Smile (Grade & Discussion Thread)

[matthunter]

I was faked out a bit by the "explosion" when the Doctor reset the Vardies - I assume it was meant to be the city (which was composed of them) momentarily disintegrating and then reassembling - the force of which knocked the humans out - but in the moment I thought the Doctor had triggered the fusion core and set the Vardies to default to their "save the humans" mode by literally rebuilding them - in the process gaining an understanding of death. Of course, this would also mean Bill and the Doctor were killed and rebuilt by the Vardies too, but that's hardly a concern for a guy who spent several million years dying and using the last of his life energy to power up a "respawn lol!" device. And, depending on how Rassilon gave Time Lords regeneration abilities in the first place, they may be integrated nanotech anyway.

 

[TommyR01D]

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

I wonder how long it will be before we get our first reference to Brexit in the series - or Donald Trump, for that matter.

We already had the Doctor's quip about Scottish independence.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

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."

Yep.

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.

Yep.

Gliese 581d - the name of the planet in this episode - is an unconfirmed planet in the Gliese 581 system. The shooting location is the City of Arts and Sciences in Valencia, Spain.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gliese_581

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2017/apr/22/doctor-who-series-36-episode-two-smile-recap

Great shooting location.

And good character interaction between Bill and the Doctor, as others have said.

On balance, not as good as last week. Straight face.

 

[UncleRogi]

A wonderful episode, though a little preachy with the moral for my taste. Mayhap we should
all be nicer to our appliances; they can get up to such mischief!

My opinion is that the writers wanted us to dislike Clara after 11. She didn't handle the regeneration very well,
and I think she wanted to have it both ways. One is either with the Doctor or not. She resented the Doctor taking away her young hero and giving back an angry old man. Not a popular attitude with Whovians.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Union and United come from the same root.

UNIT isn't from the United nations any more.

Is it possible that the EU was sponsoring (Nu)UNIT?

NuUENIT?

 

[Green Lantern]

I wonder how long it will be before we get our first reference to Brexit in the series - or Donald Trump, for that matter.

We already had the Doctor's quip about Scottish independence.

I think when Bill first read through the book with humanity's story on I'm pretty sure there was a very quick glimpse of Donald Trump, or at least someone who resembled him, from the side.

 

[Photoman15]

For the first time since Husband's of River Song I saw an episode of Doctor Who I really liked.
One BBC America criticism though. I don't like them saying watch Class to get a sneak peak of the next episode. I am watching Who on DVR. Small thing I know but is this going to happen when orphan black starts?

You know there were only TWO episodes between this one and HUSBAND'S OF RIVER SONG, right? And one of them was Christmas episode.
As far as CLASS, it sucks hard.

 

[tomalak301]

You know there were only TWO episodes between this one and HUSBAND'S OF RIVER SONG, right? And one of them was Christmas episode.
As far as CLASS, it sucks hard.

It's been over a year since HORS aired. That's a long time to be excited for a Doctor Who episode.

 

[diankra]

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

In particular, that bit explains why Erewhon doesn't use machines; they used to, but the machines evolved into sentience...

 

[Emperor-Tiberius]

Again, a very monotone plot, saved/enhanced by the wonderful set of Doctor-Companion that is 12 and Billie. Its so obvious that this should've occured last series, as Clara's holier-than-thou attitude really got on my nerves (despite Coleman being a better than Mackie, probably). I think its almost safe to call Billie the most classic of companions - in awe of the Doctor, but not in-love/fancy with him. I don't think we've had that yet on NuWho at all, except with Donna, but she went out of her way to point that out to him that it wasn't quite as classical a dynamic (still the best one, though). Indeed, it feels like OldWho, complete with a cliffhanger to the next serial.

And I have to admit, it looked pretty nice, even if a bit sterile, IMO.

 

[Lonemagpie]

Not that original, riffed on lots of previous stories, was good fun. Capaldi is great, and Bill continues making a reasonable audience-ID figure for newbie viewers. So, cool.

 

[danellis]

The shooting location is the City of Arts and Sciences in Valencia, Spain.
https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2017/apr/22/doctor-who-series-36-episode-two-smile-recap

I thought it looked like a Calatrava building, thanks for the confirmation.

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.

Probably because only humans are stupid enough to let themselves devolve so as using emojis lmao

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

"The Beast Below" showed a separate "Great Britain" escape ship/city. dJE

 

[Emperor-Tiberius]

Really, I seriously hope at least Billie will survive Moffat and Capaldi's exit. There's no reason why there can't be a holdover companion from a previous era.

 

[Mr Awe]

I thought it was a bit better than last weeks. I gave last week's 3/5. This one gets 4/5 but that's being generous because I can't give a half a point. Capaldi as the Doctor is fun. I like Bill. At least there was a bit more of a story this week but it wasn't that engaging. You didn't feel connect to the people or the situation. Visually it was pretty amazing.

 

[Mr. Adventure]

Really, I seriously hope at least Billie will survive Moffat and Capaldi's exit. There's no reason why there can't be a holdover companion from a previous era.

Threw me for a sec, I was like Rose is back?

 

[Professor Zoom]

Really, I seriously hope at least Billie will survive Moffat and Capaldi's exit. There's no reason why there can't be a holdover companion from a previous era.

[pedantic]
Bill. Not Billie. Bill.
[/pedantic]

 

[Starkers]

"There's something hunting us. And it ain't no Dalek."

 

[DimesDan]

and comment on the racial demography of the past, both of which Martha did in The Shakespeare Code.

I think we can forgive this don't you given both time periods aren't renowned for being very ethnically diverse and the forced relocation of an untold amount of individuals into Slavery by the British Empire at the time and it would be in characters for both young women to make the observation they do .

Unless you feel she shouldn't comment on it, which would be a glaring omission and no doubt the writer of this episode, or Moffat would be open to criticism for not having Bill comment on it.

 

[Romulan_spy]

"Smile" was a decent episode. Bill is really shaping up to be a great companion. I like that she is familiar with scifi concepts but still suitably impressed by what she experiences. And, she asks really good questions without sounding dumb or annoying. Capaldi has really settled into the role now. His portrayal of the Doctor seems effortless. It is a shame that he is leaving. The interactions between the Doctor and Bill are great. The episode had a very classic Who feel to it, especially with the Doctor trying to shield the companion but the Companion going off anyway to help.

I do feel like the episode gave us some interesting scifi concepts. We got a city made up of intelligent nanobots. We got an artificial intelligence emerging into its own sentient civilization. We got an artificial intelligence treating the emotion of grief like a virus. We got an artificial intelligence monitoring human emotion and trying to force the people to conform to its definition of happiness. Sadly, I feel like some of these ideas were kinda glossed over too quickly.

The pacing of the episode was quite good up to the ending which felt very rushed. We had a real dilemma and standoff between the nanobots and the humans and then suddenly, the Doctor just zaps the nanobots with his sonic screwdriver and goes "let's negotiate to let the humans stay. OK? Good. Off we go". The writers used the sonic screwdriver as a cheat to solve the problem.

 

[MacLeod]

The writers used the sonic screwdriver as a cheat to solve the problem.

Who knows perhaps the next incarnation of The Doctor will go hands free again, like the Fifth did.

And wasn't part of the reason they dropped the sonic screwdriver because it became a cheat to get out of trouble?