"The Hungry Earth"

Appropriately enough we're firmly grounded back on (and below) Earth for this rather obvious Third Doctor-era homage. With a plot which is kind of a hybrid of "The Silurians" and "Inferno" with a lot of the complexities surgically removed, I have to say that "The Hungry Earth" isn't exactly a high point of the series. The acting is all pretty top-notch as usual, and it's good to see the Doctor and Rory having to work as a team when Amy is captured, but it's all a bit slow and ponderous and unfortunately the storyline does feel rather derivative. Essentially, people are disappearing into the Earth and the cause is revealed to be a prehistoric civilisation of anthropomorphic reptiles whose relatives we encountered in "The Silurians", "The Sea Devils" and, infamously, "Warriors of the Deep". On one hand it's good to have a plot like this which is so evocative of the Classic Series, yet at the same time it seems like they simply can't get into the same kind of detail when they have to do all this setup. We also have the classic 'lots of annoying Welsh people' situation. Now I don't wish to seem prejudicial but there's just something about a Welsh accent which is incredibly difficult to take seriously or imbue with dramatic realism. This includes a small annoying Welsh kid called Elliot with dyslexia who is basically pointless. It's nice to see the rappor the Eleventh Doctor has with kids, because he's a bit like a big kid himself in some ways, but you've got to wonder why they included this child besides to make the mother fret. I suppose if your father was poisoned and your only child was kidnapped by lizardmen you'd be upset too. Her husband is another pointless character.

One thing I don't get is why the Silurians are still in hibernation. We get the explanation for why they went underground in the first place in the following episode but if they have sufficiently advanced technology to ride thermal currents and project forcefields which block out the sun and stuff how come they couldn't tell that the moon wasn't going to crash into the planet and how come their sensors never woke them up until now? Speaking of which, the blue grass and small number of rare trace minerals in the soil seem like a rather mediocre reason for putting up an enormous drill and burrowing into the Earth deeper than anyone has ever gone. Isn't that overkill? I don't mind Nasreen because it's rather nice to see someone so directly inspired by the Doctor but her romance with Tony is a little hard to believe and he's rather underdeveloped as well.

The Silurians are a little disappointingly distant from the classic designs. They're basically people with scales and Alaya the one they capture is ham and cheese with all her dialogue about war and killing. How can the others understand her anyway? Do they have access to the TARDIS/Time Lord universal translator thing? Regardless, I think either their masks could have been their faces or they should have received a design substantially closer to the classic Silurian appearance because as they are I think they look a little ridiculous.

Rory's pretty good and his consternation about losing Amy is well played but even he feels somewhat superfluous and while the Doctor's obviously very busy seeking out a diplomatic solution you have to wonder if he's being a little optimistic. Besides, if the drill head set off the alarms for the Silurian city, why would the warrior caste be activated? Wasn't it the impact warning system built as a precaution against the moon? Wouldn't you want the builders and scientists and stuff activated, not the soldiers? I think it would have been interesting in an exploratory expedition had emerged from the earth rather than a bunch of typical Who baddies. It is clever how the Doctor and Rory trap Alaya in the meals-on-wheels van but the thing about them stealing dead bodies is unexplained, as is why they've been taking people. Are they using the graves as access points or something? Why are they stealing the bodies if they're prepared to dissect people alive anyway, as happened to Mo? How does that even work? And why does the Silurian doctor wear old-timey medical garb like he's a mad scientist from a Hammer film?

It's not that this episode is bad per se, and some particularly good work from The Smith, particularly in regards to his consternation at Amy's capture, is extremely important in carrying this episode, but a lot of the plot feels very safe and unambitious and I think they could have done a whole lot more. It's not very clear why the holes are appearing in the ground or what the 'bio-programming' is which is sucking people into the Earth. It feels evocative of the classic series in some ways but that same old 'base under siege' motif is become incredibly tired by this stage and I think it's time to give it a rest.

"Amy's Choice"

Why has Doctor Who not done this kind of thing before? Certainly not in the New Series, and not a great deal in the Classic Series, with the nightmare world of the Matrix in "The Deadly Assassin" and "The Ultimate Foe" being two possible exceptions. The notion that both worlds are dreams is a clever way of avoiding the "it was all just a dream" conclusion and it's reassuring to see the return of the dark side of the Doctor - I don't think anyone who's anyone failed to notice the evocation of the Valeyard in the concept of the Dream Lord.

A lot of the Leadworth stuff was obviously done on the cheap but it's appropriate and I think if you've ever been to one of those tiny English villages there is something depressingly small and quiet about them; it's excellent for reinforcing the uneasy sense of this dream state. On the flipside, I'm glad that the Doctor ended up judging the other world as being a dream based at least partially on the cold star because that's nonsense and he knew it. It's nice to see a bit of ridiculous pseudoscience being debunked rather than confirmed in an episode.

Of course it's most important for the relationship between Amy and Rory. Surely we never thought that Amy would choose the Doctor over Rory, right? Not only was that the choice Rose made, which I always felt came across as a kind of delusional one, obviously the relationship between Amy and her fiancee is completely different to the one she has with her 'imaginary friend' as it were. The Doctor is a time-travelling alien scientist, and while his lifestyle may seem intriguing and glamorous he's not exactly relationship material. The fact that it takes Rory's death to make Amy realise that she loves him is clearly a rather significant piece of development for her. But of course choosing Rory doesn't mean a life of stultifying tedium in Leadworth in reality, and this is where the Dream Lord comes in.

I think it's a lot more effective to have the Doctor's darkest thoughts manifest as an entity rather than have him angsting and tearing up all the time. We have to understand that the Doctor's jealousy, his disbelief, his disdain and his self-loathing at the way he treats his companions are not dominant aspects of his personality but at the same time after nine hundred years of time and space they've kind of accrued to a significant degree and he has a lot to draw from. It's important to know that the Doctor is troubled by these aspects of himself and that they're possibly even dangerous yet at the same time he can overcome them and they can be dispelled.

There are a lot of good metafictional nods to the concepts of the show beyond the Fifth Doctor's cricket ball being under the TARDIS. The whole plot with the alien Eknodine hiding inside old people is a very effective pastiche of these sorts of 'sleepy town invasion' type stories and the way the Doctor is inclined to believe them to be real because of it is a telling reminder of the nature of his adventures and how they often seem to repeat themselves. Nonetheless the sight of shambling old people works as a bit of Father Ted-style humour whilst actually being a rather intimidating image.

Arthur Darvill's performance as Rory is top notch in the bits where he obviously yearns for the Leadworth dream and Amy's question to the Doctor after Rory is disintegrator and he's helpless "Then what is the point of you?" ought to silence those nay-sayers who have problems with Karen Gillan. Amy may be funny and fiesty but her serious side is good too, and her conviction to crash the van after losing Rory is quite a powerful one. Nonetheless there are plenty of funny lines, in regards to the Doctor's "I'm getting on a bit, don't let the cool gear fool you," and the ponchos, although a lot of the best, and particularly menacing, jokes go to the Dream Lord. We're left with the mystery as to who the Dream Lord is, and when the Doctor says that it was him at the end we couldn't face a better resolution.

The whole episode is a great way of exploring the Doctor's character, as well as Amy's and the whole Doctor/Amy/Rory dynamic. It reinforces how much the series has changed and I think while there are obvious similarities there are some astounding differences from the previous series. A lot of people see the younger cast and the lack of angsty in-your-face emotion as more child-friendly but actually I consider this a much more mature series than what has come previously. There's more exploration of issues, more variety and stronger characterisation. There's more ambiguity and it's certainly more imaginative. This is probably one of the strongest episodes of the entire New Series along with "The Eleventh Hour" and it's a relief to see these kinds of stories being made.

"The Vampires of Venice"

I would have to say that this is probably the weakest of this series. It's not a problem with the performances, which as usual are top notch, or the themes, but the plot is incredibly tired and not especially engaging. I've remarked before on how there's this constant 'aliens disguised as horror creatures living in the past and trying to take over the world to restore their race'. We had ghosts, we had werewolves, we had witches, we had giant molten rock men (okay I guess they're not that common) and now it's vampires. It's also the case in which, for obvious budgetary reasons, only a handful of the aliens are actually present and the rest are 'absent but waiting' so that they pose a threat for the future but can't actually interfere in present events. In this case it's Rosanna and Francesco Calvieri, who pose as humans on the surface while the rest of the Saturnynians hide in the water, only ever being involved to eat a couple of people. In addition, the plot gets basically no explanation. I mean yes, we're provided with reasonably effective explanations about how they can be mistaken for vampires, but how on earth does replacing people's fluids with their own turn them into their own kind? Wouldn't that just make these girls very sick and probably die? How are they vulnerable to sunlight? Amy makes some remark about how it's explained by them being fish but I don't see how. And even if it was true, how would it cause Francesco to spontaneously combust and burn to cinders within seconds when Amy shines some reflected light from her makeup mirror at him? It would have been nice to have had the makeup mirror seeded in the plot earlier, possibly with her unable to see the Vampires in it, and it's a wonder that she manages to hit a sunbeam with the weather becoming so overcast when Rosanna activates her flood machine. That's another thing - how does this flood machine thing work? And why is there a rope which conveniently allows the Doctor to climb to the roof? It's all very convenient and hand-wavey and unfortunately it doesn't exactly work in the episode's favour.

There is a very important aspect of this episode, though: Rory's now a companion! Now as I stated in my review for "The Eleventh Hour" I'm liable to go on about Rory a bit because I like him and I think he forms a more complete team with the Doctor and Amy. It's good to have a male companion actually invited to join the TARDIS crew; last time we had Mickey joining but Rose being all jealous, and Captain Jack having to be rescued. I think the New Series has a bit of a thing about how the Doctor's companion was 'always' a young woman back in the day but if you think about it that's really only true of a few Doctors. The First and Second Doctors always had both male and female companions with them, the Fitfth Doctor almost always did and while the Third Doctor's conventional companions where women he certainly was accompanied by the Brigadier and Benton a lot of the time and by Yates occasionally and personally I consider the Brigadier at the very least to definitely be a companion. Even the Fourth Doctor travelled with Harry and later Adric, so really it's only the Sixth and Seventh Doctors who travelled exclusively with female companions, and even that's a bit murky if you consider Sabalom Glitz. I think two companions is more or less the ideal size for the Doctor's team, to be honest.

Anyway, Rory's appearance harkens back to the days of yore and it's good that the Doctor's trying to sort Amy and Rory's relationship out rather than stealing the girl away from her boyfriend right in front of him like the Ninth Doctor did. It shows a more compassionate side to the Doctor and he's clearly not interested in interfering in people's relationships or belittling them; he just wants friends. That's why I'm glad that he was perfectly happy to keep Rory along at the conclusion. It reinforces his unique situation and regard for these people; he understands that you need to stay grounded even while adventuring. The scene where he bursts out of the cake at Rory's stag night is extremely funny and reinforces the awkwardness and lack of social graces of this Doctor, highlighting his alien nature, and at the same time Rory's befuddlement at the Doctor and his obvious submissiveness to Amy is complemented well by his immediately correct guess as to how the TARDIS is bigger on the inside. Rory has his own kind of awkwardness, and is less facetious than the other two, so to an extent he fills out a 'Power Trio' with Amy as the Id, the Doctor as the Ego and Rory as the Superego in reasonably broad terms. I know that's a fairly pretentious thing to suggest but it's true and it works. All three of them have a good dynamic. The rappor between Arthur Darvill and Matt Smith is equally good as the Amy/Doctor onscreen chemistry while being completely different at the same time. Rory's claims about the Doctor making people want to impress him our powerfully acted and Rory works as being the more serious side of this team, while his incredulity, such as when he says of the fact that it's good news that the vampires are aliens "That's good news? What is wrong with you people?" present a different kind of attitude to this adventurous lifestyle. His fight with Francesca is well played and his reconciliation with Amy very effective; there is a depth to their interaction which contrasts the rather excitable dynamic Amy and the Doctor have. It's all linked, you see?

As for the Vampires, Francesco is hammy and kind of dull but Rosanna is rather menacing and the scenes between her and the Doctor show that in spite of his youthful appearance the Eleventh Doctor has a presence and an authority which other Doctors have lacked in his calm and the almost chilling manner in which he confronts her speaks far more about his convictions than shouting. His reasoning that he will bring down Rosanna for not knowing Isabella's name is equally evocative of this. There's some back-and-forth about survival and genocide, and the Doctor makes a good point about the need to mourn, live and move on, not to make others suffer for the sake of your own happiness, but while there were a couple of good scenes about this I believe it could have been played up a bit more.

Ultimately this episode's great for the Doctor/Amy/Rory dynamic and as far as character interaction goes it's quite funny and enjoyable to watch, but the themes are underdeveloped and the storyline is largely meaningless. I feel like the show needs to avoid doing the same thing for these horror episodes over and over again; there needs to be a different plot. Perhaps there could be a return occasionally to the pure historicals of the First Doctor's era? Otherwise it needs to do something a bit different with the aliens/science-in-the-past thing and come up with some original narratives, although we may find that such an episode is not too far away.

"Flesh and Stone"

It's an interesting resolution to this two-parter, and much like the previous episode it's more serious and somewhat dryer than the earlier stories. The cliffhanger resolution is, of course, quite good, although the way the gravity wave works is a little unclear. Besides, wouldn't the fall 'up' onto the hull of the Byzantium be quite painful? And if the gravity orientates to the floor inside the ship, how come it orientates to the hull on the outside? Why would the aritificial gravity extend outside the ship at all? Also, how do the Angels get up there? Presumably they can fly or something but it's not entirely clear; obviously the Angels have further powers of which we are unaware. That's something which I find a little disappointing with this episode; there are moments when the Angels are seen to move and it diminishes the mystery somewhat. I always enjoyed the notion that the Weeping Angels' quantum lock extended to the audience for all intents and purposes and that they would be stone when we saw them too - that it was physically impossible to observe them in motion. There's also the idea that the quantum lock is instinct rather than some kind of physical law; it was my impression that the Weeping Angels turned to stone under observation because they had no choice. Thus it makes it difficult to rationalise the Doctor's advice to Amy that she bear herself along as if she can see. The movement of the Angels is a little odd too, the grinding noises and the slow, stony limbering-up. I always assumed that the Angels actually looked absolutely nothing like their stone statue forms when they were unobserved, that their true appearance was perhaps indescribable and unknowable in real terms. That would reinforce their nature as conceptual creatures. The Doctor also says that they are incredibly fast, but they don't appear to be. So why do they move? It seems to diminish the mystery somewhat.

The choice to set much of the episode inside the 'oxygen factory' forest aboard the Byzantium is an inspired one however, because instead of confining us to spaceship corridors, as good as they are, we get another semi-natural environment which complements the Maze of the Dead from the previous episode.

The crack in time reappears from "The Eleventh Hour" as well and it's all very convenient for the Doctor to stop the Angels. I think it's good of Steven Moffat to incorporate the over-arching elements into the episodes themselves rather than just dropping meaningless arc words which were purely clues with no story role the way RTD did, but it seems very convenient that the crack appeared then. What was the Doctor going to do if it hadn't? Presumably something involving blowing up the Byzantium; I think it would have been good if it had something to do with them closing their eyes, thus exposing themselves to danger but forcing the Angels into non-indestructible form. The bit where the Doctor turns off the gravity and causes the Angels to fall into the Time Field is quite clever all things considered but I must say it seems like a bit of a cop-out. What is 'time energy', anyway? It sounds cool but time, like the Angels, is in many ways more conceptual than physical and doesn't have a specific energy associated with it. Again, I'd like a little bit more of a scientific explanation and unfortunately what drags this episode a bit is that it doesn't have much to say.

There are some good moments, however, such as the image of the Angel in Amy's mind and the fact that she does have to close her eyes to be safe; as I say I think this could have been used more. I also enjoy the laughter of the Angels, and the way they make Amy count down, scaring her 'for fun'. It's unclear what the relation between 'Angel Bob', the resurrected consciousness, and the Angel from the Byzantium is, though, and we see the Angel holding Bob's communicator but while it's in stone form. So how does it speak? Is the Bob consciousness able to speak even when the Angel is inactive? It was previously implied that the Angels quite simply don't exist under observation and that the statues don't actually contain the Angels and they're not aware while observed, but it's not very clear. Also, I thought Angels couldn't look at each other, but they seem to crowd around a lot here. Unfortunately there's a good deal of inconsistency with the behaviour and 'rules' of the Angels, but I suppose if they're meant to be so conceptual then they can bend the rules a bit. Nonetheless I have to say it's not as spooky or clever as the previous episode, and the presence of the crack causes a bit of a distraction from the Angels themselves.

The disappearance of the Clerics into the Time Field is rather effective, however, with the dialogue as they forget each other reminiscent of the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "Remember Me" or, again closer to home, the Red Dwarf episode "The Inquisitor". The explanation for why Amy remembers - because she's a time traveller - is I suppose plausible enough but I think something about parallel realities might have been nice. I think that's another problem; the story is already so busy dealing with the Angels it's hard for it to make all the 'timey-wimey' stuff fit as well. Also, once again there are parts where the music is too loud. Father Octavian's death is quite moving, however, and his line "I think, sir, that you've known me at my best," is a cracking piece of dialogue. River's cheeky comment about the handcuffs is, of course, tinged with a dark irony because she handcuffed the Doctor to a pole in the library when he saw her die in Series 4. Moffat's not too shabby at weaving this stuff together. It's not bad as a resolution to the Angels story but I feel like it could have done more. Matt Smith, Karen Gillan and Alex Kingston are of course all on top form as usual, the Doctor's occasional rage again working as an effective contrast to his usual calm, and Iain Glen's performance as Father Octavian is once again great to watch. It's just that the story is a bit lacking.

Finally we get this last scene where Amy cracks onto the Doctor. I'm a little disappointed that they had to have the whole 'Doctor and Companion snog' thing again but Moffat's explanation in Confidential was quite right; if a mysterious stranger swept into these young women's lives, wouldn't at least some of them want to have a go? It's weird to notice that this 'great love' between the Tenth Doctor and Rose, for instance, never manifested in any physical way particularly, so it's a good inversion here of the more likely circumstance: Amy wants something physical with the Doctor, and that's it. Of course the Eleventh Doctor's awkwardness and obliviousness in this situation is perfect and played excellently, and it makes sense that Amy might want some 'comforting' in the aftermath of such a horrid experience with the Angels. Then again, though, not very fair on Rory, is it? The Doctor's refusal, and his explanation are also effective. You can't doubt that he's moved on from the emotional vulnerability of his previous incarnation, but it's also made him sensible and cautious. This is who the Doctor should be, and it's exactly what the Doctor would do. His response to Amy that "You're human!" in particular makes a lot of sense. Was this scene supposed to be the 'flesh' part of the title? Yes, I am waggling my eyebrows.

"The Time of Angels"

I think this episode's supposed to be incredibly scary but I'm one of those weird people who enjoys horror but isn't scared by it. That being said I don't have a problem with this episode but I think without the thrills of the scares from the Angels this episode can at times seem a little bit dry. It was also the first episode filmed and there's significantly less humour, which is appropriate, and it's the first part of a two-parter, so it's a different sort of experience to the previous few episodes. It does start off with a bit of classic Moffat time travel cleverness, and it's a wonder that this sort of thing has appeared in the show so rarely before; River can get an instantaneous rescue by marking an object which has to wait twelve thousand years due to time travel and it makes the mind have to come to grips with these concepts. One thing I will say is that they could have done something to make the Delerium Archive which Amy and the Doctor are visiting more visually futuristic or alien because it does look a lot like they're wandering through an exhibit in a cathedral in the present day.

Of course the ship is called the Byzantium and so we're reintroduced to River Song, the mysterious archaeologist who encountered the Tenth Doctor back in the library two-parter: his first meeting with her, but her last with him. She referenced this adventure, and now it's happening. The Eleventh Doctor is incredibly mysterious himself about her, obviously not wanting to know his own future, and so is River, and you can tell Moffat is wanting to stir up the fan speculation even more. I think the solution will be surprising. I think making her the Doctor's wife is too obvious, and also rather implausible considering the muddled-up way they encounter each other.

We're also reintroduced to the Weeping Angels, a Moffat creation from "Blink", probably the one genuinely special Tenth Doctor story. It's good to see a decent New Series villain being utilised and it's good to have them with River because both concepts aren't so heavy that one outweighs the other. In support we have Father Octavian and his Clerics, who in terms purely of their 'military-religious' nature remind me of Warhammer 40,000 Space Marines. One thing that's good about this episode is that it has these religious figures but it doesn't ram the "religion is bad" message down our throats the way the previous era did. It's clearly ambiguous; the Doctor doesn't seem to especially approve, but Father Octavian doesn't entirely approve of him either and their uneasy relationship forms more of a display of tension between science and religion rather than one being promoted and the other being ridiculed. Again, I'm in no way religious and I don't support religion at all, but it's very relieving to have episodes of Doctor Who with some discourse present in the story rather than hammer-blow pronouncements.

There are also some chilling developments in the plot. The notion "that which holds the image of an Angel becomes itself an Angel" is quite menacing but could have done with a scientific explanation. I like the line from the book about how "What if we had ideas that could think for themselves? What if our dreams no longer needed us?" and I think this aspect of the Angels could have been played up more; that their power lies in the minds of others and in the world of concepts, ideas, imaginings, thoughts and fears. They clearly have unexplained telekinetic powers, for instance, in locking Amy into the dropship, but I would have liked some attempt by the Doctor to rationalise these goings-on. I suppose it's all part of the science versus faith debate which is intrinsic to these episodes; what if there were creatures who could cause things to happen simply because they could, or because we believed that they could? We do get some of that with Amy believing there is stone in her eye or that her hand has turned to stone, but we could have done with a bit more. The language from the book is also believable and rather poetic, not overblown and purple as was all too common with that sort of thing previously. It's also excellent when Bob comments over the radio as to how he escaped "I didn't, sir. The Angels killed me too." It's chilling and the notion of the Doctor letting someone down is a powerful one. The cliffhanger is quite intense as well.

One thing I will mention is that we're on an alien planet but again the aliens are entirely absent, apart from the Weeping Angels of course. It would have been nice to have seen the Aplans, even if the 'two heads' thing seems silly. Also, Father Octavian mentions that human colonists have settled the planet and the human population is now at six billion, but we don't really get a very good impression of that so it's hard to think that there are future lives at stake. I also think the contemporary-looking guns and camouflage military uniforms are a little unimaginative. Nonetheless the blend of location footage and CGI at the crash site is very effective for establishing the scene and the caves are all suitably atmospheric. It's unfortunate that the Angels never use the 'sending-back-in-time' method of "Blink" because I think some more clever time-based stuff could have been implemented that way, possibly with the Doctor encountering the aged remains of some of the Clerics or something, but it's good that they at least explain. Sometimes the sound effects and music are so loud though that important pieces of dialogue are hard to distinguish and in episodes like this where pretty much every line might count for something it can be frustrating. The Smith is as reliable as ever, although as this was the first episode they filmed you can tell he's still easing into the role. Karen Gillan and Alex Kingston both give strong performances and they both have excellent rappor with the Doctor; River Song certainly has much more chemistry with the Eleventh Doctor than she had with the Tenth, and while her smugness can grate a little at times when she's serious she does it very well. Another worthy mention is Iain Glen, who puts in a great performance as Father Octavian: very stern and proper, but also fatherly - the perfect blend of military man and man of God.

As I say, it's a change of pace from the previous episodes and at times I must admit it can feel a little dry, but I think it's got some genuine brilliance in it and if you find horror scary rather than just cool you'll probably get even more from it.

"Victory of the Daleks"

Update in 2018: What was I thinking when I wrote this? This episode is pretty crap. Pay no attention to the content below.

This episode is a bit like the Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull of Doctor Who Dalek stories: it's a bit new and different, it both refreshes the new series while still tying back to the old, and loads of people hate it for absolutely no legitimate reason. But the thing is "Victory of the Daleks" is a great episode (much like the aforementioned Indy film) and if you don't like it you're a damn bally fool. Mark Gatiss finally got to do something good with this episode and it shows. One of the best ideas which Gatiss and Moffat developed was to have Churchill and the Doctor as already friends, as they are in spin-off material, rather than trying to introduce them to each other, and it's a massive relief compared to the usual gushy introduction to a famous person which has dominated the 'celebrity historicals' over the past few series.

Then there's the mystery of the 'Ironsides'. We know they're Daleks, the Doctor knows they're Daleks, but Churchill and Bracewell think they're good guys and Amy doesn't recognise them at all. It's satisfying to see Daleks being duplicitous and sneaky again and we know there's a greater mystery at work when Amy doesn't know about the Daleks. There's some good Dalek work and you can almost believe that they've mended their ways, especially when they offer Bracewell some tea, but the Doctor refuses to let his guard down. As we've seen, Daleks don't change and it's good that the Eleventh Doctor continues to acknowledge this. It's a bit weird when he flips out and starts attacking one of the Daleks with a spanner and the rantiness of it is a little unpleasantly reminiscent of the Tenth Doctor but you can tell he's annoyed at the very least; again, the Eleventh Doctor's normally calm demeanour makes these moments of fury more effective. It's also very clever that the Daleks need the Doctor's testimony to reactivate their device, even if their plan to get him to turn up is rather convoluted.

Another way in which this episode works is that the presence of the Daleks doesn't overshadow the historical setting nearly as much as happened as when they were in Depression New York or the Cybermen were in Victorian London. They manage to merge these two elements through the use of things like the enhanced spitfires and, of course, the British disguises the Dalek "Ironsides" are wearing. The Dalek space ship looks reasonably nifty even if it is only one set and the Doctor's bluff with the jammie dodger is classic. Then, of course, we're introduced to the New Dalek Paradigm.

This is usually where most of the haters start jumping up and down and grinding their axes, but honestly I don't see what the fuss is about. The Cybermen were redesigned in a lot of needless ways as well and no one complains about that. The TARDIS looks different too; what's the big deal? It's not like the Daleks have always looked identical: they've gone through a number of small but important design changes and colours over the years. I always found the previous era's gold Daleks to be disagreeable because they were too machined and metallic. With the rivets and the golden bodies they didn't look hyper-advanced and alien, which was something the simpler Classic Series design always had and that was only due to the limitations of the time. The New Paradigm Daleks are bigger, sleeker and much more advanced-looking than their predecessors. They're satisfyingly chunky. They sort of look like they're the tanks to the gold Daleks' armoured cars as it were, and you can tell that they mean business. Regardless, the fact that they disintegrate the previous Daleks shows who's more powerful here. The thing is, unlike the Parallel Cybermen they're still the same creatures. Maybe they're in too many colours. It might have been better had the Supreme been in one colour and all the other Daleks in a uniform colour like grey, because I feel like red is a little too ostentatious for the basic soldiers, but in all honesty I don't particuarly care.

It's nice that the Daleks get their Victory as well without it being a cop-out, although if the Doctor knew the Daleks were going to activate the Bracewell bomb anyway I don't see why he didn't get Danny Boy to blow up the Dalek ship regardless. Maybe it would have caused the Oblivion Continuum to explode automatically. The section where the Doctor and Amy deactivate the bomb by making Bracewell feel emotions is interesting; I find it reminiscent of the situation with characters like Data in Star Trek: The Next Generation or perhaps closer to home Kryten in Red Dwarf. It's also good that while the Doctor focuses on grief, Amy focuses on heartache, and it reinforces the idea that the Doctor is an alien who has different conceptions of what's important psychologically whereas his companion provides that human touch. Nonetheless it maybe could have done with some more explanation as to why making Bracewell feel would stop the bomb; presumably it had something to do with 'breaking his programming' and I bet the Daleks were feeling a bit stupid for building such an advanced android but at least it's a more elegant solution that the Doctor waving the sonic screwdriver around or, as Amy suggests, some kind of blue wire red wire moment. Sort of like the previous episode it seems that maybe a bit more exposition could have been useful. For instance, had those Spitfires already been fitted with Bracewell's experimental gravity bubble generators and laser cannons? Otherwise it seems like they managed to build and implement them implausibly quickly. Also, was Bracewell a replicant of a real person or were his memories stolen from someone who was not actually like him? That'd make it a bit difficult for him to return home and meet Dorabella and stuff if there never had been an 'Edwin Bracewell'. Nonetheless I'm willing to let these elements slide because the performances are all so good, the special effects for the Dalek saucer and the Spitfire are very snazzy and it's quite a well-rounded piece.

Overall I think "Victory of the Daleks" is a deeply underrated episode. It's fun, it's atmospheric, it makes a nice point about the Doctor's priorities and the need for strength in the face of adversity with the ongoing parallelism of the Daleks and the Nazis, and it takes a look at that classic sci-fi conundrum of the concept of androids and their humanity and whether being human is something biological or psychological. The Doctor clearly thinks that an android can be a human being, and much like his philosophical convictions in the previous episode it's good to see these issues raised. It's very much what science fiction should be doing, and it's easily the best Mark Gatiss episode so far. KBO!

"The Beast Below"

The first thing I'll say about this episode is that I think you need to rewatch it a few times to really get to grips with it. There are a lot of little hints and bits of explanation in the dialogue which are easy to miss if you're too focused on the humour and mystery and it can make some of the plot and setting not make too much sense. I also think Moffat possibly squeezed a little too much into this and there wasn't time to explain it all.

One thing I actually enjoy is the Doctor's decisiveness about lobotomising the Star Whale. It's always nice when philosophical conundra are presented to us in Doctor Who and I find it extremely refreshing to see that he's clearly reached his own conclusions about this kind of issue and that he's just trying to make a decision when no one else will. It's an ugly decision to make but one he feels he has to make, and this isn't the Übermensch Doctor we've seen previously, this is a Doctor who's willing to take responsibility when no one else has the courage. I also find it satisfying that Amy realises what's going on, because surely the Doctor would lack the perspective to see things the way she does. She realises the Star Whale's motivations from observing the Doctor; it's not like he can observe himself. He just thinks he has to make the best of a bad situation.

That being said it's very nice to see the way the Doctor analyses their environment upon arrival all from the sight of Mandy crying silently. Nonetheless there's a lot of creepiness in this story which goes unexplained. For instance, why do the Smilers exist at all? What are they for? How come Hawthorne's henchmen are half-Smiler and half-human? What does it matter, and what difference does it make? Why does the little girl in the elevator recite that poem? Why does the voting booth have a record button - wouldn't that let you do exactly what Amy does and warn yourself post-forgetting, rather contradicting the purpose of the memory erasure? If they're given the choice to vote, why are protesters fed to the Star Whale? Why not just not give them the choice? I guess it's a trick in case people refuse to press 'Forget', and it is a police state after all. Also, what's with the disposed-of children? Are they mind-controlled or something?

It's nice to see them actually rationalise the low technological level of Starship UK so that it's easier to suspend disbelief about the brick buildings and the wind-up lights and so on. The Doctor's glass-of-water method of determining that there are no engines is clever and there isn't really too much technobabble in the episode at all. That being said, if Hawthorne and his men are meant to be protecting the secrets of Starship UK, why do they inform Liz Ten about the Doctor's presence? Why not just hide it from her, if she keeps investigating where they don't want her to? It feels as if there are layers of duplicity and conspiracy which go more or less unexplained, and that is to a significant extent the problem with this story. It feels like it either needed to have some stuff cut out or be expanded into a two-parter. That being said any issues are more or less carried by Matt Smith's cracking performance as the Doctor and Karen Gillan doing a marvellous job as Amy Pond. They're both very characterful and very funny and it's even good to see the Doctor crack and start shouting at Amy and Liz Ten. He's been so calm up until now that it's so much more effective than constant ranting. The discussion of the merits and pitfalls of democracy are also reassuring because they're actually a bit of a statement and as I said at the beginning the Doctor's decision is a nice bit of philosophy in action. That being said if I was the Star Whale and had been tortured for hundreds of years until Amy Pond finally released me I think I'd feel as if these people didn't exactly deserve my help and would run away but I guess it still wants to look after the children. Regardless, it's a good episode if a little overstuffed and works best with a few repeat viewings.