Doctor Who has never been political, say overly voluble types who when pressed on the issue for more than five minutes make it more than abundantly clear that they have no intention anyway of watching a programme that they nonetheless inexplicably resent for no longer being an apparently entirely different programme that they have made up entirely in their own heads. Doctor Who has also always been political, at least according to similarly overly voluble types who find that it broadly aligns with their own personal politics albeit never quite sufficiently enough for their liking, even on the occasions when it is evidently attempting to court them directly to the exclusion of anyone else. In between, and barely warranting a say themselves, are the hapless viewers who simply want to watch a man – or indeed a woman – chasing some monsters; and now that a woman actually has been cast as Doctor Who, their opinion seems to matter less than ever in an incessant whirlpool of shouting about how too not political enough it may or may not be.

The Zeitgeist Tapes is a podcast in which Emma Burnell and Steve Fielding take a look at the point where politics and pop culture collide, and with Jodie Whittaker’s debut run of Doctor Who about to start I’m joining them for a chat about politics with both a capital and lower case ‘p’ in Doctor Who from the earliest black and white days right up to the opinionated-infuriating present. In between debating our favourite Doctors and companions – some of which it has to be said have been arrived at for ‘aesthetic’ rather than character-based reasons – we take a look at such lit match to fan newsletter paper topics as the wider cultural implications of Jodie Whittaker’s casting, whether Doctor Who has ever actually provably had any sort of quantifiable political bias other than the ones dreamt up by the permanently and professionally offended, whether Starship UK was a warning ahead of its time in more ways than one, who and what really inspired the characters of Harold Saxon and Harriet Jones and whether the original run of Doctor Who was ever quite as ‘problematic’ as so many tend to assume it probably was because ‘the past’. There’s discussion of politically charged and culturally weighted stories all the way from Marco Polo to The Happiness Patrol, how the arrival of a female Doctor weighs up against the years I have spent actively campaigning for one, and hopefully relatively few gratuitous mentions of Karen Gillan. Also, while Steve and Emma may well be the political experts, I’m fairly certain that I know more about Meglos than either of them. Which is something I don’t really get the opportunity to show off about that often. Not to mention something that Emma is more than certainly very glad about.

You can download The Zeitgeist Tapes: Dr. Pod here or listen to it below.

Buy A Book!

You can find many more of my ‘opinions’ on Doctor Who past and present, including a fairly hefty overview of Jodie Whittaker’s tenure in the role, in Keep Left, Swipe Right, available in paperback here or from the Kindle Store here.

Alternately, if you’re just feeling generous, you can buy me a coffee here. Hopefully The Doctor will activate that biscuit making thing in the Tardis console to go with it.

Further Listening

You can hear Emma on Tim’s nostalgia podcast Looks Unfamiliar talking about Whose Side Are You On?, Sweet Valley High, Scoubidou, The Patchwork Monkey, Split Second and the Ever Ready ‘Power To The People’ advert here , The Royal Potwasher, Melody Radio, Channel 4’s Accidental Death Of An Anarchist, A Woman In Your Own Right, The Lords Of Midnight and Herman’s Head here, the Christmas Specials of The West Wing here and an ill-fated stage adaptation of When Harry Met Sally here, as well as talking about Grange Hill on The Golden Age Of Children’s TV here.

Emma has also appeared on Tim’s Marvel Cinematic Universe podcast It’s Good, Except It Sucks talking about Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 2 here and Deadpool here.

You can find more of Tim’s thoughts on the Jodie Whittaker era of Doctor Who – and in particular the introductory mini-episode Meet The Thirteenth Doctor – in Doctor Who And The Looks Unfamiliar here. You can also find Tim on The Zeitgeist Tapes talking about the long-forgotten Clangers Election Special Vote For Froglet here and Free For All, the election-themed episode of The Prisoner, here.

Further Reading

You can find more of my thoughts on Jodie Whittaker’s tenure as The Doctor in Doctor Who And The Rosa here and Aw, Brilliant! here.

© Tim Worthington.
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