"Doctor Who and the Bedsheets of Death"

Every time I struggle with fitted sheets.

Not anything that will be relevant later in the season, I don't think.

You don't think the character trying to mess with history will be back in some form?

I'm mindful of being a white guy from a completely other country, but I have so many undigested thoughts and feelings about this.

I was deeply sceptical of this ep coming in. Chris Chibnall is the guy who gave us a villainous Jewish stereotype named Solomon in Dinosaurs on a Spaceship, after all. In the end, I was... pleasantly surprised, I think. I mean, I'm still not convinced that Doctor Who should even try a story like this. But it exceeded my expectations in a number of ways. (I assume that Malorie Blackman had rather more to do with the writing than Chris Chibnall did himself.)

• First and foremost, it wasn't just a White Saviour trope. (Which Doctor Who has unquestionably been guilty of in the past.) Rosa Parks remains the hero of her own story. The Doctor's actions throughout aren't anything more than obstructing a space racist from subverting Rosa's agency. She doesn't refuse to give up her seat because the TARDIS crew inspired her or helped her. She doesn't thank them for anything (She mostly seems bemused by them). Said crew does almost nothing in the big scene - the sum total of their contribution there is literally just to take up space. (I was deeply concerned at one point that they were going to have Graham drive the bus.)
• Given that Doctor Who is a family show, they did pretty well in showing segregation as pervasive, inescapable and sustained by violence.
• I liked they at least gave a nod to racism not having been 'solved' by our day - Ryan and Yaz talking about some of the racism they face, Grace's lesson - "Don't give them an excuse", noting that Parks' life remained hard.
• I think it was the right call not to play Parks' arrest as a triumphant moment, but as something uncomfortable to watch.
• As I understand it, the episode prompted a spike in searches on Rosa Parks. It's a bad ending point on the civil rights movement, but maybe a decent starting point.

On that note, I watched this with Ryan, during which we had the following conversation:

"Oh, Rosa Parks! I know about her! She was one of the women in the book from the library, Sheep Assisted!"
"...Oh, that's -- wait, which book? Sheep Assisted?"
"Yes, that book about the American women."
"About the -- Oh! You mean She Persisted!"
"That's what I said."

So on to some of the problematic stuff.

• We don't meet Rosa Parks, we meet Celebrity Rosa Parks. That's pretty much always the way it goes in Doctor Who historicals. You meet celebrity famous people in Theme Park Britain.
• It's weirdly Great Man Theory. Like the entire civil rights movement could be stymied by changing a bus timetable. (I doubt this says anything helpful about combatting actual racism.)
• It's oddly depressing that the only real window we get into the future is that we can still expect white supremacists.
• Like I said, there are nods to present-day racism. But not enough. There was still an overarching self-congratulatory tone going on - not so much touting how much better things are today, as how much better we understand how wrong things were 'back then'.
• Further to that point: it was all very safe. There's no "Rosa Parks: Good or Bad?" controversy, at least for anyone still watching now the Doctor's a woman. It lets the audience confront the unpleasantness while congratulating themselves for not being like that.
• If this were on any other planet the Doctor would have burned it all down. (Or looked on while the oppressed group burned it all down.)

That last point especially makes me sceptical that Doctor Who should even try something like this. A lot of these points are structural. (Not that DW can't handle social issues. Eps like The Mutants, Turn Left and Oxygen - and the DW-adjacent Torchwood: Children of Earth, are just savage. But historical race relations... Under Chibnall's care...) I don't know. There's something to be said for giving children a way into learning more about such periods. But still sceptical.

Stray thoughts:

• This season is still not as funny as previous ones, but the humour this week landed better for me.
• Likewise, Jodie Whittaker's performance seems to be settling into something, and I'm rather liking it.
• And her expression when Graham put his arm around her!
• Not a fan of one moment: the first real violence the new Doctor has experienced is a violent guy with his hand around her throat.
• This is the third episode in a row where the villain (or antagonist) gets teleported off at the end of the episode. Interesting theme.
• In three weeks' time, Doctor Who takes on the Punjab, 1947. What could possibly go wrong?

I have other thoughts, mainly about previous adventures and how they compare. But for now, to bed!

Legends was kind of fun, fwiw.

There was still an overarching self-congratulatory tone going on - not so much touting how much better things are today, as how much better we understand how wrong things were 'back then'.

And also quite a lot of self-congratulatory "Look at how much worse American racism is/was than British racism!"

Like the entire civil rights movement could be stymied by changing a bus timetable.

This is what I mean about Chibnall being a crime drama writer - his focus on exact where/what/when is BIZARRE for Doctor Who in general, and in particular here, because the thing about planned protests is they can be rescheduled.

It felt like a very hamfisted way to teach the audience some Important American History Facts, most of which were wildly out of context, and completely irrelevant to WHY this was an important moment in history. (She changed the universe = there's an asteroid named after her? That's not what changing the universe means!)

If this were on any other planet the Doctor would have burned it all down. (Or looked on while the oppressed group burned it all down.)

I can't help thinking, The Doctor doesn't have a Prime Directive, or any moral/ethical/social rules he has to follow at all, only their own. Why does he have different rules for Earth? Just because we look like their race, I guess. I'd have a soft spot for a dumber species that looks human, probably. I mean, I like bonobos.

I feel like Legends went from being the worst of the superhero shows to the best (not including Black Lightning which is an awesome league of it's own). It's silly fun, but it's not trying to be anything else.

This is what I mean about Chibnall being a crime drama writer - his focus on exact where/what/when is BIZARRE for Doctor Who in general, and in particular here, because the thing about planned protests is they can be rescheduled.

One of Doctor Who's staples is taking the TARDIS and smashing into an established genre, and I am down with the notion of mashing DW up with a crime drama - but no, this wasn't it. Though now I'm picturing Krasko planning to follow Rosa Parks and ensure through a perpetual series of wacky, contrived coincidences that she never boards a bus again in her life.

I can't help thinking, The Doctor doesn't have a Prime Directive, or any moral/ethical/social rules he has to follow at all, only their own. Why does he have different rules for Earth? Just because we look like their race, I guess. I'd have a soft spot for a dumber species that looks human, probably. I mean, I like bonobos.

Yeah, DW has never really found a comfortable explanation. It starts way back in The Aztecs in the very first year. The crew lands in Tenochtitlan where Barbara gets mistaken for a reincarnated high priestess, Yetaxa, and she resolves to use her authority to end human sacrifice. There's a fantastic confrontation between her and the Doctor about it:

Barbara: "Oh, don't you see? If I could start the destruction of everything that's evil here... then everything that is good would survive when Cortez lands."
The Doctor: "But you can't rewrite history! Not one line!"
...
The Doctor: "Barbara, one last appeal: what you are trying to do is utterly impossible! I know, believe me, I know!"
Barbara: "... Not Barbara; Yetaxa."

Their initial solution was to claim that changing history was literally impossible. (And Barbara fails to change anything.) Not really sustainable given the wild abandon with which the Doctor interfered on every other planet. In the next season, they have the Doctor being responsible for burning down Rome during the reign of Nero. So now they can affect things, but only to make them match our history books.

That season ends, however, with The Time Meddler, in which another Time Lord is actively trying to change Earth's history. (It's set in 1066, he's trying to destroy Harald Hardrada's invasion fleet so a fresh Harold the Saxon will defeat William of Normandy at Hastings. Just for the lulz, apparently.) They stop him, of course; but there's never any suggestion that his plan is impossible. He could easily change the whole course of human history. Which means the Doctor could too. (The first ep, by the way, has some great dialogue, as the Doctor deals with a sceptical new companion. For instance:

"That is the dematerializing control, and that over yonder is the horizontal hold, up there is the scanner, those are the doors, and that is a chair with a panda on it. Sheer poetry, dear boy. Now please stop bothering me."

[Steven does not accept a Viking helmet as proof that they have travelled through time] "What do you think it is, a space helmet for a cow?"

Doctor Who had done six historicals before then, and initially this adventure looks pretty much like it'll be "Doctor Who and the Saxons", until the first ep cliffhanger, where the Doctor discovers that the chanting monks of the local monastery are actually a gramophone record. After playing the first six historicals completely straight, that would've been quite the surprise, I think. There were five more historicals, the last in 1966; For the entire remainder of the classic series, the whole issue is just nullified. Of the subsequent 128 adventures, I count only 14 set in (or involving) Earth's history, and all but one of them have the Doctor defending the past from an alien threat.

It's not until the new series that it's addressed again. Davies basically came up with the idea of "fixed points in time" - there are occasions of particular significance where changing history would cause tremendous damage to the timeline, and that's why the Doctor doesn't meddle in our established events. (The first series' ep Father's Day indicates dire consequences should that happen.) Moffat was more laid back about this, but it seems Chibnall is down with it.

It's a pretty inadequate explanation. Ultimately the real reason the Doctor doesn't go back and topple the Nazis/end the slave trade/stop any of history's wars and massacres is that it's not something Doctor Who as a show can do. And that's fine, shows are allowed to have limitations. But maybe it's not the savviest move to go drawing attention to them.

I feel like Legends went from being the worst of the superhero shows to the best (not including Black Lightning which is an awesome league of it's own). It's silly fun, but it's not trying to be anything else.

Speaking of changing timelines...