The Robot Revolution is the first episode of the new series of Doctor Who, staring Ncuti Gatwa as The Doctor and Varada Sethu as Belinda Chandra.
Spoilers ahead!!
General Thoughts
Overall, I thought this episode was okay. I didn’t love it, but I don’t hate it. I loved seeing Varada Sethu being introduced as the new companion, Belinda Chandra. Belinda is a likeable companion, with a realistic attitude towards the bizarre things happening around her and I can’t wait to see more of her character and her character’s journey over the upcoming season. And, as always, Ncuti Gatwa is brilliant and fun as the Doctor.
Issues with The Robot Revolution
This episode suffers from some horrifying implications, and not only because the poor cat died for almost no reason. At one point, the Doctor is trying to get someone’s personal information from a receptionist at a hospital, and when he tries to sneakily get the information, he turns the power off in the whole building. How many people were in surgery or on life support machines? This isn’t even acknowledged when the Doctor could have fixed it with his sonic and mentioned in an off-handed line. Hopefully, the hospital had some sort of back up generator or other power source.
Another issue I have with this episode is that while I love a man expressing emotions on screen in a healthy way, the emotions I felt were nonexistent. The Doctor cried about Sasha, who he planned to travel in the Tardis with, and had a few flirty moments with. However, all of that was conveyed in only a few lines before the character’s death. I don’t think enough time was spent with Sasha for me to care about her death, or the Doctor’s reaction to it. I know that he has spent six months with her, but we saw none of that on screen and perhaps we could have and then Sasha’s death would be a bit more impactful.
My other problem is that the messaging isn’t particularly subtle, nor does it feel like it’s done well. The robot overlords and evil ‘AI Generator’ are not subtle at all when compared to the current state of the world. What makes it worse is that the ‘evil overlord’ is actually just an incel which is… a choice. My thoughts on Alan’s character will be expanded in the next section.
Alan
Now to talk about Alan. To start with, Alan is portrayed as a very awkward character in the cold open. You think that he’s just an awkward teenager, only for him to later be incredibly controlling and basically an incel. In fact, the plot happens because of a paradox where Belinda tells robots to get Alan, and a time fracture causes Alan to arrive before her. Then Alan wants to get Belinda so he can marry her because she rejected him years before. While I expected Alan to come back during the episode, it was strange to see him as a part-machine incel. I wish that the cold open would have had more of him trying to control and manipulate Belinda instead of showing it as a flashback.
Overall Thoughts on The Robot Revolution
I think this episode was a little messy but it wasn’t a bad episode. It was an okay start to the series and I liked the introduction of Belinda Chandra. Also, I like how she is a more active companion, getting herself into trouble instead of things happening to her. For example, I like how she tried to save people by surrendering to the robots. And, based on the ending of the episode, I am curious to see what happened to Earth.
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Want to read another of my blog posts about Doctor Who? Check out my thoughts on the Christmas episode here.