Smile

“The Doctor makes Bad Thing better.” I keep telling myself that this week after Emperor Palpatine (or whatever Theresa May is calling herself these days) called a General Election. Actually, I initially reacted the same as Brenda from Bristol (“Not ANOTHER one!”) but with far more expletives and a good deal of vitriol added for good measure. Supposedly this election is meant to be because of “saboteurs” in parliament (which rather indicates that May has no concept of how a democratically elected representative chamber is meant to work) but, in truth, the real “saboteurs” are the Police and Crown Prosecution Service who were about to press charges against some 30 Conservative MPs for electoral fraud. So much for democracy…

Anyway, aside from anything else, this week’s Doctor Who really did make me feel better. Smile was written by Frank Cottrell-Boyce and so far appears to have been far better received than his previous episode “In the Forest of the Night” which, apparently, I was the only one to have enjoyed. This episode probably came at a better point in the series and allowed the relationship between the Doctor and Bill to progress from last week’s introduction. I thought they were a great pairing and, if anything, they were even better this week – possibly helped by the fact that they were the only actors on screen for at least half of the episode.

The story itself was quite neat and the plot twists were not immediately obvious as we were left to ponder quite what had gone wrong with the robots to cause them to behave in such an odd and murderous fashion. In many ways this reminded me of an Isaac Asimov tale as these were often concerned with the unintended consequences of well-intended robotic programming. The set itself felt  genuinely futuristic in the sort of gleaming white image of space travel that we had in the 1960s (think of 2001 : A Space Odyssey) . It also reminded me of some of the classic series episodes, particularly The Arc In Space with its sparse sets and skeleton supporting cast (well, literally in the case of Smile).

I suspect this series will also be a hit with the more casual fan. I know that Nina enjoyed it as a simple Sci-Fi tale that did not require in-depth knowledge of Time Lord lore or any of the more involved tropes of Science Fiction fandom. It also did have this rather classic feel about it. I don’t think this would have felt out of place in any of the original Doctor Who series and the fact that the last scene was first scene of the next story was far more in keeping with the 1960s show – just one point, though. Why the need for a trailer when the scene was set in the previous frame? Anyway, frost fairs on the Thames, what’s not to like?