The Catch
Chandra Crossing
Doctor Who -
The Robot Revolution
UK/USA 2025
Airdate: 12th April 2025
Warning: Slight spoilers.
Okay, full transparency... I might as well own up that I am expecting this year’s new-Who reviews to be more in the form of short capsule reviews. There’s not enough gone into the stories to really sustain them for much longer at the moment and I can’t see that changing anywhere before the end of the current series (which is only scheduled to run for eight episodes this time around anyway).
Also, before I get into it... I have to say that one member of my household was dead against going back for the new season of the show after the track record it’s had over the last six years or so and, while we persuaded him to watch... yeah, he really did not like this one and was very critical of it. Which I totally get. I thought the last season was particularly dreadful (asides from the strengths of the two main lead performers) and I can totally see why the show has become anathema to him.
That being said, I thought The Robot Revolution was a terrific Doctor Who season opener. We got an introduction to the new companion Miss Belinda Chandra, played by Varada Sethu and The Doctor, played by Ncuti Gatwa, even gives a reason, of sorts, as to why she’s the exact duplicate of a character he met last season (played by the same actress) in her far future... although I expect that explanation will be altered significantly to take on a different significance by the time of the last episode.
The story was a time twisty adventure which was all about her and the current night/six months prior/ten years prior, depending on your entry point into the story, when she was kidnapped by robots and taken to the planet... Missbelindachandra, of which she is surprised to find out she is the queen.
There are cute, barely tolerable robots, big bruiser robots, a mad controlling manifestation of AI (not really AI) of her ex-boyfriend and laser battles and tricky reveals that propel the story forward at a quite fast pace - if this was a more episodic serial show as it was from the 1960s - 1980s there would have been more time to explore the concepts... things were a little bit rushed, it seemed to me.
I liked it a lot, though and, the lead actors Ncuti and Varada are both good here (as they were last season but if the scripts don’t work as well as this one did we may still be in trouble). Yeah, I thought this one was great but I’m not naive enough just yet to expect them to be able to keep this up... since the last season was made back to back with this one the makers would not have been able to do much about audience feedback from last year’s show, for sure. So we’ll see how it goes.
I mean, Anita Dobson was back as Mrs. Flood, talking to the audience again and popping up somewhere she shouldn’t be, so that was interesting (although after last season’s so called solution to the overall arc, I’m not trusting any of this just yet). However, it wasn’t long before The Doctor was crying his eyes out again and getting way too emotional about stuff... so, yeah, I’m not fully on board yet. And since we havent even had a soundtrack CD for the last season yet, then I’m not even going to mention the music. No CD, no comment.
And that’s really all I’ve got to say about The Robot Revolution. I thought it was brilliant but, so much has been wrong with the show recently that I’m just not trusting it. We shall see what we shall see.
This may be the first Doctor Who I thought to be boring. The Doctor's upset at the death of Sasha is a prime example of why the writing is bland to some people to me. Not only did the words spoken to her 20 seconds before her death reek of death's ringtone, it really show how some reviewers are critical of the Fifteenth Doctor's characterisation, or the scripts of Gatwa's tenure. By "Joy to the World", Martin Robinson felt the Doctor had failed to find his footing, and felt his showing emotion regularly "started to come across as meaningless", citing the character as lacking warmth in his various scenes. I also disliked Alan's appearance; it has nothing to with the actor but the character's appearance. He looked like a half terminator with a human skull. The concept I can deal with but ripping off the look, that's low!
ReplyDeleteI agree with most of what you just wrote. Just having trouble replying to comments in my own blog now. Google should fix that. Thanks for reading.
ReplyDeleteI highly recommend the "Ten Doctors" comic by Rich Morris. It might just be the best multi-Doctor story. It somehow manages to keep the first 10 Doctors and their companions busy with a huge storyline that somehow, at least to me, never gets to big to comprehend yet covers basically everyone and everything in the Doctor Who universe up to that point. It's grandiose and yet small at the same time, with the time spent with careful attention to the personalites of the Doctors and friends. The downloads page is archived on the Wayback Machine and the big .zip file was also archived: https://web.archive.org/web/20230323113619/https://comics.shipsinker.com/downloads/
DeleteProbably the only place to legitimately find it if Rich's blog doesn't come back. https://doctorwhopaneltopanel.blogspot.com/
It also being preserved here.
I do hope Belinda isn't going to turn into another 'Impossible Girl'. That story only made sense in the context of the 50th anniversary, as a way to link Clara to all 12 incarnations up to that point. Reusing it last year with the Susan Twist characters felt lazy at the time, and now we get another "Haven't I met you before?" story. Some imagination, please!
ReplyDelete