Whale of a Time – The Beast Below Review

[u/ZeroCentsMade]

This post is part of a series of reviews. To see them all, click here.

Historical information found on Shannon Sullivan's Doctor Who website (relevant page here) and the TARDIS Wiki (relevant page here)). Primary/secondary source material can be found in the source sections of Sullivan's website, and rarely as inline citations on the TARDIS Wiki.

Story Information

• Episode: Series 5, Episode 2
• Airdate: 10th April 2010
• Doctor: 11th
• Companion: Amy
• Other Notable Characters: Liz 10 (Sophie Okonedo)
• Writer: Steven Moffat
• Directors: Andrew Gunn and Euros Lynn (Uncredited)
• Showrunner: Steven Moffat

Review

And once every five years everybody chooses to forget what they've learned. Democracy in action. – The Doctor

So because I'm a bit pretentious I like to pretend that this review series has themes. And the theme for Series 5 is going to be "familiar but different" (which you'll hear about here and then not again until the finale so it doesn't really count as a "theme" but anyway). "The Eleventh Hour" started off Series 5 with an episode that had many of the trappings of a Russell T Davies era opener but also felt like an entirely different show in many ways. And now we get "The Beast Below", which in many ways hearkens back to early-series episodes from the RTD era, but also can feel like an entirely different show at times.

With "The Eleventh Hour" the point of comparison I kept coming back to was "Smith and Jones". Here I find myself making comparisons with two different episodes: "The End of the World" and "Gridlock". Like with "The End of the World", we're looking at an episode that sort of serves as an early stress test of the Doctor-companion relationship in the episode. In this case, instead of Rose learning to trust the Doctor, it's the other way around. Amy has to prove herself to the Doctor. We'll get into more of this later, but, like in "End of the World", the relationship between Doctor and companion almost breaks, but comes out of the events of the episode stronger.

As for "Gridlock"…this episode is like "Gridlock" because it doesn't really make any sense but still somehow kind of works. Yeah, not as strong a link admittedly, but there is a little more to say on that point. Like with "Gridlock", "Beast Below" is built on some very strong visuals and worldbuilding that help to mask some pretty obvious deficiencies. But on a similar note, there is a third Doctor Who story that this thing reminds me of (I swear, I'm not reaching for these, this all came up for me while I was watching the episode).

"The Beast Below" feels a lot like 7th Doctor story The Happiness Patrol. Everything I said about how this episode resembles "Gridlock" fits here: strong visuals and concepts that mask some pretty glaring plot holes could also describe Happiness Patrol (though Patrol's visuals could have been better). But also, throughout this episode the 11th Doctor is testing his new companion Amy, which the 7th Doctor was constantly doing with Ace. Hell, you could even argue he kind of lets Amy loose on Starship UK, similarly to how Ace was let loose on Terra Alpha. But, unlike in "Happiness Patrol", Showrunner/Writer Steven Moffat takes a big risk in this episode: he lets Amy fail, before she can succeed.

After some fun scenes in (and briefly outside of) the TARDIS that help reinforce the fairy tale vibe of this Series (though honestly that's more than anything reinforced by Amy spending an entire episode wandering a spaceship in her nightie), the TARDIS arrives on Starship UK. This ship was built to transport the entire population of the UK (minus Scotland, who got their own ship…hopefully) while solar flares were making the planet uninhabitable. This is, of course, a pretty standard Doctor Who plot by this point, hell it very closely resembles The Ark in Space's worldbuilding. But the moment they arrive, the Doctor senses that something is off about Starship UK.

I love how the 11th Doctor is written in these early scenes. This more analytical approach feels like something that got lost over the course of the 11th Doctor era. He deduces from a crying child (and everyone else's reaction to said child) that they're in a police state. It's funny, plenty of moments and episodes in the Moffat era will get comparisons to Steven Moffat's other project from around this time, Sherlock, but the Doctor has never felt more Sherlock Holmes-esque than he does in his first few moments upon arriving on Starship UK. We got some hints of this in "The Eleventh Hour", but unfortunately, I don't think we'll ever see it again to this extent.

From then, the focus switches over largely towards Amy (aside from a brief encounter between the Doctor and "Liz 10") as she finds herself captured by the local authorities and placed in a "voting booth". Which brings us yet another piece of the puzzle. We're explained that the voting booth is something that adults on the ship can do every five years and as Amy is technically a British subject (even if she's over 1000 years out of time), she's allowed to vote. But she's not voting for a candidate. Instead she's voting to do one of two things: "Protest" or "Forget".

This is the core of this episode. If "The Beast Below" is about a singular thing, aside from putting Amy through a test of companion-worthiness, it's about democracy. About what voting actually means. The "Protest" and "Forget" buttons are your only two options, and if you press "Protest" you will be space whale food. And so most people choose to forget. There's an obvious allegory here. The western democracies in the real world exist in their current state in large part because their citizens are willing to forget those that are harmed to allow their lives to be easier. Now there obviously isn't literal mind-erasing technology at play in the real world but we do all every few years go cast our votes and then sort of forget about the implications of our choices (admittedly, I feel like that's happening a bit less here the US now, but that's largely because things are a bit more dramatic than usual right now…fascism will do that I guess).

But the point is, someone is being hurt in order to allow Starship UK's progress. But we don't find out immediately. Instead we find out something else – after learning the secret of Starship UK, Amy pressed the "Forget" button. This is revealed in a neat sequence where we briefly see some flashing images and then Amy comes to, taking her hand off the button. It really does put you in Amy's shoes for a second, as though we're living through this moment with her. What's more she was allowed to record a short message before hitting the button (presumably these things are screened in some way), and it's her begging herself to get the Doctor off of Starship UK at any cost. It's all a bit disturbing. The whole memory wipe process of course, but also seeing Amy make this particular choice.

What's funny is that that message Amy leaves has almost no bearing on the actual plot. Amy, a new companion, is entirely incapable of talking the Doctor out of investigating when he's curious. The Doctor immediately waltzes into the voting booth, notes what's going on, and without watching the video (because, you see, he can't) presses the "Protest" button, sending himself and Amy to the titular "beast below". Amy's message does not affect the episode on a plot level, but it does set up some important character stuff for her in this episode. And it kind of works to the episode's benefit, keeping things moving rather than having Amy trying to derail things.

After a quick detour through the mouth of the beast before being upchucked out of said beast and saved by Liz 10, we finally learn that Liz 10 is the Queen: she's Elizabeth the Tenth. Apparently people like this character. I find her cringeworthy in the extreme. This episode so desperately wants to convince us that Liz 10 is the coolest person to ever exist and, I think especially because she's the Queen, I just find this off-putting. And we're also going to find out that the Queen has real power in this future. The Royal Family is enough of a mess in our timeline, I don't want to be traveling to a future where they've somehow clawed back actual political power. And you'd think, given that Starship UK is explicitly a dystopia that this would be part of it, but no, again, we're mostly supposed to look at Liz and think she's so cool. Does this qualify as monarchist propaganda? I don't know, ask a Brit.

But anyway, we do eventually figure out what's going on with the "beast". And it's at this point that the episode gets really good. I like "Beast Below" (even if I did just spend a paragraph badmouthing its most popular character) but the lead up to this final scene feels a bit perfunctory. Little hints of a really good story like the voting booth scene or the Doctor's quick deductions at the beginning, and some legitimately funny moments like the Doctor alternating between concern and geeking out over being inside a giant mouth, but ultimately kind of a paint by numbers story. The "Smilers" who are supposed to be our monsters for the episode are pretty forgettable. The conspiracy story is interesting, but much of the episode seems to be more interested in setting up interesting visuals than developing that story. It's not bad necessarily, but it's a bit underdeveloped.

But then we get the Doctor realizing what's going on, and a switch just kind of flips. From his first episode, the 11th Doctor seemed to do this thing where his brain would get ahead of his mouth and his mouth would be racing to keep up, but to this point that's only been used for comedic effect. Here it's like the Doctor is trying to find the words to express his disgust at what's going on, and also explain it, and also come up with some sort of solution. To explain, it turns out that the "beast below" is a "starwhale", a species that supposedly helped guide early space travelers. And in order to escape the Earth, the UK government captured it, built their ship around it, and have been torturing it so that it will move as they want it to ever since. Bear in mind, this is a fully sapient being, not that if it wasn't it would make things acceptable.

Problem is, if the whale is set free and it flies away, the spaceship that is attached to it will fall apart, killing everyone on it. We're stuck with what seems like a binary choice – save the whale from its pain or let the humans live. And if Doctor Who is anything, it's a show about a character who, when presented with a binary choice, will find the third option. Problem is, sometimes the third option isn't much better than the first two. The option that the Doctor comes up with is to end the star whale's higher brain functions, effectively killing it while still allowing Starship UK to go on, and the whale to stop suffering. It's awful but as he rants and yells at everyone else in the room it becomes clear that he's got no better ideas. He's literally talking about changing his name because he can't be the Doctor anymore if he's done that (hold onto that idea for a while). Honestly, powerful stuff. But of course it can't end that way.

So let's back up, and talk about Amy and the Doctor in this episode. If you're used to later episodes with these two characters, it can be jarring to go back to this early version of their friendship, where things are a lot more uncertain. The Doctor's out here lying about never getting involved in other people's affairs and, as mentioned up above, giving Amy tests. There's an uncertainty about this friendship but also an excitement at first. The Doctor's gone quite a while without a companion, having not taken one on since Donna's memory wipe. He seems genuinely enthusiastic about bringing someone along with him again. And Amy's in this state of perpetual awe in the early scenes of the episode.

And then she enters that voting booth, and it fundamentally changes things. Even though she can't remember it, she made a choice. The Doctor figures, and I'm pretty sure we're supposed to believe his insight is correct, that Amy was trying to protect the Doctor from having to choose between humanity and the star whale. But, in the Doctor's view, that's a betrayal of trust, and the fact that she can't even remember making it doesn't actually change anything in that regard. It's for this reason that he decides he's leaving her behind. It might seem like a small failure in the grand scheme of things, but it calls into question Amy's trustworthiness. And besides, she ultimately voted to let things continue as they were, then forget. Granted, if she hadn't done that she almost certainly would have been whale food, but it's the principle of the thing.

This is where some of "Beast Below's" issues do come into play. We get one of a very small number of references to how the Time War ended in this period from the Doctor where he makes it clear that he disapproves of voluntarily forgetting the terrible things that have happened (keep that thought on the back burner for a while) and then we're right back to whimsy. There's a lot in "The Beast Below" that doesn't make sense. You could probably poke any number of plot holes in this thing but in my opinion its biggest failing is that it refuses to entirely commit to this rift between the Doctor and Amy. If they're supposed to come apart and then come back together stronger than before, as is what happens, we need to actually see the divide between the two.

At this point we need to explain what's been going on with Liz 10. And I'll give the episode credit for this, while it likes Liz 10 more than I do, it still does find time to judge her part in all of this. Initially she seems to be above what's been done to the star whale and the whole perverse election system because, as she puts it, "Never forgot, never voted, not technically a British subject". But as it turns out she's involved too. The Doctor realizes this thanks to a bit of detective work with a porcelain mask. She's been reliving the same ten year reign over and over again, before coming to the Tower where a message plays for her, a message she left, explaining what was done to the star whale. The apparent villains of the episode were working for her the entire time. And she too has a pair of buttons in front of her: "Forget" and "Abdicate".

Again, credit to the episode. I don't like Liz 10, but I do like what was done with her here. What seemed to be a "queen going undercover to investigate her own kingdom" to quote the Doctor was actually a plot by said queen to keep herself, in her own mind, innocent and be the symbol of Starship UK. Granted the whole memory wipe thing with Liz 10 brings up a bunch of other plot holes, especially when you take into account that her reign has apparently lasted for somewhat like 200 years, but it kind of works in the story regardless.

This all takes us back to the Doctor's choice. It's at this point that Amy starts putting together everything she's seen and heard and makes an impulsive, and pretty dangerous, decision. She grabs Liz 10's hand and uses it to press the "Abdicate" button. And the ship…does not fall apart. The key bit of information is that the star whale wouldn't eat the children that they tried to feed to it. The whale had come to the Earth voluntarily to offer its help, because it couldn't bear to hear children crying. It all ties back in to some things the Doctor did at the beginning of the episode, with obvious parallels being drawn between the Doctor and the whale. And then Amy goes ahead and spells it out for us, with her and the Doctor reconciling in a genuinely sweet moment.

We of course have to wrap things up on Starship UK and with very limited time left in the episode we end up glossing over a lot. Remember, the government of Starship UK was feeding both those who hit the "protest" button and "citizens of limited value" to the whale. Some in that latter group were children – we actually follow one child in particular who ends up getting attempted to be fed to the whale, though as mentioned the whale won't eat children. The last we hear of any improvements to Starship UK is Amy passing along a message from Liz 10: "There will be no more secrets on Starship UK". Nice as that is, it kind of lets the people who were feeding their citizens to a whale off the hook pretty lightly. Not to mention the whole "citizens of limited value" thing has some pretty awful implications. And what is the whale eating now anyway? (Are there space krill? I kind of want space krill to be a thing).

And while I'm complaining, let's talk poetry. When we see young child Timmy being sent down to the whale in the cold open there's a little girl who's reciting poetry to him about the "beast below" (there's your title). This seems to exist only to scare the whale's dinners before they get eaten. The episode ends with Amy's voice doing a new version of that same poem. Why are these moments in here? Well, it's part of that whole fairytale vibe we're going for. But it just doesn't quite fit for whatever reason. And, as mentioned above, Amy wandering around in her nightie all episode kind of does all you want on that front.

Still, I rather like "The Beast Below". It's got problems, pretty big ones, but when it's working it's really working. There are some truly intense scenes here, Matt Smith and Karen Gillan are doing good stuff with their material, and at its worst it's not awful or anything. The episode is certainly a bit of a mess, but it's a mess I thoroughly enjoy.

Score: 7/10

Stray Observations

• This is the first 45 minute episode of Doctor Who since "The Stolen Earth". The intervening episodes have all been specials or extra length-episodes, and so have all been at least around the hour mark.
• Sophie Okenodo, who plays Liz 10, played prospective companion Alison in the animated special The Scream of the Shalka. Since the "Shalka Doctor" timeline was pretty much immediately abandoned, this never went beyond that first special of course.
• Showrunner/writer Steven Moffat used to quite dislike this episode for being a bit of a mess. However in a 2019 Instagram post he revealed he'd changed his mind, partially thanks to Russell T Davies. Annoyingly, I've not been able to track down this Instagram post.
• The following episode, "Victory of the Daleks" was shot before this one, and Andrew Gunn directed both episodes. As a result, the first scene shot for this episode was actually the scene of Winston Churchill at the end of the episode.
• The set of the London Concourse was massive, and took two weeks to complete building. Looking at it, the scale of the thing and the level of detail put into it, I can absolutely believe it.
• After principal photography ended, Steven Moffat made several alterations to the script, requiring reshoots. Andrew Gunn was not available, and so Euros Lynn was asked to step in to do the reshoots uncredited. Lynn had been a regular director during the RTD era, but he would never receive a directing credit on Doctor Who after The End of Time, at least in part because Moffat was looking for new directors for his era.
• The Scottish weren't on Starship UK. According to Mandy they "wanted their own ship". Given what we'll later learn about how Starship UK came into being, I'm guessing it was more of a case of the Scottish Parliament building their own ship that could carry all of the Scottish people but nobody else. Still the main reason this is in here is for a joke about Scotland finally managing to leave the UK.
• In her introductory scene, Liz 10 says "help us Doctor, you're our only hope." This can only be a Star Wars reference. I don't want it to be, if it is it's gratuitous and only distracts from the story, but there's no way in an English language sci-fi story written in 2009 that you make that reference accidentally. It's worth pointing out that this scene was a late addition to the script, as Moffat had initially waited until after the Doctor and Amy's escape from the whale mouth to have the Doctor and Liz meet, before deciding the two needed an earlier meeting.
• The Starship UK computer puts Amy's age at 1306. From information given in "The Eleventh Hour" we can put her birth year at 1989 (give or take an off by one error), putting this episode in the year 3295 (roughly). I only bring this up because it's honestly quite rare to have such a clear way of determining the year a story takes place at this point…
• …except a production error caused the ship's interface to display her age as 1308, which would make the year 3297 (again, roughly). Whoops.
• In the same scene, the computer is unable to determine her marital status. There are two possible explanations for this. The first is that records were lost over the years and that Amy's marriage license was among them. The second (and admittedly more interesting) is that given that Amy is out traveling with the Doctor where theoretically something could happen to her, or she could choose to stay or to call off the wedding, time hasn't settled on a single outcome for Amy's marital status, hence the "unknown". Of course the real reason that the computer can't come up with an answer is that the show is trying to build tension over whether or not Amy's going to go through with her wedding.
• Surprisingly it's only in this episode that Amy learns the Doctor isn't human. This does track (technically at the end of last episode she learned he was from another planet, but that doesn't necessarily imply not human), but still seems strange somehow.

Next Time: The Daleks are acting nice. The last time they did that the human population of a space colony was at least decimated, so God knows what they'll do in the middle of the Blitz

[u/Iamamancalledrobert]

This is one of the episodes I think about the most, because there’s so much in it that’s so cool. “The UK as a ruined city clinging to its past on the back of a whale” feels like a concept which can extend beyond what the story does with it, in my view.

But I’m not sure the things I find coolest about it are ever fully realised. The idea of “the beast below” has two very powerful resonances to me, both of which are kind of alluded to here—

—the beast is, semi-literally, the Leviathan of Thomas Hobbes; it’s the social fabric which we all depend on. If you ignore the damage you do to it for too long, you forget the ways it keeps you safe. You must look at it for what it is, even if it means confronting something uncomfortable about your role in the damage.

—the beast below is your own nature as an  animal. You are afraid of confronting the reality of being an animal because to be an animal is to be something lawless and savage— but once you do, you see that your animal nature is also what keeps you safe, and the place love can come from.

But neither of those things are really the focus of the episode! In general, the normal people in the episode aren’t— here is the Queen, who is incredible. Here is the Doctor, who is incredible as well.* To me, that feels unsatisfying because it’s much flatter than the stuff that’s sort of on the edge of the story. I feel like there’s probably a much better story nearby, whose shape is on the verge of being seen.

although the point you raise in your post about the whale *is also true of the Doctor. The Doctor cares about children crying… and the Doctor is oblivious to the deaths of adults who saved him. The parallel holds in ways which are darker than the episode wants to raise.

It bothers me a bit that Amy doesn’t notice this. That “we’re like a nature documentary” scene bothers me for similar reasons. Because Amy was a child who the Doctor forgot, and now she isn’t a child anymore. She was a forgotten adult that got swallowed by the beast. These feel like things she has good reason to notice. 

I find the climax hard to believe for this reason; it just doesn’t feel like the reaction of someone who’s waited for the Doctor for all her teenage years. Unless of course she has noticed all this stuff and knows not to mention it, which I choose to believe 

[u/[deleted]]

I have mixed feelings about this one.

I love the setting, which feels like it could host a whole raft of stories. I like the Smilers, which feel very Classic Who. And I like Liz 10. Sophie Okonedo is always wonderful, and I don't have strong feelings one way or the other when it comes to the continued existence of the British Monarchy (I'm sure the residents of the Commonwealth realms don't need my input). I also think this is the first episode where I began to appreciate Karen Gillan's acting, and Matt Smith is still mostly terrific. I think his temper is more convincing when he smolders than when he shouts (he's a lot like Sylvester McCoy in that regard), but he gets away with it here.

However, I'm not bowled over by the story itself. I agree with r/Iamamancalledrobert when he says a lot of the episode's cooler elements aren't as developed as they should have been (like the aforementioned Smilers), and the plot's attempt to drive a wedge between the Doctor and Amy is trying a bit too hard to evoke yet another Russel T. Davies episode, "Father's Day." That story worked because of where the Ninth Doctor and Rose were, both as characters and in their relationship. Here, it feels a lot more contrived.

That being said, I still enjoy this episode. It's nowhere near the best of the series, but it's certainly not the worst.

[u/lkmk]

You’ve pretty much said what I wanted to about this episode. Not terribly fun, “Geronimo!” moment with the tongue aside, until the whale is being lobotomized by the Doctor. More than anything in “The Eleventh Hour”, “Nobody human has anything to say to me today!” was what sold me on Eleven. He has this raw anger that I never felt from Ten—which is to say, he’s as old as Amy says. I wish he didn’t mellow out over time.

This episode so desperately wants to convince us that Liz 10 is the coolest person to ever exist and, I think especially because she's the Queen, I just find this off-putting.

The portrayal of Liz 10 is an interesting example of how differently Moffat treats Doctor Who. RTD would’ve made a big deal of a monarch from the future, maybe making her a flashy character with a retinue, then pulled out the rug with the reveal. Moffat has her say, “I’m the bloody queen, mate! Basically, I rule.” That breezy simplicity works elsewhere in his era, but not here.

And then Amy goes ahead and spells it out for us, with her and the Doctor reconciling in a genuinely sweet moment.

It’ll never not annoy me that this scene doesn’t begin with a Star Wars wipe. Look at them standing in front of a massive window with a view of space, and tell me you aren’t reminded of The Empire Strikes Back.

[u/Baron487]

This one is one I can't recall much about. I didn't really get it the first time but a later rewatch made me understand it a bit more. To me it just felt a bit all over the place with what it was doing. Like they seemed to put focus on the Smilers in the opening but they don't do much and then there's Liz 10, the voting system and suddenly an abused animal.

I can't remember much from this one so it might require another rewatch but I never disliked it, just kinda thought it was alright. I'm also not big on Liz 10, while it's interesting to look back at them casting a person of colour in the role back then and thinking of how some people would react to that if it was done today, it seemed a bit strange to have us want to root for the monarch to take back power from the actual politicians (yes the regime is obviously corrupt and undemocratic but still).

Series 5 is funny in that it starts with a bang and then the following two episodes are much weaker, but then it gets rolling well again.

6/10.

[u/PaperSkin-1]

I enjoy the vibes of this episode, it's got a cool look, the smilers are great, the back and forth between the Doctor and Amy is great, the inside the mouth scene is fun

[u/Official_N_Squared]

Your bang on about the Liz 10 stuff, which speaks to a broader trend in Who Im not even sure the show is aware of.

Whenever modern Who goes to the future, generally two things are true. The government (UK or otherwise) is more monarcical, AND thats treated as a good thing. Even when the future is usually a dystopia. Its noteworthy that the only example I can think of where the UK gets less monarcical is the alternate UK in the Age of Steal 2 parter. I dont think the UK President is bad there, but the universe itself seems to be worse.

And Ive always found this bizarre as the show pretty consistently sees democratization as a good thing (hello Kings Demons), as does the UK population at large. So I have no idea where this is coming from.

[u/Drachasor → u/Official_N_Squared]

It's very weird how the Doctor isn't toppling these horrible governments like he did on the old show and often even just works with them.

[u/Drachasor → u/[deleted]]

Her regularly topped fascist governments in the past, and there's nothing that says this was a fixed point.  Hell, there's a certain Prime Minister he casually topped even in the 2005 show -- Harriet Jones.  It's just that in the 2005 show this almost never happens even when the government is horrifically bad, and that's a bad thing.

In any case, you're trying to find watsonian excuse for a doylist critique.  If they kept making up in-universe reasons for propping up fascist governments, I wouldn't like that either -- not that they do.  They just let them sit there. 

Let me remind you again that this is a government that is unhappy that they can't have their "monster" eat children.

[u/Drachasor]

I've always felt that the Doctor is incredibly out of character to decide to lobotomize the sapient space whale, and that a huge mistake in the 2005 show in general is that he doesn't topple evil governments.  This government is horrendously evil.  So evil they're annoyed that they can't have their 'monster' eat children.  The Queen is part of this and approves this when she gets to her decision each time.  None of this is given the weight or importance it deserves.

And I'm not saying that the Doctor always needs to be right, but deciding to essentially murder in cold blood to prop up a fascist government was a hell of a choice to have him make.  Not believable to me.

And like you say, the beginning and middle are really, really great, so it's disappointing that it builds up to an ending that is not very good.

[u/AlbertTheAlbatross → u/[deleted]]

I suppose it's possible that the Doctor regrets taking that approach in the past and doesn't want to do it again. After all, the last couple of times he's done that it backfired and made room for someone even worse to move in (Satellite 5 -> Daleks; Harriet Jones -> the Master). It's not stated anywhere but it seems plausible to me that the Doctor's trying to avoid the "quick" resolution of just toppling the bad government and leaving.

[u/Drachasor → u/[deleted]]

Especially with how the far right has been slowly on the rise for the past 20 years, it feels like the show has often avoided being topical on it.  And generally even avoided having stories where he ends a tyrannical government is making him too radical or something.

Not saying it's always like that, as there are some exceptions such as Harriet Jones.  But it's generally a very different tone than the sort of thing he pretty regularly did on the old show.

It's weird.

[u/Unhappy-Ad4648]

"In this case, instead of Rose learning to trust the Doctor, it's the other way around. Amy has to prove herself to the Doctor."

I think one reason is that RTD imagined himself as the Doctor's companion, while Moffat imagined himself as the Doctor. It's logical that the author's avatar (a partial one, but still) demands that other characters earn his trust.

[u/TallFutureLawyer]

we do all every few years go cast our votes and then sort of forget about the implications of our choices

I don’t want to get too deep into it in the comments of a weeks-old Doctor Who review, but this simple statement was both frustrating and genuinely very informative to read. I’ve been driving myself crazy trying to make sense of current events with a worldview that assumes people do largely understand what they’ve voted for, so the casual “we do all” here hit hard.

To get back on topic, I love the Doctor’s early deductions in Starship UK in no small part because the implication that I took away was that he often notices these kinds of details when he arrives somewhere and just happens to have a reason of explain it this time.