DOCTOR WHO 5.2 - "The Beast Below"

WRITER: Steven Moffat
DIRECTOR: Andrew Gunn
GUEST CAST: Sophie Okonedo, Terrence Hardiman, Hannah Sharp, Christopher Good, Catrin Richards, Jonathan Battersby, Alfie Field, David Ajala, Chris Porter & Ian McNeice

[SPOILERS] Quite possibly Steven Moffat's worst episode, but his quality level's so high that "The Beast Below" still resulted in a respectable episode of Doctor Who; albeit one that felt like a familiar hybrid of "The Long Game" (crowded off-world human society, a secret involving an alien beast) and Terry Pratchett (for reasons that became very obvious towards the end)...

This week, The Doctor (Matt Smith) and Amy (Karen Gillan) arrived aboard the Starship UK, a giant spacecraft that's become the post-apocalyptic vehicle for the entire British nation after Earth suffered a catastrophic solar flare. The Doctor immediately senses a police state when he sets foot aboard the ship, becoming suspicious of gargoyle-like "Smilers" that sit inside booths keeping a watchful eye on the population. Splitting up from his companion, nightie-clad Amy discovered a strange tentacle inside a cordoned off area and a peculiar "voting booth" where the dreadful secret behind Starship UK's existence is made known to its citizens every 5 years, before giving the electorate a choice to "Protest" (and risk the wrath of the Smilers, it transpires) or "Forget" and have the burden of knowledge erased from your memory.

"The Beast Below" was a mixed success, buoyed by the fact we have two brand new characters to latch onto, so half the entertainment was simply in seeing The Doctor and Amy's embryonic rapport. To paraphrase Moffat himself, he describes Amy's situation as someone who's ran away with Peter Pan on the eve of her wedding day (a time signifying her maturity into adulthood) for one last childhood adventure, even dressed in a Wendy-style nightie. And I can't think of a better way to describe things, as it perfectly encapsulates the "dark fairy tale" Moffat's aiming for this year.

The Doctor still has the manic energy of his previous incarnation, but it's tempered by a scatterbrained approach that means he's still an undoubted genius, but it's no longer a foregone conclusion he'll find the answers in time. In fact, this episode's biggest breath of fresh air was in having his companion save the day ahead of him; something I can't remember happening so unequivocally since the show returned in 2005. I really like what Moffat's done to make The Doctor feel less like a quirky God whose presence puts you at ease, as he's now a mad professor who can keep you guessing because of his erratic behaviour.

Amy certainly seems to be a more interesting companion, mixing the cheekiness of Rose and the earthy wit of Donna, without too much obstreperousness. It would also have been tiresome to have Amy ask so many of the same questions that sat on the lips of Rose, Martha and Donna at this stage in their own adventures with the Time Lord. Here, Amy learns that The Doctor's not human and he's the last of his kind, and that knowledge was imparted in a way that wasn't tedious for the audience watching at home. Above all, Amy's refreshing mix of realism, independence, sexiness, determination and belief in her own abilities means she's less of a hanger-on than you'd expect right now. It's only the second episode and she's the one outfoxing The Doctor!

Where the episode failed was in the overall direction of the story, how quite a few of its "twists" weren't hard to predict, and how many of its interesting ideas (the police state, the disappearance of children, the Smilers) kind of fell by the wayside once the true nature of Starship UK was revealed and it all became about slavery and torture. The whole story was something of a morality play, not unlike something you'd expect to see in Russell T. Davies' era, but at least Moffat's a surer hand with this kind of material, so you felt less bludgeoned by it all.

Overall, despite its faults and disappointments, "The Beast Below" was still an engaging mix of action and humour -- thanks to the disquieting "Smilers" (the show loves monsters with fixed expressions), a decent guest performance from Sophie Okonedo as royal "Liz Ten" (a black Queen of England who speaks like a "commoner", lordy!), a trip onto a slimy monster's tongue, some quips about democracy for the adults to grin at, and the aforementioned pleasure of seeing how Matt Smith and Karen Gillan are approaching the material. Of course, it's worth mentioning that "The Beast Below" was filmed a fair way into the production schedule, so both actors were comfortable in their roles here.

Asides

• Magpie Electricals make a reappearance on the series, having first appeared in series 3's "The Idiot's Lantern".
• A mysterious crack appeared on the hull of Starship UK, identical to the one on Amy's bedroom wall. This would appear to be the motif of series 5, to be answered in the finale.
• It's a small, trivial thing, but I love how the new sonic screwdriver is being used: The Doctor scans things, but then kind of snaps it to look at the readings.
• Nobody died in this episode, which is something of a rarity in Doctor Who, although Steven Moffat's previous two-parter "The Empty Child"/"The Doctor Dances" also had no on-screen deaths.
• This is director Andrew Gunn's debut on the series.
• Liz Ten references past Queens The Doctor has met: Queen Victoria ("Tooth & Claw") and Elizabeth I ("The Chase", "Silver Nemesis", "The Shakespeare Code"). She also alludes to the fact The Doctor took Elizabeth I's virginity!
• Are we to assume that this episode was taking place around the same time as the 1974 Tom Baker story "The Ark In Space", which also featured human refugees of an Earth stricken by solar flares?
• This episode featured a denouement that sets up the next episode, which I don't believe has been done outside of the series finale's that traditionally tease the Christmas special in a coda.

10 APRIL 2010: BBC1/HD, 6.15PM

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