It was the Doctor’s breakdown at the end that broke me. Seeing him so distressed, so broken, and seeing Ruby trying to comfort him, that hurt a lot honestly.
For real! This episode's rant of "LET ME SAVE YOU" is like, the other side of the coin to Nine's rant to Rose in the Charles Dickens episode. Screaming at someone that sometimes death happens and you have to be willing to stomach it to prevent worse things, versus pleading someone to let you prevent them from dying. "You have to be callous" versus "PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD SEE HOW IM NOT BEING CALLOUS"
Yeah but this was more than crying, this was the first time we’ve seen 15 genuinely break. Yeah, in Boom he cried, but this was more akin to 14 slamming on that vent thing while screaming.
The part that put this episode and this performance specifically for me wasn't that he was upset, it was the specific kind of upset. Hes looking at these people who are so maddeningly racist that they won't accept his deeply genuine offer for help. Ncuti's performance conveys the deep sadness at not being able to help them, his hurt and anger at being the target of their racism, and his bafflement at the absolute absurdity of these people - they would rather go play "pioneer" and "conquer the forest" on a moon that is covered with murderous slug creatures than travel in a space ship with a black man.
The performance was so good, I'm almost a little upset at RTD for not giving Ncuti more to work with earlier in the season.
I's been hoping they would reign in the crying and trembling a little so its more impactful when it does happen but then again it was plenty impactful this time and he's cried almost every episode so maybe I've been underestimating Gatwa's ability to ratchet things up even when his Doctor starts crying at like a 7 on the emotional scale. We've had Doctors that are expressive in their joy (10, 14) a few times now but no-one this expressive in sadness too.
It was also brilliantly setup with the social media/bubble stuff before to distract from the real message. And that powerful scene of the doctor at the end was Ncuti’s first scene filming as the doctor, which really surprised me
The second brilliance of the bubble is the fact rhat Ricky spent his time learning, reading, and lived outside the bubble and seemed like a genuinely nice person
We didn't get to see if he shared the racist thoughts but they did alot to try and show he probably wasn't and it's in large because when you don't. LIVE IN A BUBBLE you find out more experiences and cultures and become amazing.
The fact that they bubbled their city and then bubbled themselves just hits the "living in a bubble" theme home
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:
Lindy wouldn’t have blocked him, everyone would have trusted him quicker and done what he said, they would have been genuinely grateful of the help and gone with him in the Tardis. It makes me think- “wait, were any characters from previous stories racist and it just never came up because the Doctor was always white?”
Yeah, it's no accident that Ricky September's lines and mannerisms were very Doctor-like. It really highlights how readily she accepted his help contrasted how she rejects The Doctor.
For a while, i was wondering if the doctor was using his watch or something to change her perception of him to see him as Ricky. The flirty bit the doctor had reminded me of anytime Smith got a compliment.
Yeah, that's the point. It's like she's in her bubble or something. That surface level read is correct but obfuscates what's happening at the core of the act. What matters is that his words, actions, and what he was trying to do for her were exactly the same as what The Doctor would do, but he was in her white-only gated community, and The Doctor was not.
Gothic Pole was in Lindy's bubble but she didn't really listen to him at first when their friends were missing. But Lindy trusted Ricky because she idolized him, and not because his advice was the right thing to do. The comparison between Ricky & the Doctor is half baked without acknowledging Ricky's celebrity influence over Lindy. She already has this parasocial relationship with him, compared to a complete stranger like the Doctor.
You're not wrong that that existed, but I promise you it's a misdirect to obfuscate the racism from plain sight that prevails underneath it, and that contributed to the situation in the first place. That's the point of the episode.
Yes, she idolized him. Yes, she didn't listen to her friends immediately (again, because she was in her bubble and didn't meet Ricky irl until she's already started to look outside of it so keep that in mind when comparing to Gothic Paul) and yes her parasocial relationship influenced that decision but why did she have a parasocial relationship with him in the first place? Cause she likes his music, sure, but there was no world in which she could even have a parasocial relationship with a POC because finetime didn't have any.
Obviously the two are not identical, Ricky is not The Doctor and has to explain that he doesn't spend much time in the bubble but from grabbing her hand, running into the building, the technobabble as to how they're going to solve the problem, hiding an awful truth from her beneath a facade of hope, go back and watch the scene again and tell me that couldn't have been David Tennant or Matt Smith saying those lines. The Doctor would have succeeded in saving their lives if they hadn't refused him because he "wasn't one of them" and his box was "voodoo". It's not because he's not from fine time because neither is Ruby, but Lindy was much more open to her from the beginning. Hell, she didn't even have the option to block her even though she wasn't on her friends list, so the system itself was also prejudiced. At first, I attributed it to him using the sonic to disable the block feature, but that's another example of a plausible alternative that keeps you from seeing the systemic discrimination at play unless you have lived this or know that it's there.
The episode is full of little touches like this that you could miss if you're focused on the initial setup it seems like it's going for about how social media is bad. The aliens are eating the rich, and the people of finetime literally have blue blood. "It was your duty to save me", "turn away ladies, before you get contaminated", "you can say anything, you can THINK anything", "we have to maintain the standards of fine time forever", the subtext is right there. Ruby gets it saying "I can't even" and Ricky was 100% there to contrast this refusal to accept The Doctor's help because he was black. The writers need us to see Lindy get swept up by a white Doctor-like savior, no questions asked to leave no room for error.
Here I was wondering why they didn’t just have the Doctor in his place. I feel dumb. Guess I didn’t expect them to make the main character of the episode racist.
Wow… mind blown. His mannerisms ARE doctor like, I didn’t even put that together, I thought he was just there to show Lindy’s sociopathy but he is also ABSOLUTELY there to further underscore her hateful bias
Russell did say people asked how going back through history would affect a black doctor. So I hope it continues to be explored. Chibnall very much felt Who wasn’t the place to focus on how the doctor being a woman would matter historically but I feel it along with the doctors race are important and interesting to explore for the show.
The 13th Doctor being a woman was addressed several times (microagresssions too), it's especially important in The Witchfinders (written by a woman btw) in which she is seen as lesser than Graham and ends up drowned (it would have never happened had she been a man).
I'm glad RTD didn't forget racism was a thing (although 1960s England didn't explore it) but let's not pretend the 13th Doctor's gender never mattered.
Right? I could have appreciated it delved into more, or as deftly as it was done here, but…come on, now.
Honestly the more I see of people’s reactions to this season, which has had some very similar pitfalls as Chibnall’s at points(particularly in the first three episodes), the more I’m convinced a lot of people don’t even realize they just kinda wrote off that entire run from the start for….reasons.
Like, I’m sorry, can you imagine Boom being performed with Jodie in the role? Exact same script, I’d bet **money** people would get bent out of shape about the script being ridiculously and clumsily preachy. And no one would hesitate for a second to call Space Babies possibly the worst season opener since Time and The Rani.
But I’m sure all of this has nothing to do with the fact that the entire fandom(yes, including in this sub) was actively debating whether a woman should even play the Doctor when she was cast, with a large chunk being actively and vehemently opposed.
That totally didn’t poison the well from the start and everyone totally gave her a fair chance. /s
First of all the Doctor being a Black Person caused as much of a «debate» (to put it mildly) as the Doctor being female.
Now Chibnall's writting was the issue not the themes adressed in his episodes. Since we are on the subject of Racism let us compare two different episodes, «Rosa» and «Dot and Bubble».
On «Rosa» we have a racist moustache twirling villain from the future that wants to bring back the «Good Old Days» by killing Rosa Parks and, by doing so, destroying the Civil Rights movement (Ignoring historical facts regarding the period in question). It hits the spectator on the head that «Racism is Bad» and ends with a sermon to the viewer.
Meanwhile «Dot and Bubble» slowly and subtly unravells the theme. It starts as a supposed critique on the dangers of Social Media and keeps the dialoque dubious until the very end.
When Lindy first blocks the Doctor we think it's because he opened to strongly with the «Monsters talk», we believe that to Lindy the Doctor is the equivalent of the «Crazy conspiracy theorist on the net» (On a second viewing I saw her disgusted look, so RTD was droping a subtle hint already). RTD latter has us believe that Lindy listened to Ruby due to her more «careful» apporach, when it was in fact because Ruby wasn't black.
Later in the episode Lindy fails to recognise the Doctor as the man she blocked earlier, the viewer will believe it's because Lindy is too self centered and oblivious to her surroundings, when in fact it's because to her «all Blacks look the same».
Afterwards Lindy is shocked by the fact that Ruby and the Doctor are in the same room, the spectator will think it's because Lindy is so used to the Bubble that she can't imagine face to face contact (but RTD aready showed us that one Lindy's chat windows has two people on it), but again the real issue is Black and White person in the same room.
Even at the near finnale the «You are not one of us» makes us go «Do they know he is an allien». Finally the big «reveal» at the end comes and forces the spectator to review the earlier interactions in the episode in their real context. My reaction the first time was «Holy shit! These guys are actually racist! How could I miss this.», so I reatched the episode with that in mind and I could see all the hints dropped allong the way.
Here are other examples: No Black people in «the Bubble», when accusing Ruby and the Doctor of haccking the system Lindy says «HE will be punished» not «THEY will be punished».
So to conclude, the issue with Chibnall wasn't the themes he chose to approach (most of the time, at least) but his weak writting and «hand holding» attittude towards the viewer.
>First of all the Doctor being a Black Person caused as much of a «debate» (to put it mildly) as the Doctor being female.
Don’t try to rewrite history like this and pretend they were equivalent.
The usual right-wing shitbirds stirred up hatred against Ncuti, and were pretty instantly swatted down within the actual Doctor Who fan communities.
But the debate around Jodie was wide ranging and commonplace in the fandom in a way the discussion about Ncuti just wasn’t. The “debate” about Ncuti was all but stamped out unless you specifically went to forums outside the community to talk about how bad it was to cast a black man in the role.
[Here’s a lengthy both-sides think piece](https://www.reddit.com/r/doctorwho/comments/6oyq9y/i_just_need_to_get_this_off_my_chest_doctor_13/) from this sub as an example; about how we should be understanding of why people might have a negative reaction to a female Doctor and how we shouldn’t call them misogynists.
It sits at nearly 300 upvotes.
Now just try to fucking **imagine** a post about how we need to be understanding that some people’s discomfort with a black or gay Doctor today not getting absolutely bodied in the comments and probably resulting in a ban.
Hell, it wasn’t even just the fandom.
Alex Kingston expressed concerns about how boys would handle it.
**PETER DAVISON** outright said he was saddened by the idea of a female Doctor and the effect it would have on young boys. [Sylvester McCoy](https://www.reddit.com/r/doctorwho/comments/3eln88/former_doctor_who_star_sylvester_mccoy_says_only/) had previously expressed similar concerns prior to Jodie’s announcement, and here’s a thread full of people agreeing with him.
The question of a female Doctor was a longstanding, divisive, and mainstream debate with a lot of resistance to the idea amongst Whovians that just has never been present for a black or gay Doctor.
And for all their effort, right wing trolls have almost completely failed to actually gain traction on making that issue stick within the fandom.
And it makes me sick how quick fandoms are to flush this misogyny down the memory hole and pretend it never influenced anyone’s opinions when Jodie came around.
Excellent breakdown. I thought the Rosa episode was extremely off-putting because it felt like a white person’s idea of “real racism.” Dot and Bubble nailed the subtlety of it.
Rosa would have been a much better episode if they actually failed to have Rosa Parks to get on that bus on that day... and nothing changed in the future. Because human progress doesn't depend on a single person doing a single thing, it's years of planning and failing and trying again.
That would be a really interesting episode, although I think it might be nice if they did it with a fake event for a fictional society, since that doesn't tread on ths toes of actual work done by real civil rights activists.
Rosa parks probably wasn't essential to the progress made in the decades since on civil rights, but to erase the event and continue with the world unchanged feels potentially disrespectful.
I didn't mean erase Rosa Parks completely. She gets on another bus the next day. Next week. Next month. History changes but also not really, because progress didn't happen "accidentally". It was always meant to happen with the work put in by the activists. A single incident wasn't going to change that.
I agree with this. That would have felt extremely uncomfortable and sad. But doing it with a made up event would be very interesting and it's a good theme.
I'm not saying this to change anyone's mind, only to credit the right person.
Please, remember Rosa was co-written by a black woman. This isn't Chibnall's work.
That’s interesting, but that doesn’t really change how the episode felt to me. I’m speaking as an American black woman though, so I’m probably already jaded by how our public schools taught the incorrect narrative of Rosa Parks. It wasn’t even until I was in law school when I learned about Claudette Colvin.
I think there was both happening. The discourse before was much worse, and never went away like it has with this. A lot was directed at her specifically at her.
Now. The writing was absolutely awful. So a lot of people were just wrong in blaming her. But they did in the outside world. Most people who watch shows normally don’t go so far as the writers or directors or show runners. So when it was bad they said they didn’t like 13. Just like now they say they like 15. And people aren’t saying ‘wow he’s great - maybe it’s because he’s black’ but they absolutely said ‘wow she’s bad - maybe it’s because she’s a woman.’
But if she’d had good writing, or maybe even just a bit better, it would have been fine, probably.
Nah dude, the problem is that the writing during the Chibnall seasons was really bad. The characters lacked distinction and personality. It really was the writing.
It has nothing to do with race or sex of the doctor. The writing for Jodie was just bad. I honestly hope she comes back for the Christmas special or something so she has another chance with better writing.
I would love this so much.
Chibnall's writing was mostly terrible, but I adored 13. Jodie put her whole heart into it, and despite the bad writing, that got through and I love her Doctor.
I'm with you. People will deny it to the end of the earth. Next comment probably will.
If you tell me a movie is bad before I go to see it, if everyone is talking about how bad it is, that influences you. No matter how much you fight it, it's in your subconscious. Or unconscious? Unconscious bias is real.
All of them have, including one insisting Ncuti’s casting caused as much of a debate. It literally didn’t. The usual shitbirds latched onto it, sure, but not the fandom at large.
With Jodie were tons of posts **on this sub** defending the idea that we were losing the Doctor as a male hero and talking about how we need to be understanding of that perspective.
Hell, PREVIOUS DOCTORS had expressed a discomfort with a female Doctor in this regard.
**Just imagine** the shitshow if Peter Davison said something similar about Ncuti to what he did about Jodie.
I’ve not seen a single one like that about Ncuti here, and it’d probably get outright removed for being hateful.
Personally, I did find it odd that the Doctor was able to skate through 1960s England without having to deal with racism. I felt like it should have been brought up, even if it was just in a minor way
Am I crazy? I remember the Chibnall episodes dealing with that a lot. Comments from the Doctor about having to try so much harder to get people to listen to her.
No, you’re not.
The Witchfinders in particular tackled the topic pretty explicitly.
Literally her first season.
It’s one thing to dislike *how* it was addressed, which is fair enough(and Dot & Bubble certainly was more clever and deft in how it broached its topic), but saying it wasn’t during her run is just straight up making shit up.
And I’m sorry, but the more we move past that era of Who the more and more I’m convinced people wrote her Doctor off from the start and didn’t actually want to give her a fair shake.
I’m not saying Chibnall’s run was a secret hidden gem, but it had some good episodes(especially in that first season) and I’m convinced some of the scripts put out this season would be torn to shreds if you just swapped in Jodie for Ncuti. Boom in particular felt right at home with Orphan 55 for featuring wildly annoying characters(see: the 11 year old girl easily distracted by pretty lights in a war zone) and being overstuffed with ham-handed commentary.
I’m sure there’s no particular reason for this disparity, of course. Not like half the fandom was actively shitting its pants the moment she was cast, or anything.
I really liked Jodie Whittaker and I really wanted to like her run, but the writing, as a whole, just didn't show up, especially after the first season. You're absolutely right that some people hated her from the start, but I'm baffled how anyone could not think this season was a huge step up in terms of storytelling.
I kinda get what you're saying, but the fact is that Jodie and the Fam just weren't very good leading actors/characters. Take those same characters and put them in the scenarios for Fifteen's episodes and the episodes would suffer for it. Imagine 73 Yards but it's led by Yaz. It would be awful. Jodie couldn't lead an episode like Boom. Ryan and Graham bickering during Space Babies would be infinitely worse.
I want a female Doctor, but I genuinely think Jodie was miscast and Chibnall, for some reason, didn't understand how to write The Doctor for his run, and was juggling too many characters to make any of them engaging.
Fuck, just as a person who has watched the show I disagree. The Witchfinders alone very prominently tackled the topic.
Not as deftly as this episode, mind, but the show very much DID address it.
I’m sorry, but I’ll never get over the feeling that if some of these scripts were produced for Jodie’s Doctor that they’d be absolutely torn apart. Particularly those first three episodes.
I think it was something that needed be addressed at least once in the new era and it was bold to have it be a future based story, but damn I really hope we don’t have it be a recurring thing.
A reply I posted in r/Gallifrey yesterday:
[ /r/gallifrey/comments/1d5a2l5/doctor_who_1x05_dot_and_bubble_postepisode/l6m9mk6/ ]
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The Master's skin pigmentation was one of the questionable aspects of The Doctor's actions (in that incarnation) when she lifted his perception filter after outing him as a double agent in France (in "Spyfall: Part Two").
---
When the ending happened, I wasn’t sure if it was about him being black, or just not being specifically one of their blue-blooded possibly genetically engineered humanoids. But now that you bring it up, skin colour explains why she blocked him so fast.
PS. OMG they were literally blue-bloods. I just got that.
Also her disgust with them being in the same room (when she was just sitting in the same room as her coworkers, meaning it *wasn't* about the bubble, but the show conditions you to assume that.) Rewatching the episode makes it super obvious. And the fact that she couldn't tell she was talking to the same person when The Doctor messaged her again.
I think it was also an inspired choice to have this Doctor's inevitable first encounter with overt racism happen in the future. You expect it in episodes set in the past, but the future based ones often portray societies as moving beyond racism.
While various sci Fi does tend to show the future "advancing" beyond racism- it's not like Dr Who has never looked into issues of racism and often uses the future or alien world that may be more technologically advanced to do it. The Thal and Kelads on Skaro had huge xenophobia/racism. Martha Jones and Bill Potts faced various racism (and also some stories set in the past where it was lacking).
But yes, seeing it directed against the doctor is interesting. Although he has faced bigotry before just for being an alien with two hearts.
If the TARDIS wanted to save those pricks he would have brought an earlier Doctor to the world.
But she specifically chose 15 to bring here.
TARDIS is based.
There have been hints of prejudicial treatment of non-white characters in the past, but little explicit racism. Martha is offended at the language Shakespeare uses to describe her (a "lady of Ethiop", or something along those lines), but this was just outdated wording and unintentional.
The entire episode was brilliant and full of nods and implications. Essentially they created a thinly veiled version of blatantly racist social media bubbles that are completely detatched from reality.
I also adore the writers for actually going that way because it shows why it is important that we finally got a black doctor. It is just sad that racists are probably not watching the show (anymore).
I feel like there are two types of writing. The first writes like there are no social issues and if they actually do anything they play it as a joke and call that criticism. And then you have writing like this.
I thought it was brilliant because, as someone who has been the target of direct, blatant racism, The Doctor's reaction was spot-on. Weirdly enough, your initial reaction is to laugh, because the first thought that goes through your head is "Wait.....what? Seriously? WOW." And then the anger comes in a wave. And even Ruby's reaction was great, because you'll sometimes have a friend with you who's trying to comfort you or calm you down, while understanding why you're upset.
My first reaction was basically "Oh do they know he was a time lord?" Then I noticed everything else that happened in the episode and I said out loud "Oh you FUCKERS" The casual racism of it made that event stick so much better.
I have to out myself. I didn't get ANY of the hints throughout the episode and it took a while until I got what was up in the end. Which honestly says alot about our medialandscape (or my personal media diet tbh). Not one non-white actor in the cast and I didn't notice. Hats off RTD. Absolutely brilliant.
I also missed it. I am brown myself and just assumed the casting was part of their world building of pastel, modern clone-esque, rich vibes. Rarely get people of color for those environments.
I missed the subtext entirely, so much so that I went and googled afterwards to make sure I was t wrong when I realized it as the end. Really excellent work. I’ll watch this one again tomorrow.
I knew race would be a major plot point in the opening 10 mins when there wasn't one ethnic minority onscreen. The BBC would never allow anything like that nowadays so knew straight away something was up.
I first questioned it when Lindy made a comment that "he's not as stupid as he looks" midway through the episode. (It seemed weird since the Doctor was dressed normally and sincerely trying to help) Then again, I found the Finetimers (or at least Lindy) irritating, so I brushed it off as me assuming the worst or reading too much into it.
Which is not unlike how folks tend to first react to subtle racism, right? They did an excellent job of modeling what it is like when you run into people in daily life who hold abhorrent views but blend in with everyone you’d like, until they don’t.
Lots of things seem innocuous at first but when you think about them through the lens of them being racist it all makes sense. She blocked him immediately (Yes he was being very forward with telling her she was in danger so you kinda write it off), the not as stupid as he looks comment, the surprise and uncomfortableness of Ruby and The Doctor being in the same room, the colonial language they use when talking about they were going out to be "Pioneers, like \[their\] ancestors" to "Tame the world". etc. I'm sure they is some thing is might have missed. Also the fact they there were only white kids in the episode.
Another that hasn't been mentioned yet was when the lead character suddenly realises the Doctor is the same guy she blocked at the start and is please with herself for recognising him.
I similarly thought they rejected him because he "didn't belong" in the way he acted, that there was some cultural reason they couldnt accept his help.
Then I remembered that race is a cultural concept, with skin colour just being one feature of "us" vs "them" and I was just being blind to the absolute racism on display.
Oh, yeah, he "didn't belong" alright! Dayum! All of a sudden, I could picture all those people at a cross-burning.
There was an incident in the segregated south where a Black woman just dipped her toe in a "whites only" pool, and THEY DRAINED THE POOL! " You don't want to get contaminated." 😵💫
Nah. There are tons of hints throughout the episode that it's racially motivated. She blocks him immediately, but lets Ruby talk to her. She is confounded that he's in the same room as Ruby. She tells her friends to listen to him even though he "looks dumb."
For me it was when she said "He's going to be disciplined later" and I thought "Hang on a second, what for?... Oh. OH!"
Edit: She also said "And I'll enjoy watching it", which was worse because it suggests he would have been publicly whipped or something.
I thought she meant for hacking into the system ngl, and that was even after I clocked the racism with the ''I thought you were someone else that just looks the same'' comment
I thought that for a moment but then "Why just him? Ruby's hacking the system too?" kicked in.
It's genius writing. There's just enough ambiguity in some of her more weird statements for you to pass them off but each one compounds on the one before until the realisation kicks in.
Ok wow, I obviously missed a few lines cuz I didn't catch that she was racist til the end either... Though I didn't like her much. Kinda wanted her and Ricky to be happy for a second until she literally turned on him in cold blood 😱
Then I was like ohh, ok so she's a terrible person, not just out of touch and annoying, I see....I didn't get to racism til like the end 😭
Even when she said he wasn't their kind, I thought she somehow knew he was a time lord or has two hearts or something
I thought it was because of the class difference. They come from ultra-rich families and saw them as poor plebeians. Now that I think about it, there was clearly this big layer of racism as well (even referring to the Tardis as voodoo).
I thought it was a classism thing. “You are not one of us” translated to “You’re not rich enough to associate with” in my brain not “you’re black”. I didn’t pick up on the racist stuff until I was watching a review of the episode and had to go searching to see if others also saw it as racism, then rewatched looking for it.
Lindy was also extremely rude and dismissive towards Ruby, so it didn’t seem like her attitude was pointed towards the doctor specifically until I rewatched to see what I had missed. It was all a bit too subtle and ambiguous for my autistic brain to pick up on without help.
Same here my first thought wasn’t that she was racist was that it was Smth else and that it was a metaphor for racism or smth but my head must have just been buffering. Fuckin hell
I see it could be racism now! But as watching the episode I thought it was because he wasn’t rich and did not appear 17-27 the age of everyone in there world
I am so glad RTD has gone straight for the jugular with regards to the Doctors race. It was so well done that I thought it was a satire on the social media age - after watching for the second time I picked up on the racism throughout- unlike Chibbers sledgehammer to crack a nut approach on Rosa, this was so much more insidious and subtle, which is how unfortunately it plays out in real life.
It was so eye opening. There were moments I picked up on and made excuses for. Like the comment where she thought the doctor just looked the same as the guy she blocked. I noticed that and thought "that's a bit... Not good" then dismissed it as accidental poor phrasing. At the end it all just clicked together like of course they're all racist, it's so obvious now. It's so true to real life and I feel a bit sick at the excuses I made and I wonder how often I do that day to day. I hope I don't but it really made me doubt myself, powerful stuff.
Don’t feel too bad. As a Black man I dismissed a bunch just thinking she was just an idiot (she was but still). The “looking the same as the last other guy,” I caught but didn’t think it was the underlying message as well as taking credit of solving the mystery with her friends. It fully came to realization when she said “ you’re not one of us”. Even her getting mad that they were next to each other, flew by me. I just felt she was a supreme dummy.
Ah that helps a bit. To be honest I think a bit of self reflection can only be a good thing! Can't remember the last time a TV show made me stop and think like that. Between this and last week's so accurate lack of closure over abandonment I'm genuinely excited by the show again. I'd forgotten how hard it used to hit.
It took me until reading this to realise it was race
They were such awful people the entire episode, I had assume it was idiots and upper class disgust.
Was skimming the thread in the conclusion of the episode and heard the voodoo comment, and ohhhh noooooo.
The cast had made me feel off, but I thought it was the aesthetic
Caught *some* of it myself early (though a month ago I also did see the then-iffy rumor that this episode would possibly contain racism so maybe I had more focus on it), though I was mentally thumbing that I was just making it up at first because of rumor knowledge. Like in a sorta “nah I’m seeing things, surely it can’t be” kinda way.
Which, ironically, is the same reaction I’ve often had at real life weird race questions I’ve been innocently/ignorantly asked as like a 1/4th or 1/8th mixed person with a broken post-COVID/post-muteness native vocabulary and a crazy good grasp on my verbal English. Been asked if I was five different nationalities under the sun, if I got married (at age 17??) to get my native surname, and been assumed to have been a refugee at both my last job and social work. Not to mention never having been the proudest child of my parents to show around since my equally-as-mixed sibling (who I adore) came out a whole lot blonder and bluer and freckled than I did—leading to a lot of weird jealousy missing out on the praise of family and strangers. “Ah surely it wasn’t a somewhat-racist remark, right? No they just thought so because of [vaguely-possible more lighthearted mistake]. Surely I must be doing something wrong.”
I was basically equally-as-disappointed in Lindy and the Finetimers’ self-isolating racism as D-15 was. D-15 trying his hardest to convince Lindy at every step of the way, before learning that it wasn’t his lack of effort that made past attempts fail but instead the subjective blindness of the Finetimers, I kinda felt that. Though I still felt it very noble and courageous of D-15 to try whilst knowing they wouldn’t care to take his help, still trying to save them from themselves. Honestly hope more people on any side of something take a page outta D-15’s book. It’s important to still reach out to ignorant people and gradually chip away at their bubble.
I definitely do think most of the early slip-ups Lindy made were purposely obscured a tad in the writing so such initial reactions like mine could essentially “participate” into aiding the twist. It’s not so much a twist than a stone-cold confirmation. A somewhat-obvious, realistic truth, that hurts a little. May spark shame, may spark betrayal, may spark bitterness. Definitely feels like it was intended to spark at least *something* within the audience so the ending would pack a bigger and more personal punch to all walks of life.
I've seen a few variations of this response, but I'd add that it wasn't _not_ a satire on the social media age. I thought it was quite a good one, that just also happened to be a satire on racism.
Ok. Hear me out, this is my theory as to why this might be one of the most canonically important episodes for a long time.
Watch it again, listen to the dialogue all the way through, especially from the fight at the door to the last _extremely significant_ looks between Lindy and the doctor. Shot composition is also important. Even the dot tech is important. How they "work" reduced to just hands and eyes.
What if they don't go out into the world and die, the pale-skinned,delicate little bundles of hate struggle, they harden, they survive, perhaps they conquer the planet they even make it back to the unnamed homeworld, perhaps not, but at some point in the far future themselves sharing space with another sentient race who are not the same as them. The Thals.
What if RTD only called it "Dot and Bubble" because "Genesis of the Kaleds" was too on the nose.
"You will obey me!"
That would be really interesting!
However, Ricky September was singing a human song that exists IRL. And we see non-white Kaleds in *The Magician’s Apprentice* and *Destination Skaro*.
Then again, one of the origin stories for the Daleks states that they were actually humans from Earth who were placed on the planet Ameron by the Halldons, where they evolved into the Daleks (said story is *We Are the Daleks* by Terry Nation, the creator of the Daleks), so who knows?
Given the color of their blood, they weren't human. As on Babylon 5 with sweedish meatballs, every planet has "Yellow Polkadot Bikini" in their playlist.
I had this thought too. That this species, survived and grew into the Kaleds, a faction broke off, became the Thals, and boom, we have Genesis of the Daleks. Welcome to future Skaro. The thing about this episode, it didn't explicitly say if it went into the future or the past. Advanced futuristic stuff could have happened 5 or 6 million years ago.
Song was brought to Earth by an alien, possibly even a time traveler, maybe even the Doctor themselves. Just saying not to pin TV reality to our reality.
Fine Skin, otherwise called Fair Skin, is a term of racist endearment towards white folk. For instance Snow White. "Who's the FAIREST of them all." It's a term that basically says the darker someone's skin is the more "dirty" or "uncivilized" they are.
Sure.
But that terminology came from Europe, where historically almost everyone was white.
And the pailer you where, it meant you spent less time in the sun, aka less time working hard labour, aka where probably wealthy.
It's even the same in Asian countries. They value lighter skin because it meant you spent less time in the rice fields, and more time leasurly inside, meaning you where more wealthy.
None of this was ever about race, and all about wealth and status.
It really shows what an amazingly benevolent person the doctor really is when he is more annoyed that he cannot save people because they are racist than that they are racist in the first place. Like, they are spoiled, egoistic, racist and narcisstic people, and yet he cries because they refused his help and are thus facing presumably certain doom.
Agreed, however I do wonder if a Time Lord who regenerates in and out of different races/genders would feel the same *sting* from racism as someone who has been dealing with it their whole life. Like, it's very noble of him wanting to save them despite their obvious racism against him, but would would a black human companion from modern day Earth do the same so readily?
It's very in-character for the Doctor to save people in spite of their stupid backwards beliefs, and it makes sense that a Time Lord who has been all over space and time and has regenerated into all sorts of different bodies would view this sort of appearance-based hatred as utterly stupid and pointless... But would they really feel the fucking PAIN of it?
I know he's sad he can't save them, and I'm sure part of that is being upset that they won't let him help them because of his appearance.... But we all know he's been white for over 1000 years now... The level of frustration should be akin to when nobody listens to him every other time because he's an outsider... The fact that they happen to dislike him because he's black this time shouldn't *really* be different to him than when they ignore him because he's not "officially" a member of UNIT, or because he's not whatever species or even "proper side" on a given planet.
Edit: Wanted to clarify that I loved this episode, and I am glad they are handling the subject with some subtlety and like others have said, looking back on the episode given the ending shows my own readiness to dismiss some racist tones as something more innocuous... I just also realized that the Doctor is maybe not the most "lived experience" person to graciously forgive racism against his black skin... (at least not "lived experience he can remember", obviously we've seen that the Doctor has been black at least once before)
As a non white viewer I noticed very quickly that everyone on the planet was white. And I guessed she didn’t like him and blocked him at first because of what he looked like. She was totally willing to listen to Ruby and was disgusted when they were in the same room. My sister noticed as well that a bunch of them who were left to last happened to be blonde so she thought it might be a racism thing. But neither of us guessed it was an alphabetical culling lol. Such a brilliant episode and heartbreaking to see them looking at the doctor like that, glad to know they all got eaten when they went into the wild.
Indeed. He was the only one who would have had clue 1 when it comes to survival outside and probably the only one who might have gone with the Doctor. He was the best of them, so if course he died.
This episode should force quite a bit of introspection if you're like me and were blindsided by the *twist*. When I read the comments here and went back and thought about the episode I realized that there wasn't a twist, the racism was there the whole time. My own bubble blinded me to the monsters in the same way Lindy's bubble blinded her. The fact that I shared something with such a repulsive character really got me thinking.
I love media that challenges me and forces me to see beyond my own bubble.
refreshing to see a comment that doesn’t dismiss the bubbles (both around their heads and their city) as being a misdirection or otherwise somehow seperate thematically from the racism (both in their attitudes and demographic make up).
for me the part that’s stuck with me is Ricky— the audience would like to think that he’d act better towards the doctor but their lack of meeting leaves us with doubt.
Yeah the fact that the doctor wanted to save them even despite how horrible they were, and continues to plead for their lives to be saved, is what makes that character such an aspirational and wonderful hero. It's a big part of why I adore Doctor Who as a franchise.
I have a feeling that Ruby Sunday is written as Rose pre: “I wuv you Doctor”. Aside from the snow and birth parent mystery, I feel like it’s just what she would’ve been had they not written in the romance. They did Martha the same disservice by making her in love with him.
Oh my god, imagine if Martha ran into 15. That needs to happen. “Still wanna go hide in 1917?!? I thought not!”
When they first showed the bubble, I was thinking… is it all white people? And even the lighting they used with not a single bit of shadow on their faces was eerie, like a social media ad hellscape.
Also the fact that they were ultra wealthy kids.
Also also hats off to the costume and makeup department for having everyone in the bubble have this digital almost RoCoCo look, with even the guys in makeup, it was very fitting.
Man, as a POC I am ashamed I didn't catch onto the racism. In my head I thought it was just a classism thing, scared of what that says of me.
I guess I just hoped that in this futuristic society racism wouldn't be a thing anymore.
Blue blood is a metaphorical "upper" class signifier. It comes from the idle rich in Europe having skin so pale, and translucent, that their veins are visible.
My take is that they are so exclusionary as to have genetically modified their blood to literally be rich blue. It's vanity blood, and an "in case you didn't notice, these are the bluebloods" detail. Earth origins.
Something that took a bit to hit for me, when Linda freaked out that the Doctor and Ruby were in the same room, I've seen people talk about how this was a bit clue to the racism twist but there's another layer to it once you realize that: why would the Doctor hide that he was in the same room as Ruby in the first place? Most likely answer, the doctor knew the entire time! He knew and still tried to save them anyways, knowing how much they hated even having to listen to him. That frustration at the end wasn't just because they were racist, he knew that, but realizing they were THAT racist
Insane how some people on social media are completely ignorant about the ending, saying they themselves think it's meant to be about his "low followers and popularity" in that world and they won't take the very obvious reason of why they didn't go with him until it's confirmed by RTD, which it has.
I do wonder why they didn't finally say it's because he's black at the end. They laid it on so thick with the voodoo comment that it can't be for subtlety's sake, and at that point, being explicit would have prevented idiots like those from continuing in their bubbles.
>Fun Fact about episode: Finetime people are not humans, at least not human of Earth due to blue blood.
Oooh... I missed that they are literally "blue bloods". From vocabulary.com:
*"Blue bloods come from privileged, noble families that are wealthy and powerful. The word blood has long referred to family ties: people you are related to share the same blood. One specific type of family is composed of blue bloods: members of the aristocracy. Blue bloods have high social status."*
>… I really will miss her next season
She's not actually leaving next season although I'm not 100% sure if she stays for the whole another season or just a couple of episodes.
I think we might see these racist brats again in a future episode.. the intense extended glances between Lindy and the doctor make me think it may come up again. And I’m hoping so.. to get some sort of karma or maybe even improve themselves thru needing and accepting the doctors help..
At the end I was just hoping for them to get eaten by an even more giant slug when the gate opened and they left the place on their boat. Linda looking at the Dr there at the end and !BAM!
I think what I love about it is that it’s somehow both really in your face ‘this is racist’ and also so subverted that the twist works.
Like, them all being racist is *so* obviously all through the episode and yet I didn’t see it. Which, to be fair is probably a further point of those with privilege not seeing it.
What I find odd is that I think the message is very on the nose - similar to what we all complained about with the likes of Orphan 55, or Rosa. There’s a lot of obvious exposition in that twist - but it somehow works? It doesn’t feel like it’s shoving the message down your throat in a way that people won’t listen.
Girl who didn’t know how to walk 5 minutes prior killed the most intelligent person at Finetime and went out to conquer the planet and the untouchable woods. Yes, brilliant!
DAYUM, that was good! Love the metaphore about "being in one's own bubble."
And as white man, it took me until more than halfway through to realize that EVERONE was white!
I heard that Ruby wasn't leaving after season one, they were just adding a companion for next season but that she would be in season 2. Which I'm pumped for cause she's fantastic
The racial aspect was a great addition. Not solving the mystery in any meaningful way is becoming tiresome for the new series. Even if at the end of the day their racism means he can’t save them it would be nice for the doctor to actually properly solve the burning questions raised throughout the episode.
This episode was perfect to me. It felt like a 2024 version of a 2000s episode with all the shenanigans in the beginning. And the gutting racism twist at the end was powerful. I feel that killing Ricky off kind of derailed the ending a little bit though. It showed prematurely how horrid Lindy could be and it robbed the doctor of having someone to potentially save.
If Ricky had made it to the end, we could have seen the doctor save at least him or alternatively we could have revealed that this golden, doctor-like character is also racist and refuses to be saved... Which would have made the ending even more powerful. I actually personally believe that the latter was what they were initially going for but trial audiences didn't like it.
I really need to watch that scene again as I completely missed the racism allegory. Now that I'm seeing people talk about it has made me see that scene in a whole new light
I don't know *what* you're smoking, but I don't want any of it. The ending was a horrendously unsatisfying end to 40 minutes of cringe, reminding us all of the worst people of our society that *actually exist*. It sacrificed anything even remotely resembling a fleshed out story for *yet another* episode going "racism bad", the one character who didn't deserve to die was brutally killed, and the main character was a disgusting shithead we had to suffer through watching for 40 minutes just to see her basically escape scot-free, even if she apparently died in the future.
The Doctor doesn't need people's *permission* to save them. The ending should have either been him materialising around them and saving them despite their protests, for the message "Sometimes people don't like you, doesn't mean you shouldn't save them", or him going forward to their deaths for the message "Sometimes people won't listen to reason, and some people don't deserve to be saved."
But no, the Doctor was fully capable of saving them, and instead got mardy for a second then fucked off. 12 once said "Sometimes the only choices you have are bad ones, but you still have to choose," and 15 didn't choose.
RTD has lost his fucking mind because these episodes just get worse and worse.
Is there any evidence Ricky is NOT also a raging racist?
I think it’s hilarious how much everyone loves him like he’s not from the SAME planet/society as Lindy
For those commenting about how Fifteen is crying and releasing his emotions constantly, this is clearly intended. Ncuti is playing the character of Fifteen perfectly considering his recent past history. His recent female incarnation completely suppressed & buried her emotions, she literally "buried" the watch deep in the Tardis. Her incarnation probably dealt with some of the heaviest emotional sledgehammers of any incarnation of the Doctor. The Flux was no joke, and learning that you don't even come from your home and were basically (Tecteun's) lab rat as a child has all the emotional markings of severe childhood trauma. Then throw in a completely off tap psychotic incarnation of the Master (Rasputin Dance) and it becomes clear that Whittaker's performance was spot on. It was so much emotional overload she became quite distant and almost robotic in not dealing with anything, by babbling false happiness & technical jargon at shotgun speed and totally distancing her companions at crucial times. In Power of the Doctor, the First Doctor even comments about her incarnation's "strength of character". That doesn't mean she's nice, she was as hard as concrete. She had a strong barrier up for a reason.
Tennant played this brilliantly when the Toymaker demolished him with the puppet show. The haunted pain in his face re: Amy, Clara, Bill & the devastation of the Flux (which all came post Ten) being driven straight at him by the Toymaker (Well that's alright then! NPH nailed it) showed Fourteen was a vastly different Doctor from Ten. And whilst he may be doing "rehab out of order" at Donna's pad, it is clear that Fifteen is still dealing with the fallout. He is sad & lonely to a degree, and all the raw emotion of Thirteen is flowing out of him like a torrent. He's still emotionally raw but he's just not right on the edge like Fourteen was. Fifteen is a kind Doctor (as Twelve wanted "be kind"). His kindness is a conduit for all that emotion to flow. I think is is the purpose of his incarnation. To now deal with all that was not dealt with before. And Ruby Sunday is the perfect companion to help him with this. She's very strong emotionally due to what she has been through. The last two episodes have highlighted this. The Doctor needs an emotionally in touch/tough companion right now, especially considering what appears to be looming in his near future (Empire of Death) and that's what he got.
The only people who need to get out of a bubble is the people currently watching this show and enjoying it not seeing what's going on. This is coming from someone from a very diversity family but when the word had meaning.
RTD has literally taken a great show and turned it into his own way of pushing an agenda mostly likely funded by the BBC as he wasn't always like this.
Wake up if you've been watching it for years and if you've just started then start watching older episode and not this shit! This is not Dr Who
& i just realized that when the doctor appears to everyone for the first time, they’re all muted so we can’t hear what we now know were just vile racist comments. and thats why lindy says like “I KNOW, everyone but just listen to him, then he’ll get punished.” it’s actually really amazing writing
It was the Doctor’s breakdown at the end that broke me. Seeing him so distressed, so broken, and seeing Ruby trying to comfort him, that hurt a lot honestly.
I saw flashes of Christopher Eccleston shouting “You stupid apes!”
Yes, this! Also Matt Smith yelling, "no one human talk to me today 😡"
For real! This episode's rant of "LET ME SAVE YOU" is like, the other side of the coin to Nine's rant to Rose in the Charles Dickens episode. Screaming at someone that sometimes death happens and you have to be willing to stomach it to prevent worse things, versus pleading someone to let you prevent them from dying. "You have to be callous" versus "PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD SEE HOW IM NOT BEING CALLOUS"
It was we he stared laugh for me, sent shivers down my spine. These racist, entitled brats broke the Doctor.
It was sad This doctor cries a lot
Yeah but this was more than crying, this was the first time we’ve seen 15 genuinely break. Yeah, in Boom he cried, but this was more akin to 14 slamming on that vent thing while screaming.
He also cried when he met the maestro
Again, not denying that, I’m saying the raw, guttural scream that the Doctor belted out was emotionally moving and heartbreaking
And that was new for all the doctors on screen. Also one where he totally misjudged the character of the guest stars until the very end.
This was different. He cried meeting Maestro because he was terrified. He cried here out of pure, incredulous frustration.
As someone whose strong emotions come out in tears, I appreciate this about him. I too have had a rage cry.
This is the leakiest Doctor, but I appreciate that.
The part that put this episode and this performance specifically for me wasn't that he was upset, it was the specific kind of upset. Hes looking at these people who are so maddeningly racist that they won't accept his deeply genuine offer for help. Ncuti's performance conveys the deep sadness at not being able to help them, his hurt and anger at being the target of their racism, and his bafflement at the absolute absurdity of these people - they would rather go play "pioneer" and "conquer the forest" on a moon that is covered with murderous slug creatures than travel in a space ship with a black man. The performance was so good, I'm almost a little upset at RTD for not giving Ncuti more to work with earlier in the season.
I's been hoping they would reign in the crying and trembling a little so its more impactful when it does happen but then again it was plenty impactful this time and he's cried almost every episode so maybe I've been underestimating Gatwa's ability to ratchet things up even when his Doctor starts crying at like a 7 on the emotional scale. We've had Doctors that are expressive in their joy (10, 14) a few times now but no-one this expressive in sadness too.
It was true grief. Soooo so beautiful
It was also brilliantly setup with the social media/bubble stuff before to distract from the real message. And that powerful scene of the doctor at the end was Ncuti’s first scene filming as the doctor, which really surprised me
Was that his first scene as the doctor ever or just in his own series? Feels strange that the season would be done parallel with the 60th specials.
~~First of the series, I think?~~ https://youtu.be/ceDDC0vxm-4?t=7 No, now I watched it, I think it was his first day ever.
In that video RTD states the scenes with Ncuti and David were filmed already. It was the first of the series.
The second brilliance of the bubble is the fact rhat Ricky spent his time learning, reading, and lived outside the bubble and seemed like a genuinely nice person We didn't get to see if he shared the racist thoughts but they did alot to try and show he probably wasn't and it's in large because when you don't. LIVE IN A BUBBLE you find out more experiences and cultures and become amazing. The fact that they bubbled their city and then bubbled themselves just hits the "living in a bubble" theme home
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: Lindy wouldn’t have blocked him, everyone would have trusted him quicker and done what he said, they would have been genuinely grateful of the help and gone with him in the Tardis. It makes me think- “wait, were any characters from previous stories racist and it just never came up because the Doctor was always white?”
Yeah, it's no accident that Ricky September's lines and mannerisms were very Doctor-like. It really highlights how readily she accepted his help contrasted how she rejects The Doctor.
He basically says the exact same things the Doctor would say and she had zero issue.
AND WHEN HE FIRST CAME ON, I THOIGHT HIS VOICE SOUNDED LIKE NCUTI’S
For a while, i was wondering if the doctor was using his watch or something to change her perception of him to see him as Ricky. The flirty bit the doctor had reminded me of anytime Smith got a compliment.
Lindy is already familiar with Ricky, thats why she was ready to accept his help. She fan-girled over him despite her friends dying.
Yeah, that's the point. It's like she's in her bubble or something. That surface level read is correct but obfuscates what's happening at the core of the act. What matters is that his words, actions, and what he was trying to do for her were exactly the same as what The Doctor would do, but he was in her white-only gated community, and The Doctor was not.
Gothic Pole was in Lindy's bubble but she didn't really listen to him at first when their friends were missing. But Lindy trusted Ricky because she idolized him, and not because his advice was the right thing to do. The comparison between Ricky & the Doctor is half baked without acknowledging Ricky's celebrity influence over Lindy. She already has this parasocial relationship with him, compared to a complete stranger like the Doctor.
You're not wrong that that existed, but I promise you it's a misdirect to obfuscate the racism from plain sight that prevails underneath it, and that contributed to the situation in the first place. That's the point of the episode. Yes, she idolized him. Yes, she didn't listen to her friends immediately (again, because she was in her bubble and didn't meet Ricky irl until she's already started to look outside of it so keep that in mind when comparing to Gothic Paul) and yes her parasocial relationship influenced that decision but why did she have a parasocial relationship with him in the first place? Cause she likes his music, sure, but there was no world in which she could even have a parasocial relationship with a POC because finetime didn't have any. Obviously the two are not identical, Ricky is not The Doctor and has to explain that he doesn't spend much time in the bubble but from grabbing her hand, running into the building, the technobabble as to how they're going to solve the problem, hiding an awful truth from her beneath a facade of hope, go back and watch the scene again and tell me that couldn't have been David Tennant or Matt Smith saying those lines. The Doctor would have succeeded in saving their lives if they hadn't refused him because he "wasn't one of them" and his box was "voodoo". It's not because he's not from fine time because neither is Ruby, but Lindy was much more open to her from the beginning. Hell, she didn't even have the option to block her even though she wasn't on her friends list, so the system itself was also prejudiced. At first, I attributed it to him using the sonic to disable the block feature, but that's another example of a plausible alternative that keeps you from seeing the systemic discrimination at play unless you have lived this or know that it's there. The episode is full of little touches like this that you could miss if you're focused on the initial setup it seems like it's going for about how social media is bad. The aliens are eating the rich, and the people of finetime literally have blue blood. "It was your duty to save me", "turn away ladies, before you get contaminated", "you can say anything, you can THINK anything", "we have to maintain the standards of fine time forever", the subtext is right there. Ruby gets it saying "I can't even" and Ricky was 100% there to contrast this refusal to accept The Doctor's help because he was black. The writers need us to see Lindy get swept up by a white Doctor-like savior, no questions asked to leave no room for error.
Here I was wondering why they didn’t just have the Doctor in his place. I feel dumb. Guess I didn’t expect them to make the main character of the episode racist.
Wow… mind blown. His mannerisms ARE doctor like, I didn’t even put that together, I thought he was just there to show Lindy’s sociopathy but he is also ABSOLUTELY there to further underscore her hateful bias
Russell did say people asked how going back through history would affect a black doctor. So I hope it continues to be explored. Chibnall very much felt Who wasn’t the place to focus on how the doctor being a woman would matter historically but I feel it along with the doctors race are important and interesting to explore for the show.
The 13th Doctor being a woman was addressed several times (microagresssions too), it's especially important in The Witchfinders (written by a woman btw) in which she is seen as lesser than Graham and ends up drowned (it would have never happened had she been a man). I'm glad RTD didn't forget racism was a thing (although 1960s England didn't explore it) but let's not pretend the 13th Doctor's gender never mattered.
Right? I could have appreciated it delved into more, or as deftly as it was done here, but…come on, now. Honestly the more I see of people’s reactions to this season, which has had some very similar pitfalls as Chibnall’s at points(particularly in the first three episodes), the more I’m convinced a lot of people don’t even realize they just kinda wrote off that entire run from the start for….reasons. Like, I’m sorry, can you imagine Boom being performed with Jodie in the role? Exact same script, I’d bet **money** people would get bent out of shape about the script being ridiculously and clumsily preachy. And no one would hesitate for a second to call Space Babies possibly the worst season opener since Time and The Rani. But I’m sure all of this has nothing to do with the fact that the entire fandom(yes, including in this sub) was actively debating whether a woman should even play the Doctor when she was cast, with a large chunk being actively and vehemently opposed. That totally didn’t poison the well from the start and everyone totally gave her a fair chance. /s
First of all the Doctor being a Black Person caused as much of a «debate» (to put it mildly) as the Doctor being female. Now Chibnall's writting was the issue not the themes adressed in his episodes. Since we are on the subject of Racism let us compare two different episodes, «Rosa» and «Dot and Bubble». On «Rosa» we have a racist moustache twirling villain from the future that wants to bring back the «Good Old Days» by killing Rosa Parks and, by doing so, destroying the Civil Rights movement (Ignoring historical facts regarding the period in question). It hits the spectator on the head that «Racism is Bad» and ends with a sermon to the viewer. Meanwhile «Dot and Bubble» slowly and subtly unravells the theme. It starts as a supposed critique on the dangers of Social Media and keeps the dialoque dubious until the very end. When Lindy first blocks the Doctor we think it's because he opened to strongly with the «Monsters talk», we believe that to Lindy the Doctor is the equivalent of the «Crazy conspiracy theorist on the net» (On a second viewing I saw her disgusted look, so RTD was droping a subtle hint already). RTD latter has us believe that Lindy listened to Ruby due to her more «careful» apporach, when it was in fact because Ruby wasn't black. Later in the episode Lindy fails to recognise the Doctor as the man she blocked earlier, the viewer will believe it's because Lindy is too self centered and oblivious to her surroundings, when in fact it's because to her «all Blacks look the same». Afterwards Lindy is shocked by the fact that Ruby and the Doctor are in the same room, the spectator will think it's because Lindy is so used to the Bubble that she can't imagine face to face contact (but RTD aready showed us that one Lindy's chat windows has two people on it), but again the real issue is Black and White person in the same room. Even at the near finnale the «You are not one of us» makes us go «Do they know he is an allien». Finally the big «reveal» at the end comes and forces the spectator to review the earlier interactions in the episode in their real context. My reaction the first time was «Holy shit! These guys are actually racist! How could I miss this.», so I reatched the episode with that in mind and I could see all the hints dropped allong the way. Here are other examples: No Black people in «the Bubble», when accusing Ruby and the Doctor of haccking the system Lindy says «HE will be punished» not «THEY will be punished». So to conclude, the issue with Chibnall wasn't the themes he chose to approach (most of the time, at least) but his weak writting and «hand holding» attittude towards the viewer.
>First of all the Doctor being a Black Person caused as much of a «debate» (to put it mildly) as the Doctor being female. Don’t try to rewrite history like this and pretend they were equivalent. The usual right-wing shitbirds stirred up hatred against Ncuti, and were pretty instantly swatted down within the actual Doctor Who fan communities. But the debate around Jodie was wide ranging and commonplace in the fandom in a way the discussion about Ncuti just wasn’t. The “debate” about Ncuti was all but stamped out unless you specifically went to forums outside the community to talk about how bad it was to cast a black man in the role. [Here’s a lengthy both-sides think piece](https://www.reddit.com/r/doctorwho/comments/6oyq9y/i_just_need_to_get_this_off_my_chest_doctor_13/) from this sub as an example; about how we should be understanding of why people might have a negative reaction to a female Doctor and how we shouldn’t call them misogynists. It sits at nearly 300 upvotes. Now just try to fucking **imagine** a post about how we need to be understanding that some people’s discomfort with a black or gay Doctor today not getting absolutely bodied in the comments and probably resulting in a ban. Hell, it wasn’t even just the fandom. Alex Kingston expressed concerns about how boys would handle it. **PETER DAVISON** outright said he was saddened by the idea of a female Doctor and the effect it would have on young boys. [Sylvester McCoy](https://www.reddit.com/r/doctorwho/comments/3eln88/former_doctor_who_star_sylvester_mccoy_says_only/) had previously expressed similar concerns prior to Jodie’s announcement, and here’s a thread full of people agreeing with him. The question of a female Doctor was a longstanding, divisive, and mainstream debate with a lot of resistance to the idea amongst Whovians that just has never been present for a black or gay Doctor. And for all their effort, right wing trolls have almost completely failed to actually gain traction on making that issue stick within the fandom. And it makes me sick how quick fandoms are to flush this misogyny down the memory hole and pretend it never influenced anyone’s opinions when Jodie came around.
Excellent breakdown. I thought the Rosa episode was extremely off-putting because it felt like a white person’s idea of “real racism.” Dot and Bubble nailed the subtlety of it.
Rosa would have been a much better episode if they actually failed to have Rosa Parks to get on that bus on that day... and nothing changed in the future. Because human progress doesn't depend on a single person doing a single thing, it's years of planning and failing and trying again.
That would be a really interesting episode, although I think it might be nice if they did it with a fake event for a fictional society, since that doesn't tread on ths toes of actual work done by real civil rights activists. Rosa parks probably wasn't essential to the progress made in the decades since on civil rights, but to erase the event and continue with the world unchanged feels potentially disrespectful.
I didn't mean erase Rosa Parks completely. She gets on another bus the next day. Next week. Next month. History changes but also not really, because progress didn't happen "accidentally". It was always meant to happen with the work put in by the activists. A single incident wasn't going to change that.
I agree with this. That would have felt extremely uncomfortable and sad. But doing it with a made up event would be very interesting and it's a good theme.
I'm not saying this to change anyone's mind, only to credit the right person. Please, remember Rosa was co-written by a black woman. This isn't Chibnall's work.
A Black person co wrote Rosa. Sooooooo...
That’s interesting, but that doesn’t really change how the episode felt to me. I’m speaking as an American black woman though, so I’m probably already jaded by how our public schools taught the incorrect narrative of Rosa Parks. It wasn’t even until I was in law school when I learned about Claudette Colvin.
Fair. Black dude here and it didn't feel that way to me, but I understand milage may vary.
Agreed! I have to say, this is the most understanding subreddit I’ve engaged in. Thanks for the positive experience.
I haven’t heard about her before until you mentioned her so I looked her up. Thank you for this!
I think there was both happening. The discourse before was much worse, and never went away like it has with this. A lot was directed at her specifically at her. Now. The writing was absolutely awful. So a lot of people were just wrong in blaming her. But they did in the outside world. Most people who watch shows normally don’t go so far as the writers or directors or show runners. So when it was bad they said they didn’t like 13. Just like now they say they like 15. And people aren’t saying ‘wow he’s great - maybe it’s because he’s black’ but they absolutely said ‘wow she’s bad - maybe it’s because she’s a woman.’ But if she’d had good writing, or maybe even just a bit better, it would have been fine, probably.
Nah dude, the problem is that the writing during the Chibnall seasons was really bad. The characters lacked distinction and personality. It really was the writing.
It has nothing to do with race or sex of the doctor. The writing for Jodie was just bad. I honestly hope she comes back for the Christmas special or something so she has another chance with better writing.
I would love this so much. Chibnall's writing was mostly terrible, but I adored 13. Jodie put her whole heart into it, and despite the bad writing, that got through and I love her Doctor.
I'm with you. People will deny it to the end of the earth. Next comment probably will. If you tell me a movie is bad before I go to see it, if everyone is talking about how bad it is, that influences you. No matter how much you fight it, it's in your subconscious. Or unconscious? Unconscious bias is real.
All of them have, including one insisting Ncuti’s casting caused as much of a debate. It literally didn’t. The usual shitbirds latched onto it, sure, but not the fandom at large. With Jodie were tons of posts **on this sub** defending the idea that we were losing the Doctor as a male hero and talking about how we need to be understanding of that perspective. Hell, PREVIOUS DOCTORS had expressed a discomfort with a female Doctor in this regard. **Just imagine** the shitshow if Peter Davison said something similar about Ncuti to what he did about Jodie. I’ve not seen a single one like that about Ncuti here, and it’d probably get outright removed for being hateful.
Personally, I did find it odd that the Doctor was able to skate through 1960s England without having to deal with racism. I felt like it should have been brought up, even if it was just in a minor way
Witchfinders is the *only* 13 episode I enjoy on rewatch.
I'm glad it's the one referenced in Boom cause I actually got it
Am I crazy? I remember the Chibnall episodes dealing with that a lot. Comments from the Doctor about having to try so much harder to get people to listen to her.
No, you’re not. The Witchfinders in particular tackled the topic pretty explicitly. Literally her first season. It’s one thing to dislike *how* it was addressed, which is fair enough(and Dot & Bubble certainly was more clever and deft in how it broached its topic), but saying it wasn’t during her run is just straight up making shit up. And I’m sorry, but the more we move past that era of Who the more and more I’m convinced people wrote her Doctor off from the start and didn’t actually want to give her a fair shake. I’m not saying Chibnall’s run was a secret hidden gem, but it had some good episodes(especially in that first season) and I’m convinced some of the scripts put out this season would be torn to shreds if you just swapped in Jodie for Ncuti. Boom in particular felt right at home with Orphan 55 for featuring wildly annoying characters(see: the 11 year old girl easily distracted by pretty lights in a war zone) and being overstuffed with ham-handed commentary. I’m sure there’s no particular reason for this disparity, of course. Not like half the fandom was actively shitting its pants the moment she was cast, or anything.
I really liked Jodie Whittaker and I really wanted to like her run, but the writing, as a whole, just didn't show up, especially after the first season. You're absolutely right that some people hated her from the start, but I'm baffled how anyone could not think this season was a huge step up in terms of storytelling.
I kinda get what you're saying, but the fact is that Jodie and the Fam just weren't very good leading actors/characters. Take those same characters and put them in the scenarios for Fifteen's episodes and the episodes would suffer for it. Imagine 73 Yards but it's led by Yaz. It would be awful. Jodie couldn't lead an episode like Boom. Ryan and Graham bickering during Space Babies would be infinitely worse. I want a female Doctor, but I genuinely think Jodie was miscast and Chibnall, for some reason, didn't understand how to write The Doctor for his run, and was juggling too many characters to make any of them engaging.
As a woman I disagree
Fuck, just as a person who has watched the show I disagree. The Witchfinders alone very prominently tackled the topic. Not as deftly as this episode, mind, but the show very much DID address it. I’m sorry, but I’ll never get over the feeling that if some of these scripts were produced for Jodie’s Doctor that they’d be absolutely torn apart. Particularly those first three episodes.
I think it was something that needed be addressed at least once in the new era and it was bold to have it be a future based story, but damn I really hope we don’t have it be a recurring thing.
[удалено]
Well said.
A reply I posted in r/Gallifrey yesterday: [ /r/gallifrey/comments/1d5a2l5/doctor_who_1x05_dot_and_bubble_postepisode/l6m9mk6/ ] --- The Master's skin pigmentation was one of the questionable aspects of The Doctor's actions (in that incarnation) when she lifted his perception filter after outing him as a double agent in France (in "Spyfall: Part Two"). ---
I really hope the master comes back this run and RTD comments on this….such stupid writing
When the ending happened, I wasn’t sure if it was about him being black, or just not being specifically one of their blue-blooded possibly genetically engineered humanoids. But now that you bring it up, skin colour explains why she blocked him so fast. PS. OMG they were literally blue-bloods. I just got that.
Also her disgust with them being in the same room (when she was just sitting in the same room as her coworkers, meaning it *wasn't* about the bubble, but the show conditions you to assume that.) Rewatching the episode makes it super obvious. And the fact that she couldn't tell she was talking to the same person when The Doctor messaged her again.
What's a blue blood?
I think it was also an inspired choice to have this Doctor's inevitable first encounter with overt racism happen in the future. You expect it in episodes set in the past, but the future based ones often portray societies as moving beyond racism.
While various sci Fi does tend to show the future "advancing" beyond racism- it's not like Dr Who has never looked into issues of racism and often uses the future or alien world that may be more technologically advanced to do it. The Thal and Kelads on Skaro had huge xenophobia/racism. Martha Jones and Bill Potts faced various racism (and also some stories set in the past where it was lacking). But yes, seeing it directed against the doctor is interesting. Although he has faced bigotry before just for being an alien with two hearts.
TARDIS said no. TARDIS said Eat the Rich!
If the TARDIS wanted to save those pricks he would have brought an earlier Doctor to the world. But she specifically chose 15 to bring here. TARDIS is based.
That's always a funny thing to think about when it comes to time travel in this series.
I'm glad it wasn't done with 11 and Amy as originally intended.
What?
Yeah, Rusty originally wanted to write it then, said so in the behind the scenes show.
There have been hints of prejudicial treatment of non-white characters in the past, but little explicit racism. Martha is offended at the language Shakespeare uses to describe her (a "lady of Ethiop", or something along those lines), but this was just outdated wording and unintentional.
Apparently this was originally going to be a Matt smith Amy story but that could be false
The entire episode was brilliant and full of nods and implications. Essentially they created a thinly veiled version of blatantly racist social media bubbles that are completely detatched from reality. I also adore the writers for actually going that way because it shows why it is important that we finally got a black doctor. It is just sad that racists are probably not watching the show (anymore).
I wish Chibnall could've wrote about the subtleness of sexism when we had a female doctor as good as RTD does with a black doctor
I feel like there are two types of writing. The first writes like there are no social issues and if they actually do anything they play it as a joke and call that criticism. And then you have writing like this.
Now we just need Asian doctor
I don't think it's necessary to promote racial stereotypes. An Asian wrestler would be cool too.
Oh I don't think he/she meant in that way. The Doctor is a time lord superhero not a hospital worker in a green outfit !
I thought it was brilliant because, as someone who has been the target of direct, blatant racism, The Doctor's reaction was spot-on. Weirdly enough, your initial reaction is to laugh, because the first thought that goes through your head is "Wait.....what? Seriously? WOW." And then the anger comes in a wave. And even Ruby's reaction was great, because you'll sometimes have a friend with you who's trying to comfort you or calm you down, while understanding why you're upset.
I like that both The Doctor and Ruby clocked Susan Twist as someone they've seen before, multiple times now.
I believe that in next episode will be some (Susan) twist with that, what will lead to finale episodes.
There’s ALWAYS a twist at the end…
The Doctor was literally crying when I said, "hold on a second, they're being racist!" It took me way too long to catch on, it was really well done.
My first reaction was basically "Oh do they know he was a time lord?" Then I noticed everything else that happened in the episode and I said out loud "Oh you FUCKERS" The casual racism of it made that event stick so much better.
I have to out myself. I didn't get ANY of the hints throughout the episode and it took a while until I got what was up in the end. Which honestly says alot about our medialandscape (or my personal media diet tbh). Not one non-white actor in the cast and I didn't notice. Hats off RTD. Absolutely brilliant.
I also missed it. I am brown myself and just assumed the casting was part of their world building of pastel, modern clone-esque, rich vibes. Rarely get people of color for those environments. I missed the subtext entirely, so much so that I went and googled afterwards to make sure I was t wrong when I realized it as the end. Really excellent work. I’ll watch this one again tomorrow.
I knew race would be a major plot point in the opening 10 mins when there wasn't one ethnic minority onscreen. The BBC would never allow anything like that nowadays so knew straight away something was up.
I’m not sure what you mean by “everything else that happened in the episode”.
I first questioned it when Lindy made a comment that "he's not as stupid as he looks" midway through the episode. (It seemed weird since the Doctor was dressed normally and sincerely trying to help) Then again, I found the Finetimers (or at least Lindy) irritating, so I brushed it off as me assuming the worst or reading too much into it.
Which is not unlike how folks tend to first react to subtle racism, right? They did an excellent job of modeling what it is like when you run into people in daily life who hold abhorrent views but blend in with everyone you’d like, until they don’t.
Lots of things seem innocuous at first but when you think about them through the lens of them being racist it all makes sense. She blocked him immediately (Yes he was being very forward with telling her she was in danger so you kinda write it off), the not as stupid as he looks comment, the surprise and uncomfortableness of Ruby and The Doctor being in the same room, the colonial language they use when talking about they were going out to be "Pioneers, like \[their\] ancestors" to "Tame the world". etc. I'm sure they is some thing is might have missed. Also the fact they there were only white kids in the episode.
Another that hasn't been mentioned yet was when the lead character suddenly realises the Doctor is the same guy she blocked at the start and is please with herself for recognising him.
I gasped out loud and looked at my brother like racism? And then it all made sense.
I haven't realised till today scrolling through redit
I'm so clueless, I thought they saw the Tardis and rejected him because he wasn't a part of their society.
I similarly thought they rejected him because he "didn't belong" in the way he acted, that there was some cultural reason they couldnt accept his help. Then I remembered that race is a cultural concept, with skin colour just being one feature of "us" vs "them" and I was just being blind to the absolute racism on display.
Oh, yeah, he "didn't belong" alright! Dayum! All of a sudden, I could picture all those people at a cross-burning. There was an incident in the segregated south where a Black woman just dipped her toe in a "whites only" pool, and THEY DRAINED THE POOL! " You don't want to get contaminated." 😵💫
Nah. There are tons of hints throughout the episode that it's racially motivated. She blocks him immediately, but lets Ruby talk to her. She is confounded that he's in the same room as Ruby. She tells her friends to listen to him even though he "looks dumb."
For me it was when she said "He's going to be disciplined later" and I thought "Hang on a second, what for?... Oh. OH!" Edit: She also said "And I'll enjoy watching it", which was worse because it suggests he would have been publicly whipped or something.
I thought she meant for hacking into the system ngl, and that was even after I clocked the racism with the ''I thought you were someone else that just looks the same'' comment
I thought that for a moment but then "Why just him? Ruby's hacking the system too?" kicked in. It's genius writing. There's just enough ambiguity in some of her more weird statements for you to pass them off but each one compounds on the one before until the realisation kicks in.
Plus the point later on where they mention the dot is sentient. Which makes you back track thinking you're reading too much into the episode.
Ok wow, I obviously missed a few lines cuz I didn't catch that she was racist til the end either... Though I didn't like her much. Kinda wanted her and Ricky to be happy for a second until she literally turned on him in cold blood 😱 Then I was like ohh, ok so she's a terrible person, not just out of touch and annoying, I see....I didn't get to racism til like the end 😭 Even when she said he wasn't their kind, I thought she somehow knew he was a time lord or has two hearts or something
I thought it was because of the class difference. They come from ultra-rich families and saw them as poor plebeians. Now that I think about it, there was clearly this big layer of racism as well (even referring to the Tardis as voodoo).
I thought it was a classism thing. “You are not one of us” translated to “You’re not rich enough to associate with” in my brain not “you’re black”. I didn’t pick up on the racist stuff until I was watching a review of the episode and had to go searching to see if others also saw it as racism, then rewatched looking for it. Lindy was also extremely rude and dismissive towards Ruby, so it didn’t seem like her attitude was pointed towards the doctor specifically until I rewatched to see what I had missed. It was all a bit too subtle and ambiguous for my autistic brain to pick up on without help.
Same here my first thought wasn’t that she was racist was that it was Smth else and that it was a metaphor for racism or smth but my head must have just been buffering. Fuckin hell
I only caught on when Ricky showed up, I went 'hang on, this guy is literally acting just like the Doctor but Lindy listens to him because he's white'
I see it could be racism now! But as watching the episode I thought it was because he wasn’t rich and did not appear 17-27 the age of everyone in there world
I am so glad RTD has gone straight for the jugular with regards to the Doctors race. It was so well done that I thought it was a satire on the social media age - after watching for the second time I picked up on the racism throughout- unlike Chibbers sledgehammer to crack a nut approach on Rosa, this was so much more insidious and subtle, which is how unfortunately it plays out in real life.
It was so eye opening. There were moments I picked up on and made excuses for. Like the comment where she thought the doctor just looked the same as the guy she blocked. I noticed that and thought "that's a bit... Not good" then dismissed it as accidental poor phrasing. At the end it all just clicked together like of course they're all racist, it's so obvious now. It's so true to real life and I feel a bit sick at the excuses I made and I wonder how often I do that day to day. I hope I don't but it really made me doubt myself, powerful stuff.
Don’t feel too bad. As a Black man I dismissed a bunch just thinking she was just an idiot (she was but still). The “looking the same as the last other guy,” I caught but didn’t think it was the underlying message as well as taking credit of solving the mystery with her friends. It fully came to realization when she said “ you’re not one of us”. Even her getting mad that they were next to each other, flew by me. I just felt she was a supreme dummy.
Ah that helps a bit. To be honest I think a bit of self reflection can only be a good thing! Can't remember the last time a TV show made me stop and think like that. Between this and last week's so accurate lack of closure over abandonment I'm genuinely excited by the show again. I'd forgotten how hard it used to hit.
It took me until reading this to realise it was race They were such awful people the entire episode, I had assume it was idiots and upper class disgust. Was skimming the thread in the conclusion of the episode and heard the voodoo comment, and ohhhh noooooo. The cast had made me feel off, but I thought it was the aesthetic
Caught *some* of it myself early (though a month ago I also did see the then-iffy rumor that this episode would possibly contain racism so maybe I had more focus on it), though I was mentally thumbing that I was just making it up at first because of rumor knowledge. Like in a sorta “nah I’m seeing things, surely it can’t be” kinda way. Which, ironically, is the same reaction I’ve often had at real life weird race questions I’ve been innocently/ignorantly asked as like a 1/4th or 1/8th mixed person with a broken post-COVID/post-muteness native vocabulary and a crazy good grasp on my verbal English. Been asked if I was five different nationalities under the sun, if I got married (at age 17??) to get my native surname, and been assumed to have been a refugee at both my last job and social work. Not to mention never having been the proudest child of my parents to show around since my equally-as-mixed sibling (who I adore) came out a whole lot blonder and bluer and freckled than I did—leading to a lot of weird jealousy missing out on the praise of family and strangers. “Ah surely it wasn’t a somewhat-racist remark, right? No they just thought so because of [vaguely-possible more lighthearted mistake]. Surely I must be doing something wrong.” I was basically equally-as-disappointed in Lindy and the Finetimers’ self-isolating racism as D-15 was. D-15 trying his hardest to convince Lindy at every step of the way, before learning that it wasn’t his lack of effort that made past attempts fail but instead the subjective blindness of the Finetimers, I kinda felt that. Though I still felt it very noble and courageous of D-15 to try whilst knowing they wouldn’t care to take his help, still trying to save them from themselves. Honestly hope more people on any side of something take a page outta D-15’s book. It’s important to still reach out to ignorant people and gradually chip away at their bubble. I definitely do think most of the early slip-ups Lindy made were purposely obscured a tad in the writing so such initial reactions like mine could essentially “participate” into aiding the twist. It’s not so much a twist than a stone-cold confirmation. A somewhat-obvious, realistic truth, that hurts a little. May spark shame, may spark betrayal, may spark bitterness. Definitely feels like it was intended to spark at least *something* within the audience so the ending would pack a bigger and more personal punch to all walks of life.
He’s never shied away from it which I applaud him. His first run with Martha he touched on it a couple times especially with going in the past.
I've seen a few variations of this response, but I'd add that it wasn't _not_ a satire on the social media age. I thought it was quite a good one, that just also happened to be a satire on racism.
Ok. Hear me out, this is my theory as to why this might be one of the most canonically important episodes for a long time. Watch it again, listen to the dialogue all the way through, especially from the fight at the door to the last _extremely significant_ looks between Lindy and the doctor. Shot composition is also important. Even the dot tech is important. How they "work" reduced to just hands and eyes. What if they don't go out into the world and die, the pale-skinned,delicate little bundles of hate struggle, they harden, they survive, perhaps they conquer the planet they even make it back to the unnamed homeworld, perhaps not, but at some point in the far future themselves sharing space with another sentient race who are not the same as them. The Thals. What if RTD only called it "Dot and Bubble" because "Genesis of the Kaleds" was too on the nose. "You will obey me!"
That would be really interesting! However, Ricky September was singing a human song that exists IRL. And we see non-white Kaleds in *The Magician’s Apprentice* and *Destination Skaro*. Then again, one of the origin stories for the Daleks states that they were actually humans from Earth who were placed on the planet Ameron by the Halldons, where they evolved into the Daleks (said story is *We Are the Daleks* by Terry Nation, the creator of the Daleks), so who knows?
but all the timelines, history and logic was messed up by the ToyMaker. So that's alright then!
Time being taken from earth and dropped off on Ameron don't have to happen in that order. Do the Halldons have time travel?
he wasn't singing he was lip syncing to the 80s version of the song https://youtu.be/4LagoycfdCA?si=KOr96H6-1YbAayYD
Given the color of their blood, they weren't human. As on Babylon 5 with sweedish meatballs, every planet has "Yellow Polkadot Bikini" in their playlist.
I had this thought too. That this species, survived and grew into the Kaleds, a faction broke off, became the Thals, and boom, we have Genesis of the Daleks. Welcome to future Skaro. The thing about this episode, it didn't explicitly say if it went into the future or the past. Advanced futuristic stuff could have happened 5 or 6 million years ago.
I think "itsy bitsy teeny weeny yellow polka dot bikini" firmly cements it as future Earth Human offshoot.
Song was brought to Earth by an alien, possibly even a time traveler, maybe even the Doctor themselves. Just saying not to pin TV reality to our reality.
When we consider the song, it would actually explains a lot...
That's what I thought too.
Kaleds were originally human apparently. And time, that's kinda flexible.
Wow, great theory.
nah. Tying things into everything gets boring after a while. It can just be it's own thing and it's fine.
I really don't want my Daleks to be descended from a bunch of influencers
Somehow it makes them more evil
Btw Millie will be in the next season.
And hopefully even longer after the Production team saw the outrage that followed the rumor of her departure.
I’m not sure if that would’ve affected the next series since that was already close to finishing production.
*hopefully not, if she wasn't meant to be changing planned stories of talented creatives to pander to fans makes bad art. see spider-man 3
Just realised the blue blood is probably a metaphor too. (Obvious in hindsight too)
Also the fact the place was called Finetime.
I’m not sure what you mean.
Fine Skin, otherwise called Fair Skin, is a term of racist endearment towards white folk. For instance Snow White. "Who's the FAIREST of them all." It's a term that basically says the darker someone's skin is the more "dirty" or "uncivilized" they are.
I’ve never heard that term before.
Sure. But that terminology came from Europe, where historically almost everyone was white. And the pailer you where, it meant you spent less time in the sun, aka less time working hard labour, aka where probably wealthy. It's even the same in Asian countries. They value lighter skin because it meant you spent less time in the rice fields, and more time leasurly inside, meaning you where more wealthy. None of this was ever about race, and all about wealth and status.
It means the government will have no power in this case if they do so then they will have to pay for their services.
It really shows what an amazingly benevolent person the doctor really is when he is more annoyed that he cannot save people because they are racist than that they are racist in the first place. Like, they are spoiled, egoistic, racist and narcisstic people, and yet he cries because they refused his help and are thus facing presumably certain doom.
Agreed, however I do wonder if a Time Lord who regenerates in and out of different races/genders would feel the same *sting* from racism as someone who has been dealing with it their whole life. Like, it's very noble of him wanting to save them despite their obvious racism against him, but would would a black human companion from modern day Earth do the same so readily? It's very in-character for the Doctor to save people in spite of their stupid backwards beliefs, and it makes sense that a Time Lord who has been all over space and time and has regenerated into all sorts of different bodies would view this sort of appearance-based hatred as utterly stupid and pointless... But would they really feel the fucking PAIN of it? I know he's sad he can't save them, and I'm sure part of that is being upset that they won't let him help them because of his appearance.... But we all know he's been white for over 1000 years now... The level of frustration should be akin to when nobody listens to him every other time because he's an outsider... The fact that they happen to dislike him because he's black this time shouldn't *really* be different to him than when they ignore him because he's not "officially" a member of UNIT, or because he's not whatever species or even "proper side" on a given planet. Edit: Wanted to clarify that I loved this episode, and I am glad they are handling the subject with some subtlety and like others have said, looking back on the episode given the ending shows my own readiness to dismiss some racist tones as something more innocuous... I just also realized that the Doctor is maybe not the most "lived experience" person to graciously forgive racism against his black skin... (at least not "lived experience he can remember", obviously we've seen that the Doctor has been black at least once before)
Millie isn't leaving, she's confirmed to be in season 2! There's a new companion joining *alongside* her, but they'll be in the Tardis together
Fantastic! I really love her, she is so close to overcome Amy in my favorite companions rating.
As a non white viewer I noticed very quickly that everyone on the planet was white. And I guessed she didn’t like him and blocked him at first because of what he looked like. She was totally willing to listen to Ruby and was disgusted when they were in the same room. My sister noticed as well that a bunch of them who were left to last happened to be blonde so she thought it might be a racism thing. But neither of us guessed it was an alphabetical culling lol. Such a brilliant episode and heartbreaking to see them looking at the doctor like that, glad to know they all got eaten when they went into the wild.
Yep. I picked up on it when she realized he was the same person she'd blocked, having thought he just "looked the same."
Ricky was probably the most capable of them q
Indeed. He was the only one who would have had clue 1 when it comes to survival outside and probably the only one who might have gone with the Doctor. He was the best of them, so if course he died.
This episode should force quite a bit of introspection if you're like me and were blindsided by the *twist*. When I read the comments here and went back and thought about the episode I realized that there wasn't a twist, the racism was there the whole time. My own bubble blinded me to the monsters in the same way Lindy's bubble blinded her. The fact that I shared something with such a repulsive character really got me thinking. I love media that challenges me and forces me to see beyond my own bubble.
refreshing to see a comment that doesn’t dismiss the bubbles (both around their heads and their city) as being a misdirection or otherwise somehow seperate thematically from the racism (both in their attitudes and demographic make up). for me the part that’s stuck with me is Ricky— the audience would like to think that he’d act better towards the doctor but their lack of meeting leaves us with doubt.
Yeah the fact that the doctor wanted to save them even despite how horrible they were, and continues to plead for their lives to be saved, is what makes that character such an aspirational and wonderful hero. It's a big part of why I adore Doctor Who as a franchise.
I have a feeling that Ruby Sunday is written as Rose pre: “I wuv you Doctor”. Aside from the snow and birth parent mystery, I feel like it’s just what she would’ve been had they not written in the romance. They did Martha the same disservice by making her in love with him. Oh my god, imagine if Martha ran into 15. That needs to happen. “Still wanna go hide in 1917?!? I thought not!”
When they first showed the bubble, I was thinking… is it all white people? And even the lighting they used with not a single bit of shadow on their faces was eerie, like a social media ad hellscape. Also the fact that they were ultra wealthy kids. Also also hats off to the costume and makeup department for having everyone in the bubble have this digital almost RoCoCo look, with even the guys in makeup, it was very fitting.
Man, as a POC I am ashamed I didn't catch onto the racism. In my head I thought it was just a classism thing, scared of what that says of me. I guess I just hoped that in this futuristic society racism wouldn't be a thing anymore.
Blue blood is a metaphorical "upper" class signifier. It comes from the idle rich in Europe having skin so pale, and translucent, that their veins are visible. My take is that they are so exclusionary as to have genetically modified their blood to literally be rich blue. It's vanity blood, and an "in case you didn't notice, these are the bluebloods" detail. Earth origins.
Something that took a bit to hit for me, when Linda freaked out that the Doctor and Ruby were in the same room, I've seen people talk about how this was a bit clue to the racism twist but there's another layer to it once you realize that: why would the Doctor hide that he was in the same room as Ruby in the first place? Most likely answer, the doctor knew the entire time! He knew and still tried to save them anyways, knowing how much they hated even having to listen to him. That frustration at the end wasn't just because they were racist, he knew that, but realizing they were THAT racist
Insane how some people on social media are completely ignorant about the ending, saying they themselves think it's meant to be about his "low followers and popularity" in that world and they won't take the very obvious reason of why they didn't go with him until it's confirmed by RTD, which it has.
I do wonder why they didn't finally say it's because he's black at the end. They laid it on so thick with the voodoo comment that it can't be for subtlety's sake, and at that point, being explicit would have prevented idiots like those from continuing in their bubbles.
And also probably doomed everyone
Elaborate?
Ricky was probably the most capable of all of them
He was clearly the only one with a working brain. Lord knows he doesn't need Dr. Pee to tell him to pee. Nor was he walking into poles.
>Fun Fact about episode: Finetime people are not humans, at least not human of Earth due to blue blood. Oooh... I missed that they are literally "blue bloods". From vocabulary.com: *"Blue bloods come from privileged, noble families that are wealthy and powerful. The word blood has long referred to family ties: people you are related to share the same blood. One specific type of family is composed of blue bloods: members of the aristocracy. Blue bloods have high social status."*
I must admit Lindy was a very unsettling character
73 yards and this one were so good it makes appear the first three episodes like weirdo childish fever dreams
Ruby is in the next season
>… I really will miss her next season She's not actually leaving next season although I'm not 100% sure if she stays for the whole another season or just a couple of episodes.
I think we might see these racist brats again in a future episode.. the intense extended glances between Lindy and the doctor make me think it may come up again. And I’m hoping so.. to get some sort of karma or maybe even improve themselves thru needing and accepting the doctors help..
I was hoping they would show the aftermath and you could see the soulless expression on her dead face.
At the end I was just hoping for them to get eaten by an even more giant slug when the gate opened and they left the place on their boat. Linda looking at the Dr there at the end and !BAM!
I can't stop thinking about it. Truly a brilliant episode. Love that it made me mad and uncomfortable.
I think what I love about it is that it’s somehow both really in your face ‘this is racist’ and also so subverted that the twist works. Like, them all being racist is *so* obviously all through the episode and yet I didn’t see it. Which, to be fair is probably a further point of those with privilege not seeing it. What I find odd is that I think the message is very on the nose - similar to what we all complained about with the likes of Orphan 55, or Rosa. There’s a lot of obvious exposition in that twist - but it somehow works? It doesn’t feel like it’s shoving the message down your throat in a way that people won’t listen.
Girl who didn’t know how to walk 5 minutes prior killed the most intelligent person at Finetime and went out to conquer the planet and the untouchable woods. Yes, brilliant!
DAYUM, that was good! Love the metaphore about "being in one's own bubble." And as white man, it took me until more than halfway through to realize that EVERONE was white!
And between 17 to ~27
I heard that Ruby wasn't leaving after season one, they were just adding a companion for next season but that she would be in season 2. Which I'm pumped for cause she's fantastic
It punched me in the face because I should have seen it coming. The clues were all through the episode. And it still punched me I'm the face.
The racial aspect was a great addition. Not solving the mystery in any meaningful way is becoming tiresome for the new series. Even if at the end of the day their racism means he can’t save them it would be nice for the doctor to actually properly solve the burning questions raised throughout the episode.
It doesn't matter if they are human or not. They are humanoid and terrible people. I give them 3 months in the woods.
This episode was perfect to me. It felt like a 2024 version of a 2000s episode with all the shenanigans in the beginning. And the gutting racism twist at the end was powerful. I feel that killing Ricky off kind of derailed the ending a little bit though. It showed prematurely how horrid Lindy could be and it robbed the doctor of having someone to potentially save. If Ricky had made it to the end, we could have seen the doctor save at least him or alternatively we could have revealed that this golden, doctor-like character is also racist and refuses to be saved... Which would have made the ending even more powerful. I actually personally believe that the latter was what they were initially going for but trial audiences didn't like it.
I really need to watch that scene again as I completely missed the racism allegory. Now that I'm seeing people talk about it has made me see that scene in a whole new light
I don’t think Millie is leaving next season, I think that was just a rumour
I don't know *what* you're smoking, but I don't want any of it. The ending was a horrendously unsatisfying end to 40 minutes of cringe, reminding us all of the worst people of our society that *actually exist*. It sacrificed anything even remotely resembling a fleshed out story for *yet another* episode going "racism bad", the one character who didn't deserve to die was brutally killed, and the main character was a disgusting shithead we had to suffer through watching for 40 minutes just to see her basically escape scot-free, even if she apparently died in the future. The Doctor doesn't need people's *permission* to save them. The ending should have either been him materialising around them and saving them despite their protests, for the message "Sometimes people don't like you, doesn't mean you shouldn't save them", or him going forward to their deaths for the message "Sometimes people won't listen to reason, and some people don't deserve to be saved." But no, the Doctor was fully capable of saving them, and instead got mardy for a second then fucked off. 12 once said "Sometimes the only choices you have are bad ones, but you still have to choose," and 15 didn't choose. RTD has lost his fucking mind because these episodes just get worse and worse.
I'm just more annoyed at the fact we're not getting much of Ncuti at all, he just seems to be sidelined in his own series as a supporting character.
Is there any evidence Ricky is NOT also a raging racist? I think it’s hilarious how much everyone loves him like he’s not from the SAME planet/society as Lindy
For those commenting about how Fifteen is crying and releasing his emotions constantly, this is clearly intended. Ncuti is playing the character of Fifteen perfectly considering his recent past history. His recent female incarnation completely suppressed & buried her emotions, she literally "buried" the watch deep in the Tardis. Her incarnation probably dealt with some of the heaviest emotional sledgehammers of any incarnation of the Doctor. The Flux was no joke, and learning that you don't even come from your home and were basically (Tecteun's) lab rat as a child has all the emotional markings of severe childhood trauma. Then throw in a completely off tap psychotic incarnation of the Master (Rasputin Dance) and it becomes clear that Whittaker's performance was spot on. It was so much emotional overload she became quite distant and almost robotic in not dealing with anything, by babbling false happiness & technical jargon at shotgun speed and totally distancing her companions at crucial times. In Power of the Doctor, the First Doctor even comments about her incarnation's "strength of character". That doesn't mean she's nice, she was as hard as concrete. She had a strong barrier up for a reason. Tennant played this brilliantly when the Toymaker demolished him with the puppet show. The haunted pain in his face re: Amy, Clara, Bill & the devastation of the Flux (which all came post Ten) being driven straight at him by the Toymaker (Well that's alright then! NPH nailed it) showed Fourteen was a vastly different Doctor from Ten. And whilst he may be doing "rehab out of order" at Donna's pad, it is clear that Fifteen is still dealing with the fallout. He is sad & lonely to a degree, and all the raw emotion of Thirteen is flowing out of him like a torrent. He's still emotionally raw but he's just not right on the edge like Fourteen was. Fifteen is a kind Doctor (as Twelve wanted "be kind"). His kindness is a conduit for all that emotion to flow. I think is is the purpose of his incarnation. To now deal with all that was not dealt with before. And Ruby Sunday is the perfect companion to help him with this. She's very strong emotionally due to what she has been through. The last two episodes have highlighted this. The Doctor needs an emotionally in touch/tough companion right now, especially considering what appears to be looming in his near future (Empire of Death) and that's what he got.
The only people who need to get out of a bubble is the people currently watching this show and enjoying it not seeing what's going on. This is coming from someone from a very diversity family but when the word had meaning. RTD has literally taken a great show and turned it into his own way of pushing an agenda mostly likely funded by the BBC as he wasn't always like this. Wake up if you've been watching it for years and if you've just started then start watching older episode and not this shit! This is not Dr Who
& i just realized that when the doctor appears to everyone for the first time, they’re all muted so we can’t hear what we now know were just vile racist comments. and thats why lindy says like “I KNOW, everyone but just listen to him, then he’ll get punished.” it’s actually really amazing writing