The Beast Bellow Review…
Okay, so here we are in our first proper adventure with the newly regenerated Timelord after he’s all done cooking. The story opens with a scene in a classroom. All the kids are standing in line front o what looks like a carnival fortune teller machine. Well one kid is in for some bad luck. Apparently he’s a “zero” meaning he’s not even good enough to ride on the elevators with other people. He gets on one by himself and the floor opens to show a long, fiery shaft and it’s presumed that this little puke falls to his death! What an awesome way to open the show! Imagine how many little kids hid behind their sofa after that! Yet it gets better.
The Doctor and Amy land on a huge starship, the Starship UK The whole ship is the country of England in space. The Earth was being bombarded by solar flares and so humanity had to escape to the stars to survive. They may have even put their best and brightest on an ark… The Doctor feels something’s amiss, though he can’t quite put his finger on it. He and Amy see a little girl crying silently and the Doctor deduces that the people are living in a police state. The Doctor would like to know why she’s crying. Maybe her great-grandmother was arrested for selling a godfish or something. The Doctor coerces Amy to find out while he goes to the engine room. Amy learns of the dark and terrible secret of Starship UK while the Doctor meets a mysterious, masked woman.
I think we may have our new favorite creepy bad guys. The android Smilers. Seriously, how creeped out were you guys by that over exaggerated frown? That and the fact they have three faces! I would so love to do that for Halloween. This episode also had a great number of lines, my favorite being “…staying out of trouble. Badly.” We also get to see a bit more insight to how the Doctor thinks. He realizes that the people are terrified of the Smiler booths because they are so clean. He can tell that there are no engines running. And he has a mighty temper. No disrespect to the Tenth Doctor, but when he got mad it was, “Oh, the Doctor’s yelling again.” When Eleven starts yelling even I was looking away guiltily. Granted he had a tough choice to make, a choice that Amy tried to hide from him to protect him. That and when he tells Amy he’s taking her back home… Ooo. He got colder there than Tennant could ever do. Sophie Okonedo, who many may remember as the African princess in “Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls,” plays a rather cheeky, adventurous, gun toting queen trying to understand why her government is doing things behind her back. And Amy really shines in the episode. I can’t recall ever seeing a companion figure things out before the Doctor does. In fact the Doctor seemed to be a bit unnerved by it. But he and Amy make up just in time to get a phone call from Winston Churchill which leads to next week’s episode Victory of the Daleks. What did you guys think?
7 responses so far ↓
1 Jorn // Apr 13, 2010 at 1:43 am
I thought the “And then I’ll have to find a new name” line was awesome. Very powerful. I also liked the Churchill phonecall at the end, but my final thought on the episode was Ugh, not the Daleks AGAIN.
I wouldn’t mind so much if they didn’t keep wiping out “all the daleks in existence.” The daleks are iconic and popular, I get that, but I hope this time, if they plan on using them again they’ll indicate that the daleks the Doctor is up against aren’t the only daleks in the universe
2 Richard Kirsch // Apr 13, 2010 at 1:16 pm
Yeah, thing with the daleks is that with today’s mindset you HAVE to have them every year. They’re the Doctor’s arch-enemy, blah, blah, blah. Like having Superman go up against Lex Luthor in all but one of the movies. Myself, I hadn’t realized until not too long ago that the fourth Doctor, who had himself a seven year run, only encountered the daleks twice. TWICE!. In SEVEN years!! Of course this will be the first dalek story in over a year, but still…
3 Ben Parkin // Apr 13, 2010 at 7:51 pm
I agree, this whole “there are no more Daleks in the whole of time and space….oh wait, yes there are” schtick is getting a bit annoying. Just keep them around and let them terrorize time and space every once in a while only to somehow escape.
Amy is just awesome. Really, there isn’t any other way to put it. So far as the new series goes, she is the BEST companion we’ve seen (yes, even better than Rose). I think it’s because she’s Scottish. Ok, maybe the fact that she’s sharp, and kind has something to do with it too. And the red hair.
I think this episode has really cemented Matt Smith in the Doctor’s…tweed jacket. (”Tweed, in this day an age?” says my roommate) The quirkiness he conveys throughout the episode just shows how he’s made the role his. The little inflections and changes in his accent when he’s trying to be proper; the way he holds his hands when he thinks. All of it turns Smith into the Doctor. HIS Doctor.
SPECULATION!
Cracks in the universe showed up again at the end. I don’t know about anyone else, but my guess is that the Timelords are going to use them to try and escape the Time War — if they aren’t the result of them trying already.
4 Tokrath // Apr 14, 2010 at 8:01 am
I really enjoyed this one also. I felt it was really a good episode.
Matt Smith did a great job being crazy, funny, chaotic and the doctor. He was quick and witty when the situation worked and dark and angry. I am adjusting to the new doctor and hope it keeps getting better.
Amy Pond continues to be one of my most hopeful companions. She is quick and notices things, she wants to help out and protect people even if she has to protect the doctor from himself. I think that her marriage is going to play an important roll in all of this as it is something that is being hidden.
All together I think we are off on another great journey and will enjoy the trip as much as the ending.
As a side note I do have some hopes that Moffit will undo some of the damage Davis did. I enjoyed 99%of what Davis did but he did kinda sat himself in a corner. He killed off and removed some major players but anytime he wanted them back up he just gave us a cheep excuse why they would come back all so he could wipe them out again. My big wish for the end of time was that he would undo the last great time war and leave Moffit free to do anything because it was all undone. I hope that Moffit is able to bring things back that doesn’t require this race is gone forever, expect for this one and now that I got rid of it they are gone until I need them again.
5 Richard Kirsch // Apr 14, 2010 at 5:54 pm
Yeah I was kind of expecting the Time War to be undone as well. That way, Moffat would have a clean slate to work with. It’d be interesting having the Timelords start interfering with the Doctor again, sending him to do their dirty work and all.
6 bellboy // Apr 15, 2010 at 10:38 am
I was unsure about how to think of this episode. Granted I haven’t seen as much of Doctor Who as I would have liked (I never seen the older ones and I only ever saw one or two of David’s run- taking special care to watch the The End of Time and Matt Smith’s introduction) I’m was unsure of my feelings.
It think it was the drama towards the end of the episode that stirred it. It shocked me. Conflicting ideas about right and wrong. I really wasn’t expecting it. Usually riding on the back of a great beast would be something out a fairytale* but what had befallen was so tragic.
I’m a very moral person and I thank god Amy intervened at the end because I was getting ready to cry.
Everyone has their Doctor and while everyone praised/worshipped DT I really think Matt Smith might be mine. He seems to be of a different calibur because when he let loose I believed him and felt that struggle.
An astounding second episode. While it didn’t hit me as hard as the Eleventh Hour did it hit me deeper. Well done to Matt and Karen, incredible work. Roll on the next episode. (Amy’ll be out of her nightie! Hooray for clothes!)
*The star whale was so beautiful. The last image set the whole thing off. A bittersweet ending. It rarely happens you know. To create such a truly wonderful ficitious creature like that.
7 Richard Kirsch // Apr 15, 2010 at 9:01 pm
Okay, I know I alluded to it in the review, but I was watching the episode again and I think I’ve confirmed it. The computer states Amy is about 1,300 years old. That puts the story around the 33rd century. In the Fourth Doctor story, “The Ark in Space,” it is stated that the Ark is from around the 29th to 30th century and was created to save humanity from solar flares that were destroying the Earth. If Liz Ten is around 300 years old, that puts her in the same time frame. Any thoughts, or do I just really need to get a life? :op
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