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This article analyzes the representation of the first female protagonist in the Doctor Who series within the context of witch hunts, as depicted in the episode "The Witchfinders". Over its more than 50-year history, the series has been characterized by its longevity and the portrayal of various male actors in the lead role. However, in 2017, the first female Doctor was announced. This study aims to explore the significance of this change by introducing the first female lead character in a historical episode with a backdrop of witch hunts. The gender relations portrayed in "The Witchfinders" highlight the series' commitment to presenting the stories of both women and history. Through film analysis grounded in Cultural and Gender Studies, shifts in female representations are observed, leading to enhanced representativeness. Despite these advancements, the raised discussions and the outcome of the plot diverge from the main theme, as the character ends up being marginalized and, to some extent, subjugated in relation to male dominance. We reflect on the parallel treatment of witches and women as mythical and misunderstood beings, whose histories have been erased, akin to the alien entities in the episode. Therefore, despite some ruptures, the series misses the opportunity to delve deeper into the portrayal of the Doctor as a woman in a narrative centered on female oppression.

FT, sairaanhoitaja (AMK) Leena Vuolteenaho väitteli Oulun yliopiston englannin kielen oppiaineesta lokakuussa 2022. Oheinen essee on päivitetty versio hänen väitöstilaisuuden alussa pitämästään suomenkielisestä lektiosta. Englanninkielinen väitöskirja The Price of No End: Doctor Who, Ethics, and the Limits of Humanity (Acta Universitatis Ouluensis, sarja B, Humaniora, 199) on vapaasti luettavissa Oulun yliopiston Jultika-arkistossa: http://jultika.oulu.fi/Record/isbn978-952-62-3393-2

Quantitative content analysis was used to examine social media responses to the BBC's announcement of the first female Doctor in the science-fiction show Doctor Who. Tweets reacting to the BBC's framing of the decision (N = 2,971) were coded for mentions of representation, impact on the character, political correctness, feminism, impact on ratings, and impact on younger generations. Results indicated that audience responses did not reflect the BBC's framing but were generally supportive of the casting choice. Explanations for the lack of correspondence between the BBC and responses are explored. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyses the writers Steven Moffat and Sydney Newman and the director Farren Blackburn's Doctor Who Christmas Special episode titled "The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe" (2011) as a retelling of C. S. Lewis's The Magician's Nephew (1955) and The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (1950) with cross-references to the two books in the light of ecocritical theory. Employing Jane Caputi's terminology, the article argues that "The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe" is an invocation of the "Mutha,'" that is, Mother Nature-Earth. The article asserts that as opposed to Digory's ill mother Mabel and not so brave or competent Susan and Lucy respectively in the first and second books and unlike what Father Christmas claims in the second book, Madge, akin to the "Mutha,'" demonstrates in the episode through her kindness, resilience, and wits that battles do not get ugly when women come to the aid of those that are in danger--be they human or non-human. It illustrates that the books accommodate both arcadian and imperial ecologies whereas the episode offers arcadian ecology as a countermeasure against imperial ecology. This article states that the episode not only condemns wars and ecocide like the two books do, but also refers to the imperialism and colonialism and rectifies the speciesism and sexism in the two books. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates the aesthetic of the twentieth-century Metropolitan Police box and its ongoing association with the TARDIS time machine from the BBC's television science-fiction show, Doctor Who. Doctor Who fans explore the police box aesthetic through its multiple identities, where it is celebrated, investigated and recreated. This article draws on Catherine Johnson's theories of pseudo-diegesis and extra-diegesis to demonstrate how such fan interests have a visible effect on Doctor Who's ongoing production decision-making. In doing so, this article argues for greater attention on non-human social actors within adaptation, and how consumer interest, enacted in multiple ways, has potential power in the shaping and reshaping, of the diegetic worlds of ongoing serializations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates the impact of production process upon character agency in early Doctor Who, focusing on the period between 1963 and 1966, during which time William Hartnell starred as the Doctor. As originally conceived by Sydney Newman, Verity Lambert and David Whitaker, it is debatable to what extent the Doctor could be regarded as the ‘hero’ of the narrative, as this role was often better fulfilled by his human companions, initially represented by teachers Ian Chesterton (William Russell) and Barbara Wright (Jacqueline Hill), who provided a ready point of identification for viewers. This situation changed significantly during Hartnell’s tenure, but the shifts in agency that occurred were so radical as to seem almost ad hoc, reflecting industry pressures that typified television drama of the time. The extent to which these changes were influenced by the programme's rapid turnaround are examined here via a combination of textual analysis and historical production research, before being briefly contrasted with the modern version of Doctor Who, starring Jodie Whittaker, whose production context allows for more considered development of long-term character arcs.

Branded escape rooms reveal points of tension between fan engagement and authorized content creation. Escape rooms are live-action puzzle games in which groups of participants are locked in a room and surrounded by puzzles and clues. Since at least 2017, a number of escape rooms function as franchise-branded experiences. In this paper, I highlight two such experiences, Doctor Who: Worlds Collide and Sherlock: The Game Is Now. Branded escape rooms function as sites of multiple overlapping connections between media tourism and ludic fandom, where the brand harnesses fan engagement. Playing the game allows the fan to feel closer to the text, but precludes fan transformational work, linking escape rooms to authorized tourist experiences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The globalized age of the Anthropocene, a spacetime in which humans regularly come into contact with other human and non-human ways-of-life, creates an exigence for stories that encourage living together-in-difference, or peace myths. In "The Zygon Inversion," Doctor Who offers an imperfect peace myth that saves two species from war. To illuminate this myth, this essay first discusses the significance of memory and myth for national and cultural identity and situates Doctor Who in a sociopolitical context. Next, I show how the Doctor's myth (1) reconceptualizes the metaphor of wargames from a game of strategy to one of luck, (2) invites a de-escalation of conflict through the Doctor's enargeic rendering of his own, pained guilt, and (3) remains problematically partial as peace is achieved through a retention of the status quo at the cost of Zygon ways-of-life. Finally, I discuss how Doctor Who contributes to theorizing peace myths. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article considers how popular/spreadable misogyny enters into Doctor Who fans’ discourse communities via fan-cultural appropriation, mixing external political and internal fan discourses. This can oppose fannish communal norms such as “convivial evaluation” and “ante-fandom”. The theoretical perspective taken in the article combines work on toxic fandom with anti-fandom to thus understand fan toxicity as “multiphrenic”, i.e. drawing on multiple discourses and self-investments, including responding to its own anti-fans. The article goes on to examine YouTube voiceover-commentary videos from one communally-prominent Whotuber representing Not My Doctor anti-fandom, showing how they use devices such as the acousmetre and “stripped down” subjectivity to open a projective space for toxic fandom and enact a flat affect characterising what is termed “performative rationality”. Crucially, leftwing narratives of toxicity and hate are completely inverted to the extent that Doctor Who and the BBC are presumed, without evidence, to “hate” straight white male conservative fandom.

In the 1960s, the majority of Doctor Who (1963–89, 1996, 2005–present) episodes were wiped or lost. Students and staff at the University of Central Lancashire recently took on the challenge of remaking the missing Doctor Who episode 'Mission to the Unknown' (1965). The goal was to faithfully recreate the episode in a way that lays a claim to authenticity. This article examines the process and product and asks, with reference to television historiography, whether it achieves its goal of authenticity and what 'authenticity' might mean in this context. Ellis and others discuss the estrangement felt when viewing television from earlier decades. This article discusses the 'feedback loop' involved in knowing that the episode was made recently whilst assessing it as if it had been made in the past. The estrangement the viewer feels is therefore a sign that the episode is succeeding in its task of staying authentic to its era. But is it possible to completely abandon the knowledge of its contemporary production and lose oneself to the experience of viewing? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While primarily considered to be a platform for live streaming of video games, Twitch has recently diversified into streaming archival television content. In 2018 and 2019, episodes of the television show Doctor Who, originally aired between 1963 and 1989, were shown on the service, which also provides a synchronous chat function for viewers to communicate with each other as they watch. This article examines this phenomenon through conducting qualitative and quantitative surveys with a segment of the viewership of these streams in order to uncover a diversity of age and experience with the content that exposes a convergence of viewership. Results indicate that the convergence of audiences and novel affordances of the service provide opportunities for new experiences and forms of interaction, both with the media content and with other viewers. The live, synchronous nature of the broadcast is a key feature, and while some viewers found having less control over their viewing experience disconcerting, it resulted in different watching and production practices. This included the creation of memetic content which was shared with the wider community of fans beyond those watching the stream. We argue that new forms of communal watching are enabled by digital convergence and emerging technology platforms and services. These lead to new shared media experiences and outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2017, BBC released a video revealing that Jodie Whittaker would be the actor to play the thirteenth Doctor in the 2018 season of Doctor Who (1963–), the popular BBC television series. The "reveal" that a woman had been cast in the role of the Doctor prompted an overwhelming backlash and fierce online discussion. The same period saw a number of popular films and series cast women as leads. The intense discussion that the reveal generated indicates that televisual representations of gender continue to matter greatly to viewers. The question is how? Fan comments posted below the reveal video on YouTube suggest that viewing publics are less engaged in a controversy over feminism than bewildered by gender categories becoming unstable. Notably, once the series aired, discussion about the Doctor's gender died down. Seeing the Doctor addressed as "Ma'am," it turned out, was not what upset viewers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a conceptualization and critique of the implications motivating a set of teaching and learning sessions designed to introduce undergraduate students to the professional role of location scouts and managers, two main interventions are offered. First, discussion of acafan identities is advanced by considering how this subject position applies to teaching and learning contexts rather than individual research dispositions, with acafans transferring competencies developed through fan practices that appropriate industry-located forms of knowledge to inform pedagogical design. Second, the concept of vocational poaching is applied as an alternative of fannish appropriation that acafans can engage in when designing teaching and learning sessions. Vocational poaching involves individual acafans performing tactical raids on industrially located forms of knowledge via fan practices such as location visiting and using these to satisfy the requirements of neoliberal teaching policies.

Historical novels, films, and other media can disrupt or reinforce dominant narratives about the past. Educators must be careful that when they attempt to select material from a range of seemingly diverse perspectives, they do not choose content that nevertheless maintains problematic depictions of people, places, and events. Time travel stories offer a unique opportunity for students to consider, discuss, and research both "the past" and popular media's construction of the past, as well as confront their assumptions about what they believe is "true to history" and why. This article presents a case study and content analysis of the time travel TV show Doctor Who, and its narrative construction of the past around race and gender in particular. Implications are discussed for how the show might teach students about historical perspective and popular media's influence on perceptions of history in subtle and overt ways. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article considers how popular/spreadable misogyny enters into Doctor Who fans’ discourse communities via fan-cultural appropriation, mixing external political and internal fan discourses. This can oppose fannish communal norms such as “convivial evaluation” and “ante-fandom”. The theoretical perspective taken in the article combines work on toxic fandom with anti-fandom to thus understand fan toxicity as “multiphrenic”, i.e. drawing on multiple discourses and self-investments, including responding to its own anti-fans. The article goes on to examine YouTube voiceover-commentary videos from one communally-prominent Whotuber representing Not My Doctor anti-fandom, showing how they use devices such as the acousmetre and “stripped down” subjectivity to open a projective space for toxic fandom and enact a flat affect characterising what is termed “performative rationality”. Crucially, leftwing narratives of toxicity and hate are completely inverted to the extent that Doctor Who and the BBC are presumed, without evidence, to “hate” straight white male conservative fandom. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A key strategy of TV companies in the UK and US since the late 1990s, has been to create distinctive channel brands with flagship TV shows as brands that act to convey the channel's brand values to audiences. Mainstream quality cult shows, including Doctor Who for the BBC and Game of Thrones for HBO, have conveyed something of the brand of their respective channels in the highly competitive multi-media global TV market. In this essay, I analyse star images as brands (aspects of star image used for economic and promotional purposes), to consider their role as part of the launch and promotion of global cult telefantasy brands through promotional paratexts and their subsequent integration into the TV series narrative. Through the analysis, I argue that key aspects of star brands – particularly authenticity and intertextuality – are a central part of processes of mainstreaming, 'cult-ification' and generic balance, necessary to make mainstream cult telefantasy in the contemporary TV landscape. I contend this highlights the increasing importance of cult as a currency in global TV branding and of star brands in shoring up its extensive commodification. In doing so, I add to the understanding of star branding as part of the commodification of cult for mainstream telefantasy, a previously under-studied/theorised aspect of star and television studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

So-called franchise fiction, such as texts set in the Doctor Who, Star Trek, and Star Wars universes, as well as newer iterations based on video games, has an obvious and enduring appeal, most notably from a commercial perspective, with public recognition and built-in audiences. Creative practitioners, who are often fans themselves, embrace the opportunity to deepen the lore and possibilities of the property, as well as to make an original contribution to something they are invested in. However, there are some downsides, particularly issues surrounding the maintenance and expansion of an established canon and the management of fans who feel a protective and curatorial sense of ownership.

National identity is often intimately bound to connectedness to, independence from, and constructions of, family. Furthermore, family remains integral to neoliberal capitalism such that efforts to develop national identity along capitalist lines are likely to involve engagement with it. Legal changes in Britain over the last forty years reflect these constructions. Doctor Who is a science fiction programme in which an alien (the Doctor) has adventures with mainly human companions, travelling in time and space in a ship called the TARDIS. As the BBC’s longest-running television drama series, and one with a long-term focus on projecting Britishness, Doctor Who valuably charts how national identity has evolved. In the context of the Doctor’s companions in particular, Doctor Who’s treatment of family has altered starkly over time. This article identifies an orphan companions era in the programme’s early years in which characters’ families were either startlingly unmentioned or dead, leaving the TARDIS ‘family’ unchallenged. After a transitional phase in the 1980s in which each companion’s family assumed only fleeting significance, the programme’s post-2005 reboot ushered in an era of deep engagement with family in which families assume seminal importance. By putting family centre stage, Doctor Who captures the spirit of the age, marking a refashioning of British national identity in which family looms large. This reflects Britain’s transition from social democracy to neoliberalism. Distancing itself from conservatism, however, Doctor Who’s promotion of family goes hand in hand with the programme developing its own more progressive take on what constitutes the ‘good family’.

This paper offers an exploration into feminist female fans' reactions to the first female Doctor (Doctor Who's protagonist). After 55 years of male actors, the 13th Doctor became a woman in 2017. The announcement was met with a backlash, especially from male fans. Unlike previous studies on controversial casting, which focused on the negative commentators, this study sheds light on the supporters who defend the casting while being personally attacked. This research is based on 22 semi-structured in-depth interviews with self-identified feminist female fans of Doctor Who, a minority in a fandom that is perceived as male-dominated. Interviews were conducted after the announcement and before the airing of the new series. This timing provided the opportunity for participants to project their expectations onto the new Doctor. The findings reveal ambivalent reactions: interviewees avidly defended the casting and considered it an important step towards gender equality, both in popular culture and outside of it. However, they also wished the female Doctor would maintain masculine characteristics. This article offers first-hand accounts of feminist female fans who feel excluded from their fan community and the object of their fandom, and the tactics they employ to defend themselves and the new female leading character. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The British television series Doctor Who often depicts the discovery of new dimensions that provoke both affective experiences and heroic moments. Every discovery of a new dimension in Doctor Who is overwhelming, sudden and transformative, a moment of wonder and inspiration. This article considers three episodes, featuring discoveries of a new dimension of space ('The Rings of Akhaten' 2013), agency ('Dark Water' 2014) and imagination ('Vincent and the Doctor' 2010), which all combine affect and the heroic, albeit in different ways. Acknowledging the difficulty of grasping moments of affecting and being affected due to their dynamic and pre-reflexive nature, the article uses close readings of selected scenes to narrow down the descriptive gap as far as possible. The case study of 'Dark Water' also includes an analysis of the episode's reception in reviews and on social media platforms to highlight the actual affective response of the audience. The episodes' narratives of discovering new dimensions of space, agency and imagination, medialized through specific audio-visual means, closely intertwine affective experiences with heroic moments: affective experiences can trigger heroic action, a heroic claim of agency can have an affective dimension and the ability to affect and be affected can in itself be heroized. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

National identity is often intimately bound to connectedness to, independence from, and constructions of, family. Furthermore, family remains integral to neoliberal capitalism such that efforts to develop national identity along capitalist lines are likely to involve engagement with it. Legal changes in Britain over the last forty years reflect these constructions. Doctor Who is a science fiction programme in which an alien (the Doctor) has adventures with mainly human companions, travelling in time and space in a ship called the TARDIS. As the BBC's longest-running television drama series, and one with a long-term focus on projecting Britishness, Doctor Who valuably charts how national identity has evolved. In the context of the Doctor's companions in particular, Doctor Who's treatment of family has altered starkly over time. This article identifies an orphan companions era in the programme's early years in which characters' families were either startlingly unmentioned or dead, leaving the TARDIS 'family' unchallenged. After a transitional phase in the 1980s in which each companion's family assumed only fleeting significance, the programme's post-2005 reboot ushered in an era of deep engagement with family in which families assume seminal importance. By putting family centre stage, Doctor Who captures the spirit of the age, marking a refashioning of British national identity in which family looms large. This reflects Britain's transition from social democracy to neoliberalism. Distancing itself from conservatism, however, Doctor Who's promotion of family goes hand in hand with the programme developing its own more progressive take on what constitutes the 'good family'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the ways in which the role of the Doctor Who companion has been historically shaped by precedents that dictate the ways that female characters function within the narrative, and how these traits were self-reflexively critiqued by recent companion Clara Oswald. The companion is traditionally relegated to the role of a sidekick, with normative ideals perpetuated by the serial nature of the long-running series. These dictate the characterization of the companion, along with the expression of their sexuality and agency, thus restrictively defining the exclusive space in which female characters are allowed to occupy within Doctor Who. Where other characters had been unsuccessful, Clara succeeds in challenging this role by operating within the hegemonies of the companion narrative to deconstruct them, claiming agency where other companions were unable to, and departing the show having essentially become the Doctor herself – paving the way for the casting of Jodie Whittaker as the first female incarnation of the Time Lord.

Book Review

Originally premiering in 1963, the BBC television series Doctor Who has long been criticized for essentializing colonial scenarios and failing to address issues of race and post-colonial realities. As a white male with the privilege to explore time and space, the titular Doctor stands in contrast to his human companion Martha Jones, a Black woman who represents the first and only main character in the show to be a medical professional of color. The relationship between the Doctor and Martha inherently demands an exploration of the meaning of doctorhood. In studying the ways in which these characters embody the idea of "doctor," we examine how race structures their approach to medicine, heroism, and colonialism. Whereas the Doctor personifies the figure of colonizer and post-colonial white savior, Martha emerges as a radical figure whose doctorhood potentially challenges and dismantles the colonial history of medicine. Through Afrofuturist and Afrosurrealist lenses, Martha represents a potentially subversive figure who offers a visionary medicine rooted in social justice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While many London-bound alien invasion narratives in 1960s film and television are commonly believed to express a cultural preoccupation with the atomic age, this serial shapes an alternative "web" of the period's anxieties—the threat to national security from foreign espionage and the challenge to attitudes about sexuality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]