Doctor Who 10x02 Smile

[kerravonsen]

Mmmm, I liked this one. I like how Bill is sassy in her own Bill way. And again with the non-usual questions.

Transcript is here.

More beautiful visuals. Look, those wheat-fields were stunning. And the soaring architecture, yes.

Foreshadowing, yes... "I want to see if it's happy." And "They say the settlers have cracked the secret of human happiness." I think cracked is the operative word.

The bit where the Doctor got two portions because he has two hearts! And Bill is all "wait a minute - two hearts?"

BILL: You're thinking. Tell me what you're thinking about.
DOCTOR: A magic haddock.
That's very Twelve, when you look back on it: saying something which appears to be irrelevant, but which is actually very relevant. A bit like Father Brown, really. (I've been watching the Kenneth More version of Father Brown recently. Good stuff.)

The skeleton crew is literally a skeleton crew... (shudder)

BILL Why did the robots feed them to the garden?
DOCTOR: I don't know. Maybe they ran out of fertiliser. Let's not ask them.
(reminding me of The Girl in the Fireplace)

The dilemma of the episode is like... wishing for World Peace and being given the Peace of Death. I'm kind of surprised that the Doctor didn't think of messing with their programming sooner, but he did have a point: he couldn't fix the problem until he knew what caused the problem. As any good programmer knows. We, the viewers, had a better idea of what was going on simply because we had the advantage of seeing the last of the skeleton crew being killed.

Favourite quotes:

"Well, you don't steer the Tardis, you negotiate with it. The still point between where you want to go and where you need to be, that's where she takes you." -- Doctor

NARDOLE: Hmm. Why's she here?
DOCTOR: Because she isn't anywhere else.
(love this Doctor's snappy evasions)

"There's a giant smiley abattoir over there and I'm having this really childish impulse to blow it up. Be right back." -- Doctor

"What do you think's going to happen when all those people arrive? They're expecting the new garden of Eden. What they are not expecting is to be the fertiliser." -- Doctor

BILL: Why are you Scottish?
DOCTOR: I'm not Scottish, I'm just cross.
BILL: Is there a Scotland in space?
DOCTOR: They're all over the place, demanding independence from every planet that they land on.

"You don't call the helpline because you are the helpline." -- Bill

"All traps are beautiful, that's how they work." -- Doctor

STEADFAST: They want to kill us.
DOCTOR: No. They want to help you. Killing you is just a side-effect.

"Do you know why I always win at chess? Because I have a secret move. I kick over the board." -- Doctor

Comments

[vilakins]

There's some wonderfully brilliant dialogue this season! Though I have to say that kicking over the board isn't winning but more scorched earth.

I did enjoy this one, despite it creeping me out, because of Bill and the Doctor being so entertaining - and in Bill's case, entertained.

[kerravonsen]

Though I have to say that kicking over the board isn't winning but more scorched earth.

Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't. An example of where it wasn't was the episode where the Eleventh Doctor had been taken over by Cybermen, and he outwitted the possession by pretending he'd outwitted it, and the cyber-brain spent more and more of its processing power trying to figure out how. I'd call that a kicking-over-the-board solution.

[jhall1.livejournal.com]

Sadly, I miss many of the Doctor's best lines. Peter Capaldi doesn't seem to enunciate very clearly and, since for much of the time he's competing with background music or sound effects, I struggle to catch what he's saying. Of course, my own increasing age may have something to do with it. (It's interesting that, on channels that have adverts, I can always make out every word of those adverts. I suppose advertisers need to ensure that potential customers can manage to hear their blandishments.)

But I suppose that if that's my only real complaint about the episode, it must have been pretty good. :)

[And now I've scrolled down to your post about "The Pilot", and am glad to see that it's not just me.]

[kerravonsen]

8-)

[jaxomsride.livejournal.com]

This was better than episode 1, though I thought it rather unDoctorish to immediately want to blow it up, rather than getting the Vardi to change their minds.

[kerravonsen]

Good point -- but I think he was operating under the assumption that they couldn't be reasoned with, because they were non-sentient, until he realised that they were actually sentient/alive. But even so, yes, blowing things up first isn't usually his modus operandi.