{"id":3931,"date":"2025-04-17T17:14:29","date_gmt":"2025-04-17T16:14:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/?p=3931"},"modified":"2025-05-04T16:19:48","modified_gmt":"2025-05-04T15:19:48","slug":"so-what-did-i-think-of-the-robot-revolution","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/2025\/04\/17\/so-what-did-i-think-of-the-robot-revolution\/","title":{"rendered":"So\u2026 what did I think of The Robot Revolution?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"
\nEh\u2026 it was fine.<\/p>\n

Look, I\u2019ll give some fuller thoughts in a minute, but for the first time that I can remember, I\u2019m finding it hard to get excited about the show. The relentless negativity from some quarters of fandom is really getting me down, and it doesn\u2019t help that the programme itself seems to have settled into a comfortable groove, parcelling out a leisurely eight episodes a year, seemingly without breaking much of a sweat. Don\u2019t misunderstand me \u2013 everything we got since Russell returned has been better than almost anything Chris Chibnall oversaw, but all the very best stuff was in those first three specials. And although Ncuti is a magnetic presence, none of the stories has been as consistent and as surefooted as The Star Beast<\/em>, or as evocative as Wild Blue Yonder<\/em> (73 Yards<\/em> came close) or contained anything as bravura as the Toymaker\u2019s re-entrance in The Giggle<\/em>.<\/p>\n

So, for a season opener, this was\u2026 fine. The huge robots looked a bit like the ones in Dinosaurs on a Spaceship<\/em> and they plucked Belinda out of her suburban home a bit like the Wrarth did in The Star Beast<\/em>, and the Doctor joined the rebellion and overthrew the evil empire like that archetypal story Andrew Cartmel used to take the piss out of. Verada Sethu works in a hospital which the Doctor causes to lose all power – ho ho ho. She\u2019s\u2026 fine – but she seemed more engaged playing Mundy Flynn and we were just getting to know Ruby Sunday. The every-ninth-word gag is good but seems a bit arbitrary. Mrs Flood is here. Nicholas Briggs is the voice of the robots. It\u2019s all absolutely fine.<\/p>\n

The best bit was probably the death of Thalia. The Doctor having lived on Missbelindachandra One for six months is a little glib, but his partnership with Thalia felt real and it was genuinely shocking to see her disintegrated. But other than that, this isn\u2019t anything like as epoch-defining as Rose<\/em>, as exciting as Smith and Jones<\/em>, as funny as Partners in Crime<\/em>, as fresh as The Eleventh Hour<\/em>, as bonkers as The Bells of St John<\/em> or as engaging as The Pilot<\/em>. It wasn\u2019t bad. It didn\u2019t do anything wrong. It was just\u2026 fine.<\/p>\n\"3\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Eh\u2026 it was fine. Look, I\u2019ll give some fuller thoughts in a minute, but for the first time that I can remember, I\u2019m finding it hard to get excited about the show. The relentless negativity from some quarters of fandom is really getting me down, and it doesn\u2019t help that the programme itself seems to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[11],"tags":[18,19],"class_list":["post-3931","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture","tag-doctor-who","tag-reviews"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5JY5l-11p","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3931","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3931"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3931\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3954,"href":"https:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3931\/revisions\/3954"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3931"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3931"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3931"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}