A Short Analysis of Politics in Doctor Who

This is a report I wrote for a class on Modern Political Concepts, while at BITS, Pilani. Doctor Who is one of the most fascinating shows in the world and has run for more than 50 years! This piece was written 4.5 years ago, which means it is incomplete, mainly for two reasons: more seasons have come out since then and I have gotten much better at doing research. Further, in 2017, the first female Doctor was announced which is sure to lead the show where no man has gone before, borrowing a quote from another sci-fi series I love so much. Please leave your thoughts below.

Doctor Who is a British family-oriented science fiction television program that has been broadcasted by the BBC. The show first premiered on November 23, 1963 and is still on the air albeit for the suspension of broadcast from 1989 to 2005.

The protagonist of the show is The Doctor (whose actual name is unknown, hence the name of the show): a Time Lord. Time Lords are an advanced species like humans in appearance but have the power to control time and space, much superior brain power and the ability to regenerate, i.e., if a Time Lord is dying all of the cells of his body will refurbish themselves and he is made into a new man, or rather Time Lord. This concept was used by the producers of the show so as to convincingly explain the changes in the lead actor. Till date, 11 actors have played the Doctor. The Doctor travels with his companions (who are almost always female humans) on his spaceship that travels through time known as TARDIS (Time And Relative Dimension In Space) trying to maintain balance throughout the universe. Most of the plotlines involve saving the Earth against violent and oppressive alien races.

Doctor Who is the longest running science fiction television show in the world and the most successful science fiction series of all time based on the overall broadcast ratings, DVD and book sales and iTunes traffic, as it is listed by the Guinness World Records. The show has received equal recognition from the public and the critics alike. It is considered an important part of British television and has influenced many of the British television professionals. Doctor Who was awarded the British Academy Television Award for Best Drama Series and won at the National Television Awards for five consecutive years (2005-10) when Russel T. Davies’ was serving as the head writer. In 2013, the Peabody Awards honoured Doctor Who with an Institutional Peabody "for evolving with technology and the times like nothing else in the known television universe." 

A Brief Introduction to the world of Doctor

Who is The Doctor

The Doctor is the title character and protagonist of Doctor Who. His real name is not known to the viewers. The Doctor is a Time Lord—an alien species with the ability to manipulate time and space from the planet Gallifrey. He is the last of his species as they were killed in the Last Great Time War with the Daleks—an alien species the Time Lords have long considered their biggest enemies.

Initially, the series began when the Doctor steals a TARDIS (the time travel machine) and travels to Earth to look for adventures. Now, his companions keep changing. To explain the changing faces of the protagonist, the writers introduced the feature of regeneration in which when the Doctor is mortally wounded, he changes physically to repair himself. 

The Companions

The Doctor always travels with companions. Often it is just one, but the Doctor has been known to take more than one at a time. The companions often bring out the contrast and human side of the Doctor. He considers them his family. 

Basic Political Analysis of Doctor Who 

Doctor Who has always been shown to have a left-wing bias in its storylines. In politics, left-wing is the outlook that accepts social equality. Left-wing politics usually involves a concern for those who are socially at a disadvantage (which the right-wing politics would view as natural). Numerous storylines indicate this, such as supporting striking interplanetary mine workers to opposing right-wing female dictators in the old series which ran from 1963 to 1989.

In the Russel T Davies era, the character of Harriet Jones was shown to be in effect a Labour Party Prime Minister. A number of political allusions were made through Jones’ character. In the Christmas episode of 2005 (The Christmas Invasion), the character rebuts aid from the US President after aliens invade; this is seen as a “swipe at Blair and Bush over the invasion of Iraq” according to The Daily Telegraph’s Hugh Davies. Towards the end of the episode, Prime Minister Jones decides to destroy the fleeing aliens as a message to others—this has been compared to Margaret Thatcher’s decision to sink the Argentine warship General Belgrano during the Falklands War.

An example of the reflection of real life politics in Doctor Who can be seen in the episode “The Sound of Drums”. In this episode, the British Prime Minister has announced to the world that he has been contacted by aliens and has been asked to serve as the representative from Earth. The US President is then shown to complain that he should be the leader of the planet in anger and frustration. Later on, the British Prime Minister—who cannot seem to hold his own opinion—concedes the position of representative to the US President. As the US President is delivering the welcome message, the aliens blast him up. This episode seems to be mocking the controversial British stand on the imprudent American invasion of Iraq.

While Davies has shown a left-wing bias, Steven Moffat if anything could be said to have shown a right-wing bias. Two of his episodes have featured prominent conservative politicians Winston Churchill and Richard Nixon. 

Political affiliations of the Doctor 

When looking at the political affiliations of the Doctor, some might say he is an anarchist. His clear individualism and disregard for external authority support this. More so, the ability to travel to any point of space and time as he chooses is a subtle nod to the Doctor’s need to stay outside the rules. Also, being the “last of the Time Lords”, he becomes the perfect example for the classic individualist anarchist.

However, if one looks at all the episodes one observes that the Doctor displays streaks of authoritarianism from time to time. These streaks usually appear when he is without a companion or forced to relive the Last Great Time War (which wiped out his race). Examples of the streaks of authoritarianism can be seen in the episodes like “The Runaway Bride” where he almost destroys the Racnoss (an alien species) or in “The Eleventh Hour” where he enforces certain set of rules on the Atraxi (alien species) when they tried to destroy the Earth.

Liberalism 

The Doctor embodies freedom in his very nature. He just doesn’t represent freedom, he promotes it well. The Doctor is shown to possess a liberal sense of equality with his clear acceptance and reception of different species. This is most noticeable in the episode “Cold Blood” where he encourages negotiations between humans and the Silurians (aliens who according to Doctor Who lore were the original inhabitants of the planet Earth and were made to go underground during the Ice Age).

The Doctor is also an advocate of justice. In the 2010 Christmas episode “A Christmas Carol”, the Doctor is critical of how Kazran treats the poor people of his planet. At the end of season 6 of the new series, the Justice Department of the future known as the Teselecta remind the Doctor that they always uphold law and order as he has always done. Perhaps the most liberal quality of the Doctor is that for someone who “fights the bad guys” he never carries any weapon that could bring any harm. 

Depicting Fascism 

The Daleks are known to be the ultimate enemies of the Time Lords. And the Doctor is the biggest enemy to the Daleks. He is referred to as the “Oncoming Storm” among them. The Daleks are pepper pot shaped machines driven by mutated aliens originally from the Planet Skaro.

The Daleks are the epithet of hatred whose sole purpose is to destroy all like that is not ‘Dalek’. They create empires through conquest and destruction of other species. The Dalek hierarchy consists of Dalek Emperors and Dalek Supremes. The screaming and ranting aspects of the Daleks and their racial supremacy is seen to comparable to the Nazis. The Daleks are thus seen the equivalent as fascists. 

Depicting Extreme Socialism 

The next great nemesis of the Doctor is the Cybermen. The Cybermen are cyborgs with human organs encased within a metallic body. The Cybermen claim that conversion from human to Cyberman is necessary to eliminate all the evils of class, colour, creed and emotions. The cry of the Cybermen is after all “you will become identical, you will become like us”. The absolute collectivism that seeks to end individualism to eliminate social and physical inequality, their authoritarianism and limited hierarchy shows that at best they resemble the Doctor Who universe equivalent of Leninists or Stalinists. 

Racism in Doctor Who 

The original Doctor Who can be thought of as rather conservative as seen from the old fashioned racial politics. In spite of the Doctor being an alien, he has always been shown as a white male with a heavy British accent.

Also, all the companions of the Doctor in the old series were Caucasians. It should be noted that the cultural landscape of Britain in the 1960s were not as progressed as it was in the US, i.e., social unrest and civil rights movements had not struck the British soil.

It must however be noted that the racial politics has changed significantly in the new series. Two prominent characters of colour had been introduced as companions for the Doctor. In the second season there was Mickey Smith and in the third season, Martha Jones was introduced as a clever, brave companion capable of holding her own. 

Sexism in Doctor Who 

Doctor Who as a series has not been perfect. Of course, there were sexist and racial moment but one must consider the time period that Doctor Who first came out. One of the very first women in television was Verity Lambert who was the show’s first producer which was ahead of its time. Barbara Wright, one of the Doctor’s first companions was quite a strong female character in consideration of other characters in the 60s. Even though male characters outnumber them, female characters were portrayed in variety in Doctor Who in the 60s.

The seventies however, saw a backward leap for the representation of women. The female characters—although strong—were few in number. In certain storylines, there was only one female character throughout the whole episodes. By the eighties, the female roles were expanded significantly. There were women scientists and officers; companions became less of the damsels-in-distress-type. Although the show was halted in 1989, there were plans to introduce the first non-white companion for the doctor which would have been a great leap ahead for the representation of minority women.

When the show returned in 2005 with Russel T. Davies at the helm, the viewer got to see the companions outside of their travels with the Doctor. The families and the normal life of the companion were well established before she set out for her adventures with the Doctor. The characters became more real and a wider variety of characters was shown. Sexuality of the characters was acknowledged and represented in a healthy manner.

The Russel T. Davies era is widely acknowledged to have brought Doctor Who into the modern world in that women were represented better, racial classes were portrayed in a more accurate manner and the sexuality of characters were not treated as a taboo.

However, with Steven Moffat’s storylines women were shown to be interested in falling in love and starting families. And while this is true of real-life women, the problem with women in Moffat’s plots was that they never seemed to have anything else. Sexism in Moffat’s works (Coupling, Sherlock) have also been widely acknowledged.

In one of Moffat’s first stories for Doctor Who, there is a strong female character which is central to the plot: Nancy (“The Empty Child”, “The Doctor Dances”). However, the sexism in Moffat’s work creeps out of repetition. Nancy is a completely fleshed out character and totally believable. Her redemption comes when she accepts her motherhood. This basic storyline however was repeated for almost every other female character Moffat created. Either the woman defines herself by the men in her life or the fact that she is a mother. Once the story is over, the woman’s story is shown to have ended by showing her with a husband and a child. Now, defining a woman only by her relationship is absolutely fine but when every one of the female characters created by the head writer of a science fiction program has the same end; that is where the sexism creeps in. 

Homosexuality in Doctor Who 

Russel T. Davis is openly gay and has written openly and proudly gay characters for his shows. He was the first to introduce trans-sexuality (“The End of the World”) and confirmed male and female homosexuality. He also created the first openly pansexual character: Captain Jack Harkness. Several episodes in Russel T. Davies’ era have shown same-sex couples.

While the representation of homosexuality was toned down in the Steven Moffat era, it was still there. Besides the recurring characters of Madame Vastra (an alien) and Jenny (a human) (which was not only a homosexual relationship but also an inter-species one) other same sex relationships were also portrayed but with lesser enthusiasm than Davies.