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“Smile,” the second episode of the new Doctor Who‘s tenth season, is a pretty good episode. It’s not an instant classic or anything, and there isn’t much plot going on until the last ten minutes or so, but the episode exists mostly to give the Doctor and Bill an opportunity to continue bonding and learning about each other, and in that regard it absolutely succeeds. The mentor relationship between the Doctor and Bill works so much better for me than the “space boyfriend” dynamic Doctor Who has been trafficking in since the revived series began, and as a result this season feels like a breath of fresh air. Peter Capaldi continues to shine as the Doctor — his performance is so assured it rises above even the weakest material — and I continue to hate the fact that he’s leaving at the end of this season. I don’t know what’s going to happen afterward, or for how long Doctor Who will stay on the air, but I’m convinced Capaldi will go down as one of the best new Doctors.

As I mentioned, the plot isn’t all that special, and it’s definitely one of those stories you don’t want to examine too closely or the logic will fall apart. For instance, the Vardy don’t really show many signs of self-awareness, and you’d figure the vital mechanical interface of a new colony would have some form of self-defense program anyway just in case the colony was attacked. Rebooting the system and wiping the Vardy’s memory doesn’t remove their knowledge of money, in particular pounds sterling, even though it removed everything else. The Vardy are construction microbots, so how exactly do they “eat” people down to the bone? What would make the Vardy then decide to use those bones as calcium fertilizer for the gardens? The questions could go on, but as I said, this episode was more about the Doctor and Bill than about the story happening around them.

There’s not a whole lot of Doctor Who neepery to share for this episode. The basic plot has some similarities to the 1988 Seventh Doctor serial “The Happiness Patrol,” which also involves the execution of colonists who aren’t happy all the time, although that story was really much more a response to Thatcher’s England. There are also a few superficial similarities to the 2008 Tenth Doctor episodes “Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead,” with microscopic-sized creatures eating people down to the bone, and the 2005 Ninth Doctor episodes “The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances,” with nanotechnology gone awry. And I suppose the Vardy are in some way a truly Moffat-era antagonist — we’ve had “don’t blink” creatures and “don’t breathe” creatures and “don’t turn around” creatures, and now we’ve got “don’t stop smiling” creatures. But that’s all I’ve got. There are surprisingly few callbacks to the classic series this time around. (Although ending this episode with what is basically the start of the next is a very classic series thing to do!)

We have another mysterious mention of the vault the Doctor has promised to guard without leaving Earth, although no more clues as to what’s in it or why he made that promise. There’s a funny joke about the Doctor not being Scottish, just very cross, and another about how Scottish colonists seek independence on every planet they inhabit. The Doctor claims he is 2000 years old now, which I found quite surprising. When the Doctor says to one of the interface robots, “I’m happy, hope you’re happy too,” my mind immediately went to the 1980 David Bowie song “Ashes to Ashes” — an earworm that grew so insistent I actually had to listen to the song later. (We know Capaldi is a fan of Bowie, so I doubt this was merely a coincidence.) My only real complaint is that Nardole is basically sidelined for this episode, and I suspect he won’t be in the next one, either, since it appears to be set in the past. I want more Nardole, please! (Also, it didn’t feel quite right that he was jealous of Bill’s presence in the TARDIS. Less of that, please.)

We may only be two episodes in but season ten is looking to be a strong one, thanks to solid scripts, good actors, and especially the rapport between Peter Capaldi and Pearl Mackie.

The Doctor Who revival series has made it to its tenth season! To me, this feels like almost as much of a milestone as the series’ overall 50th anniversary, and as it turns out the 10th season premiere, “The Pilot,” is a worthy start. In fact, I’d say it’s the best Doctor Who season premiere since “The Eleventh Hour” back in 2010.

I took to new companion Bill Potts very quickly, quicker than I thought, perhaps because she is so different from Clara in exactly the way Clara herself was not very different from Amy. Bill also has a good rapport with the Doctor, one that’s based on a shared intellectual curiosity, which is a nice change of pace from companions who have a crush on him or who are simply thrilled with the adventure of it all. I continue to be amused by Nardole’s presence as the Doctor’s de facto butler, even if he didn’t have a whole lot to do this episode. I hope he sticks around and becomes a more active player in future episodes. I adored the collection of old-time sonic screwdrivers on the Doctor’s desk, as well as the picture of his granddaughter Susan. I was intrigued by the mysterious vault the Doctor is guarding. What’s inside it? It must be something pretty important for the Doctor to give up traveling and disguise himself as a university professor for the past fifty years to keep an eye on it. (Then again show runner Steven Moffat is pretty terrible when it comes to season-long arcs, so I’m halfway expecting to be disappointed when the vault finally opens.)

But mostly I came away from “The Pilot” mourning the knowledge that this is Peter Capaldi’s final season as the Doctor. I think he is superb in the role, a monumental step up from Matt Smith (come at me, Smith fans, I will fight you!), and when the Doctor is written right, as he is in “The Pilot,” Capaldi stands shoulder to shoulder with the likes of John Pertwee and Tom Baker. I wish he would stay longer. This “three seasons and out” pattern the actors seem to have fallen into is too bad. We barely get a chance to know a Doctor before the next one comes along, with the unfortunate side effect that the regeneration episodes become trite, formulaic, and expected.

“The Pilot” was written by Moffat, so it does suffer from a few annoying Moffatisms. We get a fat joke right up front when Bill describes what happened after she continually gave her crush extra chips in the cafeteria. Plot threads are raised and then immediately dropped (Bill notices the Doctor’s reflection in the old photographs of her mother but never asks him about it). There’s a needless riddle (“What’s the one thing you never see when you look at your reflection?”). The antagonist’s powers remain just undefined enough to let Moffat do whatever he thinks will make for a cool scene instead of something logical (how and why does it shapeshift into a Dalek? A Dalek can’t look down into a puddle’s reflection, and changing into a Dalek has no strategic importance anyway for a creature that can’t be destroyed by their weapons). The Doctor’s electric guitar and (sonic?) sunglasses make a cameo at the start of the episode, which hopefully will be the only time we see them this season because ugh, enough already. And of course the power of love saves the day, because Moffat can never seem to resist treacle.

There’s not a whole lot of Doctor Who neepery to share this time. I already mentioned the old sonic screwdrivers and the picture of Susan. But one marvelous bit that was only seen briefly made me smile, and that was the blink-and-you’ll-miss-it return of the Movellans, a race of alien androids with silver dreadlocks last seen in the 1979 Fourth Doctor serial “Destiny of the Daleks.” The Movellans were locked in a never-ending war with the Daleks, and in fact it was this war that made the Daleks return to Skaro to resurrect their creator, Davros, whom we saw again as recently as last season.

“The Pilot” is a promising start to a milestone season. Longtime readers of these reviews will recall that I thought last season was a strong one, perhaps the best since Moffat took over, and I’m hoping this season will continue the upward trend. With a cast of characters this strong it ought to. However, the next episode features robots that only speak in emojis, so…

I haven’t had the chance to write up my thoughts about the 2016 Doctor Who Christmas special, “The Return of Doctor Mysterio,” so let me start by getting this out of the way: It’s pretty stupid.

Sure, there are funny bits and fun bits, but overall it’s a trifle — shallow, uninspired, and forgettable. It’s especially disappointing compared to last year’s surprisingly good Christmas special, “The Husbands of River Song.” Speaking of which, Nardole is back from that episode and in one piece again, and his role as the Doctor’s companion is one of the better things about “The Return of Doctor Mysterio.” He’s a fun character, an alien who is equally confounded by the Doctor and humans alike but doesn’t spend the whole episode asking questions the way most companions do. I’m happy to see he’ll be sticking around for the new season.

Among the other things I liked was the Doctor’s utter bewilderment that Lucy can’t tell her nanny Grant is actually the superhero called the Ghost, despite the two of them looking exactly the same but for Grant’s glasses (a nice nod to one of the peculiarities of the Superman mythos). In fact, another thing I liked a lot about this episode were its frequent shout-outs to classic comics, with lines like “With great power comes great responsibility,” all the characters’ alliterative names (Grant Gordon, Lucy Lombard, etc.), the Daily Chronicle building looking exactly like the Daily Planet, the Defenders poster on the wall of Grant’s childhood bedroom, and the names of comics creators sprinkled throughout. The scene with Grant in high school discovering what a curse x-ray vision is during puberty was cute, too.

Everything else I pretty much didn’t like. The plot is just another convoluted alien invasion story, this time involving brain removal and body swapping (if only the baddies had been H.P. Lovecraft’s brain-swapping Mi-Go instead of…sentient space brains with eyes, or whatever the hell they were). The love story between Grant and Lucy doesn’t work, at least for me, because I didn’t find myself invested in it at all. The script bends over backward in service of writer Steven Moffat’s conceits (there’s a lot of the usual manic Moffaty nonsense on display), such as when early in the episode Grant addresses Lucy on the phone as Mrs. Lombard so that we won’t know it’s Lucy he works for until the big reveal. Why not just have Grant not mention any names on the phone? Why have him do something so obviously phony considering he and Lucy have known each other since high school?

But I think the worst part of all is how everyone keeps saying Grant is such a great nanny (his true superpower, we learn with the usual Moffat-penned soppiness) when he is continually leaving the apartment to go fight crime or stop fires or whatever, and leaving the baby all alone! The script tries to hand wave it off by saying he’s so fast he’s back quicker than the average person can make it from the living room to the nursery, but please. He leaves the baby alone constantly. How does that make him the world’s best nanny? I kept yelling at the TV, “Someone needs to watch the baby!”

Anyway, the whole thing is pretty forgettable. “The Return of Doctor Mysterio” isn’t as bad as, say, any of the episodes from season 7, but it’s not going to be anyone’s favorite, either.

There’s a “coming soon” trailer at the end for season 10, which introduces new companion Bill, played by Pearl Mackie. Given what I’ve seen, I’m a little trepidatious. Steven Moffat has this idea that making people talk really fast and act manically shows how charming and intelligent they are, and Bill looks like no exception to this rule. I’m excited to see where things go because I’m really liking Peter Capaldi as the Doctor, but I’m so ready for a new dynamic on the show, and at this point I seriously doubt Moffat can supply it. Luckily, this will be his last season as show runner, because it’s definitely time for a new approach to the material.

***MINOR SPOILERS AHEAD***

I’ll admit, I have a love-hate relationship with River Song on Doctor Who. Things started well. From her introduction in the season 4 two-parter “Silence in the Library”/”Forest of the Dead” through her guest appearances in season 5’s “The Time of the Angels”/”Flesh and Stone” and “The Pandorica Opens”/”The Big Bang,” I thought River Song was the greatest recurring character on the show since the Brigadier. We didn’t know much about her because the Doctor didn’t know much about her, only that she was a good friend (and possibly more) from his own future, someone he hadn’t properly met yet. In a show about time travel, it makes sense that this would happen, that he would bump into an important figure from his life out of order, and there were some great moments to be mined from that. Also, on top of everything, Alex Kingston, who plays River Song, is amazing.

But if what was so magical about River Song was her mystery, that magic was completely undone in season 6, when the show became less about the Doctor’s adventures and more about her life story. In a move that, in my opinion, utterly ruined her character, Steven Moffat insisted on unraveling every single mystery of River’s life, many of the details of which didn’t make sense (a human baby conceived on the TARDIS will have Time Lord abilities? What?), although to be honest most of season 6 didn’t make sense anyway. Worse, this sassy, independent, time-traveling adventurer lost those very traits and suddenly became all about the Doctor, to the point where her entire life was quite literally about him. After that, I was over River Song. Completely. I never wanted to see her again, because if a little goes a long way then spending an entire season undoing everything that made her interesting goes right off the edge of a cliff. When she showed up again in season 7’s “The Angels Take Manhattan” and “The Name of the Doctor,” I wasn’t pleased to see her. Although in that latter episode it seemed like we had finally seen the last of her.

We hadn’t. When it was announced that this year’s Doctor Who Christmas special was called “The Husbands of River Song,” I groaned so loudly the cats ran away in terror. I rolled my eyes so deeply into the back of my head I could see my own thoughts. After a season that I thought was more mature, thoughtful, and in control of itself than the show has been in a long time, I was worried it would be a step backward. That it would remind me of a time when I was so disillusioned with Doctor Who I very nearly hated the program I’ve loved since I was a child.

I needn’t have worried. “The Husbands of River Song” turns out to be quite an enjoyable adventure. Peter Capaldi has acres more chemistry with Alex Kingston than Matt Smith ever did, and he chooses to play their relationship maturely and with a sense of equality and respect between them, which Matt Smith also never did. (The writing and acting were so clunky in many of the Smith episodes that the Doctor came off as a terrible boyfriend, almost verbally abusive at times, which certainly couldn’t have been the intention.) This increased chemistry between the two characters helps enormously. So does the fact that Steven Moffat has been able to write episodes for this season of Doctor Who without being hampered by also having to write a season of Sherlock. Apparently, when he focuses on just one program he does a much better job!

There’s a lot of humor in “The Husbands of River Song,” most of it stemming from River not recognizing the Doctor’s new face. I also got a kick out of River’s codename for the Doctor being “damsel,” because he’s always in distress and needs rescuing, and how the Doctor needs a flowchart to figure out their out-of-chronological-order relationship. A book called History’s Finest Exploding Restaurants was also a nice touch. But perhaps the funniest moment of all is when the Doctor gets to pretend to be overwhelmed by how big the TARDIS is on the inside. His litany of extreme reactions was laugh out loud funny. I appreciated that River Song is once again independent and sassy, too, just like she was when we first met her. The revelation that she sometimes steals the TARDIS when the Doctor isn’t looking to go on her own adventures was a charming one.

There were some poignant moments as well, such as when River admits that she loves the Doctor without realizing he’s right there, and when they figure out this will likely be their last meeting. The only misfire? Those damn sonic sunglasses show up again!

With Capaldi in the role opposite her, I no longer feel like I’m over River. I wouldn’t mind if she popped up again down the road. But please, Doctor Who, use her sparingly. We all saw how much the show suffered when you got too focused on River Song, and you’re better than that now.