Chapter 1
Critics, fans and mythologies of discourse
Writing about Doctor Who: Difficult conversations and critical projects
By the time Doctor Who returned to television screens on 26 March 2005, a lot of words had been published about the original series and its spin-offs. These were to be found in commercial non-fiction books (ranging from Terrance Dicks and Malcolm Hulkeâs The Making of Doctor Who in the 1970s to David Howe, Mark Stammers and Stephen Walkerâs series of reference texts in the 1990s), in fanzines and newsletters, and on the web.1 The number of significant academic readings of the series, however, of critical-theoretical papers and books by professional scholars, could still be counted on the fingers of one Sontaran hand.2 Since Tulloch and Alvaradoâs monograph in 1983, things had been quiet in those whispering corners of the academy where Arcalian, Prydonian and Patrex might seem like viable affiliations.
Tulloch and Fiske had both published journal articles in the period leading up to that first book-length study, and a few more were to follow. Even so, as the clock ticked down to the broadcast of âRoseâ, any literature review on the topic of Doctor Who was going to be a relatively simple task, an excavation of what the traditional university-based academic might view as âpopularâ, âmainstreamâ, âzeitgeistâ or (most dubious of all) âfanâ sources, but with little need to engage with what the same academic would see as ârecognized authoritiesâ. Beyond The Unfolding Text, the diligent researcher would need to become familiar with Tulloch and Henry Jenkinsâs Science Fiction Audiences (1995) and Piers Britton and Simon Barkerâs Reading between Designs (2003),3 but otherwise the territory to be mapped might appear as sparse as a BBC quarry.
The field has grown since then in both fecundity and complexity. There would be little tolerance now for the kind of binaries assumed above, those easy oppositions between fan and academic, popular and esoteric, low-brow and high-brow, shallow and deep. The discourses of Doctor Who, of culture in general, are far more subtle and interwoven than such divisions suppose. This is partly due to the sheer quantity of material available, ensuring that everything is somehow in contact with everything else. It is also due to processes of mutual recognition and involvement, whereby professional academics have undertaken a sustained examination of the relationship between scholarly and fan activities, and fan communities have drawn increasingly on the activities of scholars. The fact that academic scholars are often participating members of these fan communities is suggestive of the ways in which distinctions have been elided. That said, it is reasonable to remark that the academy has been more willing to embrace fandom than vice versa.
Even where reviews are largely positive, as with those of Matt Hillsâs Triumph of a Time Lord, there is evident discomfort with the methods of the academy: âpersevere â it does get easierâ.4 The situation is not much improved when the work of professional academic critics is considered by their professional journalistic peers. Here is Robin Pierce, reviewing Deckerâs Who Is Who? for Starburst Magazine:
And this is Hywel Evans reviewing Hillsâs edited collection of essays, New Dimensions of Doctor Who, in Doctor Who Magazine:
Referring to Ross Garnerâs chapter âRemembering Sarah Janeâ, this recalls Ian Briggsâs importation of Tulloch and Alvaradoâs discussion of âsemiotic thicknessâ and âauxiliary performance codesâ into the pseudo-intellectual banter of an Iceworld guard in his script for 1987âs âDragonfireâ. Briggs also named many of the other characters in the story after media theorists (McLuhan, Bazin, Belazs, Kracauer, Arnheim, Pudovkin) and, in his subsequent novelization of the tale, took the satire further by having the Doctor groaning inwardly at the thought of a chat based around cultural studies: âSemiotics? The Doctor began to worry. This was going to be a very difficult conversation âŚâ7
The stories told by âfan-scholarsâ and âscholar-fansâ to stake their claims to the territory they share, the language used to tell these stories, can be revealing. Where James Chapman conspicuously dismisses âthe impenetrable critical language of high theoryâ, Hills responds with an insistence that âone personâs âjargonâ is anotherâs useful vocabularyâ.8 He notes, furthermore, that linguistic obscurity is not the exclusive preserve of academic commentators:
In Barthesian terms, it is ânaturalâ for fans to use one common vocabulary and for academics to use another: one personâs âfanwankâ is another personâs âstrategic deployment of intertextuality for collective gratificationâ.
After a period of comparative inactivity, the academic presses have become very busy with Doctor Who in recent years. The machinery cranked into action with Kim Newmanâs pocket-sized BFI critical guide of 2005, closely followed by Chapmanâs Inside the TARDIS (2006). Reviewing the original edition of this for The Independent, Matthew Sweet argued that previous non-fiction on the series had
The corollary of this was that Chapmanâs history â âunpretentious, readable, solidly authoritative and self-consciously anti-theoreticalâ â could be presented as a belated and critically conservative reiteration of material already published by fan-scholars in Doctor Who Magazine and elsewhere. Harsh as this is to Chapman, Sweetâs supporting claim is persuasive: âDoctor Who is becoming more complicated and expansive by the day, and its effective analysis might require an author with a slightly more adventurous approach.â Read alongside Newmanâs entertainingly opinionated history, Chapmanâs detailed linear account suggests that a distinct academic manner, separable from that of fan-scholarship and informed by a sympathetic awareness of theory, has yet to be developed.
David Butlerâs edited collection Time and Relative Dissertations in Space (2007) can be seen, in this light, as a crucial publication. An overtly academic book, issued from a prestigious university press, it is a substantial volume (over three hundred pages), comprising seventeen chapters, plus an introduction and afterword. It features scholar-fans trying out various critical positions, but, more suggestively, it shows them mingling with (and often being indistinguishable from) fan-scholars. Of the nineteen contributors to the book, only around half were university-based at the time of publication, and at least seven were freelance authors. The afterword, taking the form of an autobiographical essay by novelist Paul Magrs, effectively returned the book to its own first causes, the business of storytelling: âIt is my job â as this writer/critic/reader/teacher thing I have made myself into â to pull and tease at these floating strands of fiction, and to ravel them up.â11
The trend towards a mingling of expert voices, exemplified by Lindy Orthiaâs Doctor Who and Race (2013), is far from absolute, and in some ways the partition of academic and non-academic remains firmly in place. The contributors to collections from academic publishers such as Cambridge Scholars, Open Court, Intellect and I.B. Tauris are almost all university lecturers, as are the writers of monographs from the same sources. Even so, the âalmostâ is significant here, and it is notable that there is an occasional recognition of debt and influence between the authorial constituencies. So, the editors of Impossible Worlds, Impossible Things thank not only academics Matt Hills, Rebecca Williams and David Butler but also Doctor Who historian Andrew Pixley, Doctor Who writer Rob Shearman, and Doctor Who actor, writer and Dalek operator Barnaby Edwards. Hills, similarly, while thanking many fellow academics in Triumph of a Time Lord, makes a point of acknowledging prominent scholar-fans, recognizing âthe sheer brilliance of much fan commentaryâ in fanzines and blogs, and noting that the writing of authors such as Lawrence Miles and Tat Wood âis frequently as illuminating as published academic critique, if not more soâ.12
The key point here is that the years since 2005 have seen a profound transformation of the environment within which Doctor Who is examined. Plainly, this has been a direct result of the extraordinary success of the returned series. After all, where are the old oppositions between consumer and producer, spectator and participant, fan and critic, more radically entangled than in the contributions of the most famous and influential fans of all, Russell T. Davies, Steven Moffat and Chris Chibnall, David Tennant and Peter Capaldi? It would be reasonable to suggest, though, that changing cultural and economic contexts for both the BBC and UK universities have also been a significant influence. In 2002, writing about the mutual antipathy of fandom and academia, Hills commented, âI can see no way that these institutional differences can be dissolved for as long as the university remains a residual site of cultural authority.â13 Nearly twenty years on, such authority is being eroded by the effects of controversial university fees structures (outside Scotland, at least) and the rise of a distrustful audit regimen that is typified by the National Student Survey and governmental frameworks established to measure the âexcellenceâ of both research and teaching. As the fabled ivory tower of higher education becomes subject to escalating processes of accountability and marketization, a systematic disruption of the cultural authority of the university might be perceived. A similar destabilization is manifest in recent challenges to the status and institutional security of the BBC, ...