[user104658]

Originally Posted by Marsh.

I really don't get Nardole's popularity on DS.

I remember them being pleasantly surprised when Catherine Tate wasn't just a caricature from one of her sketch shows and yet that's all Nardole is. He's like a Little Britain character and Matt Lucas although a good actor is not here. He's awful.

Might help if he held any relevance to the plot but he doesn't.

I remember hating Donna the first time I watched it, but I've just rewatched that season and (after about the half way point of the season) I actually quite liked her as a companion . What has happened to me. Then again I think maybe the reason I hated her was because I can't stand her sketch shows and couldn't get over it... but now enough time has passed for me to mostly forget them and I can appreciate her as a standalone character .

Originally Posted by Marsh.

Also why in episode 1 was he all robotic making mechanical noises as he moved with screws falling off him but now he doesn't?

I feel I've missed something somewhere. Maybe a whole episode?

Well thinking about it, he presumably does have an android body of some sort? I mean the last we saw him before he came back as a companion, he was just a severed head who shared that big robot body. The Doctor "made" him a new body for his head so you would assume it's at least partly mechanical. Also explains why he was able to survive the dose of the world-killing toxin... it affected him because he does still have a biological head and it would have gotten into the bloodstream for that, but he would have a synthetic respiratory system so it didn't kill him. Maybe I'm over-thinking it? Anyway, the Doctor I'm sure definitely mentioned that he made a new body for Nardole, but they didn't really dwell on it after that.