So far today I have worked a full day at my regular job, spent an hour on the treadmill watching Doctor Who, performed onstage in a theatrical production, and now I need to write this blog post before I go to bed. What are the odds that I am just going to copy and paste what I wrote a year and a half ago when this episode first aired? (Hint: the odds are pretty dang good.)

So let's do that.

Smile

(TARDIS Data Core recap)

Copied and pasted from last year:

Thought #1: This story relates directly to the First Doctor story The Ark, which I just watched a few days ago. It also relates to The Ark in Space, The Beast Below, Dinosaurs on a Spaceship, and probably some others I am not thinking of at the moment. In any case, the broad strokes of The Ark is that the Earth has died and this ship is part of a Diaspora to find a new home for the surviving humans. Most of the humans are in suspended animation while a small advance crew does the things that need doing. Also aboard is another species, which is invaluable in their help but largely subservient. In the conflict of the story, the other species (in this case the Monoids) has dominated the humans and threatened their complete extinction. By the end, the Doctor has forced the surviving members of both sides to come together and insisted that they must work together cooperatively to survive on their new homeworld. Smile is completely different in terms of the details ane execution, but largely similar in the broad strokes.

Thought #2: At the end of last week's episode, The Pilot, a big deal was made out of how terrible it is to wipe away someone's memories. It is a big dramatic moment at the episode's conclusion, doubly dramatic because the Doctor does not even realize that his own memories of his previous companion Clara have been wiped. So here we are, only a few hours later in terms of story, and how does the Doctor resolve the big conflict at the climax of the story? He wipes the collective memory of the Vardi mere moments after learning that they have become self-aware and sentient. He does to them exactly what was done to him, and what he very nearly did to Bill. Let's just say that the Doctor isn't very big on retaining lessons learned.

And that's all I got. Good night.

STATS:

Doctor(s): Twelfth
Companion(s): Bill Potts, Nardole
Episode(s): Smile
Steps Walked: 7,398 today, 3,550,377 total
Distance Walked: 3.81 miles today, 1,856.69 miles total
Push-ups Completed: 0 today, 6,747 total
Sit-ups Completed: 0 today, 1,029 total
Weight: 248.06 lbs (five day moving average), net change -59.24 lbs