“Smile” is episode two of season ten of the new Doctor Who.
‘Smile’ seems such an innocuous and friendly title for this episode. Given the series it’s a title from, that’s unlikely to be true.
So, in the first episode of this season, “The Pilot”, the Doctor had decided not to erase Bill’s memory of what had happened and decided to take her in the TARDIS. For some reason, this is something he had decided not to do again (perhaps because of what’s happened to many previous companions), but he’s changed his mind.
This episode opens with Bill and the Doctor in the TARDIS with her asking what she needs to do. And asking why the seats are too far away from the controls to reach them. Then there’s a knock on the door and Nardole enters. Apparently the Doctor made an oath to not go off world unless it’s an emergency. The Doctor says that they are going to take the TARDIS back to the office – but he’s going to divert along the way. He gives Bill a choice, past or future, and she chooses the future.
There’s a woman in a field of corn with a robot. The field is full of corn and she’s heading back in when a woman on the communicator says that they are having a problem and that she needs to keep smiling. The woman heads in anyway, along with the robot, and a cloud of something.
Inside, the woman who was communicating with her says she has to keep smiling, and says that a whole bunch of people are dead. The woman from the field doesn’t think this is funny, but she is told she has to keep smiling. She doesn’t, gets upset, a patch on her back displays her emotions, the robot, which had a smiley face, also gets upset, and its face becomes a rather grim version of smiley, with skulls for eyes and bones for teeth, then a cloud of whatever they are swoop down and turn her into bones. The other woman is then killed the same way.
The TARDIS arrives at the same place, which is off world. It’s one of Earth’s first colonies. The Doctor explains to Bill about his oath and the vault. In a manner so generalist it’s massively unhelpful. The same swarming things are over them as well, and they’re tiny robots, microbots (small, but larger than nanobots). The two of them are then fitted with a communication device. Possibly by an on looking smiley faced robot. The building is curiously deserted, apart from a smiley face. The Doctor says it’s an interface with the swarm, not an actual robot, and it seems to speak emoji. It also gives them a patch like the woman had which showed her emotions. A mood ring, of sorts, but one where you can’t see your own mood. The Doctor describes the place as the utopia of vacuous teens.
The question is where are all the colonists? Well, they’ve been killed. Not that the Doctor and Bill know that. He’s worried because there’s no-one here. The robot interface doesn’t seem happy when he ponders this. He does decide that the place has been built in preparation for the colonists. So they haven’t arrived yet. Only at least some of them were already there. And the Doctor may have found evidence of this. Then he really finds evidence of where the people are. It seems the robots are turning the setup team into fertiliser. The robots really want people to be happy. Only it looks like there’s a problem with this.
Although the Doctor and Bill manage to escape the robots, the Doctor wants to go back and destroy the place. So the incoming colonists won’t get massacred when they arrive. Although the robots probably won’t be too happy with this idea. So what went wrong and why?
There’s a reference to Erewhon. Is this important or a throwaway?
Surprisingly, the end leads right into the next episode.