Doctor Who and Transmedia Storytelling – Henry Jenkins

Since Doctor Who’s return in 2005, there have been several forms of media convergence surrounding Doctor Who, such as the EVE Online (CCP Games, 2003) event, where players could earn Doctor Who themed cosmetic items, and purchasable cosmetic items in the stores of Roblox (Roblox Corporation, 2006), Minecraft (Mojang Studios, 2011), and Fortnite (Epic Games, 2017). Also, a Doctor Who themed expansion set was released for Magic: The Gathering (Garfield, 1993), “invoking the history of Doctor Who™ through the lens of Magic” (Finnegan, 2023, para 2.)

Whilst these examples exhibit media convergence, they do not provide an example of transmedia storytelling. There was no extra story being told through these texts, but instead they were simply the ability to experience Doctor Who outside of the traditional television series and magazine/comic book texts.

It is possible this is due to BBC guidelines surrounding methods of storytelling. In 2005 Russell T. Davies explained the delay of an upcoming novel, which had been scheduled to be released before the new television series: “[the book] was a necessary purchase in order to understand the narrative of ‘Rose’ . . . If you had to buy a BBC novel in order to understand the plot as transmitted on BBC1, then we would be breaking the BBC’s guidelines” (Davies, 2005, as quoted in Perryman, 2007, p. 34). This effect can be noted in the BBC’s treatment of the Time Lord Victorious narrative.

The Time Lord Victorious transmedia storytelling was “an ambitious, brand-new multi-platform Doctor Who story” (Freeman, 2020, para 1), which consists of stories told “across audio, novels, comics, vinyl, digital immersive theatre, escape rooms and games!” (BBC Studios, 2020). It uses modern technology and ideas and can be used as a strong example of the methods capable to deliver a new and interesting story.

Fans who want to keep up to date with the narrative must listen to the audio books and vinyl, read the novels and comics, watch the short videos online, and participate in real-life experiences. Although the story is self-contained, this contradicts the earlier enforcement of the BBC guidelines in that not all the stories were freely available.

In-person experiences are an important part of fandom and whilst the escape room was a commercialised version of this, other examples Ross Garner (2019) defines as “transmedia tourism” can be found such as “Ianto’s Shrine”, a shrine created by fans to commemorate the life of a fictional character from the Torchwood (Davies et. al., 2006-2011) series. Fans can visit such locations to have experienced these settings their favourite characters did in the stories.

With the worldwide release of the new series on the BBC iPlayer and Disney Plus, Doctor Who is taking a step away from traditional television broadcasting and is being delivered by modern technology.

Returning to Bennet’s statement about how we consume media has undergone a revolution, but the media itself has not, we can see in recent examples that the latter part of that statement has not held true. Jodie Whittaker became the first official female actor to play the Doctor (although others have unofficially played the role, Holland, 2023); and Ncuti Gatwa the first black actor.

Additionally, transgender actor Yasmin Finney will star in the new series. As Eric Deggans writes, “I’m left to wonder if the new Doctor Who will fully take advantage of all the diversity in its new casting choices” (2022, para. 5). With these gender and race barrier-braking advances in the development of the series, formation of the “Whoniverse”, and different ways in which the show is designed to create revenue, the programme has undergone a revolution alongside the “how and where” we watch it, and should Disney decide to give it the same attention they have given the Marvel Cinematic Universe and Star Wars universe, we can certainly expect to see many different forms of Doctor Who texts in the near future.