I'm remaining on the fence. We're told a lot about this so-called villain and we can all hate him for the act he intends to do - that's simple, we get it. Villains are written to be hated. We all hate the situation, that's pretty straightforward. But a lot of people were expecting and wanting to loathe him above all else, given the severity of the plot and ramifications. As with another limp and poorly written villain, a certain Dr Soran from a certain Star Trek movie and remember Soran had no qualms exterminating millions of beings or multiple races to go back to the Nexus, there are lots of people mentioning the lack of substance to the character of Evil Leaper Fonzie or whatever his name was. He did even have a name? Or was he so zero-dimensional he didn't even have a name?! So zero-D that nobody's remembering it? There's no way around it, the script does not need Evil Leaper NoName him at all. It's amazing what a reaction people have had regarding the cardboard cutout, considering...
...he's barely in it for maybe 5 minutes and not doing anything else apart from trying to delay a bus and how's he so sure he knows what the outcome of that would be. In actuality, he might end up only delaying the movement by a short period of time and remember that Rosa was not the first to refuse person to give up her seat, nevermind other issues leading up to that day. Or why he couldn't zap Rosa with his gun an hour into the future, bypassing the historical event entirely. A lot simpler, that would be... assuming the gun did that, there's not enough in the Evil Leaper Fonzie to really give a rat about. He had no menace, no intrigue. The bus driver and racists in the diner did more to evoke tension and intrigue and they were the legitimately throwaway secondary and tertiary characters.
Also, how come the TARDIS crew were surprised over the racism only after going inside the diner despite the huge sign out front about serving whites only? That's nothing compared to the other issues-
Had the villain been written properly, given some additional depth instead of the paint-by-numbers generics that most people are going to agree with off the bat, the use of "the sonic" may have been a lot easier to not think into, it's been used casually enough in a "pro-science" show over the last decade that only a few still believe it's even remotely pro-science, but at least Classic Who tried using constraints and accuracy - and not always getting that right either, so on the magic wand I now no longer care. Was still expecting a lot more from Chibnall overall so far for this season. If the writing is so bad that people are guessing it's an arc not because the villain is zero-dimensional. And maybe that's supposed to be the case, in which case there is some originality here. Underwhelming for its own sake. Big but not big. Yet in an episode that should have been no less than epic? It's a good docudrama or biopic once you take out the sci-fantasy, which amounts mostly to the villain and "the sonic" (here or not, like it or not, concede or not, it nevertheless allows for too much lazy cop-out writing) and easily use other cues to get people going to where they need to go.
They should have kept it as a pure historical and the Doctor and companions on the sideline instead. Or made proper use of the villain instead of being a walking prop.
(emphasis added)
Just saw your message before posting! You nailed it. That's the definition that many (especially me) were unable to articulate in conversation. The setup was sufficient, the execution was just underwhelming and even pitiful. He easily could have been going around town doing more to derail the civil rights movement. A story on the bigger picture would have dealt with his lack of use completely and a lot more effectively. To the point nobody would be complaining about him.
