Two-minute Time Lord

From the April 29, 2021, Guardian (UK): ‘Sexual predator’: actor Noel Clarke accused of groping, harassment and bullying by 20 women

You can enjoy Mickey Smith the character in Doctor Who Series 1-4. But don’t defend Noel Clarke the actor.

In an article for the UK Guardian on April 29, 2021, journalists Sirin Kale and Lucy Osborne painstakingly gathered and reported 20 allegations from women of being abused by actor, producer, and one-time Doctor Who recurring cast member Noel Clarke.

The women stepped forward following the announcement that he would receive an award for Outstanding British Contribution to Cinema that month from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts. In breaking their silence, Kale and Osborne write, the women “allege Clarke is a serial abuser of women, using his power in the industry to prey on and harass female colleagues, and sometimes bully those who fall out of favour.” Following the article’s publication, BAFTA suspended the award and Clarke’s membership.

Any Doctor Who fans who want to venture an opinion about Noel Clarke should read this article first. I’ve linked it on social and it’s in the show notes. The article is damning. You have 20 women, either anonymously for their protection or on the record, sharing their stories of being groped, harassed, and humiliated. A reputable news organization simply does not go there without dotting every I and crossing every T, not when they’d be the likely target of a libel suit.

I once shared a stage with Clarke, interviewing him at Long Island Who. I would never have picked up on him being predatory. But that’s how patriarchy works, hiding in plain sight. Since then, longstanding stories of other Doctor Who actors’ behavior on set have surfaced. Some of them, I didn’t want to believe. I’d read an account of an actress colleague giving one of them a pass for being a lad, or something like that, and maybe I’d tell myself that they all thought that it was in harmless fun, and when that actor returned in a guest role, I’d put the uncomfortable thought away.

Easy for me to do, of course. Women, BIPoC people, queer people, they know better than me. They routinely do the work of distinguishing the art from the artist, and judging what to keep and what to throw away, because they don’t have the privilege of living in a world where the worst thing that happens to them when a popular actor is revealed as a predator is that their enjoyment of a TV show is reduced.

My favorite pop culture properties, Doctor Who, Star Wars, Star Trek, all have an expressly idealistic point of view. They’re humanistic, pro-freedom. They’re about being freaking kind. And in the last couple of years, there have been far too many examples, within these fandoms and even within these franchises, of people who supposedly identify with these ideals failing to walk the walk.

I don’t always live up to those ideals myself, but I’m trying to do it today. You can enjoy Mickey Smith the character in Doctor Who Series 1-4. But don’t defend Noel Clarke the actor. And especially, don’t focus on how his actions affect Doctor Who the franchise, or Doctor Who the fandom. That’s centering your own feelings. There are 20 women—at least—who deserve greater consideration. And we have fandom cultures, and convention spaces, and writers’ rooms, and soundstages, where predatory behavior, patriarchy, racism, and anti-queer bias continue to reign. I’m going to try to put better focus on challenging those wrongs—and less on my own comfort.

Shannon Sudderth, podcasting partner and co-habitationist of your humble host, returned to Doctor Who with Chris Chibnall and Jodie Whittaker. She shares her joy about reconnecting with Doctor Who fandom in ways large, small, and totally accidental.

Find Shannon on Twitter @Starfury10, on The Incomparable Network, and as one third of The Audio Guide to Babylon 5 (with Chip and Erika Ensign).

Den of Geek US's Kayti Burt saw herself in Rose Tyler, and watched as the TARDIS changed Rose just as Kayti's experiences--and her slowly growing distance from her working-class background--changed her.

(You can listen to Kayti and Chip every week, along with Jen Burt and Warren Frey from Radio Free Skaro, on the new THE EXPANSE rewatch podcast, "A Legitimate Salvage" on The Incomparable Network.)

Welcome to our first guest essayist of the new 2MTL! I met Nicole Hill in person for the first time at the 2019 Gallifrey One convention. It was a pleasure to talk with her then, and soon after I followed her on Twitter only soon after to read a couple of epic threads she wrote about one Danny Pink.

Nicole is the voice behind Black TARDIS. She writes about the show from her Black, queer, female perspective. You can follow her @BlackTARDIS on Twitter and visit her at blackinspaceandti.me

Joining The Incomparable podcast network on March 28, Alyssa Franke, I, and some of our friends and (dare we say) Companions will take a look at the week that was--and the week that will be--in the worlds of Doctor Who. New episodes of This Week in Time Travel will drop every Tuesday.

I'm super excited to get to talk about Doctor Who with other people on a regular basis, but I'm not planning to abandon 2MTL entirely. Whenever there's a short essay on This Week in Time Travel, we'll share it right here as well.

Our first episodes will include interviews with good folks like Titan Comics Twelfth Doctor artist Rachael Stott, Doctor Who alum and Chalk author Paul Cornell, and Kim Rogers and Sage Young of the influential Head Over Feels. Join us, won't you? We're at thisweekintimetravel.com or you can find us at The Incomparable. Follow us on Twitter at @drwhothisweek and visit our Facebook page. And subscribe to This Week in Time Travel on your podcatcher of choice!

Yeah, this is worth breaking a hiatus again.

We've had just two years with him, and then a whole Wilderness Year without him (save an appearance on Class), and now we've found out that Series 10 and the following Christmas special will mark the end of Peter Capaldi's too-short run. Alyssa "@WhovianFeminism" Franke and I celebrate his time on the show, speculate on his final series, and prognosticate about what may follow.

2MTL may or may not return with the new season of Doctor Who, but I couldn't say goodbye without tipping my hat to the community of fans and podcasters that gave my life meaning during rough times and encouraged my creativity. What better way to do that, than by rerunning The Ood Cast's classic every-podcaster-and-the-kitchen-sink parody from Series 6, "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life"?

Look for me on The Audio Guide to Babylon 5, occasional panels on The Incomparable Network, and...who knows? Who...nose...?

Alyssa, author of the Whovian Feminism blog (whovianfeminism.tumblr.com), wrote an essay called "A Love Letter to My Problematic Favs." In it, she said:
I try to let myself love my favorite characters as much as I can, even when they can sometimes make me so uncomfortable I can’t bear to watch them onscreen. I try to defend them against criticism I think is unfair (after all, female characters come in for a disproportionate amount of sexist criticism), while at the same time trying to keep my mind open to new critical perspectives.

Maintaining a healthy perspective is tough, and we don’t always strike the right balance. But ultimately, that challenge can be a rewarding experience. In struggling to come to terms with all the ways I love and have been let down by my problematic favs, I think I’ve become a better feminist and fangirl.
Chip invited Alyssa to reflect a month later on what she wrote. As fate would have it, that turned out to be the same time that representation and fan entitlement became a hot topic.

Thanks to the holidays, this huge Time Dilation edition of the podcast was almost literally 404. Thanks so much to Kyle Anderson and Erik Stadnik of Doctor Who: The Writers' Room for joining me for an in-depth (believe me, once they get wound up about "Sleep No More"...) examination of Series 9.

This podcast was recorded before "The Husbands of River Song" aired, about which more next time.

The 400th episode of 2MTL coincides with the swan song of one Clara Oswald (and Chip is blissfully unaware of spoilers or synopses for the next two episodes, so he's going to hold to that position for now). And as modern companion departures go, there's been no equal.

Check out Chip on The Incomparable Network's TeeVee podcast episode 118 for a longer conversation about "Face the Raven" with host Jason Snell.