Doctor Who Series 11: 10 Huge Questions After Kerblam!
9. Why Did The System Contact The Doctor?
The System sending out an SOS on the despatch note was an odd and risky strategy that throws up several questions. We can be forgiven for wondering why it didn’t just eliminate Charlie using its bots. After all, it knows from the outset that he is the saboteur. Also, why did it think that the Doctor was somebody who could help, and why didn’t it specifically warn her about the weaponised batch of bubble wrap being prepped for despatch?
It is possible the ‘help me’ message was being sent out to multiple customers, but if so then nobody else appears to have got the message, and the wording still seems needlessly obscure. More likely, the System knew the Doctor – perhaps as a regular customer. If the System had done its customer research, it would have known that the Doctor cannot fail to respond to those two specific words.
As for the bubble wrap - at this point, the System might not have known the specifics behind Charlie’s plan. It would have been alerted to rogue activity amongst its robot workforce and aware of the human disappearances, but was still carrying out its own detective work, only finding out about the bubble wrap later on in the episode.
We are still left with the question of why the System needed the Doctor’s intervention in the first place. Most likely, this was related to its programming. Maybe in order to be believed and not shut down for malfunctioning, the System needed ‘human’ hands, feet and minds.