The Doctor and her companions face ignorance and racism while trying to keep history on track around Rosa Parks. In 1943, Rosa Parks (Vinette Robinson) tries to board a bus in Birmingham, Alabama. The driver demands she go through the "colored" entrance in back, and she relents when he gets physical. When she finally steps off the bus and gets to the back, however, he shuts the doors, leaving her behind. Twelve years later, the Doctor and her companions arrive as she tries to get them home, and though they're upset at not hitting the mark, Graham is excited that they could meet Elvis. The TARDIS detects traces of artron energy, piquing the Doctor's interests, so they head out to find its source. Outside, Ryan notices a woman drop her glove, so he tries to give it back, only for her husband, Mr. Steele, to slap him for doing so. The angry racist realizes they're from elsewhere when Graham repeatedly calls Ryan his grandson, and he states that Ryan will hang if he touches another white woman. Rosa Parks, who happens to be nearby, intervenes to break up the fight by assuring Steele it was a misunderstanding and that his suit will be ready the next day. She then turns to Ryan, chastising him for his carelessness by bringing up the murder of Emmett Till. As this episode gets back to the show's roots of learning from history, and for any who don't know the story well, let's pause. Emmett Till was a black teenager visiting Mississippi relatives in August 1955 when he was accused of touching or flirting with a white female cashier, Carolyn Bryant, who was also the store owner's wife (source). Four days later, her husband Roy and his half-brother J.W. Milam kidnapped and brutalized Till before tossing his mangled body into the Tallahatchie River. A court case was made after Till's body was found, but in spite of a brave testimony from Moses Wright and nationwide outrage, the men were acquitted. Months later, the murderers admitted to the crime, telling the whole story, and as a result of double jeopardy laws, couldn't be tried again. Un-pausing, the group is amazed to learn who they are talking to, leaving her puzzled before she suggests they leave Alabama before they get in more trouble. The Doctor scans her as she leaves, finding more traces of Artron energy, while back at the TARDIS, an unknown man with advanced tech tries to get into the machine, stopped by the force shields. Sitting in a bar, Yaz gushes about meeting Rosa, only to be shocked when Ryan doesn't remember exactly what she did. Graham pitches in that Grace would've had a fit to hear he didn't remember Rosa, and Yaz explains how she refused to give up her bus seat for a white passenger. The Doctor reveals this event will take place the next day, and Ryan brings up that Rosa's arrest was a major component to the U.S. Civil Rights movement. The chatter causes the bar to go quiet, and a worker finally comes to say they don't serve "Negroes" or, referring to Yaz, "Mexicans." Upset, the group leaves, and though the Doctor wants them to go back to the TARDIS while she tries to figure out the time issue, Ryan wants to stay, pointing out that people like Rosa constantly deal with this kind of treatment. Graham complains that they're not getting to eat, and while people stare again, a police officer rolls up nearby. Rose has a slight encounter with the man from the TARDIS, while the Doctor's screwdriver leads the group to a bus depot where she finds an invisible suitcase. Gleefully opening it, the Doctor finds a bunch of futuristic but worn out teach, picking up a secondary charger for something just as the man arrives, blasting at them. Everyone runs out and hides behind some tankers, and the Doctor confronts the man, pointing out that it takes a lot of energy to do what he's doing, and the charger she took is the spare battery. Her questions about the artron energy get him wondering who she is, as although he doesn't know her, he recognizes that her ship was a TARDIS. He demands that they leave Montgomery, so the Doctor simply tells him not to threaten her and leaves, to his confusion giving him a scan as she goes. The group heads to a hotel, where Ryan and Yaz have to sneak in through a window, with the former getting flustered after unintentionally complimenting the latter. As the Doctor doesn't want to face the man until they know more, they talk about what they do know: it's a day before Rosa's protest and there's someone with time technology sticking around the bus depot. The Doctor explains that his gun sends things through time and is set for the future, and that, coupled with his vortex manipulator, is what the TARDIS sensed. They begin writing down things they know about Rosa, but banging on the door causes Yaz and Ryan to hide in the bathroom. A police officer, Mason, comes in with questions about Ryan and Yaz, saying the group has been making trouble in town. With racist terminology, Mason brings up that harboring them there would be illegal, and the Doctor coldly responds they're not harboring anyone who doesn't deserve to be there. Mason moves to check the bathroom, and Graham goes on a nervous explanation of them being in town to pitch an invention, describing a cell phone. Mason calls it ridiculous and asks for Graham's name, so he responds "Steve Jobs," and when Mason checks the bathroom, he finds it empty with the window open. He tells them to leave once their business is done, while outside Ryan and Yaz discuss their frustrations with being in such a horrid time. Ryan vents about how Rosa's stand doesn't fix everything, since cops still stop him more than his white friends, and Yaz admits that she gets called "Pakhi" or "terrorist" on the job and going home from the mosque. Yaz suggests he remain hopeful, as although things don't get perfect, they are definitely better in the future. Graham calls them back inside, where the Doctor decides they need to figure out everything surrounding Rosa that they can. Graham pitches in that the bus driver is James Blake, the same driver from Rosa's experience 12 years prior, as when he met Grace and told her he was a bus driver, she said Blake gave bus drivers a bad name. This surprises Yaz, and Graham continues that Grace had a t-shirt that read "The Spirit of Rosa." He becomes sad wishing she were there, and Ryan improves spirits by saying they're lucky she's not there, otherwise she'd start a riot. Their plan set, they then start combing through newspapers and bus information to learn as much as they can about Rosa's routine. After discovering the likely buses, they go for a ride to determine what Rosa's following day will be like. The Doctor and Graham are ashamed and sad to see Ryan stuck in the back, and Yaz points out her confusion in being allowed in the front despite not being white. After finding and waiting outside Rosa's work building for the rest of the day, they board the bus again with Rosa and pretend to be conducting a survey about bus habits, offering a prize. She gives them some info but stops to suggest the Doctor move, as the section they're in is for "Coloreds" only if white people don't need a seat. Rosa asks if winning the raffle will give her the right to sit anywhere, and the Doctor admits that it won't. Ryan gets off with Rosa, and the Doctor asks Graham to find Blake and Yaz to compile a timeline for the next day while she deals with their foe. Rosa quickly confronts Ryan for following her, so he claims he simply wants to help with "the fight." She is suspicious, noting he could be a spy for the police, but he points out that they'd send someone who could actually follow her sneakily, wasn't British, and that they most likely don't know any black people. The Doctor heads back to the warehouse they encountered the man at, and after throws his briefcase after rifling through it, perfectly timed to intercept a blast from his temporal displacement weapon. She mocks him for sending his tools into the distant future, pointing out that his weapon easily overheats just before it does. She tells him to talk about "Stormcage," and when he feigns ignorance, she points out an identifier tattoo on his wrist from Stormcage, the most secure prison around this side of the universe in the future. Saying he did his time, he tries to intimidate the Doctor by revealing that what he did killed around 2,000 people, only for her to point out he has a neural inhibitor implant. While he's in disbelief, she gloats about how her screwdriver picked it up when she scanned him, and that a neural inhibitor prevents him from killing. To prove her point, she yanks the vortex manipulator from his wrist and stomps on it, at which point he grabs her by the throat before being forced to let go. She asks again what he's doing and he simply says he came to this point because it's when things started to go wrong. Revealing his name is Krasco, he explains that in prison, he realized tiny things affect the future, and when she tells him to just leave because she'll stop his plan, he simply saunters away. Over at Rosa's house, Ryan is introduced to her husband Raymond, Fred Gray, and, to his excited surprise, Martin Luther King, Jr. Awestruck, he says his Nan loved Dr. King, which the others think of as simply older women loving him. He explains that she died recently, and after thinking about how he's talking to Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks, Ryan goes to serve the coffee. While Yaz successfully maps out Rosa's route, Graham chats with James Blake in a bar, talking about the issue of "Coloreds" on buses. To his surprise, Blake says he's not working the next day but going fishing, explaining that someone from the depot gave him news of a schedule change. Back at Rosa's house, Ryan tells her he feels he got what he needed without realizing he needed it by listening to them. Assuring her that things get better, he thanks Rosa for her work, and when she simply says she hasn't done anything, he leaves with a goodbye. He returns to the hotel with Yaz and the Doctor, and Graham soon arrives with the news of the bus change, and the Doctor realizes Krasco is trying to nudge things just enough with tiny changes to completely change history. The Doctor decides they can stand as guardians of time against Krasco to ensure things go as they're supposed to, and explains how Krasco's blaster works when she notices Ryan fiddling with it. With Ryan and Yaz suggesting ideas to deal with multiple issues at once, the group sets out to make sure the Civil Rights movement happens as it should. I know that, considering the diversity in this season's cast, couple with having the Civil Rights movement as an episode topic, this episode will most likely have people complaining that the show is too "PC."
For me, it felt like another great return to the show's roots by teaching kids about something historical and important. Going back to the First Doctor, there certainly weren't always space adventures; he took the original companions Ian, Barbara, and his granddaughter Susan on adventures throughout time on Earth. There were multiple episodes about the Aztecs, Genghis Khan and Marco Polo, and over to Rome for Emperor Nero. Why then, can't they show a sci-fi version of the famous bus-protest from Rosa Parks here in America? Even if you think it's them being "PC," it does consider a specific version of "what if we went back to ___ time" by asking what it's like for people of color to go back in time, and how they would be treated in such a situation. Yes, we get it, it's bringing up race, but that's bound to happen if you have anyone who isn't a straight, white guy going back in time. For us, it's rather easy to blend in and not have everyone after you, but how about if it were someone black or gay, or a woman? It you think it would be exactly the same, you're either a liar of foolish. The episode shows why it's important to show something like this with its commentary, as Ryan and Yaz consider how things are different. The adventure takes place just 60 years ago, yet they are suddenly in a time where the slightest issue could get them murdered. And more than just that, it considers how there are still issues today and a big lesson from Doctor Who: to keep trying to make things better. Even if they are constantly called liars, people of color in the world today face daily persecution just because they're not white. Yet despite feeling that nothing is really changing in the long run, Ryan meets Rosa Parks and reignites something that shows like Doctor Who constantly promote: hope. In meeting Rosa, Ryan sees the need to take action against injustices, realizing that, like the Doctor says, the tiniest things can have a massive impact. Supposedly flirting with a woman? Racists in Mississippi murdered Emmett Till and got away with it, despite sparking outrage. Sitting on a bus? Rosa Parks was then arrested, sparking a bus strike that was a major component of the Civil Rights movement. At its core, this episode is the same as any other episode where the Doctor is fighting against some sort of oppressor: igniting hope, rising up, making a change, and improving the future. Amongst the heavier messages in this episode, there's also some typical fun, like everyone freaking out about meeting Rosa Parks. The Doctor has a lighthearted moment when she finds Krasco's briefcase and is giffy about opening it, and when she mentions at some points knowing Frank Sinatra and Elvis Presley. One of my personal favorite moments was when she faced Crisco and, in typical Doctor fashion, was more intimidating with just her mind. Jodie Whittaker is excellent in this scene, not even batting an eye when Krisco mentions how many people he killed, but rather flipping things to her advantage. Just like her suggestion of mind over guns in the previous episode, this was a great way of showing how smart and impressive the Doctor is, no matter the incarnation. A fun part of some episodes is tricky situations with time, and we definitely get a great one fitting of Classic Who in this one. For now, I do still miss the fun I had with Peter Capaldi, whom I consider "my Doctor," but I'm loving Jodie Whittaker's take on the character as well and can't wait for the next episode.
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