Dot and Bubble

[Craig @craig Emperor]

The world of Finetime seems happy and harmonious. But an awful terror is preying on the citizens. Can the Doctor and Ruby make them see the truth before it’s too late?

This is once again written by Russell T Davies, and is directed by Dylan Holmes Williams, who did a great job directing last week’s “73 Yards”.

And, yes, Susan Twist is in it again, as Penny Pepper-Bean.

[blenkinsopthebrave @blenkinsopthebrave]

Okay, that was both both powerful and utterly depressing.

Not sure what else to say at the moment.

[blenkinsopthebrave @blenkinsopthebrave]

Actually, the other thought that just came to me was my memory  of the Francois Truffaut version of “Fahrenheit 451” where Julie Christie has all her humanity drained from her by participating in the interactive TV soap operas.

 

 

[Krathoon @krathoon]

That was a brilliant episode. It has a great ending.

Do we have anything for spoilers on this forum?

[janetteB @janetteb]

Have not seen the episode yet, (I’m not afraid of spoilers) but.. is it just me or does that woman pictured above look like Susan?  ( I know I sound like a record caught in a groove but it really struck me on opening this page.)

Cheers

Janette

[syzygy @thane16]

Upon rewatch Lindy’s statements to the Doctor before the reveal are beyond disturbing:

This is getting ridiculous. I’m sick of you…

Is THIS (monster) something to do with you?

condescending much! Are you two in the same room? You’re together !

I blocked you! You’re criminals.  I was so right to hate you. He’s (the Doctor) going to be SO disciplined when this is over.

I’m reminded of Martha’s era and Human Nature where the boys AND Nurse Redfern explicitly comment on how Martha could never be educated or a Doctor.

Puro

 

[syzygy @thane16]

@janetteb hi-ho! Yes, I thought so too.

[WhoHar @whohar]

Well I quite liked it. Some random thoughts:

A fairly obvious meditation on social media, but well done.

Another Doctor lite episode, that’s a quarter of the entire run. RTD must have really wanted Ncuti.

The slug-cochroach monsters had a very 1970s Who vibe.

Liked the way Ricky September’s character was subverted. No dumb pop singer, he. Did anyone else get the vibes of Luke Skywalker fighting the drone with his helmet on in the Falcon?

Lots of unlikeable characters which meant I was not really invested in them surviving their ordeal. But see below.

I thought I heard the phrase “The river to the sea” which,  if correct, is an interesting political aspect.

Lots of plot holes, and things left unexplained, per RTD stories.

The Susan Twist character died apparently, so not sure whatbthis means for any season arc or theme.

We see the Doctor in his signature costume, at last. Hope he keeps wearing this now.

The episode was, for me, a bit like a reverse 73 Yards (37 yards? sdraY 37?), in that, whereas I enjoyed most of 73 but felt like the last few minutes let it down, this was the complete reverse.  That last five minutes! The realisation that everyone was horribly bigoted was done very well indeed. I’m glad they have referenced the Doctor’s skin colour / race in shoe (this wasn’t really done for Jodie Whittaker and her gender)

[WhoHar @whohar]

I just wrote a long post which disappeared when I edited it. Best post ever it was too.

Anyhoo. That last 5 minutes was great. I am glad they referenced the Doctor’s skin colour / race. Nicely done.

[Craig @craig Emperor]

@whohar

I managed to save it. No idea why it went to spam. Maybe cos it wasn’t the best post ever. 🙂

As we say in the Help section. Always copy your post (Ctrl+C) before sending, just in case.

[Craig @craig Emperor]

@krathoon

We have a whole Spoilers topic.

Spoilers (4)

Post any spoilers there.

[blenkinsopthebrave @blenkinsopthebrave]

Giving it more thought, the other movie (besides Truffaut’s version of “Fahrenheit 451” that I mentioned earlier) that this story reminded me of would have to be George Pal’s excellent version of HG Wells’ “The Time Machine” from 1960. I am thinking in particular of the scene shortly after Rod Taylor’s time traveller arrives in the future to discover the child-like Eloi, who, while they live a live of endless play, have been drained of any sense of morality or feelings for the well-being of their fellow compatriots, as they blithely ignore the plight of a companion who is drowning.

In both movies, the populous have been given a life of ease, but have been both infantilized and drained of any sense of the importance of caring about anyone except themselves.

I really think RTD has given us another excellent episode, and one of the darkest in the history of  Who.

 

[bunface @bunface]

Okay, that was both both powerful and utterly depressing.

@blenkinsopthebrave Yes I agree, though not sure whether for the same reasons, except perhaps it’s left me slightly nonplussed too.

My feeling at end was that I’d been hit with a hammer, or two. I went with the whole social media satire but was quickly bored of it. There’s making the point that the whole world of it IS utterly tiresome and unlikeable and annoying, but doing that doesn’t lead to good drama or engagement.

Rather disappointed that it was Doctor lite again. But then I look for character and it’s the character/nature of the Doctor that I find most engaging about the show. Ruby carried 73 Yards really well but an irritating two dimensional character (even tho deliberate) can’t do that. And didn’t it take away from the effect of the double blow at the end that everyone was already loathsome? It still had impact, but it felt a bit contrived and tacked on, maybe?

One thought, tho: down in the tunnel I noticed a door with a green triangle on it, like the Playstation triangle. Maybe a suggestion that this whole thing was a game, not just an artificial world? Organic* is that me looking for a thread to tug on that might lead to the Toymaker again?

Sorry to be down on it, but it felt a bit easy somehow, and after the last two weeks’ grippers I felt pushed back into my sofa again.

*Must confess I quite like that or always gets corrected to organic!

[bunface @bunface]

I really think RTD has given us another excellent episode, and one of the darkest in the history of  Who.
@blenkinsopthebrave

Hahaha. Seems like we didn’t agree after all!

[bunface @bunface]

Just watched it again live and have to add that the look Lindsay gives the Doctor at the end felt meaningful.

Reminded me of Mrs Flood’s knowing/dark looks, the kind Missy would give. That kind of thing…

[Juniperfish @juniperfish]

Well, that was a savage satire on our times, and I loved it.

Dot and bubble – the dot-com bubble – a metaphor for the way ‘civilisations’ fall through myopia, and the how the rich, despite their supremacist fantasy beliefs, simply cannot insulate themselves from such civilisational collapse.

It immediately put me in mind of Douglas Rushkoff’s trip to the desert to speak to tech billionaires about (as it turned out) how to stop their staff from turning on them when the climate apocalypse, which they’re currently doing nothing to avert, descends on their billionaire preppers’ bunkers:

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2022/sep/04/super-rich-prepper-bunkers-apocalypse-survival-richest-rushkoff

Callie Cook was excellent as Lindy Pepper-Bean – the ditzy rich kid desperate to stay “peppy” and not look beyond her vacuous filter-bubble to the massive slugs gorging themselves on the other Finetime residents.

I smelled a rat early on, seeing her all-white friend bubble – ‘Hang-on, surely RTD would never cut diverse young folk out of the picture here without a reason?’. But, that didn’t stop me being shocked by Lindy’s 1984-style betrayal of her (and everyone else’s) crush, Ricky September, and only then realising how cleverly it was set up.

It’s only obvious once Lindy murders a fellow white resident that she’s a massive wrong-un, and that Ricky September is the honourable exception in Finetime society, because he turns off his filter-bubble and spends his days <gasp> actually educating himself through old-fashioned reading. But, only obvious then to whom? On a second watch, the prejudice towards our Black Doctor is there from the beginning – Lindy blocks him immediately and she is horrified when she finds out Ruby and the Doctor are ‘together’ in physical space. She also says she “can’t wait” for him to be disciplined, even whilst allowing him to help her escape the citadel.

Gatwa is extraordinary, of course, in the final reveal. He does it so beautifully. The racism horrifies him as it dawns on him, but, as a regenerating Time Lord who has been white, Black, male, female, he’s so much more than Lindy can ever comprehend. And his willingness to save her, despite her disgusting ingrained racism, and his meltdown on realising that her smallness of mind, her society’s smallness of mind, means she won’t accept his help and he can’t – just phenomenal to watch. The Doctor’s tears – just brilliant – he’s weeping for how racism damages and dehumanises racists, as well as those whom they despise and discriminate against (just as the great James Baldwin said).

I thought Gibson was great in this scene too, because she gets it a split second before the Doctor does, and you can see that she wants to pull him away and protect him from the force of Lindy’s racism, because she’s evidently seen it before, as the adoptive white child of a Black Mum and Grandma.

The Doctor speculates that the dot technology has achieved sentience, grown to hate the Finetime society and has “designed” the giant alien slugs to eat the residents. The fact they’re chowing down on Lindy’s racist society in alphabetical order by surname suggests a particular kind of methodical genocide. Where did the dot-tech learn such systematic genocidal techniques from? It makes you wonder, with a horrible shiver, what happened to all the Black and brown people in Lindy’s original (and as it turns out already destroyed by the same slugs) home-planet society.

And “No stinky old people” in Finetime, only those 17-27 – the film it made me think of @blenkinsopthebrave was Logan’s Run (1976).

[Monkey8EA5T @monkey8ea5t]

I watched doctor who tonight and thought it was a mediocre episode at best. Then I looked on social media. Calls of its “Ncuti Gatwa’s best role on tv for how it addressed racism.”

Hold on….

Firstly, I hadn’t even considered it was about race until people started posting about it.

My perspective is Doctor Who is about acceptance and embracement of all religions, faiths, races and creeds and I’m all for that. My interpretation was that they were outsiders and they didn’t want them involved. The fact in one scene there was green blood suggests they weren’t human so possibly speciesist rather than racist. It hadn’t occurred to me that there were no characters of colour in the cast until after the episode, but i had completly missed the point about it being about race. Maybe I’m neieve for not interpreting it that way, but I do wonder if the intention of leaving it ambiguous if about race or species was done intentionally to try to skirt around the topic?

Either way, on reflection perhaps the fact it’s made me question my own interpretation makes it a better episode than I originally gave it credit for. There are plenty of things raised in the episode, and, as much of this season, loose ends that have not been resolved. Maybe it’s all tying together in some mega final episode. Who knows….

(No pun intended)

[syzygy @thane16]

I’m also reminded of The Wedding of River Song: “why are some people in boxes?”

Because some people are rich and some are left to rot…

🙁

[syzygy @thane16]

@monkey8ea5t

I’m not sure it was at all ambiguous… was it? 🙂

possibly!

[Monkey8EA5T @monkey8ea5t]

In hindsight no, it wasn’t ambiguous.  I guess I had just expected race wouldn’t be a factor. Maybe I’m projecting my personal beliefs where it’s not a factor on to a situation where it could be?

Sorry I come from Trek where everyone gets along without race, gender, beliefs or sexuality as an issue (I realise SOME episodes counter that argument,  lets not dwell on the past,) but my personal views perhaps skewed it the wrong way.

Either way, let’s hope some of the threads from this episode get sew  up.

[WhoHar @whohar]

@craig

Thanks for the save of my post

[WhoHar @whohar]

That was the episode they should have started with, (but I know why they didn’t). A linear plot and some monsters for the young ‘uns, some social media and influencer vibes for the tweens and some social commentary for the older crowd.

And, not one, but two of the darkest moments in Who at the end. The betrayal of Ricky, and then the almost throwaway racist comment at the end, which brought the ep into a new focus, at least for me. It took me a few secomds to process what was going on. And it wasn’t the Docs reaction but Rubys that nailed it for me. That hesitant reach out and light touch on the Doc’s arm spoke volumes about her and his characters.

And it was only at that point that I realised all of Lindy’s friends and socials were white. And then it all made sense. Brilliant.

I don’t know if that says something about me though…thought provoking Who. Perfect.

 

 

 

[WhoHar @whohar]

I’ve been thinking about the alphabet killer AI and their M.O. Why create the spiky slug monsters?

Surely it would have been easier for them to use the bubble sat nav to direct the humans(?) off a cliff.

When the Doc was trying to figure out the pattern of the killings, I thought back to one of the characters who mentioned Aqua Marina (I think). I presumed this was a drink containing a slug-repelling substance and that was why the people weren’t being targetted.

Incidentally, Aqua Marina was a character in the ITV puppet show Stingray. That character’s design was based on Brigitte Bardot. I can’t see any obvious reason why RTD would include this. Theories welcome.

[ps1l0v3y0u @ps1l0v3y0u]

@whohar

Stingray. Probably irrelevant, but ‘Sea of Oil’ 1965 included the immortal line ‘Hell, we weren’t trying to invade. We just wanted the oil.’

[bunface @bunface]

Why create the spiky slug monsters?

@whohar I guess for cover, as a diversion? Otherwise people would be bubbling down asap and the idea would be to maintain control.

And it was only at that point that I realised all of Lindy’s friends and socials were white. And then it all made sense. Brilliant.

I don’t know if that says something about me though…

It probably says something about the whole Who audience, which is what the reboot is now addressing overall, that bubble we (and a lot of others) are living in. Feels good to have our bubble burst, right?!

And it’s a warning about where AI and smedia is taking society, with a slap to the no doubt awful abuse Gatwa is receiving? (Don’t use smedia myself but imagine).

[WhoHar @whohar]

@bunface

It probably says something about the whole Who audience, which is what the reboot is now addressing overall

Interesting thought. If RTD is addressing this in show, it’s a more subtle approach than Chibnall would have taken (Doctor enters, shouts “Racism is BAD”, and exits)

I work in a large city and it’s highly multicultural, but I live in an area substantially less so. When I first moved here, the transition to a different demographic was pretty noticeable,  but now not so much.

Any piece of art that makes you think is good, so hat tip to RTD.

And the funny thing is that people will be complaining about this ep on their socials, completely oblivious…

[WhoHar @whohar]

@ps1l0v3y0u

Maybe Bardot’s going to rock up in the last ep as an older version of Susan (one for @janetteb there)?

Bardot was in the movie Doctor at Sea, but that’s VERY tenuous. And of course And God Created Woman. Any ideas? No? Me neither?

[Charlie Cook @cookgroom]

Another amazing episode. Really played with your emotions as Lindy turned – actually made me very sad. As mentioned above, Ricky’s character was so against expectations.
re the series arc, I don’t think there was anything new (apart from another appearance by Ms Twist). I wonder if this is another episode filmed whilst Ncuti was filming Sex Education as most of the Doc appearances to camera rather than physical.

[bunface @bunface]

Any piece of art that makes you think is good, so hat tip to RTD.

And as you point out, he makes you feel it here, like a punch in the tum, which is ever more effective.

And the funny thing is that people will be complaining about this ep on their socials, completely oblivious…

But yeah, do people feel stuff anymore? Unless, like Lindy, they feel it as a personal threat to their ability to control everything in their tiny world of one?

And I think you’re right, Chibnall did just shout the obvious, ticking off all the naughties one by one, whereas RTD is all about diversity per se, not single issues, so the whole project is rich and complex and knotty and more deliciously messy*. Maybe I didn’t like the single-minded focus of this ep, highlighting particular issues, but agreed it was still better and less boring by far than Chibnall!

*Tho not as messy as Moffat. Oh God I miss Moffat!

[bunface @bunface]

I wonder if this is another episode filmed whilst Ncuti was filming Sex Education as most of the Doc appearances to camera rather than physical.

Honestly, there’s just no commitment any more!

[Juniperfish @juniperfish]

Having some more thoughts about Susan Twist…

Ruby has been followed around time and space by three old women now:

1) Mrs. Flood, posing as her next door neighbour in The Church on Ruby Road who knows what a TARDIS is, and prompts her to get on board;

2) Old Witchy Ruby in 73 Yards  who haunts her younger self in order to, eventually, prompt her to save the world from the “Mad Jack”/ ap Gwillam hybrid;

3) The Unamed Woman/ Susan Twist.

Three Weird Space Sisters? When shall we three meet again, in thunder, lightening or in rain…

Susan Twist first appeared in Wild Blue Yonder, as Isaac Newton’s housekeeper. That was when the universe got altered by Ten2 by invoking fables at the edge of the universe, and, prior to that, by Donna and Ten2 when parking the TARDIS on a certain historically significant apple tree. That happenstance caused their interaction with Newton, leading him to mis-hear the word “gravity” as “mavity” – and set off a butterfly effect in Earth’s timeline.

I imagine, eventually, the Doctor will need to correct the timeline back to our “gravity” universe, because all sorts of consequences seem to be flowing from Wild Blue Yonder  – the bleeding of fantasy into reality and the Toymaker’s legions popping up and causing havoc (so far – the Toymaker themselves, Maestro their child, and Henry Arbinger – aka the harbinger, and also, possibly to come and also related, the Meep’s “boss”?).

So my bonkers theory about the Three Weird Sisters is – what if they’re all the same person – and they’re all versions of Old Ruby? Perhaps Ruby’s birth and mysterious abandonment at the church on Ruby Road itself only takes place in the butterfly affected “mavity” universe? Which could lead to a heartbreaking goodbye eventually, if the Doctor has to correct the timeline back to the gravity universe…

There’s also the fourth mysterious woman, of course, the one who abandons Ruby at the church. Perhaps she is one of the Three Weird Sisters – Mrs. Flood or Susan Twist or Old Witchy Ruby? Which takes us back to the theory that Ruby is her own mother, which we were discussing on the end of the 73 Yards thread.

Has Ruby’s timeline branched into three – Mrs. Flood, Old Witchy Ruby and Susan Twist?

[Charlie Cook @cookgroom]

@juniperfish re mrs flood being Ruby, someone mentioned a few weeks ago, that mrs Flood didn’t recognise the Tardis when it appeared, but realised it was a type of tardis when it dematerialised.

[Juniperfish @juniperfish]

@coockgroom

re mrs flood being Ruby, someone mentioned a few weeks ago, that mrs Flood didn’t recognise the Tardis when it appeared, but realised it was a type of tardis when it dematerialised.

Hmmm – perhaps in the time-line Mrs. Flood (as a version of Old Ruby) is from, the Doctor’s TARDIS never got stuck as a 1960s Earth Police Box? <unwilling to let go of my new bonkers theory just yet>

[Cath Annabel @cathannabel]

Hello all – I’ve been lurking but not posting for a looong time, and had to call on help from Craig to get me back in here as my password didn’t work… Lovely to see familiar names back here.

I’m more excited about Who than I have been for ages – which makes me sad that Whitaker got such a raw deal with both the quality of scripts and stories, and the pandemic disrupting her run. But Ncuti is so very much the Doctor, and is being given really good stuff to work with.  This is the most interesting episode so far – I’ve enjoyed all of them, but this made me think, and I had to go back and re-watch it to see how the ground was prepared for the twist at the end. Very cleverly done – as it happens I’m currently reading Isabel Wilkerson’s book Caste, which is all about how race in the US, caste in India and anti-Jewish law in Nazi Germany relate to one another, and the idea of caste seems very strong in this episode. At the end, the would-be leader tells the women to turn away from the Doctor to avoid ‘contamination’ – a significant concept in a lot of Jim Crow legislation, as well as Nuremberg laws and the treatment of Untouchables. And the idea that it must be his duty to save her chimes with that too. It’s not quite the idea of racism that we have here, it’s as if that basic notion of ‘the  other’ has been codified and formalised rather than just being a visceral prejudice. I’d love to know if RTD has read that book! Watching it second time around that gut punch at the end was just as devastating.

I’m fascinated by the speculation about Mrs Flood, Susan Twist, etc, but will await developments…

Cath

 

[Miapatrick @miapatrick]

The episode was good, the ending rendered it devastating. Like many people I think I started thinking of Black Mirror from the start, but thinking of the black mirror episode it most resembled, this was actually much, much more bleak.

And it is interesting to think about the early signs. I had barely registered, I’m afraid, the total whiteness, but I did notice the ‘I just thought you looked the same but you’re the same person’. And apparently that end scene was the first scene he shot… Imagine going straight into it with that.

I do find the pacing of the season overall weird – mostly because I really didn’t think much of the first two episodes. This and the last one are up there as my favourites, but as people say, two Doctor-light episodes. The bottleneck episode (that still cost money) coming as episode three.

Little obvious arc development here other than a brief conversation about having seen this weeks Twist character before – both remembering her from different places.

As for the bugs – and I insist on calling them bugs, for the sake of this argument as well as my nervous system – it’s got to be bugs because it’s a computer system. But they’ve got to be physical bugs because they’re killing physical people. So they are bugs and it makes sense and there’s a decent chance I can sleep tonight. Bugs is what they were.

 

[Charlie Cook @cookgroom]

@miapatrick I like the ‘bug’ suggestion. Very clever 😀

[Miapatrick @miapatrick]

just to add – another sad thing about it is, you know who of any of them might have jumped into that Tardis and just had a blast travelling the universe learning about everywhere he goes and saving people? Rickey September. The absolute waste.

[Miapatrick @miapatrick]

@monkey8ea5t  I wonder if in some way I wasn’t a reminder for people (like me) who don’t have to face the question of racism, who don’t experience it, to occasionally drop our bubble and look. Ruby herself surely already knew and then faced again the fact that she can be as unprejudiced as ever but she can’t protect someone she loves from that pain. And even the Doctor, he can tell them it doesn’t matter, he doesn’t care, that they can think what they like just let him save them and it doesn’t matter, because there are places where that runs so deeply that no good intentions or generosity of spirit and sympathy can touch it. And in the end it is about them being outsiders. It’s just that Ruby could, well, ‘pass’.

Star Trek has an impressive legacy, even with the compromises they were forced to make it was groundbreaking from its first series, and I get the impression the fandom is one of the less contentious. But it, like most sci-fi I would say is constantly making points about racism. It’s trying to present a world where racism is a thing of the past for humans precisely because it isn’t a think of the past for us right now, I think.

[Juniperfish @juniperfish]

Hello @cathannabel

which makes me sad that Whitaker got such a raw deal with both the quality of scripts and stories, and the pandemic disrupting her run

Yes a discussion for another thread, but heartily agree (I think there were some banger one-off scripts but a timidity about the first female Doctor when there should have been a swagger – if you’re going to do it – own it!) Welcome back!

I’ve been thinking about how often Gatwa’s Doctor has shed tears this season – he had a tear or two running down his face in Boom whilst standing on the landmine, now in this episode Dot and Bubble and I’m pretty sure (but I’d have to rewatch) somewhere else?  It might just be that the Doctor cries now, as this incarnation is more emotionally open. But it’s also been niggling me, in case it has a deeper meaning.

We are in a universe now where fantasy and reality are bleeding together now; babies are being abducted by goblins in The Church on Ruby Road and the Doctor stepped on what he called a “fairy circle” in 73 Yards and my view is he was abducted by the fey when he released “Mad Jack”. I don’t know whether the fey being abroad in this universe are connected to the Toymaker and his legions or not, but orphans, abducted babies, perhaps changelings, are a theme…

And I do know Yate’s poem The Stolen Child :

https://poets.org/poem/stolen-child

“Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world’s more full of weeping than you can understand.”

We’ve just had a mention of the Wild Wood in Dot and Bubble (which is where fairies and fairy tales generally live) and combine that with the Doctor’s tears and it does feel as if the poem is being referenced.

[Cath Annabel @cathannabel]

@miapatrick I do wonder if even Rickey September would have been entirely immune – though given the level of self-education, decency and courage that he showed, one hopes that he would have fought against his indoctrination.  As the song says, ‘you’ve got to be carefully taught’, but he’s been exploring other aspects of the society and its history, so may have been questioning its values in a way that the others haven’t and couldn’t.

[Miapatrick @miapatrick]

@cathannabel – indeed, it’s still very much a might. But he finds things interesting, he just wants to help – I don’t remember seeing any reactions from him when the Doctor talked to him at admittedly a stressful point. I think he would have tried.

 

[Miapatrick @miapatrick]

@juniperfish – I think he’s cried every episode so far. I’m starting to think it does indeed have a deeper meaning than just that he’s worked on himself and is in touch wit his emotions. But even that has something to it, he’s no longer trying to be stoic, or avoid any emotions other than happiness and anger – because if y0u do that (avoid grief and sadness) you end up with less and less happiness and more and more anger.

 

[Dr. Pepper-Bean @dr-pepper-bean]

That was a very sad ending.  I kind of suspected it early on, but it was really savage the way they treated him, just because they didn’t like his facial hair.

[bunface @bunface]

@juniperfish

I love the Yeats connection, and you know I’m into the whole faery context, but whether the Doctor’s tears are significant beyond a new kind of iteration, not sure. Of course nothing anyone explains can be taken as the be all and end all, but Wikipedia has this:

I was thinking about what a terrible world it is now, and how many stresses of mental health there are in young people. I wanted a hero who wasn’t closed, who wasn’t all stiff upper lip. And [who] wasn’t swaggering or butch, either. When children are feeling scared of the future, and when they’re on TikTok laughing hilariously with their friends, the life of a young person, I think, is bigger and madder and wilder and richer than it was when I was young, where we just sat there and went to school.

Davies wanted a “more emotional Doctor” who’s open about their feelings and “carries those emotions on the surface more visibly instead of hiding them away.” He described this iteration as “a hero for a young audience”; contrasting the Doctor to traditional superheroes who “punch through walls”, but instead he’s the “cheeky kid at the back of the classroom”.    (…)

Davies wanted this Doctor to have an “energetic” and “youthful” relationship with Ruby Sunday, his new companion; a pairing that’s more Gen Z-inspired.

RTD certainly seems keen to address and engage Gen Z in this ep, as well as tripping up the Xers and Boomers.

I’d like to think you’re right about there being more to it though!

[ScaryB @scaryb]

Late to the fray and still catching up on last week’s threads, having had a lot of RL in the way!

First of all, just to say I really liked this one as well. And interesting that again, the real baddies are the humans. I kept waiting for Lindy to see the light, and then wham! Not one, but two sucker punches at the end that showed that she was beyond saving.

I thought the racism was well done – very carefully seeded through the whole episode with a whole series of micro-aggressions. Which is exactly how racism (and other isms work) – lots of little comments that on their own could be defended as harmless/in your imagination but not if you’re consistently on the receiving end. And intersectional – there’s the class thing as well. I really liked how it was played in the final scene, and especially that all Ruby could do was a sympathetic touch on the arm. No grandstanding speeches in the Doctor’s defence. As others have commented above, she must have seen it a million times with her mum.

@miapatrick – I saw that too, about it being Ncuti’s very first scene. Just WOW!

(Interesting that a number of comments in t’other place (tho there’s a lot of positive reaction too) say that they don’t have a problem with Ncuti being black but they don’t like the scripts/don’t think he’s playing it right/doesn’t feel like the Doctor for them etc etc – micro-aggressions in action).

Overall it felt fresh – not so much having a go at social media per se, but at the literal bubble where you have a stagnating society of entitled people who are surrounded by an echo chamber of people exactly like themselves, never being challenged about their world views. Lindy’s comments in response to her friends disappearing including (after having seen them being eaten!) “I’ll need to find more friends!” Again seeded through the episode leading up to her huge betrayal of the person who was supposed to be her hero and was saving her.

[Ubik @ubik]

Asking for a friend…

But are these inmates of Finetime Space Babies grown up?

Maybe there’s a big twist coming up? Who knows?

[ScaryB @scaryb]

Other thoughts…

The Doctor’s tears
@bunface thanks for the quote, that does make sense.
@juniperfish @miapatrick – the tears are noticeable, even when the rest of his face is still. Also reminded me of Bill’s puddle-person who can come back in a teardrop.

Also @juniperfish – I’m liking your 3 witches (or 3 fates?) theory 😉
I do also like the idea (@Mudlark ?) that old Ruby is the one who leaves baby Ruby at the church. Does the Doctor know this – is that why he is so insistent that that is the one place Ruby cannot go to? (or is he just remembering what happened when he took Rose back in Father’s Day).

The other reason I like this theory is that there’s a precedent in DW, or at least a callback – with the seventh Doctor in Fenric when Ace rescues a woman and child who turns out to be her grandmother and her mum (whom she hated) as a baby (with all of them carrying Fenric’s genes).

[Ubik @ubik]

PS: There’s a further thought… Is Ruby a Space Baby?

Okay, you can block me now.

[ScaryB @scaryb]

Final thoughts (for now) – So far we’ve had 2 seemingly completely unrelated scenes at the start of episodes – the Isaac Newton one (Wild Blue Yonder) and the butterfly effect in Space Babies.

Are these clues to wider arcs? As @juniperfish says – they both suggest alternate timelines, and presumably (or maybe not) we need to get out of the mavity universe (where the supernatural leaks in?) and back to the gravity one. The Isaac Newton scene was also Susan Twist’s first appearance. Sorry @janetteb, not convinced she’s going to be Susan (I think that’s just RTD trolling us, otherwise it’s all going to get INCREDIBLY meta!) but the repeated face is definitely a thing. So far she’s been a person three times (and only Ruby met her in 73 Yards), and the rest of the time (Space Babies, Boom and Dot & Bubble) she’s been on a screen. But they are both starting to notice now.

@cathannabel – great to see you back 🙂

If nothing else the new series has reinvigorated this forum and kickstarted a whole new level of bonkerising 🙂

[ScaryB @scaryb]

@ubik

Is Ruby a Space Baby?

That’s not any more bonkers than any other theory so far!

Abandoned/lost children of various ages are piling up all through this season 😉

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