The last time that Dinosaurs featured in Doctor Who, it wasn’t
the greatest of experiences. Invasion of the Dinosaurs was a good story but was
let down by the rather poor dinosaurs. So it was with great curiosity that
Dinosaurs made a return to modern Who. There is a ship heading towards earth
where the Doctor has six hours stopping a ship from being destroyed. That’s the
whole point of the episode but there is a whole thing about Solomon taking
Queen Nefertiti that seemed to get bolted on at the end which didn’t really
make much sense.
Mark Williams joins the show as Brian Williams (Rory’s Dad)
and is the best casting since Bernard Cribbins was cast as Wilfred Mott. Everytime
he talks I find it funny and I love the bit where he is sitting on the edge of
the TARDIS looking at the earth.
First thing to say about the story is that the Dinosaurs are
much better than the 1974 version. That should go without saying. There is a
mixture of CGI and physical props and its difficult to tell the difference. I
suppose that computer graphics have improved enough in the intervening 38 years
and I think that if Barry Letts had been arrived in 2012 then he would have
liked these dinosaurs in his story because Invasion of the Dinosaurs would be
rated differently by fans.
Robert Webb and David Mitchell are a comedy duo and voice
the two Robots. At first I found the robots to be annoying but over the course
of the episode, they seem to be quite funny and I wish that they were allowed
to be more in the story because they are actually quite funny people and if you
are going to have a comedy double act then you should at least let them show
their talents.
David Bradley plays Solomon who is a rather unlikeable
person but shortly after this he would play William Hartnell in An Adventure in
Space and Time. Solomon wanted refuge on the Silurians ship, killed the
Silurians to get the cargo and then got outsmarted by the Silurians in death so
he is stuck on the ship. The interation between Solomon and the Doctor is quite
good and its easy (ish) to dislike Solomon because he really has no remorse for
killing the Silurians.
I thought this was an ok story but the mixed tone meant that
I couldn’t really get involved in the story and thought that after the great
start to the series, this one was always going to struggle to match it. I didn’t
have quite the same problem with Amy and Rory that I did in the previous story.
The NEXT TIME trailer reminds me that a good story is coming up and this series
so far does seem to be slightly better than the previous one. It is definelty more
lighter in tone than the previous one.
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