My school year is, for the most part, over! I’ll probably be writing up something later concerning the summer and stuff, but for now…Doctor Who.
Series 10 kicked off last weekend, we’re two episodes in, and I have things to say!
“The Pilot” basically served a triple purpose: Introduce a new companion, serve as a enticing opening to a new batch of episodes, and also act as a jumping-in point for any new viewers (hence the double-entendre title). It succeeded in all three through our new companion, Bill Potts, played by Pearl Mackie. Bill is the strongest part of the opener, and getting to know her over the course of it, as well as being introduced to the Doctor through a new set of eyes, was great. Pearl Mackie is very likable and charismatic, and by the end of the episode, I had clear idea of just who Bill is as a person and why the Doctor was offering her a trip on the TARDIS. She’s thirsty for knowledge, attending lectures she doesn’t have to attend, and enjoys a good problem, smiling when presented with something she doesn’t understand. Worthy qualities of a companion, if you ask me. Seeing how her character develops, or what sort of arc the writers put her through over the course of the next 10 weeks, should prove enjoyable.
My biggest gripe with “The Pilot” was the mystery surrounding the “villain” of the episode, which turned out to be…oil. Sentient oil. Yeah, Doctor Who’s done stupider things in its run. I mean, I’m going to be talking about freaking Emojibots in a few minutes. Back to the oil, there’s no explanation about the ship it came from, how it’s sentient, how it can jump through time and space lickety-split, and how it was able to shapeshift into that Dalek. The answers seem to have been sacrificed so they wouldn’t detract from the sentimentality of Heather’s motivation for pursuing Bill, which really wasn’t the best idea. Surely there must’ve been some way of working it in.
Regardless, “The Pilot” was still a fun, fast-paced way to start a new series and introduce us to Bill. Now, let’s talk about “Smile.”
“Smile” was pretty disappointing.
Back when there were rumblings about an episode featuring evil robots that speak in emoji, and even going in to it, I was hopeful. I was hoping that I’d be surprised by it and whatever message or moral it would convey through the Emojibots. Would the episode explore how human communication has evolved/devolved so much over the years that we can sum up our feelings, moods and emotions through electronic faces?
Well…not really.
“Smile” is torn between being a unique, interesting episode and your standard Doctor Who fare. Is your standard Doctor Who fare bad, per se? Heck, no. But when it constantly gets in the way of something that could’ve been great? Heck, yeah. Believe it or not, the Emojibots are actually really intriguing ideas when everything’s said and done.
Here’s where the episode bamboozled me: The Doctor and Bill are looking at the body of one of the colony’s founders, and the Doctor realizes that the grief her colleagues felt was considered hostile by the bots, so much so that they started killing people. So everyone’s only two options were to smile or die. All of a sudden, I was excited. It was a twist that was genius on so many levels. It could’ve led to a discussion on grief, and how many might deal with grief by forcing out a smile and pretending everything’s okay, when they’re really not. It could’ve led to a message encouraging us being honest when communicating, or how we should treat those who are going through a grieving period. I was so happy “Smile” was going that route. So happy.
But then it abruptly turns into a invaders vs. natives story, ending with the Doctor making peace between the human settlers and the bots. And how do the settlers avoid being killed by the bots, according to the Doctor and Bill? They have to “smile” and pretend to be happy. Yep.
Wow, I’m fuming just writing about this. What a waste of a genuinely fantastic plot point. Speaking of plot points, the threads that should connect each one of them were either non-existent or just made no sense. The refugees from Earth are on their way! Whoops, they’ve actually been here the whole time. The bots have been using human remains as fertilizer? Too bad that doesn’t go anywhere. The bots are self-aware? Where did that come from? The Doctor and Bill have their ears upgraded. What was the point of that?
This is an episode that wants to be something special, but is hampered by generic writing and dumb twists stopping great twists from being great.
Anyways, let’s hope that this is the one black sheep of Series 10.
Also, the regular review format should be back with next week’s episode, which sees the Doctor and Bill taking on a deep-sea beast in Victorian England…
Noah
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