Doctor Who Season 10, Episode 5: Oxygen

This week on Doctor Who, the gang travels to a outer space, in yet another episode that echoes those of the Classic Series.

These "Base Under Siege" adventures were a staple of the old series, as they were easy to pad out into four episodes, and relatively cheap to make, as they only required one main set.

We also get quite a bit of Nardole in this episode, which is a good thing, but very little advancement (or even mention) of the Vault Mystery, which is a less good thing.

Oxygen isn't the best episode this season, but it's not bad, and miles ahead of the last time the Doctor wore a spacesuit in the execrable Kill The Moon, aka The Episode We Do Not Speak Of.

Since this season began, I've been saying the stories feel less like those of showrunner Steven Moffat and more like Russell T. Davies' (the man who revived the series in 2005) work. That's a good thing, by the way, as I enjoyed the Davies era quite a bit.

Davies was a master of creating "Armies Of Monsters" threats such as the Gelth, the Clockwork Men and the Scarecrows. This episode seems to definitely be inspired by his work, as it features a horde of Zombie Astronauts (or more correctly, autonomous spacesuits with dead astronauts inside them).

Unfortunately the Zombie Astronauts never quite gel as a threat, plus they're very, VERY similar to the Vashta Nerada, an army of spacesuit-clad skeletons seen in 2008's Silence In The Library/Forest Of The Dead. And guess who wrote those two episodes? That's right, it was our old friend Steven Moffat. Yes, I know Moffat didn't write this episode, but he's the showrunner, which means he approved it and no doubt gave it a polish before it was aired.

Doctor Who took a page from classic Star Trek this week, giving us a not-so-subtle "message episode" which could be seen as a metaphor for the current health care crisis in America. The Doctor discovers a ruthless, futuristic mining company who cares so little for human life that it literally kills its workers to increase profits and boost its bottom line!

BIG HONKIN' SPOILERS FROM THIS POINT ON!

The big news this week is that the Doctor is now blind! He goes blind about halfway through the episode, is still blind at the end and according to the previews, will be blind next week as well.

I don't for a minute think this is a permanent condition), but I could definitely see it lasting until the end of the season or until he regenerates, whichever comes first.

Some fans think this is how Capaldi's Doctor will go out— his actions will cause him to become more and more damaged over the course of the season, until he has no choice but to regenerate.

Sounds reasonable I suppose, but a blind Doctor's gonna have his work cut out for him if that truly is the Master inside that vault!

SPOILERS!

The Plot:
We begin with the Doctor lecturing his class on what happens to the human body in the vacuum of space. A student raises her hand and asks what any of this has to do with crop rotation (!).

Cut to the space station Chasm Forge, sometime in the future. A man and woman in spacesuits are walking along the outer surface of the station, trying to make it to the airlock before their oxygen runs out. The woman carries on a lengthy conversation with the man, saying she wants to have a baby with him. Unfortunately his comm unit's out, and he doesn't hear a word she's saying, He makes it to the airlock and as he opens it, he sees her helmet float by. He turns to look and sees a herd of space suited zombie astronauts have killed the woman and turned her into one of them. They then come for him.

Back on Earth in the present, the Doctor and Bill are in the TARDIS, which is parked in his office. Nardole enters and scolds the Doctor again, worried he's thinking of breaking his vow to guard the Vault and go off on another adventure. Just then the TARDIS receives a distress call, and the Doctor sets a course for it, taking Bill and the still-protesting Nardole along for the ride.

The TARDIS arrives on the Chasm Forge. As they start to exit, the Doctor stops them, noting that there's no air inside the station. He floods a section of the station with air from the TARDIS so they can move around. As they explore, they find a dead astronaut standing in the middle of a room. When Bill asks how he can still be standing, the Doctor explains that the man's magnetic boots are keeping him upright. Suddenly the corpse grabs the Doctor's sonic, destroying it.

The Doctor checks a computer and sees the station has a crew of forty, but all but four are dead. They find another astronaut moving boxes from one pile to another. The Doctor uses his sonic screwdriver to open the astronaut's helmet visor, and sees the suit is completely empty. He notes that it's an automated "smartsuit," capable of independent operation. The Doctor asks the suit what happened to the oxygen on the station. The suit's AI replies that there's never been any air there, as inhabitants carry their oxygen supply with them at all times. It also adds that air is available for personal use at "competitive prices," and "any unlicensed oxygen will be expelled to protect market value."

Just then warning sirens sound, as the station begins purging the oxygen the Doctor added. The airlock doors close, shutting the group off from the TARDIS. They have no choice but to quickly don three extra smart suits in a repair bay in order to survive. They get a call from Drill Chief Tasker, one the station's survivors, demanding to know who they are. The Doctor says they're responding to their distress call, and asks what happened to the station. Tasker says a few days ago the smartsuits received a line of code that ordered them to deactivate their organic components— meaning their human occupants.

The two groups meet in the main control room, as Bill's spacesuit begins malfunctioning. Tasker repairs her suit while the Doctor tries to figure out who hacked the station's suits. Suddenly the herd of zombie astronauts— really just mobile spacesuits with dead humans inside them— break into the control room and attack. One of them touches Tasker, which causes his suit to deactivate his oxygen field as well as electrocute him.

There's lots of typical running up and down corridors, and the group is finally forced to hide in an airlock. They realize the only way to survive is to exit the airlock, walk across the outside of the station and come back in where it's safe (just like the people at the beginning of the episode tried to do). The Doctor notes that the air forcefields won't work in a vacuum, and they'll need to wear proper helmets in space. 

As the airlock starts to open, Bill's suit begins glitching again, and removes her helmet. The Doctor tries to halt the airlock cycle, but it's impossible to stop once it starts. The airlock opens, as Bill gasps for breath and eventually passes out.

When she wakes, she discovers the Doctor gave her his own helmet to save her as they exited the station. Unfortunately, prolonged exposure to the vacuum of space caused the Doctor to go blind. He assures Bill it's temporary, and that he's got some "spare eyes" somewhere inside the TARDIS. Meanwhile, he tries to figure out what he's missing, and why anyone would want to hack the suits and kill everyone on the station, especially when there's nothing there to steal.

The station receives a message that a rescue ship is on its way, and the Doctor finally figures it out. The station wasn't hacked after all. The mining company decided the crew had become inefficient, so it was no longer cost-effective to keep them alive. The human crew was just a line in a spreadsheet, and were eliminated to maximize profits. The "rescue" ship isn't there to save them, but to bring in more efficient smartsuits.

Just then the zombie astronauts break in again, as the survivors run for it. Bill's suit malfunctions again, activating its magnetic boots and rooting her to the spot. The Doctor and Nardole try to move her or remove her from the suit, but it won't let them. Finally the Doctor tells Bill there's no choice but to leave her. He tells her to trust him though, and that she'll go through hell, but will eventually survive (?).

The Doctor and the others make a run for it, leaving Bill behind. The zombie astronauts pour in, and one touches her shoulder, seemingly killing her. She, or rather her suit, begins shuffling along with the rest of them.

The Doctor, Nardole and the last two station survivors barricade themselves into a room and make a last stand as the zombies try to break in. The Doctor says he has one last, desperate plan. He fiddles with the computer and links their life signs with the station's coolant system. The Doctor says that if they die, the station will be destroyed, taking every last penny the company will ever make off it. He gives a rousing speech about dying well and making a statement, working up everyone until they're with him.

The zombies break in, with Bill leading the parade. The Doctor tells the mining company (who are presumably listening through the smartsuits) that the station inhabitants' deaths will be "brave and brilliant and unafraid." But they'll also be expensive, as the station will blow if the suits kill any of them. The Doctor says a minute ago they were too expensive to live, now they're too expensive to die.

The suits falter for a second, then stop. Bill coughs and sputters back to life. The Doctor reveals that earlier he saw that her suit battery was low, and wouldn't be strong enough to electrocute her, so she was simply unconscious the whole time. That doesn't make a whit of sense, but let's just move on or we'll be here all day. Suddenly the station is flooded with oxygen, as the company provides it free of charge to keep everyone alive and prevent a costly disaster.

Back in the TARDIS, Nardole uses a device to fix the Doctor's eyes. Abby and the other astronaut are in the TARDIS as well. They ask the Doctor to take them to the company's home office, so they can "register a complaint."

Back in his University office, the Doctor tells Bill that if he remembers right, Abby's complaint worked, as six months after the incident (in the future!) there was a successful rebellion that took down the company. Bill leaves, and Nardole gripes at the Doctor again for leaving the Vault unguarded. He angrily tells the Doctor to look at him when he's talking. The Doctor says he can't, as he's still blind.

Thoughts:
• I don't really have a lot to say about this week's episode, which I guess is a good thing.

• This week the Doctor wears his horrible spotted shirt from a season or two ago. The one with the tiny holes in it, that looks like a car battery exploded all over it.

I've ranted about this shirt several times over the past couple seasons, and I freely admit I have no idea why it enrages me so much. It just does.

• On Earth, the Doctor wants to take the TARDIS out to investigate a distress call from space. Nardole says he can't, as the Doctor gave him a "fluid link" for safe keeping, which will prevent the TARDIS from dematerializing. The Doctor then tells Nardole he was lying about the link and takes off.

Way back in the 1963 episode The Daleks, we find out that the TARDIS actually can't fly without a fluid link! In that episode, the First Doctor has to invade a Dalek city to recover the TARDIS' fluid link.

Eh, this doesn't really bother me. I don't expect writers to remember a line from over fifty years ago. Plus the Doctor could have upgraded the TARDIS over the decades, eliminating the need for a fluid link.

• When the Doctor discovers the space station doesn't contain any oxygen, he floods it with air from inside the TARDIS.

This actually makes a bit of sense. The interior of the TARDIS is infinite after all, so it should have oxygen to spare!

• For some reason, the smartsuits generate an invisible (mostly) forcefield around the wearer's head, so they don't have to wear a helmet while inside the station. So why a forcefield instead of an infinitely more reliable and practical space helmet? 

I have a feeling it's because the producers didn't want the actors' beautifully emotive faces obscured by helmets for the bulk of the episode. That or the actors balked, not wanting to have to cram their heads inside poorly ventilated, stuffy helmets every day for a week.

• Speaking of the smartsuit helmet forcefield— it forms a bubble that glows briefly any time something touches it, like a hand or even breath. Doesn't it seem like Bill's ample hair ought to be sticking past the boundaries of the bubble, making it constantly glow?

• The futuristic mining company has space suits that can move around and function with no one inside them. They're essentially robots. The company realizes they no longer need a human crew, and orders the suits to eliminate them.

But why was there EVER a human crew in the first place? Why'd it take the company so long to realize they didn't need people?

By the way, how the hell can a spacesuit contain all the mechanisms necessary to move by itself, but still have room for a human inside it? That's one of the many, many problems I had with Iron Man 3.

• Bill meets her first proper extraterrestrial in this episode (the human-looking Doctor and Nardole not counting), a blue gentleman named Dahh-Ren, aka "Darren."

This isn't the first time the show's featured blue-skinned aliens. In fact blue seems to be quite a popular color in the Whoniverse. The revived series has featured the Moxx of Balloon and the Crespallions, both seen in The End Of The World, along with Dorium Maldovar, first seen in A Good Man Goes To War and the insectoid Fleming from The Husbands Of River Song.

• This isn't the Doctor's first visit to a space station, as they've been a staple of the series for decades. He first encountered one way back in 1968's The Wheel In Space. There was also the Nerva Beacon in 1975's The Ark In Space, as well as Platform one in 2005's The End Of The World and Satellite Five from The Long Game. I'm sure I'm missing a few others.

• The Sonic Sunglasses are back, after the Doctor's blinded. Oy. I'd hoped we'd seen the last of those things in Season 9. I have a feeling they're gonna be around for a while, at least until the Doctor regains his sight (if he ever does).

• This Week's Best Lines:
The Doctor: "So, how does space kill you? I’m glad you asked. The main problem is pressure. There isn’t any. So, don’t hold your breath or your lungs will explode. Blood vessels rupture. Exposed areas swell. Fun fact! The boiling temperature of water is much lower in a vacuum. Which means that your sweat and your saliva will boil as will the fluid around your eyes. You won’t notice any of this because 15 seconds in, you’ve passed out as oxygen bubbles formed in your blood. And 90 seconds in... you’re dead. Any questions Yes?"

Girl In Class: "What’s this got to do with crop rotation?"

The Doctor: "Er, I dunno. But space is great, isn’t it?"

Bill: "You like distress calls?"

The Doctor: "You only really see the true face of the universe when it’s asking for your help."

Tasker: "Occupants of repair station, please identify."
The Doctor: "Hello there! You first."
Tasker: "I’m sorry?"

The Doctor: "Well, all your crewmates are dead. So, either you’re extremely lucky or you killed them. Which is it?"

Bill: "The measurements, are these in metres?"

Tasker: "Average breaths. The only unit worth a damn out here."

The Doctor: "Bill, I’ve got no TARDIS, no sonic, about ten minutes of oxygen left and now I’m blind. Can you imagine how unbearable I’m going to be when I pull this off?"

Abby: "Is that really the best you’ve got? Revenge?"

The Doctor: "Not just revenge. It’s revenge as bright as the sun. It’s revenge you can see across galaxies! Not bad for a blind man."

Abby: "Are you of your mind?"

The Doctor: "Uh, yes, completely, but that’s not a recent thing."
The Doctor: "I try never to tell the enemy my secret plan."

Doctor Who Season 10, Episode 3: Thin Ice

This week the Doctor takes his new companion Bill on her first trip to the past, to the Frost Fairs of Regency London to be exact. Naturally complications arise, as they encounter a seemingly deadly monster that's actually being held against its will, and killing purely in self defense.

It's a well-worn plot that the show's used many times before, most recently in The Beast Below. Heck, Doctor Who spinoff Torchwood even used the same storyline in Meat (and the less said about that episode, the better). 

Despite the familiar storyline, it's still a pretty good episode, due solely to the chemistry between Peter Capaldi and Pearl Mackie. Honestly I'd have been happy if they ditched the plot altogether and just given us forty five minutes of the two of them wandering around the Frost Fair. I'm definitely going to miss their interactions after Capaldi leaves.

Wow, three decent episodes in a row... what gives, Moffat? Did you start taking "writing pills?"

This week's episode raises some hard questions about both racial tensions and death. It doesn't necessarily answer these questions, but at least it spends a few minutes addressing the topics, which was surprising. So kudos for that. Bill holding the Doctor's feet to the fire over the amount of death he's seen and caused over his long life was one of the greatest moments in the entire history of the series, and something that's not often examined.

There wasn't much of Nardole this week, but his brief scene at the end of the episode gave us a pretty good hint (or possibly a red herring) as to who's inside the vault he and the Doctor are guarding.

SPOILERS!

The Plot:
The Doctor and Bill return from planet Gliese 581d to London. As they peer out of the TARDIS, they see a real live elephant stomping down the frozen Thames.

Bill thinks they've on a parallel world, but the Doctor says they've landed in 1814 London, at the last of the Frost Fairs. Bill worries that her dark skin will cause problems in an era that still has slavery, but the Doctor assures her there's no danger. They don period-appropriate clothing and explore the Fair. Back in the TARDIS, its sensors pick up a massive life form under the ice. Too bad there's no way for it to warn the Doctor.

As Bill wanders through the fair, she occasionally sees bright green lights moving under the ice. She's afraid she's experiencing some kind of side effect from time travel, but the Doctor admits he's seeing the lights as well. They encounter a team of child pickpockets, and one nabs the Doctor's sonic and runs off with it.

The Doctor and Bill chase the urchins, and corner Spider, the one who stole the sonic. Suddenly the green lights appear below him, and begin moving around him in a circle. They move faster and faster until they create a hole in the ice, and he drops through. The Doctor tries to save him (or does he?) but only manages to grab his sonic before the child disappears under the ice. The hole immediately closes back up. The Doctor tries to question the other street kids, but they run off in fear.

The Doctor finds a distraught Bill sobbing some distance away. When he asks what's wrong, she says she never saw anyone die before. She notes that he doesn't seem very upset, and asks how many people he's seen die. He admits he doesn't know. She then asks how many he's killed, and he refuses to answer, saying sometimes it's the only option available. An angry Bill says that's not what she asked.

Eventually they track down the kids, who are led by a girl named Kitty. He talks her into taking them back to their hovel. There, the kids admit that they're paid to lure people to the Frost Fair, some of whom end up going missing. Kitty doesn't know who the man is who pays them, other than that he has a tattoo of a ship on his hand.

The Doctor and Bill "acquire" diving suits, then gear up and visit the Frost Fair after it's closed. When Bill asks why they need diving suits on top of the ice, and the Doctor says if all goes according to plan, the lights will come and take them under. Suddenly the lights come and take them under. Deep below the surface, they see a massive (alien?) sea creature, chained to the bottom of the river. It's surrounded by some sort of mutated angler fish (its offspring?), the source of the green lights. They swim melt the ice above, allowing people to fall through and provide food for their massive host. The creature spots the Doctor and Bill and moans plaintively.

They return to the surface, and eventually discover that Lord Sutcliffe is the man who pays the urchins to lure people onto the ice. They visit a workhouse owned by Sutcliffe, where hundreds of men dredge the river for the giant creature's waste. They mold it into bricks, which, according to the foreman, burn a thousand times longer than coal, and hotter than they can measure. The Doctor notes that this "fuel" is suitable for interstellar travel, and wonders if Sutcliffe is secretly an alien.

The two of them then pay a visit to Lord Sutcliffe's mansion, The Doctor tells Bill to let him do the talking, as getting info from a potential alien like Sutcliffe will require tact and finesse. They're taken to Sutcliffe's study, and he immediately treats Bill like a slave. The Doctor punches Lord Sutcliffe, knocking him out. So much for diplomacy!

The Doctor asks Lord Sutcliffe where the creature came from, and he says its secret has been passed down in his family for generations. He defends what he's doing, saying the city's industry runs on the creature's waste. Without it, they'd need coal, and thousands would die in the mines.

Sutcliffe orders the Doctor and Bill be placed inside a tent on the ice, which is filled with explosives. Sutcliffe plans to detonate the explosives (under the guise of fireworks gone wrong), collapsing the ice and sacrificing thousands to the creature. The Man With The Ship Tattoo ties them up and conveniently leaves.

Fortunately for the Doctor, Sutcliffe's men didn't search him, and he still has his sonic. He activates it, and a henchman hears it and runs into the tent. He grabs the sonic and looks at it, as its sound attracts the angler fish. The Doctor yells to the man to toss him the sonic. For some reason he does, just as the ice opens beneath him and he disappears. The Doctor uses the sonic to free himself and Bill.

The Doctor asks Bill what they should do next— free the creature, or leave. She asks why it's up to her, and the Doctor says he can't decide for her, saying, "Your people, your planet." She worries that if they release the creature, it could break through the ice and kill thousands. He tells her it's a risk, but says, "If your future is built on the suffering of that creature, what's your future worth?" She finally decides they should free it.

Bill finds the urchins, and together they try to chase everyone off the ice. Meanwhile, the Doctor dons his diving suit again, and attaches Sutcliffe's explosives to the creature's chains. Bill manages to get most of the people off the ice, but realizes she can't save them all. She suddenly has a newfound understanding of the Doctor, and his attitude toward death.

Sutcliffe sees people fleeing the river, and detonates the explosives. They free the creature, which breaks through the ice. Sutcliffe falls into the cold water, and is maybe eaten by the creature?

The Doctor and Bill watch as the creature, which does not eat anyone, sails down the Thames and out to sea. Later the Doctor invites the street urchins to Lord Sutcliffe's manor. He expertly modifies the deed to the manor, placing it in the hands of Perry, one of the urchins.

The Doctor and Bill return to the present, parking the TARDIS in his office again. Nardole appears with a tray of tea, indicating they've returned a few seconds after they left back in Smile. Nardole realizes they've gone off-world, and accuses the Doctor of breaking his oath to stay on Earth and guard the vault.

Bill looks up and old newspaper, and sees that Perry and the others lived the rest of their lives in luxury in Sutcliffe Manor. She's puzzled though as to why there's no mention of a giant sea creature sailing down the Thames. The Doctor tells her "Never underestimate the collective human ability to overlook the inexplicable."

Meanwhile, Nardole checks on the vault below the University. Something inside the vault knocks three times on the door. Nardole tells whoever— or whatever— is inside that it won't get out while he's around.

Thoughts:
• There are a lot of similarities between Bill's first visit to the past in this episode, and Season 3's The Shakespeare Code. And I do mean a lot.

When the TARDIS lands in Regency England, Bill worries that as a black woman, she may be in danger, since slavery's still very much a thing. The Doctor dismisses her concerns, saying she'll be fine:

Bill: "Wait, you want to go out there?"

The Doctor: "You don’t?"

Bill: "It’s 1814. (pointing at her face) Melanin!"

The Doctor: "Yes?"

Bill: "Slavery is still totally a thing."
The Doctor: "Yes, it is."

Bill: "It might be, like, dangerous out there."
The Doctor: "Definitely dangerous."
Bill: "So, how do we stay out of trouble?"

The Doctor: "Well, I’m not the right person to ask."

This is almost word-for-word the same thing Martha Jones said when she and the Tenth Doctor visited Elizabethan England in The Shakespeare Code:

Martha: "Oh, but hold on, am I all right? I’m not going to get carted off as a slave, am I?" The Doctor: "Why?"

Martha: "I’m not exactly white, in case you haven’t noticed?"

The Doctor: "I’m not even human. Walk about like you own the place. Works for me."Bill also worries about accidentally altering the future, bringing up the Butterfly Effect:

Bill: "So what are the rules?"

The Doctor: "Rules?"

Bill: "Yeah. Traveling to the past, there’s got to be rules. If I step on a butterfly, it could send ripples through time that mean I’m not even born in the first place, and I could just disappear."
Again, this is almost verbatim what Martha says in The Shakespeare Code:
Martha: "But, are we safe? I mean, can we move around and stuff?"

The Doctor: "Course we can, why’d you ask?"

Martha: "In those films, you step on a butterfly, you change the future of the human race."
The Doctor: "Tell you what then, don’t step on any butterflies. What have butterflies ever done to you?"

Martha: "What if, I dunno, what if I kill my grandfather?"

The Doctor: "Are you planning to?"

Martha: "No!"

The Doctor: "Well then."

I suppose when you have two different episodes in which a black character visits the past for the first time, there are bound to be a few similarities, but this was definitely pushing it. 

• When Bill first looks out of the TARDIS and sees the Frost Fair, she thinks they've landed on a parallel world. The Doctor assures her they haven't, but he's visited alternate Earths before. 

The Third Doctor visited an "evil" parallel world way back in 1970s Inferno. The Tenth Doctor and Rose Tyler visited an alternate Earth they dubbed "Pete's World" (after Rose's father) in Rise Of The Cyberman/The Age Of Steel. Rose eventually even went to Pete's World to live.

• The London Frost Fairs were actually a real thing! Between the 14th and 19th Centuries, the Thames would regularly freeze over every winter. When it did, they'd hold a fair on the frozen river, and all of London would show up. They even had live elephants stomping around the Fairs from time to time!

For some reason though, the river never froze again after 1814— the year this episode takes place. Thin Ice attempts to explain this, implying that the creature was the one causing the Thames to regularly freeze. Once the Doctor freed it, no more frozen river!

• This isn't the Doctor's first Frost Fair. In 2011's A Good Man Goes To War, River Song tells Rory Williams:

River: "The Doctor took me ice skating on the River Thames in 1814. The last of the great Frost Fairs. He got Stevie Wonder to sing for me under London Bridge."
Rory: "Stevie Wonder sang in 1814?"

River: "Yes, he did. But you must never tell him."

Fortunately the Twelfth Doctor didn't run into his previous self in this episode!

• The Doctor and Bill go off to explore the Frost Fair. Back in the TARDIS, its sensors pick up a massive life form under the ice. It displays a warning on its view screen, which of course goes unseen by the Doctor.

Gosh, it's too bad this ultra-sophisticated time and space machine doesn't have any way to remotely warn him of danger. Some sort of communication system, like, oh, I don't know... a phone maybe? The TARDIS took the phone of a police call box, and even has a goddamned working telephone in it!

• In the street urchins' hovel, the Doctor entertains the kids by reading to them. His story choice isn't a particularly pleasant one, as he reads from the 1845 German book Der Struwwelpeter, about a tailor who cuts off the thumbs off naughty children with a giant pair of scissors!

Since the book came from 1845 and the Doctor's currently in 1814, I'm assuming he carries a copy of it around with him in his infinite Time Lord pockets.

• When Bill sees the boy fall through the ice and die, she lashes out at the Doctor for not doing anything to save him. She accuses him of not caring, which he assures her is not true. He tells her that sometimes it just isn't possible to save everyone, and he has to move on. It's the best part of the episode, and one of the best I've seen in the entire series.

Later on, Bill tries to get everyone off the ice and save them before Lord Sutcliffe detonates his explosives. She manages to get most of the people to safety, but realizes it's impossible to save them all. It's then and there that she realizes what the Doctor was trying to tell her.

It's a small little moment, but an important and very effective one.

• After they return to the present, Bill does an internet search for historical info regarding the giant creature they just freed.  A couple things here:

First of all, she uses the Search-Wise search engine to look for historical records. It's been a while since we saw Search-Wise, which last popped up in Rose, the first episode of the revived series. It's a fake search engine of course, used so the BBC doesn't have to pay licensing fees to Google or Bing.

Secondly, Bill's puzzled as to why there's no mention of a miles-long creature sailing down the Thames in 1814, and why it wasn't headline news. The Doctor says, "Never underestimate the collective human ability to overlook the inexplicable. Also, the Frost Fair involved a lot of day drinking."

This isn't the first time the Doctor's mentioned the human race's short memory. In Remembrance Of The Daleks, the Seventh Doctor's companion Ace notes that there's no record of the Zygon's robotic Loch Ness Monster. He tells her, "Your species has the most amazing capacity for self-deception!"

In the nonsensical and execrable In The Forest Of The Night, the Doctor tells Clara, "The human superpower is forgetting extraordinary events."

• At the end of the episode, Nardole visits the mysterious vault under the college and has a one sided conversation with the occupant. We hear a series of knocks coming from inside the vault, so chances are the Doctor's got his arch enemy the Master locked up inside it. Makes sense right, especially after the events of The Sound Of Drums? Plus the trailers have shown us that at least one version of the Master (and possibly more) is showing up this season, so he/she seems like the likeliest candidate.

Of course that's probably what the writers want us to think, and the occupant of the vault could be someone completely different. I'm too worn out from The Flash's Savitar storyline to deal with another mystery right now.

• This Week's Best Lines:
Bill: (after arriving in 1814 instead of the present) "Hang on, why aren't we home? Can't you steer this thing?"

The Doctor: "I told you. You don't steer the TARDIS, you reason with it."
Bill: "How?"

The Doctor: "Unsuccessfully, most of the time She's a bad girl, this one."

Bill: "So, what are the rules?"

The Doctor: "Rules?"

Bill: "Yeah. Travelling to the past. There's got to be rules. If I step on a butterfly, it could send ripples through time that mean I'm not even born in the first place, and I could just disappear."
The Doctor: "Definitely. That's what happened to Pete."
Bill: "Pete?"

The Doctor: "Your friend, Pete. He was standing there a moment ago, but he stepped on a butterfly and now you don't even remember him."
Bill: "Shut up! I'm being serious!"

The Doctor: "Yeah, so was Pete."

Bill: "You know what I mean. Every choice I make in this moment, here and now, could change the whole future."

The Doctor: "Exactly like every other day of your life. The only thing to do is to stop worrying about it."
Bill: "OK. If you say so."
The Doctor: "Pete's stopped worrying."

Bill: (at the Frost Fair) "I hope you realise I'm going to try everything. Everything!"
Frost Fair Vendor: "Tasty ox cheek, piping hot! Lapland mutton! Lapland mutton, cooked right on the ice! Get your sheep hearts here! Juicy, juicy sheep hearts!"

Bill: "Yeah Maybe not everything."

Bill: (after seeing strange lights under the ice) "Are there side-effects to time travel? Like, physical symptoms?"

The Doctor: "Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah Sometimes you see lights under the ice."
Bill: "OK, so you've seen the lights."
The Doctor: "Of course."
Bill: "Well, why didn't you say something?"

The Doctor: "Well, you're enjoying yourself. I assumed we'd get to work eventually."

Bill: (chasing after the street urchins) "The boy's the one with your magic wand!"
The Doctor: "Sonic screwdriver."
Bill: "How is that a screwdriver?"

The Doctor: "In a very broad sense."
Bill: "How's it sonic?"

The Doctor: "It makes a noise."

The Doctor: "What's wrong?"

Bill: "What's wrong? Seriously, 'What's wrong?' I've never seen anyone die before!"
The Doctor: "A few hours ago, we were standing in a garden full of dead people."
Bill: "That was different."
The Doctor: "How?"

Bill: "They were dead already."
The Doctor: "Morally and practically, that's not a useful distinction. Unlearn it."
Bill: "Don't tell me what to think! "

The Doctor: "I'm your teacher! Telling you things is what I do."
Bill: "Yeah? Tell me this: You've seen people die before, yeah?"

The Doctor: "Of course."
Bill: "You still care?"

The Doctor: "Of course I care."
Bill: "How many?"

The Doctor: "How many what?"

Bill: "If you care so much, tell me how many people you've seen die?"

The Doctor: "I don't know."
Bill: "OK. How many before you lost count?"

The Doctor: "I care, Bill, but I move on."
Bill: "Yeah? How quickly?"

The Doctor: "It's not me you're angry with."
Bill: "Have you ever killed anyone? There's a look in your eyes sometimes that makes me wonder. Have you?"

The Doctor: "There are situations when the options available are limited."

Bill: "Not what I asked!"

The Doctor: "Sometimes the choices are very..."

Bill: "That's not what I asked!"

The Doctor: "Yes."
Bill: "How many? Don't tell me. You've moved on."
The Doctor: "You know what happens if I don't move on? More people die."

Bill: (to Kitty) "The Doctor he helps people. That’s what he does."
Kitty: "And you? What do you do? Apart from shout at him?"

Bill: "We were fighting. It happens."
Kitty: "Are you still fighting now?"

Bill: "No. I moved on."

Bill: (talking to the street urchins) "So, this guy, where would we find him?

Urchin: "He finds us."
Bill: "But a tattoo on his hand. I mean, we could ask around?"

The Doctor: "Boring! I know something that’s much easier to find."
Bill: "Where are we going?"

The Doctor: "All right, you guys, hang tight! Laters!"

(the kids look quizzically at one another)
The Doctor: "I was being all 'down with the kids' there, did you notice?"

Bill: "Yeah, my hair was cringing!"
The Doctor: "Awesome!"

Bill: "Please, stop!"

Bill: (after finding out they're jumping into the Thames in diving suits) "But we’re not going to be completely defenseless down there, though?"

The Doctor: "No, no, no... Well, yes. But don’t worry about it."

The Doctor: (to Street Vendor) "Have you ever seen a man around here with a tattoo of a ship? What’s that face? Is that a 'no' or are you against tattoos? I’m against tattoos, too. I think that we’re bonding!"

Foreman: (explaining how the creature's poop is turned into highly volatile fuel) "I keep my ear to the ground."
The Doctor: "And what is the ground saying these days?:

Foreman: "That this stuff burns a thousand times longer than coal?"

The Doctor: "Very good."
Foreman: "Hotter, too. Hotter than they can measure."
The Doctor: "Excellent! First class."
Foreman: "I’m right, aren’t I, sir?"

The Doctor: "Oh, there’s no stopping you. You keep this up, you won’t be working in this yard for very long."
Foreman: "You think not?"

The Doctor: (ominously) "I can almost guarantee it."

(it most definitely felt like Peter Capaldi was channeling Tom Baker's Fourth Doctor here, which is a good thing!)

The Doctor: (to Lord Sutcliffe) "I preferred it when you were alien."
Sutcliffe: "When I was?"

The Doctor: "That explained the lack of humanity. What makes you so sure that your life is worth more than those people out there on the ice? Is it the money? The accident of birth that puts you inside the big, fancy house?"

Sutcliffe: "I help move this country forward. I move this empire forward."
The Doctor: "Human progress isn’t measured by industry, it’s measured by the value you place on a life. An unimportant life. A life without privilege. The boy who died on the river, that boy’s value is your value. That’s what defines an age. That’s what defines a species."
Sutcliffe: "What a beautiful speech. The rhythm and vocabulary, quite outstanding. It’s enough to move anyone with an ounce of compassion. So, it’s really not your day, is it?"

The Doctor: "I don’t know the answers. Only idiots know the answers."

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."