Doctor Who #10.2 "Smile"

[darkphoenix21]

New episode tonight on BBC One and BBC America!

Episode Description: The language of the future is emoji! The Doctor takes Bill to a spectacular city on a distant planet - but where are the colonists? A band of 'cute' droids hold the deadly answer.

[HalJordan4184]

I was prepared to not like this episode, just because I went in slightly hating the idea of emoji robots. I actually found myself really liking it, except for a couple things. The biggest was the Doctor. [SPOILER] The ease with which he jumped straight to, let's blow this thing up, is hard for me. Since 1963, his go to hasn't usually been to just destroy it all, because he doesn't like it. He also reached that conclusion on a hunch, which was wrong mind you, and it just seemed not Doctor-like to me. He figured a piece of a puzzle out, didn't like that piece, and rather than finish the puzzle, tried to burn the house the puzzle was in down. It seemed out of character. Which makes what I'm about to say next weird, I also liked the Doctor being pretty much singularly inquisitive the whole episode. While he had moment's of differing emotion; anger, surprise, happiness, etc; the majority of the episode was him just being curious. This is exactly what I expect from the Doctor. A being whose entire life has been predicated on exploring, tinkering, and generally just not taking anyone's word for it. He's had a solid 2000 years of just figuring things out, and still wants to take a stick and poke everything to see what happens. We get that a little in this episode, it just seemed a little tainted by my earlier complaint of the ease with which he slides to complete and utter destruction. You got some of that with Matt Smith's Doctor, until he learned he didn't violate his personal Code at the end of the Time War. There was a noticeable lightening of his attitude so to speak, for his final outings. The anger was somewhat dissipated, because it was anger and disappointment in himself. When he figured out how to fix that, he didn't need to be that way anymore. At least, that's how I viewed it. [/SPOILER]

Bill was fantastic. A companion to the Doctor, in the vein of the best the show has had. She's inquisitive, funny, and I've liked watching her learn about the Doctor and TARDIS these last two episodes. I'm looking forward to seeing her arc, and I hope they keep going the way they have.

All in all, a 6 out of 10. The moment with the Doctor described above is really what brought this down. Then again, I still found more enjoyable then not.