Paper Abstract, Thesis and General Outline

ABSTRACT: “Never let him see you age. He doesn't like endings” is a warning just as fitting for Amy Pond as it is for Wendy Darling. Examining seasons five through seven (2010-2012) on Doctor Who reveals many adapted myths, legends and fairy tales threaded into the Neverland of Amy and the Doctor. Amy as Wendy then transforms from child to mother, both literally and figuratively, in season six, and the Doctor seeks refuge in immaturity. Amy’s dual legacy as friend and “mother” is further developed through her daughter. A thrice-changeling, River Song begins as a Tinker Bell archetype, but develops into Wendy’s daughter Jane.
The tone drastically shifts from childlike innocence to mature subject matter; the relationship between Amy and the Doctor develops from unrequited love to a deep mutual understanding, and finally the Doctor becomes dependent on their relationship, which Amy has outgrown.
The Amy/Doctor relationship coincided with the rising popularity of Doctor Who outside of the UK. We will argue that this relationship appealed to American audiences due in part to the rise of extended adolescence. The Eleventh Doctor’s connection to the Jungian puer aeternus and “Peter Pan syndrome” provides a cathartic experience through Amy’s escapist adventures.

THESIS: The Smith/Moffat/Gillan era of Doctor Who is a modern adaptation of the Peter Pan myth in many ways. These adaptive elements are the reason that the show’s popularity has spread outside of the UK and finally reached a similarly massive level of popularity in other countries as well--particularly the United States, because of the growing phenomenon of “extended adolescence” among the show’s targeted audience.

OUTLINE

• Moffat’s Usage of Fairytales, Myth and Archetypes and Literary Metaphor.
• A)  Moffat's Pre-Series 5 work e.g. The Girl In The Fireplace
• B)  Elements Moffat uses in series 5-7 e.g. Sleeping Beauty, The World Turtle, Minotaur, Pandora’s Box. 5 takes prominence.
• C)  Amy as embodiment of literary metaphor, her own author of her existence; twice, both in The Big Bang via the crack (not intentional) and intentional at the end, telling the Doctor to dictate what stories young amy will eventually (most likely) act out as make believe as she grows up.
• She is a literary circle like the very myths and stories she loved.
• ["we're all stories in the end", dual audienceship of childrens' stories--that's really driven home by Amy telling her own story in a way she's a child in control of how the adult tells the story, which is huge for a children's story/show she eliminates any parental control over her life]
• D or E) The ultimate adaptation of “Peter Pan” (very generalized, how we first came to realize this, how it has developed--season 7.1 conclusion was a real clincher for the theory.)
• E or D)  Puer Aeternus 
• [God Pan, Hermes--Barrie ALSO used these characters to develop Peter, so this will only be introduced here then delved more into later in section 2.]

Fantasy that's Sci-fi, Sci-fi that's Fantasy

A clip of the Darling children learning to fly and going off to Neverland from the 1924 silent adaptation of Peter Pan with Betty Bronson as Peter and Mary Brian as Wendy. It continued the pantomime tradition of Peter being played by a woman. For it's age, it plays the source material rather straight and uses a great deal of the original play script  here and in effect resembles a stage production itself, so unlike many silents of the era this is still quite "modern" in its delivery. At least this scene. Being made in 1924, only 20 years after first performance of Peter, the synergy of stage and the new(ish) rising potential of film and film effects just oozes from this clip through the use of the  special effects. Yes, now crude by our standards, but check out that Tinkerbell at 4:08! That's pretty darn cool. Legend of Zelda anyone?

Peter Pan as a production has, since it's start, taken full advantage of and in fact cannot have existed without the innovations of electricity and the progress of technology around the turn of the 19th century and the dawn of the 20th. Jen has an excellent book, Peter Pan in the Popular Imagination that has an article all about Tinkerbell and that relationship between Peter Pan and technology as a production. She'll probably discuss that at another time.

Which I find curious is that while Peter Pan, set in the designated genre of fantasy is so inexplicably related to technology and progress (the assumed realm of sci-fi) we now have in contrast Steven Moffat almost doing the opposite, almost  inverting that, with Eleven he has been taking a purely sci-fi show, born exclusively out of science (and to educate children) and is bending it into the realm of  fairy tales and mythological, pagan-like motifs, essentially giving sci-fi a fantasy skin. For instance in the new Christmas special, the Tardis now apparently sits on a cloud, accessible by a ladder as told by the governess Clara (the new companion) to her children in their nursery. This is the simple stuff of fairytale of old; hatches to underground palaces found by pulling a parsnip or cabbage and the like from the field. It also echoes the stories of Peter as an urban legend in the neighborhood,  of which Mrs. Darling is familiar: the boy frequenting Kensington Gardens.

It is curious to see that the upcoming Christmas Special, now that we mention it, is being set in late Victorian London: the same era of Barrie and Peter's rise into the public consciousness.  Clara, a dreamy governess, young children, a nursery.  Peter Pan is a common Christmastime pantomime in Britain hence somewhat associative to the holiday. It all seems rather intentional. Why is The Doctor hiding there? Yes Moffat has been echoing past literature greats the last two Christmas specials, with last year's an explicit nod to The Lion the Witch And The Wardrobe, but to my knowledge there are no specific literary allusions this year...or is there?

The focus on children and innocence, ruminations of youth and of growing up, children's literature and the like was never stronger than in that period of time. and one could say setting the holiday special during the Victorian Era England is usually a no brainer. They just go together. Why? Well probably the institution that is A Christmas Carol, and due to Christmas itself  was a holiday turned fashionable and transformed into the juggernaut of a holiday (as we know it today) in part thanks to Victorian society re-adopting, appropriating and popularizing certain traditions full force. Christmas has always had that Victorian touch to it ever since. Is placing the lonely Doctor, in mourning for the Ponds, in this era of pure fairy tale and pagan-rooted indulgence particularly symbolic that way?

Stuff for Monday ruminations! 

Talk again real soon,

Max 

Overview: Season Seven

Rounding things out, here is Season Seven's notes!

In case you missed it yesterday, I explained these posts thusly: I decided to jot down a few notes on each episode based on my memory alone. For the most part these thoughts/notes are mine and based on nothing but my memory and knowledge of specific episodes of Doctor Who, but Max occasionally chimes in and usually signs his notes.
This is the final of three posts. Season Six went up yesterday, Season Five the day before, and here is seven, also known as 7.1!
General notes:

• HUMANITY is a major theme. As the Doctor gets more God-like, he draws a thicker line between himself and the human race. Episodes that feature this theme are starred. *
• Any two-part episodes are considered as one unit. Their story line is split up, but their themes continue to develop and character arcs stretch from the beginning of one to the end of another
• We consider CHARACTERS over "Real-world" circumstances (for instance, rather than considering the fact that Tennant stepped in because Eccleston had to leave, we would look at Nine's departure in the storyline, and Ten's arrival.)
• Memory/forgetting is another important theme, in both Doctor Who and Peter Pan.

Overview: Season Six

And we're off! Same deal as yesterday, different season.

In case you missed it yesterday, I explained these posts thusly: I decided to jot down a few notes on each episode based on my memory alone. Max pitched in a few times, but for the most part these thoughts/notes are mine and based on nothing but my memory and knowledge of specific episodes of Doctor Who.
This is the second of three posts. Season Five went up yesterday, and seven will arrive tomorrow! I know, the anticipation is insane.
General notes:

• HUMANITY is a major theme. As the Doctor gets more God-like, he draws a thicker line between himself and the human race. Episodes that feature this theme are starred. *
• Any two-part episodes are considered as one unit. Their story line is split up, but their themes continue to develop and character arcs stretch from the beginning of one to the end of another
• We consider CHARACTERS over "Real-world" circumstances (for instance, rather than considering the fact that Tennant stepped in because Eccleston had to leave, we would look at Nine's departure in the storyline, and Ten's arrival.)
• Memory/forgetting is another important theme, in both Doctor Who and Peter Pan

Overview: Season Five

Before re-watching each episode individually, I decided to jot down a few notes on each one based on my memory alone. Max pitched in a few times, but for the most part these thoughts/notes are mine and based on nothing but my memory and knowledge of specific episodes of Doctor Who.
I'll start with Season five, then post six tomorrow, and seven on Tuesday.
General notes:

• HUMANITY is a major theme. As the Doctor gets more God-like, he draws a thicker line between himself and the human race. Episodes that feature this theme are starred. *
• Any two-part episodes are considered as one unit. Their story line is split up, but their themes continue to develop and character arcs stretch from the beginning of one to the end of another
• We consider CHARACTERS over "Real-world" circumstances (for instance, rather than considering the fact that Tennant stepped in because Eccleston had to leave, we would look at Nine's departure in the storyline, and Ten's arrival.)
• Memory/forgetting is another important theme, in both Doctor Who and Peter Pan
  

Timelines are a BITCH when Time can be Rewritten

I've started some of the preliminary ground work for our research, by going through episode by episode and making shiny excel spreadsheets out of the important information. I'm somewhat of an Excel whisperer, so even though this work has been a little tedious I've actually quite enjoyed it.

The spreadsheets tell when in time the episodes happen, who wrote and directed each one, and include other important notes which relate to the paper. I will post them as soon as they are FULLY complete.

Now that that's mostly done, I'm also working on individual character timelines for Rory, Amy, River and the Doctor, and those are a bitch.

The good news is I finished Rory's timeline. The bad news is I can't get it to post here without being too small, or gunking up the whole page. I am working on this, and you will have the glorious document soon enough.

The timelines themselves are helpful tools because they organize things visually, which is immensely good news for someone such as myself, who understands things better when they are graphically represented. They will serve as quick reference points throughout the research process, which will save us time and energy arguing over what happened when, and who was there for it and who was busy being Roman.

Some general notes on Rory's timeline:

• It is not to scale.
• As with all the timelines I will be doing, the "time" is from the character's perspective, not necessarily the order in which the episodes aired.
• The timelines take into account (so far) what we know, indisputably, from the episodes and minisodes themselves. Things Moffat has said on or off the record, or extended universe things from other audio or book adventures, are not considered.

I started with Rory thinking his timeline would be a relatively easy one to do, but this honestly has taken me almost a week to complete. I've gone into the Doctor Who wikia countless times already. I've rewatched several of the episodes. I've moved textboxes and arrows and lines all over the page, making sure things are correct. And Rory's life is relatively linear, compared to the others. He only re-lives one chunk of his life, as you will be able to see when I finally figure out how to post the picture.

I am not looking forward to Amy's. Or the Doctor's. OR RIVER'S.
Ah well. Geronimo?

--Jen

What has a giant night light on top of it?

 "Can anything harm us,
Mummy, dear, after the
night lights are lit?"

37
 "Nothing, precious. They are
the eyes a mother leaves behind
her to guard her children."

38
 "Dear night lights that protect
my sleeping babes, burn clear
and steadfast, tonight."