Smile (Grade & Discussion Thread)

[Mage]

Loved it. Agreed that perhaps story wise this wasn't the best ever, but the execution of it was brilliant. Loving Capaldi again, but Mackie is really suprising. Awesome companion. My girlfriend, who's been a huge Who-fan for years now, was getting really bored with Moffat's stuff from the last two years, but has said that the last two episodes are really getting her back into it. And I couldn't agree more. Really entertaining tv.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Remember how depressed and stroppy Rose got when 10 made her a chip lady in School Reunion?

 

[ITL]

Remember how depressed and stroppy Rose got when 10 made her a ship lady in School Reunion?

We call them Dinner Ladies.

Remember how depressed and stroppy Rose got when 10 made her a chip lady in School Reunion?

We call them Dinner Ladies.

 

[Mr. Adventure]

This is like that movie Now You See Me or Signs for a lot of people where it was good but fell apart with the ending. I continue to enjoy the Bill/Doctor relationship and chemistry and the setup was fun but the writer didn't seem to know how to wrap it all up. I didn't really care for the implications or the means of the Doctor's actions, that reset was sloppy. I'm trying not to throw the baby out with the bath water but it's the worst place to mess up for a lasting impression.

I do like the way Pearl Mackie makes Bill's observations seem like a unique perspective on things because it'd be easy to come off as dim or obnoxious. The Doctor seems less world-weary now and Capaldi has some pep in his step which makes 12 more likable than ever. Maybe not as layered but easy to watch.

I thought the statement that no one else in the universe uses emoji was an odd thing to throw out. Seemed needlessly reductive but maybe if we take it to mean those specific symbols?

I'm glad the Doctor had the map memorized cuz Bill's directions seemed off.

 

[Guy Gardener]

We call them Dinner Ladies.

We call them Dinner Ladies.

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Victoria Wood. RIP.

 

[matthunter]

DenOfGeek is puzzling over the 190484 number on the colony ship "Erewhon" (which they spotted is "nowhere" backwards). They can't find anyrhing Who-related for 19th April 1984 but what if it's 04/1984? April 84 was an issue of Dr Who magazine with a pic of Ainley's Master (with goatee) on the cover, so if the Simm reveal was meant to be secret and Moffat only put him in the trailer after getting wind that the press might be onto it, it could be foreshadowing.

That same issue also discusses The Caves of Androzani, a regeneration story... Hmm.

Richard Hurndall also died in April 1984.

 

[TommyR01D]

While we're throwing out references, did anyone else notice the "United Earth" sign on the spaceship's door.

 

[DimesDan]

did anyone else notice the "United Earth" sign on the spaceship's door.

It was pretty hard to miss.

As for the episode, we enjoyed it and it is a shame that Capaldi is leaving soon(ish).

 

[Guy Gardener]

I did think of UESPA, obviously.

But the irony!

This colony ship was designed as a colony ship before the troubles hit fast, if that Logo had any bearing on the persons constructing that ship. Business as usual. It might even be the case that the United Earth Government didn't tell the hoi Polli about the sun turning into a complete bastard, which is how they kept a work force together in the face of mass hysteria that is commonly hand in hand with an apocalypse mostly.

Oh.

Is Brexit why Britain was left behind on Earth to burn, when every other nation abandoned the homeworld?

 

[tenmei]

DenOfGeek is puzzling over the 190484 number on the colony ship "Erewhon" (which they spotted is "nowhere" backwards). They can't find anyrhing Who-related for 19th April 1984 but what if it's 04/1984? April 84 was an issue of Dr Who magazine with a pic of Ainley's Master (with goatee) on the cover, so if the Simm reveal was meant to be secret and Moffat only put him in the trailer after getting wind that the press might be onto it, it could be foreshadowing.

Erewhon is the title of a book by Samuel Butler - a book about a utopia that turns out to not be the case, and involves something called The Book of Machines.

1984, I'd guess would be a reference to the book of the same name and the robots and the emoji stickers being the equivalent to the Thought Police from it.

I can't pin down a potential reference for the 04 though,

 

[N-121973]

Remember Invasion of Time?

The TARDIS innards looked like a 19th century hospital, a garden and a factory.

maybe one of those locals were the original seed from which the rest of the TARDIS grew outward from?

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I watched a documentary recently on the 'Shada' DVD and apparently one of the reasons for the 19th century hospital is that there was yet another strike on at the BBC and so they had to go on location rather than build sets in the studio.

The Doctor/Bill relationship continues to be very enjoyable and the highlight of the season so far. I was enjoying the overall plot of the story until the ending, which I found to be cheap, rushed and half baked. It was nice to see the story transition at the end to next week's episode.

Also when the Doctor was talking about Earth being abandoned and bumping into some of those ships in the past, was he referencing the episode "The Beast Below" when solar flares caused a mass evacuation until the Earth recovered.

In addition to the two episodes already mentioned 'Ark in Space' & 'Sontarran Experiment' as well as the one you mention, there's also 'The Ark' from William Hartnell's era which was an interesting episode as parts one & two were one story and three & four were another, set centuries in the future dealing with the consequences of the Doctor's actions in the first two episodes.

 

[φ of π]

Like Satellite 5 from The Long Game and Bad Wolf?

 

[Orac Zen]

Pretty decent but the ending was rather...eh. Really liking Bill / Mackie and the character's interaction with the Doctor.

Not much else to say about the episode, really. Not as good as last week but not awful, either.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Like Satellite 5 from The Long Game and Bad Wolf?

That was 200,000 years in the future for the reality game shows, and 5 million years in the future from 21st century London.

The radiation issues that forced the evacuation of the earth was early 30th century. 170 centuries before the Dalek Emperor's and 50,000 centuries before the company let the Earth die.

 

[Mr Soak]

Was the 30th Century when the Time Lords relocated Earth and renamed it Ravalox?

 

[Guy Gardener]

Google says that that happened near to the year 2 million, which is the 20,001st century.

(Just take off two zeroes, and then add 1 to convert years to centuries).

 

[Starkers]

A good solid episode, very enjoyable especially for the relationship between the Doctor and Bill, crikey why couldn't 12 have been like this from the start? As others have said the ending was a bit of a letdown but you can't have everything and given the writer's previous efforts this was a classic!

 

[Guy Gardener]

What if they didn't find that kid, and the Doctor did blow up the city, and only then did they notice the corpse rain, and figure out the full peculiarities?

"How on Earth have the Daleks been having so much trouble wiping you lot out Bill? Piece of piss."

 

[TommyR01D]

There could be more Martha comparisons next week - just as Smile bore similarities with Gridlock (human relocation to glitzy utopia ruined by the happy-happies) the trailer for Thin Ice has Bill mention stepping on butterflies and comment on the racial demography of the past, both of which Martha did in The Shakespeare Code. There's also a retreading of the trip to the past, trip to the future conversation from that series.

 

[Tallguy]

Good up until the end. Stupid moral. Not a very good analog of slavery. The exocomps weren't the "indigenous" species. They were brought with humans, whom they killed. Two options, they're not really people, in which case they're not to blame for their actions, and thus they get their minds completely wiped or they're destroyed. The other option is that they are people, in which case they are not justified in their actions . The final couple minutes were grating.

"Hey, folks, your machines turned on you and killed your family. Now they have greater rights than you because the writer wanted to say something about slavery."

Oh good. I don't have to write all of that.

These stories (this, nuBSG, Data) that tell us that our devices should be treated as alive and using them in the way they were intended is morally wrong tells me that we shouldn't ever give our bulldozers personalities.

I like Bill, but she does such an about face when every one wakes up and has her empathy set to zero.

Finally, imagine the roles were reversed and it was the robots being told "Hey, I'd suggest you get along because otherwise these lot will kill every damn one of you." See, violence DOES solve things.