gin and malicious intent.

I’ve started watching Doctor Who somewhat recently, and overall I am enjoying it. I have, however, noticed one giant problem with it that doesn’t seem to be talked about too often: the portrayal of women on the show, or more specifically, the Doctor’s relationship to women.

I’m going to skip ahead to season 2 in this rant, because there was a particular 2 episode run that I found disturbing:

S02E03: School Reunion

This was the episode where the Doctor runs into one of his previous companion, Sarah Jane, while out on his adventures with Rose. Previously, Rose’s obviously romantic feelings for the Doctor had been established, and appeared to be reciprocal, but one Sarah Jane shows up the Doctor just drops Rose like she’s hot. It’s later revealed that the Doctor dropped her back in her time, said he’d come back, and never returned to her.

My real problem with the episode came at the end, when the Doctor invited Mary Jane to continue with him and Rose. What bothers me most about this is that Mickey was right there, and had just saved all their asses, but he isn’t given a second thought. I know this is an unpopular opinion, but I kind of like Mickey. I think he’s smart and capable, but it almost seems as though the Doctor doesn’t want him around because he is a threat to the undivided attention that Rose gives to him.

S02E04: The Girl In The Fireplace

I’m going to preface this by saying this episode was really good, and might actually be my favorite of the ones I’ve seen so far. It starts with the Doctor finding a hole in his ship to the life of a little French girl, who he saves from some truly terrifying looking clown-robot guys. He returns moments later (from our/his perspective), but finds the little girl to be a grown woman. Her reaction to his return is basically to say “Hi, man who crawled out of my fireplace when I was five, let me love you.”

If that wasn’t enough, he plays into it. The Doctor leaves Rose, who he supposedly has some kind of special relationship with, to go party (and invent the banana daquari) with the French, eventually leaving the French woman behind, offering this grand romantic gesture of bringing he to see a star up close. She dies before he is able to do so.

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Overall, I am really enjoying Doctor Who, the issues it addresses as a program, and the way it plays with history, the future, and sci fi. I just find it somewhat disturbing how many [young, strong, independent] women who would commonly refer to themselves as feminists have highly recommended this show to me, and how little discourse I’ve seen about the treatment of women in the program.