Besides the morbid subject matter, I found two developments in this show particularly disturbing. The first is the way in which cinematic stylings are used to bring this documentary in line with HBO’s aesthetic. The second is the rhetorical position Jarecki places himself in, in regards to his role as a documentarian. Although these two developments seem unrelated, they interact to create a dangerous documentary television standard.

I wasn’t overly concerned with Durst’s story, especially in regards to his guilt or innocence. As the series progressed, it became more clear that little trust could be placed in the highly stylized version of events depicted in the show. The cinematic aesthetic, standard in HBO shows, were especially macabre and out-of-place when applied to a true-crime story. The title sequence, for instance, is indistinguishable that of a fictional crime story that might air on any prestige television channel. The show makes frequent use of crime reenactments, like one might see on a 60-Minutes special, but the high production value of an HBO show make these sequences uncomfortable; the fact that Susan Berman really was shot in the head and died on the floor of her bedroom makes the frequent cuts to the reenactment footage downright grisly, as the editing lingers over shots of spreading pools of blood. Assumably the aesthetic is meant to act as a cross-legitimation: to make the show seem up to HBO’s high standards, and to make the high standards of HBO shows live up to real life. Yet instead it ends up fictionalizing real life to make it more theatrical, adding slow motion and color filters to the cold murder of a real woman.

The plot’s timeline obscures when interviews and other filming took place in relation to each other. The issues with the timeline, as seen in the show compared to what director Andrew Jarecki says, has been much discussed online. The dangerous part of the questionable timeline of police involvement is the suggestions that Jarecki specifically withheld evidence in order to maximize publicity. The audience is allowed increasingly long sections of behind-the-scenes footage of Jarecki and the rest of the crew. The more background information we got, the more concerned I was about the rhetorical position in which Jarecki places himself.

It’s not particularly unusual for a documentarian to be included in the story that they’re filming. One might argue it’s inevitable that the presence of a film crew will have an effect on the events they’re filming. Yet Jarecki includes a lot of footage of himself struggling to come to terms with the potential guilt of the subject at hand, arguing aloud that he liked Durst personally, which made it hard to believe he might be guilty of two murders (in addition to the shooting and dismemberment of Black, events with Durst does not deny happened). At some point in the timeline, the crew uncovers new, potentially damning evidence in the form of a sample of Durst’s handwriting that seems to match that of a letter sent to the police in regards to Berman’s body. Although Jarecki claims to have been working with the police and with legal advice throughout the process, it becomes clear from the behind-the-scenes footage that there was no official supervision guiding them when they found the handwriting sample. Rather than informing the police or an attorney of their find—a find which could potentially reopen the case against Durst—Jarecki removes it from the premises and conducts an extensive investigation, calling on the expertise of a handwriting analyst to compare samples. Although this makes for absorbing television, it also completely destroys the chain of custody on this evidence, putting its potential use in a legal context up for question.

The disregard for legal procedure becomes especially underlined when Jarecki states that he’s out to get “justice.” Rather than attempting to record the truth of a situation—ostensibly the purpose of a documentarian—Jarecki explicitly sets himself up as a vigilante, using film-making to correct injustices in the world. It’s not that documentaries can’t be used to change the world or to correct injustices, in general. However, they do so by using small, specific examples to expose larger, systemic problems. The large systematic problems in the legal system are there, starting with the fact that there was evidence like this handwriting sample waiting to be found. The Jinx doesn’t offer any particular critique of the law, though. Rather, it sets Jarecki and his crew up as vigilante investigators, coming to the truth of the situation where the law couldn’t (and all while the cameras happen to be rolling).

Because of HBO’s prestige branding. The Jinx‘s presence on the network legitimizes the show as an acceptable approach to documentary making. Supporting vigilante documentary as an acceptable approach to seeking “justice” is a potentially dangerous trend.  That Jarecki’s publicity grab worked so effectively to draw eyes (including, I’m sad to say in retrospect, my own) spells out a troubling direction for television to move towards.

Having reunited Sarah and Kira, the four clones celebrate by gathering together for an impromptu dance scene. The scene is surprisingly long and lingering, given the generally quick pace of the episode. The weight of Cosima’s increasingly visible illness hangs over the group. The tension in the scene is palpable as she slips off her oxygen mask and slides on a record, starting the dance party. It seems as though this is a last hurrah before her seemingly inevitable death (although a glimmer of hope is visible before the end of the episode in the form of a miraculous touch from Kira).

This scene serves to heighten the sense of impending doom around Cosima’s health, yet it also works to demonstrate Maslany’s exceptional talent and the work that goes into creating and performing these wildly different women. It’s hard to ignore the technical expertise that goes into splicing each of her takes together to form one cohesive scene. Not only was this scene a notable standout in an already exceptional episode, it’s been the focus of much of the talk surrounding the episode. An official behind-the-scenes/making-of/extended sequence was posted on the same day the episode aired, highlighting both the technical and performative complexity of filming such a scene (see the clip embedded above).

Sarah and Cosima discuss the clones

Later in the episode, while laying in bed talking, Cosima explains her nautilus/fibonacci tattoo. Sarah remarks “God, we’re so different, all of us.” Meta-praise aside, Maslany demonstrates how each woman is their own separate entity, a unique person with their own style, voice, mannerisms, movements and, of course, their own dance moves. The restrained Alison, the bar-shuffling Sarah, the club-savvy Cosima and the awkward and energetic Helena all perform their own style of dance in unison, highlighting all the differences even as they all join together for what seems like the last time.

This focus on Maslany’s abilities, so close to Emmy nomination time, seems like a savvy move on the part of showrunners Graeme Manson and John Fawcett. Last year Orphan Black received no Emmy nominations. Although this is not unusual for a science fiction show, there was general disappointment on the part of fans and critics at this snub. This isn’t to say that Maslany’s work has gone unrecognized; she has received a handful of awards for her role(s), including, most recently, her second Critics’ Choice Television Award. Yet many people are eagerly awaiting the upcoming release (Thursday, July 10th) of Emmy nominations to see if Orphan Black is acknowledged – or if Maslany’s work is once again acknowledged only by her clones.

Paul McGann reprising the role of the Eighth Doctor, from “The Night of the Doctor”

As Matt Hills points out, “The Day of the Doctor” has relied heavily on social media to establish the importance of this event, so it’s no surprise that showrunner Steven Moffat is making use of YouTube to hype the episode. Yet “The Night of the Doctor” has so much more importance than just setting the stage for what is quite possibly the largest simulcast event the world has seen. Though just under 7-minutes long, this short nonetheless marks an important addition to the Doctor Who universe, answering longstanding questions and shaking up canonical knowledge in one go.

Despite the brevity of his onscreen tenure, the Eighth Doctor lived on for years in the extended Who Universe; he served as the Doctor in the Doctor Who Magazine comic strip for 9 years, appeared in 73 spin-off novels, and is featured in numerous BigFish Production audio dramas. The adventures he’s had and the friendships that have been developed are beloved among fans of the extended universe. Yet, the relevance of these stories to the main television canon has long been in question. So when the Eighth Doctor, facing regeneration, says “Charley, C’rizz, Lucie, Tamsin, Molly… friends, companions I’ve known, I salute you,” he does more than pay tribute to their contribution to his adventures. This line cements the existence of these characters in the official canon of Doctor Who, legitimating years of production work and ensuring that Paul McGann’s addition isn’t just limited to an hour-and-a-half TV movie.

Most obviously, the short illuminates an unknown part of the Doctor’s personal timeline: the circumstances around the Eighth Doctor’s regeneration. It had been previously presumed to lead directly into Christopher Eccleston’s run as the Ninth Doctor, but we see that McGann instead transforms into John Hurt. Hurt’s involvement in “The Day of the Doctor” has been official for awhile. Indeed, he appears at the very end of “The Name of the Doctor,” with the tag “Introducing John Hurt as The Doctor.”

From “The Name of the Doctor.”

His role, however, was not known for certain, and fan rumors abounded about whether he was a Future or Past Doctor, or an older incarnation of the Eighth Doctor himself. The revelation that he’s an in-between Doctor has disrupted the significantly important numbering system used to differentiate the Doctors – which has, in fact, been used throughout this very article to differentiate Paul McGann’s Doctor from the rest. If McGann was the Eighth Doctor, is Hurt the Ninth? Do all the Doctors move up, so Eccleston is now the Tenth, Tennant is the Eleventh (losing the nice symmetry between ten and Tennant)?

Many fans find this form of retconning disruptive to the core of Doctor Who (though as one fan pointed out to me, can a show about time travel ever really be considered retconned?). Conscious of the disruptive effect, Moffat has addressed the issue in Doctor Who Magazine, issue #467, stating that “He’s very specific, the John Hurt Doctor, that he doesn’t take the name of the Doctor. He doesn’t call himself that. He’s the same Time Lord, the same being as the Doctors either side of him, but he’s the one who says, ‘I’m not the Doctor.’ So the Eleventh Doctor is still the Eleventh Doctor, the Tenth Doctor is still the Tenth…”

From “The Night of the Doctor.”

Yet “The Name of the Doctor” specifically introduces Hurt as “The Doctor.” This identification is changed to “The War Doctor” in “The Night of the Doctor,” so perhaps the adjective is enough to preserve the canonical numbering system. Whether or not this change violates the spirit of the Who mythos is still up in the air – and probably won’t come down until after “The Day of the Doctor” airs on November 25th. Keen fans anticipate yet another YouTube release; listings for additional “The Day of the Doctor” material have popped up online, hinting at a soon-to-be-released four-minute video called “The Last Day.” In the meantime, theories abound, and whatever happens on “The Day of the Doctor” is certain to dramatically alter the future – and the past – of Doctor Who.

This is the fourth post in The Cultural Lives of Doctor Who, Antenna’s series commemorating the television franchise’s fiftieth anniversary and its lasting cultural legacy. You can read Matt Hills’ inaugural post about multi-Doctor specials here, Keara Goin’s post about the Doctor’s female companions here, and Derek Kompare’s post about the gaps in the series’ history here. Stay tuned for new posts in the series most every Tuesday throughout the remaining weeks of 2013.

Today’s not over yet, but for the moment the biggest scandal rocking the DC company and fan community is the abrupt departure of Batwoman’s creative team, J. H. Williams III and W. Haden Blackman.

A strong start

Williams and Blackman have made the series a bestseller since the New 52 reboot in 2011, and managed to snag a GLAAD award for their portrayal of Batwoman/Kate Kane’s romance with Gotham policewoman Maggie Sawyer. When Kane proposed to Sawyer in February 2013, there was little fanfare or DC-motivated press around the event. At the time, this was a surprising silence; both Marvel and DC have a tendency to announce any plots points that might attract positive press attention, especially for portrayals of homosexual characters (see: the hype around the marriage between Northstar and his boyfriend in Astonishing X-Men, and the build-up before DC’s announcement that Green Lantern protagonist Alan Scott is gay). In a cultural landscape where companies demand to be lavished with praise for achieving the bare minimum level of minority representation, the quiet engagement of Kane and Sawyer appeared to be more earnest: a natural progression of their relationship rather than a cheap publicity stunt.

Yet their romance appears to be star-crossed; Williams and Blackman attribute their departure to disruptive editorial intervention, including a decree that Kane and Sawyer will not be getting married.

A surprise proposal

While on a panel at the Baltimore Comic-Con, DC executive editor Dan DiDio was quick to clarify that the decision to erase the marriage had nothing to do with the fact that they’re lesbians. Instead, DiDio explained, heroes and heroines shouldn’t be happy or have fulfilling personal lives, suggesting that DC remains committed to the gritty, “realistic” aesthetic that has plagued comics since the 1990s.

DiDio also chided, “Name one other publisher out there who stands behind their gay characters the way we do,” leaving DC fans to wonder–what gay characters? Since DC rebooted their universe with the New 52 line, there seem to be fewer LGBTQ characters than ever. Even limited to the purview of Batman characters, there has been no mention of Catwoman sidekick Holly Robinson or sometimes-cop, sometimes-superheroine Renée Montoya. Although Robinson appears to have never existed within the rebooted universe, there is evidence to suggest that Montoya, a former lover of Kate Kane’s, has been killed off. (Notably, the outing of Alan Scott and the subsequent proposal of marriage to his boyfriend was immediately followed by the boyfriend being killed off–or put in the refrigerator, in comic parlance.)

This is not to say that LGBTQ representations are missing in Gotham; there has been considerable innuendo around Birds of Prey character Starling (although no confirmation) and Batgirl features DC’s first openly transgendered woman, Alysia Yeoh. But can a company really be considered to stand behind their gay characters when they replace them so readily? Is there a limit to the number of LGBTQ characters they’re allowed before Orson Scott Card refuses to write for them?

Hardly had the news broken when DC-appointed author and gay man Marc Andreyko to head up the book, presumably to head-off any accusations of homophobia. After a few days, artist and heterosexual Jeremy Haun was hired to do the line art. However, questions remain for fans: Are Kate and Maggie still engaged? Will Maggie survive the engagement, or will she be forced into the fridge? How will the new creative team handle their inability to get married? One thing is certain; the new team’s pliancy with DC’s editorial interventions mean Kane and Sawyer won’t be hearing wedding bells anytime soon.

Kate and Maggie re-commit

Following this trend closely comes The Miss Rikei Contest in Japan, which pitted six science students and researchers against each other in a contest of intelligence and- yes- beauty. The contest purports to change the image of sciences to include women- but apparently only if those women are attractive.

Not long after, the European Commission launched a cringe-worthy campaign aimed at recruiting girls to the STEM disciplines. The Science: It’s a girl thing! video featured girls in high heels being ogled by a man in lab coats, and prominently featured lipstick, lip gloss, fingernail polish in contexts completely unrelated to science. The video was the subject of so much derision it was quickly taken off the official website.

These examples are generally well-intentioned, aimed at encouraging an interest in STEM disciplines in girls and women. However, the result is just tacked-on femininity and a familiar focus on the physical beauty of female scientists instead of their contributions to the scientific community. If nothing else the controversy surrounding them has drawn attention to the women- and frequent lack thereof- in these disciplines. However, they’ve left open the question of how to create a space in science where being feminine is acceptable. Is there anything in the ‘princess scientist’ idea that’s worth embracing?

The answer: Princess Bubblegum.

“It'll be fine. We've got Science!” Says Princess Bubblegum showing off her invention in the episode "Lady & Peebles."

The popular Adventure Time character predates The Dr. Erika Show by about a year, and embodies both aspects of the ‘princess scientist’ idea, in that Princess Bubblegum, is literally a princess and a scientist. Adventure Time goes a long way to establishing her credentials in both roles.

In American pop culture, ‘princess’ is a title that has little or no meaning beyond fluffy dresses and a shining tiara. Indeed, in the ‘princess scientist’ concept, the princess aspect only surfaces with the addition of a tiara to Dr. Erika’s standard lab coat costume. However, in Adventure Time, heavy is the bright pink head that wears the crown; being a princess in the Land of Ooo is an important responsibility, and Princess Bubblegum rules over her people with kindness and strength. On multiple occasions, she even relinquishes personal happiness in order to fulfill her duties.

In addition to being a princess, there are several ways in which Bubblegum embodies traditional femininity. Her skin and clothing are all shades of pink, and her hair, also bright pink, is actually made of bubblegum. Her wardrobe is in constant rotation and she is frequently drawn wearing new outfits.  The show often makes allusions that the candy people populating Bubblegum’s kingdom are, in fact, her own mad science creations, and she nurtures for them as if they were her children.

Princess Bubblegum explaining something scientific, from "Burning Low."

On the other hand, Princess Bubblegum is also a scientist, through-and-through. Just a few of the science-based activities she gets up to include creating a formula to raise the dead, curing diseases, brewing antidotes, inventing a myriad of gadgets, and manufacturing a living heart. Though Dr. Erika shows a ‘princess scientist’ doing real experiments, Princess Bubblegum may have her beat in the portrayal of a realistic scientific career; in several episodes, Bubblegum is shown hosting and attending scientific conferences.

"Pretty standard candy people soup. Amino acids, algebra..." - from "Goliad"

Both the ‘princess’ and the ‘scientist’ aspects of her character get equal weight; they are inseparable from each other, and work in unison in everything Princess Bubblegum does. The ‘princess scientist’ idea so often commits the same sin in representations of STEM professionals that is common place so far; instead of welcoming all kinds of people into the disciplines, it falls hard on one side of a gender binary. The women held up as and represented as ‘princess scientists’ are feminine to the highest extent, so invested in physical appearance that they win pageants and are obsessed with makeup.

The way to encourage girls and women to enter the STEM disciplines isn’t bedazzling a lab coat or filling test tubes with pink and purple chemicals. Instead of taking science and decorating it with feminine elements, we need to embrace the possibilities of the princess and the scientist dissolving into each other to form a true ‘princess scientist.’ We should be holding up representations like Princess Bubblegum, a complex, intelligent, kind, girly, strong heroine that any science would be proud to have.