Doctor Who is back, and it’s got a new season-long mystery for the 15th Doctor (Ncuti Gatwa) to unravel. This time, instead of trying to solve the mystery of Ruby Sunday’s origins, he has to figure out why he can’t get Belinda Chandra (Varada Sethu) back to her time and place on Earth.
It’s a mystery that presents itself at the end of the jam-packed Season 2 premiere, “The Robot Revolution,” which follows Belinda as she’s kidnapped by alien robots and brought to the planet Miss Belinda Chandra — a far-off star that was named after her by an ex-boyfriend. When the revolution to defeat the robots and unseat their AI ruler is over and done with — with the help of the Doctor, of course — the Doctor tries to bring Belinda back to May 24, 2025, the night that Belinda was taken from her home, but is unable to pilot the TARDIS back to that time and place. What is the reason that date is inaccessible to the TARDIS? Why does Belinda look just like the far-future soldier, Mundy Flynn? It’s an intriguing mystery to kick off the new season, and Inverse chatted with showrunner Russell T Davies to try to parse where that mystery is going.
Warning! Spoilers follow for Doctor Who Season 2’s “The Robot Revolution.”
“The Robot Revolution” Ending Explained
The central timey-wimey conceit of “The Robot Revolution” revolves around a “time fracture,” which both Belinda and the Doctor experience on their way to the planet Miss Belinda Chandra. During the fracture — in which the barrier between the past, present, and future become blurred — Belinda shouts at her captors, telling them this has all been a mistake. “Alan Daniel Budd, go get him!” she says, referring to her ex-boyfriend (played by Jonny Green) who got her the certificate naming the star after her. It turns out that her pleas were not on deaf ears: the robots from the past heard this and went to pick up Alan Budd, but in traveling through the time fracture, ended up arriving 10 years earlier. When Alan arrives on Miss Belinda Chandra, he’s delighted at the prospect of ruling a whole planet, and promptly begins the robot revolution that oppresses the native race for a whole decade. And it’s under his orders that Belinda is brought to the planet 10 years later to become his queen.
But the Doctor quickly realizes that Alan had actually brought Belinda there to save him — he’s in excruciating pain after being merged with a machine for a decade and had been using the glitch in the machinery to call for help. Using the paradox of two versions of the same star certificate being in one place, Belinda frees Alan, turning him back into his most basic form (aka a sperm and an egg), which a robot accidentally cleans up. The robots revert back to their basic programming, and the planet is freed! But there’s still one lingering question: Will the time fracture that caused this whole problem come back to haunt the Doctor and Belinda?
“It's a device for this episode. It doesn't come back at the end,” Davies tells Inverse.
He continues, “We live in a world of time loops, time fractures. I think what I love about writing science fiction, which in these days is that was such a literary audience. I think if this had been the original writers of Doctor Who in 1963, that would've taken a bit of an explanation. Now, we're kind of like, "Yeah, time fracture, off we go," life and it just makes sense and it just basically allows for different doctrine, companion relationship.”
Basically, the fracture is just there to bring the Doctor and Belinda together — albeit a little unwillingly on Belinda’s part. “What a time fracture does here for the Doctor and for Belinda, putting them at odds with each other, and helping them then solve the problem together, that's great,” Davies says.
What Happens May 24, 2025?
At the end of “The Robot Revolution,” the Doctor brings Belinda into his TARDIS, which he explains is a time and space machine that can take her back to the exact night she was kidnapped. Except... it can’t. However much he tries, the TARDIS keeps “bouncing off” that date and place, and he is as puzzled (and embarrassed) as Belinda is infuriated. “He loves that machine. He thinks he can do anything, and he doesn't like particularly losing face in front of a companion,” Davies says.
But is there a significance to that date? Davies teases that we may find out when the season’s penultimate episode, entitled “Wish World,” airs on that exact date — May 24th.
“It's a story for both the doctor and Belinda, the fact that TARDIS can't get back to the 24th of May 2025,” Davies says. “And if we look at your calendar, you will see that episode seven drops on the 24th of May 2025. That took a lot of work lining those dates, let me tell you.”
So what happens to the Doctor and Belinda on that day? “You will find out that,” Davies teases coyly. “There's shattering events ahead.”
The Mrs. Flood Question
One other mystery that Season 2 brings back is Mrs. Flood (Anita Dobson). The neighbor of Ruby Sunday appears to also be Belinda’s neighbor — and she once again shows an unusual knowledge about the TARDIS. I had to ask Davies about Mrs. Flood, and he gave a predictable non-answer. Here’s our exchange below.
You said in the past that Mrs. Flood might never be explained, but she does pop up again in this premiere. Can you at least, if you can, explain or reject one of the prevailing fan theories about who she is?
What if the fan theory is correct? What am I going to do? Go on, run it past me and I'll try and keep a blank face.
Is she Romana?
I couldn't possibly say.
It looks like we’ll have to wait until the end of the season to see the resolution to the big mysteries of both Belinda Chandra and Mrs. Flood.
