World of Who: Smile

The Doctor and Bill arrive on a planet that is part of a colony being prepared for humans. Is the colony everything it says it is, a new home for humanity or is it something more and are the emoji robots hiding a secret?

Honestly, this episode feels very much like the episode The Beast Below, the second episode of season 5 and End of the World, the second episode of season 1. Those episodes also dealt with humanity moving on from Earth and having moved on, these episodes feel like the spiritual sequels to the 4th Doctor story Ark in Space. Outside of it's similarities, is this episode any good? I think it's a good episode but feels rather short in it's threat level. I'm not sure if the robots were supposed to be scary or if the robots in the sky that actually killed people were supposed to channel the Vashta Narada from Silence in the Library but they don't even get to do anything to really have much of an impact. The mystery feels more important and that is honestly good, finding out what happened to the humans, what the robots are doing, why they act a certain way and why it happened is what makes the story work.

In terms of how this episode works for Bill and her introduction to the Doctor, I think she really helped the episode. Not only was her back and forth with the Doctor great as she herself begins to understand him and how he works, we see how she deals with being in a new time and place. I admit I was not sold on her being another "girl from present day Earth" but as a character Bill comes off as one of a kind, she has her own sense of humor but at times feels a bit too present day which I think was more reinforced with the robot that spoke Emoji. The Doctor meanwhile feels very by the books for the most part but is the most active he's been in a good while. What I mean by that is, because this is a mystery it falls to the Doctor to get the story going and here we see him set to do what we could only guess he always does at some point: blow it up. There is a question as to who he promised to stay in one place for and again what is inside the vault.

This episode was good but a bit underwhelming for the most part and I'd be lying if I said it kept me glued to my seat the whole time but I wasn't put to sleep by it. It was more designed for us to see how Bill handled this new adventure for the first time.