NuWho Review Redux: The Beast Below
From my postings on GB:
"The Beast Below"
I stopped myself from giving this a 9 or 10, and settled on 8.
Positives:
*Great characters and dialogue
*Packed with ideas and the Doctor being clever
*the villains (such as they are) acting for the perceived greater good instead of random malevolence or a meaningless grab for power.
*Nobody dies. Again. Nice bit of misdirection that the boy's odd reaction isn't him being zombie-fied, merely alarmed about the tentacle behind Mandy.
*Liz 10. Coolest. Monarch. Ever.
*The Doctor angry with both humans and himself, because if he kills the whale's higher faculties "I won't be the Doctor any more."
*Amy saves the day, proves her value, stands up to the Doctor and saves him from himself, all by out-Doctoring the Doctor in her observation and deductions once he's revealed the truth about Liz 10. I was practically shouting at the screen that there had to be a fourth and better option than the ones the Doctor enumerated. Amy being the one to find that option was a pleasant surprise.
*Amy's observation about the Doctor's character, just in general.
*The fact that Amy went with him the night before her wedding, even knowing how terrible he is at showing up on time, is now fully explained. It wasn't a plot hole or poor characterization after all.
*A lead-in to the next story, the sort of thing that used to be done way back in the days of Ian and Barbara(!).
One big negative, one smaller one and a few niggles:
*When was the last time the Doctor claimed never to do anything but observe? 1965? Even with a new companion, he doesn't usually try out that particular massive lie. Not the least because, as here, it's bound to be disproved in about 30 seconds.
*If Scotland, and presumably other countries, left on different spaceships, how did they do so without whales of their own? Either everyone but Britain died, or one or more countries managed to build ships, with engines and everything. Where are they? And if they had sufficient means, why didn't Britain do the same? Did they run out of time, or was it simply more expedient to harness the whale instead?
*Niggle: how does Amy end up outside the TARDIS again, with the doors shut? That seems really hard to work out logistically.
*Niggle: how does Amy know he's really old, especially since she doesn't know he's not human until well into the episode? (He already told her he's from another planet, but I suppose she could have thought he was from some offworld human colony.) He may have told her something during her two hours of offering him food at age 7, but overall the timeline of what she learns and when doesn't quite hang together.
Overall, though, I liked it a lot, and it was just the big, fat transparent lie that really bothered me, and secondarily the thing about the other countries.
No, wait. There is one other thing that bothers me, a lot. The overall story is more than a little redolent of Torchwood: Children of Earth. I really dislike stories that portray humanity in such a negative light. It's only the fact that the people in charge of Starship UK are considerably more benign and a little less ruthless than the government that tried to sacrifice all those children in 21st Century Earth, that they have a certain level of guilt and regret instead of self-serving rationalizations, that makes this more bearable. And it's a testament to the strength of other aspects of the story - Amy's wisdom, the Doctor's kindness, Liz's attempts to protect her people - that humanity's frailty here doesn't ruin the story for me.
K.
P.S. Both here and on last week's rate thread, I keep seeing people remarking that they would like to raise their rating after watching the episode again. That being the case, it may be worth watching twice before voting, hmm? That's what I always do. That gives the story a lot of time to sink in and your mind time to examine it more, and pick up things you missed on first viewing. You don't get to be first out of the box, but IMO the opinion is worth a little more than a hasty first impression would be.
***
On Amy and the Doctor not staying all slimy:
You can see Amy finishing her clean-up in Liz 10's chambers.
***
On seeing the star whale from space:
Aside from the fact that the TARDIS was above Starship UK, so that nothing showed beneath, the Star Whale was probably largely enclosed within the ship until Amy and Liz 10 pushed the button. We are told that the original people built their ship "around it," and that the whale was trapped. Also, if the head were outside the ship earlier in the story, the Doctor and Amy would have been vomited out into space rather than into a corridor. It seems almost certain, therefore, that the whale shifted position quite a bit at the end of the episode, becoming much more visible from space.
***
On the appearance of a similar creature in Torchwood:
It was being harvested for meat, in an episode called, IIRC, "Meat." I'm not sure they made it a "space whale" or
Star Whale per se, but it was clearly that sort of thing. And yes, there is a thematic similarity between the two stories, IMO.
***
On the question of how other countries left Earth without star whales of their own:
It's perfectly reasonable to wonder about this plot hole. We're told that by the time the Star Whale came, the other nations of Earth had already left on shops of their own. Presumably they didn't all have star whales, so why couldn't the UK have managed without one? We can rationalize that somehow the UK was technologically backward in that era (more so than every other nation? Really?), or broke, or ignored the warnings until it was too late, or got bogged down in politics. But in the end we really don't know why the UK was driven to exploit the star whale when other nations (probably) were not.
As for the Scottish accent, we're told that Scotland "wanted" its own ship and was therefore not on board Starship UK. Either they avoided the issues that scuppered the UK effort, or they didn't make it off Earth at all. Either way, a Scottish accent would be unusual on Starship UK, if not completely absent except in old recordings.
***
8 is probably about right for this one. A high 8 though.
"The Beast Below"
I stopped myself from giving this a 9 or 10, and settled on 8.
Positives:
*Great characters and dialogue
*Packed with ideas and the Doctor being clever
*the villains (such as they are) acting for the perceived greater good instead of random malevolence or a meaningless grab for power.
*Nobody dies. Again. Nice bit of misdirection that the boy's odd reaction isn't him being zombie-fied, merely alarmed about the tentacle behind Mandy.
*Liz 10. Coolest. Monarch. Ever.
*The Doctor angry with both humans and himself, because if he kills the whale's higher faculties "I won't be the Doctor any more."
*Amy saves the day, proves her value, stands up to the Doctor and saves him from himself, all by out-Doctoring the Doctor in her observation and deductions once he's revealed the truth about Liz 10. I was practically shouting at the screen that there had to be a fourth and better option than the ones the Doctor enumerated. Amy being the one to find that option was a pleasant surprise.
*Amy's observation about the Doctor's character, just in general.
*The fact that Amy went with him the night before her wedding, even knowing how terrible he is at showing up on time, is now fully explained. It wasn't a plot hole or poor characterization after all.
*A lead-in to the next story, the sort of thing that used to be done way back in the days of Ian and Barbara(!).
One big negative, one smaller one and a few niggles:
*When was the last time the Doctor claimed never to do anything but observe? 1965? Even with a new companion, he doesn't usually try out that particular massive lie. Not the least because, as here, it's bound to be disproved in about 30 seconds.
*If Scotland, and presumably other countries, left on different spaceships, how did they do so without whales of their own? Either everyone but Britain died, or one or more countries managed to build ships, with engines and everything. Where are they? And if they had sufficient means, why didn't Britain do the same? Did they run out of time, or was it simply more expedient to harness the whale instead?
*Niggle: how does Amy end up outside the TARDIS again, with the doors shut? That seems really hard to work out logistically.
*Niggle: how does Amy know he's really old, especially since she doesn't know he's not human until well into the episode? (He already told her he's from another planet, but I suppose she could have thought he was from some offworld human colony.) He may have told her something during her two hours of offering him food at age 7, but overall the timeline of what she learns and when doesn't quite hang together.
Overall, though, I liked it a lot, and it was just the big, fat transparent lie that really bothered me, and secondarily the thing about the other countries.
No, wait. There is one other thing that bothers me, a lot. The overall story is more than a little redolent of Torchwood: Children of Earth. I really dislike stories that portray humanity in such a negative light. It's only the fact that the people in charge of Starship UK are considerably more benign and a little less ruthless than the government that tried to sacrifice all those children in 21st Century Earth, that they have a certain level of guilt and regret instead of self-serving rationalizations, that makes this more bearable. And it's a testament to the strength of other aspects of the story - Amy's wisdom, the Doctor's kindness, Liz's attempts to protect her people - that humanity's frailty here doesn't ruin the story for me.
K.
P.S. Both here and on last week's rate thread, I keep seeing people remarking that they would like to raise their rating after watching the episode again. That being the case, it may be worth watching twice before voting, hmm? That's what I always do. That gives the story a lot of time to sink in and your mind time to examine it more, and pick up things you missed on first viewing. You don't get to be first out of the box, but IMO the opinion is worth a little more than a hasty first impression would be.
***
On Amy and the Doctor not staying all slimy:
You can see Amy finishing her clean-up in Liz 10's chambers.
***
On seeing the star whale from space:
Aside from the fact that the TARDIS was above Starship UK, so that nothing showed beneath, the Star Whale was probably largely enclosed within the ship until Amy and Liz 10 pushed the button. We are told that the original people built their ship "around it," and that the whale was trapped. Also, if the head were outside the ship earlier in the story, the Doctor and Amy would have been vomited out into space rather than into a corridor. It seems almost certain, therefore, that the whale shifted position quite a bit at the end of the episode, becoming much more visible from space.
***
On the appearance of a similar creature in Torchwood:
It was being harvested for meat, in an episode called, IIRC, "Meat." I'm not sure they made it a "space whale" or
Star Whale per se, but it was clearly that sort of thing. And yes, there is a thematic similarity between the two stories, IMO.
***
On the question of how other countries left Earth without star whales of their own:
It's perfectly reasonable to wonder about this plot hole. We're told that by the time the Star Whale came, the other nations of Earth had already left on shops of their own. Presumably they didn't all have star whales, so why couldn't the UK have managed without one? We can rationalize that somehow the UK was technologically backward in that era (more so than every other nation? Really?), or broke, or ignored the warnings until it was too late, or got bogged down in politics. But in the end we really don't know why the UK was driven to exploit the star whale when other nations (probably) were not.
As for the Scottish accent, we're told that Scotland "wanted" its own ship and was therefore not on board Starship UK. Either they avoided the issues that scuppered the UK effort, or they didn't make it off Earth at all. Either way, a Scottish accent would be unusual on Starship UK, if not completely absent except in old recordings.
***
8 is probably about right for this one. A high 8 though.