Dancing with the Doctor

Widespread conversations and criticisms continue about the ways in which Doctor Who represents gender. Dancing with the Doctor, the first book on the Doctor Who universe to take gender as its focus, examines both the successful revival of the series since 2005 and its spin-off series, Torchwood and The Sarah Jane Adventures. Lorna Jowett delves into the distinctive stories and characters, including the Doctors themselves, their female and male companions, Captain Jack Harkness, Missy, Sarah Jane and her young comrades. She considers the showrunners, directors, producers and writers and the problems this flagship science fiction series has had in offering alternative gender models. Constructions of masculinity, the author function, and how gender intersects with the other facets of identity, race, ethnicity and age, are just some of the areas explored in this accessible and wide-ranging re-view of these hotly debated elements of the successful BBC franchise.