Well Series 5 is now in full swing and going at a mile a minute with its momentum. Most, if not all of this momentum, is thanks to the powerhouse team that is Matt Smith and Karen Gillan. In the span of two episodes, Matt Smith has managed to dispel all fears of his tenure as The Doctor. The manic energy he burst onto the screen with in The Eleventh Hour is still here and it looks like he is having a blast delivering the lingo and going from one thought to the next in seconds. He kind of reminded me of Christopher Eccelston’s Ninth Doctor with some of his scenes, especially the more dark ones. As for Ms. Gillan, well she continues to amaze me. In several scenes I could see her channeling The Doctor’s persona as she ventured almost fearlessly into the unknown. But it was her tender scenes with The Doctor that made this episodes latter half work. The scene where Amy works out what needs to be done and defies The Doctor is exactly what an older, more experienced version of The Doctor would have done and by reminding him of this, Amy Pond earns more of The Doctor’s respect as well as my own. They really are as great a team as Steven Moffat hyped them up to be and it will be heartbreaking if they have to split up so soon at the end of the series.
Our hero’s aside, the rest of the episode was a lot of fun to watch. The mystery of the titular beast was fascinating and the revelation of it being a selfless space age whale with a past similar of that to The Doctor’s was a fun twist. I also like the “Empire Strikes Back” omage when The Doctor and Amy were trapped in its mouth and had one of those, “this is no cave” realizations. The Smilies I thought were kind of annoying with the turning of the faces from happy to sad to grrr. Sorry I didn’t feel freaked out by them as I probably should have been. Of course we also had another companion in the form of Liz 10, the sexy gun totting Queen of England. It was also kind of fun to hear her talk about The Doctor’s long…er…history with the royalty of England, including a reference to Series 2’s “Tooth and Claw” where The Tenth Doctor and Rose were knighted and then banished from England. Liz’s story was as sad as the rest of the people onboard the ship who had to forget to stay alive. It’s just more of the great drama the Steven Moffat is good at writing.
As icing on the cake, we got some more hints at what is to come later on in the series. A crack similar to the one in Amy’s old room popped up again on the ship as the whale headed off on its course. I should also take a quick second to say the Space Whale looked amazing, my hats off to the special effects team for a job well done. Oh and the appearance of Ian McNiece as Winston Churchill being watched over by an old enemy, my blood is boiling with excitement for next week. Again to those who might be reading this and not watching cause David Tennant’s not there, Get off your butts, dry your tears and turn your TV’s back on cause the best is yet to come. I’m sure even Mr. Tennant is proud.
Next Time-You can never keep them down for good. THE DALEKS ARE BACK!!! Let’s see how Number Eleven fares against an upgraded version of his oldest foes.
Rating-9/10
No comments:
Post a Comment