Consciousness, Literature and the Arts

Archive

Volume 11 Number 2, August 2010

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Male and Female Archetypes in Doctor Who

by

David Layton

DeVry University

            Science fiction’s main thematic purpose is making sense of the changes in social and psychological understanding that advancing science and technology create. As Great Britain’s primary science fiction entertainment, and a top science fiction entertainment in the rest of the world, Doctor Who has provided for more than forty years a certain kind of reassurance to a large segment of the public that no matter what the changes, “human” as the audience understands the concept will remain intact. But how does Doctor Who provide such assurances?

            Despite its technological focus, science fiction relies upon old habits of thought and time-tested systems of storytelling as its principal means of making sense. This reliance has meant tapping into mythic elements to help the audience “anchor” their perspectives on the novel and strange components of the stories. Tapping into myth has meant using archetypes as a means of providing a familiar “logic” to the stories, which allows writers to present novel topologies, theoretical speculations, and free play of scientific and philosophical concepts without totally alienating the audience.

            However, the use of archetypes and other mythic elements has come at a cost. While novel and even radical ideas in science and philosophy dazzle viewers’ imaginations, conservative ideas about human nature and social organization often remain unchallenged and even get reaffirmed. Thus, a study of the variations in a small set of archetypes can show just how these conservative notions of humanity persist and perpetuate in a science-fiction vehicle.

            Doctor Who provides many examples of archetypes and their meanings for science fiction audiences. Individual stories in Doctor Who follow recognizable ancient patterns of mythic storytelling. At least one school of thought is that science fiction itself is a kind of replacement myth. “For those sophisticated souls,” says cultural historian William Irwin Thompson (1981), “who are closed to religious imagery but have a strong faith in science and technology, a new way has been opened to the old truths of myth, and that is the way of science fiction” (p. 37). Science fiction author and editor Ben Bova (1974) has said that science fiction corresponds to the four functions of mythology that Joseph Campbell postulates. Science fiction often relies on a “sense of wonder,” which corresponds to Campbell’s first function, the sense of awe about the universe. Science fiction generally upholds a scientific view of the universe and how it works, which corresponds to Campbell’s second function, providing an explanatory system for the universe. Science fiction, as Bova characterizes it, “almost invariably backs a basic tenet of Western civilization … the concept that the individual man is worth more that the organization – whatever that may be – and that nothing is more important than human freedom,” which corresponds to Campbell’s third function, supporting the social structure and ideology. Science fiction also appeals to the young and has gained a strongly loyal and dedicated fan base, which corresponds to Campbell’s fourth function, supplying emotional support to the individual (Bova 10-1). As science fiction, Doctor Who follows the functions of myth after the manner of Bova’s description. Audiences get a taste of the “sense of wonder” common to science fiction through the Doctor’s omnivorous curiosity, yet audiences also get reassurances that their fundamental values and ideas are both worthy and perpetual.

            Archetype in this analysis means literary symbols that convey ranges of meanings and contexts rather than singular concepts. This view accords with Northrop Frye’s (1957) argument that “archetypal criticism is primarily concerned with literature as a social fact and as a mode of communication” (p. 99). In this analysis, archetype does not mean strictly what Jung, the founder of modern archetypal theory, defines as archetype. I am not using archetype to mean psychological complexes native to each person as a human. Rather, I am taking archetype to mean more specifically a “great symbol,” an idea that perhaps predates history and has been perpetuated in history and culture through myth, ritual, and storytelling. People are not born carrying archetypes in their brains; people grow up surrounded by archetypes that become part of their fundamental assumptions about “life,” often unstated and rarely rationalized.

            The archetype presents complex nests of ideas concentrated to be apprehended at once. Archetypal meanings are mostly psychological, in that they relate to common human experiences of the body and environment, and thus strike the viewer or reader as being “true” regardless of what logical or scientific discourse has to say on the matter. Thus, many archetypes are characters rather than things because a personality is more polysemous than an object. Again, to quote Frye, “Archetypes are associative clusters” and “complex variables” (p. 102). More particularly, the discussion that follows is concerned with what Frye calls a “center of archetypes.” This centre is the collection of “universal symbols,” which are universal in that “some symbols are images of things common to all men, and therefore have a communicable power which is potentially unlimited” (p. 118). Many of these archetypes are male or female gendered, and an audience both expects there to be and receives ideas about what defines “male” and “female” through contact with these archetypes in narrative form.

            Doctor Who is a long-running, science-fiction television series. First broadcast in 1963, it had a continuous run in Great Britain through 1989. After a long hiatus, the series was revived in 2005, and has been running consistently well ever since. Though only moderately popular in the US, Doctor Who has been one of the Great Britain’s and much of the world’s most popular television serials. In Britain, the programme has legendary and iconic status, with parts of it having become separated and independent as symbols, archetypes even. One example of the extent to which Doctor Who has become central to English culture is the iconic status of the programme’s oldest villains, the cyborg-warrior collective race called Daleks. The Daleks have even been honoured with a postage stamp.

            The programme itself tells of the adventures of a humanoid alien time traveller calling himself only “the Doctor.” Since its inception, eleven actors have played the role, each being a distinct personality within a cluster of characteristics identifiable as “the Doctor.” The changes in leading actors gets explained within the show because the Doctor can “regenerate,” and thus gain a new body and new personality, which in turn allows the show to itself to continue and “regenerate” in a way, changing emphasis and ambience. The Doctor travels in a space-time capsule called a TARDIS, but his capsule is permanently stuck in the outward shape of a disused police telephone callbox. The Doctor usually travels with one or more human or humanoid companions. Wherever the Doctor goes, trouble is bound to be there, and each story revolves around how the Doctor uses his wit, knowledge, intelligence, and sometimes quasi-magical powers to defeat forces threatening to life itself. Thus, on the grand scale, Doctor Who stories tell myths and legends of a scientific and technological society.

            There are many production reasons for choices in casting, character development, story type, and general look of the program. Usually, a travelling companion provides the viewers’ perspective. Sometimes, companions’ characters are used to create dramatic tension, provide authority and normalcy, or to heighten some attribute of the Doctor’s character. Likewise, stories often draw material from other genres such as melodrama, gothic romance, murder mystery, and quest romance[1]. These sources provide conventional touchstones for audiences. Notably, most of the sources for Doctor Who stories draw heavily upon mythic archetypes common to Western culture. Similarly, because characters, even companions, are often more functional than psychologically complex, they naturally blend into archetypal roles. Thus, a typical Doctor Who story can dramatize the interplay of psychological attributes while at the same time be recognizably some other kind of story.

            In its first year of broadcast, Doctor Who had four main characters: the Doctor; Susan, his granddaughter, also with high intelligence and unusual abilities; Barbara Wright, Susan’s history teacher in England; and Ian Chesterton, Susan’s science teacher in England. This original TARDIS crew is the best configuration for demonstrating the idea that in storytelling of a fabulous nature, the various characters combine into a single personality[2]. These stories present a world distorted from common reality, while simultaneously presenting moral and ethical themes relevant to the audience’s common experiences. Such stories are psychodramas according to both Freud and Jung, and symbolize the dynamics of the individual personality[3]. The distortions of reality symbolize common wishes and anxieties, much as Freud and Jung thought that dreams worked. The stories dramatize the workings of these wishes and anxieties. Since the personality in question is almost always the “hero” of the fabulous psychodrama, we may call the self in question by that hero’s name. Thus, in the first season of Doctor Who, the Doctor, Susan, Barbara, and Ian combine to become the self called “Doctor Who.” This self, in turn, forms from identifiable male archetypes, which in modern times coalesce around popular ideas of the scientist-hero. The Doctor’s companions then form into counterbalancing archetypes, sometimes to support the Doctor’s archetype, sometimes to complement it, and sometimes to oppose it.

            It is the nature of fantastical tales, such as the various adventures of Doctor Who, to present a self in action, split into various manifestations of its personality[4]. Jung has provided a convenient system for collecting and categorizing manifestations of personality. One may use a square as a symbol of a unified, coherent personality. Each corner holds a set of related characteristics, and all four sets of characteristics “complete” the personality. These four corners are the anima, or feminine character set, animus, or masculine character set, ego, or self-identity character set, and shadow, or instinctual and emotional character set. For example, the original crew of the TARDIS is four, the square that represents the personality. While archetypal roles switch somewhat based upon need, in most cases the four correlate to the primary Jungian archetypes as follows: The Doctor (ego/shadow), Susan (anima/shadow), Ian (animus), Barbara (ego/anima). When the Doctor is the shadow, Barbara becomes the ego, and when the Doctor becomes the ego, Barbara becomes the anima while Susan becomes the shadow. Stories follow a pattern in which the characters encounter the dangerous unknown, separate for a time, and then rejoin to complete the personality and contain the danger. These stories symbolically play out modern encounters with “the future,” both an individual’s personal future of daily living and the social future of constantly new and transformative technology. The split personality results from the trauma of this experience, which can be assuaged by the unified personality’s resolution of the conflict.

            One can most strongly see this interplay of primary archetypes in “The Edge Of Destruction” (1964). This story involves only the four cast members, trapped in the TARDIS. The TARDIS is trying to warn them of impending disaster and affects their minds in the process, so that much of the civilized polish is rubbed off. The Doctor through most of the story takes the shadow aspect. He distrusts the others, threatens Ian and Barbara, and even drugs them. Susan modulates between anima and shadow, being vulnerable and emotional through most of the story, but also accusatory and distrustful. At one point, her shadow self comes fully out when she grabs a pair of scissors, threatens Barbara with them, then violently attacks a chair with them. Ian remains the animus, approaching the situation through both rational logic and through directly confronting the Doctor. Barbara provides the unifying elements, having some aspects of the anima, but most often acting as the central ego. It is Barbara, when challenged with annihilation, who proves her value by setting the Doctor on the right path to solving the problem. Barbara is always sympathetic to the others, and is the one most emotionally hurt by the disharmony among the crew members. In a sense, the TARDIS in this story becomes the “head” in which the four aspects of the personality enact a psychodrama.

            The four aspects of the personality combine in story and myth into character types. These characters are types in the sense of being symbols that are personalities instead of objects. Critics will often identify such characters as clichés or “typical.” Such characters persist even in modern storytelling because they provide a convenient means for audiences to identify common behavioural patterns. Myth critics such as Jung, Campbell, and Frye have given names to these character types, mostly drawn from myth and culture, and audiences easily recognize the complex of traits for each type. These include characters such as the Trickster, the Princess, the Magician, and the Devouring Mother, to name a few. Notably, each such character type is almost universally either masculine or feminine. Doctor Who has regularly featured such archetypal characters.

            For instance, the Doctor himself has changed type as each new actor brought about a new persona. The Doctor started out as a crotchety, but dangerous, old man, clearly an aspect of the Magician archetype, but later he is played by younger actors who can have a more physical presence in the story and thus take on some of the attributes of other archetypes, such as the Trickster and the Warrior. The Doctor, as a combination of ego, shadow, and sometimes animus (Doctors 3, 4, 5, 6, 9, and 10), represents another common archetype, the artist-scientist, an aspect of the Magician. The artist-scientist, according to Campbell (1949), “is the hero of the way of thought – singlehearted, courageous, and full of faith that the truth, as he finds it, shall make us free” (p. 24). The Doctor, as constant seeker of truth and a formidable scientist-technician, perfectly fits this role.

            However, the Doctor may shift into other archetypes. A common one for the Doctor already mentioned is the Trickster (Rafer, 2005). The Trickster is the inverse of the Magician, each the shadow of the other. The Trickster combines high culture polish with childlike curiosity, and may freely move between the rational and irrational. In combining extremes, the Trickster upends convention and tradition, deflates pompousness, defuses social tension, and brings leaders down a little from their high perches. The dark side of the Trickster can be chaos for its own sake, as well as lies and deception as a way of life. The Trickster is able to change shape (Jung Four 136), like the Doctor does through regeneration. Also, like the Doctor the Trickster “approximates” the figure of a savior (Jung, 1969). The connection of the Trickster to the Doctor comes in many places throughout the series. In “The Romans” (1965), the audience view the spectacle of the elderly Doctor besting a bigger, younger Roman assassin. The Doctor laments that he has become so used to outwitting his opponents that he had forgotten the joys of “the gentle art of fisticuffs.” The second Doctor, called “Chaplinesque,” often sets off a chaotic furor the moment he enters a room, and his first incarnation calls him a “clown” in “The Three Doctors” (1972-3). The third Doctor spends part of one story, “The Green Death” (1973), in drag. The fourth Doctor became famous for his incongruous behaviour, sudden fascination with trivia, and confrontations of dangerous enemies by offering them candies. The fifth Doctor gets called an “idiot” in “Kinda” (1982). The sixth Doctor wears garish, mismatched, piebald clothing. The seventh Doctor began in his first season as very similar to the second Doctor, generally causing chaos and playing mix and match with aphorisms. The remaining three Doctors have not shown much of this Trickster aspect, with the new producers playing up the Doctor’s romantic and heroic aspects. Many of the hero types from which the Doctor has been molded derive their late nineteenth and early twentieth century forms in British fiction and drama: the dandified gentleman, the bohemian scholar, the gentleman adventurer, and so on. These prototypes of the Doctor help make the more recognizable for the audience the older archetypes that are their origins.

            The Doctor’s companions always work archetypally, even when producers consciously create them to be modern and realistic. Most of the companions have been female, and most fit into a recognizable role. The simple formula, as Tulloch and Alvarado (1983) devise it, is female companion = intuition, Doctor = reason (213). The result of the formula is that female companions who have been originally written as extraordinary in some way often degenerate into screamers. Zoe (1968-9) was originally conceived as a kind of human computer, but that did not last long[5]. Jo (1971-3) was more consistently like the hip and independent young woman of the 1970s[6], but she was still scatterbrained and emotional. Sarah (1974-6) was the “women’s lib” companion, and being a journalist was meant to show recognition of the entry of women into the professions[7]. In this case, there was more consistency regarding the character, due in large part to the acting skill of Elisabeth Sladen, which has made Sarah one of the most popular of the companions and so far the only one to carry over from the old series to the new one. Nevertheless, many of the old “dependent female” characteristics slipped into stories late in her run[8]. Nyssa (1980-2) was something in the mold of Zoe, outwardly scientific and rational but often fighting against her own emotions. In stark contrast to Nyssa was Tegan (1980-3), characterized as almost pure emotion. Two later companions, Peri (1984-6) and Mel (1986-7) brought back some of the old dependent female stereotypes[9]. Mel in particular screamed her way through many episodes. Ace (1987-9), Rose (2005-6), and Martha (2007), however, were standout examples of companions who preserved their throats. Even so, though none of them is prone to screaming, Ace and Rose are both highly “emotional,” while both Rose and Martha have “crushes” on the Doctor, and so all three preserve the archetypal formula. Donna (2008) provided an interesting change of pace, being part the ditsy sidekick, like Jo, but without the innocence. Donna’s working class mentality played against the Doctor’s aristocratic side. The latest travelling companion, Amy (2010), in some senses rewrites the scenario that had developed with Rose, being young, intelligent, independent, and already connected to a boyfriend, yet sexually attracted to the Doctor.

            The one consistent exception to the intuitive female archetype among the companions was Romana I (1978-9). Played by the strikingly regal Mary Tamm, often dressed in white, and when not dressed in white still wearing severe and aristocratic garments, Romana I was fashioned out of a different female archetype, the “Ice Queen.” Cool (naturally for an Ice Queen), intellectual, and ironic, Romana I became almost a female Doctor, lacking only the Doctor’s vast experience and considerable skills of situational improvisation. However, after her regeneration into Romana II, things returned to form a little. Played by the more waif-like and vulnerable Lalla Ward, Romana II gets swiftly brought down from the regal position of Romana I in her first story, “Destiny Of The Daleks” (1979), when under interrogation by the Daleks she panics and screams. Though screaming would not become a habit with Romana II, she is by comparison with both Romana I and the Doctor a more emotional character.

            It is not as though the writers and producers of Doctor Who are unaware of the archetypal formulae operating in the series. “The Daemons” (1971), for example, opens with a discussion between the Doctor and Jo about magic, the supernatural, and the “age of Aquarius.” While Jo wants to believe in such things, and at one point later in the story is convinced that people really saw the Devil, the Doctor despairs that he will never turn Jo into a scientist. The five-minute exchange early in the story establishes the archetypal roles.

            The paired stories of “The Impossible Planet” and “The Satan Pit” (2006) has the Doctor and Rose fighting against a being very much like the Devil of many biblically inaccurate horror movies. The two quickly split into character types. The Doctor takes on his scientist/magician role, rational, skeptical, and inquisitive. Rose takes on the anima role, intuitive, comforting, and sympathetic. The story demonstrates the psychological pairing of the two types when each independently “solves” the problem of the story without contact with the other.

            Because so much of the program’s source material is archetypal and relies upon narrative convention, the program is prone to a “traditional” view of gender roles. However, writers, producers, and actors of the programme perceive a need to challenge the conventions of gender typing. This conflict can often cause confusion about the behaviour and function of the companion. In “Genesis Of The Daleks” (1975), writer Terry Nation has Sarah very bravely and rationally plan an escape from a forced labour facility, but become inexplicably paralyzed by fear and vertigo during the actual escape. Thus, the production brief that Sarah be a strong character conflicts with her archetypal role as dependent female. Even the newer series often relies upon the convention in gothic romance, melodrama, and popular adventure stories that the heroine be separated from the male hero, imperilled, and then rescued. “The Fires of Pompeii” (2008) follows this formula, with Donna becoming prisoner of a religious cult ready to sacrifice her. The Doctor, however, arrives to set her free. Audiences thus see that even a modern, “liberated” woman retains a reassuringly “feminine” character.

            The few male companions in the series have been even more restricted in narrative function than the female companions. In general, their job has been to be the muscle. This was true with the first Doctor, an old man who could not reasonably be expected to fight his way out of problems. Therefore, he gets a series of fighting men to do the work for him: Ian (1963-5), Steven (1965-6), and Ben (1966-7). Attention gets drawn to this Doctor = brain, male companion = brawn formula in “The Romans” (1965), a story played mostly for laughs. The Doctor and Ian are separated for almost the entire story, so that when the Doctor, mistaken for a bard and assassin, gets attacked by a would-be assassin, he has to fight his own way out. In general, though, Doctor 1 rarely gets involved in a physical struggle and often exhibits physical weaknesses, such as swift exhaustion.

            Doctor 2, though younger and more physically active than Doctor 1, also rarely got into physical scrapes. His typical reaction to danger is to run from it, and his typical method of overcoming the enemy is to out-think and out-maneuver it. These tendencies get taken to absurd levels in “The Mind Robber” (1968), in which the puny Zoe must fight the massively muscled comic-strip character Karkus while the Doctor watches on. Doctor 2 needed Ben and then Jamie (1966-9) to do most of the physical work.

            Male companions in the usual sense disappear with the arrival of the physically vigorous practitioner of “Venusian Aikido,” Doctor 3. This Doctor, with his lacy shirts, velvet jackets, and aristocratic style, played into a new masculine type for the Doctor – the dandified gentleman hero of nineteenth and early twentieth century popular fiction, a mixture of Scaramouche, Oscar Wilde, and James Bond. He was thus the first Doctor to be consciously modeled a “hero” in an archetypal sense. Though he spends much of his time assisting the military force of U.N.I.T. (United Nations Intelligence Taskforce), Doctor 3 does most of the direct person-to-person fighting on his own. This general raising of the testosterone level led to the Doctor’s repeated criticisms of U.N.I.T.’s “big booted soldiers” and their “clumsy” ways. Though they have an obvious respect for each other, the Doctor and U.N.I.T.’s leader, Brigadier Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart, often argue and rarely see eye-to-eye on anything. Because of the heightened masculine tension in Doctor 3’s period, his favored companion, Jo, was highly stereotypically feminine in numerous ways and thus provided a counterbalance; whereas, Doctor 3’s other two female companions did not fit quite so well with him. Liz (1970) was a brilliant scientific polymath, too much like the Doctor, while Sarah was better able to take care of herself than was Jo.

            Since Jamie departed the show in 1969, the few male companions have often served other archetypal functions than as a warrior. Harry (1974-5) was originally intended to be a typical “muscle” type, but when Tom Baker took the role as Doctor 4, he proved more than capable of handling himself in such situations, and so Harry became a foil for the two main characters: an ignorant traditionalist against Sarah’s “women’s lib” persona, and a bit thick-headed against the Doctor’s intellectualism. When Adric (1980-2) came onto the program, he first was a kind of young protégé for Doctor 4, who naturally fit into an indulgent tutor role in his dealings with Adric. When the younger Doctor 5 took over, the relationship became more like siblings, with Adric taking the annoying younger brother role.

            Turlough (1983-4) was a marked contrast to all other companions, not just the male ones. His archetypal role is the “sly fox,” what Jung would call an “imago” of the shadow, meaning one of the common character types that might embody the psychological forces of the shadow. Originally, he inveigles his way onto the TARDIS to murder the Doctor. In his first story, “Mawdryn Undead” (1983), he is straight away shown to be devious, callous, and wholly untrustworthy. Though he eventually gives up his attempts to kill the Doctor by his third story, “Enlightenment” (1983), he still never sheds the sly fox image. The highly emotional female companion Tegan never learns to trust him. His cunning leads him to manipulate people regularly, while the audience never truly gets to know how he thinks or feels about anything. As with Harry, Turlough acts as a foil to the other main characters. Turlough, in his cool arrogance is a foil against Tegan’s brash candidness. Turlough’s devious selfishness is a foil against Doctor 5’s honesty and willingness to place himself in danger rather than place others in danger.

            Turlough is the last male companion of the first sequence of the program. With Tom Baker having established a pattern of Doctors played by actors in their 30s and 40s, the Doctor becomes enough of a physical character that he no longer needs a “warrior” along with him. Experiments with different kinds of male roles for companions beyond the “warrior” archetype just never worked well in narrative terms. The Doctor 5/Adric dynamic demonstrates this point very well. While Adric and Doctor 4 harmonized to a high degree, since Adric becomes slightly feminized in his role as dependent protégé, Adric and Doctor 5 spent most of their time arguing and competing. There was just not enough animus in the “Doctor Who” personality to be split two ways. The two characters were simply too close in age and manner for them to harmonize. The result was that Adric’s character changed from willing student to petulant younger brother. He became more childish, such as being always hungry and persistently complaining about being left out.

            The revived series has had two male companions for a brief stay with the Doctor, both of whom serve very similar functions. Two other male characters get briefly involved. In all of these cases, their role is to defuse the building sexual tension between the Doctor and Rose, or the Doctor and Amy. Mickey Smith, who appears semi-regularly in the first two seasons, is Rose’s “official” boyfriend, whose presence makes her feel guilty for preferring the Doctor. Mickey is a kind of jester archetype who would rather not be. He must suffer repeated jibes from the Doctor. His role seems to be to get it wrong, whatever the situation may be, ineptly crashing about. This ineptitude is endearing, since it comes not purely from stupidity, but from an overwhelming and childlike desire to please others while proving himself worthy in his own eyes. Like other post-1960s male companions, Mickey functions as a foil, his incompetence highlighting the Doctor’s savvy. Rory (2010) is very similar to Mickey. He is Amy’s fiancé, and like Mickey comes in to diffuse sexual tension between the Doctor and the companion. Like Mickey, Rory is well-meaning, but inconsequential when not bumbling.

            Captain Jack Harkness (2005) is on the TARDIS for about half a season, with some cameo returns in later seasons. Though bisexual strongly leaning in the homosexual direction, Jack is still primarily coded in the action hero mode, and draws on many filmic “signs” of masculinity, especially from American films – military officer’s rank, dealmaking, sexual promiscuity, “classic” good looks, and cockiness. With these attributes, Jack interferes with Rose’s increasing sexual attraction to the Doctor by being a more standard object of sexual desire. Jack also allows the very physical Doctor 9 with his working-class accent to appear more intellectual than he was in his first few stories.

            A much discussed question among fans and critics regarding Doctor Who concerns the gender of his companions, who have been overwhelmingly female. These numerous females, most of them young and “available,” are desexualized in relation to the Doctor even when they are sexualized for the audience. Jo Grant (Katy Manning) spent much time in miniskirts and other “revealing” garments. The savage Leela, played by an athletically trim Louise Jameson, spends most her time in brief leatherwear of a vaguely “jungle queen” sort. The voluptuous Peri (Nicola Bryant) is regarded a sex symbol among male fans more than any other companion. Yet, there has always been a fast rule in Doctor Who: no hanky-panky in the TARDIS.

            The renewed series teased at this no hanky-panky rule like a small boy stepping over a line he is told not to, but in the end stuck to it. The sexual tension between the Doctor and Rose grows through the course of the programme. She makes remarks about their possibly living together, for example. When Rose meets Sarah, Mickey remarks about problems when the “new” girlfriend meets the “old” girlfriend. When Martha comes on board the TARDIS, she too develops a crush on the Doctor. She repeatedly makes suggestions of offering herself to him, even with comments about sharing a bed, which the Doctor either misses or chooses to ignore. The limit gets most fully strained when Amy actively tries to seduce the Doctor, scaring the Doctor enough to get him to invite her fiancé on board just to end the problem.

            The revived series draws sharp attention onto a conceptual problem in the series. There is a male lead who spends his time with female “companions,” yet no sex must be allowed to happen between them. The female companions are a conundrum, required to be either sexy but not sexual, or to be sexual but frustrated in expressing it. One answer to the female companion conundrum is strictly practical, dealing with the designation of Doctor Who as “family” viewing contrasted against the need for any television program to attract viewers. Thus, beautiful women regulars attract a male audience, but the Doctor’s disinterest in these women as sexual objects keeps the program on a “family” level. However, there are also archetypal reasons both for having mainly female companions and having a no hanky-panky rule. Consider again that the Doctor and his companions combine to represent a unified self that one can call “Doctor Who.” Because the Doctor is generally both the ego and shadow of this self, that leaves free the “anima” aspect and means the Doctor will always be coded as “male.” This is why the Doctor has travelled with just a single male companion only four times, in “The Massacre” (1966), “The Evil Of The Daleks” (1967), “The Keeper Of Traken” (1980), and “Planet Of Fire” (1984), and in each case has picked up a new female companion at some point in the program. In practical terms, picking up a female companion in these circumstances prevents the assumption of homosexuality in the Doctor’s relations with his male companions. However, archetypally psychological reasons exist, too. There always needs to be an offsetting female presence, the anima of this self, to balance the personality equation. The Doctor and his companion, whoever she may be or however many there may be, are one person.

            Focusing on archetypal roles of the companions in Doctor Who draws attention to the problematic position of archetypes in modern society. In the technological society of Great Britain in the last half decade (plus North America, Australasia, and Europe), archetypes lose much of their power. They still have a presence, still push their way into the collective narrative consciousness; however, some audience members quickly spot and analyze them. Other audience members may find the archetypes “cheesy,” or “unbelievable,” or old-fashioned and melodramatic. The matter is one of belief. When people stop believing in the reality of the archetype, the archetype loses much of its ability to convey cultural values.

            Writers may even be aware of the rationalist audience response to archetypes. In “Kinda” (1982), Dr. Todd of a high-tech colonizing team remarks on the “clown stroke jester” figure and his function in primitive societies. Similarly, in “Snakedance” (1983), Lon, the bored son of a prominent politician, stops an elaborate ancient ritual, in which he is taking the starring role, and points out that the whole thing consists of just props and costuming, entirely lacking any of the “hidden depths” promised in the ritual. These two scenes occur in two strongly, self-consciously archetypal stories and demonstrate the author’s awareness of potential audience skepticism. Though ultimately the audience is meant to think of Dr. Todd’s and Lon’s views on this matter as somewhat limited, these two scenes in their larger contexts do invite the audience to see archetypes as having a strong culturally unifying function.

            The male and female archetypes function socially for the audience in distinct ways. Archetypes are always “conservative” socially and politically. This means that gender archetypes in Doctor Who confirm strongly and widely held assumptions about the concepts of “masculine” and “feminine.” Even when producers of the program consciously try to break these formulae, the traditional concepts persist. This persistence provides comfort and reassurance to the audience that their definitions of “human” will survive the tumultuous changes of time and technology. This concept of “human” involves a blending of personality traits: reason and emotion, aggression and compassion, selfishness and giving, order and chaos. Repeatedly separating and rejoining these traits program after program into the integrated personality called Doctor Who presents for the audience a psychologically satisfactory understanding of the human world and how it functions.

References

Bova, B. (1974). The role of science fiction. Science Fiction Today And Tomorrow, ed. R. Bretnor. New York: Harper and Row, 3-14.

Campbell, J. (1949). The Hero With A Thousand Faces. Princeton: Princeton UP.

Frye, N. (1957). Anatomy Of Criticism: Four Essays. Princeton: Princeton UP.

Jung, C.G. (1969). Four Archetypes: Mother/Rebirth/Spirit/Trickster. Trans. R.F.C. Hull.   Princeton: Princeton U Press.

Rafer, D. (2005). Mythic identity in Doctor Who. In Time And Relative Dimensions InSpace, ed. D. Butler. Manchester: Manchester UP: 123-37.

Thompson, W. I. (1981). The Time Falling Bodies Take To Light: Mythology, Sexuality & The Origins Of Culture. New York: St. Martin’s.

Tulloch, J., and Alvarado, M. (1983). Doctor Who:  The Unfolding Text. New York: St.     Martin’s.