(788) The Power of Three

Todays episode sees Matt Smith become the fifth longest serving Doctor in terms of days as when this episode was transmitted on September 22^nd 2012, it was his 995^th day as the Doctor and now he is 336 days behind William Hartnell. In episode terms, Matt Smith is only 1 episode behind Colin Baker. This is the second story of the series from Chris Chibnall, having written Dinosaurs on a Spaceship. Whilst these two stories have a good portion of comedy, this story is his best effort even including stories such as 42 from 2007. I haven’t mentioned this even though this is the fourth episode of the series, but the title sequence has changed and now the Doctor Who logo has relation to the story and so todays is cubes. I like this idea as it brings a newness to each story.

The story centres at first around cubes which appear in vast quantities and people tpically take them home and have selfies. So much time passes that people just accept them and they are then treated as safe. Of course things start to pick up and the cubes become more active but even that isn’t quick and it continues to move at a rather slow place.

Brian Cox makes a cameo and this is the return of the celebrity cameo which hasn’t been a factor in episods for quite a while. Alan Sugar from The Apprentice also makes a cameo and I liked this one because I am a fan of the show. However the biggest name that appears in this story is Steven Berkoff who plays Shakri. It’s quite impressive that someone who has appeared in Rambo: First Blood Part 2, Octopussy and Beverly Hills Cop has appeared in Doctor Who. The Shakri was to stop humanity from going off into space.

This episode marks the return of UNIT and also the introduction of Kate Stewart who is the Brigadiers daughter. It’s never referred to until later on and she dropped the Lethbridge part because she didn’t want any special treatment. I like the character because it’s a nice tribute the Nicholas Courtney. Jemma Redgrave was perfect casting in the rle and its been done so well that she became the first character from the new series to be used by Big Finish which for most of its run has only been allowed to use classic series characters.

The fact that Amy and Rory seem to leave with the Doctor means that their lives on Earth keep on being put on pause and this builds up their exit because we are suppose to get use to the idea that they are going to leave the Doctor. There is still time during this episode for them to have several adventures with the Doctor.

The story is quite good and there is a bit at the end where Brian tells Amy and Rory to go travelling with the Doctor and Brian unknowingly sends them to their death but obviously at this time in 2012 we don’t know that. The NEXT TIME trailer fantastically shows the return of the Weeping Angels and sadly the return of River Song. This story has been a joy to watch. I like how the story has taken place over a year and the pacing of the story has been something that worked in the stories favour and by the end of the episode I actually thought that it was one of the strongest stories of the series so far.