Smile (2017) Review

Smile is a patient, atmospheric mystery episode with an unfortunately clunky ending.

WRITTEN BY

Frank Cottrell-Boyce, writer of Series 8's widely panned In The Forest Of The Night. This serves as his redemption.

PLOT

The Doctor and Bill take their first trip together to a future Earth colony that appears to be completely abandoned, save for the Vardy(emoji-based robots). Once they discover that the humans have all been killed in a typical machine takeover, the Doctor becomes adamant that they must destroy the colony to prevent any further hostile events. But is it the wise thing to do?

ANALYSIS

I really dig the majority of the episode, a wonderful callback to the best of 1960s Doctor Who, where the first part of the story featured the main cast on their own, exploring. For the first time in ages, we have a companion without pretense or lack of enthusiasm, and a Doctor who gets to exercise his brain, brilliant! 
The location filming is a visual feast on the eyes, and the setting is completely plausible as a futuristic, but also comfortable environment.

However, the story completely deflates at the very end, in which - at a very fast rate - we find out that the colonists are still around, the Vardy are sentient, the Doctor mindwipes the Vardy to protect them and then quickly organises an arrangement to allow both the humans and the Vardy to co-exist. 
It's way, way, waaaaaay too fast. It's a whole other episode, squeezed into five minutes. The Vardy being sentient creatures on their own comes completely out of nowhere(Twelve's nasty habit of pulling plot points out of his arse returns in full force), and then we're supposed to buy that the humans can co-exist with these... erm... creatures... who inadvertently killed their family members and also have to pay them taxes? 
Aaaaand then we have to buy that the Doctor would just wipe the memories of the Vardy without any moral dilemmas. And THEN we have to buy that the Doctor didn't do it before he knew the Vardy were sentient to save them all a lot of trouble. 

Yeah, Frank just couldn't go without reminding us all that, indeed, he wrote In The Forest Of The Night. 

CHARACTERS

In some way, it feels like this is the real beginning of the Twelfth Doctor's era, and the past two series were a false start. But it's true that of all the Doctors, Capaldi took the longest time really getting a grip on his character(or at least the writers did). But the way I see it, every new series Doctor has had at least one brilliant season(namely Series 1, 4 and 5). This HAS to be Capaldi's, it simply must be. 

Pearl Mackie continues to be an enjoyable presence as Bill Potts, though her constant questioning of minute details of the Doctor's life is sort of starting to get on my nerves(picture me scowling as she began extrapolating the Doctor's meaning in life from the TARDIS door panel). 

I give up with Nardole. Even if he does have a legitimate reason to be there, Matt Lucas is being completely wasted in this part. I'm just tired of seeing him now. And of course, next week he's barely going to be in it too. 

The Vardy were the highlight of the episode for me, I thought they were adorable, and easily the most memorable monsters since the Silence(that goes to show how creative new Who is with its monsters). When one started to wobble after the Doctor, I was just begging for it to become a new companion. Lord knows he'd be more useful than Nardole. 

NOTES

*When Bill started to talk about having chairs around the console, I was like "yeah!". I've always wanted to have a little monorail around the console where the Doctor could comfortably sit down and spin himself to whichever controls he needs to reach. 

*I'd love to have one of those mood indicators, only where I can see it. I used to have a mood ring. 

*Food cubes! We're going all Star Trek this week... this colony could be straight out of the rebooted movie series.

*No other race in the universe uses emojis! That's awesome.

*The human colonists' steamy old spaceship gave me a huge nostalgia hit for the David Tennant days. 

*So, the Doctor tells Bill that they're in a trap and her response is "beautiful, though". Um, who cares about the decor if it's a trap??

*Although it's sort of un-redeemed towards the end, I like how the Doctor ends up being wrong about the colonists not being there. He really needs to slow down with the assumptions.

*I was about to ask why the Doctor couldn't just memorise the map(given his huge brain) when they revealed that he just wanted to keep Bill safe. That's really clever writing. 

*Okay, am I the only one who thought the Vardy were spelled "Vardi"? I think the latter looks much more dignifying. 

*The ending teaser into next week's episode is very First Doctor, I approve. 

CONTINUITY ADVISOR

1) The Doctor tells Bill that he stole the TARDIS, because he felt like it(as seen in The Name Of The Doctor). I'm so happy to hear this version of events again. He's probably lying to hide the whole Hybrid thing, but frankly my dear, I don't give a... and yes, of course it's a fitting callback given that the two are just beginning to learn about each other.

2) Nardole reminds the Doctor about the oath he made to stay on Earth and guard the Vault, both of which were first introduced in The Pilot. I can't wait to find out more, this sounds really interesting. 

3) The Doctor reveals to Bill that Earth will be evacuated in the future, and that he ran into a few of the ships. Of course the most notable case being in The Beast Below, where he ventured onboard the starship UK. That's some nice, logical continuity. 

BEST QUOTE

"Look at this building. Look at it. You know what I like about humanity? Its optimism. Do you know what this building is made of? Pure, soaring optimism." - The Twelfth Doctor seems to like us again, wa-hey!

CONCLUSION

In spite of the clunky ending, this episode is a lot of fun to watch and pleasingly brainy.