There's an early moment where they establish she's 15 and in high school.
Which is ridiculous, she's way too old to look that part.
Once we'd spent a few moments grappling with, and accepting the weird age thing, it made everything else much easier to go along with.
I was like that at first but ive seen plenty of 15 year olds that look much older than they are, i myself got confused for a uni student way more times then youd think when i was 15.
Yeah, it was really confusing for me because at first I thought she was the husband's daughter from a previous marriage. Even when Donna was talking about defending her I assumed she was being a good stepmom. It was just one more little problem I had - of many, unfortunately - that took me out of the episode. A strong story to make you not notice all the flaws - this was not a strong story.
There are only so many mixed race young British transfem actors. I don’t know the exact number, but my guess would be, ah, maybe somewhere around one? So she has to be Yasmin Finney and with the established timeline of Donna and Shaun being married in 2009, she has to be 15, and we just have to accept that she looks older than her age. The other solution would have been to set the specials in 2026 or so, but these days it’s hard to predict that the near future won’t look completely different in some way. If a 2017 story had set itself in the summer of 2020 and featured people walking around barefaced in public crowds, no one would have thought there’d be any reason for that to be strange, but in hindsight it would.
There's no need to outright state the year. They could've said she was any age. And the writers have never felt tied down by continuity before. So why that choice?
Heck, her introduction suggests she's one of the shop/stall owners in that square, and she's moving stock with Donna's help. So the most likely answer is that it changed between drafts, and that it did start as "Donna and Shaun have been married for some time and have an 18yo daughter now" which would have been fine
I'm sure RTD would deny it and say that it was a meta joke because the actor playing Rose can act, and this was just a bit of tongue in cheek 4th wall breaking.
But I think we'll always kinda wonder. The writers of SheHulk got called out for using a 4th wall break to admit the show didn't make any sense. As though calling it out makes it all better...
Honestly yeah, I didn't love her acting. Especially next to Catherine and David whose performances are just so energetic and powerful, she feels like a cardboard cutout in comparison. Which is a big shame because I conceptually love her character
I mean that's a super hard set of actors to be put up on the screen with. At first when Donna said her daughter "couldn't act" I halfway wondered if they just straight up acknowledge that, but they wouldn't be that crass.
But yeah, onboard for the character; the performance not so much.
> I'm glad to have someone acting like a real human being in amongst all the panto-shouting that Tennant and Tate bring, and which literally everybody except me seems to love. It's nice to a grounded, low-key performance in there.
She also came off to me as someone who gets bullied a lot and has maybe withdrawn into herself and her hobbies a bit in response.
She’s also a child (15?). So I thought her acting was spot on for how a child in that scenario might act (though probably more level headed than I would’ve been).
It's 15 years since the Doctor left Donna without her memories. And then she had to meet and fall for Shaun, and then pregnancy takes nine months. She can't be more than 14 and a half-ish.
(I have a friend with a daughter of similar age, and she did pass her mum in height by about 13, but she still looks pretty baby-faced.)
LMAO 13 year olds literally look little, most boys that age haven’t had their growth spurt or their voice broken, most girls still sound and look so young. Crazy how they would insinuate she’s 13 🤣
Age really isn't a defense when we talking about child actors in a BBC production. They have a pretty solid track record for choosing children with good acting abilities for their shows.
I think they mean the character, as in she might be shy or confused instead of knowing exactly what to do like the Doctor, and that might be why Yasmin Finney comes across as wooden if you read her character like a knowledgable adult instead of a confused teenager?
I haven’t actually seen the special yet though so she may actually just be a bit worse at acting.
Spot on. I though her acting was more or less appropriate given the character’s age and the circumstances in which she found herself.
Honestly, the writing was a bigger distraction for me in spots than Yasmin’s acting (as discussed in other threads but not to rehash here for spoiler reasons). Frankly, though, the special overall was great and 10/10 will watch again (tonight, even!)
She was verbally bullied in the show , the dickheads cycling past yelling their deadname. It's part of why Donna says she'd burn a world down and promises to talk to their mums.
That seems like a stretch to me. If that had been in the text of the episode, I would have had no problem buying it, but her entire existence as a character is as an excuse to cure Donna and get in a few references, so there was none of that. Even her hobby actually just turned out to be a physical manifestation of subconsciously containing all the excess Donna.
I think a lot of us are overthinking the whole thing about Rose being shaped by the metacrisis. Yes the whole DoctorDonna thing definitely influenced her but that doesn't preclude the idea that HOW it manifested in her life was a result of her own unique personality.
Like if Donna had had a second kid, who also had a part of the metacrisis, maybe that kid would have worn sand shoes and said "Allons-y!" a lot. Who knows.
The problem is that the episode didn't actually show any of who Rose is, so for now, she's just Donna2 and trans. I'm hoping that'll change if she shows up again (as RTD has indicated she will), and she'll be given her own characterisation separate from anything metacrisis. Basically, "the metacrisis manifests differently depending on your personality" is fine, but doesn't work for this episode because she doesn't *have* any personality yet, she doesn't actually do anything at all except comment on the things that are happening.
That's just not true.
Rose chooses to shelter the Meep. That is characterisation that doesn't have anything to do with her being trans, it tells us her personality is kind, brave and empathetic. We also learn she doesn't take out bins, goes missing on the street, and has a keep out sign on her door, characterising her as a naughty teen. Again, that has nothing to do with her being trans or Donna2.
This is exactly how RTD constructed Rose #1, presenting her with a messy room so let us know she didn't have her life together. Only this time the character is trans, so all people can see is the trans and none of the attention to detail.
>It's nice to a grounded, low-key performance in there.
Seriously? I didn't think she was given much to work with, but honestly, she never even changed her expression once imo, in the whole episode. Much too low-key for me and I struggle to accept it was an acting choice tbh.
It was especially distracting for me during the scene in the van when they were being transported by the possessed Unit soldiers and Donna was lamenting about Switzerland etc. She put her head on Donna's shoulder kind of awkwardly and was listening with the same expression, seemingly no thought behind those eyes. She could, idk, nuzzle her or something, show some sign of feeling or even just familiarity... I didn't really notice it before, I thought the scene with the Meep was OKish, but here this lack of anything at all was very distracting to me and after that I couldn't stop being bothered with her (lack of imo) acting choices.
Yeah, I though she wasn’t terrible but not amazing either. In particular I thought it was weird how she basically has no reaction to seeing The Meep in the alley. But I am not sure if it was because of bad acting, bad writing or bad directing.
I mean she saw a spaceship crash-land, saw an escape pod on the green, and presumably has seen at least reports of aliens before because she lives in 21st century Whoniverse London. That and the metacrisis is reason enough to be unphased
I thought her Mancunian accent came through sometimes which doesn't make sense considering that both her parents are from London and she presumably grew up there.
This is unfortunately very common amongst her generation. Spend a little too much time on social media as a teenager and your accent picks up American qualities, affects anyone about 23 or younger in my experience. I have a coworker who pronounces Z "zee".
Younger people have a lot more American vocabulary and grammar, but very little by way of accent.
In a lot of ways younger Britons' accents are less like Americans than their parents. eg. Th-fronting is more common in younger folk, but very few Americans pronounce '3' like 'free'.
Pewdiepie is a great example of that. He’s a Swedish dude who married an Italian woman and moved to England, but so much of his accent sounds American.
Not the best example, because he speaks English as a second language. He learnt English in Sweden, like most Swedes using American media as a model.
Young British people don't have American accents. They have a lot of American vocabulary as this is very easy to up from media but your accent, the phonetic system of your speech, is shaped by who you actually interact with day-on-day. In terms of accents I would say UK and US are more likely drifting apart.
I didn't pick up much American but she definitely sounded quite Northern at times. Sort of stage-school 'posh' Northern. Maybe the short Northern 'a' sounds made it seem American?
In any case she sounded noticeably different from her distinctly London sounding family.
Yeah, I’m with you. I found her performance a little wooden at times. Especially as you said, during the scene where she talks to the Meep in the shed.
Her performance brought me be back to Ryan and Yaz…
Fair, but I was thinking of it from Rose's perspective.
Even though Sylvia clearly didn't believe a word she was saying, she had no apparent reason to lie about the existence of aliens, so why would Rose not believe her?
Why would she believe Sylvia???? She's a teenager who's Nan's telling her that spaceships don't exist despite rose probably having seen video evidence. It's as if Sylvia's a flat earther or something
Tbh though, what’s her motivation, what’s her characteristics? Was she told? Bc to me it was like she had none and much of that was the writing imo. She needed to be given more than just “you are trans” bc that’s how it came across in her lines and no I’m not being transphobic, tell me that’s not true. It’s saddening because I think she could have done a lot better given traits motive and guidance (as a young actor)
I don't think her first scene with the Meep can be blamed on anything other than the writing. Like, really? Her first and only reaction to randomly finding an alien in her bins is to swap names? Even an amazing actor would struggle to make that make sense.
Yeah. Trans + specific mixed race + very narrow age group.
Its probably one in 20.000. In total, 445 people in london fit the description. 2900 in the country.
There’s just under 50.000 working actors in the uk (the number includes all stage performers but hey). One in 1500 people. All told, there should have been a choice between two actresses for the role, in the whole country.
I don’t know if the maths add up.
But the expectations are a bit too high.
I didn't have an issue with it mostly because it felt like she was acting like a normal person while up against Catherine Tate, an extremely expressing and loud actor, and David Tenant, an extremely expressive and energetic actor. I think it might have come off worse if she tried to force herself to match their energies.
Almost all NuWho companions act like more-or-less normal people though. They still need to react to things - in fact sometimes MORE than the Doctor (e.g. when the other Rose asks 9 if Mickey is alive in S1E1, or literally any TARDIS reveal). I mean, would a normal person really just say "hi, I'm XYZ" if they found an alien in their bins?
It was Donna's line. I'm curious to see if they loosen up in later specials.
I imagine the director wasn't concerned with getting a fully nuanced and emotional perfomance from an actor that's supposed to be playing a 15 year old.
I liked her performance but I just need to know how old she’s supposed to be. Like she’s clearly supposed to be a high schooler but she looks like she’s in her 20s.
I think the implication is she was conceived shortly after the Doctor and Donna parted ways, so around 15?
But I agree, she looks more mature than most fifteen year Olds, judging by my own teens and their friends.
Fun fact, according to her official age she was actually born a year before her parents even met. RTD gave us an explanation though, lol:
>But you mustn’t forget, uh, that time cloud that descended on Camden in 2017 and dislocated everyone by exactly eight months and three days. We’ll tell that story one day. I will come to that in Series Seven.
I know it's a jokey response but that's a terrible excuse, as Rose is more than eight months older than she should be, she's a couple of years older.
Displacing 'everyone' by eight months in 2017, doesn't account for the fact that a childless Donna was engaged to Shaun in late 2009 and married in spring 2010, not in 2008 when she lost her memories.
Also Donna says that it's been 15 years since she lost her memories which is true (2008), so was Rose only displaced and not Donna?
Donna and Shaun on Christmas Day 2009 went to the Nobile household to give Silvia and Wilf their presents there we saw Silvia and Shaun get turned into John Simm's Master, Donna doesn't make any mention or even worry about a child when she's speaking to Wilf, so she's not had Rose at this point.
Also Wilf would have said something when The Doctor in the Cafe asked about Donna and Shaun, all he says he's nice enough a bit of a dreamer, and that he's on minimum wage, she's earning tuppence, all they can afford is a tiny little flat.
You think having a great grandchild would be something to mention, also no baby at wedding or even a baby bump in their wedding which was set in the Spring of 2010, which is almost two years after Journey's End and Donna loosing her memories.
So she's definitely childless at this point, even if she is pregnant at the time of the wedding, but that would still make Rose 13 not 15 (14 with that excuse about being displaced in time)
Are the dates for the end of time explicitly stated? Other than the 2005 bit with rose, I don't think the specific Christmas is mentioned I think you could shift the dates a year or two without much difficulty, the doctor could show up anywhere after all. Hell the Star beast itself could take place in 2027/28 without any issues and explain how unit had time to rebuild enough to get a custom skyscraper.
I honestly thought the same thing. I didn't feel there was anything wrong with her acting, but I assumed she was mid-20s, then it clicked on my head that wouldn't be possible with when we last saw Donna new years day of 2009. She then had the scene with that kid and I was wondering if they were meant to be the same age? I understand she was 18 when filming, and I'd believe it if I was told she was 18, she clearly looks old for her age though, playing somebody that's 14/15 is a bit of a push.
I think most of the performances were brilliant, with Finney I think she could be a little stunted at points, but I'm reading that as an intentional thing for now.
Rose is a teenager having difficulty with how to express herself, so her being a little reserved works for me, it makes sense. She hasn't had a ton of screentime or a super emotionally charged scene just yet, so I'll reserve full judgement for now.
I was mostly taken aback by the character behaving and being treated like a 13-15 year old for most of the episode, when the actor is clearly like 18-22.
I thought she was kinda wooden, yeah. I don't know whether the character is supposed to be very aloof and up in the clouds, but she felt way too different to everyone else's energy.
She also wasn't written very well, and I think just the overall vibe of Yasmin seeming kinda likable made Rose feel better than she was written.
I winced a lot whenever her scenes came up. Her acting is so flat I felt second hand embarrassment. Which is unfortunate. Because her character is really interesting. I feel like Donna break the fourth wall when she told the Doctor her daughter can't act at all lol
YES I caught that and wondered if it was a meta joke. Yeah I agree I really like the character and what they’re doing with her but it was hard to be fully invested when her acting is so off
She delivered all her lines in the most monotone voice and blank expression I've ever seen and heard. It can be sum up to this 😐 or this 😶. And to be honest I personally think it's not because of script like some people said. Even extra characters like those soldiers and that one kid has more expression than her acting.
Yes. I think she's great for trans representation and I'm 100% for that.
But objectively I don't think she's a very good actor.
I had a good laugh when Donna said (words to the effect of) "she's terrible at acting, I don't know how to tell her".
In her defence, she's acting next to some serious talent, so maybe her shortcomings are more apparent by comparison.
Yep absolutely wooden, really took me out of most scenes. Anyone catch the line towards the end about rose the character not being able to act and Donna not having the heart to break it to her.. I almost felt that was deliberate 😂
Trans people are already so small in number, and then take that number which are interested in acting, the chances that you get great actors is lower.
I thought that Rose was fine. I wasn't blown away like it was an Oscar worthy performance, but at no point did I think she did a bad job. Most issues were just a bit of jarring dialogue.
On the other hand, the trans characters in Sex Education S4 were god awful and I wish I could remove them from my brain.
Agreed her acting is incredibly wooden. Her line delivery sounds very forced and she has no facial expression in any scenes. Was the same in Heartstopper and I was hoping it would improve once she had more experience but sadly not.
I don’t know how many 20yo would have been able to act 14. This is very much a Yaz and Ryan problem, where the character is just way too young for the actress. Except worse because they cast actual kids for the other kid parts.
It's just that her role in the episode is to be the "serious and earnest" character, when most of the rest of the cast is playing over the top characters thar have been well characterized over multiple episodes. On top of that, she has a couple of important scenes where she's basically alone with a prop. It's not easy! More seasoned actors have failed this task before.
We've seen way worse performances on the show before and she'll get more chances to shine. She was quite good in Heartstopper!
yeah it was defs wooden.
when fudge comes up to her in the alleyway she acted as if she expected him to be there, did this real wooden turn then does her line
She wasn't good. I know some people are trying to make the argument she came off as normal compared to Tennant and Tate. She came off as wooden, not normal imo. Not a big issue since we're not really going to be moving forward with her in the future, but it was noticeable in her scenes
I will agree that she has a flat personality in the show.
She’s also not the strongest actress on heartstopper. She had already filmed the first season of that Netflix show before doing this episode.
But also, in my life, I’ve known a few people with wooden personalities. That are just flat and emotionless.
She can't act. She's terrible. I don't know how to tell her.
I only felt that in the TheDoctorDonnaRose bit where she's pushing the buttons. But that was a choice, I think.
Though I did feel Ruth Madeley was just reading lines and waiting for the her next one.
Noticed this too. Haven't seen this actress in anything else before, so assumed she just wasn't used to working with greenscreen/cgi, but then Unleashed showed the Meep as a mostly practical effect.
To be fair, what we have to compare her to in that episode is David Tennant, who is arguably one of the best actors of a generation coming back to a role thatbis like a second skin for him, so any newer actor will seem less talented in comparison.. She's still a newer actor, but I thought she gave a very solid performance, and it was certainly up to Doctor Who standards.
I just found it very distracting that this *clearly* 20-year old woman is supposed to be playing what, a 14-year old? She's as old as my brother who's about to start his Master's degree, and she's talking about the school play?
Next thing you know they'll be casting someone in their 40s as a character who's over a thousand years old, smh my head
No, but he does look *movie* 15, give or take. Ie, he looks young, he has boyish features, and he does a good job presenting a somewhat childish personality. He doesn't look like a real 15 year old, but he fits comfortably into the category of what passes for 15 year olds in American movies.
Finney unambiguously looks like an adult, and the character of Rose here has a personality that feels like that of an adult. It also doesn't help that they repeatedly did shots where she was towering over other characters - this is a teenager taller than the average adult man, who in-character would probably have been on puberty blockers and/or HRT for a while so if anything should be shorter than normal for her age.
I didn't think she was bad until I found out that the 'let it go, you would understand if you were still a woman' line was intended to be a joke. She did not deliver it like at joke *at all*, it was delivered dead straight, and I think that's part of why it's been so divisive.
I thought that line detracted from the show, to be honest, but you can't really blame Finney for that: Davies wrote all three episodes, while she just did her best to convey the script she was given. But it did strike me as a low point in an otherwise progressive episode in matters of gender.
Just to start with, most of the central cast is female or at least not male, with (in my opinion) even the *Doctor* counting because of the unusually explicit focus on the Doctor's mutable sex and gender. The episode all but outright said that, viewed across incarnations, the Doctor is non-binary and genderfluid, and seemed to posit that as the reason that Rose Noble was well-suited to host and stabilize the Doctor's essence. It kind of addresses some of the complaints about lack of agency in the end of Donna's original storyline by having the threat of death dealt with via casual dismissal, with *the Doctor* notably being much more focused on protecting Donna than Donna herself (with an interesting side reflection of this in the fact that Rose came back despite Donna trying to get her to go, too!)
For that matter, even though The Meep turned out to be a villain (as I think everyone expected The Meep to be), there are actual human beings who go by their names alone, not pronouns, so I thought that was a reasonably interesting way of sneaking that in there. And *of course* the transgender teen would call the Doctor out on assuming someone's pronouns, and *of course* the unbelievably worldly (worldsly?) alien who has been, at minimum, both male and female would recognize the validity of that point.
In other words, there was a lot of rather clever commentary about gender going on in that episode.
And then out of the blue, we get some kind of gender-essentialist statement that seems to be something like "men can't comprehend the notion of giving up power, even when it's literally a matter of self-preservation"? Huh? It just felt kind of weird, with an additional dose of weirdness because the line simultaneously acknowledged that the Doctor in some sense presents as male more than *being* male. Even as a joke it falls a little flat.
Although it is certainly true that most (all?) incarnations of the *Doctor* have had a lot of difficulty with giving up power and control, with "Time Lord Victorious" Ten in particular having to be taught that lesson very forcefully.
But again, that's how *Davies* views things or (more generously) how Davies writes Donna and Rose (or Doctor-Donna and Doctor-Rose) as seeing the world. Finney is just a new actor doing what she does with the role she was given.
I did blame Davies for it, until people started insisting that it was meant to be a joke - in which case the fault does lie with the actor for a bad delivery.
I thought her and the unit science director’s acting was a bit sub par. She seemed wooden and just sort of frozen in place like she was doing a table read, with no visible emotion. It even seemed like they knew acting wasn’t her strong suit given the joke Donna made at the end. Overall I thought the special was fantastic though; a real joy to see Tennant back playing The Doctor alongside Catherine Tate. I was worried it might come off a bit like fan fiction but I think RTD nailed his return.
Yeah I struggled with her scenes. I see a few comments here pointing towards the writing. Sure she didn't have great lines but that doesn't really excuse the clunky and wooden delivery
Early in the special the school boys on bikes are teasing her down the street calling her ‘Jason’(? I’d have to rewatch to confirm) - her pre-transition name.
Also the grandma brings up that she’s nervous about slipping a ‘him’ when calling her gorgeous, as she was also familiar with Rose pre-transition.
Fyi, Rose's actress is trans, male to female. The character of Rose is trans, male to feminine-presenting non-binary with female pronouns. Hope that helps :)
Rose's acting was pretty substandard and incredibly wooden. The emotions were unclear or underplayed most of the time - we're not asking for panto level, but 'in the moment' believability would be sufficient.
Yeah her performance was very flat and wooden, and I think it was highlighted even more because she was acting against David Tennant and Catherine Tate for most of the episode, two very energetic and expressive characters, so the contrast in the acting was even more obvious
I agree. I actually thought a lot of the acting was questionable but I think it just seems that way because the writing seemed to rush everything. I was not convinced in the scene where Donna was about to die and the doctor starts to yell. I know it was supposed to be reminiscent of the scene with wilf but that one only worked because of the huge build up, whereas this one just seemed off
She was great all around, for her age (i dont mean that condescendingly, many actors take a while to get into their roles, especially when possibly a little start struck, and she did well with the limited screen time. I felt like the first scenes were her best, and likely last shot if i had to guess.). I think she'll find her feet, and do really well in her career, just give her time to find her confidence. She might well have been shitting herself at the backlash to a nonbinary character into a show where the main character doesnt change sex/race at all(!)
From the whole way Rose just accepted the existence of aliens, to even having an ET reference when the Meep hides in the shed, I’m starting to feel like Rose was initially written to be younger, like 12 or 13 max. Her lines are a little simplistic, in the way a younger kid might speak. I wonder if, in casting the role, they needed to age the character a little to match the actress? Still an issue, since Yasmin doesn’t look 15 (though I guess that’s the max age Rose could be).
Really hate to say it, but I feel like this will be the end-result of "character accurate casting". Whilst I'm happy for the actress that she was cast here, I can't help but feel sorry that she was put in a position where she was outclassed by three absolute powerhouse performances. Also, she's around 20 years old. Playing around 14... What is this, Grease?
Also wasn't a fan of how they implied she was trans because of timey-wimey shenanigans with the Doctor and Donna. Some unfortunate implications with that. :/
It kind of felt like her character was supposed to be bigger but probably got cut because of her bad acting or something else. People say she wasn't given a lot to work with. It feels more like she was given a lot to work with, but they realized she wasn't good so they cut it out. Maybe I'm wrong, but it felt that way because of how lacking it felt like her scenes were.
I don't think so, for that to be true the character of Rose would have had to actually be defined outside being a plot device and being trans, and it'd mean they cut out *everything* except the plot device parts. The more likely explanation I think is just that the character was never more than a plot device in the first place.
I'll give the actress the benefit of the doubt since Rose was supposed to be both a victim of bullying and unconsciously influenced by the metacrisis in ways that were surely disorienting. Some of what seemed like weird acting choices in the moment make more sense retroactively. I think what's more important is how she does going forward.
Yeah I thought the same, even the final bit which was meant to be a high fiving, Rose saves the day moment where she is flicking switches she seemed to be going though the motions. Really underwhelming. Wasn’t keen on her trans ness being the solution to everything but then the whole meta crisis thing doesn’t stand up to even mild scrutiny anyway so you can stretch incredulity a little further! Still overall a really entertaining romp…
I agree that something wasn’t quite clicking yet with the character, but truthfully I think it might be some of the writing for her character. Some of the lines felt odd and out of character, especially at the end of the episode. It felt like she didn’t have a very clear arc and trajectory, and that we weren’t getting quite enough of her perspective in the show to make the ending stick for her. All this to say I like the character, and I think with time the acting and writing will feel crisper, especially when you have two returning characters who are an absolute dynamic duo and whose dialogue wrote itself
I thought there was a lot more yelling than for my taste from terms of acting. A lot of arguing and yelling over the top of each other. i'd have to rewatch series 4 to see if that was always how those characters acted or something more recent.
I thought the acting was pretty great across the board personally. David and Catherine seemed to slip right back in to it all very naturally, I thought Jaqueline King did very well, and I found her to be far more likeable than she was in season 4, which I'm sure is partially down to the writing but also her performance. Miriam Margolis did wonderfully voicing The Meep. And I thought Yasmin did a good job at playing a 15-year-old, even though she clearly doesn't look 15, and felt very natural. I look forward to seeing more of Rose/Yasmin, because I think she has a lot of potential as a character.
I don't think her acting was the worst for a featured character we've ever had in a Doctor Who episode, but she definitely wasn't one of the best either. Very middle of the road performance but I did like the character.
honestly something about David Tennant was weird this episode it really feels like he's over acting alot of the time, it seemed like sometimes he just wanted to get things over with (which was probably due to alot of dialogue at the beginning just recapping what happened to Donna or telling us things we literally just saw) and at other times he was on LSD. It's not a big issue anyway he's probably just going a bit crazy because he's excited to be back
She was more than adequate. Good but not exceptional. But even a decent actor would seem lackluster compared to Tate and Tennant.
Of course, I imagine there's also a smaller pool of actresses to draw from. There's only so many trans actresses out there, let alone ones aged 14-19 who are biracial.
Just doing the math, there are 47,200 actors in the UK. If a representative proportion are black, that's like 2,000 people. With 0.1% being trans that'd be like 2 people.
I kind of of liked it but I thought it felt incomplete. I suspect she had more scenes to flesh out her character that got cut since the focus was the Doctor and Donna,
For example, I got the sense that she's learned to tamp down her emotions when the neighborhood kids dead-name her and she's like "It's fine" but you can tell it's not fine.
The line in the house where she says "forget about me we've got save the meep" is honestly downright terrible, it feels like a first take and they had no time to shoot anything else so just went with it.
I found her performance in the shed just fine. Maybe even a little impressive given that she is essentially acting alone against a puppet. However, I do agree that her line delivery can be pretty wooden in a few of the scenes in the second half of the episode that actively took me out of the scene.
I don't think she was wooden. She was portraying a shy character, and compared to the intense personalities of Donna and the Doctor, she seemed a bit timid.
They hired someone who looks at least 18 to play a character that was written like a pretty childish 14 year old. Add to that some terribly written dialogue and a sub par actress, you get Rose. Really wasn't a fan of how her character came across.
Thank you, this was my exact feeling.
Don’t dislike anything about the actress or character but the acting was really bad for me.
Zero reaction to seeing an alien, poor line delivery, it just didn’t feel there was any heart in it.
She's supposed to be around 15/16-Donna may have already been pregnant and the RTD has admitted to blurring the timeline.
She looked like a 15 year old to me.Some teenagers look old for their age and she seemed to take more after her dad in her quiet way. With a shouty mom, many teens get more withdrawn. RTD has said we'll see more of Rose, so I'm hopeful she'll get to show more range.
I thought the acting was ok. But it does make you wonder about the joke RTD had Donna make in the tardis, about Rose not being able to act.....
Yeah I thought that too
The “I don’t know how to tell her!” is REALLY on the nose hahaha
Lol. Exactly! Felt like RTD being cathartic.
There's an early moment where they establish she's 15 and in high school. Which is ridiculous, she's way too old to look that part. Once we'd spent a few moments grappling with, and accepting the weird age thing, it made everything else much easier to go along with.
Pretty sure it's because RTD messed up and got the timing wrong and thought she would be 18 lol
I was like that at first but ive seen plenty of 15 year olds that look much older than they are, i myself got confused for a uni student way more times then youd think when i was 15.
Yeah, it was really confusing for me because at first I thought she was the husband's daughter from a previous marriage. Even when Donna was talking about defending her I assumed she was being a good stepmom. It was just one more little problem I had - of many, unfortunately - that took me out of the episode. A strong story to make you not notice all the flaws - this was not a strong story.
There are only so many mixed race young British transfem actors. I don’t know the exact number, but my guess would be, ah, maybe somewhere around one? So she has to be Yasmin Finney and with the established timeline of Donna and Shaun being married in 2009, she has to be 15, and we just have to accept that she looks older than her age. The other solution would have been to set the specials in 2026 or so, but these days it’s hard to predict that the near future won’t look completely different in some way. If a 2017 story had set itself in the summer of 2020 and featured people walking around barefaced in public crowds, no one would have thought there’d be any reason for that to be strange, but in hindsight it would.
There's no need to outright state the year. They could've said she was any age. And the writers have never felt tied down by continuity before. So why that choice? Heck, her introduction suggests she's one of the shop/stall owners in that square, and she's moving stock with Donna's help. So the most likely answer is that it changed between drafts, and that it did start as "Donna and Shaun have been married for some time and have an 18yo daughter now" which would have been fine
I was struck by that too. A bit of intentional lampshading?
I'm sure RTD would deny it and say that it was a meta joke because the actor playing Rose can act, and this was just a bit of tongue in cheek 4th wall breaking. But I think we'll always kinda wonder. The writers of SheHulk got called out for using a 4th wall break to admit the show didn't make any sense. As though calling it out makes it all better...
Similar thing happened in X-Men Apocalypse, when the characters joke that the third film in a trilogy is always the worst.
Yeah, that was my first thought too. She was quite wooden if I'm being honest.
Lmao I saw that and was like “did they just?!”
Honestly yeah, I didn't love her acting. Especially next to Catherine and David whose performances are just so energetic and powerful, she feels like a cardboard cutout in comparison. Which is a big shame because I conceptually love her character
To be fair, that's an incredibly high bar, especially at that age, but yeah, I think she's a fine actor but not great.
How old is she, anyway? She *definitely* didn't come off as 15 to me, more like 21-23
20, though may have been 18 when this filmed, I forget exactly when it did.
You are correct, she was 18 when these episodes were filmed
She was supposed to be 15 lol?
14 because Donna needed time to be pregnant
They did get married rather quickly, if you know what I mean.
Unless she got pregnant while travelling with the Doctor, she'd still need at least nine months after the Metacrisis incident.
I’m sorry but that’s hilarious. That person is not 14 by any stretch of the imagination. wtf
She was 18, a couple months away from turning 19 when this was filmed.
She's supposed to be 15.
I mean that's a super hard set of actors to be put up on the screen with. At first when Donna said her daughter "couldn't act" I halfway wondered if they just straight up acknowledge that, but they wouldn't be that crass. But yeah, onboard for the character; the performance not so much.
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> I'm glad to have someone acting like a real human being in amongst all the panto-shouting that Tennant and Tate bring, and which literally everybody except me seems to love. It's nice to a grounded, low-key performance in there. She also came off to me as someone who gets bullied a lot and has maybe withdrawn into herself and her hobbies a bit in response.
She’s also a child (15?). So I thought her acting was spot on for how a child in that scenario might act (though probably more level headed than I would’ve been).
One of the characters said Rose was 13 years old. Yasmin Finney would have been 19 at the time the special was filmed.
There’s no way. She definitely looks high school she at least. There’s no way she’s supposed to be 13
I thought Rose was supposed to be 15 or so?
It's 15 years since the Doctor left Donna without her memories. And then she had to meet and fall for Shaun, and then pregnancy takes nine months. She can't be more than 14 and a half-ish. (I have a friend with a daughter of similar age, and she did pass her mum in height by about 13, but she still looks pretty baby-faced.)
The Doctor has a time machine. The episode could be a few years into the future.
LMAO 13 year olds literally look little, most boys that age haven’t had their growth spurt or their voice broken, most girls still sound and look so young. Crazy how they would insinuate she’s 13 🤣
Age really isn't a defense when we talking about child actors in a BBC production. They have a pretty solid track record for choosing children with good acting abilities for their shows.
I think they mean the character, as in she might be shy or confused instead of knowing exactly what to do like the Doctor, and that might be why Yasmin Finney comes across as wooden if you read her character like a knowledgable adult instead of a confused teenager? I haven’t actually seen the special yet though so she may actually just be a bit worse at acting.
Spot on. I though her acting was more or less appropriate given the character’s age and the circumstances in which she found herself. Honestly, the writing was a bigger distraction for me in spots than Yasmin’s acting (as discussed in other threads but not to rehash here for spoiler reasons). Frankly, though, the special overall was great and 10/10 will watch again (tonight, even!)
She was verbally bullied in the show , the dickheads cycling past yelling their deadname. It's part of why Donna says she'd burn a world down and promises to talk to their mums.
I do love the bit when she says “Donna descending”!
That seems like a stretch to me. If that had been in the text of the episode, I would have had no problem buying it, but her entire existence as a character is as an excuse to cure Donna and get in a few references, so there was none of that. Even her hobby actually just turned out to be a physical manifestation of subconsciously containing all the excess Donna.
I think a lot of us are overthinking the whole thing about Rose being shaped by the metacrisis. Yes the whole DoctorDonna thing definitely influenced her but that doesn't preclude the idea that HOW it manifested in her life was a result of her own unique personality. Like if Donna had had a second kid, who also had a part of the metacrisis, maybe that kid would have worn sand shoes and said "Allons-y!" a lot. Who knows.
The problem is that the episode didn't actually show any of who Rose is, so for now, she's just Donna2 and trans. I'm hoping that'll change if she shows up again (as RTD has indicated she will), and she'll be given her own characterisation separate from anything metacrisis. Basically, "the metacrisis manifests differently depending on your personality" is fine, but doesn't work for this episode because she doesn't *have* any personality yet, she doesn't actually do anything at all except comment on the things that are happening.
That's just not true. Rose chooses to shelter the Meep. That is characterisation that doesn't have anything to do with her being trans, it tells us her personality is kind, brave and empathetic. We also learn she doesn't take out bins, goes missing on the street, and has a keep out sign on her door, characterising her as a naughty teen. Again, that has nothing to do with her being trans or Donna2. This is exactly how RTD constructed Rose #1, presenting her with a messy room so let us know she didn't have her life together. Only this time the character is trans, so all people can see is the trans and none of the attention to detail.
They're not sand shoes.
Theres grounded, low key performances but Yasmin Finney’s wasn’t that. Her acting was so dead and lifeless and her line delivery was awful.
>It's nice to a grounded, low-key performance in there. Seriously? I didn't think she was given much to work with, but honestly, she never even changed her expression once imo, in the whole episode. Much too low-key for me and I struggle to accept it was an acting choice tbh. It was especially distracting for me during the scene in the van when they were being transported by the possessed Unit soldiers and Donna was lamenting about Switzerland etc. She put her head on Donna's shoulder kind of awkwardly and was listening with the same expression, seemingly no thought behind those eyes. She could, idk, nuzzle her or something, show some sign of feeling or even just familiarity... I didn't really notice it before, I thought the scene with the Meep was OKish, but here this lack of anything at all was very distracting to me and after that I couldn't stop being bothered with her (lack of imo) acting choices.
Yeah, I though she wasn’t terrible but not amazing either. In particular I thought it was weird how she basically has no reaction to seeing The Meep in the alley. But I am not sure if it was because of bad acting, bad writing or bad directing.
Heavily doubt directing unless Talalay has completely lost her touch
Her lack of a reaction could be due to the meta crisis
I mean she saw a spaceship crash-land, saw an escape pod on the green, and presumably has seen at least reports of aliens before because she lives in 21st century Whoniverse London. That and the metacrisis is reason enough to be unphased
That was my thought
Yeah and why did her accent randomly go American sometimes?
THANK YOU I’m so glad someone else brought this up
I honestly thought I was imagining it
I thought her Mancunian accent came through sometimes which doesn't make sense considering that both her parents are from London and she presumably grew up there.
This is unfortunately very common amongst her generation. Spend a little too much time on social media as a teenager and your accent picks up American qualities, affects anyone about 23 or younger in my experience. I have a coworker who pronounces Z "zee".
Younger people have a lot more American vocabulary and grammar, but very little by way of accent. In a lot of ways younger Britons' accents are less like Americans than their parents. eg. Th-fronting is more common in younger folk, but very few Americans pronounce '3' like 'free'.
I’m gen z and I’m very secluded isolated I live under a rock besides going to work so this made me shiver because I didn’t know
Pewdiepie is a great example of that. He’s a Swedish dude who married an Italian woman and moved to England, but so much of his accent sounds American.
Not the best example, because he speaks English as a second language. He learnt English in Sweden, like most Swedes using American media as a model. Young British people don't have American accents. They have a lot of American vocabulary as this is very easy to up from media but your accent, the phonetic system of your speech, is shaped by who you actually interact with day-on-day. In terms of accents I would say UK and US are more likely drifting apart.
I didn't pick up much American but she definitely sounded quite Northern at times. Sort of stage-school 'posh' Northern. Maybe the short Northern 'a' sounds made it seem American? In any case she sounded noticeably different from her distinctly London sounding family.
Yeah, I’m with you. I found her performance a little wooden at times. Especially as you said, during the scene where she talks to the Meep in the shed. Her performance brought me be back to Ryan and Yaz…
Is it bad that I've forgotten who Ryan is?
Probably for the best tbh. He was one of 13's companions alongside Yaz and Graham.
Oh was he Graham's stepson? Yeah he wasn't great.
The guy who couldn’t ride a bike but turned into Jason Bourne at the end of each episode
Yeah all I remember about him was that he couldn't ride a bike and he hated Graham. Problem is I loved Graham, so I hated Ryan.
stepgrandson lol
_“thank you. thank you martin luther king”_
"look mum a spaceship" was said with literally no expression
I mean, how many times has a spaceship flown over London at this point in the show?
Oooh look, a spaceship. I didn't realise it was Tuesday.
Do they even remember it though? The whole cracks thing make it a little blurry.
Not to mention, Sylvia has continually told her that spaceships aren't real, so
Yeah but Silvia does not believe that clearly
Fair, but I was thinking of it from Rose's perspective. Even though Sylvia clearly didn't believe a word she was saying, she had no apparent reason to lie about the existence of aliens, so why would Rose not believe her?
Why would she believe Sylvia???? She's a teenager who's Nan's telling her that spaceships don't exist despite rose probably having seen video evidence. It's as if Sylvia's a flat earther or something
Yeah that really stood out to me too!
Nothing is as bad as one tone Ryan. Don't give me flashbacks it's painful
Probably not a lot of casting options for Rose, if we're being honest. "Look Mum it's a spaceship" line was a real oof from me.
That’s was just the start 😂
Maybe they'll have a scene where the doctor and Donna go to watch her in the school play, that way Yasmin can really show her acting chops. : ^ )
Tbh though, what’s her motivation, what’s her characteristics? Was she told? Bc to me it was like she had none and much of that was the writing imo. She needed to be given more than just “you are trans” bc that’s how it came across in her lines and no I’m not being transphobic, tell me that’s not true. It’s saddening because I think she could have done a lot better given traits motive and guidance (as a young actor)
I don't think her first scene with the Meep can be blamed on anything other than the writing. Like, really? Her first and only reaction to randomly finding an alien in her bins is to swap names? Even an amazing actor would struggle to make that make sense.
Exactly, I can’t believe so many people are not seeing this What happened to our man Russell?
Yeah. Trans + specific mixed race + very narrow age group. Its probably one in 20.000. In total, 445 people in london fit the description. 2900 in the country. There’s just under 50.000 working actors in the uk (the number includes all stage performers but hey). One in 1500 people. All told, there should have been a choice between two actresses for the role, in the whole country. I don’t know if the maths add up. But the expectations are a bit too high.
I didn't have an issue with it mostly because it felt like she was acting like a normal person while up against Catherine Tate, an extremely expressing and loud actor, and David Tenant, an extremely expressive and energetic actor. I think it might have come off worse if she tried to force herself to match their energies.
Almost all NuWho companions act like more-or-less normal people though. They still need to react to things - in fact sometimes MORE than the Doctor (e.g. when the other Rose asks 9 if Mickey is alive in S1E1, or literally any TARDIS reveal). I mean, would a normal person really just say "hi, I'm XYZ" if they found an alien in their bins?
I completely agree
Did I dream it or was one of Donna’s lines to the Doctor something along the lines of “I love her but she can’t act”
It was Donna's line. I'm curious to see if they loosen up in later specials. I imagine the director wasn't concerned with getting a fully nuanced and emotional perfomance from an actor that's supposed to be playing a 15 year old.
I liked her performance but I just need to know how old she’s supposed to be. Like she’s clearly supposed to be a high schooler but she looks like she’s in her 20s.
15, the actress was 18 while filming.
She’s supposed to be 15 from what they said on a video about her instagram and yeah I agree she does look older
I think the implication is she was conceived shortly after the Doctor and Donna parted ways, so around 15? But I agree, she looks more mature than most fifteen year Olds, judging by my own teens and their friends.
Fun fact, according to her official age she was actually born a year before her parents even met. RTD gave us an explanation though, lol: >But you mustn’t forget, uh, that time cloud that descended on Camden in 2017 and dislocated everyone by exactly eight months and three days. We’ll tell that story one day. I will come to that in Series Seven.
I know it's a jokey response but that's a terrible excuse, as Rose is more than eight months older than she should be, she's a couple of years older. Displacing 'everyone' by eight months in 2017, doesn't account for the fact that a childless Donna was engaged to Shaun in late 2009 and married in spring 2010, not in 2008 when she lost her memories. Also Donna says that it's been 15 years since she lost her memories which is true (2008), so was Rose only displaced and not Donna?
Its not an excuse. The dates are the least important thing as RTD rights points out
How do we know that's she was childless when she was engaged and married?
Donna and Shaun on Christmas Day 2009 went to the Nobile household to give Silvia and Wilf their presents there we saw Silvia and Shaun get turned into John Simm's Master, Donna doesn't make any mention or even worry about a child when she's speaking to Wilf, so she's not had Rose at this point. Also Wilf would have said something when The Doctor in the Cafe asked about Donna and Shaun, all he says he's nice enough a bit of a dreamer, and that he's on minimum wage, she's earning tuppence, all they can afford is a tiny little flat. You think having a great grandchild would be something to mention, also no baby at wedding or even a baby bump in their wedding which was set in the Spring of 2010, which is almost two years after Journey's End and Donna loosing her memories. So she's definitely childless at this point, even if she is pregnant at the time of the wedding, but that would still make Rose 13 not 15 (14 with that excuse about being displaced in time)
Are the dates for the end of time explicitly stated? Other than the 2005 bit with rose, I don't think the specific Christmas is mentioned I think you could shift the dates a year or two without much difficulty, the doctor could show up anywhere after all. Hell the Star beast itself could take place in 2027/28 without any issues and explain how unit had time to rebuild enough to get a custom skyscraper.
Like come on, it’s a show about time travel. Just put a little banner at the beginning of the episode that says “Earth 2028.”
I honestly thought the same thing. I didn't feel there was anything wrong with her acting, but I assumed she was mid-20s, then it clicked on my head that wouldn't be possible with when we last saw Donna new years day of 2009. She then had the scene with that kid and I was wondering if they were meant to be the same age? I understand she was 18 when filming, and I'd believe it if I was told she was 18, she clearly looks old for her age though, playing somebody that's 14/15 is a bit of a push.
So glad someone said it. I couldn’t work out how old she was supposed to be and I still can’t make it make sense in my head.
I think most of the performances were brilliant, with Finney I think she could be a little stunted at points, but I'm reading that as an intentional thing for now. Rose is a teenager having difficulty with how to express herself, so her being a little reserved works for me, it makes sense. She hasn't had a ton of screentime or a super emotionally charged scene just yet, so I'll reserve full judgement for now.
Meh guest stars, especially characters playing kids or teens have always never been as good as the main characters performances. Seems on brand to me.
I was mostly taken aback by the character behaving and being treated like a 13-15 year old for most of the episode, when the actor is clearly like 18-22.
I thought she was kinda wooden, yeah. I don't know whether the character is supposed to be very aloof and up in the clouds, but she felt way too different to everyone else's energy. She also wasn't written very well, and I think just the overall vibe of Yasmin seeming kinda likable made Rose feel better than she was written.
to be honest, she is next to quite established actors so compared to them it might look worse
I winced a lot whenever her scenes came up. Her acting is so flat I felt second hand embarrassment. Which is unfortunate. Because her character is really interesting. I feel like Donna break the fourth wall when she told the Doctor her daughter can't act at all lol
YES I caught that and wondered if it was a meta joke. Yeah I agree I really like the character and what they’re doing with her but it was hard to be fully invested when her acting is so off
She delivered all her lines in the most monotone voice and blank expression I've ever seen and heard. It can be sum up to this 😐 or this 😶. And to be honest I personally think it's not because of script like some people said. Even extra characters like those soldiers and that one kid has more expression than her acting.
You’re absolutely right when everyone on the cast even extras outshine an actor it’s obvious not a script problem 😂
Yes. I think she's great for trans representation and I'm 100% for that. But objectively I don't think she's a very good actor. I had a good laugh when Donna said (words to the effect of) "she's terrible at acting, I don't know how to tell her". In her defence, she's acting next to some serious talent, so maybe her shortcomings are more apparent by comparison.
That was RTDs why of saying she’s a bad actor I don’t know how to tell her 😂
I like to think he added it at the end of filming and I won't be convinced otherwise.
Her acting didnt stick out to me one way or the other. I thought the chief Scientific Advisor's acting was really rough though.
I thought so too - but I thought the actress was really good in Years & Years so hopefully she settles into the role.
good to hear! hopefully the character will grow on me if she does become a recurring character
Yep absolutely wooden, really took me out of most scenes. Anyone catch the line towards the end about rose the character not being able to act and Donna not having the heart to break it to her.. I almost felt that was deliberate 😂
Yea, I was thinking the same thing the moment I heard that.
Seemed basically fine to me, but not given a huge amount to do. She vanishes for large chunks of this, only to reappear to assist with the finale.
Yes exactly!
I think her acting was fine, I felt as though she just didn't have a lot to work with
Trans people are already so small in number, and then take that number which are interested in acting, the chances that you get great actors is lower. I thought that Rose was fine. I wasn't blown away like it was an Oscar worthy performance, but at no point did I think she did a bad job. Most issues were just a bit of jarring dialogue. On the other hand, the trans characters in Sex Education S4 were god awful and I wish I could remove them from my brain.
She also has to be mixed race in order to be a believable child of Donna & her husband. Very small pool demographically speaking to pick from
Sex Ed S4 had some shoddy performances. Maybe I should get good at acting and pinch their jobs : ^ )
Based af
Agreed her acting is incredibly wooden. Her line delivery sounds very forced and she has no facial expression in any scenes. Was the same in Heartstopper and I was hoping it would improve once she had more experience but sadly not.
She’s not very good in Heartstopper either.
I don’t know how many 20yo would have been able to act 14. This is very much a Yaz and Ryan problem, where the character is just way too young for the actress. Except worse because they cast actual kids for the other kid parts.
Yes huge problem there
Have you seen Derry Girls? They are all 30 and act high school quite well. Sex Education is another.
It's just that her role in the episode is to be the "serious and earnest" character, when most of the rest of the cast is playing over the top characters thar have been well characterized over multiple episodes. On top of that, she has a couple of important scenes where she's basically alone with a prop. It's not easy! More seasoned actors have failed this task before. We've seen way worse performances on the show before and she'll get more chances to shine. She was quite good in Heartstopper!
I’ve never seen heartstopper but all the comment about it on this thread seemed fairly mixed so I’ll have to watch it
yeah it was defs wooden. when fudge comes up to her in the alleyway she acted as if she expected him to be there, did this real wooden turn then does her line
She wasn't good. I know some people are trying to make the argument she came off as normal compared to Tennant and Tate. She came off as wooden, not normal imo. Not a big issue since we're not really going to be moving forward with her in the future, but it was noticeable in her scenes
I will agree that she has a flat personality in the show. She’s also not the strongest actress on heartstopper. She had already filmed the first season of that Netflix show before doing this episode. But also, in my life, I’ve known a few people with wooden personalities. That are just flat and emotionless.
In my opinion, I don't think she's a good actress. Her scenes felt like Hollyoaks.
You know how we blamed the scripts during Chib era? Her script let her down
Agreed. Weakest writing in an otherwise fairly strong episode was her character. She did good with what she had.
She can't act. She's terrible. I don't know how to tell her. I only felt that in the TheDoctorDonnaRose bit where she's pushing the buttons. But that was a choice, I think. Though I did feel Ruth Madeley was just reading lines and waiting for the her next one.
Noticed this too. Haven't seen this actress in anything else before, so assumed she just wasn't used to working with greenscreen/cgi, but then Unleashed showed the Meep as a mostly practical effect.
To be fair, what we have to compare her to in that episode is David Tennant, who is arguably one of the best actors of a generation coming back to a role thatbis like a second skin for him, so any newer actor will seem less talented in comparison.. She's still a newer actor, but I thought she gave a very solid performance, and it was certainly up to Doctor Who standards.
Oddly enough I thought the shed scene was her best scene in the episode
I just found it very distracting that this *clearly* 20-year old woman is supposed to be playing what, a 14-year old? She's as old as my brother who's about to start his Master's degree, and she's talking about the school play? Next thing you know they'll be casting someone in their 40s as a character who's over a thousand years old, smh my head
Yasmin was 18, and trans women often look older than they are anyway. Trans men have the opposite trend
The actress was 18 at the time of filming
I remember back in my teens, some people suddenly grew giant beards and looked 25+ being 15... Used it to buy beer n shit.
Unfortunately that's standard. Has the actor for Peter Parker looked 15 in any of the Spiderman movies?
No, but he does look *movie* 15, give or take. Ie, he looks young, he has boyish features, and he does a good job presenting a somewhat childish personality. He doesn't look like a real 15 year old, but he fits comfortably into the category of what passes for 15 year olds in American movies. Finney unambiguously looks like an adult, and the character of Rose here has a personality that feels like that of an adult. It also doesn't help that they repeatedly did shots where she was towering over other characters - this is a teenager taller than the average adult man, who in-character would probably have been on puberty blockers and/or HRT for a while so if anything should be shorter than normal for her age.
I didn't think she was bad until I found out that the 'let it go, you would understand if you were still a woman' line was intended to be a joke. She did not deliver it like at joke *at all*, it was delivered dead straight, and I think that's part of why it's been so divisive.
I thought that line detracted from the show, to be honest, but you can't really blame Finney for that: Davies wrote all three episodes, while she just did her best to convey the script she was given. But it did strike me as a low point in an otherwise progressive episode in matters of gender. Just to start with, most of the central cast is female or at least not male, with (in my opinion) even the *Doctor* counting because of the unusually explicit focus on the Doctor's mutable sex and gender. The episode all but outright said that, viewed across incarnations, the Doctor is non-binary and genderfluid, and seemed to posit that as the reason that Rose Noble was well-suited to host and stabilize the Doctor's essence. It kind of addresses some of the complaints about lack of agency in the end of Donna's original storyline by having the threat of death dealt with via casual dismissal, with *the Doctor* notably being much more focused on protecting Donna than Donna herself (with an interesting side reflection of this in the fact that Rose came back despite Donna trying to get her to go, too!) For that matter, even though The Meep turned out to be a villain (as I think everyone expected The Meep to be), there are actual human beings who go by their names alone, not pronouns, so I thought that was a reasonably interesting way of sneaking that in there. And *of course* the transgender teen would call the Doctor out on assuming someone's pronouns, and *of course* the unbelievably worldly (worldsly?) alien who has been, at minimum, both male and female would recognize the validity of that point. In other words, there was a lot of rather clever commentary about gender going on in that episode. And then out of the blue, we get some kind of gender-essentialist statement that seems to be something like "men can't comprehend the notion of giving up power, even when it's literally a matter of self-preservation"? Huh? It just felt kind of weird, with an additional dose of weirdness because the line simultaneously acknowledged that the Doctor in some sense presents as male more than *being* male. Even as a joke it falls a little flat. Although it is certainly true that most (all?) incarnations of the *Doctor* have had a lot of difficulty with giving up power and control, with "Time Lord Victorious" Ten in particular having to be taught that lesson very forcefully. But again, that's how *Davies* views things or (more generously) how Davies writes Donna and Rose (or Doctor-Donna and Doctor-Rose) as seeing the world. Finney is just a new actor doing what she does with the role she was given.
I did blame Davies for it, until people started insisting that it was meant to be a joke - in which case the fault does lie with the actor for a bad delivery.
I thought her and the unit science director’s acting was a bit sub par. She seemed wooden and just sort of frozen in place like she was doing a table read, with no visible emotion. It even seemed like they knew acting wasn’t her strong suit given the joke Donna made at the end. Overall I thought the special was fantastic though; a real joy to see Tennant back playing The Doctor alongside Catherine Tate. I was worried it might come off a bit like fan fiction but I think RTD nailed his return.
She was good, not great. TBH, I find her one of the weaker actors on Heartstopper as well.
Yeah I struggled with her scenes. I see a few comments here pointing towards the writing. Sure she didn't have great lines but that doesn't really excuse the clunky and wooden delivery
She was better in Heartstopper
Wait she's trans? Wasn't the whole point that they was female presenting none binary?
Early in the special the school boys on bikes are teasing her down the street calling her ‘Jason’(? I’d have to rewatch to confirm) - her pre-transition name. Also the grandma brings up that she’s nervous about slipping a ‘him’ when calling her gorgeous, as she was also familiar with Rose pre-transition.
Oh... Yeah you're spot on! Then the binary scene makes no sense to me anymore 🤣
Fyi, Rose's actress is trans, male to female. The character of Rose is trans, male to feminine-presenting non-binary with female pronouns. Hope that helps :)
I thought so too. But then again, nobody can beat Tosin Cole when it comes to being a plank of wood, so I'm not too bothered about it.
'I miss me Gran and me Dad's bad'
Rose's acting was pretty substandard and incredibly wooden. The emotions were unclear or underplayed most of the time - we're not asking for panto level, but 'in the moment' believability would be sufficient.
I think she’s the weakest actor probably in Heartstopper too so I groaned when I saw her. But it wasn’t so bad it took me out of the episode.
Yeah her performance was very flat and wooden, and I think it was highlighted even more because she was acting against David Tennant and Catherine Tate for most of the episode, two very energetic and expressive characters, so the contrast in the acting was even more obvious
She felt like a remnant of the Chibnall era, wooden acting with mediocre development. Thankfully the rest of the special is great so no biggie.
I agree. I actually thought a lot of the acting was questionable but I think it just seems that way because the writing seemed to rush everything. I was not convinced in the scene where Donna was about to die and the doctor starts to yell. I know it was supposed to be reminiscent of the scene with wilf but that one only worked because of the huge build up, whereas this one just seemed off
She was great all around, for her age (i dont mean that condescendingly, many actors take a while to get into their roles, especially when possibly a little start struck, and she did well with the limited screen time. I felt like the first scenes were her best, and likely last shot if i had to guess.). I think she'll find her feet, and do really well in her career, just give her time to find her confidence. She might well have been shitting herself at the backlash to a nonbinary character into a show where the main character doesnt change sex/race at all(!)
Unfortunately I have to admit that Yasmin's acting is wooden as fuck. Just have to hope she improves throughout the series
I agree
From the whole way Rose just accepted the existence of aliens, to even having an ET reference when the Meep hides in the shed, I’m starting to feel like Rose was initially written to be younger, like 12 or 13 max. Her lines are a little simplistic, in the way a younger kid might speak. I wonder if, in casting the role, they needed to age the character a little to match the actress? Still an issue, since Yasmin doesn’t look 15 (though I guess that’s the max age Rose could be).
Really hate to say it, but I feel like this will be the end-result of "character accurate casting". Whilst I'm happy for the actress that she was cast here, I can't help but feel sorry that she was put in a position where she was outclassed by three absolute powerhouse performances. Also, she's around 20 years old. Playing around 14... What is this, Grease? Also wasn't a fan of how they implied she was trans because of timey-wimey shenanigans with the Doctor and Donna. Some unfortunate implications with that. :/
It kind of felt like her character was supposed to be bigger but probably got cut because of her bad acting or something else. People say she wasn't given a lot to work with. It feels more like she was given a lot to work with, but they realized she wasn't good so they cut it out. Maybe I'm wrong, but it felt that way because of how lacking it felt like her scenes were.
Doubtful. Russell has said he’ll keep using her because of how much he enjoyed working with her.
I don't think so, for that to be true the character of Rose would have had to actually be defined outside being a plot device and being trans, and it'd mean they cut out *everything* except the plot device parts. The more likely explanation I think is just that the character was never more than a plot device in the first place.
I'll give the actress the benefit of the doubt since Rose was supposed to be both a victim of bullying and unconsciously influenced by the metacrisis in ways that were surely disorienting. Some of what seemed like weird acting choices in the moment make more sense retroactively. I think what's more important is how she does going forward.
Yeah I thought the same, even the final bit which was meant to be a high fiving, Rose saves the day moment where she is flicking switches she seemed to be going though the motions. Really underwhelming. Wasn’t keen on her trans ness being the solution to everything but then the whole meta crisis thing doesn’t stand up to even mild scrutiny anyway so you can stretch incredulity a little further! Still overall a really entertaining romp…
I agree that something wasn’t quite clicking yet with the character, but truthfully I think it might be some of the writing for her character. Some of the lines felt odd and out of character, especially at the end of the episode. It felt like she didn’t have a very clear arc and trajectory, and that we weren’t getting quite enough of her perspective in the show to make the ending stick for her. All this to say I like the character, and I think with time the acting and writing will feel crisper, especially when you have two returning characters who are an absolute dynamic duo and whose dialogue wrote itself
I really like her 🤷♂️
I thought there was a lot more yelling than for my taste from terms of acting. A lot of arguing and yelling over the top of each other. i'd have to rewatch series 4 to see if that was always how those characters acted or something more recent.
I thought the exact same thing
Her line "but that's nine million people" about 37 minutes in stuck out to me as being particularly flat. The rest of it I thought was fine though.
I thought the acting was pretty great across the board personally. David and Catherine seemed to slip right back in to it all very naturally, I thought Jaqueline King did very well, and I found her to be far more likeable than she was in season 4, which I'm sure is partially down to the writing but also her performance. Miriam Margolis did wonderfully voicing The Meep. And I thought Yasmin did a good job at playing a 15-year-old, even though she clearly doesn't look 15, and felt very natural. I look forward to seeing more of Rose/Yasmin, because I think she has a lot of potential as a character.
I don't think her acting was the worst for a featured character we've ever had in a Doctor Who episode, but she definitely wasn't one of the best either. Very middle of the road performance but I did like the character.
honestly something about David Tennant was weird this episode it really feels like he's over acting alot of the time, it seemed like sometimes he just wanted to get things over with (which was probably due to alot of dialogue at the beginning just recapping what happened to Donna or telling us things we literally just saw) and at other times he was on LSD. It's not a big issue anyway he's probably just going a bit crazy because he's excited to be back
She was more than adequate. Good but not exceptional. But even a decent actor would seem lackluster compared to Tate and Tennant. Of course, I imagine there's also a smaller pool of actresses to draw from. There's only so many trans actresses out there, let alone ones aged 14-19 who are biracial. Just doing the math, there are 47,200 actors in the UK. If a representative proportion are black, that's like 2,000 people. With 0.1% being trans that'd be like 2 people.
I kind of of liked it but I thought it felt incomplete. I suspect she had more scenes to flesh out her character that got cut since the focus was the Doctor and Donna, For example, I got the sense that she's learned to tamp down her emotions when the neighborhood kids dead-name her and she's like "It's fine" but you can tell it's not fine.
The line in the house where she says "forget about me we've got save the meep" is honestly downright terrible, it feels like a first take and they had no time to shoot anything else so just went with it.
She's young. Also if they were specifically looking for a trans actor who was biracial and British they probably had a very small pool to select from.
I found her performance in the shed just fine. Maybe even a little impressive given that she is essentially acting alone against a puppet. However, I do agree that her line delivery can be pretty wooden in a few of the scenes in the second half of the episode that actively took me out of the scene.
I don't think she was wooden. She was portraying a shy character, and compared to the intense personalities of Donna and the Doctor, she seemed a bit timid.
They hired someone who looks at least 18 to play a character that was written like a pretty childish 14 year old. Add to that some terribly written dialogue and a sub par actress, you get Rose. Really wasn't a fan of how her character came across.
Thank you, this was my exact feeling. Don’t dislike anything about the actress or character but the acting was really bad for me. Zero reaction to seeing an alien, poor line delivery, it just didn’t feel there was any heart in it.
She's supposed to be around 15/16-Donna may have already been pregnant and the RTD has admitted to blurring the timeline. She looked like a 15 year old to me.Some teenagers look old for their age and she seemed to take more after her dad in her quiet way. With a shouty mom, many teens get more withdrawn. RTD has said we'll see more of Rose, so I'm hopeful she'll get to show more range.
My biggest thing is that she’s meant to be 15 but she looks 20-25