(761) Flesh and Stone

I was thinking before watching this episode that I would like there to be more Angel stories. But at the moment we have to enjoy what we have. The opening episode set things up nicely but the thing about this story is that it follows the trends of previous two parters and that is the second half is not as strong as the opening episode. The cliffhanger (without Graham Norton) was resolved quite cleverly when they were basically standing upside down from where they were. In the early part of the episode where they are in the tunnel there is some nice editing to help them move whilst they can’t be seen to move. Another good editing moment comes when they are surrounding the Doctor in the control room and he is looking at either side of him.

I like how Amy is slowly and subtly being turned into stone. She started counting down from 10 and saying numbers in the middle of conversations. She gets into the situation where she has to close her eyes to stop the angel inside her killing her. I thought that this was quite a clever moment. She is well used in this episode because even though she can’t open her eyes, she has to navigate the woods whilst trying to avoids the angels. This is clever writing from Steven Moffat (wonder how much longer I will be writing this).

The sight of angels in the forest are really good. This is the episode where you see them moving for the first time and I really liked it. There is something just as creepy about them moving than if we don’t see them moving. The way that they are defeated could be argued to be a bit of a cheat because they get sucked into the crack through consuming all the energy and gravity letting them down. Personally I thought that was quite a good idea and the only practical way that they could be defeated.

There is a nice bit where the Doctor goes off and the Doctor seems to come back but he appears to be wearing his jacket even though he lost it in the control room. At this time it would appear to be a continuity error but it becomes quite important at the end of the series.

I thought that the death of Octavian was a shame because it was a nice performance from Iain Glen. River Song is revealed by Octavian to have killed a good man. This starts a mystery about the identity of the victim. I thought that Alex Kingston was good in this episode.

The ending of this episode caused a bit of controversy because weird people got their knickers into a twist that Amy was acting inappropriately towards the Doctor. To be honest I thought that this was all a bit of hogwash as there has been snogging between Doctors and Companions and it all seemed to be something about nothing.

Amy’s Date was mentioned earlier in the episode and the full date was revealed before the very end and the date is June 26, 2010 which is when the final episode of the series was broadcast. This was good at the time because it made it seem that something big was going to happen on this date because a date hadn’t been put into a story so much like this.

I don’t think that this episode has quite the punch that the previous episode did but there were things in it that I found it entertaining. The series is moving along quite nicely and apart from The Beast Below, this series has shown that it could survive without David Tennant.

(759) Victory of the Daleks

It’s fair to say that the Daleks haven’t been exactly original since they came back. Dalek was quite good for being different but it seemed like Dalek stories afterwards have tended to rather middle of the road in terms of plot. It’s no secret that the Daleks are in this as Daleks is in the title and they were hinted at in the previous episode but the pre-title scene ends with the Dalek being revealed as the secret weapon that Winston Churchil uses and this is a good introduction for them.

This episode is rather controversial because Steven Moffat does the first thing that annoys certain Doctor Who fans. He tries to reinvent the wheel and redesign the Daleks. Not just a nip and tuck here and there but pretty much redesigns them by colour coding them. They look like a group of Teletubbies. Things start off so well when the Dalek makes its first appearance in army colours. It’s not just the colours but also the shape of them. They look completely odd looking from the back.

“I am your soldier” is Mark Gatiss’ nod to the Power of the Daleks when the Daleks say “I am your servant!”. The Doctor spends a while trying to convince Winston Churchill and Amy that the Daleks are bad and it doesn’t take too long for their true colours to show (forgive the pun). When the new Daleks are created the first thing that they do is to exterminate the old Daleks because they are not pure and are willing to be killed.

Ian McNeice plays Winston Churchill and does a great job. Not only does he look like Churchill but when he talks and the way he holds himself I believe that he is the former Prime Minister. It’s good how Churchill wants to use the TARDIS to help win the war. There is a nice bit of cheeky banter between Churchill and the Doctor. Bill Paterson plays Bracewell who seems like a nice scientist who ‘created’ the Ironsides but its soon revealed that they created him. He is used as a weapon by the Daleks and at the end the right thing happened when he survives and is pretty much given a new life. I thought that it was a nice bit of casting and worked in the episode’s favour.

Spitfires in Space is the sort of thing that TD would have come up with and I just think that it’s a step too far and doesn’t really work. That said it’s the only time that I got slightly frustrated with the story. The Doctor has to make a choice of saving humans or letting the Daleks go free. I think that this is a nice dilemma for the new Doctor and one that is handled well.

After being slightly disappointed with The Beast Below, I am happy that to report that things are back on track. Apart from the dodgy new Dalek design, this story is rather interesting and has some interesting moments. The performances are good from Matt Smith and Karen Gillan and the writing from Mark Gatiss is of the same calibre that we have had from his previous episodes. The NEXT TIME trailer reminds me that the Weeping Angels are set to make a return and that’s something to look forward to.

(758) The Beast Below

The Beast Below follows the traditional pattern of how a series begins. This is Amy’s first trip into space. The most memorable thing about this episode were the smiling faces in the booths. There are several faces but its one very angry face that is quite chilling. It quite good that the show can make these sort of things seem scary. What I didn’t expect when I watched in 2010 that they actually get out of the booth and start walking around.

One of the aspects of the story that does work is the idea that every five years people watch a video. You can choose to Protest or Forget. It all hinges of what has been done for Starship UK and Amy is put in that position this is her first test as a companion and she tries to interfere in the process and tries to take the decision out of the Doctor’s hand which creates a nice bit of conflict between the two.

Sophie Okonedo is one of the big names and plays Liz 10 who is the Queen and has been part of the five year forget plan. Okonedo is a big name actress and yet the role she plays isn’t the greatest. At first the character seemed mysterious and then when Liz started speaking it lost all of that mystery. Terrence Hardiman is the demon headmaster Hawthorne and he is the one that has been keep things ticking over while Liz 10 has been forgetting things. Due to the fact that I cant get past his Demon Headmaster I don’t quite believe the character and that’s a shame really.

They have been torturing the beast to move it under the assumption that they had to torture it to keep them alive but the space whale wanted to help them cause it couldn’t let the children cry. This worked quite well in the context of the story but I just think that it took too long for us to get to this moment.

There is a nice link into the next episode where Winston Churchill is calling the Doctor. What makes the end to this episode work is that there is a shadow of a Dalek. There is also another part of the crack story arc when we see the crack in the shell. It seemed at first that it’s a subtle thing but then the camera zooms in on it to make it quite obvious. I was never a fan of this episode before today and nothing has changed because its an ok episode but nothing special. I think the novelty of a new Doctor means that I can sort of forgive Moffat for writing a story that doesn’t quite hit the mark.