R.I.P. The Doctor Who Christmas Special

For the past thirteen years, the Doctor Who Christmas Special has been a holiday tradition, as families around the world gathered around their TVs to watch. Sadly, that tradition's been flushed straight down the crapper, as the BBC recently announced there'll be no Christmas Special this year. 

What the hell?

So why no Special this year? According to the BBC, the Doctor Who creative team, including brand new showrunner Chris Chibnall, has simply "run out of ideas."

Jesus wept. There's a lot to unpack in that simple little statement.

First of all, even if it's true that they're out of ideas, WHY THE FRAK WOULD YOU ANNOUNCE THAT IN A PRESS RELEASE? Even if it's true, why let the public know they hired a pack of talentless hacks? Why not just say the show's taking a break, or it's being pre-empted by another show or something. Anything but "we can't think of anything."

Secondly, this isn't some world-weary, battle-fatigued group that's been pumping out show after show for thirteen seasons. This is a BRAND NEW creative team! Last year the BBC swept out the entire Doctor Who production office and replaced EVERYONE, from the showrunner all the way down to the lowliest grip. So there's absolutely no reason for their brains to be spent already!

I suppose maybe they mean that after thirteen Christmas Specials, there just aren't any more holiday-themed plotlines left. That's no excuse either, as the stories don't need to be ABOUT Christmas. In fact, the very first Special, titled The Christmas Invasion, had little or nothing to do with the holiday. It was David Tennant's first episode, and was ll about him trying to adjust during an alien invasion that just happened to take place on December 25th.

Same goes for The Runaway Bride and Voyage Of The Damned. Neither was actually about Christmas (under showrunner Steven Moffat, the Specials gradually became more and more about Christmas though). So I'm calling bullsh*t on that excuse. There has to be something else behind the decision.

Wouldn't it be nice to be able to use that excuse in your daily life, and get away with it like these writers have? "Sorry boss, I can't design anything for you today. I'm fresh out of ideas! Excuse me while I go to lunch!"

Eliminating the Christmas Special seems like a really bad idea to me. As you might expect, the Specials are a huge deal for the series. They pretty much have a captive audience, as most everything's closed on Christmas, so what else are you gonna do but watch 'em? 

Plus, the Specials consistently get the shows highest ratings, as people who don't normally tune in will watch. It's a chance for the series to gain exposure and draw in new viewers. Why would they want to give that up?

Oddly enough, a week or so after stating there'd be no Christmas Special this year, the creative team said there WOULD be a Doctor Who New Year's Special. Wha...?

I don't have any insights into the BBC, but I'm wondering if this is all part of their recent rabid push to be more diverse and inclusive? That's right, the BBC is now officially "woke," with a capital W. 

Since Christmas is a Christian holiday, it would not surprise me if it's now become problematic and distasteful to them, and they're trying to distance themselves from such a religious-tinged celebration. Don't want to offend anyone who's not a Christian after all, even though I doubt anyone cares.

In the end, it doesn't really matter to me what they do, as Doctor Who's now dead to me. It died the day the BBC chose identity politics and forced diversity over telling fun adventure stories, so they can cancel the show altogether as far as I'm concerned.

Doctor Who?

Welp, it finally happened.

In an effort to try and control spoilers and leaked info, today the BBC announced who'll be playing the Doctor in Season 11 of Doctor Who.

 And the winner is.... Jodie Whittaker, whoever the hell that is.

Take that, Patriarchy! In your face, old white men! You just got served! Women can play fictional characters traditionally written as male just as well as you can!

So what do I think of this decision, you ask? Well, Mom always told me, "If you can't say something nice, then don't say anything at all," so...























































































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Doctor Who Season 10, Episode 7: The Pyramid At The End Of The World

The Monks return this week on Doctor Who, in the second part of a three episode story arc.

I didn't much care for Extremis (the first part of this arc), as it was basically just setup for Parts 2 and 3. In fact, with just the smallest of tweaks, they could have easily started the arc with this episode, and eliminated Part 1 altogether. I'm assuming they wrote it the way they did to pad out the season a bit.

If the desert setting and alien threat in this episode feels a bit familiar, that's because it was written by Peter Harness and showrunner Steven Moffat, who gave us Season 9's The Zygon Invasion and The Zygon Inversion. Those episodes even took place in Turmezistan, the same fictional Middle Eastern nation featured in this episode!

Amazingly, Peter Harness was also the culprit responsible for "writing" Season 8's Kill The Moon (aka The One Where The Moon Is A Giant Space Dragon Egg) which will go down in TV history as the all-time WORST episode ever of Doctor Who. An episode so monumentally bad that I (and other fans as well) have chosen to pretend it doesn't even exist!

It's probably too early to tell yet, but the preview for next week's episode looks very similar to The Sound Of Drums/Last Of The Time Lords, which featured a world which was ruled by the Master. We'll see.

Lastly, a few days before this episode aired there was a horrific terrorist attack at an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester, England, in which twenty two fans sadly died. Supposedly the BBC made a small edit to this episode, excising a line in which Bill says the word "terrorism."

Whew! Crisis averted! The BBC came thissss close to broadcasting an unpleasant word over the airwaves!

Jesus Jetskiing Christ! Look, my heart goes out to the friends and families of the victims of this attack. But does anyone really think that hearing the word "terrorism" on TV could possibly make them feel any worse than they already do? 

I thought it was just America that lived in a politically-correct Hellscape full of jittery, delicate snowflakes that collapse on their fainting couches when they're triggered by mean old words, but apparently the phenomenon has spread into Britain as well.

SPOILERS!

The Plot:
Bill goes on a date with Penny, the woman she met in the virtual world last week. She recklessly tells Penny everything about the Doctor, including the fact that he's an alien. Bill also tells Penny about their simulated date, which was interrupted by the Pope. Just then their real date is interrupted by armed soldiers, as the Secretary-General Of The United Nations bursts in. Penny realizes everything Bill said was true and politely excuses herself.

The Secretary informs Bill that the Doctor's the President Of Earth in times of planetary crisis, and they need her help to contact him.

Cut to a plane, where the Secretary explains to Bill that a five thousand year old pyramid suddenly appeared overnight in the fictional country of Turmezistan, an area disputed by American, Russian and Chinese forces. The Secretary's afraid that if something's not done soon, World War III could break out.

Meanwhile, the Doctor soliloquizes inside the TARDIS. Bill tries to enter, but the door's locked. She yells through the door to the Doctor that the UN urgently needs him in Turmezistan. The Doctor says nothing doing, and Bill says they won't take no for an answer.

The Doctor (who's still blind, but can sort of see with the help of his sonic sunglasses) pokes his head out the door of the TARDIS and "sees" it's inside the Secretary's plane. Somehow the army removed the door of his office and transported the TARDIS into the plane without the Doctor noticing.

Cut to Agrofuel Research Operations, in a seemingly unrelated subplot. Two employees, Erica and Douglas, are working on some kind of genetically modified crops or growth potion or something. Erica broke her glasses earlier that morning, and asks Douglas to conduct the day's experiment. Because he's a drunken idiot, he types "118.9" instead of "11.89," and injects too much of a dangerous enzyme into the experiment. This creates a deadly bacterium or something that liquefies all organic matter. Nice to know the fate of the world depends on a single decimal place.

The Doctor and Co. land in Turmezistan. They gape in awe at the pyramid, which the Doctor assumes is alien in origin. He walks up to it and a door opens, as one of the red-robed Monks from the simulation appears. The Doctor asks what the Monks want, and it states that they intend to conquer the planet and its people. The Doctor says he'll stop them, but the Monk says they'll be "invited," and will be asked to rule. It scuttles back into the pyramid.

Suddenly everyone's watches and phones flash 11: 57. The Doctor notes that this is a signal from the Monks— it's the Doomsday Clock, and the closer it gets to midnight, the bigger the threat of global catastrophe.

The Doctor then uses the TARDIS to kidnap the leaders of the Russian and Chinese armies. He brings them onboard his plane so they, along with the American Colonel, can work together to defeat the Monks. Amazingly, the Doctor suggests they combine their forces and attack the pyramid. Bill's surprised at the Doctor's violent solution, but he says the Monks didn't come in peace, and they need to strike back while they can.

An American bomber flies toward the pyramid, but the Monks catch it in a tractor beam and lower it to the ground, along with a Russian sub (I guess China sat out the attack?). Everyone's clocks move to 11:58.

The Doctor, Bill, Nardole and the Colonels then enter the pyramid to meet with the Monks. They find them in a chamber, "weaving" Earth's future by twisting glowing tendrils hanging from a machine. The Head Monk says they're "modeling the future," whatever that means, and they detect that a catastrophe is coming. The Monk says they can save the Earth, but they have to be asked.

The Monks invites everyone to take hold of a glowing strand to see what's coming. As they do, they see a vision of a dead, lifeless Earth. The Doctor wonders why the Monks have to be asked when they could just save the Earth themselves. Everyone's phones move to 11:59. The Doctor asks again why the Monks have to be invited, and they reply that they must be wanted and loved, as ruling through fear is "inefficient."

The Doctor warns the others against giving consent, as there will surely be conditions and consequences. The Secretary's so rattled by the future vision that he doesn't listen, and gives his consent. The Monk places his hand on the Secretary and disintegrates him into dust, saying he gave consent out of fear instead of love. Everyone runs the hell out of the pyramid.

Back in the plane, the Doctor realizes the pyramid is a decoy, to focus their attention away from something else. He has the others search the internet for biological threats. Nardole finds several labs that are performing bacterial experiments, and the Doctor narrows it down by finding out which one the Monks are watching. It's Agrofuel.

The Doctor and Nardole travel to Agrofuel in the TARDIS, surprising Erica. She and the Doctor discover that Douglas' mistake has created a deadly bacterium capable of liquefying all life (including Douglas!). Erica says that the building's automatic systems will vent the bacterium into the air in twenty minutes, which will cause the catastrophe the Monks foresaw (Yeah, no. That's not how labs work). Erica's safe from the strain, as she's wearing a hazmat suit, and the Doctor's confident he's immune. He tells Nardole, who's not wearing any kind of protection to get back to the TARDIS, unaware that he's already infected.

Meanwhile the Colonels go against the Doctor's orders and head toward the pyramid to surrender to the Monks. Once again the Monks disintegrate them, as they gave their consent out of strategy instead of love.

Back in the lab, the Doctor cobbles together a makeshift bomb to incinerate the bacteria before it can be released into the air. He sets the timer and tries to exit the lab, but finds the airlock door is, um, locked. Erica gives him the combination for the weirdo cylinder lock to the door, but unfortunately he can't see it, being blind and all. He tries to sonic the lock, but since it's a plot-convenient device, it doesn't work on the door. He calls Nardole, but he's passed out inside the TARDIS.

He contacts Bill and finally admits to her that he's blind. When Bill hears this she says she's making an "Executive Decision" and goes to the Monks. She tells them she'll give consent, on the condition they restore the Doctor's sight. They see that her consent comes from love, and agree. 

The Doctor suddenly regains his sight, enters the combination and escapes the labs a second before it explodes. The Monks then tell the Doctor, "Enjoy your sight. Now see OUR world!"

Thoughts:
• Last week the simulated Doctor and Bill found themselves in the virtual world's Oval Office.

While there, Bill saw a man slumped dead in a chair and asked if he was the President. I noted that the man clearly had a head of jet black hair, and said I was jealous that the America in the Whoniverse didn't have an petulant orange buffoon for a leader like we do here in the real world.

This week the Secretary-General Of The UN arrives in Bill's flat and says he needs her help contacting the President. Bill thinks he means the U.S. President, and says, "How would I know the President? I wouldn't even have voted for him, he's orange!"

This implies that Donald Trump is indeed the president in the Whoniverse. So who the hell was the dead guy in the chair last week?

• The Doctor was unanimously elected "President Of Earth" back in 2014's Death in Heaven.

• The Doctor exits the TARDIS and sees it's inside the Secretary's plane.

Apparently the UN had to tear out the entire side of the Doctor's university office to remove the TARDIS. Then they SOMEHOW managed to fit it inside a cramped airliner, even though it appears to be taller than the plane's ceiling. Got it.

And how the hell did the Doctor not feel the TARDIS being picked up and transported into the plane? We've seen many times before that outside forces can rock the interior. I guess he was really deep in meditation and didn't notice?

• The interior of the Secretary's command plane has an unusual feature: gigantic air vents that are almost big enough to crawl through! Is that really a thing? I'm gonna bet not.

• Since the Doctor's still blind, he's wearing his sonic sunglasses, which give him rudimentary vision. They also provide him with basic stats of the people around him, such as gender and age.

It's hard to see here, but according to the glasses, Nardole (who's represented by the green box at left) is two hundred thirty seven years old!

• The pyramid plops itself down in the fictional country of Turmezistan. If that location sounds familiar to you, it's because it's appeared on the show before, in 2015's The Zygon Invasion. Maybe the show's trying to be consistent with its fake nations?

• After arriving in Turmezistan, the Doctor's introduced to the leaders of the three armies disputing the area— Colonel Brabbit of America, General Ilya of Russia and General Xiaolian of China. 

Note that Xiaolian is female. Yeah, no. I'm pretty sure the Chinese government would never put a woman in charge of their military.

I don't have a problem with diversity— I really don't. But I can't stand diversity for diversity's sake. It needs to make sense, and not be tossed in just to appease the SJWs in the audience.

• What happened to UNIT? Why aren't they present at this crisis? Isn't protecting Earth from alien invasion kind of their charter?

• After the Doctor speaks with the Monks, everyone's phones and watches flash "11:57." The Doctor notes this is the Doomsday Clock, which he says was created by atomic scientists in 1947 to monitor how close the planet is to global catastrophe.

And he's exactly right! It was started by members of The Bulletin Of The Atomic Scientist's Science And Security Board in 1947. Well done, writers!

• Eh, I dunno... somehow the Monks don't look quite as creepy in the cold light of day. Keep 'em in the shadows, guys!

• The Blue Laser Stabbing Up Into The Sky has been popping up in a LOT of superhero movies and TV shows lately. So it's always nice to see its lesser known cousin, the Yellow Laser Stabbing Up Into The Sky, get a bit of work.

• Apparently the budget must have been a bit stretched this week. We see an American Air Force bomber try to attack the Monk's pyramid, only to be captured by a tractor beam and slowly lowered to the ground.

A few seconds later the Monks capture a Russian sub and plop it into the sand as well. However, instead of actually seeing this happen, we just get a shot of all the characters WATCHING this happen. Those CGI effects ain't cheap!

• Apparently the Monks are big fans of Avatar, and reeeeeally liked the Tree Of Souls in that film.

• I'm a bit fuzzy on the Monks' plan here. Obviously they want to rule a living world and not a dead one, or else they'd just sit back and wait for the bacterium to wipe out the planet. But they won't save our world unless we ask them nicely, because a race that consents to subjugation is less likely to rebel than one that's conquered.

OK, that makes sense I guess. 

The problem I have with their plan is the whole "consent" thing. What if no one gave consent. Would the Monks then stand by and watch while the world they studied for so long just up and died? Would they really not lift a finger to save us if we didn't ask?

• When we first meet Erica, she props open the door to her flat with her purse so she won't be locked out while carrying in bags of groceries. This causes the door to smash her glasses inside her purse, which starts a chain of events resulting in the end of all life on Earth (!).

Um... why the hell does Erica prop open the door in the first place? She's clearly holding her keys in her hand as she walks out to her car. If the door closes, so what? She can't be locked out, as she's got the keys with her. Set the bags down, unlock the door and go on with her life.

• It's amazing how one misplaced decimal point (118.9 instead of 11.89) could potentially destroy the entire world. Too bad Agrofuel didn't spring for some kind of override system to prevent an obvious and fatal error like this. You'd think they'd at least have a "Are You Sure You Want To Inject This Amount?" screen pop up.

• The Agrofuel scenes in this episode are a goldmine of stupidity and unrealism. The "scientists" do everything wrong at every possible juncture, just so the bacterium can escape and the plot can happen.

The Agrofuel experiments are contained behind two airlock doors, which is good. But then Erica says the lab automatically vents the air from the lab into the atmosphere without sterilizing it first! And if that wasn't enough, it's an automatic process that can't be shut down! WRONG! If there's no way to neutralize outgoing air, then they might as well not bother with the airlocks in the first place!

Douglas also removes the hood of his biohazard suit inside the lab (!), because he didn't want to throw up in it. Yeah, no one would ever do that either, no matter how sick they were. Is it any wonder he was liquefied?

Erica's not much better, as she grabs a sample of the bacterium and takes it through the first airlock to examine it. This contaminates the area between the first and second airlocks, which ain't good. Later the Doctor and Nardole go through the second airlock and enter the lab with Erica, sans hazmat suits. Nardole then goes back to the TARDIS without decontaminating himself, meaning he just released the bacterium into the air! Thanks a lot, Nardole!

• By the way, someone did their homework in this episode. It's hard to see, but in the image above, the canister on the right is labeled "R. planticola." 

That's actually a real bacterial substance! Back in the 1990s, Raoutella planticola was the subject of a genetic engineering experiment, to try and find a substance that could break down plant matter into ethanol. When tested inside a lab, it was discovered that R. planticola caused mass plant death from excessive ethanol production 

Some scientists speculated that if the bacterium had escaped the lab, it could have caused worldwide plant death!

So the writers didn't just pull a fictionathreat out of their asses, they based the episode on actual science. Well done!

• So the Doctor is President Of Earth, but the three army leaders willfully ignore his orders and do whatever the hell they want, including surrendering the planet to the Monks. Does that sound right?

• If Agrofuel had used a lock with a normal, everyday keypad like a normal, everyday human company, then the Doctor would have been able to operate it by touch, and Bill wouldn't have had to make a deal with the devil, er, Monks and subjugate Earth.

Instead they used this clunky, cartoonish prop from The Price Is Right to secure their doors and ensure the Doctor wouldn't be able to operate it.

This is what's called a "plot contrivance," kids!

• At the end of the episode, Bill gives consent to the Monks to save the Doctor. She's not atomized because her consent "comes from love."

The Monks clearly state earlier in the episode that they must be loved before they'll save the planet. Her love is obviously for the Doctor here, not them. So why do they give her a pass and not disintegrate her?

• The Monks have run numerous simulations in their perfect replica of our world, and presumably know every possible outcome. So why the hell would they give the Doctor his sight back, and make it easier for him to defeat them?

• This Week's Best Lines:
Secretary: (to Bill) "I have flown here today to speak to the President. I am told you might be able to help."
Bill: "I don't know the President. How would I know the President? I wouldn't even have voted for him, he's orange!"

The Doctor: (discovering his TARDIS is now in the Secretary's plane) "How did they get it out of my office? The windows aren't big enough."
Colonel: "Oh... they are now."

The Doctor: "Last I heard, you were on a date with Penny. What happened?"
Bill: "The United Nations Secretary-General."
The Doctor: "Awesome."
Bill: "No, that wasn't a metaphor."
The Doctor: "Good, because I really wasn't following it."

The Doctor: "So what it's doing, Colonel, is sending us a message."
Colonel: "What message?"
The Doctor: "Bring it."
(Is this a reference to George W. Bush's 2003 taunt to Iraqi insurgents, in which he famously said, "Bring it on?")

Monk: "We know you."
The Doctor: "Then you'll know that there is a line in the sand, and I'm the man on the other side of it. You want to keep me that way."
Monk: "We will take this planet and its people."
The Doctor: "You will be prevented. You will be fought."
Monk: "We will be invited. We will take this world. We will rule its people. But only when we're asked. We will talk again."
The Doctor: "When?"
Monk: "At the end of the Earth."

The Doctor: (after kidnapping the Russian General) "Now, this is the Secretary-General of the UN. I am the President of the world. And this is Xiaolian, she's in charge of the Chinese army. Say hi to each other. Now, we've been having a bit of chat. The thing is, World War Three what do you think? Basically, we're against it."
(That is definitely the Fourth Doctor speaking right there! I can just hear that line being said by Tom Baker!)

Bill: "I mean, this is a trap, right?"
The Doctor: "Possibly. Probably."
Bill: "And we're just walking into it."
The Doctor: "Well, every trap you walk into is a chance to learn about your enemies."

Monk: "We can detect when a catastrophe is about to occur."
The Doctor: "And?"
Monk: "Stop it from occurring."
Colonel: "You don't look much like guardian angels."
Monk: "We have chosen this form to look like you."
Colonel: "You look like corpses."
Monk: "You are corpses to us. Your world is ending."

The Doctor: (to the Monks) "Planet Earth does not consent to your help, your presence, or your conquest. Thank you for playing the big pyramid game, bye-bye, see you again next week, hopefully not."

Monk: "Without our help, Planet Earth is doomed."
The Doctor: "Yes, well, it's been doomed before. Guess what happened? Me!"

Erica: "Oh, my God!"
The Doctor: "No, I'm the Doctor, but it's an easy mistake to make. The eyebrows."

The Doctor: "Back to the TARDIS, this place is toxic."
Nardole: "I'm not human."
The Doctor: "You're human enough. I got your lungs cheap."

Doctor Who Season 10, Episode 4: Knock Knock

This week on Doctor Who we get a haunted house tale, with all the usual ingredients: thunder and lightning, students who are picked off one by one, a creepy landlord and even the typical mystery woman hidden in a secret tower.

This isn't the first time Doctor Who's done straight up horror. The show dabbled in the genre quite often in the past, particularly during Tom Baker's Fourth Doctor run. This makes this week's episode seem like yet another throwback to the Classic Series.

So far this season the overall theme seems to be consumption. 

Episode 1 featured intelligent space oil that ate people.
Episode 2 gave us nanobots that ate people.
Episode 3 had a giant fish that ate people.
And now in Episode 4, we have a house that eats people.

I have no idea if this means anything or not, but I thought I'd toss it out there.

We also get a couple more clues about who's being held prisoner inside the Doctor's secret Vault. The writers sure do want us to believe it's some version of the Master in there, but I dunno... that seems way too obvious to me. 

I can think of a couple of other possible suspects, such as Susan Foreman or even an earlier version of the Doctor himself, but the I can't figure out WHY they'd be in there. For now I guess my money's on the Master.

SPOILERS!

The Plot:
Bill and five other college students— Shireen, Pavel, Harry, Felicity and Paul— search for off-campus housing they can afford. After looking at dozens of awful apartments, they're approached by a kindly, elderly Landlord (no names, please) who offers them a place to live.

The "place" turns out to be an enormous mansion, complete with suspiciously low rent. Bill and the others take a brief tour and are so impressed they immediately sign a contract. The Landlord tells them they can move in right away, and has only one rule— the mansion's tower is off limits. He taps a tuning fork on one of the wooden walls and leaves, which isn't the least bit odd or strange.

That night Pavel moves in, and sets up his record player (I guess they have hipsters in England, too). He hears a noise, and we get the usual horror movie POV shot of him screaming at something only he can see. His turntable plays steadily on.

The Doctor helps Bill move by materializing the TARDIS around her stuff, then reappearing in front of the mansion. He's suspicious of the situation, wondering how six students can afford the rent on such a vast home. He says he'll help her carry her things in. Bill, who obviously doesn't want her friends to see the Doctor, tries to discourage him, but he insists.

Inside, Bill introduces the Doctor to the others, saying he's her "grandfather," which is a not-so-subtle nod to Susan Foreman. The Doctor protests, saying there's no way he looks that old, and says he's her dad. Bill's mortified, but the others recognize the Doctor from his lectures, and think it's cool that she's somehow related to him.

Bill picks an upstairs bedroom and unpacks her mother's photo, hanging it on the wall. She wonders where Pavel is, but the others say he stays in his room a lot, listening to music. Downstairs, the Doctor pops out of the furnace room, saying he's just checking out the house. Bill tries to get rid of him, saying this is her place, and she wants to keep it separate from TARDISy adventures. They hear a knocking in the walls, and the Doctor begins investigating. He snoops around the house, knocking on the walls, which sometimes knock back.

The other students complain about the state of the house, and  the Landlord appears as if on cue. They tell him they need a washing machine, new wiring, etc., and he says he'll do what he can. The Doctor asks the Landlord if he has any children, and he says he has one daughter, who's "happily still under his care." The Doctor then asks him who the Prime Minister is, which seems like an odd thing to do. The Landlord evades the question, taps his tuning fork on the wall again and bids them goodnight, which is even odder.

Bill, Shireen and Paul head upstairs to turn in. Paul goes into his room and after a few seconds begins screaming. The girls think he's playing a joke, until they hear knocking coming from all the walls. Downstairs, the Doctor notices the doors have now somehow become walls. The shutters then begin closing by themselves. Felicity screams that she can't be locked up in the house, and dives out a window. The last of the shutters close, completely sealing everyone inside the house. Felicity runs from the house, but is grabbed by a tree and consumed by it.

Upstairs, Bill and Shireen hear music still coming from Pavel's room and open the door. They see him sticking halfway out of the wooden wall, as if the house is trying to eat him. The Landlord appears and says there's a time and place for music, but "it can be a distraction from the inevitable." He shuts off the record player, and Pavel is instantly consumed by the wall.

Bill asks the Landlord why the house is eating people, and he says "We must all pay our dues." He tells them they signed the contract, and now they must pay. He taps his tuning fork against the wall again, and Bill and Shireen run out of the room. They head up to the forbidden tower.

Downstairs, the Doctor and Harry look for a way out. The Doctor begins tapping on the walls, wondering if the wood is possessed by "wood nymphs, tree spirits or dryads." Suddenly a roach-like creature emerges from the wood. The Doctor thinks it's some kind of alien, and tries to catch it. It scurries off, and suddenly thousands of the creatures pour from the wood. The Doctor and Harry run down into the basement.

They see a storage space in the basement, and begin looking through boxes. They find several lease agreements, always for six students and always at twenty year intervals. The Landlord appears, and the Doctor asks where the former students are. He replies, "In the house." The Doctor is horrified, as he realizes the Landlord means they're IN the house, and have been absorbed by it.

The Landlord confesses that his daughter was dying, but the Dryads (which is what the Doctor decides to call the creatures) saved her. And all they asked in return was the occasional human sacrifice every twenty years. The Landlord taps his tuning fork again, and the Dryads swarm over Harry, completely consuming him. The Dryads turn toward the Doctor, and he stalls for time, telling the Landlord that he may be able to cure his daughter.

Meanwhile, Bill and Shireen make it to the top of the tower and find a bedroom there. They hear a rustling, and a woman appears from behind a screen— a woman made of wood. Bill and Shireen nervously introduce themselves, and the woman says her name is Eliza. A mass of Dryads pours out of the wall and surround the girls. They swarm over Shireen and eat her. Eliza tells Bill that her father says it's for the best, and the two of them have to survive at all costs.

Suddenly the Doctor and the Landlord enter the tower. The Landlord tells Eliza that the Doctor is, well, a doctor, and may be able to help her. The Doctor theorizes that years ago, Eliza became ill and was told nothing could be done. The Landlord then found the Dryads in the garden, and brought them inside to show her. Eliza's music box activated them, and they began turning her into wood, keeping her alive. Sort of.

Bill interrupts the Doctor's speech, saying something doesn't make sense. Like why would a grown man be playing with insects in the garden? And if Eliza was preserved seventy years ago, how can her father possibly still be alive? The Doctor realizes she's right, and that the Landlord is actually Eliza's SON.

Eliza's horrified that she's been kept "alive" like this for so long, a prisoner in her own house. The Landlord is furious with the Doctor, and orders the Dryads to consume him. The Doctor tells Eliza she can end this, but she's confused and doesn't know how. He tells her she's the parent, and her son will listen to her.

Eliza hugs her son, and says it's their time, as the Dryads swarm and consume them both. Eliza uses what's left of her energy to restore all of Bill's friends, which is mighty convenient. They all run from the house seconds before it collapses in on itself.

Back at the University, Nardole is fiddling with the Vault. The Doctor arrives with Mexican food and tells him he can take off. Nardole's surprised to hear music coming from within the Vault, and asks the Doctor why he put a piano in there. The Doctor dismisses him. He shouts to whoever's in the Vault that he has food, and the music stops. He says he's as much a prisoner as the occupant of the Vault, and says he's got a new story for them. He opens the door and goes in.

Thoughts:
• When Bill first appeared in The Pilot, I noted there were a lot of similarities between her and Rose Tyler, the first companion of the revived series. This week we get yet another parallel— Bill has a gal pal named Shireen. Guess who also had a friend by that name? Yup, Rose Tyler!

• In The Pilot, Bill was working in the University cafeteria, and admitted to occasionally sneaking into the Doctor's lectures. When the Doctor offered to tutor her privately, she pointed out that she wasn't a student. The Doctor told her not to worry about that, as he'd sort it all out later.

Apparently he was true to his word, as it looks like Bill's now a student! At least that's the impression I got from the episode, that they're six students looking for off-campus housing.

• I have no problem with diversity in the media, as long as it's organic and not done just for the sake of ratings.

That definitely seems the case in this episode. Bill's little circle of housemates was almost comically diverse. Half are men, half women, they're white, black, Asian, Hindu and even Scottish! It's like the BBC had a list and was checking off genders, orientations and ethnicities. I'm honestly surprised they didn't have a Muslim or a student in a wheelchair!

• Good thing for Bill the Doctor's steering has improved over the years. In this episode he materializes the TARDIS around her stuff, then lands it in front of her new place with pinpoint accuracy.

Compare that to the Classic Series, where the Doctor had little or no control over the TARDIS, and it materialized in a particular time or place at random. Many's the time he'd pick up a companion on Earth and then spend several seasons trying to get them back home!

• Bill's flustered by the Doctor's intrusion, and tells her flatmates that he's her grandfather. That is most definitely a nod to Susan Foreman, the First Doctor's original companion, who always called him "Grandfather." Whether she truly was his blood relation or not has been debated by fans for decades.

This is at least the second Susan reference so far this season. In The Pilot we saw a photo of Susan (along with one of River Song) on the Doctor's desk in his University office.

There's no way these references are random or meaningless. As the Doctor even says in this episode, "Nobody 'just does' anything." They have to be building up to something here.

I foresee several possibilities. One is that Bill is somehow a regeneration of Susan, which I hope isn't true. Showrunner Steven Moffat has an annoying tendency to turn the Doctor's companions into "The Most Important Person In The Universe," ala Amy Pond ("The Girl Who Waited") and Clara Oswald ("The Impossible Girl"). 

It's nice to have just a plain old ordinary human like Bill on the show for a change, so I really hope this isn't the direction they're going.

Another big possibility is that Susan Foreman is actually the one inside the Doctor's Vault. I have no idea why he'd want to keep her prisoner for seventy years, but he's obviously friendly with whoever's in it, so...

Lastly, actor David Bradley is scheduled to appear on the show this season. In 2013, Bradley starred in An Adventure In Time And Space, a TV movie about the early days of Doctor Who and the BBC. In the movie, Bradley played actor William Hartnell, who played the First Doctor.

Could Bradley be guest starring as the First Doctor? That might explain all the Susan Foreman foreshadowing that's been going on. Could he be the one inside the Vault? Again, I can't think of a good reason why the Doctor would keep an earlier version of himself a prisoner for almost a century, but stranger things have happened on this show.

• When the Doctor meets the Landlord, he's immediately suspicious of him, possibly even thinking he's an alien. He tries to trip him by asking, "Who, um... who's the prime minister? Margaret Thatcher, Harriet Jones? Oh, come on. Wilson? Eden?"

Margaret Thatcher was of course the real world UK Prime Minister from 1979 to 1990.

Harriet Jones was the Prime Minister in the Whoniverse for several years. She first appeared in Aliens Of London, and was elected Prime Minister after the entire cabinet was wiped out by the Slitheen. She served three successive terms and brought about a Golden Age in London, before the Doctor took her down with just six words ("Don't you think she looks... tired?").

As for Wilson and Eden... Harold Wilson was Prime Minister from 1974 to 1976, and Anthony Eden from 1955 to 1957. I guess maybe the Doctor realized the Landlord hadn't been out of the house in a while?

• Don't worry, that's not an x-rated photo, it's just a Dryad coming out of a gash in the wood.

The Dryads seemed to be controlled by sound, so it's odd that the Doctor didn't try to use his sonic screwdriver on them. It was established on the Classic Series that the sonic couldn't affect wood, but I have no idea if that's still the case today or not. Even if it is, the Dryads themselves weren't made of wood. If a tuning fork and record player could affect them, surely the sonic could!

The Doctor does use the sonic as a flashlight in this episode, so there's that I guess.

Oh, in case you were curious, dryads come from Greek mythology: they are supernatural spirits associated with trees, especially oak trees, and tend to be very shy around humans.

• Eliza orders the Dryads to consume herself and her son, saying it's time they passed on. Immediately afterward, she uses the last of her energy to restore Bill's flatmates who were consumed earlier in the episode.

I guess all the other students who were consumed over the years are just sh*t out of luck then, right? To be fair, they were consumed decades ago, so it's no doubt far too late to reconstitute them. Bill's pals were just now absorbed, and probably hadn't been "digested" yet.

• Whoever's in the Vault is someone the Doctor's somewhat friendly with, who knows how to play the piano. When the Doctor says he has a story filled with death and destruction, the mystery person happily plays a few notes of Pop Goes The Weasel on the piano.

As I said earlier, the creators sure do want us to think he's got the Master locked up in there. It makes sense, as he/she would definitely delight in hearing a tale of "death and destruction." I just feel like the Master is way too obvious though.

• This Week's Best Lines:

Bill: "Thanks for helping, yeah? You should hire this out. Like a removal service."
The Doctor: "Removals? Bill, I'm a Time Lord."
Bill: Time Lord? What's that? Your job?"

The Doctor: "No, it's my, er people. My species."
Bill: "Doesn't sound like a species. Sounds posh, like 'Yes, my lord.' Doff my cap."
The Doctor: "Oh, well, that's why I gave it up. Ran away."
Bill: "Time Lords. That's hilarious. Do you wear robes and big hats?"

The Doctor: "No, big collars, mostly."

Bill: "Do you want the postcode?"

The Doctor:"Sorry?

Bill: "To find the house."
The Doctor: "Bill, the TARDIS uses multi-dimensional space-time coordinates."
Bill: "So you know where it is?"

(long pause)

The Doctor: "Okay, right, put the postcode in here."

Bill: "Do you sleep here?"

The Doctor: "If I need to."
Bill: “If I need to.' What does that mean?"

The Doctor: "Sleep’s for tortoises."
Bill: "Not Time Lords?"

The Doctor: "No. Unless we’ve regenerated, or had a big lunch."
Bill: "Regenerated?"

The Doctor: "Oh, the questions. The questions, the questions. Just remember: Time Lords. That’s enough for now."

Bill: (hearing strange noises in her new room) "Stop it. There’s no living puddles or Weird robots, big fish. It’s just a new house. And people you don’t know. Not scary at all."

Felicity: "I always get nervous when there’s no reception, like something bad’s going to happen."
Shireen: "We’ll have to get a landline."
Felicity: "Landline? What is this, Scotland?"

Bill: "Er, Grandfather? Hello?"

The Doctor: "Yeah."
Bill: "Perhaps you’d leave now?"

The Doctor: "No, I’m fine."
Bill: "Well, at least, um, go and sleep. Outside. (meaning the TARDIS) In the car."

Bill: "Can I have a word, please? Honestly, Doctor, there’s nothing going on. Nothing weird, nothing alien. Just an old house and a dodgy landlord, which is pretty standard for students. I’ll see you later for more exciting TARDIS action, but basically, this is the bit of my life that you’re not in. Do you know what I mean?"

The Doctor: "I know what you mean."
Bill: "Thanks."

The Doctor: (when Bill says she's going to bed) "Maybe, before you do, you should check on your friend who hasn’t been seen for a day and who has strange music coming out of his room."
Bill: "They say he just does that."
The Doctor: "Nobody 'just does' anything."

Bill: "You’re not leaving, are you?"

The Doctor: "No. Your friend will probably be fine.Knock on wood."

Bill: "Ah, we should get The Doctor."
Shireen: "Why? What’s he gonna do? Lecture?"

The Landlord: (referring to Pavel) "He’s preserved in the walls, in the very fabric of the building, forever."
Shireen: "So, the house is eating people?"
The Landlord: "We must all pay our dues."
Bill: "But not you?"

The Landlord: "Correct! I am the exception. For I am your landlord. You came here, you signed the contract. And now (tapping his tuning fork on the wall) It’s time to pay."

The Doctor: (to Nardole) "Okay, you can take the rest of the night off. Go on, go and do whatever it is you do. Actually, what do you do? No. Never tell me that."

Doctor Who Season 10, Episode 2: Smile

This week's Doctor Who follows the traditional "New Companion Second Episode Template" as Twelve offers Bill the choice between visiting the past or the future (see picks future, but the way).

Pearl Mackie continues to be a delight as Bill, and is just the breath of fresh air the show needed. Her chemistry with Peter Capaldi as the Doctor is amazing, and it's a cryin' shame they'll only have one season together.

Bill feels like a fully realized, actual person, much more so than the Doctor's previous several companions. As I said last week, it's refreshing to have a companion who's just a normal, everyday human, and not the Most Important Person In The Universe, or some sort of mystery that needs to be solved. That's why I'm terrified that showrunner Steven Moffat won't be able to leave well enough alone, and will somehow screw up Bill before the season's done.

Overall I enjoyed the episode quite a bit, mostly due to the charming banter between the Doctor and Bill. To be honest I'd have been perfectly happy just watching the two of them farting around in the TARDIS or wandering the future city for forty five minutes. It's too bad the mediocre and derivative plot had to intrude halfway through the episode to spoil their day out.

Amazingly, Smile was written by Frank Cottrell-Boyce, whose only previous contribution to Doctor Who was the execrable In The Forest Of The Night, one of the worst episodes of one of the show's worst seasons ever. 

That episode, if you can call it that, featured "science" that would have made Ed Wood blush. A massive solar flare is heading for Earth, so the world's trees take it upon themselves to grow and cover the entire planet (overnight, mind you), generating an enormous oxygen "air bag" that will absorb the brunt of the cosmic firestorm and save us all. Jesus wept.

Fortunately Cottrell-Boyce upped his game here, and wrote a much better episode this time out. In fact it feels very much like classic Doctor Who, back when the Doctor and his companion du jour would spend an entire episode exploring an alien ship or city.

I guess I'm not smart enough to get the point of this episode. The residents of a future colony have to constantly smile, or they'll be disintegrated by sentient robots whose job is to enforce happiness. So I guess this is a commentary on social media? The way we're all obsessed with "Likes," page views, swiping right and all that? Is that it? Did I get it right?

The "Technology Taking Its Programming Literally With Disastrous Results" plot isn't a bad one, but the problem is it's been done all too many times before. Moffat is particularly fond of this plot, as he used it in The Empty Child, The Girl In The Fireplace and even last week's The Pilot!

Lastly, I'd just like to say that the world seen in this episode— one in which you have to constantly smile or die— would be my all-time absolute worst nightmare.

See, I don't smile a lot. It's not because I'm angry, sad or upset— it's just that when I'm not thinking about anything in particular, my face goes into this default, expressionless mode, which other people read as a frown, I guess. You've heard of Resting Bitch Face? I have Resting Murder Face.

The worst part of this is that people are constantly telling me to smile. I've had complete strangers come up to me and say, "Smile! It can't be that bad!" It drives me nuts, and even though I'm not angry, hearing that eight or twelve times per day makes me so. 

You may not think this sounds like much of a problem, but try living with it for several decades straight and get back with me. People need to mind their own goddamned business. Would you go up to an overweight stranger and tell them they should lay off the bon bons? Tell a guy with nine kids to keep it in his pants? Of course not! So don't worry about what my face is doing.

Honestly, If I had to walk around with a fake smile pasted on my face like the colonists in this episode or else die, I'd have to think it over.

SPOILERS!

The Plot:
The Doctor and Bill hang out in the TARDIS, as witty banter ensues. Nardole knocks on the door and the Doctor lets him in. Nardole seems miffed that Bill's in the TARDIS (jealousy?) and the Doctor tells him to go make some tea. Nardole reminds him of his oath to guard the vault, and that he's not supposed to go off-world unless it's an emergency. The Doctor lies, assuring him he won't leave, and rushes him out of the TARDIS.

The Doctor then asks Bill the standard new companion question: Past or Future? She picks the future for her first trip in time, because she wants to know if turns out "happy."

Meanwhile in the future, on the planet Gliese 581d, a woman named Kezzia walks through a vast wheat field toward a beautiful white city. She's followed by a small, humanoid robot and a cloud of black nanites called "Vardies." Inside the building, she's met by a nervously smiling woman named Goodthing, who tells Kezzia their mother and several other family members are all dead. Despite this bad news, Goodthing pleads with Kezzia to smile. Kezzia's understandably upset, which the small robot beside her senses. It's face, which displays an emoji of a smiling face, changes to a frown, then a deadly face with skulls for eyes. Suddenly a Vardie swarm swoops down and envelops Kezzia. When it flies off, there's nothing left of her but a pile of bones.

Sometime later the TARDIS lands on Gliese, which the Doctor explains is one of the first Earth colonies. He and Bill explore the futuristic city, but are puzzled as to why it seems empty. The Doctor notices swarms of Vardies buzzing around, along with the small humanoid robots, which Bill dubs Emojobots. The Doctor says the Emojibots must serve as  an interface between humans and Vardies. 

An Emojibot hands each of them a disk, which they place on their chests like a pin. The disks immediately move to their backs, and begin displaying emojis. The Doctor theorizes that the badges are meant to display the wearer's emotional state— a mood indicator.

Bill's fascinated by the city and everything in it, but the Doctor's unnerved by the fact that there're no colonists around. He says even if the colony ship hasn't yet arrived, there should be a skeleton crew of humans to help set up the city. They wander into a greenhouse, and the Doctor makes a grisly discovery— the Vardies killed the humans and are using them as fertilizer.

The Doctor somehow works out that the Emojibots were sent ahead to Gliese to build the city for the colonists, and are programmed to make them happy. Somewhere along the line they began taking their programming literally, and when the skeleton crew became unhappy for some reason, the Emojibots eliminated them.

The Doctor and Bill paste big happy smiles on their faces and exit the city as quickly as possible, and make their way back to the TARDIS. He tells Bill to stay there, while he tries to figure out how to stop the Emojibots so they don't kill all the colonists when they arrive. Bill says nothing doing (of course) and returns to the city with the Doctor.

The Doctor realizes that the entire city is formed out of trillions of Vardies, who make up the walls, floors and everything. They find a section of the city that isn't made of Vardies, and realize it's the remains of the spaceship that brought the skeleton crew here. The Doctor finds the engine room and rigs it to blow, which will destroy the Emojibots (and leave a big heap of nothing for the colonists when they arrive!). The Emojibots detect the intruders, and head toward the engine room to stop them.

Bill wanders off and finds a chamber with a long-dead old woman lying on a slab. There's an electronic book at her feet, and Bill flips through it, seeing it's the history of Earth. She's troubled when she gets to the future, and sees it's not pleasant. She then wanders into a room filled with thousands of hibernation pods, each with a human inside. The colonists aren't arriving, they're already here!

Bill fills in the Doctor, and he realizes he was wrong about the colony. He immediately has to undo the damage he did to the engines to keep them from blowing and save what's left of humanity. Bill thinks he's saved the day, but he reminds her that when the colonists wake up, they're not going to be happy that their new home is a death trap, which will cause the Emojibots to massacre them. The colonists begin waking up, wondering what's going on. When they find out, they head to the armory and gear up for war.

Meanwhile the Doctor tries to figure out what happened to the Emojibots so he can reverse it. Bill shows him the old lady's tomb, and the Doctor finally understands. She was one of the skeleton crew, who died of natural causes. This caused grief among the rest of the crew. The Emojibots were programmed to maintain happiness, and when they sensed grief, they decided it had to be eliminated, as their literal thinking became deadly.

The Doctor tries to explain all this to the awakening colonists, but they're too worked up to listen, and attack the Emojibots. The Vardies then spring into action, stripping the flesh off the bones of one of the colonists. Suddenly the Vardies and Emojibots both stop. The colonists wonder what happened, and the Doctor reveals he hit the reset button on the Emojobots. Well. That was... anticlimactic.

Before he leaves, the Doctor explains the situation to the colonists. He says the city belongs to the Vardies now, as it's literally made of them, and they're now the indigenous life form on Gliese. He tells the colonists they need to figure out how to live with the Vardies quickly, and suggests they start smiling.

The Doctor and Bill take off in the TARDIS. When Bill asks where they're going, the Doctor says he's returned them to Earth at the exact moment they left. He throws open the doors and they see they're in 1840 London, as a real live elephant walks toward them across the frozen Thames.

Thoughts:
• This week we find out what's up with the vault the Doctor was fiddling with in The Pilot. We don't find out what's in it, but we sort of learn why the Doctor's guarding it. He tells Bill, "A long time ago, a thing happened. As a result of the thing, I made a promise. As a result of the promise, I have to stay on Earth."

I'm assuming the mystery of what's inside the vault and why the Doctor promised to guard it will slowly unfold over the next ten episodes. And against all logic, reason and the rules of good screenwriting, I'm confident it'll have something to do with Bill.

One cool thing about the Doctor's oath— according to Nardole, he's not supposed to go off-world and leave the vault unguarded. The Doctor does so anyway of course, using time travel as a technicality. He can leave the planet for as long as he wants (years even!) as long as he returns at the exact moment he left. Timey Whimey!

• Funny how, out of all the incredible things she saw in this episode, the thing that amazed her most is the most mundane— the fact that the Doctor has two hearts.

Somehow I think this is going to be tied in with the vault and the photo on the Doctor's desk last week, and Bill will turn out to have something to do with Susan Foreman. Either it's Susan in the vault, or Bill's Susan's daughter or something like that. Moffat won't be able to help himself.

• The Doctor reminds Nardole that he's over two thousand years old in this episode, and doesn't need a mother hen clucking over him.

Some online fans are claiming this is a mistake, as the the events of Heaven Sent mean the Doctor's really 4.5 BILLION years old. Eh, I don't think so.

In that episode, the Doctor was teleported into some kind of other-dimensional prison. He wandered through a maze-like structure for days, until he found his way back to the transporter room and was killed. The prison then reset itself back to the moment the Doctor first appeared. 

This sequence of events happened over and over for four billion years. But because the prison constantly rewound itself, each time the Doctor stepped out of the transporter was the first for him, if that makes any sense.

That's the way I interpreted the episode at least. And the Doctor seems to agree with me!

• The colony planet in the episode is called Gliese 581d. Believe it or not, this is an actual world (probably), in the Gliese 581 planetary system, twenty light years from Earth! It was discovered in 2007 by the European Southern Observatory telescope in La Silla, Chile. Why there's a European Southern Observatory in South America, I have no idea.

Computer climate simulations have indicated there may be surface water and a habitable surface on Gliese 581d. Kudos to the writers for using an actual (probably) planet in the episode!

• Impressed by the futuristic city in this episode? Wondering how the cheapskates at the BBC could possibly afford to build such a massive set? 

Eh, it wasn't a set. It's a real place! The Doctor Who cast and crew went on the road and filmed the episode at the City Of Arts And Sciences in Valencia, Spain.

• The plot of this week's story— "Be Happy Or Die"— is a familiar one. It's pretty much identical to the 1988 Seventh Doctor episode The Happiness Patrol. In that episode, the Doctor and Ace travel to a futuristic city run by dictator Helen A (who was a thinly-disguised satire of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher). She made it illegal to be unhappy, and anyone who violated the law was put to death.

I guess the writers were hoping we'd forgotten about that episode?

The similarities don't stop there. The Seventh Doctor and his companion Ace had a teacher/student relationship, just like the Twelfth Doctor and Bill do. And Ace's favorite catchphrase was "Wicked!," which Bill just happens to utter this week. Coincidence? Homage? Outright self-theft?

• Another case of borrowing from what's gone before: at one point, Bill asks why, if the Doctor's an alien, he has a Scottish accent. 

This echoes the first appearance of Rose Tyler in 2005's Rose, in which she asked the Ninth Doctor why he sounded like he was from the north (his reply: "Lots of planets have a north!"). 

Also in 2010's The Beast Below, the Eleventh Doctor and Amy Pond counter the Starship UK, which contains the British survivors of a future evacuated Earth. The Doctor tells Amy, who was Scottish, that Scotland refused to be a part of the ship and built their own.

• Early in the episode the Doctor assumes the city's empty because the colonists haven't yet arrived. He then decides to blow up the city to save the colonists from the Emojibots.

The Doctor was completely wrong about this of course, as it turns out the colonists were already there. But let's suppose he was right and they hadn't yet arrived. 

What would have happened if the colonists had arrived and found the Doctor had blown up their city? What the hell would they have done then? Live in their ship until they could figure out how to build adobe huts? Seems like he didn't really think his plan through. Lucky for the colonists he was wrong and didn't blow up the city after all.

• The colony ship is called the Erehwon. It doesn't take a cryptographer to see that's "Nowhere" backwards. Oy.

This may also be a reference to Erewhon, a satirical novel written in 1872 by author Samuel Butler. The story's about a utopia that turns out to be a nightmare, and even features machines that become self aware. Sounds familiar, eh?

• Supposedly the Vardies are named after Professor Andrew Vardy, of Memorial University in St. John's, Newfoundland, Canada. His area of research is swarm robotics, which I guess is a thing. Frank Cottrell-Boyce, writer of this episode, collaborated with Vardy several years ago on an unrelated story.

• At one point Bill finds a dead old woman on a slab, with an electronic book at her feet. Bill activates the iPad-like book, which displays a slideshow of Earth's history.

The images she sees look amazingly like the opening titles of The Big Bang Theory. Seriously. All that was missing was the Barenaked Ladies theme.

To be fair here, this may have been less of an homage or ripoff, and more a case of there only being so many ways to illustrate a multimedia demonstration of Earth's past.

There are a couple of Easter eggs among the images Bill sees in the book. The first is a photo of the Embracing Couple, a pair of perfectly preserved people who died in the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius. I'm betting this had to be a reference to 2008 episode The Fires Of Pompeii.

The second is a brief image of Vincent Van Gogh, who was featured in the episode Vincent And The Doctor.
• All through the episode the Doctor keeps talking about a magic haddock, which no one else understands. Finally at the end of the episode he explains himself and tells a story to the colonists, saying, 

"Once, long ago, a fisherman caught a magic haddock. The haddock offered the fisherman three wishes in return for its life. The fisherman said, 'I’d like my son to come home from the war and 100 pieces of gold.' The problem is magic haddock, like robots, don’t think like people. The fisherman’s son came home from the war in a coffin and the King sent 100 gold pieces in recognition of his heroic death. The fisherman had one wish left. What do you think he wished for? Some people say he should have wished for an infinite series of wishes... In fact, the fisherman wished that he hadn’t made the first two wishes."

His Magic Haddock story is pretty much identical to The Monkey's Paw, which was written by W.W. Jacobs in 1902. It tells the story of a petrified monkey's hand that grants wishes, but in the most hellish way possible. 

In the story, an old man wishes for enough money to pay off his house. The next day the man's son is killed in a factory accident. The factory owner gives a goodwill payment to the old man, which is the exact amount he needs. 

A week later the old man's grief-stricken wife demands he use his second wish to return their son to them. He reluctantly does so, and they immediately hear a moaning and scratching at their door. The old man realizes it's the half-rotted corpse of their dead son trying to get in, and uses his last wish to undo the second.

I looked around the internet and there doesn't seem to be any story called The Magic Haddock. I'm betting the writer just came up with a new name for the old story, as The Monkey's Paw is pretty well known and would be a spoiler for the rest of the episode's plot.

• The Doctor saves the day by rebooting the Emojibots, to reset them to their factory settings. In other words, "he turned them off and on again." Cue sad trombone. It's a terrible, anticlimactic copout of an ending, one which makes the Doctor look like an idiot. Surely someone as smart as him should have known to do this five minutes after he met the Emojibots (this is actually the second time he screws up in the episode, as earlier he mistakenly assumed the colonists hadn't arrived yet, and almost blew them up along with the city!).

Additionally, the Doctor's reset solution doesn't make much sense. The Emojibots have become a new self-aware species, and are so dedicated to preserving happiness that they literally kill anyone experiencing sadness. The Doctor then "resets" them, essentially wiping their memories. He says the Vardies are now the indigenous population, as the built the city and it belongs to them, and tells the colonists they'd better figure out a way to live with them.

Hang on— if he wiped their memories, then shouldn't they have lost their sentience as well? Shouldn't they just be plain old robots with factory settings now? So what's the problem? Why can't the colonists just move into the city as planned?

By the way, there's no way to watch reset scene without thinking of Roy, the beleaguered computer tech who constantly told his coworkers to turn their computers off and on again in The IT Crowd. 

• This Week's Best Lines:

Bill: (noticing the seats in the TARDIS) "Oh, that’s a mistake."
The Doctor: "What is?"
Bill: "You can’t reach the controls from the seats. What’s the point in that? Or do you have stretchy arms, like Mr. Fantastic?"
The Doctor: "Oh, I stand, like this."
Bill: "You never thought of bringing the seats a bit closer?"
The Doctor: "No, not so far, no."
Bill: "Where’s the steering wheel?"
The Doctor: "Well, you don’t steer the TARDIS, you negotiate with it. The still point between where you want to go, and where you need to be, that’s where she takes you."

Bill: (grilling the Doctor about the TARDIS) "How much did it cost?"
The Doctor: "Ah. No idea. Stole it."
Bill: "Seriously?"
The Doctor: "Yep."
Bill: "Why?"
The Doctor: "Well, actually, because I felt like it."
Bill: "What if I steal it from you?"
The Doctor: "On you go, then."
Bill: "I don’t know how it works."
The Doctor: "Well, neither did I."

Bill: (still grilling the Doctor about the TARDIS) "Why a phone box?"
The Doctor: "I told you."
Bill: "Yeah, I get that it’s a cloaking device. But why keep it that shape? Why do you like it?"
The Doctor: "Who said I like it?"
Bill: "You kept it."

Bill: "One question— little fella said you made an oath. You’re not supposed to leave the planet."
The Doctor: "OK, I suppose I owe you an explanation. A long time ago, a thing happened. As a result of the thing, I made a promise. As a result of the promise, I have to stay on Earth."
Bill: "Guarding a vault?"
The Doctor: "Guarding a vault.
Bill: "Well, you’re not guarding the vault right now."
The Doctor: "Yes, I am. I have a time machine, I can be back before we left."
Bill: "But what if you get lost, or stuck, or something?"
The Doctor: "I’ve thought about that."
Bill: "And?"
The Doctor: "Well, it would be a worry, so best not to dwell on it."

Bill: (seeing the Vardies) "These are robots? These are disappointing robots."
The Doctor: "That’s a very offensive remark. Don’t make personal remarks like that."
Bill: "You can’t offend a machine."
The Doctor: "Typical wet brain chauvinism."
(I get the feeling that if we ever do create sentient robots, this will be a real conversation)

The Doctor: "Welcome to the future. Emojis, wearable communications, we’re in the utopia of vacuous teens."

The Doctor: "I’m not that fond of fish, except socially, which can complicate a meal like this."

Bill: "Why are you Scottish?"
The Doctor: "I’m not Scottish, I’m just cross."
Bill: "Is there Scotland in space?"
The Doctor: "They’re all over the place, demanding independence from every planet they land on."

The Doctor: "Why are you here?"
Bill: "Because I figured out why you keep your box as a phone box."
The Doctor: "I told you, it’s stuck."
Bill: (indicating the sign on the front of the TARDIS) "Advice And Assistance Obtainable Immediately.' You like that."
The Doctor: "No, I don’t."
Bill: "See, this is the point. You don’t call the helpline because you ARE the helpline."
The Doctor: "Don’t sentimentalise me. I don’t just fly around helping people out."
Bill: "What are you doing right now?"
The Doctor: "I happened to be passing by, so I’m mucking in."
Bill: "You’ve never passed by in your life."

Bill: "I really am on a spaceship."
The Doctor: "Yes. Which we’re about to blow up."
Bill: "How are you allowed to do that? Like, how are you allowed to blow something up and not get into trouble? I mean, blow something up, get into trouble, that is a standard sequence!"

Bill: "Where are we going?"
The Doctor: "No idea. But if I look purposeful, they'll think I've got a plan. If they think I've got a plan, at least they won't try to think of one themselves."

The Doctor: "Do you know why I always win at chess? I have a secret move. I kick over the board."