Doctor Who: The Beast Below

[andraste]

I actually enjoyed this more than last week's episode, cluttered as it was. I liked the character stuff in The Eleventh Hour but the actual alien plot felt a bit tacked on to me. For all that The Beast Below probably tries to jam too much in, I loved it for several reasons.

1) It has a space whale! I adore space whales, they are the greatest thing ever. (And I cannot tell you how sad that episode of Torchwood makes me.) The Beast Below hit my animal harm trigger pretty hard at times, but it turned out this just made me happier at the end. I would love to see more space whales some day. (I mean, presumably they were around for millions of years before dying out, and the Doctor has a time machine.)

2) Liz 10! OMG HOW AWESOME IS LIZ 10! Basically, she rules. I cannot express my joy that the future space queen of Britain is a woman of colour who dual wields pistols. And completely fails to die at any point during the episode, hooray! I really, really want to hear more about her adventures: add this one to the pile of future spin-offs for Big Finish/BBC books, please.

3) Amy getting to save the day! In her nightie! The Doctor-space whale comparisons were rather anvilicious, but I did love the hug.

4) Matt Smith is growing on me - mainly at this point I see him as a collection of previous Doctor character traits, but that's normal right after a regeneration. It's actually at the end when he lost his temper and almost killed the whale that he really started to differentiate himself from the others for me.

5) I hope all those people who were worried about Moffatt's approach to female characters after reading that faily Coupling interview are having their concerns ameliorated by Amy, Liz 10 and Mandy, all of whom are interesting and awesome. (I wasn't worried about that myself. I don't expect him to get everything right all the time, but the man created Lynda Day from Press Gang.)

As for next week's episode, I am sick of Daleks but accept that most of the eight-year-olds in the audience don't feel the same way, so I tolerate them for that reason. It looks as though Victory of the Daleks might actually be interesting, though, and if not it's only a one-parter before we move on to River Song and Weeping Angels, both of which I am greatly looking forward to.

Comments

[st_aurafina]

I really, really want to hear more about her adventures: add this one to the pile of future spin-offs for Big Finish/BBC books, please.

Oh, yes please! That would be brilliant. I'd definitely read/listen to more stories about her and her city. (And wherever Scotland went off.)

This was a great episode - really beautiful. And I'm hopeful that the Dalek story will be okay - and that they get back to one Dalek story per regeneration. Two if Matt Smith lasts as long as Tom Baker.

[andraste]

Oh, yes please! That would be brilliant. I'd definitely read/listen to more stories about her and her city. (And wherever Scotland went off.)

I so want to hear more about Scotland! Starting with how it managed to fly off given that the rest of Britain took the last star whale. (Maybe Scotland took the last of the rocket fuel and this is why they needed it?)

This was a great episode - really beautiful.

It was! I watched it again today and got misty-eyed over the whale all over again.

And I'm hopeful that the Dalek story will be okay - and that they get back to one Dalek story per regeneration. Two if Matt Smith lasts as long as Tom Baker.

I agree that one Dalek story per Doctor is quite enough - I think the last Doctor who managed more than one good one was Patrick Troughton.