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

Here we are again. The teases begin. I hope you’re all ready for the sixth iteration of the ‘Bad Wolf’ style series arc! We know how much you enjoyed playing ‘spot the recurring thing’ the previous five times we pulled this trick!

RTD gives us multiple questions to ponder this time: What happens on 24th May that means Belinda can’t get home? What mysterious man told Fifteen Belinda’s name? And the biggest of all: who is Mrs Flood?

I have a question in return. Why should I invest myself in the answers to this after the previous season? The big reveal last year was RTD’s smug rug pull where he explained the central tease was unimportant after intentionally leading us to think it was (and that’s without getting into the other ‘twist’ involving an anagram that wasn’t an anagram).

Maybe Mrs Flood is the Rani, maybe she’s a member of The Pantheon, maybe she’s Susan, or maybe I just want a series arc that focuses on character development and not underwhelming plot twists that prioritise Twitter-buzz. I could also do without the fourth-wall breaks, but I’ll concede this is a personal preference.

I want to be invested in who this mysterious woman is, I really do. Let me be proved wrong, but, as the old saying goes: “Fool me once…”

Before I move on, I do actually have a second question. Could we not have tried visiting the 23rd of May and having Belinda spend a night in a hotel? It feels like Fifteen didn’t try very hard there. Then again, he clearly wasn’t having the best day in terms of general awareness, as he missed a black cab, the Eiffel Tower, and the Statue of Liberty presumably floating towards the open TARDIS.

This marks the second feat of incomprehensible stealth that Lady Liberty has pulled in this show, which isn’t a lot, but it’s weird that it happened twice.