I have been hesitant going into this series due to my lack of enjoyment of series 14/season 1, but I have gone into it with an open mind, avoiding leaks, trailers and exclusive clips to try and bring my enjoyment back of the show and keep it all fresh.

The Robot Revolution is a weird episode to me, it vaguely reminds me of classic who stories like The Sun Makers, with rebels trying to fight against their oppressors, entering the rebels hideouts, cute robot pets, the companion taking a leading role. It's a staple of Doctor Who and always has been. Although it gives me more of the vibe of RTD's/Benjamin Cooks reimagined, colourised edits of classic who. When watching it it feels like I'm watching a colourised version of 1964 story, The Robot Revolution parts 1-4, edited down into 45ish minutes, cutting out vital pieces of information and only including action sequences and necessary exposition, because the entire episode moves way too fast and with completely random moments, seriously what was with the random cat murder? I know there's a scene out there somewhere on the cutting room floor where Belinda interacts with this cat on the way in from work or in the garden, that actually would've added emotional weight onto this otherwise needless cruelty.

The general idea of the plot works well, but kind of starts to lose me a little in the third act when RTD starts to throw out a bunch of buzzwords and doesn't really expand on it all that much. Alan as a villain does very little for me because his 2 minutes of screentime at the beginning of the episode failed to convey properly that he was an incel, and more so just gave off the vibe of weird nerd who doesn't fully know how to interact with women, not the vibe of 'hates women and wants to control not only them but entire planets'. It's not until the third act when he's revealed as the villain just how controlling he was of Belinda as teens, and I can't help but feel like moving those scenes to the start of the episode probably would've helped the reveal be a bit less jarring.

For me, the best parts of the episode are the small scenes we get of the rebel hideouts, I love the parts of this show where we see small bands of survivors, hiding away trying to figure out how to overthrow their oppressors, and this episode does that really well, but the scenes are too short, and the rebels aren't characterised to their fullest potential. Manny is the rebel with the most lines (he's nice to look at as well), but even he doesn't have much to do rather than sneer and blame Belinda for Sasha 55's death.

Now, talking about Belinda. This isn't Varada's first time on the show, but it is her first as a full time companion and I have to say, I am interested by her. My favourite companions have a bit of 'I don't want to be here' energy to them. Tegan, Barbara and now Belinda all fit this bill, and I am interested to see if she is going to keep this element further into this season or if it's going to be thrown away by the start of the next episode. Following on from the last season, this TARDIS team already feels more grown up and mature. They are no longer giggling schoolchildren besties, but now adults who can have grown up conversations. Belinda chastising the Doctor for scanning her DNA without consent stood out to me as something Ruby wouldn't even have considered to be something that could be problematic, or have called out the Doctor for.

One of my main criticisms of series 14/season 1 was the lack of conflict between the two main characters, which already seems to be solved one episode into series 15, so if they continue along this route then I may potentially like this season a lot more than the previous. But for now, I give The Robot Revolution a 6/10. Enjoyable, but way too fast paced with a messy third act.