NuWho Review: Season 5 Episode 2 "The Beast Below"

By: Steven Moffat

**Spoilers**

If you have not yet watched this episode, please go and do so before proceeding.

          I think this was the first Steven Moffat episode I ever saw that I didn't like. I had been a big fan of his and, whenever I heard that he was taking over from RTD (my Doctor Who whipping boy, apparently) I rejoiced. I had always been a big fan of his work on this show because his stories were always tightly-written, witty, and extremely innovative. What went wrong here? Well...to be honest I think there was just too much story in too little space. This really would have benefited from being a two-parter.

        Really the biggest problem is the way the mystery of the beast below is handled in the first place. I like the parallels Amy drew between the starwhale and The Doctor and I still say that her speech whenever she stops The Doctor from repeating his mistakes and killing the whale is some of Moffat's finest work, speech-wise. However, WHY WAS THE WHOLE 'FEEDING CIVILIANS TO THE THING' NEVER ADDRESSED?! Seriously! I'd understand if they fed their garbage to it...or even if that's how they executed criminals, gruesome though it may be...but children who got a zero in school?! What is this, The Giver?! Hitler's Britain?! WHY DID NO ONE DEAL WITH THIS?!?!?!?!

      There were some inventive ideas in this episode and I certainly found Liz 10 to be fun to watch (underdeveloped though she may be), but that big issue of the care and feeding of the whale really bothers me to the point that it ruins the episode. Okay. So maybe it could be used to illustrate just how desperate, even now, that the lot of the British people is. It could even be an interesting commentary on the de-sensitization of society. But no! It's glossed over and never mentioned again, despite the fact that Amy and The Doctor, at least, should have had SOMETHING to say, being from a different time and all. Bad form, Moffat, bad form!

Favorite Moments & Random Thoughts:

- "A horse and a man, above, below. One has a plan, but both must go. Mile after mile, above, beneath. One has a smile, and one has teeth. Though the man above might say hello, expect no love from the beast below." Were we supposed to be scared by that? Intrigued? Disgusted? Horrified? I wasn't. Honestly the only scary thing about this scene was the Smiler...and even those things got old fairly quickly whenever it became obvious that they were easier to run from than a geriatric zombie!

- I repeat: why were students who got zeros sent 'downstairs' again? Is this some sort of twisted survival of the fittest type of society? 

- I'll say this...the scenes with The Doctor and Amy at the beginning of the episode are quite adorable.

- Whenever she asks him if he is a parent, I feel like crying.

- I'm not entirely sure what the whole clue was with the Smilers. Oh sure they're unsettling at first...but did it really seem so much cleaner around them? Sure didn't look like it to me (though I'm no Sherlock Holmes).

- I'm also not convinced by the water thing, though it was funny whenever The Doctor claimed that he was searching for a lost fish. Was it named Jim, by any chance?

- It cracks me up the way poor Amy spends most of this episode in her nightie. Definitely one of the strangest outfits a Companion has ever worn (and that includes Leela and her leather bikini!)

- Nice little Star Wars reference there with Liz and The Doctor, Moffat. I despise this episode, but I'll give you that one.

- The voting booth sequence was interesting. I didn't find it quite as disturbing as Moffat seemed to intend it to be, but it was still interestingly done.

- Okay. So I'm having a bit of trouble with logistics right now. If the starwhale is beneath the ship, propelling it further, then why on earth are all those tentacles pushing their way up through? Do they sprout like spines from its back or something? Because whenever we see it at the end it looks more like a squid with all the tentacles coming out the rear end. This makes about as much such as it somehow managing to vomit Amy and The Doctor into a corridor rather than out into space through its mouth.

- That being said...getting a shower of whale sick? EWWW! I don't care if ambergris is used for priceless perfume...that's just nasty!

- So Liz had her biological clock slowed down? Huh. I don't understand why this is so relevant to the story. Would it matter if it was Liz 10 rather than a descendant? Or did Liz 27 just not have the same ring to it?

- Besides...special miracle breakthroughs being saved for the upper echelons? That's society in a nutshell!

- "I'm the bloody Queen, mate! I rule!"  Ha! It's a lot of fun to watch her strut through the streets in her combat boots and gun Smilers down.

- I do love the ending of the episode with the re-introduction of the crack, the freeing of the starwhale, and Amy wrapping The Doctor up in the warmest, biggest hug he's had since Donna left him. Awwww!

         I know this review seems rather short and not as in-depth as usual, but I can't help it. I honestly have nothing else to say about this episode, so unless you want me to start transcribing the episode scene-by-scene, this is all I got. I already addressed the big issues in my pre-amble, but I just want to say again...WHAT THE WHAT?! Moffat, seriously, what were you thinking when you wrote this? Feeding kids to a whale (that miraculously didn't eat them, but still it's the principle) and having everyone be fine with that? What the what? Do you need your brain examined? Have you been writing Anderson lines for so long that he's infected you? Were you high?! That scenario is wrong on SO many levels and it just ruins the emotional impact of the episode. What. Was. He. Thinking?! The Beast Below is, at best, a 2/5...saved only by the great performances of Matt and Karen. God bless them!

What did you think? Do you agree with my rating? If not - what would you say differently?