Doctor Who: The Robot Revolution Review - 6 Ups & 5 Downs

I know it’s not going to last the whole series, but boy am I pleased to see a new Doctor-companion dynamic (at least for the post 2005 series). Belinda may have enjoyed the Doctor’s company, and taken to planet-saving like a fish to water, but she’s in no rush to make a habit of it.

The last few minutes of this episode were amongst the most interesting, to me. It starts off looking like any other ‘all of time and space’ chat, with the Doctor seemingly convinced Belinda will be charmed enough to join him for further adventures. He even hits her with the reveal he’s met her descendant Mundy Flynn straight out of the gate (yes, we spotted the ‘Boom’ title drop), attempting to dazzle her with some big talk about destiny, mysteries to solve, and all the good stuff. Belinda, in a really welcome change of pace… is not having any of it.

Belinda berates him for taking her DNA sample without permission (once again, acting like an actual nurse), and point blank tells The Doctor she’s not ‘one of his adventures’, insisting that he take her straight home. Instantly, we have an additional layer to this relationship – a hurdle to overcome, even. It’s been a good few years since anything like this happened in any significant capacity, and I, for one, am far more interested in the character interactions this could potentially give us than the actual reason Belinda can’t get home.

Let us see The Doctor challenged by his companion, have him grapple with his responsibility, and allow Belinda to stay in this phase of reluctance long enough to squeeze some interesting material out of it.

Once upon a time, character work was RTD’s bread and butter. I really, really hope that, this time around, our showrunner remembers what made his first run so special.