Spoiler Alert!! This review will contain spoilers for Doctor Who episode “Smile”
In this second episode Doctor Who’s 10th full season, The Doctor and Bill take their maiden voyage to the not too distant future where the most universally translatable language of the human race has been utilized to ensure the colonization of a new planet operates as efficiently as possible. That language you ask? Emojis. As ludicrous as that may sound, the simplicity of its execution allows “Smile” to glide through its runtime without ever looking too jovial.
As this is a Doctor Who episode it is not a shock when everything is flipped on its head: the robots residing within the facility have become aggressive, turning any unhappy human shepherds into a literal source of crop fertilizer.
In terms of ingenuity, “Smile” does not come close to the ground broken by episodes such as “Blink” or “The Day of the Doctor”. However, as episodes go, it ably manages to succeed in areas sometimes lost. It’s pace brilliantly maintains your attention, keeping its true intentions close to its chest until the final 10 minutes of the show. This is further exaggerated by the more than sufficient script, provided in earnest by Frank Cotteril-Boyce, allowing Capaldi and Mackie to flex their muscles in more than one aspect.
“Smile” is not just a generic Doctor Who episode, the blatant optimism of Mackie’s Bill continues to be the much needed refreshing sip of water in these often heated exchanges. We’ve seen strong female characters granted, but we’ve not seen a person with such guile and positivity bring out such chemistry between the Doctor and his Companion. The misdirection gives Bill the ability to guide the Doctor away from his officious nature and naively closer to the course of “morally accountable”
For me, the engrossing element of “Smile” is this use of misdirection. We believe the actions of the Doctor are justifiable in his attempt to eradicate the threat towards humanity by destroying it at the source. Unfortunately, in events similar to the episode “The Doctor’s Daughter”, the superficial threat is far different after a little insight. The robots are in fact self-aware, and that the human colonists are not mid-transit at all, they had been there the entire time cryogenically frozen, simply awaiting the message to awake from their situation.
“Smile” is another strong strike of the ball in this 10th Season of Doctor Who. Capaldi continues to gleefully gesticulate around the screen, very much mimicking the actions of the robots in this episode.
