‘Doctor Who’ Recap: ‘Rosa’

Written by John Edward Betancourt 

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What I have always loved when it comes to science fiction, is the genre’s ability to examine humanity in surprisingly beautiful fashion. After all, it’s found multiple ways to explore the best parts of mankind and give us an idea of what our world and our future might look like if we took the time to embrace unity over anything else and the genre has even worked to try and steer us clear of our own pitfalls by examining what might happen if we took the time to indulge our more ignorant ways of thinking and sometimes, at least in television, the genre is able to tackle current events and give us ample commentary about our world and the direction it is headed in.
 
All of those elements are precisely why I’m such a huge fan of Doctor Who. Because few sci-fi shows out there try to embrace all of those elements the way this show does, but what’s truly interesting about the Doctor’s adventures, is that for the most part, the series used to focus heavily on only one of those particular elements, embracing the best parts of mankind, while only peppering in servings of the other two whenever the saga deemed necessary. It’s not a bad thing that the show doesn’t focus on all three on a regular basis, it just means that past writers never truly found a solid opportunity to integrate everything in a single sitting, but all of that is clearly starting to change with the new direction the show is heading in. Because last night’s episode, ‘Rosa’, was a tour de force of storytelling, one that felt the need to tackle some of America’s troubles in magnificent and powerful fashion.
 
Which quite frankly, caught me off guard, simply due to the fact that this particular tale started out like pretty standard Who fare since the Doctor and her friends were in essence, trapped in Montgomery, Alabama in 1955 since the TARDIS deemed it necessary to keep them there, which meant they were likely going to have a run-in with civil rights activist Rosa Parks while they searched for time travel related energy and I call that standard fare simply because we’ve seen the Doctor hang out with famous people from history in the past while on an adventure or as a particular mystery unfolded around her. But when Ryan found himself taking an open-handed slap from a ‘southern gent’ who couldn’t stand having a black man speak to his wife, it became evident this episode was going down an incredibly different path. 

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​In fact, this is where the series went into full on commentary mode, by taking the time to examine the nature of racism in the modern world and well, this was an uncomfortable part of the series to watch. Because this part of the story made a couple of things inherently clear; that we have indeed made progress when it comes to respecting human beings who happen to have a different shade of color on their skin, but also, how much further we have to go and well, the uncomfortable part for me in this tale, is that this episode pointed out how some of the attitudes present in the United States of America in 1955, are still persisting in present day and that was a sobering reminder of the power of fear and hate and I’m glad the series took the time to show us this darker side to humanity since it did a great job of reminding all of us how stupid and wrong this particular set of beliefs truly are. 
 
Yet, what truly made this particular tale so powerful, is the fact that it offered up some powerful messages for the audience during this exploration. The first one being that hate is something that may never be defeated, since our villain was oddly enough a racist from another time. But, that if enough people come together and shun that kind of behavior, that men like him are easily forgotten and also that…all it takes to change the world sometimes, is to stick to one’s virtues and what’s right and what’s just and never waiver from it, which is precisely what Rosa Parks did, and that phenomenal message was hammered home by allowing for the audience to bear witness to a recreation of that incredibly significant moment when she refused to move from her seat and one has to wonder if there was more subtext to be found for the modern world in that final message as well.
 
In the end however, this was hands down, one of the finest episodes of Doctor Who that I’ve ever seen. It was powerful, inspirational and poignant and just plain good, and everything worked in this tale, the moments of humor, the story, everything was just downright perfect and it exhibited the best parts of the Doctor as well. Because it’s a well-known fact that the Doctor isn’t good with this kind of ignorance, something that was evident in Thirteen’s eyes when she was involved in the unwarranted and foolish hate of the times, and she did everything within her power and more to make sure that history turned out the way it was supposed to, and that Rosa Parks made the difference she needed to and well, you can’t ask for anything more from a time traveling alien that has saved the universe more times than we can count and really, if this is the kind of quality we are getting with Chris Chibnall at the helm of the series a mere three episodes into Jodie Whittaker’s tenure, then who knows what other incredible and powerful stories await us in the weeks to come…

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