By Owen Quinn author
Photos copyright BBC
So the Tardis is back with Ncuti Gatwa at the helm once again after a woke filled and terrible first season (saved only by Steven Moffat, Gatwa, Dot and Bubble and Bonnie Langford) with a climax that can only be labelled as shit.
Ruby is gone after the events of Empire of Death and a new companion comes to fill her place; a companion with a face the Doctor has seen before. Actors that have appeared in Doctor Who before becoming companions has been going on since the sixties in the William Hartnell era but it is only the new era that has decided to connect these things, sometimes unnecessarily, e.g.: the reason the 12th Doctor looks like Caecilius from the David Tennant episode ‘Fires of Pompeii’, the 6th Doctor taking his face from Commander Maxil , a Gallifreyan guard who tried to execute the Doctor in ‘Arc of Infinity’.
You all know the story so I won’t go into detail. Nurse Belinda Chandra is taken by robots in the middle of the night to claim her rightful place as the Queen of planet Miss Belinda Chandra and all thanks to an old boyfriend buying her a star for her birthday seventeen years ago. Now she must take the throne and marry the great AI generator to bring about peace between the humans and the robots.
Got it so far? Good. Stay with me. So was it good? Was it an introduction worthy of yet another plucky woman to take her place by the side of the Doctor? After hearing other reviews say it was a shaky start and the new companion, played by Varada Sethu, was good and brought a new energy, I wasn’t sure what I was walking into and let me reiterate, I have been a fan since Pertwee and stayed during the wilderness years while the masses pissed off elsewhere. So this show is in my heart literally and when I hear others cry about its death knells, it annoys me. There is still plenty of mileage in this show with the right people in place and with no agendas to take you out of the story. After watching The Robot Revolution, I have hope. Hope dammit! HOPE! Let’s just hope that hope is not short lived.
I really liked this episode. It felt the way Capaldi’s era felt invigorated with the introduction of Bill (Pearl Mackie). She deserved more than a season. This was a great set up for the rest of the season.
It opens with a mystery and ends with yet another powerful mystery that I loved. Do you remember the wonderful one season show Odyssey 5 starring Peter Weller? That’s what the end reminded me of. But let’s break it down and address things.
When Mrs Flood breaks the fourth wall and tells the viewer not to say they saw her something in the back of my head but can’t recall what from the show’s past. I’ve heard the rumour and if it is, it’ll be a Sutekh sized anticlimax. So why is she hiding from the Doctor? Why did she say goodbye to Belinda? What does she know or is she setting it all up going as far back as Ruby?
I loved the robots but were reminiscent of those from the Sarah Jane Adventures episode ‘The Empty Earth’. I loved the wee cleaning robot with his “polish, polish”. Gatwa is simply the Doctor. He has it nailed on so many levels you would like to think the powers that be won’t screw this up and lose the show with him at the helm. I adored the every ninth word scene. Very clever.
The whole storyline of the time fracture stranding him six months on Miss Belinda Chandra and teaming up with the rebels to fight the robots was cool. As he said, timey-wimey and it was woven perfectly into the story structure.
It made sense that the Doctor would have yet another costume change and while he was crying within 17 minutes of the episode (something his incarnation has been criticised for) it was justified. You could see the bond he had created with Sacha 55 so her death when she was on the verge of travelling in the Tardis with him hit home. It proved a stark contrast to Belinda who takes no prisoners but in a real way this time. Her instinct is to help the sick and wounded, not follow the Doctor round like an impressed puppy. She doesn’t want this life and has no desire to travel with him because of actions. The carefree Doctor who bounces with the very joy of life and mystery. She takes him to task for just taking her DNA without permission just to prove his theory about Mundy in Boom. She reminds him that he made the same promise of adventure to Sacha and she died. He is passionately dangerous and it is this passion that gets others killed. He is in danger of seeing her, not as a person, but an adventure to be solved. He did this with Ruby, Donna and Clara and see how they ended.
Tegan and Turlough also wanted to go home as did Ian and Barbara but they soon changed their tune. Now the fact the Doctor cannot get to earth on the day of Belinda’s kidnapping is intriguing. Also notice the Doctor’s reaction; he is laughing at first until he realises something is wrong. When he looks out the Tardis door, how did he not see what we saw? That ominous rumble of the destroyed Earth was spooky and effective. It was a great shot and a wonderful way to keep us hooked. Whatever is coming now, whatever Ruby is referring to when she tells them to stay at home and lock their doors is powerful to say the least. The only race to ever mess earth up on this scale was the Time Lords themselves in ‘Trial of a Time Lord’ when they shifted it across space and renamed it to hide their crimes. Could it be?
I do have to raise the constant cry that he is the last of the Time Lords. He isn’t. He hasn’t forgotten about his other self because he asked Rose in ‘The Legend of Ruby Sunday’ how her uncle was; the name they gave the 14th Doctor. So is the Master as we saw when someone took the Toymaker’s gold tooth in ‘The Giggle’. And I’ve never bought the idea that all the Time Lords were on Gallifrey when the Master murdered everyone. Not a chance. Plus part Time Lord Jenny is loose too.
But like the ‘Joy To The World’ Christmas episode, this is not as simple a story as it seems and is expertly shown at the beginning so deftly, many will have missed it.
The great AI Generators that Belinda must join with is in fact her old boyfriend, Alan from the opening of the episode. This is why he has a duplicate of the certificate of the star named after Belinda, not just a duplicate but the exact same certificate somehow gotten from the future. In the opening, she rips off the wrapping, he mutters if she had unfolded it, the paper could be used again later. Such an off the cuff remark, we associate with Data from Star Trek The Next Generation where he did unfold the paper from a present only to be told to rip it off.
‘The Robot Revolution’ is in fact a commentary on abusive and controlling boyfriends. The whole thing has been staged by Alan to get the girl he asked to marry him ten years before. Belinda refused and he moved away to what she thought was Margate, In fact, it was stargate.
We see how Belinda will be joined in marriage to him when she is mechanised very similar to the character of Vera is turned into a cyborg by the super computer. Alan started the war but Belinda caused his kidnapping by the robots when, during the time fracture, she told them to go get him. It isn’t until the AI generator asks her if she is married, does Belinda catch on who he is; Alan has been fully and very willingly transformed into a nightmare.
He is like a steampunk Locutus of Borg and really is the stuff of nightmares. This is the true face of the man that Belinda could have married; the devil behind the blond haired nerd that bought her a star. He started the war and only by merging with Belinda will the war end. We then see that when he wanted her to marry him, he wanted her to wear looser fitting cloth, no more texting after eight o’clock. He wants to absorb Belinda’s mind and is so deranged he wants to control everything. This war will never end. The fact that Belinda never caught it on is so real because many women and men in that position realise when it’s too late or in some cases just live with it. Russell T Davies should have just called this abuse rather than calling it coercive control. This is abuse on a planetary scale from a weak-minded fool who finds his power in the control others making them subversive under the label of love.
Tell it for what it is, not some fancy term. If they had, people would click on straight away but I suppose it keeps the children from asking.
Overall, this was far from a shaky start but a solid opener that delivered the central mystery only to add more intrigue. I have to admit, I did slow the faces sequence down when Belinda touched her certificate’s to Alan’s. I was betting that there were some hidden clues in there for what’s going to come but I couldn’t see anything or did I? In an episode that is all about the power of words, cause and effect , timey-wimey and a powerful new mystery, we are off to a great start. Now where do I buy a “polish , polish” robot?
The Time Warriors and Beyond 