Doctor Who is now a classic staple of British TV with a strong 58 years under its belt - but even with so many seasons can we really boil its classification down to just one type of genre?
Science Fiction is clearly up for recommendation as (spoilers) its main character is an alien ('timelord') from another planet ('Gallifrey'). If this alone is not enough to tick your sci-fi boxes, I should also mention that the show deals with a vast amount of key thematic concerns which are practically core to this genre such as: time-travel (and some potential scientific laws surrounding the matter such as 'fixed points'), space travel/exploration, interplanetry warfare, parrelell universes, many extraterrestrial lifeforms, and to top it off with a smaller-on-the-outside, police box style spaceship.
As briefly stated previously, the show at some point (amongst all the adventures, running and loss of favourite characters) tries to find the time to explore and establish some sort of potential explanation of how these scientific pursuits can exists - like time travel for example. However, in the end, it requires the viewers to have a willing suspension of disbelief and eventually accept the fact that this is (for now) only possible within the show, which is particularly nothing to dissimilar to the fantasy genre. So whilst the show does certainly has science fiction as a core genre it does not mean to say that they do not strictly stick to this, nor constrict itself exclusively to it.
This mention of the shows inclusion of the fantasy genre allows us to discuss the concept of genre hybridity and therefore allows us to apply Gerbner's Cultivation as he states that: whilst 'genres may be dominated by repetition they are also marked by difference, variation and change.' There are also certainly aspects of the adventure genre.
Another major step which the franchise took was to have their central main role (The Doctor) be played by the actress Jodie Whittaker for te first time ever in the show's (wibbily wobbly) timeline...to much controversy. Sadly, it is only lately that we can really start to see some form of change towards women in the sci-fi genre as, more often then not, woman in the genre are not just often underrepresented, but are significantly less likely to be the main character. Woman are often reduced to acting as mere passive and caring roles and are unusually likely to be played as 'experts' in their careers than the male characters. Hopefully this mark of change within the Science Fiction genre can be seen as a chance of subverting stereotypical aspects that already exist within the genre and can therefore contribute to a future were women can be equal to men - both on and off screen.
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