Dinosaurs On A Spaceship was a classic example of the Steven Moffat ethos of "shovel as much in as you can and that'll make it a bit wacky".
And there's certainly a lot going on in this story, by Chris Chibnall, even if very little actually happens storywise.
A mysterious spaceship is hurtling towards Earth and the Indian Space Agency (whose staff dress like members of International Rescue) plans on blowing it up unless The Doctor can get onboard and change its course.
The Doctor is now travelling with a "gang", for no other reason than it serves the plot. As well as picking up the Ponds in passing, and Rory's dad (Mark Williams), he also has with him Queen Nefertiti (Riann Steele), who contributes absolutely nothing to the plot except serving as a hostage for the final act, and a big game hunter from early 20th Century Africa.
The Doctor befriending a big game hunter? No, I don't buy it either, but this is the "anything goes" Moffat era, I suppose. This bizarre friendship - with Riddell (Rupert Graves) the hunter - can't even be equated to The Doctor's 'adoption' of savage huntress, Leela (Louise Jameson) back in the Fourth Doctor's time, as that was an "Eliza Doolittle" set-up where The Doctor was trying to "civilize" her and teach the ways of cultured societies.
Riddell's appearance in Dinosaurs On A Spaceship was, like Nefertiti's, purely to serve the plot without any regard for the credible verisimilitude of The Doctor's character.
Arriving on the spaceship - an old Silurian ark ship - The Doctor and his gang discover it has been taken over by a genocidal pirate called Solomon (David Bradley), a paper-thin villain, aided by two bickering robots voiced by comedians David Mitchell and Robert Webb. You get the impression that Chris Chibnall thought he was writing Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy quality banter between these two tin men, when it actual fact they were just daft and annoying.
In contrast to the usual surfeit of running around corridors - and there is still a fair amount of that in this episode - there's also a lot of standing around, looking at computer consoles, in Dinosaurs On A Spaceship which didn't exactly help maintain any momentum of excitement.
Nothing within this episode - outside of Rory and his father - felt like it meshed with anything else and, as usual, key points were glossed over in the interest in getting to the next "bonkers moment" (for instance, no-one actually seemed that interested in the fact that the Silurians had taken Earth's dinosaurs off in an ark ship; surely someone could have at least have said about "oh, so that's where they all went").
While, at least, this week's plot make sense, it was still a very simple story dressed up in as many way-out, gonzo ideas as Chibnall could pile on.
Next Week:
The Silurians didn't take all the dinosaurs. It was a literal ark; they took a breeding population with them so they could re-populate once things had settled down after the meteor strike.
ReplyDeleteYou mean Adric and a ship full of cybermen?
DeleteFor the first time since Doctor Who returned our screens I almost gave up and turned it off. What a load of rubbish! And it could have been so good...the basic idea of a Silurian Ark discovered in space is so full of promise. But it was lost amidst the crappy jokes and over-the-top action. Boo!
ReplyDeleteIt would appear that Moffat's "great experiment" of proclaiming each of the standalone episodes of this season as "mini-movies" has, so far, been a dismal failure... unless he was seeking to emulate the vacuous nature of the Transformers movies!
DeleteI was quite happy to take this as just a pure comedy episode. Mitchell and Webb being proof of that. There was some funny physical acting from most of the actors, and i was happy to put my critical hat on its rack, and just laugh along with this one.
ReplyDeleteI accept that some of the comedy was great (Mark Williams was the star for me), but I still needed the story to hold water and this one didn't. Instead of laughing with it, I found myself laughing at it - and that's never a good sign.
DeleteI liked it. It was a fun episode. I loved Tricey. Rory's dad was interesting. But I wonder why he didn't recognize the Doctor. The Doctor was at Amy & Rory's wedding. (He made quite an entrance.) Was Rory's dad not at the wedding?
ReplyDeletePlease check out my Doctor Who story "The Aresian Saga" (Just Google the title)
Thank you, Debbie. That's a brilliant point you raised about Amy & Rory's wedding and - unless anyone can present solid evidence to the contrary (rather than fan speculation) - is probably one of the strongest pieces of evidence towards this show's increasing disregard for its own history, even it's recent history established under the current regime.
DeleteI've downloaded your script, Debbie, but have yet to read it. However, I was immediately impressed by the maps, tables of comparative ages etc Clearly a lot of thought has gone into this (which is more than can be said about the current crop of televised adventures).
Let me know what you think of the story when you finish.
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