In my opinion this story is a good, powerful episode of Doctor Who. I think it has imperfections but also has a lot of positives which outweigh the negatives.
The episode features a focus on divisions and hatred occurring in 1950s and 1960s USA when people like Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King stood up against racial discrimination. The Doctor and her team have to prevent a racist from the future from altering history. His aim is to stop Rosa Parks famous and inspirational protest on a racially segregated bus.
This is social comment and using a story to talk about issues still impacting some of the audience today. I feel that, sadly, division in society is as big an issue now as it was in the past with a lot of extremism and hatred. I don't agree with those who say that raising these issues is overly political or wrongly pushing an agenda. I also disagree that messaging in earlier Doctor Who was "more subtle" - antiwar messages in Zygon Inversion, fascism issues in Remembrance of the Daleks, ecology issues in Invasion of the Dinosaurs, The Green Death etc were not any more "subtle" in my opinion but they WERE usually very well written. So I believe the problems in the Chibnall era are not caused by raising issues, they are caused by some bad writing, dumbed down dialogue and heavy handed presentation. I think mostly this episode is done well (far better than some episodes that were to come later) but there are a couple of aspects where it could have been done better:
A scene where Ryan meets Martin Luther King is a bit too clunky with Ryan repeating the famous people's full names. Instead of saying Mrs. Parks, Dr. King or simply yes or no or hello he kept saying things like "Yes Rosa Parks" and "Hello Martin Luther King". It made me cringe a bit and felt unnatural. That is clumsy, dumbed down writing. Thankfully that really is only an issue in that one scene.
The villain and his motives are also not all that well presented in my view. I am not sure Krasco convinces as a far future white supremacist murderer. I think his characterisation could have been presented in a better, more believable way. I would have preferred him to be a modern day or near future white supremacist who got his hands on some alien time travel technology or used an alien race somehow to take him there to alter history.
Actually I would have preferred if this was a pure historical with the TARDIS team travelling back to these events and having a clash with a white supremacist from the time which somehow changed the future making them have to work to ensure things got back to the way they should be. However, I think the Krasco storyline is acceptable and it doesn't spoil the episode for me, it just slightly detracts from its potential.
Despite the couple of clumsy aspects I did find this story moving and interesting and feel it was an excellent concept to visit this historical event.
Rosa Parks herself is brilliantly represented and very well acted and the Doctor and her friends are mostly good with only occasional lapses where dialogue feels unnatural. Bradley Walsh as Graham continues to do a superb job.
Production values in series 11 are the best they had ever been in Doctor Who. The period setting is convincing, atmospheric and beautiful to look at. The incidental music is also great in this episode although the use of a modern song instead of a period one for the dramatic, climactic scene on the bus and replacing the end title music was not what I would have chosen. It does work ok though.
My rating: 8/10.
Series 11 Episode Ranking: 3rd out of 11.
