Perhaps the greatest thing about DOCTOR WHO is you never know you're getting next. The flexibility of a plot premise involving a time machine means like the Martini advert it's a case of anytime , any place any where. Whatever the other merits of RTD he did bring a strong element of variety. Even the lowly regarded season two of NuWho had a two part out and out horror story followed by a one part story involving a black romantic comedy with meta-fictional aspects. This type of variety hasn't been a Moffat strong point but he has least tried to use new writers and with a fairly regarded screenwriter in Frank Cottrell Boyce it'd be interesting to see how a non fan writes for the show
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The bitter irony is that with this episode I felt I was watching something akin to DOCTOR WHO bingo. Eyes down and off we go . A location similar to the episode New Earth and tech bots gone wild like we saw in The Empty Child /The Doctor Dances which was remade as The Curse Of The Black Pearl and influenced a couple of more stories . It's almost as if there's now a rule every series must feature an adventure featuring tech-bots gone mad . Add to this the premise of constantly smiling or else and it's not all that different being told to not blink . Add to this a couple of other plot turns and ideas from the classic show including ending the narrative with an explosion and you've ironically got from a new writer a medley megamix of the show he's writing for
That said on its own merits Smile is fairly enjoyable entertainment and it could be a lot worse with Bill constantly bringing up her sexuality at every opportunity and Nardole being used for unneeded comic relief. Capaldi too is likable probably because there's no zany quirks written in to his character and it's a pity his tenure will probably be remembered as a lost opportunity but certainly so far this is starting to shape up as a consistent season