YMMV / Doctor Who S37E7 "Kerblam!"

• Accidental Aesop: The intended point of the story is that, as the Doctor futilely explains to Charlie, high technology and automation are not inherently evil and it's what people choose to do with it that determines the quality of their lives. But some viewers, and reviewers, pointed out that, with Charlie having genuinely good motivations even as he goes to horrible lengths in hopes of achieving them and the System deliberately killing Kira in hopes of stopping him in a case of Angst? What Angst? for Team TARDIS, it's rather easy to get the message "Big corporations that treat workers as cogs, leaving them exploited and unhappy, are good and those who oppose such treatment are bad!" instead — an Aesop that's rather antithetical to how Who usually works.
• Adorkable: The Doctor, when the Kerb!am Man appears, jumps up and down and yells about it like an over-excited child on Christmas, even tilting her head in unison with the robot as it says the company's motto and grinning when it delivers it. Later on, she looks in utter dismay when informed that riding on the conveyor belts is against the rules and will result in immediate termination.
• Alternative Character Interpretation: Was the Kerb!am, computer system trying to save lives? Or was it just trying to stop a disruption in day-to-day business that would hurt profits?
• Angst? What Angst?: Team TARDIS seems bizarrely nonchalant about how Kira died for literally nothing, as even the Kerblam! system's deliberately having her killed doesn't have the intended effect, and the callousness of the act does nothing to stop them from continuing to insist the system has a good conscience. The Doctor actually seems more upset about her being bullied by her line manger than her being murdered.
• Common Knowledge: This is often used to depict Thirteen as a morally bankrupt Doctor, with people saying that Charlie was protesting bad working conditions at Kerb!am. While the working conditions were bad, Charlie was actually protesting was the lack of employment for humans, with only 10% of the workforce being human. However, this isn't communicated very well and the poor working conditions aren't really brought up in the resolution.
• Esoteric Happy Ending
  • The episode seems to be setting up something about how Kerb!am, is a dystopia for the people working there, with their activities and interactions carefully regimented, their shifts keeping them away from their families for far too long, robots potentially spying on them at any moment, and the management being either bullies or out of touch, and, worst of all, they're not allowed to ride the conveyor belts! The logical expectation is that the Doctor will do something about this, especially after she confronts Slade for bullying Kira. All of this gets forgotten by the climax, and it's treated as a happy ending when Slade and Judy announce they'll hire more people... to work under, we presume, the exact same dreary and oppressive conditions we've seen all episode. At best, Slade might be a bit more polite to them if he took the Doctor's words to heart. Yay?
  • This is addressed somewhat in the novelization, which makes it clear that going forward, Kerb!am, switches things around so that the dreary packing work is done by automation, while the managerial work is done by humans.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • The episode's mockery of Amazon and online shopping becomes this when Amazon Prime accidentally had the next episode as episode 7 of the series in place of this episode.
  • Yaz strikes up a friendship with a fellow worker named Dan, which would later be the name of the next companion, of whom she also had a close friendship with.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic:
  • The Kerb!am computer system is horrified at a terrorist forcing it into an act of mass murder, and is driven to make a desperate call for outside help as everyone ends up talking about it as an innocent victim... who also has no problem committing cold-blooded murder itself if it serves the system's own purpose. Even the Doctor herself can easily come off as coldly viewing Kira as acceptable collateral damage given the Angst? What Angst? mentioned above. Granted, one could make the argument that, with Charlie having already killed nearly ten people and unwilling to back down, it considered The Needs of the Many, and it did tip off Yaz and Ryan soon enough for the Doctor to stop him, although it's still unfortunate for Kira.
  • After reprogramming the Kerb!am Men to deliver to Kerb!am, instead of to the customers, the Doctor has no reason to make them detonate the packages, other than it being one of many ways to dispose of the bombs, thus creating the lethal situation Charlie refuses to flee from and essentially killing him just because.

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