You're never the same person you were sixteen or so years ago, and television, for good or ill, has become more accepting of things RTD would have been restrained from doing back then too. Years and Years and It's A Sin were proof enough the man is angry at politics and the state of Brtiain, he called Tory voters enables of liars and murderers, you were never going to get a fair and balanced/all-escapism Davies.
Not that I'm bothered, all science-fiction has a social or political message to it, that's what's supposed to make you think, otherwise you might as well just be mindless entertainment like Power Rangers or a Marvel movie. Chibnall's problem was he didn't execute all that well enough and everything was just an under-acted, under-written delivery afraid to really go to town on it's subject matter and pulling back to the point it annoyed both sides. Moffat barely disguised it either in series ten but series ten still had decent stories ("Thin Ice" has the "history is a whitewash" line but is otherwise a cracking good historical)
RTD I believe will make the episode entertaining, but unfortunately we live in a world where the alt right and casual audiences have been conditioned to hate all politically-leaning left centre programmes and they have found they can make a great income online raging about it.
If you'll allow me to play devils advocate, I'll say that yes. You are right that the backlash against SJWs has reached such a point where I do worry that any black led, female led or LGBT led thing will be seen as political.
However you can't use the excuse of all sci fi is political, because that isn't true. Lord of the Rings isn't political at all, neither was any of Ray Harryhausen's work, or things like The Lost World, Journey to the Centre of the Earth, Xena, Being Human, hell even most versions of Batman, Spider-Man etc, but you wouldn't call any of these popular and respected works across many different eras mindless.
Meanwhile there have been plenty of great works being compromised by having to have a political message. Compare Narnia with Lord of the Rings? I am a huge Narnia fanboy, I think the Magician's Nephew is one of the best fantasy books ever written, and Jadis is the best fantasy villain. However LOTR which has 0 politics, is ultimately a lot easier for people to get into, and in all fairness has aged better in some respects than Narnia which was all about its Christian message.
Now of course when you do add politics to something in my opinion it should be done in the following ways.
1/ The story still holds up even without the politics.
2/ That what you are commenting on is something that applies to humanity (I know that sounds pretentious but it's true.)
3/ That you aren't dating it, by focusing on a here today, gone tomorrow issue.
4/ That you work it into the story, and never, EVER make it seem like a lecture.
5/ That you don't treat your audience as idiots who need to be told, rather as people who will understand the message.
6/ You never let it compromise your product, like I'll cast so and so just to have a black actor even if they are not right for the part.
7/ You make sure you don't come over as cowardly, IE you are just jumping on a bandwagon to look coooool.
Now a story like say The Daleks succeeds on all counts.
1/ It's story does still hold up as a fun, dan daresque adventure without any deep political meaning. You can't say Terry Nation and David Whittaker and Raymond Cusick didn't put a lot of effort into fully fleshing out Skaro and giving the Daleks unique backstories and designs, building up an atmosphere outside of the politics.
2/ It commented on race hatred and disliking people for being different in general, even if it was inspired by the Nazis specifically and therefore sadly still holds up.
3/ Also the event it drew specific inspiration from, WW2 is not something that is going to be forgotten about any time soon.
4/ It was worked into the story, IE the Daleks motivation is hating people because they are different, so talking about it feels more natural among the characters, rather than stopping the story to tell it.
5/ It doesn't treat its audience as idiots, as it expects them to view the Daleks as monsters because of their race hatred.
6/ In no way did the message compromise the story. The best actors, designers, directors were still hired to do it.
7/ Back then it was quite brave to call out race hatred, as there were still signs that said no blacks, no Irish allowed plastered on pubs everywhere, and also as WW2 was so recent, even commenting on that was quite daring.
Rosa meanwhile, a Jodie episode fails on all accounts.
1/ It has no plot whatsoever. It's paper thin, bad guy has 0 personality, his motivation is just he hates black people, his plan doesn't even make sense, there is no world building etc. The plot is just an excuse to get to the message.
2/ Whilst it is commenting on racism, it is doing it through a 2010s, Trump era lens, IE mentioning Obama being President as a great thing, the alt right, kissing the arse of the Clintons etc.
3/ It is also dating it by referencing things like Obama being a great President. Let's just say now that Trump derangement syndrome has died down, Obama's reputation has justifiably slipped, especially among the left. Hell among leftists like Jimmy Dore, I'd say Obama is viewed in a worst light than Trump. At least Trump was, what he claimed. Obama meanwhile was seen as being a great step forward, yet he ended up being the same as the hawks around him. (And Libya was actually a bigger blunder and crime against humanity than anything Trump did.)
4/ Far from working it into the story, it actually stops at the end and has Jodie lecture both her companions and the audience like an after school special.
5/ Chibnall and Jodie treated their audience like idiots, mentioning all the time how their work was going to change people's perspectives on things like racism, sexism etc.
6/ Obviously the product was compromised. Casting Jodie, a terrible, terrible, terrible, terrible actress, whose idea of zany and quirky and alien was to pick her nose, pull stupid gormless, Arnold Rimmer expressions and go "Eiiiiiiiiiii I'm a little bit socially awkward fam". Is probably the shinning example of letting political decisions affect casting the right person for the part.
7/ It did come over as cowardly, as it was tackling racism in 1950s America, something which we all agree was awful, rather than any pressing issues of today, like Julian Assange being locked up, American imperialism, or other prejudices in modern society that aren't commented on. For instance Yaz being in love with Jodie, could have been a way to explore homophobia in Muslim communities. Again not saying all Muslims are homophobic, but overall there is a huge problem with homophobia among Muslim communities. Now I am NOT saying DW should tackle that issue. I would never even mention it in DW, but when Chibnall and co keep going on about how the show must reflect the world around it, well it comes off as cowardice, that Chibnall decides to comment on racism from another country, 70 years ago, but not contemporary Muslim homophobia when he has a Muslim lead in a lesbian relationship with his leading lady! On the contrary he whitewashes that by having Yaz's mum be excited at her and Jodie getting together.
Now again I agree that the backlash against things like Jodie has now reached a point where, yes I do fear that anything female/minority/LGBT led will be viewed as automatically being like Jodie. (I sadly think this was a large part of why Batgirl was cancelled.)
Still I'm sorry to say but I don't have faith that RTD won't repeat most of Chibnall's mistakes. When you look at his previous foray into politics in DW, the Slitheen two parter, it was closer to Chibnall's crap than to Terry Nation. Maybe I'm wrong and he has learned his lesson, but the fact that he is commenting on the alt right, an easy LOL cow suggest it's more of Chibnall.s crap.
