Smile [TV/2017.4.22]

★★★☆☆

  Smile is just comfort food Dr. Who. It's got all the basics of a classic four-parter neatly trimmed and wrapped for a new series format (i.e. cut down to half the length) -- a beginning portion spent by the regulars exploring a huge (and often times barren) alien landscape, a haunting revelation which leads to the Doctor digging deeper into the secret, an attempt to blow things up and a final, more peaceful resolution among two rival groups (bonus points if they're token oppressors and oppressed). Frank Cottrell-Boyce clearly loves the first episodes of classic serials, seeing as how both his TV episodes spend a considerable amount of time mucking about in different settings, and I'm not complaining. I can sort of see how people would think the first ten minutes of Smile are boring, but I think it's just so leisurely and beautifully shot and entertaining to watch. The Doctor acts as the tour guide, Bill is the audience identification figure, and the location work in Valencia’s City of Arts and Sciences is perhaps one of the best the show has ever come up with. 

  Setting up the mystery perfectly, we are then treated to a rather nice tale of humanity's perserverence and recognising a nanobot race as a new species. I say nice, because it truly is (a bunch of lovely moments, such as Bill getting scared and heartbroken by humankind's bloody future) and it's a fun little adventure overall, but I'm gutted a bit because Smile was so close to being much greater than what it eventually becomes. With a little bit more exploration, a little bit more excitement or nuance, this could even have been an all-timer. As it stands, Smile ends up being really good because of a rather rushed ending that feels like Cottrell-Boyce threw out the five different, more interesting conclusions he had in his head and hastily wrote up a conventional Dr. Who style 'nobody dies and you lot talk amongst yourselves while we leave' ending. Nothing to rip apart, but nothing to gawk at either. I still really enjoy Smile every time I revisit it, and Peter Capaldi and Pearl Mackie share a remarkable chemistry. Worth it just for them wandering around a giant emoty megaplex, but with even more to offer -- that's Smile in a nutshell. Plus, the emojis. It's a wonder how we as a people were obsessed with talking about them once upon a time (though I remember thinking in 2017 that even in that year, emoji discourse had come and gone).