The "good old days"... when certain people couldn't wait for RTD to save DW from Chibnall's wokeness! XD
Spoilers Dot and Bubble grade and discussion thread
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I actually rather liked this one, a lot more than I thought I would.
I admire them having the guts to go with this ending, and the connected message: you can and should try everything humanly possible to bring out the best in people, in their interest and in the interest of society ... but sometimes, people will insist on sucking in spite of anything you try, and you have to divorce yourself from any sense of responsibility about that.
I admire them having the guts to go with this ending, and the connected message: you can and should try everything humanly possible to bring out the best in people, in their interest and in the interest of society ... but sometimes, people will insist on sucking in spite of anything you try, and you have to divorce yourself from any sense of responsibility about that.
RTD was in a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" position. Inevitably, the subject of race was going to be brought up during the 15th Doctor's run, but it was done in a very subtle manner here that could be open to some interpretation. Lindy frequently berating and bad-mouthing the Doctor and then dismissively rejecting his help because he wasn't "one of them" can be looked at more than one way, with each point of view being valid, IMO.
I thought it was the best of the season, pretty easily.
I think Ricky September would have gone with the Doctor at the end. He wasn't disgusted when he first saw the Doctor like Lindsey was, and was shown to "step outside the bubble" by turning off his Dot and read to broaden his mind.
Kind of shocked anyone didn't get that the characters were refusing to go with the Doctor because of his skin colour, I'm not sure how much more obvious they could have made it without Lindsey using a racial slur (something they wouldn't do at teatime on BBC 1.) Was the "you all look alike" line not enough of a clue?
But even more shocked that anyone could think it was just a "phones are evil!" story (and no, Black Mirror is rarely just "phones are evil!" either.) Just lol.
I think Ricky September would have gone with the Doctor at the end. He wasn't disgusted when he first saw the Doctor like Lindsey was, and was shown to "step outside the bubble" by turning off his Dot and read to broaden his mind.
Kind of shocked anyone didn't get that the characters were refusing to go with the Doctor because of his skin colour, I'm not sure how much more obvious they could have made it without Lindsey using a racial slur (something they wouldn't do at teatime on BBC 1.) Was the "you all look alike" line not enough of a clue?
But even more shocked that anyone could think it was just a "phones are evil!" story (and no, Black Mirror is rarely just "phones are evil!" either.) Just lol.
Unless I missed something, she never says "you all look alike". The dialogue goes as follows:
So it's not that she can't tell black people apart. It's that she can't conceive of someone overriding a block, so when she sees the Doctor a second time, she assumes he must be a different person, because she blocked the previous one.
That being said, there are other clues (@matthunter listed a number of them in an earlier comment), but I don't think this particular one is.
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I think "I thought you just looked the same" is a pretty loaded comment to make to a person of colour.
‘I thought you just looked the same’ … as the person before I barely paid attention to and got rid of (with the assumption that it must be a different person has just been blocked and can’t possibly be there therefore) is not the same as ‘you all look the same’ is it?
I’m as surprised as anyone. On the other hand, I started voicing my doubts as soon as the various costumes started surfacing that this wasn’t going to go well.
There is an irony that Chibnall admittedly doesn’t always seem quite so bad in retrospect. But then I remember kerblam, or arachnids, or the timeless child and… same rubbish, different day.
This is just the new Orphan 55.
Never mind bring back Chibnall, bring back Cartmel. He had guts.
I liked this episode for the most part. I loved the way those creatures were basically designed to eat a person who walks directly into them, no way they could chase down prey but their vertical mouths were people sized and they could just stand and wait.
I never saw a society more deserving of extinction than this one. Vapid, self absorbed and pastel with no redeeming qualities.
It does bring up an interesting idea, with the TARDIS capabilities the Doctor could lifeboat away almost entire civilizations if need be.
One thing I did miss when watching the show which seem a focal point in this thread. I saw the rejection of the Doctor's help in the end not as a race issue but more that he was an outsider to their protected and pampered cliquish society. He did not conform to their rules and patterned behavior at all. I think if these people only knew of their white race her first question when the Doctor popped into her bubble would have been "What's wrong with your skin?". If there were blacks in their society but relegated to minor support roles I think there would have been "How dare you you speak to me this way, where is your supervisor?" or "Why should I listen to you of all people?".
She seemed to be more upset that he could unblock and actually shared a physical space with Ruby, both more aligned with social behavior.
I have heard the phrase "Too blonde to walk" before, never though I would see it though.
I never saw a society more deserving of extinction than this one. Vapid, self absorbed and pastel with no redeeming qualities.
It does bring up an interesting idea, with the TARDIS capabilities the Doctor could lifeboat away almost entire civilizations if need be.
One thing I did miss when watching the show which seem a focal point in this thread. I saw the rejection of the Doctor's help in the end not as a race issue but more that he was an outsider to their protected and pampered cliquish society. He did not conform to their rules and patterned behavior at all. I think if these people only knew of their white race her first question when the Doctor popped into her bubble would have been "What's wrong with your skin?". If there were blacks in their society but relegated to minor support roles I think there would have been "How dare you you speak to me this way, where is your supervisor?" or "Why should I listen to you of all people?".
She seemed to be more upset that he could unblock and actually shared a physical space with Ruby, both more aligned with social behavior.
I have heard the phrase "Too blonde to walk" before, never though I would see it though.
I've always thought that Cartmel was just the prototype for Chibnall, a mediocre creative that wanted to make Doctor Who their show. Its not like the Cartmel Masterplan is any better then the Timeless Child, they're both equally terrible attempts at retconning the Doctor into something stupid.
As for wanting Chibnall back, absolutely not. RTD has still managed several good episodes if we include the 14th Doctor specials, and Chibnall didn't manage one in his whole run as far as I'm concerned. Plus if nothing else its amusing to see idiots whine about RTD's "wokeness", anyone who uses that term unironically deserves to suffer.
When it comes to RTD, in the end I guess he was never going to "save" the show. He had his own flaws in his first run, and he seemed to have developed new ones since he last worked on the show (like how he really seems to want to make shows strictly for toddlers for some reason). But, whether he wants to be or not he is a step up from Chibnall, so that was worth the showrunner change even if RTD never produces another good episode of Doctor Who from this point.
I think that's covered by Lindy looking forward to when he gets "disciplined" for speaking to her out of turn even as she acknowledges he's being helpful in the crisis.
The "voodoo" comment is the real smoking gun, though. Even if you handwave everything else away as being about class or culture, that puts it squarely and unambiguously in the realm of normal real-world racism. I think that's about as overt as they could get on a family show since they couldn't use an outright slur, and they didn't want to go for TOS-style didacticism where the people of Finetime explained their views on ethnicity and eugenics from first-principles.
It's clearly a racial comment now, but at the time, I thought she thought that he was a bot.
Nah, The Wormhole, I don't want Chibnall back. Really Russell T Davis is my favourite show runner, but there's been some odd creative choices this season. It almost reminds me of early (2005) series one, where we had silly Plastic-Mickey and Fart Aliens. Hopefully Davis is getting this out of his system, and moving on to some more overall solid fare.
Yeah, that was my first thought. I also figured the rich idiot children were deemed useless by Homeworld and were sent there for execution by bug.
Keep in mind that we only really saw their morning and work routine. They might have more entertainment options after work.
I think ultimately the racism plot was going to be a hard thing to pull off. Do you go hard or subtle? Do you make it the A plot or mix it in (in this case) a social media satire? I'm not sure if RTD pulled it off this time, although I'd like to see him do something more with it. I do like the idea of the people being Thals though.
I think you're right. It's implied in a line of dialogue while Lindy is at work:
Presumably, "Aqua Marina" is some sort of entertainment programme.
This was the best 'Black Mirror' episode since 'San Jun...', wait, what, it wasn't 'Black Mirror?
I didn't go into this expecting much out of it, especially knowing it was another Doctor Lite episode, but that twist at the end! (There is always a twist at the end!)
A testament to the writing really. I clued in pretty early on that everyone was white in the Bubblesphere (which I thought was odd due since DW & the BBC are pretty multi-cultural), and just assumed that Lindy talked to Ruby over the Doctor initially was because of their different approaches in how they first spoke to her (ie The Doctor going in a little too hard too soon, while Ruby knowing how to appeal more to a vapid 20-something).
But even then I didn't see the twist of them all being racist Ayran jerks either that derserved to be eaten until it happened! LoL. Jolly good set up and execution I say!
Except poor Ricky September I say. The one person that lowered their bubble and educated themselves. I knew something was going to happen when Lindy threw Ricky to the wolves, but still!
Finally it is nice to see them recognise Susan Twist (I'll grant they where not really paying attention to the tea lady or Mrs Flood), but at least three times now to make a pattern
I didn't go into this expecting much out of it, especially knowing it was another Doctor Lite episode, but that twist at the end! (There is always a twist at the end!)
A testament to the writing really. I clued in pretty early on that everyone was white in the Bubblesphere (which I thought was odd due since DW & the BBC are pretty multi-cultural), and just assumed that Lindy talked to Ruby over the Doctor initially was because of their different approaches in how they first spoke to her (ie The Doctor going in a little too hard too soon, while Ruby knowing how to appeal more to a vapid 20-something).
But even then I didn't see the twist of them all being racist Ayran jerks either that derserved to be eaten until it happened! LoL. Jolly good set up and execution I say!
Except poor Ricky September I say. The one person that lowered their bubble and educated themselves. I knew something was going to happen when Lindy threw Ricky to the wolves, but still!
Finally it is nice to see them recognise Susan Twist (I'll grant they where not really paying attention to the tea lady or Mrs Flood), but at least three times now to make a pattern
Its a pretty huge giveaway to casual racism, dude.
Far too many people (myself included) don't detect racism unless it's really overt. The dialogue is delivered at a fast pace, with a lot going on on screen (multiple chat windows open, I ignored the ones that weren't speaking, the rest got lost in a flood of "Linda's friend list" at the periphery of my awareness). That particular line... yeah, she had no reason to expect it to be the same person.
The signs are there, but they're well-disguised if you're not wired to look for them. Mind you, I'm one of those people who saw "Song of the South" as a kid and got a message of "Respect other cultures and listen to their stories", completely missing the stereotypes (the kids are helped by listening to Remus' stories, not by their parents), so I'm not the most stereotype-aware person. Also being from the UK, wasn't aware of historical slavery (I only discovered "boy" could be a racial slur when people were using it about Obama and I asked why people were so offended).
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Only when you go back. That’s my point. So much of it was hidden deliberately by the script aiming at being clever, but because the world building is so bare bones it’s actually hidden too well. Even it it’s making a point about being how real racism survives, hidden in plain sight, then it still needed to flesh out who these people were.
If it was an anthology show like Black Mirror, I would probably find that more clever than irritating — it serves the aesops fable style fine — but in a programme where this is precisely the kind of society where usually the Doctor would usually then go and find what is rotten in the state of Denmark and bring it all down about their ears, it ends up feeling lazy and even offensive.
Even the fact the Doctor offers them a lift doesn’t seem in line… it’s usually all ‘ah, the indomitable human race off to rediscover its explorer roots’ and it doesn’t feel like he’s testing to see if they’re all racist b*stards like he suspects something is off with them because of Lindy’s suspicious and sadistic tendencies.
Good fable.
Bad Who.
And when sat next to every time Russell had the Doctor call humans en masse ‘stupid apes’ it just rings more hollow. We end up thinking ‘well, the smart phones and slugs were basically right’ and no one is really saved from anything, not them, not their attitudes.
Maybe Big Finish can sort it and have Seven and Ace come blow shit up.
I retrospectively think it’s maybe not the utter shite my initial reaction was, so much as a failure of pacing and getting so caught up in trying something clever that it wasn’t bedded in properly, just to make the fable work.
