'Rosa' (Story Code 11.03) by Malorie Blackman and Chris Chibnall

“If she can live here her whole life, a couple of hours ain’t gonna kill me. They ain’t gonna kill me, right?” – Ryan

Montgomery, Alabama, USA in 1943: seamstress Rosa Parks is threatened by the driver of a segregated bus for sitting in an area designated for whites only…

Twelve years later: despite many attempts to return her friends to their rightful time and place, the Doctor is frustrated that the TARDIS has instead brought them to Montgomery in 1955; then the ship registers traces of artron energy in the area, and the Doctor immediately decides to investigate. When Ryan attempts to return a glove to the woman who dropped it he is surprised to receive a slap in the face from her husband, along with a warning never to touch a white woman again. The altercation is defused by the arrival Rosa Parks, whose important role in history is well-known to the Doctor, Graham and Yaz; the Doctor also detects traces of artron energy on Rosa, and wonders why… Elsewhere, a man named Krasko locates the TARDIS in the alley where it landed; he seems to know what the blue box really is, and uses a high-tech device to discern that it is protected by a force shield… Retiring to a bar, the Doctor, Graham and Yaz explain Rosa’s importance in the US Civil Rights Movement to Ryan; from a newspaper they learn that the date is 30th November; the eve of the day when Rosa will refuse bus driver James Blake's order to relinquish her seat in the 'colored’ section to a white passenger. After Ryan and Yaz are made to leave by the racist bar staff and clientele, the Doctor uses her sonic screwdriver to lead her friends to the epicentre of the arton energy: a heavily-padlocked room at the local bus depot, where they find a suitcase hidden by a perception-filter, which contains high-tech surveillance equipment and a battery for a temporal displacement weapon. They are interrupted by the arrival of Krasko, who opens fire with his displacement gun, forcing them to flee. When the Doctor confronts Krasko and demands to know what he is doing, he identifies her ship as a TARDIS and then threatens to kill her and her friends if they interfere with his plans. After noting the vortex manipulator on Krasco’s wrist, the Doctor storms off… Renting a room at the Sahara Springs Motel, the Doctor and Graham help Ryan and Yaz climb in through the back window. As they compare notes about Rose, they receive a visit from the local police, investigating reports of a “negro boy” and a ‘Mexican’ girl causing trouble; luckily Ryan and Yaz have hidden behind a dumpster in the alley behind the motel, allowing the Doctor and Graham to see off their unwelcome guest. Using Graham’s knowledge of Rosa, gleaned from his late wife Grace, the gang begin ‘Operation Rosa Parks’: together they establish where Rosa works, and intercept her on the bus as she makes her way home. Ryan offers to keep an eye on Rosa, and manages to win her trust with talk of fighting for equality. Meanwhile, the Doctor returns to the depot for another look at the suitcase; Krasko tries sneaking up on the Doctor, but only succeeds in zapping his own case into the seventy-ninth century. After using her sonic screwdriver to overheat Krasco’s gun, the Doctor points out the Stormcage identity marker on the man’s wrist. Krasko admits that he was imprisoned for the deaths of two-thousand people; now supposedly reformed, he has a neural restrictor implanted in his head that prevents him from killing anyone, forcing him to take a subtler approach to what he calls fixing history. Vowing to stop him, the Doctor grabs Kresko’s vortex manipulator and stamps on it; Kreslo grabs the Doctor by the throat, but when he is unable to kill her he just walks away, unaware that she has stolen his gun… At the Park’s house, Ryan is introduced to Rosa’s husband Raymond, and their guests Fred Gray and Martin Luthor King; Ryan is overwhelmed, but helps to make them coffee… While Yaz works on recording Rosa’s daily routine, Graham inveigles himself into meeting bus driver James Blake; to his dismay he learns that Krasko has changed Blake’s schedule, giving him the day off and assigning Elias Grifin Junior instead. On hearing Graham’s report, the Doctor realises that Krasko is nudging history off the rails, and resolves to counter his actions by ensuring that Rosa gets on a bus driven by Blake on 1st December just as history records. The next day, the Doctor calls in a favour from Elvis and Frank Sinatra, arranging for Griffin to ‘win’ a lottery prize of a trip to Las Vegas; elsewhere, Graham and Ryan disrupt Blake’s day off fishing with a bogus report of a planned bus sit-down by black passengers, inciting the driver’s racial hatred enough to make him return to work. Krasko counters these actions by smashing up Blake’s bus, blaming the vandalism on kids. Undeterred, the Doctor and Graham steal another bus, and deliver it to an astonished Blake. Ryan heads off to build up the passenger load further along the bus route, only to find that Krasko has put up flyers advising that the service has been suspended; Ryan tries to tell people that the service is still running, but they refuse to listen to him due to his colour. Deliberately tearing her coat, the Doctor delays Rosa with a request to mend her important outfit; leaving Yaz to oversee the repairs, the Time Lady joins Graham on the fateful bus – but it isn’t nearly full enough yet… Racing to the bus, Ryan encounters Krasko, now blocking the road with his car; incensed by the time meddler’s talk of stopping “his kind” from getting equality, Ryan shoots Krasko with his own temporal gun, displacing the man far back into the past. Rosa get on the bus, closely followed by a breathless Ryan, who has now moved Krasko’s car. Believing the bus to be sufficiently full Graham makes to leave; but he is stopped by the Doctor, who advises that they must stay to take up the seats, to ensure that Blake orders those black passengers on board to give up their places to whites. Forced to obey the unfair law the black passengers get up; they include Rosa – until she resolves to resist, and promptly sits down. Furious at her act of defiance, Blake uses a nearby call box to summon the police – and as Graham, Yaz, Ryan and the Doctor look on knowing they cannot interfere, Rosa is arrested and escorted away… Back in the TARDIS, the Doctor explains how Rosa’s act of defiance led to the de-segregation of buses in Montgomery a year later. Although her life continued to be a struggle, Rosa became an icon for freedom, changing the world forever, and in 1999 she was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal from President Clinton. She even changed the universe, as the Doctor demonstrates by showing her friends Asteroid 284996, otherwise known as ‘Rosaparks’…


Jodie Whittaker (The Doctor), Bradley Walsh (Graham O'Brian), Tosin Cole (Ryan Sinclair), Mandip Gill (Yasmin Khan), Vinette Robinson (Rosa Parks), Joshua Bowman (Krasko), Trevor White (James Blake), Richard Lothian (Mr Steele), Jessica Claire Preddy (Waitress), Gareth Marks (Police Officer Mason), David Rubin (Raymond Parks), Ray Sesay (Martin Luther King), Aki Omoshaybi (Fred Gray), David Dukas (Elias Griffin Jr), Morgan Deare (Arthur)

Directed by Mark Tonderai
Produced by Alex Mercer and Nikki Wilson
Executive Producers Chris Chibnall and Matt Strevens
A BBC Wales production

TX (BBC 1 & BBC 1 HD):
21st October 2018 @ 6.55 pm


Notes:
*Featuring the Thirteenth Doctor, Graham, Ryan and Yaz

*Instead of the usual theme music, the end credits of this episode ran to the accompaniment of ‘Rise Up’ by Andra Day