I lamented this way after every episode during his run once it became clear how Moffat was going to handle his incarnation. Capaldi had such strong and distinctive presence as The Twelfth Doctor that it's such a shame he only had a handful of truly great episodes and far too many stinkers. He deserved better.
That was great. Very likely to be "the one" for Whittaker's Doctor, in the same way "Vincent and the Doctor" often is for Smith. Deftly handled, if it leans into Quantum Leap territory - the evil leaper with vague motivations, small fixes, ultimately helping history take it's course as opposed to doing it. It was nice to see a mature take on the companions facing racism in the past. Ten's "Just act like you belong" to Martha always felt suspect and Twelve punching the man for calling Bill a slur was nice but still didn't address the reality of it. Still wish Yaz wasn't the font of information and had more focus. Jodie is excellent. Very much the Doctor. Great moments. Love her determination and her interactions with the companions. Great stuff. Vinette was great as Rosa, felt natural and almost like a woman pulled out of time. Wish they'd sprung for a slightly better MLK actor. However, I have to say Graham has been a delight and I can't believe how much he's the standout character. His reactions throughout the episode are so good. His heartbroken response to being told to stay on the bus? Perfect. I was very afraid they were going to have him drive the bus to fix history. Somewhat surprised the Doctor didn't lecture Ryan about using the time weapon. Guessing we're due for an arc of Ryan and his relationship to weapons before the season is out. Wondering if "Evil River and Jack" will be a recurring thorn. There seems to be some debate up top about his "space racism" being a poor motivation, but honestly... isn't the point that racism is a poor motivation? Little changes is his whole modus operandi. Changing a big thing will draw attention but push this little event - which, hey took a whole year to get changed, not an insignificant event - that galvanized support and you get the larger movement. Neat to have a semi-historical back! I think I want to watch it again. BBC America is rather butchering the pacing of these episodes with the commercials. They bumped this episode out by 10 minutes on the hour to cram in 20 minutes of ads.
Haven’t finished yet, but, man, just in the first 10 minutes how this episode demonstrates the ugliness of racism... woo. RTD was never so brave. And Moffat... no, he wouldn’t even try.
OMG I just finished this and what a brilliant episode. I was worried this could go sideways but it was handled so well. Had me feeling quite teary towards the end. Jodie is improving so much as The Doctor and yeah I'm going to watch this story again. This was a lovely episode. 8.5/10 What was this "P" word that was used on Dr Who tonight, that surprised people? I was engrossed in the episode but missed this P word
This is a profoundly different show now, much more of a drama, and much more grounded in the level of the storytelling. The stakes are smaller but more personal. And yet it's still making use of past continuity in ways that serve the story rather than just being a wink to the viewer. It's an interesting and effective new approach. Was the music still by Segun Akinola? It was a much more melodic, motif-driven score this week. Meanwhile, playing a song over the end titles is something Doctor Who has never done before. The only previous time they didn't use the normal end title theme was when the last episode of "Earthshock" played the titles over dead silence. And I'm trying not to think about the fact that the Doctor's "We have to keep history exactly on track" plan depended on the fact that they'd carelessly loaned a mobile phone to Elvis, who loaned it to Sinatra. Interesting that the episode opened with them saying the Doctor had already missed Sheffield a bunch of times. I guess that leaves room for novels and comics between episodes. There weren't a lot of South Asians in the US then, certainly not in the South. Race was perceived as basically white, black, and Hispanic. By the way, the acknowledgment that Yaz is Muslim was so casual I almost missed it. I wasn't quite sure about the accent, since she pronounced "serve coffee" like "soive coffee," which is a pronunciation I associate with Brooklyn, not Alabama. But maybe I'm wrong. That's the sad thing, though. Every time we think racism has been beaten for good, it turns out there are people who still cling to it and fight for it. Look at how many Americans today are trying to turn back the clock to before Rosa Parks, if not even before the Emancipation Proclamation. A while ago I saw the Twilight Zone episode that George Takei was in, a heavy-handed story about racism, and the things said by the racist character in the early 1960s sounded uncannily, exactly like the things today's racists say. And I realized that people like that are completely frozen in time. They cling to the past and they teach their children to do the same. The rest of the world moves forward, but they refuse to move with it. So I can believe that there would always be some fringe groups that cling in secret to such beliefs even when society has advanced far beyond them. Or maybe it's just that this guy reinvented racism on his own. He resented that he didn't get his way, blamed the people around him, then read a history book and found that there used to be a time when people who looked like him ran everything, and in his narcissism he decided that was the way things should be. The point is, "Alt-Right" is their own term for themselves, protective camouflage to hide the fact that they're actually neo-Nazis. So using their own sanitized, misleading term for themselves is perpetuating their deception. If you don't like "supremacist," call them white nationalists. Or just Nazis. No more than the Weeping Angels kill someone by sending them into the past. Sure, they're dead in the present, but they lived a whole life in the past. Basically he just subjected the guy to involuntary one-way time travel. The fact that they didn't tell us when he ended up suggests that we may see him again. That actually concerns me a bit. I appreciate the change of pace from the Moffat era, but I don't want Doctor Who to start feeling too much like other sci-fi and time-travel shows. I long ago got tired of "We have to fix history!" stories, and I've always appreciated that the Doctor generally more or less just lets history happen and doesn't worry about the timeline ramifications (as in "Thin Ice"). But without a bad guy trying to change things, it would've felt too much like that dumb show Voyagers! from 1982, where the characters kept getting alerted that history was going "off track" and had to fix it, but it was never explained why or how. If the heroes were the only ones intervening in the past, then doesn't that mean the way it was trying to go spontaneously was the way it should have gone? I hated that show because its premise was so damn stupid!!! Or if the idea had been that the TARDIS crew was part of the history all along and helped bring it about in the original version, that would take away from Rosa Parks somewhat. It was important to make this something she did on her own, something she wouldve done no matter what, and the gang was just there to prevent it from being derailed. I was thinking the same thing. Better that than cutting out 10 minutes to accommodate the ads.
The only surprising word I can think of that was spoken was "Pakistani", except without the "stani" part (I won't write it out as such). It is an ethnic slur for South Asians, used in Commonwealth countries (an American told me that it is not an ethnic slur in the U.S., but I'm not sure if that's true). When Yaz and Ryan are hiding behind the bins, she mentions she is called that whenever she has to break up a domestic dispute.
Oh fuck yes!!!!!! Slaps self on head "Paki" How did I miss that? Yeah that would have been a surprising word to hear on Doctor Who of all things. But I think the show has matured enough over the years that they can do that now. Another thought that I just realized is that it was the TARDIS herself that wanted them to be there and the old girl probably knew they were part of this moment, so had to be there. The TARDIS my friends knows all the moments the Doctor has to be there at the right place and time. We learnt this in "The Doctor's Wife." Oh and I didn't mind the song over the end credits. I felt it was rather fitting.
Wow. Just finished. I don’t think I’ve had such an emotional response to an episode of Doctor Who. It treated a very ugly part of America directly. No wink winks. Just head on. Performances were great. The writing moving. Damn. A really fine episode. My wife, who is Indian, has been mistaken for Mexican. By other Mexicans. Now, to be fair to the Mexicans, my wife was in a Mexican grocery store in Texas, so there was that context. So, I totally bought them mistaking Yaz for something more familiar to them.
As far as I know, it isn't used here. It actually took me a second to project backward from the word and realize "Ohh, she's Pakistani, not Indian!" Honestly, what the word reminds me of is this really dumb animated cartoon from my youth, Wacky and Packy, about a caveman and his pet mammoth (pachyderm). If they ever reran it in Britain, they probably had to change the title, depending on how long that slur has been around.
I made the mistake of popping on Twitter. The Boo Hoo Brigade is already out, complaining about “PC being shoved in your face” as if they are being forced to watched Doctor Who. And 1 episode out of 50 years is to much for those wankers.
Will have to try to find this somewhere. Sounds like the English are jabbing Americans because they don't like Trump. Only fair, I didn't like them for Thatcher either.
I don't care for the repetition of the "cheap and nasty" description of the vortex manipulator. At this point, I'm wondering if that isn't the manufacturer's ad campaign slogan.
I did think about that but I guess I just wanted to believe that people were more aware of the world (i.e. it's not just the United States...). Clearly I shouldn't be giving them the benefit of the doubt considering how ignorant Southern whites were back then regarding race in general. Ah, okay, thanks. That does make the moment more believable even with the clear context. Ah, I missed that bit. Mind you, I'm not an expert on accents (I still have a hard time differentiating all of the different English accents), so I wouldn't be surprised if her Southern accent was off somewhat. At least on the surface it felt real and not cartoonish. Yeah, that's the point I was trying to make. Thanks for hitting the mark I missed. Of course they are. Ummm...no. The episode pays tribute to a profound historic moment in American history and doesn't pull any punches in depicting the 50s South realistically.
No. No jabs. America has some pretty dark moments we are still struggling to come to terms with. If anything, it’s a love letter from the English to our better selves.
Other than the pop song at the end, I liked the episode. I found that use kind of distracting. Also the villian was forgetable. Still this was the best episode of the 3 so far.
It isn't really used here, not that Americans don't have their fair share of slurs. Extremely powerful episode, one of the series' best since returning in 2005. I hope it's a sign of more episodes like it. I really liked they didn't try to give the villain more motivation, he's just a bigoted monster trying to maintain what he sees as lost power and privilege, just like all bigots in the past and in the present. Him being trapped in the past is a fitting punishment since his kind would like to drag us all to a past they see as ideal. The Doctor possibly being Banksy is perfection. I live in the rural American South, there is still a long way to go. It's just expanded to "some kind of Asian" and "Muslim/terrorist". It's less open hatred and more complete ignorance and unwillingness to learn anything new.
Wow. That reminded me of Outlander in the best possible way. One of the elements that drew me into that show so quickly was the real menace that Claire felt the moment she landed in Jacobite-era Scotland. A (relatively) modern woman faced with the utter lack of respect and rights for women and the real danger that it posed gave me the chills. I don’t think I’ve ever seen the past depicted with such forceful menace and tension on Who as tonight. That opening scene with Parks coming to Ryan’s rescue was nails on a chalkboard tense and it was refreshing to see the real ugly past played straight, rather than glossed over. By the end of this episode, I was in tears, particularly when The Doctor and the fam had to stay on the bus in order to ensure the seats were full but then had to stand by and watch injustice happen before their eyes. I never expected Doctor Who to grow up but it did so, without shedding the kooky wonder that makes it great fun. The Doctor lending a cell phone to Elvis and revealing that she's Bansky were great gags. Whittaker's Doctor gets better with every episode. She's quickly on the path to becoming My Doctor, which I haven't really felt since Ecclestone. She's funny and bright and brilliant and I'd follow her into traffic. The way she faced down this rogue time-travelling racist/greaser was a sight to behold. Top marks also go to Vinette Robinson who played Rosa Parks with grace, dignity and humanity. I never once thought she was putting on an accent or laying it on too thick. Graham is quickly becoming one of my favourite Who companions. His lament over not getting his meal and the gleeful mirth on his face when he and Ryan chase the bus driver off his favourite fishing hole were a delight. Yaz still doesn't get enough to do and I'm really hoping that next week leans hard on her character because she needs her moment to shine. The villain was exactly what he needed to be: a hateful little shit. To anyone who thinks that racism is a thing of the past or that we're likely to 'outgrow it,' this episode takes you by the shoulders and lets you know forcefully that the only way to stop racism is to continually fight it. People like Krasko will always be there, waiting to strike when we let down our guard. I get the feeling that we haven't seen the last of him, since I don't trust for a moment that Ryan figured out the time displacing gun well enough to truly vanquish Krasko to the primordial past. As an aside, to anyone who's not watching Outlander, go and give it a watch. It's a stellar show that never flinches, be it in depicting love or hatred, happiness or abject sorrow. It is, by leaps and bounds, Ronald D. Moore's finest work.
The only packy I know is that's what we called a liquor store around Massachusetts. Never heard Pakistanis referred to as anything but Pakistanis in New England.