Adam Kendrick compiles episode reactions to Series 15 from Oxford Doctor Who Society in a series of articles published this month, starting with The Robot Revolution.

Just 18 months after the broadcast of The Giggle, the world was shaken by the departure of Ncuti Gatwa from Doctor Who at the conclusion of Series 15. His second and final series as the Fifteenth Doctor began with another Christmas special, saw the arrival of his second companion Belinda Chandra played by Varada Sethu (who had previously appeared in Boom), revealed the truth about Mrs Flood, and culminated with the Doctor seemingly regenerating into Rose Tyler. Whether Billie Piper is indeed the Sixteenth Doctor and what will happen to the show in the long-term are questions for another day. What we at The Tides of Time really wanted to know was: what did the Oxford Doctor Who Society think of Series 15? Which episodes were the favourites amongst our members and which were liked the least? Did they enjoy Ncuti Gatwa’s second series more than his first, and what hopes did they have for the show’s future?

To find these answers, we sent invitations to past and present members of the society, asking them to submit their thoughts and to give each episode a rating out of ten, with a one representing the bottom 10% of all New Who episodes and a ten representing the top 10%. These ratings were then used to calculate the average score for all nine episodes, which have been ranked towards the bottom of this article. Following the broadcast of The Reality War, we also asked them to rate and review Series 15 as a whole, as well as their final thoughts on Ncuti Gatwa’s tenure as the Doctor. All comments have been quoted anonymously, but may have been paraphrased or edited for readability, with their original meaning preserved as much as possible.

The series opener introduced us to Belinda Chandra, a present-day nurse who gets kidnapped by giant robots that want to install her as queen of the star system which her ex-boyfriend named for her seventeen years ago. Of the ten responses that we received, all but two gave this episode a slightly-above-average 6 out of 10. “A fabulous introduction to Belinda, who emerges fully formed as compassionate but with a strong spine” and “An enjoyable series opener with plenty of interesting ideas” wrote two positive reviews. Varada Sethu’s performance as Belinda and the way she played off Ncuti Gatwa’s Doctor was singled out for praise. The cliffhanger ending, which hinted that their relationship might become interesting, left members intrigued to see how the rest of the series would play out.

While some members enjoyed the “fun and breezy” story, others described the narrative as “somewhat confused”, “messy”, “wordy and hectic”, and “ropey”. One member opined that “the sci-fi story ties itself in knots with the time fracture that seems to work inconsistently to further the plot”, while one member felt its unoriginality and overfamiliar beats “left the whole thing feeling pretty exhausted”. As for the commentary on artificial intelligence and coercive control, the majority of respondents agreed that it was “muddled”, “a little threadbare”, and “lacking in depth”: the main antagonist, Alan, was described as being “based around three contradictory different kinds of men (gamer, incel, psychopath)”. The fact that he was revealed only minutes before being defeated and how viewers were “encouraged to pity [him] one minute, and then [want to] completely destroy the next” resulted in tonal whiplash. Nevertheless, the world of Missbelindachandra One was described as “very fun” (with one member claiming that the Missbelindachandrabots were superior to the Emojibots from Smile), although the setting’s retro-inspired design was described as “very cheap-looking” by one response.

The Robot Revolution received an average rating of 6.20 (from 10 responses). Coming up next: Lux