Smile: Ranking - 195

 Smile

(Series 10, Dr 12 with Bill, 22/4/2017, showrunner: Steven Moffat, writer: Frank Cotterall-Boyce, director: Lawrence Gough) 

'✋☺👍👌👂👌👀👍👈👉👽👽👽👽👽👾✊💢💣💥😍😱🙏'(the review of this story from this website's 744th edition, downloaded from the year 4563 via a black hole) 

Ranking: 195

 

 Bill’s first time on an alien planet is a memorable one, a re-launching for the series following the new look and a clearly budget-bound debut that reminds me a lot of ‘The End Of The World’ – a statement of intent of just how big and epic DW can look and how wide the possibilities are. ‘Just look at what we can still do that we’ve never done before’ seems to be the motto and Steven Moffat throws everything at this story after a more subdued opener: some of the best location filming in the show’s history (in Valencia, where ‘The Two Doctors’ was filmed, but this story makes far better use of the location, notably the impressively futuristic City of Arts and Sciences building), a great tracking shot across an alien field (DW is really getting the hang of what CGI can do in this era and it really sets the scope for this being an alien world) and emojibots (of course emojis are going to be the official universal language of the future, it seems so obvious in retrospect!) Even though it looks new though in script terms it’s a lot of tried and tested DW standards from the ‘old’ series that surprisingly hadn’t really been tried that often in the new series: an Earth colony in the future cut off from the rest of civilisation where something has gone wrong that the Doctor and Bill have to solve for Humanity to survive, at least out here; it’s ‘The Ark’ with emojirobots as a more high-tech replacement for the Monoids and ‘The Ark In Space’ with a plague filling in for parasitic insects. There are two things those stories never had though - beautiful atmospheric scenes where this world is empty and silent and alien and an emphasis on seeing this new world from Bill’s eyes, someone who’d accepted she was never going to see more of life than a university canteen just two stories ago. We also see how how being with her – a more subordinate, less worldly wise pupil compared to the near-equal Clara at least tried to be – changes the Doctor, bringing out both his more  protective and lecturery sides. Neither fully trust the other yet and seeing what the future does to humanity, both as a species and to individual people’s morals, is as scary for Bill as ‘The End Of the World’ was for Rose, while reminding us that the Doctor is an alien whose as comfortable here as he is in ‘our’ time, with one of Peter Capaldi’s better blends of dashing hero and grumpy old git. For the most part I like this one and the mystery at the heart of it an awful lot, it’s just the resolution that turns my Smile upside down. The Doctor and Bill are so good together and the empty environment such a change of pace that it’s a real shame when other colonists start to wake up and fill the place with their stilted chatter, while the deaths we see on screen don’t have much of an impact because with only a few minutes of running time left we don’t get to really know anybody. Oddly the stakes were higher when these future Humans were strangers, not extras. The Vardy, robots who’ve got out of control and interpret their orders of being told to keep people ‘happy’, that they should kill them if they’re not (an emoji has never been so scary!) are also just a re-tread of ideas from ‘Curse Of The Black Spot’ and ‘The Girl Who Waited’ too, even if their emoji faces give them an extra twist the more ‘repair’ robots didn’t have. (spoilers) ‘Re-setting’ the machines so colonists and newly sentient robots gets to live together in peace is a very DW solution, made without war or bloodshed, but one that feels a little too pat and simple too. I mean, I don’t know about you but if an alien was trying to kill me, even for good reasons, I’m not sure I could fully trust it again; heck I’m reluctant to turn my laptop back on after it’s been in one of its moods in case it electrocutes me. That doesn’t stop this being a nice little DW episode with a lot to offer, mind – it’s just with so much competition it’s enough to stop it being a truly great one higher up the list. 

  
+ I’ve long wondered which DW companion most resembled who I would be if I was taken across time and space. At different times I’ve considered Harry (perpetually clumsy), Rory (comic relief often out of his depth), Peri (alternating bouts of sarcasm and weariness) and Vicki (giving cute nicknames to ugly looking monsters about to eat me). I really think that it’s Bill though: she’s mostly one step away from a breakdown, constantly bewildered by real life never mind life with the Doctor and her fellow Earthlings often feel more alien to her than the aliens she meets. This could so easily become irritating, but Pearl Mackie somehow manages to make Bill adorable, fearless, loyal and empathetic rather than just lost and wet. Because of the way the handover between showrunners was made (Moffat getting an extra year he really wasn’t expecting because Chris Chibnall wasn’t ready in time) Bill only got one season in the Tardis and less time on-screen than any other modern Who companion bar Martha and Dan, but even by her second story she feels like a real rounded believable credible character we both recognise and can sympathise with.      

- I’ve loved him since his breakthrough role in ‘Two Pints Of Lager and A Packet Of Crisps’, he’s one of the best DI’s in ‘Death Of Paradise we’ve ever had and I’d long hoped Ralf Little would be in DW one day maybe even as the Doctor but…well he’s not at his best here, mis-cast as a Human colonist and and struggling to shine in a role that gives him precious little to do. They should have saved him for a better part.