The Power of Three--less than satisfactory.
I watched ‘The Power of Three’ with my brother on Saturday. He’s a bit of a Whovian and I’ve got cable for the first time in two decades, so of course I’m all over Doctor Who. :D
But I have to say-I was less than impressed with ‘The Power of Three.’ I understand what Chibnall was trying to do with the cubes and the ‘slow invasion,’ and it’s a novel idea, really. Unfortunately it didn’t work. There’s all this build up and little to no payoff.
For most of the episode the cubes do absolutely nothing. They’re indestructible, COMPLETELY identical, and absolutely nonthreatening. And that works great as an invasion strategy, because eventually people just get used to them. As the Doctor said ‘No one questions a thing.’ (It was either the Sontaran Stratagem or the Poison Sky, don’t remember which) And after some initial panic (and UNIT action) the population adjusts to the existence of the cubes.
But they have no use! We see them sitting in random places (like hospitals?) but they have no utility! What can you use them for in a hospital? That doesn’t even make any sense! At least kids could play with them, and office workers use them to hold down papers. Why would a nurse be dealing with these cubes?
I like the look at Amy and Rory’s life without the Doctor (although I’m still wondering where all those issues from Pond Life and Asylum of the Daleks went, or are we going through time backwards again Moffat? Haven’t we had enough of that device yet?). And I like that they keep their lives separate, that they acknowledge that they can’t go off for long periods of time BECAUSE PEOPLE WOULD NOTICE and that at least RORY’S parent(s?) worry about them. Presumably Amy’s parents know about the Doctor (as he did show up for their wedding) and they knew her stories about him (and he did sort of appear in the TARDIS in the middle of the party!), but we never see them!
I know Moffat sort-of addressed the existence of Amy’s family in the ‘Night and the Doctor’ videos, but COME ON! SOMETHING must have changed about Amy’s life now that there are two people who didn’t exist back in the world! Nine told Rose that an ordinary man was the most important thing in all of creation. Her attempt to save her father caused a paradox that nearly destroyed the world-but Amy gets her parents back and absolutely nothing changes? I’m sorry, I call bullshit on that.
But I digress. Back to ‘The Power of Three.’ In my opinion the best part was Kate Stewart, or should I say Kate Lethbridge-Stewart? I’m a big fan of the Brigadier, and I think it’s a lovely connection to make-his daughter being the one to revamp UNIT and put science in charge of the military. That being said-she did almost nothing. Yes, UNIT tested the cubes to determine that they were, for all intents and purposes, indestructible, but after that she (and UNIT in general) contributed very little. The Doctor did ALL of the heavy lifting intellectually.
And what was up with the villains? If the Shankri are so advanced, so dangerous, that they were used to frighten TIME LORD CHILDREN-shouldn’t they be harder to defeat? It took the Doctor less than ten minutes to hack the ship, deactivate the cubes (which apparently caused heart attacks) and get himself, Amy, and Rory off of the ship.
A ship which contained several humans hooked up to life support systems? Maybe? We don’t know! We don’t know why they were there or what the Shankri were doing to the people. It’s a red herring that was addressed maybe once and then used as a way to shut Rory and his Dad up.
Bottom line: Not impressed. The pacing was off (it dragged and dragged until the last fifteen minutes and then it raced), the villain was totally unbelievable, and the Doctor was out of character! I hate the ‘patience is for wimps’ line. It just isn’t something the Doctor would say! Maybe ‘patience is for humans,’ or ‘patience is for people who don’t have a TIME MACHINE,’ but he wouldn’t mock someone for being less stereotypically ‘strong.’ The Doctor understands that there are many kinds of strength.