Nowadays it is not at all times sufficient for Physician Who companions to be atypical folks he meets on his travels. From Amy Pond and Clara Oswald via to the newest TARDIS resident, Ruby Sunday, there is a pattern for characters with backstories as unusual and complicated because the alien worlds the Physician explores.
New companion Belinda Chandra (Varada Sethu) isn’t any exception. Though her precedence is getting again residence so she will begin a brand new nursing shift on Monday, she quickly discovers that a complete planet shares her title, and that she has a doppelganger — referred to as Mundy Flynn — combating a warfare someplace within the 51st century.
Let’s be trustworthy, you’ve got most likely received as many questions as she has, so — within the wake of “Physician Who” season 2 premiere “The Robotic Revolution” — this is every little thing we learn about Belinda Chandra.
Warning! Spoilers for “The Robotic Revolution” forward.
Who’s Belinda Chandra?
On the face of it Belinda Chandra is a devoted A&E nurse dwelling in a home share. Not less than certainly one of her flatmates cannot be bothered to study her precise title.
However even earlier than we have been correctly launched, it is clear she’s an individual of curiosity to the Physician. Sadly, he is unable to get to her earlier than she’s kidnapped by a race of spacefaring robots on Saturday, Might 24, 2025.
Why is the Physician already following Belinda at first of the episode?
The specifics are unknown, although he does clarify to Belinda that, “I used to be instructed about you by somebody. It is form of an extended story and I’ve received to watch out about timelines. However he instructed me your title such as you could be essential.” Who’s the mysterious “he”?
His curiosity may additionally have one thing to do with the very fact she’s the doppelganger of somebody he met in final season’s “Growth“…
Why does Belinda look so acquainted?
This is not Varada Sethu’s first “Physician Who” journey. She beforehand performed a special character referred to as Mundy Flynn, an ordained Anglican marine combating a unending warfare on Kastarion 3. The Physician is frightened the uncanny resemblance is greater than only a coincidence, and is amazed by the power of the genetic hyperlink between two folks dwelling three millennia aside. Might the destiny of former companion Clara Oswald — whose consciousness was unfold throughout quite a few iterations of the identical individual within the time stream — be repeating itself?
The Physician must also most likely be asking why, after spending a 12 months with Ruby Sunday, he is within the behavior of assembly folks named after days of the week.
What do the robots need with Belinda?
Wanting like Tony Stark’s Hulkbuster armour from “Avengers: Age of Ultron”, these robots journey across the universe in spaceships that would not look misplaced in a Tintin cartoon.
They hail from the planet of Missbelindachandra 1, in orbit across the star Missbelindachandra, and — in a spectacular instance of nominative determinism — have determined {that a} human referred to as Belinda Chandra is the planet’s rightful queen. They need her to marry the Nice AI Generator to carry peace to a world that is been at warfare for the previous decade.
Why is there a world referred to as Missbelindachandra 1?
That is the place issues get a bit of bit difficult and intensely “timey-wimey”.
Seventeen years earlier than she’s kidnapped by robots, Belinda’s then- boyfriend — Alan Daniel Budd — introduced her with a “Star Certificates”, successfully adopting a star in her title. Though she’s lengthy since damaged up with the disagreeable Alan (he thinks ladies cannot do maths, and can not help telling her what to do), she retains the framed certificates on her wall.
Sooner or later sooner or later, the robots will choose up the certificates. However once they carry it again to a present-day Earth the place Belinda nonetheless has the unique copy, the space-time continuum will get a bit of antsy about the exact same atoms occupying the exact same area. The ensuing interplay creates an interstellar distortion that interferes with the traditional move of time, sending the certificates again hundreds of years into the previous. It subsequently types the premise of Missbelindachandra’s creation fantasy.
Why is the Physician already on Missbelindachandra 1 when Belinda arrives?
The time distortion is unleashed whereas the Physician’s TARDIS is chasing the robots’ spaceship. When that occurs, he is thrown six months into Belinda’s previous. The Physician subsequently has to attend for Belinda’s arrival, working because the “designated historian” on Missbelindachandra 1.
Nice AI Generator
Though the story seems to faucet into topical fears about AI, that is truly a planet-wide misreading of the scenario. The offending machine is definitely the Nice AL Generator, a grotesque machine/human hybrid constructed across the forementioned Alan Daniel Budd. The robots picked him up 10 years earlier, guided by Belinda’s suggestion that they need to communicate to him in regards to the certificates — in spite of everything, he was the one who purchased it within the first place.
Alan’s arrival on Missbelindachandra 1 all these years in the past has created a monster. It seems he is the reason for the warfare between the beforehand peaceable people and robots, because of his efforts to ramp up the poisonous, controlling behaviour Belinda remembers to embody a complete world. “You’ve got taken coercive management and made it management the entire planet,” she says. She additionally describes Alan’s imaginative and prescient for Missbelindachandra 1 as “planet of the incels”.
Why does Mrs Flood stay subsequent door to Belinda?
“You ain’t seen me…”
Does not it really feel like an almighty coincidence that Mrs Flood (Anita Dobson), Ruby’s neighbour in season one, is now dwelling subsequent door to the Physician’s subsequent companion, Belinda?
Ever since she broke the fourth wall in 2023 Christmas particular “The Home on Ruby Street”, it has been clear there’s extra to Mrs Flood than initially meets the attention. There was the very fact she knew Sutekh was the prophesied “One Who Waits” earlier than all people else. And that she selected to disclose earlier than her (non permanent) dying in season 1 finale “Empire of Dying“, “I had such plans”. After which there was that enigmatic sign-off on the finish of the season: “However life goes on, does not it? Ruthlessly. And what occurs, you would possibly surprise. What occurs to that mysterious traveller in time and area often known as the Physician? I am sorry to say his story ends in absolute terror. Evening evening.”
Presumably not somebody you wish to stumble upon too typically.
Why does the TARDIS life not attraction to Belinda?
Loads of companions have one journey with the Physician, get hooked on the expertise, and drop every little thing to spend a 12 months or two travelling across the cosmos within the TARDIS. Belinda is totally different. Her precedence is getting again to Earth so she will begin her new shift on the hospital on Monday.
She’s additionally fast to name out the Physician when he exams her DNA with out permission, and tells him, “I’m not certainly one of your adventures,” earlier than demanding he takes her residence. Instantly. Sadly, the TARDIS will not be taking part in ball.
(A speculatory facet observe: may Mundy Flynn be named after the Monday Belinda is determined to get residence for? Given the themes of this episode, there’s each probability the day may very well be imbued with cosmic significance.)
Why cannot the Physician get Belinda residence?
Seeing because the Time Lord himself cannot work it out — and the TARDIS behaves somewhat ominously when he tries — the reply to this specific query stays above our pay grade. All we all know is that some anomaly midway between Earth and Missbelindachandra — presumably the identical distortion that created all of the earlier points within the episode — is making the TARDIS bounce off planet Earth on Might 24, 2025. And that this specific area of area is a few form of interstellar dumping floor — therefore the stays of a black taxi cab, the Eiffel Tower, the Statue of Liberty and an Egyptian Pyramid floating via area because the TARDIS flies away.
Count on this specific thriller — together with the conundrum about Belinda and Mundy wanting so alike — to be a significant plotline all through the season. It might additionally, in fact, be linked to Mrs Flood.
Is there a wider relevance to the date Might 24, 2025?
In “our” world, that is the Saturday we’re anticipating the penultimate “Physician Who” season 2 episode to air — which, if the present follows conventional kind, would be the first half of a two-part finale. Within the “Physician Who” universe, nonetheless, that is one other query to file beneath “to be revealed”.
New episodes of “Physician Who” debut on Saturdays on BBC iPlayer within the UK and Disney+ in the remainder of the world.
