OK, between this episode and Lucky Day, I'm really struggling to come to grips with the possibility that I might have to start boycotting Doctor Who, because it's tragically clear that the neoliberal/centrist BBC is infecting what used to be a bastion of aggressively radical-leftist programming.

First things first, i get that people can enjoy something at face value based entirely off of the "vibes" of the episode, and yeah, i can't really fault it for being just a really fun, campy romp of an episode, nor can i fault it for pulling off the juxtaposition of going really dark in places pretty well. And the return of Carole Ann-Ford as Susan audibly made me go "OH s**t!" On the surface, it really is an episode that if you shut your brain off and enjoy, you'll get a lot out of it. Unfortunately, sometimes, there are things that are vastly more important than just how well the episode was pulled off from a mindless entertainment perspective.

My primary problem with the episode is that it falls into the same pitfalls as Lucky Day. Sure, Lucky Day tried to make itself seem nuanced in it's takes by pointing a giant finger at the fact that UNIT isn't in any way squeaky clean, but that's how they feel they can justify writing a story that smears anyone who dares to actually hold them to account as a lying grifter who's dangerously out of touch with reality. The Interstellar Song Contest is tragically exactly the same, it wears it's knowledge that the real life Eurovision is complicit in the Palestinian Genocide by way of continuing to platform Israel on it's sleeve (And don't try to imply this episode was written before the genocidal state of Israel became sheer poison, because Eurovision has been under fire from activists for doing this for a lot more years than you might suspect), and makes a suitable allegory in this story as well, with the evil Corporation that sponsors the event having devastated an entire civilization known as the Hellions, and it makes that the forefront of the Villain's motivations for revenge, a traumatized terrorist from that civilization. But ultimately, once again, that's just a way for them to pat themselves on the back for making the "brave" decision to be entirely open about Eurovision's crimes, and using that to make themselves feel justified in painting the villain as a creepy, psychopathic genocider himself who just uses it as an excuse to kill people.

OK, look. I'm well aware that there are people out there like that, but f**king hell, you couldn't have included representation of a protester who isn't a psychopathic monster to show that he's not indicative of the entire movement? And NO, Cora Saint Bavier doesn't f**king count. I'm not ashamed to admit that i absolutely loathed her, because she is the perfect example of what's wrong with this episode. This episode, once again, tries to be nuanced and show that she is indeed a sellout who left her people behind to work with the people who genocided them, and then she goes through this journey where she comes to terms with her heritage, and in the end, she raises awareness of the Corporation's crimes by unashamedly singing a mournful song of her people and trying to turn the tides from inside the system... and it works. All the people in the audience clap and we're left with the message that there is a right way to get justice for the people the Corporation has wronged, and you can do it if you'd simply be willing to put aside your grievances and watch and participate in this inherently flawed system. This resolution can get to f**k.

For one thing, Cora f**king IS a sellout, and no amount of trying to make me sympathize with her as "the good protester" is going to change anything about that. By the end of the episode, she's still choosing to participate in it, and the audience members who clap her bravery like good little fake progressives who like to think they're "#SoWoke" and then turn around and buy £150 worth of H*rry P*tter merch, guess what, they're STILL choosing to give this corrupt, genocidal organization that ravaged her home the time, traffic and money.

And The Doctor! I've thoroughly enjoyed Ncuti's performance in prior episodes, and i was willing to say he was giving Tennant a run for his money, but i hated The Doctor in this episode. I get that attempted genocide is a touchy subject for him, what with his own people, but christ alive, this is a betrayal of The Doctor's character. And i'm not talking about The Doctor's dark nature, New Who loves that s**t and does it to death every opportunity the can, and i've equally loved it when they do, it's just a part of The Doctor. It's because of this that i was really excited when i saw the news story that 15 was going to go really dark in this episode. Then came the actual execution of that scene. The problem i have with The Doctor in this episode is the reason WHY he goes completely apeshit on Kid, that's the part that ruins him here. Yeah, ok, The Doctor might be justified in brutally torturing an attempted genocider, but here's the thing, he's also torturing a genocide survivor, and then he gives special treatment to the Corporation, who are the real genociders. This isn't The Doctor taking a moral stance against genocide, this is The Doctor definitively deciding that one genocide is worse than another, and that, to me, makes him completely irredeemable. It actually makes me miss The Twelfth Doctor, because he would have reserved his anger for Kid, electing that he was just a symptom of this whole genocide business, and absolutely waged war against The Corporation, the actual disease, and anyone who continues to fund or promote it. But, no, as it stands, we now have a Doctor who has definitively taken the side of the Corporation, and brutally and angrily defended it's utterly horrid crimes.

On the whole, this was an episode where the BBC was clearly and cynically trying to get people to watch one of their other programs, and one of their more hard-to-defend ones at that. And, yeah, there are likely going to be a lot of people pointing out that i'm a fool of the highest order for looking for true progressive, socialist, leftist political leanings in a show being pushed by a neoliberal/centrist organization like the BBC, and that there are other episodes in the past that have had iffy politics as well, arguably done even worse than this one, but can you really say that that's a good enough excuse to tell me to switch my brain off and sleepwalk right into any centrist schlock that they try to shove into my face? To not kick up a stink about when they do something I find irredeemably, skin-crawlingly repugnant? To pretend that these issues just don't exist? Would you rather that everyone just lay down and took it, and unintentionally send the message that the BBC can make dangerous mistakes like the one in this episode with absolutely no fear of any kind of pushback? This is why, frankly, I'm starting to become a tad uncomfortable financially and vocally supporting Doctor Who any more.

Oh, and not exactly a criticism of the episode itself, per se, but that ending reveal was the most boring, predictable, uninspired, cliche'd, ill-thought-out conclusion to a story arc that literally every single f**king person and their blind grandmother had already made a half-arsed guess about one and a half year ago.

This episode is a very difficult one for me, because it's, in equal measures, one of my favourite Hartnell episodes, but also tragically awful due to one unforgivable aspect. And if you've seen the episode, you'll probably know what it is.

Let's start with the positives: William Hartnell f*cking shines in this episode, it's easily my favourite portrayal of his. He just gets so many wonderful character moments in this, whether he's gleefully smashing a vase over an assassins head during a nice, refreshing match of "fisticuffs", or drawing inspiration from the old "emperor's new clothes" tale by playing an entire room of insecure people for complete mugs, gaslighting them into wanting to hear music that he isn't actually playing just because he said "if you can't hear this, you're all uncultured swine's." This is Hartnell at peak cheeky impishness, and any time he's on screen being his usual mischievous, giggling gremlin self, it's a joy to watch.

On top of that, I have a soft spot for just how unapologetically camp it goes in it's pursuit of being a classic 60s comedy. This is basically just Carry On Doctor, full of goofy fourth wall breaks, actors who've perfected their damn-near cartoonish shocked faces, and a lot of witty banter between the characters. Dare i say, there were more than a few moments that actually manage to get a chuckle out of me.

Now for the part that ruins it. Despite their attempts, the really weird, creepy, rapey parts that were lifted from your bog standard raunchy 60s comedy, where Nero shamelessly chases the very noticeably uncomfortable Barbara around the palace with his intentions painfully clear was NOT one of those moments. Barbara is treated so poorly in this episode, and her "character arc" is absolutely disgusting. From the moment she meets the character called Tavius, he's characterized as friendly, caring, compassionate to Barbara's plight, and the story outright states that if he wasn't the one to buy her, she'd be in an even worse position with someone else. Yes, it's a morally f*cked situation they both find themselves embroiled in, and it may be true that she'd be in a worse off state, (even though the one she finds herself in still has her being chased by a filthy little horndog, and almost poisoned by his jealous wife) but the fact that the episode expects her to "come to her senses" after rightfully telling the repugnant git to sod off, and even come to thank him for being a friendlier slave master is just horrific.

There is one element to the Nero lusts after Barbara plotline that, removed from context, i would have found really funny, and that's the schtick of The Doctor just narrowly missing The Companion again and again. I know this because Partners in Crime did it better over 40 years later, entirely because they didn't tie it to any uncomfortable, rapey storyline for that episode (Because, let's face it, if Nero had tried that sh*t with Donna Noble, she would have given the filthy c*nt a fat lip, regardless of if he was emperor.)

So, on the whole, The Romans is an episode that had a good chance of being my favourite Hartnell episode, but it's hard to understate just how much the horrifically dated rape humour drags it down from greatness. If the stuff where they play attempted sexual assault for laughs was completely removed from the episode, I would have been prepared to give it a 4-and-a-half, but, no such luck, and as such, this is the score it's stuck with, and it's only this high because of just how adorable Hartnell is, and how funny *some* of the scenes can be.

My takeaways from this episode:

1. The Doctor mentions that this is the first time he's had "this" black body, and yet, later on in the episode, he displays undeniable proof that he remembers an experience from when he had a certain other black body (i'll get into that in another point.)
2. When you imagine what the result would be if you bring in a black Nigerian man to write for the first mainline black Doctor for an episode set in Nigeria, that opening scene in the TARDIS and the sense of community The Doctor has found there is exactly what you're expecting, and it's one of my favourite moments right off the bat.
3. JO F*CKING MARTIN!!!! Cameo aside, if The Fifteenth Doctor definitely remembers an adventure he had as The Fugitive Doctor, even offering up their account, are we to take it that in between the final episode of Flux and this one, The Doctor just dug out the fob watch from the depths of the TARDIS and fully reunited with their Timeless Child self off-screen? If so, i kinda f*ck with it.
4. So, if, bottom line, The Doctor definitely remembers being The Fugitive Doctor, then why did he say this is the first time he's been black? Answer: he didn't, he said this is the first time he's had "this" black body. So, if you read between the lines, are we to take it that the Timeless Child reused bodies from time to time? What if The Timeless Child has previously looked like Paul McGann or William Hartnell, Peter Capaldi, Jodie Whittaker, etc.? What if that's the gift of The Timeless Child's species? Time Lords can't reuse faces, but The Timeless Child can with relative ease. What if David Tennant coming back was one such example of the Timeless Child shining through the Time Lord biology rewrite, except The Doctor clocked it this time because it was a face reused from after the mind wipe? What if being David Tennant again motivated The Fifteenth Doctor to find out more about his Timeless Child self and what they could do?

OK, i'm kind of going a bit too hard into Fan Theory territory, but still, outside of the implications to the wider Doctor Who lore, this episode works really well on it's own. I had a really fun time watching it.

I really want to get into this. The FMV's look f*cking hilarious, and the prospect of exploring the TARDIS, invaded by The Doctor's most iconic foes sounds so damn intriguing. But, guys, for the love of The Timeless Child, please tell me there's some kind of fix or mod floating around out there for the absolutely atrocious, nauseating camera swerve when moving to the side. It's actually horrific, and the utterly crippling levels of motion sickness i get completely stops me from getting past even the first couple of seconds.

For an episode that owes a lot of it's success to the message it's trying to convey, it's infuriating that an entirely separate message that slips through the cracks is what absolutely ruins it for me, because hardly anyone has managed to look past the extremely heavy-handed message in the forefront, to see a really ugly one lurking in the background in plain view. Don't get me wrong, the message at the forefront is one the world sorely needs, and it makes me happy that this episode is doing so well because they dared to say it with their whole chest, it's the message it's tied to like a ball on a string that I find absolutely repugnant. I'm, of course, talking about this episode being sickeningly pro-military.

This episode has many moments that explicitly tell you that UNIT, a *military* organization of which the show has previously been critical in the past, are unquestionably the good guys. The main character of the episode is even a part of it, and to criticize them is to put the people that they bravely protect on a daily basis, in jeopardy. This is why, according to the episode, Conrad is a dangerous, foolish, practically MAGA-level delusional scumbag who will bring ruin to the world with the disinformation he's propagating about things he can't even begin to fathom.

This comes at a time where an anti-military argument is sorely needed in the world. Disney have streaming rights to Doctor Who, and they've made it painfully clear their stance on the Israel genocide, and the last thing we need is to see an episode that shares their view on certain military organizations that have at least once in their history tried to commit genocide (See Doctor Who and the Silurians) getting absolute rave reviews. This is why, despite the fact that I'll freely admit that when i watched it, on a base entertainment level, in a switch-your-brain-off-and-watch kind of way, i was captivated by every second, i just can't look past the extremely problematic message that I only recognized when looking back on it with analytical brain.

P.S. For these reasons, for the love of Christ, can we please stop suggesting that Pete McTighe should be the next showrunner, or is likely to be the next showrunner. We really don't want to be willing that into existence, because you know RTD is likely to be listening.