Recap: Season 10, Episode 2: Smile
Doctor Who episode 2, Smile, premiered yesterday on BBC One and BBC America. Did it make you smile, or fear for emojis for the rest of your life?
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With another episode of season 10 over, Smile could be one of twelve’s best episodes yet. Except for the fact that Matt Lucas was absent, Bill and the Doctor did just fine on their own as they travelled to a planet run by…emoji robots?
I know, I was skeptical of the idea too. But as a friend of mine said, “Moffat’s showing his RTD [Russel T Davies]”. And I have to say, she’s right. This episode is a flashback of the first four seasons of NewWho, with the silly ideas we haven’t seen from Moffat.
Bill’s Coming Into Her Own
Picture shows: Peter Capaldi as The Doctor, Pearl Mackie as Bill and an Emojibot
Bill is still going through the new companion shock, though she offered up some hilarious one liners when trying to understand something.
- “You can’t reach the controls [from the seats]! Or do your arms stretch like Mr. Fantastic?”
- “Two hearts…so does that mean you have a really high blood pressure?” (probably the best reaction I’ve seen to finding out the Doctor has two hearts)
- “Is this bloke utopia?” When talking about how the Doctor got extra portions of food and she only received one.
Brief Recap
In Smile, The Doctor and Bill arrive on a planet that is completely empty, except for the robots that communicate using emojis. Isn’t it good to know that emojis are what defines the human race in years to come? They quickly realize there must have been settlers to get the planet ready, as the end of the world had come and these were Earth settlers, but where was everyone else?
As the episode continues, they realize that the robots want to see everyone happy and to…smile, and the sadder the person gets, the angrier the robot gets until…it turns the person into a skeleton and uses it for fertilizer. Exactly what had happened to the settlers.
Quickly, The Doctor realizes that these robots were supposed to be used as servants, and went too far. Their job was to keep the people happy by tending to their needs, but whenever the people got sad, they saw that as something to fix. How do you fix sadness in their minds? Get rid of it.
The trick to fool the robots is to smile while talking. Which works until the people who had been frozen, waiting to wake up realize what happened.
The episode, as always, shows a small lesson. The robots did such a good job being their servant, they went too far. And the Doctor consults the IT Team (turns off the robots and turns them back on) and turns the situation on its head. Now the robots are in charge.
How much rent do you think emoji’s charge? Maybe you just need to smile!