Too American?

Interesting article. Not sure I buy it, but interesting…

A BBC staple for 50 years, Doctor Who has undergone an intense process of Americanization. Is it still as “obtusely British” as Steven Moffat claims?

Since 2005, the modern reboot of Doctor Who has stirred fans of the original series and captivated a new generation of Whovians. The show builds on a fifty year history and endeavors to include all members of its inter-generational audience. An audience that, like the show’s titular character, spans the length of time and space.

Despite the Doctor’s recent global appeal, writer and producer Steven Moffat asserts the character “couldn’t be more definitively British. [He’s] obtusely British. [He’s] about as British as it gets.” Being that the show’s produced by BBC Wales, filmed in Cardiff and generally casts British performers, Moffat’s not far off the mark. But the reboot–let alone the 1996 television movie that aired on FOX broadcast affiliates in the United States–bear the marks of Americanization.

America-what?

Let’s be honest–the United States has influenced global politics, art and culture for quite some time. If the nineteenth century marks the end of the British Empire, the twentieth signals the beginning of the American one. (Just depends on which history book you read, and whether or not the book’s author is an American.) The country’s influence is unmistakably found in technology, food and popular culture. Doctor Who‘s just one of many targets.

“Americanization” can mean one of two things, depending on which side of the US border you’re standing. Within, it generally indicates the assimilation of immigrant or annexed populations to American customs and values. Outside the US, however, Americanization (or Americanisation, to use the British spelling) refers to the country’s influence on national and ethnic cultures and values.

When this post’s title makes its claim, that Doctor Who has been (or is still being) Americanized, I’m using the latter sense. At least, I am for now.

I left my hearts in San Francisco

In 1989 the BBC suspended (a nicer way of saying “cancelled”) the long-running Doctor Who television series due to poor ratings and dwindling popularity. The show and its titular character were a staple of British popular culture, but Sylvester McCoy’s seventh Doctor just wasn’t enough to extend the series into the 90s.

Then, in 1996, something remarkable happened. A new television movie–produced by British and American companies, filmed in North America, and broadcast in British, American and Canadian markets–promised to resurrect the character and the show with a brand new eighth Doctor and a whole new series. The brainchild of American-born and British-raised BBC producer Philip David Segal, the new Doctor Who promised an honorable continuation of the show’s 30+ year canon and an exciting new foray in global television.

It also brought the Doctor himself to the states. Though filmed in Vancouver, the story takes place in San Francisco. The city, the characters, the performers, the production values–everything was tinged with American-ness. For starters, McCoy and Paul McGann–the seventh and eighth Doctors, respectively–were the only British cast members. The Doctor retained his English branding, as did his TARDIS (complete with hot tea and a copy of H.G. Wells’s The Time Machine), wardrobe and general demeanor. Everyone else was American, including Daphne Ashbrook’s companion Grace Holloway and Eric Roberts’s The Master.

Then there’s the emphasis on romance and violence. Doctor Who was always written, produced, billed and broadcast as a family show. The Doctor was asexual–that is, he never openly displayed any romantic affections toward his female (or male) companions. Yes, William Hartnell’s first Doctor traveled with his granddaughter, but his family and love lives were otherwise unspoken or absent from the television screen. McGann’s Doctor became the first to not only express such affections, but to act upon them when he kissed his companion Grace in the film’s conclusion.

The Doctor. Kissing. WAT!? If that weren’t enough, another interesting discrepancy regarding violence reveals itself when different versions of the broadcast are compared. In the United Kingdom, the sound of the Master snapping a character’s neck, much of the McCoy’s Doctor’s death on the operating table, and the killing of several minor characters were all cut. This is not to suggest that Doctor Who is a stranger to violence–major and minor characters, including the Doctor himself, have faced death throughout the show’s tenure. But its open display in the 1996 film was something new–at least to British audiences who weren’t allowed to see it.

The Doctor, vampire slayer

Though the film performed well in the UK, poor ratings stateside discouraged executives from commissioning a new series. The Doctor was dead, yet again.

Then on September 26, 2003, 14 years after the BBC suspended the original series, a new series was announced with acclaimed TV dramatist Russell T Davies as writer and producer. “Doctor Who is one of the BBC’s most exciting and original characters,” Davies told BBC News at the time. “He’s had a good rest and now it’s time to bring him back.”

And bring him back they did. On March 26, 2005, the first episode of the new series premiered on BBC One. Like the 1996 television movie, this wasn’t a reboot. Rather, the new series served as a continuation of the original series. It incorporated the Doctor’s absence into the show’s then 40+ year mythology, gradually revealed old secrets about the character, and propelled him to new times and places. Played by noted thespian Christopher Eccleston, the ninth Doctor evinced a more rugged, regional and modern take on the character.

Eccleston’s Doctor was, like the eight Doctors before him, resolutely British in character. But the show itself was not. Specifically, the new continuation’s production and formatting distinguished it significantly from the original series in a manner similar to the 1996 attempt. That is, its American-ness.

For starters, consider the show’s construction. Whereas the original series produced multiple half-hour episodes circulating around a central story or theme, Davies’s revival followed modern television’s practice of producing half (13 episodes) or full (22 episodes) season arcs. Doctor Who did the former. These hour-long episodes each presented individual or two-part stories that gradually contributed to an overall arc that culminated in the finale. Such a format more closely resembles the typical broadcast schedule of American television.

This makes sense for two reasons. First, there’s the American model that’s gradually become the norm for global television. The second reason is the influence of Joss Whedon’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer on Davies’s writing. Whether or not you like this aspect of the new Doctor Who series, its mark is undeniable–individual and multi-part episode stories thematically tied together by a single, overarching idea. Such was Whedon’s penchant in writing, producing and directing Buffy (as well as Firefly and other shows). “Whedon raised the bar for every writer,” says Davies. “[N]ot just genre/niche writers, but every single one of us.”

“We’re going on a trip…”

Then Moffat took the reigns in 2008 after Davies stepped down as showrunner. Yet Buffy‘s influence remained strong, as Moffat indicates in an early interview with io9: “You are looking around [for things to compare it to]. Where does it sit now? What is like this now? What can I give as an example of this? Buffy is a good example: it’s young-skewed, adventurous, funny and irreverent.”

Moffat maintains the show’s originality, however, and rightfully so. But unlike the dogged character of his British nationalism, he has taken the show deeper into American territory than anyone before him. Seriously, not even McGann’s Doctor ever made it physically into the US–only on the page and the screen. Matt Smith’s eleventh Doctor, however, has been to America. In fact, he’s been all over it.

On April 23, 2011, “The Impossible Astronaut” aired in the UK, the US and Canada. As written by Moffat and realized by the production, the sixth series’s first episode took the Doctor and his companions to Utah, Florida, New York City and Washington D.C. The cast and crew filmed on location at Utah’s Monument Valley and, for the subsequent episode, “Day of the Moon,” Nevada’s Hoover Dam. Then, in the first half of the subsequent seventh series, Moffat’s team returned to New York City for “The Angels Take Manhattan.”

The Doctor soon returned to England and has since traveled the globe and beyond in the second half of the seventh series, the 50th anniversary special and the Christmas special–Matt Smith’s last as the eleventh Doctor. Now that Scottish-born (and Scottish-accented English-speaking) Peter Capaldi is the twelfth Doctor, Moffat has effectively quashed ongoing speculation of an American Doctor. Not only that, but Capaldi’s choice to keep his natural accent (unlike tenth Doctor David Tennant) further propels the character into the specific realm of the UK. It’s almost as if the show became too Americanized, and Moffat’s trying to bring it back home. (Plarko.com)

It’s very British.

From November: