screenshot: what’s wrong in the whoniverse?

November is many things to many people: an opportunity to sport a fetching mo for Movember, the start of a luxuriously extensive three months vacation, or the chance to ease into your no-department store summer cleanse (Myer plays Mariah Carey’s Merry Christmas album on repeat so this one is a cinch.)

But for Whovian fans around the country there’s another reason to love November – Doctor’s Who’s 50th Anniversary special, The Day of the Doctor, screening in Hoyts, Village and a host of independent cinemas on November 24, or on ABC1.

Who, me? Counting down the days? Never.

And I’m not the only one. The series boasts millions of fans across six continents who religiously tune in to watch the iconic Time Lord’s latest zany adventures. It was an established fixture in my adolescence, like Battlestar Galactica and Lost. But where I said goodbye to the Twelve Colonies of Kobol and the survivors of Oceanic Airlines Fight 815, Doctor Who still draws me in. I’ll happily spend an afternoon bingeing on seasons past – nobody will ever replace Donna Noble.

But Doctor Who has its flaws – and not just the generation of Daleks that looked as though they were the product of a dodgy afternoon home job from someone on the set. That I’m a fan doesn’t negate the show of the criticism it undoubtedly deserves, Doctor Who has a long way to go before anyone can call it feminist-friendly and no, it doesn’t start with Steven Moffat.

In 2002 British comedian and musician Mitch Benn recorded ‘Doctor Who Girl’, a tongue-in-cheek parody paying homage to the misogyny of the Old Who, which ran from 1963 to 1989.

Give me someone to rescue,
Get changed and give us all a twirl,
Keep quiet and never argue,
Be my Doctor Who girl.
Be my Doctor Who girl,
Follow me a lot,
Ask me heaps of questions,
So I can explain the plot.

Say you’ll stand beside me,
Say you’ll help me save the world,
Fall and twist your ankle,
Be my Doctor Who girl.

But when it’s Billie Piper’s character, Rose Tyler, who comes to mind here, can we really say the new series has improved?

In June this year it was announced Peter Capaldi would follow in Matt Smith’s footsteps as the Twelfth Doctor – the Twelfth very white, very male Doctor. In the 50-year history of the show there has been no female doctor, or doctor of colour, never mind that the Doctor’s species are immortal Time Lords who can change their appearance to either gender after regeneration.

Which leads us to Moffat. Yes, that old chestnut.

The iconic show’s head writer, Steven Moffat, is at best a flawed genius and at worst a misogynist with a terrible track record for sexism. This year, when the time came to offer up fresh blood to the Whoniverse powers that be, Moffat kept to the status quo and chose Peter Capaldi. In an interview with Buzzfeed his excuse was that viewers didn’t want a female Doctor.

‘It didn’t feel right to me, right now. I didn’t feel enough people wanted it. Oddly enough most people who said they were dead against it – and I know I’ll get into trouble for saying this – were women … saying, “No, no, don’t make him a woman!”’

Then he switched foot and called out Helen Mirren.

‘I like that Helen Mirren has been saying the next doctor should be a woman. I would like to go on record and say that the queen should be played by a man.’

I can’t even. What?

Moffat’s been criticised for the limited scope of his female characters throughout his screenwriting career. But this isn’t a witch-hunt. By all means let him speak for himself – this behaviour is everything we’ve come to expect from Doctor Who’s head writer. But the Doctor’s army of companions are different, aren’t they? They’re strong and feisty and they can handle a gun. But guns and high heels don’t necessarily equate to gender equality. Because from 2005 the Doctor’s primary companions have been white women, with the exception of Martha Jones. Jack, Rory and Mickey are reduced to playing either the comic relief or the moral foil; they operate below sidekick status.

But back to the Doctor Who companions – Rose, Martha, River Song, Amy – they’re strong, independent women who lose their agency at the hands of the 10th and 11th regenerations.

When the Doctor threw her into a universe without him, Rose Tyler jumped through time and space to warn him that reality was collapsing. The Doctor placated her with a clone of himself and shoved her back in the universe where she first escaped. David Tennant’s Doctor made that decision for Rose by manipulating and undermining her autonomy – patriarchy in its most basic form.

Martha Jones’ crush on the Doctor came to epitomise her entire being and undermined the strength of her character. That Martha wasn’t shaken at having landed on the moon and spends a year wandering a post-apocalyptic Earth marketing the Doctor as a prophet, only to save the planet herself, isn’t noted. She doesn’t go home because the Doctor won’t reciprocate her feelings – Martha leaves to retain her agency and sense of self – she’s got things to go back to. A life outside the TARDIS.

Although she’s seen as the closest thing to the Doctor’s equal, after saving the universe, Donna Noble’s memories and her powers are taken away by the Doctor when her new-found abilities become too much. The 10th forcibly robs Donna of her agency and her memories of their time together – setting her back to the woman we first met in that Christmas special. Did Donna want that? No. But that’s beside the point – the Doctor always knows best.

Amy Pond? Between her body being used by a cult to farm a child with sort-of Time Lord genetics that can be used to kill her friend, spending her entire childhood and adolescence waiting for the Doctor, having her daughter stolen from her and forgetting, then remembering, her fiancé, Amy Pond is drained of her character. She’s the Mystical Pregnancy Trope in the flesh.

But River Song tops the list of women who have been shafted by the Doctor. Although she threatens his intellect and flies the TARDIS, River’s life operates with the Doctor at its centre. She was born to kill, meet and serve time for a crime she was forced to commit, all in the name of servitude.

It’s not that Doctor Who doesn’t give us good female characters – it does – but too often they’re let down by plot devices that undermine their autonomy.

Too often they aren’t given a choice and with a track record like this, what hope does the newest companion Clara have?