Ah, the good ole bunker/ship in a bottle show.
A staple of every television show. Done correctly, you get Amy’s Choice or last night’s Stargate Universe entitled “Pain”.
And a staple of every good psychological episode or for that matter horror movies is when to wake up.
A second episode not written by Stephen Moffat and so far no drop off. The plot threads left over from Flesh and Stone re: Amy and the Doctor took center stage in a most unusual way. Amy and Rory were give two paths, one path with Rory and a baby on the way and one path with the Doctor. Each facing certain doom from something extra terrestrial.
This episode sums up exactly what a companion goes through both pre and post Doctor. In fact, you could have renamed Amy to Sarah Jane and Rory to her love interest and you’d have a reunion episode. But the Dream Master has other plans since he is the one behind the shenanigans for this episode.
I’m calling this a bunker show since it takes place either in town or on the set of the Tardis. That may be one location too many but overall it was getting cramped while the action ratcheted up back and forth between set pieces. The new Tardis set hadn’t gotten a work out until now and so far I’m enjoying the multi levels while the town was fun too since after watching so much American Television you’d be hard pressed to find a town with a butcher shop and the ruins of a castle.
I would be interested to see if the writing room has a list of normal things that can be creepy. LOLs (little old ladies) have been creepy forever but when you include the aliens in the mouths tell youngin’s to get off their lawn then it’s something else.
Yep. Aliens in the mouths. Again. I’m ignoring the aliens in the mouths since they blow mist on you and turn youngin’s into sand and the possibly bad blue screen work, too. I think the SFX went towards the Angel two parter.
The young people turning to sand was a nice touch I thought.
The moment Rory (complete w/ pony tail) smacks the 2×4 across the LOL was perfect. Even more perfect would have been the pregnant Amy smacking the LOL with the 2×4. Did we actually need the boat jokes with Amy’s last name being Pond? Yes, yes we did.
The fact Doctor was indeed the villain was great idea. It wasn’t as bad as say turning Professor Xavier into the big baddie but the idea of the anger pent up in the Doctor has been touched upon enough where you don’t call bullshit.
No sign of the cracks in this episode since it was dream within a dream and I’m somewhat fine with that since the last three episodes fed us the breadcrumbs and we’re currently full until next week when real aliens return…
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