How Doctor Who became Doctor Woke
Ever since it returned in 2005, Doctor Who has been the perfect vessel for writers and creatives to promote the political and social causes they believe in under the guise of space-fantasy adventures. In recent years the show has become more strident, with each showrunner seemingly determined to outdo his predecessor on the ‘progressive’ politics front. Steven Moffat notably ramped things up during the Peter Capaldi years; his dismal successor Chris Chibnall turbo-charged the messaging in the Jodie Whitaker era; and the returning Russell T Davies will soon be spicing up things further under Ncuti Gatwa. Over the last decade, as identity politics became the type of politics most fed to the masses, the programme found itself perfectly placed to disseminate ideas that formed in academia from the mid-twentieth-century onwards to a wider population. ‘Identity’ rules nowadays, and in Doctor Who the lead character is someone who can change their identity. When this concept was conce...