Do people think that Dr. Who will show with any realism whatsoever, the reaction that british/european people from any point in time prior to say 1970, would mostly have to someone of mixed race (and visibly African); or will we see a situation such as in 'Wild Wild West' where it was completely ignored that Will Smith is black.

Granted it's a family show, but if they pick up on things like how women were treated / accents perceived then surely they'd be foolish not to explore the problems a black british person would have travelling backwards (and possibly forwards) in time?

Time Travel, Police box *mime along now* Bigger on the inside Alien with two hearts, Rhino Men, Angry Space Dustbins,.....realism.

I doubt it'll be mentioned, it's just not that kind of show.
Case in point: some of the friends of Madam Du Pompadour were played by black actresses last year, fair enough but if you're looking from a realism historical point of view I doubt any of the French aristocracy at that time were anything other than white.

I wish people would stop making a big deal out of this, especially as Dr Who has been showing for two years how we're all humans together in good times and bad.....

There have been black people in Britain much before the 1950s. It is likely that some of the occupying Roman soldiers would have been African. During the 18th century it was intensely fasionable for the rich to employ black servants. See http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Im...ogarth_042.jpg for a contempory depiction.

I am not sure how many black people there would have been in Britain around the turn of the 17th century, when this week's episode is set, but there must have been a few.

That said, I agree with your basic point. It would be stupid to travel through time and pretend that attitudes have not changed.

Then again, if you want realism, why not ask why the Tardis always homes in, not only on Earth, but on the UK?
Last edited by etldlrl : 05-04-2007 at 22:30

There would be slaves and slave owners. Shakespeare wrote "Othello" - as you no doubt already knew, so being aware of black people was not an issue. I guess Ep. 3 needs to establish that Martha is subservient to the Doctor (i.e. owner-slave relationship) for there to be an element of historical realism.
Last edited by ember1 : 05-04-2007 at 22:30

Anyone who thinks that Black people never existed in Britain before 1950 simply don't know anything about real history.

There are pictures of Black Policemen in Victorian London being used for crowd Control. There was an Indian MP in Parliament in the 1800s.

During the reign of Queen Elizabeth 1st, when this Saturday's Episode is set, there were so many black people in London that Parliament begged her to expell them from the country. They were saying basicly that there were so many black people in Britain that they were stealing British People's jobs. Sound familiar?

Anyway, Elizabeth made the declaration but was lazy about enacting it.

In fact, many slaves from other nations made lives for themselves as freemen in England between the 1590s and 1800s.

So, black people, both as servants and free men and women in their own right, have alwasy been a part of life in the UK.

http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/p...tory/index.htm
Last edited by docman : 05-04-2007 at 22:46

i dont think the colour of a person is relevant to a time travel / sci fi show ...in fact ...whoever is the assistant should be travelling to other planets and not going back to 20 century every other episode ..... most controversial is the way this last few series of Dr Who has been grounded in London .. making a mockery of the space time travel aspect that is central to Dr Who .

Oh get a life, episode 3 just needs to be a fun and entertaining 45 minutes of family TV. If you want history lessons then try UK TV History or BBC 4 who have been doing a whole season of programmes about slavery and black British culture for the last two weeks, all of which is far more accurate and informative than whatever superficial gloss you're looking for in Dr Who. If they can't even make an episode without major plot holes they're certainly not going to portray 16th century Britain accurately, nor should they.

Dr Who is a fantasy programme with a happy ending, it doesn't need bad vibes bringing me down each week. It just needs a bad situation that the Doctor puts right by the end of the show, and it's tough if the pedants don't like that.

So you want every episode of Dr Who set anywhere in Europe over the last 2000 years to feature black slaves wherever they go and for the Doctor to keep pretending Martha is his slave but it's ok 'cos she isn't really? Yeah, that's just the kind of role models today's black 7 year olds need to grow up with...

It's Dr Who for gods sake.
Last edited by Banjo String : 05-04-2007 at 22:53

Why the colour fixation?

The fact that she's a woman, with an independent mind and spirit, would excite comment in 'past times'.

Luckily, as has been pointed out, even if not in so manywords, this is Doctor Who, not a documentary.

There were very few, and in high circles. Most were slaves, worked in the docks and it wasn't until the late 18th century that slavery was abolished in England (prior to Wilberforce's campaign to abolish it across the British Empire)
In terms of the time for TSC you're looking at slaves.
Last edited by ember1 : 06-04-2007 at 00:24

Hardly controversial.

I must have been watching a different Dr Who than you I'm sure that he did travel back and forward through time a lot. He also took a trip to New Earth and the Impossible Planet.
Best stay clear of the Jon Petwee episodes then if I were you.


Reading between the lines I understand your point about not going to many other planets but budget plays a big part in this. Don't forget EVERY episode requires brand new sets that wont get used again, brand new costumes that wont get used again this is where a hefty chunk of the budget goes. It's not like Stagate where the main 'military base' set is used everyweek, and a lot of the storytime takes place in that main set, and forests are used for almost every new world. It's fine for Stargate because that is it's format, it isn't Dr Who's which has to go to a compleltly new place every week.
Last edited by CAMERA OBSCURA : 06-04-2007 at 00:26

It made me laugh you expect realism in a film like Wild Wild West, didnt it have a massive steam powered robotic spider I think the same goes for Doctor who.

Pocahontas married john smith ,although not strictly black or white was indeed a native indian princess, and is buried in Gravesend i believe,so its is perfectly reasonable that in other countrys such as france there was colored people who did have high social standing,anyway how do we know for certain that the adam de pomp did not consort with balck friends? no one knows for certain.

They could just do a "Robin Hood" and have people of all kinds of ethnic extraction fitting in perfectly well with the populace in some kind of progressive parallel Earth.

Without meaning to sound as racist as it probably will...and I apologise in advance for this...But isn't there enough on TV that tells us how hard it is for black people to get along in the world today as opposed to other demographics like....say...white males between the ages of 18 - 25 who continually get passed up for reasonable employment, housing and proper social welfare care in the name of political correctness, and an everlasting search for racial equality?

The Doctor is half-human (on his mother's side). His mum was probably from Britain in the 20th/21st century, so he keeps coming back to pick-up girls who remind him of her.
Last edited by be more pacific : 06-04-2007 at 00:39

Although i do agree that race/colour etc should not be an issue in a family show such as this, even if it does bend the rules of history slightly, i think, if my history serves me correctly that many 'companions' of aristocracy were indeed not of 'white british origin' as it was seen as a 'servants' position, not politically correct by any means, but not necessarily 'wrong' in terms of historical facts.

RTD cares very little for historical accuracey in Doctor Who. He works with his own agenda, which is fantasy.

Hmm agree with most of the points of it being a fantasy show; it being doctor who, it being pure entertainment, but we're still meant to think it's broadly set in the real world... it just seems very lazy / treating the audience like complete idiots for them to show NO difference in reactions attitudes that those from the past would have in some way to a black companion of the doctor; because it is something that's so very obvious. Even today non-white people represent only 5% of the entire population of the UK.

That said, it's early days yet, perhaps they'll surprise me

(And yes, Princess Pocahontas is buried in Gravesend, and they've built a rather nice statue of her here...)
Last edited by marbles316 : 06-04-2007 at 01:56

So all the black people that Shakespeare encountered would have been slaves in this case. Why then would he write a play in which the tragic hero was a noble warrior who was high status and in command of a lot of white men and married to a white woman?

Are you saying that Shakespeare was just being very PC?

The island of Britain was never a big slave-owning concern, that was reserved for the colonies like the Americas and the West Indies. Prior to slaving there were definitely black people at all levels of the UK social structure, just as there were after slavery. The US had widescale slavery in the 18th century the UK didn't. The US also had widescale race relations problems at around the same time that the UK was opening itself up to immigration and the influx of West Indians and Asians. There was never any significant history of slavery within the UK, after the Dark Ages. That's the big difference between the UK and the US. The US is coming to terms with slavery and the UK is also coming to terms with US slavery. It's a toss-up as to who is feeling more guilty. Oh and while the Government of the UK did condone slavery for a while the vast majority of the population never did. Worth remembering.

There was no widescale slavery during the time of Shakespeare, apart from Arab slavery arguably. There wasn't even any racism to speak of. It's a recent invention.

Because Shakespeare wasn't writing about black people in England. He was educated enough to know about the Moors in North Africa and Spain, and that some were of such high class that they were entrusted to command armies in southern Europe.

He wouldn't expect there to be such characters populating Southwark. And just as whites were of different class, so too were blacks. Most (if not all at that time) would be owned in England.

I don't understand your argument????????????????

I don't know whether they will mention her colour in the Shakespeare episode but they shouldn't shy away from it. They could have someone ask Martha 'are you his servant?' or something and the Doctor could hit back at them. Seeing as they're showing that Martha is intelligent they could have her saying that she's studied black history so she knows all about this.

But he would expect his audience to accept that as well and you know what not all of them would have been as well educated as him.