Welcome back to the TARDIS, Whovian! Allons-y!
This weekend, Season 2 of the Disney era of Doctor Who returned with ‘The Robot Revolution.’ The episode delivers a propulsive launch for the new season, but it also lands with all the subtlety of a clunky, mid-century-sci-fi rocket after whisking us off into stars for a confrontation with the series’ latest take on a wibbly-wobbly time fracture. While Doctor Who might be running out of terminology for all the ways it has “broken” time over the years, it is not running low on charm from the stylish and supercharged Fifteenth Doctor (Ncuti Gatwa, Sex Education). Similarly, the premiere presents us with a fun new companion, Ms. Belinda Chandra (Varada Sethu, Andor).
Actually…you can feel free to drop that “Ms.” In fact, Belinda really hopes that you will drop it. You see, in contrast to the saccharine sweetness and hunger for connection we got from Ruby Sundy (Millie Gibson, Coronation Street) last season, Belinda is a self-sufficient decision maker with clear boundaries. It’s a fun contrast, but also a shift that we’ve seen before.
Almost exactly. Back at the start of New Who’s third season in the midst of the David Tennant era, The Doctor was reeling from the dramatic loss of his own eager (and capable!) companion, Rose. He found his next match in a confident young medical student named Martha Jones (Freema Agyeman, New Amsterdam) who impressed equally with her skills in medicine and self-advocacy. Our introduction to Belinda feels like a beat-for-beat copy. While it’s fun to see her caring for patients while also spitting some venom (Who bit you? Your wife?), it’s hard to shake the feeling that we’ve been here before. Not only do we get shades of Martha, it is clear that Fifteen is once again chasing after an anomaly rather than a person. This is how his time with Ruby began as well.
In case you are worried that this reviewer is reading too much into the situation, rest assured that The Doctor also wants us to experience some déjà vu. He suggests that a person from another timeline set him on Belinda’s trail, he evokes the the power of “coincidence” that marked the start of his entanglement with Ruby last season, and more directly, he flashes back to a vision of actress Verada Sethu as Mundy Flynn from Season 1’s “Boom.” If that’s not enough for you, he even takes the time to note the near-perfect genetic match between Belinda and her 51st century descendent. Watching the same face appear across time and space was a central piece of the mystery in Season 1, and more seasoned fans already played with this concept back in the Clara Oswald (Jenna Coleman, Victoria) days.
In order to establish context for the episode, we first flash back to a younger Belinda on a date with former boyfriend Alan Budd (Jonny Green, It’s a Sin). He pushes out some recycled fluff about love, stars, and fate and gifts Belinda a certificate for her very own star. While this sounds like a setup that would be played for cuteness, it is actually a vehicle to display her ex’s controlling nature. He insists that she must be addressed as “Ms.” since she is an unmarried woman and he seems to needle Belinda about every one of her attitudes and behaviors (later in the episode we get a more ham-fisted take on this when Alan proposes and literally says aloud that he expects her to obey him after their marriage). Fortunately, it’s clear that Belinda kicked this controlling doofus to the curb. One nice subtle beat in the episode is when she has to check the certificate to confirm Alan’s last name because he is so far in her past that she can’t quite remember him.
Anyway, things move quickly from there. A big spaceship lands and abducts Belinda. The invading robots insist that she is their queen and that there is a whole planet and society named after her: MsBelindaChandra. Of course, something goes funky with time when they pass through that pesky time fissure (“things went ‘schwump’”). Upon arrival, Belinda is told that her title is nominal only, and that she will have to merge with the AI-Generator to become a machine hybrid (very Cybermen-coded). Fortunately, that time fissure is pretty random and it happened to send The Doctor back six months earlier. He has already ascended to the role of historian for the robot overlords and figured out that they can’t hear every ninth word that the human meat bags speak to one another. He is ready to go with a whole revolutionary strike team and a cool new companion. It’s okay, they bonded off-screen! The evil robots shout “vaporize” and reduce her to a skeletal flash (very Dalek-coded). Oops! She’s dead.
It’s a bit of a disappointment when you consider that Whovians just watched a very charming sequence of The Doctor making a true friend while waiting for time to catch up in the latest holiday special. As a result, this moment feels more jokey than sad. Anyway, Belinda feels guilty about dooming all of these plucky rebels with her star certificate, so she REVEALS THEIR SECRET BASE and turns herself in. She is hoping she will be able to communicate with the AI and convince it to behave differently after merging with the machine (like Mundy Flynn’s comrade in “Boom” …or the concierge in “Joy to the World” …or even Kylie Minogue’s cocktail waitress way back in “Voyage of the Damned” …and so on).
Anyway, Belinda is dragged before the AI-Generator, but discovers it isn’t an AI-Generator at all, it’s an “Al” (Alan Budd) Generator. Get it!? It turns out that the robots also captured her creepy ex because his name was also on the star certificate…but he got schwumped ten years earlier than Belinda and The Doctor. He thought it sounded cool to live in a robot video game and become a scummy overlord. He is now a creepy cyber-Alan, but he is also still the same shallow little incel. Belinda explodes him with the help of a cute lil’ vacuum cleaner robot they lifted from WALL-E. It turns out time doesn’t like it when two copies of the certificate from two separate timelines occupy the same space. This contact creates a schwump to end all schwumps. The Doctor sees Belinda’s entire timeline and Alan is reduced to a sperm and an egg that gets vacuumed up by the WALL-E bot.
Back in the TARDIS, Belinda is appropriately awed by the bigger-on-the-inside bit before The Doctor promptly scans her DNA without any sort of consent. Belinda calls The Doctor on this violation of privacy and he seems unsure of what to do when his magnetic smile doesn’t cut it. He agrees to take Belinda home, but unfortunately, the TARDIS can’t land. It looks like they’ll have to take the long way round.
P.S. Earth is destroyed…we see all sorts of space rubbage, including the Eiffel Tower, to confirm the destruction.
If this reviewer sounds a bit exhausted, it might be a symptom of the lingering effects of lore exhaustion that started to seep in during the Season 1 Finale. After riding the mystery train last season in return for very little payoff, “The Robot Revolution” was a pretty disappointing carousel of past tropes (see the sarcastic notes throughout the review). These echoes and repetitions seem so intentional and self referential that the creative team is probably building a big picture timey-wimey twist. These incessant Easter Eggs are reminiscent of Mrs. Flood (Anita Dobson, EastEnders) and her Season One wardrobe that nodded to various companions from across the Whoniverse. Mrs. Flood even reappears this week to break the fourth wall yet again and remind us that she wrapped Season One with a promise that The Doctor’s story would end in “absolute terror.”
Our baskets may be overflowing with Easter Eggs, but only time will tell if they contain delicious treats or stale marshmallows. Either way, this reviewer would prefer to sit down to a wholesome meal instead. Easter eggs aren’t a solid foundation for a season of television (or a second season of television for that matter). The concept of a controlling incel becoming an actual monster is great sci-fi fodder, but not as a last-second reveal and an easy one-liner delivered for laughs. As silly as the AI-Generator monster looked, it seemed like the recycling of ideas might be leading up to a clever commentary on the shortcomings and dangers of generative AI. Instead, it turned out to be a joke about an upper-case “I” resembling a lower-case “l.” To be fair, perhaps the season will eventually circle back to something more complicated. Back during the 60th Anniversary Specials, “Wild Blue Yonder” presented some very clever supernatural villains that provided subtle commentary on artificial intelligence, and the repercussions of that battle still seem to be influencing the Fifteenth Doctor’s existence.
That being said, this reviewer’s confidence is dwindling. As exciting as it was to hear Belinda stand up for herself when The Doctor invaded her privacy and misrepresented his ability to control his travels through time and space using a facade of charm and energy, it wasn’t clear whether or not the show was aware of how much The Doctor has in common with the dangerous incel they blew up with a star certificate a few scenes earlier.
If the show does have this comparison on its mind, there is still more than enough time and space for Season Two to plumb the depths and explore The Doctor in exciting new ways. We’ll just have to wait and see.
If all else fails, we still get to enjoy Alan Cumming voicing an old-timey cartoon character come to life next week in “Lux.” The Pop Break will be there on this journey with you, and hopefully we’ll all get to enjoy a well-balanced meal together.
