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Doctor Who A British Alien?
Danny Nicol
Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018 Hardcover. viii+291 pages. ISBN 978-3319658339. £99.99
Reviewed by Nicholas Sowels Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne
In this monograph, Danny Nicol provides an informative and wide-ranging study of how Britishness has evolved since the 1960s. For this, he uses the prism of the legendary TV show Doctor Who, a science-fiction fantasy and cult series aimed primarily at a young audience. Although the book does not cover the latest metamorphosis of the Doctor – when Jodie Auckland became the first woman as Who’s thirteenth incarnation during the 2017 Christmas special – it makes fascinating reading at a time when Britain is tearing itself apart over Brexit and its future identity. Nicol, a Professor of Law at the University of Westminster, states his argument for using Doctor Who to examine Britishness squarely in his preface, declaring, “[i]n some ways, Doctor Who is simply like Britain: as a constitutional scholar, it is easy to see the parallels between Doctor Who and Britain’s rules of governance” […] The British constitution is what happens: it lives, on, changing from day to day. The same could be said of Doctor Who’s over-arching narrative” [vii]. In the first chapter, Nicol goes on to assert that “the worlds of politics, national identity and popular culture, far from being discrete, are in fact intimately connected” [3]. Accordingly, he examines the evolution of the show over the decades, distinguishing the “classic” series which ran from 1963 to 1989, from the “new” series, when Doctor Who was revived from 2006 onwards. Put simply, the essential change reviewed concerns the increasing variety of characters and hence diversity of Britishness portrayed over the years. Not surprisingly, during the early years of the Doctor, Britishness simply meant being southern, English, male and white, with women playing subordinate roles. With time of course things changed and the series gave space and recognition to the other national cultures of the UK as well as to peoples and identities that have come to Britain since World War II. The Doctor’s recent gender change is one more – albeit big – step in this process redefining Britishness in a more inclusive, though not really egalitarian, way. In terms of Britain’s relationship with the world, Nicol notes how the internationalism of the classic series through to the late 1970s contrasts with the growing mistrust of globalisation to be found in the new series. Here he points to a telling and significant shift from nationalism having negative connotations in the classic series, to the “striking scepticism towards globalised regimes” in the new series. This “highlights the compromised nature of international law after the adventures in Afghanistan and Iraq, the far more contested nature of European integration, than was originally anticipated and the fear of corporate and American neoliberal capture of global institutions” [155]. In fact, in his concluding chapter on post-democratic Britain, Nicol argues that the series stands out in its overall criticism, albeit sotto voce, of neoliberalism: “the theme of the corrosive effects of corporate power on democracy is satirised in numerous episodes” [268]. He picks up Colin Crouch’s arguments on post-democracy about how private firms have come to dominate institutionally democratic regimes. This in turn has led to, and been abetted by, the way middle-class interests are portrayed as being “entirely at one with the interests of business”.(1) Here, Nicol argues, Doctor Who stands out from BBC programming as a whole. Despite the corporation’s formal obligation to impartiality, Nicol contends that the BBC has moved far from its neutrality during Britain’s post-war social democracy to having “refashioned its ‘common sense’ political consensus to embrace a stronger pro-business stance”. The Doctor has defied this trend, to some extent. This is an engaging and well-written book which should interest most students of popular culture in Britain today. It sheds light on numerous aspects of the debate over Brexit that will surely torment Britain for a generation to come. It throws up many interesting questions, noting for example that “[t]he international crime that the Doctor most frequently perpetrates is undoubtedly genocide” [192], when the Doctor combats threatening alien beings. For present and past devotees of the series, it provides many good and serious reasons to carry on watching. To those of us who were terrified by the Daleks in childhood, it raises thought-provoking questions about self-preservation and retribution. ______________________ (1) See pages 263-270. Nicol’s reference is to Colin Crouch, Post-Democracy. Cambridge: Polity, 2004. .
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