Warning: Spoilers here, to the sound of trumpety music.
Doctor Who's answer to Jurassic Park is an episode filled with dinosaurs and spaceships and it should be brilliant. This, this is just awful.
Honest to god - can anybody fathom why there needs to be such a constant flow of comedic, bouncy music running through the entire episode? Again - it should be fine, it should just be a right laugh and a heap of fun - nothing wrong with that - but it doesn't sit right. Not one bit. There's every opportunity here to create a serious science fiction show that has a sense of humour - simple. The problem with Doctor Who is that it's 90% pantomime and 10% making up for the lack of genuine drama with childish slapstick and melodramatics. For exaxmple, the two robots that feature in this episode are quite entertaining, like something from Hitchiker's Guide, but was there any room for them? Did they ever really have a purpose, or a chance to shine, or were they simply squeezed in because Doctor Who's got to be so fucking hilarious these days? Quit it with the comedy act!
Lots of people out there will insist that Doctor Who is a kids' show, and they're wrong. The Sarah Jane Adventures is a kids' show and it does a bloody good job of being one too. Doctor Who on the other hand is a show that adults watch on a Saturday evening, joined by whichever kids are brave enough. Or at least, it could be if it tried. Yapping on about how it's for children is the equivalent of coming up with excuses for what's essentially a waste of time - it's a lazy show, with lazy writing and lazy 'twists' that result in nothing other than a backlog of massive plot holes. It blames the children, but children deserve more than this mush! They need cleverer, deeper, darker writing.
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| "Where has the story gone?" |
Whenever Doctor Who sobers up, stopping the running through corridors and one-liners for a split second, it actually becomes fairly intense. David Bradley and Matt Smith's screen time together very nearly hits the spot but then it all goes out the window the moment everyone decides to ride a dinosaur to safety. It's one of those scenes that has to be included because the idea was batted about a meeting one day and everyone thought that it'd look fab - the 'iconic' Doctor riding a freakin' dinosaur, wow. But it reaks of gimmick and adds absolutely piss all to the story, of which there is already very little to follow. The Doctor shouting, "Where are the brakes?!" to satisfied-sounding trumpety music is enough to make you want to throw up. Give us a break!
There are some nice touches though - Amy seems to know a little more about computers than usual, which must have something to do with her run in with the Daleks and their nanogenes in the dreadful previous episode. Also, some very nice CGI spacecrafts. Lovely. The dinosaurs looked alright too, actually.
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| The Doctor welcomes his next two companions aboard the Tardis. |
As with the last episode, a difficulty the show seems to have is that nobody is ever scared. Ever. Everyone larks about just as much as the Doc himself and maybe when encountering aliens his companions aren't aware of how threatening they are, but when a human comes face to face with a huge pointy-toothed dinosaur they should know full well there's a very real chance they could get torn to shreds any second. So, instead of comically running about, making jokes and riding dinosaurs, showrunner Steven Moffat should try and remember less is definitely more. Seriously - we've got two episodes in a row that end with a race against being blown up. Why must there always be such a forced sense of urgency? Slow your timey wimey asses down!!
★★☆☆☆
Roo