October 8: "The Robot Revolution"

A nurse is kidnapped by robots from another planet who want her to be their queen, only to discover that there's a rebellion going on when she arrives, and that this may all be her fault...

So here we are, four months after "Joy to the World", with the official start of series 15 (or season two, as they keep insisting on calling it), and it has to be said: this is a much stronger series opener than last year's "Space Babies" was.  That episode spent a lot of time awkwardly explaining the basic conceits of the series and involved a rather lightweight plot.  This one, by contrast, effectively sets up who the Doctor is and how he can be wonderful and dangerous, and it does it in the midst of a much higher-stakes conflict.

Although the Doctor shows up a little bit at the start, apparently looking for someone, the main focus of the beginning is Belinda Chandra, a nurse who once got a star named after her by one of those star-naming companies thanks to an old boyfriend.  We see that she's competent but overworked, and so just about the last thing she needs is a spaceship landing in the back garden of the house she shares with roommates (and which is very clearly a redress of the Noble house from the 60th specials), with giant robots coming along to take her back to a planet named after her.  See, somehow the robots have gotten their hands on a future version of the star certificate with Belinda's name on it and have come to make her their queen (for some never-clearly-explained reason).  The design of the robots is great, looking all shiny and clunky, and I like the way their "faces" change to display emotions.  There's a nice retrofuturism look to them that translates to the rest of what we see of Missbelindachandra One.

Belinda arrives on Missbelindachandra One. ("The Robot Revolution")
©BBC

But yes, it's off to the planet named after her, despite her protests (and despite the presence of Mrs. Flood again, who's next door to Belinda now for some reason), and despite a time fracture causing things to go all wonky.  And this is where the Doctor really enters the story.  It's something of an interesting conceit, having the Doctor following Belinda but arriving six months earlier due to the time fracture -- and the fact that his hair is longer than it was when we first saw him in his fetching kilt outfit is a nice touch.  This means he's already ensconced among the rebels, who've been fighting the robots for the last ten years, and is ready to rescue Belinda when she arrives (since, as he says at one point, "he told me your name, like you were important", so the Doctor was looking for her -- we'll pick this piece of foreshadowing up again in "Lucky Day").  But in many ways, it's Varada Sethu, playing Belinda, who steals the show here.  She portrays Belinda as strong and fierce, but with a side of compassion to keep us from finding her too abrasive.  Plus, she has some great line readings: "I'm saying no," after she learns she's going to be turned into some form of cyborg and married to the AI Generator, is delivered in a wonderfully matter-of-fact way, for example. Or the absolutely glorious send-up of one of the modern show's catchphrases:

DOCTOR: It's not a copy.  It is the exact same diploma.  Look.  It's older, obviously, because it's been here longer, but it's got the same exact tear, do you see?
BELINDA: Just like mine.
DOCTOR: Ah ha.  It's the same object twice.
BELINDA: Do you mean it's literally the same diploma, like in a time-travel way?
DOCTOR: Timey-wimey.
BELINDA: Timey-wimey?
DOCTOR: Yup.
BELINDA: Am I six?

(from The Doctor Who Transcripts - The Robot Revolution)

Sethu shines as Belinda, and the way she keeps insisting on fighting her own battles -- even to the point of summoning the robots back to capture her and stop the fighting, in order to end the bloodshed -- makes her a good match for the Doctor, in a way we haven't really seen from a companion in quite a while.  Plus I really like the way she's not particularly interested in traveling with the Doctor.  She would much rather go home, thank you very much, then deal with this sort of madness on a regular basis.  That's something we haven't seen since Tegan back in the 1980s, really (unless you want to count Donna's first appearance in "The Runaway Bride"), and it's a rather refreshing change.

Mind you, Belinda's desire to just go home doesn't come out of nowhere.  She witnesses the death of Sasha 55 at the hands of the robots, and it's made very clear that the Doctor was planning on taking her along in the TARDIS before she died.  It's a good moment that highlights how dangerous the Doctor's lifestyle can be, and that, combined with the way the hunky rebel, Manny, blames everything on her, goes a long way in justifying Belinda's decision to turn herself over.  It's not fun to be kidnapped, told you're going to be forcibly converted and married, watch people die for you, and then having people blame you for all the deaths while you still have no idea what's going on or why this is happening.  So even though we, as Doctor Who viewers, may think Belinda's making a big mistake in summoning the robots, it's not hard to see her point of view on this.  Plus it shows that she's willing to take responsibility for things.

This decision leads to the big reveal: the AI Generator isn't actually an AI, but a person named Alan Budd (so it's actually the AL Generator, even though no one calls him Al) who once dated Belinda and who bought her the star certificate in the first place.  She had demanded that the robots go get him instead of her while she was being kidnapped, and it seemed they obliged: only, due to the time fracture, they arrived ten years earlier and brought Alan back to Missbelindachandra One a decade before they left.  Alan isn't a particularly nice guy: the scene we see with him at the beginning has him state, "The thing is, Belinda, I look up at the night sky, and it is so beautiful, and I think, 'How can I capture this?'" (in addition to a crack about women being mad at maths), demonstrating that his worldview is much more self-centered and avaricious than Belinda's.  Reinforcing this is the way we learn that Belinda ended the relationship because Alan was being emotionally abusive, always putting her down and trying to control her.  And so when the robots come to capture him, he treats everything as a game, ordering the robots to kill someone because it's fun without considering the effect this has on actual people's lives.  "Planet of the incels," Belinda breathes, upon learning everything Alan has done on Missbelindachandra One.  (It's around this point where the plot threatens to collapse on itself, since it seems like the robots only captured Alan because Belinda told them too, but she was being transported because Alan ordered her capture.  Yes, it's the second bootstrap paradox in as many episodes, although "The Robot Revolution" doesn't lampshade it in the way "Joy to the World" did.)  It's only due to some technobabble that things are resolved, as the Doctor absorbs a time explosion caused by two versions of the star certificate making contact.  Alan is thrown back into time to before he was made part of the machine and so the world is saved without any major subsequent damage.  (Incidentally, is this explosion what caused the time fracture in the first place?  Things really are getting bootstrappy around here...)  Then it's just time for some clean-up, with a quick half-explanation of why Belinda looks like Munday Flynn, the character Sethu played last series in "Boom" -- apparently she's a distant descendant of Belinda, and time for new adventures.  Except, as Belinda firmly states, "I am not one of your adventures."  So it's time to take Belinda home; only, something is preventing the Doctor from heading back to 24 May 2025 (no points for guessing when the first part of the series 15 finale airs), so they're going to have to take Belinda home the long way round...

Overall, then, "The Robot Revolution" is a strong episode.  It drops us into a dangerous situation without needing to hold our hands and carefully explain how the show works, trusting that we'll pick things up.  Other than a couple tonal issues (such as the way the death of the cat is treated as a joke, or the rather out-of-character way the Doctor seems happy that Alan's zygote gets cleaned up by the Polish Polish robot, rather than regretful at the loss of a life) and the slightly confusing plotline, this is an episode that demonstrates clearly what Doctor Who can do.