{"id":3793,"date":"2024-06-03T11:09:47","date_gmt":"2024-06-03T10:09:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/?p=3793"},"modified":"2024-06-03T11:09:47","modified_gmt":"2024-06-03T10:09:47","slug":"so-what-did-i-think-of-dot-and-bubble","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/2024\/06\/03\/so-what-did-i-think-of-dot-and-bubble\/","title":{"rendered":"So\u2026 what did I think of Dot and Bubble?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

Well, this seems to have delighted, shocked, disappointed and enraged people in equal measure. As is typical for this iteration of the show, it\u2019s a wildly atypical episode, again sidelining the Doctor \u2013 and this time Ruby too \u2013 giving us a thoroughly unlikeable leading character; and then rather than giving her a redemption arc, revealing further despicable layers as the story unfolds.<\/p>\n

The opening is pretty standard sub-Black Mirror<\/em>, isn\u2019t-social-media-awful stuff. Russell T Davies\u2019s writing across all genres is typified by big operatic emotions and hard-to-miss social commentary. There isn\u2019t a lot of subtlety in most of what he does \u2013 and yet, there is a detail about the world of Finetime which it is at least possible to miss, and that\u2019s the monochromatic nature of the cast.<\/p>\n

In the classic era of the show, this was just the way of things. You tended not to see non-white actors in British television unless there was some very specific reason. And sometimes that didn\u2019t seem like it was helping overmuch. Season 25 features one Black man per story \u2013 a descendent of slavery, a blues musician, a jazz musician and a rapper. Yikes. Casting even one non-white actor just because that\u2019s what modern Britain looks like doesn\u2019t appear to have occurred to anyone until we get to Battlefield<\/em> and Survival<\/em> and that\u2019s arguably too late.<\/p>\n

When tall, posh, white men are the default, it doesn\u2019t look like identity politics to only centre them. But casting only white actors is also a choice, it also makes a statement. Casting Jodie Whitaker meant that the possibility existed that some characters might think differently of the Doctor, even compared to beta-males like Troughton or McCoy, but this wasn\u2019t something which Chris Chibnall felt like exploring. I would say this was because he worried about weakening the character, but his version of the Doctor was almost uniquely panicky, inept, cowardly and immoral, so I dunno what he was worried about. So far, Ncuti Gatwa\u2019s ethnicity has yet to be a plot point. Until the hammerblow ending of this episode.<\/p>\n

I kind of wish that Lindy Pepper-Bean and her ghastly crew had spelled out their objection. Their dialogue in the climactic scene is almost coy. There\u2019s a really thought-provoking question being asked here \u2013 do you try and save the irredeemable? But it\u2019s undercut slightly because the script can\u2019t bring itself to actually say what the characters are clearly thinking. Not that I think this story needed a rewrite by Quentin Tarantino you understand, it just didn\u2019t sound entirely natural. And Ncuti Gatwa \u2013 on his first day on set for this season \u2013 is spectacular as first he can\u2019t comprehend what he\u2019s being told, and then, suddenly, horribly, he can.<\/p>\n

The bigger problem with the episode is that by telling the story so rigidly from Lindy\u2019s point-of-view, we\u2019re forced to spend most of the running time with a vacuous, selfish, self-centred character. I get why the structure is necessary to make the ending work, but it felt like the tail wagging the dog a bit to me. So, this was another bold stroke from a series which is determined to experiment in every way it can, but a slightly awkward viewing experience for me. Not because I was being forced to confront my own prejudice, just because Callie Cooke was doing such a good job of creating such an unlikeable lead, and I\u2019d rather have spent more time with the Doctor.<\/p>\n\"4\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Well, this seems to have delighted, shocked, disappointed and enraged people in equal measure. As is typical for this iteration of the show, it\u2019s a wildly atypical episode, again sidelining the Doctor \u2013 and this time Ruby too \u2013 giving us a thoroughly unlikeable leading character; and then rather than giving her a redemption arc, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[11],"tags":[18,19],"class_list":["post-3793","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture","tag-doctor-who","tag-reviews"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5JY5l-Zb","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3793","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3793"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3793\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3796,"href":"https:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3793\/revisions\/3796"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3793"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3793"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3793"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}