Doctor Who Series 10 Episode 2 - Smile - Review
Starring: Peter Capaldi, Pearl Mackie, Ralf Little & Kaizer Akhtar
Written By: Frank Cottrell-Boyce
Directed By: Lawrence Gough
Given
the times we live in, it's very easy for us to explore ideas about
dystopia when we talk about the future, and it's become increasingly
common for sci-fi to offer up bleak and desolate visions of what's to
come. Especially after 2016, I don't blame anyone for talking about
dystopia, but maybe it is time to look more towards utopia, as
there's plenty of people out there who'd tell you that we're already
living in a dystopian world. A more utopian outlook is what the
writer of this week's episode, Frank Cottrell-Boyce, is hoping to
achieve with Smile, while I'll be hoping that this is a
lot better than his last work, In The Forest Of The Night.
Breaking
his oath to remain on Earth and guard the Vault, the Doctor takes
Bill to one of the Earth's first colonies, Gliese 581d. They arrive
in a spectacular city, perfect for human beings, but with one
problem... it's completely deserted. The only intelligence in the
city are the swarms of nanobots called the Vardy, along with the
Vardy interfaces that communicate via emoji. When the Doctor and Bill
investigate the city, they find the remains of the human setup crew
being distributed as plant fertiliser. If the two want to stay alive,
they have to keep smiling...
By
far the best thing about Smile, and certainly what I'll
remember it for when I look back at this series is its production
design. Quite simply, the production is absolutely stunning and this
could very well be the best, or at least one of the best, futuristic
cities the show has ever featured. I remember reading that Episode 2
would feature location shooting in Valencia, but I never would have
anticipated that it would pay off this well. Even more surprising was
the fact that the location that doubled for the human colony is the
City of Arts and Sciences that you can actually visit, and after
seeing how beautiful it looked here, I'd really like to visit it
myself. The colony world here is amazing, gleaming and wonderfully
bright and sunny, and if it's a utopian setting Frank Cottrell-Boyce
was vying for, he couldn't have asked for much better than this. The
“Emojibots” or Vardy interfaces as I really prefer to call
them, while I'll talk more about them later, was a nice, cute design.
Lawrence Gough returns to direct for the second week running, and
does another fantastic job at showing off the amazing city, and who
can blame him? The futuristic feel of this episode could even be
picked up on in Murray Gold's music score, which definitely had more
of a synthesized and electronic spin to it this week.
With
such a fantastic setting, it would have been nice to see this city
populated, and while I understand that negates the point of this
episode, I can't help but wonder how amazing this city would have
looked if fully functional. I'd have been willing to forgive this if
Smile didn't have a particularly strong supporting
cast, but it actually does. Mina Anwar, best known in the Whoniverse
as Rani's mum from The Sarah Jane Adventures, makes a
return as a different character this time but is quickly disposed of
in the pre-titles sequence. Young Kaizer Akhtar does a great job in
the last act as one of the child colonists (named off-screen as
Praiseworthy), but he doesn't get much to do either. In fact, this
episode made no attempt to explain what suddenly caused him to awaken
from hibernation, or why the Doctor and Bill allowed him to wonder
off alone into the city. Having very little to do is a problem that
extends to Ralf Little as Steadfast. Ralf Little's appearance in
Doctor Who was even announced by video, and a few were even
speculating that he could be the next Doctor, but given how utterly
inconsequential his character is, and with such little screen time,
it makes the effort of casting him seem laughable. These actors all
did the best with what they were given, but what they were given was
… pretty pathetic.
The
bright side of a limited supporting cast is that Smile puts
plenty of focus on developing the Doctor and Bill's growing
relationship, and this is another highlight of the episode. Nardole
isn't here this week either, and it says a lot about how pointless
his character is when his absence means we lose nothing whatsoever.
Peter Capaldi and Pearl Mackie are fast proving themselves to be such
a fantastic coupling, and while I had been worried that Bill's many
questions would end up grating on me, they actually proved to be
hugely entertaining. There was character growth to be found for both
the Doctor and Bill – while it was great to see her enjoying the
colony world as much as we, the audience were, Bill is also starting
to see a slightly darker side to travelling with the Doctor,
particularly when they discover the source of the fertiliser in the
gardens. This looks set to be built upon even more next week, and I'm
really keen to see how Bill will react when she learns more of the
Doctor's past. Meanwhile, the Doctor's failed attempts to keep Bill
out of harm's way, while entertaining, also allowed him to learn that
Bill isn't someone willing to sit still when there's so much at stake
around her.
Going
into Smile, my biggest worry with it (a worry that had
been with me since the Series 10 trailers), was the use of emojis as
language, and the role it would play. When I first saw it, I found it
cringe-worthy, and while I have warmed a little more to the idea, I'm
worried about how it will affect the way we view Smile in
the future. While emojis are popular now, and I personally love them,
I can't quite suspend my disbelief enough for me to believe that
they'll still be around thousands of years in the future, AND that
they'll be official language. It reminds me a bit of Bad Wolf,
and while I thoroughly love that episode, my only gripe with it is
that its reliance on popular gameshow formats, while still
entertaining to this day, has dated it, and I can see Smile
going in the same direction. As the episode went on, I also
noticed that it takes quite a few elements from other past episodes.
Sometimes it does this well, such as making some nice references to
The Beast Below, but the premise of having to smile and
be happy to stay alive has been taken directly from The
Happiness Patrol.
(Skip
ahead now to the next paragraph to avoid spoilers!)
However, the weakest part of Smile
is its closing ten minutes, which feels very hectic and even strange.
Ultimately, the ending is one big disappointing cop-out thinly
disguised by a shootout and a few moments of action. Nonetheless,
it's an ending that effectively sees the Doctor going for a very
convenient reset and reboot of the Vardies. What follows this
resolution, I found to be a tad strange. The Doctor wipes the
Vardies' memories of them ever having killed anyone, and during the
firefight between the humans and the Vardies, he realizes that they
are their own sentient lifeforms. All good so far, and the end-point
this episode reached was of a peaceful truce between the humans and
the Vardies. However, before we get there, the Doctor seems to have a
subtle jab at the humans for not recognizing the Vardies as sentient
BEFORE the reset, and at an earlier point, he even refers to them as
a “slave class”.
But no human had any reason to see the Vardy as anything more than a
sophisticated tool, so why have a go at them? For once, I don't think
the humans intentionally did anything wrong here. Also, I might have
missed something, but did the Doctor actually do anything to prevent
the “Having to Smile” situation from happening again? Maybe it's
just the way this last scene was put together, but it felt very
strange and underwhelming.
I
may have come across as harsh on this episode, but honestly I didn't
hate it, and it was still a fun time. It has flaws and I can't quite
describe it as good, but this is a definite improvement over Frank
Cottrell-Boyce's Series 8 misfire, In The Forest Of The
Night. On the negative side,
Smile makes
poor use of its supporting cast, requires perhaps too-great
suspension of disbelief, and I was personally disappointed that none
of the robots displayed the poo emoji. However on the bright side,
Smile did look
stunning, the supporting cast did the best with what little they had
and it does serve as strong character development for the Doctor and
Bill.
Smile
6/10