RTD doesn’t tend to have strong openers and this one is no different, however it is an improvement upon Space Babies. It was a fun watch but not much more than that.

The plot ends up being very surface level, introducing interesting concepts yet not doing all that much with them. The Every-Ninth-Word bit is clever yet not treated as important until the plot needs it. The rebellion against the robots is also incredibly side-lined with which what might have otherwise been interesting to see how they had been fighting. The incel twist didn’t bother me, RTD can be a bit much with his themes but I’ve come to expect that.

It seemed like it was reusing plot elements that had already worked previously and smashing it all together in the hopes that it would read well. It made some parts seem unoriginal and I kept noticing small things that had been done before (i.e. the big hulking robots on Earth searching for extraterrestrial royalty reminded me of The Empty Planet from the Sarah Jane Adventures and their emoticon faces reminded me of Smile, Belinda partially felt like a rehash of Martha in Smith and Jones in the first bit of the episode, the merging of humans with machine was very Cyberman and I was surprised it wasn’t even referenced, etc.).

The cold open is alright. Belinda’s set up works pretty decently, though I feel she isn’t given enough time to live in her normal life until she’s swooped up into the adventure. The introduction episodes to new companions really benefit from having the context of their life on Earth being undercut by aliens and extraterrestrial conflict. Yet here, we learn almost nothing about her relationships with her family or friends and why she would insist to go home outside of her vague disinterest in space-time adventures with the Doctor before she is taken away. But Mrs. Flood’s reappearance was intriguing and it piqued my curiosity on who she will end up to be. Varada Sethu, despite my criticisms of the writing, does an excellent job at presenting Belinda as an interesting and sympathetic character.

Things get a bit messy once they arrive on Missbelindachandra though. The time fracture sequence had some neat cinematography and the planet itself is captured well through SFX prior to that. The ordeal in the throne room bounces between interesting and dragging. However, I am a big fan of PolishBot. I will always be a sucker for a cute little robot. Sasha and her impact is poorly developed. She is given only a brief few lines of context before dying, so it doesn’t have the weight the plot insists it does. We are told as opposed to being shown her relationship to the Doctor, having the Doctor justify the emotional reaction to her death in a way that seems hollow. I wanted to see those six months they spent together or at least more scenes with their dynamic because it is barely explored.

The bunker has some great moments of Belinda being able to show off her medical skills and her learning more about the universe but it’s over too soon. Manny is an incredibly one-note character and his antagonism toward Belinda is completely unearned. It makes no logical sense that he would 1.) blame her for Sasha’s death and 2.) equate her to be as evil as the robots. Belinda is an incredibly passive force in the throne room scenes, she makes no bid to interact with the robots other than to establish information on what has happened and certainly doesn’t seem to favor them in any way. She is supportive of the rebels and is unable to aid them only because she has only just arrived and has zero knowledge of the battle they are fighting beyond the few words the Doctor could slip to her. Indeed, since their rebellion was a pre-planned act, I would assume one might be prepared for the possibility of losing someone. Blaming Belinda ends up being very cheap because aside from being placed in an arbitrary position of power where she has little to no sway in the moments she becomes aware of it, he has no grounds to treat her as an opposing force. This makes Belinda’s plan to give herself over to the robots even more confusing. It doesn’t at all fit with what we had learned of her character so far, the martyrdom feeling less authentic and more out of necessity to the plot. 

As soon as I saw the “AI Generator”, it seemed fairly ‘Wizard of Oz’ to me and I ended up being able to partially predict the twist. The time stream sequence I found to be pretty cool however. The ending is resolved a bit too fast and a bit too inconsequentially, but it’s certainly not awful.

I appreciate Belinda a reluctant companion, immediately rejecting the idea of being a “mystery box” companion. It forces the Doctor to reconsider himself, which is always interesting. She’s incredibly competent and quick-witted, which creates a good dynamic to the Doctor. I am interested to see how her storyline will unfold.