Talkin' 'bout Regeneration 2017 (2)
Aug. 6th, 2017 09:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cjlasky7When last we spoke about the casting of Jodie Whittaker as the thirteenth Doctor, I debunked the claim of naysayers that a female Doctor would "limit" storylines, and discussed the modern history of gender switching in popular culture and how Doctor Who would fit into that continuum.
There are two more claims from the negative side of the argument that need refutation: 1) the Doctor, as part of series canon, has been (and will always be) male; and 2) the casting of Whittaker is a cheap publicity stunt, a cowardly bow to political correctness.
I'm pretty sure that when the series went on the air in 1964, and through the Peter Davison era, nobody was thinking about the gender interchangeability of Time Lords. But when the series started losing steam during Colin Baker's run, the idea of changing the Doctor's gender was floated by no less than series co-creator Sydney Newman.
The BBC disregarded Newman's suggestion and went with Sylvester McCoy as the seventh Doctor. The McCoy era has been described as a creative renaissance for the series; unfortunately, the return of quality storytelling didn't stop the ratings slide--and Doctor Who was cancelled in 1989.
Would a female Doctor at that point in the series have goosed the ratings enough to prevent the cancellation? Impossible to say. But the idea of the Doctor regenerating as a woman was out there--and it would be picked up at various points over the next few decades.
The idea was next put forward when the series was still off the air--in 1999, and "The Curse of Fatal Death." This minisode was a unique piece of DW history, a Comic Relief sketch starring Rowan Atkinson (Blackadder) as the Doctor and Jonathan Pryce as the Master. In "Curse," future DW showrunner Steven Moffat very affectionately skewered all of Doctor Who's tropes, ending with a climactic regeneration-palooza, with Atkinson giving way to Hugh Grant(!), Jim Broadbent, Richard E. Grant, and finally, Joanna Lumley--who walked off arm-in-arm with Pryce to explore that third setting on her sonic screwdriver.
All right, it was all for laughs. But over the years, DW fanatics have adopted "Curse" as the unofficial starting point for the revival...
And sure enough, barely 15 seconds into his tenure as showrunner--the regeneration scene in "The End of Time"--Moffat put the concept of a female Doctor into canon, as Matt Smith's Eleven touched his long locks and cried out, "I'm a girl!"
The Moffat era expanded that brief, game-changing cry into a full-fledged redefinition of Time Lord biology. We had tales of the Corsair in Neil Gaiman's "The Doctor's Wife," the Gallifreyan general switching from male back to female in the S9 finale--and, of course, there was Missy, proof positive that you could change the gender of a major character and make it work.
So the table was more than set for Whittaker. You would have to have consciously ignored the history of series not to see it coming.
But still, there is that second point of the naysayers: are they putting a woman at the TARDIS controls just to boost the ratings?
Well...not really. The series is in a much better place now than it was in the late 1980s. Yes, the BBC ratings are down by about 50% from the 2005 highs of 10 million viewers, but BBC ratings aren't the whole game anymore. Doctor Who is now a bona fide worldwide phenomenon, broadcast in dozens of countries, and the Beeb rakes in millions from international licensing, theatrical presentations, DVDs and merchandise. The BBC doesn't give out financial figures, but I'm betting that they could stop airing Doctor Who in England and still earn a healthy profit.
In a way, Doctor Who is like The Simpsons, another long-running show whose new episodes are just the tip of a global merchandising iceberg. And just like The Simpsons, the key to remaining a global cultural touchstone isn't ratings--it's relevance.
Pop culture icons last a long time in the public consciousness, but they're not necessarily immortal. We don't thrill to new adventures of Tarzan and The Phantom anymore, and we're not chuckling at Speedy Gonzalez and Bosco cartoons. The world has moved past them--they no longer speak to who we are. The great cultural icons have enough universality and flexibility to adapt to the times without destroying their basic appeal.
I don't know if Doctor Who will be able to achieve the longevity of, say, Sherlock Holmes, but it has just taken a big step toward maintaining its relevancy in its quest for pop culture immortality.
There are two more claims from the negative side of the argument that need refutation: 1) the Doctor, as part of series canon, has been (and will always be) male; and 2) the casting of Whittaker is a cheap publicity stunt, a cowardly bow to political correctness.
I'm pretty sure that when the series went on the air in 1964, and through the Peter Davison era, nobody was thinking about the gender interchangeability of Time Lords. But when the series started losing steam during Colin Baker's run, the idea of changing the Doctor's gender was floated by no less than series co-creator Sydney Newman.
The BBC disregarded Newman's suggestion and went with Sylvester McCoy as the seventh Doctor. The McCoy era has been described as a creative renaissance for the series; unfortunately, the return of quality storytelling didn't stop the ratings slide--and Doctor Who was cancelled in 1989.
Would a female Doctor at that point in the series have goosed the ratings enough to prevent the cancellation? Impossible to say. But the idea of the Doctor regenerating as a woman was out there--and it would be picked up at various points over the next few decades.
The idea was next put forward when the series was still off the air--in 1999, and "The Curse of Fatal Death." This minisode was a unique piece of DW history, a Comic Relief sketch starring Rowan Atkinson (Blackadder) as the Doctor and Jonathan Pryce as the Master. In "Curse," future DW showrunner Steven Moffat very affectionately skewered all of Doctor Who's tropes, ending with a climactic regeneration-palooza, with Atkinson giving way to Hugh Grant(!), Jim Broadbent, Richard E. Grant, and finally, Joanna Lumley--who walked off arm-in-arm with Pryce to explore that third setting on her sonic screwdriver.
All right, it was all for laughs. But over the years, DW fanatics have adopted "Curse" as the unofficial starting point for the revival...
And sure enough, barely 15 seconds into his tenure as showrunner--the regeneration scene in "The End of Time"--Moffat put the concept of a female Doctor into canon, as Matt Smith's Eleven touched his long locks and cried out, "I'm a girl!"
The Moffat era expanded that brief, game-changing cry into a full-fledged redefinition of Time Lord biology. We had tales of the Corsair in Neil Gaiman's "The Doctor's Wife," the Gallifreyan general switching from male back to female in the S9 finale--and, of course, there was Missy, proof positive that you could change the gender of a major character and make it work.
So the table was more than set for Whittaker. You would have to have consciously ignored the history of series not to see it coming.
But still, there is that second point of the naysayers: are they putting a woman at the TARDIS controls just to boost the ratings?
Well...not really. The series is in a much better place now than it was in the late 1980s. Yes, the BBC ratings are down by about 50% from the 2005 highs of 10 million viewers, but BBC ratings aren't the whole game anymore. Doctor Who is now a bona fide worldwide phenomenon, broadcast in dozens of countries, and the Beeb rakes in millions from international licensing, theatrical presentations, DVDs and merchandise. The BBC doesn't give out financial figures, but I'm betting that they could stop airing Doctor Who in England and still earn a healthy profit.
In a way, Doctor Who is like The Simpsons, another long-running show whose new episodes are just the tip of a global merchandising iceberg. And just like The Simpsons, the key to remaining a global cultural touchstone isn't ratings--it's relevance.
Pop culture icons last a long time in the public consciousness, but they're not necessarily immortal. We don't thrill to new adventures of Tarzan and The Phantom anymore, and we're not chuckling at Speedy Gonzalez and Bosco cartoons. The world has moved past them--they no longer speak to who we are. The great cultural icons have enough universality and flexibility to adapt to the times without destroying their basic appeal.
I don't know if Doctor Who will be able to achieve the longevity of, say, Sherlock Holmes, but it has just taken a big step toward maintaining its relevancy in its quest for pop culture immortality.
