That’s very amusing. Like concrete walls and people with good ears listening for planes on the coast pre radar…
Spoilers Dot and Bubble grade and discussion thread
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That’s very amusing. Like concrete walls and people with good ears listening for planes on the coast pre radar…
Why are we trying to rationalize the merits of the story away by saying it’s people of the future, why do they have to be racist in a contemporary way anyway?
It’s a cautionary tale holding the mirror up in front of every single white viewer.
It shows us our own learned ignorance and white privileged bliss.
We are supposed to examine ourselves and why we only picked up on the racism at the very end.
If it were some overt space racism like the Daleks or even Bele and Lokai style, this wouldn’t work.
Then we’d all get on our high horse and condem the obvious racism or complain about wokeness, depending on where we are coming from.
But no. We ignore or don’t notice how racist Lindy and her peers actually are, because we also have been conditioned to this kind of behavior and social filters to one degree or another.
Everyone here who tries to absolve themselves of this, should really try to reflect on why they didn’t realize the racial problems depicted or try to argue them away.
It’s a cautionary tale holding the mirror up in front of every single white viewer.
It shows us our own learned ignorance and white privileged bliss.
We are supposed to examine ourselves and why we only picked up on the racism at the very end.
If it were some overt space racism like the Daleks or even Bele and Lokai style, this wouldn’t work.
Then we’d all get on our high horse and condem the obvious racism or complain about wokeness, depending on where we are coming from.
But no. We ignore or don’t notice how racist Lindy and her peers actually are, because we also have been conditioned to this kind of behavior and social filters to one degree or another.
Everyone here who tries to absolve themselves of this, should really try to reflect on why they didn’t realize the racial problems depicted or try to argue them away.
Yup, you’ve hit the nail on the head @Timelord Victorious . I like to think of myself as fairly progressive and insightful on racial and equality issues but all those clues went right over my head. Like you say, white privilege. I don’t mind admitting that I have it but hadn’t realised how blind to it I can be. For the most part, I was just seeing the story as about “beautiful people”’ influencers, cliques, etc, missing what I should’ve seen.
As others have said, there may have been ambiguity or subtleties in how the racism was addressed but I bet viewers of colour picked up on all the clues straight away. I must try harder.
Anyway, despite my initial reservations about a second consecutive Doctor-lite episode, this was the third consecutive really strong episode. Probably the best one Russell has written since his first time in charge. I hope the last 3 of the season can keep up this standard.
I’m not doing either. I am very pro dealing with racism in storytelling and in Who. I just don’t think it was done well or properly here, and am uncomfortable with the wider ramifications. Like a universe where at any given point in time and space, black people are *always* on the receiving end of oppression. Like a Doctor who doesn’t stand up ‘because these things must be fought’. And in a meta context, writers who chase the ‘twist at the end’ and instead of using their platform to send a powerful message for good, but end up just muddying the waters and showing their own prejudices.
The fact is those micro aggressions were deliberately obfuscated *by the episode itself* and only crystallised as racist behaviour *at the very end*. Which is too clever for its own good, because now they are left with nothing addressing them.
So, a nagging sense of all being rotten in the state of Denmark, and nagging sense that this Lindy is a nasty piece of work beneath the veneer and that something nasty will come crawling out once that is scratched (yes, that’s a deliberate reference) is shown to be because of a very specific prejudice.
But nothing is done with it.
Nothing is done about it.
We don’t even know why they are like this, as it doesn’t jibe with pretty much every other portrayal of human futures in Who, unless we squint at Tomb of the Cybermen, or look to maybe The Happiness Patrol.(where the dodgy government got taken down by the Doctor)
Which matters, because that is The Doctor, and having them go off-character for the sake of being a clever Aesop, but not a well thought out story, has already messed with the character enough for years on and off.
It’s clumsy.
The Doctor has been long meant to be a role model for people. Is this what we want now? Cry. Spit. Rant. But don’t call out prejudice when you are faced with it.
Could have done better, and could have given it ten more minutes and written some words for one of the hero characters to actually deal with it. Even in some small way.
But that would ruin the gotcha for the audience wouldn’t it?
Still trying to remember where I've heard/seen/read a very similar story before.
Many decades of sci-fi to sift through, with variations of tech to account for.
I was sort of hoping that the little boat was going to suddenly disappear over a waterfall or weir, or smash into a grill...
Many decades of sci-fi to sift through, with variations of tech to account for.
I was sort of hoping that the little boat was going to suddenly disappear over a waterfall or weir, or smash into a grill...
Are you perhaps thinking of the Stargate SG-1 episode "The Other Side"? It has a similar twist that is explicitly revealed late in the episode, but if you pay attention to René Auberjonois' character (specifically, his tone of voice and facial expressions when he delivers a two-word line) you can figure it out very, very early in the episode. (I mentioned it in an earlier comment)
Calling out prejudice only works if there's someone present who agrees with you.
There was only 1 person in this ep (besides Ruby) who would have been open to that argument, and Lindy nailed HIM to a cross.
Begging them to come with him and saying they can believe what they want about him is the best the Doctor can do here, short of kidnapping them against their wills.
The call out is to US.
And you got it!! Even though you missed all the other stuff!
So looks like the sledgehammer WAS needed, after all.
The ‘other stuff’ was deliberately open to interpretation. In fact I would have preferred more of a sledgehammer, from a certain point of view.
And do you think the Doctor needs a witness to call out bad shit when he sees it?
Because there’s a whole speech about how he doesn’t.
Do people really need a witness or audience before they will say or do anything?
The ending is weak. Because it’s too much like a ‘and then the plucky survivors reclaimed the planet’ ending. Because he’s not really saving them from anything anyway.
But mostly because he’s the Doctor, and should not have said nothing, and should not have begged to save them in the face of it all.
I have some issues with the presentation and had I not read the discussion I might have missed the point entirely. That said, it did make me think about it and we're talking about it so it was successful in that regard. I think the deflection (or "gotcha") was effective even if there might be flaws in the execution.
hmm, I can't argue with too much of that, and it really did seem like they were boldly going off to explore a new world kind of vibe
They were all going to die, that's part of the Doctor's frustration. Do you think he's crying because they are going to be OK?
Exactly. Their prejudice was about to lead them straight to their deaths. The Doctor wasn't crying because he was being discriminated against. He knows that by any objective measure, he is a more advanced lifeform. He was crying out of pity for them and frustration that they clung to their narrow-mindedness so tightly that they were literally going to die from it.
It's only a matter of time before the population on that planet will become zero as well.
Maybe. Maybe not. And even if they were going to *possibly* die trying to live in the woods, what makes them any different from a hundred other times the ‘plucky survivors’ head off to tame a world?
I mean sure, they’re effing idiots, but again, what’s the difference?
It’s not made explicitly clear those woods are anything other than a forested world after all.
And fundamentally… what was the last episode we didn’t see this Doctor shed a tear in? I think maybe 73 yards because of how long he is in it perhaps, but he cries a *lot*.
Which is all beside the point really, because neither the Doctor nor Companion challenged blatant racism.
That’s shite.
Couple of weeks at best given they use force fields to keep whatever lives in the wildwood area out.
Just another bubble. They’re pampered.
But again, any different to the hundred other times in Doctor Who that the immediate threat has been neutralised or escaped from, and then the survivors are left to pick up the pieces in a still dangerous place they are unprepared for? The ‘indomitable human race’ as we’ve had pounded into our head over and over, ending?
Sure, this time they’re racist rich kids, but at least one was shown not to be an idiot until he was screwed over for survival by Lindy Hop there.
Even Time Lords had the Shobogans who left the Citadel.
It’s a tale as old as time, so it needs to be properly undermined.
We’re not shown, we’re not told. In the milieu of Who this is just another time some people refused a lift off world, except this time they’re c***s about it.
Doctors past would have extended out the bubble and given them a choice between hoping they could work out how to survive in the gap between the city and the deeper forest while the dots ran out of battery, or take their chances against the dots and the slugs. And he would maybe be back in week to see if they had reconsidered their bigotry and wanted a lift after all.
Yeah.
This is the guy who saved a giant snot monster in the first episode of this series despite it being designed to terrify him.
The person who begged Davros to let him save them.
Are you aware of what character you're watching?
I've been debating posting this as I don't want to derail the conversation, but this is pretty much the same thing I've been through a few times, albeit with disability.
I'm visually impaired and tend to find my own way around life - I use my phone camera to zoom in on rail announcement boards, I use a slightly slower route to work so I don't have to cross a busy road with no lights, for example.
So quite often, when someone calls out a disabled access issue I find myself thinking "But there's a workaround." I have to stop myself and remind myself that there should be no need for the workaround, if society was truly egalitarian.
It's not a comfortable realisation, and it's very hard to pull off something so nuanced without a big honking grey area (you don't know how much of "I can't due to disability" is truly that, and how much is other things). If you're thinking about whether you've been affected by societal bias in that way, then I wonder if that's what the creators were going for? Something so subtle even those normally painfully aware of it have to check themselves and think?
See, Doctor Who is a safe space. You didn't expect racism unless it was overt and called out. When it happens, you rationalise, like I rationalised so much at the start of lockdown when nobody made zoom meetings accessible at work.
I guess what I'm trying to say is thank you for this post.
I've been debating posting this as I don't want to derail the conversation, but this is pretty much the same thing I've been through a few times, albeit with disability.
I'm visually impaired and tend to find my own way around life - I use my phone camera to zoom in on rail announcement boards, I use a slightly slower route to work so I don't have to cross a busy road with no lights, for example.
So quite often, when someone calls out a disabled access issue I find myself thinking "But there's a workaround." I have to stop myself and remind myself that there should be no need for the workaround, if society was truly egalitarian.
It's not a comfortable realisation, and it's very hard to pull off something so nuanced without a big honking grey area (you don't know how much of "I can't due to disability" is truly that, and how much is other things). If you're thinking about whether you've been affected by societal bias in that way, then I wonder if that's what the creators were going for? Something so subtle even those normally painfully aware of it have to check themselves and think?
See, Doctor Who is a safe space. You didn't expect racism unless it was overt and called out. When it happens, you rationalise, like I rationalised so much at the start of lockdown when nobody made zoom meetings accessible at work.
I guess what I'm trying to say is thank you for this post.
Thanks for this. I recently had to make a point to my own colleagues regarding teaching of R to students, and I only knew to raise it because of a comment made by a visually-impaired student on the OU course I'm doing in my spare time. Screen readers - the module team had put a ton of comments about how to do the assignment in the Jupyter notebook that we use. These don't play nicely with screen readers. The comments could easily have been in a separate PDF.
Yeah but they keep going back to Lindy and the others sitting and waiting for the trip into the wild with what looks like resolve. They couldn’t even walk an hour before.
