From Newsgroup: rec.arts.drwho.moderated
From Address: jphalt{at}aol.com
Subject: The Eleventh Hour: my review

...And my review segments now move on to the 11th Doctor.  My 11th
Doctor reviews will differ from my other reviews in one big way:

I've never seen any of these stories before.  Didn't watch them on
television, didn't download them online, didn't buy or rent the
vanilla DVD's.  I purchased the Blu Ray set about a month ago, and am
watching these episodes for the first time ever.  I've also carefully
remained unspoiled, so I'm reviewing with no idea what comes next, or
which episodes are regarded as "good" and which are regarded as "not-
so-good."

I'll be reviewing the full season, rather than simply picking a
"narrative segment."  So all ten stories will be reviewed:

The Eleventh Hour
The Beast Below
Victory of the Daleks
Time of the Angels/Flesh and Stone (As with Aliens of London, I'll
pick which title once I've seen it)
The Vampires of Venice
Amy's Choice
The Hungry Earth/Cold Blood
Vincent and the Doctor
The Lodger
The Pandorica Opens/The Big Bang


Because this season is all new to me, I will not be disrupting the
flow of the TV season with any audiobooks.  All audiobooks set during
Series Five will be reviewed during my next set of 11th Doctor
reviews.  A hoped-for side benefit is that, by then, I'll with any
luck be able to pick those audiobooks up at a discount :)


OK, onto the first review of the set:


THE ELEVENTH HOUR

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. When he materializes, he rushes into the house, with the sudden
realization that Prisoner Zero must be inside. But when he gets in, he
runs into the full-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. It's a
very promising start. Through the episode, the Doctor is settling even
as he's dealing with a crisis with a strict time limit, all of which
has 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 thus far seems very
similar in performance to David Tennant. I suspect that will change as
scripts start becoming more tailored to him, however.

Amy: Karen Gillan instantly enchants me as Amy. I'm instantly sold on
Amy in the way that most people in 2005 seemed to be instantly sold by
Rose. Gillan is very pretty, but she also has a lot of personality.
She is able to match Smith's energy with her own throughout the
episode, and the two actors play off each other quite well. I have a
feeling they're going to end up being one of the great Doctor/
Companion teams, because they do have that spark. She's also quite
funny, in an endearingly oddball way. I look forward to seeing more of
her.

Rory: Rory (Arthur Darville) appears to be the Matt Smith series'
answer to Mickey from the Eccleston/Tennant days. Darville'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 he
does at least manage 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
Doctor 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 would be 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. It worked, and Tennant
became the Doctor and dominated the show with only a little over 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 he is thrust straight
into a crisis, and 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 - Power of the
Daleks, Robot, and here - it has the huge benefit of leaving 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 over the many things this story does well, 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 chasing Patient Zero, a scene that works perfectly.

Overall, this is a promising start to a new season. I'm looking
forward to seeing more of the Eleventh Doctor, more of Amy, and more
of this newest take on the 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.


Rating: 8/10.

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