The Beast Below

Week two of Matt Smith's Doctor and I think I'm liking him more. He's definitely his own man but I think I can spot his liking for Patrick Troughton - there's something of the mad genius about him. I also feel there is more of a hint of HG Wells' time traveller to the character - no bad thing in my book. Amy Pond is growing on me as well. Last week we were being introduced to the characters but now I feel we know a little more about them and how they will react.

I had heard very little about this episode before hand and I was a little worried that it may be a bit on the scary side for the kids. I needn't have worried, it was perfectly family friendly fare and Raymond loved it, as ever. On the face of it this was a rather slight story and followed phase two of the Russell T Davies plan for introducing new characters - a romp in the modern day, off to the far future and then a historical episode. However, I did feel that this was much more like a 1980's Who than RTD silliness. I'm not sure whether that is a good thing or not - there was a period just after Colin Baker took over the lead that there were some appalling scripts. At least I couldn't accuse Moffat of that - the story did make sense and the timing with the General Election was priceless.

There seemed to be many homages to other Sci-Fi and Fantasy works here. Amy in her nightie was very Arthur Dent, various Star Wars references - the beast in the asteroid, Leah's message to Obiwan, falling into the garbage chute - and the Space Whale was more Pratchett than Pratchett. Another ongoing theme of this series is the Scottish references. I think this is maybe the new "gay agenda" but I do wonder if the largely English audience for Doctor Who would get the self-deprecating humour - I'd hope so.

One thing that has occurred to me about Steven Moffat's writing is that he doesn't do evil, as such. His alien characters may have their own agenda but they aren't wicked for the sake of it. In fact, he can make his alien presence entirely benevolent, such as the Star Whale or The Empty Child, whilst giving the impression that they are an immediate threat to mankind whereas the real menace is the human race itself. This is quite a pleasing trend as it is lazy to reduce Sci-Fi to goodies vs. baddies with rockets and lasers. I have also noticed that Moffat writes beautifully for children. Child actors often come across as precocious, mainly because they have been written as if they were adults, but Moffat's children are really natural. I'm assuming that he looks to his own kids for inspiration.

So, overall a highly enjoyable evenings entertainment, although maybe not quite as memorable as episode one. The Daleks are back next week, which should prove interesting - let's hope so as they have been pretty lame since Christopher Eccleston's last sparring with them.