Spoilers for “The Robot Revolution”.
The start of any season of Doctor Who is important, doubly, when there is a new co-star to be introduced. “The Robot Revolution” must make us fall in love with Belinda Chandra (Varada Sethu), trample the new fans and keep existing fans. Especially since it is the second of the two series that Disney paid, which means that it must do well enough to make the money flow.
We open “17 years ago” with Belinda Chandra looking at the stars next to his boyfriend, Alan Budd (Jonny Green). It is a clumsy adolescent meeting, Alan clearly trying to win the heart of his beautiful by buying one of these featured adoption certificates. In 2025, Belinda was now a nurse in a very busy London hospital where, in the background, the doctor research.
Belinda returns home and we see that she has the certificate of star property framed on her wall. But she is roughly woken up by a squad of retro-futuistic robots of the 1950s in a Tintin who came to have removed both And The certificate. The doctor reaches his house just in time to see the rocket take off and locate the opening credits.
The certificate was not a present gag, and she is in fact the queen of the planet Belindachandra, populated by Belindachandriens (I call them humans from now). The doctor continued in the Tardis but the rocket and the Tardis are caught in a vaguely defined time crack. When Belinda arrives, she is welcomed by the human sasha55, which tells her that the robots are in charge, having overthrown and subjected people in a bloody uprising a decade before.
“Oh, it’s a bit like JupiterI wrote in my notes.
Belinda is taken to a hall of the throne where she said she had to merge with the planet’s evil supercomputer, the AI generator. AI generator, all forms of the skull and Tesla coils, intends to bind with Belinda. We show her an animated demonstration of her fate, because she is wrapped in the pieces of the machine and transformed into an irrefaculated cyborg.
“Oh, it’s like the scary song of Superman IIII wrote in my notes.
Who has been hiding in the background from the start? The doctor, who adopted the title of planetary historian. (Thanks to the crack of time, he arrived here six months before the rocket, the robots seized the Tardis and he worked with the rebellion. He even has a new companion, he said in Belinda the robots cannot, for a reason, hearing each word sound. In the fight that followed, Sasha55 is sprayed, with the great horror and the sorrow of the doctor.
The surviving rebels, as well as a small roomba bot assigned to the trainers’ own belinda…
“Oh, like the ground cleaning robot of Wall-e,“I wrote in my notes.
… Escape to a teleporter, after which the doctor deactivates the roomba to make sure that the robots cannot find them, then kisses the bot ‘by excuses. Then comes the time that the episode stops while we see the doctor and Belinda interact properly for the first time. The doctor was informed of the fate of Belinda by someone in his future, and he cannot say more for fear that he will confuse chronologies.
The fracture of the time that the two ships have passed caused many flexion problems over time, such as the fact that the robots have their own copy of the Belinda Star certificate. But it is not a copy, it is the same object of another moment, and no one knows how or why they have it. Belinda, like Ruby Sunday in front of her, is sufficiently aware of the trope to know that two of the same object from different points in time cannot occupy the same space, for fear that this will cause an explosion.
“Oh, as in Timecop!I wrote in my notes.
There are injuries at the base and Belinda instantly launched into nurse mode, entering the IV and treating patients. It is quick to take care of and has no patience for nonsense, quickly defend itself from any suspicion of condescension when the doctor suggests something “time-time“It continues. She refuses to allow anyone to fight her battles for her and is determined to grasp the story and shape it on her way, regardless of the cost. So, it sneaks, reactivates it to robe and offers itself to robots in exchange for their sponsoring the lives of the rebels.
Belinda and the doctor are taken to meet the AI generator who turns out to be … the generator al. When Belinda was kidnapped by the robots, she mentioned that her ex Alan had bought the certificate, and they therefore went to kidnap. But the fracture of time meant that Alan arrived a decade earlier, merged with the machine (becoming a scary cyborg) and started the robot uprising.
Despite this, Belinda is happy to sacrifice herself until she spots that Alan holding her copy of the star certificate. She opts for Timecop The two pieces of paper together, causing a large explosion of time, which only the doctor can remove it. Belinda is safe, but the doctor mentions that he is now linked to the rhythm of Belinda’s timetable. Alan, meanwhile, was regressed to a sperm on the ground that the Bot Roomba is quickly withdrawn.
Meeting with the Tardis, the doctor scanned Belinda and reveals that he has already met his descendant – Mundy Flynn (also Varada Sethu) of “boom” of last season. Belinda can be curious to know how someone who was far from her can be identical, but she does not kiss the mystery. She is angry with the doctor for having scanned him without consent and that he treats her as a puzzle to solve.
Having seen Sasha55 die, she knows that the trekking with the doctor is dangerous and wants to return to May 24, 2025. But the Tardis will not land on current land, and even the Cloister bell begins to ring a warning. They open the doors of Tardis to see the empty space before the doctor decides to bring it back to the house “Le Long Chemin”.
Once the ship disappears, a series of objects begins to float in front of the camera: a broken black cabinThe twisted wreckage of the Eiffel Tower, the Certificate of Adoption of the Stars of Belinda and a calendar with every day in May, but the 25th checked. UH-OH.
It’s a lot to go through in such a short episode
Like many Disney era which, “The Robot Revolution”, feels overloaded to the point of bursting. On the one hand, nothing exceeds his welcome. On the other hand, it feels like the spectacle burns the value of an intrigue film in rapid advance. It is difficult to have a tangible meaning of the stakes given how much everything is precipitated, and there are many stories rather than showing. We are told that the planet is under the brutal thumb of a bad suzerain, but it takes place like small red ships pulling on buildings in digital matte paintings. We are told that Lalan is a flutter but we will never really make sense until After It is revealed as the villain. We are told that the doctor operated on the instructions of a figure of his own future, but that would be good if part of this was represented.
Davies was essential in the recovery Doctor Who And build the cultural mastodon that he became under his direction. His role in the history of the show is secure, but, even, his Disney-Ere series seems to be in the work of his own successor, Steven Moffat. “The Robot Revolution” presents a macguffin found inside a banal jewel, a divided story and time shells. It is not that Moffat has these ideas, but you can almost feel davies try to fold his less formal style and more focused on the characters in something else. A cynic could suggest that Davies reacts to the light not to have a single episode credited in Doctor Who Magazine The most recent survey of the largest in the series, while Moffat has five.
In fact, I would not be surprised if the slightly frantic and gapped nature of this script is a deliberate scheme to throw the framework of the rest of the season. But, even so, you can feel a degree to tend for a narrative model that does not work quite.
If the script is the weakest part of the episode, then the design of production must take the strongest crown. Retro-future robots recall a bright red ford Thunderbird or a chevy Bel Air while the cleaning robot is clearly stylized on a VW beetle. It is a rather humanist design that I want Robovac manufacturers to imitate today.
Behind the scenes
Doctor Who is a regular source of gossip, especially given the permanent nature of the role of stars. It is easy to say that the head is about to stop and so that it seems true, since they leave after three or four years in the role anyway. There are a number of recent reports suggesting that Ncuti Gatwa has already left the show, or is about to do so. Many of them also suggest that the BBC and Disney refuse new episodes in Greenlight until they see how successful this season. In addition, the The BBC claims that financing reductions and inflation have seen its budget drop by 1 billion pounds sterling (around 1.3 billion dollars) in real terms since 2010. This does not help that, when it was questioned directly on the future of the series in an interview with (the program of news oriented towards the BBC) NewsRussell T. Davies has chosen to equivocate in a way that suggests that the spectacle is about to retreat on the ice.
I mention it because of the sequence where Belinda Bat Alan with the certificate, and the doctor withdraws it. He says she needed a time Lord to absorb the enormous amount of energy expelled when she touched the paper together. The doctor then hung on the back as if he were suffering a lot, but raised his shoulders and was good for the rest of the episode. Fans with long memories, however, know that absorbing a lot of energy from the moment the vortex is what killed Christopher Eccleston’s doctor in 2005. Well, that and Eccleston’s decision to leave.
Mrs Flood Corner
It seems that Ms. Flood likes to move next to anyone who ends as this year’s companion. While being removed, she calls on her neighbor to call the police and tell her parents that she loves them. While the rocket goes out, it tells the public that we have not seen it and returns inside to avoid meeting the doctor, who springs in pursuit.
This article originally appeared on engadget to
