Editor’s note: The below recap contains spoilers for the Doctor Who Season 2 premiere.
Doctor Who is back for a brand-new adventure with a brand-new companion and a whole season ahead of misadventures as a mysterious force stops the Doctor (Ncuti Gatwa) and Belinda (Varada Sethu) from getting back home. While the first episode of the season is a perfectly fine entry in the franchise, with a slightly convoluted plot made murky by some more heavy-handed elements, “The Robot Revolution” is worth a watch for the show’s excellent new companion and another stellar performance from Gatwa. Written by Russell T. Davies and directed by Peter Hoar (The Last of Us), this episode takes the viewer along for the ride as nurse Belinda Chandra is kidnapped by killer robots and taken to be forcibly married to what they believe is an AI generator.
While the plot itself isn’t particularly groundbreaking in the grand scheme of Doctor Who, the real highlight of “The Robot Revolution” is Sethu’s performance, introducing us to this season’s companion. Taken against her will to be “the queen of outer space,” Belinda is as charming and kind as she is bold and confrontational. She rolls with the punches of this wild adventure in a way that feels particularly relatable at this point in human history, making the best out of an unbelievable situation. In an episode that doesn’t quite know what it’s trying to say at times, we immediately know who Belinda is and how she fits into this world. Rather than joyfully joining the Doctor after being dazzled by his life, Belinda has already clocked the more dangerous and reckless aspects of his life. However, they’re drawn together by circumstance anyway as fate forces them to take “the long way round” to get home.
‘Doctor Who’ Introduces an Excellent New Companion in “The Robot Revolution”
“The Robot Revolution” opens with a flashback to Belinda on a date with an awkward, slightly insufferable young man named Alan, who’s gifting her a star for her birthday. Presenting her with a certificate naming the star “Miss Belinda Chandra.” When Belinda asks if it needs to say “miss,” her date — who is very particular about pretty much everything she says — asks if she’s married, and, given that she’s not, the miss stays. Ultimately, she accepts the gift and the two share a fairly cringeworthy (for Belinda as well as the audience) kiss before we jump back to the present day. In 2025, the Doctor touches down in the TARDIS right outside a hospital, and inside, we follow Belinda through a condensed episode of The Pitt, or rather, her daily job as a nurse. She’s kind and patient, treating a number of injuries and mishaps with grace before she clocks out without ever running into the Doctor. Meanwhile, he’s frantically trying to find her for reasons unknown, going as far as to pester the other staff and even accidentally shutting down power to the whole building when he sonics the computer, which cannot be good for a hospital. Back at Belinda’s flat, we learn that she lives with a few roommates with whom she isn’t particularly close.
When she’s finally sleeping, a rocket lands in her backyard and a pair of campy-looking robots break down her door and kill a neighbor’s cat to let her know they mean business. They’re here for her, to take her away as queen of the planet “Missbelindachandra.” However, if you try to figure out how or why the robots, or even the Doctor for that matter, knew to come get her, you may end up in a paradox loop. Even in the face of deadly robots taking her off the planet, Belinda is bold and unafraid to speak her mind, letting them know that what they’re doing is ridiculous from the jump. As they take her away, we see that Anita Dobson’s Mrs. Flood is her neighbor too, looking hilariously nonplussed as Belinda is taken away. And yes, she continues her delightful fourth wall breaks with an ominous warning to the audience, so if you’re asking, no, we actually didn’t see her, wink wink.
On the rocket, Belinda continues to protest against the ridiculous circumstance she’s found herself in, suggesting that the robots actually go get Alan Budd, the man who bought her the star, revealing that she hasn’t seen him in 16 years. While they’re traveling, time goes a bit wibbly-wobbly, and the same happens for the Doctor, who’s following them in the TARDIS, already knowing where to go, as it’s later revealed that he arrives on the planet a whole six months before Belinda and the bots. Finally, once they land, Belinda is greeted by a human, or a member of the humanoid species that lives here. On the surface, her new friend, Sasha 55 (Evelyn Miller), welcomes her along with their “robot overlords,” but under her breath, she delivers a plea for help before taking Belinda to the throne room.
Once there, Sasha 55 shares a look with the Doctor, who is gathered with a selection of other citizens. Rather abruptly, the robots inform Belinda that she’s there for a royal wedding to the great AI generator — though what exactly it’s generating on this planet besides devastation and chaos is unclear, but I suppose that tracks as far as AI generators go. Belinda naturally resists, wondering why “everything on this planet is so stupid,” but before the robots can take her away, the Doctor, who is now the planet’s historian, offers to explain things to their new queen. He reveals that the robots can’t hear every ninth word and tells her that he and the rebels are actually about to overthrow the machines. Mayhem erupts and the Doctor jumps into action to protect Belinda, while Sasha 55 and the other rebels engage their overlords in a firefight. Sasha 55 insists that Belinda can trust the Doctor, even insisting that as soon as he gets Belinda home, the two of them will jet off on their own adventure. In that moment, it becomes alarmingly clear that Sasha 55 is marked for death, getting eviscerated right in front of Belinda just seconds later. The Doctor gets them out and destroys the teleport device behind them.
Belinda Chandra Isn’t Your Average ‘Doctor Who’ Companion — And That’s a Good Thing
At the rebel base — which may feel familiar for fans of Sethu who also plays a member of the resistance on Andor — a young man demands that Belinda better have been worth the lives they lost in that firefight. Belinda, who hasn’t had a say in any of this, insists that none of this is her fault before offering some words of comfort to the Doctor as he briefly mourns the loss of yet another friend. The Doctor gives Belinda her own Chekov’s gun when he gently switches off a small cleaning bot that had followed them through the teleport for fear of it leading the killer robots to their base.
Belinda immediately begins helping patients, falling easily into the skill she knows and loves by helping people who need her. When she mentions she’s meant to be starting a new shift at the hospital on Monday, the Doctor is suddenly reminded of Mundy Flynn, the Anglican Marine from the 51st century Sethu played in Season 1. In the moment of quiet, the Doctor and Belinda get to know each other better, bonding over their shared desire to help people and admitting they make a “pretty good team” as “just the Doctor” and “just the nurse.” The Doctor gives Belinda a little bit of a crash course in alien life, showing her his two hearts and making a delightful Kylie Minogue reference, because the Doctor is first and foremost a Kylie stan.
Together they dig into the mystery of “The Robot Revolution” and attempt to make sense of the very paradoxical nature of the story. Ultimately, they realize that they have the same certificate the robots have, giving themselves another Checkov’s gun with the knowledge that if the two objects were to touch, it would create a complicated space-time event of disastrous proportions. They dig further into the timey-wimey mystery of a time fissure in space that is at least partially responsible for the situation they’ve found themselves in. Meanwhile, one of the rebels continues to give Belinda a hard time, and the war rages on outside, making her feel the weight of all the lives lost in her name. While the Doctor and the other rebels continue to investigate what caused the robots to start attacking people 10 years ago, Belinda goes ahead and fires that first Chekov’s gun by turning the cleaning bot back on so she can turn herself in. When the robots arrive, the locals are enraged and ready for a fight, but Belinda reveals she did this to protect them, going willingly to marry the AI generator if it means the robots will stop killing people.
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“The Robot Revolution” Loses Its Meaning by Trying To Do Too Much
In the inner sanctum of the AI generator, the Doctor tries to convince the supreme leader to take him instead of Belinda, promising the all-powerful machine that it would make a much better match with him. The Doctor’s pleas are rejected immediately, and it’s made clear that he’s simply there to observe as the planet’s historian. Belinda is sad and scared but resolved in her mission to save the planet, insisting that once she’s gone, they will stop the war and leave what amounts to “her people” alone. She tells them they can drop the “miss” though and just remember her as Belinda, to which the AI asks if she’s married. Unfortunately, this is also when the plot begins to resemble something akin to Swiss cheese, as it’s revealed that the AI generator isn’t an AI after all, and it is, in fact, Alan Budd, the misogynist boyfriend who bought Belinda the star.
The Doctor says “it’s not AI, it’s AL,” for Alan, and in combining this AI plot with one of an incel — and yes, they say the quiet part aloud — “The Robot Revolution” ends up not really saying anything meaningful about either of these real-world antagonists. We’re meant to understand that Alan is the villain of this planet, and he is — he immediately started a war on innocent people moments after he arrived and manipulated everything so he would be “the winner.” However, he’s also painfully welded himself into the robot mainframe as their leader, and the “every ninth word” trick from the beginning of the episode reveals that he’s in tremendous pain, and he wants help. The episode almost makes a point about the ease with which young men are corrupted by the internet and the devastation wrought on innocent people when that happens, but that’s buried underneath much the murkier text and subtext that the episode actually delivers.
Alan demands that Belinda obey him and join him in some kind of cursed matrimony before holding out the diploma, making it seem as though maybe he’s asking to be destroyed. The Doctor sends the other certificate back up to Belinda with the little helper robot, and she takes it up to touch Alan’s making everything go all wibbly-wobbly. Within the space-time explosion, Belinda and Alan appear to be every age at once, flashing through their whole lives. Being a complicated space-time event himself, the Doctor is able to jump into the blast and pull Belinda out, at the right age, only seconds later. Alan, on the other hand, has disintegrated into a sperm and an egg and is whisked away into nothingness by the small cleaning robot as it polishes the floors.
Finally, the robots apologize now that they’re free from the Alan generator and promise to make reparations to the people of this planet. The rebel who had given Belinda a hard time also apologizes to Belinda, and he promises to honor those they lost, starting by naming the citadel after Sasha 55. While the Doctor is thrilled to be setting off on a new adventure, Belinda stops him in his tracks by insisting he take her home first. She gets the standard, and ever delightful, “it’s bigger on the inside” moment when she and the Doctor finally board the TARDIS to head back to Earth. However, while she’s momentarily dazzled by the spaceship and the Doctor’s abilities, she genuinely just wants to go home, despite the Doctor insisting that they can take their time since they have a time machine. He even thinks they might have been fated to meet as he scans her and shows her the descendant of hers he met in Season 1 — Mundy Flynn.
Unlike most companions, Belinda isn’t ready to set off into the stars; she’s seen exactly how dangerous and deadly the Doctor can be firsthand. She immediately holds him accountable, telling him she’s not one of his adventures. It gets through to him, and he sets their destination for Earth, on May the 24th, to get Belinda back in time for her new shift at the hospital — though, if we’re being honest, she should probably get some sleep before going back to work. However, each time the TARDIS tries to jump home, it appears to bounce right off that date, refusing to take them back to their desired destination. The Doctor can’t figure out exactly what’s going on, but he promises he’ll get Belinda home even if they might have to take “the long way round.” As the TARDIS whooshes away, the audience is treated to the wreckage of Earth floating through space — including Lady Liberty, the Eiffel Tower, the great pyramids, a calendar marked for the 24th, and another duplicate of Belinda’s star certificate.
New episodes of Doctor Who will arrive on Disney+ and BBC iPlayer at 3 AM ET every Saturday.
The Doctor Who Season 2 premiere is a perfectly fine watch, but a slightly convoluted plot is made murky by some more heavy-handed elements.
- Release Date
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December 25, 2023
- Network
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BBC
- Directors
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Douglas Camfield, David Maloney, Christopher Barry, Michael E. Briant, Barry Letts, Michael Ferguson, Richard Martin, Peter Moffatt, Pennant Roberts, Lennie Mayne, Chris Clough, Ron Jones, Paddy Russell, Paul Bernard, Michael Hayes, Timothy Combe, Morris Barry, Gerald Blake, Graeme Harper, Waris Hussein, Rodney Bennett, Mervyn Pinfield, Hugh David, John Gorrie
- Belinda is an excellent new companion.
- Varada Sethu strikes the right balance of dazzled and cautious that makes Belinda even more compelling.
- Having the Doctor and Companion forced together by circumstance makes the show feel fresh and adds a new layer to that dynamic.
- A lot of the “why” of the episode is lost in a fairly convoluted plot.
- By combining a critique of AI with a critique of incel culture, the episode fails to say anything meaningful about either.
- The story itself is a fairly average tale for Doctor Who, making it a rather mediocre season opener.
