Rosa (TV story)

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Rosa
Doctor:	Thirteenth Doctor
Companion(s):	Graham, Ryan, Yaz
Featuring:	Rosa Parks
Main enemy:	Krasko
Main setting:	Montgomery, Wed 30 Nov–Thurs 1 Dec 1955
Key crew
Writers:	Malorie Blackman, Chris Chibnall
Director:	Mark Tonderai
Producer:	Alex Mercer, Adam Friedlander
Release details
Story number:	278
Premiere broadcast:	21 October 2018
Premiere network:	BBC One
Format:	1x50 minute episode
Official trailer
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Rosa was the third episode of the eleventh series of Doctor Who produced by BBC Wales.

Set just prior to Rosa Parks' arrest for refusing to surrender her seat to a white passenger, this story dealt with heavy themes, and included blatant depictions of racism, mainly directed at the Doctor's companions Ryan and Yaz.

Synopsis

Attempting to return home to Sheffield, the TARDIS instead drops the Thirteenth Doctor and friends in 1955 Alabama, where somebody is planning on meddling with time. Meeting seamstress Rosa Parks, the Doctor and her friends must work together to correct the flow of time and keep events in order before things go horribly wrong.

Plot

It is 1943, Alabama in America. Rosa Parks is boarding a bus on her way home from work. She pays the fee but the bus driver demands she go around and get on the bus by the side entrance, given "coloured" people are forced to sit at the back while whites sit at the front. She refuses, leading the bus driver to force her from the bus and drive off without her.

By 1955, the Doctor lands her TARDIS in Alabama, remarking to Graham, Ryan and Yaz that their location is not Sheffield as planned for the ninth time. Graham corrects her it was the fourteenth attempt.

Cast

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

Crew

Executive Producers   Matt Strevens and Chris Chibnall

Co-executive producer   Sam Hoyle

Series Producer   Nikki Wilson

Written by Malorie Blackman & Chris Chibnall	Produced by Alex Mercer	Directed by Mark Tonderai	Director of Photography Tico Poulakakis	Production Designer Arwel Wyn Jones	Visual Effects DNEG TV
Make-up Designer Claire Pritchard-Jones	Casting Director Andy Pryor CDG	Music Segun Akinola	Costume Designer Ray Holman	Edited by Rebecca Trotman	Special Effects REAL SFX
Original theme music by Ron Grainer  •  Title sequence by Ben Pickles  Music conducted & orchestrated by Alec Roberts  •  Recorded by Olga FitxRoy  •  Mixed by Goetz Botzenhardt

General production staff Head of Production - Radford Neville Executive Producer for the BBC - Ben Irving Production Executive - Tracie Simpson Line Producer - Steffan Morris Production Manager - James DeHaviland Supervising Location Manager - Iwan Roberts Location Manager - Lyn Moses Unit Manager - Jac Jones Production Co-ordinator - Sandra Cosfeld Assistant Production Co-ordinator - Jessica Elise Evans Production Assistant - Alexandra Bahiyyih Wain Production Secretary - Jade Stephenson Executive Assistant - Caroline Cook Unit Drivers - Sean Evans, Paul Watkins, Jolyon Davey Unit Medic - Glyn Evans Business Affairs - Carol Griggs, Steve Robson Production Accountant - Laurence Parker Assistant Accountants - Helen Searle, Kate Barber-Williams Script department Series Script Editor - Sheena Bucktowonsing Script Editor - Fiona McAllister Assistant Script Editor - Hnnah Mason Camera and lighting department 1st Assistant Director - Fletcher Rodley 2nd Assistant Director - Delmi Thomas 3rd Assistant Director - Christopher J Thomas Assistant Directors - Lauren Pate, Sion Eirug Script Supervisor - Nicki Coles Camera Operator - Mark McQuoid ACO B Camera Operator - Mark Tonderai Focus Pullers - Jonathan Vidgen, Elhein De Wet Grip - John Robinson Assistant Grip - Ash Whitfield Camera Assistants - Gethin Williams, Drew Marsden, Cai Stephens Gaffer - Mark Hutchings Best Boy - Andy Gardiner Electricians - Bob Milton, Gawain Nash, Andrew Williams, Gareth Sheldon	Art department Supervising Art Director - Dafydd Shurmer Art Department Assistant - Georgia Reece Art Department Co-ordinator - Isabelle Kennedy Art Department Accountant - Karen Evans Production Buyer - Vicki Male Petty Cash Buyer - Kayleigh Powell Set Decorator - Chris House Set Designers - Julia Jones, Zsofia Ekler Storyboard Artist - John Erasmus Concept Artist - Darren Fereday Graphic Designer - Richard Wells Motion Graphics - Chris Gibbons Standby Props - Matthew Ireland, Cerys Lewis Standby Carpenter - Paul Jones Prop Hands - Atiff Tahir, Scott Howe, Lissa Lamona, Richard Barker Standby Art Director - Anwen Haf Rigging - Shadow Scaffolding Standby Rigger - Colin Toms HOD Painter - Steve Fudge Chargehand Painters - Mark Reece, Lloyd Reece Storeman - Charlie Malik Prop Master - Jim Mate Props Chargehand - Stuart Rankmore Prop Fabrication - Penny Howarth Specialist Prop Maker - Nick Robatto Construction Manager - Mark Painter Workshop Manager - Mark Hill Workshop Assistant - Chris Slocombe Construction Chargehands - Dean Tucker, John Sinnott Construction Drivers - Darren Bousie, Jason Tylke Practical Electrician - Matthew Dunford Scenic Artists - Jeremy Duckham, Gemma Dorie Carpenters - Terry Horle, Joseph Painter, Mat Ferry, Tim Burke, Jonathan Tylke, Campbell Freser, Chris Daniels, George Rees Costume department Assistant Costume Designers - Emma Burnand, Simon Marks Costume Assistants - Andie Mear, Jenny Tindle, Holly Williams	Make-up and prosthetics Make-up Supervisor - Emma Cowen Make-up Artists - Allison Sing, Amy Riley Junior Make-up Artist - Hanna Lewis-Jones Movement Stunt Co-ordinators - Crispin Layfield, Dani Biernat Stunt Performers - Belinda McGinley, Will Mackay Casting Casting Associate - Ri McDaid-Wren Casting Assistant - Louis Constantine General post-production staff Post-production Supervisor - Ceres Doyle Post-production Co-ordinator - Claire Rees Assistant Editors - David Davies, Hayley Williams On-line Editors - Geraint Pari Huws, Christine Kelly Special and visual effects VFX Editor - Martyn Western Colourist - Gareth Spensley Head Modelmaker - Lee Radford Sound Sound Recordist - Deian Llŷr Humphreys Dubbing Mixer - Howard Bargroff Sound Maintenance Engineers - Tam Shoring, Christopher Goding Dialogue Editor - Darran Clement ADR Editor - Matthew Cox SFX Editor - Harry Barnes Foley - Bang Post Production

South Africa crew

General production staff Producer - Adam Friedlander Line Producer - Alan Shearer Production Manager - Daniela Springer Art department Art Director - Brian Glaser	Camera and lighting department Camera Operators - George Amos, Derek Ueckermann Focus Pullers - Leon Lotz, Meike Chinnery Camera Loaders - Kyle Oberholzer, Tshepo Nthako Gaffer - Nick Rankin	Costume Costume Supervisor - Cathy Shields Hair and make-up Hair & Make-up Supervisor - Talli Pachter Sound Sound Mixer - Derek Mansvelt

Not every person who worked on this adventure was credited. The absence of a credit for a position doesn't necessarily mean the job wasn't required. The information above is based solely on observations of the actual end credits of the episodes as broadcast, and does not relay information from IMDB or other sources.

References

People

• The Doctor has lent a mobile phone to Elvis, who in turn lends the device to Frank Sinatra, against the Doctor's wishes.
• The Doctor teases herself as the identity of Banksy.
• Yaz is revealed to be of Pakistani descent. The waitress at Slim's Bar thinks she's Mexican.
• The body of Emmett Till was found in a river in Mississippi.
• Graham identifies himself under the false name of Steve Jobs to a policeman.
• Krasko was imprisoned at the Stormcage Containment Facility.

History

• Yaz states that 53 years in the future, America will have a black leader as president.
• The Doctor and friends arrive on Wednesday, 30 November 1955, one day before Rosa Parks made history. On Thursday, 1 December, she refuses to give up her seat, and Rosa is arrested for sitting in a "whites only" section of the bus.
• The Montgomery Bus Boycott begins on the following Monday, 5 December 1955.
• On 21 December 1956, the racial segregation of buses in Montgomery ends.
• The Civil Rights Movement was led by Martin Luther King.
• In 1999, Bill Clinton gives Rosa Parks the Congressional Medal of Honor for her services to the advancement of black people's rights in America.
• Based on the device's settings, the Doctor thinks that Krasko sent his suitcase to the 79th century with his displacement weapon.

Derogatory terms

• Yaz has previously been called a "Paki" and a "terrorist".
• Black people are often referred to, in 1955 Alabama, as "negroes" or "coloureds".

Locations

• Dr King is the minister at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church.
• The stop where Rosa is arrested is by the Empire Theatre.
• The TARDIS lands in an alley next to Jefferson Drug Store.
• The Doctor, Yaz, Graham and Ryan visit Slim's Bar, part of Kimberley Hotel.
• The group stay at Sahara Springs Motel.
• The cover of a Montgomery City Lines Inc. bus timetable shows stops Bainbridge St. and Cleveland Ave..
• An August 1954 telephone directory lists phone numbers for parts of Montgomery, including the areas of Young Place, Greenacres, Ridgefield and Hillwood.
• A map of Montgomery shows that it is located on the Alabama River.
• The Doctor tells Elias Griffin Jr he's won an all-expenses paid trip to Las Vegas, to see Frank Sinatra.
• The Doctor takes her companions to see Asteroid 284996, named Rosaparks.

Businesses

• Goods advertised outside Slim's Bar include Pressburg, RPW Motor Oils, and Sampson Liquors.

Technology

• Krasko has a vortex manipulator and a temporal displacement weapon.
  • He also keeps an information brick, a multi-intercepting surveillance device, and a backup charger for the displacement gun, in his suitcase.
• Krasko recognises the Doctor's "blue box" in the alley as a TARDIS, and thinks that it might be worth a lot of money.
• After Stormcage, Krasko had a neural restricter implanted into his brain, preventing the criminal from inflicting harm on others.
• Graham claims he and the Doctor are pitching a 21st century mobile phone as an invention.

Story notes

• This episode came with a warning on iPlayer subtitles that: "In this episode, there are familiar prejudices to face for the Doctor's friends."
• Rosa, along with The Ghost Monument, was filmed in South Africa in January 2018, with Out of Africa Entertainment, a local production company.
• This was the first televised story since The Day of the Doctor in 2013 to feature a real world historical figure.
• The episode didn't feature the Doctor Who theme over the ending credits, replacing it instead with "Rise Up" by Andra Day, the same song used in the sequence of Rosa's arrest. It is the second episode to not feature the Doctor Who theme in the ending credits, following Part Four of Earthshock.

Ratings

• 6.39 million (UK overnight)

Filming locations

• South Africa - Montgomery, Alabama

Production errors

• Olga FitzRoy's name is incorrectly written in the end credits as 'Olga FitxRoy'.

If you'd like to talk about narrative problems with this story — like plot holes and things that seem to contradict other stories — please go to this episode's discontinuity discussion.

Continuity

• Krasko has a vortex manipulator. (TV: Utopia) The Doctor comments that it is "cheap and nasty time travel", resembling her eleventh incarnation's view of the device. (TV: The Big Bang) Missy also referred to it as such. (TV: The Magician's Apprentice)
• Krasko was imprisoned in the Stormcage Containment Facility. River Song was also imprisoned there. (TV: Flesh and Stone/The Time of Angels, The Pandorica Opens, The Impossible Astronaut/Day of the Moon, A Good Man Goes to War)
• Ryan recalls his grandmother, Grace O'Brien's, death. (TV: The Woman Who Fell to Earth)
• Yaz remarks on how dangerous it is for her and Ryan to walk around Alabama given their racial ethnicity. Martha Jones held similar reservations in Elizabethan England, (TV: The Shakespeare Code) as did Bill Potts in the Regency era. (TV: Thin Ice)
• The Doctor mentions how the TARDIS feeds on artron energy. (TV: Four to Doomsday, The Doctor's Wife, et al.)
• The Doctor remarks how she intended to return Graham, Ryan and Yaz to Sheffield. (TV: The Ghost Monument)
• The TARDIS shows events from history in a similar way to the Time-Space Visualiser. (TV: The Chase)
• The Doctor is still not used to being addressed as a woman. (TV: The Woman Who Fell to Earth, The Ghost Monument)
• Yaz remarks on how years later there is a black president. (TV: The End of Time)
• Graham discovers he was a part of the original history of the Montgomery Bus Boycott, similar to how Donna Noble and the Tenth Doctor became part of events when causing the volcanic eruption at Pompeii. (TV: The Fires of Pompeii)

Home video releases

DVD releases

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External links

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