I thought this episode was by far the best of the season so far. All the characters just seemed more like people this time around. But what was the deal with the pre-credits bit where they were chained to posts? They never got back to that to explain what happened there. Did I miss something?
They did not show how they escaped but of course they did and Danny noticed she was bit browner than she was in the morning. It introduced the montage of adventures between meet-ups with Danny.
…I don’t think he’s a plant.
He’s there to emphasis an important point.
Spoilers based on next weeks preview, and on what we know:
[SPOILER]Danny Pink is a soldier. He acts under orders and does what he is told. He followed orders: and innocent people died. And this has haunted him.
What he recognizes is that Clara is the Doctors soldier. She does his bidding without question. Often the Doctors companions act as the Doctors moral compass. But Clara isn’t doing that right now: and next week it looks like the Doctor will ask her to do something horrific. Danny can see this coming. And he is warning Clara to watch out for it.[/SPOILER]
I dunno about Britain, but in the US an older guy insisting a black guy CAN’T be a math teacher and can only be teaching PE would probably get nasty heh.
I know that scene is supposed to strike as alternate timelines or something, but that was the first thing I thought of.
I don’t think this response needs a spoiler.
Clara has explicitly been the Doctor’s moral compass this go round. She is not his fan girl or obedient lackey when it comes to morality. She will trust him with her life and be bait for killer machines. But he is taking … Albeit gruffly … Some moral direction from her. Not the other way round.
Also in the Whoniverse skin color is ignored - the prejudice is to his being a soldier and Pink gets that. Expects it.
Remember the line “Remind me why I keep you around?” and Clara replied “Because the alternative would be to develop your own conscience.”
That’s why the Doctor needs his companions - because Time Lords are rather on the amoral side, including the Doctor.
This also harkens back to the original start of the series, where the Doctor was quite willing to murder someone with a rock to the head for convenience sake and it was, IIRC, Ian Chesterton who questioned his actions and put a stop to murder.
Hey, isn’t Chesterton still supposed to be connected to Coal Hill somehow…?
He’s the current Chairman of the Board of Governers at Coal Hill.
The Doctor has/had a very old soldier friend who became a maths teacher for a while - the Brig.
I don’t recall that. Maybe you’re the one in the alternate timeline?
I did.
[QUOTE=DSeid]
{snip}…in the Whoniverse skin color is ignored - the prejudice is to his being a soldier and Pink gets that. Expects it.
[/QUOTE]
While I agree that the Doctor’s assuming Pink is a PE teacher is based on his dislike of soldiers and not anything racial/racist, there have been at least three instances of someone’s skin color being made issue of. Two involved Martha Jones and one involved Chan Tho.
In The Shakespeare Code (S03E02), Martha asks the Doctor if she’s at risk of being carted off as a slave and, Shakespeare runs through a long list of names for Martha’s skin color. In Utopia (S03E11), Jack Harkness tells Chan Tho, “Maybe later, blue”. I’m not sure that any of those instances were necessary to the plot.
I’m not including the insults the schoolboy threw at Martha in Human Nature (S03E08) because they were meant to show how repugnant those boys were.
Asking if she’s at risk of slavery strikes me as an entirely reasonable question for a 21st Century dark-skinned woman transported to Elizabethan England to ask, as slavery certainly was legal at the time. That’s about race, yes, but it’s also about history. Ditto for Shakespeare’s list - this is, after all, the guy who wrote Othello, a play where race is a significant part of the story.
@Broomstick: I’m not going to argue with that. The thing is, that wasn’t the point I was addressing, but I can’t think how to clarify what I was driving at. One thing I will stress is that it was insulting to Chan Tho, and completely unnecessary to the plot, for Jack to call her, “Blue”.
And before anyone points out how Chan Tho giggled and appeared to be pleased by this, I’m going to point out that many times in films/tv/fiction, non-blue, non-alien, completely human female women have been treated patronizingly and responded by giggling or swooning in pleasure. (I’m looking at you, James Bond movies.) And the women who complained or objected to that treatment were portrayed as physically unappealing and accused of being “bull dyke lezbos”. Okay, I promise I’m getting off that soapbox now.
It was just one of several snippets of Clara’s adventures w/ the Doctor, and was never resolved other than Danny noticing her tan. Think of it like the stray references to cases we never see in the Sherlock Holmes canon–it’s the Doctor’s Giant Rat of Sumatra, if you will.
Incidentally, the occasional bits of graffiti saying “Ozzie loves the squaddie” or something along those lines–that’s just the kids noticing that Clara and Danny are a thing, right? I found it a bit odd that they’d call her Ozzie until I remembered that she’s normally Ms. Oswald to them, and I guessed that “squaddie” was UK slang for soldier, which I just confirmed on urbandictionary is more or less right. So that’s it, right? Nothing deeper going on there?
Meh. The bit near the end with Pink going on about how he wants to protect Clara annoyed me - Jesus, she can think for herself, she doesn’t need a knight in shining armor. I’d also suspect Pink was a plant if not for meeting their future great-great-great, etc, grandchild (which, incidentally, really took the tension out of the whole romance subplot, as we know everything’s going to work out in the end).
Although I get that the Doctor’s hatred of soldiers is meant to be a flaw that will be resolved, I think they’re trying too hard. Repeatedly calling him “PE,” being not just rude but downright awful to him, and everything else shown are way too irrational for the Doctor. It’d be fine if it was an undercurrent of dislike and a few instances of showing it, but it’s much too strong. Besides, look at the friendship the Doctor had with the Brigadier! It just doesn’t make any sense.
“A member of the armed forces who thinks he’s the “Gods gift to women”. Unfortunately found everywhere.” Including my workplace! Watch out, Mike, you have a new nickname.
[QUOTE=Octarine]
Meh. The bit near the end with Pink going on about how he wants to protect Clara annoyed me - Jesus, she can think for herself, she doesn’t need a knight in shining armor.
[/QUOTE]
Yeah, bugged me too. Until folks started saying this:
[QUOTE=Octarine]
I’d also suspect Pink was a plant …
[/QUOTE]
But, I can’t really comment on what I suspect about this until the next episode, Kill the Moon. Even then, I’ll have to spoiler-box it.
[QUOTE=Octarine]
…if not for meeting their future great-great-great, etc, grandchild (which, incidentally, really took the tension out of the whole romance subplot, as we know everything’s going to work out in the end).
[/QUOTE]
Except, this show is orchestrated by Moffat the Great RedHerringator. In some other thread, I said, half-seriously, that contrary to what we’ve been (and are being) led to believe, Orson Pink is not Danny and Clara’s descendant, but Danny and the Doctor’s.
[QUOTE=Octarine]
Although I get that the Doctor’s hatred of soldiers is meant to be a flaw that will be resolved, I think they’re trying too hard. Repeatedly calling him “PE,” being not just rude but downright awful to him, and everything else shown are way too irrational for the Doctor. It’d be fine if it was an undercurrent of dislike and a few instances of showing it, but it’s much too strong. Besides, look at the friendship the Doctor had with the Brigadier! It just doesn’t make any sense.
[/QUOTE]
Danny said that one reason why the Doctor was so harsh to him was that the Doctor wanted to be sure that Danny was good enough to be with Clara. Think of the trope about the father of a teenaged girl giving her date the third degree. And, while the Doctor eventually developed a friendship with the Brig, that took a long time and the Doctor could be very prickly with the Brig. Also, just cuz the Doctor was one way in one incarnation, it doesn’t follow that a later regeneration will share any particular character trait. For example, when was the last time you saw the Doctor enjoying a Jelly Baby?
That would explain why he’s so wooden.
[QUOTE=Peter Morris]
That would explain why he’s so wooden.
[/QUOTE]
Aw, leaf the poor sap alone.
Before this season, I thought Clara was the most boring of NuWho companions, another pseudo love interest for the Doctor. Now that the love interest angle has been nullified, she’s actually pretty good and enjoyable to watch.
And Capaldi is quickly growing on me and is saving my interest in the show. Keep it up and he may become my favorite in the NuWho role (currently occupied by Matt Smith).
How about let’s limit it to the portrayal of the modern world, then.
Some historical contexts did indeed make the ignoring of prejudices and discriminatory actions that exist(ed) in the real world impossible to pass without comment. The writers can create a modern world in which no one notices or discriminates (and Pink could be cast as Brown or Yellow or Red or White and would be written exactly the same, so long as he was good looking) but it is indeed harder to pretend that there would not have been such concerns in certain past times. And Jack Harkness was a bit of an ass who would not have noticed he was insulting someone and may not have meant to. It is an intentional choice that they have stuck with and it works well. So long as they don’t suddenly make race an issue in some future present day ep; stay true to the rules of your world.
Not in England, it wasn’t.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_at_common_law#Cartwright.27s_case
But it’s reasonable that she didn’t know that. She’s a doctor, not a historian.