2595

Randall's fascination with the classroom environment is deeply sexual. Note that in these scenarios the lecturer is always female. His imagined banter with the lecturer always has a subtly flirtatious character, which her deft rebuttals serve to rebuke, maintaining a professional distance (note too that the speaker is never depicted within the frame of the comic). The lecturer is thus preserved as a safe object for Randall's fantasies, rendered at the same time desirable by her carefully indicated feminine hairstyle  and unattainable by her superior intellect. Randall has the best of both worlds: he gets to maintain the sexual initiative and the security of knowing she will never explicitly reject him. It is precisely the dynamic that prevails in the interactions in Doctor Who (c. 2005-2015) between the titular Doctor and his female companions.