Barr Jason - The language of Doctor Who: from Shakespeare to Alien tongues

Edited by

Jason Barr and Camille D. G. Mustachio

ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD

Lanham Boulder New York London

TM The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.

Printed in the United States of America

We are grateful to the many contributing authors of this volume for their hard work, positive communication, and enlightening insights into a series that we hold dear. There is also an abundance of gratitude for our collections series editor from Rowman & Littlefield, A. Bowdoin Van Riper, for his unfailing support and guidance to nurture an interesting idea and champion it until it became the comprehensive book in your hands. Sincere, profound gratitude goes to Tracey Barr for her exhaustive and meticulous copyediting efforts as well as for her encouragement to Jason for taking on this monumental project. Heartfelt thanks go to John, Joe, and Mike Mustachio for encouraging Camille through the writing process. Finally, we are grateful to the countless contributors to Doctor Who for their passion in providing a fascinating breadth of material as to warrant an endeavor such as this.

Jason Barr and Camille D. G. Mustachio

It Looks Like You Need a Doctor

By the time this anthology goes to press, the BBC series Doctor Who will have been in existence for more than fifty years, and fans will see the debut of the Twelfth Doctor (Peter Capaldi). There is little doubt that this show has beenand has remainedpopular since its inception by almost any benchmark, from ratings to merchandising. The show, its concepts, and its characters remain nearly immortal, and even a hiatus of almost a decade did little to dim the shows popularity.

And in the center of this show is the Doctor, the personable engine that powers the entire series. With the TARDIS, a ship almost permanently stuck in the form of a blue British police box, carrying the Doctor to any place in time and space, the storytelling potential is almost limitless; the Doctors occasional regenerations expand the possibilities even further. Fans (and writers) have often explored the potential differences in how the charming but slightly goofy Second Doctor (Patrick Troughton) would react to a situation that the strangely dressed but intimidating Sixth Doctor (Colin Baker) has himself experienced. The regeneration process also encourages companions to get reacquainted with their new/old Doctor through entertaining and heartwarming effects. Most notably, Sarah Jane Smith (Elisabeth Sladen) bridges the divide between classic and new Who by her established relationship with the Doctor in two iterations, the Third Doctor (Jon Pertwee) and Fourth Doctor (Tom Baker), before reuniting with him as the Tenth Doctor (David Tennant).

In fact, it may be the power of these regenerations that spurs the show forward, and fans often speak fondly of my Doctor, an actors take on the character that rang true for them. From the grouchy, manipulative grandfather to the wild-eyed explorer, to the cricket-obsessed young man, to the magician, to the dashing leading man, the Doctor, throughout the years, has literally provided something for everyone, and fans of the show, while remaining in love with one particular Doctor, embrace the latest regeneration. Even if that embrace is the result of fans resolution of the five stages of grief, the favorite Doctor is cherished, and the new one is tested.

What powers the relationship between the Doctor and his fans is that, in spite of being alien, he unapologetically cherishes humans and humanity. In spite of his failures, the Doctor has always tried to choose the morally right path in the face of sometimes terrifying odds. Examples from the show abound, and all one needs to do is juxtapose the Doctor with any of his long-lived enemies to discover the binaries of right and wrong: individuality over conformity, diplomacy over violence, love over hate, and so on.

There is no greater evidence for exactly how much fans cherish the Doctor than during the lean years of 1989 to 2005, in which just one episode of the show was produced, a pilot for Fox that was never picked up. In the absence of the weekly show, fans filled the void. Doctor Who Magazine and the fan-produced Gallifrey Guardian continued almost unabated. The actors who played the Doctor were brought back to participate in independently funded films, and although they couldnt be the Doctor, fans were frankly happy to see them on screen again. In addition, novels and comics of the Doctor continued to sell in high volumes.

Yet, with all of this adoration and longevity, there has been almost no scholarly analysis of the show. This can be somewhat forgiven, as new Doctor Who fans can attest; the shows history and catalog are so immense that it can be daunting to introduce oneself to a fifty-year-long series. Even so, this back catalog, this history, is also what gives the show its immense critical richness. An example: in Gridlock, a 2007 adventure starring the Tenth Doctor, alien intelligences called the Macra make an appearance, and this is a simple explanation for the bizarre goings-on in the episode. The Macra, however, have appeared before in the series, some forty years earlier, in The Moonbase, a Second Doctor adventure. The brief appearance of the Macra in 2007, therefore, asks for, but does not require, a fuller understanding of how the Doctor Who universe functions. These connections between the classic series and the new series abound, continuing the shows rich history and providing subtle nuances while simultaneously maintaining the shows accessibility for the newest fans.