Smile (TV story)
Smile was the second episode of the tenth series of Doctor Who produced by BBC Wales. It reintroduced the idea of robots being "intelligent idiots", to quote the Doctor. In previous stories like Robot, The Mysterious Planet, The Girl in the Fireplace and The Girl Who Waited, the robots all worked under mistaken assumptions as to what their functions were, resulting in deaths and forcing the Doctor's intervention.
It also reused the theme of killing unhappy people, which had previously been seen in the Seventh Doctor story, The Happiness Patrol, where the tyrannical Helen A outlawed anything remotely sad, executed anyone who disobeyed.
The Vardy are shown as a swarm of intelligent beings, capable of reducing people to nothing but bones in mere moments. This makes them a mechanical counterpart to the Vashta Nerada, but only in this ability.
This marks the fourth time in the Revived Series that the Doctor has taken his companion into the future for their second adventure with him. Rose, Amy and Clara had been taken to the future after their first encounters with aliens with the Doctor.
Synopsis
After shaking off Nardole, The Doctor asks where Bill Potts wishes to travel in time. She asks to see the future. Complying, he takes her to see one of Earth's first space colonies, where it's been stated the inhabitants have cracked the secret of perpetual happiness. However, they soon discover that the cause of this "happiness" has a very deadly punishment for not following along.
Plot
Bill has just entered the TARDIS, asking if there are seat-belts. She sits in a seat, noting that the layout the TARDIS is completely wrong; the seats are too far away from the controls. She wonders if the Doctor can stretch his arms like Mr. Fantastic of the Fantastic Four. The Doctor explains he stands when piloting the TARDIS. Bill mocks him for never thinking to bring the chairs next to the controls. She then asks where the steering wheel is. The Doctor tells her that they have to negotiate with the TARDIS, as it will not always take them where they wish; often it's the "still point" between where one wishes to go, and where they are needed. (In other words, sometimes the TARDIS does take the Doctor where he wants, but WHEN is up to it.)
Hearing a knock, Bill wonders who it is. The Doctor mumbles "mum" and opens the door. Nardole enters, reminding the Doctor that he made an oath and cannot leave the Earth unless a emergency happens. The Doctor tells Nardole that he's over 2000 years old and sometimes likes to take his TARDIS downstairs instead of walking. Nardole asks why Bill is inside, but the Doctor tells him to make tea for them. Grumbling, Nadrole agrees and leaves them.
Bill asks if they are heading back to his office, to which the Doctor states will happen, after they've had some adventures; "between here and my office is everything that ever happened or ever will." The Doctor tells Bill to make her choice: past or future. Bill states the future, because she wants to see if it's happy. The Doctor complies, throwing the brake lever and the TARDIS takes off.
In a future human colony planet, a woman is warned not to come back to the city as they are having a problem with their microbots, the Vardy; however, she ignores the warning. The woman on the radio is smiling painfully as her friend asks why she's doing it. Smiling still, she explains that some people have died. The woman is horrified to see her smiling at that, prompting a robot with an emoji-like face screen to frown. The woman tries getting her friend to smile, but is horrified to see the robot is showing a death emohi; a swarm of microbots reduces the women to skeletons as they scream. The emoji screen turns back into a smile.
The TARDIS materialises there later, with Bill asking which direction Earth is in. The Doctor tells her any direction, as space is curved. Bill notes the TARDIS hasn't cloaked itself as something else. The Doctor reminds her that it's stuck; Bill notes that the Doctor must like it enough to have never bother to fix the broken cloaking device.
They walk into the city, where the Doctor explains that this place was able to crack the mystery of happiness. Bill then questions the Doctor about what Nardole said. The Doctor explains that something happened a long time ago, and now he has to watch a vault. However, he can both watch it and not watch as his time machine can take him back to right when he left. Bill questions him as to whether he considered what could happen if he gets stuck or lost. The Doctor says he doesn't dwell on these matters, as there's nothing he can do about thing in the present.
Seeing the Vardy, the Doctor tells Bill they are robots, not birds. They come across a robot smiling at them, which the Doctor says is the interface. Bill laughs that it speaks emoji. The Emojibot gives them badges that reflect their moods in the form of emojis, which only other people (and not the user) can see. The badges suddenly slide over to the Doctor's and Bill's backs. The Doctor presumes that this is so that seeing one's own emotion on the badge doesn't change it, which would have caused a "feedback loop". Bill questions this, as what if the wearer fancies someone; the Doctor laughs, "Well, I guess you'd have to maintain eye contact with them, then." Bill likes the idea.
They head further inside, while Bill's badge shows her happy, the Doctor's shows him as puzzled. The Emojibot serves cubes of gelatinous blue food. The Doctor notices their is no livestock, to which Bill is pleased to know that humanity no longer needs to eat animals; instead, this algae-like substance. The Doctor notes that he meet an emperor made of algae once; the emperor fancied him. No-one is around, prompting Bill to compare it to the student union. The Doctor immediately comes to the conclusion that the Vardy were sent first by colonists to make the planet habitable for them; it's quite impressive. However, Bill notes that the Doctor has two helpings; he explains that it must because of his two hearts making the Vardy think he's two people. Bill wonders if this means he has high blood pressure; he confirms this in a grim tone, suggesting it's troublesome to Time Lords.
The Emojibot continues to escort the Doctor and Bill to a greenhouse outside, where it pollinates plants and an automated system sprays calcium-based fertiliser onto the plants. The Doctor finds a discarded necklace. Noticing that the Doctor's badge has a thinking face, Bill asks the Doctor what he is thinking about, and he replies, suspicious that he is thinking about "a magic haddock". The Doctors discover broken human skeletons being crushed into fertiliser. He realises that these must be the remains of the human party sent in advance of the rest of the colonists. The two try to escape, but the Emojibot shows the Doctor the teary-eyed emoji on his mood badge, changing into the skull-faced emoji as they escape.
As they run, Bill notes that the robot runs slow. The Doctor tells her that there's a reason for something chasing you to be slow; it doesn't need to be fast. In the centre of a corridor, the Doctor and Bill find themselves surrounded by Emojibots that can sense their fear. The city is full of them, so the robots will catch you eventually. The Doctor wonders why they're being attacked NOW, when they've been there a long time. Realizing something, the Doctor tells Bill to smile using her whole face; she wonders why as the Doctor checks her badge. Seeing Bill's badge change to a smile, the Doctor tells her that smiling has a psychologically effect on one's mood. He further explains that the robots' programming has caused them to make these mistakes; the Vardy were programmed to make people happy. However, they seem to think they need to kill people when they become unhappy.
They should give the Emojibots what they want, and smile. As they head to an exit, the Doctor tells Bill to not bother unless she is smiling. Bill tells him that next time, they should go to Aberdeen or Wiltshire. However, as they run out of the building, an Emojibot grabs Bill's arm, signalling a swarm of Vardies to seemingly emerge from the building's structure itself. The Doctor sonics the robot, breaking it's arm and freeing Bill from its grasp.
They run out of the city, with the Doctor sure that once they are no longer in the city, the Vardy will no longer care about them. They reach the TARDIS.
The Doctor tells Bill to remain in the TARDIS while he runs back to the city to destroy the Vardies and the city before they kill the incoming colonists, expressing a "childish impulse to blow it up". He defends this action because they cannot leave a death trap operational; if the colonist arrive, they're gonna end up the fertilizer for "the new garden of Eden". Bill wonders why he can't call a "helpline" to deal with the problem instead, the Doctor runs off, telling her not to look at his browser history. Seeing the Doctor run, Bill heads back outside the TARDIS, reading the sign on the door: "Advice and assistance obtainable immediately"
In the city, the Doctor convinces an Emojibot that he is happy, but his happy-faced badge changes to show a light bulb shortly afterwards. He hears someone breathing on his communication device and realises that Bill has followed him back. He explains to her that the entire city is made out of interlocked Vardy microbots. However, the Doctor believes that the centre of the city houses the spaceship in which the colonists first arrived, comparing it to the Vikings, who lived in their ships until they built new homes.
Finding the entrance to ship, Bill tries to pull the door open. Humorously, the Doctor presses a button that opens the door inward. "Not even locked; they were expecting to live in peace" the Doctor sadly notes. He then suggests locking it behind them, which alerts all Emojibots in the city, whose smiley emojis now incorporate exclamation marks for eyes.
Inside the spaceship, the Doctor comments on the difference between design of the ship interior and the city outside, each designed by "wet brains" (humans) and "dry brains" (Vardies). They come across a map labelling where they are, and the Doctor plans to walk to the engine room in the middle of the ship. He instructs Bill to stay back to guide him through the map, which displays the Doctor's current position. On his way, the Doctor finds all sorts of furniture and artifacts, including the bust of Nefertiti.
Bill asks how the Doctor is allowed to blow up the spaceship without consequences, but he responds that it is a "moral imperative" to destroy the "murder machine" that surrounds them. Bill notices an unexpected empty space surrounding the engine room, but the tannoy of the ship distracts her. Outside, the Emojibots' faces change to skulls as the ship, Erehwon, begins to wake up, and as the Doctor descends into the engine room.
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Bill realises she could have followed the Doctor the entire time if she had photographed the map. The Doctor reveals that he had already memorised the map, as Bill protests against his leaving her "out of trouble". Bill follows the Doctor's path, but she stumbles upon a room containing a recently deceased old woman, with a book placed at her feet. Bill finds that the book contains digital images of human history on Earth, continuing past her time and through an apocalyptic war. The Doctor explains that humans evacuated Earth following this conflict, and that this colony must be one of those evacuative ships. He meanwhile fiddles with the engine room controls, trying to reroute the engine's flow into the calorimeter. However, as he tries to do so, the calorimeter begins to rise to its peak, which spells doom for the Doctor.
Bill proceeds to the engine room, but to her shock, finds a boy, which asks, "Are we there yet?" Meanwhile, an Emojibot closes in on the Doctor, who is still waiting for Bill to help him hold the calorimeter tightly while he jams it shut with a spanner. The Doctor sees its reflection in a dial, and smashes the emojibot off the catwalk with the spanner, nearly dragged down himself, only to run into Bill and the confused boy, who asks where everyone else is.
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The Doctor is puzzled by this, until he and Bill find that the empty space around the engine room is where the remaining human population is cryogenically stored. One of the stored humans, named Steadfast, wakes up, and the Doctor assertively instructs him to stay inside the ship as the other humans begin to unfreeze behind him. The Doctor explains to Bill that he doesn't have a plan yet, but he acted like he had one to make sure idiots didn't cause more trouble by trying to think up their own plans.
Bill takes the Doctor to the old woman's corpse, and they try to understand history and the woman's role in it. They discover a large number of deaths increasing in numbers since the death of this woman, the first death of the colony. The Doctor realises that it was grief that led to the deaths of all the people. The Vardies, not knowing how to interpret grief (after a loved one has died), so they interpreted it as a threat to happiness that needed to be killed. Subsequently, all the grieving loved ones of every next person killed. In the short period of a day, sadness has become much like a plague. The Doctor again mentions the magic haddock, and produces the discarded necklace, which contains a hologram of the boy waving happily. Bill says that they will find the owner of the necklace when she wakes up, but the Doctor tells her that he found it in the greenhouse, belonging to one of the dead advance colonists. Meanwhile, an Emojibot offers a mood badge to the boy, who is walking outside in the city, looking for his mother. His mood changes to a puzzled emoji.
The waking colonists arm themselves with laser guns to fight the Vardies. Bill tells Steadfast that he needs to listen; he bluntly says he did, now knowing that the Vardy are killing people. The Doctor quickly runs up to Steadfast, explaining "The Vardy want to help you; killing you is just a side-effect.". The colonists take off to destroy the Vardy; the Doctor and Bill run after the colonists to prevent another mass slaughter.
In the city, everyone finds the boy flanked by two Emojibots. The boy asks where his mother is, beginning to cry. Bill tries silencing him into smiling, telling him to admire his new home. The Emojibots grab the boy, ready to kill him; however, Steadfast fires upon the Emojibots. One is damaged and the second's screen begins flashing between two new images. The Doctor realizes that the symbols mean "Rage" and "Revenge". The rest of the colonists begin to fire, as some Vardies break off from the ceiling to attack, and kill a man.
Instead of caring about the attack, the Doctor begins thinking about how the Vardy are reacing; they are registering as under attack. That means they're "alive" AKA sentient. He runs to a broken Emojibot, using the sonic screwdriver on its wiring. The Doctor tells Bill there's a reason he never loses at chess; he has a secret move. Whenever he's about to lose, he kicks over the board and ends the game. Hoping what he's about to doesn't hurt, the Doctor finishes messing with the Emojibot, creating a blinding, disorienting flash throughout the city.
The Doctor tells the story of the fisherman and the magic haddock. A fisherman caught the fish and it offered three wishes in exchange for it's life. The fisherman wished for his son to return from war and 100 gold pieces, but the haddock thinks in a different way (like a robot), instead sending the son's corpse home from the war, along with 100 gold pieces commending his service.
The fisherman then wished that he hadn't wished the first two wishes, pressing the "reset button", which is what the Doctor has done to the Vardies. The Doctor has wiped the Vardies' memories, so they now believe they are the indigenous life forms of the planet. The Doctor tells Steadfast that the Vardies are willing to negotiate with the humans, now considered a migrant race to the planet belonging to the Vardies.
Returning to Earth in the TARDIS, Bill asks the Doctor if the human-Vardy relationship will work. The Doctor replies that it is up to them. Bill asks him if he normally deals with such affairs, acting as an "intergalactic policeman". The Doctor replies that the police box exterior of the TARDIS is a mere coincidence. They land, exactly at the point they left, but when Bill steps out of the TARDIS, it is snowing.
To their shock, elephant is approaching the TARDIS. The Doctor explains that they are in London, not Bristol, and that they are standing on the frozen Thames. Seeing this, the Doctor realizes Bill might have been right about a steering wheel.
Cast
- The Doctor - Peter Capaldi
- Bill - Pearl Mackie
- Nardole - Matt Lucas
- Kezzia - Kiran L Dadlani
- Goodthing - Mina Anwar
- Steadfast - Ralf Little
- Praiseworthy - Kaizer Akhtar
- Nate - Kalungi Ssebandeke
- Emojibot 1 - Kiran Shah
- Emojibot 2 - Craig Garner
Crew
| Executive Producers Steven Moffat and Brian Minchin |
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| Not every person who worked on this adventure was credited. The absence of a credit for a position doesn't necessarily mean the job wasn't required. The information above is based solely on observations of the actual end credits of the episodes as broadcast, and does not relay information from IMDB or other sources. |
References
Language
- The Emojibots speak Emoji. Emoji used by them include:
- 😃 – smiling face
- 😊 – happy face
- 💀 – a skull, a symbol of death
- 😢 – crying face, one tear
- 😭 – crying face, two tears
- 💡 – a light bulb, symbolising a new idea forming
- 😕 – puzzled face
- 😮 – shocked face
- 😯 – interested face
- 😰 – worried face
- 😦 – confused face
- 🤔 – thoughtful face
- can also have a drop of sweat
- 😐 – suspicious face
- 🤗 – open-armed smiling face
- 😵 – dead face
- 🔫 – under attack
- 😡 – anger
- 🗝 – key, interacting with locks
- ❓ – question mark, indicating confusion
- can also be a face with a question mark above
- ❗️ – indicating awareness
- 👍 – thumbs up, indicating approval
- 💷 – pound sterling, indicating an interest in monetary gain
Culture
- The Doctor says that the colonists will come expecting the Garden of Eden.
- The Vardy identified grief as the enemy of happiness.
- The Doctor tells the story of "The Magic Haddock".
- Bill ask whether the Doctor has "stretchy arms" like Mister Fantastic.
- Bill says Gliese was like a Student Union before the students arrive.
- Because Bill is only served one jelly while the Doctor is given two, she asks whether they have food sexism even in the future.
- The Doctor mentions how Vikings used to turn boats upside down and use them as houses.
- The record Bill looks into shows the entirety of human history.
- The Doctor and Bill arrive at the frozen River Thames during the 1814 frost fair.
- A photo in the archive of the Erehwon shows protestors with placards which read: "Socialist Worker: Kill the poll tax. Tories out". Another reads: "Socialist Worker: Finish off the Tory poll tax. Amnesty now. Stop the bailiffs".
Locations
- The planet the Doctor and Bill visit is called Gliese 581d.
- Bill suggests visiting Wiltshire or Aberdeen next time.
- The spaceship the Doctor and Bill find on the planet is called the Erehwon.
- The company that owns it is called United Earth.
- The Doctor and Bill encounter an elephant on the frozen River Thames in 1814.
Species
- The Vardy can eat other species, leaving behind bones and skulls.
- The Vardy form the walls of buildings by interlinking with each other, but are also able to detatch themselves when needed.
- They are now the indigenous species on the planet.
- The Doctor calls the Vardies the "worker bees of the Third Industrial Revolution".
- The Doctor and Bill encounter an elephant on the frozen River Thames in 1814.
People
- The Doctor calls Nardole "Mum", indicating that he acts like his boss.
- Kezzia dies.
- Goodthing mentions that her mum, Hopeful, Sunshine, and Eliza are all dead.
- 00125-323458 was the first woman to die at the colony.
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- Two of the earliest people to die at the colony were 00125-35468 I and 00125-35468 II.
- The Doctor says he knew an emperor made of algae that fancied him.
- The Doctor finds a medallion.
- Steadfast is MedTech One.
Technology
- The Emojibots are an interface of the Vardy.
- The Doctor and Bill receive sound implants on arrival at the colony. The Doctor calls the sound implants "thingamabobs".
- All inhabitants and visitors are given mood badges.
- Bill's smart phone is also a camera phone, meaning she can take a picture of the map.
- The colonists await their awakening aboard the Erehwon.
- The Erewhon has a Fleishman Cold Fusion Engine.
- The engine has a Kelvin calorimeter.
Anatomy and physiology
- The Doctor mentions his binary vascular system, and tells Bill this does indeed lead to high blood pressure.
- The Doctor says that smiling psycologically have an effect on the mood.
Botany
- The colony has rosemaries in the garden, which reminds Bill of home.
Food and beverages
- The Doctor mentions the colony will have wheat and olive groves.
- The Doctor and Bill are served squares of algae jelly.
- According to Bill, it smells of fish.
- The Doctor does not like fish. Except socially.
Science
- The Doctor explains that because space is curved, the Earth is in any direction you choose to look in.
Music
- The Doctor recites the line "I'm happy, hope you're happy too" from the David Bowie song, Ashes to Ashes.
TARDIS
- Bill asks why the chairs in the TARDIS are so far from the console.
- Bill asks whether she has to wear a seatbelt during flight.
- Bill also asks if there is a steering wheel.
- The Doctor says that you negotiate with the TARDIS, stating she takes you between where you want to go and where you're needed.
- Bill questions the Doctor on the police box exterior, and deduces that he likes it because of the sign—which reads, "Advice & assistance obtainable immediately".
- Bill asks how much a TARDIS trip costs.
- The Doctor says the TARDIS has broadband and suggest she watch some movies or something to pass the time.
Story notes
File:EXCLUSIVE Peter Capaldi & Brian Minchin Interview - The Aftershow - Doctor Who The Fan Show
- The read-through for Smile took place on 14 June 2016, and filming on the episode took place in July.
- The Doctor says that Scotland demands independence every planet they go to. In real world current events, at the time of this episode's release, Scotland was again seeking independence from the United Kingdom, as a result of Brexit.
- This story also shares a narrative theme with The Happiness Patrol, the theme being the fact that if you're not happy you would be executed.
- Bill and the Doctor use the "turn it off and on" joke.
Ratings
- 4.25m (UK overnight)
- 5.98m (UK final)
Filming locations
- The City of Arts and Sciences (Ciudad de las Artes y las Ciencias), in Valencia, Spain, is the real setting for the Gliese 581d scenes.
Production errors
- Kezzia states that she is using the Vardy to pollinate the wheat. However, the field used in filming is not a field of wheat, but a field of barley.
Continuity
- The Doctor mentions Bill's first trip. (TV: The Pilot)
- The Doctor says that he stole the TARDIS. (TV: Logopolis, The Name of the Doctor; AUDIO: The Beginning)
- Nardole reminds the Doctor that he can't go off-world because he promised. (TV: The Pilot)
- Bill again calls the Doctor "a penguin with its arse on fire" when she sees him run. (TV: The Pilot)
- The Doctor states that the TARDIS takes him where they need to go, rather than where they want to. (TV: The Doctor's Wife)
- Bill asks why the TARDIS is a police box. (TV: Boom Town) She mentions that she knows it's a "cloaking device". (TV: Doctor Who, The Pilot)
- Bill deduces that the Doctor likes the police box sign, because of its message. The Seventh Doctor admitted as much: "I like the shape. And the motto. Call here for help. That's what I do. I let little children sleep safely at night, because I've searched through all the shadows and chased the baddies away." (PROSE: Love and War, AUDIO: Love and War)
- The Doctor again avoids long explanations by saying "a thing happened". (TV: The Husbands of River Song)
- There's a bust of Queen Nefertiti in the spaceship. (TV: Dinosaurs on a Spaceship)
- The Doctor tells Bill to not look at his browser history. (TV: The Zygon Inversion, The Eleventh Hour)
- The Doctor mentions Vikings. He has met Vikings before. (TV: The Time Meddler, The Girl Who Died, PROSE: Dark Horizons)
- Bill says the Doctor is the helpline. (TV: The Bells of Saint John, Death in Heaven)
- Bill mentions that the Doctor couldn't leave her serving chips. (TV: The Pilot)
- Bill says the Doctor is an awesome tutor. (TV: The Pilot)
- Bill suggests the slaughter took place in a day. The Doctor had experienced events being a one days work before. (TV: The Doctor's Daughter, The Girl Who Waited)
- The Doctor still has a blackboard in the TARDIS. (TV: Into the Dalek et al.)
- The Doctor leaves Bill in the TARDIS to keep her safe. He previously did this with Rose Tyler (TV: The Parting of the Ways) and Clara Oswald, (TV: The Time of the Doctor) but failed to do so with Donna Noble. (TV: Silence in the Library)
- The Doctor had previously met servants who turned against their masters. (TV: The Robots of Death, The Impossible Planet/The Satan Pit, Voyage of the Damned, Planet of the Ood, The Beast Below)
- The Doctor mentions having previously encountered human colony ships, (TV: The Ark, The Beast Below, PROSE: The Lost Generation) and stations of colonists in cryogenic suspension. (TV: The Ark in Space)
- The record of human history Bill finds includes tribal people (TV: An Unearthly Child), Vincent van Gogh's self-portrait (TV: Vincent and the Doctor) and Stonehenge. (TV: The Pandorica Opens)
- The Doctor had once before visited a human colony in which unhappy people were killed. (TV: The Happiness Patrol)
- The Doctor mentions Scotland wanting independence everywhere they go, such as when they wanted a separate ship from Starship UK. (TV: The Beast Below)
- Bill says that she is in a "proper spaceship". The Tenth Doctor was previously offended when Donna Noble said something similar. (TV: Planet of the Ood)
- The Doctor has previously encountered nanorobots that caused trouble for humans. (TV: The Empty Child / The Doctor Dances)
- The Doctor has met tiny creatures that could turn a living human into a skeleton in seconds before. (TV: Silence in the Library / Forest of the Dead)
- The Doctor and Bill accidentally arrive at the 1814 frost fair. He has been there before. (AUDIO: Frostfire, PROSE: The Frozen, TV: A Good Man Goes to War) He has also previously visited a different frost fair. (PROSE: Silhouette)
Home video releases
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