibilities in setting, genre and tone. Coupled with its longevity, Doctor Who runs the gamut from didactic period drama to horrific monsters to overt social allegory and nearly every note in between, with varying degrees of success. Beyond this innate generic instability, only a small handful of elements remain constant and even those are subject to change. The Doctor periodically regenerates and changes form; his TARDIS mutates nearly as often (at least on the inside); and there is a constantly changing flow of traveling companions, who are nearly all women. This Promethean quality leads Doctor Who to embody a mixed bag of ideologies. Sometimes tyrant, sometimes teacher, the Doctor is often the portrait of a classic science-fiction hero with colonialist and masculinist overtones (Muir 1999, 3). He is the one with the answers, or at least the tools to unravel the mysteries and defeat the alien threat. Nonetheless, as an outgrowth of the show’s mercurial characteristic, its cultural politics and narrative ideologies “serve to encourage difference and nonconformity” (Chapman 2006, 7). Because it celebrates exploration and inquiry and often characterizes the Doctor as a mischievous outsider, it has “an unmistakably liberal ethos” (7). The Doctor and his companions are meddlers, not conquerors and often pit themselves against overtly fascistic allegorical characters like the Daleks and the Cybermen. However, their meddling is just as often to maintain the status quo, as in “City of Death” (1979), where the Doctor and Romana must stop the alien Scaroth from changing the timeline and effectively preventing the start of life on Earth.3 More than its narratives, the “charge that Doctor Who is conservative, even reactionary, in its politics is perhaps best exemplified in its representation of women” (Chapman 2006, 6), especially the Doctor’s companions, most of whom are “screamers, question-askers, miniskirt-and-cleavage pin-ups and clever-but-wrong guess-makers” (Newman 2005, 50). They are cast and dressed as children (possibly surrogates for the Doctor’s lost granddaughter, Susan Foreman) (Newman 2005, 47), and when they exceed the role of interstellar pompom girl, the narrative frequently employs the ultimate tool for normalizing gender and containing unruly women – marriage – to tuck them away (Muir 1999, 64). On the surface, the new companions do not seem to have changed much: they still ask a lot of questions and run from a lot of monsters. However, Executive Producer Russell T. Davies invested them with a compelling depth of character, transforming them from plot-motors into



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genuine foils for the Doctor. A dynamic arises between the adventurous, sometimes self-destructive hero, and his capable, assertive companions: they change each other in remarkable ways. Rose Tyler, is “sassy, streetwise and fashion-conscious . . . a representative of the ‘Girl Power’ generation of British women: determined, opinionated and independent” (Chapman 2006, 191). With this list of adjectives, she fits neatly into Inness’s paradigm for a tough woman. Moreover, some critics have even argued that Rose becomes more central a character to the remake than the Doctor himself.4 Initially, she performs a classic function of entrance. The character with whom the audience most identifies, she is our way into the Doctor’s world. But she does not remain a pretty plot motor. In the pilot episode (which bears her name) she locates the transmitter of the Nestene Consciousness, and from then on takes an active role in the Doctor’s adventures. Placed in peril as companions are wont to do, she sometimes waits for the Doctor to come to her rescue but just as often takes the initiative or presses the Doctor to follow her lead. The “Bad Wolf” story-arc that culminates in the finale of Series 1 gives her more power than perhaps any other companion, a power that she uses to destroy the Daleks and to revivify her slain allies.5 In this two-part story we find a visual representation of the Rose/Doctor dynamic; she is infused with tremendous power and the Doctor is literally transformed, regenerating into his tenth reincarnation (David Tennant). This transformation is more than just spectacle. It is given depth and even a hint of tragedy because of the Doctor’s and Rose’s relationship, one that is rife with romantic undertones and not a little hero-worship, but also one of adventurous joy and mutual respect. This relationship continues to grow, even to blossom throughout Series 2, which renders the finale truly tragic. Rose’s “death,” actually an exile to a parallel universe, is also true to Inness’s paradox. Rose becomes more than a sidekick, she grows to overshadow the Doctor, and like all companions, this aberration is ultimately contained. Even Rose’s return in the Series 4 finale is a merely a momentary divigation; she gets one last adventure with the man she loves, but must finally return home with naught but his simulacrum. Like Rose, Martha Jones enters the show on an assertive and intelligent note. When all of those around her are, understandably, panicking at the view of the moon outside the hospital window, Martha has the temerity to enjoy the experience and to logically think through the implications. She, like Donna Noble after her, lives in the shadow of Rose Tyler for much of the series but nonetheless manages to establish herself as an individual, a woman who is smart (a medical doctor), sensitive and assertive. In this



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regard, she may be little more than a copy of Rose, performing much of the same function and having similar traits. However, from a feminist point of view, Martha Jones may be the most positive companion. It is her departure from the show that sets her apart. Unlike Rose, who is arbitrarily and tragically exiled to a parallel universe, or Donna, who loses everything of her experience with the Doctor, Martha Jones steps out of the TARDIS of her own volition. “This is me,” she says, “getting out.” She has the acuity to diagnose the impossible attraction she feels for the Doctor and the wherewithal to leave a tantalizing path with him in order to carve her own. Indeed, of the all the new companions, Martha’s fate after her journeys is the most successful.6 If Martha Jones shares many traits with Rose Tyler, Donna Noble breaks the mold. Introduced first as the temporary companion for the 2006 Christmas special “The Runaway Bride,” the Doctor inspires Donna to investigate and expose alien plots that constantly threaten Earth in the show. As a companion for all of Series 4, Donna emerges as a snarky and practical moral center. Actress Catherine Tate is neither young nor conventionally pretty like either Billie Piper or Freema Agyeman. Her character may do as much running and yelling as most of her predecessors, but she combines stubbornness, sharp wit and earthy practicality and frequently catches the Doctor off-guard. It is also with Donna Noble that the show most identifiably adopts a feminist perspective. In “Turn Left,” an alien that feeds on time sends Donna into an alternate past where she never encounters the Doctor, and the rest of the episode relates the past two years without her effect on him: a series of increasingly horrifying disasters culminating in a Nazi-like state in England. The episode illustrates not merely the need for the Doctor to have a companion, but to have a tough woman at his side, a second party that curbs his self-destructive tendencies, that roots him in practical matters and provides a meaningful dynamic to his aimless wandering. Donna, in turn, faces a life without these fantastic journeys, one that is concerned with career (or a lack thereof), the quest for a husband (and her refusal to easily follow that social norm) and the simple social interactions between co-workers that, when contrasted with the growing scale of alien disasters, seem ever more petty. There is much more to life and the Doctor/Donna dynamic is necessary to realize that potential. In Russell T. Davies’ recent remake, the Doctor is no longer an Imperialist authority figure, but a catalyst for positive (if often difficult, even tragic) change. His companions have swiftly, evident potential; their association with him challenges them (sometimes with deadly force) and his presence encourages them to rise to the occasion. Rose evolves from a



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simple “go-girl” teen to a force of the universe, and even when returned to human form and separated from the Doctor, refuses to accept her fate. Martha may wait to be rescued in “Gridlock,” but she takes full charge of the Doctor’s care in the “Human Nature/Family of Blood” story arc. Donna decodes the numbers on Messaline and prompts the Doctor to save a family in Pompeii. Equally, the presence of his companions also has a visible effect on the Doctor. It may be a very long time before he gets over Rose, whose shadow lingers over Martha Jones and whose fate haunts Donna in Series 4. Martha may be deeply in love with the Gallifreyan, but she uses that ardor for inspiration, even to the point of succinct selfanalysis. Donna keeps the Doctor in check in many ways, with her snarky comments and her unyielding sense of morality. She is a gadfly and the Doctor admits that he is the better for it. Nonetheless, this show still falls within Inness’ paradox. Rose, Martha and Donna are tough women, each in her own way, but ultimately the show contains, even erases, their challenge to the Doctor’s masculine authority. Rose is exiled, twice; Martha's greatest achievement may ironically be her absence from the TARDIS; Donna becomes a Time Lord, but her physiology cannot handle the transformation. To save her, the Doctor must erase her mind of any knowledge of him and their travels. He returns her squarely to the troubled, superficial temp of “Turn Left.”

Battlestar Galactica Bionic Woman and Doctor Who are both bound by a largely contemporary setting. They portray people and relationships as we understand them today and thus a gender imbalance may be inevitable. Battlestar Galactica is entirely divorced from the society that we know. Many of its main characters are not even human. The original show fails to take advantage of this liberty, creating only derivative space opera where men are hot-shot pilots and women are sleek-jump-suit-wearing damsels in distress. Its reimagining at the hands of David Eick and Ronald Moore more fully realizes the potential of the premise, and does so particularly through gender. The original Battlestar Galactica (BSG) aired on NBC for a single season in 1976 and 1977. It was one part Lost in Space and one part Star Trek with liberal layers of schlock and cliché. Despite costing nearly a million dollars an episode, it seems to be plagued with risible production: each space fight looks quite similar to the last and the costumes have the bright, shiny look that Ridley Scott’s 1978 Alien would demonstrate had become passé in the public eye.



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Beyond an over-used visual aesthetic, the original BSG draws from the pseudo-scientific Chariots of the Gods?: Unsolved Mysteries of the Past written in 1968 by Erich von Däniken, a work from which also sprang the popular movie and series Stargate. The original voice-over introduction: There are those who believe that life here began out there, far across the universe, with tribes of humans who may have been the forefathers of the Egyptians, or the Toltecs, or the Mayans. That they may have been the architects of the great pyramids, or the lost civilizations of Lemuria or Atlantis. Some believe that there may yet be brothers of man who even now fight to survive somewhere beyond the heavens... (Battlestar Wiki)

While far-fetched ideas sometimes make for compelling science fiction (faster than light travel, artificial intelligence, alien visitation), the primary failing of the original BSG is that although the premise has a philosophical potential, the show only flirts with it occasionally and never has the temerity to explore deeper. More than a lack of critical depth, the show is masculinist, especially Lieutenant Starbuck (Dirk Benedict), who follows in the intergalactic gigolo shoes of Captain Kirk. Men are the leaders of the Colonial Fleet (and of the Cylons) and take center stage in the action. This is not to say that women are absent, just minimized. Lieutenant Athena (Maren Jensen) is a bridge officer, pilot and teacher, but her presence on the show dwindles as the series continues. Lieutenant Sheba (Anne Lockhart) is a crack Viper pilot and squadron leader on the Pegasus; with the second battlestar’s disappearance, she is brought into the male-dominated fold of the Galactica and eventually falls in love with Captain Apollo (Richard Hatch), a classic case of heterosexual relations being used to normalize an anomalous female presence. Serina (Jane Seymour) is a reporter who actually marries Apollo; she is trained to fly a shuttle and a Viper, but is ultimately killed off. Moreover, the storytelling of the original series is classically linear and straightforward; each episode (or episode arc) is resolved neatly, returning things to a status quo but still leaving the show’s ultimate quest for Earth unachieved. In contrast, the narrative rule of the re-imagined BSG is a refusal of closure. While the central conflict of each episode may find some kind of resolution, it is often temporary and frequently creates just as many, if not more, problems whose repercussions are inevitably felt later. Kara “Starbuck” Thrace (Katee Sackoff) embodies this unconventional, even irreverent approach like no other character. Moore’s and Eick’s decision to recast the hyper-virile, macho Starbuck as a woman initially created a backlash amongst many fans, not least Dirk



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Benedict himself.7 However, the reversal of sex without changing the basic psychology renders a complex, conflicted character that critic Paul Wells describes as “the show’s rebellious, libidinous, overwrought, confused moral centre” (Wells 2008, 55). This is a revealing statement. Kara Thrace is a crack Viper pilot, a violent egotist and even a sexual predator, clearly “the character to whom the traditional restrictions of femininity have meant the least” (Conly 2008, 230). In many ways, one could argue that she is simply a man in woman’s form, exhibiting all the superficial, violent moors that audiences often applaud in male heroes like the Terminator or even Joss Whedon’s Angel. Upon further investigation, we even find some evidence to place Kara squarely in Inness’ paradox of tough women, motherhood. Inness’ “apocalyptic women” are constrained by their distance from the present and are frequently mothers or their toughness is mitigated by motherhood of some kind. During the occupation of New Caprica, the Cylon “Leobon” forces motherhood upon Kara, placing a small girl in her care. This is a role that Starbuck eventually comes to accept, even to the point of her risking her life and that of Anders to save the girl during the exodus. Nonetheless, she never accepts the role of Leobon’s wife, which is clearly that of a perpetual prisoner and rape victim. Even her willing marriage to Anders is placed in doubt. The show performs a double coup, leveraging two possible faults against each other. Starbuck’s toughness is not mitigated by motherhood; rather, it complicates her characterization. For, this is a character of fruitful contradictions: libidinous but loyal, capable of equal parts violence and kindness, fearful and fearless. “Starbuck isn’t a perfect person, but she’s nonetheless a model of what women can be: equal to men in their courage, their achievement and their flaws” (Conly 2008, 239). She is a complex person whose characterization moves beyond the masculine/feminine binary.8 Neither is Kara alone. The new BSG has many female characters who inhabit positions of narrative and social importance and who equally harbor deep psychological conflicts: President Laura Roslin (Mary McDonnell) and Cylon number 6, especially Caprica Six (Tricia Helfer), are two of the most visible examples. Neither is the show a matriarchal celebration: men are equally important and interesting, particularly Commander William Adama (Edward James Olmos) and Dr. Gaius Baltar (James Callis). The key word here is “equally.” Colonial society may have been decimated by the Cylon attack, but even in the face of apocalypse, it maintains a post-gendered outlook. There is nothing natural about a masculine/feminine dichotomy, nothing beneficial of a self/other power-



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struggle based upon either gender or sex. Indeed, the show constantly attacks, shifts and modifies the self/other binary that many other shows would concertize between humans and Cylons.

Conclusion These shows demonstrate a wide range of attitudes towards women, from the regressive re-depiction of the Bionic Woman to the progressive, androgynous society of the new Battlestar Galactica. When concluding, it is helpful to examine them from a slightly different angle: their status as hypertexts. Gerard Gennette defines “hypertextuality,” as “any relationship relating text B ([…] hypertext) to an earlier text A ([…] hypotext) upon which it is grafted in a manner that is not one of commentary” (5). This is produced by either transformation or imitation. Transformation is a simple mechanical gesture, in effect copying. Imitation, or mimesis, requires a “matrix of imitation” that is interposed between the hypotext and hypertext (83). This matrix performs a generalizing function, one which essentializes the “idiolect” of text A. Its creation necessitates a certain mastery of specific qualities of the imitated text and then serves as a template for text B. Therefore, “to imitate is to generalize” (Genette 1997, 85) and this has certain consequences for the hypertext. Firstly, “hypertextuality is most often revealed by a means of a paratextual sign that has contractual force” (8): bionic limbs, a blue police box, or Vipers. Secondly, “a simple understanding of the hypertext never necessitates resorting to the hypotext” (397). Hypertexts are more or less autonomous, and stand only to gain from the reader’s or spectator’s knowledge of the work from which it draws.9 None of the current subjects carry out simple transformation, but what is the “matrix of imitation”? How does the implied essentialization affect the show’s treatment of women? NBC’s fresh swipe at the adventures of Jaime Sommers was “cut off at the knees” by American Idol (Lowry 2007, 77), but there is more at work than Nielsen ratings. In some hands, the conflicts and self-doubt of Ryan’s Sommers may have yielded a compelling drama, but Eick’s reimagined heroine merely flails about in largely superficial issues. The process of essentialization is taken too far, condensing and remolding what was in the 1970s a cutting-edge depiction and saturating it with tropes more appropriate to contemporary ‘tween dramas. The matrix of imitation is poor: expecting the same (nostalgic) thrills as the hypotext, audiences did not connect with the hypertext’s



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protagonist in a meaningful way. In contrast, the strength of Davies’s new take on Doctor Who “is its concentration on emotional resonance [...]; a consistent theme is the heroism not just of the Doctor but the people he gets involved with” (Newman 2005, 115). This is especially apparent in the Series 4 finale “Journey’s End,” which features a rogue’s gallery of companions and allies. Moreover, the re-imagined show is a true hypertext, often fascinating for the way it comments on its predecessors in a manner which suggests Writer-Producer Russell T. Davies is mounting a critical project as much as refreshing a still-potent concept to suit the demands of twentyfirst century television (7).

Companions like Rose not only allow the audience to become emotionally invested in the stories being told, but their intelligence and heroism both inspire and cast a critical eye towards the short-skirt-wearing screamers of the show’s previous incarnation. Nonetheless, one way or another, the companions are swept aside, aberrations contained through normative social moors that keep the Doctor’s male authority intact (more or less). Even as empowering as Martha's departure may be, it is still a negative response to the Doctor's authority, abstention instead of engagement. The basic idea of the show seems to dictate that these women come and go; it's called Doctor Who, not The Companions. Davies has made some interesting strides towards complicating the Doctor by casting him as a wounded, troubled war veteran but it seems that if one remains faithful to the show's premise, a woman will never really get to drive the TARDIS. Breaking out of the paradox requires an entirely different paradigm. The new Battlestar Galactica fulfills the true potential of a hypertext, representing an evolution in moral thinking as well as a great and positive social change. It’s an androgynous society, one where social roles are not limited by sex and where opportunities are open such that Beauvoir’s wish for ‘every human life to be pure transparent freedom’ is realized (Conly 2008, 239).

To its credit, this “pure transparent freedom” is not easy and never complete: women and men are considered equal in the Colonial Fleet, but this means that they have equal access to the same plague of social, political and psychological conflicts. As dark as this may seem, critics and audiences alike have responded positively: the show has received a



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Peabody award and developed a dedicated fan-base, which is largely different than those who remain loyal to the original version. Bionic Woman, a show with a weak female lead, does not succeed in today’s American television landscape, while stronger, more complex women buoy efforts like the new Doctor Who and drive Battlestar Galactica to both social commentary and positive audience reactions. We may not yet have gender parity on TV, but the more we travel in the TARDIS and spin up our FTLs (Faster Than Light), the closer we seem get.





CHAPTER NINE INTERGALACTIC GIRL POWER: THE GENDER POLITICS OF COMPANIONSHIP ST IN 21 CENTURY DOCTOR WHO LEE BARRON

THE DOCTOR. “Do you question my authority child? SUSAN. No, Grandfather. (Doctor Who, “The Dalek Invasion of Earth,” 1964). DONNA NOBLE. I’m nothing special. THE DOCTOR. “Yes you are. You’re brilliant!” (Doctor Who, “Turn Left,” 2008).

Between the first and ultimate incarnation of the Doctor, not only would his face, image and identity periodically be transformed, but complementing each of these transformations would be a companion, or, at times, companions. Although some would be male, the companions have been predominantly female. Consequently, with a broadcast history that spans over forty years, the representational strategies relating to the Doctor(s) and his companions would inevitably change, and change decisively. Although the chapter surveys representations of female companions from 1963-1989, the major focus will be representations of female companions in Russell T Davies’ revival of Doctor Who, broadcasted by the BBC on the 26th March, 2005. The chapter will discuss the characters Rose Tyler, Martha Jones and Donna Noble, critically exploring the ways in which the revived Doctor Who series appears to represent these characters as equal to the Doctor and central to the narrative, and not, as has been claimed of female companions within the original series, as passive “assistants” or helpless female figures constantly in need of rescue. However, I suggest a key differentiation exists between Davies’ contemporary version and that of the older series which is (initially with Christopher Eccleston, then more confidently developed

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with David Tennant in the Doctor role) the progressive presence of sexual attraction between the female companion and the Doctor. This chapter explores the ways in which the original run of the series did feature strong female figures, from the resourceful Sarah Jane, to the warrior, Leela, to the Time Lord Romana, to the “streetwise” Ace, and also identifies the critical limitations of these representations. Moreover, I will identify potential continuities that exist between the 1963-1989 periods and Davies’ version in terms of female representation, particularly as the contemporary companions would appear to be the heirs of “Girl Power.” But, although there are decisive differences between the companions of the past and contemporary series in terms of gender politics and representation, parallels and echoes arguably remain.

Teenagers, scientists, screamers, and Time Lords: Female Companions from 1963-1989 Over the course of its original 1963-1989 run, Doctor Who would see, via the Time Lord’s ability to regenerate into a new body at the point of death (and solving the problem of actors leaving the role), different Doctors, each with a particular style and identity brand. William Hartnell (1963-1966) was a “crotchety professor”; Patrick Troughton (1966–1969) was an impish “tramp from outer space”; Jon Pertwee (1970–1974) was an Edwardian dandy; Tom Baker (1974-1981), an eccentric “bohemian student,” Peter Davison (1981-1984), a cricket outfitted “gentleman adventurer”; Colin Baker (1984–1986), a garishly-clad “harlequin,” and Sylvester McCoy, (1987-1989) a gruff but wise Scot (Cull 2001, 100). However, accompanying these differing incarnations of the Doctor were some thirty-three regular companions, four male and twenty-three female. The figure of the companion would become a central part of the Doctor Who narrative, and their representation would naturally develop over the decades the series was broadcast, particularly with regard to the gender politics. The Doctor’s original companion was Susan Foreman (Carole Ann Ford), introduced in “An Unearthly Child” (1963). The episode introduced Susan as a pupil at Coal Hill School, but, due to her “genius” knowledge of science and history, Susan soon attracts the attention of two teachers, Ian Chesterton (William Russell) and Barbara Wright (Jacqueline Hill), who follow her to 76 Totter’s Lane, encounter the Doctor, and become (initially unwillingly) companions themselves. In addition to beginning a series of time and space adventures that will continue until 1989, “An Unearthly Child” also establishes a pattern of gender politics that will



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evolve (and sometimes regress) during the series’ extensive history. “An Unearthly Child” depicted Susan’s attempts to forge an identity as a human teenager, living on Earth for some months, but who continually betrays her alien “otherness.” Susan is represented as a “superior being” to Barbara and Ian, yet the dynamic between Susan and the Doctor would undermine this status. As Kim Newman states of Hartnell’s portrayal of the Doctor, he is “gruff, devious, smug and quixotic”; and in relation to Susan, domineering and authoritarian (Newman 2005, 15). The relationship between Susan and the Doctor would be firmly hierarchical and familial, with the Doctor consistently referring to her as either “my child,” or “my dear child.” Indeed, in reaction to Ian and Barbara’s gaining access to the TARDIS, the Doctor exclaims to Susan, “you see, I knew this sort of thing would happen, you stupid child.” In consequence, having established Susan as an individual of exceptional knowledge and intelligence, she is firmly subordinate to the Doctor, and, as the series progressed, she would also be positioned as the series’ first screamer (Newman 2005). This is potently illustrated within Susan’s last episode, “The Dalek Invasion of Earth” (1964). It is Susan’s child-like inquisitiveness (her climbing on a wall and dislodging masonry that blocks access to the TARDIS) that forces the Doctor and companions to face the Daleks. Throughout “The Dalek Invasion of Earth” Susan adopts a consistently passive role, while in contrast Barbara acts as a proactive female companion (and indeed, as a teacher, a professional women) joining an attack on a Dalek spacecraft. As Barbara engages in such heroics, the narrative sees Susan cowering and trying to hold Susan back and in nearhysterical emotional state. Later in the episode, when the Doctor, Susan, Tyler (Bernard Kay), and David (Peter Fraser) take refuge in the countryside, Susan is assigned the domestic role by the Doctor because she is, as he states, “a good cook.” And, domesticity is to be Susan’s destiny beyond the TARDIS as she remains on Earth to forge a life with the resistance fighter David, to become his wife as help to re-build the Dalekravaged planet. Therefore, Susan leaves one man to seek “fulfillment as a wife” with another (Friedan 1963, 13). But, the loss of Susan has emotional repercussions for the Doctor; as Newman argues, “all the temporary travelling companions who come and go throughout the series are substitutes for the lost Susan” (Newman 2005, 44). While the “space orphan,” Vicki (Maureen O’Brien), would seemingly fit the bill as a Susan replacement, the representational strategies of female companionship would take a decisive and very different turn with the



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introduction of Polly (Anneke Wills), who introduced a definitive element of female sexuality and glamour into Doctor Who. As Chapman argues, Polly was the first female companion to exhibit any degree of sex appeal: Polly represented that archetypal sixties construction of femininity, the ‘dolly bird’, whose trendy clothes (mini-dresses and boyish caps) placed her firmly within contemporary fashions (Chapman 2006, 56).

Such emphasis on overt femininity would continue with the second Doctor, a more puckish and eccentric version, lacking the coldness of Hartnell’s character. In addition to a male companion, Jamie McCrimmon (Frazer Hines), a Highland warrior from 1746, there was a female companion, Zoe Heriot (Wendy Padbury). Introduced in “The Wheel in Space” (1968), Zoe was an alien possessing a genius intelligence level that would be regularly utilised to assist the Doctor and defeat alien threats. Yet when, as in “The Invasion” (1968), Zoe plays a critical role in combating the Cyberman invasion, by devising the solution to destroy their approaching space fleet by vectoring limited U.N.I.T. missiles to create chain reactions, she does so incongruously dressed in a close-fitting shiny cat suit, visually ensuring that her “femininity” is never cancelled out by her intellect. This issue of the professional woman or female genius who is intellectually equal to the Doctor would become an enduring issue within the series, and a problematic one in terms of narrative and gender politics. With Jon Pertwee’s third incarnation of the Doctor in 1970 came new companions. One in particular, Liz Shaw (Caroline John) stands out. A Cambridge University educated research scientist working for the UNIT, Liz’s intelligence proved to be the character’s undoing because, as Producer Barry Letts explained, the problem with Liz was that she was an incredibly intelligent scientist, which led to narrative problems…It wasn’t so much that we needed someone to scream, we needed someone to say to the Doctor, “Doctor, I don’t understand, will you please explain” (Rigelsford 1994, 80).

Consequently, explaining plot points and technicalities to the viewer became challenging. Because the Doctor required a companion who did not understand the mysteries and technicalities, he could not have an equal companion. Accordingly, Liz Shaw was replaced with a companion, Jo Grant (Katy Manning), who could scream (and frequently did) and who would ask numerous questions of the Doctor. While Jo did nothing to subvert any



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emphasis on female attractiveness, she was also a “kooky” character with a penchant for mixed metaphors and would often assume the position of “heroine in peril,” awaiting rescue by the Doctor. And, she knew her place in the hierarchy. As ably illustrated in “The Green Death” (1973), Jo reflexively recognises her role with the UNIT as that of “holding test tubes for the Doctor. Telling him how brilliant he is.” And, like Susan, Jo leaves the Doctor to become a wife, in this instance to the young environmental scientist, Professor Clifford Jones (Stewart Bevan) even though, in response to her comically clumsy damaging of one of his experiments (which leads, serendipitously to the solution to the “Green Death” maggot attack), he refers to her as “a cloth head.” Unlike Jo, the third Doctor’s next female companion is Sarah Jane Smith (Elisabeth Sladen), an investigative journalist and an “enthusiastic supporter of woman’s rights” (Tribe 2009, 31). So, early-1970s Doctor Who now appeared to be reflecting the political effects of feminism, a period in which second wave feminism was linked with increasingly visible female political activism (Thornham, 2000). And Sarah Jane would be perceived as representing such an ethos, as illustrated by Tulloch and Jenkins’ ethnographic fan research Sarah Jane was seen as the “woman’s answer to Doctor Who” (1995, 99). Chapman concurs, stating that Sarah Jane Smith was the series’ most overtly “pro-feminist” character, and as evidenced within episodes such as “The Monster of Peladon” (1974), she was not helpless, demonstrating an intuitive sense of intelligence. However, Chapman continues, as the series progressed, Sarah Jane had to step aside while the UNIT Surgeon-Lieutenant Harry Sullivan (Ian Marter) attended to any physicality. Later, when she was the fourth Doctor’s sole companion, “there were subtle but significant changes in the characterisation of Sarah whose feminist credentials became less evident as she slipped back into a ‘frightened lady’ vein of being terrorised by monsters” (Chapman 2006, 106). This status was particularly evident in Sarah Jane’s final episode, “The Hand of Fear” (1976), in which Sarah Jane was not only an archetypal screamer but also curiously de-sexualised, taking on the role of a childish friend to the Doctor. Visually, this is signified in the episode by the unflattering and infantile clothes she wears, an outfit consisting of clownish pink and white overalls (“just like Andy Pandy,” as a security guard accurately remarks). Furthermore, what is curious about “The Hand of Fear” is the mechanism by which Sarah Jane leaves the Doctor, by being unceremoniously dropped off on Earth because the Doctor has been summoned back to Gallifrey and cannot take her with him. As Miles and Wood put it, the abrupt departure of Sarah Jane is the “only occasion in which the Doctor really ‘fires’ a companion” (2004,



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108). However, Sarah Jane would return in two Doctor Who spin-offs, K-9 And Company (1981), and The Sarah Jane Adventures (2007), which served to rehabilitate her professional status as a journalist. And, Sarah Jane would also have the distinction of being the only original companion to appear in the post-millennial Doctor Who. The exit of Sarah Jane would see the introduction of Leela (Louise Jameson), a radically alternative female companion to the Doctor. Leela, a fierce warrior of the Sevateem tribe, was introduced in the episode “The Face of Evil” (1977) and a character highly proficient in fighting techniques. Leela, as Cull states, “to the delight of a generation of British girls dispatched a succession of monsters with her trusty dagger” (2001, 104). But, for all of her seemingly proto-Xena empowerment, Chapman argues that Leela was a politically problematic role model, assertive and independent on the one hand, but savage and superstitious on the other. As Chapman argues, Leela’s character associated a principle of “independent” femininity with that of “primitivism and savagery,” functioning, via her revealing animal skin costume, as a heroine who was simultaneously an “object of male fantasy” (2006, 106). Arguably, Leela also represented a return to the strict hierarchy and subordinate role characteristic of the relationship between the first Doctor and Susan. Because of her primitivism, the id-like Leela was ostensibly the Doctor’s child, or charge, or “noble savage,” an inferior in need of moral and ethical education. This would be potently illustrated in the episode “The Talons of Weng-Chiang” (1977). Set in Victorian London, the episode ably demonstrates the dynamic between the Doctor and Leela. For instance, at the outset of the episode, Leela must forsake her tribal attire in favour of Victorian clothing (to avoid, as the Doctor puts it “scaring the horses”), and her ignorance of civilization is illustrated when she mistakes the fog horn of a ship for the attack call of a swamp creature, only to be quickly and firmly corrected by the Doctor. The antagonistic nucleus of the Doctor/Leela relationship revolved around her prowess in, and readiness to employ, violence in the face of any threat, with her knife, toxic Janis thorns or her bare hands (she frequently threatens to break arms or cripple assailants). As a companion, Leela was consistently proactive, impulsive, fearless and courageous, values that constantly run counter to the Doctor’s inherent pacifism, and attributes that Doctor finds repugnant and seeks to remove with his strategy to “civilise” her, invariably patronising her in the process, as this interchange illustrates: THE DOCTOR. Do you know what that is? LEELA. You asked me so that you can tell me.



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“The Talons of Weng-Chiang” reinforces Leela’s status when the Doctor joins in the ‘civilising project’ by the character Professor Litefoot (Trevor Baxter) who engages in his own ‘Pygmalion’ project with Leela. But, for all of Leela’s warrior-independence, she ultimately echoes Susan’s mode of departure, leaving the Doctor to marry Andred (Chris Tranchell) on Gallifrey in “The Invasion of Time” (1978). “The Ribos Operation” (1978) sees the White Guardian (Cyril Luckham) appoint the Doctor the mission of locating the six segments of the Key to Time, and assigning him a new assistant, Romanadvoratrelundar, or Romana (Mary Tamm), a 140-year-old female Time Lord. In terms of representation, Romana was ostensibly the Doctor’s equal, if not his superior, having graduated from the Time Lord Academy with a Triple First in contrast to the Doctor’s 51% on his second attempt. Thus, Romana represented a very different feminine archetype from that of Leela. So, in place of the volatile warrior, Romana was: “the cool ‘ice maiden’ whose intelligence and aristocratic demeanor” were positioned in stark contrast “with the Doctor’s irrational and impulsive behaviour” (Chapman 2006, 125). Visually, Romana would always look as if she had stepped out from a 1978 edition of Vogue, sporting an array of Haute couture outfits and hats, evoking a striking depiction of femininity that was inextricably linked with fashion. Still, for all of Romana’s antagonism towards the Doctor, complete with haughty psychoanalysis of his personality, she ultimately comes to rely on the Doctor to save her and grudgingly begins to admire his methods, consequently slipping into the standard secondary companion/assistant role. But Romana’s representation was then complicated by her own regeneration, with Romana II (Lalla Ward) displaying none of actress Mary Tamm’s coolness, but instead mirroring the Doctor’s eccentricity, a factor in particular evidence in “City of Death” (1979), with Romana sporting a school girl’s outfit as she runs through Paris with the Doctor. At one level, the image could be viewed as in fetishistic light. However, the school girl garb also served to further visually reinforce to companion as child of the Doctor. For Stannard, as Doctor Who developed in the early 1980s the fifth Doctor was a distinctly younger version of the Time Lord who would rely on his companions to a greater extent than previous incarnations, resurrecting the “family” dynamic that characterised early Doctor Who. In addition to the gifted alien mathematician, Adric (Matthew Waterhouse), the Doctor was joined by Nyssa (Sarah Sutton), an aristocrat from the planet Traken who would prove to be technologically astute, and Tegan (Janet Fielding), an Australian flight attendant who became a companion by accident, but whose role would, as Stannard states, be “that of critic and



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complainer, contributing little to the solution of problems faced in the adventures” (1992, 69). However, Tegan was nevertheless argumentative, frequently sarcastic with the Doctor and certainly not passive. Again, as companions became assertive and independent, the representational strategy would take a step back. For instance, the Doctor’s next companion, American student Perpugilliam “Peri” Brown (Nicola Bryant), visually harked back to the Leela-type female companion as a figure of male desire and object of sexual attraction, but without Leela’s physical empowerment. Peri was introduced in “Planet of Fire” (1984) and continued as companion with the newly re-generated sixth Doctor in “The Caves of Androzani” (1984), and the representational strategy in relation to Peri was not subtle, because, as Chapman remarks: “her cleavage assumed an iconic status of its own for Doctor Who’s male viewers” (Chapman 2006, 143). Certainly, there would be moments in which Mulvey’s conception of “voyeuristic fantasy” and female-centered spectacle could be confidently perceived in Peri’s overtly sexualised representation (Mulvey 1993, 14). For instance, “Planet of Fire” introduces her wearing a pink bikini, and her standard outfit (like Leela’s) was explicitly designed to emphases her sexuality and femininity, consisting of cleavage-revealing alternate pink and blue leotards, shorts, midriff-revealing tied-shirts and impractical (especially for corridor running) high-heeled shoes. If then, as Jane Miller states, feminism strives “to disturb, irrevocably, the steady male gaze,” then in the 1980s, Doctor Who was still yet to fully engaged with a feminist agenda (Thornham 2005, 111). But, there were signs. As the original run of Doctor Who approached its final years, the seventh Doctor replaced computer programmer and aerobic exercise enthusiast Mel (Bonnie Langford) with the teenage Ace (Sophie Aldred). Although Newman denounces Ace’s so-called “teen-speak” as “cringe worthy,” she nevertheless would prove to be a resourceful companion in spite of her youth vernacular peppered with adjectives such as brill, mega, wicked, and of course, ace. As Stannard states of Ace’s “proto-Girl Power,” “no screamer she, but a technically competent companion who literally blasts her way to safety with her own dynamite” (1992, 70). But, underscoring such independence there would be a distinctive sense of paternalism between Ace and the Doctor that suggested that the Doctor had found his substitute for Susan. For instance, within “The Curse of Fenric” (1989) the Doctor (or “Professor,” as Ace calls him) continually chides Ace in a distinctly parental manner, even at one stage commanding her to go to sleep at night. This type of relationship is one that Ace (unlike Susan) strives to resist, stating at one point, “I’m not a little girl.” But, the affiliation between the Doctor and Ace is nevertheless a patriarchal one,



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while it is a more emotional relationship is still akin to that of the Doctor and Susan in “An Unearthly Child.”

New Doctors, New Companions, New Gender Politics? In assessing the politics of Doctor Who, in terms of narrative and the character, McKee argues that there are a variety of political levels discernible, primarily gender politics deriving from the fact that the Doctor is consistently male while “his ditzy companion almost always female” (2004, 204). While it is inaccurate to dismiss all of the female companions as helplessly ditzy, McKee’s political evaluation of Doctor Who would be challenged when, in 2005, the series was resurrected by noted Television Writer Russell T Davies (Walker 2008). Having scripted Channel 4’s Queer as Folk (1999), a series that represented a groundbreaking rebuttal to heteronormative television broadcasting (and which also included the Doctor Who-loving character, Vince), Davies introduced to the world a new Doctor Who for the 21st century that would not only become a ratings success but would feature a distinctive sexual dimension to it. Although Doctor Who from 1963-1989 arguably confronted a range of political issues such as fascism, ethnic persecution, feminism, and class conflict, sexuality was never paramount (Tulloch & Jenkins 1995). The Doctor would range from the patriarchal and arch, avuncular, impish, to charming and eccentric, but he was always most assuredly chaste. Consequently, whereas Polly Wright, Leela and Peri may have been represented in terms of overt feminine sexuality, these were visual cues to be responded to by viewers, not the Doctor. Therefore, not only would the new Doctor Who be marked by sophisticated CGI (computer-generated imagery) effects and the creation of new villains (the Slitheen, Reapers, Pyroviles, Krillitanes, and the Racnoss) alongside the return of iconic threats (Autons, Daleks, Cybermen, Sontarans, and the Master), but it would also display a distinctive and politically progressive gender dynamic. A radical aspect of this was the echo of Queer as Folk’s representational strategies, with the ninth Doctor acquiring the companionship of Captain Jack Harkness (John Barrowman), a man from the 51st century who considers himself “omnisexual” but who is primarily represented as bi-sexual, if not homosexual. And the introduction of an innovative dynamic between the Doctor and his companions was also clear with regard to the new Doctor’s first female companion. As Tribe states, with the re-commission of Doctor Who by the BBC:



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Head writer Russell T Davies set about placing the “companion” figure at the heart of the series. The programme’s template had always included human characters for audience members to identify with. Rose Tyler, however, was going to be much more than that: she would be our eyes and ears. We would see the wonders of time and space from her point of view. And Rose would be in many ways the Doctor’s equal, reflected in the shared billing in the opening titles of each episode (Tribe 2009, 63).

As the actress who plays Rose, Billie Piper, states of her audition experiences and growing knowledge of the character, “Russell’s story arc, his whole reason for Rose, was to take an ordinary girl and make her extraordinary” (2006, 312). Hence, Rose would be all about female empowerment, and the status of companion would be the key to her becoming “extraordinary” because, prior to encountering the Doctor, Rose is shown to be a girl who’s been living what she considers a dull, miserable, ordinary life…her life was all about getting up, going to work, getting back on the bus, buying chips and going to bed. But she has so much more to offer (2006, 332).

The first episode, Rose (2005), begins, appropriately enough given the title, not with the Doctor, but with the nineteen-year-old Rose Tyler. It depicts her humdrum existence in a low-level job and her life living with her mother, Jackie (Camille Coduri), on a London council estate with a steady boyfriend, Mickey (Noel Clarke) who, although dependable, evidently leaves Rose unfulfilled. On a surface level then, Rose has similarities with Ace. Both are initially stuck in dead-end jobs, but Rose’s representation would be more subtle, and with an eye to class nuances, rather than the rapidly-dated broad-brush “youth” signifiers of Ace. With the family’s life chances derailed due to the accidental death of her father, Rose displays a faintly “chav” quality, that term that has emerged to represent the contemporary traditional British lower working class and which is particularly focused upon modes of consumption and specific forms of taste, specifically the penchant for designer sports and casual clothing (Haywood & Yar, 2006). But, Rose has aspirations and she reflexively recognises the limitations of her life. This, of course, changes when she meets the ninth Doctor (Christopher Eccleston), who appears at the shop she works at to battle Autons, which have taken the form of animated fashion mannequins under the direction of the Nestene Consciousness. What is crucial about the first episode is that it is so centrally focused upon Rose and her realization that aliens exist and that there is a wide universe of adventure waiting for her.



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And, Rose is not passive. Indeed, it is Rose who rescues the Doctor at the climax of the episode, and it is Rose who causes the vial of anti-plastic to fall into the Nestene, destroying it and saving London. As Rose points out to the Doctor: “You were useless in there. You’d be dead if it wasn’t for me.” And so, the episode ends with Rose joining the Doctor on board the TARDIS to become the first companion of the new era, leaving her Earth life behind to become, as the Doctor states: “Rose Tyler, my Plus-One.” A noteworthy aspect of Rose’s character that becomes evermore manifest as the series progresses is her impact on the Doctor. This is perhaps most potently evident within the episode “Dalek” (2005), set in billionaire Henry van Statton’s (Corey Johnson) Utah-based subterranean alien museum. In addition to re-introducing the Doctor’s most iconic enemy to a new generation of Who fans, “Dalek” also served to show how different the new Doctor truly is from his predecessors. Although quirky and eccentric, the ninth Doctor would be distinctly darker than previous incarnations because it is within this episode that details of the epic Time War that destroyed both the Daleks and the Time Lords are revealed. So, it is an embittered and traumatised Doctor that is brought face-to-face with the last remaining Dalek (although it is not the last, as will be revealed later in the series), and a Doctor who is not averse to inflicting torture on the shackled Dalek, an action distinctly out of character for the noted pacifist. Therefore, it falls to Rose to ease the Doctor through his trauma. And it is Rose, due to the residual energy that she comes to possess through her time-traveling, who energises the Dalek and enables it to escape and continue with its extermination of all non-Dalek life. But the Dalek steadily becomes “contaminated” by Rose’s emotions and DNA and mutates into a new life-form, a form that causes such dissonance that the Dalek ultimately elects for self-destruction. Thus, within this episode, Rose is central to the drama, and no mere bystander. Her humanity affects both the Dalek and the Doctor, and the drama (Rose is captured by the Dalek) identifies the distinctiveness of the relationship between Rose and the Doctor. As the Dalek tauntingly states to the Doctor, “What use are emotions if you will not save the woman you love?” This suggestion of a romantic link between companion and the Doctor would be the decisive break from its 1963-1989 history and would raise issues in relation to gender politics. However, a “romantic” Doctor was not unprecedented. Although the series was cancelled in 1989, within the one-off BBC/Fox Doctor Who television film (1996), the eighth Doctor (played by Paul McGann) would end up kissing his erstwhile companion, Dr. Grace Holloway (Daphne Ashbrook). But within Davies’ version, a romantic link between the Doctor



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and companion would become more manifest, frequently based, in the first series of the new Doctor Who, upon furtive glances and vague jealousy of others who displayed signs of attraction to the Doctor or Rose. However, it was within the second series, with the incarnation of the tenth Doctor (David Tennant) where The relationship between Rose and the Doctor becomes more interesting. You see her selfishly wanting the Doctor all to herself, getting jealous, having to put up with his ridiculous crushes. It got a bit does-he/doesn’t-he, will-they/won’t they, and it was fun. In amongst all the alien invasions and Daleks, Russell made our two characters more and more human (Piper 2006, 345).

This incremental move towards romance between the Doctor and Rose reaches its zenith in the finale episodes of Series 2, “Ghosts” and “Doomsday” (2006), which see the Doctor and Rose return to Earth to face the double threat of both Cybermen and Dalek invasions. The conclusion hinges upon the revelation of a “void” between parallel worlds, a void that will draw all life-forms that have traveled through time and space. This becomes the Doctor’s plan, to open a breach and suck the Daleks into the “emptiness,” eternally imprisoning them, and, because she is saturated with “void stuff,” sending Rose to an alternative Earth. But, Rose refuses to accept the Doctor’s authority and returns, stating that, “I’m never going to leave you.” However, she is ultimately teleported to the alternative Earth, the consequences of which are that she and the Doctor can never (so they believe at this stage) physically meet again. But as a poignant coda, “Doomsday” ends with the Doctor transmitting his holographic image to Rose and the unprecedented exchange occurs: ROSE. I love you. THE DOCTOR. Rose Tyler…[his image fades away before he can return her words].

Consequently, the new Doctor Who would become a tragic romance, adding a new dimension to the Doctor/companion relationship, and it would transform the dynamic and politics of the female companion in a number of ways. Now no longer the helpless screamer, passive observer, or ethically censured child, companions such as Rose Tyler would humanise the Doctor and be empowered by the experience of being a companion. Thus, in her new life on the alternate Earth, we learn that Rose no longer works in a shop or endures a tedious routine life but is an active member of the Torchwood Institute, a defence force against alien attack.



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So, while the original series of Doctor Who either by-passed or partially engaged with aspects of second-wave feminism, based as it was from the 1960s to the 1980s on political issues such as equal female access to work and critiques of patriarchy, the new Doctor Who seemingly reflects key aspects of third-wave feminism, an expression of feminism that would lay emphasis upon what Beeler calls “an individualist spirit” of femininity and that would find potent expression within popular culture, in particular through popular telefantasy series made in the 1990s and early 2000s such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Dark Angel, and Charmed, which presented: Young women who project the image of the sexy, fashion-conscious warrior heroine whose views often represent a departure from the feminism of second-wave activists. These female characters have often been discussed as “kick ass” heroines who offer a new form of female empowerment (Beeler 2007, 103).

The new Doctor Who would join this collection of texts foregrounding strong and resilient female characters. Hence, in contrast to his views on Leela, Chapman argues that Rose is “sassy, streetwise and fashionconscious. [She is] a representative of the ‘Girl Power’ generation of British women: determined, opinionated and independent” (Chapman 2006, 191). For Whelehan, the phrase “Girl Power” would be inextricably linked with the British pop group the Spice Girls, who rose to prominence in 1996 and “managed to spin beyond the orbit of teen pop as newsworthy ambassadors of ‘Cool Britannia’ and as post-feminist icons up there with Madonna;” and for whom “sassiness” became “an embodiment of empowerment” (Whelehan 2000, 38, 41). In this sense, Rose arguably continued to reflect this “Girl Power” sensibility in the 21st century, a discourse which could enable women to feel “much stronger than before” (Gill 2008, 47). Indeed, within “The Empty Child,” Rose sports a Union Jack T-shirt that is strongly reminiscent of the iconic Union Jack dress worn by Spice Girl Geri Halliwell at the 1997 BRIT Awards. Accordingly, Rose’s development within Doctor Who is one of confidence and growing personal power. From a drab and powerless life, she becomes a figure of strength, saving and inspiring the Doctor. And so, Rose becomes the key companion who is threaded throughout the entire series. Although ostensibly separated from the Doctor by worldly walls, she does return, and return in the “kick ass” style articulated by Beeler, representative of many contemporary female cultural fantasy figures. For instance, within “The Stolen Earth” (2008), due to the machinations of Davros and the Daleks, the barriers between worlds become thin and Rose is able to



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teleport to the “real” Earth, making her first appearance brandishing a large pulse rifle that she uses to destroy a Dalek with the sexually ironic and playfully macho refrain: “Do you like my gun?” Rose’s return would demonstrate a notable aspect in the representational strategy of Russell’s Doctor Who. Whereas companions would leave the Doctor and never return, the new Doctor Who would be predicated upon crossover with regard to companions. Prior to the re-appearance of Rose, the Doctor would have a new female companion, Martha Jones. Martha Jones (Freema Agyeman) would not only represent a professional woman (she is a medical student at the Royal Hope hospital, where the Doctor first encounters her), but, as a young, black woman, she depicts Doctor Who finally embracing ethnicity, a political dimension McKee notes that the 1963-1989 period neglected (2004). Like Rose, Martha would prove to be resourceful and practical, playing a decisive role in defeating the Master (John Simm) and utilising her medical training to save the Doctor’s life when he became a victim of the Plasmavore in “Smith and Jones” (2007). Indeed, within this episode, Martha is rapidly represented as being intelligent, educated, brave and confident, personality factors underscored by her reaction to the hospital being relocated to the surface of the Moon and the factors which inspire the Doctor to take her with him on the TARDIS. And, it is Martha herself who draws attention to her ethnicity when, as she states of her status in 1599 London within “The Shakespeare Code” (2007): MARTHA. I’m not going to get carted off as a slave am I? THE DOCTOR. No. Why? MARTHA. I’m not exactly white…

The Doctor, then, is a true egalitarian, but William Shakespeare (Dean Lennox Kelly) does notice Martha’s ethnicity, referring to her (with Othello overtones) as a “Blackamoor Lady,” a “Queen of Africa.” However, the Doctor, in the face of Shakespeare’s questioning of Martha’s status as a female doctor in a society that does not recognise women’s rights, retorts that she comes from Freedonia, “where a woman can be what she likes.” Thus, the gender and ethnicity politics of Doctor Who are revealed to be progressive and with a new Doctor who is not patriarchal or one who constantly flaunts his alien superiority to his companions. And, like Rose, Martha is similarly empowered by her contact with the Doctor, so much so that on her return to Earth, she rapidly qualifies as a doctor via a fast-track programme and assumes a senior position with the UNIT. Of course, the notion of “Girl Power” is not without its problems, principally the term girl, because, as Whelehan notes, although the term would habitually



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imply female “refusal to be pushed around,” nevertheless, conventional cultural expressions of “Girl Power” or “girl culture” would continue to set “great store by the visual and its stars are young, slim and conventionally attractive” (Whelehan 2000, 41). As with Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s Buffy Summers (Sarah Michelle Gellar), Alias’ Sidney Bristow (Jennifer Garner), or Dark Angel’s Max Guevara (Jessica Alba), Rose and Martha, similarly empowered and independent female figures, are young, slim and conventionally attractive. However, although Rose would be the series’ “meta-companion,” and Martha would also periodically return, Davies would introduce a third companion who was not “girlie” in the slightest, and who would ultimately be revealed to represent the most powerful female companion of all, Donna Noble. Donna Noble (Catherine Tate) was initially introduced at the end of “Doomsday,” suddenly appearing within the TARDIS and providing a comic counterpoint to the tragic tone that marked the climax of the episode. Donna’s materialisation would be subsequently continued in the 2006 Christmas special, “The Runaway Bride,” the plot of which has Donna de-materialising from the church on her wedding day and beaming aboard the TARDIS. The ensuing adventure is comedic in tone, from the frantic TARDIS/car chase, to a squad of robots dressed as Santa Claus. And, unlike Rose and Martha, Donna is a mature woman in her late 30s, a secretary from Chiswick who works as a temp and who establishes an initially abrasive and sarcastic relationship with the Doctor. Donna is loud and talks incessantly, and she is effectively saved from marriage (part of an alien plot) by the Doctor, so her encounter with the Doctor is also framed as a moment of identity progression for Donna. Initially, the characterisation of Donna is not a positive one. Donna has a difficult relationship with her mother, Sylvia (Jacqueline King) who sees her as an underachiever, and the outlook Donna is depicted as having on life seemingly does not extend beyond an enthusiasm for celebrity, reality television, and glossy gossip magazines. Yet, Donna does not join the Doctor and does not become a fully-fledged companion until Martha Jones’ tenure ends, returning in the episode “Partners in Crime” (2008). And, she returns to the Doctor as a very different women; now no longer obsessed with media trivia, Donna has been actively seeking the Doctor and investigating mysterious events in the hope of re-encountering him and joining him in the TARDIS as a means of escape from her Earth-based life. “Partners in Crime” quickly establishes the Doctor and Donna as a comic double-act, and the episode itself (featuring infant alien life-forms created from the fat of dieters) has a distinctly farcical edge. Furthermore, the episode firmly has Donna stating that there is to be no romance:



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THE DOCTOR. I just want a mate. THE DONNA. You’re not mating with me, Sunshine! THE DOCTOR. A Mate! A Mate! DONNA. Just as well as I’m not having any of that nonsense.

Donna’s first true adventure as a companion, “The Fires of Pompeii” (2008), exhibits further instances of such banter, and Donna’s penchant for comedy one-liners (a reference to T.K. Maxximus, for example) become a staple. In spite of this tone, however, Donna has more resonance than this, as she too functions as the “humanising” force that Rose represented, in this case demanding that the Doctor save Caecillius (Peter Capaldi) and his family from the volcanic eruption that will engulf Pompeii. Consequently, the Doctor dubs Donna “all flame-haired and fire” and states that she represents “attitude and lip,” not passivity. However, Donna’s representational position develops potently over the course of Series 4. For instance, her brashness is transformed into pathos in “Silence in the Library” (2008) when she is granted a real-time virtual life by the computer CAL, complete with husband and two children, a family that she then loses when she is retrieved from the computer’s memory. It is a loss that she experiences intensely. Thus, Donna is no “girl” but a multidimensional woman, and her identity develops clearly as the narrative unfolds and her ultimate destiny is revealed. Thus, although her selfesteem is low when she is introduced, seeing marriage as her only real goal in life, Donna’s represents much more, as the episode “Turn Left” (2008) reveals. Taking the form of an intertextual riff on Frank Capra’s fantasy film, It’s a Wonderful Life, “Turn Left” depicts (via a Time Beetle) the consequences that would have ensued had Donna never met the Doctor, consequences that range from the deaths of the Doctor, Martha, and members of the Torchwood Institute, to the destruction of London in the wake of the Titanic space cruiser crashing, the victory of the Sontarans, and the ultimate destruction of the entire universe by Davros. The episode also marked the return of Rose, who periodically makes contact with Donna and sets off a chain of events that lead to the revelation of Donna’s true nature and identity, that of a female part-human/part-Time Lord, a “Child of Gallifrey.” Donna’s “awakening” is decisive in the thwarting of Davros’ plan to destroy reality and leave the Daleks as the sole surviving life-form in the universe, an action that transforms her from an insecure Temp into the “most important person in the universe” with life-forms across the universe “singing songs of Donna Noble.” But, her ascension is bittersweet and serves to undermine her empowerment because Donna’s Time Lord nature will ultimately kill her, forcing the Doctor to wipe her



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memory, and consequently the knowledge of all of her adventures and personal development. As Donna states: “I was lucky. I met the Doctor. He changed my life.” But, ironically, at the end of “Journey’s End,” this empowerment is erased (interestingly, a similar exit to that of Zoe Heriot in 1969). In this fashion, Donna transforms from Chiswick secretary to become a true equal to the Doctor, but as with Romana in the 1970s, Doctor Who seemingly could not accommodate two Time Lords in the same TARDIS. But, the key difference between Romana and Donna is that Donna’s true nature ensures her instant dismissal from the TARDIS. The new Doctor is a progressive force in relation to his companions, an empowering force, but the treatment of Donna jars in relation to this and it sees Donna leave the Doctor’s side with almost unseemly haste, with more in common with Sarah Jane Smith’s abrupt ejection than with that of Romana I and II. This then, serves to mar the gender politics of the new Doctor Who to some extent. With Donna, a true equal emerges, but instead of ushering in a new series of potentially fascinating adventures featuring a male and female Time Lord, it merely represents a hasty exitnarrative and a means of disempowering Donna. Thus, Donna would represent a singular example of the new Doctor Who failing to live up to the politics of the past. While Romana was ultimately a failed companion experiment, she nevertheless lasted for two series. Donna’s Time Lord, in marked contrast, had only a single episode.

“The Doctor and his companion, that’s the pattern” As stated earlier, Kim Newman makes the claim that since the departure of Susan, the Doctor’s acquirement of companions has represented a search for a substitute and an attempt to re-create a sense of family. Russell T Davies’ version of Doctor Who would fulfill this, not by bringing back Susan, but by establishing the companions of the new Doctor as his children, the “Children of Time.” This representation is established in “The Stolen Earth” and “Journey’s End,” episodes that bring together all of the Doctor’s recent companions: Rose, Martha, Jack and Donna, but with the significant addition of Sarah Jane Smith, forming an emotive and historical connection with the original Doctor Who. The 21st century Doctor now would have his “family,” with his companions remaining a part of the narrative universe. This is in contrast with the original series, as illustrated by Sarah Jane’s statement to the Doctor in “School Reunion” (2006) that she waited for him to return, but he never did. Whereas companions in the past came and went, Davies’ version has created a stable ensemble. Although a single companion is generally given



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prominence for a period of time, the others do return, principally Rose, because, she is unique. And within Journey’s End, this uniqueness is signified, principally in the scene in which the companions appear together on a split screen transmission; Rose, the Doctor ruefully notes, is missing. But she has to be apart because Rose is not one of the Doctor’s “children,” Rose is his counterpart, an inimitable status in the history of Doctor Who. In the episode “The Ribos Operation,” the fourth Doctor grumpily declares to the White Guardian his preference to working alone: “Assistants mean trouble. I have to protect them, teach them.” However, the 21st century reboot of Doctor Who seemingly rejects this position. Companionship is now a mutually beneficial process and the gender politics of companions has transformed. No longer mere submissive screamers, damsels in distress or decorative sounding-boards to the Doctor’s brilliance, the companions of the ninth and tenth Doctors play vital roles, not simply in terms of narrative, of playing their part in combating alien menaces, but in teaching the war-veteran Doctor how to be human. Of course, this could also be read as an essentialised depiction of woman as emotional, maternal and ultimately responsible for pastoral care. In this sense therefore, although proactive companions are not comprised in the way that Leela was in the 1970s, with an independence and toughness undercut by her primitiveness and a visual emphasis on her body, there is still a hierarchical dynamic in place, the Doctor himself. If, as Chapman states, Rose is an exemplar of the promise of Girl Power, representing, as he states, a women who is “determined, opinionated and independent,” she is dramatically empowered via her travels with the Doctor; she does ultimately end up like Susan and Leela, effectively “married off” (although she is dramatically empowered via her travels with the Doctor). At the close of “Journey’s End,” Donna has generated a second Doctor (created through the Doctor’s severed hand), a more volatile version who is not adverse to committing genocide by destroying the Daleks, and the Doctor gives this copy to Rose, with the added bonus that he possesses only one heart and will age naturally. Subsequently, Rose achieves her desire, but in doing so, she demonstrates that her path to empowerment is ultimately tied to a man, the Doctor. In this sense, Doctor Who offers numerous examples of women who are discontent with social structures and their life chances, and they return empowered, but not through their own rebellions, nor through engaging with and changing social structures and cultures with regard to sex, the political point of feminism, but through the agency of the Doctor (Spender 1983). Furthermore, regarding Rose, she seemingly must be given to a Doctor substitute because, as “Silence in the Library” reveals, the Doctor’s



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affections belong to a future companion, Professor River Song (Alex Kingston), the only woman who will know the Doctor’s true name when they meet in the 51st century. The primacy of romance, sexuality and desire between the Doctor and his female companions (but also there with Captain Jack) is the crucial differentiation between the pre-and-post 2005 Doctor Who. So, for all of her “Oi! Watch it spaceman,” protestations, and blustery insistences that she and the Doctor are “not a couple,” Donna nevertheless clearly does desire him and frequently exhibits signs of jealously, as does Martha. Even in one-off episodes, such as the 2007 Christmas special “Voyage of the Damned”, the Doctor becomes close to Astrid Peth (Kylie Minogue), intent on taking her with him but prevented from doing so by her selfsacrificing death. Thus, there are threats to any Girl Power solidarity, principally in relation to Rose, the Doctor’s true companion. Besides, the project of Girl Power (which had as much to do with media spin as it did with pop star-driven feminism) does not seem to have had its full effect for the companions. They only truly reach their full potential through their travels and through their connection with the Doctor. Rose may embody this ethos, but not before she enters the TARDIS. Pre-companion, Rose is powerless and apathetic. Accordingly, as with Donna and even Martha, the professional woman and doctor in her own right, their empowerment ultimately comes from a higher, alien, but distinctly male authority whose physical attractiveness becomes a leitmotif. But, having said this, the Doctor is much more, and under Russell T Davies’ vision, it is the interaction between the Doctor and his companions that is the essential dividing line between the new and the old series. Within the Doctor Who of the 21st century, the Doctor visits Earth with two distinctive attributes: of world saviour and the focus for female empowerment. From Rose to Donna, the Doctor initiates changes within his companions, changes which remain when the time comes to leave the TARDIS. In this sense, the Doctor changes worlds politically, acting as an external force for empowerment in relation to gender and (with reference to Captain Jack) sexuality. Subsequently, as the eternal celestial and dimensional traveler, a quintessential outsider, the Doctor acts as a force for change, nominally saving lives and civilisations from alien threats and cybernetic tyrants, but also defeating political and cultural enemies, principally those of sexism, class prejudice, racism, and homophobia, which he can observe because of his alien identity. Thus, the 21st century Doctor Who, under Davies’ creative vision, exhibits clear discontinuities with the 1963-1989 series, and it could hardly fail to do so. The emergence of pop-culture icons such as Buffy



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Summers changed the terrain for female representation and cultural visibility within fantasy television. Consequently, Doctor Who has added to the cultural pantheon of strong female characters, and even new female warriors, such as the Doctor’s daughter, Jenny (Georgia Moffatt), a genetically-bred solider adept in fighting skills and acrobatics. Similarly, in the one-off “Planet of the Dead” (2009), the Doctor acquires the temporary companionship of the action-oriented thief, Lady Christina de Souza (Michelle Ryan). Therefore, the new Doctor Who has explicitly addressed the issue of empowerment, agency, sexuality and gender, but while the contemporary companion is seldom a mere test tube holder, screamer, or overt figure for male desire, there are still some continuities with the past. And, as the 21st century Doctor Who approaches its fifth series, the Doctor as figure of female desire is likely to remain and perhaps intensify, especially with the forthcoming new eleventh Doctor played by the twenty-something actor Matt Smith, complete with a new female companion played by the twentyone-year-old actress Karen Gillan. So, intergalactic Girl Power looks set to continue.





CHAPTER TEN AGENCY, ACTION, AND RE-ACTION: THE BLACK FEMALE PRESENCE IN DOCTOR WHO TIMOTHY MARK ROBINSON

Despite traveling through time and space and meeting many varieties of humanoid and non-humanoid aliens in the original Doctor Who series, the Doctor never encounters a person of color until Mickey Smith’s appearance in the 2005 series revival. Like many contemporary television programs, the current Doctor Who series adeptly includes discussions of race, class, gender and sexual orientation. While many fans and critics define Doctor Who as science fiction, it might be more accurate to define the program under a more inclusive term, speculative fiction. While speculative fiction is a genre generally perceived as a white male oriented medium, that impression is gradually changing. However, an increasing number of Black women are now beginning to make use of science. Octavia Butler, Nalo Hopkinson, Leslie Esdaile Banks, Tananarvie Due, and Tina McElroy Ansa write science fiction, fantasy fiction, horror, and utopian/dystopian fiction to trumpet voices of Black women outside of “our world” constructions and to defy the somewhat narrow confines of traditional Black literature. Yet, representations of Black women in speculative television and film are uncommon. According to Richard Wettstone’s Web site “Black Women in Science Fiction,” less than 9% of Black women are major characters in any given television series. This dismal number also includes characters considered recurring. In fact, the most visible Black woman in science fiction is Lt. Uhura (Nichelle Nichols) from the original series Star Trek that appeared on television over forty years ago. Perhaps influenced by Gene Rodenberry’s diverse cast in Star Trek, Roger Price’s Tomorrow People also includes a multi-racial and multi-ethnic cast. Elizabeth M’Bondo (Elizabeth Adair) was the sole Black character in this series and

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served as second-in-command. In the recent re-imagined series Battlestar Galactica, the most notable Black female is Anastasia “Dee” Dualla (Kandyse McClure). The lack of inclusivity in prominent speculative fiction television makes it possible for representations of Black women in Doctor Who to become even more significant given the shows longevity, international distribution, and popularity. For Black women in speculative fiction on the small screen, agency is even less so when we consider that such programs are rarely, if ever, written, produced, or directed by Black women. It, therefore, becomes imperative to question the nature of their portrayals on television. Are Black women in speculative fiction television relegated to simple pejorative stereotypes? When a Black actress plays an extraterrestrial, what is her primary role or function? Does a Black female character simply mirror her Euro-American counterparts, or does she become solely expressed in terms of her racial or ethnic difference? These are just a few of the questions that allow a deepening analysis into the very nature of Black women in speculative fiction. Although an overall critique of Black women in televised speculative fiction goes far beyond the scope of what I intend to discuss here, I argue that Black women appearing in Doctor Who, contrary to other series, are dynamically conceived, whether they appear in a self-contained episode, as a series regular, or as a recurring character. This is in part due to a concentrated effort to improve the representations of Black characters on television. For the past 20 years, major television broadcasters and arts organizations in Britain have undergone dramatic changes in an attempt to promote “equality driven ideals” and undertake a distinct “improvement in their approaches to cultural diversity within Britain.” This agenda includes presenting more Black characters in lead roles, dramas, news and documentaries as opposed to “entertainment, sports and comedy shows” (Sarita 10-11; 174). Doctor Who consistently explores and projects images of Black women beyond the mere status of a one-dimensional background character. In the course of the past five-seasons of the revived series, Carmen, Jabe, Martha Jones, and her mother, Francine Jones, have all shown themselves to be innovative and provocative characters, especially when we consider the dearth of imaginative representations of Black women in speculative fiction.

No More Mammies In the 2009 Easter special of Doctor Who called “Planet of the Dead,” the Doctor and six passengers inadvertently travel through a wormhole on



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a London bus and arrive on a desolate planet surrounded by sand. Among the two passengers are Carmen and her husband, Lou. Carmen’s uniqueness among these marooned commuters rests in her low-level psychic and prophetic abilities, which enable her to sense the thoughts of others and predict future events. Carmen heightens narrative tensions throughout this episode by guiding the Doctor and other characters to safety and by foreshadowing pivotal events yet to transpire. Black women whose authority rests in their supernatural abilities, such as Carmen, have become a common portrayal within Euro-American television and film. Such characters generally appear to replicate the mammy. Mammies are usually depicted as older women that are relegated to perform domestic duties—cooking, serving, and acting as “mothers” to younger White characters to which these Black women boast a deep devotion. Such a woman was presumably happy to serve as an essential part of a White, patriarchal household instead of their own household. An examination of contemporary Black women in television and film reveals continuous allocation to this mostly inferior role, often in a decidedly unusual and unsuspecting context. In speculative fiction, these neo-mammies remain a prominent fixture but are shrouded under postmodern narrative guises of science and technology instead of slavery and post-colonialism. One of these futuristic women is Guinan (Whoopie Goldberg) on Star Trek: The Next Generation. Guinan performs duties as the head bartender in Ten Forward, the lounge aboard the USS Enterprise-D. She possesses the power to sense alternate time-lines and, as a result, predicts probable futures. Her general role, however, lies in her service to others. In this manner, Guinan possesses a similarity to the mammy. Like the mammy whose service is allocated to the kitchen, Guinan’s confinement is also a fixed domestic space, the lounge. Here, she offers advice to the crew based on her unique abilities. She is trusted by her surrogate family, Captain Picard and his crew, and displays a fierce devotion to them. As a Black woman, Goldberg’s presence racializes Guinan in subtle and not so subtle ways that bring together the fictional world of Star Trek and real world history. Belonging to a race of listeners called the ElAurians, her people were spread across the universe by techno-organic beings called the Borg. The comparisons between the El-Aurians’s forced movement in the stars and the enslavement of people of African descent seem unmistakable. Black slaves were scattered over the world as a result of Europe and America’s participation in the slave trade. The analogy between Borg domination and assimilation of the El-Aurians and Africa and the slave trade is unmistakable. Moreover, assimilation into the Borg



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collective makes the machine (technology and modernity) superior to human subjectivity. Colonization and the slave trade forced African diasporic people to enter modernity under compulsory circumstances. A fundamental aspect of Guinan’s culture also parallels African culture. The name El-Aurians sounds similar to aural or oral, and members of this species share a propensity for listening. Listening involves someone speaking and evokes call and response, a traditional cultural trait associated with West Africans. Thus, it is through her occupation as a servant and her people’s heritage that Guinan shares similarities with this rather negative image of Black women. The Oracle (Gloria Foster/Mary Alice) appears in the motion picture trilogy The Matrix and, like Carmen and Guinan, has the gift of prophecy. She is instrumental in guiding resistance members, Neo (Keaunu Reeves) in particular, to their own individual and unique destinies so that they will avoid being merged with machines as a power source. The Oracle emerges as a caretaker of racially diverse children in her search for “the One,” and these youngsters are not her own offspring in any biological sense. Moreover, the Oracle speaks to Neo on three separate occasions in a domesticated space typically allocated to the mammy figure, the kitchen. Like Guinan, she is without a true family of her own. Despite the fact that the trilogy takes place in a fictional world of cyber-punk, a subcategory of speculative fiction, the pretexts of race and gender for these characters remain largely unaffected. Both women, Guinan and the Oracle, are primarily defined by their abilities and their solitary life and are without any enduring familial ties. As Patricia Melzer argues in Alien Constructions: Science Fiction and Feminist Thought, speculative fiction also “reproduces White systems of power such as race and gender and becomes a medium by which such systems appear hidden; deeper analysis reveals that some consistencies exist and are ever-present” (Melzer 2006). Speculative fiction becomes as location wherein defamiliarization, especially in terms of race and racial stereotypes, appears. Neo-mammies like Guinan and the Oracle embrace race and gender models through pretext and are hidden by setting and spectacle. The central criticism of Black mammies rests in their erasure of subjectivity, such as the Oracle’s lack of a “real” name and lack of any familial connections. In her book Mammies No More: The Changing Black Image of Black Women on Stage and Screen, Lisa M. Anderson argues that a lack of familial ties in literature, television and film “accentuates her status as property.” I would extend Anderson’s argument to suggest that in a postslave or a post-colonial world, neo-mammies project an absence rather



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than a subjective presence. They possess neither a mate, not any offspring, nor indeed any relatives at all; these women emerge, as Anderson describes: “[A] Black woman who focuses her time, love, devotion, and attention on Whites, particularly her ‘adopted’ White family, rather than her own Black family (1997).” Carmen, on the other hand, has her spouse, Leo, by her side. Her marriage links her very existence to another human being who adores her. Any additional interactions with other members of their stranded party are supplementary. Carmen has a high moral system, displaying both humility and virtuousness in the very use of her psychic abilities. Instead of being portrayed as part of a poor Black couple, Carmen uses her powers to win the lottery, getting 10 pounds every week to sustain their day-to-day expenses. They both view this particular use of her powers as “just enough,” which, in a practical sense, does not qualify as a gross misuse of her capabilities but nevertheless sanctions her control of an economically exploitative and statistically irrational system. In terms of allocation of domesticated space, Carmen appears within the outside world, a world with which she readily interacts and copes alongside a life-long partner. This further sets her apart from Guinan, who is largely confined to a lounge/bar, and the Oracle, who is relegated to domesticities in the kitchen. Speculative fiction can totally subvert racial representation or mask race through allusion, metaphor, or spectacle. This includes an intricate use of make-up and alien costumes. Such a move occurs in the episode of Doctor Who titled “End of the World.” In this episode, the Sun is about to expand and swallow the Earth. This occasion becomes a special event for a variety of alien dignitaries from all over the Universe. These interplanetary representatives will observe the Sun’s nova from the confines of a protected space vessel named Platform One. The Doctor, along with Rose, his newly acquired companion, travels from the year 2005 to the year Five Billion to witness the planet’s final hours. The presence of the Doctor and Rose permits commentary concerning humanity’s past and present social structures, particularly the exploitation of others based on such characteristics as skin color and people who have undeserved merited status in society because of their familial heritage. With regard to our own past and present, the audience may examine the very nature of racism and classism and their apparent timelessness. Comparisons between racism in our world and the future are implied with the inclusion of a group of blue skinned humanoid aliens who, unlike the many elite dignitaries aboard the ship whose lineage and titles underscore their apparent importance, go unnamed and function as



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subservient caretakers and custodians of the ship and its passengers. Their dark blue skin marks them as different, an inferior working class. The most prevalent of this group are a male steward and a maintenance woman. More significant than their unconventional vocations that defy traditional gender roles are their deaths, which mark the end of routine functions and begin the process of system-wide failure of the vessel, endangering all aboard. In other words, the loss of the working class stops order aboard the ship, alluding perhaps to the power and influence the working class possess in a system marked by class. Scenes with these blue aliens contradict a staple of utopian science fiction wherein one’s race is neither relevant nor does it limit one’s status or potential contribution to society, such as is seen in Star Trek. Upon further investigation, this episode demonstrates how speculative fiction television programs acknowledge race, class, and gender. Aliens from other planets can replicate notions of White normativity and superiority, which provides writers and producers with indirect ways of addressing social and biological stratification systems in our own world. Alien races, combined with intricate make-up and costumes, can signify acute differences between humans from Earth and non-humans from other planets but they can also point to differences in our “real” world.

Jabe from the Forest of Cheem Jabe Ceth Jafe appears in the episode “End of the World.” She arrives on Platform One as an interplanetary dignitary from her home planet, The Forest of Cheem. The Cheem are humanoid-plant hybrids and are, according to Jabe, “direct descendants from Earth’s tropical rainforests.” The Cheem’s skin and head resembles colors and textures of tree bark. Unlike the male Cheem, Jabe possesses ornate leaves on the top of her head. She symbolically represents Mother Earth, and her physical appearance intimately connects her to the natural world. Jabe is played by Yasmin Bannerman, an actress of Ghanaian and Scottish ancestry, permitting a critical audience to view her character through both her alien characteristics and her racialized difference. In Sexual Generations: “Star Trek: The Next Generation” and Gender, Robin Roberts examines perceptions of race in science fiction when an actor is Black, using Lt. Worf from Star Trek: The Next Generation as an example. From observation, Roberts argues, we can visually see that the actor, Michael Dorn, is of African descent. This is somewhat reinforced through the dark make-up that visually marks him as Klingon. This gives



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Worf’s actions, particularly in storylines that deal with his assimilation as an alien into human society and culture, a double meaning (1998). In her initial scenes and interactions with the Doctor, Jabe’s physical appearance seems reminiscent of the exotic primitive. Her mannerisms are both erotic and sensual in nature, and the Doctor becomes the inadvertent object of her sexual fantasies. Jabe’s alienness seeks to defamilarize any traditional or pejorative stereotype associated with skin color, but the hyper-sexualization of Black women is another all too common stereotype. She and the other dignitaries present each other with unique gifts. As a stowaway, the Doctor is caught unawares and cannot provide a material gift, so he improvises. Upon meeting Jabe, the Doctor leans forward and says, “I give you air from my lungs” and breathes on her. Jabe’s fascination with the Doctor escalates, and she comments that the experience was quite “intimate.” The sexual tension between the Doctor and Jabe is even marked by a musical score with tribal drums and syncopated tambourines. Their flirtatious repartee continues later as they search the ship. At one point, Jabe projects a liana from her wrists to strike a mechanical spider off the wall. The Doctor is surprised by her actions and says, “Nice liana!” Jabe responds, “I’m not supposed to show them in public.” This line is intended to elicit humor, read to express her amorous desire for the Doctor; Jabe has clearly shown the Doctor an intimate and private part of her body. Moreover, her actions break the norms and customs of appropriate behaviour in her culture. The erotic overtures, exotic appeal, and link to the natural world are familiar, safe, and expected representations for Black women in speculative fiction, particularly where a male audience is concerned. The combination of the overt earthy desire and wise counselor is, however, very unusual and it is within the latter that Jabe’s appeal and true agency lies. As is the case with Carmen in the episode “Planet of the Dead,” these counselors are instrumental in guiding various characters, all of whom are exclusively or predominantly White, to a successful end to their journey toward self-fulfillment. Women such as the Oracle assist in resolving the narratives conflicts but never do so directly. They are almost always required to make great sacrifices that culminate in their demise. A Black woman who displays characteristics of a wise counselor is frequently desexualized in speculative fiction; however, Jabe, as explained previously, is not. Her youthful appearance is decidedly different than the aforementioned elder women and may account for Jabe’s more active role in the Doctor’s mission.



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As Jabe’s sexual demeanor gradually gives way to confidant and counselor, she discovers the Doctor belongs to an extinct race known as The Time Lords. Knowing that all Time Lords supposedly perished in the Great Time War, she exhibits great empathy with the Doctor’s loss. Realizing that his people are extinct, she sacrifices her life for the Doctor’s and to save everyone aboard the ship. At the onset, Jabe embodies physical and emotional characteristics of the exotic primitive. Her affinity to Earth’s forests, her beauty, and her overt sexuality seem to collectively suggest a re-envisioned representation of the exotic primitive. However, as she shifts to another role, that of sympathetic listener and confidant, Jabe resists such a one-dimensional reading. She is an active agent in the story, which unfortunately culminates in her death. Does Jabe overcome the initial exotic primitive stereotype or is her sexuality too prejudicial and the transition not proportionate? One way to emphasize a subversive character is to introduce a negative or common stereotype and later replace it with another more positive one. Another way is to emphasize the character’s agency in the story’s events, as is the case with Jabe. In our world, race is frequently attributed to one’s skin color, so when representations of the human race are depicted in science fiction or discussions of what constitutes being a member of the human race are offered, the very nature of science fiction may be questioned and critiqued for its inaccurate and uneven portrayals. Many minorities, particularly Asians and Africans, are disproportionally represented in science fiction when we consider present Earth populations. When science fiction presents humanity in the future, whether it’s a utopian or dystopian future, the human race is overly represented with white European (or American) characters or aliens whose physical appearance closely resembles white people. Thus, racial and ethnic make-up in science fiction becomes more fiction than science if we consider Earth’s population density as evidence. The implications of this representation are even greater when we consider Darwin’s theory of evolution and the survival of the fittest. It implies that that in the future, the human race will be largely populated by people of European descent. A scene between Rose and Lady Cassandra in “End of the World” underscores whiteness as a primary and normative feature in science fiction. Unlike other alien dignitaries aboard the ship, Lady Cassandra is as an honored guest whose participation in viewing Earth’s demise is solely based on her status as the last human being from Earth. Her position as an authority of Earth’s historical artifacts is undermined as she erroneously refers to a jukebox as an iPod. As a result, Cassandra is



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nothing more than a celebrity, serving no function outside of her place of origin. Both she and Rose spar over decidedly different definitions of beauty and which one of them qualifies as “truly human.” Cassandra has altered her appearance so dramatically that she is only a face and more closely resembles a trampoline than a human being as understand the species. Herein lies the irony, that Cassandra still proclaims herself, “the last pure human” and all other humans “mongrels” because they have intermingled with aliens throughout the cosmos in the future. Audiences should read these comments as accentuating anxieties extremists and racial purists display concerning Britain’s multi-cultural and multi-racial society. Cassandra’s affirmations of her humanity are an allegory for those people in our own world who profess nostalgic sentiments about the past and lament over the presence of those in their country who are not white. The fact that Cassandra is later revealed to be the villain with xenophobic tendencies toward all non-humans directly connects her to the desires of those that are prejudiced toward anyone who is not white. In this scene, she privileges, above all else, whiteness, not only with regards to her pigmentation, but also her blood, which she regularly bleaches to keep white. The fact that both actresses having this discussion are physically white and argue about who is “truly the last human” from earth strengthens and normalizes notions of whiteness as dominant in both the past, as suggested by the presence of Rose, and in the futuristic world, as embodied by Cassandra. Additionally, it reinforces whiteness as a dominant notion within the larger, more inclusive speculative fiction. The character Martha Jones, however, essentially subverts the notion of whiteness, especially in stories set in the Earth’s past.

Martha Jones Many of the Black women appearing in Doctor Who embody their physical and emotional strength. Whether in Britain or in America, throughout history Black women have been subjected to forms of racialized and gender exclusion. Such representation of strength in literature and television is therefore not far from the truth. Hazel V. Carby has pointed out that a Black woman’s critique of history not only involves “coming to terms with ‘absences’” but also “the ways in which it has made [them] visible,” when history has chosen to recognize [them] at all (1997). Trudier Harris notes in Saints, Sinners, and Saviors that strong Black women have been a primary component within literature, particularly African American literature, but “by its prominence seems to cast



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aspersion upon other possible models” (2001). Because Black women infrequently appear in speculative fiction, they do not necessarily have the opportunity to express the characteristic of strength. Since it is exceedingly rare to have a Black female character of any sort of prominence in speculative fiction, both in literature and in television, the fact that Martha Jones is a lead character on Doctor Who is especially significant. One would be hard pressed to find a character on any show with the positive qualities exhibited by Martha Jones. She is strong, capable, and intelligent, yet also feminine and vulnerable. One might compare Christie Love (Pam Grier) or Cleopatra Jones (Tarma Dobson) from the “black exploitation” films of the 1970s as a sort of prototype for talented and capable Martha. In fact, initial promotional pictures of Martha depict her in a purple leather jacket, sporting spiked hair and a rather serious demeanor. But these initial promotional photos differ greatly from her conservative on-screen appearance as a medical intern with a lively and affectionate demeanor. As is the case with most Black women in spec-fiction, the very issue of race or ethnic differences goes ignored. When the character, Martha Jones (Freema Ageyman), was introduced as the Doctor’s companion for the third season, much was made of the announcement because she was not only the first companion of African descent but would replace the popular Rose Tyler (Billie Piper), the Doctor’s previous companion. Headlines such as “Exit Billie as Doctor Who Gets First Black Side-kick” and “Doctor Who Gets First Black Assistant” permeated the press coverage, but as Toyin Agbetu, spokesman for the African-British media campaign group Ligali, a Pan African human rights based organization which challenges the misrepresentation of African people and culture in the British media, remarked: [I]t’s about time and it’s a positive thing, but it's important the character is not caricatured… It’s not just about picking someone because of their ethnicity. It’s about portraying them in a way that's not one-dimensional as a lot of the Doctor's companions have been. It’s important that she doesn’t become a tokenistic sidekick designed to fill an ethnic minority quota, that the character is substantive and not portrayed as ethnic totty (Byrne).

Racial differences largely went ignored in the series, while in the real world discussions in articles and blogs often remarked on Black-White dichotomies speculating on how the character’s presence would influence storylines, particularly episodes that involved traveling to the Earths past and, later, discussion that centered on contrasts between Martha and Rose.



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There are many contrasts between Rose and Martha aside from skin color. Martha’s family appears to be of a higher social class than Rose's family. Her father owns a late model Mercedes-Benz convertible, and her family’s clothes, hairstyles, and home are substantially more in line with a higher social class status. While Rose initially travels with the Doctor for adventure and wants to “stay with the Doctor forever,” Martha does not require the same guidance or education. As is the case with many of his female companions, Martha eventually falls in love with the Doctor. However, she does not allow her involvement with him to hinder her own future aspirations to be a Doctor. By the end of Series 4, she has left her traditional medical training and entered the military organization, the UNIT. Unlike Rose, the Doctor’s first contact with Martha, a Black woman, begins with a kiss. He does this to transfer his alien DNA to her lips in an attempt to fool the Judoon Police who are seeking a murdering alien, but Martha gradually falls in love with the Doctor and, over time, comes to the conclusion that her feelings will never be returned. As viewers, we recognize that Martha is rejected, in part, because the Doctor is still mourning the loss of Rose, who remains trapped in a parallel universe. When Martha and the Doctor are stranded on earth just before World War I in the 2-part episode “Human Nature” and “Family of Blood,” the Doctor must induce amnesia and become human to hide from aliens known as “the Family.” During the two month time period, he takes the name John Smith, works at a boarding school for boys, and gradually falls in love with Joan Redfern, a nurse who also works at the same school. Rather predictably, Martha becomes visibly jealous of her rival and vice versa. In one scene, Martha says to herself, “You had to go and fall in love with a human... and it wasn't me.” Joan makes it known that she is Martha’s superior and reminds Martha that as John Smith’s servant maid she should not take liberties with the Doctor such as walking into his private room without knocking. Their confrontation is reminiscent of confrontations between the slave and the mistress in antebellum slave narratives and documented slave journals. The writers reverse the power dynamics after Martha reveals that she and the Doctor are not from this time period. To prove her story, she recites all of the bones in the hand by memory, something that a typical Black person of this time would not be able to do. Martha asserts her authority over her rival in explaining John Smith’s true identity. Martha’s knowledge goes well-beyond Joan’s comprehension and effectively usurps her authority.



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Martha’s skin color is rarely mentioned, but sometimes the suspension of belief and the implausibility of her presence in certain time periods becomes apparent and the limitations of having a Black companion are manifest. This is apparent with Martha’s encounter with Shakespeare in the episode “The Shakespeare Code.” Here, the Doctor tries to erase her race when Martha asks about her safety in a time period overrun with slavery. She tells the Doctor, almost jokingly, “in case you hadn’t noticed, I am Black.” Her apprehension about her reception is understandable, but the Doctor tells her “not to worry.” Apparently, like the TARDIS, which frequently goes unnoticed as an out of place artifact, he is sure that no one will notice Martha’s skin color either. Martha reacts with surprise and possible offence to Shakespeare’s use of Elizabethan terms for black people such as “blackamoor” and “ethiop.” She initially perceives his comments as racist, exhibiting a grin rather than showing her annoyance. The Doctor quips, “it’s political correctness gone mad!” As she eventually comes to realize, Shakespeare is actually fascinated by her. At the end of the episode, he calls her his “Dark Lady,” a name given to a woman Shakespeare refers to in a number of his sonnets. By entering various places in space and time, Martha consistently rises above prejudices that she encounters. She seems to imagine a future where race does not matter. Especially significant throughout the series run is Martha’s emotional strength and character development. She does what no other female companion whose love for the Doctor went unrequited ever did. She leaves the Doctor after admitting that she is in love with him and that he has never noticed. She confronts him with her desire for him and notes his inability to deal with emotions. Martha deals with her separation from the Doctor by moving on with her own life, becoming a doctor and, later, a medical advisor for the UNIT Later, she becomes engaged and then married, demonstrating that she has moved on with her life. She is neither defined by the Doctor, nor intimately tied to him after leaving as his companion. One of the main issues with Martha and the Joneses, like Mickey Smith prior, is that these characters are essentially defined by similarities to the dominant society. Perhaps this erasure is an attempt to eliminate the possibility of negative stereotyping or perhaps it signifies the complications that arise when writing for characters of color. Elements that might connect to a character’s ethnic origins, such as their name or accent, are downplayed or erased. As I have argued, the character Martha was groundbreaking in the sense that she is the first Black woman who has appeared as a subversive heroine in speculative fiction television. Martha’s mother, despite being



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only a recurring character, was also provided a space to change over time and, as a mother, clearly subverts the mammy caricature often relegated to older Black women. It was also refreshing to see the bonds between Black women playing mother, daughter and sister and, to a greater extent, an entire Black family represented in speculative fiction.

Conclusion While Doctor Who does a commendable job integrating an array of female Black characters, a pattern sometimes exists in their depiction. On the one hand, a Black woman with distinctive physical characteristics that identify her as of African descent goes no further. There exists a tendency to ignore any ethnic differences that may be present within a group. Aside from one character (Captain Erisa Magambo), none have names that identify them with their African ancestry. Decisions behind the scenes eliminate any association that would identify a Black character as culturally different. While one can identify a token character who is unmistakably assimilated into the mainstream, the degree to which a regular characters background is omitted is of special concern. This is especially true when a character from a representative group has, in reality, been neither assimilated nor embraced by the real world. There are many Black women who are featured on the new Doctor Who series in addition to Captain Erisa Magambo (Norma Dumezweni): Dee Dee Blasco (Ayesha Antoine) and the Hostess (Rakie Ayola) in “Midnight,” Penny Carter (Verona Joseph) in “Partners in Crime,” Rosita (Velile Tshabalala) in “The Next Doctor,” Trish Webber (Nina Sosanya) in “Fear Her,” and Cahtica (Christine Adams) in “The Long Game.” With these characters, the writers and directors of Doctor Who affirm inclusivity and diversity in the show’s casting and understand the presence that strong, intelligent, and capable Black women bring to their stories.





PART V. INTERTEXTUALITY AND METATEXTUALITY



CHAPTER ELEVEN WHEN WORLDS CONTINUE: THE DOCTOR’S ADVENTURES IN FANDOM AND METATEXUALITY BALAKA BASU

In the universe of popular culture defined by the pursuit of coolness, fandom has never been cool. To be cool, according to that arbiter of the avant-garde, the Oxford English Dictionary, is to be stylish, fashionable, good; classically, it is also to be unaffected by passion or emotion. It therefore should come as no surprise that fandom – especially media fandom, especially science fiction/fantasy media fandom – shaped as it is by fans' strong passions and emotions, has historically been a country settled by the un-cool. Citizenship in this nation was once perceived to be a secret and shameful allegiance, a closeted identity that ought never to be brought into the light of day except as grounds for mocking laughter in more mainstream popular culture. This vision of fandom has not entirely vanished; still today, fandom is steadily becoming both more visible and more acceptable. Many fans are finally “coming out of the closet,” although often with a residual sense of shame and an ensuing note of selfridicule. It's not uncommon to see fans using the language of addiction in outing themselves, implying, however unconsciously, that admitting oneself to be a fan is the first step of twelve or more along the road of ceasing to be one. However, even with these caveats, popular culture's shifting landscape continues to incorporate fandom's ongoing movement away from the wholly unrespectable “love that dare not speak its name.” An essential aspect of this transformation is that it is no longer de rigueur for producers of media to proclaim proudly that they are not their own consumers, as if those consumers were not only alien beings, but far inferior ones at that. In a long-running fictional franchise, such as Doctor Who, this shift is easily explicable; the program has been extant so long that the inmates are now running the asylum. People who started out as fans have managed to become professional producers of the very texts

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they could at one time only consume, yet they have not chosen to sacrifice their consumption for production. I have suggested that in its early days, media fandom was a world in hiding. Then, among media producers, writers had traditionally been the only group who were in any way associated with the veiled world of fandom that lurked beyond the more palatable publicly viewed face of television shows and movies. This association made sense; writing, after all, is a relatively hidden occupation, seemingly far removed from the public side of performance. Now a new development is transpiring; either as the consequence or cause of fandom's increasing visibility and acceptance, even some actors—the coolest and least private producers of these media texts—are also now declaring themselves to be fans. In so doing, they are settling a new frontier of the fan nation, where being fannish can be seen as both marketable and desirable. As a result, the barriers between these once carefully delineated hierarchies – fan and producer, producer and production, and fan and production—have become progressively more permeable. Consequently, the produced text, its producers, and its fandom can now become, at moments, nearly indistinguishable from one another, making the causal relationship between the three much more non-linear than it ever has been before. New Doctor Who perfectly exemplifies this phenomenon. The producers of the show identify as fans of the show; this aspect, when coupled with the program's fannish theme of passionate engagement with media and fictions, creates an Ouroboros-like metatextual narrative that models and reflects the disappearing boundaries between creator, text, and audience. In an interview catalogued at www.david-tennant.com, predating both David Tennant's casting as the tenth Doctor and even the reboot itself, the actor mentions Doctor Who as his favorite piece of entertainment, saying (in answer to a question about his favorite website): Oh, it's a real anorak admission. I've been an obsessive Doctor Who fan since I was a child and it persists to this very day. The BBC run a Doctor Who website and I go on almost every day to check the latest news. Doctor Who is the finest piece of television that has ever been made anywhere. They're putting together a new TV series next year and Bill Nighy is supposed to play the doctor. I've been onto my agent to see if I can get a part, but she's not keen. She says I'll never work again if I do it. I'm proud to say, though, that I have already performed in a couple of audio book episodes. That was heaven (20 Questions With…David Tennant, whatsonstage.com, November 17, 2003).

Even though he self-deprecatingly uses the disparaging term anorak – a term more derogatory than its North American equivalent geek – Tennant's



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willingness to admit his love for the show even in an unrelated non-genre setting is rather extraordinary. His depiction of his agent as unenthusiastic is amusing in hindsight considering that Doctor Who has, if not singlehandedly created, then certainly exponentially increased Tennant's marquee value. Still, the reported discussion perfectly underscores popular attitudes of only a few years ago, where enthusiasm for and participation in science fiction/fantasy productions marked a person for life, both as a producer and as a fan. After he was cast, Tennant continued to confess his affection for the show in numerous venues; just before filming began on Series 2 of the reboot and almost continuously thereafter, stories in the press about his childhood obsession with the franchise proliferated, bringing to consumers of celebrity gossip and avid fans alike countless iterations of anecdotes describing the actor's relationship with Doctor Who. Perhaps the most immediately memorable of these is the story of how the regeneration of the third Doctor (Jon Pertwee) into the fourth Doctor (Tom Baker) made Tennant realize that he wanted to be an actor; not just any actor either, but one who would someday take his place inside the TARDIS. Tennant would have been just three years old at the time that particular episode aired, but he claims that the obsession remained with him throughout the rest of his childhood and even into adolescence. This is summed up in the possibly apocryphal, yet wholly believable story that continues to circulate, in which he is said to have written a school essay at Paisley Grammar School, on the perennial subject of “What do you want to be when you grow up?” In this supposed essay, Tennant naturally declared that, above all things, he wanted to be the Doctor. Apocryphal tale or not, in an interview with Now magazine, published just before his run as the Doctor began, Tennant says explicitly, “It was a show I had always loved and known as a kid. I grew up watching it religiously. In fact, I was obsessed with it.” (Now, August 10, 2005) In the same interview, we discover that though the attraction may have faded somewhat with time and encroaching adulthood, it obviously never completely vanished, as Tennant allegedly still collects Doctor Who DVDs and even keeps a Dalek on his desk in his North London flat. Tennant's popularity, which recently outstripped that of long-time favorite Tom Baker, may have been aided by his willingness to explicitly code himself as a fan, a trait which has naturally proved endearing to other Whovians, who are anxious to claim a certain kinship with him. As a fan, he appears properly appreciative of his role as the Doctor, much like fans imagine they themselves would be, were they somehow able to take his



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place. After announcing his plans to leave the series, in an interview with The Chicago Tribune, Tennant says: It's the people I'll miss, and getting those fresh scripts, and being the first one to read them. But at the same time, it'll be lovely to return to watching the show and not knowing what happens next. I'm a genuine fan of it and I look forward to being a fan again, in a more traditional sense, rather than a fan who happens to have the best job in the world (The Chicago Tribune, June 25, 2009).

A fan who happens to have the best job in the world: this definition of his role stands the traditional view - in which fans are low-status passive consumers and actors are high-status active producers - on its head. To Tennant, it is being a fan that is the most important aspect of his identity with regard to Doctor Who; or at any rate he is taking considerable and plausible pains to appear as if such is the case. It's especially noteworthy that the parts of his role as Doctor that he underlines as most important to him are the parts in which he acts as a fan and a consumer – reading scripts first, for example, which is a classically fannish obsession, and meeting other producers in the fanned text, as fans are famous for doing while waving autograph papers and pens. Yet, however proudly Tennant is identifying as a fan, he is still reifying the binary distinction between consumer and producer. Is this an inescapable binary? Alan McKee suggests otherwise in his article, “How to Tell the Difference between Production and Consumption: A Case Study in Doctor Who fandom” (McKee 2004, 181-3), in which he addresses fans who produce fan fiction or fan art, thus challenging the binary between fan as consumer and professional as producer. Certainly this is one way in which the division is being challenged. But even aside from the amateur production of media by fans, this binary has already been significantly disrupted in the reboot of Doctor Who, where professional canon itself is being created by self-described fans. In his article, “We are Just a Speck in the Ocean: The Fan as Powerless Elite,” John Tulloch describes a golden age of a show being a moment where “communication between producers, fans, and audiences is perceived as transparent and true” (Tulloch 1995, 167). What then are we to make of this era of new Who where the boundaries between these three groups have become so permeable? Nowhere throughout the series is this permeability more apparent than in the 2007 Children-in-Need Special entitled “Time Crash,” where new Who and classic Who were given the opportunity to crash into one another, allowing a Doctor from the classic series, the fifth Doctor, played by Peter



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Davison, to meet one from the reboot. The immense length of the show meant that for the first time on screen, a fan of the long running series, David Tennant, was able to meet one of the Doctors of his childhood, while playing the Doctor himself. In the last few minutes of the episode, the author, Steven Moffat, creates an intriguing slippage between actor and character, apparently allowing Tennant to almost slip out of character and express, more personally, his love and appreciation for both Davison, and that era of the show itself in the following exchange: TEN. You know... I loved being you. Back when I first started, at the very beginning, I was always trying to be old and grumpy and important, like you do when you're young. And then I was you... and it was all dashing about and playing cricket and my voice going all squeaky when I shouted... I still do that! The voice thing, I got that from you. Oh! And the trainers and... (reaches in his pocket and takes out his glasses and puts them on) snap. 'Cause you know what, Doctor? You were my Doctor. FIVE. (tips his hat) To days to come. TEN. All my love to long ago. (Moffat 2007).

Is this the tenth Doctor speaking? Or, is it David Tennant? Are they one and the same? Roberta Pearson argues that cult television serials, like Doctor Who, “may equate or entangle actor and character even more than other television fictions” which already “drastically reduce the distance between the performer's image and the fictional role” (Pearson 2004, 62). Certainly, the producers of Doctor Who seem willing, and even eager to encourage viewers to elide that distance even further. In a backstage interview shown on Doctor Who Confidential, the writer of the episode, Steven Moffat straightforwardly asserts that Davison is, in fact, "kind of David's Doctor. You know, he's the one that David watched. That's just brilliant fun." Moffat doesn’t let it end there; in a Radio Times interview, he claims that idea for the episode itself had its genesis in a conversation with Tennant, saying, “I bumped into David at a concert and we talked about a way of getting Peter Davison back because we are both big fans of Peter's Doctor” (Radio Times, November 10-16, 2007). As well, the elements Moffat has Tennant claim to be specifically modeled on Davison's performance include voice acting—the “squeak” as well various costume pieces, elements over which the actor possessed quite a remarkable degree of control. Costume designer, Louise Page, admits in an interview on www.aintitcoolnews.com that “David, obviously, had a lot of input in the look of it. He wanted to be comfortable,



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and he had to feel that it was right for the Doctor. The geek chic tag was David’s,” (Ain't It Cool News, Nov 10, 2006). The idea for the trainers – also explicitly mentioned in the passage above—we discover, from subsequent interviews, was also Tennant's; in fact, the first pair used in filming and publicity stills were his own personal property (recently auctioned off by the BBC to benefit the Children in Need Charity). Thus, in “Time Crash” especially, it certainly seems as if the producers are anxious for us to confuse the character of the Doctor with the actor who plays him. Is this nothing but a carefully calculated, dispassionate performance of fannishness, created solely to cash in on fans' perception of a camaraderie that is fundamentally illusory? It must be noted that in interviews, Tennant has repeatedly claimed not Davison but Baker as his most favorite Doctor (with Davison admittedly coming a close second). Common sense tells us that the script is a mélange of truth and fiction, judiciously mixed for maximum impact. In some ways, however, the episode's sincerity or disingenuousness is ultimately irrelevant. Tennant's own personal coding as a fan is merely one thread in an entire discourse of fannishness that has shaped the Doctor of new Who's personality from the very beginning. Whether or not the actor's fannishness is being portrayed accurately, there can be no question about the character. Earlier in the episode, the fifth Doctor actually mistakes his own tenth incarnation for a fan. The Doctor, aghast, responds tellingly: “What do you mean ‘a fan’? I'm not just a fan, I'm you!” (Moffat 2007). Of course, the Doctor isn't just a fan. But the phrase is very specific: whatever else he may be, he is also a fan. In previous multiple-Doctor episodes from the classic series such as “The Three Doctors” (1972), “The Five Doctors” (1983), and “The Two Doctors” (1985), the Doctors themselves had always been manifestly unimpressed with one another, but new Who is so steeped in selfreferentiality that its adulation of itself simply cannot be denied. When the fifth Doctor describes himself as “pretty sort of marvelous,” the camera distinctly shows us the tenth Doctor’s pleased smile of agreement; unlike his classic incarnations, he is a fan of his previous versions, and is thus unable to demur or cavil at the self-satisfied praise. “Time Crash” is not, of course, the first time in the rebooted series that the Doctor had coded himself as a fan. In the third episode of series one, “The Unquiet Dead” (2005) when the Doctor encounters Charles Dickens, they have the following exchange: THE DOCTOR. Honestly, Charles - can I call you Charles? I'm such a big fan. DICKENS....what? A what?



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Chapter Eleven THE DOCTOR. Fan! Number One Fan, that's me. DICKENS. How exactly are you a fan? In what way do you resemble a means of keeping oneself cool? THE DOCTOR. No, it means 'Fanatic', devoted to. (Gatiss 2005).

While the Doctor might not be right about the etymology – according to seminal fan-scholar Henry Jenkins, there is some question about whether the word fan comes from fancy (a 19th century term for boxing aficionados) or from fanaticus with its connotations of lunatic worship (Jenkins 2006, 17)—what is clear is that this is a distinct shift from the world of classic Who, where it would be extremely hard to categorize the Doctor as a fan, especially in the contemporary, participatory sense that I have been discussing. In the serial “The Chase” (Nation 1965), which begins with the four travelers watching “time television” in the Time and Space Visualizer in order to view Abraham Lincoln, Shakespeare and the Beatles, the Doctor is the only one who doesn't choose a channel, although he does exhibit a fondness for the Fab Four, beating time with his sonic screwdriver, and describing them as his “favorite.” What does it mean to be a modern fan, with all the word implies, if this sort of simple appreciation is not enough? With the advent of science fiction fandom, and the myriad of possibilities for fannish production implicit with new media technologies, the fannish impulse has become a creative one. It could be said to spring from the desire for continuation in the face of externally imposed obstacles and inevitable endings – the cancellation of a show or a hiatus between installments, for instance. It is no accident that towards the end of “The Unquiet Dead” Dickens is made to ask the Doctor if his works survive beyond his own death. The Doctor's reassurance is hardly needed however; logically, his fannishness should have already provided the affirmation required. Fan-creators ensure that their source texts never die by adding to them, building off of them, and retaining them within popular culture. In new Who episodes with historical authors, i.e.”The Unquiet Dead” (2005), “The Shakespeare Code” (2007) and “The Unicorn and the Wasp” (2008), the show's writers, as well as the Doctor and his companions, continually work as fan-creators: they fill in interstitial gaps and unanswered questions in already extant narratives, they mimic style, and using bricolage, they create new texts within previously defined parameters. Finally, they assure the survival and intrinsic worth of the works themselves by affirming the ongoing importance of their position in the 'canon.'



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When the Doctor and Donna meet Agatha Christie in “The Unicorn and the Wasp,” the episode takes on the stylistic flourishes of a typical Christie work, constructing itself out of the author's tropes. In the process, they also solve the mystery of her missing days, thus filling in a gap in the author's legend. As well, just as the Doctor does in his meeting with Dickens, they reaffirm Christie's place in the canon: DONNA. But what happens to Agatha? THE DOCTOR. Oh, great life! Met another man, married again. Saw the world. Wrote and wrote and wrote. DONNA. She never thought her books were any good, though. And she must have spent all those years wondering. THE DOCTOR. Thing is, I don’t think she ever quite forgot. Great mind like that, some of the details kept bleeding through. All the stuff her imagination could use. Like Miss Marple! DONNA.I should have made her sign a contract. THE DOCTOR. And—where is it? Hold on… Here we go. (lifts a section of the TARDIS floor and pulls out a chest)“C”. (opens chest) That is “C” for Cyberman. (tosses aside a Cyberman chest plate) “C” for Carrionites. (sets down the globe in which they are imprisoned, as well as a bust of Caesar) And… (pulls out a paperback) Christie, Agatha. (holds it up for DONNA) Look at that. (It is a copy of Death in the Clouds which has a large wasp on the cover) DONNA. She did remember. THE DOCTOR. Somewhere at the back of her mind, it all lingered. And that’s not all. Look at the copyright page. DONNA. (taking the book and looking inside) Facsimile edition published in the year…5 billion!? THE DOCTOR. People never stop reading them. She is the best-selling novelist of all time. (Roberts 2008).

Significantly, as the Doctor and Donna confirm Christie's greatness, they also tabulate their own impact on Christie's texts. The Doctor has her filed among his other companions, including her firmly within his own fictional universe. As well, when Donna says, “I should have made her sign a contract,” she is harkening back to the moments in the episode where she, a fan-reader, has been transformed into a fan-writer, paradoxically providing Christie with some of her most famous lines and names. In her article, “Archontic Literature,” Abigail Derecho brilliantly suggests that fan fictional writing, of the type demonstrated in these three episodes, can be positioned in the liminal space between Deleuze's actualized virtualities or potentialities, and Glissant's concept of relation. She argues that



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Chapter Eleven to write or read or study fanfic is to admit that the text is never stable, that virtualities inside source texts are perpetually in the process of being actualized, that between texts within a given archive, there is repetition with a difference, and that the interplay between texts can never be solidified or stilled (Derecho 2006, 75).

I think this argument is entirely true, but what I suggest is that in the new model of fan/creator relationship as shown in new Who, even as nonprofessionals, fans don't only create works that exist separately from canon or works that point out the instability of the source text. Instead, they also create works that influence the canon, even as the canon supports the fan text. The heretofore top down, one-way hierarchical relationship between source text and fan text thus becomes slightly more equalized and reciprocal. It's axiomatic that the viewer gazes at the text; less obvious, but equally true, these days, is the fact that the text gazes back. This is demonstrated, as I have discussed, in “The Unicorn and the Wasp” where the Doctor and his companion don't just visit the past and interact with it, they are seen to actually change it, transforming reading into writing, passive appreciation into active collaboration. Similarly, the conclusion of Love's Labour's Won shown in “The Shakespeare Code” is an elaborate collage constructed in its entirety by collaboration between the writers of Doctor Who, the Doctor, Martha, Shakespeare and J.K. Rowling. SHAKESPEARE. Close up this den of hateful, dire decay! Decomposition of your witches’ plot! You thieve my brains, consider me your toy. My doting Doctor tells me I am not! LILITH. No! Words of power! SHAKESPEARE. Foul Carrionite spectres, cease your show! Between the points... (He looks to the Doctor.) THE DOCTOR. 7-6-1-3-9-0! SHAKESPEARE.7-6-1-3-9-0! And banished like a tinker’s cuss, I say to thee... (Again, looks to the Doctor who is at a loss.) MARTHA. Expelliarmus! THE DOCTOR. Expelliarmus! SHAKESPEARE. Expelliarmus! THE DOCTOR. Good old JK! […] THE DOCTOR. 'Love’s Labours Won'. There it goes. (Roberts 2007).

Compare this collage of intermingling texts with the Classic Who serial “The Mind Robber” (1968), which is emblematic of the Doctor's relationship with fiction and its producers prior to the new version of the program. In this collection of episodes, the Doctor and his companions are



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thrust into the Land of Fiction, a world where fictional and mythical characters become physically embodied. It's difficult to imagine new Who's Doctors – who clearly adore stories and their authors – being underwhelmed by such an experience, but surrounded by the enticing textual temptations of this virtual world, the second Doctor apparently finds their seduction eminently resistible, as he repeatedly and unhesitatingly tells his companions and the audience that fictions they are seeing do not exist. When the Doctor states over and over, “this isn't reality” (Ling 1968), he is only giving a voice to the argument already implicit in the episode: that these fictions – and by extension, fiction in general perhaps—have no true existence or weight, but are merely shadows. It's difficult to argue with him, because these particular fictions are dead shadows; they don't really exist and one of the ways we can tell that they don't is that they are not permitted to change or create anything new. When we encounter Lemuel Gulliver, for example, he speaks solely and unalterably in words already written by Jonathan Swift. Gulliver's Travels remains untouched by its association with Doctor Who. In contrast, “The Shakespeare Code” allows the texts to commingle and give birth to new texts, to influence one another in a way that endorses the status of each source text. In new Who, it is not only the observer which is changed by the interaction, but the observed as well. This discernable effect that one text has on the other allows the texts to participate in a sort of democratic leveling (as low culture Doctor Who is marked with the high culture Shakespearean brand); it also permits them to celebrate each text's significance, and thus the overall importance of text and fiction itself. Classic Who's Doctor doesn't celebrate fiction in the same way at all. For one thing, he generally appears singularly unimpressed with the few authors he is seen to meet. It comes as no surprise when the unnamed author, who is controlling the Land of Fiction, initially presents as antagonistic. In “Timelash” (McCoy 1985), when the sixth Doctor encounters H.G. Wells (the only “real life” author of fiction to make a significant appearance in the show's original run, in contrast to the much higher percentage of author appearances in new Who), he is demonstrably more irritated by him than anything else. However, I do not mean to suggest that classic Who exists in textual isolation; on the contrary, it is a provider of vast intertextual gratification. Like almost all fictions involving time-travel, Doctor Who has always given viewers the pleasure of the “aha” which accompanies that instant when connections between times (and the texts which represent them) click into place, when prolepsis and analepsis cross and collide, a moment of enormous, visceral satisfaction. Additionally, classic Who is utterly shaped by other texts;



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without Lewis's Stable in The Last Battle (1956), the TARDIS might not have been “bigger…on the inside” (Lewis 224). and despite his irritation with Wells, without The Time Machine, the Doctor would never have traveled. However, while these allusions don't appear at first glance dissimilar from those in new Who, such as the moment in “The Fires of Pompeii” (James Moran, April 12, 2008) when the characters joke about aiming for Rome and missing while the actors stand upon the set of the BBC/HBO series Rome. Still there are marked differences between the textual references in the two incarnations of the program. First of all, classic Who's references lack a certain intentionality, and mostly appear determinedly intertextual in the Kristevan sense whereas new Who's textual references mostly seem delightfully purposeful. Secondly, while classic Who's Doctor might, when forced, interact with texts, he doesn't love them. Because of this, classic Who can't enjoy itself as new Who can and does; as a result, it is almost never permitted to reflect upon itself as a text. It is only through new Who's lens that classic Who participates in metatextual moments. If we examine the beginning of Doctor Who, we see that the assassination of President John F. Kennedy (JFK) on November 22nd virtually guaranteed that the program's unprepossessing low-budget debut the day after would go almost entirely un-remarked. It was an understated and stealthy entrance for the Doctor, who didn't arrive with a great deal of fanfare, but Who, as it turned out, was definitely here to stay. The unostentatiousness of this point of entry into the popular imagination is, it turns out, mirrored in the narrative itself; the Doctor himself doesn't appear in his own show until eleven of the episode’s twenty-two minutes have elapsed, and indeed, throughout William Hartnell's run, he remains a mysterious, shadowy and vaguely ominous figure who gives no real hint of either his future or his history, probably because neither had been written yet. But this mirroring isn't self-reflective foreshadowing, because, clearly, the show's creators had no idea that Kennedy would be assassinated or that their debut would be so reflective of the textual shape of the program. On the other hand, in new Who's first episode, “Rose” (Davies 2005), when Rose is shown pictures of the ninth Doctor in various significant historical moments and we see that this time, the Doctor isn’t a day late to the assassination, it's easy to be convinced that Russell T. Davies is slipping in a sly allusion to the show's earlier incarnation into his own show's debut. Metatextual moments like this reference are sprinkled throughout the production of the show. Sometimes these occur as single-layer jokes, as



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with the casting of Georgia Moffat, a Doctor's daughter as “The Doctor's Daughter” (Greenhorn 2008) or the moment in the third season two-parter “Human Nature”/ “Family of Blood” (Cornell 2007), where the Doctor, who has forgotten his true self and believes himself to be human, tells us that his parents are Sidney and Verity, a clear nod to Doctor Who creators, Sidney Newman and Verity Lambert. One might imagine that these references would undermine the “reality” of the show's diegesis, as breaking the fourth wall is said to do. Instead the opposite is true. In the text where fiction and reality intersect, the real existence of the fictions that the Doctor and Donna meet in “The Fires of Pompeii”–characters from the Cambridge Latin series of textbooks–is never in doubt whereas, “The Mind Robber,” the text which hastens to assert the difference between fiction and reality, depicts the fictions encountered as unreal and unimportant. The erasure of the distinction between fiction and reality, and the resulting texts actually makes the reality of the show infinitely flexible, and thus endlessly possible. New Who also breaks down the distinction between narrative and medium; like the previous one, this erasure also supports the show's reality. “Blink” (Moffat 2007) and its narrative construction rely on a message communicated through time to Sally Sparrow televisually, through the medium of a DVD, just as the episode itself is communicated to viewers televisually, and is also, eventually, available through the medium of a DVD. The message, which is relayed to Sally Sparrow in a series of DVD easter eggs, also appears as an easter egg on the Doctor Who Series Three boxed set. Certainly here, in this triumph of selfconscious, self-referential narrative, the medium is the message, and the message is metatextual. Even character becomes increasingly hard to separate from narrative and medium. In the fourth season two-parter, “Silence in the Library”/“Forest of the Dead” (2008), the Doctor is faced with an enemy who inhabits the pages of the books in “the biggest library in the universe” (Moffat 2008). When he wants this enemy to take him seriously, he suggests simply that they look him up. This replacement of life with book isn't mere metonymy in this episode; this library, we discover, also stores digital copies of people, which are equivalent to the people themselves. Of course, the duplication of the Doctor, and digital duplication itself, has been a motif throughout all of new Who. In the show's second episode, “The End of the World” (Davies 2005), we meet aliens who call themselves the Adherents of the Repeated Meme. A meme – a unit of cultural information or text that self-replicates as it is transmitted from one mind to another – is a feature of our digital age and internet culture, where



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infinite copies can be made and disseminated without destroying the original. The conclusion to new Who's fourth series, “Journey's End” (Davies 2008), features a Doctor who functions as a further metatextual metaphor for this theme when he replicates himself. Like his own show, in “Journey's End,” it appears that the Doctor has completely negotiated the chasm between analog and digital, eradicating the distance between them, even as he eradicates the distance between character, medium, and text. At the end of “Forest of the Dead” we find the Doctor and his companion Donna faced with a journal that sets down what is in store for them in the future. As they decide not to peek ahead, they exchange only one word spoilers. Within this single word is encoded layer upon metatextual layer, indicating not only the fictional narrative that is the Doctor's life, but also, his own awareness and appreciation of that fact, expressed with diction from a fannish language, a language that has become the Doctor's own. Earlier, I suggested that fan culture and the resulting appropriation of fictional universes are impelled by a desire for further continuation when presented with closure. Out of all the canonical episodes of new Who, “Journey's End” is the episode that feels the most fan fictional. It is in fact the canonical realization of numerous pieces of fan fiction that long predated the airing of the episode itself; it allows viewers to imagine the Doctor and Rose, happily living life and having adventures in their alternate universe forever, and certainly long after Tennant exits the series. Whether this is appealing or not, the fact remains that “Journey's End” finally presents us with a Doctor who will defy regeneration and replacement, only possible because it works with a Doctor who has been shown to be a fan-producer, a medium and a text – endlessly authentic, creative, and replicable.





CHAPTER TWELVE CULTURAL CIRCULATION AND CIRCULARITIES IN DOCTOR WHO: BARDOLATRY AND THE TIME-VORTEX OF INTERTEXTUALITY BRUCE WYSE

Like the magpie, bricoleur Doctor himself, who ingeniously rejigs both technologies and circumstances, the BBC series Doctor Who revels in postmodern eclecticism, revisiting, cannibalizing and recycling both popular and high culture.1 The series is a gallimaufry of genres as well as scenarios, although each episode is, of course, inscribed within the dominant genre of science fiction adventure. More than this, however, the program’s engagement with, and appropriation of, other cultural phenomena is not just facilitated by the incalculable possibilities of time travel, but is complicated by the causal paradoxes generated by this topos. The post-millennial Doctor Who (2005-), like the Doctor Who of the now “classic” seasons (1963-1989), often intersects with the cultural productions of the past, appropriating and revising at will, but the twentyfirst-century, “regenerated” series, with its shrewdly pitched stylistic, idiomatic and thematic currency, frequently seems far more open and responsive to contemporary popular culture than its twentieth-century precursor. Through the distorting mirrors of the (near and distant) future and alternative versions of the audience’s present, Doctor Who engages, parodies, satirizes and to some extent critiques the mass media and popular culture of the day. The penultimate Christopher Eccleston episode “Bad Wolf” (2005), for example, imaginatively posits an entertainment dystopia worthy of Theodor Adorno and the Frankfurt school when the Doctor finds himself on the Game Station, a production and broadcasting satellite orbiting the Earth and beaming ten thousand channels down to a stagnating civilization. The episode mordantly projects the inexhaustible

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perpetuation of contemporary British hit shows of the reality TV and game show genres, albeit in putatively lethal variants, as the Doctor, Rose Tyler and Captain Jack Harkness find themselves participants in Big Brother, The Weakest Link and What Not to Wear respectively. And, yet, while the episode satirizes each show’s basic concept, appeal, format, dynamics, participants and, by extension, its viewers as well, as a television show itself, vying for much the same audience, Doctor Who can hardly afford to be unambiguously dismissive. In a telling exchange, the Doctor’s Adornolike disdain for the stupefying effects of the endlessly repetitive output of “the culture industry” (Horkheimer and Adorno 2001) gives way to a momentary admission of his own and the program’s keen interest in popular culture, no matter how inane. The Doctor pontificates, “The Human Race! Mindless sheep, being fed a diet of...,” then interrupts himself, “Mind you, have they still got that program where three people have to live with a bear?” The young woman he has just rescued from the Big Brother house, Lynda, responds, “Oh, Bear with Me, I love that one!” and the Doctor concurs before completing his thought: “And me, that celebrity edition where the bear got in the bath . . . But it’s all gone wrong!” In any case, by placing the Doctor in a futuristic mock-up of the Diary Room of Big Brother and by replicating the show’s signature formula, “You are live on Channel Forty-four Thousand. Please do not swear,” the “Bad Wolf” episode enables Doctor Who to occupy parodically another program and self-reflexively positions itself in relation to its “competition” and within the circumscribed universe, or perhaps constellation, of British TV. The new Doctor Who series also often exhibits a self-consciousness of its own iconic status as a popular cultural phenomenon and on occasion foregrounds and thematizes this. For instance, the episode entitled “Love and Monsters” (2006) wryly caricatures and comments on its own fan culture, and even ruefully anticipates the insidious encroachment of academic discourse (or cultural studies’ research agendas) on the devotion, camaraderie and ingenuous enjoyment of Doctor Who fandom. Moreover, the new series also playfully explores “the collapse of the distinction between high and popular culture” (Storey 1998, 188), which Fredric Jameson and others have identified as one of the signature features of postmodernism, by revisiting significant moments, or rather mysteries and lacunae, in literary history, in order to assimilate high culture, or at least literature, to the popular culture of the past, the present, or the program’s mischievous conflation of the two. The episode which highlights this tendency most fully is “The Shakespeare Code” (2007), where the Doctor meets “the Bard” himself, only to reconfirm Shakespeare’s credentials as a



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producer of popular entertainment while re-imagining him as simultaneously a local, sixteenth-century theatre celebrity and a literally timeless and universal (or rather cosmic) celebrity-genius, making him in the process a one-time sharer in the television sensation of Doctor Who and the twentyfirst-century world of its audience. In a set of thematically related episodes, Doctor Who imagines particular popular or best-selling authors of the past, reconstructs their milieu, supplements their biographies, and incorporates both them and their work into the proliferating contingencies of the show’s fantastic metanarrative. In “The Unquiet Dead” (2005), “The Shakespeare Code” and “The Unicorn and the Wasp” (2008), the Doctor crosses paths with Charles Dickens, William Shakespeare and Agatha Christie respectively and enlists their aid in resolving alien-instigated crises. Pressed temporarily into service as the Doctor’s allies, foils and observers, and faced with the unbelievable but incontrovertible fact of alien existence, if not time travel itself, the writers find their already imaginatively capacious mental horizons expanding exponentially. The disposition of the episodes towards these literary giants is at once admiring and irreverent. While the initially star-struck Doctor marvels at their brilliance, originality and imaginative fertility (proclaiming himself to be Dickens’s “number one fan” and telling Agatha Christie, “Oh, I love your stuff”), the verbal interplay of the Shakespeare and Christie episodes whimsically undermines the traditional notion of the originality of “the author”2 and the plots of all three episodes establish the comic conceit that the writers are inspired by and indebted to the Doctor Who narrative.3 It is “The Shakespeare Code,” however, which stands out as one of the most playfully intertextual of Doctor Who episodes and a light-hearted instantiation of Roland Barthes’ argument that a text is “a multidimensional space in which are married and contested several writings, none of which is original.” “The text,” Barthes continues, “is a fabric of quotations, resulting from a thousand sources of culture.... [T]he writer can only imitate an ever anterior, never original gesture” (1986, 53). While the plot of “The Shakespeare Code” concerns the Doctor once again repelling an alien incursion and forestalling the eradication of the human race, this time with the indispensable help of the incomparable Bard, much of the appeal of the episode lies in the recurrent and eventually anticipated witty foregrounding of quotations. In a running joke, the episode toys with the paradoxical notion of the causal loop in the relatively uneventful realm of literary discourse, with the Doctor repeatedly quoting well-known, if not well-worn snippets from Shakespeare’s works, enticing phrases and lines that the opportunistic playwright cannot resist appropriating for future use.



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In a sense, this is a comic literalization of Barthes’ notion of the “already written” (1974, 21). When the Doctor evades a percipient question from Shakespeare with the sententious saw, “all the world’s a stage” (As You Like It, II.vii.139), the playwright remarks, “I might use that,” but when the Doctor recites a fragment from Henry V (“once more unto the breach” [III.i.1]), the verbally acquisitive Shakespeare does a rhetorical double take: “I like that. Wait a minute; that’s mine!” In a variation on the gag, the Doctor rather solemnly intones the Dylan Thomas line: “Rage, rage against the dying of the light” (3, 9, 15, 19) and then informs the impressed wordsmith that he can’t use it since “it’s someone else’s.” This aspect of the episode then drolly calls into question the originality of “the author,” only to reconfirm and reconstitute it tautologically and at one remove in the comic chicken-and-egg paradox of Shakespeare plagiarizing from himself–through the mediation of the Doctor. But, as the latter example demonstrates, the episode goes beyond the closed circuit of Shakespearean self-reference, putting into circulation a curious and incongruous sampling of post-Shakespearean textual material, with the past, that is Shakespeare, just as readily assimilating and recasting the present–our present–as the present does the past. But of course the author in question is not just any author–he is Shakespeare–and the intertexts are not restricted to the register of poetry, literature or high culture, but extend to twenty-first-century popular culture. If any author has come to exemplify the romantic ideal of the autonomous creative genius expressing himself in timeless and universal works, it is surely Shakespeare. Or, perhaps it would be more accurate to say that in Shakespeare’s literary singularity, the mythic elevation of his status known as Bardolatry, he even surpasses this liberal humanist commonplace. For Alexander Pope, “[t]he Poetry of Shakespeare was Inspiration indeed: he is not so much an Imitator, as an Instrument, of Nature; and ’tis not so just to say that he speaks from her, as that she speaks thro’ him” (1725; Kermode 1965, 65), and for Samuel Johnson, his characters “are the genuine progeny of common humanity, such as the world will always supply, and observation will always find” (1765; Kermode 1965, 77). This line of thought probably reaches its modern apogee in the reverential absolutes of Harold Bloom: “Coming to Shakespeare after writing about Romantic and modern poets and after meditating on the issues of influence and originality,” he writes, he experienced “the shock of a verbal art larger and more definitive than any other, so persuasive that it seems to be not art at all but something that was always there” (1994, 49). More pithily he declares, “Shakespeare is the Canon” (1994, 50). Bardolatry tends to compress or contract history and to



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efface historical difference, and Bloom’s impressionistic conceit of “something that was always there” makes Shakespeare’s works, to bend Barthes’ phrase, always “anterior, [and quintessentially] original.” Returning to Doctor Who, “The Shakespeare Code” episode demystifies Shakespeare in something of a carnivalesque spirit, only to reinvest the figure of the genius and his power of expression with a cartoonish, reified potency, or, to put it differently, the episode debunks Bardolatry, only to recuperate it, but in dramatically displaced and modified terms relevant to the Doctor Who narrative and universe. Taking more than a page from the immensely successful Shakespeare in Love (1996), “The Shakespeare Code” breezily establishes that Shakespeare is, in Jan Kott’s famous phrase, “our contemporary” (1964). In what is initially an one-off trip through time, Martha Jones, who will become the tenth Doctor’s second companion, is thrilled to find herself in late sixteenth-century England. Martha’s enthusiasm, however, gives way to her concern about standing out as, in her words, “not exactly white.” The Doctor reassures her that the London of 1599 is “not so different” from her own time and, in a short sequence of visual jokes, recasts various notable early modern urban phenomena in familiar contemporary terms as “recycling,” “a water-cooler moment,” “global warming” and most importantly for the episode, in reference to the newly built Globe Theatre, “popular entertainment for the masses.” This establishing sequence ironically calls attention to the risibly facile, cliché ridden, surface historicism of the mise en scene just as the Doctor verbally discounts historical differences. This Elizabethan London is a Disneyland-like historical reconstruction unthreatening to the time tourist. At the same time, though, the Doctor’s frivolous equations between past and present produce effects of comic incongruity as well as comic correspondence: for example, the Puritan street preacher prognosticating that the Earth will be “consumed by flames” is absurdly but conveniently tagged as a prophet of global warming. By unconvincingly assimilating this smattering of “historical” details to Martha and the viewer’s contemporary frame of reference, the sequence draws attention to these details as signifiers of pastness, exemplifying the process that Fredric Jameson observes in postmodern culture in which the past becomes “a vast collection of images, a multitudinous photographic simulacrum.” The “past as ‘referent’ finds itself gradually bracketed, and then effaced altogether, leaving nothing but texts” (1991, 18). An additional irony in the Doctor’s pat reassurance that the London of 1599 is “not so different” from that of 2007 is that one indisputable point of comparison is the 1997 reconstruction of the Globe Theatre, designated



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as “Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre,” a monumental simulacrum and tourist destination, which is used in the episode to stand in for the original. While the Doctor’s eager remark that the theatre is “brand new, just opened” is apropos 1599, it still seems valid in 2007, ten years after the debut of the postmodern cultural landmark, and the time tourists, like any typical tourists in London today, visit the Globe for a more “historical” experience of Shakespeare. The similarity identified by the Doctor is of a different nature, however. When he observes that the London of 1599, like the England of 2007, offers “popular entertainment for the masses,” the more obvious analogy is between Elizabethan theatre and contemporary film and television. The added metafictional twist is that, whereas the Elizabethans had Shakespeare, we have Doctor Who, or rather we have both, but Shakespeare is hardly any longer “popular entertainment for the masses.” In a sense, the episode asserts that Shakespeare needs to be reclaimed by popular culture. The upshot of the opening of the episode is that historical differences are written off as superficial. The comic commonplace that “some things never change” is then carried over into the episode’s representation of the figure of the “immortal” dramatist.4 The episode quickly adopts a humanizing, but more importantly a populist, demystifying, levelling disposition towards the figure the Doctor refers to at first as “the man himself” and soon after eulogizes as “the most human human there’s ever been.” After a enthusiastically received performance of Love’s Labour’s Lost, Shakespeare is called to the stage and the Doctor, full of admiration, anticipates hearing “beautiful, brilliant words,” only to be disillusioned when a smug, swaggering Shakespeare, confident of his popularity, tells his raucous audience, “Shut your big fat mouths!” When approached by the Doctor at his inn, this Shakespeare anachronistically plays the part of the 21st-century celebrity author, blasé over his status and wearily dismissive of his fans. He refuses to sign autographs and says, “Please don’t ask me where I get my ideas from.” “The Shakespeare Code,” of course, does precisely that, albeit absurdly and tangentially through the fantastic contingencies of time travel and alien science. The episode draws parodically on the already playfully revisionist biographical-narrative strategy of Shakespeare in Love, which, as Andrew Bennett observes, makes a fictional and romantic case for the “coincidence of [Shakespeare’s] life and work,” transforming Romeo and Juliet into an “intimately autobiographical” work (2005, 2). In the episode it is the representative trio of crone-like, predatory Carrionites, once “banished... into deep darkness” by “the eternals [who] found the right words” to do it, and now poised to reinstate the “old ways of blood and



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magic” throughout the universe from their prospective staging area on Earth, who provide the prototype for the Weird Sisters in Macbeth, a connection made explicit by Martha’s faux pas of attributing prematurely a play about witches to the Elizabethan Shakespeare. In order to liberate the remainder of their race, these aliens, we learn, have determined the otherwise apparently unaccountable design of the fourteen-sided Globe Theatre by controlling the mind of its architect, and are currently influencing the composition and hastening the opening performance of Shakespeare’s supposedly lost play, Love’s Labour’s Won. The episode fancifully and satirically embraces the popular, appealing, simplistic notion that imaginative writing must have its foundation in actual life experience, while situating experience within the limitless possibilities of science fiction, but it does much more than this. It foregrounds its own intertextual circularity, for if the Carrionites in this science-fictional nexus are Shakespeare’s source for Macbeth’s witches, it is just as apparent that the Carrionites are little more than camp witches taken holus-bolus from the image repository of popular culture, equally at home in Roman Polanski’s film version of Macbeth or a Halloween children’s television special, and minimally transposed into the alternate universe of Doctor Who. This reversible derivativeness is neatly condensed in a narrative sidebar after the climax of the episode in which the Doctor offhandedly remarks that a Globe prop reminds him of the Sycorax (an alien species), which predictably prompts the word-hoarding Shakespeare to comment, “I’ll have that off you as well.” The Doctor’s rejoinder, “I should be on 10%,” comically ignores and displaces the program’s indebtedness to, in this case, The Tempest, an admittedly trivial yet metonymical substantiation of the contention, articulated by Coleridge and Carlyle5 (not to mention Bloom), that writing in English and more broadly English culture as a whole are always already in Shakespeare’s debt. “The Shakespeare Code” doesn’t just make room for Shakespeare in the Doctor Who universe; it assigns him an active role in defeating the aliens-of-the-week, and by doing so reconstructs his critical-mythical greatness in another register. While the Doctor gushes about Shakespeare’s words and extols the power of theatre, remarking, “theatre’s magic. You can change people’s minds with words in this place,” the program doesn’t really take the time to let Shakespeare’s work speak for itself. Or, rather it can’t risk doing this. Like the charm of the randy, conventionally handsome, well-built,6 but surprisingly bland and conventional incarnation of Shakespeare, with his conspicuous and dated suavity, which designedly pales beside the Doctor’s charismatic eccentricity, the narrative doesn’t allow itself to be upstaged by Shakespeare’s dramatic work. The



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demystified and down-to-earth Shakespeare is, however, elevated to an extraordinary status but within the program’s terms of reference. Beyond the Doctor’s repeatedly avowed admiration for Shakespeare’s literary achievement, the episode provides a curiously displaced, sci-fi confirmation not just of the Bard’s highly developed faculties and unique genius, but of Ben Jonson’s epigrammatic tribute to Shakespeare as “not of an age, but for all time” (1623; Kermode 1965, 34). Shakespeare’s intellect and perspicacity are demonstrated first in his unusual resistance to the Doctor’s psychic paper, seeing only blank paper where others see exactly what they are told to see. The Doctor marvels, “That’s very clever. That proves it.” Shakespeare is “absolutely a genius.” In the closing segment of the episode, Shakespeare again astonishes the Doctor by detecting or deducing that the Doctor is an alien, like the Carrionites, and also a traveler in time and space, which prompts the Doctor to blurt out, “That’s, that’s incredible... you’re incredible.” Shakespeare, who has earlier recognized the paradoxical great age of the apparently young Doctor, replies, “We’re alike in many ways, Doctor.” The episode thus pays the ultimate compliment – but to whom? If the fictional Shakespeare’s mental faculties distinguish him as an extraordinary being able to think and imagine beyond his historical situation, his intuition of an underlying similarity between himself and the regenerative time-traveller also amounts to a whimsical, metafictional gambit on the part of the episode as a whole. In the declared likeness between Shakespeare and the Doctor and in their mutual admiration, something of the program’s entertainment value and the Doctor’s televisual aura is given in exchange for a synecdochal share in Shakespeare’s literary and cultural aura; pop culture and high culture are interfused. Underlying this exchange of cultural qualities between Time Lord and “immortal Bard” is a conceptual play on different possible senses of Jonson’s “not of an age, but for all time.” Ultimately, of course, within the diegetical framework of Doctor Who, the superior status must necessarily belong to the Doctor. The Doctor may extol Shakespeare as “the genius” and find him “incredible,” but “Will,” who has for many years considered himself “the cleverest man [he’s] known,” has to defer to the Doctor’s mystifying knowledge and comparatively unlimited experience, admitting, “next to you I’m nothing.” The episode invents a new species, the Carrionites, in order to allow Shakespeare to display his unique gift in a historical intervention that preserves the human race. The Carrionites, the Doctor explains, “use words instead [of math]” as the basis of their science and the episode postulates the literal power of words and names. In a gesture of backhanded Bardolatry, the Carrionites attest to Shakespeare’s singularity,



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exploiting “the mind of [the] genius” and manipulating his innate power of expression to compose the “magic words” that will free their imprisoned race and “unlock the tide of blood.”7 While it is the final, seemingly arbitrary lines of the new play, packed with planetary or galactic coordinates, and utterly nonsensical to actors and audience alike, which constitute the incantatory formula needed to release the masses of Carrionites from their imprisonment, it is not clear how much of the rest of Love’s Labour’s Won (or, at the least, of its final scene) can be attributed to the alien intervention;8 nor is it clear how necessary the architectonics of the work as a whole or the dramaturgy of the final scene are to the efficacy of the event. But while the narrative seems to valorize and mythologize the power of the artist, whose works have mysterious, far reaching consequences, the work in question has solely an instrumental value. Poetry virtually becomes a technology, with diction, figures of speech and prosodic form no more than the components of some complex algorithm. Once Love’s Labour’s Won, with its incomprehensible coda, has been performed and the masses of Carrionites conjured into the Globe Theatre, only the wordsmith or rather poetic genius can counteract the code or spell he has been instrumental in articulating. So in a travesty of Thomas Carlyle’s “Great Man” theory of history with his conception of the “Poet as Hero” with a “Heroic Gift” (1966, 84), Shakespeare is given his historical moment. The Doctor exhorts him, “Come on Will: history needs you!” He tells the baffled poet, “Trust yourself... [Y]ou choose perfect words. Improvise!” Though largely drowned out by the whirling hurly burly of the legions of Carrionites, Will finds the precise combination of words to exorcise the creatures, but we are only interested at this point in the fantastic, meta-semantic efficacy of his creative expression. Shakespeare’s putatively unique gift now becomes, at least in the marvellously resonating chamber of the Globe Theatre, a special–one might even say–a “super” power. But even here, in the near apotheosis of the “Poet as Hero” or “super-Bard,” the iconoclasm of the episode reasserts itself. Fed the requisite numerical space coordinates by the Doctor acting as a prompter, Shakespeare falters at the penultimate moment, at a loss in summoning up the all-important, terminal word. In the narrative punch-line to this crisis, and the culmination of the gleeful anachronism and uninhibited intertextuality of the episode, the best-selling author of the television show’s generation, J. K. Rowling, saves the day, as Martha and then the Doctor relay the familiar Harry Potter spell “expelliarmus” (1999, 142) to the foremost author in the English canon.



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In a cheeky bit of appropriation and self-reflexiveness, The Shakespeare Code then caps the synergy of the fictional agents and cultural icons, Shakespeare and Doctor Who, in an emblem of provisional cultural symbiosis between the inviolable cultural prestige of Shakespeare, which has accrued over four centuries, and the immediate entertainment value and popular cultural eventfulness of the sensational new episode airing for the first time. Once Shakespeare’s extemporised spell repels the Carrionite invasion and the turbulent vortex of coloured smoke, monstrous shapes and lightning is sucked up into the void, along with the pages of the forever lost manuscript of Love’s Labour’s Won, and the concomitant sound effects abruptly end, the panic of the audience subsides. The subsequent hush is broken first by confused murmurs, then tentative applause which catches until the entire audience joins rapturously in a standing ovation, cheering. But, the object of their appreciation or admiration is initially ambiguous. In a high angle shot that conveys a sense of the perspective of the audience in the second gallery, we see Shakespeare, certain players in the production of Love’s Labour’s Won, as well as the Doctor and Martha, all positioned on the stage like actors ready to take their bow.9 The situational joke is that the audience cannot determine what was and what wasn’t part of the production, let alone who was or wasn’t. Martha, incredulous at first, asks, “They think it was all special effects?” But she quickly adapts, embracing the dream come true opportunity to take a bow, with Shakespeare, on the stage of the original Globe Theatre (a fantasy only imaginatively approximated by 21st-century tourists visiting and posing for photographs in the modern reconstruction of “Shakespeare’s Globe”). The implication is that the clueless and credulous Elizabethan audience mistakes the diegetically “real” crisis of humankind and life and death contest between species as the most astounding part of a fatuous but electrifying theatrical production. However, given the way that the urgent and frenetic action of the episode has superceded the quaintly paced close of the hijacked stage comedy, and given that the television audience is caught up in the climactic struggle against the Carrionites, at first blush the fictional 16thcentury audience seems to be hailing Shakespeare as a “real-life” agent, an action hero, a matchless wizard of words, and the saviour of humanity. Only secondarily, in a shift of comprehension and of textual modality, do they continue to applaud him as both a player-performer in a bizarre, unaccountable role disconnected from the conventions of comedy and his play’s fictional world, and as the author of an ultimately unintelligible mishmash of a play “full of sound and fury,/ Signifying nothing” (Macbeth, V.5.27-28). If Shakespeare then, in the theatre audience’s



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collective misconstrual, deserves these plaudits for his supposed role in the theatrical event, it is erroneously as the originator of the entire unprecedented and outlandish spectacle, not simply or primarily as a poet and the playwright of Love’s Labour’s Won. The Carrionite-inspired interpolation at the play’s close and Shakespeare’s counter spell, along with his earlier failed attempt to halt the performance, make the comedy’s premiere on its own terms a fiasco, but the special effects redeem the cultural enterprise as a coup de théâtre, a large scale phantasmagoria. So we might say that the Globe audience, within the diegesis, acts as our surrogate by cheering for the Doctor and the Bard, and in unknowingly applauding the plot of the episode itself. As the diegetical reality collapses into a metafictional or even meta-televisual moment, Doctor Who secures the adulation of an Elizabethan audience. The episode then not only claims for itself, if not on behalf of all television, a continuity with Elizabethan popular culture and a genealogy that leads back to Shakespeare; it also makes the absurd, if not absurdist, case that popular culture is just as timeless as “high culture” since the caricature Elizabethan audience responds so enthusiastically to this foretaste of cinema and television, the mass culture that is to come. Moreover, “The Shakespeare Code” not only recuperates Shakespeare as popular culture, but archly allows that, as “popular entertainment for the masses,” “Shakespeare” once was and, given the overarching extra-temporal conceit of the program, still is on a par with Doctor Who. At the same time, the apocryphal Love’s Labour’s Won is subsumed in “The Shakespeare Code” and, while Shakespeare may have written “beautiful, brilliant words,” “glittering” words, “words that last forever,” Doctor Who, the episode puckishly implies, has better special effects and is consequently far more riveting. While the episode comically presents Shakespeare consciously and unconsciously assimilating the verbal and situational components that will be expansively reworked in his plays, it also unapologetically flags, sometimes farcically and jubilantly, its own eclectic sampling of popular and high culture. The title itself suggestively adapts The Da Vinci Code (2006), the liberated Martha is said to hail from Duck Soup’s “Freedonia” (1933), and, in an abruptly introduced final bit of business, an Alice in Wonderland Queen Elizabeth I identifies the Doctor as her “sworn enemy” and cries, “Off with his head!” When the novice companion, Martha, awestruck by her first experience of time travel, expresses her apparently naive qualms about the consequential ethics and protocols of time travel, she quite naturally draws on her store of science fiction lore, tentatively referencing the shorthand time travel crux of “the butterfly effect,” articulated in Ray Bradbury’s short story “A Sound of Thunder” (1980)



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and perpetuated thereafter in various permutations by numerous films and television series. She cautiously wonders if time travel is actually “like in the films . . . you step on a butterfly, you change the fate of the human race.” The quizzical Doctor dismisses her concerns while humouring her at the same time: “Tell you what: don’t step on any butterflies.” Obtusely missing the point of the example and seemingly above the province of popular culture, the Doctor adds, “What have butterflies ever done to you?” But, later the Doctor himself resorts to an even more simple, but nonetheless serviceable and instructive illustration from popular film to help Martha grasp “the mechanics of the infinite temporal flux.” “I know!” he says, “Back to the Future.” The shortcut substitution of the recalled image of Marty McFly’s fading photograph of himself for an explanation of some impossibly rarefied science works far more economically and evocatively than any pretentious bafflegab the Doctor or the episode might have offered us instead. It not only suggests Martha’s interest in and familiarity with the popular culture canon of time-travel adventure stories, and by extension the viewer’s as well; it also amusingly bespeaks the reliance of the program itself on this canon and its place within it. Finally, Martha on the night after their arrival, reflects on their escapade in Elizabethan England thus far, and voices her sense of genre confusion or dissonance: “Magic and stuff; that’s a surprise. . . . all a bit Harry Potter.” This time the shorthand reference probably registers the pop culture savvy viewer’s own impression, but once again the episode rather candidly acknowledges its debts and its links. The Doctor’s noncommittal, associative response identifies him as a reader, consumer and fan of popular fiction. He slyly confides, “Wait till you read Book Seven. . . . I cried.” The currency and timeliness of this remark can be appreciated by noting that the episode aired on April 7th, 2007 and the eagerly awaited seventh and last installment of the Harry Potter series of novels, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (2007), was scheduled for release just over three months later. Not only was it probably the most anticipated book release of all time, but it was preceded by an unprecedented public relations campaign mustering requests, warnings, threats, bans and legal manoeuvres to forestall any premature partial publication or circulation of plot “spoilers.”10 A teasing and good natured intervention in the mounting hype of the cultural moment, the Doctor’s anticipatory although empty gesture makes the impossible, though fictionally necessary case that the cultural, literary and textual future is incorporated into the Doctor Who universe just as readily as the past; in the notionally unbounded perspective of time-travel, future texts like those of the present are always already written.



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The fictional world of the new Doctor Who in particular, then, is not at all sealed off from other cultural products and phenomena, but is highly permeable, or rather it draws these cultural phenomena and strands of representation into its field–sometimes flamboyantly, sometimes less obtrusively. The insouciantly reflexive and omnivorous ahistoricism of the program lends itself to the production of an ever-opening virtual space where ordinarily distinct and segregated worlds of discourse and of reference are unrestrictedly juxtaposed, crossed and intermixed, in Barthes’ words, “a multidimensional space” (1986, 53) where “multiple writings [...enter] into dialogue, into parody, into contestation” (1986, 54), or, to add to the dimensions of the critical conceit, a veritable time-vortex of intertextuality where the very notions of priority, antecedence and originality no longer seem to have the stability, privilege, self-evidence or reliability that they once had.





PART VI. AUDIENCE STUDIES



CHAPTER THIRTEEN REGENERATION OF A BRAND: THE FAN AUDIENCE AND THE 2005 DOCTOR WHO REVIVAL DOUGLAS MCNAUGHTON

Introduction Despite its recent success, by 1989 Doctor Who was suffering from low ratings and had become a byword for cheapness and bad acting. This essay explores fan activities during the wilderness years (1990-2004), examines reasons for the 2005 revival and considers to what extent the demands of fans brought it about. It builds on Hills’ (2002) work on fan cultures to analyse fan responses to the initial announcement of the series’ revival. It uses online fan communities to examine discourses around the 2005 return of the series and fan reactions to the first new episode, and it demonstrates how fans constructed that episode as a media event (Dayan and Katz 1992). Additionally, it seeks to untangle some of the power struggles that have been waged around the various versions of the show within the broadcaster-text-audience relationship, and argues for an extension of Abercrombie and Longhurst’s (1998) spectrum of fandom to include a new category: pro-fans.

Methodology The seemingly boundless corpus of online postings offers an embarrassment of riches to the researcher. This study, therefore. focuses on fan responses to specific moments in Doctor Who’s revival: the announcement of the show’s return, activities during the production period (including material, such as location reports and photos, mediated by fans themselves) and views on the first episode, “Rose” (2005). The study examines the reactions of the existing community of classic Doctor Who

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fans to news of the show’s return, using postings at the Doctor Who forum (Doctor Who Forum 2008). Such newsgroups and mailing lists can be considered “a form of public space” (Hills 2002, 172) open to observation by non-participant lurkers who need not declare themselves, as forum users understand their postings as being for public consumption and use avatars for anonymity. Thus, this study uses postings and letters as a body of empirical evidence after Ang (1990). Evidence covering responses to Doctor Who’s return is also taken from the letters page of the official Doctor Who Magazine, although such material is filtered by the editorial processes of this (BBC-approved) magazine. The evidence used does not give transparent access to fan behaviour: the audience is to some extent “a mediated product or performance itself” (Hills 2002, 177) and online fandom should be recognised as a discursive construction. Although postings are selectively edited, original spelling and punctuation are retained.

The Rise and Fall of Doctor Who At the time of Doctor Who’s inception, commercial television (ITV) was winning the UK ratings battle (Cull 2001). ABC Television’s Sydney Newman arrived at the BBC with a remit to revitalise the corporation’s drama output. The tensions between the established BBC, with its public service ethos, and the modernising influences of commercial television, were immediately apparent: When I got to the BBC… I was really quite sick… because I didn’t know what to do – how to change those people who were stuck in their old ways, many of them having done their first television work at Alexandra Palace in 1938! (Newman, quoted in Howe, Stammers and Walker 1994, 164).

It was at this confluence of cultural influences and commercial necessity that Doctor Who was conceived (Chapman 2006). Cull (2006) has argued that the Canadian Newman both borrowed from and resisted American media culture, and provocatively calls Doctor Who “a British character living American B-movie adventures” (2006, 55). In one analysis, the decline of Doctor Who came about because of increasing focus on the show’s own history, with obscure returning characters and continuity references: “Doctor Who would come to be about Doctor Who and part-company with the wider audience necessary to sustain production” (Cull 2001, 106). Audiences often feel a sense of ownership of programmes (Hobson 1982) and believe they have a better understanding of its characters than the producers. However, "the isolation



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of the fan audience from any wider coalition audience effectively terminates any economic viability for the text beyond its fan-ghetto of ‘preaching to the converted’” (Hills 2002, 38). The more the show interpellated fans, the more it alienated casual viewers. But the programme’s own wider cultural identity changed over time as a result of another influence—fans themselves. Gillatt (1998) identifies a tipping point, in fan responses to the show’s postponement in 1985. The BBC Board of Governors was embarrassed by press coverage of fan protests, and by a stream of hate mail (allegedly including a letter written in human blood). A vocal subset of fans “managed to label their entire ilk as an… ungrateful… borderline psychotic group” (Gillatt 1998). This “ingratitude” disrupted normal power relations between audience and broadcaster, and fan activities became an integral part of the programme’s public trajectory. These activities – encompassing encyclopaedic programme knowledge, costume-wearing, perceived lack of social skills, and protest letters – fed back into public perceptions about the programme through the popular press and other discourses. The embedding of this view within the BBC can be seen in programmes such as Resistance is Useless (1993), in which an anorak (actually an empty parka) presented Doctor Who clips while spouting obscure trivia about the show’s history. Doctor Who had become characterised as a programme that only fans could enjoy. The final BBC-produced serial, “Survival,” was transmitted in 1989. A 1996 television movie featuring the eighth Doctor briefly raised hopes for a full-scale revival, but due to the movie’s international co-production requirements and its failure in the American schedules, no series materialised (Butler 2007).

The Wilderness Years One of my favourite things about the Doctor Who world is that when it went off the air, the thousands of fans didn’t let it die there. —Russell T. Davies, in Doctor Who Confidential 1

Doctor Who fandom had been active since the early 1970s, publishing fanzines, organising conventions, and producing amateur audio dramas based on the series (see Cornell 1997). Some of these shadow cultural economy activities (Fiske 1992) were sanctioned by the BBC, but few of them were officially licenced or endorsed, nor were they originally intended to make any profit for the fans who produced them. Jenkins (1992) has proposed a version of de Certeau’s (1984) textual poaching as a model of empowerment for fandom, wherein fans take characters and



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situations from commercially produced cultural texts to create their own versions. Other critics (e.g. Gwenllian Jones 2003) argue that this sense of empowerment is illusory and in no way changes the official relationship between text and broadcaster. However, the absence of new Doctor Who television episodes from 1990 onwards provided an opportunity for fans to become more involved in the production of semi-official auxiliary texts.

Gamekeepers turned Poachers… From its earliest days, Doctor Who generated textual spin-offs including novelisations, annuals, comic strips and stage plays, usually produced by people already connected to the show such as script editors David Whitaker and Terrance Dicks, and writer Terry Nation (Parkin 2007). The various parallel iterations of Who thus shared creative teams and roots. Many diegetic “facts” referenced within the series actually first appeared in the novelisations (such as the Tardis’s ‘chameleon circuit’) and were subsequently absorbed back into the television adventures. From the beginning, then, there was not just a simple one-way flow from television series to literary spin-offs, but a multi-way flow where the various versions of Doctor Who both fed into, and fed off, one another. In addition, fans became accustomed to consuming a wide range of extratextual materials, which expanded on the television series. In the days when a television programme was shown once only, before time-shifting technology such as video-recording, many fans experienced Who not only, or even primarily, as television, but through other media, building into a complex meta-text.

…turned Gamekeepers Despite the many secondary texts produced by fans, the primary text retains authority and authenticity (Jenkins 1995). In Doctor Who’s wilderness years however, a new situation arose. Licenced by the BBC, the Doctor Who New Adventures novels were published by Virgin Publishing from 1991 until 1997. Initially, television writers were utilised, but the publishers soon turned to fan writers (allegedly for economic reasons – see Parkin 2007). Crucially, the New Adventures were continuations of, rather than parallel offshoots from, the parent text (Smith 2007), marking a fundamental shift in the text-producer-audience relationship. With the programme off the air and no BBC production office overseeing merchandise, the New Adventures were canonical. No



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longer a “powerless elite” (Tulloch and Jenkins 1995), fans were creating the official version of the show. Abercrombie and Longhurst’s (1998) continuum of audience experiences places consumer at one end and petty producer at the other. Petty producers convert their fandom into a full-time occupation; they “produce material professionally which can then be marketed back to their own fan culture” (Hills 2002, 29). Big Finish audio dramas provide another example. Hills (2007) has demonstrated how Big Finish audios contain an inherent televisuality which refers back to the original television texts. Features include division into 25-minute episodes with cliffhangers, and faux 1970s-style Radio Times listings in the CD sleeves. These elements are designed to appeal to a market of fan-consumers (Hills 2007); indeed listeners unfamiliar with Doctor Who would struggle to make sense of them. These products did not come about as an act of altruism on the part of the BBC. Despite their textual poaching and by fans, for fans ethos, the New Adventures and Big Finish were licenced by the BBC and produced within a capitalist exchange system – bought and paid for by fanconsumers. In theory, funded by the compulsory television licence fee, Doctor Who on television had been ostensibly supplied “free” as part of a public service. Now fans had to make explicit purchasing decisions. Doctor Who as a text was moving away from its public service roots and becoming a consumer product. In any conventional political economy model, this would have been the end for Doctor Who: an increasingly specialised product, aimed at a tiny niche market. Moreover, it would have been the logical conclusion both of the programme’s increasing self-cannibalisation in the 1980s and the fragmenting of cultural consumption patterns in the 1990s.

The New (Re)generation Despite the perceived failure of the 1996 television movie, its UK ratings demonstrated that there was still an audience for Doctor Who. As early as 1999, Radio Times was discussing “the rumour that Russell T Davies, Doctor Who fan and creator of the controversial Channel 4 series Queer as Folk, had been involved in developing a new Doctor Who TV series” (Anon 1999, 32). In September 2003, the BBC announced the official return of Doctor Who as a BBC1 television drama (Leonard 2003). Understandably, the letters page of Doctor Who Magazine was abuzz. Initial fan reactions were positive, with the ‘traditional’ Saturday BBC1 slot and the involvement of Russell T. Davies offering reassurance of the



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BBC’s commitment to the revival’s quality: “Fantastic news… A new series, BBC1, Saturday nights, Russell T. Davies… Good luck to all those involved in the production” (Hayes 2003, 8); “Russell T Davies is an excellent choice of writer” (Crooks 2003, 9); “[Russell’s] shows Bob and Rose and The Second Coming were two of the bravest mainstream productions I have seen. Doctor Who is in a safe pair of hands” (Van-der Heiden 2003, 9). Crucial to the relationship between fans and text was the inscription of fanhood in Davies, whilst providing Doctor Who with the auteur figure it had previously lacked (Parkin 2007). Davies had converted his fan cultural capital into institutional power through his television writing career. Now that agency was to result in a fan taking control of Doctor Who. Some writers self-reflexively performed the role of the fatalistic fan: “It’s coming back! It’s coming baaaacccck! … bet it’ll be rubbish” (de Faw 2003, 8). This awareness of the hypercritical nature of fandom fed into the magazine’s articles. Doctor Who Magazine carried the spoof headline “Fans Excited At Opportunity to Hate Something New,” showing protesters carrying placards reading “Season 27? Not in my name’ and ‘RTD must go now!” (Anon 2003, 33). However, once the initial euphoria had worn off, doubts started to emerge. Over a year before the new series aired, one letter writer complained: with all the hype of the return of the show, I for one am not impressed. These days, I’m used to the excellence of Buffy and Stargate and I just don’t see the BBC delivering that calibre of show – or even the excellence of the Hinchcliffe years… (Shore 2004, 7).

Indeed the magazine was moved to publish an editorial appealing for calm: The new production office at BBC Wales has already been deluged by letters from concerned fans, worrying about this rumour, or that piece of continuity, or determined to explain fully about their own unified theory of “canon” lest Mr Davies should get it “wrong” in his scripts. There has even been talk of setting up petitions so that the new team will be “forced” to go along with the casting that one group of fans deems “right.” Please guys, can we just not do this? (Hickman 2004, 8).

Why were some fans so against the long-awaited new series before even seeing it? Fans’ resistant reading of texts can “become a source of collective identity and mutual support” (Jenkins 1995, 264) but because this is a subcultural activity, “resistant reading cannot… have an impact on



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the ways people outside of the group think” (ibid). After sixteen years of being the primary makers of meaning within Doctor Who, fans were about to have that agency taken from them. The explicitly fan-friendly New Adventures and Big Finish had a limited circulation and were unknown to the general audience. Doctor Who as a commercial text was still the property of the BBC. Fans’ fears that “their” version of Doctor Who might be effaced by Davies’ “official” version informed their response to the revival. Some fan discourses around the announcement of the programme’s return demonstrated a highly developed recognition of this reaction: I cannot believe (well, I can actually) that “fans” are already dictating to the new production team what the show should or should not consist of! I always knew this would be the largest problem the show would face on its return, the “fans” who… are having to deal with the fact that our “baby" is back in the hands of TV executives (Gilbert 2004, 9). For a long time I have felt that really, deep down a lot of us haven’t particularly wanted the show to come back. That way, it was our little secret; our toy which nobody else could damage when they played with it. Well to anybody who is getting ready to destroy the new programme before it starts – please don’t. Lock yourselves in the attic … and leave the rest of us to the fun that lies ahead (Edmunds, 2004, 9).

Fan Discourses Around Authenticity One strength of classic Doctor Who was that, despite cast changes and new opponents, the format remained relatively stable, in part due to its “unfolding text” (Tulloch and Alvarado 1983): “continuing characters and repeated narrative forms such as the quest” (Bignell 2007, 49) allowed endlessly deferred narrative resolution which enabled the programme’s longevity. This stability also rested in part on two factors reassuring viewers that it was the same show: the theme music, and the TARDIS. These elements were amongst those which most exercised Doctor Who forum posters when discussing the new series. One of the first concrete pieces of evidence that the show was actually in production was the publication online of (fans’) photos of the TARDIS on location. “It's good to see the old girl again, isn't it?” (Emsworth 2004); “Excellent. Seeing the TARDIS prop with a production crew milling around really brings it home: it's coming back!” (Star 2004); “More than anything else, seeing that beloved blue box says ‘this is Doctor Who and it's coming back...’” (darkpowers 2004).



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Furedi (2002) identifies patterns in the discourses through which new inventions are absorbed into culture: the optimistic initial announcement, the panic stories about potential risks, and the emerging balanced approach pointing out probable benefits and contextualising problems. A similar pattern emerges around the new TARDIS: “Oh dear. They've got the TARDIS wrong. It looks silly- windows out of proportion” (emtiem 2004); “It seems to be squatter than usual ... wider ...” (Tullberg 2004). This is countered by responses which draw on fan cultural capital to contextualise the new prop against the ones in the original series, as well as pointing out their status as props: “It's not as if there was one consistant TARDIS from 1963-1989 […] It's a rectangular blue object with ‘Police Public Call Box’ written on it, and a light on top” (Cooper 2004); “I totally agree, I’ve always thought BBC TARDIS prop was smaller than the original London Police boxes” (JTBomb 2004). Another poster seeks to establish a consensus which the group can perform for outsiders (the “fallacy of internality”, Hills 2002, 68), as well as pointing out the ways in which fan judgements of quality differ from those of non-fans (McKee 2001): Just look at it from a general perspective. It's blue, it's tall, it says “Police Box.” It's a Police Box. It's the TARDIS. This is just the sort of silly talk which leads the public - the show's most important audience, remember - to walk away and shake their heads in despair. Let's keep this sort of fan madness under wraps please (and out of the public domain!) (PMount 2004).

Fans projected their anxieties about the new series onto the symbol of the TARDIS prop, exercising their fan cultural capital and making cognitive criticisms about the authenticity of the design. However, other fans applied criteria from outwith fandom, pointing out that the props seen previously in the series were not accurate, and bringing perspective to the discussion by reminding posters of the programme’s status as television, and of the effect of such discussions on public perceptions of fans.



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“Rose” As Media Event Dayan and Katz (1992) have proposed the idea of media events – the live televising of official ceremonies which embody a society’s values, whereby audiences confirm their endorsement of those values and perform their consensus by participating in (i.e. viewing) the event. Some fans treated the first 2005 episode, “Rose,” as a media event. Liveness is key to Dayan and Katz’ model; but in this case, the official BBC1 premiere (26 March 2005) was treated as a live broadcast, a “ritualised space and time” (Hills 2002, 178), so the simultaneity of the viewing experience was important, connecting fans to a diaspora of similar audiences. A pirate copy of “Rose” was leaked onto the internet several weeks before transmission, opening up a dilemma for fans: watch immediately, or wait for the official transmission date? Waiting for the official transmission helped fans perform their phatic link to the centre (in this case, the plans of the BBC and the production team). For some, the chance voluntarily to delay this event added to the pleasure of anticipation. I turned down the chance to see "Rose" last Sunday when a journalist friend of mine rang me to say she had preview […] Last night another friend phoned to say he'd managed to download it from the internet and did I want to go round and see it? Again, I declined […] I want this to be a WONDERFUL event, not some little secret to be watched over a PC monitor and be "enjoyed" alone as if it were a guilty pleasure (Nidus 2005).

The production team stressed in Doctor Who Magazine that the new series was aimed at a mass audience. “We want Doctor Who to appeal to the broadest audience possible – we won’t be making this for the fans alone” (producer Phil Collinson, quoted in Anon 2004, 7). Fans constructed “Rose” as a media event to conform to the producers’ injunction that the show needed big ratings to succeed. The phatic link to the centre proposed by Dayan and Katz was to Doctor Who as a successful television programme; the consensus being performed was intended to support the producers’ desire for strong ratings. The Dayan and Katz model describes festive viewing, whereby the media event extends into and transforms the site of reception (usually the living room); for example, where neighbours gather to watch a Royal Wedding. The circumstances of viewing add to the ceremonial nature of the experience and enhance the pleasures of the media event itself. Fans used similar strategies to watch “Rose”: “On the 26th, I have invited a few friends round (some with only a fleeting interest in the show), everyone is



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bringing a ‘buffet’ item, and I'll be getting a couple of bottles of champagne” (Nidus 2005). Not only British fans constructed festive viewing out of the show’s transmission: For the American debut on the SciFi channel of Doctor Who … I’ve rounded up at least 10 - 15 of my friends to come over, have some drinks and watch the new show. 2/3rds of these have never seen DW before at all (MarcusPrime 2006).

Aware of the need for the new series to succeed with a wide audience, fans used this media event to proselytise and boost ratings: “I've been putting together a viewing party on the theory that I'd try and get them all hooked to the show” (The Lawyer 2006). In addition, fans used viewing parties to assess the reactions of non-fans: “commercial breaks make a great time to talk with your friends and gauge how the show's going. It's fascinating to hear what the newbies are predicting to happen next” (RavenaS 2006); “I played host to a viewing party over at a friends house […] Everyone there seemed genuinely pleased with the new show, and after it was over, several of them said they ‘liked it’ or ‘that was really good’” (Corvus 2006). And yet for some, the responsibility of introducing non-fans to the show would have detracted from their own enjoyment of a show that might have to be interpreted from a fan perspective: “My viewing party isn't really for new potental viewers, but existing fans” (michaell 2006); “I won't do any more than that because the more of an 'event' I make it, the less I can enjoy it due to the pressure I'll feel if people hate it.” (Kurbside 2006).

Sound Affects Doctor Who’s revival was the catalyst for high emotion in many fans. Grossberg (1992) has argued that much fandom is constructed through affective relations which inflect meanings and pleasures in different ways, as the “fan’s relation to cultural texts operates in the domain of affect or mood” (p.56). As noted, the TARDIS was central to fans’ expectations for the new series, and contained a strong affective power over fan perceptions. On seeing the first pictures of the TARDIS prop, one fan wrote: “Brought a lump to my throat... such a fanboy sometimes!” (Robbie 2004). Almost as important as the physical prop, the original TARDIS sound effect was seen as a key element assuring the authenticity of the new



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series: “Yes, the TARDIS Sound FX really hit it home that Doctor Who was back!” (Alan-WK 2005); “The dematerialisation sound effect was brilliant!” (Ronaldhino 2005); “That was the beautiful thing about it, it was the same sound effect. It really felt like we were welcoming an old friend home” (TJ Campbell 2005). The importance of the TARDIS sound is acknowledged by the producers on the “Rose” DVD commentary: JULIE GARDNER. That glorious noise of the TARDIS engines … as someone who didn’t really grow up on Doctor Who, it was very important to you two that we were very faithful… RUSSELL T. DAVIES. I remember at one point… Paul shifted it up a key … we were like ‘what the hell have you done?’ Sacrilege! PHIL COLLINSON. It can sound like it did when William Hartnell flew it! (“Rose” commentary 2005).

This dialogue clearly inscribes Davies and Collinson as fans, sharing the same affective priorities as fans watching the episode (and listening to the commentary). Like those fans, they did “grow up on Doctor Who” as Gardner says. Unlike the design of the physical TARDIS prop, the sound effect was not updated, and therefore posed no challenge to authenticity for fans: in addition, it provided a clear affective link to the Ur-text of the very first episode from 1963. The theme music also had strong affective influence. Although rearranged, the theme incorporated original elements from the 1963 arrangement by Radiophonic Workshop musician Delia Derbyshire (Ayres 2008): “Hell, I cried when the opening titles came on, I was so elated.” (The Chameleon Circuit 2006); “Rose: when our heroine runs for the TARDIS and the cliffhanger music crashes in – that's when I knew it was back” (ColH 2006). Another affective response was induced by the return of the Daleks, the series’ primary villain since their first appearance in 1963: “A few people have commented having a tear in their eye at seeing the trailer... This is going to be something special” (Curry 2005); “I loved the protracted Nick Briggs ‘Exterminaaaaaattte!!!!’ as the OOO-EEEEOOOOO! of the titles kicked in. This brought a smile to my face and a lump to my throat” (STENDEC 2005). Some fans understood their affective response on two levels: one at the level of emotional involvement in the narrative, and another at a kind of pride in the power of their cult object to inspire that involvement and generate that affect.



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I cried several times... and each time, it was on two levels - first the story itself would make me well up, then the realisation that this old TV show that I love so dearly was doing so well and was written so powerfully as to have this effect on me made it even worse (Blumenthal, M. 2006).

This created an exponential effect, in which the awareness of the emotion inspired more emotion: “It's Doctor Who! And it's moving! And I'm crying! How moving is that! Now I'm crying even more! And it's Doctor Who! Oh my God!” (dannysquid 2006).

(Cult)ivation Increasingly, the culture industry would make fans of everyone. Jenkins (2006) suggests that producers encourage fandom’s interaction in “participatory culture”: “room for participation and improvisation are being built into new media franchises… cult works were once discovered; now they are being consciously produced, designed to provoke fan interactions” (p.145) whereby fans feed ideas to producers. As discussed, viewers began to create their own versions of Doctor Who at least as far back as the early 1970s; now, cult fans are being cultivated. However, the present-day production team denies any such creative loop. Producer Phil Collinson stated in 2005: The show is so loved – almost religiously so by some people – and I think that’s fantastic and admirable. But we can’t let that influence us… I can’t allow myself to get bogged down or worried about what one small aspect of the audience is going to think (Cook 2005, p.18).

And recently, Russell T Davies told the LA Times: I think we're an unusual science-fiction franchise in taking a very big step back from fandom and having nothing to do with them. . . . Every program on the BBC has a message board on the website. I forbid it to happen on Doctor Who. I'm sorry to say this, all the science fiction producers making stuff in America, they are way too engaged with their fandom. They all need to step back (Davies, quoted in Pollett 2008).

An interesting dichotomy emerges. Addressing fans through his Production Notes in Doctor Who Magazine, Davies uses inclusive language to align himself with fan culture. He identifies as a fan himself, for example relating how, at the 2002 BAFTA Awards, he whimpered to (fifth Doctor) actor Peter Davison “I love Doctor Who” (Davies 2004b). Talking about fans to a non-fan audience, his attitude is quite different. He



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does not allow fans to influence content and claims not to care about fan opinion. These performative discourses demonstrate Davies’ awareness of his various power relations with different audiences. One reason for this might lie in the unacknowledged possibility that the BBC still needs the approval of fans. Doctor Who had become established as a programme that inspired intense devotion in a subculture of its audience. If fans disowned the new Doctor Who, the revived series might be perceived by the wider public as inauthentic or exploitative of a beloved cultural institution. Therefore, the BBC had to work hard to keep the fans – a minority but disproportionately influential audience – engaged with the new series. The traditional textual poachers binary between fan culture and the culture industries understands their relationship as oppositional. However, fandom is good for the culture industry: “fans buy official products as well as, rather than instead of, accessing and creating unofficial ones” (Gwenllian Jones 2003, 175). Clearly it is in the commercial interest of the culture industry to attract an economically active fanbase. For Gwenllian Jones, the culture industry consciously constructs cult shows, with “deliberated address not just to a general audience but to an audience of fans,” deploying “campy humour, insider gags, a coherent and wellpopulated fictional world, deep backstory, offbeat and charismatic major characters, metextuality, ‘mythic’ themes and plots and the extension of the cult fiction across a full range of media and merchandise products” (2003, 174). All of these qualities already existed in classic Doctor Who and any revival would struggle to avoid them. But this does point up the fact that Doctor Who was a ready-made cult show, with an existing fanbase of keen consumers. As well as constructing fan communities, the culture industry also exploits them for its own perpetuation. “The merchandising industry that surrounds cult television series imitates the text-producing practices of fans… It sells fans shinier versions of its own texts, all stamped with an official seal of approval” (Gwenllian Jones 2003, 167-168). Given the wealth of fan production in the wilderness years, this model can clearly be applied to Doctor Who. Russell T. Davies wrote a New Adventure, Damaged Goods (1996) and the 2005 series included an adaptation of Big Finish audio drama Jubilee and scripts from New Adventures writers Mark Gatiss and Paul Cornell. Thus, the new version of Doctor Who is itself a product of multiple textual poachings – taking both from the classic series, and also from the fan versions inspired by poachings from the classic series.



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Recombinant Regenerations The fact that the show exists as… a title which needs no explanation to many generations… is one of the things that helped to bring the show back in the first place… that instant recognition is a powerful thing… And this programme’s got it. I don’t think fandom resurrected Doctor Who; I think Doctor Who did (Davies 2005, 66).

Doctor Who has become more than a television programme, and is now a modern myth. The television texts are only the core of a much larger cultural enterprise; the public-service tip of a very large commercial merchandising iceberg. As early as 1977, broadcaster Melvyn Bragg could call Doctor Who “a national institution” and the character of the Doctor “one of the great characters of modern fiction, like Tarzan or Billy Bunter” (Bragg 1977). But, the show also returned because its format, even given television’s tendency toward hybridity, is uniquely polysemic (Fiske 1987) and the regeneration concept allows it to sidestep normal limiting factors faced by television series, such as ageing or unwilling actors. Its narratives can encompass historical drama, political satire, space opera, grand guignol and many more forms. Whilst originally drawing on literary science fiction, it uses an aesthetic of fantasy cinema to combine the intimacy of television with the visual spectacle of cinema (Bignell 2007). It is also capable of incorporating many other cultural forms into itself, producing in effect a new recombinant (Dunleavy 2005) style. As Butler (2007) argues, it is not science fiction, but fantastic in genre. The fragmentation of audiences means that producers increasingly focus on risk aversion and prioritise popular genres. As public service broadcasting principles erode, television drama increasingly adopts a safety-first mode: ‘recombinant culture’… worked to reduce drama’s conceptual possibilities either to a re-versioning of the tried-and-proven or to ‘recombination’ … involving a marriage between previous shows with a ratings pedigree (Dunleavy 2005, 11).

Risk aversion, as in cinema sequels, also means the revival of existing brands. Steemers (2005) has outlined the challenges of exporting British television drama, suggesting that traditional genres such as detective series or historical dramas are less popular with other cultures. Doctor Who’s “fantastic” format offers a fantasy series with wide appeal: a “commercially oriented and less culturally specific drama” (Steemers



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2005, 44) attracting a broad cross-section of the audience. A new type of television drama has emerged in the last decade, explained by “the need for television drama to reinvent itself in an era of ‘plenty’, a period characterised by a proliferation of television channels and greatly increased competition for a diminishing share of the audience” (Cooke 2005, 31). There are similarities here with the conditions of Doctor Who’s birth: increased competition, represented then by ITV; the fight for audience share; and technological developments, such as the late 1950s introduction of videotape.

Fan Producers I think they were taught by Doctor Who. Since they were kids, they’ve been reading the wise words of … those glorious script editors of ages past … It’s a bit neat – the programme’s heritage, and our obsession with it, is rewarding the show itself (Davies 2004a, 51).

Magrs (2007) has commented, not perhaps entirely seriously, that Doctor Who returned to television due to “a freakish generation of talents growing up at the same time.” Certainly Doctor Who inspired a generation of fans into the TV industry, and those fans worked from within to bring it back. Abercrombie and Longhurst’s (1998) spectrum of fandom – from consumer to petty-producers – seems inadequate to describe the power of producers like Davies and Collinson, and I would argue for the extension of the model to include the professional fan or pro-fan. No longer the “powerless elite” (Tulloch and Jenkins 1995), these fans have converted their fan cultural capital into agency over the text by entering the television industry which first inspired their fandom. Their influence over distribution channels means that they can spread their version of the text outside fandom and distribute it to a mainstream audience.

Conclusions The reasons for Doctor Who’s 21st century reincarnation are more than simply the flexibility of the show’s format. They are to do with the commercial demands of the modern broadcasting industry to produce riskaverse, mass-appeal, pre-sold hits. Existing brands with built-in recognition are invaluable properties in this environment, ripe for exploitation across a range of media. If, as Cull says, the original Doctor Who was indeed “a British character living American B-movie adventures” (Cull 2006, 55) then in the light of the commercial success of



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the revived show, we might now view Doctor Who as a BBC character living ITV adventures. Just as in 1963, an evolving BBC in crisis called on the Doctor to introduce mass-appeal, populist drama to Saturday teatimes. And, just as before, supported by players from independent television, the Doctor won the ratings battle. “Rose” gained a “colossal audience rating” (Anon 2005, 4) of 10.81 million viewers (BARB 2008) and launched the revived series on a triumphant course which, at the time of writing, shows no sign of running out of steam. A key aim of this essay was to observe how Doctor Who’s fan audience responded to the return of the series. The evidence reveals the complex and ambiguous power relations between audience, producers and text. In the case of Doctor Who, agency has been variously held to different extents by audience and broadcaster. Fan audiences demonstrate various uses of texts, including using them as a basis for their own creativity, albeit for tiny audiences. Additionally, fans use television as the focus for social formation and viewing rituals. Doctor Who fans (as in many other fan cultures) exhibit a keen awareness of their fandom and a high degree of conscious performance of their fan identity, and in addition, show a keen desire to understand why they are fans, even undergoing hypnotherapy (Gillatt 2003) to explore the childhood origins of their fanhood. In considering what role fans have played in the return of Doctor Who as a television programme, the significance of existing fans as consumers is limited; their collective spending power cannot sustain the merchandise required of a major media brand and their numbers are not large enough to constitute a viable mass television audience. However the consumption activities of fans can be seen as a model for broadcasters to pursue. After vilifying fans in the 1990s, the BBC has realised their worth as active, engaged consumers of texts and merchandise. Modern broadcasters actively seek audiences which behave like Doctor Who fans. In the current broadcasting climate, an active (in consumption) fan audience is a strong core and foundation on which programme-makers can build an audience. And, it could be argued that Doctor Who fans may be seen as having some influence in validating the show to general audiences with lower cultural capital investment in the brand. As demonstrated, Russell T. Davies engages in multiple discourses when addressing either fan or mainstream audiences. In reviving a show whose fans were so essential a part of its identity, those fans were a crucial core audience to cultivate. The text of the programme itself also so inspired elements of its audience that they turned their fandom into cultural capital of real worth.



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Despite the view of fans as a powerless elite, a small subset of fans has converted its fandom into real agency over the text and conditions of production and distribution by entering the television industry that first inspired their creativity, as pro-fans. In a display of the passive audience influencing the medium, these individuals have developed from being consumers to being producers of that which they once consumed. Television has created its next generation of creative producers, out of its own audiences.





CHAPTER FOURTEEN SQUEE, RETCON, FANWANK AND THE NOT-WE: COMPUTER-MEDIATED DISCOURSE AND THE ONLINE AUDIENCE FOR NUWHO BRIGID CHERRY

This study of the Doctor Who fan community looks specifically at the ways in which fans come together as an online audience around new episodes of the television programme and how they share their responses and reactions to episodes. It, therefore, addresses the ways in which the fan audience segment talks about their favoured text and communicates their thoughts and emotions as they view. The term online audience is not used in this instance to describe those viewers who watch television online (from either legitimate or illegitimate sources). Such an audience can certainly exist on sites such as BBC iPlayer1, albeit in the form of one that might comprise anonymous individuals unknown to each other, watching at different times and possible unconcerned or indifferent that other viewers exist simultaneously. Rather, this term is employed here in order to identify an audience (which more specifically might be called a fan audience segment) that to all intents and purposes is online, en mass and talking about the programme they are all viewing around the time of broadcast, an organised and communally linked, yet geographically dispersed, viewing community in other words. This fan audience is connected via Internet groups dedicated to the favoured programme, the fans coming together in various chat rooms, forums and social networking sites (SNS). This research is not designed to reveal interpretations, readings or analysis of the text, but rather how fans express their immediate emotional and physical reactions and responses in situations that are not face-to-face (that is, in living rooms or other spaces where a television can be viewed communally). What might we be able to learn

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from research into this online audience? Specifically, what might we learn about the language and discourses that are employed in talking about the experience of viewing shortly before, during and immediately after broadcast? As Matt Hills (2002, 16) points out: the practices of fandom have become increasingly enmeshed with the rhythms and temporalities of broadcasting, so that fans now go online to discuss new episodes immediately after the episodes transmission or even during ad breaks perhaps in order to demonstrate the “timeliness” and responsiveness of their devotion.

Hills’s observation raises further questions that can be addressed by empirical research. Who are these fans who are viewing in the context of online groups? How exactly are their viewing practices carried over into online spaces? And, most importantly, how do they communicate their expectations, immediate reactions, emotions and concerns when watching the programme at a distance from other members of the online audience? Hills suggests that members of this group might primarily wish to discuss the text and their interpretations of it not simply for its own sake, but in order to mark their status as a “true” fan amongst their peers. The research outlined here is designed to explore the specific contexts, forms and parameters of this fan activity as computer-mediated communication (CMC) or more specifically computer-mediated discourses (CMD). In other words, to identify the ways in which talk around the programme is organised and constructed. In this respect, the aim is not only to contribute to understandings of the fan discourses themselves, but also to explore the impact of online viewing and participation in a virtual audience as this is made more feasible in Web 2.0 and beyond.

The Who Audience For this study of the online fan audience, selected online discussion sites, focused on the BBC programme Doctor Who, were chosen. The importance of Doctor Who as a cultural phenomenon (a primary reason for choosing this text for the research project) hardly needs to be reiterated. Doctor Who is historically significant, being the longest running science fiction television series and holding important significance in British popular culture. Although Doctor Who ended its 26-year original run in 1989, it retained a core of extremely active and dedicated fans organised around the production of new fan-generated and additional secondary texts that kept the series alive and current, albeit as a cult text2. These fans contributed to Doctor Who’s longevity as a cult text through the production



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and consumption of a series of officially sanctioned professional novels and CD plays (as described by Alan McKee 2004). In other words, fans had kept the series alive after its demise, and were rewarded after 15 years with the announcement that new Doctor Who was to be produced for television (its new producer and creative force Russell T Davis being an avowed fan, as are others working on the programme – and this includes the tenth Doctor, David Tennant, who is a self-confessed fanboy). The relaunch of the series in 2005 was not only eagerly anticipated by the existing fans of classic Doctor Who, but reinvigorated the fandom, not least by attracting large numbers of new viewers for whom access to the Internet had opened up fandom. In terms of forming a suitable case study for research into online audiences, Doctor Who was ideal. The relaunch provided a unique opportunity to observe the ways in which fans organised – and shared – their viewing as they discussed the imminent return of the series and then their thoughts and feelings as they watched new episodes. In a British context (and as a UK-based research project), the choice of Doctor Who was also advantageous in that British science fiction fans normally have to negotiate spatio-temporal discontinuities in broadcasting and online discussion (the majority of science fiction television series being American in origin and not just subject to the time difference but also access to episodes at the same time as fans based in the US). The existence of a major British production having its first run on a major terrestrial network meant that the online discussion provided a valuable and immediate data set for analysis simultaneous to access to the text for the researcher. Online discussion in the immediacy of viewing takes place across a range of Internet sites, including chat rooms and messaging systems such as MSN, social networking and blogging sites such as Facebook and Live Journal, and dedicated fan forums and discussion groups. Whilst different issues of CMC arise in the different types of site, forums provide the best sites for analysing CMD as they permit longer and more detailed posts, are immediate and yet provide a valuable and easily accessible archive of posts, and are organised into clearly labeled threads which allow appropriate subjects to be selected for observation. This is extremely important when the participant observer is presented with extremely high numbers of posts in fast moving discussions and for tracking purposes forums rather than other forms of discussion are thus appropriate. For this reason, data collection was conducted via participant observation in the online Doctor Who forum communities. The research was carried out across a cross-section of the principal forums inhabited by the Doctor Who fan community: namely the Doctor Who Forum (formerly Outpost



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Gallifrey) at www.gallifreyone.com3, Doctor Who Online www.drwhoonline.co.uk, Custard’s Doctor Who forum on Roobarb’s Forum www.zetaminor.com/roobarb, and the Doctor Who forum at Digital Spy www.digitalspy.co.uk/forums. In terms of a profile of this online fan audience segment, a number of points can be made about who the members of the Doctor Who forum (the largest and most active online community) are. As with other online communities, there are many members who never or rarely post (lurkers) and those that are most active often contribute a disproportionate amount of the discussion. However, the Doctor Who forum/Outpost Gallifrey (OG) is particularly active. When Doctor Who was relaunched in 2005, a large proportion of the members (82%) were posting frequently, regularly or occasionally. This is high in comparison with other discussion sites across the Internet, but the proportion has fallen considerably (to 38% in 2008 when membership had more than doubled) – largely due to the substantial increase in memberships as the series continued, bringing in higher numbers of fans content to lurk. Nevertheless, this indicates the large number of active members in the Doctor Who fan community. In terms of their demographic profile, there is a wide spread across the age range (with members ranging from their teens and early twenties to their 50s). They also come from a broad geographical spread across the UK (the majority of members are British, as might be expected with a much loved icon of British popular culture), with additional significant numbers coming from the US and other countries (there are strong communities of Doctor Who fans in Australia and Canada for example). The majority of fans tend to be male, middle class and white, though there are also notable numbers of gay men. It is also clear from the observation that with the new series, female fans have become a larger and more active presence in the community, though they still remain a slight minority. In terms of analysing this community as a social group of online viewers, the principal focus has been on how they prepare for the actual viewing, how they view, how they behave when they view, and how these areas are carried into the online community. In carrying out the study, the period of time chosen for survey primarily includes the immediate run up to broadcast of selected episodes, posts made during broadcast, and discussion in the immediate aftermath of broadcast (usually 2 hours, but occasionally until the next morning). Episodes were chosen on the basis of predicted responses. Since the focus of this project in not only to identify the ways in which fans demonstrate their dedication to the fan text by posting immediately after watching the programme, but to analyse the CMD which enable fans to communicate their emotional and physical



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reactions (since these would normally be observable in face-to-face audience situations, the fans require a means of demonstrating these in purely textual environments), episodes were selected on the basis of how much potential they had to generate a wide range of emotional responses. Whilst this is not necessarily representative of the average episode, it enables identification of the kinds of responses exhibited overall. The first stage of the research included discussion of responses to trailers in the run up to the re-launch, taking in posts from January 2005 to March 2005. This allowed for analysis of the discourses established in building up anticipation as well as the viewing of the first episode of the returning series (“Rose”) itself. The research was then continued on selected key episodes from each subsequent season from 2006-2008. Episodes were chosen because they were widely anticipated – with the leaving of Rose in the Season 2 episode “Doomsday” in 2006, and with the return of Captain Jack, as well as the classic character the Master, in the third series episode “Utopia” in 2007, or being the subject of potential controversy with the idea of the Doctor having a child in the fourth series episode “The Doctor’s Daughter” in 2008. Additional data was also collected for an episode that could be seen as relatively scary and thus affective in a different sense: namely “Silence in the Library,” again Series 4 in 2008. Whilst these are special cases that generated a lot of discussion for very specific reasons, as case studies they usefully illustrate a number of important factors about the way fans talk about their favoured text and their viewing experiences both on and off line. The kinds of discussion which were analysed were narrowed down to threads focused on preparations for viewing and discussion of expectations raised for the episode, threads active during the time slot for the episode itself, and in the period immediately after the transmission and viewing that related to immediate responses to the episode (therefore excluding critical analysis, jokes, discussion of production details, and so forth). During this time span for each of the selected episodes, expectations that are raised and emotional responses that are experienced are expressed or commented on in various ways. The online discussion includes a significant proportion of contributions that communicate emotional and physical reactions – those that might be seen or felt if sitting next to someone on the sofa – as well as off-the-cuff comments that might be made when viewing in the same physical space. As well as identifying patterns of discourse that emerge in such communication, these findings also contribute to the identification and categorisation of the ways in which domestic (private) viewing spills over into the social (public) fan spaces.



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Whospeak There being a clear focus for the fan culture even in the years when the programme was not in production meant that there was a sustained and enduring active fan community already in existence. This fan community already had a vocabulary that formed a shorthand or code for communicating their knowledge, feelings and love for the programme. The fans themselves are acutely aware that they frequently employ certain terms or phrases that convey specific meanings, ideas or images for other fans. Indeed the overuse of such terms has led to them being described as clichés by the fans themselves. “AF” (male, from the north of England), for example, refers to speaking “bona fide cliché” (Roobarb, ”Where did all the clichés come from?,” 3/2/2008), and the term “Whospeak” is often used – as by “MS” (no stats) on the same thread (3/2/2008). Discussion of the various uses of language has taken place in the forums, as well as being the subject of feature articles in the official magazine Doctor Who Monthly – indicating the self-awareness of the fans. Common Whospeak terms derive from, • The ways the programme itself has been critiqued in the early, establishing years of fandon: fun romp, sparkling dialogue, indefinable magic, the Hartnell – or other actor’s name – era, stunt casting. These are generally recognised as arising from the critical fanzine writings of well known active fans in the early years of Doctor Who fandom, for example terms coined by Jeremy Bentham, the founder of the Doctor Who Appreciation Society (DWAS), or used in Doctor Who Monthly (DWM) and the DWAS bulletin Celestial Toyroom (CT). • Descriptive phrases that have been applied to the characters and props on the programme: cosmic hobo, an old but young face, bubbling lump of hate, battered blue police box, wheezing groaning sound, impossibly large, the Pertwee Doctor’s car being a “sprightly yellow roadster,” the Doctor “sporting” an umbrella or a frock coat, capacious pockets, vworp (the splash used in comic strip panels to indicate the sound made by the Tardis). These are terms introduced by scriptwriter and novelist Terrence Dicks and used in The Making of Doctor Who and the Doctor Who Monster Books. • Production terms: these include pseudo-historical, an umbrella theme, the hiatus, the Cartmel masterplan. These reflect the fact that Doctor Who fans have an abiding interest in and often close association with the BBC and the production of the programme. • Self-deprecating turns of phrase that refer to the series or the fans themselves: naysayer, the DWAS being “up in arms,” watching from



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behind the sofa – attributed to Robert Holmes and Tom Baker in the 1970s, disparaging puns of the titles of stories such as “Warriors on the Cheap,” “Revenge of the Cidermen,” “Horror of Fraggle Rock,” “The Gunshiters.” • Acronyms and initialisms: DWAS, DWM, CT, DWB – Doctor Who Bulletin (a well-known fanzine in the classic era), EDA and PDA – the eighth and past Doctor adventures series of novels, OG – Outpost Gallifrey, JNT – John Nathan Turner, RTD – Russell T Davis. Whilst such examples of shorthand are now commonplace in phone messaging and online texts, they were verifiably in use in print fanzines prior to the emergence of Internet fandom. This use of a collective shorthand, whilst not unique to Doctor Who fans – and it is not an invented language, but rather simply the overuse of certain phrases – is one way that fans convey a sense of what “CM” (no stats) describes as “belonging together” (Roobarb, “Where did all the clichés come from?,” 2/2/08). In one sense, the use of such terms conveys membership of the group. “Vr” (male, 36, Southern Pines, NC) summarises the benefits of fanspeak: I kind of enjoy that we have a well-developed fan vocabulary. It’s very handy when trying to describe things that might otherwise be fairly difficult. I can say “No hanky panky in the TARDIS” and it will instantly bring up the debate in all its glory to the reader (insofar as the reader himself or herself is knowledgeable in that debate). And, when someone sees a patently Dr. Who fan term for the first time, the very strangeness of the words often makes it stick. Very handy indeed (OG, “Common terms and phrases,” 26/4/2004).

Other viewers may, however, be bewildered by the terms; as “Cy” (Manchester) remarks: “Must be very off-putting to the causal fan” (OG, 3/5/04). Indeed, some fans report disliking or being uncomfortable with such talk themselves but, overall, entry into the community necessitates acquisition of this language even where it is then seen as clichéd, laughable, and something to be discarded or at best only used in certain situations or knowingly ironic ways thereafter. Such language is, as “Vr” says, “handy.” Furthermore, it is the context in which CMD of NuWho4 are framed. It is informative in this sense to draw on the socio-psychological theories of CMC developed by Walther (1996) and Walther and Burgoon (1992). This is helpful in focusing not so much on the ways that Doctor Who fans use their computers to inhabit online spaces (although this has a great deal of importance in the wider context of this study as fans switch



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back and forth from viewing to communicating with others in the virtual audience), but in the ways in which interpersonal interaction is played out between the fans. It is important to remember, of course, that CMC is according to Walther embedded in everyday life. It is not easy to separate out the Doctor Who fan’s everyday life into online and offline phases. The Whospeak outlined above, for example, has migrated online from face-toface chat, and back again. The growth of Internet fan communities facilitates this movement back and forth; Whospeak is carried over from the fan’s everyday life into their online chat and vice versa. The usefulness of such shorthand terminology in creating a cohesive community suggests that it serves the function of phatic expressions. As Malinowski (1923) proposes, this can be understood in the sense of performing social tasks. This is not so much small talk as it is grooming talking, that functions to bond and reinforce the social structures of the community and signals membership of the group. The speaker communicates their knowledge of the commonly used and understood terms, even if, for example, they are not in the older fan demographic who originally read Jeremy Bentham’s writings in the early years of the fandom. Phatic communication itself is frequently employed on the Internet in chat rooms, forums and social networking sites, and primarily allows new members access into the discussion group or community and open up more meaningful discourses (Claridge 2007, 87), as well as economising on typing.

Patterns of discussion Haythornwaite and Wellman (2002, 6) suggest that CMC is not “a special system” but is “routinely incorporated into everyday life”. Since television viewing is for the vast majority an everyday occurrence, and for fans perhaps an even more significant one with the return of a favoured series or a favourite character or a much anticipated plot event, we should be unsurprised that viewing (at least in such special circumstances as the fan event) itself can propel the fan into participating in a virtual audience. The audience that one is aware of when one is watching the television expands from a small number of family, flatmates and friends at most to take in all the other members of the online fan communities in which one participates. Whilst the kinds of phatic communication in the examples of Whospeak outlined above do not convey emotion directly – they are used in both face-to-face and online discourse to convey textual competencies – other kinds of online expression have arisen specifically to convey emotion. This can – as the findings discussed here are intended to show – be as immediate and emotional as that which could be experienced within



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the domestic space. Indeed for fans, it can prove to be more so, as their love for and responses to the fan text can be expressed within a community that fully understands and shares that love and those responses (more than with the ‘not-we, the Whospeak term the Doctor Who fans use for those who are not members of the fan community). It allows for more widespread and deeper interactions between fans in the emotional immediacy of the moment (whereas in the past this might have been geographically limited – to local groups of fans meeting up to view an episode, say – or temporally delayed as fans waited for fanzines to arrive in the post or for an annual fan convention). It can thus strengthen the sense of community within the fan culture and further challenges the dichotomised view of online versus offline communication. This work therefore takes an integrative view of CMC and illustrates the move from a geographically-dispersed fan community to a networked social phenomenon. The particular focus here is how the members of a networked community maintain emotional and expressive communication where they do not operate face-to-face. For many of the fans in these groups, the viewing experience was carried across into online activities with the return of the programme in 2005. As already indicated, my main focus here is not to analyse discussion of the text itself (or certainly not any interpretation or meaning making), but rather to explore the ways fans express and share their experiences of viewing the programme. There are several ways in which aspects of the member’s private viewing are carried over into online forums and thus contribute to a sense of belonging to a virtual viewing community. The first of these is the building up of anticipation for coming episodes. Discussion in the months leading up to the screening of “Rose” was prolific; “IRW” (male) asks “what did we talk about before the new series was announced” (OG, “New series trailer,” 19/3/2005). As might be expected with fans having waited 15 years for new episodes of Doctor Who, the most significant factor in the discussion of viewing taking place was in the category of anticipation – not only in terms of speculation (what the programme itself might actually contain, knowledge gleaned during the production process, for example), but how they feel and how they might arrange their viewing to maximise the emotional experience. Whilst the focus here is not on the narrative speculation per se, in terms of an online viewing community a significant amount of this discussion indicates that the members were creating a sense of communal excitement. What is most significant is the sense of awaiting and planning for the broadcast itself. The discussion included how they would watch, who they would watch with (if anyone), and what equipment they needed to watch



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and record episodes, but scheduling possibilities (what date, what time of day) were paramount. Members with inside knowledge would inform the community of significant dates and times – not just for the episode itself but for trailers and previews of the programme. This allowed the fans to coordinate their viewing and go online in order to share in the build-up to the series with the maximum number of fellow audience members in the immediacy of the moment. In the period leading up to the first broadcast of “Rose” a number of teasers and trailers for the new series were screened by the BBC. Of course, such trailers are designed to raise awareness of the programme and act as a hook to attract potential viewers, but for the fan audience there is added value in these trailers. In terms of reinforcing the group coherence in anticipation for the series, each fan knows when the trailer is scheduled to get its first screening and can tune in at that time, knowing that their fellow fans are watching too and will be online immediately afterwards; it is therefore not so random as it might be for the non-fan viewer. The forums thus contained much discussion of, firstly, when the next new trailer might be broadcast (so that fans could ensure they were watching the right BBC channel at the right time, and be ready to record the broadcast); secondly, the fans immediate responses to the trailer (these tended to be reporting of highly emotional reactions concerning immediate feelings and sensations arising from the viewing), and finally (only later once the emotional stage had passed), what the trailers themselves revealed about the upcoming episodes (thus building communal anticipation). Figure 14-1 shows the clear pattern of interaction on OG in discussions of the 50-second trailer premiere on 15th March 2005 (OG, “Full BBC series trailer” 15/3/05); group chat peaks around the time of the trailer broadcasts during that evening’s schedule, at 8pm, 9pm and 10pm. The second way in which private viewing carries over into online forums is with the sharing of their immediate emotional and physical reactions to the episode (and to the trailers as discussed above as well). This discussion takes place immediately after the episode, and sometimes during the episode itself. Such discussion may take place on different threads, especially when fans begin new threads to post about specific reactions or events. Figure 14-2 shows the patterns of posts across a number of major threads during the broadcast of “Rose” and during the evening, over night, and the next morning. Each line shows the peaks on threads started by individual fans during broadcast (dotted), the official thread opened by the forum moderators immediately after the episode to rate the episode (solid), and a second official thread opened the next morning when the overnight viewing figures are announced (dashed).



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Figure 14-1: Patterns of posting on the evening of 15th March 2005 for the 50 second trailer premier.



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Figure 14-2: Patterns of posting on 26th and 27th March 2005 around the broadcast of “Rose.”



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Though these are not the only discussions taking place around the episodes, and they are taken from only one forum, they are nevertheless representative of the patterns of CMC taking place amongst the online audience. These figures clearly illustrate the timeliness that is important in establishing a fan presence, with – as Hills observes – fans rushing to log on and post as soon as possible after the end of the episode. For example, in a post just seconds after the end of a trailer for “Rose,” “db” (m, 29, software analyst) reports that: “I just got called a sad b&%"££$"d by my fiancee for rushing up stairs to get on OG!” (OG, “Full BBC series trailer,” 15/3/05). It is not only the fans who rush to go online in this way; the forum statistics show large numbers of members logging into the forum around and immediately after the episode5. Many of these (since members posting constitute a fraction of those online at any one time) will be lurkers who are content to read what others are saying about the episode. There are obvious benefits to this, not least obtaining reassurance or reinforcement of the fan’s own reactions or responses (a significant proportion of posts tend to be of the “me too” variety) or simply of adding to the rating for each episode on the “Vote [episode]” threads. Whilst research into the pleasures of reading posts and lurking is an important aspect of fandom, more relevant here are the reasons for extreme forms of fan timeliness that lead to fans posting while the episode is still airing (as opposed to waiting until the very end). The majority of viewers might well see this as disrupting the pleasures of viewing (and being transmitted on the BBC, of course, there are no advertising breaks in which fans can post during the episode). There are a number of reasons why fans post during the episode, and also ways in which fans can get around the potential disruption. It is technological change, of course, that has afforded fans the opportunity to post during episodes. With broadband, wireless networks and laptop computers, establishing presence in on online forum becomes just one more activity the fan can indulge in when watching television. As David Morley’s (1988, 96) study of family television makes clear, viewing is not necessarily an attentive activity, but can be incidental and unfocussed. Viewers may well undertake other activities at the same time as they are watching television. Although fans might be expected to be particularly attentive viewers – after all they exhibit dedication and love towards the programme, and generally this appears to be the case – there are a number of scenarios where fans post during the episode itself. Some fans clearly do wish to assert not just the timeliness but the earliness of their online presence by posting during the episode itself, sometimes against the general pattern and flow of discussion (with most



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fans like danbilling rushing on as the end credits or next week trail close). For example, during the screening of “The Doctor’s Daughter” there are 74 posts in 20 threads during the episode6. During transmission, fans are forced to create their own threads since threads created by the forum moderators are timed to open at the end of the episode. The content of the postings are indicative of the reasons behind establishing an early presence. Some fans post in order to establish their cultural competencies, for example by, recognising a slight difference in the theme tune; expressing relief that the daughter, Jenny, referred to in the episode title is a clone and not the result of a past sexual liaison; proposing that the vortex (established at the end of Season 1) was responsible for Jenny’s regeneration; noting the resemblance to classic Who stories with multiple companions; and discussing similarities to “Last of the Time Lords” when the Master died. Other forms of early posting are attempts to get in first in order to form or establish canonical opinion, for example, by posting favourite quotes as they occur in the episode; remarking on the appearance, acting ability, athleticism and appeal of Jenny as played by Georgia Moffett (of especially interest to classic Who fans as she is the daughter of previous Doctor, Peter Davison); discussing Freema Agyeman’s acting (this is a matter of some debate within the community); and assessing Stephen Greenhorn’s writing (comparing it with the relative merits of his earlier episode “The Lazarus Experiment” – an episode which again splits fan opinion). Some fans post early in order to speculate, for example, on whether the mark left on the Doctor’s hand will have any future meaning or whether the episode is a pilot for another spin-off. As with demonstrating knowledge of the text, this represents an attempt to establish fan credentials, though this can be undermined by such speculation being largely premature. Further threads are created to report reactions to particular moments or events in the plot. In this episode, such posts include: a thread that comprises a running commentary of the episode expressing delight at every enjoyed moment or event, posts expressing shock when Jenny is killed off (again demonstrating that early posting can be premature since it quickly turns to reports of relief when she revives), and – in a separate thread started by another member, delight that Jenny has revived; and multiple posts that express appreciation and amusement at the clockwork mouse. Given the time taken to create and submit posts this suggests that in the rush to post, early posters are not necessarily aware of or reading each others’ threads. One other common reason for posting during episodes is to discuss technical problems experienced by the fans or with the broadcast. Such posts are not an attempt to create an early presence or demonstrate fan credentials, but are



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seeking confirmation of problems and possibly share in complaints directed at the BBC. With respect to this episode, there was a single post by a fan having problems with the Freeview7 box, but in other episodes such as “Rose” this can involve problems with transmission by the BBC8. Finally, there is a post in a thread opened by a first-time poster just before the episode ends, that is negatively critical of the anti-war message encoded in the episode. There is no response until after the episode has ended and the other posters largely take issue with the comment (with some thinking that it is a troll9). It should also be noted that there is a thread started three minutes after the episode ends in which “Li” (male, UK) posts: I really wish that people would move AWAY from their computer and actually sit and WATCH the episode while it is airing. {confused emoticon} How can you be giving it your full attention if you're constantly flicking between the forum and your TV?? Do some people really feel the need to be the first to post “OMG! Blah blah blah happened”..or whatever?? Sorry, but it ticks me off!! {roll eyes emoticon}

However, “BB’’s (female, 29, US) response provides one key reason why some fans post during episodes as she says that because she is American she is “living vicariously through the rest of the people here.” (both on DWF, “I wish people would WATCH the episode rather than hanging about on the forum,” 10/5/08). Posting during the episode itself could certainly bring the fan to the attention of non-UK based fans and thus bring them recognition or status. Although a minority, it is clear that some fans establish a presence and possibly gain recognition by going online and commenting during the episodes. As with Morley’s observations of the television audience, some viewers – and certainly many of the younger ones – are comfortable with multi-tasking across several entertainment and communication media (a factor of contemporary audiences is that attention can be even more fragmented than when Morley undertook his research). A case in point is “l949” (male, UK, 16) who posts during the final act of the episode: “Ive had a few friends text me and say that their finding this episode confusing.” (DWF, “Too complicated?”, 10/5/08). Along with the lack of apostrophes and misuse of homophones symptomatic of language use in this age group, this also illustrates the ease with which phone and Internet users can multi-task. Bearing this in mind, it should not then be unexpected that some fans post during episodes. On balance, though, the content of the posts reflects a very similar range of topics to the postings



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immediately after the episode; the early fans are clearly establishing a presence in advance of the timely fans.

Conveying Emotion Given the range of topics that allow fans to establish an online presence and exhibit their fan credentials, how do the members of this networked online audience maintain emotional and expressive communication where they do not operate face-to-face? Baron’s (1998) linguistic profile of CMD suggests that language use online is adapted in a way that emulates the sociable orientation of the spoken word. In relation to expression and emotion, this can include the use of acronyms to indicate a non-verbal expression (as in LOL – laughing out loud), excessive punctuation (multiple exclamation marks or overuse of elipses), font styles suggesting tone of voice or emphasis of words (capitalisation of whole words, phrases or sentences), onomatopoeic or literal spelling of nonverbal expressions (teeheehee), and emoticons (smileys). The language of the Internet in general often comes across as more like speech than writing. Of concern here is the communication of emotional responses to the fan text, and contextual variables are important factors in such forms of expression. It is those variables related to being a part of an online fan audience that are the key factors, including cultural competencies, textual continuity and unrestrained love for the cult text. For example, there were many long-term fans concerned about the impact of the Doctor having a daughter on the ongoing text of Doctor Who when they learnt the title of the series four episode “The Doctor’s Daughter.” This raised concerns about potential continuity problems and explicit in this discourse is the worry that fans will have to write in a daughter (having made the assumption that any such character is unlikely to be a reference to the mother of Susan, the Doctor’s granddaughter in the early Hartnell seasons). In other words, they are concerned about how the production team will retcon a daughter (the term retcon referring to official retroactive continuity) or whether they will have to revise the previously sacrosanct text themselves and write in an explanation for her presence via fanwank, the colourful term that fans use for theories or fan fiction which would iron out any inconsistencies with past stories (which may also include secondary texts such as the Virgin novels). The discussion immediately after the episode (within one to two minutes of the closing credits) expresses feelings about this being resolved. “Hmmm...” writes MattLPearson (Male, Haddonfield), beginning with a verbal tick indicating thought and then continuing with: “so she's a clone wotsit and



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TVs Doctor Who hasn't done rudies with a lady after all. Fandom breathes a collective sigh of relief…”. He ends his post with a wink emoticon, indicating a shared inside joke (OG, “Rate The Doctor’s Daughter”, 10/5/08). Similarly, “Br” (male, 31, York, librarian) says “I'm glad it wasn't his ‘real’ daughter as the continuity would have had fans up in arms for years” (note the Whospeak use of “up in arms”) and like “MLP” ends with an emoticon, this time a laugh to indicate a jokey tone (Roobarb, “Episode 4.6 – The Doctor’s Daughter,” 10/5/08). Such posts illustrate the shared emotions within the fan audience, especially the feelings of relief shared by fans of the classic series, or the “a collective sigh of relief” illustrated with a wink and a cheesy grin. These particular responses are clearly related to the specific cultural competencies and continuity contexts of the text (requiring clear knowledge of classic Who), but many other responses immediately after the broadcast are general emotional reactions to aspects of the NuWho text, including the programmes return. Such responses can vary in emotional tone. “PM” (male, 45, UK, solicitor), for example, expresses ecstasy through asterisked swearing, multiple ellipses and exclamation marks, saying: ******* Hell!! Absolutely amazing… I am 45 and I am sitting here and there are tears in my eyes. I admit it. Awesome. Absolutely… awesome ………I never dreamt I would live through a time like this again. Incredible! (OG, “Full BBC series trailer,” 26/3/05)

It is ecstatic posts like these that use excessive emotional cues, but such cues can also be included in more ambivalent responses –“Cr” (male) again begins with a thoughtful “Hmm?,” though this is now more questioning, and goes on to provide a running commentary on the end of the episode (he posts just before the end) with ellipses used to indicate pauses: Popcorn episode.....and oh dear...she's alive... That shouts to me a children’s spin off in the same spin as Buffy!! :dontpanick: {eek emoticon} Oh dear, oh dear.… (Roobarb, “Episode 4.6 – The Doctor’s Daughter,” 10/5/08)

Again the emotion is conveyed with cues indicating expressions, sounds or gaps in speech. Of course, some fans choose not to make use of emoticons and other indicators to emulate speech-like discourses. Whilst the fans quoted above express their emotions through punctuation and emoticons, others attempt to convey their emotions purely through words. Some become extremely



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eloquent and descriptive, such as in this post by “MacF” (male) reporting his feelings during “Rose”: Time to own up - I managed quite well, until the moment of sheer relief when Mickey was found to be alive, followed by the shock at Clive's demise - this upset me - poor Clive! And when it looked as if Rose's Mum would cop it - blimey, it was too much! So by the time Rose declines the Doctor's offer of a trip in the TARDIS, I was blubbing, I admit it, and the sheer joy of that moment where she runs into the box, that will live with me forever. (OG, “Rate Rose,” 26/3/05)

Conversely, wholly negatively reactions are sometimes expressed with a lack of emotion, as in the post by “Mtm” (no stats): “I was bored.” (Roobarb, “Episode 4.6 – The Doctor’s Daughter,” 10/5/08). The stark words here are, appropriately, devoid of any expression of emotion through emphasis of the text or emoticons (a sleep emoticon is available to posters on this forum). On the whole, such posts can be classified as forms of confession, as “PM” writes, “I admit it” and “MF”s “Time to own up” indicate. They take on a confessional tone with the fan baring their soul and revealing quite openly that they were overcome; thus, suggesting the relative distance and potential anonymity (though many fans also know each other from face-to-face situations such as fan conventions) allows them to let the normal barriers down. This post by “FB” (male, 38, speechwriter, Surrey) on his response to Utopia is typical of such lowering of the emotional defences:

Bloody Hell I really liked the story - a good enough siege (and the BP winner acquitted himself beautifully)10. But the finale…The fan in me, the fan who'd loved the show since 1974, his earliest memory of Doctor Who, wept. Fanwank be damned - that was the perfect Dr Who moment. Jacobi's final scenes threw me back to Delgado. That was the real Master. Jesus wept, I want to forego the next two weeks and just live out the next 90 minutes worth of Saturdays. I'm actually shaking. (Roobarb, “S3 Episode 11: Utopia”, 16/6/07)

In opposition to socio-cultural conventions of gender, it is frequently the older male fans who post emotional confessions in this way. These fans seem to reject the normative gendered discomfort with revealing their emotions, resulting in a nuanced presentation of their responses that requires a degree of verbosity. Any gendered differences in the discourses,



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however, are not clearly delimited. Female and younger fans also adopt similar eloquent, confessional tones alongside indications of cultural competence (her response to the Dalek), as in the response by “nw” (female, student, 19) to the trailer: WOW!!!!!!!!!!! That was amazing, I got stupidly overexcited. Loved Chris talking to the viewer, loved him talking full stop actually. A Dalek in chains, as well! OK, I really need to calm down or I'll do someone, most likely myself, an injury (OG, “New series trailer,” 5/3/05).

Similarly, both male and female posters can take on a tone of excessive emotion and orgasmic ecstasy. For the male fans in particular, this again might seem at odds with images of the (British) male who keeps his emotions in check. The relative distancing of online communities, however, can permit the breaching of such socio-cultural conventions. There are many examples in the forums of male fans referring to “wetting their pants” when they become overcome by emotion during viewing. “DTTL” (male, UK) posts: “That nearly caused a pants wetting incident. Oh. WOW.”; “ees” (male, 41, London) says “I am wet in a gentlemans place........ THAT WAS WICKED!” and danbilling’s also quoted above) replies: “I prefer to say moist myself, but I know what you mean.” (all OG, “Full BBC series trailer,” 15/3/05). This is indicative of the excitement raised in the run-up to the series return, but it can itself be identified as a form of CMD specific to the fan community. The discourse suggested here taps into popular conceptions of the male fan as the sad fanboy, nerd or geek alone in his room getting (sexually) overexcited by the object of his fandom. However, it should be noted that the fans above are self-aware and using such language in an ironic or jokey way. They are not, or not very often, the stereotypically isolated fan who needs to “get a life” (see Jenkins 1992, 9-12). For example, “db” (the fan berated by his fiancée for rushing upstairs to go online after the trailer) explains in a personal e-mail communication how his fiancée was accepting of his fan activities, and that this was something they laughed about as they normally enjoyed Doctor Who together. Nevertheless, in this way, fans are sharing their private experience of viewing in the (semi-) public forum in the immediate aftermath of viewing and it is clear that fans are primarily sharing their mutual excitement. It is one they can share because they know they will be amongst others who understand, as described above where one fan responds to another about their “pants wetting” incidents. To communicate this excitement viscerally, as well as describing feeling orgasmic during viewing or wetting their pants, they also frequently use strings of superlatives, type sounds that emulate emotional reactions and



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become repetitive, incoherent or wordless, representing the excessive emotional response as being lost for words – yet obviously these fans nonetheless feel the need to join in and share their emotions on a purely textual medium. In this way the fans give up on language almost entirely in order to communicate their emotional responses, and this again has a gendered component. Unlike the post above by “nw,” many female fans indulge themselves in this kind of discourse and communicate via what is referred to as squee, the onomatopoeic word for the squeal of delight that an excited fangirl makes, hence the reference to the phenomenon as fangirling. In her response to “The Doctor’s Daughter,” “SE’”(female, 23, NSW, student) posts: Squeeeeee! speechless squeeeeeee sad squeeeeeeee sob sob sob squeeeeeeee OMG!!!!! SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!! (OG, “Rate The Doctor’s Daughter,” 11/5/08)

In comparison with some examples of squee, this post is relatively restrained. In the “Squeetopia!” thread on the Doctor Who forum (17/6/07) “PFTL” (30) simply repeated the line “Squeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee” 90 times. This can serve no other function than to communicate the excess of the fan’s excitement, and is thus a way of presenting fan credentials in terms of suggesting longer and louder squeeing. Whilst these posts are typical of female fan responses, hence the alternative label of fangirling, there are significant numbers of male fans who also contribute similarly wordless and excessive emotional responses. For example, “df2005” (male, 19, Doncaster, shop worker) posts: SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! “shhhhhhhhussssshhhh!” *says a random voice from behind one of the book shelves*{big grin emoticon} Come on Moff11 give us another corker! (OG, ‘Rate Silence in the Library’, 31/5/08)

The total volume of squee on the Doctor Who Forum has risen over the four year period of the study. Much of this is due to female fans, often newcomers to the fandom attracted by David Tennant’s Doctor and John Barrowman’s Captain Jack. Whilst the female fans have “imported” the phenomenon of squee from other fandoms, and thus contributed to the feminisation of Doctor Who fandom12, male fans have also been asserting their presence and emotional fan credentials by posting squee. The male



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fans who squee, such as here, are often the younger fans – and this may reflect feeling more comfortable with the expression of emotion through habitual use of text and internet speak than are older male fans who express their fan credentials through more analytical discussion – and the creative textual aspects of fanwank. Rather than timeliness and responsiveness (and here the fan is posting at 1:42 am, long after most fans have already posted their on-time reactions and logged off), with squee the relevant credentials are being more overcome with emotion. As with other aspects of fandom (high levels of textual competency, connections to members of the production team or insider knowledge, prolific fan productivity, or high numbers of on time postings, for example), projecting a presence based on excessive squee can make the member a fan celebrity. A clear example of the celebrity squeer is provided by the “Whogasm” video featuring two female fans squeeing as they viewed “Utopia.”13 As Figure 14-3 illustrates, the two fans ‘BBB’ and ‘De’ share their viewing experience and emotional reactions with fellow fans by filming themselves watching the episode.

Figure 14-3: Whogasm video. “What if he’s…?” (top left); “He’s the frickin’ Master!” (top right); “Martha, no! Oh fuck, Martha, no!” (bottom left); laughing and clapping, “Did you hurt yourself during that?” (bottom right).



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Web 2.0 and user generated content allows the fan to exhibit their emotionality with their fellow members of the geographically dispersed audience. In this case, the fans filmed themselves for fellow members of their LiveJournal community. In a personal e-mail, “BBB” stated that the focus of their interest in the episode was the return of Captain Jack – this character being a principal focus of their discussions on LiveJournal. In fact, so invested were they in Jack that they claimed to be blindsided by the return of the Master to the series. This is an isolated example perhaps of members of the online audience presenting their fan credentials, but it illustrates a key point about the celebrification of fandom. When posted on YouTube, the video received a lot of attention inside and outside of fandom. When a link was posted on The Doctor Who forum there were 57 postings within a few hours, many of them thanking or blessing the fans, laughing along, sharing their own similar experiences, or making declarations of love and proposals of marriage (though a small number were negative); an entry was also created on Wikipedia14. This can be taken as an example of the spread of squee from the feminine LiveJournal (this blogging site has been a gathering place for female Doctor Who fans to share their fandom and fan fic) to the traditional home of classic Who fandom (which was male dominated), but also as an example of the celebrification of fandom. Squee may be the extreme end of the fan’s communication of emotional responses during viewing, but it and the confessional post have become staples of the online audience responses. In this respect, the move from Anderson’s imaginative communities (1991) to communities of the imagination (theorised by Hills 2002, 180) means that “participants can experience a common affective tie and not merely a common and therefore immediately visible instance of media consumption”. Here, as with danbilling’s rush to go online rather than interact with his fiancée in the earlier example, is a clear example of the way Hills describes the community of imagination as a specific defence against the possible otherness of the discursively inexplicable intensity and emotionality of fandom. In this instance, it manifests in the intensity and emotionality of the communal online viewing which thus validates and reproduces the actual viewing experience that may seem alien to the notwe viewers. Nonetheless, fans are very interested in how the not-we respond and frequently post on the reactions of other members of their offline/real world households. They frequently discuss the reactions of their friends and family and the OG/DWF forums contain a “What did the kids and the ‘not we’s think?” for each episode. The posts reflect not only the concern that Doctor Who is popular and will therefore continue to be made by the BBC (for the same reason the fans come together in the forum



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on the Sunday morning to discuss the overnight viewing figures as soon as they are released in the regular “Ratings, audience share” threads), but can be a validation for the fans’ own (excessive) emotional responses. “TS” (male, 42, UK), for example, sees a reflection of the fan’s typical anticipation and excitement during “Rose”: My 10-year old daughter actually sat on the edge of her seat when Rose first entered the TARDIS. I have never, ever seen anyone, of any age, actually sit on the edge of their seat!!! (OG, “What the kids think…,” 26/3/05)

Similarly, “BP” (male, 45, London, musician) reports a squee-type response in microcosm from his wife: Mrs Blackpig, who came to the episode totally unspoilered, loved seeing Derek Jacobi, screamed when he was revealed as the Master, and jumped up shouting “Oh Yes!” when he regenerated into John Simm. She's been raving about the episode ever since - I think RTD can be very satisfied with the effect his casting choices had there. My daughter was a bit confused, but everybody enjoyed it. (DWF, “What did the kid’s and ‘not we’s’ think?,’ 16/6/07)

Although the fans often separate themselves off from their families and friends by going online in order to participate in an online audience experience, they do endeavour to retain a connection to their real world social situations. In this way, the online audience event facilitated by the Internet and Web 2.0 is, to borrow a phrase from Haythornwaite and Wellman (2002, 7), “embedded in the real-life things that people do”. It thus adds layers of social connectivity to everyday life (rather than – as it is often stereotyped in the image of the sad fan who needs to “get a life”, see Jenkins 1992 – taking one out of everyday life). This supports new forms of interpersonal relationships and enhances connectivity within the fan culture. Such connectivity may take the fan away from their domestic connections but it is nevertheless embedded within them. In conclusion then, whilst this audience segment may not inhabit the same real world viewing space and whilst they may not be watching online (they are still viewing in the traditional sense in their living rooms, often in the company of the not-we, watching on a traditional television set-up, though sometimes with a laptop on their knee), in several respects they do form a community of online viewers sharing their preparations, viewing circumstances and emotional and physical reactions when viewing. Audience research frequently sets out to find out what viewers think or feel about the texts (their readings and responses), or about their tastes and



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viewing preferences. But audience research can (and does) also explore what viewers do – both the circumstances of their viewing and their reactions. Clearly, there are overlaps between the doing of watching a television programme and the feelings it engenders in the real world (private domestic space) and the sharing of these aspects of viewing with the social online spaces of the fan community. According to Sandvoss (2005, 53), such ways of viewing are in response to the way “electronic mass media have created a non-territorial, virtual space of media consumption” which is “nevertheless socially manifest.” Such interpersonal communication extends the physical location of in situ consumption – in this case the private realm of domestic media consumption (the living room) which Sandvoss describes as the most common place of fandom – into the virtual spaces of Doctor Who forums, YouTube, and beyond. Participation in the virtual community activities blurs the boundaries between the two spheres of virtual and physical space. This research has revealed the ways in which this convergence of virtual and physical space is utilised by the Doctor Who fan community to create a sense of an online audience talking about NuWho.





CHAPTER FIFTEEN THE MORAL ECONOMY OF DOCTOR WHO: FORGIVING FANS AND THE OBJECTS OF THEIR DEVOTION JOSHUA VASQUEZ

Forgiving Fans Fandom proposes that individuals and texts can share a unique interaction. The fan embraces a text, then comes to develop a kind of ritual of fascination with that text, and the two proceed to engage in a singular process of communication. This dialogue is representative of a complicated relationship between reader and that which is being read, and this complication is not necessarily a positive one. At the heart of one of the most beloved episodes of one of the most devotedly fan supported television programs, the long-running British sci-fi series, Doctor Who, is an example of just how complicated the fan/text relationship can be. Doctor Who, being an episodic serial, is characterized by having “narrative continuity, but for a limited and specified number of episodes” in which a specific story runs it course within the context of a broader meta-narrative, namely the continuing adventures of a time traveling alien (Tulloch 1984, ix). One of these specific stories to be found within the larger narrative, entitled “The Talons of Weng-Chiang,” has at its center a deeply problematic representation of race, a depiction rarely, if ever, discussed within the larger Doctor Who fandom community. Throughout the narrative appear a number of stereotypical portrayals of Chinese immigrants, with one in particular standing out from the rest, the character of the celestial Li H’Sen Chang, a traveling “master of magic and mesmerism.” Along with the episode’s inscription of various “Orientalist” notions of “the mysterious East,” and its reliance on popular, stereotypical ethnic codes such as a certain Asian “inscrutability” and hostility towards cultural outsiders, there is the fact that Chang is

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portrayed by Caucasian actor John Bennett, performing in full “Asianface” make-up and pigeon English. What this essay will seek to suggest are reasons for the silence surrounding the problematic nature of this portrayal and the general air of stereotype surrounding the episode. What I will propose is that as audiences, fans engage in a kind of love affair with the object of their devotion, and this love can not only signal a deep fascination but can also work to symbolically blind them. This blindness is the product of a kind of forgiveness which occurs between fans and the objects of their fandom in which the fan forgives those objects for their transgressions or missteps and the objects, in part, program that forgiveness within the fan. In the case of Doctor Who and “The Talons of Weng-Chiang,” this programming is the result of an interconnected series of professional production strategies and fan expectations. This essay basically seeks to discuss the alliance between individual and object that is fandom as understood in the interactive arena of the viewer and the televisual text. The “injection” scenario argued by effects studies’ “hypodermic model” maintains that audiences process a television text in the manner intended by its production, while the uses and gratifications model maintains that there is a “variability of response and interpretation” in the engagement between viewer and television (Morley 1989, 1-2). However, Stuart Hall’s encoding/decoding model suggests a theoretical middle-ground where the meaning of a televisual text generates at the point of intersection between encoder-producer and decoderreceiver. The preferred reading of a text, determined by the encoderproducer, relies on a “fundamental alignment and reciprocity, an achieved equivalence, between the encoding and decoding sides of an exchange of meanings” (Hall 2001, 169).1 As David Morley writes, “the point of the preferred reading model was to insist that readers are...engaged in productive work, but under determinate conditions” (Morley 1989, 3). These theories find their reflection in the broad schools of opinion on fandom. There is the image of the fan as a freakish regressive caught in a cycle of naive repetition, described by Robin Wood as the need for “reassurance provided by the passive re-experience of familiar pleasure” (Jenkins 1991, 172). This is the image of fans most often embraced by a popular culture seeking to portray them as “mad consumers, people who accept everything” the text gives them without question (Cornell 1997, 2). Contrarily, Jenkins theorizes a type of fan reading “responsive only to its own loosely-structured rules and generating its own kind of pleasure.” He calls this a “moral economy,” or an “informal set of consensual norms” which enable the fan to navigate the line between challenging the text of their devotion, especially when it is perceived as straying from expectations,



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and remaining loyal to that text’s structures (Jenkins 1991, 172-174). This navigation is similar to Hall’s encoding/decoding process, as it allows for a more active interaction between fan/viewer and televisual message. Yet Jenkins’ conception of the moral economy could be seen as the determinate conditions that limit the productive work carried out by the fan as receiver. The moral economy becomes a kind of social history of the fan audience (Hall 2001, 168).2 Fandom becomes the overarching social specificity of the fan/viewer, and by embracing the object of their fandom, in a sense fans come to dwell within it.3 The moral economy surrounding fandom’s approach to a program can have a negative influence by working to uphold problematic elements of the central text embraced by fans. As specific kinds of readers of a televisual text, fans allow themselves to be programmed by that text because their fascination allows for a particular kind of forgiving receptivity. This is a way of looking at Jenkin’s “give and take” process from a different angle, suggesting that the “rules” by which fans police the text of their fandom can be limiting in a more overtly dangerous way. One possible qualification to this argument is that it transforms the concept of fandom into a universalist category.4 Yet. it is possible to respond that fandom is different in its type of “universalism” in that it represents a very conscious choice on the part of the subject to actively embrace the particularly structured approach to reception that is fandom.5 This is not to suggest that the fan is entirely alienated from Hall’s notion of broader societal and cultural conditions of perception and the resulting political ramifications. Rather, I would argue that there are also cultural determinations inherent in being a fan taking the form of other conditions of perception that regulate the interpretative community that is fandom. I am interested in exploring these fandom determinations. To begin to uncover these conditions, it will be helpful to discuss some of the specific modes of production surrounding Doctor Who, both in terms of its narrative development as an episodic serial and its placement within a more general televisual discourse as specifically a BBC production.

The BBC and Doctor Who As one of the longest running television series in the history of the BBC, having originally aired from 1963 to 1989, Doctor Who was something of an institution before its initial cancellation.6 If for years the now classic Doctor Who was an institution of the BBC, it is also a part of the BBC as institution, which “for much of its history been deeply implicated in the transmission of British ruling culture” (Tulloch 1984,



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35). John Tulloch and Manuel Alvarado suggest a social history of the BBC that centers on the idea that the broadcasting network became a symbol of cultural leadership in Great Britain. Raymond Williams writes that by the time the BBC had become established as a public broadcasting corporation in the 1920s, a dominant version of the national culture had already been established, in an unusually compact ruling class, so that public service could be effectively understood and administered as service according to the values of an existing public definition (Williams 1974, 33).

Tulloch and Alvarado build from this assessment by proposing that the BBC laid claim to this concept of acting in the nations interest wherein national interest was defined in terms of a preexisting cultural hegemony, a major feature of which was the notion that the BBC existed to narrow the cultural gap which existed between the elite and the masses by way of an appeal to a public consensus. Tulloch and Alvarado convincingly suggest that the BBC achieved its institutional status by “clearly demarcating its ‘place,’” and that place was to be in the domain of “Culture,” a system of “quality” representation officially sanctioned by a national and societal order (Tulloch 1984, 36). John Reith, first director-general of the BBC, saw the corporation as a “unifying force for the nation.” It was through its “classical music, plays, poetry, talks, and discussions...that the BBC established itself as an authoritative national cultural institution” (Miall 1994, 8; Kumar 1977, 232). This view lays the groundwork for the traditions of quality programming that prove important when Doctor Who, as it develops as a televisual discourse, situates its fan audience around a literary tradition. And, this will especially prove important for “The Talons of Weng-Chiang,” which centers on a tale set in Victorian London and recalls literature of the period, from Sherlock Holmes mysteries and Bram Stoker’s Dracula to the Penny Dreadful adventures and especially Sax Rohmer’s pulp tales of the “Insidious Dr. Fu Manchu.” By invoking this tradition, and by belonging to the televisual structure of a broadcasting corporation that prides itself on such a heritage, Doctor Who works in conjunction with fandom to mask the more problematic aspects of its creative choices. By 1963, the BBC had established a “world wide reputation for the ‘accuracy’ of its news and for its ‘Cultural’ leadership.”7 Doctor Who was originally envisioned as a children’s program and was “seriously concerned with teaching history and science;” it set out to entertain in order to inform (Tulloch 1984, 38-40).8 However, as the program developed over the years, so did the mandate; by the time of the



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appearance of “Talons of Weng-Chiang” in 1977, the show had long since left behind any conception of itself as an explicit teaching tool. What had remained was the tradition of “quality” storytelling with strong literary roots. By the time of “Weng-Chiang,” new producer Philip Hinchcliffe wanted to take the program back to fantasy by strongly emphasizing a Gothic drama of horror. As he mentions in an interview quoted by Tulloch and Alvarado, we borrowed from science fiction and borrowed from established horror themes and Gothic. What I liked to do was to go to a literary convention...and borrow the trappings of it, and then redress that up within the Doctor Who format (Tulloch 1984, 112-113).

Hinchcliffe’s “successful” era as producer, often referred to as representing the golden age of the program, was partly due to these thoughtful literary overtones, resonances of an aura of intelligent, quality programming. This attempt at the wedding of a literary, more “artful” tradition and a television discourse fits right in with the BBC’s expressed cultural intention of broadcasting entertainment of a certain artistic caliber. Doctor Who’s creative staff, particularly the writers, also took it quite seriously. Robert Holmes, the writer of “Weng-Chiang,” is considered by fandom to be one of the finest writers ever to have worked on the series, having provided scripts which at the time of their transmission were highly regarded for their skillful, “artful” characterizations and fanciful plots and are today still ranked among the most beloved of the series (Muir 1999, 19). Holmes was perfectly at home in Hinchcliffe’s gothic horror conception of the series, so much so that he worked as the program’s script editor during Hinchcliffe’s tenure. Holmes’ popular appeal among fans of the program results in a general awareness of his “talent” on the part of fandom as a whole, a kind of canonization of him as an institution within the overall institution of the program. And this “cherishing” and celebrating of Holmes’ creative abilities acts as a “blinding” cover used to justify whatever methods or choices he should undertake in the pursuit of realizing those recognized abilities. Fundamentally, the moral economy signals fans’ adherence to, and belief in, the object of fandom, and the determinate conditions of that belief. Fans, that is, agree to certain established “realities” which inform the texts that they appreciate and follow. For instance, in Doctor Who fandom Robert Holmes is embraced as a talented television writer whose skill at characterization is matched only by his literate sense of story organization, especially in terms of dialogue and plot development. One of the programs he wrote for the



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series, “Weng-Chiang,” is not only considered a fan favorite among the episodes for which he was responsible but is also popularly acknowledged to be a fan favorite of the series as a whole. The moral economy here suggests to the Doctor Who fan that Robert Holmes and “The Talons of Weng-Chiang” is unquestionably “good” Doctor Who and good television in general. This fact is accepted as one of the rules governing this fandom. As one fan writes, “everybody knows that ‘The Talons of WengChiang’..is one of the greatest Doctor Who stories ever created” (Outpost Gallifrey 2009). Therefore, any problematic elements of Holmes’ writing or of the text itself are papered over by this general acceptance of his overall talent and artistry. The literary, and literate, tradition emphasized in Doctor Who by Hinchcliffe and Holmes feeds into the overall tradition of quality as espoused by the BBC. The program’s placement within the system of artistry as practiced by the BBC also acts as a part of the moral economy or the conditions determining fandom’s appreciation of a given text. “Weng-Chiang” draws on both a Gothic horror tradition of murder and monsters and a Sherlock Holmesian tradition of mystery within the fog bound streets of a darkened 19th century London; as Hinchcliffe himself indicates, “we did a Jack the Ripper story with ‘Talons of Weng-Chiang’” (Tulloch 1984, 112). A further intertextual influence on Robert Holmes’ story is his reliance on the traditions of pulp mysteries, from the Penny Dreadfuls of the Victorian age to the relatively more recent works of early 20th century writers such as Sax Rohmer. At the beginning of the 19th century, the cheapest fiction was a series of poorly and hurriedly produced books recounting dreadful tales of gothic adventure. The gothic craze, begun in the mid 18th century,9 “inspired a host of cheap imitations full of castles, dungeons, ghosts, brigands and villainous monks in tales of terror and mystery” (James 1998, xi). The emphasis of the Penny Dreadful was on the “terrible and marvelous” and “colorful adventure and crime,” usually featured tales of women in peril, and, according to a 1924 article which appeared in The London Times, “did no great harm, and unquestionably relieved a world which was somewhat drab at best” (James 1998, xi-xix). This storytelling tradition, relying as it does on ghoulish mysteries of fiendish villains often running through the night stained streets of London, is a direct influence on Holmes’ “Weng-Chiang.” As proof of this influence, one of the most popular characters of the period, created by Edwin Burrage, was a Chinese adventurer known as Ching-Ching, a figure that Holmes’ actively references in “Weng-Chiang” when he has a “lower class” character refer to Li H’Sen Chiang as “Mr. Ching-Ching.” The escapism inherent in the



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consumption of these pulp works, as indicated by the Times article, also speaks to the engagement of text and reader within fandom. Richard Dyer argues that viewers “may be fully aware of how the media construct(s) reality without thereby being particularly concerned to change the dominant definitions of reality enshrined in those constructions.” Building from this broad assessment, Elizabeth Burns writes that the audience’s “recognition of this double occasion of theatrical performance presupposes a readiness to accept, for the time being, the code” (Tulloch 1984, 64). This code could be understood as a part of Jenkins’ moral economy, a code that signals acceptance on the part of the fan because of its accurate adherence to extra-diegetic traditions. In this instance, Holmes is in part merely being faithful to a long established literary tradition when he characterizes Li H’Sen Chang the way that he does in the episode. In fact, by being faithful in his realization of the many other “colorful” characters of Victorian London who surround the problematic portrayal of Chang, Holmes secures an acceptance of Chang on the part of the fan as a further example of yet another colorful literary Victorian character. As one fan writer mentions, one of the program’s greatest assets is “its fine gallery of adventure-book characters” (Dr. Who Reference Guide 2009). In this instance, a cultural literary history of representation supersedes any larger awareness of racial stereotypes that might very well exist in the hearts and minds of the members of fandom as individuals. As Dyer suggests, the reader (fan) may be aware of the very constructed nature of a representation but, as Burns suggests, can overlook it as part of the code of a “theatrical performance.” Due to the moral economy, the fan of “Weng-Chiang” accepts the racially problematic reality of John Bennett’s portrayal of Li H’Sen Chang because it is a part of Doctor Who’s overall intentions as a television program which, particularly during Holmes’ and Hinchcliffe’s tenure, was concerned with invoking a particular kind of gothic horror tradition and recalling the literature which accompanied that tradition. The moral economy between fan and program helps to “encourage” the fan to see this kind of faithful representation as an artistic achievement rather than as a liability in the sense that the creative forces behind the program are generating “quality art.” Jenkins suggests that the moral economy in part acts as a way for fans to police their favorite program, “rescuing” it from misuse on the part of those who “maintain the copyright” (Jenkins 1991, 174). Yet, there has not been any significant challenge to “Talons of Weng-Chiang” as one of the most beloved episodes of Doctor Who based on this problematic representation of race; if this essay seems to be indulging in an overly general assessment of



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fandom, once again it must be remembered that the portrayal of Li H’Sen Chang is not discussed in any detail when “Weng-Chiang” is mentioned in fandom circles. Indeed, the reverse is often true, as this quote taken from a popular Who fandom website suggests. As the poster writes, the fact that Bennett is not even Chinese but instead an actor wearing make-up is not at all apparent (and would be utterly unacceptable on television today) and his performance is one of the highlights of the story (Doctor Who Ratings Guide 2009).

The writer not only forgives the portrayal, but even “forgives” in the face of an awareness of that performance’s lack of acceptability today. The temporal awareness is quite telling in that it symbolizes a willingness to excuse a problematic text as an example of the kind of art that was “done back then.” In the case of “Weng-Chiang,” as a part of the larger televisual discourse that is Doctor Who, the moral economy is still at work but is acting to limit conversation, rather than stimulate it, by giving the fan a chance to excuse the text. The BBC’s and Doctor Who’s tradition of artistic quality acts in collaboration with the moral economy of fandom to hide the cracks in the facade. Yet the BBC’s “tradition of quality” was not the only progenitor of Doctor Who’s format. In the 1950s, the channel had run a very popular series of television serials featuring the British professor, Bernard Quatermass, who battled against any number of fantastic threats to planet Earth. The Quatermass serials were concerned with working within an “articulate” science fiction tradition rather than mimicking the Flash Gordon or Buck Rodgers conception of the space cowboy, and along with this more refined, dramatic approach came a particular image of Quatermass who, unlike the typical American science fiction hero of the time, “was a man of science, not a soldier or part of ‘the establishment;’ he was an eccentric individualist” (Muir 1999, 8).10 The serials had a great influence on Doctor Who, in terms of both narrative organization and characterization. Like Quatermass, the Doctor stands as an antiestablishment figure; he is a rogue alien presence, “a mysterious hero traveling through space and time,” and “hero” is the key term in this description (Dicks 1976, 9). One of the most interesting aspects of the program’s design is that it has an inbuilt mechanism for, theoretically, endless renewal in that the central character of the Doctor is conceived of as a being who can periodically “regenerate” his physical form.11 Yet the new person of any given Doctor does not represent a deep change of the character’s interiority, but rather just different ways of expressing an



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essential character. While the outer shape and surface mannerisms may change, the character’s fundamental moral position never wavers. Doctor Who, as a continuing series of stories that are all part of a metanarrative, developed a unifying connection beyond the surface trappings of an adventure series by suggesting the presence of a deeply ingrained moral position within its central character, a moral compass which withstood any other changes to the program’s structure. This moral position signals the existence of a series of organizing codes: the Doctor’s “liberal,” humanist values of anti-violence, anti-imperialism and tolerance of difference in all of its forms result in a series of codes which the audience is meant to utilize in making sense of the program’s narratives (Tulloch 1984, 30).12 Fans accept this image of the Doctor as always fighting for justice and equality, always on the side of the downtrodden and always against those forces that represent cruelty, oppression and tyranny, because the program instilled the truth of that characterization within them. If the Doctor’s character has a “fundamental ‘mystery’ coding,” inherent in the title of the program Doctor Who(?), what is not mysterious is his assumed moral outlook (Tulloch 1984, 31). If the fan has questions about the Doctor, it is never about what he believes in and stands for; this is what makes him a heroic figure, one whose fans can always be sure that he will take the progressive positions, the “right” positions. The acceptance of this deep connection between the various stories within the larger narrative that is Doctor Who is also one of the central mechanisms that cues the forgiveness discussed earlier and is a central tenant of Jenkins’ moral economy. This belief in the moral fortitude of the Doctor is part of the shared social history of Doctor Who fandom. If the titular character of the series is portrayed as upholding a certain moral position over the entire period of that series’ 26 years, then it may follow that the program is also associated with broadly assuming that same moral position. It then becomes easier for fans of the program to excuse any slight misstep on the program’s part because they know, in part due to the moral economy, the shared knowledge of fandom about the text: that, overall, Doctor Who always adopts a fundamentally liberal ideological position. It is also of importance that the actor who portrayed the Doctor at the time of the transmission of “Weng-Chiang” was the most popular actor ever to play the part, Tom Baker. Baker “oversaw perhaps the most interesting and eclectic period in Doctor Who history” (Muir 1999, 24). Having played the part longer than any other performer before or since, a total of seven years, Baker not only won over audiences with his magnetic, manic charisma, but he came to be popularly associated with the part in the world outside of the realm of



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Doctor Who fandom. Baker’s popularity was such that his performance inspired a cult unto itself; he thoroughly embraced the part, and the line between star and character was continually being blurred. Admiring his performance acts much like the admiration of Robert Holmes’ writing; a technical appreciation of achievement which can help to cover over, or make easier to overlook, ideological problems with the text itself. If “Weng-Chiang” has, at its center, a problematic racial representation, then beyond the forgiveness of the text offered by fandom because of its being faithful to a host of literary traditions and its achieving of an artistic level of accomplishment based on industrial standards, the program simply can not be operating with any kind of real racism if only because it is inconceivable, from the perspective of fandom, that the Doctor or Baker would ever do such a thing. Again, it is important to point out that the intention of this essay is less to offer a definitive explanation of the exact workings of fandom then to provide some explanation for the leniency extended by the specific fandom of Doctor Who to such a problematic text as “Talons of Weng-Chiang.” After having introduced and offered a possible explanation for this forgiveness, it will be helpful to turn to that text itself and provide more detailed evidence for this position.

“The Talons of Weng-Chiang” “The Talons of Weng-Chiang” debuted in 1977 as part of the 14th season of Doctor Who, a period which has come to be regarded by fandom as the series’ golden age. The program was focusing more and more on what Producer Philip Hinchcliffe sought as a gothic horror tradition flavor to the stories. As John Muir writes, the Doctor “was never better than during these landmark seasons” (Muir 1999, 256). Set in late 19th century London, the narrative concerns the Doctor’s discovery of a war criminal from the 51st century, Magnus Greel, mad scientist, rogue time traveler and cannibalistic fiend. Masquerading as the ancient Chinese god WengChiang, Greel uses the religious devotion of his Chinese followers to track down his lost time machine. One of his most ardent followers is Li H’Sen Chang, a Chinese magician who fills the Palace Theater with his amazing “feats of ledger domain” when not out searching for victims to satisfy his master’s grisly appetite. The opening sequences establish the Palace Theater as a central location for much of the program’s action.13 Holmes begins by presenting the episode in the context of the theatrical. When Li H’Sen Chang first appears, played by white actor John Bennett in Asian-face makeup and speaking in pigeon English with a heavy Asian accent, dressed in brightly



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colored flowing robes, he epitomizes the theatrical past. Fandom takes this first “hint” from the program and adopts a pattern of viewing around it: this time our hero has been deposited in 19th century London, a time that the BBC is known for doing “particularly well” (Muir 1999, 35). Even Tom Baker speaks to this tradition of quality on the part of the BBC when, in response to a question regarding “Weng-Chiang” on his official website, he writes that it was “perhaps the best story I ever did. The BBC is very good at period drama” (www.tom-baker.com 2009). Here Baker can be seen feeding into the myth surrounding the program, describing it as his “best,” and therefore, one imagines, one of his favorites. What is instantly connected to that assessment is an appraisal of the BBC’s tradition of quality in the fashioning of historical authenticity. Fandom is posed to take its cues as how to respond to the narrative from the theatrical within the theatrical of Holmes’ setting of the story mostly within the confines of a theater. This decision calls attention to the theatrical nature of Doctor Who in general as a science fiction series of some literate dramatic and artistic sophistication; it suggests an appreciation be developed for how well the writer and director will recreate turn of the century London. As Tulloch writes, “it is precisely because they are aware of the fictionality of the program’s ‘realism’ that the fan’s pleasure resides in the creation and slow consolidation of a complete fictional world” (Tulloch 1984, 65). The spectacle becomes more important than one characterization and even that characterization works to “excuse” itself. Bennet’s portrayal seeks forgiveness from the fan by not being as grotesquely stereotypical as those a generation earlier, built out of the racist propaganda of nations at war. In “Weng-Chiang,” Bennet can portray Chang with dignity and be excused for playing such a role because of a skillful reserve on his part as an actor. Fandom may point out that Bennett is not playing a “simplistic” stereotype, as if that refusal to play a stereotype as grotesquely as had been done before somehow redeems the fundamental portrayal, as if proposing that a kind of evolutionary theory of a gradual advancement should be applicable to acting. And, the BBC tradition of “fine acting” is apparent throughout “Talons.” Henry Gordon Jago (Christopher Benjamin), the flamboyant theater manager, as well as the character of pathologist Dr. Litefoot (Trevor Baxter), work to remind fans that what they are watching is a well acted piece of drama, filled, as both Benjamin and Baxter’s performances are, with Victorian color. Jago and Litefoot, speaking Robert Holmes’s period appropriate dialogue, provide as much authentic Victorian detail as do the foggy streets and blackened sewers. The fan can enjoy these details



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without looking too much deeper, accepting that color for what it is, theatrical artistry. When Litefoot comments on two dead Chinese men by saying “now I have a couple of inscrutable chinks,” the fan could be left with the impression that Robert Holmes is merely being truthful to the character.14 Later, when Litefoot says to the Doctor “they’re a mysterious lot, the Chinese, enigmatic,” the comment is played as a criticism of Litefoot’s perspective. This is further indicated when the Doctor reproaches Litefoot for a further comment about the oddness of the Chinese use of fireworks at funerals by telling him, with a distantly scornful look on his face, that “they use fireworks to frighten off evil spirits.” And, soon after, when Litefoot is attacked by a group of Greel’s Chinese followers and comments later that “things are coming to a pretty pass when ruffians will attack a man in his own home,” the Doctor responds by sarcastically pointing out that “well, they were Chinese ruffians.” These reproaches are in keeping with fandom’s general image of the Doctor as a crusader for justice and equality. Fans are offered a vision of the Doctor, one having been established for over 14 years by the time of “Talons,” that acts to counterbalance the racial stereotype of Bennett’s portrayal of Li H’Sen Chang by working to remind the fan that the Doctor is not a racist and has always actively battled against such beliefs. One reproach though is far more troubling. When the Doctor first meets Li H’Sen Chang, he asks if they have met before, commenting that Chang looks very familiar. Chang responds, with a subtle sarcasm, “I understand that we all look the same.” Chang as a character is reacting to what he perceives as a racist comment, but the perverse thing is that Chang is himself being played by a white actor; in a sense he has no self, and, as a character, his anger rings hollow. The fan watching the episode knows that the Doctor recognizes Chang from a poster seen earlier, but there is the sense in this scene of something coming uncomfortably close to the surface. Yet, even if the Doctor did not have a narrative “excuse” for his comment, the fan would be inclined to forgive him anyway. It is easier to bypass the racist elements within the program’s own narrative because the shared social history that is fandom acts to remind the fan of Doctor Who’s own “moral” traditions. The Doctor is not only opposed to racist beliefs, but he is a humanist who is willing to sacrifice much for the protection of his friends.15 Tulloch writes that “during the gathering accretions of a long-running series, a devoted audience becomes acutely aware of, and jealous to preserve,” the “‘memory’ of the program” (Tulloch 1984, 68). Doctor Who is, in essence, “protected” by fandom’s



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social history of shared experience of the program, and the intermediality of the program also works towards this goal. When the Doctor first appears, he is dressed in Sherlock Holmesian fashion, replete with deer-stalker cap. His shedding of his usual garb is a further signal to fans that what is to be played before them is something like a special treat where even the Doctor is “getting into the fun.”16 Part of the pleasure of watching the program is this sense of “play acting” which extends even into the diegetic space, itself host to a horde of intertextual references. When Chang descends into the bowels of the theater to find his master Greel, one is immediately reminded of Gaston Leroux’s Phantom of the Opera, and Greel himself wears a mask with a broad brimmed hat and a dark cape, as much like Maxwell Grant’s 1930s pulp character the Shadow as Leroux’s Phantom. A review from one of Doctor Who’s most popular fandom sites17 offers the following commentary: Robert Holmes' tour-de-force 'The Talons of Weng-Chiang' was initially inspired by a story idea called ‘The Foe from the Future’ by Robert Banks Stewart as well as ‘The Phantom of the Opera’ and numerous Fu Manchu films (Outpost Gallifrey 2009).

The juxtapositions are revealing: “Holmes’ tour-de-force” rests comfortably next to “numerous Fu Manchu films.” Sax Rohmer’s creation, the “insidious Oriental” who planned to take over the Western world like “a murderous yellow cloud casting its shadow over England,” was a popular character from the pulp literature of early 20th century, a fiendish “devil doctor” who spawned an entire school of Asian stereotypes (Rohmer 1916, 13). Indeed, Rohmer’s image of Fu Manchu, with his “long, bony hands, fingers twining and intertwining serpentinely...and with the pointed chin resting on the breast of a yellow robe” could be an apt description of Li H’Sen Chang (Rohmer 1916, 101). There are other intertextual references as well. The matching of Greel and the Doctor is a direct echoing of the confrontation between Sherlock Holmes and Moriarty, to the point that Greel’s comment to the Doctor, “you are an unusual man, but in opposing me you have gone far out of your depth,” is almost exactly Moriarty’s appraisal of Holmes when they meet in Doyle’s story “The Final Problem.” These intertextual elements speak to the program’s reliance on literary tradition as a seal of quality. In its attempts to be faithful to a wide range of literary intertexts, Robert Holmes’ script “finds” a way to camouflage itself, and finds appears in quotes because it is also important to point out that this essay is not suggesting that Holmes and company are virulent racists who had some twisted agenda in creating “Weng-Chiang.”



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Rather, it is an example of the power of fandom, in conjunction with Jenkins’ conception of the moral economy, to blind itself to genuine problems, whether intentional or not, within the text.

Conclusion By focusing on “Talons of Weng Chiang,” I do not mean to suggest that this is the only example of such fan blindness to be found in Doctor Who, merely the most salient given the episode, and Robert Holmes’, status as beloved object.18 There have been other problematic racialized “moments” in the series’ history, of particular note and relevancy being the focus on the narratively driven tensions between so called “civilized” and “degenerate” cultural representatives in “The Aztecs” (1964), an episode that finds the Doctor and his companions judging what constitutes the image of a progressive, enlightened civilization while stranded in Tenochtitlan in the 14th century.19 And, as is perhaps common to many science fiction programs and films that depict a range of galactic cultures and civilizations, from the 1930s’ Flash Gordon serials to Star Wars, casting certain characters and cultures in the role of the primitive “other” is another feature of Doctor Who. In such manifestations of what must be considered a kind of colonializing gaze, and a clear throwback to elements of the generic iconography of the Western, a cultural hierarchy is implied by the juxtaposition of a primitivized or backwards and undomesticated force with a more technologically advanced and progressive society that is attempting to civilize both the land/planet and themselves.20 And, this image of either the barely civilized or the threateningly regressing culture is an all too familiar feature of Doctor Who narratives, from the “savage” and regressing crumbling society of primitives in “Death to the Daleks” (1974) to the monster-worshipping, superstitious natives in “Power of Krull” (1978) to the once human cheetah people in the original series’ finale, “Survival” (1989), and even to the heavily tribalized “Future Kind” in “Utopia” (2007), a rare example of the same suggestion of cultural hierarchies from the new series. Rarely commented on, it is perhaps the very generic familiarity of this trope as a sci-fi storytelling strategy that “protects” it from deeper scrutiny, bound up as it is in notions of the science fiction writer’s desire to tell symbolically driven social allegories of futures meant to reflect the cultural tensions plaguing the present. And, because of the often-overt social commentary found in these narratives, such stories in Doctor Who tend to fall under the umbrella of the Doctor’s, and the program’s, liberal, progressive humanism. Inevitably, one group’s xenophobia is challenged



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by the Doctor, revealed as either the result of misguided belief or deliberate hostility, and then fixed by way of philosophical realignment or revolution. And, so the racism and perceived cultural inequality is contained and corrected by the narrative. Yet, “Talons of Weng Chiang” still exists in a separate category. Although the portrayal of Li H’Sen Chang is not as grotesquely stereotypical as one might have initially feared, given the fact that a white man is essentially playing a role in Asian-face, critique of the masquerade is further deflected by the fact that it is not the central focus of the program. The viewer is not expected to take from it some corrective moral lesson but is rather positioned to read the performance as one of many examples of the overall quality of the episode’s fidelity to its source material. As in episodes wherein the fan is positioned to recognize the Doctor’s desire to fix culturally imbalanced societies and battle against racist beliefs, in “Talons of Weng Chiang” that positioning takes the form of fandom’s recognition of the skill inherent in Robert Holmes’ ability to synthesize and adapt generically familiar tropes and of the production team’s and the actor’s abilities to make Holmes’ vision come alive. In the end, the fan is encouraged to always remember their love for the meta-text that is Doctor Who and so blind themselves to ideological flaws within the body of a single text; the fan is encouraged to enjoy “Talons” for what it so clearly is, a good story well told. At the same time, it is important to point out that fandom’s love for the object of its devotion is not merely a manifestation of some essentially regressive spectatorial behavior, an act designed to draw thoughtless pleasure. The fan’s love is also symptomatic of a kind of joy, a want to explore possibilities as much as curtail criticisms. At its best, fandom’s celebration of community offers liberation from dominant patterns of reception by subversively suggesting that fans can gain a certain authority over the objects of their devotion and open new avenues for expansion of, and speculation over, the object itself. And yet, such love can still at times be blinding, a need to possess coupled with a defensive disinclination to look for flaws that too sharply challenge the basic stability or worthiness of the adored object. To the extent that a psychology of excuse making or a want to justify can be located within fandom’s pattern of reception, the systematic avoidance of a certain critical reckoning is an ever-present danger. On some level, fandom represents a want to maintain constancy, a perpetual sameness in terms of the essential quality of that which is enjoyed and loved. It is perhaps not surprising, then, that as specific kinds of readers of a televisual text, fans can allow themselves to be programmed by that television text because their fascination, at times



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bordering on adoration, allows for a particular kind of forgiving receptivity, a shared experience that becomes a kind of social history. This essay does not disagree with Henry Jenkins’ conception of the moral economy; indeed, it posits that that economy does exist, but suggests that that system can work to a negative degree as a limiting force, as much as a positive one for encouraging individualistic readings. The goal of this essay has been to offer a possible suggestion as to why, when it comes to one specific, problematic text drawn from within the context of a larger program featuring an extremely loyal fan base, fandom has been silent for so long.





CHAPTER SIXTEEN DOCTOR WHO FAN VIDEOS, YOUTUBE, AND THE PUBLIC SPHERE JEREMY SARACHAN

Twenty years ago it was great fun to watch Doctor Who on a Saturday night with friends in the comfort of your living room. This weekly bonding experience was perhaps the only occasion to share the joy of Doctor Who fandom. A few fans might have engaged in writing fan fiction or creating fan videos (fanvids), but sharing these creative endeavors was difficult, with the occasional science fiction convention serving as the primary distribution hub. Now, with the growth of Web 2.0 and content sharing sites like YouTube, anyone can contribute, view and comment on fan-created works, establishing a global forum for narrative exploration and the redefinition of what it means to be a fan of a fictional program. The ability of fans to engage the content of a program through their own creations magnifies their interest and dedication, satisfying the needs of a show’s creators by increasing ratings. More significantly, fan interactions reflect the revival of public discourse missing since the development and growth of electronic mass communication in the last century.

Doctor Who and the Media Ecosystem Adding to the existing canon of the established series, Doctor Who, fanvids and text-based stories create a more comprehensive fictional universe. For Doctor Who fans, the collection of professional and nonprofessional productions leads to a new variant of a media ecosystem. The traditional definition consists of the non-fiction world of traditional journalism (newspapers, magazines, television, radio) combined with online news websites, blogs, reader comments, and various forms of citizen journalism (Lasica 2003, 71). A media ecosystem offers a large

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quantity of information that supposedly leads a reader/viewer closer to objective truth. As Lasica (2003) explains, “[n]o one should expect a complete, unvarnished encapsulation of a story or idea at any one weblog. In such a community, bloggers discuss, dissect and extend the stories created by mainstream media” (71). This multithreaded conversation between professionals and nonprofessionals leads to greater understanding of a topic given the proper synthesis and analysis. Grove (2008) expands the definition of a traditional media ecosystem to include video through his discussion of YouTube’s news ecosystem. Mainstream and alternative media and individuals post non-fiction news with the objective to attract some of the millions of YouTube users who can post comments about the videos and form a public discussion (28-30). Doctor Who videos on YouTube (including both the BBC series and fanvids) create a two-way relationship that ultimately leads to more elaborate and complex stories. Parkin (2007) explains that canonicity helps fans decide what “counts” from among all the alternatives (258-259). However, the sense of reality within the show helps fans appreciate the alternate views presented by fanvids that fall outside of canon. This amalgam of stories and remixes functions as an alternative form of a media ecosystem. 1 Like the balance between blogs and the mainstream press, Doctor Who fanvids and the BBC program form an online community of creative expression and critical commentary between fans and producers, offering fans more interactive ways to experience the show and allowing producers to receive feedback about stories fans wish to see while also benefitting from gaining viewers who possess a deep commitment to the program’s mythos.

Doctor Who and the Public Sphere The description of a media ecosystem has its roots in Habermas’s definition of a public sphere. His explanation begins with French Bourgeois society of the nineteenth century, when public discourse occurred in coffee shops and other similar meeting places. Although the participants were limited to men of an elevated social class, within that defined group specific rules determined whether a public sphere could form. Specifically, the rules state that all participants must function as equals, share a “common interest,” and practice “inclusivity,” allowing others (of the same social class) to join (Habermas 1989, 36-37). Technological development and the rise of the mass media in the twentieth century had an inverse effect on the level of public discourse as the “mass-produced and mediated culture” only offered “a medium for



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commodity consumption” (Busch 2007, 4). To reach larger audiences, the mass media had to appeal to “servile, uncritical, and economically dependent consumers” that had no time for “reasoned public debate” (Finlayson 2005, 13). However, in the twenty-first century, the increased use of computer-mediated communication has led to a redefinition and reformation of the public sphere, emerging from the transition of physical meeting space to cyberspace. Saco (2002) suggests that “[i]f we rethink spatiality, we can begin better to understand how cyberspace becomes a social space…that is challenging and changing the ways we think and do politics” (17). The blogosphere and other forms of citizen journalism have redefined the form of the public sphere (Thompson 2003). Traditionally, the concept of the public sphere has specifically related to discourse about non-fiction politics and philosophy. However, the same rules that define the public sphere (equality, common interest, and inclusivity) also may define how digital technologies raise the level of discourse between those who discuss, reevaluate and repurpose fictional programs. The digital social space consisting of fans and producers broadens the definition.

The Equality of Fans The first requirement for a public sphere requires that all participants are treated equally and that their opinion is given equal weight. Posting a video on YouTube is both free and without censorship. YouTube permits any registered user to post videos of up to ten minutes in length and production quality is not a consideration for posting. Copyright violations, while common, are being reexamined, and do not normally limit the ability to upload. Prior to YouTube and Web 2.0, distributing a Doctor Who fan video could be a challenging process. Producers were forced to copy VHS tapes or show videos via public access cable. But despite the difficulties, fan videos still were created. Members of “British fan clubs produced original episodes of Doctor Who, sometimes filming in the same gravel quarries as the original series” (Jenkins 2006b, 144). Producing the show in one’s backyard was both thrilling and provincial. Video production requires access to computer technology and knowledge of at least rudimentary nonlinear editing. Issues of the digital divide do limit access for some, but the increasing availability of computer and multimedia technology (whether at home, in schools, or in public libraries) creates some level of equality for most fans. For those who can acquire and learn and the required tools, the act of creating videos on



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YouTube “provide[s] an opportunity for the experimentation with new artistic forms, much as the emergence of sampling technology provided an opportunity for new musical genres to be explored and developed” (Bruns 2008, 238). Both the show’s reemergence in 2005 and these ongoing creative endeavors bind fans closer to the show and give the program a permanence that can overcome the frustrations of pauses in production and distribution. Additionally, more participants can join the ongoing discussion on YouTube through the ability to make comments. This text-based interaction, admittedly varying in substance and quality, creates an opportunity for fans to share ideas and opinions and engage with others whom they’ve never met in person. YouTube functions as a mini-browser; the site’s search function allows users to find videos on various topics. The search function also reveals “Related Videos” on the right hand side of the window, helping users to discover videos by the same producer or with similar titles and subjects. This list forms a visual conversation; videos also can be posted as a direct response to others. And, by showing the quantity of views, YouTube allows one to consider popularity as a factor when deciding whether to watch. These interactive elements facilitate discourse and break the conventions of one-way mass communication from producer to consumer. Andrejevic (2008) explains that users of the Television Without Pity website2 “pride themselves on belonging to a knowing and critical subset of viewers…” (31). For Doctor Who fans, the discussions surrounding the repeated phrase “Bad Wolf” in the first series of the new Doctor Who “demonstrate[d] to the production team that both hard-core fans and a mainstream audience had enjoyed engaging in the hype that it generated.” Further fan discussion of the role of “Torchwood” in the second season and the identity of “Mr. Saxon” beginning in the second season and continuing through the third intensified interest in the show (Perryman 2008, 28-29). This two-way conversation between producers and viewers energizes the show and requires the writers to create a complex narrative that demands this high level of analysis. Both videos and text commentary create discussion, and professional and amateur producers and all fans generally can participate on some level. The availability of the BBC Doctor Who program on YouTube has eliminated the delay of worldwide distribution, allowing more fans to access episodes simultaneously and increasing the numbers of fan who might engage in public discourse. In America, broadcast of the series via the Sci-Fi Channel or BBC America sometimes occurs months after the initial broadcast in England. However, the significance of this first



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showing of the episode is diminished as a result of the postings of entire episodes on YouTube (in ten minute segments.) These postings generally are of relatively low quality; nonetheless, the “Related Videos” feature leads viewers easily to the next chapter. The videos may serve as teasers to fans preferring to watch the series in front of the television screen (either live or with a DVD/DVR) or alternatively they may decrease television viewership. Whichever is true, the series’ placement on YouTube allows greater access for viewers and the opportunity to comment on the segments directly and create a discussion literally under the video. Fans communicate with other fans while the video of the show is literally at their fingertips. This offers an improvement over standard discussion boards because of the proximity of the program and the larger potential audience—YouTube’s audience size certainly qualifies it as a “mass media.” While some of the resulting discussions are banal, they nonetheless connect fans to each other and provide social gratification. Outside of England, past delays of many months (or years) that occurred between the broadcasting of episodes during the original series inhibited a common experience and fragmented the audience in different countries (and even cities, depending on how the show was acquired/scheduled by individual PBS stations in the United States.) Now, the YouTube postings combined with scheduling of the show on national cable stations unify fans. Given the plentiful platforms for fan-created texts, common familiarity with the original episodes improves both the viewing experience of the fanvids and the overall promotion of the program. Despite the obvious copyright violation, many full episodes, edited into shorter segments, remain available. In fact, the BBC has been at the forefront of encouraging experimentation with its content (Jenkins 2006a, 242-243) and, unlike other producers/networks, seems to see the benefit of multiple forms of distribution. The dual use of YouTube for the BBC program and for fanvids helps to situate the site as a media ecosystem and satisfies Habermas’s requirement for equality of rank for all participants.

Fans’ Common Interests The second requirement for the formation of a public sphere requires that participants share a common interest, a trait that also defines a fan. With focus organized on certain themes or motifs, Doctor Who fanvids also can be organized by their content. One genre of Doctor Who fanvids showcases the technical prowess of the producers through the act of updating special effects or title sequences.



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In a second genre, editors transform program footage into music videos, focusing more on the typically deemphasized emotionality of the program. The visceral experience of music videos offers a counterpoint to the science-oriented, non-religious, and action-driven series. A third genre attempts to fill in details of canon missing from the program or retell story details. Fanvids relate alternate versions of televised episodes, and so while canonicity of the program is not threatened, the ease of manipulating original sources points to a flexibility which fans embrace. The subcategories of fan fiction are described by Busse and Hellekson (2006) and include those most relevant to Doctor Who: “episode fix” to change “an event provided in canon to a deliberately non-canonical, preferred conclusion” and “episode tag or missing scene,” which is “a continuation of a canonical scene that provides more information” (10-11). This ability to create multifaceted versions of (fictional) narrative heightens the challenge of viewing the show, broadens the mythos, and adds greater meaning and complexity to the show’s themes and characters. Title Sequences and Special Effects. The opening titles of the program have been updated throughout the program’s run, and the overall development of visual effects technology can be seen in these increasingly complex sequences. As a response to these innovations, fans have been inspired to remix and create credit sequences of their own. Multiple versions are available and include David Tennant featured in Tom Bakerstyle credits (“Doctor Who David Tennant Tom Baker Intro” 2009), Matt Smith featured in Peter Davison-style (“Doctor Who Matt Smith 80s Retro Intro” 2009) and even entirely original credits (“Doctor Who 2010 Matt Smith Titles [Fan Made]” 2009). The opening sequence has been an important identifier for each era of the long-running series. The increasingly complex effects have represented the stages of the show’s gradual transformation (and function as a parallel to the regenerations of the Doctor.) In this way, fan recreations of the credits reflect a desire to collapse and unify the history of Doctor Who. Seeing a 1960’s Doctor featured in twenty-first century credits unifies the series and attempts to compensate for the show’s early technological shortcomings; the creation of new visuals give its creators satisfaction in improving the show’s original effects. For the same reasons, other fans reinvent the special effects from the original series to match the technological quality of the current series; simple cross-fades and inconsistent regeneration effects are updated to reflect the new “fire” regeneration effect (“Doctor Who - Planet of the Spiders Updated” 2007 and “Doctor Who - 4th Regeneration Re-Vamp [New FX]” 2008). Other fans create a convincing regeneration effect with



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their own actors (Connor 2008).3 Reworked regenerations also strengthen the continuity between series. As the second series has established one visual effect for all regenerations, fans have updated the older regeneration sequences to bring consistency to the series as a whole. Mainstream releases (consider the historical DVDs of the Lost in Time Collection of Rare Episodes) tend to emphasize the distinct eras of the show. By defying the need to classify (and merchandise) each Doctor, fans collapse the eras together. Music Videos.Thousands of Doctor Who fanvids can be found on YouTube.4 Music videos are a significant proportion of them as they allow fans to personally reflect on the program. This format supports Jenkins notion that “fans continue to respect the creators of the original series, even as they wish to rework some program materials to better satisfy their personal interests” (Jenkins 2006b, 55). The relationship between the Doctor and Rose is explored in numerous videos, primarily mixing footage from the first two series, especially their final scene together in “Doomsday” (originally aired July 8, 2006). With a fairly high number of viewings (over 12,000 as of September 2009), “Doctor Who –Time (Doctor/Rose)” (2009) exemplifies this subgenre in its use of newly designed special effects (the vortex) combined with select scenes from the show, and accompanied with a single song (“Time” by Chantal Kreviazuk). The video has a slick and professional look and the preexisting narrative is made more poetic and sentimental. Despite the slowly emerging two-year subplot of a growing love between the Doctor and Rose in the first and second series, the action/science-fiction genre to which Doctor Who belongs minimizes the screen time focused on this relationship. The videos allow fans to process and mourn the failed love between the Doctor and his companion. If Rose’s return and second departure from the show in “Journey’s End” (originally aired July 5, 2008) seemed an unsatisfying resolution to the Rose storyline, the sincere emotions felt by fans at the end of “Doomsday,” magnified by the numerous fan videos celebrating and dealing with the Doctor’s loss, may have made Rose’s return something of a betrayal after the show made it clear that the Rose and the Doctor would never meet again. Furthermore, the placement of Doctor Who within the genre of music videos is a technically easier method of creating fanvids: an entirely new soundtrack is added, increasing the flexibility of how the scenes may be edited, while creating a new narrative suggested by the lyrics. Given the popularity of music videos generally, this remixing of programs and formats heightens the importance of Doctor Who by placing it alongside popular music. The iconic status of the show is magnified through a connection to other pop



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culture. In fact, songs by popular artists score numerous videos. A tribute to all of the incarnations of the Master features a song by the band Reel Big Fish (“Doctor Who: Somebody Hates The Master” 2008); and Great Big Sea’s cover of REM’s “The End of the World as We Know It” provides a suitable soundtrack for the entire series (“The End of the World As We Know It [Doctor Who Tribute]” 2007). Bridging Continuity Gaps. Other fanvids bridge the sixteen-year gap between the old and new series. While some fanvids offer an amateurish or cartoonish regeneration of the eighth to ninth Doctor, one impressive production takes footage from the eighth Doctor’s TV movie and Series One footage of the ninth Doctor to recreate the scenes leading up to and following the regeneration (“Doctor Who: 8th regeneration version 4” 2008). Multiple fanvids suggest that this regeneration occurs during the war that destroyed Gallery, a significant backstory for the new series. This link between the two periods of the show allows fans the ability to cognitively connect the two series and also offers challenges (because of lack of footage and the need to invent narrative details) to recreate the much-talked about and never viewed events of the Time War. Like the plotlines of the Big Finish audio adventures which create moments such as the meeting of the sixth Doctor and the Brigadier (Hills 2007 282), the YouTube fanvids create missing canon that fans wish they could see. This addition of detail redefines Doctor Who as more than merely a television series. Fans need to create the details of the show during hiatus or between seasons. The narrative always continues for fans, despite delays in programming, and fanvids help to maintain viewer interest and excitement between series. On YouTube, even unreleased previews of upcoming episodes (presented to and filmed by fans at conventions) garner over 100,000 viewers (“Doctor Who-End of Time Trailer-fixed,” 2009). Solving Plot Inconsistencies. Fans also may focus on plot inconsistencies to recreate scenes and rework the overall narrative. From the original series, one concern involves the regeneration of the companion Romana in the story “Destiny of the Daleks” (originally aired September 1, 1979-September 22, 1979.) As Tulloch (1995) points out, “fans…do not usually enjoy episodes which overly undercut that myth” (148). Romana’s regeneration at the beginning of “Destiny of the Daleks” appears to have been motivated by nothing other than vanity as she whimsically changes bodies before settling back to her initial choice in the scene. (This would be akin to humans throwing away decades of life to improve their appearance.) Tulloch points out that this inappropriate behavior “infuriated many fans” (Tulloch 1995, 148). As a result, fans have tried to provide pseudo-scientific rationales for what occurred. Fan videos have offered



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solutions, using the torture that Romana experienced in the previous story, “The Armageddon Factor,” (originally aired January 20, 1979-February 24, 1979) to explain the regeneration; “Dr. Who-Romana Regeneration” (2007) adds the new series regeneration special effect along with appropriately dramatic music. Ultimately, fans share common interests about Doctor Who and therefore fulfill the second requirement for a public sphere.

Inclusivity and the Empowerment of Doctor Who Fans The third requirement of a public sphere is inclusivity, or the ability of new fans to join the ongoing discourse. YouTube’s popularity leads naturally to acquiring new viewers and fans. While fan text-based fiction usually exists on program-specific websites, YouTube’s enormous popularity allows it to reach viewers who may not initially be interested in participation, but by example may eventually comment on fanvids or even create them. This empowerment of fans also has positive effects for the producers of the show, solidifying fan loyalty through active participation. Such behaviors are relatively new. In 1995, Tulloch wrote about the powerlessness of Doctor Who fans, primarily depicting them as merely having “the power to gloss, and to write the aesthetic history of the show” (145). However, in “Star Trek Rerun, Reread, Rewritten: Fan Writing as Textual Poaching” (2006b), Jenkins redefined the role of fans, suggesting that “reading [texts] becomes a kind of play, responsive only to its own loosely structured rules and generating its own kinds of pleasure” (39). This resulted in fans continuing to write fiction, produce videos, and discuss ideas at science-fiction conventions, despite limited distribution. Jenkins (2006b) explains that eventually the media companies began to see the value in audience participation and slowly revised their policies. Jenkins’ definition of participatory culture reflects this cautious yet cooperative attitude between users and producers. Whatever its motivations, convergence is changing the ways in which media industries operate and the ways average people think about their relation to the media… companies may be forced to renegotiate their relationship to consumers.

According to Jenkins, this does not occur because of a benevolent wish to “empower the public,” but because of economic advantages that include creating “consumer loyalty” and “multiple ways of selling content to



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consumers” (Jenkins 2006a, 243). While copyright issues are clearly in question, fanvids continue to remain accessible to the general public. Fanvids permit the creation of material closer to the nature of the original source material (video), and YouTube provides a distribution mechanism potentially equal to that of broadcast television. This motivates more fans to create as their video work has more in common with the original. Despite beliefs that amateur and professional content could not coexist, the success of YouTube and the benefits to corporate media through the encouragement of fans and promotion of the program has led to an effective symbiotic relationship (van Dijck 2009, 51-53). Indeed, the categorization of Doctor Who as science fiction corresponds to the fanvids’ themes. Special effects and scientific “accuracy” are among the elements addressed and reconsidered/remixed. Fans can be technologically innovative, like the Doctor, and this identification increases loyalty to the show. Without new BBC episodes, the interest of fans (and the number of fans) would certainly decrease, but fans allow the show to continue across different media. YouTube’s unique capability to potentially give fanvids the same viewership as the show suggests that all professional and amateur producers could reach a mass audience. In this way, inclusivity is achieved. While Baoill (n.d.) suggests that new blogs are not truly inclusive as the quantity of blogs and the isolation of each individual blog creates a “barrier again universal access,” YouTube’s common gateway negates this barrier while individual blogs remain lost in the blogosphere. The (il)legality of Fan Videos. Inclusivity could be limited by the removal of fanvids from YouTube due to copyright violations. To circumvent this issue, fanvid creators frequently will post a disclaimer or request for leniency in which they explain that their work is not intended for profit and they fully acknowledge the BBC as owners of the characters and video footage. This acknowledgement of the BBC as holding the copyright is virtually expected among the fan community, and the lack of financial gain is perceived as a major shield against prosecution (Tushnet 2007, 64). However, this apologetic language offers little protection. Fortunately, the rules of fair use do allow for parody or a change in the original in such a way that a new work with new meaning is created. Ultimately, the producers of fanvids argue that their work should be considered as fair use since the remixing of scenes and general use of the Doctor Who mythos does not “replace” the television series; a fan/viewer would not choose to watch the fan-fiction in lieu of the television show. (Trombley 2005, 657-660). Additionally, the video portion of fanvids is “noncommercial and transformative,” and although the work is fictional,



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only a “small portion” of the original is used. “[F]anvids do not substitute in the market either for the original or for derivative works” (Trombley 2005, 671-672). However, the non-diegetic music frequently added to footage to create music videos (discussed below) is typically included in its entirety and less likely to fall under fair use. The ease in which these music tracks can be downloaded in their unedited, non-transformative state (the song sounds the same) makes it much more likely that copyright is being violated (Trombley 2005, 674-675).5 Fortunately, the BBC understands that the creation of a public sphere focused around its shows boosts ratings. For cult series, fan involvement has created sufficient interest to keep a series on the air or at least maintain interest around a series after its demise. Almost two decades ago, the popularity of Twin Peaks (1990-1991) was maintained through its presence in different media (including books and movies) and Internetbased discussion that some fans even believed may have influenced plot decisions made by the creator and writer David Lynch (Jenkins 2006a, 119-133). Currently, Lost, despite having lost some audience through the years, maintains active online discussions (“Lost – Message Boards – ABC.com,” n.d.). At the BBC, fandom has been embraced rather than punished, as the BBC has “chosen to embrace the audience-building possibilities YouTube offers” (Trombley 2005, 648). While business practices have moved ahead of the letter of the law, the ease of copying and transforming will only demand additional considerations about how fair use can be defined. The creative possibilities of technology outpace legal restrictions. Changes will be made as the rhetoric surrounding fair use changes. From one perspective, using a DVR or copying tunes from a CD to an iPod could be considered copyright violation. However, stronger emphasis on the rights of the user and the acknowledgment that users are no longer passive consumers may clear the way for up-to-date revisions of copyright law (Postigo 2008, 1021-1022). Legal revisions or corporate acceptance of copyright violations remain critical for the continued creation and distribution of fanvids. Fortunately, the benefits of engaging both hardcore fans and mainstream viewers (who may passively watch YouTube videos) create an economic incentive to “look the other way” and allow the inclusivity required of the public sphere.



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Doctor Who and the New Public Sphere The BBC program Doctor Who along with fanvids and fan commentary have led to a new kind of media ecosystem, based in fiction rather than news, politics and sociological discourse. This umbrella of creative works is even more expansive and includes entirely original videos like “Doctor Who: The Penultimate Showdown” (2008) which uses contemporary, outdoor settings, static camera angles, and some amusing dialogue to create an all-new episode: “The Doctors [sic] Destiny” (2009) which features detailed backgrounds and impressive puppetry; and “LEGO Doctor Who Episode 1: Invasion of the Blockheads” (2008) which uses the popular building toy as the foundation for the original adventure. Additionally, the growth of Machinima, which use existing 3-D animation tools available through Second Life and other virtual worlds, allows producers to create computer animated stories in which avatars are controlled by real actors, and the sets are either found or created within the virtual space. This innovative use of technology6 puts the ability to create high quality, affordable animated productions in the hands of fans, and increases accessibility for all. Although these productions can be seen as an extension of filmmaking, Jones (2007) views them as “transformative play” similar to the rising importance of video games as a unique mass media. “[T]he player-as-producer paradigm proposed by open-system games offers tremendous potential for fan cultures across all media.” Gamers can expand their involvement as “insatiable fans” (277-278). Participation in the media ecosystem of Doctor Who by producers, writers and actors increases as a result of these technological innovations. Other interactive options for fans include creating virtual worlds that depict and allow users to become their favorite television characters. While the video game, “The SIMs,” is used for some interactive play (although not necessarily Doctor Who) (Stein 2006, 254-257) groups within Second Life use Doctor Who characters for role play. Indeed, fans’ uses of virtual environments suggest another area for future study. Certainly the flexibility of virtual worlds and Machinima allows the plots of fanvids to be as varied as text-based fan fiction. These possibilities can only increase public discourse about the show as the flexibility to explore characters and plots multiplies.

The Future of Public Spheres The proposition that the public sphere should be applied to fictional texts, as opposed to political and philosophical concerns, may seem ironic



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at best or shameful at worse. However, the basic objective of increasing engagement is found in both societal discourse and fandom. Considering the science fiction genre, fans of other television shows and films (Battlestar Galactica, Star Wars, etc.) also create fanvids that can be found on YouTube. Public discourse around fictional television emerges in online discussions and the distribution of fan work. Potentially, this newfound acceptance of public discourse may, in turn, spread to political discourse, fulfilling the initial promise of the original public sphere. At present, the media ecosystem is expanding, and public spheres have formed, even if the topics generally stray from societal concerns. However, as comfort with public discourse (through online text and other multimedia) becomes commonplace,7 Public spheres may revert to their original purpose. As social and global issues continue to multiply, fans and other Internet users may, like the Doctor, choose to travel (virtually), get involved, and even try to save the world.





PART VII. OTHER CONSIDERATIONS



CHAPTER SEVENTEEN TOWARDS A DEFINITION OF SATIRE IN DOCTOR WHO ANDREW O’DAY

Satire has long flourished in different periods and medias, from the ancient writers Horace and Juvenal’s, to the Restoration and eighteenthcentury satires of John Dryden, Jonathan Swift, Alexander Pope, and Dr. Samuel Johnson, from Spitting Image to Michael Moore’s films. It has long been recognised, including in relation to Doctor Who, that satire attacks aspects of our own society through ridicule, wit, and exaggerated lunacy, and therefore runs a lot deeper than simply making fun of something. In this respect, satire is often non-naturalistic. However, while attending to these moments, this chapter will provide a more exhaustive definition of how satire works in Doctor Who. The first part of the chapter will provide a general discussion of why satire and science fiction make such perfect bedfellows, and of the features of satire in Doctor Who. In this respect, the chapter follows the same kind of structuralist methodology of looking at recurring features in a type of text which Vladimir Propp (1928) applied to fairy tales, and will bring the same level of detail to satire in the programme that has been accorded to the historical and to the gothic. The chapter then revolves around a series of close readings of Doctor Who narratives - both from the classic series (1963-89) and from Russell T. Davies’ reinvention (2005-) - tying them to these features or showing how they differ. These features occur in satires by different authors and made in different production contexts, but the chapter looks at the textual features of satire rather than at authorial intent. In so doing, the chapter positions Doctor Who in relation to its wider cultural context - economic, political, and institutional.

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Science fiction, Doctor Who, and satire Since satire is an attack on aspects of our own society, it is not surprising to find it in science fiction since much science fiction is allegorical (meaning “speaking otherwise”) where the alien planets in science fiction texts stand for our own. As Bernadette Casey et al., for example, argue, science fiction “tends to deal in metaphors” that are “often symbolic representations of something other than is manifest” (2002, 208). Science fiction allows for allegorical expression since allegory involves the construction of different layers of symbolic meaning, just as science fiction invites its audience to understand alien worlds as symbolically parallel with their own. While there is no rule dictating that all satire need be allegorical, Doctor Who features what is known as satirical allegory. Among the many critics to have written about satirical allegory, George Austin Test notes that “Satiric allegories…are those in which the satirist creates a fully delineated culture, society or world that is clearly allegorical”, so “such satire operates allegorically by projecting…two levels of reality: one in which the audience exists, the other the fictive world of satire” (1991, 187-8). Satirical allegory is therefore a term coined to describe texts such as Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels (1726), a satire of human nature, and George Orwell’s Animal Farm (1945) (Test 1991, 188), which engages in exaggerated lunacy to reflect on the Stalin era: animals take the role of revolutionaries and transform the farm into one where all animals are, at first, equal. In Doctor Who’s satirical allegories, these alien worlds are also dystopian ones, as indeed was the farm in Orwell’s earlier text. Dystopian science fiction and satire make perfect partners since dystopian science fiction exposes the destructiveness of social arrangements where all is not right, and since satire is a critique of aspects of our society. Dystopian fiction is the opposite of utopian fiction (from the word “ou-topia” meaning a “no place” and “eutopia” meaning “a good place”). Utopian fiction offers environments that can also serve as critiques of present day social arrangements or as models for the development of human culture. Therefore, it has been argued that utopian fiction and satire both shed a critical light on our society (see, for example, Robert Elliott’s The Shape of Utopia quoted in Test 1991, 188-9). Indeed, Sir Thomas More’s Utopia (1516) can be seen as containing humourous satire directed at Europe, which is contrasted with the utopia of the island. Dystopia, the term for accounts of a “bad place,” therefore, serves a similar function of critique, expressed differently.



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Since satire is an attack on aspects of society, it can introduce a series of binary oppositions, which are opposing pairs of ideas such as good/evil, and hero/villain. Satire works in opposition to one side of a binary structure through critique. Brian A. Connery and Kirk Combe, for instance, have noted that “Perhaps more than any other genre, satire is…structured on the basis of oppositions or hierarchies” and they write that, “in satire, these oppositions are represented in their extremes” (1995: 6).1 While Doctor Who features binaries such as good/evil and hero/villain, in the satires considered in this chapter, more specific aspects are opposed, and these are indeed represented in extremes. A couple of recurring figures are also important to Doctor Who satires. Firstly, since satire is an attack on aspects of our society, the figure of the monster is key to this type of Doctor Who narrative. The monster’s role is not only to scare as it does admirably in many Doctor Who narratives, but the monster also often functions allegorically to demonstrate tendencies of the human (the etymological origin of the word monster being monstrare, “to show forth”). Whether representing Nazis like the Daleks in Terry Nation’s “Genesis of the Daleks” (1975), the effects of corporate greed like the giant maggots in “The Green Death” (1974), or the effects of drug addiction as with the Mandrels in “Nightmare of Eden” (1978), Doctor Who’s monsters are frequently symbolic. Similarly, robots that are carrying out a specific function can be used to symbolise human tendencies. Furthermore, since satire is a form of rebellion, an attack on aspects of society, it is unsurprising to find the recurring figures of rebels in the diegetic worlds of many Doctor Who satires. The heroic Doctor, a regular character with whom we are invited to identify, sides with these rebels. This is not to say that the figure of the rebel is restricted to Doctor Who’s satires: “The Monster of Peladon” (1974), a social allegory of the miner’s strikes of 1972 and 1974 (Chapman 2006, 94), for example, features rebel miners but concludes with the suggestion that conditions can best be improved through compromise rather than by following the approach of the radical miner Ettis. Rebellion, however, is interesting to satire, since the satires begin with an inciting incident, which is worked out ideologically. Two of the principal notions in narrative theory are that all narrative takes place over time and that the arrangement of narratives has certain effects (see Kozloff 1992). Satires can have a correcting function: for example, John Dryden saw the end of satire as “the amendment of vices,” while Daniel Defoe saw the end of satire as “reformation” (Cuddon 1991, 827). Others, like Jill E. Twark, however, have noted that satire may be used simply for display or play (2007, 18). While Doctor Who satires are more illustrative



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than concerned with amending vices and bringing about reformation, the presence of the rebel in these Doctor Who satires enables a new order. In this respect, Doctor Who satires, to an extent, follow a common narrative pattern outlined by Tzvetan Todorov (1977). Todorov argues that narratives commonly begin with a state of equilibrium, then involve a disrupting disequilibrium, and ultimately conclude with a new state of equilibrium. This pattern is only partly replicated in most Doctor Who narratives, from both the classic and current series. As a time traveler, the Doctor frequently arrives in a time and space where an initial equilibrium has already been disrupted and must act to bring about a new equilibrium.

Holmesian satire: “Carnival of Monsters” and “The Sun Makers” One of Doctor Who’s most famous writers, Robert Holmes, not only wrote narratives that served to pastiche existing fictional texts, but some of his work was highly satirical; therefore, one can detect an authorial signature. On one level, Holmes’ “Carnival of Monsters” (1973), starring Jon Pertwee as the Doctor, is a metafiction which comments on Doctor Who as being like a “carnival of monsters.” In the narrative, the entertainers Vorg and Shirna arrive on the planet Inter-Minor with a miniScope, and an analogy is drawn between this and Doctor Who where the monsters seen on the Scope’s screen are “great favourites with the children.” Furthermore, a comment is made that “the Doctor” is a great title for bringing people in. But, as James Chapman notes, on another level the narrative “is a satire of bureaucracy and petty officialdom” (2007, 95). Chapman writes that “Vorg has arrived on the planet Inter-Minor which has only recently emerged from self-imposed isolation and which is inhabited by humourless petty officials” (2007, 95). When asked the purpose of the mini-Scope by the officials on Inter-Minor, Vorg states that his and Shirna’s “purpose is to amuse. Nothing serious. Nothing political.” In the narrative, it is a concern of the official Kalik’s that, as he states in an aside to his aide Orum, “Amusement is prohibited,” since it will lead to subversion by the lower-class Functionaries. Furthermore, a concern of the officials is that the alien creatures transported in the mini-Scope without a licence will bring disease. This can be seen as an extreme comment on the Commonwealth Immigration Acts of 1968 and 1971 in the United Kingdom (Chapman 2006, 95-6). So there is a binary opposition between play and bureaucracy where the latter is opposed. “Carnival of Monsters” highlights this binary between play and petty officialdom through design. The Inter-Minor officials are grey in



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appearance symbolising their dull-mindedness, while conversely there is a sense of fun associated with Vorg and Shirna. Vorg and Shirna’s costumes are composed of bright colours; there is prominent use of blue and purple make-up around Shirna’s eyes; there are multi-coloured stick-on circles adorning Vorg’s black jacket; Shirna’s head dress resembles that commonly appropriated at a fairground, with stretched out wires, containing on the ends green and pink coloured balls; Shirna has elaborate earrings, again of variously coloured circles; and the imaginative set design for Inter-Minor sees the mini-Scope placed on a series of concentric circles. Furthermore, Shirna performs a tap dance to explain the concept of entertainment to the officials. Shirna’s movements contrast with those of the Inter-Minor officials who are at times presented with their hands behind their backs or in ordered symmetry in the television frame. While the officials on Inter-Minor have no sense of play about them, Holmes’ narrative is satirical since it is sprinkled with wit and holds the officials up to ridicule. This is largely achieved through the way in which the characteristic of bureaucracy and petty officialdom is exaggerated, particularly in the character of Pletrac. But “Carnival of Monsters” differs from many of the other satires considered in this chapter. The narrative does not use the role of the monster to allegorically represent the petty bureaucracy being satirised. Indeed, the carnival of monsters symbolises exactly the reverse since it has been brought through the boundaries of Inter-Minor as an object of play. Neither does the narrative use the figure of the rebel to represent the way in which petty bureaucracy is being attacked. Instead, Kalik helps free the Drashigs from the mini-Scope in the hopes that the havoc they create in the city will lead to a rebellion against his brother President Zarb so that Kalik himself can assume power. Rather, these recurring characteristics of satire would be found in Holmes’ later narrative “The Sun Makers” (1977). Following the comments of Doctor Who fans (for example, see Howe and Walker 1998, 334), Chapman (2006, 128) writes that “The Sun Makers,” starring Tom Baker, is a satire…recalling “Carnival of Monsters” in exposing the bureaucratic excesses of officialdom, in this instance the Inland Revenue. The mid 1970s saw an increasing level of taxation, the Budgets of 1974 and 1975 imposing a big rise in income tax and VAT (Value Added Tax), in response to price inflation. The Doctor and Leela arrive on Pluto, controlled by a corporation that imposes such a heavy tax burden on its citizens that they are forced into virtual slavery. “The Sun Makers”…is another dystopian SF parable in which an oppressive regime controls the



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masses, monitoring its citizens through surveillance cameras and pacifying them with gas.2

Indeed, as Chapman notes, there are intertextual allusions to Fritz Lang’s Metropolis (1927) (2006, 128; also see Tulloch and Alvarado 1983, 147), where, as in Metropolis, there is a division between the ruling and working class with the workers kept literally below the surface. Chapman continues to note that, “The motif of individuals being processed by an oppressive, bureaucratic state…was a recurring feature of 1970s SF” demonstrating “that Doctor Who kept abreast of developments in the SF genre” (2006, 129). Therefore, this system is opposed with a series of binary oppositions put into effect. The binary of hero/villain here corresponds to that of working class/ruling class. Karl Marx indeed outlined a model of a class-divided society composed of the dominant class - the bourgeoisie - who maintained economic and political domination over the industrial working class who in turn, Marx believed, would become the ruling class of the future. “The Sun Makers” presents a class-divided society where in order to pay their taxes, the populace are forced into virtual slavery. Indeed, Louis Althusser believed that, the dominant views in society are upheld by the “Ideological State Apparatuses” (ISAs) (such as schools and churches, as well as private institutions such as the family, and cultural products such as literature, the arts, and the communications systems), and the “Repressive State Apparatuses” (RSAs) (2001:,100). As Althusser puts it, in the Marxist tradition, as outlined in texts such as The Communist Manifesto, “the State is explicitly conceived as a repressive apparatus” (2001, 92). According to Althusser, using mechanisms such as the police, armies, and courts, “The State is a ‘machine’ of repression which enables the ruling classes…to ensure their domination over the working class” (2001, 92). In “The Sun Makers,” those who rebel against the system by not paying excessive taxes are indeed sent to the Correction Centre. “The Sun Makers” satirises taxation through the figure of the monster, whose role is “to show forth.” In “The Sun Makers,” the monster is both grotesque and has taken on humanoid form, therefore satirising the grotesque aspects of the television viewer’s own society. The monster is an Usurian, allegorically known as “The Collector,” whose race enslave planets and impose excessive taxes upon the people.3 The creature’s grotesqueness is highlighted through its voice. Furthermore, the humanoid official, Gatherer Hade, works for the Collector at the Inner Retinue, a play on the Inland Revenue (Pixley 2001b, 28). Significantly, it is the loss of his profits at the end of the narrative that causes the Collector to revert to his natural form - literally and symbolically going into liquidation



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(Howe, Stammers and Walker 1994, 14; Pixley 2001b, 28) - and be rendered harmless, illustrating the way in which the monster and taxation are connected. As noted above, satire is a rebellious form and Holmes’ narrative involves the Doctor finding a group of tax criminals hiding beneath the city and inciting them to rebel. While the Company pacifies its citizens with gas, released through the air conditioning system, the Doctor manages to stop this. That the gas pacified the citizens means that they could not actively move their situations or the narrative forwards, an idea that Jonathan Bignell and Andrew O’Day also note informs Terry Nation’s non-satirical opening Blake’s 7 episode where suppressants keep citizens in a passive state (2004, 142). However, through the Doctor’s intervention, Todorov’s narrative pattern of there being a move from disequilibrium to equilibrium, which is so key to satire, manifests itself. David J. Howe and Stephen James Walker have commented that Holmes uses a fairly straightforward, even clichéd science-fiction backdrop - that of a group of oppressed humans struggling to free themselves from the tyranny of their alien masters - to make…a wickedly barbed attack on bureaucracy and, in particular, the UK tax system (1998, 334), but do not point to the appropriateness of this science fiction scenario, involving rebellion, to satire.

From start to finish, “The Sun Makers” features another recurring ingredient of satire which is that Holmes’ script is filled with humour attacking this target, including visual humour, where the corridors have the names of UK tax forms (Howe and Walker 1998, 334; Pixley 2001b, 28). This particular season, the first produced by Graham Williams, marked a shift from the more gothic horror of the Hinchcliffe/Holmes era, to more humour, particularly evident in Tom Baker’s portrayal of the Doctor. Some of the satire directed at taxes is indeed evidenced in exchanges between the Doctor and Leela and between the Doctor and Citizen Cordo who is prevented from committing suicide upon learning he cannot pay his taxes, after which the three flee from Gatherer Hade: CORDO. It’s the taxes. The taxes. I can’t pay the taxes. THE DOCTOR. Oh, the taxes. My dear old thing, all you need is a wily accountant. LEELA. These taxes. They are like sacrifices to tribal gods? THE DOCTOR. Well roughly speaking. But paying tax is more painful. LEELA. Then the people should rise up and slaughter their oppressors. THE DOCTOR. Why did you run? LEELA. Well he ran first.



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THE DOCTOR. Well that’s no answer. LEELA. Why did you run? THE DOCTOR. I don’t know. Odd, isn’t it? LEELA. Perhaps everyone runs from the taxman.(both look at Cordo who nods) THE DOCTOR. He says you’re right.

As Philip MacDonald notes, Holmes’ scripts are also noteworthy for splitting characters into pairs (1994, 5) which is partly a storytelling device allowing for exposition. “The Sun Makers” is no exception, and there are witty exchanges between Gatherer Hade (whose character is exaggerated and who constantly says “Praise the Company”) and his assistant Marn, and between Gatherer Hade and the Collector. One such exchange between Gatherer Hade and the Collector, where fun is poked at the Gatherer’s obsession with money, involves the Collector issuing a reward for the Doctor’s capture: THE COLLECTOR. Issue hourly bulletins. Five thousand talmars reward for information leading to his capture, dead or alive. GATHERER HADE. Magnificent. THE COLLECTOR. The money to be paid from your private purse. (The Gatherer lets out a wail of horror) THE COLLECTOR. You spoke? GATHERER HADE. Merely a – a cry of gladness at being so honored.

The scene where the Collector receives his comeuppance and is denigrated is also played humorously where the Collector is denigrated: first, he gets in a state upon learning that he has been made bankrupt, and then reverts back to his normal fungi form, sliding down a hole in his wheelchair which has become like a sink (Pixley 2001b, 29).

Late 1980s Doctor Who and political satire Stephen Wyatt’s much later narrative “Paradise Towers” (1987), starring Sylvester McCoy as the Doctor, can also be read as a satire. Despite the fact that the Doctor and Mel think they are about to visit a utopian paradise which is a “remarkable architectural achievement,” has “Won all sorts of awards,” and boasts a luxurious swimming pool, as Chapman explains, “Paradise Towers” (inspired by J.G. Ballard’s novel High Rise [1975]) is actually set in a dystopian “run-down tower block populated by rival gangs,” known as the Kangs, and is “policed by the sinister black-uniformed caretakers” (2006, 169). Therefore, the narrative can be seen as “an allegory of urban decay and social alienation in 1980s



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Britain,” a time, which “had witnessed violent race riots in deprived urban areas such as Brixton in London, Toxteth in Liverpool and Moss Side in Manchester” (2006, 169). As Chapman notes, “the inflexible Chief Caretaker (who wears a ‘Hitler’ moustache)” could be “a comment on the failure of the government to respond to social dislocation” (2006, 169), with this opposed by the narrative. The narrative expresses this through exaggerated lunacy. It has been seen as “a whimsical, comic-strip-style adventure” (Howe and Walker 1998, 506), like other narratives of the Nathan-Turner/Cartmel era, as opposed to being naturalistic: not only do the Kangs, who rebel against the Caretakers by producing wall-graffiti, continually chant that they are the best, but also the Caretakers are presented as being like a military operation who strictly adhere to a rule-book with the Chief Caretaker, played comically by actor Richard Briers, instructing the robotic cleaning machines to eliminate the Kangs, symbolizing the cleaning up of society of its undesirables, before the Caretakers are also later eliminated at the instruction of the alien Kroagnon. Examples of the exaggerated lunacy of the Caretakers can be seen in the following exchanges: YOUNG CARETAKER. Caretaker number 345/12 subsection 3 reporting. I am proceeding along Potassium Street, corridor 5673, section 201, opposite door 782 on floor 35, north side, over. CHIEF CARETAKER. This is the Chief Caretaker speaking, we are receiving you, Caretaker number 345/12 subsection 3. Make your report. YOUNG CARETAKER. Considerable evidence of multi-colored wall-scrawl all along this part of the street. Wall-Scrawlers obviously active here, over. CHIEF CARETAKER. Return noted. Proceed now to report on corridor 5673, section 301. YOUNG CARETAKER. Very good, Chief. CHIEF CARETAKER. Attention all caretakers, abandon further work on master plan QYT and, as set out in regulation book 145, proceed instead into standard emergency plan 908b. DEPUTY CHIEF CARETAKER. Emergency plan 908b certainly. CHIEF CARETAKER. That is correct. Seize all Red Wall-Scrawlers in Fountain of Happiness square. Now! THE DOCTOR. Well? DEPUTY CHIEF CARETAKER. (looking at his rule book). You’re allowed to stop one and a half minutes for every three thousand steps walked. THE DOCTOR. And that means? DEPUTY CHIEF CARETAKER. You can stand still…for a while. THE DOCTOR. Oh, very generous of you.

In the case of “Paradise Towers”, rather than the Kangs rebelling against the Caretakers, the narrative reaches a state of equilibrium where the



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Kangs, the higher-class cannibalistic Rezzies, who had previously preyed on the Kangs, and the Caretakers all work together to defeat a different alien threat posed by the Great Architect of the Towers, Kroagnon, who takes over the body of the Chief Caretaker. Graeme Curry’s “The Happiness Patrol” (1988), meanwhile, engages in exaggerated lunacy, rather than being naturalistic, presenting an allegorical dystopian society that dictates that everyone be happy. This, therefore, critiques the notion that everyone be happy with their lot, which is one exaggerated way of viewing elements of Margaret Thatcher’s leadership. It has already been well-documented that the narrative is a Kafkaesque satire of Thatcher (Howe, Stammers, and Walker 1996, 117), with the use of letters as surnames denoting rank seeming to stem from Frank Kafka’s 1914-16 novel The Trial (Pixley 2001a, 28).4 In critiquing Thatcher, “The Happiness Patrol” fits in more closely with Dr. Johnson’s definition of a lampoon in his dictionary: “Proper satire is distinguished, by the generality of the reflections from a lampoon” of “a particular person, but they are frequently confounded” (1994,696). In “The Happiness Patrol,” Helen A. (played by Sheila Hancock, doing a vocal impersonation of Thatcher; see Chapman 2006, 169) restricts the type of language that can be used. Words like unhappy, which can be used as a form of protest, are forbidden and there is a general sense of phoniness where characters must put on “masks.” Helen A. is, therefore, an enemy of language itself and to a degree can be seen as analogous to Davros and the Daleks and Blake’s 7’s Federation who, as Bignell and O’Day note, as autocratic beings seek to eliminate a side of a binary structure so that only their viewpoints are recognised (2004, 149-50). The satire opposes Helen A., despite her decree that she not be opposed, drawing attention to what satire is and does. A primary binary opposition of the narrative is to show of happiness/unhappiness corresponding to the binaries lack of freedom/freedom. In examining the notion that everyone be unquestionably happy with their lot, “The Happiness Patrol” concentrates most explicitly on the oppression of the working class and unemployed, setting up a series of further binary oppositions of working class/ruling class and unemployed/ruling class, which corresponds with the binary of hero/villain. For, as Marx would see it, the society presented is class divided. The working class harvest the sugar beet, which the planet is rich in. One can make a comparison here, for example, between Helen A.’s treatment of the working class and Thatcher’s treatment of the trade unions and the miner’s strike of 1984. The depression of the unemployed, meanwhile, is silenced through the way they are driven underground into the pipes. These



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dwellers, of a different species, known as “The Pipe People,” could be seen as “the equivalent of the poor and the unemployed in Thatcher’s Britain” (Howe and Walker 1998, 518). The narrative has also been appropriated in a gay fashion. Matt Jones reads the story as a critique of the Thatcherite government’s introduction of Clause 28 and its repression of homosexual desire, featuring what can be seen as a gay couple, Joseph C. and Gilbert M. (Cornell 1997, 51-6). But, the story can be more broadly appropriated in a gay fashion, featuring as it does the notion of oppression, of having to put on phoney masks, and of using the power of language to protest: all ideas which are relevant to the lives of gay men. Furthermore, Helen A. states towards the end that she was concerned with the good of the majority, which indicates that she is not concerned with minorities and their dissatisfactions. Rather than seeing society as composed of different groups who need to express themselves, Helen A. insists on society as unified by the word happy. In this exaggerated satire, Helen A. has also tried to make it difficult for people to get together en masse and use powerful words to demonstrate. In order to get together in a group to form a protest march, people must communicate their unhappiness to one another but Helen A. has created a large blanket of silence through her restriction of vocabulary, isolating people. While this idea is not explicitly dealt with in relation to the workers, the very opening scene of the narrative is of Silas P. telling an unhappy female citizen, Daphne S., that she does not have to face her suffering alone and that there are other depressed people with whom she can share her miseries in a certain place. When the female citizen shows her depression, Silas P. reveals that he is an undercover agent for The Happiness Patrol. With guards patrolling the factory, it would be difficult for many workers to communicate their depressions to one another. Here, it is worth reading the narrative in connection with Jürgen Habermas’ (1989) description of the initial public sphere in our society, which served a democratic function. Habermas argued that from the seventeenth century to the early nineteenth century, there developed a “bourgeois public sphere” free from economic and state interference, enabling people to engage in free political discussion. The public sphere offered a place for members of the public to unite, and share views. There was, for example, a coffee-house culture where writers such as John Dryden and Alexander Pope met with others and engaged not only in literary debate but also in economic and political disputes which led the government to issue proclamations confronting the dangers bred by these discussions: “Men have assumed to themselves a liberty, not only in coffee-houses, but in other places…to censure and defame the proceedings



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of the State, by speaking evil of things they understand not” (quoted in Habermas 1989, 59). Habermas proceeds to discuss the that the mass media of the twentieth century (e.g. radio and television), which were bound up with economics and the state, had on the public sphere, of the move from a democratic culture debating public to a culture consuming public (1989, 170-1). While Habermas’ description of the original public sphere is problematic since it idealizes a sphere which only allowed participation by a small segment of society, it is this model which “The Happiness Patrol” is best compared with, for Helen A. evidently leaves no room for such debate so that she remains unchallenged. By restricting language, Helen A.’s society can be described as backward, standing against progressiveness. In order to progress one must have the power to use language freely to advance one’s situation, whereas Helen A. decrees that language must remain static: everyone must use the word happy on every occasion. As a result, Helen A.’s society is circular and allows no room for free will, proper conversation, or narrative development. Such circularity is revealed in the following conversation between Helen A. and Joseph C.: HELEN A. Lovely evening. JOSEPH C. Yes dear. HELEN A. It’s the sort of evening that makes you feel happy to be alive. (silence) HELEN A. I said it’s the sort of evening that makes you feel happy to be alive. JOSEPH C. Oh yes dear. I’m glad you’re happy. HELEN A. And I’m happy you’re glad.

But every Doctor Who narrative develops over time and while, in this exaggerated satire, Helen A. stands against narrative progression, the Doctor is her opposite, moving the narrative forward on his terms. This is a society that the Doctor must correct, and can thus be read as an exaggerated critique of Thatcher’s government, with the narrative pattern of satire following Todorov’s (1977) model of narratives moving from a state of disequilibrium to equilibrium. The narrative challenges Helen A.’s denial of language through rebel figures that we have seen are so key to satire as a rebellious form. Marxists hold that the implicit tension that is present in class-divided societies can erupt into open conflict where there is resistance to the dominant ideology. Despite Helen A.’s law forbidding protest marches, the narrative does present an illegal workers demonstration: unhappy workers use forbidden language to protest their conditions. Following the recap, the first shot of the second episode is of workers



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demonstrating. The workers carry signs with the words “Factory Conditions Are A Joke” written on them. These factory workers are using words to express real discontent; their idea of a joke differs from Helen A.’s. They are taking narrative control, just as they break through boundaries by entering the main city contrary to Helen A.’s law. As Helen A. points out, these workers wear “dreary clothes,” play “turgid music” and “really are so depressing.” They wear black clothes, with veils over their faces and bang on drums slowly in a monotonous fashion, seeming almost like a funeral procession (Pixley 2001a, 29). The incidental music accompanying their march is solemn. The narrative reveals that Helen A. attempts to keep the lower classes down when they do rebel through execution, meaning that we are invited to side against her. As noted in relation to “The Sun Makers,” Althusser commented on the fact that every class society utilises repressive mechanisms (such as the police) to manage social tensions, and to keep the lower classes in their place. When people disobey Helen A., they are usually either executed by The Happiness Patrol or drowned in boiling syrup, prepared by the sinister Kandy Man in the Kandy Kitchen. The Happiness Patrol, which serves Helen A., consists of, as the word patrol suggests, law enforcement officers. On seeing the demonstration in Episode 2, Helen A. sends a couple of snipers to eliminate the protesting workers. She does not recognise the workers’ complaints and would rather that they just disappeared. There is an allusion here to South American dictatorships where people disappeared, since they were executed by the secret police, but here this idea can be seen as exaggerated since the narrative can be read as an anti-Thatcher satire. Later, in Episode 3, Helen A. declares to The Happiness Patrol that a large scale disappearance must occur: “A drone demonstration is heading towards Forum Square. Proceed there directly. Take no prisoners.” She begins her statement by saying “Happiness Will Prevail” which connects the idea of happiness with making sure that there are no protests among the working class. Helen A. does not want to recognize social problems, preferring that everyone puts on a show of happiness. But despite Helen A.’s attempts to silence opposition, the third and final episode sees the overthrowing of Helen A.’s regime where the working class riot in the factories. The workers are thus displaying unhappiness with their position in society very openly in groups, which is enabling them to effect change and bring about proper happiness to their lives rather than a pretence at being content, which is causing them deep inner unhappiness. The announcer over the loud speakers constantly uses the catchphrase “Happiness Will Prevail” at the beginning of all



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announcements, but towards the end states “Happiness Will Prevail” and proceeds to declare that there is chaos in the Square: “Happiness Will Prevail. Chaos In Forum Square...Happiness Will Prevail.” Helen A. declares that the factories are all heavily protected but following this, there is a similar announcement that rebels are destroying the factories: “Happiness Will Prevail. Factory Guards Are Joining Forces With The Drones To Destroy The Nirvana Sugar Beet Plant Here In Sector Six” and “Happiness Will Prevail. One Hundred And Twelve Factories Have Now Fallen To The Rebels As They Continue Their Drive Westwards.” While the announcer means “Happiness Will Prevail” and there is chaos in the square and factories have fallen, the message being put across is that genuine happiness will prevail because the workers are rebelling and factories have fallen. Also, towards the end of the narrative with Helen A.’s regime being crushed, the Doctor informs the pipe dwellers that they will soon be working in the sugar fields again, where they will be truly happy. In this rebellion, as is common, the Doctor sides with the rebels, as indeed does a member of The Happiness Patrol, illustrating that there is unhappiness within its very ranks. At the same time as being read as an exaggerated satire of Thatcher, however, while a Marxist class-divided society is presented and while there is resistance, the narrative does not advocate a total dismantling of the class system. While “The Happiness Patrol” engages in exaggerated lunacy and while many of its characters are dressed in pink, it is, like many other satires, very dark and biting. Not only is music itself used as a theme in the narrative to create moods and feelings (see Brown 2001, 2), such as the phoniness of lift music and the down-to-earth quality of the Blues, but so is the tone of dialogue. In addition to when the Doctor confronts a sniper sent to eliminate the drones, a biting moment comes at the end of the narrative where the Doctor confronts Helen A., using forbidden language to reveal to Helen A. what is wrong with her society, that it suppresses genuine emotion, the truths that she does not want to face. The idea of the monster can be seen at work. The Kandy Man, resembling Bertie Bassett, composed as he is out of liquorish all-sorts, symbolises the sickly nature of the narrative’s society, which is monstrous. Indeed, Helen A. not only curtails genuine displays of emotion in her subjects but also cuts these off in herself, in order to pursue her vision of a controlled society. Therefore, she is eliminating that which makes her and her subjects human, an idea which is also expressed in relation to Doctor Who’s Cybermen. So while, as noted earlier, there are ties between Helen A. and Davros and the Daleks as autocratic beings, there are also connections with this other Doctor Who monster. It is by seeing the death



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of her beloved pet rat, Fifi, that Helen A. finally breaks down in tears, thereby revealing her humanity. This can all be seen as an exaggerated critique of Thatcher who herself earned the nickname “Iron Lady” due to her tough-talking persona. There is one further issue that is important to consider. Since Margaret Thatcher became Britain’s first female prime-minister in 1979 and since The Happiness Patrol is run by a woman and consists mainly of women, the narrative might appear to be a pro-feminist statement. In the narrative, the stereotypical marker of femininity, the expression of emotion is suppressed by Helen A. in favour of efficiency and achievement, values often attributed to men. Helen A.’s appearance as a woman in a leadership role can be tied in with such television codings of Thatcher (noted by Bignell 2000). But, in fact, the satirical nature of “The Happiness Patrol” invalidates such a pro-feminist reading, since it encourages us to see Helen A. negatively.

Russell T. Davies’ Doctor Who and satire Russell T. Davies’ re-invention of Doctor Who, starring Christopher Eccleston, satirizes the media. This is not the first time that the programme acted as a commentary on various uses of the media: Philip Martin’s “Vengeance on Varos” (1985), starring Colin Baker as the Doctor, and set on a dystopian alien planet, commented on both the selling and viewing of video-nasties (see Pixley 2001c, 18-19), and on media manipulation more generally. To a degree, the narrative could be read as a satire since it employed black comedy, which amused yet disturbed. This was best exemplified by the exchanges, interspersed throughout the narrative, between husband and wife, Arak and Etta, as they watch their screens (Pixley 2001c, 19). They were desensitized by watching scenes of real violence, and they listened to the Governor’s policy broadcasts and voted blindly for or against him. In that narrative, the figure of the grotesque monster, Sil, was used to symbolize the monstrous nature of selling videonasties for profit. Like the Collector from “The Sun Makers” who gets a feeling of “job satisfaction” from Leela’s impending execution and wishes her cries to be audible to him and to the paying public, Sil sees torture as “wonderful entertainment,” and the selling of such tapes as “enterprising.” Furthermore, in “Vengeance on Varos,” the Doctor sided with rebel figures, as well as indeed the Governor who was as much a prisoner of the system at the hands of the Officer Elite as the Varosian citizens were, to put an end to the Varosian broadcasting system, including media manipulation, creating a new state of equilibrium.



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Media manipulation is a theme of Davies’ “Aliens of London”/“World War Three” (2005) but it is “The Long Game” (2005) that most clearly evidences many of the traits associated with satire. The episode presents a dystopian society of the far future where the monstrous and grotesque Jagrafess controls mankind’s knowledge and ambition through the broadcast news to allegorically critique the manipulation of our own news media, both in broadcast and in print form. Knowledge is a key theme running throughout the episode: as in other Doctor Who narratives, the Doctor must move from a position of epistemological uncertainty to awareness of what is transpiring. In an episode where knowledge is revealed to be powerful, the Doctor is at first unknown to the controllers of Satellite 5; Adam Mitchell tries to obtain all the knowledge of the future; and the society is backward until the journalist, Cathica, who overhears the Editor informing the Doctor of the situation, uses her newfound knowledge to rebel, seemingly moving things forward to a new state of equilibrium. There are many light-hearted moments in the episode including Cathica’s burning desire to be promoted, the interactions between Adam and the Nurse, and the interactions between the Editor (played by comedian Simon Pegg) and the Jagrafess. There is not much wit concerning the actual manipulation of the news media, but the following comment of the Editor’s to the Doctor amuses but also alludes to the newspaper publisher Robert Maxwell and to the broadcast news more generally: For almost 100 years, mankind has been shaped and guided, his knowledge and ambition strictly controlled by its broadcast news, edited by my superior, your master, and humanity’s guiding light, the mighty Jagrafess of the Holy Hadrojassic Maxarodenfoe. I call him Max.

As Chapman writes, The topicality of this story is readily apparent at a time when there are 1,500 satellite, digital and cable television channels in Western Europe alone and when ownership of the broadcast media is increasingly vested in a handful of transnational media conglomerates (2006, 196), and the Editor’s comment can be read as satirical.

News is a factual genre, which promises to offer the television viewer a direct relationship with the real world, rather than a fictional engagement with issues that may be relevant to the real world. As a result of the television news being a factual, as opposed to fictional genre, the notion of



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genre can potentially be very dangerous since television viewers may instantly accept everything that they see and hear. As John Fiske points out, television news “generally presents itself as a ‘window on the world’” (1987, 21). This connects with Steve Neale’s (1980) point that genre creates a system of expectations among viewers and it is this system of generic expectations associated with the news that make it so dangerous. As Fiske writes, the “news genre is a high status genre” which has a “claimed objectivity” (1987, 281). But, at the same time, genre study can be a useful way of approaching the news. Genres involve recurring conventions, and it is important to study news as a genre with recurring formal characteristics to see how the news is a form of construction and to deconstruct the notion that what is presented on the news is entirely objective. Such conventions, for example, include the use of voice-overs to accompany carefully selected images. But there are other avenues of expression. New media, such as the Internet, for instance, is seen as contributing to the extension of democracy and freedom of expression. While “The Long Game” concludes with things seemingly moved forward to a new state of equilibrium, Davies’ later episode “Bad Wolf” (2005) highlights that this is not actually the case, since the news was replaced by junk: reality TV and game shows. This later episode has been read by many (e.g. by Moore and Chapman 2006, 196-7) as a satire of types of television like Big Brother, The Weakest Link and Trinny and Susannah. However, as A.D. Morrison has written, although set in a dystopian future, “Bad Wolf” lacks the allegorical setting of previous Doctor Who satires, even though, as noted earlier, allegory is not essential for satire: instead of extrapolating the philistine dross that is Big Brother into a future scenario in which it takes on a different guise with a different name and set but detectably similar theme which the audience can pick up on and compare to their contemporaneous equivalent, RTD decides to simply reproduce exactly the same programme, along with its other cousin reality TV monstrosities, replace its hosts with androids who are obviously modelled on the real life presenters and place it ludicrously over 200,000 years in the future.

Morrison continues: One must ask then what exactly RTD was trying to say here? This is not polemical…only possibly in its rather lazy and unimaginative take on terminal versions of reality game shows…There is no satire here, at least not noticeably, because RTD doesn’t seem to be saying anything at all



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about the nature of reality TV, only reproducing it on a slightly more extreme level…RTD missed a brilliant opportunity to truly criticize and comment on the insidious nature of reality TV here – a massive disappointment.

Morrison’s point is that the episode, which sees contestants seemingly disintegrated, is an exaggeration of current reality TV and game shows transposed into the future, and he is quite correct that this does not make the episode satire. But Morrison is a little too critical. For one, the reality TV and game shows are present simply as a humorous plot device to aid the Dalek invasion by pacifying audiences, humour playing a large part in the new Doctor Who series. Humour is injected into the narrative, for example, when Captain Jack is given a makeover by robots Trine-E and Zu-Zana and appears naked. Furthermore, there does seem to be an attack on the viewers of such television even though there is no humour hurled in this direction. The Doctor remarks that “half the world’s too fat, half the world’s too thin, and you lot just watch telly” and compares the human race to “brainless sheep being fed on a diet” of such programming. In the case of this episode, we also do not see a specific rebellion against such television; the reality TV scenarios are simply dropped and there is a shift into a battle against the Daleks. Indeed, since the re-launch of Doctor Who is relatively new, there have not been as many examples of satire to consider as in the older series, and it remains to be seen whether in-coming Executive Producer Steven Moffat makes use of this type of narrative and whether such narratives follow the structuralist patterns outlined in this chapter.

Conclusion Looking at satire in relation to Doctor Who has been significant in showing how television is, as Raymond Williams (1981) and Graeme Burton (2000) see it, an expression of wider culture, and that programmes should be read contextually rather than as isolated texts. Science fiction, which has a tendency to be allegorical, and satirical allegory, where another world is presented which critiques our own, particularly draw attention to this. The structuralist approach adopted in this chapter of identifying key recurring features (as well as pointing to differences) has been significant in drawing our attention to what satire actually is and how it works. Such ideas are not as evident in Stephen Wyatt’s “The Greatest Show in the Galaxy” (1988) which contains satire of the stereotypical nerdy fan, or indeed, as seen, in “Carnival of Monsters.” The chapter has also raised some ideas, which are worthy of further consideration. For



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example, the chapter outlined some of the key ways in which satire and science fiction make such excellent bedfellows, as well as ways in which satire cuts across genres. So this raises the questions: Is satire itself a “genre”? Or is it better to argue that satire functions differently when found in different other genres? Furthermore, were we to look at other science fiction satires (books, films, and television series), would we detect similar patterns to those identified here in relation to Doctor Who? Time will tell.





CHAPTER EIGHTEEN THE SUFFERING OF THE SKIN: THE UNCANNY NATURE OF THE CYBERMEN IN THE RUSSELL T. DAVIES ERA OF DOCTOR WHO JAMES ROSE

Within the recently revived series of Doctor Who (2004 - ) one of the Doctor’s long standing enemies, the Cybermen, have appeared in four interrelated episodes: “Rise of the Cybermen” which was continued in “The Age of Steel” and then built upon in a sequel of sorts in the episodes “Army of Ghosts” and “Doomsday.” This four part narrative begins with the Doctor (David Tennant) and his companions, Rose Tyler (Billie Piper) and Mickey Smith (Noel Clarke), arriving in present day London but soon realising that it is an alternate London, one that exists in a parallel dimension. Wandering off to explore this strangely familiar city, the presence of industrialist John Lumic (Roger Lloyd Pack) and his company, Cybus Industries, is felt in most aspects of life. As Rose and Mickey seek out their alternative dimension families, the narrative reveals that Lumic is dying and, in an attempt to stave off death, has been conducting experiments in cybernetics. Lumic plans to “upgrade” the British populace by putting them into a trance-like state via the Cybus Ear Pod and then fusing their biological bodies with his cybernetic systems to create an army of “immortal children”, the Cybermen. Although this plan goes into action with many of the populace being upgraded, the Doctor and his companions predictably manage to destroy Lumic, his Cybermen and the upgrade factory. This narrative is then picked up in the series finale when Rose’s real world begins to be broached by the previously visited parallel world, due to a breach in the void that separates them. From this rupture comes the Army of Ghosts, a mass of Cybermen from the parallel world. As they

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penetrate the void so does a Void Ship which, when finally opened, unleashes millions of incarcerated Daleks. A battle for supremacy begins as the Daleks exterminate both the Cybermen and humanity, whilst the Doctor desperately tries to seal the void in an effort to eradicate both alien forces. As the battle rages on, The Doctor realises the only way he can do this is send everyone, except himself, back to the parallel world and so dramatically ends his relationship with Rose Tyler. An immediate interpretation of this four-part narrative is the preoccupation with invasion and conflict (accompanied by elements of occupation and resistance), a narrative trope that dominates the Russell T. Davies era of Doctor Who. The invasions that take place throughout the series occur on either a grand, almost apocalyptic scale (particularly where the Daleks, Sontarans and Cybermen are concerned) where land mass is sought and the bodies of the populace either exterminated or coerced into this new world order, or on a more singular and intimate level as the bodies of individuals are invaded. In these episodes (such as “The Unquiet Dead,” “The Empty Child,” “The Doctor Dances,” and “Fear Her”), characters are individually possessed by an alien force and their minds/bodies used to orchestrate further destructive events. Whilst these narratives clearly position invasion (of Britain) as their primary concern, they also have a more subtle but equally well defined preoccupation with the Gothic: the majority of the episodes that form the current four series run of Doctor Who are replete with occurrences of haunted houses, the past within the present, the machinations of the family, the supernatural, the liminal body, and reanimated corpses, all juxtaposed with the cultural work performed by the monstrous threats of these various narratives. Such a sustained preoccupation indicates that the series, as a whole, has successfully fused the science fiction context of Doctor Who with the defining generic traits of the Gothic. Many of these Gothic qualities emerge from the concept of the uncanny, that feeling of unease and dread that the Gothic is so preoccupied with, as David Punter and Glennis Byron state, what is certain is that [the] phenomena of the uncanny form[s] the background and indeed the modus operandi of much Gothic Fiction…certainly the representation of the uncanny is at the heart of the Gothic (italics in original) (Punter and Byron 2004, 286).

The concept of the uncanny has its origins in the aesthetic/psychoanalytic study of the phenomena written by Sigmund Freud. In his seminal text The Uncanny (1919), Freud attempts to expose the sources and the meaning of the uncanny feeling. He discusses it as a specific form of frightening



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phenomenon that is experienced in both life and literature, describing the emotions as unease, repulsion, distress and fear. Freud was aware that the conditions which induce such feelings vary from person to person, creating a problem for him in terms of generating a universal definition of the uncanny. To resolve this issue he attempts to establish and define a commonality throughout these differing fears. The result of this inquiry is a text which functions almost as if it were an expanded list, a detailed catalogue of the dominating motifs or signifiers of the physical occurrences that are the primary instigators of the uncanny feeling. Freud bases this lexicon on the etymological shift between the heimlich (homely) and the unheimlich (unhomely). The extent of this shift is fully documented by Freud who quotes, at great length, the entry for heimlich in the 1860 edition of Daniel Sanders’ Wörterbuch der Deutschen Sprache. For Freud, this lengthy extract allows him to conclude that the most interesting fact to emerge… is that among the various shades of meaning that are recorded for the word heimlich there is one in which it merges with its formal antonym, unheimlich, so that what is called heimlich becomes unheimlich (Freud 2003, 132).

He continues by suggesting that heimlich “belongs to two sets of ideas [which are] very different from each other – one relating to the familiar and comfortable, the other to what is concealed and kept hidden” (ibid). Freud thus concludes that the uncanny is, in one form or another, the unfamiliar that has retained qualities of the familiar. Freud then begins to identify the images or objects that provoke the uncanny feeling due to their familiar/unfamiliar relationship: the mechanical automata, the image of the double, acts or occurrences of repetition, déjà vu, death, the inescapability of fate or seemingly chance happenings, the witnessing of severed limbs or heads, and being buried alive are all instances of the uncanny. In addition, Freud also suggests that silence, solitude and darkness can also be considered to be uncanny for they themselves function in an opposition of the familiar/unfamiliar relationship. Although Freud’s essay has remained to be the key text, the work itself has been repeatedly evaluated, criticised and expand upon. In these modes, alternative perspectives on the uncanny have come to the fore, expanding (and at times gendering) Freud’s topos and the understanding of the uncanny. In terms of these expansions, the work of Andrew Bennett and Nicholas Royle is notable for they, like Freud, attempt to construct a catalogue of defining occurrences whilst offering a potential definition for each category. In conjunction with Freud, Bennett and Royle suggest that the uncanny can take the form of repetition, coincidence and fate,



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animism, anthropomorphism, automatism, uncertainty about sexual identity, the fear of being buried alive, silence, telepathy and death. If one were to list the dominating incidents and narrative occurrences within the Davies era of Doctor Who, then the presence of both Freud’s and Bennett and Royle’s perception of the uncanny becomes blatantly evident: Repetition occurs throughout, with many characters encountering their doppelgänger (such as Martha Jones being cloned in “The Sontaran Stratagem” and the Doctor himself cloned as a hybrid in “Journey’s End”); fate forms the crux of the Series 4 finale in which the episode “Turn Left” is based solely upon this notion whilst the subsequent two episodes reveal that the fates of the Doctor’s companions have all been manipulated by the insane Dalek Caan in order to ensure the destruction of the Dalek empire; animism regularly occurs – most notably in “The Family of Blood” where the lifeless scarecrows are given life, a quality similar to the Weeping Angels of Blink; the presence of the automaton is seen in the first episode “Rose” and then later in “The Girl in the Fireplace” and “The Voyage of the Damned”; silence forms the central premise of “Midnight” and “The Silence in the Library”; telepathy occurs throughout, as the Doctor reads the minds of others (as well as being the mode by which aliens can transfer themselves into the human body, as in “The Unquiet Dead,” “The Family of Blood” and “Midnight”; and finally Death. The entire four series is littered with a staggering amount of death: the mass deaths incurred by the various Daleks invasions that occur throughout the series, the mass deaths caused by the poisonous gas in “The Sontaran Stratagem,” the Doctor killing the Racnoss and her children in “The Runaway Bride,” whilst the background narrative to the entirety of the revived series, The Time War, was the final conflict between the Daleks and the Time Lords, a war which ended in the genocide of the two species at the hands of the series protagonist, the Doctor. Whilst much can be written about the dominance of the uncanny within the revived Doctor Who, its presence can be encapsulated in the one of the Doctor’s major antagonists, the Cybermen, as an image and signifier of the uncanny, the Cybermen embody the majority of Bennett and Royle’s taxonomy: repetition, anthropomorphism, automatism, a radical uncertainty about sexual identity, a fear of being buried alive, silence, telepathy and death, suggesting that they can provide a critical overview of the uncanny nature of the Davies era of Doctor Who.



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Origins In order to reintroduce the Cybermen into the revived series, writer Tom MacRae based “Rise of the Cybermen” and “The Age of Steel” on the concept of a parallel world. With this conceit, the Cybermen could be introduced as a direct threat to the Doctor’s companions who, realising the possibilities of this uncannily similar world, go in search of their deceased family members. Mickey is reunited with his deceased grandmother whilst Rose finds her deceased father, reunions that are soon jeopardised by the emergence of the Cybermen. Whilst this situation provides the emotional and conflictive core of the narrative, the actual genesis of the Cybermen throughout both episodes also suggests that both episodes function as an origins narrative; “Rise of the Cybermen” begins with a prototype Cyberman being successfully tested by Lumic and his head scientist. From here, Lumic’s illness is revealed alongside his desire for immortality. It is this desire, to eradicate suffering, illness, and death, that motivates him to put his upgrade programme into action, resulting in the cybernisation of the British populace. From this brief narrative outline, the Gothic potential of “Rise of the Cybermen” and “The Age of Steel” are evident in that Lumic’s rationale of the populace’s upgrade and his consequential narrative trajectory bares a strong resemblance to a key Gothic text, Frankenstein (Mary Shelley, 1818). The novel’s protagonist, Victor Frankenstein, is “one of those overreachers who refuse to accept limitations and are subsequently punished” and so constructs “the prototypical Gothic mad scientist” (Punter and Byron 2004, 199) who is preoccupied with the pursuit of creating an everlasting life. In this mode, Victor’s experiments raise an anxiety about the progress of science without conscience as his enquiry is a single minded pursuit that leads him into alienation, corruption, and death. His actions also have a religious connotation in that his desire to create life through experimental science usurps both the reproductive capabilities of women and the role of God. By creating life, Victor becomes man/woman/God in his scientific act of procreation: Victor perceives his creation as “a new species that would bless me as its creator and source; many happy and excellent natures would owe their being me” (Shelley 2008, 54). The parallels between Victor and Lumic are obvious in that both men are creative and scientific thinkers whose fear of death motivates their acts of dreadful science. Both men are loners, isolating themselves in the singular pursuit of creating a new and better human being, both overreaching the limits of humanity and conscience in their acts of creation. And both, in their acts of scientific experimentation,



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create something hideous and monstrous, a progeny that they ultimately cannot control nor comprehend. Coupled with this is the evidence of their God complex, a quality Victor and Lumic embrace without clear consideration of their actions. As the president of Great Britain points out to Lumic after he has denied him the authority to legally continue with the upgrade program, his Cybermen are “not just unethical” they are “obscene” and that although Lumic may be “a fine businessman” he is “not God.” Ignoring the president’s comments and the rejection of the planned upgrade, Lumic continues with the program by telling his deputy, Mr Crane, that he is “governed by greater laws… the right of a man to survive.” And, just as Victor is pursued by his own creation for a deathly confrontation, so too is Lumic. When he is attacked by Mr Crane, the Cybermen recognise Lumic’s suffering: “You are in pain,” says one of the Cybermen, “We can remove pain forever… We will give you immortality.” Lumic responds by saying “I have told you I will upgrade only with my last breath” to which the Cyberman responds by pulling apart Lumic’s life support system, “Then breathe your last.” The motivation for Lumic’s experiments—as much as it is for Victor— is the uncanny fear of death, a quality that Bennett and Royle describe as “something at once familiar… and absolutely unfamiliar, unthinkable, unimaginable” (Bennett and Royle 2004, 38). For Lumic, death marks the end of his illustrious scientific career, the final termination of his creative intelligence and the death not of the body but the brain. This fear is first evidenced in Lumic’s promotional material for the upgrade, centering as it does on the value of the brain over the body. Lumic’s voice intones over a graphic animation of the upgrade process: The most precious thing on this earth is the human brain and yet we allow it to die. But now Cybus Industries has perfected a way of sustaining the brain indefinitely within a cradle of copyrighted chemicals, and the latest advances in synapse research allows cyberkinetic impulses to be bonded onto a metal exoskeleton. This is the ultimate upgrade, our greatest step into cyberspace.

The emphasis on the brain is later amplified in the episode when Doctor describes the Cybermen to Rose as “a living brain jammed inside a cybernetic body, with a heart of steel, all emotions removed,” and further developed in the second episode, “The Age of Steel,” when the Doctor realises that in order to destroy the Cybermen he must give them back their emotions, an act which will cause their logical brains to go insane. Lumic’s brain is also foregrounded in this episode when he himself is upgraded into the Cyber Controller, the carapace surrounding his head



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made of metal and plastic that grotesquely reveals his human brain still pulsating in the metal exoskeleton. In her work on the uncanny, Olu Jenzen suggests that the uncanny image of the automata remains powerfully within contemporary society “as it points towards our ever-current anxieties about what constitutes the human and the non-human” and then goes on to identify a wide of range of such concerns: The interface between the human body and the (technologically sophisticated) artificial body; the medical technology used in our bodies; the increasingly effaced boundaries between the biological body and its artificial modifications; the inter-sexed body; the cloned human; the paralysed body; and the cyborg (Jenzen, n.d.)

This reading of the uncanny as a medical fear connects with the origins of Cybermen themselves: created by Dr Kit Pedler, the Cybermen were a manifestation of his greatest fear, that of “dehumanising medicine” and his concerns that there would be “a time when spare-part surgery had reached a stage where it was commonplace” (Geraghty, 2008) There would come a point where it was impossible to tell how much of the original human being remained. Such creatures [Pedler] reasoned would be motivated by pure logic coupled with the overriding desire to survive. They would sacrifice their entire bodies and their minds in the quest for immortality (ibid). With such a heritage, the character of John Lumic can be read as a manifestation of Pedler’s fears, a personification of the nightmare potential of medical progress. The Frankenstein quality of Lumic is made all the more overt in this parallel, for Lumic fears his own imminent death, a trauma which he tries to reconcile through his rhetoric of releasing the weak flesh. His solution, the Cybermen, give form to Pedler’s fears, for the human origins are impossible to see and their minds, with their emotions inhibited, function purely on logical reasoning and the desire to upgrade more humans. Lumic is just one of the many mad scientist figures the Doctor has encountered throughout his adventures, but his narrative and intentions bare a strong resemblance to the Doctor’s arch enemy, Davros, in particular the episodes comprising the “Genesis of the Daleks” story (1975). Both feature an antagonist who is bound to a wheelchair/lifesupport system and whose scientific desires and aspirations can be aligned with those of Victor Frankenstein; both share a preoccupation with the quest to scientifically produce a master race that will fuse flesh and blood with a cold metal exterior; and both narratives have a pivotal moment in



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which the Doctor faces the dilemma of having to save the human populace through an act of genocide. In “Genesis,” the Doctor (Tom Baker) decides he does not have the right to eradicate an entire species, regardless of how much destruction that race will bring about, but, in “The Age of Steel,” the Doctor seems to be faced with little choice but to cause the deaths of all the Cybermen. It would seem then, in Doctor Who at least, that the uncanny quality of death is inherently connected to the act of scientific creation through these variants on the mad scientist archetype.

The Cybermen During Part II of “The Uncanny,” Freud explores the occurrences of the uncanny within the work of E.T.A. Hoffman, specifically The Sandman (1816). His analysis draws attention to the protagonist’s anxieties about losing his eyes, a fear which Freud interprets as a manifestation of this man’s fear of castration. He also briefly considers the image of Olympia, an automaton that the story’s protagonist becomes obsessed with. Although Freud acknowledges the potentially uncanny nature of an inorganic object that is life-like, he dismisses it for interpretation in order to focus on the signified castration anxieties exhibited by the protagonist and so leaves this aspect of the uncanny hinted at and underdeveloped within his text. Bennett and Royle develop Freud’s basic observation into the suggestion that the uncanny nature of the automata can be read as either that which “is human is perceived as merely mechanical” through the occurrence of “sleepwalking, epileptic fits, trance-states and madness” (Bennett and Royle 2004, 36) or the opposite, where robots and cyborgs are uncanny for they are “perceived as human [but are] in fact mechanical” (ibid, 37). With such definitions in mind, the Cybermen are clearly an uncanny occurrence in both senses of Bennett and Royle’s definition. As a hybrid of the technological and biological, the Cybermen are positioned first and foremost as cyborgs. Their movements, speech and actions are all based upon their human counterparts but have the sentience and individuality removed from their very human core, the brain. To perceive these mechanical creations as having a human origin is to acknowledge their interior, to recognise that the source of the mechanical was not a fabricating machine but the flesh and blood of the human body. It is here, in this recognition, that the evocation of uncanny fear and dread originates. To see them and to know of their origins and their interior is to accept that they were once human and, if they were indeed once human, then there is the very real possibility that anyone could become just like them. The



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literal mass production of the Cybermen brings about a further sensation of the uncanny because of the fact that each Cyberman looks exactly like the others. In this industrial replication, the Cyberman doubles itself over and over again into an army of doppelgängers, a perfect reflection of itself repeated across the upgraded masses. The source of this doubling occurs, ironically, at the point of origin, for they are physically constructed in an industrial space in an assembly line of production; these cyborgs are literally being mass-produced from a single template, regardless of the unique individual who enters into the upgrade chamber. This mass production also compounds the aforementioned loss of identity in that each Cyberman has the Cybus logo emblazoned upon its chest as it exits the upgrade chamber. The logo marks each Cyberman as product, a being owned by Cybus Industries. In the upgrade process, then, not only is individuality lost but the body—or at least what remains of it—is now owned by the Company. From Freud’s understanding of the uncanny, this mass replication of the double can signify only one thing, “the uncanny harbinger of death” (Freud 2003, 142). Death, as already implied, surrounds the Cybermen and their scientific creation. Their creator, John Lumic, is horrified at the prospect of dying and so creates an artificial being that overcomes this human inevitability. But the upgraded human stock is killed – physically and mentally - in the mechanical process of the Cyberman’s construction. Once out of the upgrade chamber, the newborn Cybermen join the ranks of other Cybermen and search for more humans to upgrade. In this pursuit, they perpetuate their own death. If captured and upgraded, the human dies. If a human attempts to evade capture or escape from the upgrade chamber, then he or she is immediately caught and killed. In this reading, the Cybermen can be understood as an uncanny image of death, an interpretation consolidated by the appearance of their head carapace. An elegant design that combines the geometry of circles and squares, their head casing clearly resembles the basic structure of the human skull, a quality emphasised by the empty black eye sockets and the blank, expressionless mouth. In tandem with these readings, Bennett and Royle’s suggestion that what is human is perceived as merely mechanical is also true of the Cybermen. If their interior human origins are acknowledged, the uncanny horror can also occur from the acceptance that they are no longer human but purely mechanical. The upgrade process has effectively neutered (or, to use Freud’s interest in the uncanny, castrated) the human body by augmenting the limbs with robotic elements and severing the emotions from the mind and body via the Emotional Inhibitor. Without emotions,



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the human mind is (like the remains of the body) buried alive within the cold metal casing, living as if in a trance-like state, seemingly sleepwalking as the Cybermen march in battalions down the London streets. As “The Age of Steel” draws to a close, the Doctor realises the only way to overcome the Cybermen is to negate the Emotional Inhibitor and so allow the sedated human brain to awaken and recognise what it has become. This process, says the Doctor, “would kill them” by sending them insane. In the episode’s final moments, the Doctor inputs a code to cancel out the Emotional Inhibitor and it does indeed drive the Cybermen insane. Their movements become fit-like as they thrash their limbs about, their hands wrenching at the metal casing of their heads. As the Doctor watches, a Cyberman reaches out to touch its own reflection, screaming at the moment the metal fingers touch the image of itself. Another screams and its head explodes. The Doctor, guilty in his mercy killing, can only apologise: “I am so sorry.”

Gender Whereas Freud’s text has a preoccupation with the uncanny and castration, Bennett and Royle consider the gendered nature of the uncanny as something that is ambiguous, defining it as “a sense of radical uncertainty about sexual identity – about whether a person is male or female, or apparently one but actually the other.” Bennett and Royle continue by suggesting that the defining moment of gender within a text can be dramatic for it acts as an “uncanny revelation” (Bennett and Royle 2004, 37). From their repetitive outward appearance, it is impossible to define a gender for the Cybermen yet, as indicated by their name, the Cybermen themselves are clearly gendered as male. Their exterior amplifies this designation. The construction of their bodies recalls the structures of armour whilst the individual segments themselves appear as amplification of the human muscle structure and so create a visual impression of heightened masculinity. These beings then are both named and visually coded as male, a quality which suggests that in Lumic’s vision of the world women are seemingly no longer necessary. Yet, the appearance of a female Cyberman lies at the heart of the uncanny for “The Age of Steel.” Having exited a series of cooling tunnels, the Doctor and a resistance fighter, Mrs Moore, encounter a lone Cyberman. Before it can attack them, Mrs Moore kills it by throwing an electromagnetic bomb at it. Approaching the body cautiously, the Doctor uses his sonic screwdriver to open the Cyberman’s outer casing to reveal its insides; amongst the tangle



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of wires, circuitry and flesh he finds a circuit block and realises that it is an Emotional Inhibitor. As he pulls the flesh from around it he says “It’s still got a human brain. Imagine its reaction if it could see itself. Realise itself inside this thing. It would go insane.” As he reaches once more into the casing the Cyberman speaks: CYBERMAN. Why am I cold? MRS MOORE. Oh my God, it’s alive. It can feel. THE DOCTOR. We broke the inhibitor. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. CYBERMAN. Why am I so cold? THE DOCTOR. Can you remember your name? CYBERMAN. Sally. Sally Phelan. MRS MOORE. You’re a woman. CYBERMEN/SALLY. Where’s Gareth? MRS MOORE. Who’s Gareth? CYBERMAN/SALLY. He can’t see me. It’s unlucky the night before. MRS MOORE. You’re getting married. CYBERMAN/SALLY. I’m cold. I’m so cold. THE DOCTOR. It’s all right (adjusting his sonic screwdriver), you sleep now, Sally. Just go to sleep (using his sonic screwdriver, the Doctor deactivates the Emotion Inhibitor and, effectively, mercy kills the upgraded Sally Phelan.)

When the Cyberman answers the Doctor’s question with “Sally, Sally Phelan” the sense of the “radical uncertainty about sexual identity” immediately dissipates for this one Cyberman; although it/she may look like the doppelgänger of all the other Cybermen, by identifying itself/herself through a human name, this one upgrade has become an individual amongst the mass. The emotional impact of the gender acknowledgement (“You’re a woman” says Mrs Moore, clearly shocked) is compounded by Sally also declaring that she thinks it is the night before her wedding. What should be an eve of celebration becomes a period of mourning, for in Sally’s marital declaration, the extent of Lumic’s upgrade programme comes painfully to the fore; Sally, like all the others who have been upgraded, will no longer experience the feelings of love, sex, safety and security that marriage potentially offers. Inside, because of Lumic, she has had her mind and her body cut off from whatever future she and Gareth may have had – happiness, companionship, children, grandchildren and retirement have all been taken away from her in the instance of her upgrade. As a Cyberman, Sally Phelan is no longer gendered as female and, as a consequence of this transition of form and gender neutering, she will never grow old and will never die. But she also will never know the happiness that flesh can bring nor the possible sadness a relationship can



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bring. In this condition, Sally has been cut off and separated from the experiences of the body, her reproductive capabilities sterilised. This reading of the gendered Cyberman recalls then Freud’s interest in the connection between the uncanny and castration. Although sexual reproduction is voided by the upgrade process, the idea of reproduction as an uncanny condition remains because, as the populace is upgraded, reproduction shifts from the sexual to the mechanical. Whereas one couple could conceive only one child at a time, the upgrading chambers can conceive many Cybermen at once. Through the upgrade process then, the possibility of sexual reproduction is literally castrated, the reproductive organs nullified, and sexual attraction and emotion inhibited. Such a reading is clearly illustrated and compounded in the fate of Sally Phelan, the woman who lost the potential of her life on the eve of her wedding day.

Eugenics As “Rise of the Cybermen” continues, it soon becomes apparent that Lumic’s plan is much more subversive than his alleged attempt to remove pain and suffering from the human race. Elements of dialogue and imagery subtly suggest that Lumic’s plan to upgrade the entire populace of London (and then the world) is nothing more than a covert plan of eugenic. As Lumic admires the first of his creations, he asks one of the Cybermen, “How does it feel?” CYBERMAN. We feel nothing. LUMIC. But in your mind, what do you think? CYBERMAN. We think the same. We are uniform. LUMIC. But you think of what? CYBERMAN. We think of humans. We think of their difference and their pain. They suffer in the skin. They must be upgraded. LUMIC. Excellent. Then let’s begin.

The reading of the Cybus upgrade as a eugenics programme is intimated in the notion that humans suffer because of their difference to the Cybermen, who are a superior “species” (as Lumic defines them) because they do not experience pain or suffering “in the skin.” By verbalising this perception of the human to their creator, the Cybermen are positioning themselves as superior in every way because they are not different; they are replication of the one idealised body, one that is uniform, an exterior that conforms to the standards of the ideal body. In this ideal body, the fleshy interior and emotionally inhibited brain does not experience pain or



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the suffering of the skin. Instead it has become a hermetically sealed unit that is successful because of its very doubling of the one image, the one mind (“We think the same”), and the one body (“We are uniform”). As the narrative of “The Age of Steel” unfolds, the suggestion that the upgrade programme is covertly a eugenics plan comes blatantly to the fore. Inside the Battersea Power Station Upgrade Factory, a Cyber voice comes over the tannoy and announces that “Chamber 12 is now closed for sterilisation. All reject stock will be incinerated.” The use of the words sterilisation and the term reject stock are clearly suggestive of a selection and cleansing process, one in which those chosen for upgrading will be neutered (for reproduction is now purely mechanical) and cleaned of anything that opposes the desired form of the Cyberman. The aforementioned line of dialogue is repeated when Rose and Pete Tyler have entered the Upgrade factory. As they march with the other stock towards the upgrade chambers, the Cyber voice once again comes over the tannoy and announces that, “all reject stock will be incinerated.” Cutting from Rose and Pete at the end of this dialogue, an image of a young Indian woman fills the screen. Her eyes are glazed as she walks into one of the incineration chambers where the camera lingers long enough for the viewer to see flames rising up towards her before cutting back to Rose and Pete’s horrified faces. From this singular image it can be read that Lumic and his army of immortal ones do not tolerate ethnic difference. Once upgraded, the Cybermen join the ranks of the others and form part of Lumic’s Army of Steel. Working in battalions, the Cybermen hold their bodies in an identical manner and march in synchronisation as they invade the suburbs in order to find more stock for conversion. Like the Daleks battle cry of “Exterminate!” the Cybermen, marching relentlessly forward, repeatedly say “Delete! Delete!” when they encounter any form of threat. Extending their arms forward, they take hold of those who oppose them, exterminating them with extreme prejudice via an immense electric shock. Whereas the Daleks exterminate to kill and dominate, killing is contrary to the Cybermen dictum that they can rescue the humanity from difference, pain, and suffering. They want to capture the populace and use it as stock in order to replicate themselves and therefore their species. As the possessed populace of London march into Battersea Power Station and onto their deaths, the disembodied Cyber voice speaks once more over the tannoy. “Unit upgrades now 6,500. Repeat 6,500 and rising.” Just as the Cybermen are relentless in their pursuit of flesh to upgrade, so is their upgrading programme. The suggestion that Lumic’s upgrade procedure is possibly a covert eugenics programme brings the narrative of “Rise of the Cybermen” and



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“The Age of Steel” back to its primary narrative of invasion and into a wider dialogue with science fiction. As a genre that embraces a broad spectrum of entertainment modes, it has a clear and sustained preoccupation with bodily invasion, the loss of identity, and a reconfiguration of the biological via the adjunct of mechanical prosthesis. These elements form two specific genre tropes, invasion and subsequential uncanny replication. The Invasion narrative has its origins in the 1950s, when science fiction refreshed the context of alien assault by framing it as a metaphor for the emerging Cold War. Although the aliens were from another universe, their intentions and actions clearly aligned them with the looming Communist threat. Invasion would not just be of the land but also the minds and bodies of those the protagonists loved and cared for. Such a narrative type reached its zenith in Don Siegel’s Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956). Many have read this as “the classic example of an anti-communist film… for its handling of the take-over from within theme” (Hardy 1986, 158). Siegel’s Body Snatchers is an immensely paranoid film that is an assault on the uncanny condition of conformity and the reduction of emotions such a process of conformity induces. As a consequence, as Phil Hardy states, the film becomes preoccupied with “the difference between a human and an automaton-like existence” (ibid, 159). Such is the power of Siegel’s rendering of humanity into an emotionless, alien doppelgänger that it has become both a classic science fiction film and the originator of the many subsequent invasion films (Invasion of the Body Snatchers [Philip Kaufman, 1978], John Carpenter’s The Thing [John Carpenter, 1982], Body Snatchers [Abel Ferrara, 1993], Invasion [TV serial created by Sean Cassidy, 2005], Invasion [Oliver Hirschbiegel, 2007], and Broken [Sean Ellis, 2008]). In each of these films, the replicated human becomes a mindless drone, a seemingly individual body but with a group mind, a connected mass consciousness. With such content, it is not difficult to identify the correlative relationship between this sub genre and the Doctor’s encounters with the Cybermen. As “Age of Steel” draws to a close, the Doctor confronts the now upgraded John Lumic with the consequences of his actions, telling him that his desired world of “everlasting peace and unity and uniformity” has come at the cost of “ordinary, stupid, brilliant people.” The Doctor points out that Lumic’s vision of the world fundamentally ignores imagination, creativity, and individuality, resulting in a world that will no longer progress, one that will simply stop developing because of the lack of individuality and progressive thought. As already stated, the episode concludes with the Doctor using the Cybermen’s lack of self knowledge against them by



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removing the Emotional Inhibitor, an act that gives the Cybermen, as the Doctor describes it, their “souls back.” Through the narrative of the Cybermen, the text has argued that these cyborgs can be clearly read as supremely uncanny. Within the revived series of Doctor Who, this quality does not reside solely within the characters. As this chapter’s introduction alluded to, the revived series is replete with Gothic elements: haunted spaceships, resurrected bodies, ghosts and witches, frightening doubles, instances of controlled fates, deadly automata and cyborgs, family dramas and family secrets, and, of course, monstrous threats and the recurrence of death. Given that this content is sustained throughout the series, it can be suggested that the Russell T. Davies era of Doctor Who is one which is clearly preoccupied with both Gothic traits and occurrences of the uncanny to the extent that it is a series that can be read as an eloquent fusion between the genres of the Science Fiction and the Gothic: within the Doctor’s universe the past manifests itself with a terrifying force and with deathly intent, the haunted ancestral home has become a haunted spaceship, aliens have become spectres, werewolves or possess the bodies of the dead, the cloning of cyborgs indicates both an uncanny and monstrous replication whilst the archetypal Gothic monster takes its form in the Daleks, the Cybermen, and, in one episode, the Devil himself. This sense of hybridity is not wholly unique to the revived series, for the Philip Hinchcliffe/Robert Holmes era of Doctor Who is widely acknowledged to be one that is also supremely Gothic in its content. Episodes such as “The Ark in Space,” “The Brain of Morbius,” “The Talons of Weng-Chiang,” and “The Horror of Fang Rock” all owe a great debut to Gothic fiction, providing the producer and writer with narratives, locations, and mise-en-scène in which to place the Doctor and his faithful companions. But whilst Hinchcliffe and Holmes used the Gothic to provide purely narrative and aesthetic tropes, Davies and his fellow writers have used the same narratives, locations, and mise-en-scène as a means by which to reconfigure the Doctor for the early twenty-first century. No longer the passive, moral and righteous incarnation of the previous series, the ninth and tenth regenerations of the Doctor are collectively portrayed as a traumatised soldier, the sole survivor of the Time War, a conflict literally locked in the past and in which he took the genocidal action to terminate both the opposing Dalek and Time Lord races. With such a decision, the Doctor has become a being who is haunted by the past and his part within it and whose subsequent adventures in the future ironically lead him into conflict with that past as he once more battles the Daleks, Davros, and (to a lesser extent) the Cybermen, the Master, the Sontarans, and the Autons.



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Within these repetitious narratives the Doctor is a being quite literally and uncannily haunted by his past, an alien of the future that is forever bound to that which has already happened before. In each of these episodes then the Time War is played out again and again, either directly with the Daleks or indirectly through a Dalek substitute, such as the Cybermen. As the Doctor battles these cyborgs, he is effectively re-enacting the Time War and ends his conflict with them in a similar manner, by effectively terminating the entire Cyberman species. As the Doctor activates the Emotional Inhibitor and watches the Cybermen recognise what they have become, he stands alone, responsible for his actions, and apologises to the dying humans. Whereas he killed the Daleks because of their threat, he terminates the Cybermen out of compassion. In this constant repetition of events, then, the Doctor begins to find catharsis in the act of uncanny replay, finding it within himself to accept responsibility and to forgive, to heal himself as much as he tries to save those that threaten him. In these moments, the Gothic shifts from exterior threat to internal knowledge, occurring as an uncanny instant of repetition in which the cycle of conflict and violence can be broken if one can embrace and forgive the past. And this is perhaps what the Russell T. Davies Gothic era of Doctor Who is really about, not so much the terror of the Gothic but the opportunity the genre affords for one character to assess his past and himself in order to regret, to understand, to forgive, and to heal.





CHAPTER NINETEEN INTERFERENCE, THE DOCTOR, AND THE GOOD LIFE COURT LEWIS

“Nice to meet you…Run for your life!” —The Doctor, as portrayed by Christopher Eccleston

“Getting in the Thick of Things”: How the Doctor Shows Us How to Live A very wise existentialist and outdoorsman, Forrest Wood, Jr., once said, “I believe in ‘getting in the thick of things’” (Wood 1997, 200). For Wood, “getting in the thick of things” is the way in which we all should live our lives: it challenges us to act, make decisions, change the world around us, change ourselves, and learn first hand how to answer life’s perplexing questions like, “How should one live one’s life?” If there is any one fictional character that serves as an exemplar of Wood’s philosophy, it is the Doctor. The many essays collected in this volume, though not directly arguing for such a position, show that the Doctor is always “getting in the thick of things,” and as a result he lives a life that is deeply satisfying. For the Doctor, “getting in the thick of things” means that he interferes with every person, society, species, and world, past, present, and future. Nothing in the entire space-time continuum is safe from the Doctor’s interference. The Doctor’s interfering nature is one of the main reasons so many viewers tune in each week to watch his adventures. Even though the Doctor’s interference is a dramatic device to get viewers glued to the television, it is not merely one; for it teaches and motivates viewers to live a similar lifestyle, and it provides important insights into some very deep philosophical questions. This essay will examine some of these insights and argue that the Doctor suggests a particular answer to the question

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concerning how one should live one’s life. Generally, he suggests we should live our lives getting in the thick of things, but more specifically, he teaches viewers how to live the good-life. Wood’s “getting in the thick of things” is helpful for understanding how the Doctor lives his life, but if we are to understand what implications it has for the good-life, we need a more thorough explanation of what the good-life is. So, how should one live one’s life? The Doctor and Doctor Who provide answers to this question in every episode, book, CD, and comic strip. One of the best examples comes from the episode “The Parting of the Ways,” where Rose is tricked into going back to earth while the Doctor stays behind to destroy the Daleks and likely die himself. While sitting in a café with Mickey and Jackie, Rose distraughtly says, It was a better life…The Doctor showed me a better way of living my life; you know he showed you, too. You don’t just give up…You don’t just let things happen…You make a stand…You say ‘no’…You have the guts to do what is right when everyone else just runs away!

In these few sentences, Rose sums up who the Doctor is and what the Doctor teaches us about living the good-life. Philosophy has its own set of ways of answering the question about how one should live one’s life, but one example sets itself apart by describing the good-life in a way that is surprisingly similar to the Doctor’s own way of life. In a recent book, Nicholas Wolterstorff presents a convincing argument for what the good-life is (2008). Wolterstorff maintains that only the flourishing life is adequate for explaining the goodlife, because only it is capable of accounting for the rights and obligations that we all have. While coming to this conclusion, Wolterstorff also shows why other conceptions of the good life are inadequate. What is meant by the flourishing life is the topic for the next section, but for now I wish only to suggest that the type of life that the Doctor is trying to teach us how to live is the type of life that Wolterstorff describes as the flourishing life. The remainder of this essay illustrates why, and arguing for why this suggestion is true.

The Flourishing Life as the Good-Life Nicholas Wolterstorff’s argument in Justice: Rights and Wrongs is that justice is a state of affairs in which each person has his or her inherent natural rights to certain goods respected, and if these rights are not respected, then individuals are wronged. Wolterstorff bases these rights on the inherent worth that he believes all humans have as a result of God’s



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love. In fact, Wolterstorff argues that there is no way of grounding a theory of rights without God.1 More importantly, for our purposes, Wolterstorff maintains that an adequate theory of rights requires a certain conception of the good-life, and in Part II of his book he sets out to locate the actual goods to which every human has a right to (2008, 207). According to Wolterstorff, these goods “are all goods in one’s life or history, states or events that contribute to making one’s life and history a good life and history” (207). Assuming we have inherent natural rights, then our theory of the good-life must account for these rights. I will show that, from the Doctor’s actions and words, it is safe to assume the Doctor believes in such rights and that he would agree with Wolterstorff on what constitutes the good-life.

The Eperientially Satisfying Life Wolterstorff presents three possible answers to what the good-life is: the experientially satisfying life, the happy life, and the flourishing life. The first possible explanation of the good-life is the experientially satisfying life, but as we will see, this way of life is neither adequate for living the good-life nor does the Doctor represent this understanding of the good-life. The experientially satisfying life is based on consequentialist reasoning, most commonly referred to as utilitarianism. Consequentialism is an endsbased theory of ethics that maintains what is morally right is that which produces the most pleasure (i.e. good). When faced with a decision of how to act in a particular situation, one must choose the course of action that will produce the most pleasure for the most people, while at the same time minimizing the amount of pain produced. For example, in “Genesis of the Daleks,” Sarah Jane Smith uses consequentialist reasoning to argue that the Doctor should, in fact, eradicate the Daleks, by saying, “Think of all the suffering there will be if you don’t [kill the Daleks].” However, the Doctor refuses to accept such consequences, as a grounds for what he should do; instead, he bases his reasons on the existence of rights, asking: “Do I have the right?” The experientially satisfying life, then, is a life in which one’s actions and decisions bring about the most good and the least amount of bad for each individual. It is important to understand that Wolterstorff is using the term good to refer to the state of affairs of having one’s rights respected. In other words, one lives an experientially satisfying life when one’s rights are respected, or at the most, only minimally disrespected (i.e. wronged). Wolterstorff argues that the experientially satisfying life fails as a



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candidate for the good-life because a person can be deprived of one’s rights, and therefore wronged, without ever experiencing the deprivation of one’s rights (2008, 147). He uses two examples to illustrate his point. First, an individual can be wronged by having her privacy infringed upon, while never actually knowing about the infringement. In this case, the individual has certain rights to privacy, and through the actions of the government, a peeping tom, or Time Lords she lacks the privacy that she has a right to. This deprivation, however, does not bring about any discomfort or pain: hence, she lives an experientially satisfying life, even though she is being wronged. Second, a person can be wronged by having his name and reputation slandered by malicious rumors. In this example, an individual can live an experientially satisfying life but be wronged by the damage that occurs to one’s life history by the malicious intent of others. Just like the first one, this example shows that one can be wronged and yet suffer no damage to the satisfaction of one’s experiences. The Doctor also provides examples of why the experientially satisfying life cannot serve as the good-life. For one, the experientially satisfying life does not require any engagement with the world or other individuals, which runs counter to the core of the Doctor’s beliefs. Think of the Time Lords: they spend a large majority of their time on Gallifrey, contemplating and studying the intricacies of time (at least they did before the Great Time War), and they promote and practice a policy of noninterference. In other words, the Time Lords sit back and never have to dirty their hands with the problems of other times and civilizations. They can study, analyze, and learn about all of time and space without ever actually getting involved with time and space. At an early age, the Doctor rejected this lifestyle, left in an old Type 40 TARDIS, and has been interfering ever sense – even to his own detriment. Robert Nozick also provides an interesting thought experiment that is analogous to the Time Lords’ policy of non-interference, and it lends weight to the conclusion that the experientially satisfying life is not adequate for the good life (1974, 42-45). Nozick asks readers to imagine an “experience machine” that is capable of simulating any number of pleasures and experiences simply by being connected to it. If this machine is capable of producing any experience one desires, and if having the most pleasurable experiences possible, while at the same time minimizing the pain is the manner in which we are supposed to live, then we should stop living our real lives and live our lives connected to the experience machine. Our decision to live in the experience machine is based simply on the fact that it produces more pleasure and satisfaction than real life, and because having satisfying experiences is what we think is good, then



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this is our fate. In other words, we would live our lives vicariously through mediated experience, just like the Time Lords do. We stand back from life at a safe distance, without the fear of getting hurt, the fear of loss, and the fear of getting our hands dirty by actually living in the real world. Nozick’s thought experiment shows us that even though the experientially satisfying life is an intuitively plausible position, it does not account for the complexities of life. Something more is needed. The Doctor is constantly interfering and getting his hands dirty, and that is what he teaches us to do too. Even though his life is usually experientially satisfying, the experientially satisfying life does not account for the version of the good-life that the Doctor represents.

The Happy (Well-lived) Life At first glance, the happy life seems like an adequate response to the question, “How should I live my life?” We all desire to be happy, and living a happy life seems to be a necessary component of living the goodlife. However, there are certain features of the happy life (or the well-lived life) that show it offers an inadequate account of the good-life. Just like the experientially satisfying life, both Wolterstorff and the Doctor illustrate why the happy life is lacking as an account of the good-life. The happy life is based on the ancient theory of eudaimonism. Eudaimonism is simply the Greek term for happiness, or well-being, and was used by Ancient Greek philosophers, like Aristotle, the Stoics, and early Christian philosophers, but also, over the past several decades, has grown in popularity amongst contemporary ethicists. One of the most important things to keep straight in eudaimonism is that happiness is used to describe something very specific, and should not be confused with pleasure. Pleasure is a state of having one’s senses stimulated in a positive way. Happiness, on the other hand, is something much more complex, and requires an entire life’s experiences to be capable of deciding whether or not an individual lived a happy life. Instead of going through several versions of eudaimonism, which I simply refer to as the happy life for the remainder of this essay, looking at its early formulation will provide enough material to adequately understand the theory and to see why it is inadequate as a theory of the good-life. To get a general picture of what the happy life is, I present Wolterstorff’s explanation. Wolterstorff says, “The eudaemonist holds that the ultimate and comprehensive goal of each of us is that we live our lives as well as possible, the well-lived life being, by definition, the happy life” (2008, 150). The most important question for a eudaimonist is “How shall



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I live?” not “What shall I do?” The latter takes a myopic view of individual experiences, while the former takes an overarching approach to deciding what is ethically good based on all of life’s experiences. The answer to the eudaimonist’s question is: live a happy life. According to Aristotle, happiness is the only end-in-itself, and therefore, the ultimate thing humans strive for. To achieve happiness one must consider one’s entire life and how the decisions one makes affect that life. This process is similar to that of the experientially satisfying life, but instead of looking at how to produce particular instances of desire-satisfaction, eudaimonists are concerned with producing an entire life that is well-lived and, therefore, happy. What is more, the happy life is a life of activity. In other words, individuals are involved in the process of becoming happy. Happiness is not a thing, like money, that can be possessed; rather, it is a process of making the right decisions about how to best live one’s life. Happiness, then, is the product of living a well-lived life, or what eudaimonist call the virtuous life. And living one’s life virtuously means that one carefully considers one’s actions and decisions in order to produce a happy life out of the random events one is constantly confronted with. According to Wolterstorff, the happy life is inadequate as a theory of the good-life because “many of the goods to which we have rights are neither constituents nor conditions of the well-lived life” (207). Wolterstorff offers three main reasons for why this conclusion is true, two of which is discussed here, and the third is discussed in the following section. First, it is inconsistent with a theory of inherent natural rights, which Wolterstorff maintains we all have. This reason alone is not sufficient for discrediting the happy life, but Wolterstorff presents a fascinating argument to show what area the happy life is lacking in. Wolterstorff shows that there are two dimensions of morality: the agentdimension and the recipient-dimension, and the happy life only allows for the former dimension (7-9). If true, then the happy life fails at capturing how we typically think of morality. The agent-dimension of morality is the feature of morality that claims one is guilty of wronging another when he or she fails to respect an obligation one has to another individual (or groups of individuals). It says nothing of the one who is wronged. The recipient-dimension claims one is wronged when one’s rights are disrespected. A complete conception of morality requires both dimensions. Say the Cybermen forcibly upgrade a human, and for the sake of argument, assume there is an obligation that Cybermen not forcibly convert beings (i.e. not infringe upon others’ freedom). The agentdimension says that the Cybermen are guilty of wrongdoing by forcibly



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converting beings, but that is all; it says nothing about the individuals who are wronged. In fact, the Cybermen would insist that they have no such obligation, and even if they did, without the recipient-dimension of morality we are not capable of saying anyone is wronged in anyway. We can only say they have failed to live up to an obligation. The Cybermen may be guilty of harming individuals, but the victims have no corollary rights to claim they have been wronged. What we need is the recipient-dimension of morality to fill in our account of morality and to make concessions for the recipients of wrongdoing. The recipient-dimension of morality allows for those who are wronged to make the claim that their rights have been violated. So, even though the Cybermen may not recognize the obligation, or may recognize it and justify it as a means to an end, individuals who are wronged are still capable of demanding justice be sought to rectify the wrong. As a result of morality being comprised of both an agent and a recipientdimension, we are able to make sense of individuals having rights and others having obligations to respect those rights. Wolterstorff says, The language of rights and of being wronged enables the oppressed to bring their own moral condition into the picture; they have been deprived of their right to better treatment, treated as though they are of little worth (9).

In other words, when the Cybermen claim they are doing us a favor by upgrading us, we intuitively laugh at such a notion because we believe we have the right to choose whether or not we are upgraded. The happy life does not require a recipient-dimension, and therefore, gives us no conceptual basis for such a belief. The second reason the happy life is an inadequate theory of the goodlife is because it lacks the conceptual framework to account for compassion, the feeling of others’ pain. According to Wolterstorff, compassion is the secular version of Christ’s command to “love thy neighbor,” and requires rejecting the agent-oriented dimension of life that is intrinsic to the happy life (209). In other words, compassion requires one to both suffer for and with a person in pain, and the eudaimonist’s focus on the self only requires the suffering for a person in pain. The eudaimonist only feels sorrow and pity as a means to promoting one’s own virtue, and avoids suffering pain because it inhibits one’s ability to lead a happy life. Wolterstorff says, “Compassion is an alienation of the self from the self; a forgetfulness of self and an emotional identification with the other” (217). Ultimately, it is only one’s own virtue that is constitutive of one’s happiness. The lack of a requirement to suffer with others in the



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happy life does not mean that a conceptual framework for allowing compassion a place in the happy life cannot be formulated, but as is, the happy life does not provide a framework for true compassion. Even if it did, the happy life would still have to address the previous complaint. If the happy life really does lack compassion, then it is safe to assume the Doctor does not represent the happy life, for his compassion is one of his most well-known features. In “The Unquiet Dead” the Doctor offers up human corpses in order to help what he thinks is a dying race; in “The Last of the Time Lords” the Doctor feels such compassion for the Master that he is willing to stop his travels and care for him; and in “The War Machine” the Doctor’s compassion for the poor souls taken from their appropriate time and space causes him to risk his own life by contacting the Time Lords for help. The list could go on and on because almost every episode has the Doctor risking his life, the life of his companions, and sometimes the universe to help strangers that he feels compassion for. These are not acts of pity; rather they are acts of an individual who honestly cares and feels the pains of others. The Doctor’s recurring cry of “I am sorry” shows that he feels responsible and is empathic to the plight of those in danger of being harmed. The Doctor is even willing to alienate himself from his own race of beings in order to help others, and compassion for others is the only good explanation for why he would do such a thing.

The Flourishing Life The final conception of the good-life is the flourishing life, or what is sometimes called the life that is lived well. The flourishing life is not as well known as the previous two, but according to Wolterstorff it is the only one that adequately accounts for a theory of inherent natural rights. And as we will see, the Doctor’s own actions and words support understanding the good-life as the flourishing life. The flourishing life is based on the idea of life going well, and for one’s life to go well, among other things, one’s rights must be respected and one must respect others’ rights. One of the most important features of the flourishing life is that it consists of both the agent- and recipientdimensions of morality, which we discussed early as comprising both morality and as being part of the Doctor’s understanding of morality. Since the flourishing life recognizes both dimensions of morality, an individual has both obligations to treat others in a certain way (i.e. respect their rights) and have rights to be treated in certain ways (i.e. others have obligations to respect those rights). In other words, there is a correlation



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between one’s obligations and one’s rights, both of which must be respected. Flourishing, then, becomes a matter of respecting the rights of others and having one’s own rights respected, which culminates in a just state of affairs. Unlike the happy life and the experientially satisfying life, we must recognize that much of our well-being is in the hands of others, and the well-being of others is in our hands. We are not as in control as the experientially satisfying and the happy life suggest. Wolterstorff’s conception of justice is intrinsically social (i.e. based on social relationships), and so the good-life (as the flourishing life) is intrinsically social, too. As a result, we must become vulnerable to having our rights disrespected and realize that others are vulnerable to us. However, with this understanding of the good-life as the flourishing life, we are better prepared to live a just life that results in our own personal flourishing and others’ flourishing because we recognize these vulnerabilities and live appropriately. As Miroslav Volf suggests, the flourishing life for Wolterstorff requires one live “in harmony with and delight in the physical world, fellow human beings, God, and themselves” (Volf 2009). He says, When I care, then I attend not just to a person's rights—respecting them as well as making sure that others respect them—but also to her needs, her wants, and her delights; then I take an interest in her, in her particularity, and for her own sake, and I seek to enhance her life-goods. It takes mutual generosity of this sort, as well as mutual respect for rights, for human beings to flourish fully (Volf 2009).

It is this harmony that brings about flourishing. A proponent of the happy life, especially one who does not accept Wolterstorff’s argument that the happy life lacks compassion, might contend that there is, in fact, no relevant differences between the happy life and the flourishing life. For one can accept both dimensions of morality and compassion, and still maintain the happy life is the good-life. Now it is time to address the third argument against the happy life, alluded to above. Wolterstorff uses the eudaimonists ’ rejection of natural preferables to show that eudaimonism does not adequately capture what is considered the good-life. Natural preferables are simply things that are part of our lives simply by virtue of being born or things that become part of our lives during the process of living. They include, among other things, life, health, pleasure, family, love, beauty, strength, good reputation, and wealth. These preferables are part of what it means to be humans, yet eudaimonists



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avoid attachment to these things because their loss (or abundance) may hinder one’s ability to be happy. For example, if the Doctor was a eudaimonist he would avoid caring too much for others or trying so hard to help others, because it might cause him to suffer, which would hinder his ability to be happy. For the person who believes the good-life is the flourishing life, these preferables are both an important part of being human, and vital to one’s flourishing. They accept the fact that these preferables might be taken away, and that they are highly vulnerable to them being taken away by others; but, it is the balance between respecting others’ rights to their preferables and having one’s own rights to one’s preferables respected that comprise the flourishing life. This is what Wolterstorff maintains is the good-life, and as we will see in the next section, it is what the Doctor shows us is the good-life.

The Doctor’s Interference as an Exemplar of the Flourishing Life Several examples have already been provided above that show why the Doctor does not represent the experientially satisfying life and the happy life, so I conclude by pointing out several examples where the Doctor supports and lives by Nicholas Wolterstorff’s conception of the good-life as the flourishing life. Instead of focusing on the Doctor’s interference, which is discussed earlier, this examination looks at cases where the Doctor exhibits compassion, selflessness, and how both of these manifest themselves in the respect for the rights of others. This examination is intended to bolster the reader’s understanding and acceptance of the Doctor as an exemplar of the flourishing life. One of the best examples of how the feelings of others affect the Doctor, which in turn explains his compassion, appears in the episode “Planet of the Ood.” In this episode, Donna and the Doctor visit the planet of the Ood, where Ood are mass produced in order to be slaves to all of mankind. In a very powerful series of scenes Donna is introduced to some of the most disturbing horrors of space and time, the Doctor explains that he can hear the “song”–the mind calling out–of the Ood’s pain and suffering, and also hear the eventual joy of their release from slavery. Related to the Doctor’s ability to hear others’ pain, we see in “The Parting of the Ways” that the Doctor hears “the sun and the moon, the day and the night…all there is, all there was, all there ever could be” and hears how they hurt. He even suggests that such a burden almost drives him mad. With the power of hearing others’ joys and sorrows, it is no surprise to see the Doctor so excited when he is able to help and save others, like in



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“World War Three” when he experiences the rare occurrence of everyone surviving. The perceptual powers that the Doctor has prove that he not only suffers for others, but he also suffers with others, which is the definition of compassion. But instead of letting the voices of pain and suffering drive him crazy, he uses them to help others, save lives and civilizations, to help others flourish, and to flourish himself. Another example of the Doctor’s compassion is seen in the two part story “Human Nature” and “The Family of Blood.” This story is typically discussed with regard to the death and destruction that occurs to innocents as a result of the Doctor’s presence, and whether or not the conclusion suggests a vindictive side to the Doctor. This is a challenging story for several reasons, which is why I bring it up here, but if we look closely at the episodes we see that the Doctor’s punishment is compassionate, in its own way, and that the death and destruction that follows the Doctor is due to his interfering ways and unwillingness to let others be harmed. At the beginning of these episodes we see the Doctor hide himself on earth as a human, and later we find out that he has to endure great pain in order to do this. We also see that the Doctor calls the Family of Blood hunters, and claims they will never stop hunting him, at least not until their “lifespan” runs out. It is later revealed that if the Family catches the Doctor they will be able to take his remaining lives and live forever. The Doctor cannot allow them to achieve their goal, for doing so would result in the death of countless more victims. So, he hides himself away on earth, disguised as a human, waiting for them to pass away. This ruse works for a while, until the Family shows up and starts possessing and killing people in order to find the Doctor. The philosophically interesting aspect of the story is what happens when the Doctor changes back into a Time Lord and confronts the Family of Blood. First, in deciding to change back, he decides that it is more important to stop the Family than to live a long life as a married man with a full family, and thereafter die a peaceful death. This is a difficult decision for the Doctor, but he chooses to forgo this possible life and stop the Family. The next thing he does is cause the Family’s spaceship to explode, but instead of trapping them inside or letting them stay inside and die, he helps them to escape. Then, he must decide what the Family’s punishment should be. He is aware that the Family wishes to live forever, but he cannot let them go free because they will only cause destruction throughout the universe. So, he – like Rassilon in “The Five Doctors”– grants the Family of Blood their wish for eternal life, but it is an eternal life where they can cause no harm.



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Depending on how one views the Doctor’s actions, one can see the Doctor’s decisions in “The Family of Blood” are both compassionate for humans and the Family. He gives up a lot to save earth from the Family of Blood, not to mention the pain he endures to become human in the first place. One of his reasons for hiding is to let the lifespan of the Family run out, but because they foiled that plan the Doctor must take a more active role in the fate of the Family of Blood. He can choose to kill them, to let them go free, or to let them live on forever in a state of existence where they can harm no one. Letting them go free is not an option, but killing them or trapping them in suspended animation do not seem like compassionate decisions either. Killing, let alone execution, is not something the Doctor does lightly. He typically tries to save his adversaries’ lives. So, if killing them is not acceptable, then the Doctor must choose what is left. Based on his options and the Family’s overwhelming desire to live forever, the Doctor chooses what he feels is the more compassionate of the two remaining choices – suspended animation. Now, some readers might claim death is preferable over the Family’s fate, but simply killing someone, let alone an entire family, cannot be an easy thing to do. This fact, coupled with the Family’s desires and the Doctor’s ability to trap them, suggests the most compassionate thing to do is to place them where they cannot harm others. It is obviously a difficult decision for the Doctor, as evidenced by his annual visits to the little girl, which is a sign of compassion, but given his options, it appears he chooses the most compassionate one. In regard to the overarching criticism of the story that the Doctor brings death and destruction to all those he meets, the conception of the good-life as the flourishing life can diffuse it. The flourishing life requires the acceptance that one is vulnerable to being wronged by others; it is simply a fact that our life-goods and life-history can be damaged by others. It is not that evil follows the Doctor around; it is that the Doctor refuses to let evil continue with its destructiveness. As Rose said earlier, “The Doctor has the guts to do what is right when everyone else runs away.” Sure, one can be saved by running away or hiding from evil, but it takes courage to stand up to evil. In other words, the Doctor could easily set back on Gallifrey watching the universe go by, letting Autons, Cybermen, and Daleks destroy planets, allowing despotic madmen to enslave and kill people, and never let any of this worry him; but he does not. He risks his life to ensure that others are able to enjoy their rights to their life-goods. In this way, the Doctor’s interference, even when innocents are harmed, promotes the flourishing of all life in the universe.



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In addition to examples of the Doctor’s compassion and how it respects the rights of others, let us look at a couple examples of the Doctor’s selflessness and how it respects the rights of others. One of the best examples of the Doctor’s selflessness is seen in “The Caves of Androzani.” During the episode the Doctor and Peri contract a disease, spectrox toxaemia, and as the disease ravages his body, he risks his life to find an antidote to save Peri. The Doctor is successful at finding an antidote, but only at the cost of his own life. He risks his life by climbing deep into a cave to get the serum, and with his last bit of strength he gives Peri all of the lifesaving medicine; then he lies down, says goodbye, and suffers through a disturbing regeneration. Another example of the Doctor’s selflessness, which is also tied in with the discussion above concerning the death and destruction that follows the Doctor, comes from “Planet of the Spiders.” In this interesting serial, the Doctor’s previous action of borrowing the Metebelis crystal in “The Green Death” comes back to haunt him. Throughout the story many people are harmed, and the Doctor realizes that everything that has happened is a result of his taking of the Metebelis crystal. In other words, he realizes that his actions have dire effects. To atone for his mistake, he decides to return the crystal, which brings an end to the rule of the Queen Spider and releases her control on her human subjects. However, as a result of the Doctor’s actions he is irreparably damaged by radiation and soon regenerates. Like the previous example, this one shows the Doctor not only is willing to risk his life, but has given his life in order to save others. It also shows that he is cognizant of how he is responsible for the welfare of others and that he takes this responsibility seriously. I could go on with many more examples: “The Parting of the Ways” is full of them; in almost every episode the Doctor goes out of his way to save others, even when they want to harm him (see “Midnight”); the Doctor desires to help his enemies; and among many other things, he risks his life in order to see others flourish (see “Frontios”). If the Doctor thought the good-life was the experientially satisfying life, then there seems to be no reason for him to endure the pain that he suffers. If the Doctor thought the good-life was the happy life, then his overwhelming compassion for others does not make sense, for the loss that is inherent in compassion inhibits the happy life. The only reasonable conclusion is that Doctor thinks the good-life is what Nicholas Wolterstorff calls the flourishing life, and his actions and words support this conclusion. The only thing left for this author to do is challenge the reader to live a flourishing life, just as the Doctor challenges us to do.





CHAPTER TWENTY AUTHOR WHO?: MASTERPLANNERS, SCRIBERMEN, AND SCRIPT DOCTORS; THE PRODUCERS, WRITERS AND SCRIPT EDITORS OF DOCTOR WHO TOM STEWARD

Doctor Who (BBC, 1963-) is a programme whose significance in television and culture is as an object of reception, with its origins in audience research reports, its substantial fan community and industries, and documentation of the tastes of audience demographics across television history, particularly the family. I argue that authorship, particularly in terms of contributions to the programme by producers, script editors and writers, should also be recognised as a means of conceptualising the series without it necessarily displacing this other mode of interpretation. Therefore, I examine Doctor Who’s authorship both as a characteristic of text and production and as a product of media visibility and audience engagement. I begin by looking at authorship as a fact of production, investigating how and why authorship in Doctor Who has been and should continue to be regarded as a key issue. I assess the status of particular artistic roles within production structures and bear witness to the interventions of artists into the production process. Additionally, I make reference to concepts of authorship that figuratively underpin the process of writing within the programme. I go on to highlight how artists determine textual content in fields such as genre, narration and character performance. In the second section, I shift focus to how authorship is defined through the visibility of producers, script editors and writers to the media and interactions with the audience. My analysis of visibility can be seen as a counterpoint to Kim Newman’s argument, in the BFI TV Classics monograph on the series, that the public perception of the programme was not as an authored text

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until executive producer Russell T Davies came to the series with an increased production brief (Newman 2005, 113): “Doctor Who (19631989)... [had] only fan scholars paying attention to... the way behind-thescenes personnel changes shapes the programme. Doctor Who (2005- ) was from the first seen... as authored”1. Most of my examples come from the period 1974 to 1981 during which time Tom Baker played The Doctor. This is because it provides a large enough sample to be representative of an authorial culture given that the period encompasses three different producers (Philip Hinchcliffe, Graham Williams, John Nathan-Turner), four separate script editors (Robert Holmes, Anthony Read, Douglas Adams, Christopher H. Bidmead) and the work of several established series writers (Terry Nation, Terrance Dicks). The 45-year tenure of the programme means that surveying every producer and script editor era would demand a project of a much larger scope. Concentrating my analysis on a particular period allows for more detailed research, and this phase of the programme has the most media and academic material generated around it, allowing me to reflect on how authorship in the programme has already been conceptualised. However, rather than restrict my analysis completely to this period and simply reproduce the critical emphases, I support my claims with reference to other producer tenures as far-reaching as the inception of the series in 1963 and its re-launch in 2005.

Authorial Intervention The discourse of authorship in Doctor Who derives primarily from a founding myth of the author in critical histories of the programme. In particular, John Kenneth Muir’s A Critical History of Doctor Who on Television argues that the series is born out of Sydney Newman’s preexisting auteur style and the conflicts between S. Newman and script editor Verity Lambert over programme identity whilst suggesting that public interest in the programme is rescued through the agency of Terry Nation in writing the first Dalek serial (Muir 1999, 9-12). The importance placed on authorship in the early stages of the programme, centering on three distinct roles – producer, script editor and writer – has meant that subsequent discussion is usually couched in terms of these disciplines. However, producers and script editors figure more prominently in auteur constructions of the programme. Programme studies on Doctor Who tend to reach a critical consensus that producers and script editors bring about changes in tone, themes and style. The production tenure of Hinchcliffe with script editor Holmes is discussed by most critics in terms of author-



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specific themes, such as Justin Richards’ notion of the “possession” motifs in their seasons in Doctor Who: The Scripts 1974-1975 (Richards 2001, 94). Producers and script editors are associated with marked shifts in the tone of drama, from the irony and bathos attributed to the partnership of Williams and Adams to the dispassionate empiricism that replaced it, represented by Nathan-Turner and Bidmead. Critics and programme historians have also reported producers’ interventions into stylistic decisions more commonly associated with designers such as Hinchcliffe’s Edwardian-style wood-panelled re-design of the TARDIS interior2 (Howe et al.1994a, 98) and John Nathan-Turner’s addition of question marks to the collar of the Doctor’s costume (DWM 191, 1992). The discourse of the extended influence of the producer into programme style is not merely restricted to magazine publications or DVD making of documentaries, but a key aspect of the scholarship on the programme. Dave Robinson’s “‘Who done it,’ discourses of authorship during the John Nathan-Turner era,” argues for Nathan-Turner’s totalising impact on all significant aspects of production from production values to performance (Robinson 2007, 176). Critics and historians of the programme have suggested that each producer and script editor tenure has a discreet identity. Peter Haining’s Doctor Who: 25 Glorious Years attributes a small set of core characteristics to each period (Haining 1990, 20-48) and the 1983/84 Winter Special of Doctor Who Magazine3 (DWM 1983) is an edition on producers that gives each artist a feature article. These accounts project individuated dramatic tendencies for each production period in the manner of an authored corpus or oeuvre. Although I would caution against saying that producer/script editor tenures are thematically self-contained, there is evidence supporting some of the critical auteur assumptions around tone and style. This comes in the form of Richards’ publication of Holmes’ script revisions in Season 12, his first season as script editor, (Richards 2001) demonstrating definite rises in the levels of moral ambiguity, plausible threat, and character comedy in the programme. This is suggested through character descriptions such as “There is a disturbing hardness about the Doctor” (Richards 2001, 215) in “Genesis of the Daleks” and the editing out of lines at the serial’s conclusion that would have suggested an unqualified success to the villains’ destruction, as well as the addition of jokes based on previous references to character behaviour (“He-elp”/ “That sounds like Sarah”)4. There is also corroboration that seasons of the programme are centred on the conceptual projects of producers and script editors. This can be seen in the production documentation of Graham Williams’ philosophical thesis of universal moral balance called the “Key to Time,”



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which dramatically and narratively underpinned Season 16 (Howe et al. 1994a, 120-124). The coverage of producers’ forays into design merely underlines the different areas of production they could permeate, as Nathan-Turner’s costume alterations are just one example of how the producer was overhauling the stylistic signatures of the programme by changing the theme tune and credits sequence and preempts his later authority over costume seen most strikingly in his hand-picking of Colin Baker’s clown-like ensemble. Alongside this ongoing fetishisation of producers and script editor, individual writers who are said to have a shaping influence on the series are distinguished from other personnel and elevated to author status5. This canonisation can be by virtue of the exceptionality of their contributions. Andy Murray’s “The Talons of Robert Holmes” singles out the writer/script editor for the high quality of his characterisation and dialogue (Murray 2007, 219) and the media misconception of Nation being the series creator (an error in an edition of Trivial Pursuit that has recently been repeated in a Guardian article by Stuart Jeffries [Jeffries 2002]) is partly due to the fan canonicity and critical acclaim of his serial “Genesis of the Daleks.” The individual recognition of artists also results from significant contributions to the mythology and/or conventions of the series explaining why Holmes is so often coveted since, as stated by Murray (Murray 2007, 228-231), he has shaped the enduring aspects of the programme’s mythology and created a lasting dramatic template for the programme at the beginning of the 1970s with his script for “Spearhead from Space”6. But autonomous status in the Doctor Who canon of artists is not always dependent on celebratory value judgement but a conceptual clarity and continuity in authorship, be that positive or negative for the viewers and critics of the programme. Therefore, Nathan-Turner’s formula of guest stars, returning adversaries, and excessive violence is reducible to a producer signature despite being unpopular and controversial amongst viewers. Not all critics of Doctor Who are as seduced by the author-centric accounts of the programme. K. Newman’s BFI monograph shuns auteur claims for the programme’s numerous producers (except Davies), counterarguing that the sheer number of artists and collaborators involved with the series means that the programme lacks a clearly identifiable author figure (Newman, 2005, 113). This is despite K. Newman partially attributing the decline of the series to choices made by producer Williams7. To give the published accounts of the programme’s authorship their due, magazine articles do often attempt to fragment the coherence of the auteur figure by bringing into view struggles between producers and



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script editors (e.g. Nathan-Turner and Bidmead) (DWM 315, 28). These collaboration-based critiques also negate that, perhaps contradictorily, the agency of producers and script editors becomes more apparent in the light of contrasts with predecessors:. the earth-bound realism of Producer Terrance Dicks to the genre fiction of Hinchcliffe, the slapstick of Williams to the cerebral tone of Nathan-Turner. This suggests that the very notion of authorship is only possible through multiple agencies within the programme and continually changing production regimes. The influence, scope and autonomy that producers and script editors have over text and production are largely a product of the fluidity between authorial roles in production contexts. Claims from critics about programme script editors from Holmes (Rigelsford 1995, 12-28) to Bidmead (Howe et al. 1994b, 3-9) that are supported by research evidence (Richards 2001) suggest that they either completely rewrote scripts or made significant changes to the content and concept of the serial, making many script editors in effect writers at certain points in production. There are as many instances of producers crossing over into the script editor role, usually in response to the script editor vacating their position in order to perform the writer’s task on an unsuitable script submission (Cartmel 2005, 100). This ability to move freely between authorial roles, often combining them so that writers would be their own script editors, is partly responsible for certain periods of the programme adhering to a particular shape established by producers and script editors rather than that of guest writers. In the re-launched series, Davies’ executive producer brief combines the role of producer and script editor; he re-writes and re-drafts scripts, alters or refines the overall tone of the programme and is responsible for narrative continuity within or across the seasons. The prominence of auteur figures in Doctor Who has, therefore, come from the blurring of distinctions between roles to the point where a single artist oversees a number of roles that are traditionally collaborative enterprises. Whilst Davies’ autonomy comes from the adoption of the executive producer model from contemporary US television production in which the producer is responsible for narrative and tonal cohesion in long-running drama series, in the 1970s period of the series such role-swapping was against BBC production policy. Hinchcliffe had to negotiate more writing and rewriting duties for Holmes out of his superiors (Howe et al. 1994b, 91-98) and Douglas Adams later admitted to having written and rewritten far more than was permitted under his brief as script editor (DWM 313, 19). As to whether these added responsibilities were an attempt at greater authorial control over the series, it is clear that control was often a byproduct of production problems with incomplete and unsuitable scripts



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having to be significantly rewritten in a short period of time. However, within the production culture of the programme in the mid-1970s, the script editor role was becoming established as a position with the authority to make wholesale script changes and redefine the concept, genre, and narrative style of the serial. This was set into motion by Holmes’ script editing changing the narrative outlines of “The Ark in Space” and “Revenge of the Cybermen” (the former under his name, the latter keeping the original writer credit) and both the genre and subject matter of “The Brain of Morbius” to the point where Writer Terrance Dicks asked for his name to be taken off the project (see “Genre”). By the end of the 1970s, this had clearly become standard practice with Adams testifying to a thin outline composed only of set pieces submitted by Nation for a Dalek serial which he had to develop into a coherent narrative (DWM 313, 20) and Bidmead overhauling scripts that clashed with the new scientific sensibility of the programme (e.g. Dicks’ original vampire concept for Season 18’s “State of Decay.” Furthermore, there is mutability between television and literary authorship in the production and critical discourses of the programme. Several writers have adapted their serials into spin-off novels for the Target range whilst critics and fellow artists have pejoratively represented certain writers within literary paradigms; Holmes is often referred to as having a literary style8. There is also a critical trend of elevating the programme culturally through associations with literature, such as Howe, Stammer and Walker’s reclaiming of the loathed self-reflexivity of the Williams/Adams period as a literary technique in Doctor Who: The Handbook (Howe et al. 1992) and Davies’ author-led period dramas containing numerous references (or puns) to literature and its academic reception, such as the intra-diegetic nod to Shakespeare scholars’ recognition of author in-jokes (“57 academics punch the air”) in Gareth Roberts’ “The Shakespeare Code.” The optimum point of crossover between television writing and literature is evidently Douglas Adams. A legitimate science-fiction novelist and writer/script editor for Doctor Who, he has transposed storylines and characters from the series into his novels. The relaunched series references Adams both through his writing for the series, with the 2009 Easter Special “Planet of the Dead” framed as a pastiche of Adams’ “City of Death” with diamond robberies, wacky scientists, and trenchcoat-wearing police detectives, and his literature with “The Christmas Invasion” containing mentions of Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy protagonist Arthur Dent and a homage to the character’s costume in having the Doctor play (nearly) the entire episode in a dressing gown9 (Adams 1979).



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Genre One of the most significant areas of authorial intervention in Doctor Who is genre. This is in particular regard to producer and script editor involvement in re-interpreting the series’ points of genre reference. David O’Mahony’s “History, pseudo-history and genre in Doctor Who” argues that the timeline of the series should be seen in terms of gravitation towards genre narration rather than the subdivision of the programme into producer tenures (O’Mahony 2007, 56-57). An article in DWM also asserts that the binary oppositions of genre cohere certain periods of the programme rather than author canons or intentionality. However, the drift that O’Mahony describes from semi-factual historical drama to popular genre storytelling and pastiche is one that is clearly influenced, if not dictated, by the predilections of Hinchcliffe and Holmes for references to genre fiction as part of a mode of mass-audience narration and address and the use of cinematic or literary genres (e.g. monster movies, mystery stories, as the precepts behind the script commissions given to writers). Furthermore, the very concept of Doctor Who as genre-specific is one that arrives with Hinchcliffe as producer and his establishment of the series as a text that would alternate and/or hybridise between horror tending towards gothic melodrama and romantic mysticism and science fiction dealing with issues facing mechanised societies such as robotics10. Holmes’ script editing demonstrates that the role can change or inflect on genre. Dicks’ original script for “The Brain of Morbius” is a robot story that Holmes then altered to remove any mechanical characters in favour of human and monster protagonists that could build a pastiche of cinematic adaptations of Frankenstein (Shelley 1992). O’Mahony seems not to follow through on his intriguing notion that the generic identification of the programme as historical serial in its early stages is largely author dependent and oscillates dramatically through different producer/script editor regimes (O’Mahony 2007, 58-59). Had he taken this notion through with other generic incarnations of the programme in later periods, it would be evident that producer and script editor preferences for and against particular genres underpin the changes in programme identity across the series run. To this, we can identify Bidmead’s shunning of the gothic horror serials of the Hinchcliffe period and Hinchcliffe breaking with the action and espionage tendencies of the Terrance Dicks/Barry Letts tenure.



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Narrative Form Authorial agency seems particularly active in the many changes in narrative form the programme has undergone throughout its run. Examples of this include Holmes’ re-editing of the standard serial length as four rather than six parts during his first season as script editor to meet authorial preferences for narrative pacing, to control season budgets, and to address slumps in viewing figures across long serials. Nathan-Turner also made changes to the length of serials by reducing them to a maximum of four parts (six part serials still appeared regularly before his arrival) and also made the lengths of seasons more flexible so that, for instance, Season 18 included one more serial than usual (seven rather than six). Authorship is also central to the programme’s use of narrative continuity with Williams setting in place a season-long narrative arc with goal-oriented characters and narrative objectives running concurrently to the selfcontained serial narratives in Season 16. Admittedly, changes in narrative form tend to come out of scheduling re-locations, institutional edicts and budgetary constraints. For instance, the move to serials consisting of two 45-minute episodes and employment of a season linked by a framing narrative (“Trial of a Time Lord”) in Colin Baker’s time as the Doctor are the results of the BBC moving the programme to a twice-weekly slot and the broadcaster putting the series on probation for imminent cancellation. But the narrative redesign of the series also illuminates the dramatic approaches and influences of particular producers. Davies’ reorganisation of the series narrative into 45-minute single or double episodes with each season cumulatively drawing to a moment of closure reflects the producer’s reconceptualisation of the programme in the mould of the long-form “flexi-narrative” format reminiscent of the quality US drama serial typified by Murder One (Fox, 1995-1996) and The Sopranos (HBO, 1999-2007). In this narrative mode, each episode of a season is part of a cumulative narrative arc resolved at its end but also has the flexibility to be a standalone dramatic play (Nelson 1997, 30-31)11. In the case of Williams, however, the distinctive narrative concept (a goal-oriented story across one season) that was at the forefront of changes implemented by the producer acts as something of a substitute for a clear dramatic or thematic objective for the series, being his most significant contribution to programme identity during his tenure.



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The Doctor Perhaps the most significant impact that authors have had on the developing text of Doctor Who is on the identity and character of the Doctor, a plaudit usually attributed solely to actors playing the eponymous protagonist. Author shaping seems improbable when considering that there is a lack of fit between producer and lead actor tenures (i.e., a producer coming in at the same time as a new lead actor is more the exception than the norm). Once again, the relative autonomy of the producer and script editor team comes into play. The producer has authority over casting, holds the monopoly on characterisation, and influences performance styles whilst the script editor’s revisions are a means of changing or refining the character of the Doctor. This is often, but crucially not always, tailored to a new actor in the role. With the arrival of Tom Baker, which coincided with new partnership Hinchcliffe and Holmes, the character was redefined by the producer as, in his own words, a “wandering space gypsy” (Richards 2001, 24) whilst Baker’s emphasis on the Doctor as a figure of ambiguity and compromised morality can be contextualised within Hinchcliffe’s project to increase moral complexity and relativism as a gesture towards a more adult perspective or tone. Holmes as script editor and individual serial writers also made several changes or refinements to the scripts of Season 12 that would emphasise the Doctor’s physical weakness, eccentricity, and uncertain moral code. These include a fumbling struggle with a machine in “Robot” to emphasise Baker’s contrast with the agility and martial arts of Pertwee (Richards 2001, 57) and in the same serial the writing in of screen business to emphasise the bizarre idiosyncrasies of the new characterisation (e.g. “building a tower from odds and ends on the bench...with childlike pleasure”) (Richards 2001, 62). When Williams takes over as producer with Baker still in the role, the characterisation alters to a more self-consciously comic mode of performance, although it is difficult to tell whether this was a producer hand-me-down or more indicative of production artists being unable to control Baker as an actor12. What is clearer is the influence Nathan-Turner and Bidmead had over the characterisation of the Doctor by eliminating Baker’s comic indulgence and reducing his performance to one of catatonic understatement in Season 18. True, the producer and script editor would consolidate their conception of an impotent and vulnerable Doctor by re-casting the role with the meeker and more passive qualities that Peter Davison could bring to the part (another liberty that demonstrates how the producer can transform characterisation). The point remains that the



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change in character perspective came from movements in the production and authorship of the programme rather than just the replacement of lead actors.

Visibility and Audience The authors of Doctor Who are now and traditionally have been highly visible to the media, the general public and within British culture. This relates to the function of the programme as a media case study of television production throughout its broadcasting tenure. A torrent of behind-the-scenes books (Howe et al. 1992) and production histories (Cartmel 2005) trace the development of scripts from commission to writing and outline the everyday duties of the producer. The programme is frequently the subject of television documentaries and industry books about television production and this has been carried through to the relaunch of the series with its weekly “making of” programme Doctor Who Confidential13 (BBC, 2005-) containing production footage and editions on writers and producers. Various media outlets both within and without the production culture keep viewers and the general public abreast of arrivals and departures within the production team and the progress of script development. DWM, for instance, regularly introduces readers (presumably also viewers of the series) to new writers and updates them as to the current state of pre-production (DWM 356, 6). Author visibility is also generated by the canonisations and evaluations of authors by viewers, fans, and critics. In scholarship, we have Murray’s elevation of Holmes to pseudo-creator (Murray 2007, 217) and Cartmel’s construction of author hierarchies in Through Time: an unauthorised and unofficial history of Doctor Who (Cartmel 2005, 68-74) whilst in popular fandom we have DWM in which readers vote for their favourite writers so that the artists on the programme are ranked in terms of quality14. The exceptional visibility of authorship in and around Doctor Who is for many critics grounds to question and sometimes dismiss the actuality of authorial presence within the production context. Muir argues that understanding of the programme’s production is distorted by behind-thescene accounts created within the institutional culture of the BBC, which tend to promote the values and brand identity of the broadcaster (Muir 1999, 6). Tat Wood in “The empire of the senses: narrative form and point-of-view in Doctor Who” also argues that visibility produce an auteur myth that conceals the absence of viewpoint in the series (Wood 2007, 90). I recognise these criticisms of authorial mythmaking, although I believe they can be rectified by reflecting on and interrogating their



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construction as I have done here. However, I have also found the emphasis in publications such as DWM is predominantly on contextualising the author within production conditions, often to their credit displacing authorial intent in favour of budget constraints and institutional politics. The issues of institutional bias and creation myths raised by Muir (Muir 1999) and Wood (Wood 2007) are, I think, not the real causes of obfuscation and hierarchies in the programme’s authorship. This instead comes largely from the editorial control that certain producers, writers and script editors have had over the production histories, intra-textual mythologies and academic criticism of the programme. In terms of production history, former producers, writers and script editors have authored production-based books such as The Making of Doctor Who by Malcolm Hulke and Terrance Dicks (Hulke and Dicks 1972), and there are annuals that contain numerous examples of authors’ work in the form of script extracts15. This is in addition to accounts of programme history in the form of autobiography, such as Nathan-Turner’s memoirs, which were serialised in DWM, thus fluently incorporating them into the magazine’s features on the series’ production contexts (NathanTurner 1996, 17-19, 45-48). Of the other frequent DWM articles on producers and script editors, several are predominantly composed of author quotations, as in the article “Holmes on Holmes” in the special on the writer (Holmes 1994, 36-38). Doctor Who DVD documentaries on individual producers and script editors have different sections of the text linked by the oral testimony of the subject. In both cases, the subject is allowed to narrate media analysis of production. Authors are also active in remediating the narrative mythologies and textual canons of the series. This can take the form of making definitive interventions into mythology such as Holmes re-interpreting the society of Time Lords as a corrupt autocracy in “The Deadly Assassin” rather than the benevolent Olympian state of moral guardianship it has appeared as previously in “The War Games.”16 This is perhaps most apparent, however, in Nation’s revisionist accounts of his own narrative history in “Genesis of the Daleks” with the events showing the origins of the species significantly different to the reports given in previous Dalek serials17. Nation’s authority over the fictional history of his creations highlights the intellectual property rights writers hold over their characters, which means that they continue to receive a credit when the old adversaries reappear, as with Nation’s Daleks and Holmes’ Sontarans. This meant that, when possible, writers worked on the serials featuring characters they had created to avoid paying them extra royalties. Lance Parkin, in “Canonicity matters: defining the Doctor Who canon,” argues that the



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boundaries of the programme canon (i.e. what counts as integral and what is merely spin-off) are very fluid due to the lack of a stable creator figure to make the distinctions: “[Creators] are authorities and can...make official rulings on matters of canon... Doctor Who has no such single authority or anything much like it” (Parkin 2007, 252). However, writers’ ownership rights and repeat authorship over their created characters ensures that the boundaries of the mini-mythologies they have carved out within the programme are self-policed. Additionally, authors of the series can maintain its diegesis and intra-textual history without even inventing copyrighted characters, as Nathan-Turner demonstrated when systematically resurrecting previous monsters and villains, canonical or otherwise, and choosing to repeat old serials in the interim period when the programme was off the air. In the critical culture that has emerged around Doctor Who, authors of the programme have become reviewers, scholars and interpreters of their own work. McCoy-era script editor Cartmel’s programme history undergoes evaluative textual analyses on a selection of serials (Cartmel 2005, xi-xiii), writers have used interviews to bring to light political and philosophical sub-texts of scripts (DWM 235 1996, 17-18), and articles in DWM have new and future writers (one is by Moffat when he was merely a fan of the programme) making evaluations and creating canons of former writers and periods of the series (Moffat 2000, 4-5). The most summative example of this self-authored reception culture is the Nathan-Turner memoirs (Nathan-Turner 1996, 45-48). Through authored testimony, he produces a now commonplace producer mythos of his cohering input over stylistic changes in the series and his marked difference from previous producers, author-centring the significant shifts that production underwent in all departments in reception18. The programme has traditionally generated public encounters between author and audience, from magazine competitions for fans to meet writers and script editors in the Hinchcliffe/Holmes tenure to Nathan-Turner’s contact with fans via conventions and press conferences. Davies (and lately Moffat) also uses the “Production Notes” column in DWM to forge an interpersonal bond between fans and authors that borders on intimacy, with details of his domestic routines creating identification between author and fan (Davies 2009, 4). Visibility is partially a product of contact with audiences, and, rather than simply obscuring the production reality of the programme, this dimension actually illuminates an intrinsic quality of authorship in Doctor Who; it negotiates and reappropriates audience response. Many of the content-shaping decisions made in production are based on producerly interpretations of audience research. The origins of



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the series are in S. Newman’s dramatic manifestations of the conclusions from an audience research report. Similarly, the shift in the tone of the programme towards comedy instigated by Williams comes from the producer’s solution to the negative responses from viewers (particularly children) to the level of violence and horror under the previous regime (Howe et al. 1992, 156-158). In the more recent phases of the series, producers have gone so far as to incorporate fan responses into the text, Nathan-Turner by using fans’ story ideas and Davies by basing episodes around fan cultures and practices19. There are also more implicit theories of and assumptions about the audience held by producers and script editors that influence changes to the programme’s content and form. Williams’ narrative experimentation with continuity in the “Key to Time” season was based in assumptions about different patterns of viewing (i.e., that there were both one-off and long-term viewers, hence why the season alternated between the two addresses with self-contained serials and a season narrative) (DWM 118 1986, 8-10). The Hinchcliffe/Holmes basis of serials in a well-known popular culture text is predicated on the notion that mass-audiences will be encouraged to watch due to their pre-existing familiarity with the material. This negotiation takes place within a context of collapsing distinctions between author and fan. Hinchcliffe and Holmes are founders of this tradition by remodeling serials as tributes to their favourite films and novels, introducing the notion of the series as a kind of fan fiction. The wall would eventually come down with Nathan-Turner’s use of members of fan societies as continuity consultants on the programme’s writing staff20. In the relaunch of the series, the distinction no longer exists, with the majority of writers having penned Doctor Who fan fiction and/or reception literature prior to their employment on the series. The written and oral testimonies of writers and producers in DWM or DWC will now more often adopt a fan-oriented nostalgia response to the series, and Davies’ “Production Notes” column overlaps with traditional fan discourses such as the creation of extra-textual backstory to answer continuity questions or concerns in the text (Davies 2005, 66-67). In particular, production and script editing seem to be disciplines highly affected by audience concerns. Many of Holmes’ omissions and additions to the scripts of Season 12 seem based on preserving a family address (Richards 2001, 285-288) whilst producers’ changes to the overall concept of the programme are motivated and sometimes legitimated by claims to be broadening address and recognising what appeals to audiences. On the subject of viewer address, changes in authorship can often dictate shifts in the programme’s targeting of viewing groups. Hinchcliffe



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and Holmes are consonant with a move to targeting an adult viewer, or at least constructing a pan-familial viewing context, with an increase in horror and emotional complexity. Williams and his script editors, Read and Adams, aimed the programme at children with the introduction of robot animal sidekick K-9 and students with invocations of the selfreflexive alternative comedy of Milligan and the Pythons. Davies is unique in his dual addresses to both established and new audiences in which backstory and mythology are referenced but remain an optional pleasure, and his straddling of male and female audiences with identification points for young women and nods to post-feminist television, e.g. Buffy the Vampire Slayer (Fox, 1997-2003), as well as pleasures for the traditionally male science fiction consumer. For fear that I might be overstating that these changes in address are gear shifts, I should add that nominally all producers are aiming at a so-called family audience but their interpretations of the term are very different. Hinchcliffe used family to mean an acknowledgement of older family members through additions of ambiguity and witticism whereas Williams identified it as the crossgenerational appeal of light entertainment. It is also wrong to suppose that viewing groups are completely marginalised by such shifts in address, as Hinchcliffe and Holmes’ drift towards an adult sensibility was continually mitigated by recourse to censorship for family audiences and was often reflecting changes in youth viewing by preemptively branching out into the television aimed at adolescents that took shape fully in the 1980s and 1990s21 (DWM 329 2003, 31-32). Equally, reading across the history of Doctor Who we can see that there are only a small number of possible viewing formations producers have to work with. The address shifts brought about by changes in authorship go in cycles alternating back and forth between adult and child, comedy and drama, fans and massaudiences. In this way, Davies’ tenure recaptures the child-friendly slapstick of Williams’ period, and Nathan-Turner riffs off Hinchcliffe’s appeal to a mature viewership. Do we have any indication as to what established viewing formation the Moffat period of the programme will pay tribute to? My conclusion offers some dangerously speculative reflections on that subject. A new executive producer arrives to the series with a new lead actor in tow. Steven Moffat is already a critically acclaimed writer in the series and is also popular with viewers. What bearing does my analysis of authorship in the past of the programme have on projections for the future of the series? Regeneration of personnel has always been at the heart of a conceptual reinvention of the programme. The continuation and selfperpetuation of the series is dependent on variegations of genre, narrative



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form, politics, address and character that come from personnel changes. The programme is also renewed by idiosyncratic author ripostes to previous producers and script editors. Nonetheless, there are authorial rituals within production that preserve and re-inflect the enduring legacy of artists who have departed the programme. For instance, the tradition in the 1970s phase of the programme for departing script editors to write the first episode of the season directly following their exit ensures that they can cast a shadow over the new phase of the series and set in place a formula that still bears their personal signature22. I’d go so far as to say that there is even a contradictory reliance on previous authors and producer tenures to create a distinctive identity for new producers. Davies re-launched the series with “Rose,” a story about the living plastic aliens, the Autons, which immediately aligns the reimagining of the series to the Dicks/Letts facelift of the series in 1970 starting with Season 7 opener “Spearhead from Space” which first introduced these villains and similarly featured a new lead actor, new locations and groups of supporting characters. More generally, Davies has invoked comparisons with the Williams period of the programme by resurrecting signature children’s character K-9 and emphasising farce and knowing humour. Indeed, Hinchcliffe, on arrival in the post of producer, returned to the creator of the series S. Newman in order to re-characterise the Doctor, mobilising S. Newman’s phrase describing Troughton as a “cosmic hobo” to construct the character concepts behind Tom Baker’s Doctor. Moffat already seems locked into this dilemma with his conscious references to the horror of the Hinchcliffe/Holmes era and imagery from the Dick/Letts serial “The Ambassadors of Death” permeating “Blink” and “Silence in the Library,” his most standout writing efforts for the series so far. However, in the same way that conceptual changes came from Nathan-Turner attempting to prove he was not Williams, Moffat may drift towards a greater emphasis on drama and narrative demonstrated by his series episodes to counter Davies’ comedic and character-driven approach. Comedy will not go away from the series since Moffat is a former sitcom writer and has written some of the programme’s most consistently humorous episodes. However, the programme’s history of authorial inversions in tone and the type of humour in Moffat’s previous scripts suggest that the often pantomime comedy of Davies’ tenure may shift to verbal comedy, particularly witty dialogue. To endanger my credibility further, I would suggest the programme under the auspices of a new producer is heading for a periodic narrative reformatting and would look to Moffat’s preference for two-part episodes as an indication of a greater



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role for the traditional serialised block of episodes which has been marginalised during the re-launch in favour of a cumulative season arc.





CONTRIBUTORS

Lee Barron teaches within the Department of Media at Northumbria University. His main research and teaching interests are in the areas of cultural theories and popular culture including popular music, film, television, and celebrity. His writings have appeared in journals such as Postcolonial Studies, The Journal of Popular Culture, Nebula, Fashion Theory, Chapter and Verse, International and the Review of the Aesthetics and Sociology of Music. He has also published in a number of books including: Speak To Me: The Legacy of Pink Floyd’s Dark Side Of The Moon, Terror Tracks: Music, Sound and Horror Cinema, Popular Music and Film, and The Tube Has Spoken: Reality TV And History. Balaka Basu is a doctoral candidate in the English program at the Graduate Center, City University of New York; her thesis is on continued works and fictional world-building in children's literature and popular culture. She has a BA in English from Cornell University, currently teaches at Queens College, and, despite missing the tenth Doctor more than is probably healthy, is quite looking forward to the Eleventh. She is indebted to many writers and producers – academic, fan, and professional – in Doctor Who fandom who were so generous with their advice, support and spectacular creativity during the writing of this piece. Special thanks to Daniel Clark, Edie Nugent, and Andrew Mortimer for inspiration and innumerable hours of Whovian research, and to Eve Goodman for editing assistance above and beyond the call. Any errors that may remain are the author's own. She would also like to thank her father for attempting to instill in her the proper appreciation of science fiction, film, and armchair criticism; this essay is for him. Brigid Cherry is a senior lecturer in Communication, Culture and Creative Arts at St Mary’s University College, Twickenham, UK. Her research has focused on horror and science fiction fandoms, particularly the female horror film audience, and online science fiction fan cultures. She has recently published work on the feminine aesthetic of horror cinema, cultural borrowings in

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alternative music video, and fan canons. Her Film Guidebook on Horror was published by Routledge in 2009. Her interest in the way fans interact and form a virtual audience was inspired by the return of Doctor Who in September 2003, resulting in immediate speculations and preparations for viewing amongst the fans. Thanks are due to all those fans who provided the wealth of information on which the essay included here is based. Todd Comer is an Assistant Professor of English at Defiance College (Ohio). Todd completed his doctorate at Michigan State University, and has published essays on Joel and Ethan Coen, Samuel Delany and Flann O’Brien in such journals as SubStance, Reconstruction, the Journal of Modern Literature, and the Journal of Narrative Theory. He is currently writing a book provisionally titled, Mourning, and the Day After: Contemporary Fiction and Film, in which he argues for postmodern subjectivity as essentially riven by mourning. Todd greatly appreciates Dawn Comer and Chris Hansen for their editorial recommendations, Collette Knight of the Pilgrim Library for her research assistance, Chad Farrand and Jeremy Dowsett for their assistance with thorny theological issues. Lastly, I would also like to thank participants of the 2008 Film and History conference for their substantial feedback. When not teaching or writing about postmodern or postcolonial cultures, Todd is busy socializing his children, Elliot and Lucy, in the discrete charms of Doctor Who. John Cordone has a B.S. in Computer Science from Central Connecticut State University, and currently works as a software engineer. His interests include hard science fiction, space opera and the history of computer technology. He has been a fan of Doctor Who since the early 1980's. He resides in Overland Park, Kansas, with his wife, Michelle. Michelle Cordone has an M.A. in Popular Culture from Bowling Green State University. She is currently working toward a Ph.D. in American Studies from Saint Louis University. Although her academic interests are varied, she is most interested in television studies, particularly television fandom. Researching Doctor Who has allowed her to integrate her academic interest in television with her own personal fandom. She and her husband John live in Overland Park, Kansas. Chris Hansen is an award-winning filmmaker and Director of the Film & Digital Media program at Baylor University. He holds an MFA in script and screenwriting. His first feature, The Proper Care &



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Feeding of an American Messiah, screened in twenty national and international film festivals, including AFI's Dallas International Film Festival and the Virginia Film Festival. In addition to his film work, he has written about independent filmmaking, the mockumentary form, and video game narratives. Matthew Jones is a PhD candidate in Screen Studies at the University of Manchester, where he also received a Master's and a Bachelor’s degree. His doctoral research investigates the British response to 1950s science fiction, seeking to augment established histories of these films by proposing new interpretations that arise out of a UK context of reception. He is the author of a number of recent articles on contemporary science fiction television, including several on Doctor Who. He would like to thank Chris Hansen for his comments on earlier drafts of this essay, and David Butler, Ally Khalid and Christine Gilroy for their gracious support during both this project and his other adventures in time and space. Courtland Lewis is a PhD student at the University of Tennessee, where he studies Social/Political philosophy and Ethics. His interests in these areas include the examination of the role of dignity in fostering responsibility and forgiveness after mass atrocities and genocide. His other research interests include the study of popular culture and philosophy, and he recently had the opportunity to coedit the book Doctor Who and Philosophy with one of his friends and mentors, Paula Smithka. He spends his free time with his wife Jenny enjoying East Tennessee, and by volunteering, teaching, and serving at his church. He would like to give special thanks to God, Jenny, friends and family, and all of those involved in Doctor Who, especially Tom Baker and Peter Davison for infectiously capturing his imagination, and never letting go. Noah McLaughlin is a French Lecturer at Kennesaw State University. He holds a PhD from The Pennsylvania State University, an MA from Pittsburgh University and a BA from James Madison University. He has published in Glottopol: Revue sociologuistique en ligne and presented his research in cinema, history and television studies at conferences for the Film and History League as well as the Literature / Film Association. His first book, French War Films and National Identity is forthcoming from Cambria Press in early 2010.



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Douglas McNaughton is a PhD candidate at Queen Margaret University, researching the narrative and aesthetic effects of British television drama’s move from studio to location. This is a direct consequence of his reading Terrance Dicks’ The Making of Doctor Who at the age of eight. He has taught on BA modules on Culture and Society, Media Studies, and Contemporary Television. His professional background is in academic publishing, and his research interests include the classic novel adaptation on television, the British horror film, British telefantasy, television remakes, fan cultures, and the history and legacy of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. Joshua Louis Moss holds a B.F.A. from NYU's Tisch School of the Arts and an M.A. in Critical Studies from The University of Southern California. Moss is currently at work on his dissertation at the University of Southern California's School of Cinematic Arts in the department of Critical Studies. Moss's dissertation is an examination of the concept of the comedic-erotic coupling in the romantic comedy as a contested site for the negotiation of ideology and power. In addition to Doctor Who, Moss has presented and published work on Sacha Baron Cohen, Superhero mythology and images of 1960s Jewish diaspora. Andrew O’Day received his PhD in Television Studies from Royal Holloway, University of London. He is the joint-author of Terry Nation (2004), with Professor Jonathan Bignell, for Manchester University Press’s ‘Television Series’, and has contributed a chapter on pace in the BBC Wales Doctor Who series for David Mellor’s edited volume New Dimensions of Doctor Who: Exploring Space, Time, and Television (I.B. Tauris). He is also a regular reviewer for the Journal of British Cinema and Television. He thanks Jonathan Bignell for commenting on a draft of the chapter on satire and Tim Harris for providing much needed copies of some Doctor Who stories. Timothy Mark Robinson received his undergraduate degree from SUNY Brockport and his M.A. & Ph. D. in American /African American Literature at The Pennsylvania State University. Upon completing his doctorate, he was awarded a postdoctoral fellowship from the Consortium for Faculty Diversity at Liberal Arts Colleges at Southwestern University in Georgetown, Texas. He is currently a Visiting Assistant Professor of English and African American Studies at Bates College in Lewiston, Maine. He is working on his first book, In The Presence of the Ancestor:



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History, Culture, and the Literary Imagination in African American Fiction. James Rose, predominantly concerned with interpretations of contemporary Horror and Science Fiction cinema and television, has written critical texts for a range of national and international journals. Published essays include a critical analysis of Neil Marshall's The Descent (Splice), a lexicon of Neil Jordan's The Company of Wolves (The Irish Journal of Gothic and Horror Studies), an extensive analysis of Greg McLean's Wolf Creek (Scope), and an article on the cinema of Philip Ridley (Vertigo). He has been selected to write chapters for forthcoming books on Gothic Science Fiction (Napier University) and Doctor Who (The Science Fiction Foundation), all due for publication in 2010. His first book, Beyond Hammer: British Horror Cinema since 1970 (Auteur) was published May 2009. Jeremy Sarachan is an Assistant Professor of Communication/Journalism at St. John Fisher College in Rochester, New York, where he teaches courses in digital media, cyberculture, web design and documentary film. His research interests focus on studying how diverse groups use social networking to form online communities and how digital technologies can improve pedagogical practices in higher education. He has a BA in film studies and psychology from the University of Rochester and an MS in Information Technology from the Rochester Institute of Technology. He has watched Doctor Who since he was 12 years old and was proudly involved in the creation of Doctor Who fan videos back in those pre-YouTube years. Barbara Selznick is Associate Professor in the School of Media Arts at the University of Arizona. She is the author of Global Television: Co-Producing Culture (Temple University, 2008) and Sure Seaters: The Emergence of Art House Cinema (University of Minnesota, 2001). Selznick's most recent article, “Branding the Future: Syfy in the Post-Network Era,” appeared in Science Fiction Film and Television (Spring 2009). Her latest research focuses on the branding of British media in the United States. She would like to thank the participants in the Doctor Who area of the Film and History conference (2008) for their feedback on this research, and particularly Chris Hansen for his editorial assistance Tom Steward is a lecturer in television, film and history at the University of Warwick. He is currently completing a PhD on the history of



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authorship in US television drama and writing an article for Continuum on the Jerry Bruckheimer television brand. He is also interested in television narrative theory, the industrial relations between US film and television, and crime film and television. He is a member of the Midlands Television Research Group and assistant-edited articles the group contributed to Cinema Journal. He has lectured on Hollywood historical filmmaking, television and popular culture, and the links between Hollywood and Latin American cinema. His Masters thesis focused on concepts of heroism and Americanism in The Sopranos. Tom would like to thank Gill and Alan Steward for their continuing support and fellow enth-who-siasts Nic Pillai, Roisin Muldoon and Rick Wallace for their advice and friendship. Joshua Vasquez teaches in the Department of Communication and Culture at Indiana University. He has maintained a fascination with Doctor Who since first encountering it on his local Public Television channel in the early 1980s. He would like to thank Barbara Klinger for the critical commentary and guiding insights she provided for an earlier version of this essay. Richard Wallace is a research teaching fellow and PhD candidate in the department of Film and Television Studies at the University of Warwick. His first encounter with Doctor Who was the 1992 British repeat of ‘The Sea Devils’, which remains a favourite. He is currently researching the comic mockumentary, with particular focus on the work of Christopher Guest, and the form’s use as political satire. Other research interests include aspects of film and television comedy, issues of representation in documentary cinema, 1940s British cinema, and popular music on film. As well as an article on the film style of Ernst Lubitsch, previous research has included work on the music mockumentary, the comedic gangster film and the British television sitcom. Bruce Wyse teaches in the English Departments of Wilfrid Laurier University and the University of Waterloo. He has published articles on Arthur Conan Doyle, Edward Bulwer-Lytton and Brian Friel. He would like to thank his daughter, Emma, a truly passionate Doctor Who fan, for reviving his enthusiasm for the program and for sharing her views and expertise with him.





BIBLIOGRAPHY   

Chapter One Haining, Peter. Doctor Who: The Key to Time, A Year-by-Year Record. London: W.H. Allen, 1984. Leach, Jim. Doctor Who. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2009. Newman, Kim. Doctor Who. London: British Film Institute Publishing, 2005 Powis, Jonathan. Aristocracy. Oxford and New York: Basil Blackwell Publisher, Ltd., 1984. Strayer, Joseph R. “Feudalism in Western Europe.” In Feudalism in History, edited by Rushton Coulborn. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1956. Strayer, Joseph R. and Rushton Coulborn. “The Idea of Feudalism,” edited by Rushton Coulborn. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1956. Tulloch, John and Henry Jenkins. Science Fiction Audiences: Watching Doctor Who and Star Trek. London and New York: Routledge, 1995.. Tulloch, John and Manuel Alvarado. Doctor Who: The Unfolding Text. London: Macmillan, 1983.

Chapter Two Amy-Chinn, Dee. “Rose Tyler: The ethics of care and the limits of agency.” Science Fiction Film and Television, 1983, 1(2): 231-247. Barthes, Roland. “The Death of the Author.” In Image, Music, Text. London: Fontana Press, 1983, 142-148. Channel 4. “Next on 4.” http://www.channel4.com/about4/fullreport.html (accessed 2008). Chapman, James. Inside the Tardis: The Worlds of Doctor Who. London: I. B. Tauris, 2006. Church Army. “Doctor Who and the monster questions.” http://www.churcharmy.org.uk/nmsruntime/saveasdialog.asp?lID=488 1&sID=5938 (accessed 2008).

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Couch, Steve, Tony Watkins, and Peter S. Williams. Back in Time: A Thinking Fan’s Guide to Doctor Who. Milton Keynes: Damaris Books, 2005. Cull, Nicholas J. “‘Bigger on the inside…’ Doctor Who as British cultural history.” In The Historian, Television and Television History, edited by Graham Roberts and Philip M. Taylor, 95-111. Luton: University of Luton Press, 2001. Dawkins, Richard. The Selfish Gene. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1976. —. The God Delusion. London: Transworld Publishers, 2006. Doty, Alexander. Making Things Perfectly Queer. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1993. Eco, Umberto. The Limits of Interpretation. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1990. Fiske, John. “Ideology and the Reading of a Popular Narrative Text.” Australian Journal of Screen Theory, 1983, 13:4: 69-100. Herald Sun. “Doctor Who to boost church popularity.” http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,23646148,00.html (accessed 2008). Hoover, Stewart. Religion in the Media Age. London: Routledge, 2006. McKee, Alan. “Is Doctor Who Political?” European Journal of Cultural Studies, 2004, 7(2): 201-217. Moreton, Cole. “Russell T. Davies: Return of the (tea) Time Lord.” http://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/russell-t-davies-return-ofthe-tea-time-lord-805255.html (accessed 2008). Morley, David. The Nationwide Audience. London: BFI, 1980. Roof, Wade Clark. A Generation of Seekers. San Francisco: Harper Collins, 1992. —. Spiritual Marketplace: Baby Boomers and the Remaking of American Religion. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999. Stein, Alex. “The Doctor goes to Church.” http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/may/07/thedoctorgoes tochurch (accessed 2008). Tate, Gabriel. “Russell T Davies: interview.” http://www.timeout.com/london/features/7225/Russell_T_Daviesinterview.html (accessed 2009). Tulloch, John, and Alvardo, Manuel. Doctor Who: The Unfolding Text. London: Macmillan, 1983. Wright, Peter. “Intertextuality, Generic Shift and Ideological transformation in the Internationalising of Doctor Who,” Foundation, 2004, 92: 64-90.



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Chapter Four Barthes, Roland. “Myth Today,” Mythologies. New York: Hill & Wang, 1987. First published in 1957. Benjamin, Walter. "The Work of Art in the age of Mechanical Reproduction," Media and Cultural Studies: Keyworks, edited by Meenakshi Gigi Durham, Douglas Kellner Wiley-Blackwell, 2001 Butler, David, ed. Time and Relative Dissertations in Space: Critical Perspectives on Doctor Who. New York: Manchester University Press, 2008. Caldwell, John Thornton. Televisuality: Style, Crisis, and Authority in American Television (Communication, Media, and Culture). New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 1995. Derrida, Jacques. Who's Afraid of Philosophy? Right to Philosophy I. Translated by Jan Plug. 1990. Reprint, Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2002. Doane, Mary Ann. The Emergence of Cinematic Time: Modernity, Contingency and the Archive. Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2002. Eco, Umberto. “The Myth of Superman,” The Role of the Reader: Explorations in the Semiotics of Texts, Bloomington: Indiana University Texts, 1979. Feuer, Jane. “The Concept of Life Television: Ontology as Ideology.” In Regarding Television, Critical Approaches - An Anthology, edited by E.A. Kaplan. Los Angeles: American Film Institute, 1983. Freud, Signmond. Jokes and their Relation to the Unconscious. Translated by James Strachey. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1989. Friedberg, Anne. Window Shopping: Cinema and the Postmodern. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994. Hebdige, Dick. Subculture: The Meaning of Style, 2nd ed. New York: Routledge, 2005. First published 1979. Hills, Matt. “Televisuality Without Television?: The Big Finish Audios and Discourses of ‘tele-centric’ Doctor Who.” Time and Relative Dissertations in Space: Critical Perspectives on Doctor Who, edited by David Butler. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 2007 Jenkins, Henry and John Tulloch. Science Fiction Audiences: Watching Star Trek and Doctor Who, London and New York: Routledge, 1995.



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Chapter Five Adams, Mark. Review of “Doctor Who.” Variety, 11 April 2005, 37. Armstrong, Stephen. “The Monster that Didn’t Roar.” The Guardian (London), 22 June 2009, 3. Arvidsson, Adam. “Brands: A Critical Perspective.” Journal of Consumer Culture, 5 (2): 235-258. Burke, Bill. “Feeling Run-Down? Are Reruns Ruining Your Love of the Tube? Sci-Fi’s ‘Doctor Who’ to the Rescue.” Boston Herald, 6 July 2008, 37. Chapman, James. Inside the Tardis: The Worlds of Doctor Who. London: I.B. Taurus and Co., 2006. Clarke, Steve. “’Who’ Dunnit Once…” Variety, 21 March 2005, 20. Cook, John R. and Peter Wright. “Futures Past: An Introduction To and Brief Survey of British Science Fiction Television.” In British Science Fiction Television: A Hitchhiker’s Guide, edited by John R. Cook, 120. London: I.B. Taurus and Co, 2006. Cull, Nicholas J. “Tardis at the OK Corral: Doctor Who and the USA.” In British Science Fiction Television: A Hitchhiker’s Guide, edited by John R. Cook, 52-70. London: I.B. Taurus and Co, 2006.



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Chapter Seven Bloomfield, John, interviewed in Doctor Who Magazine, 30th August 1995, 10-11. Britton, Piers D. and Simon J. Barker, Reading Between Designs–Visual Imagery and the Generation of Meaning in The Avengers, The Prisoner, and Doctor Who. Austin, Texas: University of Texas Press, 2003. Chapman, James, Inside the TARDIS–The Worlds of Doctor Who: A Cultural History. London: I.B.Tauris & Co Ltd, 2006. Cranny-Francis, Anne, Feminist Fiction: Feminist Uses of Generic Fiction. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1990, 25. Cull, Nicholas, “Bigger in the Inside: Doctor Who as British Cultural History.” In The Historian, Television and Television History, edited by Graham Roberts and Philip M Taylor. Luton: University of Luton Press, 2001, 95-111. Doane, Mary Ann, “Film and the Masquerade: Theorising the Female Spectator.” In Feminist Film Theory–A Reader, edited by Sue Thornham. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1999, 131-145. Fielding, Janet, “A Mouth On Legs No More,” interviewed in Doctor Who Magazine, 6th July 1994, 9. Gilbert, P. and S. Taylor, Fashioning the Feminine: Girls, Popular Culture and Schooling. Sydney: Allen and Unwin, 1991. Gough-Yates, Anna, “Angels in Chains?–Feminism, Femininity and Consumer culture in Charlie’s Angels.” In Action TV–Tough-Guys, Smooth Operators and Foxy Chicks, edited by Bill Osgerby and Anna Gough-Yates. London: Routledge, 2001, 83-99. Haining, Peter, Doctor Who–25 Glorious Years. London: WH Allen & Co Plc, 1988. Howe, David J., Mark Stammers, Stephen James Walker, Doctor Who – The Handbook: The First Doctor. London: Virgin Publishing Ltd., 1994. Jameson, Louise, “The Noble Savage,” interviewed in Doctor Who Magazine, 3rd August 1994, 10. Johnston, Claire, “Woman’s Cinema As Counter Cinema.” in Feminist Film Theory – A Reader, edited by Sue Thornham. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1999, 31-40.



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Chapter Eight Atterby, Brian. Decoding Gender in Science Fiction. New York: Routeledge, 2002.



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Chapter Nine Beeler, Karin Beeler. “Old Myths, New Powers: Images of Second-Wave and Third-Wave Feminism in Charmed.” In Investigating Charmed: The Magic Power of TV, edited by Karin Beeler and Stan Beeler, 103. London and New York: I.B. Taurus, 2007. Chapman, James. Inside The TARDIS: The Worlds Of Doctor Who. London and New York: I.B. Taurus, 2006, 56, 106, 125, 143, 191. Cull, Nicholas. “‘Bigger on the inside…’: Doctor Who as British Cultural History.” In The Historian, Television and Television History, edited by Graham Roberts and Philip Taylor, 100, 104. Luton: University of Luton Press, 2001.



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Chapter Ten Anderson, Lisa M. Mammies no more: the changing black image of black women on stage and screen. New York: Rowman & Littlefield, 1997. Byrne, Ciar. 2006. “Doctor who gets his first black assistant. The Independent. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/doctor-who-gets-his-firstblack-assistant-406694.html (Accessed Jan 30, 2009). Carby, Hazel B. “White woman listen: feminism and the boundaries of sisterhood.” In Black British Feminism, edited by Hedi Safia Mirza. New York: Routledge, 1997. Harris, Trudier. Saints, sinners, saviors: strong black women in African America literature. New York: Palgrave, 2001. Malik, Sarita. Representing Black Britain. London: Sage Publications, 2002. Melzer, Patricia. Alien constructions: Science Fiction and Feminist Thought. Austin: University of Texas, 2006. Roberts, Robin. Sexual Generations: “Star Trek: The Next Generation” and Gender. Chicago: University of Illinois, 1999. Wettstone, Richard. “Black women in science fiction.” http://www.firsttvdrama.com/central/bgirls.php3 (accessed September 10, 2008)

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Chapter Fifteen Ang, Ien. “On the Politics of Empirical Audience Research.” In Living Room Wars: Rethinking Media Audiences for a Postmodern World. London and New York: Routledge, 1991. BBCI - The Official Doctor Who Website, 2009. http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/, http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/classic Cornell, Paul, ed. Licence Denied: Rumblings From the Doctor Who Underground. London: Virgin Books, 1997.



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Chapter Sixteen Andrejevic, Mark. 2008. “Watching Television Without Pity: The Productivity of Online Fans.” Television & New Media, 2008, 9 (January): 24-46. Baliol, Andrew. n.d. “Weblogs and the Public Sphere.” In Into the Blogosphere, edited by Laura Gurak, Smiljana Antonijevic, Laurie Johnson, Clancy Ratliff, and Jessica Ryman.



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Chapter Seventeen Althusser, Louis, Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays, Translated by B. Brewster, London: New Left Books, 2001. Bignell, Jonathan, “Docudrama as melodrama: representing Princess Diana and Margaret Thatcher.” In Frames and Fictions on Television:



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Chapter Eighteen Bennett, Andrew and Royle, Nicholas. Introduction to Literature, Criticism and Theory. Harlow: Pearson Education, 2004. Freud, Sigmund. The Uncanny. London: Penguin Books, 2003. Geraghty, Lincoln. “From Balaclavas to Jumpsuits: The Multiple Histories and Identities of Doctor Who’s Cybermen.” Atlantis: Journal of the Spanish Association of Anglo-American Studies 30, 2008, no. 1: 85100. Hardy, Phil. The Encyclopaedia of Science Fiction Movies. London: Octopus Books, 1986. Jenzen, Olu. “The Queer Uncanny.” eSharp, no.9, http://www.gla.ac.uk/media/media_41216_en.pdf. (accessed August 30, 2009). Punter, David and Byron, Glennis. The Gothic. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2004. Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein. Oxford: Oxford World Classics, 1969.



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Chapter Twenty Adams, Douglas. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. London: Pan Books, 1979. Butler, David, ed., Time and Relative Dissertations in Space: Critical Perspectives on Doctor Who. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2007. Cartmel, Andrew. Through Time: An Unauthorised and Unofficial History of Doctor Who. London: Continuum, 2005. Chapman, James. Inside The Tardis: The Worlds of Doctor Who. London: I.B. Tauris, 2006. Davies, Russell T., Production Notes. Doctor Who Magazine 356, 25 May 2005. —. Production Notes. Doctor Who Magazine 407, 29 April 2009. Haining, Peter. Doctor Who: 25 Glorious Years. Kent: BBC Books, 1990. Howe, David J., Mark Stammers, and Stephen J. Walker. The Handbook: The Fourth Doctor. London: Virgin, 1992. Howe, David J., Mark Stammers, and Stephen J. Walker. Doctor Who: The Seventies. London: BBC, 1994a. Howe, David J., Mark Stammers, and Stephen J. Walker. Doctor Who: The Eighties. London: BBC, 1994b. Hulke, Malcolm, and Terrance Dicks. The Making of Doctor Who. London: Piccolo Books, 1972. Jeffries, Stuart. 2008. The Weekend’s TV. The Guardian, 2008, 24 November, G2 section. Muir, John Kenneth. A Critical History of Doctor Who on Television. London: McFarland, 1999.



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Murray, Andy. “The Talons of Robert Holmes.” In Time and Relative Dissertations In Space: Critical Perspectives on Doctor Who, edited by David Butler, 218-232. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2007. Nathan-Turner, John. “The John-Nathan Turner Memoirs.” Doctor Who Magazine 234, 1996, 17 January. —. “The John-Nathan Turner Memoirs.” Doctor Who Magazine 235, 1996, 14 February. Nelson, Robin. TV Drama In Transition: Forms, Values And Cultural Change. London: MacMillan, 1997. O’Mahony, David. “Now how is that wolf able to impersonate a grandmother: history, pseudo-history and genre in Doctor Who.” In Time and Relative Dissertations In Space: Critical Perspectives on Doctor Who, edited by David Butler, 56-58. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2007. Parkin, Lance. 2007. Canonicity matters: defining the Doctor Who canon. In Time and Relative Dissertations In Space: Critical perspectives on Doctor Who, ed. David Butler, 246-263. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Richards, Justin. Doctor Who: The Scripts; Tom Baker 1974-1975. London: BBC Worldwide, 2001. Rigelsford, Adrian. The Doctor: 30 Years of Time Travel. London: Boxtree, 1994. —. Classic Who: The Hinchcliffe Years. London: Boxtree, 1995. Robinson, Dave. “Who done it: discourses of authorship during the John Nathan-Turner era.” In Time and Relative Dissertations In Space: Critical Perspectives on Doctor Who, edited by David Butler, 176-189. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2007. Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein: or, the Modern Prometheus. London: Wordsworth Classics, 1992. Wood, Tat. “The empire of the senses: narrative form and point-of-view in Doctor Who.” In Time and Relative Dissertations In Space: Critical Perspectives on Doctor Who, edited by David Butler, 89-108. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2007. 





NOTES  

Chapter Three 1

See, for instance, Stanley Grenz’s The Social God and the Relational Self (Westminster John Knox Press, 2001), or William Placher’s Narratives of a Vulnerable God (Westminster John Knox Press, 1994).

Chapter Four 1 Other examples of shows that have this ability include Quantum Leap and select episodes of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Star Trek: Voyager in which footage of the original Star Trek was incorporated to create new storylines. 2 Other examples of shows that have this ability include Quantum Leap and select episodes of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Star Trek: Voyager in which footage of the original Star Trek was incorporated to create new storylines. 3 In 1987, Star Trek: The Next Generation attempted something similar by introducing the character of Wesley Crusher as a semi-proxy “fan” who got to sit in with the regular crew, but Crusher’s identity remained that of the future time period, and was not described as contemporary. The only comparable sciencefiction show to inscribe a contemporary into alternate time worlds might be Buck Rodgers: Adventures in the 25th Century, but Rodgers could hardly be called a proxy audience member. 4 In another interesting point of contact, both Superman and Doctor Who find their ability to transform and acquire their supernatural powers through the act of entering a phone booth and a police box, respectively. Both are items of communication and authority, offering the individual the ability to communicate with government institutions in an emergency. 5 Chung Ling Soo, an Asian-face persona performed by British magician William Ellsworth Robinson, was a notable example of this Orientalist fetish tied to notions of the new global mobility and ability to traverse time and space in search of the exotic. Doctor Who would depict the Chung Ling Soo magic show in its 1977 serial, “The Talons of Weng-Chiang” in which the Doctor and his Companion Leela travel back to 19th Century Britain and encounter the touring magic stage show. 6 The works of the early silent filmmaker George Méliès in 1905 suggests interesting avenues for linking shifting understandings of time in the age of early modernity with the notion of the theatrical stage illusion and the magical roadshow spectacle.

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These representations replicate themselves on Doctor Who with the TARDIS operating as the contraption that brings the female body, the Doctor’s Companion into danger. Traveling through space and time operates as a manifestation of the mythical backstory of the stage magician of early modernity delving into the Orientalist fetishized and abstract “far east.” The ideological implications of the female body presented in theatrical danger map a colonial identity onto her corporeality. Her body is the site of tension, brought about by an exotic contraption in the form of a “box” in which our gaze is limited and controlled. 8 The classic “saw the lady in half” illusion would be a prime example of how 19th century stage magic played with classic gender roles and a pre-cinematic gaze fixated on an attractive young female’s body in peril. The key spectacle of the illusion was, and continues to this day to be, the female body placed willingly into crisis, only to be guided, unharmed, by the magician’s “magic” powers of escape. The illusion concludes with the magician producing the female, unharmed, and safely returned from the apparatus back to the stage. 9 Doane suggests that the seeds for this understanding of time were planted much earlier, in Freud’s exploration of the binary between “consciousness” and an indexical “storage or retention” process (2002, 44). Consciousness is ethereal and abstract, whereas indexical storage, the retention of memory, is “reserved for the subconscious” (44).

Chapter Five 1

According to one report, the show’s production budget as of 2009 was approximately 800,000 pounds/episode, or $1.3 million (Armstrong, 3). 2 As Keith Dinnie notes, this re-branding is “perhaps the most controversial nationbranding campaign that has been seen to date” (30). Many in the British press spoke out against the marketing of a nation as if it were a product. Dinnie notes, “Media reaction was almost hysterically hostile and the campaign died before it could gain any momentum” (30). It appears, though, that at least some of the policies meant to support the campaign were implemented. 3 Even David Tennant’s tenth Doctor is somewhat closer to the cool brand than the heritage brand – although he also incorporates a great deal more of the eccentric as well. Tenant’s Doctor certainly has more of the romantic hero in him than the ninth Doctor, but he is still plagued by loneliness, anger and a somewhat questionable sense of right and wrong. It will be interesting to see how the even younger eleventh Doctor, to be portrayed by Matt Smith, will be branded.

Chapter Six 1

Russell T Davies, The Writer’s Tale (BBC Books, London, 2008) p.24. This is an issue that has long shaped the reception of Doctor Who, finding its zenith in the response to the 1996 TV movie. For a full discussion of how this attempted relaunch of the series caused controversy in the UK by appearing to

2



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 betray the programmes British roots, see James Chapman, Inside the TARDIS (I.B.Tauris, London, 2006) p.176-179. 3 Piers D. Britton and Simon J. Barker, Reading Between Designs (University of Texas Press, Austin, 2003) p.40. The following section of the current study is greatly indebted to the work of Barker and Britton, and indeed they deserve credit for highlighting the aesthetic connections between The Avengers and Doctor Who that this work builds on. 4 Ibid. 5 Ibid. 6 Matt Hills, “Doctor Who” in Glen Creeber (ed), Fifty Key Television Programmes (Arnold, London, 2004) p.76. 7 David Butler has complicated the relationship between Doctor Who and its traditional generic classification as science fiction more thoroughly and eloquently that I could hope to here in “How to Pilot a TARDIS” from his own edited collection Time and Relative Dissertations in Space (Manchester University Press, Manchester, 2007) p.19-42. 8 Matt Hills, ‘Doctor Who’ in Glen Creeber (ed), Fifty Key Television Programmes (Arnold, London, 2004) p.75. 9 David Butler, “How to Pilot a TARDIS,” Time and Relative Dissertations in Space (Manchester University Press, Manchester, 2007) p.38. 10 One crucial difference between these programmes is to be found in the methods that they use to close this distance between the real and the unreal. Whereas The Avengers, whose superstructure is the espionage drama, relies on Steed and his accomplices to investigate and demystify the point of supposed departure from reality, Doctor Who, being dominated by the science fiction and fantasy genres, uses scientific rationality, or at least the questionable semblance of scientific rationality, to bridge this gap. These are by no means definitive rules for these programmes though, as their generic identities, unstable as they are, find a myriad different ways to resolve the unknown into the knowable. 11 There was, of course, at least one significant member of the production team to have served on both programmes. Sydney Newman is credited as the creator of both series, suggesting that perhaps this design trope was his work and not a shared discourse at all. However, since this process of development in the aesthetics and generic identity of The Avengers only began in earnest after 1962 when Newman left ABC, the production company responsible for the programme, for the BBC, it seems impossible that he had a hand in what the series would eventually become. Indeed, this evidence suggests that it was Newman who kept the series close to its original treatment in its early years and that only after he left could it flourish into its later incarnation. 12 This was not a trait of British television that would end with The Avengers in 1969, its sequel series The New Avengers (1976-7) or even with the repeated changes to the cast and production crew of Doctor Who. It spread, appearing in British programmes up to the present day, notably in The Prisoner (1967-1968), but also, to varying degrees, in Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased) (1969-1970 and 2000-2001), The League of Gentlemen (1999-2002), Life on Mars (2006-2007), its



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 sequel series Ashes to Ashes (2008-2010), Primeval (2007-2009), Demons (2009-) and Psychoville (2009-). 13 Philip Hinchcliffe, quoted in John Tulloch and Manuel Alvarado, Doctor Who: The Unfolding Text (Macmillan, London and Basingstoke, 1985) p.112. 14 Philip Hinchcliffe, quoted in John Tulloch and Manuel Alvarado, Doctor Who: The Unfolding Text (Macmillan, London and Basingstoke, 1985) p.112. 15 This gives rise to questions of international interpretation and the meanings that people outside of Britain might discover within the programme. Unfortunately, due to the restrictions of space, these are debates that will have to be held elsewhere and for now we will have to presume an audience with knowledge of the significance of this era of British history. 16 John Tulloch and Manuel Alvarado, Doctor Who: The Unfolding Text (Macmillan, London and Basingstoke, 1985) p.52. 17 This is a common theme to which the series returns numerous times. “City of Death” and “The Monster of Peladon” are only two examples of this. It would be fruitless to produce a list of examples here, however, since numerous critics have done this more thoroughly and more skilfully than I could hope to. For a good introduction to the topic see Kim Newman, BFI TV Classics: Doctor Who (BFI, London, 2005). 18 Kim Newman, BFI TV Classics: Doctor Who (BFI, London, 2005) p.74. 19 Kim Newman, BFI TV Classics: Doctor Who (BFI, London, 2005) p.74. 20 This is not to say that the examples given by Newman are illusionary. These are the most suggestive of all the potential metaphors for Thatcherism. Rather I intend to suggest that there is something else going on beneath these examples that can unite them with the other female evildoers of the series. 21 James Chapman, Inside the TARDIS (I.B.Tauris, London, 2006) p.185. 22 Ibid. 23 Ibid at p.185, 194-197 and 188 respectively. 24 In early 2003, Tony Blair’s Labour government produced a document entitled Iraq: Its Infrastructure of Concealment, Deception and Intimidation. This briefing, later termed the dodgy dossier, claimed that Iraq was capable of deploying biological weapons, or weapons of mass destruction, within forty-five minutes of such an order being given. Coupled with the suggestion that other such weapons were hidden in Iraq, this dossier formed a significant part of the evidence that led Britain to join the US invasion that began in March, 2003. However, accusations were made that the document had been ‘sexed up’ to overstate the claims it contained and to strengthen the tone of its findings. The Slitheen’s claims in ‘World War Three’, which parody the terminology of the document, are entirely spurious and are used as a false justification to hide their ulterior motive for an allout assault. I will leave the reader to judge the extent to which the comparison with the ‘dodgy dossier’ can be extended to cover this point. 25 The 2005 terrorist bombings in London came two months after the 2005 general election in the UK, and as such this election cannot be used to read the impact of the attacks on the public’s political leanings. However, between the 2001 and 2005 general elections, a time period which saw both the September 11 terrorist attacks



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 in the United States perpetrated by Islamic extremists and the BNP displaying a deeply troubling leaning towards Islamophobia, the BNP increased the number of votes it took from 47,129 to 192,850 (figures taken from ‘BNP sees increase in total votes’, BBC News, May 6th 2005, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/vote_2005/frontpage/4519347.stm. Retrieved on December 11th 2008). It seems that Doctor Who’s display of a national crisis leading to extreme nationalist sentiment has an unfortunate basis in reality. 26 The BBC’s Justin Parkinson has reported the background to Brown’s promise in “What Does ‘British Jobs’ Pledge Mean?” BBC News, 16 Nov. 2007, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7097837.stm, accessed on 12 Dec. 2008. 27 Alec Charles, “War without End?: Utopia, the Family and the Post-9/11 World in Russell T. Davies’s Doctor Who’ in Science Fiction Studies, Vol. 35, Part 3 (November 2008) p.454. 28 James Chapman, Inside the TARDIS (I.B.Tauris, London, 2006) p.189. 29 Alec Charles, War without End?: Utopia, the Family and the Post-9/11 World” in Russell T. Davies’s Doctor Who’ in Science Fiction Studies, Vol. 35, Part 3 (November 2008) p.461.

Chapter Seven 1

Nicholas Cull, “Bigger in the Inside: Doctor Who as British Cultural History,” in The Historian, Television and Television History, ed. Graham Roberts and Philip M Taylor, 95-111 (Luton: University of Luton Press, 2001), 95. 2 James Chapman, Inside the TARDIS – The Worlds of Doctor Who: A Cultural History (London: I.B.Tauris & Co Ltd, 2006), 6. 3 Anne Cranny-Francis, Feminist Fiction: Feminist Uses of Generic Fiction (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1990), 25. 4 Ibid. 5 Sharon Smith, “The Image of Women in Film: Some Suggestions For Further Research,” in Feminist Film Theory – A Reader, ed. Sue Thornham, 14-19 (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1999), 14. 6 Ibid., 14, 15. 7 Claire Johnston, “Woman’s Cinema As Counter Cinema,” in Feminist Film Theory – A Reader, ed. Sue Thornham, 31-40 (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1999), 33. 8 Smith, “The Image of Women in Film,” 14. 9 Johnston, “Women’s Cinema As Counter Cinema,” 31-34. 10 The word companion is the one most frequently used both within the various production teams and within fandom to refer to the friends of the Doctor who travel with him in the TARDIS. Although often referred to as ‘assistants’, this is a term utilised more generally by the media in relation to Doctor Who. The term assistant implies inequality in the relationship with the Doctor. The debate on the use of the term has even entered the lexicon of the programme itself, most



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 significantly in the 2006 episode ‘School Reunion’, in which Rose (Billie Piper) berates the Doctor’s old companion Sarah (Elisabeth Sladen) for saying that she is his assistant. 11 Out of all of The Doctor’s adventures to date, only one does not feature a female companion figure in one form or another, namely 1976’s “The Deadly Assassin,” which featured a lone Tom Baker, returning to his home planet of Gallifrey, barely managing to sustain a four episode narrative on his own. 12 It is no coincidence that it was the 1980s, the era of Margaret Thatcher, which produced the greatest number of female opponents for the Doctor, the writers clearly responding to the Prime Minister as a satirical target, providing a readymade template for aspiring dictators; thus Captain Wrack (Lynda Baron) in ‘Enlightenment’, the figure of The Rani (Kate O’Mara) in ‘The Mark of the Rani’ and ‘Time and the Rani’, Helen A (Sheila Hancock) in ‘The Happiness Patrol’, Lady Peinforte (Fiona Walker) in ‘Silver Nemesis’ and Morgaine (Jean Marsh) in ‘Battlefield’ are just some of the characters to tap into the political culture of the time. 13 Matthew Jones, “Why do Companions Scream?” Doctor Who Magazine, 5th July 1995, 45. 14 Piers D. Britton and Simon J. Barker, Reading Between Designs – Visual Imagery and the Generation of Meaning in The Avengers, The Prisoner, and Doctor Who (Austin, Texas: University of Texas Press, 2003), 154. 15 Chapman, Inside the TARDIS, 56. 16 Ibid. 17 Britton and Barker, Reading Between Designs, 154. 18 E. Ann Kaplan, Feminism and Film, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 120. 19 Ibid., 122. 20 Laura Mulvey, “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema,” in Feminist Film Theory – A Reader, ed. Sue Thornham, 58-69 (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1999), 58-69. 21 Mary Ann Doane, “Film and the Masquerade: Theorising the Female Spectator,” in Feminist Film Theory – A Reader, ed. Sue Thornham, 131-145 (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1999), 131-145. 22 Sue Thornham, “Introduction: The Female Spectator,” in Feminist Film Theory – A Reader, ed. Sue Thornham, 1-6 (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1999), 113. 23 Janet Fielding, “A Mouth On Legs No More,” interviewed in Doctor Who Magazine, 6th July 1994, 9. 24 John Wiles was temporary producer of the show for five months between October 1965 and March 1966, overseeing four serials, ‘The Myth Makers’, ‘The Daleks’ Master Plan’, ‘The Massacre of St Bartholomew’s Eve’ and ‘The Ark’. 25 Jones, “Why Do Companions Scream?” 45. 26 Ibid. A significant example of this can be seen during the serial ‘The Power of the Daleks’, the adventure which directly followed the regeneration of the First Doctor (William Hartnell) into the Second (Patrick Troughton). In this serial the



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 fears and bewilderment of Ben and Polly is a reflection of the confusion felt by the audience at the sudden transformation of the lead character from one actor to another, and the companions play a vital role in the audience’s acceptance of the new Doctor. 27 Britton and Barker, Reading Between Designs, p. 146. 28 Chapman, Inside the TARDIS, p. 19. 29 David J. Howe, Mark Stammers, Stephen James Walker, Doctor Who – The Handbook: The First Doctor (London: Virgin Publishing Ltd., 1994), 169. 30 Ibid., 170, 169. 31 Ibid., 171. 32 It is also worth pointing out that there was an additional practical reason why four regular characters were desirable. During this period most television was recorded as-live, meaning that an individual episode would be recorded in order almost in the manner of a play, so that one scene would follow directly on from another with no break in filming. This meant that it was desirable for there to be several narrative strands, each featuring one of the regulars, so that when one scene featuring one character ended, the next scene, occurring on another set on the opposite side of the studio, could begin immediately by featuring one of the other members of the TARDIS crew. This also goes some way to explaining why the number of companions decreased during the 1970s, when technological advances meant that more recording breaks and more editing could be accommodated into the filming schedule. 33 Verity Lambert, “Maiden Voyage: Interview with Verity Lambert,” by Peter Griffiths, Doctor Who Magazine, 17th January 1996, 6. 34 Ibid. It is also worth noting that there were other female employees at the BBC who were in similar positions of power, most notably Joanna Spicer who was the Assistant Controller in charge of planning during Doctor Who’s inception. 35 Britton and Barker, Reading Between Designs, 155. 36 Ibid., 154. 37 Anneke Wills interviewed in Doctor Who Magazine, 10th June 1992, 11. 38 Anna Gough-Yates, “Angels in Chains? – Feminism, Femininity and Consumer Culture in Charlie’s Angels,” in Action TV – Tough-Guys, Smooth Operators and Foxy Chicks, ed. Bill Osgerby and Anna Gough-Yates, 83-99 (London: Routledge, 2001), 84. 39 Chapman, Inside the TARDIS, 57. 40 Britton and Barker, Reading Between Designs, 154. 41 Chapman, Inside the TARDIS, 79. 42 When asked to answer telephones in ‘Doctor Who and the Silurians’ she issues the firm retort: “I am a scientist, not an office boy!”, and in ‘The Ambassadors of Death’ she takes part in a car chase, and although ultimately captured, this only occurs after she has managed to push one of her pursuers over the edge of a weir. 43 Chapman, Inside the TARDIS, 79. 44 Ibid. 45 Ibid. 46 Kate Orman, “Girls Allowed,” Doctor Who Magazine, 9th November 2005, 19.



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Jones, “Why Do Companions Scream?” 45. Orman, “Girls Allowed,” 17. 49 Jones, “Why Do Companions Scream?” 45. 50 Britton and Barker, Reading Between Designs, 155. 51 John Bloomfield, designer of Leela’s costume, interviewed in Doctor Who Magazine, 30th August 1995, pp. 10-11. 52 Louise Jameson, “The Noble Savage,” interviewed in Doctor Who Magazine, 3rd August 1994, 10. 53 Janet Fielding who played the character of Tegan between 1981 and 1984 is particularly outspoken on the notion that the companion role was designed to attract ‘the dads’. As she states in an interview for Doctor Who Magazine: ‘the girls quite subconsciously became something for the dads to watch, and that was told to you when you joined the programme in no uncertain terms’, “A Mouth On Legs No More,” 6th July 1994, p. 9. 54 This device would be utilised in an even more overt way in 1984, following the casting of Nicola Bryant as Peri, when the publicity photos cemented the link between the notion of the ‘Bond girls’ and the ‘Who girl’ by having Bryant and Peter Davison pose in a manner that was reminiscent of the popular memory of the James Bond film Dr. No (Terence Young, Eon Productions, UK, 1962), Bryant donning a white bikini similar to the iconic one worn by Ursula Andress in the original film. 55 Peter Haining, Doctor Who – 25 Glorious Years, (London: WH Allen & Co Plc, 1988), 122. 56 Orman, “Girls Allowed,” 17. 57 There is also a sense of cruelty in this action because The Doctor does not remove the implant, meaning that whenever anybody clicks their fingers in his presence the implant appears from Adam’s forehead, essentially forcing him into a reclusive lifestyle, a cure which reflects the moralistic aspects of the series itself. 58 The episode ‘The End of the World’ also contains more than a passing reference to Rose’s family as she phones her mother from a space station in the year Five Billion. 59 Barry Letts quoted in Tulloch and Jenkins, Science Fiction Audiences, 92. 60 P. Gilbert and S. Taylor, Fashioning the Feminine: Girls, Popular Culture and Schooling (Sydney: Allen and Unwin, 1991), 68, 52, quoted in Science Fiction Audiences, ed. Tulloch and Jenkins, 93. 61 Tulloch and Jenkins, Science Fiction Audiences, 93. 62 Annette Kuhn, ‘Women’s Genres: Melodrama, Soap Opera and Theory’ in Feminist Film Theory – A Reader, ed. Sue Thornham (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1999), 146. 63 Ibid. 64 Tulloch and Jenkins, Science Fiction Audiences, 92. 65 Orman, “Girls Allowed,” 18. 66 Tennant's role as Casanova can also be seen as a factor in the creation of this image of a ‘sexy Doctor’. 48



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 67

In a 1995 article for Doctor Who Magazine entitled “A Female Doctor?” Matthew Jones states that ‘To turn the Doctor into a sex symbol would undermine and destroy the originality of the character’. This boundary has already been crossed with Tennant’s Doctor with very little disturbance to the mythology of the character. The important question is not whether a female Doctor would become a sex symbol but whether she would be objectified and turned into a spectacle because she is a woman, 25th October 1995, 37.

Chapter Eight 1 This study focuses on science-fiction, which is particularly capable of “sorting out the problems and concerns of the present world, interpreting gender concerns, race relationships, class conflicts, and other issues of our daily lives” (Inness 1999, 104). Moreover, the genre “is a useful tool for investigating habits of thought, including conceptions of gender. Gender, in turn, offers and interesting glimpse into some of the unacknowledged messages that permeate science fiction” (Atterby 2002, 1). 2 Atterby posits that this is inherent to science-fiction from early on as he examines the emergence of supermen and super-women in the 1940's and 50's: “Exaggerate the traits that the megatext associates with masculinity and you get the stronger, smarter, faster, more aggressive, more inventive superman of SF tradition. Exaggerate the feminine traits and you get someone who erases herself from the story” (Atterby 2002, 82). A tough woman may appear, appropriating conventionally masculine traits, but in the end, she must not be there. 3 This story-arc alone, long hailed as perhaps the greatest of the series, provides rich possibilities for examining the paradoxes of the show. The primary setting is contemporary Paris, and the richness of human artistic expression is an important theme; for the Doctor, life on Earth is worth protecting just because of the Mona Lisa. Detective Duggan, whom the Doctor continually scolds for his violent methods, knocks Scaroth out with “the most important punch in history.” Romana, a fellow Time Lord and one of the most uniquely intelligent companions, can keep up with the Doctor’s rapid, acerbic wit, but Scaroth easily intimidates her into building the parts necessary to complete his time machine. 4 Writing between Series 1 and 2, Kim Newman prognosticates rather accurately that “the next real shake up for the show might come when Billie Piper leaves the cast, no matter who is the Doctor at that time” (Newman 2005, 117). 5 For the sake of consistency with my citations, I use the British term “series” when referring to what Americans call “seasons” of Doctor Who. 6 She also gets married, that age-old trope of gender normalization – though we never do meet her husband. 7 For an excellent overview of the initial fan backlash, see Kungl 2008, 198-209. 8 Their respective destinies are a fascinating reversal of convention: Anders is the one contained, even de-humanized; Kara leads the fleet to a safe haven and her ultimate fate is deliciously ambiguous. Kara Thrace becomes, in some ways, what



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 Atterby might call a “superwoman”: “a vision of woman herself as something not singular, not restricted to a unitary meaning or state of being. It is [...] reminiscent of the project undertaken by feminist philosophers, to overturn the dualism that makes women no more than a point of reference for men, an Other to be defined against” (98-99). 9 Imitation is particularly necessary in cross-medium adaptations because every medium “has some kind of irreducible specificity” (Genette 1997, 384). For Genette, this limitation is precisely the thing to be celebrated about hypertextuality, for in the generalizing matrix of imitation, there arises a certain ambiguity, one which “is precisely caused by the fact that a hypertext can be read both for itself and in relation to its hypotext” (397). Every adaptation is in effect (at least) two discourses in one, and there is always a certain ludic interaction between them. We could apply this same rubric to the subjects at hand, though instead of differences of medium, the “irreducible specificity” applies to the social and material forces that shaped their production and initial reception.

Chapter Twelve 1

The intertextuality of the classic series is formally attested to in the paratext of the BBC “Doctor Who: The Classic Series” website with its “Episode Guide” which supplements each episode with a plot synopsis, “Dialogue Triumphs,” “Goofs” and a section called “Roots” which identifies the cultural sources and affinities of the episode in a fan-friendly quasi-parody of an academic exercise. The entry on the Tom Baker episode “Masque of Mandragora” (1976), for example, links the episode with Roger Corman’s The Masque of the Red Death in addition to Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet and Machiavelli’s The Prince and The Mandragora. The registered intertexts for the Victorian pastiche, “The Talons of Weng Chiang” (1977) are more impressively multifarious; among the many items, the list includes Pygmalion, Dracula, “The Phantom of the Opera (especially the Hammer version),” The Face of Fu Manchu, Jack the Ripper, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, Sherlock Holmes and The Man with the Golden Gun. Generally speaking, the element of pastiche and the verbal, narrative, generic and stylistic eclecticism of Doctor Who tend to be more pronounced in the episodes that are situated on Earth either in the actual or an alternative present, or in some readily identifiable historical period with generally acknowledged cultural and literary associations. 2 In “The Unicorn and the Wasp,” for instance, the Doctor’s companion Donna Noble lets slip some references to Christie’s yet to be written, later work, then comically claims the copyright for herself. The scriptwriter Gareth Roberts thus reprises one of the more frequent jokes on authorship in his earlier script for “The Shakespeare Code.” 3 Although Agatha Christie’s conscious memory of her experience with the Doctor is lost, some subconscious, residual memory traces leave an imprint on her novel Death in the Clouds whereas the stubbornly incredulous Dickens of “The Unquiet Dead,” confronted with the ghostlike race of the Gelth, finally sheds his scepticism



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 and, his creative energy renewed and his mind full of “huge, wonderful notions,” is eager to complete his unfinished novel now tentatively re-titled The Mystery of Edwin Drood and the Blue Elementals, a novel which, had it ever been completed, would have reflected his experience with the Doctor. 4 For Gary Taylor, in his Reinventing Shakespeare, this pernicious tendency to suspend historicism in the interest of constructing a timeless and universal “Shakespeare” who reflects our values needs to be resolutely counteracted in criticism: Drawing attention to the holes and displacements in Shakespeare’s texts, the blind spots and distortions in his vision, reminds us that he was human, therefore limited, therefore specific to a time and place. . . . Too much modern criticism appropriates Shakespeare (“Shakespeare thought just like me”); if criticism is going to have any value beyond confirming our own complacencies, it should instead distance, in order to define (“Shakespeare is another country”). . . . Shakespeare’s intellectual and moral preoccupations are not necessarily ours; he by no means exhausts the moral universe. (1989, 395, 404) 5 Coleridge in his lectures on Shakespeare remarks, “[t]he Englishman, who without reverence, a proud and affectionate reverence, can utter the name of William Shakespeare, stands disqualified for the office of critic” (1908, 44). Carlyle more stridently declares, “we cannot do without Shakespeare! [The] Indian Empire will go, at any rate, some day; but this Shakespeare does not go, he lasts for ever with us; we cannot give-up our Shakespeare! . . . This King Shakespeare, does not he shine, in crowned sovereignty, over us all. . . . We can fancy him as radiant aloft over all the Nations of Englishmen, a thousand years hence. . . . English men and women . . . will say to one another: ‘Yes, this Shakespeare is ours; we produced him, we speak and think by him’” (1966, 113-14). 6 Here too, the popular culture provenance of the representation asserts itself, since the physical appearance of this Shakespeare has more in common with the Joseph Fiennes incarnation than with, say, the “Chandos” portrait of Shakespeare. 7 A somewhat similar mythic conception of the power of words in general and the magical potency of Shakespeare’s words in particular appears in the idiosyncratic, post-Romantic Bardolatry of Thomas Carlyle’s Heroes and Hero Worship. There he stresses the metaphysical connection between the inspired utterance or “musical thought” of a “Universal Poet” like Shakespeare and the very essence of things: “A musical thought is one spoken by a mind that has penetrated into the inmost heart of the thing; detected the inmost mystery of it, namely . . . the inward harmony of coherence which is its soul, whereby it exists, and has a right to be, here in this world” (1966, 83). The Carrionites, however, place a far greater value on the performative dimension of poetic speech. 8 The episode satirizes the notion of poetic inspiration and the convention of the muse in the scene in which the night before the opening of Love’s Labour’s Won, Lilith, the Carrionite daughter, operates her voodoo, “DNA replication” marionette of Shakespeare and in so doing compels the insensible playwright to compose the crucial final scene of the play at a ridiculously accelerated pace.



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A further irony arises from the extra- textual element of David Tennant’s stage career as a Shakespearean actor, having played roles such as Touchstone in As You Like It (1996) and Romeo in Romeo and Juliet (2000). In addition to the title role in a highly anticipated Royal Shakespeare Company production of Hamlet, playing opposite Patrick Stewart of Star Trek: The Next Generation fame, Tennant played the part of Berowne in Love’s Labour’s Lost in 2008. 10 One need hardly add that the Doctor’s irrepressible keenness over the novel and by implication the entire series carries with it a collateral plug, however superfluous, for the 2005 Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire movie, released on DVD in 2006, David Tennant’s involvement, in the role of Barty Crouch, Jr, being the most material, though coincidental and extra-diegetic commonality between the two productions and their fictional realms.

Chapter Fourteen 1

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/ (accessed 18/5/09). See Brooker 1999 for a discussion of secondary texts as a defining feature of cult texts. 3 The Doctor Who Forum closed in July 2009 and was replaced by Gallifrey Base . 4 It is worth noting that while some fans continue to use the grammatically correct ‘New Who’ the term NuWho has been in use since at least 2004 (when the revival was in pre-production). The term ‘nu’ conveys connotations of both youth and online subcultures; the term or prefix being clearly linked to the phenomenon of ‘txt-speak’ and ‘net-speak’ to shorten and contract words or phrases in the text messaging/social networking cultures. The term NuWho is now widely used by fans to differentiate from ‘Classic Who’, but importantly also reflects the flourishing of fan culture in an increasingly connected, multi-media environment. 5 Traffic was often so high on the Doctor Who Forum that it often crashed in the minutes after an episode ended. This proved to be so much of a problem as membership increased in line with the increasing numbers of fans of NuWho that the forum moderators eventually closed the forum to all but patrons who sponsored the site. 6 This is a relatively small number in comparison with the timely postings immediately after the episode (there are 118 postings within a hour of the end on the main ‘Rate The Doctor’s Daughter’ thread alone, and many more on other threads). However, it does indicate a significant degree of activity in the forum. 7 A UK free to air digital tv service. 8 Fans were upset by a sound bleed from another channel during the first few minutes of ‘Rose’ and this was especially upsetting, generating a large number of posts, because it was the much anticipated first episode of the reboot. 9 A deliberately provocative post designed to upset or annoy the members of the forum. 2



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 10

This is a reference to the performance of a winner of a competition on the BBC’s children magazine programme Blue Peter for a role in a Doctor Who episode. 11 The Whospeak shorthand for Doctor Who writer (and executive producer from 2010) Steven Moffat. 12 It should be noted that this phenomenon has alienated some fans, particularly older, male fans. As The Doctor Who Forum has grown over the run of NuWho, membership has grown and threads concerning immediate responses to new episodes have increasingly been dominated by squee postings. Such fans have withdrawn from the Doctor Who Forum and consider sites such as Roobarb (where squee is frowned upon) as a more appropriate forum for considered and serious discussion. 13 This can be viewed at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KLnk-A1OkKk. 14 See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whogasm.

Chapter Fifteen 1

This “equivalence” is composed of what might be called codes of translation having deeply significant political and ideological resonances determined by the particular cultural and societal context within which the encoding/decoding process takes place. 2 Jenkins portrays the moral economy of fans in relation to their manipulation of the material of the text of their fandom as an active relationship that allows the fanreader to utilize the text to his or her own ends while remaining within a set of broad guidelines regarding the limits of that manipulation – hence the moral economy. Jenkins discusses the moral economy’s presence in relation to the desire of fans to “repair” their own marginalization in the face of a dominant cultural order, characterizing them as “seekers after alternative pleasures within dominant media representations” who are moving toward a “community within which they may feel a sense of belonging” (Jenkins 1984, 175). 3 This is to suggest that, contrary to Ien Ang’s comment that “if watching television is a social and even collective practice, it is not a harmonious practice,” there is a kind of harmony that exists in the television watching patterns of fandom, and this harmony can be related to the moral economy (Ang 1991, 51). 4 Morley characterizes the problematic nature of any such essentialist theory as proposing that individual reactions, shaped by culturally specific societal contexts, are negated in favor of some kind of intrinsic “primary positioning” (Morley 1989, 5). 5 As opposed to being the product of an unconscious system triggered involuntarily. 6 Even after being officially ended the first time, the series still provided revenue for the network; in 2003, for the program’s 40th anniversary, the BBC planned a wide range of events and materials to commemorate the lasting legacy of a program that was at one time a jewel in the crown of the network (BBCI Website).



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 At present, the series has been updated and returned to the BBC airwaves, proving to be extremely popular. 7 Its tradition of “quality” programming was still being upheld, yet the competition offered by ITV, Britain’s first commercial television channel, was forcing the broadcasting corporation to become “more competitive.” As part of this need to diversify its programming, new kinds of television programs were being proposed, and Doctor Who was one of these shows. 8 This is in perfect keeping with the BBC’s general desire to present an image of quality no matter what the particulars of the given production. 9 By writers such as Horace Walpole (The Castle of Otranto), Ann Radcliffe (The Mysteries of Uldolpho) and Matthew Lewis (The Monk) 10 The Quatermass serials proved so popular that they went on to spawn a number of other sci-fi oriented programs, from A for Andromeda to Target Luna. 11 Along with this bodily reordering comes the emergence of a new personality; in essence, a new Doctor is born when an old one dies, like being reincarnated while having access to the memories of one’s past life. 12 Part of the grand structure of Doctor Who is to entrench this fundamental impression of character and, from this repetition, to create a larger narrative worldview and thereby convince an audience of a constant “truth,” understood to be a liberal, non-discriminating truth. 13 The first shot is of an applauding audience and, in the second shot, the viewer quickly realizes that the action is taking place within a theater at the end of a performance. These very first two shots work to generate an impression not only of the temporal and spatial location of most of the action of the film, Victorian London, judging by the costumes of the audience, and a large metropolitan theater respectively, but also of the approach to the material which writer Robert Holmes will be taking. 14 Yet how is one to react to the fact that one of the positive characters within the narrative who comes to aid the Doctor is clearly a racist, “benevolent” as that racism may be. 15 The text reminds the viewer of this when the Doctor eventually risks his life to save Jago and Litefoot from the clutches of Greel. When an incredulous Greel asks why the Doctor would care about two “blundering dolts,” the Doctor answers “I doubt if you could understand that.” 16 As John Muir writes of “Talons,” from the perspective of the fan “it is a pleasure to finally see the Doctor garbed in the traditional uniform of Sherlock Holmes” (Muir 1999). 17 As of July 31, 2009, Outpost Gallifrey has ended its 13 year run. The following is taken from an anticipatory farewell message posted by site creator and manager Shaun Lyon: “Since 1996, Outpost Gallifrey has served as a valuable source of news and information in the online world. Since 2001, the Doctor Who Forum has created an enormous sense of community amongst Doctor Who fans, far longer than I (or perhaps anyone) ever anticipated…we've been a powerful voice in the online Doctor Who world, collectively, and the



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 powers that be have listened (and continue to be active, if invisible, readers of what has been said). We've helped influence the course of the Doctor Who universe, through fan interaction with Big Finish Productions, BBC Books, independent publishers and even the Doctor Who Production Team. And we've made terrific friends throughout the world, from inside the BBC to inside the homes of tens of thousands of fans in the US, UK, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and elsewhere” (Lyon Outpost Gallifrey 2009). 18 Interestingly, 6,700 fans responded to a 2009 poll conducted by Doctor Who Magazine, the official fan publication for the series, designed to rank all 200 episodes of the series, and “Talons” came in fourth overall. Yet it was another Robert Holmes’ penned episode, “The Caves of Androzani,” that came in first. Peter Davison, the actor who played the Doctor in “Caves,” is quoted has saying, “it was a Bob Holmes script, and he was one of the writers that you dreamed of having on Doctor Who” (Haines The Register, 9/19/09). 19 Disquieting examples of an extra-textual element that has come to shadow these early Doctor Who programs are reports and stories that have surfaced over the years concerning the oft-expressed racist views of William Hartnell, the first actor to play the Doctor and, in a sense, the man who created the “heart” of the character through his portrayal. 20 One of the most representative examples of this tendency in science fiction can be seen in the implied continual conflict between the “tribal,” violent and predatory Sand People and the determined, pioneering moisture farmers in George Lucas’ Star Wars.

Chapter Sixteen 1

The Media Ecosystem also would include Doctor Who text-based fiction. For example, the New Adventures series included published fan stories (Perryman 2008, 24). The growth of fan fiction and the commercial acceptance of the genre helped to maintain the Doctor Who fan base during the show’s hiatus in the 1990’s. 2 The “Television Without Pity” website allows fans of any particular television shows to discuss issues related to that show. 3 To produce these special effects, fans must be proficient with post-production tools. In this case, as the video was made for university coursework; the student/fan posted a full description of the special effects on the web at http://www.secret7000.co.uk/mike/regeneration/ 4 Searching for “Doctor Who” in YouTube (in September 2009) leads to approximately 132,000 videos. “Doctor Who” and “Rose” leads to almost 37,000 videos. 5 Increasingly, amateur videos that use copyrighted songs also contain an interactive ad allowing viewers to purchase the song from iTunes or other online store, indirectly providing payment to the copyright holder.



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An example of Machinima includes “Doctor Who: Episode 1” (2006) which offers a subtitled episode with fast-moving and stylish visuals. 7 Depending on one’s choice of “friends,” postings to Facebook frequently focus on political and newsworthy items on which others can comment.

Chapter Seventeen 1

Ian Jack has indeed pointed out that “Satire is born of the instinct to protest; it is protest become art” (1954: 17) and the satirist can be seen as opposing aspects of our society. However, binaries are evident by looking solely at the text. 2 In this case, Holmes himself and the production team have actually stated that the narrative was intended as a satire (see, for instance, Howe, Stammers, and Walker 1994: 14-5). 3 The Collector was originally intended to be from a race known as the “Userers”, “derived from the Latin term for one who lends money at exorbitant interest rates” (Pixley 2001b: 29). 4 The narrative, first known as “The Happiness Patrol”, and then for awhile as “The Crooked Smile”, was intended to be a satire of Thatcher and the antiThatcher elements were indeed toned down for the final televised version (Pixley 2001a: 28, 31).

Chapter Nineteen 1 Even though this is a fascinating argument to examine, and might even have some interesting implications, it will not be discussed in this essay. If the reader is interested, I would recommend reading Wolterstorff’s book, especially Chapter 15.

Chapter Twenty 1

This is a misnomer that Davies himself challenges in his testimony in a writer’s special of Doctor Who Confidential (BBC, 2005-) that throughout its history, information on producers, script editors, writers and the changes between personnel was given to the public through magazines and annuals. 2 Often referred to as gothic in style. 3 Doctor Who Magazine will subsequently be referred to by the abbreviation DWM. 4 Example taken from “The Sontaran Experiment.” 5 Even within the critical author paradigm, there is emphasis on the unifying and overriding authority of producers and script editors over writers. Production accounts such as Adrian Rigelsford’s The Doctor: 30 Years of Time Travel (Rigelsford 1994, 69-70) document Holmes’ superseding of individual writer styles with the uniformity of his own and recent DWM coverage of Russell T Davies shows the producer in conceptual, tonal and narrative control of the series.



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 6

Murray cites the repeated use of this serial in the regenerations of the Doctor into Paul McGann in the television movie Doctor Who (BBC/Fox, 1996) and Christopher Eccleston in the 2005 re-launch as well as the longevity of the characters Holmes created e.g. The Master, The Sontarans, Time Lord mythology. 7 Robinson (Robinson 2007, 176-178) also cites the issue of multiple agencies as a complication to the auteur myths that have grown around the series but, as with Newman, these critiques are made whilst reinforcing a producerly conceptualisation of the programme. 8 As further support for the thesis that Doctor Who is steeped in authorship, I point to the means by which producers, script editors and writers reappropriate authorship of literature, film and theatre and offer a reflection on how the programme’s artists interact with the literary authorship that parallels the series. Several producers, writers and script editors have identified themselves with particular novelists, playwrights and filmmakers. Hinchcliffe draws on the robot stories of Isaac Asimov for such serials as “Robot” and “The Robots of Death” whilst the mystery fiction of Agatha Christie and Arthur Conan-Doyle is acknowledged in “The Deadly Assassin” and “The Talons of Weng Chiang” as well as references to the television plays of Nigel Kneale and the cinema of Alfred Hitchcock. Literary authors are often called upon by artists working on the series as legitimation of projects or changes to the programme. For instance, Bidmead justified moving the series into a mode of factualist science fiction by invoking the science-oriented novels of H.G. Wells. This exploitation of authorship within the programme is particularly linked to the use of adaptation and genre intertextuality in the Hinchcliffe/Holmes period where popular fiction texts were precepts for script commissions and literature and film were openly referenced. 9 As support for the notion that authorship is ingrained in the production culture, it is worth noting how authors of other fiction have been incorporated into the diegesis of the text. The programme has characters, usually The Doctor, quoting from canonical authors or texts to provide a commentary on narrative events or construct a parallel between two works. In “Robot,” Baker’s Doctor remarks “curiouser and curiouser” completed by Ian Marter’s Harry Sullivan responding “said Alice” and thereby calling on British fantasy writer Lewis Carroll to describe the absurdity of the vast changes of size in an enemy robot and aligning it to the growth and shrinking of Carroll’s protagonist Alice in Alice in Wonderland. The history of author quotation in the programme is carried through to the re-launch with period dramas centred on a famous author from history, so far we have had Dickens, Shakespeare and Agatha Christie, in order to dramatise references to their work or authorial style. This echoes how certain in earlier serials authors would be referents within the diegesis, summed up best by Marcus Scarman’s reaction to the TARDIS in “Pyramids of Mars”: “I say, it’s like something by that novelist chap...Mr. Wells.” 10 This is a duality that is still held in place after the re-launch. 11 The script editor role often appears to be predominantly concerned with issues of narrative continuity with script revisions adding in references to ongoing storylines, character arcs and season concepts. Script editors also maintain



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 continuity within serials by re-editing the division of episodes in the original scripts and prolonging or dispersing the narrative revelations across the serial, as with Holmes’ revisions to ‘Genesis of the Daleks’. It is in this that the script editor role is regarded within the profession and by critics as having a continuity function with Rigelsford (Rigelsford 1994, 109-110) suggesting that the script editor keeps the mythology of the series ticking over between phases of the series. 12 That said, it fits enormously well with the knockabout comic feel of Adams’ season as script editor but Baker’s shift in performance technique was two seasons in advance of his appointment to the role. Perhaps this is a rare case of the cart leading the horse in terms of characterisation. 13 Doctor Who Confidential will subsequently be referred to by the abbreviation DWC. 14 Much scholarship has endorsed authorial conceptualisations of the programme (I do not except myself in this) such as Robinson’s article (Robinson 2007) and its refraction of the series through the contributions made by different types of artist with DWM continually emphasising the singular expression of producers, writers and script editors. For example, the behind-the-scenes coverage of classic serials often gives way to celebrations or fetishisations of writer’s prose with pleasingly poetic script extracts scattered through the ‘Archive’ sections. 15 A tradition honoured by the 2009 Doctor Who exhibition which has the page of a script displayed in a transparent case. 16 The Time Lords were later killed off by Davies, transforming the Doctor into an interplanetary refugee and holocaust survivor. According to unconfirmed press reports at the time of writing, Davies plans to resurrect the Time Lords for the final two specials of his producer tenure in late 2009. This demonstrates the capacity of authors to continually reform the series mythology. 17 For an infinitely more detailed and cogent explanation of the changes “Genesis of the Daleks” makes to the intra-textual Dalek mythology, see Chapman 2006, 101-102. 18 A slightly facetious quality inside me makes me want to vehemently protest that all Nathan-Turner did that was original was draw a question mark on a shirt but this venom should be reserved for blog or forum discussions of the programme, not academic analyses. 19 These include the first episode following the re-launch “Rose,” featuring a character representative of the programme’s internet following and the following season’s “Love and Monsters” which was based around a community of Doctor enthusiasts and their search to find their idol. In both cases, reference is made to fans’ ceremonies and rituals as well as their reconstruction of the programme’s fictional timeline. 20 I am grateful to my friend, colleague and contributor to this book Rick Wallace for pointing out that authorial homages to popular fiction also occur after the relaunch of the programme, in particular the writers’ and producers’ references to 1970s disaster movies in the 2007 Christmas Special “Voyage of the Damned.” 21 Here I am thinking of Phil Redmond’s Grange Hill (BBC, 1978-2008) and Press Gang (ITV, 1989-1993) alongside Children’s Ward (ITV, 1989-2000), the latter



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 two featuring, coincidentally or otherwise, writing contributions from former and current executive producers Davies and Moffat. 22 The creator credit that the original writers of returning monsters continue to receive also implies the debt or homage new artists owe to the construction of character in the series.



INDEX

24, 69, 95, 241, 257, 320, 353, 363 9/11, 83 Aaronovitch, Ben, 111 Abu Ghraib, 86 Adama, Commander William, 126 Adams, Christine, 162 Adams, Douglas, 313, 316, 317 Adorno, Theodor, 177 Africa, 143, 152 Agbetu, Toyin, 159 Agyeman, Freema, 123, 143, 222 Alba, Jessica, 144 Aldred, Sophie, 111, 137 Alice in Wonderland, 187, 348 Aliens, 4, 19, 85, 118, 155, 279 Alvarado, Manuel, 30, 90, 236, 334, 340, 341, 357, 362 American Idol, 120, 127 Anderson, Christopher, 78 Anderson, Lisa M., 153 Angel, 126, 337 Animal Farm, 265 Ansa, Tina McElroy, 150 Antoine, Ayesha, 162 Apollo, Captain, 125 Aristocracy, 334 Ashbrook, Daphne, 140 Atterby, Brian, 117 Autons, the, 109, 138, 139, 297, 310, 326, 343 Avengers, The, 71, 72, 87, 88, 89, 108, 341, 342 Ayola, Rakie, 162 Back to the Future, 188, 348 Bad Wolf, 31, 38, 40, 42, 45, 46, 122, 177, 252, 280, 336, 361 Baker, Colin, 19, 131, 278, 315, 319 Baker, Tom, 3, 17, 19, 24, 54, 55, 74, 89, 92, 93, 96, 111, 131,

166, 215, 241, 243, 254, 268, 270, 290, 313, 320, 326, 330, 357, 358, 364 Ballard, J.G., 271 Baltar, Dr. Gaius, 126 Banks, Leslie Esdaile, 150 Bannerman, Yasmin, 155 Barrowman, John, 138, 228 Barthes, Roland, 22, 24, 32, 56, 179, 181, 189, 334, 337, 348 Bassett, Bertie, 277 Battlestar Galactica, 4, 20, 72, 75, 84, 117, 118, 119, 124, 127, 128, 129, 151, 261, 344 Baxter, Trevor, 136, 243 BBC (British Broadcasting Company), 1, 9, 17, 20, 24, 30, 50, 55, 56, 63, 64, 65, 66, 68, 73, 75, 76, 77, 79, 80, 88, 95, 104, 107, 130, 138, 140, 165, 169, 174, 177, 193, 194, 195, 196, 197, 198, 199, 200, 203, 204, 207, 209, 210, 214, 218, 221, 223, 225, 227, 230, 235, 236, 237, 238, 240, 243, 250, 252, 253, 258, 259, 260, 312, 316, 319, 321, 331, 336, 337, 338, 339, 340, 342, 343, 345, 346, 347, 348, 349, 350, 351, 357, 361, 363, 364 Benjamin, Christopher, 64, 243, 337 Bennett, Andrew, 182, 285 Bennett, John, 234, 239, 242 Bentham, Jeremy, 214, 216 Bevan, Stewart, 134 Bidmead, Christopher H., 313, 314, 316, 317, 318, 320 Big Brother, 41, 45, 178, 280

A Critical Approach to Doctor Who Big Finish Audio Dramas, 50, 196, 198, 204, 256, 337, 352, 359 Bignell, Jonathan, 57, 198, 205, 270, 273, 278, 331, 350, 360, 361 Bionic Woman, The, 344 Blackman, Honor, 108 Blair, Tony, 79 Blasco, Dee Dee, 162 Body Snatchers, 296 Borg, the, 152 Bradbury, Ray, 187, 348 Bragg, Melvynn, 205, 350 Briggs, Ian, 111, 202, 339 Bristow, Sidney, 144 British National Party (BNP), 96, 340 Broken, 296 Bryant, Nicola, 104, 137 Buffy the Vampire Slayer, 95, 120, 142, 144, 325 Burns, Elizabeth, 239 Burrage, Edwin, 238 Burton, Graeme, 281, 361 Butler, David, 88, 330, 337, 338, 350, 352, 353, 359, 364 Butler, Octavia, 150 Byron, Glennis, 284 Callis, James, 126 Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, 77, 95, 343 Capaldi, Peter, 145 Capra, Frank, 145 Caprica Six, 126 Carby, Hazel V., 158, 346 Carlyle, Thomas, 185 Carpenter, John, 296 Carter, Penny, 162 Cartmel, Andrew, 111, 214, 272, 316, 321, 323, 363 Cassandra, Lady, 157, 158 Cassidy, Sean, 296 Cathica, 42, 43, 279 Celestial Toyroom, 214 Ceth Jafe, Jabe, 155 Chaplin, Charlie, 19

385

Chapman, James, 25, 33, 75, 76, 79, 80, 82, 95, 109, 121, 122, 133, 134, 135, 136, 137, 142, 147, 193, 266, 267, 268, 269, 271, 273, 279, 280, 334, 338, 340, 341, 344, 350, 361, 363 Chariots of the Gods?- Unsolved Mysteries of the Past, 125 Charles, Alec, 55, 59, 96, 97 Charmed, 142, 344 Chiang, Li H’Sen, 238 Chicago Tribune, The, 167 Christ, Jesus, 23, 24, 25, 26, 28, 29, 33, 34, 226, 305 Christie, Agatha, 171, 179 Church Army, 22, 24, 26, 32, 34, 334 Clarke, Noel, 114, 139, 283 Coduri, Camille, 139 Cold War, 9, 15, 296 Collinson, Phil, 200, 202, 203 Combe, Kirk, 266, 361 Commonwealth Immigration Act, 267 Communist Manifesto, The, 269, 361 Companions Ace, 111, 112, 131, 137, 139 Adric, 58, 136 Andred, 136 Brown, Peri, 26, 95, 104, 137, 138, 311 Chesterton, Ian, 106, 131 Foreman, Susan, 15, 20, 121, 131 Grant, Jo, 109, 133 Harkness, Captain Jack, 28, 138, 148, 178, 213, 228, 230, 281 Heriot, Zoe, 133, 146 Holloway, Dr. Grace, 76, 140 Jenny, 149, 222, 330 Jones, Martha, 16, 28, 29, 114, 115, 122, 123, 124, 128, 130, 143, 144, 145, 146, 148, 151, 158, 159, 160,

386

Index 161, 172, 181, 183, 185, 186, 187, 188, 229, 286 Jovanka, Tegan, 95, 106, 136 K-9, 135, 325, 326 Leela, 19, 109, 110, 111, 131, 135, 136, 137, 138, 142, 147, 268, 270, 271, 278, 374 McCrimmon, Jamie, 133 Mitchell, Adam, 279 Noble, Donna, 11, 12, 16, 17, 27, 28, 51, 53, 114, 115, 122, 123, 124, 130, 144, 145, 146, 147, 148, 171, 175, 176, 308 Nyssa, 136 Peth, Astrid, 148 Polly, 104, 105, 106, 108, 109, 110, 133, 138 Romana, 20, 25, 27, 28, 57, 121, 131, 136, 146, 256, 358 Romana II, 136 Shaw, Liz, 109, 110, 133 Smith, Mickey, 150, 161, 283 Smith, Sarah Jane, 13, 28, 55, 131, 134, 135, 146, 301 Sparrow, Sally, 175 Sullivan, Harry, 134 Tyler, Jackie, 82, 139, 300 Tyler, Rose, 5, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 26, 31, 37, 38, 41, 43, 44, 64, 80, 81, 82, 83, 97, 111, 113, 114, 115, 117, 122, 123, 124, 128, 130, 139, 140, 141, 142, 143, 144, 145, 146, 147, 148, 154, 157, 158, 159, 160, 174, 176, 178, 192, 197, 200, 202, 207, 213, 217, 218, 220, 221, 223, 226, 231, 255, 283, 286, 287, 288, 295, 300, 310, 326, 332, 334, 337, 343, 346, 351, 358 Vicki, 132 Wright, Barbara, 106, 131

Computer Mediated Communication (CMC), 210, 211, 215, 216, 221 Cornell, Paul, 204, 336, 346 Corvaus, Sarah, 119 Couch, Steve, 26, 32 Coulborn, Rushton, 14, 334 Courtney, Nicholas, 109 CSI- Crime Scene Investigation, 95 Cull, Nicholas, 30, 33, 72, 102 Curry, Graeme, 273 Cybermen, the, 5, 121, 138, 141, 277, 283, 284, 286, 287, 288, 289, 290, 291, 292, 293, 294, 295, 297, 298, 304, 305, 310, 317, 362 Cybus Industries, 283, 288, 291, 294 Cylons, 125, 127, 344 Da Vinci Code, The, 187 Daily Telegraph, The, 20, 22, 23, 352 Daleks, the, 9, 12, 13, 23, 38, 40, 41, 61, 73, 80, 81, 88, 90, 93, 107, 121, 122, 132, 138, 140, 141, 142, 145, 147, 202, 246, 256, 266, 273, 277, 281, 284, 286, 289, 295, 297, 298, 300, 301, 310, 314, 315, 322, 339, 342, 343 Dark Angel, 142, 144 Davies, Russell T. (RTD), 3, 5, 6, 20, 23, 24, 29, 32, 33, 36, 82, 95, 99, 120, 121, 123, 128, 174, 194, 196, 197, 202, 204, 207, 215, 231, 264, 278, 280, 283, 284, 297, 298, 335, 339, 345, 346 Davison, Peter, 3, 15, 17, 26, 54, 65, 131, 168, 203, 222, 254, 320, 330 Davros, 14, 93, 142, 145, 273, 277, 289, 297 Dawkins, Richard, 3, 22, 23, 31, 335 de Pompadour, Madame, 16

A Critical Approach to Doctor Who Defoe, Daniel, 266 Dent, Arthur, 317 Derecho, Abigail, 171, 172, 346 Dickens, Charles, 80, 88, 169, 170, 171, 179 Dicks, Terrance, 104, 195, 214, 240, 313, 316, 317, 318, 322, 326, 331, 357, 363 Doane, Mary Ann, 49, 50, 62, 64, 105, 337, 341 Dobson, Tarma, 159 Doctor Who 25 Glorious Years, 314, 363 Doctor Who Appreciation Society (DWAS), 214, 215 Doctor Who Bulletin, 215 Doctor Who Confidential, 29, 46, 168, 194, 321, 351 Doctor Who Forum, 193, 211, 228, 351, 353, 354, 355 Doctor Who Magazine, 193, 196, 197, 200, 203, 314, 341, 342, 350, 351, 352, 353, 362, 363, 364 Doctor Who Monster Books, 214 Doctor Who Monthly, 214 Doctor Who The Handbook, 317 Doctor Who The Inside Story, 46, 336 Doctor Who The Scripts 1974-1975, 314 Doctor, the Doctor, the 1st, 10, 15, 75, 106, 135 Doctor, the 2nd, 10, 61, 106, 133, 147, 173 Doctor, the 3rd, 90, 134, 166 Doctor, the 4th, 24, 55, 64, 74, 90, 134, 147, 166 Doctor, the 5th, 65, 66, 136, 167, 169, 203 Doctor, the 6th, 137, 173, 256 Doctor, the 7th, 26, 33, 137 Doctor, the 8th, 140, 194, 256 Doctor, the 9th, 26, 80, 81, 138, 139, 140, 174, 256

387

Doctor, the 10th, 15, 16, 34, 65, 141, 147, 165, 168, 169, 181, 211 Doctor, the 11th, 20, 34, 149 Dorn, Michael, 155 Doty, Alexander, 33, 335 Doyle, Sir Arthur Conan, 333 Dryden, John, 264, 266, 274 Dualla, Anastasia, 151 Duck Soup, 187 Due, Tananarvie, 150 Dumezweni, Norma, 162 Dyer, Richard, 239 Dystopia, 265 Eccleston, Chris, 26, 80, 83, 96, 97, 112, 130, 139, 177, 278, 299 Eco, Umberto, 24, 59, 335, 337 Eick, David, 119, 124, 125, 127 El-Aurians, the, 152 Elliott, Robert, 265 Ellis, Sean, 296 Entertainment Weekly, 119, 344 ER, 76 Eudaimonism, 303 Eugenics, 294 Evalina, 28 Facebook, 79, 211 Fandom, 4, 164, 225, 233, 235, 243, 347, 351, 352, 355, 356, 360 Fanvids, 254, 258, 360 Fanwank, 5, 209, 226 Ferrara, Abel, 296 Fielding, Janet, 106, 136 Fiske, John, 24, 26, 27, 28, 33, 44, 194, 205, 280, 335, 336, 351, 361 Flynn, Gillian, 119 Ford, Carol Ann, 15 Four Weddings and a Funeral, 70 Fox, 68, 75, 76, 140, 319, 325, 343, 351 Frankenstein, 287, 289, 318, 362, 364 Fraser, Peter, 132 Freedman, Carl, 70

388 Freud, Sigmund, 64, 284, 285, 286, 290, 291, 292, 294, 337, 362 Full Monty, The, 71 Gale, Cathy, 108 Gallifrey, 15, 39, 58, 60, 61, 112, 134, 136, 145, 212, 215, 238, 245, 302, 310, 350, 351, 357, 362 Gallifrey One, 58 Gardner, Julie, 83, 202 Garner, Jennifer, 144 Gatiss, Mark, 204, 346 Gellar, Sarah Michelle, 144 Gennette, Gerard, 127 Genre, 317, 318, 338, 362 Gillan, Karen, 149 Girl Power, 122, 130, 131, 142, 143, 147, 148, 149 Globe Theatre, The, 181, 183, 185, 186 God Delusion, The, 31, 335 Goldberg, Whoopi, 152 Greel, Magnus, 242, 244, 245 Greenhorn, Stephen, 175, 222, 347 Grier, Pam, 159 Guardian, The, 23, 25, 338, 363 Guevara, Max, 144 Guinan, 152, 153, 154 Gwenllian-Jones, Sara, 195, 204, 351 Habermas, Jürgen, 250, 253, 274, 359, 361 Haining, Peter, 15, 20, 314, 334, 341, 363 Hall, Stuart, 234 Hancock, Sheila, 93, 273 Hardy, Phil, 296 Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, 188, 349 Hartnell, William, 15, 106, 131, 174, 202 Hatch, Richard, 125 Helfer, Tricia, 126 Herald Sun (Australia), 22, 335 High Rise, 271 Hill, Jacqueline, 106, 112, 131

Index Hills, Matt, 50, 88, 210 Hinchcliffe, Philip, 90, 91, 111, 197, 237, 238, 239, 242, 270, 297, 313, 316, 318, 320, 323, 324, 326, 364 Hipsky, Martin, 70, 339 Hirschbiegel, Oliver, 296 Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, The, 363 Hoffman, E.T.A., 290 Holmes, Robert, 215, 237, 238, 242, 243, 245, 246, 247, 267, 297, 313, 315, 339, 364 Holmes, Sherlock, 57, 236, 238, 245 Hopkinson, Nalo, 150 Horace, 264 House of Leaves, 39 Hulke, Malcolm, 322, 357, 363 Independent, The, 32, 345, 346 Inness, Sherry, 117, 118, 119, 122, 124, 126, 344 Invasion, 19, 20, 75, 130, 132, 133, 136, 260, 296, 317, 359 Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956), 296 iPod, 157, 259 ITV, 72, 193, 206, 207 Jago, Henry Gordon, 243 Jagrafess, 42, 43, 45, 46, 279 Jameson, Louise, 109, 110, 111, 135 Jenkins, Henry, 1, 49, 170, 248, 334, 342, 345, 348, 352, 353, 360 Jensen, Maren, 125 Jenzen, Olu, 289 John Carpenter’s The Thing, 296 John, Caroline, 109, 133 Johnson, Corey, 140 Jones, Catherine Zeta, 20 Jones, Cleopatra, 159 Jonson, Ben, 184 Joseph, Verona, 162 Justice- Rights and Wrongs, 300, 363 Juvenal, 264 K-9 And Company, 135

A Critical Approach to Doctor Who Kaufman, Philip, 296 Kay, Bernard, 132 Keeping Up Appearances, 70 Kennedy, John F., 174 Kent, Clark, 60 King, Jacqueline, 144 Kirk, Captain, 125 LA Times, The, 203, 352 Lambert, Verity, 106, 107, 108, 115, 175, 313, 342 Langford, Bonnie, 137 Last Battle, The, 174 Last Temptation of Christ, The, 38 Lethbridge-Stewart, Sir Alistair Gordon, 14 Letts, Barry, 32, 113, 133, 318, 339 Lincoln, Abraham, 170, 344, 347, 348, 362 Litefoot, Dr., 136, 243 Live Journal, 211 Lloyd, Innes, 104, 106, 108 Loch Ness Monster, the, 55 Lockhart, Anne, 125 Look Back in Anger, 71 Lost, 84, 124, 182, 255, 259, 349, 359 Love, Christie, 159 Luckham, Cyril, 136 Lynch, David, 259 Macbeth, 183, 186, 349 MacDonald, Philip, 271 Madonna, 142 Magambo, Captain Erisa, 162 Making of Doctor Who, The, 214, 322, 331, 357, 363 Mammies No More- The Changing Black Image of Black Women on Stage and Screen, 153 Man from U.N.C.L.E., The, 88 Manchu, Fu, 236, 245 Manning, Katy, 109, 133 Marc, David, 52 Martin, Philip, 278, 339 Marx, Groucho, 47, 60 Marx, Harpo, 3, 19 Marx, Karl, 269

389

Master, the, 10, 25, 29, 39, 73, 77, 138, 143, 213, 222, 230, 231, 256, 297, 306 Matrix, The, 153 McClure, Kandyse, 151 McCoy, Sylvester, 33, 111, 131, 271 McDonnell, Mary, 126 McFly, Marty, 188 McGann, Paul, 10, 76, 140 McKee, Alan, 26, 167, 211 Merchant Ivory films, 70 Metamorphoses of Science Fiction, 45, 336 Metropolis, 60, 269 Miller, Jeffrey, 78 Mini-Cooper, 87 Minogue, Kylie, 32, 148 Mission- Impossible, 88 Moffat, Steven, 115, 168, 169, 175, 281, 323, 325, 326, 347 Moffett, Georgia, 222 Moore, Michael, 264 More Than 30 Years in the TARDIS, 104 More, Sir Thomas, 265 Morgan, Glen, 119 Morley, David, 33, 49, 221, 234 Morrison, A.D., 280 Mr. Bean, 71 MSN, 211 Muir, John Kenneth, 50, 52, 53, 121, 237, 240, 241, 242, 243, 313, 321, 338, 344, 357, 363 Mulvey, Laura, 105, 137, 342, 345 Murder One, 319 Murray, Andy, 315 Myers, Rev. Andy, 22, 24, 27 MySpace, 79 Nancy, Jean-Luc, 40 Nathan-Turner, John (JNT), 215, 272, 313, 314, 315, 316, 319, 320, 322, 323, 324, 325, 326, 364 Nation, Terry, 150, 195, 266, 270, 313, 331, 339, 347, 361

390 Neale, Steve, 280 Neo, 153 Nestene Consciousness, 37, 40, 122, 139 New Adventures Novel Series, 195, 196, 198, 204 Newman, Kim, 92, 132, 146, 312 Newman, Sydney, 9, 107, 193, 313 Nichols, Nichelle, 150 Nozick, Robert, 302 O’Brien, Maureen, 132 O’Mahony, Daniel, 51 O’Mahony, David, 318 Office, The, 71 Olmos, Edward James, 126 Ood, the, 308 Oracle, The, 153, 154, 156 Orwell, George, 265 Outpost Gallifrey (OG), 212 Padbury, Wendy, 133 Parkin, Lance, 49, 322 Pearson, Roberta, 168, 347, 356 Peel, Emma, 87, 89, 108, 110 Pegg, Simon, 279 Pertwee, Jon, 32, 55, 92, 109, 112, 131, 133, 166, 214, 267, 320 Piper, Billie, 20, 111, 123, 139, 159, 283 Platt, Marc, 111 Pope, Alexander, 180, 264, 274 Potter, Harry, 185, 188, 348, 349 Powis, Jonathan, 8, 10, 334 Prisoner, The, 71, 72, 341 Propp, Vladimir, 264, 362 Punter, David, 284 Queen Victoria, 56, 80, 82, 98 Queer as Folk, 33, 138, 196 Rachnoss, the, 27 Radio Times, 168, 196, 350 Rani, the, 20, 94, 343 Redfern, Joan, 160 Reith, John, 236 Rigg, Diana, 108 Ripley, Ellen, 118 Roberts, Eric, 77 Roberts, Gareth, 317, 347

Index Roberts, Robin, 155 Robinson, Dave, 314 Rohmer, Sax, 236, 238, 245 Rome, 51, 174 Rosita, 162 Roslin, Laura, 126 Rowling, J.K., 185, 349 Royle, Nicholas, 285, 286, 288, 290, 291, 292, 362 Russell, William, 106, 131 Ryan, Michelle, 115, 119, 120, 149 Saint, The, 72 Saints, Sinners, and Saviors, 158 Sanders, Daniel, 285 Sandman, The, 290 Sarah Jane Adventures, The, 135 Satire, 5, 264, 266, 361, 362 Sax, Geoffrey, 25, 339, 343 Scarlioni, Count, 92 Scarlioni, Countess, 17 Scaroth, 121 Sci-Fi Channel, 63, 77, 78, 83, 252 Series 1, 122 Series 2, 122, 141, 166 Series 4, 122, 123, 124, 128, 145, 160, 213, 286 Serina, 125 Seymour, Jane, 125 Shakespeare, William, 5, 56, 80, 143, 161, 170, 172, 173, 178, 179, 180, 181, 182, 183, 184, 185, 186, 187, 317, 347, 348, 349 Shape of Utopia, The, 265 Sheba, Lieutenant, 125 Shelley, Mary, 287, 318, 362, 364 Siegel, Don, 296 Simm, John, 29, 143, 231 Six Million Dollar Man, The, 119 Skaro, 13, 107 Sladen, Elisabeth, 134 Smith, Matt, 34, 115, 149, 254, 358 Song, River, 18, 148 Sontarans, the, 286 Sopranos, The, 95, 319, 333 Sosanya, Nina, 162

A Critical Approach to Doctor Who Spice Girls, 142 Spigel, Lynn, 52, 53, 338 Star Trek, 49, 58, 72, 124, 150, 152, 155, 257, 334, 337, 342, 345, 346, 348, 352, 353, 357, 360, 374 Star Trek- The Next Generation, 152, 155, 346, 374 Star Wars, 75, 246, 261, 355 Starbuck, Lieutenant, 20, 117, 125, 126, 344 Stargate, 117, 125, 197 Starlog, 11 Steed, John, 87 Stein, Alex, 23, 24, 31 Strayer, Joseph R., 11, 14 Summers, Buffy, 144, 149 Superman, 59, 60, 337, 374 Suvin, Darko, 45 Swift, Jonathan, 173, 264, 265 TARDIS, 3, 12, 19, 22, 23, 28, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 44, 51, 53, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 77, 88, 91, 103, 106, 107, 112, 113, 121, 123, 124, 128, 129, 132, 140, 143, 144, 146, 148, 161, 166, 171, 174, 198, 199, 201, 202, 215, 226, 231, 302, 314, 340, 343, 344, 345, 350, 352, 353, 354, 355, 361 Telememory, 51, 54, 55, 57 Telemyth, 50, 55, 57 Television Without Pity (website), 252, 357, 360 Tempest, The, 183, 349 Tennant, David, 3, 6, 37, 46, 47, 55, 65, 97, 112, 115, 122, 131, 141, 165, 166, 167, 168, 169, 176, 211, 228, 254, 283, 358 Test, George Austin, 265 Thals, the, 73 Thatcher, Margaret, 74, 92, 93, 273, 275, 277, 278, 360 Thomas, Dylan, 180 Thrace, Kara, 117, 125, 126

391

Through Time- An Unauthorised and Unofficial History of Doctor Who, 363 Time Lords, 2, 8, 10, 12, 13, 15, 16, 17, 19, 20, 28, 29, 41, 44, 48, 52, 53, 56, 60, 61, 62, 75, 80, 83, 90, 94, 124, 131, 136, 140, 145, 157, 184, 222, 286, 297, 302, 306, 309, 319, 322, 335 Time Machine, The, 174 Todorov, Tzvetan, 267, 270, 275, 362 Torchwood, 28, 31, 82, 141, 145, 252 Trainspotting, 71, 76 Tranchell, Chris, 136 Trinny and Susannah, 280 Trivial Pursuit, 315 Troughton, Patrick, 19, 52, 61, 106, 131 Tshabalala, Velile, 162 Tulloch, John, 30, 90, 167, 236, 337, 348, 352 Twark, Jill E., 266, 362 Twin Peaks, 259 Twitter, 79 Uhura, Lieutenant, 150 UNIT, 14, 90, 109, 133, 134, 143, 160, 161 Upstairs, Downstairs, 70, 339 van Statton, Henry, 140 Volf, Miroslav, 307 von Däniken, Erich, 125 Wagner, Lindsay, 118 Wallis, Barnes, 73, 340 Waterhouse, Matthew, 58, 136 Watkins, Tony, 26, 32, 335 Weakest Link, The, 45, 178, 280 Web 2.0, 210, 230, 231, 249, 251 Webber, Trish, 162 Wells, H.G., 173 Wells, Paul, 126, 344 West Wing, The, 95 Wettstone, Richard, 150, 346 What Not to Wear, 45, 178 Whedon, Joss, 126

392 White Guardian, the, 136, 147 Whospeak, 214, 216, 225 Williams, Graham, 111, 270, 313, 314 Williams, Peter, 26, 32 Williams, Raymond, 236, 281 Wills, Anneke, 104, 108, 133 Wolterstorff, Nicholas, 300, 301, 303, 304, 305, 306, 307, 308, 311, 363 Wood Jr., Forrest, 299 Wood, Robin, 234

Index Wood, Tat, 321, 345 Wooding, Andrew, 22, 23 World War I, 73, 74, 160 Wörterbuch der Deutschen Sprache, 285 Wright, Peter, 25, 74, 338, 350 Wyatt, Stephen, 271, 281 X-Files, The, 76, 82, 95, 119 YouTube, 5, 230, 232, 249, 250, 251, 252, 253, 255, 256, 257, 258, 259, 261, 359, 360 Zaidi, Waqar, 73, 340