In fairness, they might be concerned about it being one EVERY fifty years....
Spoilers Rosa grade and discussion thread
- Thread starter The Nth Doctor
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I thought this was a great episode. It's going to show up in top 10 list right up there with Blink, and Vincent and the Doctor, for years to come.
I was really worried that they were going to cheapen events by having the TARDIS crew be the inspiration or the cause of the events, so it was a relief that didn't happen. I know it worked in Vincent and the Doctor, but I'm so glad that they didn't pull a similar move with Rosa and have her learn about time travel, aliens, the future etc. There will be people who have issues with the villain, but the story wasn't about him. He was just the Mcguffin to get them there and have them interact in the past, without becoming the focal point of the episode either.
I was really worried that they were going to cheapen events by having the TARDIS crew be the inspiration or the cause of the events, so it was a relief that didn't happen. I know it worked in Vincent and the Doctor, but I'm so glad that they didn't pull a similar move with Rosa and have her learn about time travel, aliens, the future etc. There will be people who have issues with the villain, but the story wasn't about him. He was just the Mcguffin to get them there and have them interact in the past, without becoming the focal point of the episode either.
Copypasta from my Facebook, because I don't want to re-write the whole thing:
Doctor Who, Series 11, Episode 3 - "Rosa"
This is a superbly executed hour of television, wonderfully acted and written with both honesty and respect. But it is going to divide a lot of people. Not even necessarily over it's social content, but in terms of what people expect from Doctor Who.
The TARDIS team is in top form here, but the star of this episode is undoubtedly the title character, portrayed by Vinette Robinson. I'm still digesting everything - even having seen it twice now - but it is indeed Rosa Parks who carries the episode, in every way. A careless writer could easily have written her as a kind of messianic figure, and a lesser actor could have played her with an Edith Keeler-like earnestness that would have undercut the reality of who Rosa was. A forthright and determined woman, both idealistic and pragmatic, who had enough self-respect to recognize she deserved to be treated as well as anyone else, and the courage to act on that belief.
There are no monsters, no aliens. The sci-fi elements are kept to a minimum. This is as close to a "pure historical" as the revived series has ever gotten, and could easily have fit well in the First Doctor era, something that seems more and more to be Chris Chibnall's intent with each episode that airs. The nearest to a "pure" historical that NuWho has done to this point was probably "Vincent and the Doctor."
People will complain about the villain and his resolution, and there are many unanswered questions about that, certainly. Perhaps we will get those answers down the line. Series 11 may not have an overall "arc," in the way of the RTD or Moffat eras, but each episode is definitely laying groundwork for the future.
But what this episode does, more than anything else I've ever seen in Doctor Who, from 1963 until now, is make the viewer feel uncomfortable. It's meant to, and we *need* to be made uncomfortable by what we see happening throughout the episode. It's not over-the-top, it's not heavy-handed (despite what certain segments of the Twitterverse will claim). It's merely accurate. And the fact that is is so accurate, is what makes it uncomfortable. If that discomfort leads to a greater awareness, then so much the better.
Whether this will really feel like "Doctor Who" to some people will depend a lot on what they bring to it. For me, it's unlike anything else the show has done. I tend to think of certain episodes of Doctor Who as more "Star Trek-y" than others, but if this one took a page out of any other show's playbook, it wasn't Star Trek. It was Quantum Leap. For the first time in my life that I remember, I felt like Sam Beckett was riding shotgun with the Doctor, or at the very least, standing over her shoulder with a look of encouragement and pride. Not that the Doctor would ever have needed Sam's help to fix something, really, but it's just the style and tone of this episode put it in such a different space than the rest of modern Who, it feels like it would easily have been in Quantum Leap's top ten.
And I have a feeling this will be the episode that everyone looks back on the Jodie Whittaker/Chris Chibnall era and will remember the way people remember Vincent and the Doctor.
Doctor Who, Series 11, Episode 3 - "Rosa"
This is a superbly executed hour of television, wonderfully acted and written with both honesty and respect. But it is going to divide a lot of people. Not even necessarily over it's social content, but in terms of what people expect from Doctor Who.
The TARDIS team is in top form here, but the star of this episode is undoubtedly the title character, portrayed by Vinette Robinson. I'm still digesting everything - even having seen it twice now - but it is indeed Rosa Parks who carries the episode, in every way. A careless writer could easily have written her as a kind of messianic figure, and a lesser actor could have played her with an Edith Keeler-like earnestness that would have undercut the reality of who Rosa was. A forthright and determined woman, both idealistic and pragmatic, who had enough self-respect to recognize she deserved to be treated as well as anyone else, and the courage to act on that belief.
There are no monsters, no aliens. The sci-fi elements are kept to a minimum. This is as close to a "pure historical" as the revived series has ever gotten, and could easily have fit well in the First Doctor era, something that seems more and more to be Chris Chibnall's intent with each episode that airs. The nearest to a "pure" historical that NuWho has done to this point was probably "Vincent and the Doctor."
People will complain about the villain and his resolution, and there are many unanswered questions about that, certainly. Perhaps we will get those answers down the line. Series 11 may not have an overall "arc," in the way of the RTD or Moffat eras, but each episode is definitely laying groundwork for the future.
But what this episode does, more than anything else I've ever seen in Doctor Who, from 1963 until now, is make the viewer feel uncomfortable. It's meant to, and we *need* to be made uncomfortable by what we see happening throughout the episode. It's not over-the-top, it's not heavy-handed (despite what certain segments of the Twitterverse will claim). It's merely accurate. And the fact that is is so accurate, is what makes it uncomfortable. If that discomfort leads to a greater awareness, then so much the better.
Whether this will really feel like "Doctor Who" to some people will depend a lot on what they bring to it. For me, it's unlike anything else the show has done. I tend to think of certain episodes of Doctor Who as more "Star Trek-y" than others, but if this one took a page out of any other show's playbook, it wasn't Star Trek. It was Quantum Leap. For the first time in my life that I remember, I felt like Sam Beckett was riding shotgun with the Doctor, or at the very least, standing over her shoulder with a look of encouragement and pride. Not that the Doctor would ever have needed Sam's help to fix something, really, but it's just the style and tone of this episode put it in such a different space than the rest of modern Who, it feels like it would easily have been in Quantum Leap's top ten.
And I have a feeling this will be the episode that everyone looks back on the Jodie Whittaker/Chris Chibnall era and will remember the way people remember Vincent and the Doctor.
That was extraordinary. One of the best things new Who has done.
Okay, it was a contrivance to have the Doctor and co being part of this particular moment in history, and Ryan overdid the "OMG I'm meeting Rosa Parks and MLK OMG" bit, but no matter. A particularly sensitive subject was handled with appropriate dignity and Rosa Parks - not the Doctor or her companions - was the "hero" (for want of a better word) of the story, as (quite obviously) she was in reality. The performances were terrific, the episode looked amazing, and finally there was some memorable music (which has been beyond bland thus far this series).
One especially poignant moment for me was Yaz looking around the bus and focusing on those fucking awful, hateful signs. Racism is so utterly stupid - how anyone can possibly imagine the colour of someone's skin has the slightest thing to do with their worth as a human being is completely incomprehensible to me - and having Yaz just look at those repulsive signs was a simple and powerful demonstration of the depth of that stupidity.
The baddie didn't need any further exposition or motive - being a racist was sufficient explanation.
Marvellous stuff, and given the rather ugly times in which we live, very...timely as well.
Okay, it was a contrivance to have the Doctor and co being part of this particular moment in history, and Ryan overdid the "OMG I'm meeting Rosa Parks and MLK OMG" bit, but no matter. A particularly sensitive subject was handled with appropriate dignity and Rosa Parks - not the Doctor or her companions - was the "hero" (for want of a better word) of the story, as (quite obviously) she was in reality. The performances were terrific, the episode looked amazing, and finally there was some memorable music (which has been beyond bland thus far this series).
One especially poignant moment for me was Yaz looking around the bus and focusing on those fucking awful, hateful signs. Racism is so utterly stupid - how anyone can possibly imagine the colour of someone's skin has the slightest thing to do with their worth as a human being is completely incomprehensible to me - and having Yaz just look at those repulsive signs was a simple and powerful demonstration of the depth of that stupidity.
The baddie didn't need any further exposition or motive - being a racist was sufficient explanation.
Marvellous stuff, and given the rather ugly times in which we live, very...timely as well.
IIRC the NAACP had other cases beforehand of people doing the same thing, but those people were not neccessarily going to survive the scrutiny of the world/media/society..
Rosa Parks was basically the person with a clean record, nothing bad in her past and the determined strength they thought could be the face that takes the desegregation movement forward
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On the (admittedly limited) evidence we've seen, the Weeping Angels zap you less than a century into the past whereas Ryan by his own admission, dialled the weapon back as far as it would go. Zapping someone back to 1895 isn't a death sentence, you could still live a long life, zapping someone back to the Jurassic era on the other hand, would probably be a near immediate death sentence.
I did like Yas' confusion as to where to sit on the bus, it highlighted the preposterousness of the situation in Montgomery even more.
It did seem a little reckless that the Doctor would let Ryan run all over Montgomery on his own given his unfamiliarity with the city, the time period, and his ethnicity. I noted as well that Graham referred to him several times and at no point did Ryan correct him, I guess this could indicate their relationship is warming, or it could simply have been Ryan not wanting to undercut the shock value of a white man saying that in 1950s America.
I watched it again a 2nd time today and it was as emotional as the first time and I still ended tearing up near the end. Before I looked up the song in my head I thought that was Adele singing. Just to me it sounded like her.
Something I thought of. When the TTR (time travelling racist) spoke to Ryan about "your kind" and that he was putting things right. It just occurred to me he might not have specifically meant black people but humans, maybe by his future time humanity has become so common across the galaxy that we are spreading tolerance, peace and acceptance everywhere and this has pissed him off.
He wants humanity put back in its place..
Something I thought of. When the TTR (time travelling racist) spoke to Ryan about "your kind" and that he was putting things right. It just occurred to me he might not have specifically meant black people but humans, maybe by his future time humanity has become so common across the galaxy that we are spreading tolerance, peace and acceptance everywhere and this has pissed him off.
He wants humanity put back in its place..
If this is it's regular level, it'll still easilly beat every episode from last series on the final figures.
Yeah, I remember there being a slight fuss when Jurassic World was released in the UK, because there's a line about the "pachys" (referring to pachycephalosaurus) getting free...
However, they were mostly ridiculed by those of us who have had the word used against us, as it was in a very different context. Rise complaints were by the same sort of people who might complain about the briefer contraction of "could not" used in Yorkshire (we do pronounce couldn't more like "cu'n't"... same with wouldn't as well).
The thing about that word is, it generally still got used without any thought, even on bbc sitcoms as recently as the eighties, before the establishment started realising it could cause offense. I did wonder what Americans would make of its use.
I have to say, despite being shocked, it was my favourite part of of the episode as I can easily relate to it. Whilst I've never been actually been called a terrorist by anyone, you do always live with that nagging fear it's likely to happen at some point. What I find harder to accept was the optimism after it.
Oh absolutely, only The Pilot got bigger consolidated figures than Jodie's had overnight!
Ooof, rough. I appreciate what they were trying to do, but it seemed like they had an idea, "Let's do Rosa Parks!", and...."Okay, how?" And the "how" was a convoluted mess.
The villain was completely rubbish too. Like someone read Harry Turtledove's Guns of the South. And yet, he hardly did anything. Yeah, I know his goal was to make small changes but it was almost like he didn't even have to be there. Just make it so the residual energy was creating the changes, not him. Some random ex-con from the (far) future wants to go back in time to stop Rosa Parks? Huh? Why? Oh....because he's a white supremacist. Wait, what? Why?
And the sequences where people just sat there (including the bus drivers) as the weird British quartet would have their conversations about the plot. I was shaking my head going "What in the world...who WROTE this? This entire episode is a mess."
Best parts of the episode were Ryan and Yas. And Ryan meeting MLK. I also liked the actress for Rosa.
The villain was completely rubbish too. Like someone read Harry Turtledove's Guns of the South. And yet, he hardly did anything. Yeah, I know his goal was to make small changes but it was almost like he didn't even have to be there. Just make it so the residual energy was creating the changes, not him. Some random ex-con from the (far) future wants to go back in time to stop Rosa Parks? Huh? Why? Oh....because he's a white supremacist. Wait, what? Why?
And the sequences where people just sat there (including the bus drivers) as the weird British quartet would have their conversations about the plot. I was shaking my head going "What in the world...who WROTE this? This entire episode is a mess."
Best parts of the episode were Ryan and Yas. And Ryan meeting MLK. I also liked the actress for Rosa.
I like the fact that he was just trying to nudge history, that was something we don't often see on Who, but I agree he could have had a better back story, then again a lot of the Alt Right don't have anything beyond sheer prejudice fueling their anger so I think it just about works.
The four of them talking tactics on the bus with someone sitting right behind them was bloody annoying though!
^I had to laugh at the extra sat behind them having to try and look disinterested.
Not helped by half term or live F1 on. Pretty much everything was down.
Ghost Monument looks to be coming in at 8.64m before 4 screens. AI of 82.
Yas is going to have an adventure where she accidentally becomes Queen.
Even Brian May?
And for the people who think this subject is only a thing of the past:
https://edition.cnn.com/2018/10/22/europe/ryanair-racist-rant-video/index.html
https://edition.cnn.com/2018/10/22/europe/ryanair-racist-rant-video/index.html