Doctor Who: The Robot Revolution ★★

"We need you as our queen" – Robot

Storyline
In London 2008, Belinda Chandra has a star named after her by her boyfriend Alan. In 2025, robots from Missbelindachandra One, a world orbiting that star, want her as their queen. Before the Doctor can intercede, Belinda is abducted by the robots in a space rocket. He pursues in the Tardis, but a time fracture means he arrives on the planet six months early. A plan is hatched with the subjugated locals, the Missbelindachandrakind, to prevent her becoming the bride of the controlling AI Generator. It contains a golden being who, it transpires, is the robotised remains of her former boyfriend Alan. He is vanquished by the force of the time fracture, and peace is restored between the people and robots. The Doctor promises to return Belinda home but the Tardis is bounced away. Could Earth have been destroyed...?

First UK broadcast
Saturday 12 April 2025

Cast
The Doctor – Ncuti Gatwa
Belinda Chandra – Varada Sethu
Alan Budd – Jonny Green
Manny – Max Parker
Mrs Flood – Anita Dobson
Kirby Blake – Thalía Dudek
Stefan Haines – Jeffin Kunjumon
Tombo – Tom Storey
Sasha 55 – Evelyn Miller
Scoley – Caleb Hughes
Shago – Nadine Higgin
Prime Minister – William Ellis
Receptionist – Belinda Owusu
Voice of the robots – Nicholas Briggs
Robots – Stephen Love, Robert Strange, Charles Sandford, Lucas Edwards

Crew
Writer – Russell T Davies
Director – Peter Hoar
Music – Murray Gold
Producer – Vicky Delow
Executive producers – Russell T Davies, Julie Gardner, Jane Tranter, Joel Collins, Phil Collinson

RT review by Patrick Mulkern

If you’re up for a bit of flash-bang-wallop cartoonery, then maybe this episode works for you. A retro rocket reaching a faraway star remarkably quickly… shiny robots vaporising their victims in mid-air… a gorgeously gold-plated semi-human villain… the cute (only mildly annoying) busybody hoover ("Polish! Polish!") that could put a Dyson to shame… juddery time-distortion effects… and vestiges of iconic Earth design (a black cab, the Eiffel Tower, the Statue of Liberty) tumbling through space… Some beautiful visuals have been created.

If, though, you’re looking for something novel and meaty to sink your teeth into, you’ll be disappointed. This season opener – at just eight episodes it’s barely worthy of "season" status – is reminiscent of Smith and Jones from 2007. I know that’s a long time ago, but in both episodes the Doctor’s new companion (trainee doctor Martha then, nurse Belinda now) is seen working in a spotless hospital and is soon abducted by marauding aliens.

Lumbering, top-heavy, headless robots have featured several times in Doctor Who in living memory. Belinda is the latest in a long line of "mystery women" that the Doctor will have to unravel. From River Song and Amy Pond, via Clara and Missy, to Ruby and her hooded mother, almost every regular female character has had "enigma" stitched into her upholstery. And yet again our diaries are marked with a dooms-date (this time 24th May 2025) that handily coincides with the transmission of the two-part finale.

Varada Sethu is fine as Belinda, even if lacking the immediate Wow! factor of, say, Billie Piper and Catherine Tate as soon as they walked on set. "Bel" may take a few weeks to bed in, but then we only have a few short weeks.

In the same vein, Ncuti Gatwa’s Doctor barely feels like someone we’ve had time to get a handle on. He bounces with energy and wafts charisma but lacks gravitas. He cries – again – but does not communicate the emotion. I’m not sensing Time Lord vibes from Gatwa.

His revelation "It’s not AI. It’s AL" thuds on arrival, as does Belinda’s explanation for any cloth-brained viewers of her former boyfriend: "You’ve taken coercive control and made it complete control of the whole planet." Gawd, well, here’s a bad ’un for our times and no mistake.

We meet quite a few people in the episode but there are no real persons of interest, unless you count Mrs Flood. Another mystery woman, yes, but anything with Anita Dobson is gold. Even a brief cameo of her standing in a backyard in a housecoat, hair blown wild by rocket engines. I half wish the cameras had followed her indoors. La Flood’s domestic activities are more intriguing than events on other worlds.

An abiding image from The Robot Revolution is the x-ray blanket – expensive but thin material revealing big hearts at work but not much else going on internally.

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