Any Doctor Who Fans? **UK AIR-DATE SPOILERS ABOUND** — Page 39

Just watched "The Beast Below" and the thing I have noticed about both episodes of the new season, is that EVERYTHING seems so rushed.

That said, this episode shows, what I feel, what was missing in the Russell T. Davies' incarnation of DOCTOR WHO - the Doctor is not God and he is not always right. So, for that, I say "BRAVA!"

Matt Smith is impressing me more and more, every time is on screen and I am LOVING his Doctor so much. With Amy, I have moments were I think she not a good actress and other times where I think she is brilliant. She will grow into the character.

The only major problem I had is what I said at the beginning - everything is SO RUSHED! Steven Moffat has amazing ideas but it's like he can't decide which one to use so he crams two or three into one episode and nothing is delved upon.

Oh well. Can't wait until next weekend!

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My problem with "The Beast Below" wasn't really the pacing....it was mainly that, logistically, it all falls apart if you think about it for more than two seconds and left me with a very, "Huh?" kind of feeling. The teaser has absolutely nothing to do with the rest of the episode other than to make the little girl cry and put the rest of the plot in motion. If the Smilers and secret police are working for Liz 10, why are they behaving so ominously? Who's controlling everything? Why are they policing children's grades, and why do they keep trying to feed children to the beast if the beast won't eat them? It just didn't all hang together. I would have appreciated less emphasis on the monster of the week-ish aspect and more on the dystopian society theme. I liked the idea that people could know the truth and choose to protest or forget it, but that was kind of negated by the fact that any protesters were fed to the beast. Really, the only way the plot of this episode can be salvaged for me is if it's revisited in some way and there are some things going on behind the scenes that we don't know about yet.

All this is pretty surprising given that Moffat usually writes pretty internally sound episodes. But as I said, I'm still enjoying the character stuff, which I think is more important for whether I'm going to like the season as a whole.

Word word word on the plots so far making no sense whatsoever. It's quite unlike the Moffat of "The Doctor Dances" for that to happen, too.

I mean, I can almost get the Smilers and the sacrifice of children as a way to keep people scared so they won't ask questions about what's keeping the ship going. Almost. And I suppose that it was all perpetuated by "upper management" on the orders of Liz X, who told them to keep the system going every ten years or so before she got mindwiped. But to say that the whale is "kind" when it does eat the adults? Wha?

Moffat has cast two great leads and given them plenty to chew on. He's a bit of a genius with creepy imagery. (What child in Britain isn't going to have elevator nightmares after this week?) But I'm kind of looking forward to seeing an episode written by someone else just so I don't feel lost for the whole middle of an episode.

Plot holes are generally a given with shows like this, but "The Beat Below" was infested with them. I think there should have been one more re-write before filming.

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I'm not sure what space whales eat. I did wonder why, if it's such a benevolent creature, it still ate the adult humans that were fed to it. So just no children? My question is why every other nation on Earth could build a working spaceship, including Scotland, but the UK stuck around and had to capture and torture a space whale to escape.

Updated On: 4/11/10 at 07:44 PM

I'm feeling kind of guilty about analyzing the episodes here since some people haven't seen them yet. I will say, whatever my problems with this latest episode, I thought "The Eleventh Hour" was marvelous and on the whole very well-plotted, with really lovely character introductions. You're in for a treat, GG!

I'm really excited, especially since the new episodes are getting good reviews! I probably would have tried to find a way to watch them earlier but I'm still finishing watching the old episodes in order. (I'm up to 'the Next Doctor'). Only one more week!

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If the whale didn't eat people, I'm not sure why that government official would feel the need to say that it always "spared" the children.

Now, I never expect the skience in Doctor Who to make any sense. That's why I call it skience. :) But it's just...not great storytelling when you pick up characters and story threads and let them peter out. "The Beast Below" needed to be either sleeker (no little girl walking around with them for no reason, for example), or more intricate (give the girl something to do beyond her initial expository moment). As it was, it felt sloppy. And I say this with all the love and goodwill in the world for the leads and for Moffat.

I love that word, 'skience'. :)

Moffat has written some awesome stories for Doctor Who. I hope that being the main writer doesn't mean that he has to sacrifice some of the tightness of his stories. Though it could be overwhelming, to be in charge of all those scripts. He might have really benefited from writing only one or two per series.

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Per Twitter, there was a Who event at the Apple store in SoHo; it was apparently standing room only! The screening of the Eleventh Hour at the Village East Cinema is Wednesday night, and at 12:45 on Wednesday, Matt Smith and Karen Gillan will be on Strategy Room on FoxNews.com.

The show should have always been on BBCA, but for whatever reason SciFi got it first. Now that it's SYFY, I guess it didn't fit their programming profile or whatever. Besides, they didn't air it until at least a year after it had aired in the UK. Two weeks isn't great, but it's much better.

they're amazing

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So how long were you waiting in line? I heard people started lining up at 7 a.m.! BBCA has been posting videos and photos via Facebook and Twitter. Looks like it was a great event!