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The New Dr. Who Unveiled
I grew up watching Doctor Who on PBS—begrudgingly. My dad, mom, and sister all gloried in Tom Baker’s rendition of the Doctor running through caves, his multi-colored scarf trailing behind him, trying to get away from Daleks screaming “EXTERMINATE!”
Fast forward to 2012, when my then eight-year-old son discovered David Tennant’s tenth Doctor Who. He was hooked, and I was too. This Doctor was modern and relatable.
I texted my son yesterday when I heard that Jodie Whittaker has been cast as the thirteenth Doctor. What did he think about the first female Time Lord in the show’s fifty-four year history? His response was immediate:
“OMG! Cool! Saw it trending on YouTube. Awesome!!!!! [Many happy emojis.].
A friend, whose seven-year-old daughter was also excited by the news, raised a great question: How will the show’s writers deal with the sexism that a female doctor most certainly encountered in the past?
Given the nature of science fiction as a genre, I doubt they will avoid the hard discussion. Science fiction has been pretty good at leading us to explore social questions as well as technological ones. Doctor Who has been especially adept at this, including women in prominent roles since the start.
One of the original producers of the show in 1966 was a woman, Verity Lambert. Lambert was also the youngest producer on the show. She incorporated the idea of fantasy into the original series and created the Doctor’s nemesis, the Daleks. It is hard to imagine the show without them.
The Doctor has always had a companion, and overwhelmingly that person has been female. But the women of Doctor Who are not Bond girls. They are strong, intelligent, fearless, feisty, and complex. They help the Doctor in his travels through time and space as he works to save civilizations and humanity. They all want to go with him, perhaps because they are denied adventure in their real lives.
The women of Doctor Who are not Bond girls. They are strong, intelligent, fearless, feisty, and complex.
One of the best examples of this is Amy Pond (Karen Gillan) who helps the Doctor understand humans’ willingness to subjugate others for our own benefit. In the episode “Starship UK,” the ship has attached itself in parasitic fashion to a giant star whale that is being tortured to maintain movement. The Starship residents fail to see the grotesqueness of this action. Amy leads the Doctor to understand that, like him, the star whale is the last of its kind and is actually seeking to aid humanity.
Other female companions are gritty and tough. Rose Tyler (Billie Piper) sees the destruction of Earth in her first episode, but still wants to aid the Doctor in his travels. She eventually saves him from the Daleks by challenging the vortex of time in her mind. Similarly, River Song is unpredictable and dangerous. Born in the Tardis (the Doctor’s time machine) she frustrates the Doctor by flying the Tardis better than he can.
One of the most intriguing companions is Sarah-Jane Smith (Elisabeth Sladen), the only companion of the Doctor to have been in both the original series during the 1970s and the reboot. When seeing the Doctor for the first time in decades, Sarah-Jane immediately recognizes his soul. Her reaction epitomizes the deeply rooted relationships based on trust and love between the Doctor and his companions. This love is not one of romance, but deeper connections to worlds beyond their lives.
Women taking prominent roles in science fiction is hardly new. Take Lieutenant Uhura in the 1960s Star Trek, played by Nichelle Nichols, one of the first black women featured in a title role on television. Uhura was a respected commander, fourth in line to leadership on the Starship Enterprise. (She contemplated leaving the show after the first season until an encounter with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in 1966 changed her mind.)
Mae Jemison, the first black female astronaut to go into space, cited Uhura as an inspiration. A young girl in 1960s Chicago, Jemison saw in Nichols’s character the possibility of black women in space. She was not alone. In the decades that followed, numerous women were inspired to join NASA.
In the 2004 series reboot of the 1978 hit Battlestar Galactica, Lieutenant Starbuck, originally portrayed by Dirk Benedict, was reimagined as female. Reactions to the casting of Katee Sackhoff were mixed. Initially, many fanboys of the original series were up in arms. But Sackhoff quickly won over fans and critics alike, becoming a series favorite and winning the Academy of Science Fiction’s Saturn Award in 2005.
Like her male predecessor, Sackhoff’s Starbuck was hot-tempered and talented. She evolves throughout the series from suicidal and self-loathing, to a leader willing to sacrifice all to save her crewmates. Her trajectory for the character cast a wider breadth than did Benedict’s popular version.
“To me, what’s relevant about Battlestar is that, sadly, humanity does make the same mistakes over and over again,” Sackhoff said of the show. “But the thing that is so beautiful about the show, and then also humanity, is that everyone has hope . . . . You have to have hope.”
Therein lies the power of science fiction. It allows us to push boundaries and imagine new realities. The rules do not have to stand; they can be challenged. It’s OK to question the path we’re on.
Why not be reborn as a woman? It is women who have helped the Doctor grow and change.
Remembering that the Doctor is an alien that must regenerate when dying, and knowing that with each rebirth the Doctor obtains knowledge from his previous form, why not be reborn as a woman? It is women who have helped the Doctor grow and change.
I am hopeful that Whittaker’s thirteenth Doctor will likewise help viewers young and old reimagine the role of the hero in space and time.
For my son and my friend’s daughter, this is great news. The pump has been primed throughout the fifty-four year history of Doctor Who for a female to take over the reigns of the Tardis. Whittaker’s Doctor is the culmination of decades of female companionship and the understanding of the power women have to bring about change.