The Doctor (Jodi Whittaker) receives a parcel courtesy of a Kerblam delivery robot and inside finds a message "Help Me." She doesn't know where the message came from, other than assuming someone from Kerblam sent it, or who it's from as she's got TARDIS problems to fix. Inside she finds a Fez as was Doctor Eleven's (Matt Smith) fave mode of headgear! As Ryan (Tosin Cole) looked like he wanted to burst the bubble wrap. So millions of galaxies far away and the good ol' fashioned bubble wrap is still in use! She takes a detour to the planet and they end up going undercover as workers there. All having to go through the mot so rigorous process of not being interviewed or anything, just going through some personal checks as they've come in by a special ship. As the Doctor shows Judy (Julie Hesmondhalgh) the psychic paper and she knows the First Lady in person. Thus getting more approval for the job.
They are each assigned loops which are colour co-ordinated to show what department they will work in, with the Doctor getting the janitor's position (which she should have taken with hindsight as she could've gotten everywhere without being noticed) but doesn't realize that until the end. She swaps with Graham (Bradley Walsh) who had the purple packaging loop as did Ryan who says he's a dab hand at this after working in a store selling trainers. Even saying they used to end up putting all sorts of things into the trainers, though he doesn't get a chance to expand on this. At the packing site, they meet Kira Arlo (Claudia Jessie) who is content with her job, more like overjoyed really as they can't find much work and at least 10% of the population must be employed. The rest is run by robots and is automated.
Yaz (Mandip Gill) works with Dan (Lee Mack) as he shows her the ropes and also his poster on the wall for being best employee. He sent it to his daughter for her to put on her wall. She sent him a necklace with 'Dad' engraved on it. He doesn't get to see her much; but he takes two shuttle trips a year as they're expensive and he's saving for her to go to uni and get a better life than him and not end up working here. As they speak they are constantly interrupted by the bot telling them to save the chitchat for their social time and to get on with it. Yaz gets an order which is an antique lamp but Dan says he'll take it over for her cos she'll get lost there, as other workers have and he'll never see her again. Juss like them. Yaz decides to follow and sees one of the delivery bots make him vanish and then two come for her.
Graham meets Charlie (Leo Flanagan) who shows him what sort of work to expect and during the break they all meet up, with Kira and Charlie being friendly with each other, as he has a crush on her, which Graham tells him is obvious. The Doctor meets with the manager and tells him how to be more respective of the workers. Later they decide to break into his office and find that he has files that are locked and has a record of the missing workers, a paper trail. As they hid in the panel earlier, until he left. Julie catches them and they show her his paperwork. She is adamant it's not her behind it and she should've known of this on the system but their names aren't there. The Doctor tells Graham she needs the plans of the place and Charlie knows they have some in the museum.
Two bots take Kira to the dispatch floor and tell her there's a gift for her. As Yaz, Ryan and Charlie go and look for her. Ryan taking them through the delivery chute as it's the best way to get around. They get to Kira but it's too late as she opens the box and finds only bubble wrap inside it. She plays with it and pops it as Charlie tries to get her to stop. She gets blown up. The Doctor works on the first original bot and asks it to retrieve and deliver information for her. Finding out the message was sent by the system itself. As they head to find the others, Graham, Julie and the Doctor find the other loops and realize the workers were 'liquidized' by the system.
The Doctor then spots all the other delivery postmen bots. It's as though they're an army. Which is exactly what Charlie says they are and he has activated them to all activate at the same time, which is where the power was being drained to, with the momentary power shortages. The Doctor realizing they are carrying bombs to kill the customers. As she uses the original bot to reprogramme them and make them open the parcels and blow themselves up. With Charlie not wanting to leave there. Graham tells her to get them out of there as the Doctor takes the head of the bot and uses the Sonic to transport them away. Helen says they can work here if they want to but the Doctor says they're freelancers. As they leave, Yaz wants the Doctor to take them to Dan's home planet so she can return the necklace to Dan's daughter. As Ryan stops Graham from playing with the bubble wrap.
With their piercing blue eyes, the bots managed to be suitably sinister in that puppet sense of the term and reminded me of those robots in Doctor Twelve's (Peter Capaldi) ep 10.2 Smile where the expression on their faces would tell you what would happen next, i.e the robots who communicated by emoji.
This was another humanized story which deals with robots taking over jobs from humans and of course there's Julie's constant reference to humans as 'organics' until she finally changes at the end. However was she not a human herself. Charlie being an anti-tech terrorist who hopes his attack will ensure the people wake up to what's happening around them. Which backfires as firstly he loses Kira and them shows little remorse for his actions, as he's still determined to proceed with the imminent action in the killing of others. Claudia Jessie making another appearance after her excellent turn in ITV's Vanity Fair as Amelia Sedley.
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