I really liked it! Honestly, this season so far is one of the best modern Who seasons. It’s also quite funny that this is probably in my top three stories out of released five (the other being “73 yards” and “Devil’s Chord”), because I feel that this story was not very anticipated by the fandom. But I absolutely adore the themes, the dark atmosphere and a very bleak, but sadly quite realistic ending
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episode was incredible, the more i sit on it the more i like it. i did kind of notice that the cast was very white part way through the episode, but by that point the bubble was up sparingly so i wasn’t sure if i was imagining things and kind of dismissed it as not something i really expected from rtd. possibly going to be my favourite episode of series 14
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This episode is sitting well with me. I was a little thrown off by that ending but the more I think about it, the more I’m starting to warm up to Dot and Bubble. It’s pacing is a little weird but in hindsight this episode had some very interesting elements to it and a lot of poignant themes I thought were done quite well overall.
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Incidentally, for anyone wondering “Why the slugs?”, think of it this way. The AI was managing social media on two planets. It seems pretty likely that it would have encountered “eat the rich” memes. I think it just decided to follow them literally…
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I have some more thoughts. I expected the satire on people who are preoccupied with social media to the extent that they lose real life skills. I loved the Barbie Movie type aesthetic. It was good to see the Doctor and Ruby trying to help an unsympathetic character. I really liked Ricky September. Did anyone else notice that he has the same initials as Ruby Sunday, and his adopted surname is also named after a part of a date? Has this turned up anywhere else this season? I also liked that Susan Twist’s cameos are now being referred to by the Doctor and Ruby, rather like Bad Wolf was referenced by the team in Boom Town, back in 2005. I wonder if these things are related in some way?
Things took a sharp turn from an adventure dodging slug monsters to the monsterous parts of humanity when Lindy cold-bloodedly sacrificed Ricky in order to escape. I can understand acting purely out of self preservation and thought we’d see her full of remorse when the adrenaline wore off and she could comprehend what she’d done, but no, she just went on to cooly lie about what happened and to keep up her happy demeanour. Then, just as we began to appreciate that Lindy might have been a bad egg after all, we had her outright rejection of the Doctor’s help, backed by the rest of the escapees. Race was never mentioned, but the sneers and euphamisms about preserving their ideals made it crystal clear that they didn’t want to be contaminated by association with him. Ncuti’s performance was spot on: hurt, but prepared to overlook ignorance in order to preserve life. This became disbelief that people would choose certain death over changing their own harmful beliefs. His frustration and impotence at being unable to help was most affecting. Seeing the Doctor lose simply because of what he looks like was truly upsetting.
When RTD chooses to examine the darker side of humanity, his work can be brutal.
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Finally managed to watch this episode after several days outside the UK! I don’t have anything special to add to the discussion that others haven’t already—just that I liked the bulk of the episode, but it was really made by the ending. I didn’t see the Black Mirror similarities too strongly, except for the fact that it was a very impactful, hard-hitting piece of sci-fi. A great start—a slight lag in the middle—and an amazing ending that Ncuti knocks out of the park.
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I was wondering about the similarities between Ruby Sunday and Ricky September as well! And to add to this, we had Mundy in Boom (and the Mundy Sunday joke, if she was married to Ruby). So there’s some thematic character naming going on here!
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Oh sweet Aggedor that scene at the end with Ncuti! That laugh-turned-scream and Ruby in utter disbelief next to him.
Pure raw emotion at the point where words simply becomes redundant and insufficient, a bit like Tennant in Wild Blue Yonder just so much more heartbreaking. Just, wow. 
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I seem to be in the minority here (yet again!) but I didn’t like this episode. When I watched it I felt kinda meh about the whole thing - not enough of the Doctor and Ruby (again), a very unlikeable protagonist (and not even in an interesting way), and social commentary I find boring (I’ve yet to see "teenagers glued to their phones done well) - and the more I think about this episode the less I like it.
I think the thing that really bothers me is the racism. Yes it’s built up well and Gatwa does an amazing job with it at the end, but RTD has never handled his black characters with care and grace, and has continued using harmful stereotypes throughout this new season. I just don’t trust him to write about it. Having no black writers working on this story is an additional red flag. Personally, it feels like another social commentary put in for “woke points” that only serves to muddle the other commentaries (people can be terrible without being racist!). Not noticing that all the characters are white is to be expected in a show that rarely has black characters as is, and doesn’t make for the scathing commentary it was clearly meant to be. I’m not sure we need more “make the white people uncomfortable with racism” stories. If you want a story about racism, you need to make it about racism. It can’t be an afterthought. Maybe I would have liked this better with a different writer, but as it stands I can’t say I do. This tumblr post puts it really well in my opinion:
Whether or not the racism plot works, I can confidently say the rest of the episode doesn’t, for me at least. It’s the only episode of this season I haven’t immediately wanted to rewatch to understand it better. I think I’m unlikely to revisit this one in the future outside of a full rewatch.
Full thoughts in my review:
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Ah yes! I’d forgotten Mundy Sunday! I think there may be more to come with this theme.
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To be fair to RTD, he did mention in Unleashed that “TV nowadays is very diverse”. He’s not comparing it to his first era in 2005, which was too white yes, but to modern TV now. And every episode of Doctor Who this season has had a black lead character and people of colour in supporting roles.
But I do understand the ick of “let’s make a show about racism, by having everyone white and it’s written and directed by white guys” - I beg you Russell, hire some more diverse people behind the cameras as well!
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I think the conversations about racism that this episode is prompting across the doctor who fandom are super interesting. Hopefully people talking about it more will convince rtd to hire more poc writers and crew members in the future bc the show desperately needs more diverse writers!
and on an slightly unrelated note, i very much enjoyed the fact that the slugs were quite literally “eating the rich”! Good for them! Loved those slugs, they were lovely 
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I think this episode is solid on its own merits. I also think its Doylist position is one of the most fascinating pieces I’ve seen of debate in the fandom. I think the conversation this episode started is deeply interesting and made me consider a lot of things personally in how I consume media and social media.
An imperfect commentary can still be a well-done commentary. Not bad for the episode that on the surface could have been very poorly done.
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I loved this episode. It’s in my top three so far of Fifteen’s run.
Personally, I’m glad the episode wasn’t obvious, scathing commentary on racism. Why is it that black characters can never just exist? Why is it a requirement for there to be the obligatory racism episode (or scene) in every show? Correct me if I’m wrong, but none of the other non-white characters on Doctor Who (who have, arguably, been portrayed better than the black ones) have a racism episode; why is the fandom forcing writers to make them for the black characters? It comes across as a fight put up by the Terminally Online in order to pat themselves on the back for being “anti-racist”. Black people want their escapist entertainment just like anyone else. I don’t understand this push by certain folks these days to continuously make black people the subject of gritty trauma p-rn, instead of giving them the same neat, cool, enviable stories every other race of character gets. The fact that everyone is drooling with hunger to see black characters being subjected to overt racism on Doctor Who is disturbing and, quite frankly, just as prejudiced.
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Prefacing what I’m about to say with the fact that I’m white so absolutely defer to people of colour on this, the following is my opinion, informed by what I’ve seen people of colour say about certian episodes
To be fair there’s only been four non-white companions on TV iirc (Martha, Bill, Yaz, and Ryan), and of those only one was non-black.
Also I think not showing racism to Yaz when she’s a police officer was an absolute crime, not because I wanted to see people being racist to her, but because it’s ignoring prejudices in the force, and Doctor Who absolutely should do an episode that just comes out and says ACAB.
The most we get about Yaz talking about the police and race is this bit from Rosa
RYAN: Yeah, see? It’s not like Rosa Parks wipes out racism from the world forever. Otherwise, how come I get stopped way more by the police than my white mates?
YASMIN: Oi, not this police.
RYAN: Tell me you don’t get hassle.
YASMIN: Course I do, especially on the job. I get called a Paki when I’m sorting out a domestic, or a terrorist on the way home from the mosque.
Which like, they tried, but ‘not this police’ really doesn’t read well imo
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Sorry, are you saying this episode didn’t have overt racism? What I was trying to say with the part you quoted was that this felt cheap. If they had made this episode about the white supremacy rather than tacking it on a different (and, frankly, much worse) episode, it would have hit a lot harder.
I don’t want “trauma porn”. I’m Jewish, and I would kill for a Doctor Who episode about anti-Semitism. But I think if this is the kind of episode I would have gotten I’d be just as annoyed and disappointed as I am now. There’s a fantastic basis here for an actually good and impactful episode about white supremacy, but the way it was done just doesn’t work for me.
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But why are you (and the rest of the fandom who share your mindset) so eager on having an episode about black characters facing white supremacists? That is my question. Why do we need the obligatory race episode every time a black character appears for a decent length of time on Doctor Who? Why are black viewers not allowed to have their escapist media because fandoms like these are so dedicated to forcing writers to put all these -isms in their scripts?
That’s not what I said, but it sounds like that’s what you’re saying. “This episode felt cheap because they didn’t make it about white supremacy” means, to me, that you wish it had more overt racism, rather than the covert manner it was shown in this episode (up until the end, when it became more obvious).
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I’m talking across the DW sphere, not just TV.
I really, really disagree about this - this is a family show and ingraining in them that they can’t trust people whose job it literally is to protect them would be a horrible message.
And Yaz saying “not this police” is just letting us know that she doesn’t want to be placed in the same boat as the police officers that misuse their position or engage in racial profiling or goes after minorities, she wants to make an actual difference in her chosen profession - to help people.
One of the best things about Yaz for me is that she is a police officer that really wants to make a difference and be a force for good.
Saying ACAB to a new generation of children wouldn’t solve a problem that previous generations have created.
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As a visibly queer person, I can’t trust them anyway, and I’m saying that as someone who’s still white and male presenting/passing, and I’ve had multiple friends and friends of friends who’ve had bad experiences with them
The problem with the police is the system, ACAB is saying that anyone who chooses to actively and uncritically take part in that that system are a problem. The fact that Yaz’s first response to criticism of racism within the police isn’t agreeing that it’s a systemic problem, but saying ‘hey, not all of us’ is telling to me and really not great imo.
An ‘ACAB episode’ of doctor who would be able to bring up those systemic problems and bring eyes towards them for the general public who aren’t as aware of those problems, pushing people towards changing things. It’s a problem in society that doctor who should comment on. Hell, the judoon are already a commentary on police brutality, yes they’re mostly played for laughs, but my point is it’s not that big of a leap to touching on other problems within policing.
(Also only tangentially related, but I can’t talk about Police in Doctor Who without talking about my boy Andy Davidson who tore off his police uniform and started throwing hands with the military in Children of Earth because he has that moral compass and sticks to it)
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