Doctor Who: The Robot Revolution

 "Apparently I'm the Queen of Outer Space. If you could tell the police..."

Well, that was rather good, I thought. One of the better season openers of recent years, certainly head and shoulders over Space Babies. It's a solid concept, a satisfying plot, a good introduction to new companion Belinda Chandra... and it's actually about something. Even better, while social commentary in Doctor Who can sometimes err on the unsubtle side, this time the balance is nicely judged.

So... yeah, fairly long blog post coming up. I'm in the mood. And it's Doctor Who, always the core of this blog, however much it's grown. 

So we begin seventeen years ago, with teenage Belinda and her boyfriend, with Belinda being given a certificatre naming a star after her, a cheerfully blatant example of Chekhov's gun. It's a cute little scene, with Alan's adorable nervousness about kissing her, so much s that we ignore the fact that Belinda blatantly looks Varada Sethu's actual age. But it's a nice, innocent start... or so it seems.

And then we move to Belinda's life in the present day, as a nurse, with all the overwork and dedication and stress and being lovely that is implied by that. We briefly see that, as well as the fact that she lives in straintened circumstances with housemates. Little does she know that things are about to get worse, and she's going to be desperate to get back to this life.

This is Doctor Who, so naturally a spaceship lands and some mech type robots kidnap her to be "queen" of the planet named after her, which is a hilatriously brilliant Doctor Who idea... and feels very Moffat in an RTD script.

Interesting that she knows Mrs Flood, though: Ruby must be a neighbour too, and they may even know each other too. That's as much of a coincidence as the stuff the Doctor later pontificates about regarding her 51st century descendent. But she really is in a rather entertaining pickle. And it's very admirable indeed how RTD manages to make the exposition itself highly entertaining- at first it seems these people welcome their new robot overlords, but all this stuff about every ninth word is clever and highly entertaining. And yes, if you feel like questioning why words should matter to a machine instead of syllables and, indeed, you feel that this makes no sense... ah, actually that's a clue, and after the reveal at the end it makes perfect sense. Nicely done.

Also nicely done is a little subversion of the trope of aliens that look exactly like humans- with Belinda being a nurse we learn that these people's internal organs are very slightly different from ours. And then there's the timey-wimey stuff, with the two star certificates from different time zones and the Doctor lightly lampshading that the two objects must never, ever touch, or else. Yes, Chekhov has a fair few firearms in this story, but I'm fine with that.

I'm also fine with the Doctor's emotions- Ncuti Gatwa's tears show us just how much the loss of Sasha 55 (his partner?) meant to him. He's such a bloody good actor, best since Capaldi and possibly even Eccleston.

And then... Belinda betrays them all, shock horror. Except she does it in order to sacrifice herself in order to save all these people, whom she's only just met and who haven't, on the whole, been particulartly nice to her. This tells us a fair bit about her- she's brave, selfless, a good person, but not one for just blindly doing what she's told. 

And so we have the reveal... it's not AI, it's Alan, and the "planet of the incels". This is brilliantly done, with Alan's coercive control of Belinda given a much bigger canvas in the shape of an entire planet. It's clever. Mind you, I hate planet-wide robot tyranny as much as anyone, but could we still just send that imbecile Andrew Tate into space anyway? Please?

And then the really clever bit. I'll confess I'm a bit worried aboiut Belinda being "important"- why do companions always have to come complete with a pre-existing mystery these days?- but it's delightful how the Doctor isbeing his usual self with a new companion but Belinda calls him out on his behaviour, including scanning her DNA without permission, as crossing a line into being controlling. This is brilliant, reminding us that all pf us, even the "good guys", need to watch ourselves for this kind of behaviour.

So we have Earth of 2025 repelling the TARDIS, meaning that Belinda who, like Ian and Barbara all those decades ago, just wants to go home, is unable to do so. I like her. She has depth, and doesn't just defer to the Doctor.

So yes, not really sure we need that much mystery, but this episode is an excellent start to the season. Let's keep this level of quality, if we can...