Ma'am, Yes, Ma'am: Women and Institutionalized Authority on TV

8:01 AM Amanda Prahl 0 Comments

There is really no argument that modern television screens are full to the brim with strong female characters. From the fiery antiheroines of Homeland, Revenge, The Sopranos, and Game of Thrones to the funny professional ladies on 30 Rock and Parks & Recreation, to the steely-tough heroines found throughout sci-fi from Buffy Summers up through Alias, Fringe, and the modern companions of Doctor Who, there’s no shortage of strong females, no matter what your tastes are. But no matter how amazingly fierce and capable they are, there’s still one thing missing from nearly every one of them: institutionalized authority. Why is it that nearly every female character must answer to an authority personified by men? This isn’t meant as a slam on capable, clever, worthy male authority figures. I have always been a pretty low-key, middle-of-the-road feminist who has no problem with men. The problem I see is when these things become a pattern.

Let’s break this down by a few genres: drama/procedural, comedy, and sci-fi.

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The Fan's Guide to the Elements of Writing: Chekov's (or John Watson's) Gun

8:10 AM Amanda Prahl 0 Comments

As I've gone through writing courses, I've learned a great deal about seemingly simple devices that recur in many works and that can prove very useful, whether you're analyzing a story or writing one of your own. This is the first in what will be a recurring series on The Storyologist: The Fan's Guide to the Elements of Writing. We're going to look at these devices and their uses through the lenses of films, TV shows, books, and theater that many of you are probably familiar with.

We're going to start with a very well-known device used in foreshadowing: Chekov's Gun. Or, as I'm going to look at it here, John Watson's Gun.

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"New New Doctor": Companions, Character Development, and Why I'm Dreading the Regenerated Doctor

2:50 PM Amanda Prahl 0 Comments

In my time as a Doctor Who fan, I’ve come across my fair share of anti-Moffat critiques. He’s usually given credit for writing some excellent episodes, but his era as showrunner has generally been criticized for, among other things, a lack of character development, a not inconsiderable degree of sexism, and a set of companions whose lives revolve entirely around the Doctor.  I agree with some of these critiques, disagree with others. But I’ve thought about this long and hard, both as an aspiring/studying writer and as a fan, and I’d like to talk about what I perceive to be the main problem with Moffat-era Who: the ignorance of character development/continuity, particularly in how the Doctor learns and changes (or doesn’t) because of his beloved companions.
Image (c) Doctor Who/BBC

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