Spoilers Dot and Bubble grade and discussion thread
- Thread starter The Nth Doctor
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I don't get all the people complaining about Ruby doing nothing. What did they want, a cat fight between her and Lindy? Is that what a black Doctor needs, a white saviour? If there'd been an actual confrontation I'm sure Ruby would have got involved, and you only had to see the look on her face to know she was angry and disappointed and disgusted. She was there for the Doctor, she didn't need to scream at Lindy to prove it.
One other thought about Lindy, the final moments with her looking back at the Doctor, I dunno, maybe it's my innate desire to see good in people, but I wonder if she was having even the teeniest of doubts about her reaction to him, and her choice to head into the wilderness with the rest of Gen-Aryan? Or was it a smug, I'm going to keep looking at you because I know I'm right and I like how it makes you uncomfortable?
Hats off to Ncuti, he was phenomenal in those final scenes.
One quibble I had with some online discourse. People said that even setting aside the racism, the Doctor had never had people refuse his help to the point where they'd sacrifice their lives before, and that isn't true. There's Cas if nothing else.
One other thought about Lindy, the final moments with her looking back at the Doctor, I dunno, maybe it's my innate desire to see good in people, but I wonder if she was having even the teeniest of doubts about her reaction to him, and her choice to head into the wilderness with the rest of Gen-Aryan? Or was it a smug, I'm going to keep looking at you because I know I'm right and I like how it makes you uncomfortable?
Hats off to Ncuti, he was phenomenal in those final scenes.
One quibble I had with some online discourse. People said that even setting aside the racism, the Doctor had never had people refuse his help to the point where they'd sacrifice their lives before, and that isn't true. There's Cas if nothing else.
To be flippant, no, a Black Doctor is The Doctor, and needs to be that. He speaks out against stuff like prejudice. Why should that change? And your friend speaking up for you? That’s not a White Saviour, that’s called being a friend.
No good being able to stand up alien being mcflibble in the face of corruption or evil, if you can’t do it for your mates. But then, last week, poor old Marti wasn’t helped at all was she?
But it’s in the script that this is this Doctors reaction.
The same guy wrote this who called for a redesign for the sonic screwdriver because suddenly, when you put it in the hand of a Black Man instead of a White Man, it apparently looks too much like a gun.
To be fair, it’s all very 21st Century.
I’m not hate watching. I’m watching. And just like when a football team isn’t doing well, fans tend to criticise and complain about the management.
I’ve been watching for forty years, why should I stop now?
And there is a problem where people *are* stopping watching.
It’s not like I’m yelling ‘woke’ at it, or complaining because the lead is now in a different section of the Pantone colour chart to me.
I’m pointing out that while this episode would be great as an anthology show episode, and is relatively good SF (still needs more world building shown to stop the seams showing) it isn’t good Who, and that *in my opinion* RTD doesn’t understand the things he is sometimes talking about beyond surface details.
And that’s why the new Doctor can go to Sixties London and not experience any racism, because the writer didn’t want him to, but can go to a future space colony world and find Moon of the Christian Racists. And do *nothing* about that.
It’s why a Trans character is Trans *because of Time Lord regeneration energy* — not just be a normal human thing — and no-one seems to have a clue about binary or non-binary gender one line to the next.
It’s why an episode about Welsh Folklore can contain a thing that isn’t a Fairy Circle and call it that. (Which is at least not particularly offensive.)
It’s why Anglicans and non-specific Christian beliefs are fair game.
It’s why this episode needed to not rush the ending, and maybe — since they shot a year or two in advance — your lead actor shouldn’t be largely absent, affecting the way stories unfold.
I genuinely don't understand what you expected the Doctor to do with bred racists who refused to listen to him whatever he said. You also ignored my response to you on specifics. I just don't think you want to understand what the episode is about.
Thank you both. Hmm, maybe a touch of SG1 clones? Not seen any Orville. Might have been a book from decades back. It's not coming to me.
Looking back, I'm increasingly convinced Lindy and these young people aren't even human. No peeing for three days? Sitting at a desk for 2 hours 'recharging the Dot' and not apparently doing anything? Not using valuable resources yet have a constantly changing huge wardrobe to brag about? Dunno. And if they are, they are certainly spoilt brats who've not interacted outside their own clique for a very long time. Was the homeworld Golgafrincham?
As for the racism thing - a planet where there isn't the same amount of UV/sunlight hitting the ground might not evolve lifeforms with dark skins at all. Likewise low light levels favour pale / blue eyes and are associated with higher latitudes on Earth. Scandinavia, anyone?
Still, it got everyone talking about the darned thing, didn't it?
Specifics from your response (though I noticed my post to which you responded was riddled with typos, so amazed I made any sense there)
I don’t think we are shown the Doctor ignoring the racism. We are shown him responding to it as RTD thinks a human would. Which is problematic in itself — “you’re being racist to me, but I am going to tell you you can think what you like and beg you to come with me” is certainly a choice.
I also *know* that RTD deliberately buried the ‘all look alike’ cliched racism (they know people don’t, they just say that when they want to dehumanise, they don’t usually actually believe that) by first making sure the wording didn’t make it obvious, but also by making sure there were reasons presented as to why her saying that would make sense *without actually being a sign of ethnic prejudice*. He deliberately misled the audience.
Firstly, we see The Doctor. We do not see Ncuti, we do not see a Black Man, anymore than we see White Man when we see any of the pre-Jodie Docs. So, we are used to him being ignored at first. We also see him as older, even if Ncuti isn’t that old. He is presented as breaking his way in. As the equivalent of a pop-up on the internet. He’s not onscreen long before she blocks him.
Even when he returns, he’s still essentially playing authority figure, but Ruby when she appears plays subservient, ingratiates herself and compliments Lindy’s top.
These are all reasons why it is perfectly logical *without stepping to racism* for a character such as Lindy to react the way she did. Bear in mind these interactions *also* contain Ruby and the Doctor interacting with a Susan Twist image (side note why do they both look into the middle to see her?) and not sure if they have seen her before and unable to place where. So that undermines the idea as well.
Even immediately before the racism is made crystal clear, and shown not to be *just* Lindy or even just her rather weird friends list, we are shown that Lindy herself is basically some kind of socio or psycho path. All is not right with her from earlier on, with the whole punishment shtick, but again… in the milieu of Who, this could be a class or societal thing quite apart from racism (Varos tortures its leaders for failures for example, and that serial has recently been back in the limelight) and is also dressed in class. We know it costs a lot to send these idiots to live on finetime.
People aren’t ’not noticing these micro aggressions because they have secret prejudice’ they are not noticing them because they are being deliberately introduced and obfuscated by the writer of the story. A very well-to-do White Man, with a lot of power in his industry, incidentally. Who then in-not-so-many words calls half the audience racist, and for the other half — assuming they aren’t already wondering if there’s something wrong with themselves for not picking up on it either — accidentally suggests the entirety of all of time and space is at some point bigoted only at Black Men. And that a heroic character will turn the other cheek so much as to literally weep and beg before even slightly addressing that *at all*. While their friend says and does *nothing*.
Great Black Mirror episode.
Shite Doctor Who one.
Which puts it in the middle, because at least it’s not all bad, just bad in relation to Who.
I wondered about this and thought it was going to lead to something, but maybe it was just to signal they weren't human but were humanoid?
I think it was just implying some kind of health fad perfectionism, like they had just the right amount of water in them (which makes no biological sense but hey ho, it gives us the Doctor Pee joke, and the later one too.)
They are shown to be culturally human and Christian, as shown by the specific use of the Timmy Mallet song, and the choice of ‘Voodoo’ as an accusation at the end. I would go as far as to say that they are a stereotypical portrayal of some of the more modern Protestant denominations — Baptists in the main.
Where do you get the idea that all of time and space is presented as racist here, or even “just” all of humanity?
It was this colony specifically. Nothing more, nothing less. And by this colony I mean Finetime and Homeworld.
The episode says nothing about humans or elsewhere in space or the future.
It does by implication. The implication that The Doctor never encountered bigotry or prejudice at him, over his skin colour, ever before in thousands of years of travel. That in the future, things will somehow have gotten worse, and now he is Black rather than White he has experienced it first hand.
That this doesn’t chime with the rest of Doctor Who is another reason I do not like the way the ending was handled, but it pales beside the implicit implications on show here, and how the character of the Doctor has changed/been changed.
That’s what I mean about the difference between a clever story in an anthology show, and something that has to fit in with a show that does have ongoing characters and an overall milieu. Regardless of any pedantic discussion about canon or continuity, there is a wider ‘whoniverse’ in which these things are supposed to fit.
I'll just reiterate that I thought this was a fantastic episode. It was sufficiently subtle and then overt to make its point. Really, a fantastic piece of writing from RTD. I don't have any problems with Ruby's or the Doctor's actions/inactions. The Doctor is going to want to save people, even if despite themselves. And he'll appreciate Ruby setting aside her anger to help him with that.
Much like "73 Yards," I think I'll need to do a rewatch of the episode at some point to reassess properly how I feel about it. Even so, I expect "Midnight" will remain as my favorite Davies episode.
Well if they turn out to be a Dalek level problem in the future, this is the locus to come back to, to snuff them out in the cradle... And who is to say that the Seventh Doctor isn't behind these slugs and 15 just forgot, during a prolonged senior moment?
He's standing on a land mine two weeks ago, and they don't care. You're just a regular person and we'll treat you like a one of us, and enjoy the fire works because you're not special. Oh, but I am special, and when I blow up, I'm taking this moon with me.
He's standing on a land mine two weeks ago, and they don't care. You're just a regular person and we'll treat you like a one of us, and enjoy the fire works because you're not special. Oh, but I am special, and when I blow up, I'm taking this moon with me.
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I have to admit, I did like the old ‘I’m a complex space time event’ shtick. That’s some old school nineties Who right there.
I am not so stupid or blind as to think the show shouldn’t at some point talk about race in relation to this Doctor — though did they ever do it before? Was the Doctor being Scots a problem? Was the Doctor being a Woman ever actually a problem for longer than it took to get an upgrade gag in at all? — but I think this didn’t fit, because it wasn’t bedded in properly at all. And wasn’t explored at all in the finish either.
I did wonder if Davies is building up to “when I broke the salt at the edge of the universe I accidentally made it so God was real and he’s the baddie” at the end of the series. Would fit with his MO and all the little bits this season.
In which case he should really learn from Trek and just not do that.
Tennant pretend to be Scottish to fit in with Queen Victoria.
I can think of at least four times, where some one assumed that Grand zaddy Graeme was Doctor Who.
I can think of at least four times, where some one assumed that Grand zaddy Graeme was Doctor Who.
Was it ever handled seriously, as here to an extent, though?
Mistaken identity because the Doctor used to be a fella is one thing, discrimination another.
I can remember finding some of the Master/Doctor stuff in Skyfall quite uncomfortable, even if it was well within something like the relationship established with Ainley/Davison.
But I can’t remember any time where she was discriminated against as a woman — I didn’t watch all her episodes though, but don’t remember any such event even being commented on. The Chibnall era essentially returned to an asexual Doctor in order to avoid a lot of stuff. Until they went all in on queerbaiting a segment of fandom with the wishy-washy screen resolution of Thasmin.
There was white on white racism in Genesis mirroring German vs. Jewish, as each side assumed that Harry and Sarah and Four was the enemy or a muto.
Remember day one: "You can't be an alien, you sound northern!"
The Draconians did not like humans and were confused when three claimed to be Draconian Royalty.
Clara freaked out when he regenerated, so that's actual timelordism.
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I think that we're stumbling over a similar difference of opinion to that which comes up when we discuss Star Trek depicting 21st century issues in the 24th-or-whatever century - if you're more invested in the in-universe reality, you're likely to raise the objection that racism we would recognise from 2024 Earth being more or less the same in 2367 Moorpak IV doesn't make sense. If you're more invested in Star Trek as a vehicle for morality plays with contemporary relevance, you're more likely to find it positive that present day issues are reflected back to us from that fictional setting.
I'm quite firmly in the latter camp - the Doctor is now a black British man and to me, if we danced around the fictional universe without that having any relevance at all, we're doing a disservice to the reality in which the show is being made. And previous handwaves like 10's line to Martha did just that (despite that being one of my favourite episodes - the reality that there were black people in Shakespearean London was right there, too). RTD has matured since then. I'm just not that interested in a carefully designed documentary about what being a millennia old timelord on alien worlds would really be like, I want to watch stories that matter to us, now.
The cliché is that sci-fi is always really about the time in which it is written - to me, that's a mission statement as well an observation. The best sci-fi makes you pause and think about the time in which it is written - and this episode clearly did that. Throwing us a "phones are bad mkay" cover so we could entirely miss what was happening underneath if we were so inclined. Sci-fi doesn't always have to reach for metaphor to make its point, they did racism as actual racism. And this Doctor knew them to hate him and offered them grace anyway. Perhaps what he said is true - he's done his healing since 12.
This episode might have needed another pass on the details of the plot, I'm still unclear as to exactly why they were being eaten in alphabetical order, but the actual ideas underneath it I liked a lot and were well presented.
I'm quite firmly in the latter camp - the Doctor is now a black British man and to me, if we danced around the fictional universe without that having any relevance at all, we're doing a disservice to the reality in which the show is being made. And previous handwaves like 10's line to Martha did just that (despite that being one of my favourite episodes - the reality that there were black people in Shakespearean London was right there, too). RTD has matured since then. I'm just not that interested in a carefully designed documentary about what being a millennia old timelord on alien worlds would really be like, I want to watch stories that matter to us, now.
The cliché is that sci-fi is always really about the time in which it is written - to me, that's a mission statement as well an observation. The best sci-fi makes you pause and think about the time in which it is written - and this episode clearly did that. Throwing us a "phones are bad mkay" cover so we could entirely miss what was happening underneath if we were so inclined. Sci-fi doesn't always have to reach for metaphor to make its point, they did racism as actual racism. And this Doctor knew them to hate him and offered them grace anyway. Perhaps what he said is true - he's done his healing since 12.
This episode might have needed another pass on the details of the plot, I'm still unclear as to exactly why they were being eaten in alphabetical order, but the actual ideas underneath it I liked a lot and were well presented.
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