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| The Doctor convinces Amy to help him. |
1 episode. Approx. 65 minutes. Written by: Steven Moffat. Directed by: Adam Smith. Produced by: Tracie Simpson.
THE PLOT
The newly-regenerated Doctor (Matt Smith) crash-lands, just outside the home of Amelia Pond (Caitlin Blackwood). Amelia is a little girl with a crack in her wall, a crack through which she hears voices. The Doctor examines the crack, and finds that it is a gateway to an alien prison. He receives a message: "Prisoner Zero has escaped." But in his current, addled form, he can't quite put together where Prisoner Zero could be.
He makes a short hop forward in time, to stabilize the TARDIS. Five minutes, he promises Amelia, and then he'll be back to sort things out. But when he materializes, he discovers a fully-grown Amy Pond (Karen Gillan). His five minute hop turned out to be a twelve year jump, and the sweet little girl is now a very angry young woman.
Then a new message comes. "Prisoner Zero will vacate the human residence, or the human residence will be incinerated." With the message being broadcast all over the world, the Doctor realizes with a chill that the "human residence" is not simply Amy's house. If Prisoner Zero isn't dealt with inside the next twenty minutes, it will mean the end of the world!
CHARACTERS
The Doctor: Matt Smith's first full performance as the Doctor, following a brief appearance in the tag of The End of Time. Through the episode, the Doctor is settling even as he's dealing with a crisis with a strict time limit, leaving him in manic mode for virtually the entire run. But Smith seems to have the ability to play a manic Doctor without slipping out of control - something which has eluded a few of his predecessors. If there's one potential complaint, it's that he seems very similar in performance to David Tennant. Still, I suspect that will change as scripts start becoming more tailored to him.
Amy: I'm as instantly sold on Karen Gillan's Amy as most people in 2005 seemed to be instantly sold on Rose Tyler. Gillan is very pretty, but she also has a lot of personality. She is able to match Smith's energy with her own, and the two are frequently delightful as they play off each other. She's also quite funny, in an endearingly oddball sort of way, and I look forward to seeing more of her.
Rory: Rory (Arthur Darvill) appears to be the Matt Smith series' answer to Mickey from the Eccleston/Tennant days. Darvill's performance is also good - lower key than those of Smith and Gillan, but that's no bad thing. He walks through the episode with an almost perpetually bewildered look on his face. Hopefully, more meat will be added to this skeleton of a character in return appearances, but even here he manages to be a likable presence.
THOUGHTS
The Eleventh Hour represents the biggest transition Doctor Who has faced since its return in 2005. A new Doctor, a new companion, and an entirely new production team, all coming in at the same time. If the new production team botched it, if the new Doctor (the youngest ever cast) didn't work or met with audience resistance, if the story just plain failed... Well, it would have been ugly.
The Eleventh Hour does not fail. It fairly bursts onto the screen from the teaser, brimming with energy and confidence. As an introduction to a new Doctor, it takes the opposite tact to Tennant's debut in The Christmas Invasion. That story held the Doctor back for most of its run, so that when he appeared and took charge the impact of his screentime was maximized. By showing us the helplessness of the other recurring characters without the Doctor, it made us long for the Doctor to come in and save the day in any form. Tennant's delayed entrance worked, with him effortlessly dominating the show with only a little more than ten minutes' screentime.
The Eleventh Hour does not hold the Doctor back. He's in almost every scene, and the story is largely told through his eyes. In terms of dealing with the regeneration, it's closer to The Power of the Daleks or Robot. The regeneration is mentioned, and the Doctor isn't fully stabilized for the first part of the story. But the focus is on seeing him deal with the crisis. Anything to do with the regeneration is touched on at the beginning and mentioned around the edges, but the focus is on the story and the action. It puts a lot of pressure on Matt Smith to really be the Doctor instantly, and it puts pressure on the story to be a good story.
It's an approach that can fail miserably. See Time and the Rani for what happens if the new Doctor isn't strong enough to carry a story right out the gate, or if the story itself isn't good enough to carry the audience over the cast change. But when it works, it leaves the impression that this isn't the new Doctor, but simply the Doctor. The eleventh Doctor feels established by the end of this story, and ready to properly leap into new adventures.
Lest I gush too much, there are some flaws. The "eating" scene goes on far too long, in my opinion. The apple is funny. The yogurt is funny. By the time he's rejecting beans and buttered bread, the gag's gone stale and it's really time to move on. The hospital standoff with Patient Zero also goes on a bit too long and starts to feel forced after a certain point... though that's more than made up for by the Doctor's facedown with the aliens, a scene that works perfectly.
Overall, this is a promising start for the Eleventh Doctor, and for the newest take on the long-running series. As a season premiere, it does its job well. As a relaunch - which this effectively is - it does its job very close to brilliantly, leaving me eager to see where the show goes next.
Rating: 8/10.
Previous Story: The End of Time (not yet reviewed)
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