The feminisation of Doctor Who

19 August 2018

No, this isn't another post about a female Doctor. This is about the audience.

When I first accompanied my husband to conventions back in the early 1990s I was very much in the minority as one of the very few women present.   Probably the biggest change in Doctor Who since it returned in 2005 has been the rise of the fangirl.  The gender balance at conventions is now far more even.

I was reminded of this change whilst watching Kill the Moon  just now.  When I watched it originally I was so incensed by the ridiculous storyline and Clara's tantrum at the end, that I missed a throwaway line that really encapsulates this change in the audience.  Clara says that the school secretary hates her 'because she thinks I gave her a packet of Tena Lady in Secret Santa.' If ever a line was designed for my demographic (middle-aged female) that is it.  My other half still doesn't get it.  I suspect the Twelfth Doctor didn't either.

Even now, it seems odd that they managed to get away with a line about incontinence pads in a family show, but it is not the first time that the post-2005 show has had lines aimed at a female audience which would not have been considered appropriate for a family audience in the show's earlier years. There was a  joke about breast implants in Rose, and another in The Doctor's Daughter about turkey-basters.

I can't wait to see where this goes next.

Leavings....

12 July 2018

After juggling two and a bit jobs for the past six or seven months with secondments and 'acting' roles, they have worn me down and I am finally changing jobs permanently.  This is very sad, as I liked my old job, but my colleagues put on a great leaving party, complete with TARDIS piñata. 

I really hope someone got a picture of the distinguished professor of English Literature bashing it with a miniature cricket bat!

My leaving speech was short: the Tenth Doctor's final words.

Update: I returned later to the office to retrieve the TARDIS (yes, that was me carrying it home on the train).  The following morning I wasn't in and I got a panicked email from a colleague:

"You didn’t by any chance come in early this morning to take the TARDIS? It’s gone and Barbara and Ian are going into detective mode. (You just missed a moment in the office that you might have cherished when Ian could be overheard saying on the phone ‘we had a TARDIS in the office and…’.)*"

 *Names have been changed.  Obviously.

By coincidence, one of my colleagues in my new role is the person who was briefly my boss elsewhere and who bought me a Cyberman book and Dalek poster as a leaving present.

Musings

9 June 2018

Life has been very busy lately: doing two jobs, working on two books (medieval bastards and a guidebook to the Chilterns) and selling my mother's bungalow, so not much time for blogging, or for Doctor Who.

I did read the Target novelisation of The Day of the Doctor, which was excellent, in a very Steven Moffat way.  Naturally he had to tell the story from multiple viewpoints and include a running gag about Chapter Nine. On the subject of Moffat, we also re-watched Silence in the Library and Forest of the Dead recently.  They are still great stories, and what struck me particularly was how well River Song's first appearance stands up even when viewed with the benefit of hindsight. The Doctor's face when someone accuses him and River of bickering like 'an old married couple' is priceless. I still want to know why Audrey Niffenegger didn't sue, though.

There are rumours that Captain Jack will return to our screens to meet Doctor 13.  These seem largely fuelled by the fact that Chris Chibnall was the showrunner for Torchwood. Whilst I would love to see the Captain back on our screens, the TARDIS is already going to be quite crowded.  I hope Jodie Whittaker has enough space to be the Doctor, and doesn't get crowed out as Peter Davison did at times.

Oh well, all will be revealed in due course.

Two for the Price of One

28 December 2017

I have watched Twice Upon a Time a couple of times now, but am still trying to decide what I think about it.

As a regeneration story, it works well. Unlike previous regeneration episodes, the Doctor knows from the start that he is dying, and the focus of the story is how he comes to terms with his impending regeneration(s).

There are some wonderful performances, particularly from Mark Gatiss as the Captain, as he realises the implications of the Doctor's passing reference to World War I. David Bradley is wonderful as the First Doctor, though the script perhaps overdoes the sexism a bit.  Simply asking Bill to make some coffee would have been more in keeping than the lines about cleaning the TARDIS and the threat of a smacked bottom.

As a Christmas Special, I'm not so sure. Yes, it's snowy, and Christmas comes into it, in the form of the Christmas Truce, but the mood is scarcely festive.  On one level the story is all about impending death: the Doctor's, the Captain's and those of the members of Testimony, even if it comes with a typical Steven Moffat 'no-one actually dies' sort of twist.

I'm not even sure about the nobody really being dead bit.  When we last saw Clara, she might not have had a heartbeat, but she was off, zooming around the universe with Ashildr/Me, and Bill was similarly last seen flying off with Heather.  If they are both part of Testimony now it seems rather more final.

All in all though, it's time for a change, and it will be fascinating to see what Chris Chibnall and Jodie Whittaker will bring to the series.

Top Ten (and a bit more) Christmas Specials

Only two sleeps to  Twice Upon A Time  so I  have updated by league table of Christmas Specials.

1	The Christmas Invasion	2005
2	The Unquiet Dead*	2005
3	A Christmas Carol	2010
4	The Doctor the Widow and the Wardrobe	2011
5	The Runaway Bride	2006
6	Voyage of the Damned	2007
7	Last Christmas**	2014
8	Doctor Mysterio	2016
9	The Next Doctor	2008
10	The Husbands of River Song***	2015
11	The End of Time*****	2009
12	The Snowmen	2012
13	The Time of the Doctor	2013

.

A week to go....

Sunday 17 December 2017

With just a week to go before the big day (the broadcast of Twice Upon a Time) I decided to prepare by watching the DVD of The Tenth Planet again.

A couple of things struck me:

1. This is one of those stories where Polly doesn't seem to do much apart from make the coffee.  I wonder whether she was called Polly because her role is to put the kettle on?  I hope that the Thirteenth Doctor doesn't start making the tea.

2. The Doctor doesn't really do anything at all in this story.  He even spends one whole episode asleep. (Or is this because he has nipped out round the back to play with number Twelve?)

I can't wait to find out. 

Meanwhile I am warming up by watching old Christmas Specials.  The Christmas Invasion is still the best.

Still not Ginger!

Monday 17 July 2017

So the new Doctor is going  to be Jodie Whittaker, with whom the incoming showrunner has worked extensively on Broadchurch.  She is white, thirty-something and not ginger.  I may have been just a tiny bit wrong about the gender*, but apart from being female the casting seems completely in the usual pattern and therefore unremarkable.

So, leaving aside the competing and equally blinkered views of 'finally, a woman!' and 'it's ruined and I'm never watching again', what are we to make of the casting?

Firstly, Jodie Whittaker is an excellent actor. Her role in Broadchurch mainly involved a lot of emotional angst as a grieving mother, so it will be interesting to see how she deals with the more quirky aspects of the Doctor's personality.

Secondly, the publicity photos remind me quite a lot of Romana 2. (I mentioned this to my German colleague at work, but he had never heard of the Time Lady in question.  I am disappointed in him.) Will the Thirteenth Doctor actually turn out to be rather like Romana?   And if so, can we have a K9 substitute?  An electric parrot or a talking cabbage would be good.

Thirdly, will we now get a new male companion?  The last two series have ended with a female companion of the Doctor flying off to explore the universe along with another female character (Clara and Ashildr/Me last year and Bill and Heather this year), so two women flying around the space time continuum has been done. Perhaps Chris Chibnall could find a way of reintroducing Rory? It is important to have some sort of gender balance in the TARDIS.  If all else fails, Captain Jack will do nicely.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to Christmas.

*I'm open-minded about this.  I don't see any need for the Doctor to change gender, but don't mind as  long as it has been done in order to take the series in new directions and explore new stories, rather than as a gimmick or to appease the feminist lobby.