Icon of the Month
- Publication: Third Way
- Date: September 2006
- Author: Steve Tomkins
- Page: 24
- Language: English
No 82: Dr Who
When Marvel comics welcomed our very own Dr Who into their stable of superheroes in 1979, there was a certain logic to the move. The Doctor was a lone good guy (or good chap at any rate) saving the world from evil week by week. But it also highlighted what a different species the British superhero is from his US cousins. The closest thing the Doctor had to superpowers was a hi-tech screwdriver, and in place of muscle-hugging lycra and cape he had tweed and a woolly scarf. The Tardis may have been impressively roomy but it would still only be a changing room for Superman.
This was the era of Star Wars, the reinvention of science fiction with the homely Luke Skywalker. But even Luke had the Force and a tie-fighter. The Doctor was a humanist, and his spacecraft was an obsolete phone box redolent of bobbies with whistles. He would never resort to lightsabre against villains, preferring to confront them with jelly babies.
When Dr Who materialised in 1963, the cult of youth was exploding. The BBC gave us a grumpy grandad (William Hartnell) for a sci-fi hero. Ex-imperial Britain was still smarting from Suez and sustained by stories of Colditz and the Blitz. Who wanted vulgar qualities like might and glory? Give us irony, humility and scraping by against the odds. The Doctor showed that you don't need power to succeed, just cleverness and goodness.
The Daleks, with their Germanic-sounding name, harsh accents, robotic militarism and lust for conquering inferior races were straight out of the Third Reich. Their limitations are celebrated, threatening total domination of everywhere in the universe with good wheelchair access. Perhaps they were just the triumph of style over substance — they looked fantastic, who worried about whether they were flummoxed by kerbs? Then again, perhaps we want our villains, like our heroes, to be a little bit crap.
Now of course all is made new. Dr Who is part of a vast industry, from Scooby Doo to space hoppers, devoted to letting my generation relive its childhood on its own terms. I suppose every generation has tried to introduce its children to the things they enjoyed, but perhaps we are the first to do so without having grown out of them ourselves.
The regenerated series has been so successful that it's easy to overlook what a tricky balancing act it has pulled off. It has won both the nostalgia audience and its children, Whovians' and normal human beings, Generation Game watchers and broadsheet critics. It takes the old series seriously while entertaining those who couldn't care less about it. It is self-aware without descending to pastiche. It has embraced US production values without losing the quirky charm. It has gained emotional maturity and a degree of sexuality without compromising the family teatime (though the Whovians may be hiding behind the sofa). It has even made Billy Piper cool.
The unique factor in the longevity of Doctor Who (as of the Doctor) is regeneration. When a star moves on, other series have to choose between unexplained changes in the character's face (James Bond, Neighbours), or dispatching characters until you end up with a completely different programme (Heartbeat, Neighbours). The Doctor eats his jelly babies and has them too. But the real wonder of regeneration is not so much that it allows the Doctor to defy time and keep going indefinitely. Even Dennis the Menace manages that. The wonder is that it allows him to die. Immortality is a great power, but what we really and profoundly need from the greatest heroes (and I'm not just talking about the British now), however you explain this need, is death. And if a twist in the plot allows their story to continue afterwards, and if it's believable, then you have a pretty good story. Being a Timelord helps, but there is more than one potentate of time.
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- APA 6th ed.: Tomkins, Steve (September 2006). Icon of the Month. Third Way p. 24.
- MLA 7th ed.: Tomkins, Steve. "Icon of the Month." Third Way [add city] September 2006, 24. Print.
- Chicago 15th ed.: Tomkins, Steve. "Icon of the Month." Third Way, edition, sec., September 2006
- Turabian: Tomkins, Steve. "Icon of the Month." Third Way, September 2006, section, 24 edition.
- Wikipedia (this article): <ref>{{cite news| title=Icon of the Month | url=http://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php/Icon_of_the_Month | work=Third Way | pages=24 | date=September 2006 | via=Doctor Who Cuttings Archive | accessdate=31 March 2025 }}</ref>
- Wikipedia (this page): <ref>{{cite web | title=Icon of the Month | url=http://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php/Icon_of_the_Month | work=Doctor Who Cuttings Archive | accessdate=31 March 2025}}</ref>
