Doctor Who – Rosa – TV Review.

Vinette Robinson as Rosa Parks 

Appropriate for UK's Black History Month, Doctor Who time travels to the USA Montgomery in 1955 days before the famous Rosa Parks incident where she refused to give up her seat on the bus meant for white passengers, which kick starts the American civil rights movement.

Viewers praised the show as the Doctor takes her new companions Yas, Ryan, and Graham back to 1950s Alabama, it also features briefly Martin Luther King, and Fred Gray the meeting with them inspires Ryan as we have a brief look at American history.

Thankfully, the Doctor and her team arrive just in time to witness the incredible moment that would completely shift the future, however they were forced to foil a plot that would prevent the incident from ever happening, and save the struggle of the civil rights movement.

Shortly after arriving in 1955, the Doctor scanned traces of alien technology and investigates later Ryan is slapped in the face by a white man, after touching the man's white wife and trying to return her scarf. There was a shock when Graham defending Ryan without thinking announced he was is grandson.

Krasko confronting Rosa

Someone from the future is hell bent on stopping the historical event-taking place. The episode’s villain, Krasko (Josh Bowman), a mass murderer from the far future who is now physically unable to harm others due to a chip in his head having been released from “Stormcage” prison (neurally restrained). He is no Time Lord just some guy from the future who as laid hands on some equipment.

Due to this, he travels back in time to undo the civil rights movement by indirect means. Emanating the same discriminatory hatred from modern hate groups, Krasko is a dire admission that racism will never completely die out, but is always something to be fought.

In a confrontation with Ryan, Krasko uses, “Your People” at Ryan but it is never explained why.

In fact, due to the meddling of Josh Bowman's villain Krasko, the Doctor's gang are forced to take up extra seats on that infamous bus and become part of the problem so she would protest by sitting in a white only seat. "We have to not help her," the Doctor insists. This was all Rosa.

Yaz, Graham, the Doctor and Ryan

Her arrest led to the Montgomery bus boycott, in which black people refused to use the service – until the capitulation of the bus company to their demand (to be able to sit wherever they wanted) around one year later.

The emotional ending to Doctor Who had viewers in tears as Andra Day's "Rise up" played over the scene of Rosa Parks arrest while the Doctor and her companions were forced to watch on.

Ironically, this episode aired on the same day as footage was released of a Ryanair passenger refusing to sit next to an elderly black woman.