Category: Doctor Who

Watch this entire presentation: Gender Diversity in the Who-niverse: Paving the Way for a Lady Doctor with Dr. Rosanne Welch [Video] (36:58)

For her 5th Doctor Who lecture to the CPP community, Dr. Rosanne Welch discusses how society – and the show’s writing staff – prepared the audience for a major change in this 50-year franchise – the creation of the first Lady Doctor!

Transcript:

Also, of course, as I said, Captain Jack, the first time we’re going to see — not first time but the first time very obviously Russell Davies wanted young gay men to see themselves on television as normal people. So you’re going to have Captain Jack in male relationships and gay relationships and it was just so incredibly cool to see and he’s so incredibly sexy. This is a lovely episode where we find out that Captain Jack stole his name from a real soldier in World War II and when they go back in time and they visit that guy it turns out to be the night before he’s going to die and our Captain Jack knows it but the real man doesn’t know it and they have a dance before he dies. You’re like “Oh my G–, I’m going to cry” it was so so good. So well done and then later he had an affair with one of the gentlemen who worked at Torchwood named Ianto and there’s a whole thing in England. There’s a whole shrine to Ianto. Very popular character.

Follow Dr. Welch on Twitter and Instagram
https://twitter.com/rosannewelch – http://instagram.com/drrosannewelch

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Rosanne Welch, PhD

Rosanne Welch PhD teaches the History of Screenwriting and One-Hour Drama for the Stephens College MFA in Screenwriting.

Writing/producing credits include Beverly Hills 90210, Picket Fences, ABCNEWS: Nightline and Touched by an Angel. In 2016 she published the book Why The Monkees Matter: Teenagers, Television and American Pop; co-edited Women in American History: A Social, Political, and Cultural Encyclopedia; and placed “Transmitting Culture Transnationally Via the Characterization of Parents in Police Procedurals” in the New Review of Film and Television Studies. Essays appear in Torchwood Declassified: Investigating Mainstream Cult Television and Doctor Who and Race: An Anthology. Welch serves as Book Reviews editor for Journal of Screenwriting and on the Editorial Advisory Board for Written By magazine, the magazine of the Writers Guild.

Watch Dr. Welch’s talk “The Importance of Having a Female Voice in the Room” at the 2016 TEDxCPP.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

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Watch this entire presentation: Gender Diversity in the Who-niverse: Paving the Way for a Lady Doctor with Dr. Rosanne Welch [Video] (36:58)

For her 5th Doctor Who lecture to the CPP community, Dr. Rosanne Welch discusses how society – and the show’s writing staff – prepared the audience for a major change in this 50-year franchise – the creation of the first Lady Doctor!

Transcript:

During Doctor Who, Russell also invented Torchwood which I think is a fascinating show, if you’ve never you should check it out because, again, playing with gender, on this program, Captain Jack is the head of the Torchwood unit. Hsi second in command is a female, Gwen, who was a policewoman. She joins this elite alien group. you know, of police, if you will and her husband is a stay at home kind of guy and he’s going to take care of the baby when they eventually have it. He’s got a construction job. He comes home at night and makes her dinner. She works funny hours. Russell Davies specifically said”I want to swap the gender stereotypes. I want to see how that works in the world and that is a way many marriages are working these days but it was still considered new.

Follow Dr. Welch on Twitter and Instagram
https://twitter.com/rosannewelch – http://instagram.com/drrosannewelch

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Dr. Rosanne Welch

Dr. Rosanne Welch teaches the History of Screenwriting and One-Hour Drama for the Stephens College MFA in Screenwriting.

Writing/producing credits include Beverly Hills 90210, Picket Fences, ABCNEWS: Nightline and Touched by an Angel. In 2016 she published the book Why The Monkees Matter: Teenagers, Television and American Pop; co-edited Women in American History: A Social, Political, and Cultural Encyclopedia; and placed “Transmitting Culture Transnationally Via the Characterization of Parents in Police Procedurals” in the New Review of Film and Television Studies. Essays appear in Torchwood Declassified: Investigating Mainstream Cult Television and Doctor Who and Race: An Anthology. Welch serves as Book Reviews editor for Journal of Screenwriting and on the Editorial Advisory Board for Written By magazine, the magazine of the Writers Guild.

Watch Dr. Welch’s talk “The Importance of Having a Female Voice in the Room” at the 2016 TEDxCPP.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

Watch this entire presentation: Gender Diversity in the Who-niverse: Paving the Way for a Lady Doctor with Dr. Rosanne Welch [Video] (36:58)

For her 5th Doctor Who lecture to the CPP community, Dr. Rosanne Welch discusses how society – and the show’s writing staff – prepared the audience for a major change in this 50-year franchise – the creation of the first Lady Doctor!

Transcript:

…and through Russell, we’re going to gain a new look both female and male characters particularly his first companion he is going to invent is Rose and Rose is very strong. We’re going to talk about how in a minute. We’re going to have Martha Jones who happens to be one of my favorite companions and I’ll explain why, because Iknow there are some people don’t like Martha and how she was treated. I think Martha was actually stronger than people are giving her credit for. Then, Donna Noble who was just a “friend” and there’s a whole discussion about the idea that women didn’t have to be a sexual or a partner companion, they could just be friends as of maybe Y’all actually have friends who are of the opposite sex. Really? That’s possible? I don’t know. Right? So that was a new thing. And of course, Captain Jack Harkness who was the first openly gay, but also omnisexual. He’s had sex with women, men, aliens, you name it he was good for it and that was an interesting thing to be said on a television program. And he’s just so gorgeous, what can you say?

Follow Dr. Welch on Twitter and Instagram
https://twitter.com/rosannewelch – http://instagram.com/drrosannewelch

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Dr. Rosanne Welch

Dr. Rosanne Welch teaches the History of Screenwriting and One-Hour Drama for the Stephens College MFA in Screenwriting.

Writing/producing credits include Beverly Hills 90210, Picket Fences, ABCNEWS: Nightline and Touched by an Angel. In 2016 she published the book Why The Monkees Matter: Teenagers, Television and American Pop; co-edited Women in American History: A Social, Political, and Cultural Encyclopedia; and placed “Transmitting Culture Transnationally Via the Characterization of Parents in Police Procedurals” in the New Review of Film and Television Studies. Essays appear in Torchwood Declassified: Investigating Mainstream Cult Television and Doctor Who and Race: An Anthology. Welch serves as Book Reviews editor for Journal of Screenwriting and on the Editorial Advisory Board for Written By magazine, the magazine of the Writers Guild.

Watch Dr. Welch’s talk “The Importance of Having a Female Voice in the Room” at the 2016 TEDxCPP.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

Watch this entire presentation: Gender Diversity in the Who-niverse: Paving the Way for a Lady Doctor with Dr. Rosanne Welch [Video] (36:58)

For her 5th Doctor Who lecture to the CPP community, Dr. Rosanne Welch discusses how society – and the show’s writing staff – prepared the audience for a major change in this 50-year franchise – the creation of the first Lady Doctor!

Transcript:

The show was canceled in 1989. It had finally run its course at that time. In 2005, this gentleman, Russell Davies, who I was so excited to actually, — this is an article that I wrote about him in a magazine for the Writers Guild, so I got to interview him when he came to the United States and was working on his show Torchwood. He was the most successful producer at the BBC for this show, Queer as Folk. He happens to be a gay man and he was an openly gay man and so he wrote Queer As Folk. Huge success. It also was redone her in the United States, but because of the success of this program, the BBC said to him “What would you like to do next? Invent any show you like.” And he said, “I want to bring Doctor Who back.” Which had never happened to a show. Show’s canceled. It’s done. We’re finished with it, but they were like, “Hmm, whatever you want, Russell, you can do it!” So he revived the show, which is an amazing step.

Follow Dr. Welch on Twitter and Instagram
https://twitter.com/rosannewelch – http://instagram.com/drrosannewelch

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Dr. Rosanne Welch

Dr. Rosanne Welch teaches the History of Screenwriting and One-Hour Drama for the Stephens College MFA in Screenwriting.

Writing/producing credits include Beverly Hills 90210, Picket Fences, ABCNEWS: Nightline and Touched by an Angel. In 2016 she published the book Why The Monkees Matter: Teenagers, Television and American Pop; co-edited Women in American History: A Social, Political, and Cultural Encyclopedia; and placed “Transmitting Culture Transnationally Via the Characterization of Parents in Police Procedurals” in the New Review of Film and Television Studies. Essays appear in Torchwood Declassified: Investigating Mainstream Cult Television and Doctor Who and Race: An Anthology. Welch serves as Book Reviews editor for Journal of Screenwriting and on the Editorial Advisory Board for Written By magazine, the magazine of the Writers Guild.

Watch Dr. Welch’s talk “The Importance of Having a Female Voice in the Room” at the 2016 TEDxCPP.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

Watch this entire presentation: Gender Diversity in the Who-niverse: Paving the Way for a Lady Doctor with Dr. Rosanne Welch [Video] (36:58)

For her 5th Doctor Who lecture to the CPP community, Dr. Rosanne Welch discusses how society – and the show’s writing staff – prepared the audience for a major change in this 50-year franchise – the creation of the first Lady Doctor!

Transcript:

Now if you know anything about the old, and new, MacGyver, very similar to Doctor Who in that MacGyver doesn’t carry a gun. he makes changes in the world with his brains his science knowledge and his ability to think fast in a situation. So in essence, nobody knew it but he was an American Doctor Who if you think about it. That personality of male and I have to cop to the fact that I haven’t watched the new MacGyver. I’ll bet you that it’s lovely but I can’t get past Richard Dean Anderson. That’s my MacGyver, so too bad. But that’s what Terry Nation brought into the story. Many of you, if you’re science fiction fans will know Douglas Adams. Maybe not from Doctor Who but he did, in fact, did write for Doctor Who and was a story editor for one season. So, of course, we know him from The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. He wrote a few episodes of Doctor Who including The Pirate Planet and he worked with this character, Romana, who was a lady Timelord. So naturally, we know that in their alien species there were female characters and she’s intelligent and she matches the Doctor for wit and for charm and all that so we had the early feeling of, there can be women doing this adventuring.

Follow Dr. Welch on Twitter and Instagram
https://twitter.com/rosannewelch – http://instagram.com/drrosannewelch

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Dr. Rosanne Welch

Dr. Rosanne Welch teaches the History of Screenwriting and One-Hour Drama for the Stephens College MFA in Screenwriting.

Writing/producing credits include Beverly Hills 90210, Picket Fences, ABCNEWS: Nightline and Touched by an Angel. In 2016 she published the book Why The Monkees Matter: Teenagers, Television and American Pop; co-edited Women in American History: A Social, Political, and Cultural Encyclopedia; and placed “Transmitting Culture Transnationally Via the Characterization of Parents in Police Procedurals” in the New Review of Film and Television Studies. Essays appear in Torchwood Declassified: Investigating Mainstream Cult Television and Doctor Who and Race: An Anthology. Welch serves as Book Reviews editor for Journal of Screenwriting and on the Editorial Advisory Board for Written By magazine, the magazine of the Writers Guild.

Watch Dr. Welch’s talk “The Importance of Having a Female Voice in the Room” at the 2016 TEDxCPP.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

Watch this entire presentation: Gender Diversity in the Who-niverse: Paving the Way for a Lady Doctor with Dr. Rosanne Welch [Video] (36:58)

For her 5th Doctor Who lecture to the CPP community, Dr. Rosanne Welch discusses how society – and the show’s writing staff – prepared the audience for a major change in this 50-year franchise – the creation of the first Lady Doctor!

Transcript:

Later in the era of Doctor Who we get Terry Nation and Terry Nation is a really cool writer. He invented the Daleks. So without him, we wouldn’t have the world’s coolest villains, right? We wouldn’t be able to “Exterminate” any time we wanted. So I think that’s really cool, but what’s excellently interesting to me about Terry Nation as a writer is that he also invented this character, Sara Kingdom and she’s a secret agent who changes sides to work with the Doctor. She’s a bad girl who uses her badness to help the good guy. So that was a concoction of Terry Nation’s in the early days of the show and then you’re asking yourself “why is this old picture of MacGyver up there?” How did this one thing affect another, exactly? Terry Nation came from England and over to the states to work in America in television and he helped create MacGyver.

Follow Dr. Welch on Twitter and Instagram
https://twitter.com/rosannewelch – http://instagram.com/drrosannewelch

---

Dr. Rosanne Welch

Dr. Rosanne Welch teaches the History of Screenwriting and One-Hour Drama for the Stephens College MFA in Screenwriting.

Writing/producing credits include Beverly Hills 90210, Picket Fences, ABCNEWS: Nightline and Touched by an Angel. In 2016 she published the book Why The Monkees Matter: Teenagers, Television and American Pop; co-edited Women in American History: A Social, Political, and Cultural Encyclopedia; and placed “Transmitting Culture Transnationally Via the Characterization of Parents in Police Procedurals” in the New Review of Film and Television Studies. Essays appear in Torchwood Declassified: Investigating Mainstream Cult Television and Doctor Who and Race: An Anthology. Welch serves as Book Reviews editor for Journal of Screenwriting and on the Editorial Advisory Board for Written By magazine, the magazine of the Writers Guild.

Watch Dr. Welch’s talk “The Importance of Having a Female Voice in the Room” at the 2016 TEDxCPP.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

Watch this entire presentation: Gender Diversity in the Who-niverse: Paving the Way for a Lady Doctor with Dr. Rosanne Welch [Video] (36:58)

For her 5th Doctor Who lecture to the CPP community, Dr. Rosanne Welch discusses how society – and the show’s writing staff – prepared the audience for a major change in this 50-year franchise – the creation of the first Lady Doctor!

Transcript:

So this was their invention, and I think it’s important to recognize that from the very beginning barbara is not a housewife

She’s not passive. She’s not boring

She’s a teacher who is very excited about these adventures she chooses to go on them

And she learns along the way she often lectures the doctor the older man

About how he should be behaving in the other worlds that they visit so we started with a strong woman. Let’s just remember that

Follow Dr. Welch on Twitter and Instagram
https://twitter.com/rosannewelch – http://instagram.com/drrosannewelch

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Dr. Rosanne Welch

Dr. Rosanne Welch teaches the History of Screenwriting and One-Hour Drama for the Stephens College MFA in Screenwriting.

Writing/producing credits include Beverly Hills 90210, Picket Fences, ABCNEWS: Nightline and Touched by an Angel. In 2016 she published the book Why The Monkees Matter: Teenagers, Television and American Pop; co-edited Women in American History: A Social, Political, and Cultural Encyclopedia; and placed “Transmitting Culture Transnationally Via the Characterization of Parents in Police Procedurals” in the New Review of Film and Television Studies. Essays appear in Torchwood Declassified: Investigating Mainstream Cult Television and Doctor Who and Race: An Anthology. Welch serves as Book Reviews editor for Journal of Screenwriting and on the Editorial Advisory Board for Written By magazine, the magazine of the Writers Guild.

Watch Dr. Welch’s talk “The Importance of Having a Female Voice in the Room” at the 2016 TEDxCPP.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS