Doctor Who: Smile

Another solid entry for the ‘Meh’

This was touted as the episode to solidify the new dynamic between the Doctor and Bill.

This new dynamic appears to be that she asks questions then attempts to psychoanalyze him…which exactly the same thing that all the other companions have done.

There’s nothing wrong with it; she has to act as he audience viewpoint for the Doctor so it makes sense. But I don’t know why she was presented as a massive change to the dynamic if she’s just going to act like every other companion.

The villains of the episode are robots that we initially think are suffering from a glitch, but we learn have actually developed sentience and become an emergent species.

The “we have created life and we’re not sure what to do with it” trope was played out back when Star Trek TNG did it and it doesn’t really bring anything new to the story here.

I don’t know if they’re setting up a theme or just being lazy, but once again, the villain is not aware of their own villainy. If this is going to be the go-to explanation for most of the episodes this series, there had better be a pay off at the  end.

There isn’t really mush to say; aside from the foreshadowing of a major cataclysmic event on Earth, this is very much a filler episode.

The cast are all good, the special effects do their job and the story is serviceable.

Doctor Who: The Pilot

So that was pretty good.

Since the Twelfth Doctor took over the main thing holding his run back has been the baggage left over from the Eleventh.

It’s ironic that Capaldi will finally be allowed to have a story arc that’s entirely his own, in his final series.

This opener does what Moffat does best, when he doesn’t have link the previous series into things. It establishes the mystery that will run until the finale (with the difference being that the Doctor already knows the answer to it this time) while running a serviceable stand-alone story and villain.

I say serviceable because the villain is basically the same as the hologram from The Lodger; a left over part of ship trying to find a suitably minded person to pilot it away from Earth. The title of the episode serves as reference to this villain and Moffat’s intention for this series to stand on it’s own.

Capaldi is, as ever, excellent as the Doctor, who seems to be wholly in his element now as University lecturer.

The new companion Bill, who I was quite apprehensive about is actually pretty good. The sequence that was released when she was announced as the companion showed very little chemistry between her and the Doctor. This sequence appears to have been drawn from The Pilot, but then cut out of the final product. I personally suspect there were some re-writes and some harsh editing done after fan and critic response to the Companion teaser.

There are some downsides. Matt Lucas is fantastic comedic actor, but I can see his Nardole getting annoying for the same reason that Donna Noble did. They were both written as one off characters, but then turned out popular. The fact that fans like them doesn’t really change the fact that their personalities weren’t written with longevity in mind. I can see myself really disliking this character within a few episodes.

Overall, though, the story of this episode is pretty good, the villain is serviceable and at least of the companions works well.

Teaser:

Next week, the Doctor will blow something up….err great.