Wow yeah it's absolutely hilarious coming from the current season back to seeing how Chris Chibnall handled racism in 2018.
This post has content warnings for: spoilers for "Rosa" an episode of Doctor from 6 years ago.
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in reply to @pendell's post:
in reply to @pendell's post:
So something that I think often gets lost in the conversation about Rosa is that it was the first produced episode of Doctor Who to have a writer of color (ever!! in nearly sixty years!!!!). It was co-written by Malorie Blackman, best known for being a fantastic writer especially when it comes to characters, and Chris Chibnall, best known for being Chris Chibnall. I think the resulting collaboration is an episode with a lot of very good character moments (Ryan meeting MLK, the Banksy bit, Ryan and Graham exploring their grief together) that ends up failing to cohere in a very Chibnall way. I don't think it's quite as simple as "there was one good writer and one bad writer so you get a half-good-half-bad episode" but it certainly explains a lot of the inconsistency IMO
(Also of interesting historical note: the first writer of color to have a produced episode of Doctor Who was almost Robin Mukherjee in 1989, whose script Alixion was considered for the finale to Season 27. The show was cancelled in Season 26, though, so Alixion never made it to production.)
I can definitely see how the writing excelled in spots - the portrayal of racism doesn't hold back, the viscerally uncomfortable scenes like Ryan having to sit at the back of the bus while the Doctor, Graham, and even Yaz get to sit up front, all fantastic stuff. Just a shame Blackman had to work with cardboard cutouts to convey any of this. Ryan is incapable of developing in any interesting way so his arc seems to be "going from thinking Rosa Parks was useless and didn't achieve anything of note to developing a grade-school understanding of racism that it doesn't make any sense for him to not already have" lol. Like if this era was good maybe Ryan could've been so inspired that he became a genuine activist of sorts and that could play into later stories where he's always looking for the downtrodden to help, but nah, can't have anyone do anything interesting in this era.
ryan can't become an activist, they need to keep him around as a companion and if you're an activist in this era then the doctor has to kill you with a million exploding robots