Missy and the Doctor: isn't Doctor Who political?

By Danny Nicol
University of Westminster

First woman Doctor?  Clara Oswald tries to
 convince a Cyberman that she is the Time Lord.

In a celebrated article published in 2004 entitled “Is Doctor Who political?” Professor Alan McKee argued that Doctor Who’s “old show” (1963-89) was not political because fans whom he surveyed did not see it as political – at least, not in the sense of traditional, state-level politics.  ((2004) 7 European Journal of Cultural Studies 201).  McKee’s argument seemed to contain the suggestion that scholars should deprioritise interpreting the politics of Doctor Who themselves, and should instead focus their attentions more on soliciting the opinions of fans on the matter.   

Say something nice

This blog post will resist the temptation of critiquing McKee’s stance.  But it will observe that – a decade on - McKee does not seem to have carried the day.  In the last four years in particular, a significant scholarly literature has emerged interpreting Doctor Who, including political aspects.  Academics have declined to “shut up, shut up, shut uppity up”.

Moreover Doctor Who’s recent series finale “Dark Water”/“Death in Heaven” (2014), suggests that Doctor Who is indeed political.  No fewer than three political themes pervade it.

"Missy.  Short for Mistress.  Well...I couldn't very well
keep calling myself the Master, could I?"

First, feminism.  The series as a whole repeatedly reflected – or perhaps satirised - the growing clamour that the Doctor be played by a woman.  In the series finale, therefore, the mysterious Missy turns out to be the newly regenerated, regendered Master, a long-time opponent of the Doctor; and companion Clara Oswald identifies herself to the Cybermen as the Doctor, with the opening titles being changed to give Jenna Coleman, who plays Clara, the billing usually reserved for the man who plays the Doctor.  For good measure, at the end of the adventure, the Doctor and Clara joke about the Doctor becoming Queen of Gallifrey.  In his article, McKee contends that “gender politics” is different from “traditional state-level politics”, but such a sharp demarcation is pernicious.  It serves to marginalise feminism.  The question of why women – the majority of the population – do not form majorities in Parliaments and Cabinets, is both a matter of gender politics and a matter of state-level politics.  And the Doctor is a political figure – not least in this adventure, where he fleetingly becomes President of Earth.

 

Missy implores the Doctor to accept her gift:
 a Cyberman army

Secondly, the question of whether the Doctor is a “good man”.  It is arguable indeed that the series offered us a de-legalised version of the “Trial of a Time Lord” story arc of 1986, when the Time Lords place the Doctor on trial for his incorrigible meddling with other peoples and planets.  Throughout the series the Doctor has been expressing his misgivings about whether he is a good man.  This theme has been part and parcel of the new show since it began in 2005 and has shadowed Britain's controversial interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan.  The series finale culminates with Missy offering the Doctor “an indestructible army to range across the Universe” so that he can enforce his version of what is “right”.  The Doctor rejects the offer.  Human companions are army enough for him.  But does this make him a good man?  Doesn't the Doctor, like Britain, merely “punch above his weight” in foreign interventions?



Thirdly, the power of corporations.  In “Dark Water”/“Death in Heaven”, a mighty company called 3W is using the bodies of dead people to create Cybermen.  It does so under the guise of giving "more life" to the dead.  The Doctor detects the stench of profiteering: “fakery, all of it; it’s a con, it’s a racket!”  The corporate domination of Britain is certainly an important element of the country’s politics.  The show’s repeated onslaughts on corporate power have already been considered in this blog; the series finale continues the tradition in feisty fashion.