Kim Akass

![](http://cms.cstonline.net/resizeimage.php?width=550&height=258&image=http://cdn.cstonline.net/assets/image/user_92/1236595_10101403863752889_1050677059_n.jpg){.addCaption
.addCaption .aligncenter loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="550"
height="258"}

Last week represented the culmination of over a year's worth of
organization.  The '*Doctor Who: *Walking in Eternity conference'
ostensibly kicked off the academic round of 50 years of *Doctor
Who*celebrations which will culminate in an anniversary special on
23^rd^ November this year.

I originally had the bright idea of holding this conference as a new
member of staff at the University of Hertfordshire in the Creative Arts
Department.  Within a month or two of starting one of my colleagues
(Howard Berry) held a [48^th^ anniversary
symposium](http://vimeo.com/31666419), bringing together various
personnel that had worked on the programme, including a Dalek, Mat
Irvine and K9 and Kevin Jon Davies (Director of *Thirty Years in the
TARDIS*), in a celebration of the show that had initially scared
children into hiding behind the sofa.  Me included.

That day got me thinking ... I knew that there was already a great deal
of scholarship focusing on the *Doctor Who *phenomenon, indeed the
Reading Contemporary TV series had commissioned an edited collection
on *Doctor Who*, and Dr Lorna Jowett had given a rip-roaring paper at
the symposium focusing on the companions in the series.  Why not hold a
50^th^ anniversary conference, bringing together as many scholars as
possible to ruminate, investigate and celebrate fifty years of The
Doctor?

Leaving aside the logistical nightmares involved in organizing a
three-day international conference, I always knew that *Doctor Who* was
special.  I.B. Tauris were in the midst of launching their '[Who
Watching'](http://www.whowatching.com/) website, gathering together all
of the books that had been published by them under one roof (or url),
Matt Hills ([*Triumph of a Time Lord*](http://www.whowatching.com/)) was
editing a collection for the [Reading Contemporary TV
series](http://www.ibtauris.com/Series/Reading%20Contemporary%20Television.aspx) that
would bring together 'Who' scholars in a celebration of 50 years of the
Doctor -- [*New Dimensions of Doctor
Who*](http://www.ibtauris.com/Books/The%20arts/Film%20TV%20%20radio/Television/New%20Dimensions%20of%20Doctor%20Who%20Exploring%20Space%20Time%20and%20Television.aspx?menuitem=%7BBA844C8F-B8DF-4A36-ABAE-36571F47526C%7D) --
and James Chapman was updating his classic study [*Inside The Tardis:
The Worlds of Doctor
Who*.](http://www.ibtauris.com/Books/The%20arts/Film%20TV%20%20radio/Television/Inside%20the%20Tardis%20The%20Worlds%20of%20Doctor%20Who.aspx?menuitem=%7BBA844C8F-B8DF-4A36-ABAE-36571F47526C%7D)   
There was certainly a lot of interest in the series.

The Call for Papers attracted an overwhelming number of Who scholars.  
Although I knew that a series that had migrated to the US would attract
an international audience, I was not quite prepared for the amount of
people writing on the subject.  From subjects as diverse as the music in
the series, its science-fiction credentials, the Time Lord himself (and
his many manifestations), the companions, the TARDIS and the monsters,
gender in the series, the US influence (both back and forth), the
history of *Doctor Who*, its placing within the Public Service
Broadcasting ethos, through to close textual readings of particular
episodes, the array of papers was awe-inspiring.  And so was the level
of engagement, the energy and commitment of Walking in Eternity's
participants, with delegates coming from as far away as Australia, New
Zealand, North America and Europe.  Not only giving papers but just
coming along 'for the ride' to be present at such a large gathering of
Who experts and fans, scholars, academics and enthusiasts.

This blog is not a conference report.  One, already written by Ross
Garner (Cardiff School of Journalism, Media and Cultural Studies) can be
found [HERE](http://www.jomec.co.uk/blog/conference-report-on-doctor-who-walking-in-eternity-an-international-interdisciplinary-conference-celebrating-50-years-in-time-and-space/),
and another, written by Darren Elliott-Smith from the University of
Hertfordshire, will soon appear on this website.  Instead, my focus here
is on what a humbling and enriching experience I found the three days
that I shared with Who scholars.

I am regularly daunted by the sheer amount of hours it takes to study
television.  Many series are made up of nearly 100 hours of action. 
Narratives span years, if not decades.  The ending of series often refer
back to story arcs begun a decade before in the pilot.  There are
inter-textual references, self-reflexive moments, other TV series are
referred to and watched.  Who could forget this moment from *The
Sopranos*, for example:

Historical moments are witnessed through the eyes of characters (*Mad
Men* has made this into a trademark -- we have watched both Kennedy
assassinations and the death of Marilyn Monroe through the eyes of its
characters and barely a week goes by without the use of archive footage
within the series).  Whole epochs pass by.  9/11 indelibly marked *Sex
and the City*, *The Sopranos* and *The West Wing*, each series dealt
with the tragedy in its own way (even if it was to gloss over the
event), before moving onto embrace the post-9/11 landscape as seen
through the eyes of its characters.

And I am only now talking about a small portion of television that I
have attempted to write about over the past decade or so.  Just over ten
years of television scholarship that not only reveals much about the way
US TV has changed since the end of the last century but how we talk
about and study it -- the explosion of television channels, viewing
habits, digitized delivery and audience expectations among the many ways
of studying and enjoying television into the 21^st^ century.

Our celebration of *Doctor Who* embraced this multi-disciplinary
approach.  There were scholars from every subject specialism
imaginable.  Neuro-scientists, cultural theorists, sociologists, Film
and English scholars, journalists, media theorists, as well as pure
television scholars -- if there is such a thing -- with most of us
having come from other disciplines in the first place (much like film
scholars came from other disciplines in the early days of Film Studies).
 And let us not forget the astro-physicists who later confessed that
they had 'bunked into' our conference as some of the panels looked so
much more interesting than their own.

Despite reservations at the last panel, with Matt Hills among others
worrying about the dilution of television studies as a discipline
through a '[Rag, Tag and Bobtail](http://youtu.be/cW0yPnGXFDU)'
approach, it was this merging of minds and specialties that made
the *Doctor Who* conference so special.   While some television studies
scholars laud a single approach, elevating one style of scholarship over
another, the sheer diversity of approaches at 'Walking in Eternity'
unlocked the text as never before and proves that there is much to be
gained by opening up the field in this way.  Textual analysis sat
alongside discussions on the use of space and place within the series,
historical readings jostled with industrial approaches, cosplay and
gaming happily co-existed with DVD production papers.  And all opened up
the series to innovative readings that, while acknowledging the
televisual nature of *Doctor Who* and its history as a BBC product did
not close down meaning to a simple, one-dimensional approach but
embraced multifarious ways of reading a 50-year-old text.

Over the course of three-days we never forgot that the series began in
1963, shot in black and white, with wobbly sets and risible monsters. 
After all, it can only be truly understood when considered (as John L.
Sullivan (Muhlenberg College) did so eloquently in his paper
'Transporting Television in Space and Time: The export of *Doctor
Who *to the United States in the 1970s and 1980s') as a BBC children's
programme, subject to the vagaries of Public Service Broadcasting.

My point is that *Who* scholarship has only really just begun, a point
made by Matt Hills in the closing panel of the conference: *Doctor
Who* maybe 50 years old but the scholarship around it probably spans
only 10.  Since March 2005 and under the helm of Russell T. Davies, the
'new *Who'* has transmogrified into a stylish, compelling drama,
attractive to both adults and children, with another doctor (Peter
Capaldi) entering the fray in the next few months. Consider coming to
this series late in the day.  While I bemoan the fact that I am still
playing catch up with *Breaking Bad* finishing its run before I have
even got to the end of season 4, new *Who* fans are faced with 33 years
of back episodes to watch.  Eight doctors, goodness knows how many
companions (if you know how many please feel free to tell us in the
comment box at the end), countless monsters and myriad planets and
crisis to attend to and solve.  In the first tranche of *Doctor
Who *alone the series has aired alongside five prime ministers (Harold
Macmillan, Alec Douglas-Home, Harold Wilson, Edward Heath, James
Callaghan and Margaret Thatcher).  Indeed a fine paper was given by
Richard Wallace (University of Warwick) -- 'The Sound of Empires
Toppling': Politics, Public Service Broadcasting and *Doctor Who* --
which focused on how (whether) Thatcher's years impacted on the series
with some wonderful examples of how Sheila Hancock's villainess was
influenced by the Iron Lady.

I feel weak at the thought of coming new to this canon.  And yet, over
the course of three days last week in Hatfield, new scholars came to the
table with their own personal take on the series, both old* *and new.  A
daunting task in itself.

I would like to think that everybody took something away from the
experience.  Me?  I learned a lot.  Firstly, while everyone was talking
about their first Doctor, I seemed to be the only person whose first
doctor was ***the** *first Doctor.  Secondly, I realized that I am not
so much a *Doctor Who* fan, (Steven Moffatt has certainly seen to that
over the past year with his queer baiting and misogyny proving too much
for me to stomach), but I have literally grown up with the Doctor.
 Fandom does not adequately describe my relationship to *Doctor Who*. I
remember the Tom Baker years with affection (and yes, Brigid Cherry, I
too knitted a scarf).

![](http://cms.cstonline.net/resizeimage.php?width=258&height=195&image=http://cdn.cstonline.net/assets/image/user_92/baker.jpeg){.addCaption
.aligncenter loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="258" height="195"}

I watched the Jon Pertwee years not least because Katy Manning was just
so damn cool.  I have watched the series as a child with my father
(William Hartnell, Patrick Troughton, Jon Pertwee and Tom Baker) with my
son (Sylvester McCoy), my daughter (Christopher Eccleston, David Tennant
and Matt Smith) and will no doubt watch Peter Capaldi's doctor
regenerate with my adult and adolescent friends and family.

![](http://cms.cstonline.net/resizeimage.php?width=259&height=194&image=http://cdn.cstonline.net/assets/image/user_92/manning.jpeg){.addCaption
.aligncenter loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="259" height="194"}

Put simply, growing up in the UK since the late fifties it has been
hard **not** to have felt the impact of *Doctor Who *and it is in that
vein that I am glad that all of our delegates celebrated a TV series
that has survived where others have not.

A British one to boot.

 

***Postscript***

Even though this is not a conference report I am moved to say that not
only did the multi-disciplinary approach yield some fine readings of the
series but that the scholarship was of an incredibly high standard.  The
sheer variety of papers made for some thought-provoking panels.  Of
course, the papers on gender particularly appealed to me, as did the
ones looking at the television industry itself.  The keynotes deserve
particular mention as each of them gave thought-provoking and inspiring
papers.  James Chapman laid out the history of the series at the
beginning of the conference, David Butler brought a stunning sound
installation from the Delia Derbyshire archive, Matt Hills investigated
the nature of the television anniversary, Lorna Jowett (who moved me to
tears) with a stunning paper on the misogyny embedded into Doctor Who
(both before and behind the camera) and last, and by no means least,
David Lavery who postulated what an American *Doctor Who* would look
like.

![](http://cms.cstonline.net/resizeimage.php?width=400&height=374&image=http://cdn.cstonline.net/assets/image/user_92/1175258_635347603162764_94893720_n.jpg){.addCaption
.aligncenter loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="400" height="374"}

 

Thank you to everyone who took part.

 

**Kim Akass** is a Senior Research Fellow and lecturer in Cutural and
Contextual Studies (Film/TV) at the University of Hertfordshire. She has
published widely on US TV, is co-founding editor of Critical Studies in
Television and is co-editor (with Janet McCabe) of The Reading
Contemporary TV series for I.B. Tauris. She is currently working on a
book about mothers in the media for I.B. Tauris and is webmistress of
CSTonline.


Last week represented the culmination of over a year’s worth of organization.  The ‘

 Doctor Who:

Walking in Eternity conference’ ostensibly kicked off the academic round of 50 years of

 Doctor Who

celebrations which will culminate in an anniversary special on 23

 rd

November this year.

WHOSE WHO?

THE DARK SIDE OF KELLEY David E.Kelley’s new primetime series on NBC, Harry’s Law, has just turned bleak. Fans of Ally McBealwere initially delighted by the idea of a sacked patents lawyer (‘Harriet Korn’/Kathy Bates) setting up a storefront law firm in an abandoned shoe shop.

John Ellis

# THE DARK SIDE OF KELLEY

David E.Kelley's new primetime series on NBC, *Harry's Law*, has just
turned bleak. Fans of *Ally McBeal*were initially delighted by the idea
of a sacked patents lawyer ('Harriet Korn'/Kathy Bates) setting up a
storefront law firm in an abandoned shoe shop. She recruits an unlikely
team of a naïve corporate lawyer, the black college kid who was her
case, and an assistant more interested in the shop's remaining stock of
shoes than the law. It looked like a network show that would skate
across serious issues. Granted, Kathy Bates was an intriguing choice of
lead, and plays the role with absolute conviction. But she is balanced
by the blonde glamour of Brittany Snow as Jenna and the preppy looks of
Nate Corddry as Adam.

Then things went awry. Harry had clearly set up in the wrong part of
town. Her cases involved real suffering and genuine moral dilemmas.
Although the location is by no means clear, this is obviously a city
with its fair share of urban problems, many of which drift into their
storefront.  By episode 5, Harry faces disbarment for throwing a case:
failing to defend properly a client she knew had murdered his wife. Soon
after, the firm is forced to mediate in a gang war. There are few of the
laughs and none of the whimsy of *Ally McBeal*. Instead there are the
weighty moral dilemmas which come to a head in the courtroom
interrogations and summing-up. The cases are finely balanced. Harry
pleads for a landscape gardener fired after more than 40 years service,
citing ageism. "Our society hates old" she says, convincingly. The
defence fires back: "who would you fire? The employee who is financially
secure and owns his home outright, or the younger one for whom losing a
job would be catastrophic?" We wait for the (predominantly grey) jury to
decide as the commercials grind relentlessly on, proving the point,
stridently made by both Harry and the prosecution in the case that the
old are "dead to the networks".

This is a show that does not mince its critiques of contemporary
America. In episode 7, Harry takes on the case of four Tanzanian
albinos, illegally in the US for two years, who fear gruesome
dismemberment if they return to their country where gangs hunt them for
their limbs which have 'magical' properties. Would it spoil the plot to
know that Harry loses the case? Because that's the real surprise. After
Harry's impassioned appeal to the ideal of America as the home for "your
tired, your poor, your huddled masses" the judge nevertheless agrees
with the opposing argument that America can no longer act as the world's
asylum. His sentencing speech depicts a broken America that cannot feed
its own people. No wonder the online poll on the show's website ('You Be
The Judge') has 82% of participants agreeing with the proposition that
this is the worst time in America's history to be an immigrant. And 58%
disagree with the proposition that the American dream is alive and well.

In the same episode, just to take our minds off all these speeches,
Harry and Jenna enter into an office feud because Harry thinks Jenna has
overreacted to the theft of her car (it's a red one). You'd think this
would yield some comedy. But Jenna sulks spectacularly, and their
attempts to make up escalate into a full-blown debate about lookism.
Harry is forced to admit that she has always had to "rise above" the
slights that she has suffered as a result of not conforming to
conventions of glamour.

What is this show doing on NBC, the network that brings you a whole
evening of comedy on Thursdays? Perhaps they aren't that sure
either. *Harry's Law* plays at the comparatively late slot of 10pm
Eastern time on a Monday night, but this means that it hits the Midwest
at 9pm. How will they cope? It's not at all clear whether the network is
fully behind this series as its website is highly parsimonious with
episode catch-ups. So is this another of those edgy shows that actually
works but is a bit too dangerous... or will this prove to be the moment
when the darker, more complex and pessimistic  view of the US finally
breaks out of its HBO compound?


THE DARK SIDE OF KELLEY

David E.Kelley’s new primetime series on NBC,

 Harry’s Law

, has just turned bleak. Fans of

 Ally McBeal

were initially delighted by the idea of a sacked patents lawyer (‘Harriet Korn’/Kathy Bates) setting up a storefront law firm in an abandoned shoe shop.

Postagens de Rogue Scholar

WHOSE WHO?

Letter from America