angelophile | Review: Doctor Who - The Beast Below (Reply)

The second outing for Matt Smith's Doctor and already he's demonstrating he's able to step into the shoes of the character as quickly as David Tennant did, neatly nudging the memory of the previous Doctor aside in the process.

What the episode also felt like was a step back towards old-school Doctor Who, notably having a feel of the Peter Davison era about it, and a blend of the sublime and the ridiculous.

It's also, sadly, I think the weakest episode Stephen Moffat's written for Doctor Who. Now, that's not necessarily damning the episode, since a Moffat episode is a cut above the norm in any case.

So, beneath the cut lie spoilers.

I think, perhaps, the best quote I've heard about this episode states:

"Where Russell T Davies had sentiment, this has heart"

The biggest advantage this story had was real chemistry between The Doctor and Amy and genuine heart, where RTD did tend to set up stories with the intention of wringing drama and sentiment out situations. Everything felt far more natural in this episode. Moffat's script instills the characters with enough emotion to seem real without feeling the need to manipulate the audience, even if he did lay on the comparisons a bit thick at the end.

The performances of Matt Smith and Karen Gillan were at the heart of this. Okay, you could argue that Amy was a bit too quick to suddenly latch onto the "lonely god" history of the Doctor, but it's notable that she doesn't see the Doctor as a lonely god, but rather lonely and kind. It's a strength of Matt Smith's performance that the kind definitely comes across, even when he's roaring that no-one human dare talk to him when he's forced to make an impossible choice.

Smith's definitely finding his feet with the role and his Doctor started to display more of an individual personality this episode instead of simply being an extension of Ten. A strange and slightly bumbling professor in the body of a young man, the costume fits the mold perfectly and Matt Smith made the Doctor both strange and approachable, helped by some fantastic lines in Moffat's script as the Doctor played hopscotch with about four ideas in one conversation, constantly jumping back and forth between them. Likewise Karen Gillan was natural and likeable and got her chance to shine. The chemistry between the two leads is a joy to see and very organic.

Less so Moffat's plot, which gave plenty to think about but also dropped the ball on a number of points. There was a wonderful surreality to the setting - a sort of amalgamated, fairytale meets post-war version of Britain shoved into a giant spaceship. It looked brilliant and also utterly quky and unique - a kind of sci-fi that's uniquely British as the setting. Add the villains, the scary, fairground booth style Smilers, also with extremely strong and unique designs. Then the political allegories. The voting booths. The brainwashing techniques which play on people's fears. Even a point about vivisection.

Sadly, there's also the feeling that the episode tried to do to much. The Smilers were visually arresting, but it's hard to ignore the fact that that's all they were - they never actually did anything apart from look scary. Then there's the fact that the ship was apparently a totalitarian regime where people were afraid to speak out, but by the end of the episode that's been entirely forgotten.

There's also the jarring problem with the main plot. It could work. The people go to vote and are given a choice - accept the fate of the space whale or protest. The former gets their memories wiped and, presumably, they leave a message to themselves saying they'd rather not know. So far so good. The latter get dropped right into the whale's gullet. Well, okay, harsh, but can't have those people who haven't had their memories wiped running around causing trouble, I suppose. But then, I don't get why anyone's even told about the space whale in the first place - "it's a democracy so they have to tell the truth to the people, but they don't get a REAL choice" seems to be the gist of it, but... yeah, I'm still clearly missing something.

But that could be skimmed over, largely, if it were solely people who might reveal the fate of the space whale to the general populace who were being "disposed of". However, apparently the government's so evil it's quite happy to randomly feed kids who get poor results in their classes to the whale too. And this never gets addressed. The impression's given that the government were acting "for the greater good" by keeping the knowledge of the whale from everyone, which would illicit some sympathy, but that's at odds them telling everyone and then randomly feeding kids to it and acting disappointed when they don't get eaten. And the Doctor apparently being fine with that. It's the major problem with the episode, although there are more...

The woefully underused Terrence Hardiman gets to do nothing apart from skulk in a phone booth and then potter around aimlessly in the dungeon and, despite the fact that his government have apparently been feeding people to a monster for several decades, at the end there's no comeback for that and it's not even commented on. You'd think someone might have given him a slap on the wrist.

Then there's the principal guest character of The Beast Below - smug, shouty Mockney Liz Ten. Sophie Okonedo's performance is deeply uncomfortable and just annoying - strutting about and shouting in a loud, gorbloymey voice as if everyone in earshot has gone deaf. The part had room for subtlety, but it was a pantomime level performance.

My main issue is that the plot felt like it was trying to be at least two plots at once, both of which ended up being underdeveloped because of it. There were some great ideas in there, but not enough was done with them, meaning a mish-mash of great ideas which never really came to fruition. Thanks to the strength of some of the ideas and the central performances, it wasn't always noticeable, and at the end of the episode it was the performances of Matt Smith and Karen Gillan that came through. Matt Smith showing he has the acting chops to pull off the often bipolar role of the Doctor and Karen Gillan instilling Amy Pond with confidence, compassion and a sense of wonder.

And the next episode looks like an absolute corker.