Rosa (2018) Review

Must... not... release... fart...

Rosa is a pretty brilliant script - not only does it tackle a very daunting historical event, but instead of merely letting the event play out with our characters as a sort of Greek chorus, it actually makes it a struggle for our TARDIS team to ensure the event takes place in the proper fashion, providing them and the Thirteenth Doctor with their first legitimate challenge.

WRITTEN BY

Chris Chibnall and British writer Malorie Blackman(wisely a person of color and also an esteemed writer).

PLOT

The TARDIS lands in 1955 Alabama, where the Doctor finds traces of artron energy that lead her to a criminal from the future, who is attempting to influence history to ensure white supremacy remains dominant.
It's up to the TARDIS team to counteract his activities and ensure that civil activist Rosa Parks is arrested for not giving up her seat for a white person.

ANALYSIS

It's hard to find much of a fault in Rosa if I'm honest. Unlike most New Who episodes, it's not a story that would massively benefit from increased screentime. The entire 45 minutes are spent building up to that one moment when Rosa refuses to give up her seat and it builds anticipation very well, by having the villain constantly set obstacles in the TARDIS team's way.

The tension isn't solely from seeing the event itself, but whether or not it will even happen given how much interference there's been. And the way the final problem is resolved is genuinely heartbreaking.

One could say the episode is a bit on-the-nose sometimes, but that's kind of the whole point, especially considering how absurd the modern political climate has become. Not only is Rosa an honest depiction of the state of things in 1955, but it's also clearly a product of 2018: confrontational and blatant. In these times, there's no room for allegories or subtext. The episode simply says "this is what I'm about, deal with it".

But it'd be a bit inane if that's all there was to it, so the episode introduces Krasko(a sort of darker version of the Meddling Monk) and locks in him in a temporal chess game with the TARDIS crew. Because the crew are too moral to outright kill him, and Krasko has a neural inhibitor preventing him from hurting anyone, it becomes a fascinating battle of wits to see which way history will ultimately play out.

CHARACTERS

Before I go into any of the other characters, I'd like to point out that I disagree with the show's depiction of bus driver James Blake as an arrogant and insufferably racist person who abandons a fishing trip purely out of the notion that black people might protest on his bus. It is of course possible that that's exactly the sort of man he was, but given that he was referred to as a kindly person by others and claimed to be simply doing his job as instructed by the company(in fact, he checked with them first before calling the police under their instructions), I think it would've been better to make less of a big deal out of the fact that he specifically was the driver and just have him be indifferent and uncaring towards Rosa.

Anyways, now onto my actual least favourite part of this episode and that's Jodie Whittaker. This episode provided her with exactly what I thought she needed - a compelling villain with whom to butt heads with, so to speak. A perfect oppurtunity to show what she's made of and display some of the imperious fire that makes for the best of Doctor Who moments.
And she completely wasted it, playing against straightlaced Joshua Bowman with a sort of Tinker Bell-ish peeved attitude that completely negates the seriousness of the threat at hand. As for the rest of the episode, Whittaker maintains the patronising CBBC kids' presenter acting style that had no place to be in an episode about racism. "Look, the racists are coming! Better hide under the bed and wait til I've scared them off with me sonic!" is what she sounds like when she's advising him and Yaz to return to the TARDIS when they're repeatedly insulted by the 1950s folks.

I found myself wishing Mandip Gill was the Doctor, to be honest, because she's great in this, subtly getting Rosa's self-esteem up, bantering with Ryan and... okay, she doesn't do much, but actingwise, she brings a lot to the part. There's some insecurity, yes, but clearly a passion and desire to become a stronger person and leader, someone who's a really great cop. And I get that all from Gill, not the dialogue.
I'd honestly trust her to lead me way more than I would harebrained Jodie Whittaker.

As for the two blokes, Ryan and Graham, they're alright. Graham's got a couple of forced "act like Bernard Cribbins" moments, but otherwise, he's fine and Ryan's zeal for adventure is quite infectious. I have a feeling that Tosin Cole did a lot of ad-libbing in this episode and I hope to see more of that. He's having fun.

Joshua Bowman as Krasko's a villain that I really wouldn't mind seeing again. He got a very open-ended exit and any number of directions to go to as far as the plot is concerned. They'd probably have to tone down the white supremacy aspect of him if he ever does come back, though.

And finally, a big applause for Vinette Robinson for a superb performance as the eponymous Rosa, truly fantastic job. I really felt like this was a real person and her life wasn't sanitized at all as some historical figures are in Doctor Who. Really well done.

NOTES

*I've already mentioned this, but I really like the lack of a pretitles sequence. Just straight into that wonderful intro!

*It's amusing to see the Doctor have trouble working out how the new TARDIS displays work. It's like switching from Windows to Apple.

*Okay, I have to ask: why did the Doctor give Elvis a mobile phone, and how did that phone end up in the possession of Frank Sinatra? And why do we not have an episode of that already?

*Maybe it's a bit cynical of me to ask, but shouldn't the Doctor have reminded Yaz and Ryan that the 1950s are a really unfriendly time for people of color, to avoid exactly the kind of situation that they run into later?

*For the first time, it really feels like the characters have time-travelled, because we're not just in a new setting, we're in a different environment on Earth, where things are recognisable in some ways, but completely different in others. Does that make any sense? It felt like a legitimate trip to the past, especially with Ryan and Yaz acting as our audience identification figures.

*It's more than a little convenient that all three of the companions recognise Rosa Parks instantly, and know all about her. It's also quite annoying when they all act like it too in her presence(and Martin Luther King Jr's as well).

*Furthermore, every time the Doctor and Graham outright apologise to Ryan and Yaz close to other people in public(such as when they sit on the bus, and Ryan has to move to the back), it kind of got on my nerves, because I didn't want them to draw unnecessary attention to themselves.

*Considering that, last I checked, the universe still believes all the Time Lords are gone, how did Krasko jump to the conclusion that the Doctor's ship is a TARDIS?

*I like that the crew decide to make a base in a crummy motel. Good thinking. Although technically they could've just gone back to the TARDIS.

*Why do Yaz and Ryan not immediately lower their voices when the police officer knocked on the motel door?

*Lol, the Doctor and Graham pretending to be married. And Jodie's reaction to Graham putting his arm around her shoulders was priceless!

*Is it a bit unfair to complain about Ryan and Yaz whining about how terrible their trip to the 1950s is when the Doctor specifically asked them to go back to the TARDIS earlier for this very reason?

*I understand that the crew doesn't want to kill Krasko because moral reasons, but couldn't they just trap him and knock him out?

*Whoever's holding the camera needs to be told to move five steps away every time he's filming Jodie, because I kinda got tired of seeing under her nose.

*Is it really safe to give the Doctor's coat to Rosa? Doesn't it have like, pockets full of junk yet? It's been a while since The Ghost Monument, so wouldn't she have the bigger-on-the-inside pockets yet?

*Wouldn't Blake have checked in with his superiors about the random new bus that the people who've been stalking him for the last two days brought in out of nowhere?

*There's something really funny about Ryan actually managing to unceremoniously blast Krasko into the past. Like, that moment was screaming out for a "lol did you really think that would work" moment, but it's actually refreshing for that cliche to be absent.

*Why does Blake remind Ryan to use the door for the coloureds at the end, but not Rosa when she initially walks in from the white people's door?

CONTINUITY ADVISOR

1) The Doctor refers to the vortex manipulators as "cheap and nasty time travel", which is exactly what Missy called them in The Magician's Apprentice. I guess that's just the go-to phrase when you don't like vortex manipulators...?

2) The Doctor still has trouble getting used to "ma'am", as she only regenerated into a woman three episodes ago. Eh, it's fine, but it does kind of blow the concept of her having been a man sometime before out of the water, so fans can kind of let that one go now. Even The Brain Of Morbius is against that idea.

3) Krasko is a former convict from Stormcage, the prison that held River Song during Series 6. Unnecessary, but a pretty neat callback to what's apparently now Doctor Who's equivalent to Azkaban.

BEST QUOTE

"She had a T-shirt just like that... I wish that she was here." - Way to randomly knock a downer on us, Graham. I kinda wish this scene had no overdramatic music though, and it actually was just an uncomfortable moment like they happen in real life.

CONCLUSION

This would probably be a masterpiece if it included a different TARDIS team. I would have loved to see Peter Capaldi systematically punch everyone in Alabama, like Keanu Reeves in Matrix Reloaded with the thousand Agent Smiths.