The Beast Below

The Beast Below is the only episode this season that really failed to fire for me on first viewing and since then, I have only watched it once previous to this review (and yes I know, people hated Victory of the Daleks more but we shall get to that in due course). Re-watching this episode I thought would be a tough slog, but on re-evaluation it has proven to be alright. This is The Beast Below.

This week's adventure begins where the Meanwhile in the TARDIS scene left off, with Amy outside of the TARDIS being held by the Doctor. You can see the wonder and imagination in her eyes as she seems to revert to that child-like self we all know we have inside. They spot the passing Starship UK, an interstellar ship which left Earth due to solar fares. This provides a nice link with the Tom Baker story The Ark in Space which had a similar premise while also providing continuity with the classic series. The Doctor tells Amy his one rule for their journeys and that is "we never get involved with the affairs of other peoples or planets"; but while Amy contemplates this, the Doctor appears on the view-screen comforting a little girl and gesturing Amy to come along.

Amy questions the Doctor on this point as he states "unless there are children crying". This banter between Amy and the Doctor sets up there relationship throughout this series until the dynamic changes during the next season. Both the Doctor and Amy thoroughly enjoy each other's company by just being friends. Amy just wanted her Raggedy Doctor to come back and to see the universe while the Doctor just wants a friend after the events of his previous incarnation. The Doctor challenges Amy to find whats wrong with this scene which she can't do but not before the Doctor places a glass of water on the floor. This clues him into the problem of Starship UK as he tells Amy to go and investigate the crying girl, Mandy. The Doctor heads to the engine room where he encounters Liz Ten who has caught on to the fact that there is no engine. This is because a ship that large would create vibrations meaning the water would move. I like how the Doctor figured this out early in the episode leaving us to discover it from Amy's perspective.

We then follow Amy and Mandy as they discover part of what lurks below. They are confronted by Winders and Amy wakes up in a voting booth choosing to forget what she saw. She sees a video of her warning herself to find the Doctor and to leave the ship. Amy's forgetting of what she saw shows the audience that even though she is an adult now, she still is a child inside and chooses to run away from the problem. The Doctor comes swanning in, telling Amy he knows what to do and pushes the 'protest' button. They fall into a wet, mushy patch which the Doctor tells Amy is a mouth. They escape and are confronted by the Smilers as they exit their box and try to attack the Doctor, when Liz Ten saves them.

Liz leads them to her room where the Doctor discovers an interesting secret about Liz. The Doctor is shown as extra perceptive in this episode as he discovers most of what is happening in the first 20 mins while he doesn't discuss this with Amy, he leaves her and us (the audience) guessing as to what the true nature of the starship is. They are lead by the Winders into the Tower of London where Liz finds out that she is really 300 years old and every ten years has to see the video on the Star Whale which drives the starship forward. The Doctor comes up with two solutions, neutralise the whale's brain and let it live on without pain or to let it go and the entire civilisation on board would die. As the Doctor prepares to neutralise the brain, he tells Amy that she is going home after this because she chose to forget reflecting her child-like stance on life.

She remembers the Doctor's words of "look at everything, every small detail". Amy remembers the various things the people said about the whale and determines that it came in peace all those years ago and slams the 'abdicate' button with Liz's hand. The whale moves forward at a faster speed now that its not being tortured and Amy explains that "if you were old, lonely and the last of your kind, you couldn't stand by if children are crying". This shows that Amy is growing to understand the Doctor and his place in the universe as they hug and embrace each other as they both understand each other much more after this adventure.

They both re-enter the TARDIS as the phone rings. Amy answers and it's Winston Churchill from the next episode who tells the Doctor he needs his help with a small problem as the shadow of a Dalek appears on the wall. They fly off into the next adventure when the camera pans out onto Starship UK with the mysterious crack appearing on the hull linking into the overall arc for the series.

This episode is one that split me on many points while the plot was alright, it was the interplay with the Doctor and Amy that really sells this episode but it still doesn't raise it above a 6 out of 10. Although the Doctor and companion relationship was really fleshed out and expanded in this episode, I felt that the plot somewhat let it down in some aspects but it's still an above average story just slightly off centre for Steven Moffat (not that it happens often).

Join us next time for a special review with a good mate and some of the Doctor's worst enemies.

NEXT TIME: VICTORY OF THE DALEKS by Julian Barber 

Meanwhile in the TARDIS - Scene One

Meanwhile in the TARDIS is a set of two minisodes commissioned for release along with the Complete Series Five boxset which fill in two 'gaps' between episodes of the series with the first taking place just after The Eleventh Hour and leading into The Beast Below.

In this first scene, Amy is questioning the Doctor about various things that are odd about the TARDIS such as "Where does all the air go?", "Why is it made of wood?" and "Why is it a Police Box?". The Doctor answers the last one stating "the chameleon circuit analyses it's surroundings to find a suitable object to bend in, then it disguises itself as a 1963 police box". This scene was produced to further the relationship with the Doctor and Amy with Amy still initially wary of the Doctor and who he is.

After answering a barge worth of questions, the Doctor assures Amy that he "is definitely a madman with a box". The Doctor's theme kicks in as he leads Amy to the door and it opens onto space. Amy questions him again saying "Is that special effects?" and the Doctor says "Find out" and pushes her out the door. This leads directly into the beginning of The Beast Below.

While this is a short episode, I thought I would discuss my thoughts on the new TARDIS interior. The new interior console room incorporates many more Earth objects than it has ever before stuff like ordinary taps to bicycle pumps. Also, the new TARDIS has a much more fantastical feel to it like its a playground for children (maybe because the first human it saw was young Amelia). The new interior doesn't both me that much cause it's what a child would imagine the TARDIS to be with warm inviting colours and an M. C Esher inspired staircase design that catches the audience's eye.

The interior of the console room is always changing usually with a different doctor and this new console room seems to sum up at least some of the Eleventh Doctor's characteristics within his time on the show. It seems to be a mix and match of various cultures and ideas leading to a fantasy element within the room and it also creates a safe haven for our companions by including familiar objects within the room  to try to make it more appealing and somewhat homely to them.

While I won't judge these minisodes out of ten, I will still post my thoughts about them if they provide a deeper depth to the characters and are necessary in understanding maybe a fraction of what goes on inside the TARDIS between, during or after episodes.

NEXT TIME: THE BEAST BELOW 

The Eleventh Hour

Alot of people were very sceptical when Matt Smith was first announced as the Eleventh Doctor and I must admit, I WAS ONE OF THEM. I made up a million excuses saying stuff like 'Look at the Costume, Yuck", "That's the logo?" or "He's not the Doctor" but I realised something, I was judging a book by it's cover something that I was taught never to do so I gave him a chance. And Boy was I WRONG. Matt's Doctor bust onto the scene in only the short amount of time he was on screen at the end of David Tennant's final episode and I was hooked for what was to come.

Then, four months later, the Eleventh Hour premiered. And I will say, I was not disappointed at all.
Join me as we look at The Eleventh Hour.

Our episode opens with the Doctor crashing back to Earth after the events of The End of Time. He narrowly avoids many London landmarks including Big Ben until the titles come crashing in. Personally, I always liked these new titles cause they represent the new 'dark fairytale' motif that is present throughout the season. We then cut to a young scottish girl named Amelia who is praying by her bed side when she hears a rather unique noise. She looks outside to see the TARDIS on its side and on top of her shed. It's by coincidence  that she happened to be praying for someone to fix the crack in her wall, was the TARDIS taking him where he needs to go? Then Amelia gets the first glimpse of the man who will be with her for most of her life: the Doctor.

Now, this Amelia and Doctor dynamic that is established in the opening twenty or so mins is one that I found fascinating. For the first time in the show's history, the Doctor directly affects a companions development into an adult. Most of the time, the Doctor joins a companion in their mid to late 20's, travels with them for a while and then either leaves them or they are killed. The Doctor in this instance is creating what would become his companion, Amy Pond who starts out as a jagged individual but throughout the course of the season realises just how much Doctor can change the lives around him. Both the Doctor and Amy grow into the people they need to be throughout the course of this season to become great friends.

The Doctor proceeds to try a variety of different food until he settles on fish fingers and custard (can't wait to try that). Amelia takes this in her stride and is just glad to have a friend with her cause her aunts out. They both go to investigate the crack when the Doctor says that's it not just an ordinary crack, it's a crack in time and space.

And so begins this season's arc of cracks in the universe. While I would love to discuss the cracks and the season arc at great length here, I will save that for the season retrospective as a way to sum up the entire series and to see if the cracks in the universe are an intriguing and well-thought out arc.

They receive a message from an alien (a giant eyeball creature) on the other side saying "Prisoner Zero has escaped". Before the Doctor can investigate the engines begin to phase and he has to make a quick pop to the future, promising to come back in five mins to pick up young Amelia to travel with him in his time machine. She races upstairs to pack her case and awaits the Doctor's return in the garden.

The Doctor returns during the day calling for Amelia and rushing into the house to investigate something. He gets knocked out by a cricket bat and awakens to find a policewoman who has cuffed him to the radiator. He asks her where Amelia is, she says that she hasn't lived here for a long time, about six months. It's here the Doctor asks this policewoman to count the rooms, she says there are five but he says six. She enters this mysterious room and finds his sonic screwdriver along with Prisoner Zero, who is a long snake like monster (for our monster of the week aspect).

They escape the house, try to enter the TARDIS when it locks them out and the Doctor notices something. The shed he crashed into has been rebuilt and discovers he wasn't six months but twelve years at which point the policewoman breaks out of her estuary accent and into her natural scottish one revealing that she is the grown up Amelia Pond. They escape Prisoner Zero and the Doctor probes her for answers in which Amy reveals that she waited twelve years and went through four psychiatrists. But before the Doctor can fully process this information he hears the announcement from the Atraxi "Prisoner Zero must vacated the human residence or the human residence will be incinerated". The Doctor determines that they don't just mean Amy's house but the entire world.

He ascertains that he has 20 minutes to save the world and only a post office which is shut. Amy mistrusts the Doctor throughout this episode as she doesn't want to believe he exists due to the twelve years of being told so. The Doctor produces the apple young Amelia gave to him, fresh as the day he got it. in this one small character moment, Amy trusts him and they set out to stop the destruction of the Earth.

Throughout this episode, Rory (a nurse at the local hospital) has been seeing coma patients walking out and about in the town. These are the forms that Prisoner Zero has been taking as it feeds on a psychic link to change it's form. It's at this point that the Doctor notices Rory photographing this man instead of the freak change of sun colour. Another running theme is Amy's fascination with the Raggedy Doctor which will play into the overall season arc and into later episodes in which Rory returns. Rory remembers the Doctor from Amy's numerous drawings and describes to him what he noticed when the
Doctor tries to gain the Atraxi's attention by overloading various technology with his sonic screwdriver which unfortunately breaks.

The Doctor heads back to Amy's friend's house to write a computer virus while his new friends heads to the hospital to clear the area. When they reach the hospital, they find the coma ward ransacked and a woman with two children. She reveals herself to be Prisoner Zero and traps Amy and Rory in the coma ward. The Doctor comes crashing in and confronts Prisoner Zero. He tells him that the Atraxi have tracked the Zero Virus to the hospital breaking out a "Who da man" for good measure. Prisoner Zero then takes on a previously unseen from, that of a Young Amelia with the Raggedy Doctor.

This again plays into how the Doctor has had a greater impact on Amy then any of his other companions as it shows how for the past twelve years she has been dreaming of running away with this mysterious man and shows how she doesn't trust him initially in this season but throughout the course of this season, both the Doctor and Amy grow into better people by being in each others company.

The Doctor manages to get Amy to imagine Prisoner Zero in it's original form and the Atraxi leave with the prisoner in tow but not before Prisoner Zero states that "The Pandorica will open and Silence will Fall". The Doctor orders them back to Earth for threatening to blow up our planet and he rushes up stairs to confront them but not before getting rid of the "Raggedy". He orders the Atraxi to run and then he departs for the TARDIS with Amy and Rory following in tow. He leaves without them but returns at night stated he just went for a quick trip around the moon. Amy comes out revealing to him he has been another two years for all up fourteen years for the girl who waited, she waits no more. They enter the newly designed control room and head off for another adventure not before a last shot of a crack in the TARDIS scanner.

This episode is the most effective opening story for a Doctor in the new series. It sets up the Doctor and companion relationship well and it also sets up the running arc for the season and founding steps for the overall arc of this Doctor's time in charge.

There is nothing I find wrong with this episode so it gets a 10 out of 10 for being an effective and pleasing opening for the new Doctor.

Join me next time but expect no love when you go below.

NEXT TIME: THE BEAST BELOW 

P.S. Sorry for the length of this one but it does set up a lot of themes and ideas for this Doctor's run.

My History with Doctor Who

Originally this part of my blog was included in my Eleventh Hour review but it grew to become it's own beast so I decided to post it as a prelude to my reviews so that you guys can get a background into my history with Doctor Who. So come with me on a trip down memory lane all the way back to 2003.

Matt Smith's Doctor would be the first time I was watching a Doctor's tenure unfold in front of me in real time as I had missed both Christopher Eccleston's and David Tennant's first series (I joined the show in series four) but this was not my first foray into Who-dom. A few years ago, the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) were reshowing Classic Doctor Who's at 6pm right after the weekday cartoons. Usually me and my brothers would flick over to Channel Ten to watch the Simpsons (cause everyone loved it then) but one day, my mother walked in on us watching it and flicked through the channels to find this weird little science fiction show on and said "You can watch this or the tv goes off", little did she know what she had started. So we sat there and watched Planet of the Spiders - Part Five. I don't remember much about those two episodes with Jon Pertwee because the next evening he was a diferent man.

Tom Baker (although I didn't know his name at the time) was the man in charge and he was taking his friends for adventures in his TARDIS (didn't know that one either). We start in awe as each day we watched the Doctor travel through time and space, battling Daleks, Cybermen and any other monsters he came across. We watched week after week (I even have early memories of those episodes each time I rewatch certain episodes) until the Fourth Doctor was out and the Fifth Doctor was in. We continued to watch as Peter Davison kept the excitement alive for his companions and for us watching.

Then Peter left in a blaze of glory and Colin Baker stepped in with his bright coat and big personality. We kept watching until we reached the Trial of a Time Lord season in which for some reason, the ABC had stopped screenings of the episodes. But that point, being so young I forgot about this show but I always had fond memories from those days of watching a quirky science fiction show with my brothers on a weekday afternoon.

Then in 2007, Everything Changes.

My best friend (who I met on a bus to school one day), said to me "I've started watching this show and I think you may like it". "Really? What it is?" I said. "Doctor Who" came the reply. I was stunned, I thought why would he be interested in an old show. I said exactly that and he replied "No, I know that one but this one is brand new". We sat down that weekend and watched New Earth. And we were hooked. Ever since then, We (me, him and my bros) caught up to date with the show in which we made it to series 4 about halfway through when it was airing. We eagerly watched the final few episodes of David Tennant awaiting the arrival of the Eleventh Doctor and we would not be disappointed.

While some episodes have failed to fire and others stand up to even the classics such as The Caves of Androzani, Matt Smith's four years (and three series) at the helm have inspired children and children at heart around the world and have revitalised a fifty year show for a new generation. For me personally, I have had a wonderful ride with this Doctor and will be sad to see him go but THANK YOU Matt for making me believe you truly are the Doctor and have become my favourite doctor of all time (along with Tom Baker :D).

COMING SOON: THE ELEVENTH HOUR 

P.S. Feel free to post your history of Doctor Who in the comments as I would love to hear how other fans got into the show.

Introduction to my Blog

With the news earlier this month that the Eleventh Doctor (Matt Smith) will be leaving us at the end of this year's christmas special, I have decided to review his entire run of stories leading up to the Anniversary special and then the Christmas special to see how each series and its stories connects together and if his version of the Doctor is a definitive one for our generation.

I will be rating each episode out of ten and discuss my favourite moments from the episodes including a Matt Smith moment from each episode which I think defines his Doctor perfectly. 

So without further ado, here is Matt Smith's first scene as the Doctor which appears at the End of Time, Part Two's conclusion with David Tennant having just regenerated: 

The Doctor: Legs! I've still got legs! [kisses one of them] Good. Arms, hands, Ooh fingers. Lots of fingers. Ears? Yes. Eyes: two. Nose....eh, I've had worse. Chin - blimey! Hair...[notes length] I'm a girl! [checks Adam's apple] No! No! I'm not a girl! [pulls out a lock of his hair in front of his eyes and looks at it, agitated] And still not ginger! There's something else. Something.......Important, I'm... [taps head] I'm....I'm....
[The whole console room shakes]
The Doctor: [ecstatic] Ha ha Crashing!!!
[As the burning TARDIS falls to Earth, the Doctor clings to the console, laughing and whooping with glee]
The Doctor: Geronimo!

Catch up with me soon with your fish fingers and custard at the ready :D

COMING SOON: THE ELEVENTH HOUR 

P.S. I am also currently watching through the entire series of Star Trek: Voyager and posting my thoughts online. If you are a fan and want to hear the opinion of a person who has only previously seen the movie incarnations of the show, please come read and share your thoughts at my Voyager blog.

http://trekkingthroughspace.blogspot.com.au/