The Cutprice Guignol

The last year has been, to put it lightly, an odd time to be a fan of Doctor Who.

From the move to Disney, an abysmal season, and near-constant hand-wringing in the press about the status of the show going forward and if Russel T Davies can convince anyone to come back for another season, it’s hard to imagine a time when the rebooted show has faced this much scrutiny.

Which means that there is a whole lot hanging on this season, the second of the odd soft-reboot of the show with Disney. Not only does it need to pull the show out of the weeds of controversy and a fandom that seems to be rapidly dwindling, but it needs to introduce our new companion, Belinda (Varada Sethu, who made an appearance in last season’s Boom) and her dynamic with the Doctor (Ncuti Gatwa). It’s a lot for a single episode to do, and even more for a single reviewer like me to cover, so let’s jump right into the first episode of the new season, The Robot Revolution.

This episode, of course, is about Belinda – I think really great companion introduction episodes are generally quite throwaway with regards to plot, but leave plenty of room for character, and The Robot Revolution very much fits that pattern. Belinda is gifted a star by a would-be love interest, only to find herself abducted more than a decade later by the robot overlords of that planet and thrust into the midst of a revolution to overthrow them. And, look, as an introduction, I really like what I’ve seen of Belinda so far in this episode. She’s really funny in a way that caught me off-guard (the “Queen of outer space, if you can believe it” made me yelp with laughter), and, despite some clunky writing that seemed a little too intent at times to prove that Russel T Davies has been paying attention to the issues women are facing, she consistently bounces through this story in a way that feels natural.

Her back-and-forth with Gatwa falls into the familiar pattern for these companion-Doctor coming-togethers in terms of dialogue, but the two of them had enough chemistry to make me forget that. The final scene the two shared in the TARDIS – just talking, sharing a real moment together – was something I sorely lacked in Ruby Sunday’s arc, and it bodes really well for Belinda that it’s making a return here I enjoyed her as a character on her own, and I enjoyed her as part of a double-act with Gatwa, and that’s pretty much all that episode had to convince me of.

And speaking of Ncuti Gatwa (who has perhaps the best wardrobe of any Doctor ever – every look in this episode was so fun and creative, and he makes them all look effortless), I thought this was a solid episode for him, too. I’ve never felt like the problems of this run of the show lay at Gatwa’s feet, rather the writing that surrounds him, and The Robot Revolution really underlined that for me. Because, with this decent writing, with a character he can really bounce off of, with someone who calls him out, I loved him. That said, I wish she could have called him out of the parallels between his behaviour and that of the villain – the way he followed her without her knowing, used names she didn’t like, and so on, but I think that would have been a little too complex for an episode as sweeping in its statements as this one.

Beyond that, this episode felt very much like a classic Russel T Davies script to me – the pop music references, the retro-looking sci-fi, the cheerful introduction of the horror elements (the cat getting zapped drew an actual gasp from between my lips, let me tell you), it’s all here. And that’s not a bad thing – I have a huge soft spot for these kinds of episodes, and it fits far more naturally into the rest of the show than last season’s baffling Space Babies, even if it is uneven in tone and sometimes quality.

I thought that the episode looked spectacular, particularly the final reveal of Alan’s robotic form and in the sort of time-warp moment between Alan and Belinda. I love to see Doctor Who playing around a little with style and filmmaking; it’s been one of my favourite aspects of the last few seasons, and this was a great example of it. Another hallmark of this era is the meta-textual stuff, which has worked to varying degrees of success; for what it’s worth, I adored the little Anita Dobson moment where she finger-waggingly warned the viewer not to mention her presence. As anyone who reads this blog knows, I am gnashing at the bit non-stop for a bit of meta-textuality at any given moment, so I’m really looking forward to seeing how this plays out.

The Robot Revolution is a solid start for the season – if not one that entirely convinces me that the problems of the previous one are actually behind us. As an introduction to Sethu and Belinda, though, I loved it, and I’m interested to see where this dynamic takes us next. What did you think of the episode? Love it? Hate it? How does it compare to last season? Let me know in the comments!

If you liked this article and want to see more stuff like it, please check out the rest of my Doctor Who reviews! I’d also love it if you would check out my horrible short story collection, and, if you’d like to support my work, please consider joining me on Patreon!

(header image via BBC)