I just watched Smile again, just doesn't sit right with me.

[Gingerbread Demon]

I'm up to season 10 of my rewatch with the 12th Doctor and Smile..... Ah yeah that one with the happy homicidal robots.. The ending just never sat right with me. Does anyone else here feel the same or has your opinion on this one changed a bit over the years?

 

[Richard S. Ta]

Why doesn't it sit right with you? Present your ideas.

 

[matthunter]

Yeah, this is vague even by GD's usual standards, which have all the depth of a Travelodge carpet.

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

Why doesn't it sit right with you? Present your ideas.

Yeah, this is vague even by GD's usual standards, which have all the depth of a Travelodge carpet.

Oh snarky people

OK I should have said more.

Well it just seemed to me this time much like the last time the Doctor unilaterally makes a decision for everyone without consulting them. The Vardie and robots were not native to the planet, they were introduced much like the settlers. Both times I have watched this I got the impression it was like "hey you best get along with these guys or they will murder you. See you byeeeeee" and he fucks off in the TARDIS with Bill. He put what was basically things created to serve on a higher level then the people that had come to live there, and had brought those machines to help them. That's what didn't sit right with me.

 

[Richard S. Ta]

I'm not being snarky. If you're going to create (yet another) random thread to discuss whatever tidbit happened to float through your mind in that second, at least present some reasoning.

Well it just seemed to me this time much like the last time the Doctor unilaterally makes a decision for everyone without consulting them. The Vardie and robots were not native to the planet, they were introduced much like the settlers. Both times I have watched this I got the impression it was like "hey you best get along with these guys or they will murder you. See you byeeeeee" and he fucks off in the TARDIS with Bill. He put what was basically things created to serve on a higher level then the people that had come to live there, and had brought those machines to help them. That's what didn't sit right with me.

So you're taking the episode completely literally rather than thinking about the subtext the writer intended to put across?

The point of the ending is that grief or unhappiness are not diseases that can be cured. They are emotional states that are perfectly natural and people have to work through them. It's not that weird for Doctor Who to have levels.

It's also not that weird for the Doctor to upset the status quo of a situation, often to it's potential longterm detriment, before getting into the TARDIS and, as you put it, fucking off.

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

I'm not being snarky. If you're going to create (yet another) random thread to discuss whatever tidbit happened to float through your mind in that second, at least present some reasoning.



So you're taking the episode completely literally rather than thinking about the subtext the writer intended to put across?

The point of the ending is that grief or unhappiness are not diseases that can be cured. They are emotional states that are perfectly natural and people have to work through them. It's not that weird for Doctor Who to have levels.

It's also not that weird for the Doctor to upset the status quo of a situation, often to it's potential longterm detriment, before getting into the TARDIS and, as you put it, fucking off.

Perhaps I did take it too literally, and I get the whole grief context having gone through that myself recently I just got upset with the way it all ended.

 

[Richard S. Ta]

Perhaps I did take it too literally, and I get the whole grief context having gone through that myself recently I just got upset with the way it all ended.

It's the Doctor's MO. Ask the Varosians, or all the people suddenly released from a highway after 20 years in Gridlock. Ask the Plutonians, the inhabitants of Androzani Minor/Major or even as far back as the Tribe of Gum in An Unearthly Child...

The Doctor comes along, turns over whatever system is in place and leaves the survivors to deal with the aftermath. It's not exactly a great MO, other characters call him out on it (you can fly away in your magic blue box... paraphrased from The Time of Angels/Flesh and Stone), but it's what the Doctor does literally all the time.

 

[Richard S. Ta]

@Gingerbread Demon

I am sorry to hear you have been through grief recently and it’s a reminder to me that I should moderate myself when talking to posters I don’t normally talk to.

In my second response to you I could have chosen much kinder words and I regret that I didn’t.

I hope whatever you are going through gets easier.

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

@Gingerbread Demon

I am sorry to hear you have been through grief recently and it’s a reminder to me that I should moderate myself when talking to posters I don’t normally talk to.

In my second response to you I could have chosen much kinder words and I regret that I didn’t.

I hope whatever you are going through gets easier.

Hey it's all cool.......

Just going through some family things mum just got a cancer diagnosis so that came out of nowhere. I'm not upset with anything that is said on here.

 

[Guy Gardener]

How much of future history did the Doctor really have a grasp on during his exile in the 80s?

 

[diankra]

The Doctor's approach is often "Immedaite problem solved. Long term up to you."
In this case long term starts with equality between humans and smilebots.

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

The Doctor's approach is often "Immedaite problem solved. Long term up to you."
In this case long term starts with equality between humans and smilebots.

Actually not, the smilebots have the numbers and the humans are forced into smiling or being turned into mulch not a great survival recipe

 

[Velocity]

How much of future history did the Doctor really have a grasp on during his exile in the 80s?

Future history?

 

[Guy Gardener]

Future history?

A time traveler can know future times from where they are standing, as if it was facts in a book.