The Colonial Question

Colonial bias is particularly evident in Doctor Who through the treatment of Tegan Jovanka, though the phenomenon is not isolated to the character. There are a number of characters who illustrate this similarly such as Perri Brown and Jamie McCrimmon.

Tegan is a particularly good example of colonial bias and othering. As an Australian with a pronounced Brisbane accent, her otherness is evident as soon as she opens her mouth. It is also evident in the dynamics between Tegan and the other regular characters during her run. Several stories also illustrate this in a wider context, particularly the 1982 serials Kinda and Four to Doomsday.

Tegan Jovanka is clever, curious and compassionate. She has many random and practical skills that present themselves occasionally. She is, for example, an excellent equestrian, having been raised on cattle and sheep stations. And, as of recently, she is queer (Davies, 2020). We meet Tegan on her first day as an air stewardess for ‘Air Australia’ when her aunt Vanessa is killed by The Master (Grimwade, 1981). Sometime after her return to Earth she becomes CEO of her father’s feed company (Russell, 2006). During her travels she also spends six months or so as a medieval warrior queen (Bentley. 2013). She loves aeroplanes (Jones, 1982b). She’s a firebrand, a force of nature. She is, in many ways, The Doctor’s equal. Time and time again, she stands toe to toe with The Doctor (or the alien of the week) and wins. She argues. She gives no quarter. She refuses to stand for injustice and works tirelessly for Aboriginal rights upon her return to Earth (Way, 2010). Tegan goes through multiple traumas during her time in The TARDIS. From the death of her aunt in Logopolis, her first serial when she inadvertently wonders into The TARDIS and ends up traveling through time and space for three seasons (Grimwade, 1981). During this time, she is taken over by an ancient evil (Grimwade, 1982) and witnesses several massacres. Her actions as Ælfwynn of Mercia, medieval warrior queen, are unclear but we leave her at the death of Æthelflæd of Mercia, the real Ælfwynn’s mother. Tegan had taken Ælfwynn’s place after some accidental time travel and upon Æthelflæd’s death, at the hands of her brother, Edward of Wessex, Tegan had gone after him for vengeance. Sometime after this she becomes queen of Mercia in Ælfwynn’s stead until she’s deposed by Edward and picked up by The TARDIS sometime later at a nunnery (Bentley. 2013). Despite all this she and her contributions, skills and abilities are often dismissed as trivial. She and her actions and perceptions are often described as ‘silly’ even though they are often correct. She is often depicted as being ‘silly’.

Tegan, during her time in the TARDIS is constantly the other. She travels with four other individuals. The Doctor, a renegade alien from a race of morally superior bureaucrats. Adric, Nyssa and Vislor Turlough, all teenage geniuses from technologically advanced, space fairing, civilisations. And briefly Kamelion, a shape shifting android of dubious loyalties. I name the latter for the sake of completeness but will not be discussing him further.

The Doctor, Adric, Nyssa and Turlough are all aliens, Tegan is the ‘stupid human’. Her companions all speak in regional British accents while Tegan speaks in a pronounced Brisbane accent. This does not only make her the ‘stupid human’ but the ‘stupid Australian, and by extension the ‘stupid colonial’. This is especially evident in audio only formats, such as audio dramas.

These biases are evident in her dynamics with her companions.

Nyssa of Traken

Of all Tegan’s compatriots Nyssa is the least outwardly disparaging towards Tegan. Nyssa is Tegan’s dearest friend, and even she is surprised when Tegan has unexpected skills or knowledge. She is also wrong footed in circumstances where Tegan is more familiar with the situation or environment than she or the others. This is most evident in Black Orchid (Jones, 1982a) which is bookended at the cricket, an activity that Nyssa and Adric struggle to understand. A situation that makes them both uncomfortable.

Nyssa is always kind towards Tegan, she takes the time to explain things to her on various occasions. Her own innate curiosity plays a significant part in this. This differentiates her from the others somewhat. She is, for example, surprised and delighted when she learns Tegan knows how to dance the Charleston (which she possibly invents by mistake) during Black Orchid (Jones, 1982a).

Nyssa is young, several years younger than Tegan, and this is reflected in their dynamic. She looks up to Tegan. She is the last survivor of her people (Black, 1981), and clings to Tegan as a result. To a point where they even, in a dimensionally transcendental time ship with infinite space, share a bedroom (Moffatt, 1982). Their relationship is later revealed to be romantic but it is unclear when this development occurred, although in later episodes there is only one bed in the room (Davies. 2020).

The Fifth Doctor (Peter Davison)

Although Tegan does spend one serial with Tom Baker’s Fourth Doctor (Grimwade, 1981), she travels mainly with Peter Davison’s Fifth Doctor. He is much shorter with Tegan than Nyssa although he does mostly take the time to explain things. They bond over cricket in Black Orchid (Jones, 1982a) and have a generally antagonistic friendship. It is repeatedly evident that they genuinely care for one another.

The Doctor is more patient with his other laymen companions, both before and after. Patrick Troughton’s Second Doctor, for example, consistently takes pleasure in explaining things to his Jacobite companion, Jamie.

The Doctor’s relationship with Tegan is one of antagonistic affection. They are often traveling with much younger people. Tegan is a university graduate by the time she joins The Doctor (Bentley, 2013) whereas the rest of the Fifth Doctor’s companions are significantly younger. Tegan, The Doctor, Nyssa and Adric have an almost mother, father, daughter, son dynamic at times, while at others The Doctor’s dynamic with Tegan is more paternal or even fraternal. Their relationship and the way they respond to one another are complex and, often context specific. The Doctor values her for her self-sufficiency. He knows, weather she’s accidentally ended up in the Medieval period (Bentley, 2013) or in some other wild predicament, she can handle herself.

Adric

Adric is a mathematical genius from another universe. Due to the complex social structures of his society he is revered and favoured for this (Grimwade, 1980). This makes him arrogant and entitled, especially towards Tegan, who he views as intellectually inferior to him. He often uses jargon and technobabble to intentionally confuse Tegan (Black, 1982). He is distinctly mean spirited towards Tegan at times. She is often irritated and frustrated by this, but it does not negate the, often sibling like, affection they share. Much like that she shares with the Doctor it’s an antagonistic affection.

Despite Adric being only a teenager, he considers himself superior to her because of his mathematical prowess. This gave him elevated status in his home culture, and he translated this into intellectual superiority between the inhabitants of The TARDIS when he joins them.

He implies, directly and indirectly, that Tegan has an inferior mind on a number of occasions (Grimwade, 1982). It is a classic little brother move. He, like Turlough, has little or no respect for Tegan or her skills and abilities. He views her as inferior, aulthough he does care for her.

Vislor Turlough

We first meet Turlough involuntarily masquerading as a British schoolboy in the early eighties (Moffatt, 1983). He is in exile from his own world and people and he hates this planet. It is a recurring theme with the character. As the resident human, much of this distaste, is directed at Tegan. It is Turlough who displays shock and almost disgust when Tegan reveals she went to university (Bentley, 2013). He is often dismissive of her. It is with Turlough that Tegan has the most antagonistic relationship with, to a point where thy actually need space from one another at various points. Turlough is older than Adric and the outward bias and, in some ways, hostility he displays towards Tegan is less acceptable because of this. He, having been on earth for some time, is also familiar with the societal norms. On multiple occasions Turlough looks at Tegan as though she is something unpleasant on the sole of his shoe. He does warm up to her eventually but his attitude towards her never really goes away completely. Much like Adric, he does like and care for her but never quite comes to view her as an equal despite all they go through together.

Four To Doomsday

One of the most overt examples of colonial bias is the 1982 serial, Four to Doomsday (Black, 1982). The ‘four’ in the title refers to four individuals, taken from four different cultures, thousands of years apart. One is Mayan, another is from imperial China, another from Ancient Greece, and the last an Australian Aboriginal. It is a long established canonical fact that The TARDIS is capable of telepathically translating any language, and it does, for everyone except the latter. Who only speaks in his native language (according to the DVD commentary on the serial they used Tiwi but originally planned to use gibberish). Furthermore, it is Tegan, and not The Doctor who supposedly speaks every language, who recognises and speaks said language with him. The Doctor does not speak or understand the language. The language, because it is not a literate one, because it does not come from a culture which conforms to a Euro-centric ideal, is not deemed worthy.

With colonial bias at the forefront of the serial it is easy to see in the dynamics between Tegan, Nyssa, Adric and The Doctor. Adric asks Tegan to pass the ‘sodium chloride’ at one point (Black, 1982). He does this solely to show off. There is no reason for him to do this apart from to demonstrate that he knows something that she doesn’t. He is a little brother being a little shit. Both he and The Doctor later repeatedly tell her she is being ‘silly’, even though she turns out to be correct. This is a theme that is repeated often throughout Tegan’s run. Even Nyssa remarks, when they land on a spaceship near Earth (as opposed to at Heathrow Airport in 1981 which they were aiming for, that she thought Earth was supposed to be ‘primitive’ which The Doctor confirms. Throughout Tegan’s run on the show language like this is repeatedly used in reference to earth and indeed towards Tegan herself: Savage, primitive. The consistent dismissive nature the others show towards Tegan. These points are indicative of distinct colonial bias.

Kinda

Every aspect of Kinda is thinly veiled allegory for Australian colonialism (Grimwade, 1982). A group of intrepid adventurers have been left on the planet Deva Loca to assess it’s suitability for colonisation. The native population, known as The Kinda, are non-hostile, non-verbal telepaths who dress simply, are usually barefoot, and have no roadways, agriculture or other indicators of traditional ‘civilisation’. They are repeatedly referred to as ‘savages’, ‘primitives’ and ‘ignorant savages’ by the would be colonisers who look every part the British colonial soldier.

The aforementioned non-verbal assessment is proved partially incorrect by an old woman and a teenage girl who both have the gift of voice (which is a cultural mark of wisdom). These two dress completely differently from their fellow Kinda. They are the wise women.

The invaders have two Kinda captive for research purposes, which has (go figure) irked their people.

Were Tegan present for any of this she would probably shout about it, recognising the obvious patterns The Doctor seems to have missed (right down to their obvious understanding of genetics, illustrated by the double helix necklaces the Kinda all wear). Unfortunately, she spends much of this story fighting, then being possessed by, then accidentally releasing an ancient evil known as The Mara while dreaming in a culturally important place. The mark of The Mara is a tattoo of a snake, which is also its natural form, on the arm of the one possessed.

Language also plays a part in this serial, not only in that used by the invaders, as previously mentioned. The concept of voice is clearly important in Kinda culture. The ability to speak is rare. Men cannot speak and only select few women can. The Kinda refer to themselves as ‘the we’ and to the outsiders as ‘the not we’. Those gifted with voice are seen as wise women. They dress differently and live apart from those without the ability to speak (Grimwade, 1982).

The outright dismissal of The Kinda as mute savages is reflective of the widespread Euro-centric colonial practices employed by the English during their colonial period.

The most glaringly evident examples of othering during Tegan’s run on the show is her accent. Every time she opens her mouth (which is a lot) it is glaringly evident that she is not like the others. Her accent is an overt indicator that she is not the same as the people around her. This is particularly true in audio only media where you can’t see the decorative vegetable adorning The Doctor’s cricket whites. Where you can’t see Nyssa’s maroon velvet ensemble. Where you can’t see Adric’s pyjamas, adorned with a gold star for mathematical excellence. Or Turlough’s school uniform. The strange, alien thing in the scene is Tegan’s Brisbane accent.

When Turlough is shocked and appalled that Tegan is a university graduate, it sounds like a posh British schoolboy shocked and appalled that the filthy colonial went to university (Bentley, 2013). When they dismiss Tegan’s concerns, knowledge and abilities out of hand, it’s British people dismissing the (usually correct) Australian. When she’s ‘the stupid human’ she is that and ‘the stupid Australian’, again, one that’s usually right.

References:

Bentley, K. 2013 The Lady of Mercia Doctor Who: Monthly Range. London.

Black, J. 1981 The Keeper of Traken Doctor Who. London.

Black, J. 1982 Four to Doomsday Doctor Who. London.

Davies, R.T. 2020 Farewell Sarah Jane Doctor Who: Lockdown. Various.

Grimwade, P. 1980 Full Circle Doctor Who. London.

Grimwade, P. 1981 Logopolis Doctor Who. London.

Grimwade, P. 1982 Kinda Doctor Who. London.

Jones, R. 1982 (a) Black Orchid Doctor Who. London.

Jones, R. 1982 (b) Time Flight Doctor Who. London.

Moffatt, P. 1982 The Visitation Doctor Who. London.

Moffatt, P. 1983 Mawdryn Undead Doctor Who. London.

Russell, G. 2006 The Gathering Doctor Who: Main Range. London.

Way, A. 2010 Death of the Doctor The Sarah Jane Adventures. Cardiff.