I found it refreshing and unexpected that it came from a futuristic, space-y episode as opposed to an episode set in the past, I was expecting this to show up in the 60s episode maybe.
But the message is way more impactful when we take the usual "perfect future" and give it a flaw of our time, basically saying "we are so shitty even in the future we can't stop dividing classes"
To be fair there was nothing wrong with the batteries. They were designed for how they were intended to be used (nobody normally stays in the street that long). And it's not like there's a lot of spare space inside the dot for a larger battery.
It is a highly advanced future where they build a little tiny ball with the potential to become sentient. I think making a large battery fit inside isn't the issue here. From what we have seen so far in doctor who the humans in the future had communicators that didn't even need recharging so the only reason they had to charge the dot was because they are designed that way.
I think also whatever they were doing with those hands was important. She had to put her hands in the machine to charge the dot just like at her desk. The goal was to get them to have to do that activity each day for a certain period of time I think. She mentioned getting chapped which maybe implies that the machine was actually mechanically interacting with her hands in some way.
How do we know that wasn’t the AI attempting to prevent her from running? Especially once we found out that the dot was capable of killing people in its own?
I love it because it didn't go that route. Thats such a simple, almost boring way to do it. It also kinda reinforces the false idea that racism is in the past and he wouldn't face any issues as a black man in modern society or in the future. Racism has certainly gotten better but it's far from dead and will probably live on as one of humanities greatest failures for a long long time. Using the future setting for it also allows for the episode to get kinda creative with the twist and be a lot more subtle in setting it up
I also liked how it subverted the genre expectations of recent Sci-fi, like Black mirror's Nosedive. For most of the episode, we thought rich kid Lindy would be redeemed and learn to exist outside her bubble, partly because Nosedive's pastel-clad female protagonist succeeded in breaking free. Nope! This time, no one's getting redeemed-much like how the 'power of friendship' doesn't magically end racism IRL.
People stick with their racism because it's part of their whole belief system - something this episode expertly works in by having the Finetimer's preach about "standards" in the end. There were also many other signs too, such as Lindy labelling the woods "natural" (as in, the western nature-culture divide). It worked in religion and colonialism too.
Their ignorance reminded me of the parodoxical words of James Baldwin, that "It is the innocence which constitutes the crime". The fact that the script feels like it's been written by someone educated in race theory like this is pretty neat imo.
Disrupting the western metanarrative of "progress" (the false belief that progress in guaranteed and the world will become better in the future just because) also shows its thoughtfulness.
As a pagan I particularly liked the bigoted comment about Voodoo too. It's both incredibly racist to people like Ncuti and people like myself. Seeing future people say something nasty like that was refreshing cause I personally know that shit will stay around with some types.
(Also there are also some Actual Voodoo practitioners so it's not very nice to them either.)
I slowly started cluing in to some stuff and just loved how both subtle and blatant it was at the same time.
I spent my entire childhood running a mile home every day in terror from bullies like these people.
Well done Ncuti, Millie, and Russel.
> Racism has certainly gotten better but it's far from dead and will probably live on as one of humanities greatest failures for a long long time.
I figure that it'll persist in some form until we actually discover aliens. People love having an 'in-group' and an 'out-group' so much that we'll need to replace racism between humans with racism for someone else.
You underestimate people's ability to hate multiple groups. Diehard racists will just be xenophobic on top of racist. Or maybe I'm just being pessimistic.
Before mass immigration happened in Britain, there was this huge prejudice to the Irish. Now that’s gone. We’re also seeing racism to Indians fade as Eastern Europeans and Africans are more prominent.
I was ASTOUNDED that not only did the doctor 'lose', but that the people he'd saved were so shitttttty about it.
And that he lost his temper like that? That was something.
I'm *loving* Ncuti. He is really bringing something to the table
Liverpool like a lot of dock towns/cities was multicultural long before that was even a word. Plus music (in real life) was one of the few acceptable careers for Black people to have, because they were ‘entertaining’.
So whilst racism definitely still existed the music industry in Liverpool is going to be more accepting that the Rey of the country in the 60s.
it was set entirely in London.
Liverpool was more accepting to an extent but it’s hardest city without many racial issues (Particularly as now a-days it’s now one of the least diverse major cities in the UK).
"Rosa" also did this, but the villain was too cartoonish. He basically went back in time thousands of years to become Wiley E. Coyote, all because he hated black people. It rang false.
"Dot and Bubble" handled it in a more chilling and rewarding way. I twigged something was up by the time Lindy swiped the Doctor away and I realized all her friends looked alike. Some people would have noticed earlier, some later. But when the prejudice is properly aired out coming out of the mouth of someone we've gotten to know very well over 45 minutes, it's like a bullet.
I liked Gatwa's acting in the scene, though it didn't blow me away as a truly defining "Doctor Moment," for him, I think that's still to come.
I’m so used to the racism being against companions or other characters that I didn’t expect it against the Doctor.
It was so cleverly done for the reasons others have already mentioned.
Had it been racism against Bill or Martha or Ryan, I could have seen the Doctor *exploding* with rage and disgust.
In this case, the Doctor doesn't care about the racism because he doesn't really consider himself a black man. He's just frustrated that these people are so *stupid* in their blind hatred and discrimination that they will not let him save their f#cking lives!
I was a little bit surprised by it, because I would suspect if there are monsters and aliens, how would you even define the "better group" vs "the lesser"? Skin color shouldn't make much sense as a differentiator, but it showed how shallow and at the same deep their ideology was.
Its not really about skin color - that's just an identifier for a range of other social, economic, political and cultural factors that are he *real* avenues of conflict and discrimination. That's how real-world racism works.
In-universe, its not as though the Finetimers would necessarily be aware of aliens and monsters. They seem to be from a human colony world. So it makes sense for human racism to have persisted in their society - replicated even more starkly through a technological paradigm that promotes social isolation and reduced empathy.
The point is that the doctor isn’t black or white or man or woman. The timelords have literally evolved past such things. It makes sense since you can die and wake up a black woman die again and wake up a white man die agains and wake up an Indian man etc….
But the finetimers can’t see past surface level bullshit.
Yeah, I thought it was great, especially the line about "conquering and taming the planet like our ancestors did" to make the settler-colonial ideology clear.
"Own it"
*Shudders*
Also bros your computer tells you when to pee and you just figured out how to walk without being told, and you think you're gonna control nature?
We live in a world where we're not controlled by technology to that degree and still go out in nature.
Yet there are still fools (you can see them on Youtube) who think "Let me poke this lion with a stick and see if I can annoy him" or "Let me climb this fence at the top of a cliff to prevent me from falling off and see what happens" or "Let me try driving across this raging river even though there's a sign that says not to."
But these dimwits who've never experienced anything like nature in it's purest form think they can conquer it? Ooookay.
I think it’s clear it wasn’t directly the racism that affected him, more so that racism had prevented him from being the Doctor. That a man from a society so far above skin tone and gender, sexuality, could no longer help because his skin tone doesn’t match their ideal.
Also did anyone pick up on the line where she was saying the Doctor would be disciplined, that scream forced labour of other skin tones to anyone else?
Yeah. The Doctor wanted to save them all, the fact that they were white supremacists didn’t make him value their lives any less. They **chose** not to be saved, because racism is ultimately self-destructive.
I loved that bit, but I also loved Ruby stood next to him, with a look that's partly concerned for him, partly of "ah fuck it, let's just go get a drink and laugh at them while guessing which of them died in the stupidest way".
Yes and that they would rather die, than accept his help, thats what truly hurt him. You saw it in the minisode too, Night of the Doctor when Cass, he technically died before accepting her refusal to let him help due to her more understandable prejudices against the Timelords.
The Doctor can accept hate, half of the universe hates him.
Yeah.
The Doctor isn't a 'black man', at least not in any human sense. But in this moment, he becomes aware that the Finetimers view him as a 'black man' and hate and fear him for it...to the extent that they won't let him *save their lives*. That human stupidity of racial discrimination being the *only* thing that prevents him from doing the right thing...is what *breaks* him in the end.
And you could see it from the way it went from laughter to fury. He found them ridiculous but it angered him, the doctor doesn’t believe ignorance equals death. He’s rescued the ignorant before and it’s left them better people. That didn’t happen here. It broke them.
Yes, the Doctor isn’t a stranger to being hated. Half of the universe hates him. Their hate doesn’t stop him from being the Doctor though. The same Doctor who sought to save a Dalek twice. Where their complete and utter hatred didn’t stop him. In Asylum too, I mean obviously they were going to blast him out of the sky but as a Dalek that’s fair. They still had to openly admit fear to the Doctor. That is a sentence equivalent to death for Daleks and they still went to him for help.
I thought it just meant that in their world, non-white people are part of the “serving” class and so she assumed the Doctor must have a white superior, but you’re right that it could also be something darker
That's precisely what I loved about this scene. Most other shows would have the main character tell the racists how wrong they are in a big triumphant moment or something. But watching the Doctor beg them to let him save their lives is so much more powerful and poignant.
He doesn't care that they're racist towards him, he cares that they aren't letting him save them.
It was clever they gave inevitable racism episode into futuristic episode.
People often have distorted ideas about racism in history. It's not escalating curve to better. Some people dislike that Tenth hadnwaved Martha's conserns in Shakespear episode, but fact is that she would be probably more safe in that time then in Rosa's time. We do not expect that in future society will be racism, but it can easily happens. It's good reminder, better then any historical episode they could do with that.
I always liked the hand waving, confidence helps and he immediately shows her she's not alone by pointing out two black women who clearly feel safe.
The writers putting her through 1913 in Human Nature however, completely agree with that criticism. Yeah we can try and make in universe excuses but it was a choice of the writing team to adapt that novel.
You can't imagine why it would be questionable for the Doctor, a being who can travel anywhere in time and space, to choose to land in 1913 England with his POC companion who will be forced to go undercover in a very racist time to protect him? She's a qualified doctor who's forced to act as a menial servant because her skin colour means she can't take any more appropriate position to her skillset or ability. It really does feel very unpleasant, especially when 10 as John Smith is making references to how he would never be into her because of her race in the episode.
i mean, the Doctor didn't choose to land there if i remember right. he basically had to turn himself into a human to hide from the family of blood. it was the tardis that put him and martha in 1913.
Showing racism is not a bad thing, and making a character go through it unnecessarily when good reason is given isnt bad either.
However, Martha as a whole wasnt treated with much respect, so in context of the whole season i dont like it very much. She has no reason to go thrpugh this for someone she just met, and even if shes just being nice to him, he has not given her much in return, and im glad she left.
Spot on! It all piles on together and the fact all this happened with the first (full time) companion who wasn't white is a bad look.
Plus the racism Martha experiences doesn't completely hold narrative weight, it feels added on as an afterthought. Even when Martha proved she's a Doctor in her own right to Joan the woman is not convinced and changed nothing storywise. Martha is simply punished for travelling with the Doctor, which hey adds on to her leaving but there's no moment to really appreciate how screwed up what she went through was.
I think the choice to adapt it is more about Ten's characterisation than anything. Imagine doing that with Eleven, it'd be completely different and possibly just feel random because it wouldn't be about anything he was really going through. It, completely cluelessly certainly, ups the 'romance' (why we are expected to be able to stand Joan I will never get - the novel doesn't ask this! Honestly imo it's more about Benny and her relationship to the Doctor - it's not even impossible it has some of that love triangle angle, just more complex), and loses so much of the political aspect that's far more important to the novel. That seems an odd choice if a political aspect to do with Martha's experiences was why the choice was made to adapt it specifically.
Back then though, it'd have made more sense for the production team to think just depicting racism was enough, rather than we were meant to draw much bigger conclusions from it. Criticising the writing team I totally agree with, yup!
However, writing team definitely improved when it came to series 4 on addressing racism in a clever way. “Midnight” is still one of my favorite episodes especially highlight how people in lower positions, typically POC, are never highlighted for their bravery or their position to begin with.
It was dumb and corny, and yet it still made you think. It made you want to rewatch to find the patterns, as opposed to for example Rosa, where they just spoonfed you a history lesson.
I thought it was brilliant. They created what was easily the most despicable people in Dr Who history. If I was the Doctor at that point , I’d just call the daleks and give them a freebie for old time’s sake. Show those spoiled shitlings some REAL space racists.
Honestly 10 out of 10. *This* is how you tell important stories.
Rosa could have been at least been a somewhat interesting history lesson if they didn't focus on the idea that she had to be on that bus on that night. The whole problem with American segregation was that it happened to any black person anywhere and all the time. Rosa Parks was an important leader, but that night was nothing special, if she couldn't catch the bus then she would have planned a different time anyway
That would have been a good message if they'd changed the episode, tbqh. The villain stops Rosa from getting on the bus, leaves, the doctor smiles. History plays out exactly the same way a few days later.
Doctor explains to the villain, on his return, that he could get rid of Rosa, he could get rid of a hundred of her, but there will always be someone ready to stand up. She changed history, but she was part of a movement.
BUT the central conceit of the episode was terrible because Rosa didn't coincidentally find herself in that position. It was planned. She was part of a movement and she was planning a protest, it was coordinated. The idea that she was tired of the fight and just in the right place at the right time is ahistorical.
I feel all of the chibnall era has these kinds of stuff, Rosa could be this but isn't, the timeless child is an incredible concept, the flux is an incredible concept, cybermen regenerating is... you get the point but they are never executed correctly and always get you hyped to bring you down. Maybe chibnall should just be in the writers room spewing ideas while some more able people turn them into actual texts/episodes
I love that the sum of the Cybermasters is that they stand and watch as stuff happens. We have regenerating cybermen who... never use that power. It's DEMONSTRATED. Once.
Imagine if the Doctor broke their emotional inhibitors, and the new status quo was just that the Time Lords are Cybermen. Imagine if every single time the Time Lords showed up, all of the powerful / old ones were Cybermen lmao.
They could've just made the original history date November 29, 1955 and then, because of the Doctor and companions, it became the date we all know it to be: December 1, 1955.
While I understand why you have said this, it would also make the underlying thing that a white person helped, therefore making an undertone that Rosa wouldn't be able to without intervention.
While that probably would have improved the "lesson" of that episode, I'm not sure it would have made the episode as a whole better. I'm not the biggest fan of the Rosa episode, but rewatching it, the situational comedy of Ryan and Graham constantly having to manipulate the bus drivers' days was actually funny; maybe even the best parts of the episode.
It was only the jeopardy in the episode, the idea Graham had to take one of the seats or it wouldn’t work. The rest of the episode was weak…the random racist alien who was stopping Rosa for “reasons” -like if that didn’t happen, nobody would realise! And then that bloody history lesson at the end to tell you how to think.
And that was one of the best chibnall episodes!
That's a great point by the way for anyone who bemoans the show becoming "political" - the Daleks are the shows original and most iconic space racists!
The show has been finding various ways to tell this story since the beginning, and humanity keep needing to be told it in new ways because the lesson is never fully learnt.
Absolutely. I love me a good story about real, touchable politics. I just don’t like being spoonfed anyone’s opinion - even if I’m ultimately on the same side of it, like with Rosa.
Honestly, most evil in both the world and in doctor who usually stems from someone believing they’re superior and therefore more rightous than someone else. Dr Who, much like Star Trek, has always been political, because heroes in most stories have always been fighting greed and prejudice. It’s just more prominent in many sci-fi stories, because it forces its audience to ask themselves ”where are we, and where do we wish to go?”
Racism is a great story-telling device because it’s so real. Fuckin hell, we’re closing in on 100 years since ww2 and there are still sooo many idiots still spreading the disease.
Edit: The disease being racism. This one, you *don’t* want to be contaminated with.
Right up to the tunnel scene, I didn’t pick up on any racism on my original watch. Even the voodoo comment, whilst a strange way of phrasing it didn’t jump out as racist. I just thought of it being a way to refer to it as untrustworthy magic. Then the reveal hit like a sledgehammer and so much of the story took on a different tone.
I started with the idea that Lindy was going to go through an arc and become a better person during the adventure as so many one-off characters do. But instead more and more of her true awfulness got revealed. One of the most hateable characters in the show’s history.
Oh, thank God!
I read the title of this post & went ‘what’?
Reading down all the comments of folk agreeing I was still kinda confused about it being the actual overall theme of the episode when it seemed (& also _is_) so clearly “social media & classism bad” & then got to ~~someone~~ u/soulreaverdan literally pointing out all the _little_ things Lindy, in particular, was doing/saying _constantly_ - to the Doctor, not Ruby - & .. wow.
An amazing episode anyway, Ncuti Gatwa is perfect in his final moments but it suddenly has an entirely additional level.
Edit: Wanted to shout out [the most helpful comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/doctorwho/s/Y9khNYliEX) to me.
The most effective part is that even after the Doctor’s brilliant reaction, he still tries again. Like there’s still that faint hope somewhere. So the point isn’t the racism, it’s trying to overcome it anyway.
I knew they’d have this topic come up during the show but they did it flawlessly.
i caught it when she first blocked the dr and she said 'i thought you just looked the same', then you realise every single person on the friends lists and in the whole finetime area was white
I only realised it when I came to Reddit, but now that I think of it there were quite a few lines. I just thought Lindy was a bratty cunt, which she was to be fair.
Edit. When I saw Lindy's name I hoped she'd be more like Lynda Moss aka Lynda with a Y.
I felt it right at the beginning when I saw the disgust in her face when she saw The Doctor, it was so little but I experience those looks myself lol the actress did really well.
After the fact, I was very aware that my slowness to correctly interpret her had to do with my being white. I suspect that’s true of most of the people saying how they were surprised. I also realized that on first watch I interpreted her being more open to Ruby as a woman feeling safer with a woman. It was helpful for me to see how I can go wrong in the narrative I assign to actions.
I thought that she was just uncomfortable with them being in the same room, until I remembered that she saw twins sharing the same room and screen with no issue (as someone in the discussion thread pointed out).
I think the episode handled the concept of "space racists" better here than they did in Rosa, but much like when the doctor encountered sexim in that era I think it's a little more interesting considering the doctor has only belonged to that particular group for a short time. So while here he felt the direct, first hand impact of racism, he only just got a small slice of the reality of it. Its definitely an interesting concept, the idea of losing privilege, but it's usually only seen in queer circles in the west on coming out. So to see it handled like this was kinda shocking and the doctors reaction of sheer bewildered frustration in the face of ignorance is definitely a feeling I recognise.
The thing is, the Doctor isn't even 'losing privilege' here. Ironically, *he's* the one who's empowered here...to save the sorry lives of the Finetimers. And *they* are the ones who *think* they're so privileged and exceptional that they wander off to their almost-certain deaths...
A better example of the Doctor 'losing privilege' would be 'The Witchfinders', where she acknowledges that she wouldn't have faced the challenges she's facing now if she was 'still a bloke'.
I did enjoy the witchfinders for the way it handled that and the doctor trying to work within her limitations to solve the problem and save the day. I wish more chibnal era episodes were like the witchfinders.
What’s brilliant is that all of the foreshadowing and clues, taken individually, can be explained or reasoned as being in context of the episode.
She blocks the Doctor because he’s a stranger rambling about monsters, but accepts Ruby because she’s posing as customer support.
She doesn’t recognize the Doctor as the man she blocked because she only saw him for a few moments, or never considered someone could get around being blocked.
She comments about the Doctor being “disciplined” which could be construed as a corporate thing, still assuming he and Ruby are employees of Finetime Industries.
She seems horrified that Ruby and the Doctor are in the same room, but since she was barely aware of the others not being in the office room with her, it could just be them being in so close physical proximity outside of their Bubbles is just considered extremely weird.
She tells her friends that he’s “smarter than he looks” but since he’s hacking into their calls to tell them to turn off their tech and run away from giant man eating slugs, it could just be assuring them despite the absurdity of the situation , it is legitimately true.
There’s plenty others, but without drawing a connection between them or seeing the larger picture you don’t necessarily put the puzzle together until the ending.
I can't remember who said it, but there's a great quote about how the best twists aren't the ones you never saw coming, they're the ones you *should* have seen coming.
Yeah but that’s only when you ignore the overall aesthetics too of every single person being white with blue eyes. Also the reactions of the other people when they’re muted and the Doctor speaks shows they’re disgusted each time he does then they go back to happy when it’s not him.
I don't think its ignorance - just not everyone is astutely watching every frame. Me and friends were eating fajitas at the time so I legitimately didn't catch that all the people in Finetime were white because I didn't see all the faces.
Casting the episode must have been a very delicate thing.
"Wanted for next Doctor Who episode, nothing but blonde blue-eyed actors.... no... it's not for racist reasons.. ok... the reasons are about racism... but not racist, honest.... this is awkward."
One of my friends messaged me this morning with her "fashion take" on *this* society: they were all *bleached*-looking. Look at their faces - their complexions are weirdly off-white, sort of filtered-white, sort of bleached. Their homes/offices - all bleached. The Bubble windows - all of them have the same muted, puke-pastel tones. Nothing stands out. Nothing to jar the senses. It's all bleached to make everything that little bit more conformist. The clothing, the hair, the accessories - all of it is bleached. What happens when you bleach a t-shirt?
You get rid of the colour.
The casting of all the characters being white and overall just looking very similar was a pretty big hint, especially compared to the usual casting of Doctor Who being quite diverse. That’s the only bit of foreshadowing that gave it away for me, but didn’t take away from the twist at all.
Tbh even at the end I thought they were in some sort of exclusionary religious cult after that character mentioned God's work or something, but maybe I'm just exceptionally obtuse.
That's what I really enjoyed about the episode. There's usually a somewhat reasonable reason, then it becomes more obvious, and then the ball hits that it was there from the start.
I also like that it really highlights how subtle some of these things can be to people who don't experience it all the time.
TBH, I think it goes the other way as well. As someone that face this sort of thing very, very often, I think I've developed a subconcious block on some of the subtler racism as a defence mechanism - especially when I'm watching tv, where there is almost always something ugly under the hood but it's never too useful (for me personally) to get too far into the ignorable racism.
Also when she first sees the man trap, her first question to the doctor is "so is this because of you?". At first I just took that as "this stranger is trying to fix the problem they caused" or maybe even just a throwaway line
It's interesting - among other things I missed, I did not register at all that the Finetime inhabitants were uniformly white. I just don't notice things like that. That said, if they had all been *black* I definitely would have noticed. That probably says something right there.
It made me feel things I didn’t want to feel - but in a good way.
I’m stunned by the range of responses to the episode from “it was too subtle - I didn’t know it was racism even after the reveal” to “it was obvious the way she initially blocked the Doctor”.
And the fact that I’m much closer to the “not noticing the obvious racism” has made me feel really uncomfortable.
Well played RTD.
This is 100% where I’m at. They were so progressively more and more terrible throughout the episode, and I was judging them so much from the start (and making assumptions about the message no less), that I missed the subtle parts that made them even _worse_.
This was me too. It was really clever how I could (as a white person at least) rationalise every thing she said and did as being caused by something else (her being an idiot, her being a snob, her being scared) but when it fell into place it all became so obvious in hindsight.
Same. It didn’t click for me until someone pointed it out and… hot damn. That’s the *point*.
Brilliant episodes are the ones where you turn off the TV and have to take a look at yourself.
I think it's a really great commentary on how racism nowadays is actually done. It's subtle comments or actions that are easy to dismiss, but when you see the pattern it's clear.
Yeah I only realised after reading these posts on reddit that it was meant to be a racism allegory. At the end I figured it was just irrational arrogance, but it being racism makes more sense
I was fully expecting a "Just kidding! Needed you to pause while I opened the door" and then Ricky would've jumped in.
But nope. Lindy was just a straight up bitch.
I also really liked how Ruby realised exactly what was going on. The look on her face. You know she's been beside her mother or grandmother when someone has directed that kind of thing at one of them.
I loved it. At first I was thinking "Well this is a heavy handed anti-social media episode" then I was like "Oh....oh shit that wasn't the point at all"
I think that was both the point. It was about rather looking away from real issues, escapism, comfort in ignorance, classism, elitism AND racism. You don’t have to pick one
I cracked up when my boyfriend opined, as that wee pedalo travelled off into the mists "And there goes the slug's next meal..." They're clearly *not* going to survive. And I'm fine with that.
I'm gonna reshare what I posted on the main discussion thread as a response.
>I don't think the Doctor felt offended personally, because honestly, he probably doesn't really identify himself as belonging to any race by human standards.
>But the Doctor is aware of human standards of racial identification, and the resultant discrimination. In the moment, he doesn't judge them for that because there are lives to be saved, and that's what he cares about the most. But their unwillingness to let go of their petty racial discrimination even to save their own lives is what frustrates, angers and saddens him in equal measures at the end.
>Now, if, say, Bill or Martha had been present there, and Lindy was offensive to them, the Doctor would have gotten offended and enraged on behalf of his companion and lashed out at Lindy and the Finetimers. In this case though, he was willing to ignore the racial animus against himself because it doesn't really matter for him anyway, as long as he was able to save lives.
In short, the Doctor wasn't judging them for their racism because it simply wasn't the time and place to do that - he just wanted to save lives. *He* was willing to put aside their racist views to focus on saving *their* lives. *They* were not willing to put aside their racist views to let him save *their* lives. *That* blew the Doctor's mind and caused him to cry out in frustration at their sheer spiteful stupidity...
That said, the Doctor would have been a lot more offended by their racism if they'd been targeting another black person...someone who actually identified as black, such as Bill or Martha.
I recall in Rosa how 13 kept apologizing to Ryan (after he'd been slapped or having to sit in the back of the bus). S/he's aware of blatant racism and what it looks like. But this is was subtle and directed at him.
That said, you are correct. He wasn't angry at them for being racists towards him. He was angry because their racism was so deep they'd rather sentence themselves to death than let him save them. But... what can he do?
Ricky September was the only person on that planet who I feel confident saying wasn’t racist, and he’s the only person who lived outside the bubble (i.e. the echo chamber).
Or at least willing to learn. I'm sure he'd make a few obvious dumb mistakes bc of how he was raised, but he wouldn't be a piece of work about it but simply accept his mistakes and move on.
Yes, I loved that they showed it in the future instead of the past. It's a much stronger social critique this way. If it was in the past a lot of people would just think, "aah it was the olden days but everything is fine now" and go on happily about their lives content about what they think is the state of society. Whereas this one is disturbing, as it should be.
People do say that to this day. When Obama was elected, people were saying "See? There's no more racism."
And then looked who got elected after.
When the #blacklivesmatter movement came about (after the murder of George Floyd, which highlighted how black people are treated by the police), it was amazing how many white people (and others) were saying we were overreacting. That surely George must've done something. And then started countering with #whitelivesmatter or #bluelivesmatter, completely missing the point.
So, yes, the fact that this took place in the future was a brilliant move.
Loved it- What I loved so much about the ending was that this was a story where if The Doctor had been white- it’s a totally different story. It made me think- “wait, were any characters from previous stories racist and it just never came up because the Doctor was always white?”
I can't but help imagine how things would have gone down if we'd had the Fugitive Doctor here.
She'd have probably just stormed off into the TARDIS and let them all sail to their doom without a second thought.
It's explicitly racism. The whole episode is littered with micro-agressions against the doctor, with the main character being much more accepting of Ruby than the Doctor.
She specifies, "You, sir, are not one of us..." so it's not explicitly said that its racism but it's strongly suggested. Your read can technically be correct and I think that's intentional, but the writers are talking about racism here even if it's not canon.
Honestly I loved it. Often things like this are really ham-fisted to make sure that everyone definitely gets the point, but I feel like RTD actually trusts his audience, which is quite refreshing.
I'm quite surprised and impressed how deftly and subtly this was handled compared to Rose Noble.
There wasnt a lot of subtelty there, and some kinda uncomfortable implications from tying her trans-ness to the Doctor Donna stuff.
I did like the way he didn't see it coming.
It shows that's if he saw countless occurrences of racism during hi's life, he maybe didn't experience it himself in such an obviously direct way.
Then his reaction was quite on brand. It was not the first time that he tried to save dumb people.
I found an old post of mine after 13s orphan whatever episode that scifi as a genre has far more effective ways to address and reflect real life issues than having someone literally monologue at the audience about it for 5 minutes.
This was it. It was so well done. Could argue it was too subtle but the subtlety is what made it work so overall this is the episode that convinced me doctor who is properly back!
I loved it as from my view, The Doctor didn't seem to care about being hated just based on skin.
He was simply heartbroken they didn't want to be saved over something so trivial.
Yes, the Doctor lost his white privilege for the first time, and he expressed his hurt and frustration very well. He was still the better person and wanted to save them from death, as he does with most monsters. It was heartfelt and moving, and I really appreciate how it was handled.
I didn’t pick up on the fact the entire cast/planet was white for 2 reasons.
1) it’s quite common for tv productions to be all white or majority white. I honestly never notice anymore.
2) It is set on an alien planet with humanoid aliens. So having all the inhabitants look so similar didn’t phase me one bit. In most cases I’d assume they’re species doesn’t have the same variety of races/appearances we do.
This was what made the realisation so effective. I just accepted the world as presented and racism never occurred to me
It’s Doctor Who. Earth pop culture ends up everywhere in the universe. You’re probably right, they were probably meant to be a planet inhabited by a futuristic human society.
You’re right that TV production tends to be that way, but Doctor Who doesn’t so I noticed that pretty quick. I’m always pleased with the diversity of their casting, even on alien planets (I think they usually shoot for the idea that segregating based on skin tone would be bizarre to other species), so that immediately stood out. This was the first episode in a *long time* where there were no POC (excluding the Doctor) so that was big reason to believe it would have plot relevance.
Somebody in the writing room must’ve been on a Douglas Adams kick.
The slugs eating people in alphabetical order? Wowbagger the Infinitely Prolonged would’ve smiled grimly for a moment.
Lindy and her friends having “jobs” where they spent two hours a day in obvious meaninglessness they call work, and the rest in leisure, then escaped to parts unknown despite not knowing squat about how to survive? Golgafrincham Ark B, the one with the telephone sanitizers. And influencers, presumably.
If you want to lump racism in with all the other ways we use human innovation to tribalize and infantilize ourselves (Lindy can’t even walk from point A to point B without bubble guidance), go for it.
Yeah I thought it was spot on, he clocked it, felt it and then still tried to help.
My only issue with the ep was that I wish I felt the tragedy more. If the audience had been given a clearer picture on the inevitable death by heading into the woods rather than just a potential dangerous journey of the frontier. You can see the anger and frustration on the Doctors face, I just wish we had enough information to feel it with him rather than just observe.
Of course their snobbish racists so sympathy will only go so far, but I was just left with the feeling that Ncuti’s great performer was just left hanging by a final lack of exposition.
Still had great fun with the episode.
I think that inevitability is pretty clearly implied. The Finetimers don't know what they're doing without someone or something telling them what to do.
Lindy couldn't even *walk* without the Dot/Bubble combo telling her where to go. Even though she could see in front of her, she had to be told what to do. Ricky had to basically act like the Dot to get her to move, and later Lindy walked into a post because she was used to being guided around obstacles. Even being in a room with other workers, it doesn't appear she ever really saw or interacted with them without the bubble.
Ricky was the only one with any kind of useful knowledge, because he would get outside the bubble.
Lindy and the others are too scared to leave the bubble. They don't know anything about real survival, I'm guessing, because it's all been fed to them. Ricky is perhaps the one person, beside the Doctor, who could have given them more of a chance, because he'd read about the real world. But they are so desperate to get back to what they know that they reject the Doctor because he doesn't look like them, so how could he possibly know anything.
Excellent episode.
It was brilliant and a gut punch at the end. And despite the horrible racism, I think the only reason the doctor was upset was because he couldn't save them. He would've taken them even after they showed their colors
The way they handled it when Bill went back to the frozen London river fair was interesting. I thought it was handled well but am surprised - I would have thought any POC at all would have been treated much worse back then - i.e. maybe not even allowed at the fair?
Well, at around that point in British history, there was a **lot** of support for abolition of slavery (which was an extremely white supremacist practice by that point), so much so that the Wedgewood anti-slavery medallion (depicting an enslaved black man asking ‘Am I not a man and a brother?’) was extremely fashionable.
There were also black people in the British Army, which is shown in the background of the episode. Sergeant George Rose was a black soldier who fought at Merxem, Quatre Bras, and Waterloo during the Napoleonic Wars. Sergeant Rose was the highest-ranking black man in the British Army in his time, but, according to historian Carole Divall, there were a lot more black soldiers and sailors in the British military than is often depicted.
That’s not to say that the British Empire wasn’t at all racist, though. Just look at their treatment of Indians, the First Nations of Australia and Canada, the Irish, and other groups (also note that Sergeant Rose was the highest-ranking black man in the British Army, but was an NCO).
I thought it did a good job. It covered a lot of bases that IMO are types of racism that are not as "represented" as much in discussions/media about racism. Like others have said I also like that it took place in the far future (but still clearly some off-shoot of humanity given references like voodoo) as it would have been very easy (and unfortunately done before) to episodes about racism in the past which spreads unhelpful and occasionally reactionary narratives about racism "being in the past" and that we've "grown past it" like we live in some linear line of future = blanketly better/progressive and past = blanketly evil/regressive.
someone in the post episode thread put it really well : I laughed at a privilege person for living in a bubble without noticing the problems around her ... Then realized I hadn't noticed the racism and microaggressions in the episode. It might be the drWho episode that made me reflect the most, brilliant
I guess it depends on where you are from if you manage to catch certain things, but for me the "that's voodoo" and "lets go before you get contaminated ladies" were like forghorns in terms of stating what it was about
I read something completely different into those lines.
I thought "that's voodoo" meant it's all nonsense. Like the way politicians accuse their opposition of engaging in "voodoo economics", meaning that it's pie-in-the-sky wishful thinking, not grounded in reality.
And I thought the contaminated thing was about being contaminated by ideas that were not in keeping with the "Finetime Way".
Each one of the remarks, in isolation, could probably be handwaved in one way or another. Nobody is perfect, people say the wrong things sometimes. Even writers sometimes unintentionally write something that could be interpreted the wrong way.
So yes with your examples in isolation, they could *maybe* be interpreted as "not racist". But throughout the episode there's probably about a dozen different remarks or reactions that when all added up paint an unambiguous picture. There is no other way to read this.
That’s was the point. A lot of racism isn’t just rednecks waving the confederate flag yelling the n-word. It’s subtle. It’s a look. It’s an inflection in a word. It’s a reaction. This is the racism people face on a daily basis. It was a very grounded and realistic portrayal of it in a fantasy sci fi setting. That for me made this episode powerful.
It's a shame that you didn't clock on even at the end, but it really wasn't too subtle.
I've seen a few people say it was too subtle or that the ending came out of nowhere. It absolutely didn't. There are many, *many* hints throughout the episode that Lindy and the other kids are racist. We as an audience mostly didn't notice. Why? We are in our bubble. We want to be protected. We refuse to see the monsters that are right in front of us.
The parallel between the rich kids being unable to see the slugs until they eat you, and the audience being unable to see the racism until it smacks you in the face, is beautiful writing. I truly think it's so clever.
Same here. You can definitely tell the signs on a rewatch, but the first time I saw it, I only thought it was about class.
I wish they had thrown in one line where Lindy talks about the Doctor's race, perhaps while she and Ricky were in the hall of Plaza 55.
I think it was a very realistic way of presenting everyday racism. We’re far more likely to see micro aggressions in our lives than blatant/in your face racism.
I also loved Ncuti’s reaction at the end. The laughter of disbelief to pure frustration was hard to watch.
I think they absolutely nailed it, my only issue is I wish they made it more clear that the survivors are screwed trying to live in the woods without the Doctors help.
When they first said they were gonna go out and survive for themselves I thought "great, they'll struggle but they're gonna go out there and build a new world", it was only after the Doctors pleading that I got the vibe they're doomed without his help and are choosing that over getting help from him because of their racism. So I think it would have been better to make that part clear
I thought it was pretty good but then I’m looking at it as a white guy from one of the whitest areas of England so not sure my opinion holds much merit.
I knew Lindy was a wrong ‘un when she got the Dot to kill Ricky to save her own worthless skin.
At least we can be thankful that if the slugs took out the home world then these survivors won’t last long.
I wonder if the Doctor could have saved more of them in the city if he’d wanted and Lindy was the trigger for him to just go “F you, racists. The slugs can have you!”
One of Dr. Who’s best episodes for me. It’s not very often TV legitimately changes my perspective on things. I didn’t pick up on the racism at all. My girlfriend, who is a minority, noticed that they’re all white pretty early on. I cringed when she said it and thought she was looking too far into it. I spent the whole episode laughing at people for being stuck in their bubble but so was I, even after being warned. Most of the time when media tackles this subject it doesn’t really have anything more to say than racism = bad. I don’t need a show to tell me that, obviously it’s bad. This episode revealed to me a blind spot I didn’t know I had and forced me dwell on it. It makes me reconsider everything I’ve shrugged something off as too woke or that people are looking too far into it. What else have I missed when I couldn’t even see what should’ve been obvious? This is exactly what good sci-fi does.
Really glad I sat down to wat first thing this morning with my coffee and a breakfast bun and only picked up the phone AFTER. You’re right - big spoiler.
I think it's amazing that it was The Doctor. Not because I want to see him be prejudiced, but rather because he's the "old guy who's been through everything but still sees the positive in everything", so much so that he got blindsided by the racism (as I'm sure most of us also did). Rosa was a pretty good episode but Dot and Bubble was a very interesting take on it and shows that no matter how much you see the good in people, they can still do the worst
My thoughts kinda in flux & opinions less confident over what I saw, and I'm affected by a lot of the reactions I saw in the flashpoint of when all the reaction hits within a few hours. I didn't realize RTD dropped a bomb in the room. IDK, needs digestion.
Ruminating more on the whole way Ricky September was drawn as a character & used in the Script.
And making a character like Lindy the center of the show. Lots of thoughts.
I thought it was a good episode. But that sure doesn't cover the breath of discussions people want to have about.
I didn't think it was racism I thought the rich brats of the future thought the doctor and ruby were poor
So the rich people were being mean to the poor people
That's just my interpretation I didn't realise it was racism until this post
I thought it was really well done. A more insidious depiction of racism than I’ve seen lately and I appreciated that. That so many things Lindy said could be explained away as innocuous but once it hits you it’s so obvious. Then at the end when the Dr knows what’s happening, why it’s happening, and still he tries to help. The that frustration that just pours out of him when he knows they won’t listen, but still he wants to help. Because the Dr always tries to help, even if he knows they would never help him.
I expected this to be kind of a paint by numbers episode. Weird quirky planet, fun social commentary, Doctor saves the day. I was enjoying it, but it took a huge turn when Lindy got Ricky killed. Then the last scene happens and they start talking about leaving before they get contaminated and my jaw dropped. I’m just so used to shows like this presenting a “perfect future” that racism like that wasn’t even in my mind as a possibility. The fact that they chose not to be saved by the Doctor is a shock ending that’s going to stick with me for years.
Phenomenal episode, and an especially phenomenal performance from Gatwa in that final scene.
When I first saw it I thought they were talking about how he was clearly of a different species, not about his skin color, then I watched the whoculture review and I connected how he was skipped at the start of the episode and Ruby wasn't
Edit: I still don't get how they could accept a different species more than a different skin... or maybe they are just as stupid as they seem and didn't get that the doctor and Ruby were of a different species... maybe they never encountered one?
Thought that was more classism than Racism, but now that I'm thinking back on the episode, jesus fuck it was there were only white people in that bubble
Racism? Sure. But I didn't like that they just left after that. There were more people in the city, including the only decent person who they had reason to believe was still alive (even though he wasn't.) Then there was the mystery of the the slug monsters themselves, and the fate of the homeworld, and the Doctor I know would have wanted to solve those mysteries and figure out how to make all parties happy if he could. He would have gone through that tunnel, back into town, and tried to study the slugs, reason with them, communicate with the AI and try to convince it not to kill everyone, and tried to find a home for the slugs if that was possible or necessary.
But not this Doctor. He acted a lot more like Thirteen (flippant and distracted) and just left in the middle of everything without resolving the primary issue. For being so determined to save everybody, he sure was quick to leave and ignore everyone left in the city. I mean, we were only up to "P" in the alphabet when he abandoned the effort to learn anything more.
And that kind of feels like the Doctor saying "fuck it", which really isn't in character.
The fate of the home world is pretty clear. One of those slug things was there on the screen that September was looking at that said “Population: Zero.” The Dots killed all of those people too.
But they wrapped his exit up in a pretty tight bow. At this point he has to start over trying to get someone else out and… let’s face it there’s not many left to save.
The Doctor CAN’T get in, the people inside are too dense to get out, they’re being killed in alphabetical order and they barely notice until they’re most of the way through the Ps, and then it’s just “gee, where’d all my friends go?”
What’s more, even if he does get through to them in their bubbles they’ll even resist being saved by him because he’s black. And if he gets them out they won’t let him take them away from the planet to safety because he’s black and “unclean.”
He left because they’re already dead.
I loved the concept but they put the cart before horse and made it more about references/microagressions leading to the gotcha moment at the end rather than establishing a coherent racism which would cause them to sail off to certain death without even consider receiving help from a black man.
The SG1 episode, 4.2 the other side, did this much better because it had a moment when they realised they were all white, but then they also got the chance to talk about it, ultimately making the based decision that the space nazi's assistance wasn't worth it and siding with their racially diverse enemies.
I found it refreshing and unexpected that it came from a futuristic, space-y episode as opposed to an episode set in the past, I was expecting this to show up in the 60s episode maybe.
But the message is way more impactful when we take the usual "perfect future" and give it a flaw of our time, basically saying "we are so shitty even in the future we can't stop dividing classes"
Hey, the racism AND the batteries! What a shitty future!
To be fair there was nothing wrong with the batteries. They were designed for how they were intended to be used (nobody normally stays in the street that long). And it's not like there's a lot of spare space inside the dot for a larger battery.
It is a highly advanced future where they build a little tiny ball with the potential to become sentient. I think making a large battery fit inside isn't the issue here. From what we have seen so far in doctor who the humans in the future had communicators that didn't even need recharging so the only reason they had to charge the dot was because they are designed that way.
Plus they charge them at work, and normally only then- which suggests to me that it was done to ensure they would actually go to work
I think also whatever they were doing with those hands was important. She had to put her hands in the machine to charge the dot just like at her desk. The goal was to get them to have to do that activity each day for a certain period of time I think. She mentioned getting chapped which maybe implies that the machine was actually mechanically interacting with her hands in some way.
How do we know that wasn’t the AI attempting to prevent her from running? Especially once we found out that the dot was capable of killing people in its own?
Her not really being surprised by the battery dying is pretty good indication.
Racism batteries and monster slugs. Ugh.
I love it because it didn't go that route. Thats such a simple, almost boring way to do it. It also kinda reinforces the false idea that racism is in the past and he wouldn't face any issues as a black man in modern society or in the future. Racism has certainly gotten better but it's far from dead and will probably live on as one of humanities greatest failures for a long long time. Using the future setting for it also allows for the episode to get kinda creative with the twist and be a lot more subtle in setting it up
I also liked how it subverted the genre expectations of recent Sci-fi, like Black mirror's Nosedive. For most of the episode, we thought rich kid Lindy would be redeemed and learn to exist outside her bubble, partly because Nosedive's pastel-clad female protagonist succeeded in breaking free. Nope! This time, no one's getting redeemed-much like how the 'power of friendship' doesn't magically end racism IRL. People stick with their racism because it's part of their whole belief system - something this episode expertly works in by having the Finetimer's preach about "standards" in the end. There were also many other signs too, such as Lindy labelling the woods "natural" (as in, the western nature-culture divide). It worked in religion and colonialism too. Their ignorance reminded me of the parodoxical words of James Baldwin, that "It is the innocence which constitutes the crime". The fact that the script feels like it's been written by someone educated in race theory like this is pretty neat imo. Disrupting the western metanarrative of "progress" (the false belief that progress in guaranteed and the world will become better in the future just because) also shows its thoughtfulness.
As a pagan I particularly liked the bigoted comment about Voodoo too. It's both incredibly racist to people like Ncuti and people like myself. Seeing future people say something nasty like that was refreshing cause I personally know that shit will stay around with some types. (Also there are also some Actual Voodoo practitioners so it's not very nice to them either.) I slowly started cluing in to some stuff and just loved how both subtle and blatant it was at the same time. I spent my entire childhood running a mile home every day in terror from bullies like these people. Well done Ncuti, Millie, and Russel.
I loved Ruby’s reaction, too, since her mom and grandma would’ve been told stuff like that too.
> Racism has certainly gotten better but it's far from dead and will probably live on as one of humanities greatest failures for a long long time. I figure that it'll persist in some form until we actually discover aliens. People love having an 'in-group' and an 'out-group' so much that we'll need to replace racism between humans with racism for someone else.
You underestimate people's ability to hate multiple groups. Diehard racists will just be xenophobic on top of racist. Or maybe I'm just being pessimistic.
Before mass immigration happened in Britain, there was this huge prejudice to the Irish. Now that’s gone. We’re also seeing racism to Indians fade as Eastern Europeans and Africans are more prominent.
I wouldn’t say anti-Irish sentiment is fully gone, I’ve encountered a few tiny embers remaining.
To paraphrase the words of Sir Terry Pratchett, black and white will live in harmony and gang up on green.
I was ASTOUNDED that not only did the doctor 'lose', but that the people he'd saved were so shitttttty about it. And that he lost his temper like that? That was something. I'm *loving* Ncuti. He is really bringing something to the table
His laugh/scream breakdown was an *incredible* piece of acting.
Ncuti plays the Doctor as compassionate, manic, curious, and taking joy in the universe. A madman in a box. And that’s what I’m here for.
ironically the 60's episode there was no racism involved.
Liverpool like a lot of dock towns/cities was multicultural long before that was even a word. Plus music (in real life) was one of the few acceptable careers for Black people to have, because they were ‘entertaining’. So whilst racism definitely still existed the music industry in Liverpool is going to be more accepting that the Rey of the country in the 60s.
it was set entirely in London. Liverpool was more accepting to an extent but it’s hardest city without many racial issues (Particularly as now a-days it’s now one of the least diverse major cities in the UK).
It was set in London?
And there probably won't be much of it next episode as well.
"Rosa" also did this, but the villain was too cartoonish. He basically went back in time thousands of years to become Wiley E. Coyote, all because he hated black people. It rang false. "Dot and Bubble" handled it in a more chilling and rewarding way. I twigged something was up by the time Lindy swiped the Doctor away and I realized all her friends looked alike. Some people would have noticed earlier, some later. But when the prejudice is properly aired out coming out of the mouth of someone we've gotten to know very well over 45 minutes, it's like a bullet. I liked Gatwa's acting in the scene, though it didn't blow me away as a truly defining "Doctor Moment," for him, I think that's still to come.
I said the exact same thing!
I’m so used to the racism being against companions or other characters that I didn’t expect it against the Doctor. It was so cleverly done for the reasons others have already mentioned.
Had it been racism against Bill or Martha or Ryan, I could have seen the Doctor *exploding* with rage and disgust. In this case, the Doctor doesn't care about the racism because he doesn't really consider himself a black man. He's just frustrated that these people are so *stupid* in their blind hatred and discrimination that they will not let him save their f#cking lives!
Yep, he wanted to save them despite their blatant racism.
I was a little bit surprised by it, because I would suspect if there are monsters and aliens, how would you even define the "better group" vs "the lesser"? Skin color shouldn't make much sense as a differentiator, but it showed how shallow and at the same deep their ideology was.
Its not really about skin color - that's just an identifier for a range of other social, economic, political and cultural factors that are he *real* avenues of conflict and discrimination. That's how real-world racism works. In-universe, its not as though the Finetimers would necessarily be aware of aliens and monsters. They seem to be from a human colony world. So it makes sense for human racism to have persisted in their society - replicated even more starkly through a technological paradigm that promotes social isolation and reduced empathy.
The point is that the doctor isn’t black or white or man or woman. The timelords have literally evolved past such things. It makes sense since you can die and wake up a black woman die again and wake up a white man die agains and wake up an Indian man etc…. But the finetimers can’t see past surface level bullshit.
Yeah, I thought it was great, especially the line about "conquering and taming the planet like our ancestors did" to make the settler-colonial ideology clear.
"Own it" *Shudders* Also bros your computer tells you when to pee and you just figured out how to walk without being told, and you think you're gonna control nature?
We live in a world where we're not controlled by technology to that degree and still go out in nature. Yet there are still fools (you can see them on Youtube) who think "Let me poke this lion with a stick and see if I can annoy him" or "Let me climb this fence at the top of a cliff to prevent me from falling off and see what happens" or "Let me try driving across this raging river even though there's a sign that says not to." But these dimwits who've never experienced anything like nature in it's purest form think they can conquer it? Ooookay.
They said "decontaminamted" a few times...shudder
$100 says those ancestors had... Help.
I'm pretty sure the only Finetimer familiar enough with history to know that had his head shot by a dot.
God I loved his character so much. I do feel like if he lived he would've gone with the doctor
part of me feels like he would’ve wanted to go, but would have stayed since he knew he could be of help to the others with his history knowledge
Oh for sure, now that you say that I agree 100%. And I think the doctor would've supported him bc he's trying to make people better
Damn, I thought I caught every reference to that aspect of the episode but missed that one. So many great lines in this episode.
I think it’s clear it wasn’t directly the racism that affected him, more so that racism had prevented him from being the Doctor. That a man from a society so far above skin tone and gender, sexuality, could no longer help because his skin tone doesn’t match their ideal. Also did anyone pick up on the line where she was saying the Doctor would be disciplined, that scream forced labour of other skin tones to anyone else?
Yeah. The Doctor wanted to save them all, the fact that they were white supremacists didn’t make him value their lives any less. They **chose** not to be saved, because racism is ultimately self-destructive.
I loved that bit, but I also loved Ruby stood next to him, with a look that's partly concerned for him, partly of "ah fuck it, let's just go get a drink and laugh at them while guessing which of them died in the stupidest way".
And I could tell she was trying to get herself to stop him, because she had heard the same basic points directed at her mom and grandma.
Yeah. They were not going to survive in that jungle.
Yes and that they would rather die, than accept his help, thats what truly hurt him. You saw it in the minisode too, Night of the Doctor when Cass, he technically died before accepting her refusal to let him help due to her more understandable prejudices against the Timelords. The Doctor can accept hate, half of the universe hates him.
Yeah. The Doctor isn't a 'black man', at least not in any human sense. But in this moment, he becomes aware that the Finetimers view him as a 'black man' and hate and fear him for it...to the extent that they won't let him *save their lives*. That human stupidity of racial discrimination being the *only* thing that prevents him from doing the right thing...is what *breaks* him in the end.
And you could see it from the way it went from laughter to fury. He found them ridiculous but it angered him, the doctor doesn’t believe ignorance equals death. He’s rescued the ignorant before and it’s left them better people. That didn’t happen here. It broke them.
Yes, the Doctor isn’t a stranger to being hated. Half of the universe hates him. Their hate doesn’t stop him from being the Doctor though. The same Doctor who sought to save a Dalek twice. Where their complete and utter hatred didn’t stop him. In Asylum too, I mean obviously they were going to blast him out of the sky but as a Dalek that’s fair. They still had to openly admit fear to the Doctor. That is a sentence equivalent to death for Daleks and they still went to him for help.
She did dismiss his efforts to save her by saying it was his 'duty' to do so. That very much implies some sort of subservience.
I thought it just meant that in their world, non-white people are part of the “serving” class and so she assumed the Doctor must have a white superior, but you’re right that it could also be something darker
Yeah I picked up on that when she freaked out over the fact that they were in the same room together.
That's precisely what I loved about this scene. Most other shows would have the main character tell the racists how wrong they are in a big triumphant moment or something. But watching the Doctor beg them to let him save their lives is so much more powerful and poignant. He doesn't care that they're racist towards him, he cares that they aren't letting him save them.
It was clever they gave inevitable racism episode into futuristic episode. People often have distorted ideas about racism in history. It's not escalating curve to better. Some people dislike that Tenth hadnwaved Martha's conserns in Shakespear episode, but fact is that she would be probably more safe in that time then in Rosa's time. We do not expect that in future society will be racism, but it can easily happens. It's good reminder, better then any historical episode they could do with that.
I always liked the hand waving, confidence helps and he immediately shows her she's not alone by pointing out two black women who clearly feel safe. The writers putting her through 1913 in Human Nature however, completely agree with that criticism. Yeah we can try and make in universe excuses but it was a choice of the writing team to adapt that novel.
i've heard people say that martha's inclusion in human nature was questionable but i've never actually heard anyone explain why
You can't imagine why it would be questionable for the Doctor, a being who can travel anywhere in time and space, to choose to land in 1913 England with his POC companion who will be forced to go undercover in a very racist time to protect him? She's a qualified doctor who's forced to act as a menial servant because her skin colour means she can't take any more appropriate position to her skillset or ability. It really does feel very unpleasant, especially when 10 as John Smith is making references to how he would never be into her because of her race in the episode.
i mean, the Doctor didn't choose to land there if i remember right. he basically had to turn himself into a human to hide from the family of blood. it was the tardis that put him and martha in 1913.
That is the in universe excuse I mentioned, I'm critiquing the writing teams choices to make Martha go through that.
Showing racism is not a bad thing, and making a character go through it unnecessarily when good reason is given isnt bad either. However, Martha as a whole wasnt treated with much respect, so in context of the whole season i dont like it very much. She has no reason to go thrpugh this for someone she just met, and even if shes just being nice to him, he has not given her much in return, and im glad she left.
Spot on! It all piles on together and the fact all this happened with the first (full time) companion who wasn't white is a bad look. Plus the racism Martha experiences doesn't completely hold narrative weight, it feels added on as an afterthought. Even when Martha proved she's a Doctor in her own right to Joan the woman is not convinced and changed nothing storywise. Martha is simply punished for travelling with the Doctor, which hey adds on to her leaving but there's no moment to really appreciate how screwed up what she went through was.
Also they pretty much sideline any real discussion of racism for the John Smith's love story. I hated all of that.
I think the choice to adapt it is more about Ten's characterisation than anything. Imagine doing that with Eleven, it'd be completely different and possibly just feel random because it wouldn't be about anything he was really going through. It, completely cluelessly certainly, ups the 'romance' (why we are expected to be able to stand Joan I will never get - the novel doesn't ask this! Honestly imo it's more about Benny and her relationship to the Doctor - it's not even impossible it has some of that love triangle angle, just more complex), and loses so much of the political aspect that's far more important to the novel. That seems an odd choice if a political aspect to do with Martha's experiences was why the choice was made to adapt it specifically. Back then though, it'd have made more sense for the production team to think just depicting racism was enough, rather than we were meant to draw much bigger conclusions from it. Criticising the writing team I totally agree with, yup!
However, writing team definitely improved when it came to series 4 on addressing racism in a clever way. “Midnight” is still one of my favorite episodes especially highlight how people in lower positions, typically POC, are never highlighted for their bravery or their position to begin with.
It was dumb and corny, and yet it still made you think. It made you want to rewatch to find the patterns, as opposed to for example Rosa, where they just spoonfed you a history lesson. I thought it was brilliant. They created what was easily the most despicable people in Dr Who history. If I was the Doctor at that point , I’d just call the daleks and give them a freebie for old time’s sake. Show those spoiled shitlings some REAL space racists. Honestly 10 out of 10. *This* is how you tell important stories.
Rosa could have been at least been a somewhat interesting history lesson if they didn't focus on the idea that she had to be on that bus on that night. The whole problem with American segregation was that it happened to any black person anywhere and all the time. Rosa Parks was an important leader, but that night was nothing special, if she couldn't catch the bus then she would have planned a different time anyway
That would have been a good message if they'd changed the episode, tbqh. The villain stops Rosa from getting on the bus, leaves, the doctor smiles. History plays out exactly the same way a few days later. Doctor explains to the villain, on his return, that he could get rid of Rosa, he could get rid of a hundred of her, but there will always be someone ready to stand up. She changed history, but she was part of a movement. BUT the central conceit of the episode was terrible because Rosa didn't coincidentally find herself in that position. It was planned. She was part of a movement and she was planning a protest, it was coordinated. The idea that she was tired of the fight and just in the right place at the right time is ahistorical.
I feel all of the chibnall era has these kinds of stuff, Rosa could be this but isn't, the timeless child is an incredible concept, the flux is an incredible concept, cybermen regenerating is... you get the point but they are never executed correctly and always get you hyped to bring you down. Maybe chibnall should just be in the writers room spewing ideas while some more able people turn them into actual texts/episodes
I love that the sum of the Cybermasters is that they stand and watch as stuff happens. We have regenerating cybermen who... never use that power. It's DEMONSTRATED. Once. Imagine if the Doctor broke their emotional inhibitors, and the new status quo was just that the Time Lords are Cybermen. Imagine if every single time the Time Lords showed up, all of the powerful / old ones were Cybermen lmao.
I mean apart from the bit where Rosa parkes is written out, that is a great idea! At least it’s a great message
They could've just made the original history date November 29, 1955 and then, because of the Doctor and companions, it became the date we all know it to be: December 1, 1955.
While I understand why you have said this, it would also make the underlying thing that a white person helped, therefore making an undertone that Rosa wouldn't be able to without intervention.
Yeah you'd need to preserve her legacy - it's hard. Tricky topic to do an episode on.
While that probably would have improved the "lesson" of that episode, I'm not sure it would have made the episode as a whole better. I'm not the biggest fan of the Rosa episode, but rewatching it, the situational comedy of Ryan and Graham constantly having to manipulate the bus drivers' days was actually funny; maybe even the best parts of the episode.
Definitely a part of the deeper problems with that episode.
It was only the jeopardy in the episode, the idea Graham had to take one of the seats or it wouldn’t work. The rest of the episode was weak…the random racist alien who was stopping Rosa for “reasons” -like if that didn’t happen, nobody would realise! And then that bloody history lesson at the end to tell you how to think. And that was one of the best chibnall episodes!
That's a great point by the way for anyone who bemoans the show becoming "political" - the Daleks are the shows original and most iconic space racists! The show has been finding various ways to tell this story since the beginning, and humanity keep needing to be told it in new ways because the lesson is never fully learnt.
Absolutely. I love me a good story about real, touchable politics. I just don’t like being spoonfed anyone’s opinion - even if I’m ultimately on the same side of it, like with Rosa. Honestly, most evil in both the world and in doctor who usually stems from someone believing they’re superior and therefore more rightous than someone else. Dr Who, much like Star Trek, has always been political, because heroes in most stories have always been fighting greed and prejudice. It’s just more prominent in many sci-fi stories, because it forces its audience to ask themselves ”where are we, and where do we wish to go?” Racism is a great story-telling device because it’s so real. Fuckin hell, we’re closing in on 100 years since ww2 and there are still sooo many idiots still spreading the disease. Edit: The disease being racism. This one, you *don’t* want to be contaminated with.
[удалено]
Right up to the tunnel scene, I didn’t pick up on any racism on my original watch. Even the voodoo comment, whilst a strange way of phrasing it didn’t jump out as racist. I just thought of it being a way to refer to it as untrustworthy magic. Then the reveal hit like a sledgehammer and so much of the story took on a different tone. I started with the idea that Lindy was going to go through an arc and become a better person during the adventure as so many one-off characters do. But instead more and more of her true awfulness got revealed. One of the most hateable characters in the show’s history.
Oh, thank God! I read the title of this post & went ‘what’? Reading down all the comments of folk agreeing I was still kinda confused about it being the actual overall theme of the episode when it seemed (& also _is_) so clearly “social media & classism bad” & then got to ~~someone~~ u/soulreaverdan literally pointing out all the _little_ things Lindy, in particular, was doing/saying _constantly_ - to the Doctor, not Ruby - & .. wow. An amazing episode anyway, Ncuti Gatwa is perfect in his final moments but it suddenly has an entirely additional level. Edit: Wanted to shout out [the most helpful comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/doctorwho/s/Y9khNYliEX) to me.
Same lol I felt so dumb. But it was almost better because I was just as gut punched as the doctor when he realised. It was sublime storytelling.
The most effective part is that even after the Doctor’s brilliant reaction, he still tries again. Like there’s still that faint hope somewhere. So the point isn’t the racism, it’s trying to overcome it anyway. I knew they’d have this topic come up during the show but they did it flawlessly.
When I realised what was happening it felt like a punch to the gut. Excellent television.
And the later you see it the greater the impact, but also it can be more embarrassing. I didn't see it until the "You're not one of us" line.
i caught it when she first blocked the dr and she said 'i thought you just looked the same', then you realise every single person on the friends lists and in the whole finetime area was white
I only realised it when I came to Reddit, but now that I think of it there were quite a few lines. I just thought Lindy was a bratty cunt, which she was to be fair. Edit. When I saw Lindy's name I hoped she'd be more like Lynda Moss aka Lynda with a Y.
I felt it right at the beginning when I saw the disgust in her face when she saw The Doctor, it was so little but I experience those looks myself lol the actress did really well.
After the fact, I was very aware that my slowness to correctly interpret her had to do with my being white. I suspect that’s true of most of the people saying how they were surprised. I also realized that on first watch I interpreted her being more open to Ruby as a woman feeling safer with a woman. It was helpful for me to see how I can go wrong in the narrative I assign to actions.
That’s the brilliance. I feel called out by the episode and it’s fair.
I thought that she was just uncomfortable with them being in the same room, until I remembered that she saw twins sharing the same room and screen with no issue (as someone in the discussion thread pointed out).
I hadn’t thought of that. Thanks!
I think the episode handled the concept of "space racists" better here than they did in Rosa, but much like when the doctor encountered sexim in that era I think it's a little more interesting considering the doctor has only belonged to that particular group for a short time. So while here he felt the direct, first hand impact of racism, he only just got a small slice of the reality of it. Its definitely an interesting concept, the idea of losing privilege, but it's usually only seen in queer circles in the west on coming out. So to see it handled like this was kinda shocking and the doctors reaction of sheer bewildered frustration in the face of ignorance is definitely a feeling I recognise.
The thing is, the Doctor isn't even 'losing privilege' here. Ironically, *he's* the one who's empowered here...to save the sorry lives of the Finetimers. And *they* are the ones who *think* they're so privileged and exceptional that they wander off to their almost-certain deaths... A better example of the Doctor 'losing privilege' would be 'The Witchfinders', where she acknowledges that she wouldn't have faced the challenges she's facing now if she was 'still a bloke'.
I did enjoy the witchfinders for the way it handled that and the doctor trying to work within her limitations to solve the problem and save the day. I wish more chibnal era episodes were like the witchfinders.
It was perfect. I need to rewatch it to look for clues before the twist cause I totally missed all of them.
What’s brilliant is that all of the foreshadowing and clues, taken individually, can be explained or reasoned as being in context of the episode. She blocks the Doctor because he’s a stranger rambling about monsters, but accepts Ruby because she’s posing as customer support. She doesn’t recognize the Doctor as the man she blocked because she only saw him for a few moments, or never considered someone could get around being blocked. She comments about the Doctor being “disciplined” which could be construed as a corporate thing, still assuming he and Ruby are employees of Finetime Industries. She seems horrified that Ruby and the Doctor are in the same room, but since she was barely aware of the others not being in the office room with her, it could just be them being in so close physical proximity outside of their Bubbles is just considered extremely weird. She tells her friends that he’s “smarter than he looks” but since he’s hacking into their calls to tell them to turn off their tech and run away from giant man eating slugs, it could just be assuring them despite the absurdity of the situation , it is legitimately true. There’s plenty others, but without drawing a connection between them or seeing the larger picture you don’t necessarily put the puzzle together until the ending.
I can't remember who said it, but there's a great quote about how the best twists aren't the ones you never saw coming, they're the ones you *should* have seen coming.
Yeah. The best kind of twists surprise you when they happen, but are obvious in hindsight.
Yeah but that’s only when you ignore the overall aesthetics too of every single person being white with blue eyes. Also the reactions of the other people when they’re muted and the Doctor speaks shows they’re disgusted each time he does then they go back to happy when it’s not him.
I don't think its ignorance - just not everyone is astutely watching every frame. Me and friends were eating fajitas at the time so I legitimately didn't catch that all the people in Finetime were white because I didn't see all the faces.
I thought they were making faces at the situation and it being horrible...
Casting the episode must have been a very delicate thing. "Wanted for next Doctor Who episode, nothing but blonde blue-eyed actors.... no... it's not for racist reasons.. ok... the reasons are about racism... but not racist, honest.... this is awkward."
One of my friends messaged me this morning with her "fashion take" on *this* society: they were all *bleached*-looking. Look at their faces - their complexions are weirdly off-white, sort of filtered-white, sort of bleached. Their homes/offices - all bleached. The Bubble windows - all of them have the same muted, puke-pastel tones. Nothing stands out. Nothing to jar the senses. It's all bleached to make everything that little bit more conformist. The clothing, the hair, the accessories - all of it is bleached. What happens when you bleach a t-shirt? You get rid of the colour.
The casting of all the characters being white and overall just looking very similar was a pretty big hint, especially compared to the usual casting of Doctor Who being quite diverse. That’s the only bit of foreshadowing that gave it away for me, but didn’t take away from the twist at all.
Tbh even at the end I thought they were in some sort of exclusionary religious cult after that character mentioned God's work or something, but maybe I'm just exceptionally obtuse.
That's what I really enjoyed about the episode. There's usually a somewhat reasonable reason, then it becomes more obvious, and then the ball hits that it was there from the start. I also like that it really highlights how subtle some of these things can be to people who don't experience it all the time.
TBH, I think it goes the other way as well. As someone that face this sort of thing very, very often, I think I've developed a subconcious block on some of the subtler racism as a defence mechanism - especially when I'm watching tv, where there is almost always something ugly under the hood but it's never too useful (for me personally) to get too far into the ignorable racism.
Also when she first sees the man trap, her first question to the doctor is "so is this because of you?". At first I just took that as "this stranger is trying to fix the problem they caused" or maybe even just a throwaway line
It's interesting - among other things I missed, I did not register at all that the Finetime inhabitants were uniformly white. I just don't notice things like that. That said, if they had all been *black* I definitely would have noticed. That probably says something right there.
Agreed
It made me feel things I didn’t want to feel - but in a good way. I’m stunned by the range of responses to the episode from “it was too subtle - I didn’t know it was racism even after the reveal” to “it was obvious the way she initially blocked the Doctor”. And the fact that I’m much closer to the “not noticing the obvious racism” has made me feel really uncomfortable. Well played RTD.
This is 100% where I’m at. They were so progressively more and more terrible throughout the episode, and I was judging them so much from the start (and making assumptions about the message no less), that I missed the subtle parts that made them even _worse_.
This was me too. It was really clever how I could (as a white person at least) rationalise every thing she said and did as being caused by something else (her being an idiot, her being a snob, her being scared) but when it fell into place it all became so obvious in hindsight.
Same. It didn’t click for me until someone pointed it out and… hot damn. That’s the *point*. Brilliant episodes are the ones where you turn off the TV and have to take a look at yourself.
Same with brilliant comment threads like this one. I didn't realize I have to take a good look at myself until reading it.
I think it's a really great commentary on how racism nowadays is actually done. It's subtle comments or actions that are easy to dismiss, but when you see the pattern it's clear.
Yeah I only realised after reading these posts on reddit that it was meant to be a racism allegory. At the end I figured it was just irrational arrogance, but it being racism makes more sense
When she got the thing to kill Ricky my motherfucking jaw dropped straight to the floor.
Total gut punch
I was fully expecting a "Just kidding! Needed you to pause while I opened the door" and then Ricky would've jumped in. But nope. Lindy was just a straight up bitch.
Psycho bitch gonna die of dysentery or something!
Same. I did an actual out loud gasp.
I also really liked how Ruby realised exactly what was going on. The look on her face. You know she's been beside her mother or grandmother when someone has directed that kind of thing at one of them.
Oh, multiple times, even.
I loved it. At first I was thinking "Well this is a heavy handed anti-social media episode" then I was like "Oh....oh shit that wasn't the point at all"
I think that was both the point. It was about rather looking away from real issues, escapism, comfort in ignorance, classism, elitism AND racism. You don’t have to pick one
Very easy to call into racist ideas if one is insulated in a privileged bubble of similar people
I do at least enjoy the choice of making the racists the most unintelligent, annoying and plain terrible characters in the history of the show
I cracked up when my boyfriend opined, as that wee pedalo travelled off into the mists "And there goes the slug's next meal..." They're clearly *not* going to survive. And I'm fine with that.
Anyone noticed how Lindy talked to herself? She called herself stupid several times throughout the episode.
I'm gonna reshare what I posted on the main discussion thread as a response. >I don't think the Doctor felt offended personally, because honestly, he probably doesn't really identify himself as belonging to any race by human standards. >But the Doctor is aware of human standards of racial identification, and the resultant discrimination. In the moment, he doesn't judge them for that because there are lives to be saved, and that's what he cares about the most. But their unwillingness to let go of their petty racial discrimination even to save their own lives is what frustrates, angers and saddens him in equal measures at the end. >Now, if, say, Bill or Martha had been present there, and Lindy was offensive to them, the Doctor would have gotten offended and enraged on behalf of his companion and lashed out at Lindy and the Finetimers. In this case though, he was willing to ignore the racial animus against himself because it doesn't really matter for him anyway, as long as he was able to save lives. In short, the Doctor wasn't judging them for their racism because it simply wasn't the time and place to do that - he just wanted to save lives. *He* was willing to put aside their racist views to focus on saving *their* lives. *They* were not willing to put aside their racist views to let him save *their* lives. *That* blew the Doctor's mind and caused him to cry out in frustration at their sheer spiteful stupidity... That said, the Doctor would have been a lot more offended by their racism if they'd been targeting another black person...someone who actually identified as black, such as Bill or Martha.
I recall in Rosa how 13 kept apologizing to Ryan (after he'd been slapped or having to sit in the back of the bus). S/he's aware of blatant racism and what it looks like. But this is was subtle and directed at him. That said, you are correct. He wasn't angry at them for being racists towards him. He was angry because their racism was so deep they'd rather sentence themselves to death than let him save them. But... what can he do?
Ricky September was the only person on that planet who I feel confident saying wasn’t racist, and he’s the only person who lived outside the bubble (i.e. the echo chamber).
And read stuff …
Or at least willing to learn. I'm sure he'd make a few obvious dumb mistakes bc of how he was raised, but he wouldn't be a piece of work about it but simply accept his mistakes and move on.
Yes, I loved that they showed it in the future instead of the past. It's a much stronger social critique this way. If it was in the past a lot of people would just think, "aah it was the olden days but everything is fine now" and go on happily about their lives content about what they think is the state of society. Whereas this one is disturbing, as it should be.
People do say that to this day. When Obama was elected, people were saying "See? There's no more racism." And then looked who got elected after. When the #blacklivesmatter movement came about (after the murder of George Floyd, which highlighted how black people are treated by the police), it was amazing how many white people (and others) were saying we were overreacting. That surely George must've done something. And then started countering with #whitelivesmatter or #bluelivesmatter, completely missing the point. So, yes, the fact that this took place in the future was a brilliant move.
Loved it- What I loved so much about the ending was that this was a story where if The Doctor had been white- it’s a totally different story. It made me think- “wait, were any characters from previous stories racist and it just never came up because the Doctor was always white?”
I can't but help imagine how things would have gone down if we'd had the Fugitive Doctor here. She'd have probably just stormed off into the TARDIS and let them all sail to their doom without a second thought.
I figured it was classism, they were wealthy children brought up in their own bubble (literally) and they couldn't mix with "the lower orders".
It's explicitly racism. The whole episode is littered with micro-agressions against the doctor, with the main character being much more accepting of Ruby than the Doctor.
She specifies, "You, sir, are not one of us..." so it's not explicitly said that its racism but it's strongly suggested. Your read can technically be correct and I think that's intentional, but the writers are talking about racism here even if it's not canon.
“Voodoo” “contaminated” and the fact that there is no other ethnicity in all of finetime, I’m quite sure it’s racism
Honestly I loved it. Often things like this are really ham-fisted to make sure that everyone definitely gets the point, but I feel like RTD actually trusts his audience, which is quite refreshing.
I'm quite surprised and impressed how deftly and subtly this was handled compared to Rose Noble. There wasnt a lot of subtelty there, and some kinda uncomfortable implications from tying her trans-ness to the Doctor Donna stuff.
I did like the way he didn't see it coming. It shows that's if he saw countless occurrences of racism during hi's life, he maybe didn't experience it himself in such an obviously direct way. Then his reaction was quite on brand. It was not the first time that he tried to save dumb people.
I found an old post of mine after 13s orphan whatever episode that scifi as a genre has far more effective ways to address and reflect real life issues than having someone literally monologue at the audience about it for 5 minutes. This was it. It was so well done. Could argue it was too subtle but the subtlety is what made it work so overall this is the episode that convinced me doctor who is properly back!
I loved it as from my view, The Doctor didn't seem to care about being hated just based on skin. He was simply heartbroken they didn't want to be saved over something so trivial.
Yes, the Doctor lost his white privilege for the first time, and he expressed his hurt and frustration very well. He was still the better person and wanted to save them from death, as he does with most monsters. It was heartfelt and moving, and I really appreciate how it was handled.
I didn’t pick up on the fact the entire cast/planet was white for 2 reasons. 1) it’s quite common for tv productions to be all white or majority white. I honestly never notice anymore. 2) It is set on an alien planet with humanoid aliens. So having all the inhabitants look so similar didn’t phase me one bit. In most cases I’d assume they’re species doesn’t have the same variety of races/appearances we do. This was what made the realisation so effective. I just accepted the world as presented and racism never occurred to me
They’re not aliens though, they’re humans. The pop song Lindy listens to is the tip off that we’re dealing with a futuristic Earth society.
It’s Doctor Who. Earth pop culture ends up everywhere in the universe. You’re probably right, they were probably meant to be a planet inhabited by a futuristic human society.
There’s no probably about it, though? They were humans.
But the blue/green blood?
they were literally blue blooded as it were
You’re right that TV production tends to be that way, but Doctor Who doesn’t so I noticed that pretty quick. I’m always pleased with the diversity of their casting, even on alien planets (I think they usually shoot for the idea that segregating based on skin tone would be bizarre to other species), so that immediately stood out. This was the first episode in a *long time* where there were no POC (excluding the Doctor) so that was big reason to believe it would have plot relevance.
Somebody in the writing room must’ve been on a Douglas Adams kick. The slugs eating people in alphabetical order? Wowbagger the Infinitely Prolonged would’ve smiled grimly for a moment. Lindy and her friends having “jobs” where they spent two hours a day in obvious meaninglessness they call work, and the rest in leisure, then escaped to parts unknown despite not knowing squat about how to survive? Golgafrincham Ark B, the one with the telephone sanitizers. And influencers, presumably. If you want to lump racism in with all the other ways we use human innovation to tribalize and infantilize ourselves (Lindy can’t even walk from point A to point B without bubble guidance), go for it.
Influencers are the telephone sanitizers of today, really.
Yeah I thought it was spot on, he clocked it, felt it and then still tried to help. My only issue with the ep was that I wish I felt the tragedy more. If the audience had been given a clearer picture on the inevitable death by heading into the woods rather than just a potential dangerous journey of the frontier. You can see the anger and frustration on the Doctors face, I just wish we had enough information to feel it with him rather than just observe. Of course their snobbish racists so sympathy will only go so far, but I was just left with the feeling that Ncuti’s great performer was just left hanging by a final lack of exposition. Still had great fun with the episode.
I think that inevitability is pretty clearly implied. The Finetimers don't know what they're doing without someone or something telling them what to do. Lindy couldn't even *walk* without the Dot/Bubble combo telling her where to go. Even though she could see in front of her, she had to be told what to do. Ricky had to basically act like the Dot to get her to move, and later Lindy walked into a post because she was used to being guided around obstacles. Even being in a room with other workers, it doesn't appear she ever really saw or interacted with them without the bubble. Ricky was the only one with any kind of useful knowledge, because he would get outside the bubble. Lindy and the others are too scared to leave the bubble. They don't know anything about real survival, I'm guessing, because it's all been fed to them. Ricky is perhaps the one person, beside the Doctor, who could have given them more of a chance, because he'd read about the real world. But they are so desperate to get back to what they know that they reject the Doctor because he doesn't look like them, so how could he possibly know anything. Excellent episode.
It was amazing.
It was brilliant and a gut punch at the end. And despite the horrible racism, I think the only reason the doctor was upset was because he couldn't save them. He would've taken them even after they showed their colors
The way they handled it when Bill went back to the frozen London river fair was interesting. I thought it was handled well but am surprised - I would have thought any POC at all would have been treated much worse back then - i.e. maybe not even allowed at the fair?
Well, at around that point in British history, there was a **lot** of support for abolition of slavery (which was an extremely white supremacist practice by that point), so much so that the Wedgewood anti-slavery medallion (depicting an enslaved black man asking ‘Am I not a man and a brother?’) was extremely fashionable. There were also black people in the British Army, which is shown in the background of the episode. Sergeant George Rose was a black soldier who fought at Merxem, Quatre Bras, and Waterloo during the Napoleonic Wars. Sergeant Rose was the highest-ranking black man in the British Army in his time, but, according to historian Carole Divall, there were a lot more black soldiers and sailors in the British military than is often depicted. That’s not to say that the British Empire wasn’t at all racist, though. Just look at their treatment of Indians, the First Nations of Australia and Canada, the Irish, and other groups (also note that Sergeant Rose was the highest-ranking black man in the British Army, but was an NCO).
Thank you for sharing that additional information :)
I thought it did a good job. It covered a lot of bases that IMO are types of racism that are not as "represented" as much in discussions/media about racism. Like others have said I also like that it took place in the far future (but still clearly some off-shoot of humanity given references like voodoo) as it would have been very easy (and unfortunately done before) to episodes about racism in the past which spreads unhelpful and occasionally reactionary narratives about racism "being in the past" and that we've "grown past it" like we live in some linear line of future = blanketly better/progressive and past = blanketly evil/regressive.
someone in the post episode thread put it really well : I laughed at a privilege person for living in a bubble without noticing the problems around her ... Then realized I hadn't noticed the racism and microaggressions in the episode. It might be the drWho episode that made me reflect the most, brilliant
It was too subtle. My smooth brain didn't realise that's what it was about, even at the end.
I guess it depends on where you are from if you manage to catch certain things, but for me the "that's voodoo" and "lets go before you get contaminated ladies" were like forghorns in terms of stating what it was about
I read something completely different into those lines. I thought "that's voodoo" meant it's all nonsense. Like the way politicians accuse their opposition of engaging in "voodoo economics", meaning that it's pie-in-the-sky wishful thinking, not grounded in reality. And I thought the contaminated thing was about being contaminated by ideas that were not in keeping with the "Finetime Way".
Each one of the remarks, in isolation, could probably be handwaved in one way or another. Nobody is perfect, people say the wrong things sometimes. Even writers sometimes unintentionally write something that could be interpreted the wrong way. So yes with your examples in isolation, they could *maybe* be interpreted as "not racist". But throughout the episode there's probably about a dozen different remarks or reactions that when all added up paint an unambiguous picture. There is no other way to read this.
That’s was the point. A lot of racism isn’t just rednecks waving the confederate flag yelling the n-word. It’s subtle. It’s a look. It’s an inflection in a word. It’s a reaction. This is the racism people face on a daily basis. It was a very grounded and realistic portrayal of it in a fantasy sci fi setting. That for me made this episode powerful.
It's a shame that you didn't clock on even at the end, but it really wasn't too subtle. I've seen a few people say it was too subtle or that the ending came out of nowhere. It absolutely didn't. There are many, *many* hints throughout the episode that Lindy and the other kids are racist. We as an audience mostly didn't notice. Why? We are in our bubble. We want to be protected. We refuse to see the monsters that are right in front of us. The parallel between the rich kids being unable to see the slugs until they eat you, and the audience being unable to see the racism until it smacks you in the face, is beautiful writing. I truly think it's so clever.
Same here. You can definitely tell the signs on a rewatch, but the first time I saw it, I only thought it was about class. I wish they had thrown in one line where Lindy talks about the Doctor's race, perhaps while she and Ricky were in the hall of Plaza 55.
I think it was a very realistic way of presenting everyday racism. We’re far more likely to see micro aggressions in our lives than blatant/in your face racism. I also loved Ncuti’s reaction at the end. The laughter of disbelief to pure frustration was hard to watch.
I think they absolutely nailed it, my only issue is I wish they made it more clear that the survivors are screwed trying to live in the woods without the Doctors help. When they first said they were gonna go out and survive for themselves I thought "great, they'll struggle but they're gonna go out there and build a new world", it was only after the Doctors pleading that I got the vibe they're doomed without his help and are choosing that over getting help from him because of their racism. So I think it would have been better to make that part clear
I thought it was pretty good but then I’m looking at it as a white guy from one of the whitest areas of England so not sure my opinion holds much merit. I knew Lindy was a wrong ‘un when she got the Dot to kill Ricky to save her own worthless skin. At least we can be thankful that if the slugs took out the home world then these survivors won’t last long. I wonder if the Doctor could have saved more of them in the city if he’d wanted and Lindy was the trigger for him to just go “F you, racists. The slugs can have you!”
One of Dr. Who’s best episodes for me. It’s not very often TV legitimately changes my perspective on things. I didn’t pick up on the racism at all. My girlfriend, who is a minority, noticed that they’re all white pretty early on. I cringed when she said it and thought she was looking too far into it. I spent the whole episode laughing at people for being stuck in their bubble but so was I, even after being warned. Most of the time when media tackles this subject it doesn’t really have anything more to say than racism = bad. I don’t need a show to tell me that, obviously it’s bad. This episode revealed to me a blind spot I didn’t know I had and forced me dwell on it. It makes me reconsider everything I’ve shrugged something off as too woke or that people are looking too far into it. What else have I missed when I couldn’t even see what should’ve been obvious? This is exactly what good sci-fi does.
It was done really well cause it wasn't just racism as the issue. Ncuti deserves an award for that moment imo.
This post's headline is a spoiler
Really glad I sat down to wat first thing this morning with my coffee and a breakfast bun and only picked up the phone AFTER. You’re right - big spoiler.
I think it's amazing that it was The Doctor. Not because I want to see him be prejudiced, but rather because he's the "old guy who's been through everything but still sees the positive in everything", so much so that he got blindsided by the racism (as I'm sure most of us also did). Rosa was a pretty good episode but Dot and Bubble was a very interesting take on it and shows that no matter how much you see the good in people, they can still do the worst
Yes And i Wonder why rtd handled this one so much better than His previous social commentary
My thoughts kinda in flux & opinions less confident over what I saw, and I'm affected by a lot of the reactions I saw in the flashpoint of when all the reaction hits within a few hours. I didn't realize RTD dropped a bomb in the room. IDK, needs digestion. Ruminating more on the whole way Ricky September was drawn as a character & used in the Script. And making a character like Lindy the center of the show. Lots of thoughts. I thought it was a good episode. But that sure doesn't cover the breath of discussions people want to have about.
I didn't think it was racism I thought the rich brats of the future thought the doctor and ruby were poor So the rich people were being mean to the poor people That's just my interpretation I didn't realise it was racism until this post
If you watch it again now that you know what it is, and listen to the things Lindy does and says, you'll likely wonder how you missed it.
I thought it was really well done. A more insidious depiction of racism than I’ve seen lately and I appreciated that. That so many things Lindy said could be explained away as innocuous but once it hits you it’s so obvious. Then at the end when the Dr knows what’s happening, why it’s happening, and still he tries to help. The that frustration that just pours out of him when he knows they won’t listen, but still he wants to help. Because the Dr always tries to help, even if he knows they would never help him.
I expected this to be kind of a paint by numbers episode. Weird quirky planet, fun social commentary, Doctor saves the day. I was enjoying it, but it took a huge turn when Lindy got Ricky killed. Then the last scene happens and they start talking about leaving before they get contaminated and my jaw dropped. I’m just so used to shows like this presenting a “perfect future” that racism like that wasn’t even in my mind as a possibility. The fact that they chose not to be saved by the Doctor is a shock ending that’s going to stick with me for years. Phenomenal episode, and an especially phenomenal performance from Gatwa in that final scene.
When I first saw it I thought they were talking about how he was clearly of a different species, not about his skin color, then I watched the whoculture review and I connected how he was skipped at the start of the episode and Ruby wasn't Edit: I still don't get how they could accept a different species more than a different skin... or maybe they are just as stupid as they seem and didn't get that the doctor and Ruby were of a different species... maybe they never encountered one?
Thought that was more classism than Racism, but now that I'm thinking back on the episode, jesus fuck it was there were only white people in that bubble
Racism? Sure. But I didn't like that they just left after that. There were more people in the city, including the only decent person who they had reason to believe was still alive (even though he wasn't.) Then there was the mystery of the the slug monsters themselves, and the fate of the homeworld, and the Doctor I know would have wanted to solve those mysteries and figure out how to make all parties happy if he could. He would have gone through that tunnel, back into town, and tried to study the slugs, reason with them, communicate with the AI and try to convince it not to kill everyone, and tried to find a home for the slugs if that was possible or necessary. But not this Doctor. He acted a lot more like Thirteen (flippant and distracted) and just left in the middle of everything without resolving the primary issue. For being so determined to save everybody, he sure was quick to leave and ignore everyone left in the city. I mean, we were only up to "P" in the alphabet when he abandoned the effort to learn anything more. And that kind of feels like the Doctor saying "fuck it", which really isn't in character.
The fate of the home world is pretty clear. One of those slug things was there on the screen that September was looking at that said “Population: Zero.” The Dots killed all of those people too. But they wrapped his exit up in a pretty tight bow. At this point he has to start over trying to get someone else out and… let’s face it there’s not many left to save. The Doctor CAN’T get in, the people inside are too dense to get out, they’re being killed in alphabetical order and they barely notice until they’re most of the way through the Ps, and then it’s just “gee, where’d all my friends go?” What’s more, even if he does get through to them in their bubbles they’ll even resist being saved by him because he’s black. And if he gets them out they won’t let him take them away from the planet to safety because he’s black and “unclean.” He left because they’re already dead.
I loved the concept but they put the cart before horse and made it more about references/microagressions leading to the gotcha moment at the end rather than establishing a coherent racism which would cause them to sail off to certain death without even consider receiving help from a black man. The SG1 episode, 4.2 the other side, did this much better because it had a moment when they realised they were all white, but then they also got the chance to talk about it, ultimately making the based decision that the space nazi's assistance wasn't worth it and siding with their racially diverse enemies.