Doctor Who: The Robot Revolution Review - 6 Ups & 5 Downs
6. DOWN - Who Da Manny? (No Really, Who Is That?)
There’s a lot of points in this episode that feel undercooked, but none so much as the group of rebel fighters, the titular ‘revolution’.
Now, don’t get me wrong, this episode had a lot to cover, and, realistically, this tried and tested ‘rebels fight the bad guys’ plot doesn’t need a mountain of exposition - we’ve seen it before. My issue comes stems from the fact that they did try to include an additional plot line here using about thirty seconds worth of screen time, and the result is laughable.
I am, of course, referring to Manny and his utterly out-of-the-blue beef with Belinda. The show is trying to portray that he’s lashing out in his grief over all those dead redshirts (I think?). That’s fine, understandable, even – he’s allowed to be miffed that his disposable faceless friends have died saving someone he doesn’t know – there’s meat on that narrative bone. Unfortunately, instead of expressing this sentiment, Manny slaps Belinda with the dumbest line in the episode:
”You’re as bad as the robots!”
Manny… mate. In what world are you saying this with a straight face? Either you properly zoned out during the previous sequence, or you’re not as ‘good’ as The Doctor argues you are. This feels like such a tremendous leap in aggression for this character to make, based on what he’s seen so far, and appears to have been done to inject a sense of tension that feels entirely artificial.
After Manny angrily squeezes a support beam whilst staring down Belinda, he decides to rather awkwardly climb down from his rage and proclaim her the ‘Queen of Planet Earth’ later on, which is nice of him, if slightly abrupt…