I'm still loving Black Lightning, but this week's episode crammed in WAY too much stuff

Agree, but since I'm watching for the family dynamics I generally just let the plotty bits wash over me and if I happen to understand what's going on, bonus.

The best part of this week's Doctor Who was the Banksy jokes.

Do you know how hard it is to explain Legends of Tomorrow to someone who comes in in the middle of an episode?

The best part of this week's Doctor Who was the Banksy jokes.

I did like the Banksy jokes. For me they tie with the Doctor's expression when Graham puts his arm around her. It's the little things, you know?

One of the earliest goes that Doctor Who took at racism was a Third Doctor adventure called the Mutants. In the future, Earth has colonised a planet whose oppressed native peoples have started turning into insectile monsters. The colonial oppression is ridiculously oversignified, taking in markers of the British Raj, South African apartheid, Southern segregation and Nazi genocide.

At this point in the show's history, the Doctor is exiled on Earth and can't get the TARDIS to work. But the Time Lords send him on occasional missions, and this is one of them. But it is the strangest mission. The Doctor is basically carrying a message from the Time Lords to someone on the planet, but doesn't know who. When he finds the right person (a leader of the native people), we find that the parrcel just contains interesting tidbits about the planet's history. The show's resolution is wen this leader evolves past the insectile form into some sort of rainbow angel superhero and destroys the evil Marshal. I mean, great, but just why the Time Lords decided that (a) they should interfere, and (b) then do so in the most ineffectual way possible, is beyond me.

Anyway, it's an interesting foray, and for 1972, does surprisingly well in spite of itself. The White Saviour trope runs deep in Doctor Who, at least from the Second Doctor on, and the Third Doctor is pretty much peak White Saviour. But in this adventure, although he keeps himself quite busy, it's hard to see how the resolution was at all reliant on him. For an adventure so heavily laden with markers of racism, they did well to leave it up to the local people to win their own freedom. It also contains a very early example (for Doctor Who) of truly colour-blind casting. There's a pair of everyman soldiers who have reasonably beefy roles, and one of them is played by a black actor, for apparently no reason other than that there's no reason not to. (It's undercut by said actor being atrocious in the role, but marks for trying.)

Anyway, Rosa put me very much in mind of this past adventure. In both cases, there are things it gets right, and manages more deftly than one might have expected given the production limitations. In both cases, the resolution is left up to the oppressed people, with the Doctor at best providing space for them to do so. In both cases the villains are cartoonish and the plot seems ever more bonkers the longer you think about it.

In one area at least, The Mutants outdoes Rosa. Being set in the future on another planet, and with a regime that seems to encompass Racism's Greatest Hits, we actually can and do end the ep by burning it all down. That feels rather more satisfying and triumphant than "They named an asteroid after her! She changed the universe!"

I'd advise everyone who isn't a fan of the Jillifonts to take the title of this week's Who extremely seriously.

Yeaugggggghhhhhhh

I would be so much more into this episode if it were about giant killer mutated literally anything else.

I don't even generally have an issue and I was squicked.

Yeah, that was a whole lot of Jillifonts, both in numbers and volume. I was hoping to see the Trump analog get eaten by one or more of them, but alas, I was disappointed. Pity.

Black Lightning: I'm glad Henderson figured out Jefferson is Black Lightning. I'm hoping Lena figures things out soon on Supergirl too. She's really too smart not to.

Legends of Tomorrow: I love all the tiny BeeBo references.

I loved Nate saying, "And then we formed a Beebo Voltron..." because it's so incomprehensible. It's barely comprehensible within the show.

I'm fine with Constantine joining the team, not necessarily thrilled, but I look forward to the inevitable showdown with Mick.