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Confession #80: I’m Not Celebrating Ten Years

The recent flood of “ten years ago today” posts about the relaunch of Doctor Who with Christopher Eccleston’s spectacular Ninth Doctor and Billie Piper’s Rose is kind of weirding me out. It’s not that I feel old thinking about how much time has passed, or nostalgic about the moment the show came back. It’s that I have no personal connection to that moment.

You may recall that although I was first introduced to the show through Rose, that didn’t actually happen until early 2008. I’m still three years out from my personal ten-year Doctor Who anniversary. So all those “remember when…?” and “where were you?” posts strike me as odd.

Yes, I remember seeing Rose for the first time, but I didn’t approach it as I’ve heard the fans who’d made it through the Wilderness Years did, with either breathless anticipation or trepidation. For me, it was a way to pass some time of an evening with a friend who was enthusiastic about something of which I’d barely heard.

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Confession #79: I Want Sister-Friends

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[Note: In case you saw yesterday’s post but didn’t click through to read the comments, YES, it was an April Fool’s joke. I’ve no plans to end the blog, despite the fact that the first paragraph was gospel truth.]

Last week I talked about how nice it would be to see more “bromance” in the TARDIS—that male-male bonding that doesn’t hinge on competition or other head-butting dynamics. But there’s another type of common human relationship that happens all the time in real life but is relatively rare in fiction. It’s a female-female bond I’m going to call sister-friends.

Think about the women you know (yourself included, if that’s how you identify)—family, friends, coworkers, random people at the grocery store, whatever. How often do you find women keeping the company of other women and how often are they with men? Alternatively, think specifically now about women you know well. Who are the handful of people with whom each woman has the closest relationships? Are those people exclusively men? Or are there other women in that innermost circle?

Now compare to what we see of the Doctor’s Companions (especially in the modern era). Starting with our current title holder, note that while Clara can get chummy with other women (as she only does when traveling with the Doctor, as far as we’ve ever seen), the people she actually spends time with are (a) the Doctor and (b) Danny. On rare occasions we’ve seen her with her father and/or her grandmother (or mentioning her long-dead mother), but those relationships are incredibly thinly developed on screen.

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Confession #78: I Want Bromance

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When I mention the Doctor’s Companions, who’s the first person who pops into your head? Is it the current or a recent Companion: Clara, or maybe Amy? Is it the first one you ever saw: Rose or Nyssa or Liz Shaw or even Susan? What about your all-time favorite (if it’s not one of those I’ve already named): Sarah Jane, Jo, Ace, Barbara…?

When I say “Companion,” how often does a guy come to mind?

Even if we restrict the Companion count to television, there have been a great many folks who’ve traveled with the Doctor over the years. Using the fairly generous selection criteria on the relevant Wikipedia page, we get a total of fifty individuals, including such outliers as Kamelion and Adam Mitchell. Of those, seventeen are men (eighteen, if you count the male-presenting Kamelion; or nineteen if you include male-voiced K-9). That’s roughly 35%.

More strictly, if one doesn’t include those who were only on one adventure (like Sara Kingdom or Jackson Lake) or didn’t have their names in the opening credits (like Adam), but does include regular UNIT staff (the Brigadier, Sgt. Benton, and Capt. Yates), the Companion count comes in closer to thirty-seven or thirty-eight. Eleven or twelve of those are men (depending on whether or not you count Jack Harkness), or about 30%.

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Confession #77: I Think the TARDIS Is a Caretaker

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How do the Doctor and his Companions take care of their basic biological needs while they’re traveling in the TARDIS? It’s a question perhaps less pressing when considering Clara than most others, as she seems to spend little time at all there. We’ve seen her changing clothes after an adventure, but on-screen evidence suggests (to me, at least) that she rarely, if ever, so much as spends one night aboard.

Even as recently as Rory and Amy, though—another pair who treated their time on the TARDIS more like a commuter than a residential lifestyle—it was clear that long stretches of time passed between their visits home. Historically, Companions lived in the TARDIS more like a dormitory or a commune, presumably spending their time between adventures in its halls.

So where do they sleep? Eat? Relieve themselves?

I suppose one obvious answer is that they stop off at various planets (or space stations, or whatever) to get supplies, have a picnic, or find a place to crash. (After all, Rose and Nine talked in The Empty Child about needing to stop for milk: “All the species in all the universe, and it has to come out of a cow,” he quips.) It makes a certain amount of sense that part of exploring the universe is exploring various species’ cuisines, for example.

I don’t think that’s how it works, though. We saw early on (in The Daleks, the second-ever story to be broadcast) that the TARDIS was equipped with a food machine that could produce (rather unappetizing looking) blocks of nutritional matter, programmed to taste like whatever one liked. Although it barely ever showed up again, that seeded the idea that the crew had everything they needed without ever leaving the ship.

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Confession #76: I Like Grumpy

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As I’ve discussed the latest series with more and more people, I’ve noticed a distinct dichotomy in fan reactions to the new Doctor. Capaldi’s Twelve appears to be a “love him or hate him” kind of character, with very few having a lukewarm reaction. It made me wonder why some can’t stand him, while others think he’s the best thing since sliced bread.

Then I got to wondering why any Doctor appeals to certain fans and not others.

Perhaps the most noticeable schism in fandom lately has been between fans of the Classic era who don’t really care for the more recent stuff and fans of “NuWho” who just can’t get into the Classic stuff. For ease of discussion, I’ll call the former “strict paleowhovians” here, and the latter “strict neowhovians” (to differentiate from my usual use of paleo/neowhovian as mere indicators of which era of the show a fan first saw).

I know, for example, a significant number of strict neowhovians (SNs) who are none too impressed with Twelve. Conversely, I’ve come across a fair number of strict paleowhovians (SPs) who just really don’t like Ten. The reasons seem to be similar, with opposing sense: the SNs don’t like Capaldi’s depiction because he’s “too mean,” while the SPs don’t like Tennant’s because he’s “too emo.”

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Confession #75: I’m a Bit Boggled

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In a few months, it will once again be time for CONsole Room, the new Doctor Who convention in the Twin Cities (now in its second year). Having fallen in love with the con scene after my first Gallifrey One in 2012, I was thrilled when one cropped up local to me, and I’ve been trying to get some of my Gally friends to join me here for CONsole Room (because seeing them once a year is just not enough!).

Its first year seemed to go pretty smoothly, and from what I could see was well received. Since I want to see it continue to thrive, I would like to do something to contribute to its success—without getting into any con ops/volunteer roles. (Sorry; simply not one of my strengths.) When the call for panelists came, then, I was happy to respond.

What I didn’t expect was to be put on all the panels I’d listed as interests.

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Confession #74: I Have a Vision

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The last few days—since the full schedule got posted—I’ve been thinking ahead to this year’s Gallifrey One, now a mere two(ish) weeks away. As usual, there are copious panels from which to choose; when deciding how to spend the weekend, one has to prioritize not only panels but meals, potty breaks, and time with friends. My first attempt at a tentative schedule is predictably bonkers, and I’ve found myself trying to decide whether or not the effort to get from panel to panel is worthwhile based on what is likely to be said (or not) in each.

There’s one panel in particular that intrigues me, though probably not enough to pull me away from my usual “park myself in Program A most of Sunday” tradition. Because I won’t be there to hear how the panelists approach the topic, then, I decided to share my own perspective now. So what’s sparked my latest round of thinky thoughts? It’s a panel called “The Missing Companion.”

This panel has us looking to the future of the show. What will upcoming Companions have to offer? How will they be similar to or different from past Companions? What kinds of stories—in terms of who the Companions are and where (both geographically and philosophically) they come from—ought to be told? How would these Companions fit into how Doctor Who has been or “should” be (depending on individual visions) presented?

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Confession #73: I Think Callbacks Are Good

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One of the delights of Doctor Who (or irritations, depending on how you feel about a particular one) is recurring characters. The tradition began decades ago, primarily out of necessity when the production team decided to take the show in a new direction and strand the Doctor on Earth. The team of humans at UNIT with whom he worked for the next several years became honorary TARDIS crew, even though most of them rarely (if ever) set foot inside the TARDIS.

To this day, Brigadier Alastair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart (usually simply called “the Brigadier”) is remembered fondly—so much so that his daughter Kate Stewart has followed in her father’s footsteps and become a quasi-regular on the show in her own right. If Nicholas Courtney were still alive, it’s a sure bet they’d be trying to find a way to get him a guest spot.

Since the show’s return in 2005, others have wormed their way into fandom’s collective hearts. Regardless of how you might personally feel about either of them, it’s hard to deny that Capt. Jack Harkness and River Song each have a large following. River has appeared in a whole series’ worth of episodes (thirteen of them) over the years, and though Jack only appeared in eleven episodes of Who, he also got three (or four, depending on how you count) series of his own show.

Whenever popular non-core characters crop up that often, fandom begins speculating about (and in some quarters, clamoring for) those characters’ returns. After an interview published last month in which Moffat admitted he was open to bringing either Jack or River back—provided the stories called for it—I’m sure the lobbying engine will kick into overdrive (as if fan input ever actually affects Moffat’s decisions).

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Confession #72: I Don’t Know What’s Next

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I recently saw a link to an article by someone in an online Who community of which I’m a member discussing his hopes for the upcoming Series Nine (which I understand began filming last week). Although I like to support other Whovians in their creative outlets, as many have supported me by reading what I write here, I will admit that I didn’t click through. Why not? Well, because right now I don’t have the emotional energy to spend.

I don’t know whether online spaces have become more combative in recent years, or I was just blissfully naïve when I began blogging (though my money’s on the latter), but it has begun to feel like expressing an opinion online is tantamount to taking one’s life in one’s hands. Heaven forfend that a blogger or podcaster say something that the larger community (or even a particular, vocal subset of that community) disagrees with—the torches and pitchforks won’t be far behind.

Now this works both ways on any given opinion, depending on the space in question. For example, you can easily find vehement opposition to either side of the “Moffat’s a misogynist / Moffat writes totally awesome strong women” debate. Similarly any of a gazillion other questions: there should be a female Doctor / the Doctor should never be a woman; Danny Pink was awesome / terrible; Nu-Who is nowhere near as good as the good ol’ days / Classic Who is unwatchable; etc.

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Confession #71: I’m in Crossover Heaven

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As an American growing up in the 70s and 80s, my exposure to Doctor Who was, to say the least, limited. Although my home state has been broadcasting the show on public television since 1974, it never even made a blip on my mental radar until I got to college—and then it was more as an indicator of which weirdos to avoid.

Star Trek, on the other hand, was regular fare.

I still remember afternoons after school parked in front of our little TV watching Kirk, Spock, Bones, Sulu, Chekov, and Uhura (not to mention numerous redshirts) in action. My first specific memory is of captain and science officer in a jail with iron bars, and—I’m fairly certain—a comment about Spock’s green blood (probably from the episode “Patterns of Force“).

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