Doctor Who #1055: The Robot Revolution

"Timey-wimey? Am I six?"

TECHNICAL SPECS: First aired Apr.12 2025.

IN THIS ONE... Belinda Chandra becomes the Doctor's companion after being kidnapped by alien robots.

REVIEW: Despite the entirely gratuitous killing of a house cat (where a vaporized piece of furniture would have been enough), The Robot Revolution is a pretty good start to a season, and indeed, much better than Space Babies was by light years. There's no denying RTD is copying off his own paper in terms of set-up - the new companion works in a hospital and is accosted by robots like Martha was by Judoon in Smith and Jones. But the similarities end there, and what follows, while not perfect, is a strong introduction to Belinda Chandra (Varada Sethu).

Let's start with her. Obviously, not the first nurse to travel with the Doctor (there was Rory), it's a natural pairing, and in this case informs her initial impression of the Doctor. Though perhaps a bit serious here, or underplaying some of her lines, Belinda is fun because she is unimpressed with the Doctor (with the tech, sure, but not the man) and doesn't want to travel with him. We haven't had that since the classic series, and it seems that with reality breaking down, she's stuck on the TARDIS, hoping the next leap will be the leap home. "I am not one of your adventures", is a great line, and famous last words. From her perspective, he just got a would-be companion killed (Sasha 55) and has taken a sample of her DNA without asking, treating her like some crazy mystery he needs to solve (11 was less forthcoming about Amy and Clara's unusual properties for a reason). She's having none of that, while still keeping a certain sense of wonder - more a Barbara than a Tegan, you might say. And it's also interesting that she wants to go home despite her life being a bit of a mess - a job that makes her roll her eyes, sharing a flat with terrible people, and the one thing we know about her love life is that 17 years ago, she went out with a cartoonishly toxic creep who paid to have a star named after her and the framed certificate is still dubiously hanging on her wall. She chooses mediocre normalcy over danger, and that's very relatable. Will it change? Remains to be seen. For now, it's not like there's an Earth 2025 to go back to, which is a cool reveal.

Her forced adventure exists within a paradox. Silly toy robots kidnap her with their toy rocket and bring her to a toyetic alien city. The bots are a combination of those robots on Sarah Jane Adventures, the ones in Smile and a bit of Gadget-Gadget, but you need something for the kiddies (who are gonna lose it over a dead cat). They serve an AI Generator (itself in the service of a terrible pun) who, 10 years before, turned them against the humanish population. The twist: This is a planet orbiting the star named after Belinda and they know it. The twist in time: They only went to get her because she herself will tell them they should be after her ex, Alan, who actually named the star, which they do, but in the past (stupid time rift) and they plug him into their control matrix. He makes the robots bad, takes everything over and eventually sends them to get Belinda so she can be forced to marry him and be absorbed in the machine too. It doesn't explain why the natives built their society around the knowledge that their star was named after her, but we're promised answers down the line, which may or may not be connected to the fact that she's a genetic duplicate of Mundy, whom the Doctror met in the 51st Century (Boom). Actors with multiple roles happens all the time in Who (none faster than Peter Purves during The Chase going from Morton Dill to Stephen Taylor), though I guess we're going more for an Impossible Girl-type mystery here.

Part of the whole mystery is who gave the Doctor Belinda's name in the first place, but he's chasing her early on. Really like the reveal that he's been on the planet 6 months, building his credentials so he can intervene when SHE finally gets there. I'm not sure the whole "every ninth word" stuff makes sense, but it makes for a nice little puzzle to enliven the expository scene. Belinda is quick to start helping the rebels with medical help, and then hatches her own plan to save lives by letting the robots catch her. This is a woman who's used to thumbing her nose at authority - the doctors who don't get their hands dirty, the ex that once tried to control her every thought - and doesn't wait around for some man to tell her what to do. Of course, when the ex is revealed as the villain, the social commentary gets a little bit too obvious. And we know (or should) that he will be Blinovitched (the Doctor's a bit too happy at his "death though), though I don't think anyone expected a weird trippy sequence, the likes of which we haven't seen since the Mara nested inside Tegan's mind. What was up with that?

Goofy-looking robots, I can accept. Silly plot contrivances, likewise. But I'd be remiss if I didn't mention some of the shoddy dialog and continuity in the episode. For example, when Belinda sees the Doctor's capsule, she asks if it's his TARDIS, even though he only referred to it as his spaceship earlier.Okay, so maybe there's a missing conversation. Less acceptable is that she asks to be returned home and gives a date and a time, then has the temerity to look surprised when he tells her it's a time machine. So why datestamp her destination? That's damn messy.

THEORIES: As a new season begins, let me just reiterate my "Broken Universe" theory, which would allow for this whole story being a paradox, the Earth being somehow destroyed and time-locked in 2025 (the date of Volcano Day is that of the season's penultimate episode), and even Belinda's time clone (not to mention Mrs. Flood's continued fourth-wall breaks). The fact that the season ends on an episode called The Reality War does nothing to change my mind about that. The other question raised by fans is whether Belinda Chandra has any relation to Rani Chandra and her family (as seen in the Sarah Jane Adventures). Since RTD reuses surnames all the time - how many of his tenure's characters are called Jones, for example? - Chandra may just be his go-to for Asian characters.

REWATCHABILITY: Medium - Too silly for a better recommendation, but as the beginning for a new companion and mystery, it is, of course, one to check out.