Warning: Spoilers ahead. Read them rather than watching the ep, honestly.
To be fair, this ep would've probably gotten a full five stars if those hilarious little orange aliens from the old BBC Three idents had shown up instead of those boring black cubes that promised much more of a mystery than they delivered.
At the start this episode feels a lot like some sort of new 'adult' Doctor Who. We're set on Earth, pretty much present day, and everything's taken more seriously than usual. Loads of strange black cubes show up all over the country in the middle of the night and nobody knows what they do. Are they alien, or some sort of marketing ploy? Who knows! But - the Doctor is determined to get to the bottom of it all, as per usual. So, he decides to spend some time at home with the Ponds. It's here that the episode begins to lose it's way, throwing aside 40ish minutes that could have been spent slowing the pace, figuring out what the boxes are for and having some heartfelt character-driven conversations. Instead, we get Matt Smith doing 'comedy' and going berserk, because Doctor Who has to be so fucking hilarious these days.
 |
| That looks just about as fun as watching Doctor Who |
The mystery element to the episode is smashing, but it only lasts around five minutes, unfortunately. It's not long before UNIT get involved (welcome back UNIT) and the cubes reveal their true intentions - coming alive, surfing the net and sampling human DNA. But, before even any of that takes place, we get strange birdo-type nurses stealing patients from hospital beds for no apparent reason. Their presence remains pretty much unexplained through to the end. What a waste! And, why is it that no matter which alien race we're watching in Doctor Who, they always seem to have the technology to create 'fake humans', or they brainwash a bunch of humans and turn them into mindless robots that all walk about like robots with vacant robotic looks on their faces? The Daleks did it, the Autons did it, the Cyber-men did it and now these cube-tossers are doing it too.
There's a pleasant hooty piece of music repeated in the background, which is much calmer than the show's usual bombardment of trumpets and general loudness. Don't worry though, music stolen from Star Wars is played loud enough to make your ears bleed nearer the end. But, the hooty bits combined with smart little captions that reveal how long the cubes have been knocking about genuinely make it feel as though time is passing, and the human race has given up guessing what the fuck is going on. So, since it's been so long, the cubes have ended up all over the place. People use them as decorations, or leave them lying in with their cutlery, or in their cupboards, or on top of a bin... for months on end. See, things like this used to happen a lot in the Russel T Davies days; cutaway shots showing where some cubes have been left are re-used here, over and over, and this doesn't work in an episode that is meant to span a whole year. Especially when everyone is warned that the cubes may be dangerous and should be disposed of straight away. Nope. Instead, why not just leave them here, on this bin? Oh, and let that strange looking kid sit in the hospital with one for hours on end too. Nonsense!
The episode clumsily soldiers on, leading to a near-death experience for the Doctor. The cubes give everybody who spends a little while looking at them a heart attack and although most folks in this predicament would die, the Doc has two hearts, giving him the perfect opportunity to do the whole 'comedy' thing again, waving his arms about in 'pain' and shouting lines you just wouldn't in that situation. Simply put, it's a waste. A segment of the story that could have been used for dramatic effect is tossed aside in favour of whacky bullshit, once again. And then, to top it all off with even more bullshit, everybody who died from a heart attack is magically brought back to life because the Doctor waves his sonic screwdriver at a computer screen. Or is it actually because this show is useless? What's the point in anything if nothing ever leaves a mark? What's the point if you can swoosh about space and time as much as you poxy like without ever having to worry about anything going wrong because the only time anything ever does is when someone's decided against renewing their contract? "You're remarkable," the Doctor is told. Remarkable my ass.
 |
| "I'd like a car with my cubes please..." |
★☆☆☆☆
Roo