The Beast Below
Story 204, Episode 758, Series 5 Episode 2
Doctor: The Eleventh Doctor
Companions: Amy Pond
The Beast Below turns out to be a rather underrated story, it isn’t perfect, but I actually think it’s a perfect future humanity story.
The Review
I think it is essentially impossible to accurately forecast humanity thousands of years down the line, so why not do some sci-fi social commentary? Bad Wolf did this to great effect with its deadly reality tv-shows. Here in The Beast Below we get…a police state enforced by weird ‘Smilers’, almost like fortune telling that have faces getting progressively angry. Upon reflection, it is a bit of a mess, but when the episode is going you don’t really notice it at all because of the excellent chemistry between Matt Smith and Karen Gillan. This is really Amy’s episode, and gives her a chance to shine as a companion. It is her compassion that allows her to piece together all the clues that the Star Whale loves children, and it is entirely unnecessary for the Brits to torture the thing: it wants to be here! Classic humanity, mucking it up.
The idea that society can vote to either protest the fact that they have to torture a giant creature to survive, or just forget is a good one. It’s disheartening that the vast majority of people forget, and the rest just get eaten. Also, what is going on with children doing bad in school getting fed to the thing? It doesn’t even eat them. Okay, upon thinking about this episode, it kind of breaks down, but it’s seriously a fun watch and the idea of a giant city now encompassing all of Britain (well, not Scotland, but Northern Ireland apparently made it this far) is just fun. The metaphor that the Doctor and the Star Whale are the same is hit over our heads too much, but it’s still a fun watch. Sticking to underrated though, as this story expertly lays out a lot of tenets of the show for new watchers.
It doesn’t exactly work like you’d hope but the chemistry, energy, and pace are all there. It’s a fun story.
8.5/10 CGI is still noticeably dodgy. For some reason that rankles me a bit more than hilariously bad practical effects.
Reviewing Doctor Who from Start to Finish 