Doctor Who - The Beast Below (2010)

SPOILER WARNING!!! This Post spoils Doctor Who episode The Beast Below (2010)

I am not biggest fan of 11th Doctor's run. It goes too weird for me at times. It has great episodes like this one and then something you could call fever dreams. Matt Smith is not the problem. Stories are. This is the second episode with 11th Doctor and his new companion Amy Pond. Doctor came to meet Amy night before her wedding and they left to adventure time and space.

On their first adventure, they enter to Starship UK. Starship UK contains population of Great Britain. They have escaped deadly solar flames. On ship Doctor sees something is wrong. There is girl crying and everyone ignores her. There are Smilers everywhere. Smilers are smiling robots, who sit in booths and follow what is going around them. When they see something they don't like, they change their face to unhappy face. If that doesn't help, they change their face to angry face. If that doesn't help, they rise from booth and stop what they don't like.

Amy is taken into voting booth. There she is told the truth about Starship UK. After knowing the truth she has to choose either to forget or protest. Doctor finds Amy watching video, where she ask herself to take Doctor away from Starship UK and not to investigate Starship. Doctor has realized earlier, that Starship UK doesn't have any engines and it shouldn't be moving. Doctor wants to learn the truth and he hits Protest button. Floor below them opens and they are dropped into large creature's mouth. Every five years everyone has to vote. Those who choose Forget, can continue their lives. Those who protest are fed to large creature.

During their escape Amy and Doctor meet Liz 10, the queen of Starship UK. Liz doesn't have to vote and the truth is not told to her. She has tried to find that out. Liz, Amy and Doctor go to The Tower, where truth is revealed to them. Whole Starship UK is build on top of the last star whale and  whale is steered by torturing it. They learn that queen has to vote too. Her choices are forget and abdicate. Doctor loses his cool. He understands why Amy choose to forget. Amy didn't want to make Doctor to choose between humans and space whale. Doctor's choise is to make star whale brain-dead so it can't feel pain. Amy put pieces together and realizes star whale wanted to help all along. She forces the queen to press Abdicate. For moment that seems like end of Starship UK but soon everything comes back to normal with exception. that they are now moving faster than before. People realize, that they don't have to torture star whale. It helps them because it wants to help.

11th Doctor makes decisions without listening others. Sometimes his decisions are bad ones and there are consequences he didn't meant or doesn't like. Sometimes his friends help and stop Doctor before it is too late. Sometimes they are not able to do that. I like that Doctor is fallible. This may be build up for 50th anniversary where he has to face his biggest choice, which killed both Daleks and Timelords.

This will be last Doctor Who post for some time. I wanted to introduce Doctor Who before 50th anniversary and I have now done that. Doctor Who Thursdays will return later. I will do my 50th Anniversary episode post next monday. Next week is one year anniversary of this blog and I have something special for  Wednesday and Thursday. That is why Doctor Who gets monday next week. Doctor Who's 50th Anniversary episode is shown next saturday at same time all around the world. I don't know how it is in other countries. In Finland it shown on public channel. I recommend watching it if you have a change.