History Recap / DoctorWhoS37E3Rosa

This episode aired on October 21, 2018. Written by former Children's Laureate Creator/MalorieBlackman[[note]]the first non-white writer in the show's history[[/note]] and Creator/ChrisChibnall.

* HistoricalVillainDowngrade: A collective one against racism. Rosa's warning about what happened to Emmett Till downplays the horrors of what happened, as his corpse pulled from the water is about the least of it. Similarly, Graham and Ryan outing themselves as family wouldn't make for hilarious tweaking of racists, but a lynch mob coming for them both.

* StupidEvil: Krasko's plan is crippled by the fact that he can't kill Rosa Parks, forcing him to try stopping the Civil Rights Movement by non-violent and non-lethal means. Krasko himself seems uneducated about the history of the Civil Rights Movement, as he believed Rosa Parks was the only one who could have got the civil rights movement in motion. The episode itself is set in December of 1955; 3 months after the lynching of Emmett Till, whose murder and unjust trial was the inspiration Civil Rights Movement. In December of 1955, Rosa Parks' protest inspired the bus boycott, the first large-scale U.S. demonstration against segregation. Krasko's plan had holes in it due to his own ignorance of African-American History.

--->'''Officer Mason:''' "You don't happen to know a couple of, ah... mongrels? Hmm? Negro boy? Mexican girl?"\\
'''The Doctor:''' "I don't recognize anyone by that description."\\
'''Officer Mason:''' "See, the negro's been goin' around pickin' fights with... upstanding citizens. You appreciate it's a... it's an offense to harbour coloureds in a room here?"\\
'''The Doctor:''' "We're not harbouring anyone who doesn't have the right to be here."

* ForWantOfANail: The Doctor is concerned that Rosa's protest not occurring in the exact circumstances that history records it as happening could have serious repercussions for the future.
-->'''The Doctor:''' "We're one day out from a tipping point in Earth history. I don't want anything disrupting that."

-->'''Ryan:''' "If she can live here her whole life, a coupla hours ain't gonna kill me. It ''ain't'' gonna kill me, right?"

-->'''Police Officer:''' "Can I come in, ma'am?"\\
'''The Doctor:''' ''[muttering]'' ""Ma'am." Still can't get used to that."

-->'''Ryan:''' "We just got thrown out of a bar and ''that's'' what you're worried about?"\\
'''Graham:''' "Not ''just'' that!"\\
'''Yaz:''' "Not sure your stomach's compatible with time travel, Graham."

* AmbiguouslyBrown: InUniverse. The natives don't recognize Yaz's ethnicity and assume she's Mexican, much to her annoyance (she's really Pakistani). This causes running confusion among the modern Brits, since she gets filed as "white" and "coloured" for the purposes of local laws apparently at random--she gets kicked out of a white-only restaurant along with Ryan, but she's allowed to sit in the white section of the bus.
* ArsonMurderAndJaywalking: The Doctor's concluding InfoDump about what Rosa Parks' protest achieved gives us a non-comedic and probably accidental example: she got the buses desegregated, inspired other civil rights protests, won the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and had an asteroid named after her. The last of these superficially sounds like a great honour, but is actually comparatively mundane.[[note]]There are also asteroids named after Franchise/JamesBond (9007), Literature/SherlockHolmes (5049), [[Series/TheBigBangTheory Sheldon Cooper]] (246247), ''Franchise/KamenRider'' (12796) and even the TARDIS itself (3325).[[/note]]

** The episode mostly does a great job of presenting Rosa Parks' story, but fudges one detail that can probably be chalked up to budget: her 1943 encounter with James Blake occurred during a drenching downpour. (The writers were fully aware of this but thought [[RealityIsUnrealistic the audience would find it too extreme to be believable]].)
** There are conflicting accounts as to whether or not Rosa Parks planned her protest, or if it was a spontaneous event due to circumstances. The episode follows Rosa Parks' description of events, although the door is still left open, since Rosa is apparently having secret meetings in her home with civil rights activists, including the then-unknown Martin Luther King Jr. What they discuss we don't see, but it's completely plausible that they were discussing Rosa's future act.

* BadLiar: Krasko's attempts at feigning ignorance of who Rosa Parks is, and later why he's here, are decidedly less than convincing, and the Doctor doesn't hesitate to call him out on it.
* BaitAndSwitch: The intro makes it look like the episode's conflict is caused by the bus driver attacking Rosa Parks. In reality, the intro simply takes place twelve years before the actual conflict.
* BeenThereShapedHistory: Due to Krasko's interference, the Doctor, Graham and Yaz (who, although of Pakistani heritage, was counted as white by the bus driver) have to stay on the bus so there will be enough white passengers aboard for Rosa to be asked to move. Understandably, none of them are comfortable about this, since they have to watch her get arrested. (Ryan was on the bus as well, but, as he's black, was in the back.) Graham was even the one who triggered the incident, after he got up and someone took his seat, prompting the bus driver to ask one of the black passengers to give up their seat.
** An especially poignant example given that Graham was HappilyMarried to a black woman who idolised Rosa, and his face is plastered with anguish and regret as he realises his role in the event and has to watch it happen. It's not often this trope is PlayedForDrama.

* BewareTheNiceOnes: Ryan implies that his gran, Grace, ''would start a riot'' if she was involved in the events of this episode.

* BittersweetEnding: History is back on its proper course, but the Doctor and her friends have to watch Rosa get arrested. The Doctor says that Rosa's life wasn't any easier afterwards, either, since she and her husband lost their jobs.
* ButterflyOfDoom: Krasko attempts to create enough tiny changes in history so Rosa either won't take the bus or won't have to rebel by refusing to give up her seat. The Doctor and her friends manage to prevent them, keeping history on the right course.

* ChangedMyJumper: None of the locals take note of our MainCharacters' anachronistic clothing, especially not the trousers the Doctor and Yaz are wearing. This could be justified by the foursome's obvious Britishness; it's unlikely many people in 1955 Alabama knew much about fashion in England at that time.
** No excuses for the Doctor's coat, however, which Rosa spends a few hours mending without noticing anything odd, like unusual fibers.

** When Graham asks if they can go see Elvis, the Doctor mentions that he's in New York, and then reveals that she left a mobile phone with him once. They are later able to get the substitute bus driver out of the way because it turns out that Elvis loaned the phone to Music/FrankSinatra, enabling the Doctor to get tickets to one of his shows in Las Vegas.

** Krasko implies he got his vortex manipulator off the black market. [[Recap/DoctorWhoS31E12ThePandoricaOpens It wouldn't be the first time.]]
** Krasko's gun is similar to a Weeping Angel's touch.

* CruelToBeKind: The Doctor and her companions have to stay on the bus so it will be full enough for the driver to order Rosa to move, and because history needs to play out, they can't help when that happens. Graham is horrified but reluctantly goes along with it.
* DeliberateValuesDissonance: Ryan notices a white woman drop a glove within seconds of stepping around 1955. His reward for his troubles is being slapped in the face by her angry husband, for having the temerity to approach a white woman. The episode brings up a major point that there are many periods and places in Earth's past that would be uncomfortable or even hazardous for a non-white time traveller to visit.
* DidntThinkThisThrough: Krasko intends to change history by making sure that Rosa Parks doesn't have her famous moment of protest on the bus, and to accomplish this he sabotages events so the buses will either be out of service or there won't be enough passengers to require her to move if the buses are still going. There are some problems with this plan due to either research failure or the subject of the story:

** As famous and inspiring as this event was, it is ''extremely'' implausible that preventing Rosa Parks from carrying out her protest would have any major impact on the history and development of civil rights- she was, at the end of the day, just one protest amongst many before and since, and even if Krasko had outright erased her from history the timeline likely wouldn't have been altered all that much as someone else would just have led the charge instead; at best his scheme would have delayed the movement by a few years, more likely mere months or weeks. While his intentions are horrible, his EvilPlan is rather laughably dumb.
* DisappointedByTheMotive: After a whole episode in which our heroes believe that Krasko has some grand plan behind his MakeWrongWhatOnceWentRight scheme, the discovery that he really is doing all of this just because he's some random two-bit racist that managed to get his hands on time-travel technology induces enough rage in Ryan to ''shoot him''... with the time-displacer-gun, leading to a FateWorseThanDeath.

* EverybodyLives: Krasko may have been zapped to the past, but he was still alive.

--->'''Officer Mason:''' You don't happen to know a couple of, ah... mongrels? Hmm? Negro boy? Mexican girl?\\
'''The Doctor:''' I don't recognize anyone by that description.\\
'''Officer Mason:''' See, the negro's been goin' around pickin' fights with... upstanding citizens. You appreciate it's a... it's an offense to harbour coloureds in a room here?\\
'''The Doctor:''' We're not harbouring anyone who doesn't have the right to be here.

* FakeAmerican:
** InUniverse. Krasko sounds British whenever the Doctor confronts him, but adopts a Southern American accent when talking to the people of Montgomery.
** In a meta-sense, most of the cast are British actors playing Americans, including Vinette Robinson as Rosa.
* {{Foil}}:
** Krasko and the Doctor. Both ran away from their people with time travel, and their pasts both involve a large amount of bloodshed. They also both use non-lethal methods to achieve their goals. However, the Doctor actively ''chooses'' to act non-lethally, while Krasko ''can't'' kill due to a RestrainingBolt, and also revels in the number of people he's killed while the Doctor is haunted by it.
** Krasko and River count as contrasting inmates of Stormcage prison. River doesn't ''enjoy'' killing anymore, but will do it when there's no other option left. For Krasko, it's his first option — kill the person his way rather than explain. Krasko is psychopathic — so is River, but unlike Krasko, River is ''much'' less psychopathic because she has guiding influences. Krasko is everything River ''would'' have been without those good influence.

** At one point when reminiscing, Graham reveals that after she learned he was a bus driver his wife Grace had told him about James Blake trying to force Rosa to give up her seat, commenting that Blake's actions gave bus drivers a bad name. During the climax, Graham is horrified to realize that he has unwittingly ''become'' the white passenger for whom Blake demanded that Rosa give up her seat.

-->'''The Doctor:''' We're one day out from a tipping point in Earth history. I don't want anything disrupting that.
** InvokedTrope by Krasko who tries to alter history by making minor changes to circumstances so things will play out differently.

** The Doctor leant a mobile phone to Music/ElvisPresley. Don't tell anyone.
** When a police officer asks what they're , Graham pretends they're in town to pitch a smartphone as an invention.

-->'''Ryan:''' If she can live here her whole life, a coupla hours ain't gonna kill me. It ''ain't'' gonna kill me, right?
* HistoricalDomainCharacter: Key UsefulNotes/CivilRightsMovement figure [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosa_Parks Rosa Parks]], as well as Martin Luther King, Jr. and James Blake. Rosa also makes reference to Emmett Till when warning Ryan against approaching white women.
** The meeting at Rosa Parks's house is also attended by [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Gray_(attorney) Fred Gray]].
* HistoricalInJoke: When Ryan is told by a waitress "We don't serve negros," he responds the same way as UsefulNotes/MuhammadAli, saying "I don’t eat them."
* HistoricalVillainDowngrade: A collective one against racism. Rosa's warning about what happened to Emmett Till downplays the horrors of what happened (his corpse pulled from the water is about the least of it). Similarly, Graham and Ryan outing themselves as family wouldn't make for hilarious tweaking of racists, but a lynch mob coming for them both.
* HistoricalVillainUpgrade: Possibly. In later years, James Blake insisted that he was [[PunchClockVillain just a city employee doing his job]]. Of course, you could always say that he was lying to make himself look good, but the fact remains that there's no solid historical evidence that he was the dyed-in-the-wool racist portrayed by the episode.
* HoistByHisOwnPetard: Krasko, a white racist from the future, is zapped into the distant past with his own temporal displacement weapon by Ryan, a black man from the 21st century (which would be the past to Krasko). The Doctor also tricks him into zapping his own equipment with the same gun earlier on.

* ImMrFuturePopCultureReference: Graham tells the Montgomery police officer that his name is "Steve Jobs". (Incidentally, Steve Jobs was born in 1955, the same year in which the episode takes place.)
* ImperialStormtrooperMarksmanshipAcademy: Krasko misses when he first tries to zap our heroes with his TeleportGun; however the weapon is a secondhand model on its last legs, so likely isn't very accurate.
* InTheFutureHumansWillBeOneRace: Averted; apparently even in the 79th century white supremacy is still an issue, suggesting that human racial distinctions remain present. One would hope, however, that Krasko is just a throwback.

* ItWillNeverCatchOn: Graham improvises a cover story for the police officer's benefit about coming to Alabama to pitch an invention, and then describes what's essentially a smartphone. The officer replies that the idea sounds ridiculous.
* TheKnightsWhoSaySquee: The Doctor, Graham, Ryan and Yaz are thrilled when they first meet Rosa, to her understandable confusion. Later, Ryan is thrilled when he gets to meet Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. at Rosa's house.

-->'''Police Officer:''' Can I come in, ma'am?\\
'''The Doctor:''' ''[muttering]'' "Ma'am." Still can't get used to that.

* MetaTwist: The motive behind Krasko's actions remains vague, implying that Rosa's stand on the bus has even further reaches into the future than just desegregation, until Ryan confronts him alone, and it turns out that Krasko is just bigoted like James Blake.

* {{Mundanger}}: Turns out that racism as we know it (and Rosa Parks had to endure) is something that will always exist, even several hundred years in the future. This actually disgusts Ryan enough to shoot Krasko (with a temporal displacement gun, [[FateWorseThanDeath but still]]) and makes [[PoliticallyCorrectHistory moving around town]] [[AvertedTrope more difficult]] for most of the companions.

** Ryan is rather worried about this trope applying to him — but he and the others can't get out of Montgomery immediately because if the timeline is changed by the antagonist, his and Yaz's present could end up very, ''very'' different if it exists at all.

** At the beginning, it's mentioned that Montgomery is either the TARDIS' ninth or fourteenth stop since the Doctor has been trying to get her companions home. In combination with Graham's complaining about how they never stop to eat after getting kicked out of a restaurant later, there's a suggestion that the Doctor and company had a few offscreen adventures between [[Recap/DoctorWhoS37E2TheGhostMonument "The Ghost Monument"]] and this episode.

* NotHelpingYourCase: The Doctor mentions at the start that this is her ninth attempt to get her friends back to the present. Graham points out it's actually the 14th.
* PerceptionFilter: Krasko uses one to hide his briefcase of stuff at the bus depot.
* PlotIrrelevantVillain: Krasko is the villain of the episode and is among the many racists in the episode. Krasko's plan also wouldn't have had much of an impact on history, as Rosa Parks was one of many heroes in the movement.
* PoliticallyCorrectHistory: A notable aversion for the show, which usually does not minds about this kind of thing (if racism appears, it usually has been [[FantasticRacism the fantastic type]]). The Doctor and her companions even get (comparatively mild) epithets tossed at them a couple of times.
* PoliticallyIncorrectVillain: Krasko is an unrepentant racist whose entire scheme is to prevent Rosa Parks from refusing to give up her seat on the bus thereby triggering the Montgomery bus boycott and kick starting the civil rights movement. He believes that this will ensure the "inferior races" are in their "proper place" in his future.
* PreMortemOneLiner: Ryan, before he sends Krasko into the distant past, says that if he likes the past so much he should just live there.

* RecognitionFailure: Ryan, who was in a class named after Rosa Parks, assumes she was the first black woman to drive a bus. Graham is annoyed at this.

* SeamlessSpontaneousLie: When talking to a policeman, Graham calls the Doctor [[MayDecemberRomance "darling"]], in order to justify their presence in the motel room. They have to flee anyway, but it's the thought that counts.
* SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong: The Doctor and her companions practically have to bend over backwards to make sure that history remains on track and Rosa Parks doesn't give up her seat. This involves making sure the bus driver isn't replaced, the bus route isn't cancelled or impeded, and that the bus itself is packed... which sadly means that [[BeenThereShapedHistory they have to stay on the bus]].

-->'''Ryan:''' We just got thrown out of a bar and ''that's'' what you're worried about?\\
'''Graham:''' Not ''just'' that!\\
'''Yaz:''' Not sure your stomach's compatible with time travel, Graham.

* StarstruckSpeechless: Ryan is reduced to awestruck stammering when he is introduced to Martin Luther King, Jr.... much to Rev. King's confusion, as at this point in history he's still just a relatively obscure pastor who is organizing with local activists behind the scenes.
* StepThreeProfit: Krasko's plan to create a "better" future for racists like him is notably full of gaps and one can only wonder if he seriously thinks stopping Parks alone would magically turn the future or if it's just step one (he has a RestrainingBolt, sure, but the gun that zaps people back in time [[LoopholeAbuse does not seems to activate it]]).
* StupidEvil: Krasko's plan is crippled by the fact that he can't kill Rosa Parks, forcing him to try stopping the civil rights movement by non-violent and non-lethal means. Krasko himself seems uneducated about the history of the Civil Rights Movement, as he believed Rosa Parks was the only one who could have got the civil rights movement in motion. The episode itself is set in December of 1955; 3 months after the lynching of Emmett Till, whose murder and unjust trial was the inspiration Civil Rights Movement. In December of 1955, Rosa Parks' protest inspired the bus boycott, the first large-scale U.S. demonstration against segregation. Krasko's plan had holes in it due to his own stupidity and ignorance of African-American History.
## Rosa Parks was determined to follow through with her protest; it wasn't circumstantial like Krasko believed. Her secret meeting with the other members of The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People implies that her violation of segregation laws was premeditated.
## While Blake was the driver on the day of Rosa's protest, the episode doesn't portray him as more racist than the average white American of his time period. By that logic, it could have been ''any'' white bus driver during Rosa Park's protest. For example, Graham accidentally became the passenger who triggered Rosa Park's protest.
## Blocking the bus route wouldn't have changed much either since the bus could have driven around him, taken a different route, or the bus could have been delayed to have Krasko arrested for obstruction. It's not unusual for a bus to be late to one of its stops and the bus still has to follow its intended schedule. At best, Rosa Parks' protest would have only been delayed until she got another bus since segregation was a common occurrance on the bus.
* TattooedCrook: Krasko has a tattoo on his wrist identifying him as a former inmate of Stormcage Prison.

* TranquilFury:
** {{Downplayed}} during the Doctor's initial confrontation with Krasko. She spends most of the conversation barely treating him as a threat, and mainly addressing him with playful disregard. But the moment Krasko threatens to kill her and her friends if he sees them again, all the playful goofiness leaves her face and she tells him with steely eyes and in an quiet but icy tone, "Don't threaten me," before walking away.
** The TARDIS is... less than pleased... putting up a forcefield and then ''growling'' at Krasko when he tries to displace her.

* {{Troll}}: The TARDIS has apparently returned to fine form, as this is apparently the ''fourteenth'' time that she's failed to get the quartet back to Sheffield in 2018. The Doctor even accuses her of doing it on purpose.
* UnderestimatingBadassery:
** Krasko clearly doesn't take the Doctor or her friends — including the TARDIS — seriously, even trying to threaten them and thinking he can intimidate them. This comes back to bite him when the Doctor absolutely refuses to be intimidated, even goading him to attack her by destroying his Vortex Manipulator, [[TrappedInThePast trapping him in the 50s]] and forcing him to reveal his RestrainingBolt, a WeaksauceWeakness as he's unable to directly stop them from guarding the course of history and which gives Ryan the opening to just zap him with his own temporal displacement weapon.
** Krasko tries to ''shoot'' the TARDIS with a device to send her somewhere else in time. Fortunately, the TARDIS has a forcefield and, more importantly, is as stubborn as the Doctor — probably ''more'' stubborn if we're truly being honest — and won't go anywhere she doesn't want to, as the Doctor has discovered over the last several million years — she just gives a groan in reply to being shot by Krasko, as if saying "really?" with a raised eyebrow.
** The Doctor plays into Krasko's underestimation of them by claiming that the TARDIS is old, has an enormous mileage and one ''very'' careless owner; all these things are, technically, true, but the Doctor means them affectionately. The TARDIS works perfectly despite her age and is just a massive troll!
** Krasko doesn't even realize the Doctor is a Time Lord. He clearly thinks she is just someone who just found a TARDIS or stole one. The Doctor doesn't do anything to discourage this line of thought.
* {{Understatement}}: The Doctor says she "did not warm" to the police officer that searched the motel room, after she'd spent half the conversation looking like she wanted to [[Recap/DoctorWhoS36E3ThinIce punch him for his constant racist comments]] about Yaz and Ryan.

* VehicularSabotage:
** One of Krasko's attempts to derail history involves slashing the tires and smashing the windshield of the bus James Blake was originally slated to drive. So the Doctor and Graham steal a functional vehicle.
** He tries to shoot the TARDIS and send her forward in time — the TARDIS, being the brilliant intergalactic time machine she is, is having none of it and just groans as if saying "really?" with a raised eyebrow.
* VerySpecialEpisode: This episode is not "The Doctor has to stop the Daleks and dragged Parks along (ex. The Unquiet Dead)", it's "The Doctor has to help an important event in history from playing out correctly" and has an emphasis on Parks' struggle.
* WhiteMansBurden: Rosa Parks' impact was allowed to happen through the actions of a white lady, because the white lady prevented a white man from interfering to stop said impact from happening. So the two cancel each other out.

Ultimately, all four time travellers end up on the bus with Rosa, and the Doctor, Graham and Yaz have to stay on board to ensure there are enough "white" passengers for Rosa to be asked to move, something none of them are comfortable with. Furthermore, when he gets up to leave before the Doctor can tell him this, Graham unwittingly and unwillingly becomes the passenger for whom Rosa was demanded to give up her seat for, directly leading to her refusal and arrest. After Rosa is arrested, back on the TARDIS, the Doctor tells her friends that Rosa's life didn't get any easier, but that, in 1999, she was eventually awarded a Congressional Gold Medal. As a final note, the Doctor takes them to see the asteroid that was named in Rosa's honour, showing them that her legacy helped change the universe for the better.

* BystanderSyndrome: The Doctor and co. talk about their mission in plain view of other bus passengers, yet no one raises an eyebrow, even when Graham quite loudly yells that he doesn't want to be part of Rosa's arrest while standing up and drawing attention. Ryan even flashes Krasko's gun when he enters the bus, right in front of James Blake to boot, with no one reacting to he sight of the gun, which looks out of place even if it isn't recognised as a gun.

1943, Montgomery, Alabama: Rosa Parks tries to board a bus, but after paying the fare sees there are people standing in the back staircase, where the "coloured" passengers are supposed to enter. She tries to walk down the front aisle, but the bus driver demands she exit and re-enter in the back. When she eventually relents, the bus drives off without her before she can get back on.

1955: The TARDIS lands in an alleyway, and the Doctor notes that this is not Sheffield. Her companions are less than impressed, as this is either the ninth or ''fourteenth'' time they've missed their destination; one wonders if the TARDIS is being a troll again. Before they can leave again, the TARDIS' screens inform the Doctor that there's artron energy in the vicinity, which piques her interest since there shouldn't be any (and that something being where it shouldn't be usually means bad things are occurring). The companions are a bit iffy, but venture forth with The Doctor to see what's up.

While walking down a street, Ryan gets a first-hand introduction to the racism of '50s American South when he tries to return a dropped glove to a white woman, and gets slapped hard by her husband. The others leap to his defence, but before a scuffle can ensue, a woman steps in to defuse the situation: Rosa Parks. After she promises the man that his suit, which she's working on, will be done by tomorrow, the couple storms off. Rosa tells the four time travellers that they should be careful not to cause any trouble, and when she introduces herself, all four are thrilled to meet her, and the Doctor nearly {{squee}}s. The Doctor manages to prevent any future spoilers from being leaked, but scans Rosa as she walks off, discovering traces of artron energy around her - remember that aforementioned bad thing occurring? Mmm, yeah.

The Doctor realizes they have to stay in the past longer, as she deduces that someone is likely trying to mess with history. Meanwhile, in the alley where the TARDIS is parked, a white man in a leather jacket approaches it and scans it with a gadget that definitely isn't from this time period. He then tries to shoot it with an energy weapon, but fails due to its protective forcefield — the displeased TARDIS growls: he'll have to do better than ''that'' to get in! After the Doctor and her friends, in a bar, discuss Rosa's life, they get kicked out because Ryan is black and Yaz is "Mexican". The Doctor explains that they have a duty to make sure history takes the right course.

Tracking the artron energy leads the Doctor and her friends to Montgomery's bus depot, where they find a suitcase in a locked warehouse, hidden by a PerceptionFilter, with a selection of futuristic gadgets inside. They are quickly accosted by the owner, the man in the leather jacket. After a chase, the Doctor has a chat with the man, whose name is Krasko, atop a rusted fuel tank. He asks her if her time machine is a TARDIS, claiming that they're worth a lot of money (one can only imagine, given that ''she's one of only two left in the universe'', how much the TARDIS would bring), and the Doctor scoffs at this ("Second hand, huge mileage, one careless owner."[[note]]All true but not meant offensively to the TARDIS[[/note]]). She's taken the spare battery for his temporal displacement weapon, and he threatens her, which she's not impressed by. Krasko claims ignorance of Rosa when the Doctor mentions her name, and the Doctor and her friends walk away. When Yaz asks if they're leaving Montgomery, the Doctor responds, "Not in a million years." The aforementioned bad thing that is occurring has to be sorted.

Since they can't go back to the TARDIS as Krasko knows where it is, they get a room at a motel, which is unfortunately "Whites Only", necessitating Ryan and Yaz to be smuggled in through the bathroom window in the back. The Doctor starts getting everyone to list what they know about Rosa and her bus ride, since it's obvious that the time traveller they met is trying to interfere. She starts writing on the wall with a marker, and Graham objects to the vandalism as she isn't Banksy. Or is she? In any case, the pen is special. The discussion is interrupted by a knock on the door, and Ryan and Yaz flee to the bathroom. The Doctor sonics the ink to turn it invisible, and opens the door to reveal a police officer. Apparently, our heroes have made some "good citizens" uncomfortable with their non-bigoted views. Graham claims that they are in town to sell an invention, effectively describing a smartphone (hilariously attempting to use terms appropriate to the 1950s), and then claims his name is Steve Jobs. The officer is skeptical, but when he enters the bathroom, it's empty. Ryan and Yaz have slipped out to the alley and hidden behind a dumpster, where they discuss how uncomfortable it is to be in the racist past, while also talking about the racism they each face in their own time.

After Graham gives Ryan and Yaz the all-clear, the brainstorming resumes, as the Doctor states that they need every bit of information about what happened the night of Rosa's bus ride, especially since a newspaper reveals that it's supposed to happen ''tomorrow''. And the Doctor suspects that the time traveller she met is going to do whatever he can to try and steer history off-course. After a lot of hard work, they deduce where Rosa lives, where she works, and which bus route she's going to take. Graham goes to the bar to track down the bus driver, James Blake, and Ryan goes to Rosa's house, where he serves coffee and meets Martin Luther King, Jr. The Doctor, meanwhile, confronts Krasko and tricks him into sending his suitcase of gear to the far future with his temporal displacement weapon. She further identifies him as a former inmate of the Stormcage Containment Facility with a neural implant preventing him from hurting or killing anyone, due to a history of mass murder - even ''River'', who ''was convicted of killing the Doctor and was a '''trained psychopath''', never needed one of those''. She tells him that his plan isn't going to work, confiscating his weapon and destroying his vortex manipulator (effectively stranding him in 1955), before leaving.

When everyone meets back up at the motel, Graham has news: Krasko's been at it again, arranging for Blake to get a day off so he's not driving the bus Rosa will be riding. From then on, it's hard work, as the Doctor and her friends have to get the substitute bus driver out of the way, and then overcome a sabotaged bus and false signage to get all the right elements in order. The Doctor even rips her coat and takes it to Rosa's place of work as an excuse to have Yaz keep an eye on her in case Krasko tries anything. That evening, as Ryan is attempting to make sure there are enough white passengers on the bus so that Rosa will be asked to move, he runs into Krasko, blocking the street with a car. Krasko reveals his motives are racist, so Ryan uses the temporal displacement weapon, which he swiped from the motel room where the Doctor left it, to send Krasko into the distant past, since he seems to already like living in the past so much.

Ultimately, all four time travellers end up on the bus with Rosa, and the Doctor, Graham and Yaz have to ''stay'' on board to ensure there are enough "white" passengers for Rosa to be asked to move, something none of them are comfortable with. Furthermore, when he gets up to leave before the Doctor can tell him this, Graham unwittingly and unwillingly becomes the passenger for whom Rosa was demanded to give up her seat, directly leading to her refusal and arrest. After Rosa is arrested, back on the TARDIS, the Doctor tells her friends that Rosa's life didn't get any easier, but that in 1999 she was eventually awarded a Congressional Gold Medal. As a final note, the Doctor takes them to see the asteroid that was named in Rosa's honour.

** The South were much different in the 1950's than New York or Chicago or Los Angeles - leather jackets, especially when worn over a white T-shirt like Krasko is wearing, were at the time associated more with NYC criminal gangs; and the only young men who wore beards were beatniks; thus he would have likely attracted negative attention, possibly also from the police.

* VerySpecialEpisode: This episode is not "The Doctor has to stop the Daleks and dragged Parks along (ex. The Unquiet Dead)", it's "The Doctor has to help an important event in history from playing out [[MakeRightWhatOnceWentWrong correctly]]" and has an emphasis on Parks' struggle.

** The episode mostly does a great job of presenting Rosa Parks' story, but fudges one detail that can probably be chalked up to budget: her 1943 encounter with James Blake occurred during a drenching downpour. (According to WordOfGod, the writers were fully aware of this but thought [[RealityIsUnrealistic the audience would find it too extreme to be believable]].)

** The episode mostly does a great job of presenting Rosa Parks' story, but fudges one detail that can probably be chalked up to budget: her 1943 encounter with James Blake occurred during a drenching downpour.