Doctor Who Series 11 Discussion

[Daveycandlish]

... and then I saw some of the comments, and was reminded how we've still got such a long way to go.

If I've learnt one thing in all my years online it is NEVER. READ. THE. COMMENTS.

[Andy Lambert]

I didn't intend to... I was scrolling down for the rest of the article and found myself in a cesspit.

[TordelBack]

It happens. But feck the lot of them, like tonight's episode pointed out, it may take another lifetime (or many), but they'll lose in the end.

[Leigh S]

I thought it was great and dodged most of the pitfalls to provide something new for Who, that also felt a bit like a throwback to Hartnell era historical (though does everyone in the 79th C know what a TARDIS is?)

[Steve Green]

Way better than last week's episode.

It felt like it could have had a little extra time at the end - it was all a bit of rush into the credits with the music not really suiting a whizz past of credits.

Really impressed with the score by Segun Akinola - I can't imagine Murray Gold on an episode like that.

[Jim_Campbell]

That was a fucking great episode. Yes, absolutely, there's stuff you could nit-pick at but there were so many ways that could have gone horribly wrong and yet they ended up with something smart and affecting and (depressingly) still so desperately relevant. What a fine bit of TV. Well done, all.

[Taryn Tailz]

That was a fucking great episode. Yes, absolutely, there's stuff you could nit-pick at but there were so many ways that could have gone horribly wrong and yet they ended up with something smart and affecting and (depressingly) still so desperately relevant. What a fine bit of TV. Well done, all.

So relevant that there's literally a story about a black woman being abused on an aeroplane in the news today.

There was one very specific moment where I feared they were going to stray into 'white folk helping a black woman find her place in history' territory, but they avoided it. When Rosa asks the Doctor if 'wining the raffle means she gets to sit anywhere on the bus', it would have been so easy to have had the Doctor say something along the lines of 'No, you'll need to do that on your own.', and I was so worried that was going to be what she would say. But she didn't. She just said 'no', and that made the moment all the more powerful than the potential 'white folk helping' trap they could so easily have fallen into.

[DrJomster]

Best one so far. Little wobble with the space bit at the end but overall, pulled off very well.

Grim times, back then.

[DrJomster]

Ah. Apparently the asteroid is real. I take it all back! Great episode!

[JamesC]

I think the episode did a really good job of adding a bit of detail to a story most people sort-of know.
I knew the basics of what happened but had never really considered it. I didn't realise they actually had signs on the seats or that people had to get off and get back on at the back. I'd never thought about what happened to the bus driver either. It was really shocking to see it all laid out - it just seems so petty. God knows what kids thought of the episode. I imagine there were lots of questions and that lots of kids will be talking about it at school. To think this was happening around the same time as the McCarhty stuff too - those people had a lot of fear and hatred.

[TordelBack]

What struck me most strongly about the episode was the way the initial scenes could so easily have been read as a fantasy situation where a baddie had already changed recent history into one where bus drivers carried guns, Rosa was cowed into getting off the bus, and arseholes punched black guys in the street for returning lost gloves. The revelation that this was our regular timeline, and as Taryn said upthread, it was the worst place the TARDIS had ever landed... well, despite every awareness of the history of the Civil Rights movement, that still managed to be a punch to the gut.  You can read about lynchings, disenfranchisement and separate bathrooms in the Pentagon, but seeing these everyday petty outrages happen to our own contemporary characters in mundane settings (bus, diner, motel) can somehow seem more real.

That they sustained and ratcheted-up the initial discomfort, restrained themselves from having the characters 'inspire' Rosa in any way (although I liked the connection between Rosa and Ryan at the end, and that maybe she was playing to this specific audience too...), and made a well-known story extremely tense and personal (Graham's pain at believing he was letting his wife down by not helping Rosa, on what amounted to his home turf, was brilliantly conveyed without any recourse to NuWho histrionics): that was quite an achievement.

Wimmin Doctors and uppity negroes?  Whatever next. 

[Bad City Blue]

Well, after a poignant episode I thought I'd read some online reviews which were mostly very positive... and then I saw some of the comments, and was reminded how we've still got such a long way to go.

That'd be The Independent I assume. Only a handful of comments but almost exclusively negative right wing arseholes.

One of the best ever episodes, and I hope it educated some of today's kids as well as entertaining them.

I was tearing up when Graham talked about his dead wife, who was a brilliant if short lived character. They had a real presence together in the first ep.

Already up there with (for me) "School Reunion" an "Turn Left".

[Dandontdare]

Comments sections on the reviews really are depressing aren't they? (apart from one comment I saw pointing out that when there's trouble On the Buses, there's always a Blakey involved).

Pretty good episode, Jodie is growing on me, but I find I'm missing the over-complicated time-bending plots - I keep waiting for the twist that doesn't come, the stories are a little simplistic for my taste.

And please, leave the end credit music alone.

[JamesC]

I wonder what proportion of those people leaving nasty comments actually watched the programme. I struggle to believe many people could watch the episode and still come away thinking a society like that is something they'd want to be a part of.

[TordelBack]

Yes,  "this wasn't Dr Who" is a fascinating reaction from anyone who actually watched the episode and has ever watched Dr Who. Whether you liked it or not, this was absolutely Dr Who.

However, I think I'll reserve my open-mouthed awe for the many,  many commentators who were annoyed by the depiction of white Alabama residents as "moustache twirling villains". People who contributed to or just acquiesced to the twisted world of segregation may well have been complex well-meaning individuals living in a bizarre context (#notallracists)  but that's not how history,  or dramatic family telly, are ever going to depict them. Tough luck, and best heed that lesson fellas.

No, wait,  it's the commentators who wanted to explain to Ryan why he (and by extension all black males) was stopped more often than his mates: they're my favourite. Luckily history is coming for them too.