12 Notable Moments From Smile
Mark McCullough makes his choices from the second episode of Series 10.
Smile! It seems that it’s impossible not to during a Frank Cottrell-Boyce episode, as the two so far seem to have a unique charm to them. The final scene aside, In the Forest of the Night was a thoroughly enjoyable episode, and Boyce’s second offering here capture much of what worked from his previous outing. His episode actually throws up a lot to talk about making it quite hard to focus on just twelve.
12. The Doctor’s Oath
11. Blurring the Episode Boundaries
Following on from what I have mentioned in the previous episode’s article about the Vault essentially acting as a tether to the Doctor resisting the series to Earth, we see the show offer a way round this: by dropping the gap that exists within the narrative by having one story lead directly into another. In a scene very reminiscent of Journey’s End, Smile uses its final moments to introduce next week’s story. Instead of being home before the kettle boiled, the Doctor and Bill find themselves on a frozen Thames, with an elephant bearing down on them. Only in Doctor Who could an episode which begins in a supposed utopian future end in the distant past in an icy London.
10. Grin and Bear it
There’s an almost cruel aspect to the narrative here in the imagery behind how one avoids an attack from an Emojibot. It is established right from the start that they best way to avoid an untimely demise is to smile and pretend nothing is happening. On the face of it this is one of those niche Doctor Who narrative points like ‘Don’t Blink’ or ‘Don’t Look Away’, but on a deeper look it’s more than that. I’ve used the phrase ‘Grin and Bear it’ as the subheading for this section because I think that’s the reading to take from this. The episode could be viewed as a commentary on the expectation of society to hide your problems and not show weakness. If this was the intention, unfortunately the episode doesn’t really go on to deliver a message either way on this.
9. The Doctor is Almost the Villain
The episode features one very shocking moment where the Doctor almost makes one of the biggest mistakes possible. Making the assumption that the humans were yet to arrive on the planet, he decides to explode the city so as they are safe when they eventually do arrive. As it transpires the humans were actually already here sleeping on the ship. At this point the Doctor had yet to recognise the Emojibots as a new species, and deemed their destruction necessary. This means that the Doctor unwittingly positions himself as about to commit double genocide.
8. Humanity and Technology
At the start of the episode we see the Doctor and Bill receive an upgrade that improves their hearing and ability to communicate. Later we witness them handed a small object by an Emojibot which detects their emotional state and depicts this using an emoji. Perhaps it’s too early in the series to try to look to running themes, but there is one that emerges so far. Last week we saw Heather and intelligent oil merge to form the threat of the episode. This week it is the inference of technology with emotion that leads to the danger. The common theme seems to be human plus technology, which would be a concept anyone who has been following news will know will addressed in the future episodes with a recurring villain. Might be something worth looking out for in the rest of the episodes.
7. The Magic Haddock
A key feature of the Capaldi era has been his monologues that have summarised the events of an episode. Utilised to a lesser extent in the series opener in the Doctor’s lecture scene, we see the technique used much more effectively here. The story of The Magic Haddock perfectly sums up what is about to happen in the episode and makes it easy to deliver to the audience. Instead of an exposition heavy reveal, we get a short story that allows the viewer to work in out themselves which makes the reveal that much more rewarding when it does.
6. Grief as Plague
The concept that drives the episode’s story is the fact that the Emojibots have been programmed to ensure the happiness of the human colonists. Unfortunately, being robots they have very little grasp on human emotion which leads to a complete lack of understanding on their part. Because of their programming, they try to fix the person to make them happy, but the only way to stop them being unhappy is to kill them. This ultimately leads to a snowball effect where after the first death there are multiple people grieving that person, and so on. The way the episode describes this is nothing short of sublime with the powerful imagery of grief as a plague.
5. Mineral Fertiliser
One of the most disturbing moments of the story came during the scenes in the garden. With the questions posed so far of where the missing people were and what the fertiliser was, it wasn’t a hard guess as to what would come next. Expecting it however did not lessen the impact of the scene in any way as the horrific moment still gives the narrative the kick start it needs and picks up the pace significantly. It also allows for the joke of the skeleton crew which turns out to be literally skeletons. The scene was also necessary to instil a sense of danger in the episode as with only the Doctor and Bill present the stakes were relative low at that point.
4. The Jelly Cubes
One of the best things about having a new companion is getting to experience the fundamentals of the show again. One of the most interesting is the reveal that the Doctor has two hearts, and is one that is usually quite hard to introduce because it’s not something you can just drop into conversation. This episode uses a rather unique way to broach the topic, whilst also commenting on gender inequalities simultaneously making a serious point in an otherwise humorous scene. It also allows for another one of Bill’s trademark moments where she comes out with the unexpected, this time questioning the Doctor’s blood pressure.
3. The End of the World
The backdrop of the story features the end of Earth, a massive tragedy that has cause the planet to become inhabitable. This is very effective as the same events have already been referenced in The Beast Below, and the connection is actually made within the narrative. This gives the episode a sense of familiarity and will inevitably ensure that comparisons between Bill and Amy’s respective first adventure are bound to be made. Much more interesting however are the actual events behind the mass exodus of Earth, one would hope that now it has been referenced twice, this is something that the show could attempt to explore in more detail in the future. The appetite has definitely been whetted.
2. Bill’s First Real adventure
If I were to pick a true highlight of the first two episode it would be Pearl Mackie’s Bill Potts, who has quickly established herself as one of my favourite companions: such is her first impressions. This episode gives her a lot more material to utilise and Pearl makes the most of it with her phenomenal acting. The scenes where Bill questions the logic of the TARDIS are just hilarious and offer a perspective on the show that we have never had before, it’s fresh and it works so well. It’s not all comedy though, as there are some particularly poignant scenes when Bill realises what the Doctor stands for in the ‘You are the helpline’ scene. One of my favourite moments however was actually the one where the Doctor mentions the danger of being in the belly of the beast, to which Bill responds by calling him an awesome tutor. It’s that fearless and love of adventure that is sure to make her an absolute hit.
1. Pay the Rent
The denouement of the episode features one of the cleverest and most comical resolutions to an episode that I can remember. The resolution also shows that the Doctor and Bill are starting to think on the same page as they explain what has happened together. I think the best element of the twist was that it subverted everything that had gone before in the narrative. Suddenly the Emojibots no longer seemed the antagonists of the story, and I found myself less sympathetic to the humans who had essentially enslaved the Emojibots. It takes a lot of skill to essentially change your entire story in the last few seconds, but Boyce manages to do it with ease. Great stuff all round.
