Several things stood out when I was watching this
episode and all of them put me in a far better mood than when I watched Rose way back
in 2005. I am a huge fan of Tim Burton’s movies and I adore his whimsical
and fairytale approach to storytelling, and Steven Moffat’s opening story
for the eleventh Doctor positively glowed with the same youthful
exuberance and dark fantasy. I spent the entire episode sitting there
with a huge grin on my face and loved every second of it.
I am of the thought that it is sometimes much wiser to shove an
unknown actor into an important part simply for the novelty of finding a
great performer if you manage to pull it off. Of course, hypocritically,
if it falls flat on its face I usually decry
“why on Earth did they use
that nobody?” Such is the way with fussy critics. Matt Smith sold
himself in the first ten minutes of this story; I had no doubt in my mind
that the youthful rogue that leapt from the TARDIS and started whoofing
down custard fish was the same man who kidnapped Ian and Barbara, skipped
away from the Ice Warriors on the Moon, watched appalled as the Brigadier
blew up the Silurians, stalked a giant rat in the sewers of London with an
elephant gun, watched his companion die in a spaceship crashing into the
Earth, bantered with Davros about eating people, blew up Skaro, snogged an
American surgeon, argued the case for an alien race reanimating human
corpses, and became human to escape an alien family!
“All of time and space. Everything that ever happened or ever will. Where
do you wanna start?”
Smith is all fingers and thumbs at first, body spasms and quirks.
He exudes a childlike lack of knowledge about the world and his own
abilities, and he charms everybody that he meets. He never plays the part
quite as you would expect him to, aided well by a script that keeps him
unpredictable and utterly amiable. It helps that he makes no apologies for
his mistakes (leaving Amy for years at a time... twice!) but mumbles that he
is new at this and moves on. He is a man of action too, dashing off to
save the day in twenty minutes but still having time to spend ten minutes
helping out a little girl with a problem with her wall. Both
my mother-in-law and my husband were unsure about Smith after seeing previews since
they both adored David Tennant so much, but by the end of this episode they were
laughing and clapping and declaring him the next best thing. I loved that
wild look in his eyes when he ask the TARDIS what she has for him this
time; he’s mad and thrilling.
Moffat cleverly stops Amy from being Donna mark #II by allowing
her to grow up in her debut story, and by giving her balls without having
her fall to pieces at the drop of as hat. Don’t get me wrong; I love
Donna, and she will probably always be my favourite companion bar Sarah
Jane, but it was nice to have a woman who goes on such a journey with the
Doctor within one story. The younger Amy was very sweet and the scenes of
her packing up her stuff and rushing out with a suitcase reminds us of
that giddy child like thrill of being offered the chance to travel with
the Doctor like no other before or since. Karen Gillan steps into the role
of the older Amy - our Amy - and works her eyes to death with wonder,
fear and utter bewilderment. I loved her solution to trespassers in her
home (knock them out with a baseball bat) and her fearlessness when she
walks into the hidden room. It was a surprisingly powerful moment when she
snapped at the Doctor and makes him realise that she is the little girl
that he never came back for. It hurt with Sarah Jane in School Reunion
but the thought of breaking a little girl’s heart is brutal. Then the
story keeps reminding us, how much of an
impact he had on her life,
right up until the conclusion. The script still never behaves the way it
should, we know Amy wants to travel with the Doctor but she makes him wait
a little before finally giving him a small
“okay”. It’s going to be an
interesting relationship to follow, and it is lovely that the story sets
aside a lot of time to explore this partnership within its plot.
There were whispers of The Sarah Jane Adventures story
Prisoner of the Judoon here (with an escaped convict on the loose and
an evil duplicate of the Doctor) but this story has a lot more to it than
copying another series opener. He is known for his terrifying storytelling
so it was rather wonderful to have Moffat bring this story alive with a
more capricious touch. The script is constantly inventive and full of
clever ideas and visuals. Fish fingers and custard, cracks in the wall
that lead to dark prison cells, doors that aren’t there, an ice cream van
portent of doom, a fish eye view of the Doctor’s observations, fire trucks
to the rescue, Patrick Moore, a family of women with really bad teeth and
a spaceship with a ruddy great eye. The story never threatened to become
an adult drama for one second and for that we should be very grateful;
during The Eleventh Hour I was ten years old again, surprised and
giddy with excitement.
Even better, Adam Smith directs the story with a lightness of touch
that gave the story a wonderful fairytale feel so that a cover opening and
closing upon the beginning and end of the story wouldn’t have gone amiss.
There are some terrific images throughout: the Doctor hanging for dear
life as the TARDIS crash lands, the glowing TARDIS on its side in the
garden, Amy in the hidden room with the horrid snake grinning behind her,
the glowing Doctor and Amy, the eleventh Doctor stepping through the tenth
to claim his show... the story is a visual feast. The idea of setting the
story in a sleepy little English village was a stroke of genius and very
refreshing after so many trips to London’s metropolis. The story feels
very small scale despite the fact that the entire Earth was in danger but
very idea of a Doctor without a TARDIS, sonic screwdriver or friends, with
only twenty minutes and a Post Office to hand is inspired. No news readers,
Peggy Mitchell or talk of the economy. This story wasn’t trying to be
topical or modern; it was just trying to be a good story.
Above: The eleventh Doctor
stepping through the tenth to claim his show...
Finally, I really like the new TARDIS design which is somehow even
more quirky than the last one with its impressive staircase design,
nutty professor console, and warm lighting. I love the idea of a TARDIS
with a split level, it is going to make for some interesting scenes later
in the season and even better the console has some of the most bizarre
items stuck to it like an old fashioned typewriter and taps!
All told this was a great introduction for the Doctor and Amy, a
confident and enjoyable piece of storytelling and a reassuring new
direction for the series. I have never been fond of Rose or New
Earth but I really like Smith and Jones and Partners in
Crime. The Eleventh Hour manages to top both of them by keeping
me on my toes throughout and dishing up the most interesting Doctor since
Troughton. Bring on the rest of the season.
|
Finally, after much anticipation, the era of the eleventh Doctor arrives.
It’s
been three months since we first met him, in the final moments
of The End of Time, and a year longer since Matt Smith was first
unveiled
on Doctor Who Confidential. It’s
strangely easy to empathise with young Amelia Pond, although at least it
hasn’t
been a whole twelve years between our first and second meetings with the
new Doctor. Now, while The Eleventh Hour is a fine, thrilling
episode, and perhaps the best season opener since the series returned back
in 2005, what everyone is really interested to know is obvious: just what
is the new Doctor like? And, just as importantly, will he be as good as
David Tennant?
Well, the answer to that is clearly: yes.
Matt Smith is absolutely perfectly cast as the Doctor. I don’t
think any of us were expecting a twenty-seven-year-old ex-footballer to
get the role, but Smith really does nail it. He’s
youthful and energetic, but carries with him an aged, unfathomable quality;
a genuine sense of the peculiar and alien. Smith’s
Doctor is quirky and odd, in the best traditions of Patrick Troughton and
Tom Baker, but with an endearing naturalness to his performance.
“Beans are evil. Bad, bad beans...”
The performance is comedic and a little broad in his first couple of
scenes, as he walks into trees and eats fish-custard, but this is a
perfect way of immediately appealing to the kids, young Amelia included.
Even here he shows touches of the gravitas that many doubted he would
have. Of course, much of the over-the-top pratting about soon disappears
as the Doctor settles down a fraction and stabilises, but his oddness and
‘off-kilter-ness’
never quite vanish. He carries himself like his body doesn’t
quite fit, and not just because the Doctor is getting used to it - you
really get the feeling that Smith genuinely walks like he doesn’t
quite know what his legs are doing. He’s
oddly handsome, sexy but, at the same time, distinctly odd in his
appearance. Some reviewers have claimed that he is too similar to Tennant,
but, aside from his youth and certain elements that are common to all
Doctors’
characters, this is really confined to his earliest, occasional deliberate
‘Tennantisms’.
The script drops in lines directly from previous tenth Doctor adventures
(all by Steven Moffat, unless I missed any), with Smith perfectly
recreating the tenth Doctor’s
delivery. He even corrects his diction after he’s
hit with the cricket bat - putting his
‘t’s
back on the ends of those words. There’s
a hint of poshness in this Doctor
-
just a hint
-
that was totally absent from the Mancunian ninth and the mockney tenth,
but never does it take away from the feeling that this guy’s
just your new mate from outer space.
By
the end of the episode, Smith completely owns the role. Striding out onto
the roof to confront the Atraxi, still perfecting his new look, you’d
nonetheless think he been playing the part for years. And, on the subject
of that new look, I have to say I think it’s
perfect - studenty yet professorial;
fogeyish while still a little trendy, throwing in the feel of Troughton
with just a touch of Henry Jones Jr. After the self-consciously modern and
ordinary look of the ninth Doctor, and the indy-cool eccentric-chic of the
tenth, it’s
pleasing to get back to something so very Doctorish. The fact that Smith
chose most of the ensemble himself, vetoing cool pirate-style gear is
telling - the man just gets it.
So, that’s
the Doctor covered. What about the rest of it?
Happily, this is a cracking episode. It’s
complex enough to be interesting,
but fast-paced and coherent, carrying the viewer along so well that you
don’t
realise that you’re
being bombarded with information. Having the vital middle twenty minutes
of plot in almost-real-time gives a real sense of impetus, far more
effectively and in a less-contrived fashion than in the previous attempt (the
2007 episode
42). It’s also great to see the Doctor save the day without the use
of the magic set of the TARDIS and sonic screwdriver; although a computer
virus is equally as clichéd, at least here it’s used in a fairly original
way - not to nobble the alien ship, Independence Day-style, but to
alert it.
And
there
are some great conceits here. The crack in the wall being a crack in the
universe is particularly appealing, although not much is made of it, as
the plot soon moves on from there - although, the crack does still seem to
be visible on the TARDIS monitor at the end of the story, so perhaps more
is to come. The Atraxi provide an arresting image
-
crystalline starships supporting huge, rolling eyeballs and intoning in
deep, sonorous voices, while Prisoner
Zero is a straightforward, and
therefore very effective, villain. Images such as men barking instead of
their dogs and little girls growing sharp, fish-like teeth will no doubt
stick in many a child’s
mind, although the monster’s
eel-like true form is perhaps better glimpsed than seen full on in the
light of day.
Above:
The
crack does still seem to be visible on the TARDIS monitor at the end of
the story...
There are some excellent performances here, from Olivia Colman as the
female face of the Prisoner, Tom Hopper as the likeable Jeff, and Arthur
Darvill as Rory, a character who is immediately appealing by being so
perfectly ordinary and out of his depth that the viewer can’t
help but empathise. Annette Crosbie steals the few scenes that she’s
in. It’s
even got Patrick Moore in it, for crying out loud! What more could you
want?
Still,
when it comes down to it, there’s
one more thing that is absolutely vital to this episode’s
success, and that is the realisation of the new companion character, Amy
Pond. Even with a perfect Doctor and immaculate storytelling, the comp-anion
is the viewer’s window into this world, and the show can stumble if he or
she isn’t portrayed well. Thankfully, Karen Gillan is excellent in the
role, taking a playful, yet mature character and bringing her to life.
Yes, she’s feisty - all female characters on
television
today are feisty;
it’s a tradition, or an old charter, or something - but she isn’t
in-your-face or over-the-top. She’d believable and good fun, and Gillan
brings a strong perf-ormance
to the role. Seeing that she shares most of her screen-time with Smith,
she doesn’t dominate, but it’s clear to see that she could do in future
instalments. What’s more, she’s stunning to look at - and that’s never a
bad thing.
And let’s not forget the young Amy/Amelia, played by the adorable Caitlin
Blackwood. Not only is the physical resemblance between the two actresses
a fine fit, with their being cousins and all, but you can believe that the
one will grow up to be the other. Young Caitlin is absolutely brilliant
here, all the more impressive considering that this is her first ever
professional role. She even hits just the right sinister note as she plays
Prisoner Zero. I foresee a great future for this young actress.
So, any negatives to report? A couple; nothing’s perfect. There’s the
occasional slightly ropey effect, and I’m not too keen on the new theme
tune, although I’m sure it’ll grow on me (and the continued presence of
Murray Gold is a godsend, providing the only real sense of continuity
between this latest version of the series and the Russell T Davies era).
It’s also hard to believe that Amy, however much she may want to finally
take up the chance to travel with the Doctor, would actually trust him to
bring her back in time for her wedding, given that he’s missed her by
years on two occasions (unless she doesn’t really want to back by
morning?) Other than that, this is a grand new beginning, accessible to
fans and new viewers alike. Even my girlfriend has gone from reluctantly
admitting that the show isn’t that bad to saying that she know loves the
show, and fans who refused to accept that David Tennant could ever be
replaced are now eating their words. So now we can join the Doctor and
Amy, in the fabulously redesigned TARDIS, in the brand new Series 1, or 5,
or 31, or 11A†,
or-†
† I’ll
stop you there, Dan. I think we’ll
stick with the unequivocal “2010 series”, at least
until we see what they’re
gonna stick on the season’s
DVD covers! I know; I’m no fun.
Ed.
|
So what do I think of The Eleventh Hour?
In a word, repeated thrice: Fun, fun, fun!
Without wishing to sound sycophantic, I never had any
doubts about Matt Smith or Karen Gillan as the newest Doctor and companion
team – yes, they are both practically kids, but since when is Doctor Who
not a show for kids or kids at heart? And goodness did Steven Moffat’s
first episode, The Eleventh Hour, speak to the kid in me. Right from the
start we had the Doctor dangling from the falling TARDIS, sleeves rolled
up and screwdriver between his teeth. The old Doctor was gone and the new
Doctor was hard at work being himself: fixing, flying, fighting to stay
alive literally by the skin of his teeth. When the new theme tune and
opening titles were done burning into the screen I couldn’t help but feel
a rush of excitement – the sense of knowing someone old was now something
new – when I saw young Amelia Pond praying (to Santa of all things!) about
removing the crack in her wall. I don’t know if anyone has ever seen the
1965 Roman Polanski film Repulsion with Catherine Deneuve, but ever
since watching that little bit of cinema, I can honestly say I find wall
cracks absolutely horrifying – not only is your paint job ruined but what
is there’s something pushing against the other side of the wall?
But like a good storyteller Moffat introduces his elements one by one, and
before the wall crack was investigated we were treated to some very
charming Doctor / Amelia interaction. And what an introduction! Imagine if
we could somehow have a perfect fan world where we knew what the Doctor
and his incredible TARDIS were and have them crash land in our own
backyard? As long as the Doctor survived the crash, this would be
wonderful, and so imagine my thrill to watch the new Doctor fall from the
sky into Amelia’s backyard and climb out of the TARDIS, asking for apples.
I have seen a few regeneration stories in the last few years, but I don’t
think a new Doctor has ever asked for food as a means to calm his
regenerating form. (A side note about the regeneration: I loved the return
of the golden coughs; nice holdover from previous CGI.) Of course, if a
strange man crawled out of a box in my backyard and asked for apples,
chewed on one, spit it out, then asked for all types of grub while
similarly spewing the chewed contents in disgust all about my kitchen, I
might not question the quality of my cooking so much as his sanity. And
yet Smith’s delivery of this culinary tastelessness was masterful; he
simply seemed like a newborn alien finding his way in life through the
most conventional means available. At least to him.
The other half of this remarkable first impression is of course Amelia
Pond, played with astonishing strength by ten year-old Cattie Blackwood,
cousin to actress Karen Gillan, the grown-up version of the character. But
more on her in a moment (or twelve years). Cattie’s Amelia is an
interesting girl: hopeful but experienced in loneliness, she is very much
an independent child perfectly capable of being alone but certainly hoping
for company. There is something odd about Amelia’s situation: she has no
parents, but even at age seven can remember her mom carving happy faces
into apples, and her aunt leaves her alone at home in the dead of night,
when anyone can visit – like a Doctor or a monster.
Thankfully the Doctor finds Amelia first and when he sees such a fearless
child afraid of the crack in her wall he can’t help but rush to investigate.
The cr-ack itself is simply that; a crack, but not in the
wall. It is a break in the skin of the universe where two parts of space
meet when they never should. And on the other side of the crack there is a
voice, warning of Prisoner Zero’s escape. Now, I have to say when the
TARDIS crashed in Amelia’s backyard I could feel the sense that the series
had taken a new turn in its storytelling, but never was I more sure of
this when the Doctor opened the wall crack and a giant eye appeared on the
other side. This moment reminded me of the My Teacher is an Alien series;
specifically the fourth and final novel, My Teacher Flunked the Planet,
which featured an alien creature – Big Julie, I believe it was called - so
large only its eye could be seen through a space in a wall. In other
words, the moment made me feel like a kid again.
And then just as the Doctor was about to track down the missing Prisoner
Zero, the TARDIS went wobbly (and probably timey wimey) and the new Time Lord
was forced to time jump to save her engines. What was a promised five
minutes wait for Amelia before she could see the TARDIS became, as should
be expected by now (think Reinette), became something much longer. For the
Doctor, of course, it was the fast path to the future and when he returned
he had figured out the location of Prisoner Zero, but a cricket bat to his
head delayed that revelation. Moffat uses this literal break in the action
to shift scenery from Amelia’s home to the local hospital where we meet
Rory Williams, a young intern who has noticed the resident coma patients
speaking in their sleep. Rory alerts the hothead doctor to the
phenomenon because he thought the speakers were calling for her. In fact,
they were simply calling for the “Doctor.” Rory has also seen the coma
patients walking about town and has pictorial proof of this on his mobile
phone, but the (marked for death) head doctor refuses to listen and orders
Rory to take time off.
In a nice blur of transition, we see the Doctor once more chained to a
radiator and at the mercy of what appears to be an English WPC with a
decidedly under-regulation-length skirt. Through delightfully awkward
conversation, the Doctor asks for Amelia and the shaken WPC reveals the
girl has been gone for six months and the house is now her home. The
Doctor directs the woman’s attention to the extra room in the house, which
he failed to see on his previous visit: it is here Prisoner Zero has
hidden. As seemed per adventure with the series, despite the Doctor’s
warnings, the people around him knowingly head into danger as the WPC
enters the “new” room and discovers the Doctor’s sonic screwdriver (which
had rolled under the door after the misadventure with the cricket bat) has
somehow rolled up a box and covered itself in slime. After a back-headed
game of cat-and-mouse, the WPC sees the mega-mouthed Prisoner Zero (an
interesting home decoration if chandeliers were eels) and flees the scene.
Tensions mounts as the Doctor’s damaged screwdriver seals the door but
cannot uncouple his bonds, and at the speak of intensity the WPC reveals
her earlier call for backup was hoax as she is in fact a kissogram with a
sweeping liberation of her long, incredibly ginger hair (a moment to be
forever replayed on countless fan forum member’s avatars).
“Vacate the human residence or the human residence will be
destroyed.”
Prisoner Zero quickly overcomes a wood door and confronts the Doctor and
Amy in the form of a man and his dog, which the viewer sees is a psychic
pattern based on one of the coma patients, whose dog sits faithfully at
his bedside, at least as a photo. Back at the former home of Amelia Pond,
Prisoner Zero is distracted by the blaring, repeated warning of its
captors, who demand the convict “vacate the human residence or the human
residence will be destroyed.” Finally free, the Doctor flees with the
bat-handy kissogram, only to discover the TARDIS won’t let him inside
before her reconstruction completes. The Doctor also discovers that the
garden shed his TARDIS has demolished when he met Amelia has somehow
re-formed. A taste-test of the shed’s rust (very Tennant-like) indicates
twelve years have passed since the building’s reconstruction, and when the
Doctor demands to know why the faux-WPC lied about the time Amelia left,
the increasingly agitated young woman blasts him for lying about waiting
five minutes.
The suddenly-grown-up (and once more Scottish) Amelia drags the Doctor
from the danger, despite his repeated, incredulous
“what!”
(also very
Tennant-like). Amelia explains the change in her age and behaviour with an
ironically obvious fact: “Twelve years…and four psychiatrists.” The years
were bitingly bitter; the psychiatrists she bit with bitterness. With the
re-introduction of Amelia Pond we have her nineteen-year-old version as
played by Karen Gillan. Like Matt Smith she entered the stage of Doctor
Who as a relative unknown, but unlike Smith I had not seen her acting at
all beforehand, so I had no idea what to expect. For starters, she is a
striking image on-screen. With her very attractive features, green-blue
eyes, elfin-shaped face, and fire-red hair, she truly appears at home in
the fairytale tone of this new phase of the program. Perhaps even more
astounding is the fact that she is so unbelievably tall; it has been quite
a few TARDIS teams since the Doctor / companion actors were at an eye level,
but in the past that was during the rare time the Doctor was short. From
initial impression, Matt Smith appears to be on the tall side, and
therefore Karen Gillan’s Amy Pond is not only tall, but perhaps upwards of
six feet tall! Nevertheless, in my opinion, the actress’s
statuesque stature is a positive element: she is the eleventh Doctor’s
equal in practically every way, in this should spell for an interesting
future dynamic in the TARDIS.
Back to the main story: the Doctor’s inquisition of Amelia’s sudden growth
halts when the foreboding warning to Prisoner Zero they heard at the home
is suddenly shouting through every local electronic device (and did anyone
else think the ice-cream man look remarkably like a certain Doctor Who
producer from the 1980s?). The Doctor rushes into an elderly woman’s home
to see upon the television screen the same giant eyeball he spied through
the crack in Amelia’s wall. As the Time Lord complies information, the
story become quite informative on other fronts: we learn Amelia now calls
herself Amy as the longer name was “too fairytale,” and the woman – plus
her laptop-carrying grandson, Jeff – recognise and can name the Doctor,
despite his new face. It seems Amy had spent the intervening years
regaling her town of tales with
“the Raggedy Doctor,”
a name the real
Doctor doesn’t find terribly appealing. Names aside, the Time Lord
deciphers what Prisoner Zero’s captors mean by
“the human residence”
- not
simply Amy’s home but the entire Earth, which they will destroy unless the
said prisoner leaves the planet. Cue the very welcome CG shot of the
giant eyeball and its true socket: one of many identical crystalline ships
owned by the Atraxi, a race Prisoner Zero will later name as its captors.
But let’s keep to the narrative flow…
The Doctor estimates that the Atraxi will destroy the Earth in twenty
minutes and scrambles to think of what he can do in that time without his
TARDIS. With Amy in tow he shouts the bleakness of his situation, and then
proceeds to question why the town has a duck pond without
ducks. Then, as an atmospheric forcefield discolours the sun and the local
populace takes to their mobiles to capture the moment, the Doctor
remembers (via a nifty visual technique not unlike a unlike a series of
screencaps) that one of the people is recording not the sun but a man with
his dog. The Doctor tries to enlist Amy to help him save the world but in
a wonderfully comic and ill-timed moment of defiance; she refuses and
locks his tie in a car door. She demands he tell her who he really is, and
the Doctor shows Amy the happy-faced apple she gave him, still fresh after
twelve years. The Doctor urges Amy to believe in him for twenty minutes,
and thankfully, she does.
“Twenty minutes..."
Unlocked from the door jamb, the Doctor confronts the person with the
phone, who is in fact Rory from the hospital, who is also in fact Amy’s
boyfriend, and who in fact also recognises the Doctor from Amy’s tales.
From Rory’s phone the Doctor discovers the photos of the coma patients
whose forms Prisoner Zero has taken. Prisoner Zero itself is also in
sight, just as an Atraxi ship flies over searching for the presence of
aliens. Since nothing is more alien than a sonic screwdriver, the Doctor
activates the device to make the local electronics hyperactive, but the
damaged, trusty tool disintegrates before the Atraxi can make a fix on its
quarry. Prisoner Zero dissolves and escapes, but the Doctor knows it will
return to the hospital to make a new psychic disguise.
Sending Amy and Rory to the hospital, the Doctor seeks out Jeff with the
laptop, and uses said laptop to network an impromptu conference call with
the world scientific community (including Sir Patrick Moore, CBE, HonFRS,
FRAS), first to declare his indomitable credentials, and also to prepare a
plan to alert the Atraxi, which includes Jeff as mediator and Rory’s
mobile phone for reasons the Time Lord refuses to share at that moment (I
spy a plot climax). Amy and Rory reach the hospital to find chaos. The
Doctor, in transit with a commandeered fire engine, phones in and reminds
Amy of her costume. With her hair re-pinned, “WPC” Amy and Rory
venture deep into the hospital corridors. They encounter a woman holding
hands with two identically dressed girls. The woman and the girls, all
speaking with the woman’s voice, tell them a monster has killed the head
doctor (I thought so!) but the woman realises she’s got the voices wrong
and chases after Amy and Rory. They retreat to the coma ward, but the
new-formed Prisoner Zero break through the door and taunts Amy, the girl
it’s watched for twelve years. Then the Doctor makes a grand entrance
through the window via fire ladder and confronts the prisoner. Prisoner
Zero knows its captors (here named the Atraxi – best never miss the
details!) will be become its executioners and so it refuses to give up.
The Doctor wonders how it made the crack in the universe; Prisoner Zero
says the crack was already there and mocks the Doctor for not knowing who
put it there. There is a further warning that “The Pandorica will
open… Silence will fall.”
Unfazed, the Doctor reveals his plan: a computer virus which makes every
electronic device read “0,” which the Atraxi trace to Rory’s mobile phone.
The Atraxi lock onto the hospital and the Doctor uploads from the phone
the photos of all the forms the creature has taken, but Prisoner Zero
takes one final form: the Doctor (a clever way for the new version to see
himself for the first time), or rather as young Amelia Pond holding the
Doctor’s hand, thanks to the psychic link the prisoner has formed after
hiding in Amy’s home for twelve years. The Doctor realises that if
Prisoner Zero can also take his form from Amy’s memories then Amy is
dreaming of him; and he manipulates her dream to remember the true shape
of Prisoner Zero. Prisoner Zero copies its own form and the Atraxi
retrieve it, but not before the final warning: “Silence will fall.”
Now in a normal forty-five minutes episode this would be the end, but with
the extra twenty minutes of a Doctor introduction adventure, the Doctor
capitalises on the extra time to recall the Atraxi with an invocation of
the Shadow Proclamation (so, it still is the same series!). He heads to
the roof (via a nice Pertwee / McGann homage trip to the hospital locker
room for new clothes) and has an eye-to-eye chat with the Atraxi, scolding
them for threatening the Earth and reminding them of who is the planet’s
protector: the ten men who have called themselves the Doctor (the current
convention for substitute multi-Doctor adventures – oh, if only we mortals
were eternal), and now himself, the eleventh Doctor, complete with tweed
jacket and bow tie. The Atraxi flee from the Doctor’s presence and the
glowing TARDIS key signals the ship’s completed regeneration. The happy
Time Lord returns to the just noticeably different Police Box and basks in
the new (as yet unseen) interior’s warm glow. A dematerialisation later
and poor Amy Pond, just too late to catch the Time Lord’s flight, watches
the Doctor leave her life once more…
…at least until he lands in her garden once again. Like the first time, it
is night again, and Amy, still in her nightie, hurries out into the
darkness to meet the long-awaited visitor, now self-secure and bow-tied.
The Doctor offers Amy the chance to join him, but she tells him all the
wonderful events with the Atraxi were two years past. Without skipping a
beat the Doctor says fourteen years is long enough and with a finger snap
the TARDIS doors open and we see through Amy’s wide eyes the ship’s new
interior. At first glance the new Console Room is not worlds away from the
previous model: all is still mostly bronze and metal, but gone is the
simple, rounded cavern of coral. There are nooks and crannies, staircases
and many levels to this new TARDIS space. From this single scene I cannot
yet render a complete opinion of the architecture, but I like it, simple
as that.
And so the episode finishes with Amy choosing to join the Doctor, on
condition that he can bring her home the next morning. In a shot of Amy’s empty
room after the TARDIS departs we not only see her many Raggedy Doctor
dolls, but also a white wedding dress hanging in the closet. One can easily
imagine that the next morning is Amy’s wedding day, but one can only imagine
what the Doctor’s true motivation is for taking Amy with him. Yes, I can
believe he is lonely and wants company once more, but the way Moffat
framed the scene with Amy stating that the loneliness is the Doctor’s only
reason for her company, while he confirms this as the only reason, all
while standing in front of the new scanner boldly displaying the same
crack once set in Amy’s wall.
So to sum up, The Eleventh Hour was well worth the long wait. Matt
Smith debunked any doubts of his age with strong bouts of solid acting and
genuine quirkiness; Karen Gillan and Cattie Blackwood were effortlessly
charming as the Wendy Darling-like Amy Pond caught in the Doctor’s dark
fairy-tale; the supporting characters of Jeff, Rory, and the locals of
Leadworth were well-oiled cogs in the new Moffat dream machine. And yet,
through the sparkle there is they mystery: when is this taking place?
Presumably in 2008 and 2010, but if so why does Rory’s medical badge bear
an issue date of 1990? Why are the cars of Leadworth also using license
plate models from the early 1990s, while the people are using laptops, web
cams, and mobile phones? What is the wall crack’s true origin, who made
it, and what is their silent connection to the Pandorica? More importantly,
what is the Pandorica and does it have an unseen connection to Amy Pond?
As said before, it’s very early days, but once more we have days
ahead of new Doctor Who, so onward and upward, and may the future shine
bright!
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