#kerblam

You're watching Doctor Who in 2014 and:

And in 2018:

And in 2025:

Series - 11 Episode(s) - 7 “Kerblam!” Aired - 18.11.2018 Doctor(s) - Thirteen (Jodie Whittaker) Companion(s) - Yaz, Ryan, Graham (Mandip Gill, Tosin Cole, Bradley Walsh) Notable Guest Star(s) - Julie Hesmondhalgh, Lee Mack, Claudia Jesse Writer - Pete McTighe Director - Jennifer Perrott

Investigating a cry for help the gang go undercover at an Amazon-style warehouse, and find an ideological conflict between the AI robotic system and human terrorists who want factory jobs.

Corporate positivity! Work ethic! Mystery economics! Bubble wrap!

Tell me again how the 13th Doctor isn't held to an unreasonable standard compared to the male Doctors.

For context, the character this person is talking about is a terrorist. At this point in the story, he is planning to dispatch hundreds if not thousands of robots equipped with bombs that will almost certainly murder countless numbers of people.

At this point in the story, she is also begging, pleading with him to change his mind. She's tried reasoning with him, she's tried being the tough hero, and he refuses to listen. The game is up, and if he can't get what he wants, he's done.

(This also supports something I reblogged yesterday, talking about how people just Do Not Listen when female characters are speaking.)

It's true that by the end of the episode, the Doctor hasn't Vanquished Space Amazon, or improved the lives of its workers in any meaningful way (beyond getting them two weeks of pto as compensation for several of their coworkers getting melted into goop). But was there something she could have done? In a single flashy act of heroism? In 50ish minutes? We've got a bit of a why can't Neo just blow up the Matrix problem going on here. Should the Doctor have put Space Amazon out of business? Okay, now all the workers are unemployed, and none of the conditions that forced them to take a shitty exploitative job in the first place (and be grateful for it) have actually changed. Should the Doctor have made herself Dictator Of The Galaxy in order to abolish capitalism? (Well, that's the plot of the wish world arc...)

Actually, the episode does raise one thing that the Doctor might have been able to help with. Dan asks Yaz: "Are you with the union?"

We could maybe imagine the Doctor using her various Doctor Skills to cut through red tape, rally people together, cow the bosses into submission, and help get Kerblam unionized in a normally-unrealistic amount of time (or to get them a better contract, or a better position to negotiate from? If they already have an extant but ineffectual union?). It wouldn't solve everything, by any stretch. But maybe the Doctor could've left these people with at least a little more power to shape their own futures.

But then again, that wouldn't be Fast, or Fun. And even if the Doctor were inclined to try, the episode carefully demonstrates why that kind of strategy just isn't really in her wheelhouse. She doesn't have the social skills or the patience to navigate subtle, treacherous office politics. She struggles to keep all the details of a big-picture system in her head. She forgets about the ankle monitors. She gives up on being undercover almost immediately, and reverts right back to her comfort zone: confidently striding around & telling the people in charge that they're idiots.

But the bosses aren't technically committing Violence right in front of her. They can even sound reasonable, and vaguely humane, and committed to incremental reform. If they were shooting people or tying them to the train tracks, she could justify pulling out all the stops to defeat them. But if she doesn't have a Villain, where does that leave her?

To find a better villain.

And that's what Charlie the evil activist provides for her. A convenient ending to the adventure. She's foiled an Evil Plot, the day is saved from a concrete act of Violence, and now she gets to leave.

Which ties back to the episode's original question: who asked the Doctor for help? Was it a person? The workers?

As it turns out, the "help me" message was sent by "the system" itself.

Who are you saving? The people? Or the system?