Please don’t hate me … but I didn’t love this episode.
Spoilers below …
Okay, so this wasn’t a bad episode. It even had a lot of elements to recommend it. That is, perhaps, why realizing that the sum of the parts was greater than the whole is such a disappointment.
There is perhaps no Doctor Who trope more common across the length of the series than “The Doctor and his Companion wander through a decrepit starship / colony and try to discover why things have gone wrong.” This could make it a cliche, but it also lends it a level of familiarity upon which to build the new Doctor upon. A fine choice.
There’s a ton of neat stuff in the episode, too. Elizabeth the 10th (and her reigns)? Uber-creepy multi-faced heads in cabinets? A Beast Below (with a poem to match)? All good stuff. And the sheer awesomeness of the idea that populace individually votes whether to maintain (forgotten) the Horrible Secret, or to reject it (and pay the consequences) is wildly wonderful.
And that is, perhaps the problem. There’s too much good stuff here — at least an episode-and-a-half, if not two full ones. As a result, the last third or so of the episode (once they reach the Tower) ends up feeling rushed, the horrible decision to be made forced, the brilliant solution grabbed too much out of a hat (while, at the same time, being force-fed through flashbacks).’
A more fundamental problem is that the whole Doctor-Companion relationship feels even more manipulated here. Amy goes from being delighted, to outraged over being in her nightgown, to trying to figure out what’s going on, to being the wild and crazy B&E artist, to making the Big Decision on behalf of the Doctor (and did she therefore actually make that recording herself just before her “forgetting”?), to helpless prisoner and browbeaten nasty human, to genius Gordian Knot-slicer and hugger of the Doctor. And the Doctor kind of just goes along for the ride. What he does (and ends up not doing) is defined by his Companion. She turns out to be the brilliant one, while he makes the hard decision (which she knew he’d have to make) and turns out to be (potentially) tragically wrong.
It’s too fast, too pushed, and too soon. And the whole “oh, an elder being, last of their kind, helping the children” was just too trite for words.
There are some other things I didn’t care for. For all that the kids were a key part of the solution (the raison d’etre, so to speak), for the most of the show (even during the solving) they were sort of lumps. After giving us a fabulous Amanda in the first ep of the season, we get very little in the way of interesting kiddies here. Mandy, the young girl, seems along in the episode mostly to be in place for the climax, acting as a set piece.
So, overall, lots of cool bits, and even some interesting Doctor-angry-at-humanity, but the pacing is off, the timing within the series seems off, and it just doesn’t … quite … work for me.
(Allow me to note that watching the show via BBC America is entailing a commercial break every 5-7 minutes or so. Ugh. I really don’t want to either bit-torrent the series down from the UK, or wait for the DVDs, but the viewing experience is pretty darned awful.)
Still, eagerly awaiting (for a change) the Daleks next time.
io9’s reviewer thought that the problem was that it was Moffet trying to hard to be Davis and basically writting an ep that went against his main strengths.
The “there’s something creepy down below” and the “Smilers” (and, for that matter, the recorded message from Amy) were very classic Moffet, but a lot of the rest (Doctor! Must! Make! Hard! Decision!) felt much more Davies — and, yes, the weaker for it.
Growing pains.
I liked it more than you, but I agree that it kinda over-emphasized Amy without much cause and didn’t really gel properly. BUT just remember how long it took Davies to get up to speed. I didn’t really get into the new series at all until Eccleston’s 6th episode (“Dalek”). Tennant’s first two episodes weren’t very good (“New Earth” and “Tooth and Claw”), either. (Of course, his third was “School Reunion” and fourth was “Girl in the Fireplace”…)
I think I’ll give Moffat and Smith a few more chances. 🙂
Oh, absotively — I wasn’t that wowed with the first Tennant or Eccleston ep, either (though it was the second Eccleston ep, “End of the World,” that made me fall in love with the show). Moffat (rrg, yes, that’s how I should be spelling it) has a while to go before I give up on him.
(And it wasn’t a bad episode — just not a very good one.)
I liked this episode but didn’t love it. I would have liked it more if it had in fact been two episodes. The kids did feel secondary, even though they were obviously important. I liked Liz 10, and would have liked to have her a bit more developed.
That being said, I’m still impressed with Matt Smith. I don’t know yet if that was because I had such low expectations so he has an easy bar to reach or if he’s just that good. Looking forward to the next episode as I think in all of the new series the Dalek interaction has been a key building block of the character.
Smith did well within the bounds he was given. I liked his whole bit to Amy about observation (something I think is going to be key with this Doctor), as well as his “never interfere (except when kids are crying)” doctrine.
It will be interesting to see how the whole Dalek thing goes, esp. in Moffat’s hands. It’s hard not to enjoy Daleks, but it’s also very easy to feel they’ve been way overexposed in the new order.
Probably overexposed because Daleks are the Doctor Who Thing That People Who Never Saw Doctor Who Pre-Eccelston Actually Recognize (speaking from personal experience).
Kate and I enjoyed the episode more than Dave+Commenters – I saw it has a commentary on the current over-monitoring in Britain, which is a subject that needs to be mocked/satirized – but it certainly had its weaknesses. It occurs to me that while Moffat is well known for creepy episodes, he should be just as well known for writing his female characters as Mary Sues (http://www.tor.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=blog&id=28668), and a lot of the uneveness we see in Amy Pond in the second episode could be seen as a direct result of some weak Mary Sue writing: First the special space walk, then the girl-in-the-nightie, then the hyper competent lockpick, then the decision-maker, then the girl-who-figures-out-the-solution.
Yeah, that lines up surprisingly/annoyingly well.
At least he had the decency to have the Doctor yell at her for some of that behavior.
Oh, I understand the popular appeal of the Daleks (and, to a slightly lesser degree, the Cybermen). Just … disappointed they’re so much at the fore.
A very interesting article on the Mary Sue problem. Hrm. I hope that doesn’t bode ill for the series. The show is “Doctor Who,” not “The Companion.” (Though, to be fair, a show focused on someone who gets swept up by and accompanies an eccentric, mysterious, powerful being across time and space would be interesting ….)
Davies ran the Daleks and the Cybermen into the ground, they both need to be put away for a season or three. Prior to Davies, they would both only show up for one or two story archs an entire Doctor/Actor’s run, not every freaking 5th episode. Same with the Master, and especially the lame one we are currently burdoned with.
The Dalek’s, Cybermen and The Master are special plot treats, not plot staples.
Having seen every Dr. Who available (with the exception of last season which I am catching up on, and of course Beast Below), Then Sarah Jane Smith and Ace are also Mary Sues based on the badly thought out logic of the Tor writer. Really, watch the full series before making such a sweeping statement.
I for one have been pleased as punch to finally have companions (especially female ones), that are something other than problem making scream machine plot devices. In the past I always hated the Dumbing Down of Leela, Romana, Teagan, Nyssa, and Sarah Jane Smith, which is why Donna has been my Fave Companion of the current series and Ace was my Fave of the old series, they stayed true to character, grew along an arc and were never dumbed down. The best Sarah Jane Smith episode was one directed by a woman who gave half of the Doctors lines to Sarah Jane, and it was brilliant.
River Song is a silly plot point left behind by Davies, and hopefully all is cleaned up by Moffit, and Blink was great fun since it was not all about the Doctor, and that someone else could actually function without him.
The only one I would even come close to agreeing with was the The Girl in the Fireplace, since it made the least sense character wise, but then again I was hoping that Rose was going to get off’d.
I never cared for “The Girl in the Fireplace,” largely because the Doctor acted so much out of character.
I wouldn’t call Sarah Jane a Mary Sue, and I certainly don’t think there’s a binary choice between Mary Sues and Helpless, Stupid Companions with the Vapours. There were independent streaks in Rose, Martha, and esp. Donna that I just loved, esp. the latter (less so the first), and they were appropriate and properly done.
I will withhold judgment until a few more eps are in place. But I stand by my disagreement with the uber-Amy we saw in “The Beast Below,” whatever the reasons for it.