TV Review: ‘Doctor Who’ Puts on a Solid Season Premiere with “The Robot Revolution,” but Can it Save the Series?

The first run of Doctor Who, what’s called the Classic Series, ran for 26 seasons from 1963 to 1989, being cancelled in 1989 and staying off the air for 16 miserable years for the fandom. The reasons for the cancellation were many, but a big part of it was BBC controller Michael Grade, who openly hated the series and considered it a waste of the network’s budget. But there were complaints of the era of the 6th Doctor, Colin Baker, getting too violent and Colin Baker’s Doctor being overly mean-spirited. Still, while the 6th Doctor was probably the most unpopular Doctor of his time, the show didn’t get cancelled during his run. It was the fate of the charming Scottish actor, Sylvester McCoy, who replaced Baker to usher the show into its grave.

While there are a lot of differences between what happened in the 80s and what’s happened in Doctor Who over the past several years, there are some interesting parallels. Thirteenth Doctor Jodie Whittaker was easily the least popular Doctor of the entire revived series, and now it seems that the attempt to retool the series after her run hasn’t been as successful as hoped and it may once again be the charming Scotsman who follows the unpopular Doctor (Ncuti Gatwa) who will go down as the final Doctor of the series.

While there have been rumors about the series’ demise in the British tabloids, the tabloids are also notorious for getting reporting about Doctor Who very wrong. But while the British tabloids have been citing so-called insider sources that often turn out to be voicing some fans’ wishful thinking that never comes true, there are now direct quotes from the showrunner Russell T. Davies stating that the show is in definite danger of a “pause.”

In an interview with Radio Times, Davies stated that there have been no conversations about the next season of the show with Disney, and there won’t be any until after the season ends. Furthermore, in an interview with BBC Newsround, Davies said that he thinks the show will take a “pause” soon, but also said he’s very confident that it will come back someday. While some dedicated fans are still calling these rumors, these statements are coming directly from the showrunner. One has to wonder at what point the fans will start taking it seriously. When the cancellation is announced?

Doctor Who has traditionally been produced by the BBC, and it was a special arrangement that started at the end of the Jodie Whittaker era that arranged for the new seasons to be a joint venture between the BBC and Disney Plus. But, as A.V. Club points out, that couldn’t have come at a better time for the BBC, with budgets being slashed all over the place. Odds are, if Disney cancels the show, the BBC won’t be in a place to take on the financial burden of the show again, especially with the sagging ratings. So, short of shockingly high ratings for the new season, this is likely to be the last season of Doctor Who that we see for some time.

So now we enter into Season 2 (or Season 15, or Season 41,depends on who you’re asking) of Doctor Who with all this hanging over it. And, as the show debuts with “The Robot Revolution,” the episode has proven to be enjoyable, but is it save-the-series good?

In the season premiere, we meet the Doctor’s new companion, Belinda Chandra (Varada Sethu), when she was young and her terrible boyfriend, Alan Budd (Jonny Green), gave her one of those certificates declaring that a star has been named after her, “Miss Belinda Chandra.” Then, 16 years in the future, Belinda is kidnapped by robots who comes from the world Miss Belinda Chandra 1, an entire society built under the star that her ex-boyfriend named after her, and they want her to marry their leader, the AI Generator. Oh, and by “marry” they mean they want her to merge with technology from the AI Generator and become a cyborg. And it’s up to the 15th Doctor (Ncuti Gatwa) to save her, and society, from the evil robot overlords.

The episode is classic Doctor Who camp, with over-the-top robots and a hilarious premise, and a bunch of fun little quirks like the fact that the robots can’t hear every ninth word that people are speaking. It’s a fun romp with a wild ending, and it gives us a fantastic insight into the new companion, Belinda.

Belinda is a bit different from the average Doctor Who companion. She calls the Doctor on his bullshit in a way I haven’t seen since my favorite companion, Clara Oswald (Jenna Coleman), companion to the 11th and 12th Doctor. She also doesn’t seem to really want to travel with the Doctor and insists at the end of the episode that he take her home only to find that he can’t get there, an old plot device that was more common in the Classic Series. I really like her and want to see more of her, but they’ve built up another “Impossible Girl” storyline around her that’s all too familiar.

The actress who plays Belinda, Varada Sethu, has appeared before in last season’s brilliant episode “Boom” as the Evangelical Marine Mundy Flynn. The Doctor acknowledges that he’s met someone who looks exactly like Belinda before, opening up a mystery for this season around how Belinda and The Doctor are connected. It would be an interesting plotline for the new season, if it hadn’t been done before.

Back in Season 7, there was a similar plotline where the 11th Doctor (Matt Smith) met different women throughout history who looked exactly like Clara before finally meeting her 21st century incarnation, and the season-long mystery was explaining how all the different Claras were connected and how the Doctor kept meeting them. Similarly, last season had a storyline where Susan Triad (Susan Twist) kept showing up in different time periods as different people. With all that’s hanging in the balance this season, it might not be the wisest idea for the show to bring back another tired idea that it has used before.

Overall, this was a good episode and one that reminded me of how much I love Doctor Who and want to see it keep going. But I’m also aware of what’s being said on the forums, and it seems pretty obvious there’s some fatigue from the fans. After 20 years and 15 seasons of the rebooted Doctor Who, I think people want more than the same old storylines dredged up. I fear that this new season is likely going to be strong enough to satisfy die-hard fans like myself, but not enough to reinvigorate a fanbase that wants something fresh and new. It seems that, sadly, it may be a good time for the show to take that break after all.

Rating: 87/100

Doctor Who is currently streaming on Disney Plus.

Photo courtesy of Lara Cornell/BBC Studios/Disney/Bad Wolf