The Eleventh Hour
Story 203, Episode 757, Series 5 Episode 1
Doctor: The Eleventh Doctor
Companions: Amy Pond, Rory Williams
In a nearly perfect episode, the fairytale journey of the Eleventh Doctor and Amy Pond bursts onto the scene with a smash.
The Review
It’s almost difficult for me to review this episode because I know it so well, and love it so much. What can I possibly say? It starts out with the Doctor crashing in a little girl’s yard, and Matt Smith just all over the place in the best way possible as a gangly mess of limbs. While David Tennant always had an air of cool, Matt Smith is anything but, he’s a complete dork. His interactions with Caitlin Blackwood’s Amelia are iconic for good reason, and it’s easy to see how enamored she becomes with the Doctor. Then, the twist, the TARDIS engines phase, and boom, it’s twelve years in the future, and now Amelia is the gorgeous Amy Pond who smacks the Doctor with a cricket bat and locks him up. Throughout the episode, Amy says she grew up and outgrew the Doctor, and he promises he’ll fix that. Oh will he ever. Once we see the mediocre CGI rendering of the crazy eel shapeshifter of Prisoner Zero, we’re off to the races.
The Doctor quickly meets Amy’s ‘sort of’ boyfriend, the nurse Rory who in a fun sequence he notices in the only one not filming the sun when it goes weird because Prisoner Zero’s guards the Atraxi are planning to incinerate the planet. What this story nails is pace, it’s an hour that starts with whimsy and then it’s just non-stop action. Not only that, but the Doctor is at his most vulnerable, no TARDIS and the sonic screwdriver breaks. Nothing but his wit. It’s genuinely thrilling to see this on the fly Doctor, along with the fiery Amy who has a very reasonable grudge against him but can’t help being in love with him. Everyone in Leadworth knows about Amy’s childhood obsession with ‘the raggedy Doctor’, and is shocked to see him in the flesh. With a fun interlude of the Doctor catching her friend Jeff looking at porn before using his laptop to tune into experts, the climax is in the hospital.
Prisoner Zero takes the form of future Academy Award winning actress Olivia Coleman, and we get the killer reveal: every clock in the world strikes zero (tying in with the title, see), and Prisoner Zero is located. The Doctor’s not done yet though, he wasn’t going to let the Atraxi get away with their plan to roast all of Earth. He calls them back, chooses his clothes from the changing room at the hospital, and in a pitch-perfect moment walks through images of all the ten previous Doctors. “Basically, run.” The Doctor then vanishes, and reappears two years later and welcomes Amy into a delightfully orange TARDIS interior. He convinces her to come with him, and off they go. It’s a killer debut. The added Meanwhile in the TARDIS scene doesn’t do much, mainly Amy word vomiting some questions about the Doctor. Steven Moffat in his debut story gets that Doctor Who should be fun and exciting, but also expertly develops characters in a way the Chibnall era will completely fail at despite the plots being almost as good. It’s a killer story.
It’s the perfect story that never lets up and introduces two (and a half) exciting characters. Couldn’t ask for a better opener.
10/10 Jeff, delete your browser history!
Reviewing Doctor Who from Start to Finish 