Cast: Matt Smith, Karen Gillan, Arthur Darvill, Mark Williams, Rupert Graves, Riann Steele, David Bradley, Sunetra Sarkur, David Mitchell, Robert Webb.
Liverpool Sound And Vision Rating ****
Cruelty, genocide and wading knee deep in Ankylosaurus and vicious raptors, just your average job for the Doctor but just that little bit beyond the ordinary for viewers of series seven of Doctor Who.
Certainly dinosaurs haven’t been seen by viewers of the time-travelling Doctor since 1974’s Invasion of the Dinosaurs, to see the Doctor, played with youthful exuberance by Matt Smith take these creatures on face value in a spaceship thousands of miles above the Earth is a credit to the writing of Chris Chibnall. The writer has good form with facets of the Doctor’s life and with science fiction drama in particular. Credited with writing episodes of the John Simm, Philip Glennister series Life On Mars, various episodes of the Doctor Who spin-off series of Torchwood and the excellent episodes of The Hungary Earth/Cold Blood and the chilling 42, Chris Chibnall may not be every viewer’s or even fan’s favourites choice as top writer for the series but there is no doubting his ability to go from serious and intense to light hearted and enjoyable romp whenever the mood takes him.
What was most telling about this episode was the small references, the use of humour to deflect the big picture, that of human provoked genocide as Solomon, the lone human on a ship that was piloted by Silurians and who were tossed out into the deep cold of space in an act of senseless genocide aggravated by greed and desire. Solomon was played with utter creeping conviction by David Bradley, there surely isn’t that many actors that can portray the worst of humanity and even match the acting ability of Terry Malloy as the insidious Davros enough to send shivers down the spine.
Mark Williams was a fantastic addition to the team and it is a great shame that it will be a one off, however sometimes it only takes a brief sojourn with the Doctor to change a person. In terms of one-offs and stand-alone episodes he is up there with the likes of Sally Sparrow, a person who is ultimately changed by his brief encounter.
The episode was never going to live up to the sense of dramatic generated by the opening instalment of the latest series but in terms of stories, of time in the Doctor’s presence it was both heartening and damning, and the count-down to the loss of one of the finest companions in nearly 50 years has truly begun.
Ian D. Hall