I don’t like that you associated the episode with Incels , that’s was unfair , I’m not in the Incel community and I loved it before Incels was even a thing , this is from 2010. If you think it’s sexist and all that then just say so , I littlery feel bad now for enjoying it so much over the years , this is one of my Favourite Dr who episodes of all time and your opinion on it has me at the Unsub button. This is the first time I’ve disagreed with your take on an Episode. The Reason I love Doctor who is because of its humor
I love the way Amy happily declares the Doctor & Rory as "her boys," and Rory is the one who tries to deny it while the Doctor accepts it no problem. Idk, I just always thought that was really cute, and worked as a nice little hint to their later development as a time-travelling trio. 😆
I remember actually quite liking this one at the time. The concept behind the vampires is fine, it’s perfectly valid sci-fi twist, where an alien through its use of a dodgy perception filter and drying out in sunlight (because it’s a fish) appears like a vampire, but it does fall down when you consider that there are already actual vampires in Doctor Who lore. Rory is great, and vastly improves the TARDIS dynamic. But now you mention it I am struggling to think of anything else I really liked about it……
The "love triangle" trope is extremely played out; the "choosing between boring and exciting partners" trope has also been done to death. But I can't think of another instance of this in fiction where one of the prospective love interests actively wants the other one to be chosen over themselves. It's a refreshing spin on a familiar concept.
@@sentientwaffle535 why not? It made her an interesting character, and made complete sense in the context of her relationship with the Doctor. Plus a woman who’s very much in control of her sexuality is a great thing to see
@@tobylerone4285 It’s not really complete sense, he was a childhood ‘imaginary’ friend that she interacted with for 1 night. Whereas Rory and Amy grew up together, they were great friends, they got together and eventually got together then engaged. She not only tries to pretend he doesn’t exist for the first part of this season but she also tends to ignore or insult him. Her being in control of her sexuality is a good thing, however in the episode previous to this she did sexually assault the doctor. The concept of her being attracted to the doctor does work but the immediate disregard for anything else, including the doctor’s feelings, comes off as either very forced or as the character being mishandled.
@@tobylerone4285 A woman who is willing to cheat on her fiance isn’t a great thing to see, nor is it a woman “in control of her sexuality.” That’s a person who lets their sexuality control them.
Also this episode keeps up the continuity of the cracks in time but does it in a more subtle way. When the sky is changing back from dark to blue and the clouds are moving for a brief blink and you'll miss it second the clouds form the crack in time crooked smile shape
Series 5, and the Moffat era in general, is so weird to me. It continually fluctuates between really good episodes and absolutely terrible ones. Makes it really hard to decide how to feel about it lol. I love a lot of the characters though, which was the only thing motivating me to keep watching at points.
@@matthewparker9276 I personally prefer RTD overall, though nostalgia probably plays a role in that. When it comes to Moffat's era, I've honestly come to like it a lot more on reflection. When I first watched it, I couldn't enjoy it fully because I was still so attached to how DW had been before. After some time to move on, I was a lot more able to just enjoy the fun of it, despite the flaws. Plus, since I know the overarching plot I can just skip straight to the good episodes lol
@@matthewparker9276 I’ve actually realised that a lot of my absolute favourite episodes are written by Russell, but so are a lot of my least favourite. Moffat to me ranges from excellent but not perfect to fun but flawed, whereas RTD resembles a hack when he’s not firing on all cylinders (ahem *love and monsters* ahem *the end of time* ahem)
Love and monsters is one of my fave eps, concept wise it's pretty unique in not featuring either the Doctor or the companion, and seeing it from someone else's pov
Looking back I can see now that Amy isn’t a good person and her relationship with Rory was all that was going for her. My second favourite was the 9th and 10th doctors first companion, but looking back that might just have been ‘Rose-tinted glasses’
I’ve never understood the hate for this one, it does a lot of things so well. establishes the doctor’s fraught ideological dynamic with rory, which in turn feeds into Amy’s choice (easily the best episode of the series) and her eventual decision to join rory in the past. Substantiates the threat of the silence by making Helen Mcrory scared of them. Helen Mcrory… she’s just amazing, RIP. Matt Smith gets to flex his comedic muscles, but also gets some potent dramatic moments (sometimes intermingled; “I’m a time lord; you’re a big fish. think of the children”). The side characters, while thinly drawn, are very well performed. Plus it’s got a big goofy finale that for me absolutely works. 8/10 it’s such a laugh while not neglecting the character work necessary for the overarching series
Not defending this but side characters just turning up to give exposition and then being killed off and not remarked on is pretty standard Doctor Who at this point... also it's fun looking at the difference of sowing the seeds of moons and planets being lost in the Tennant era which seems background and then comes around to have a big meaning, and the Smith era EVERYTHING IS BECAUSE OF THE SILENCE REMEMBER THE SILENCE which is about as unsubtle as it possibly could be
The difference is no one (audience) cared that planets and moons were missing. When the finale happened it was like "Oh that's cool how Davies tied that in." With Moffat, at least I, wanted to know more about the Silence. "What was it? What does it mean? I need to watch the next episode to find out." It's not meant to be subtle, it's JJ Abrams' mystery box
This was actually my first episode I watched. My mother loved Matt Smith's outfit, while I thought the fish aliens very goofy as hell. Before I know anything about the show, I assumed the whole show was set in Venice with time travelers being stuck there lmao. Thankfully I was wrong and kept watching a few more season 5 episodes. My father then bought the first two series on DVD and to this day, Series 1 and 2 are my favorite Doctor Who seasons of all time. Those early RTD episodes were the perfect mixture of Classic and Modern Doctor Who
I can't remember where i read it, but it goes like this: Season 2 is a bad season full of good episodes and season 5 is a good season full of bad episodes
I don’t know if I’d ever describe season 2 as full of good episodes; everything aside from the impossible planet/the Satan pit, school reunion and girl in the fireplace is pretty average. Meanwhile every episode in season 5 is good except the chibnalls
Honestly I think season 2 had worse bad episodes than season 5, most of the "bad" episodes in this season feel meh at worst imo but I pretty much agree with the sentiment lol
Smith's really interesting here (aside from a horrible bit where he gets up in Rory's face and then smiles as if to say "just kidding bro"). He lies to Rory about the circumstances in which Amy kissed him, cause he kinda knows that the number he did on her as a kid has effected her relationships. Rory's decent here too. The bit where he calls out the Dr makes much sense than the monologues Danny would do about soldiers and officers in S8.
I dunno, still weird that Rory's already worked the Doctor out. Not just that, but how confident he is in his assessment. I like to think it's more of a sly judgement on Amy, knowing she likes to take risks. Surely that's the only thing that could pull her away from her wedding? It's not the best, I have to make stretches to be happy.
@@nightowl8477 He has already had one adventure with the Doctor. He has been watching Amy around him for almost two episodes. I think you can extrapolate something from that amount of time. Whereas Danny literally only found out that the Dr was an alien one scene before he starts his monologuing
@@nightowl8477 but he can already see the difference in Amy. He'd probably only seen her earlier that day and the Amy he knows now is a different person
The weirdest thing about Amy and Rorys relationship is … I NEVER get the sense that Amy loves him. She never has a moment where she actually apologises for cheating in this episode - Rory just fights the fish boy and Amy kisses him and that’s presented as the moment they’re cool again, which incidentally frames Rory as the one in need of Amy’s approval…
@@RealBadGaming52 lmao, yes, we do later understand that she loves him, I should have clarified that right up until a few hours before her wedding she is kind of embarrassed by him and doesn’t care about him??? What the hell is that about? I would never want to be engaged to someone who treated me like that.
@@entertain7us148 she’s not embarrassed by him outright, she’s uncomfortable with the hero of her childhood meeting the pragmatic reality of her present. Rory isn’t just a placeholder, but it’s inevitable that she would question wether he is, whether he was just someone to keep her occupied until the doctor came back around. Is that good behaviour? No, but it’s compelling and understandable, and crucially is resolved by the time she leaves. We need more companions who make the wrong decisions for the right reasons
They could have simply lost the entire "school" part of the thing and it would make a lot more sense. In that time it was unfortunately very common for poor people to sell their children to aristocrats 1)because they couldn't afford to keep feeding that child and that child made less money for the family then the cost to feed, house and dress them; and 2)because very often this children faced a future even worse than becoming a servant in a rich house of they stayed with their parents. So it made sense for this parents to sell their kids and by consequence ending up losing all contact with those kids, but losing contact after just sending them to school makes no sense at all.
But the school was to lure the girls as kidnapping them would raise too much suspicion and they were Living in our past wich would not be kind to fish creature from space so they have to hide
I don't understand how Rory is a "0" in this episode. Because he's scared of the fish-vampire-alien? Despite his fear he still fight him (with a broom!) to defend Amy. He was being very brave, and i love that about him.
Ah yes, my first 11th Doctor episode, and the one that initially gave my mom in particular a bad impression of Matt Smith's iteration after we had just come off of David Tennant's run (whom we both loved), especially since our first scene was him bossing around his companions with that whole "What do I keep you guys around here for if you don't notice my brilliance?" bit. But with more episodes we came to better appreciate him down the line. 😊✨
Smith just didn’t have the gravitas to pull that off. When Capaldi had a line like that, you’d kinda chuckle, because it was like watching your overworked dad blundering into a tense situation. Smith just sounded like a spoiled kid. I don’t think he ever shook that youthfulness despite bounding from strength to strength. Moffat wanted an older Eleventh Doctor and it shows a lot in Season Five.
One thing that I'm not a fan of is Doctor Who trying to give scientific justification for the existence of folkloric monsters ("they're really aliens!") It sucked in Tooth & Claw and it sucks here. And it's especially weird considering the amount of suspension of disbelief the show normally requires. Why can't actual vampires exist?
You don't understand a fundamental aspect of the show. The fact that Doctor Who is using what we know of the universe and science ; and what we don't know, explaining the magic, the supernatural, the impossible by "science" ; that's what they did since almost the beginning of the show
@@hothemeep1219 aight, but can't they just be mutants or beings from another dimension or some ancient, long forgotten, race? Why does it always have to be aliens?
@@marcino457 you do realise that every creature who does not live on Earth is an alien right? That's what the word means, a foreigner, not someone from earth. A creature from an other dimension IS an alien too
@@hothemeep1219 I'm not sure that "it's aliens" is a satisfying "scientific" explanation of vampires. If anything, imagining aliens disguising themselves as vampires is a bigger leap of faith than just imagining vampires.
@@alexpotts6520 I'm not saying it's a satisfying way to do it, I'm just explaining to you how the show tends to explain the origins of myths and ancient creatures. By rationalizing what is irrational, by making us believe the unbelievable through science. If you don't like it, fine, but it's a fundamental element of the show, this link between science and magic. Of course it's not our science, it's ""science"", that's also what the show is good at, making us believe that it's "science" is accurate and realistic. Doctor Who is like the other side of tv shows like The Twilight Zone. The Twilight Zone would introduced supernatural elements to it's stories, without explaining it. Doctor Who does the opposite, whereas The Twilight Zone used the supernatural as magic, Doctor Who uses it as only unknown science, a good example of that is the story The Daemons, a 3rd Doctor's story broadcasted in 1971. In Dr Who, everything is science and it can be magic in very rare moments (like Midnight). In some way, Doctor Who is an answer to The Twilight Zone
The Silence isn’t a race, it’s actually a more aggressive branch of the papal mainframe, the same religion we were introduced to in flesh and stone. This branch of the religion comes from the belief that Silence must fall when the question is asked (s6,e13) who’s aim was to kill the doctor before he could answer the question, the question which would bring the time lords back to the universe causing another time war with the daleks and plunging the whole universe into war (The time of the doctor). The Silence aim was to stop this, hence them blowing up the tardis to kill the doctor causing the cracks in time and abducting river song to get her to kill the doctor. This could also be seen in the time of the doctor where the papal mainframe switched to the Silence when the mysterious message coming from trenzalore was deciphered so everyone could hear it, causing them to use any means necessary to keep the silence
The rain part annoys me because I’ve been to Venice before and when it rains IT RAINS, the rain is so heavy there. Hell I had worse rain yesterday in Australia.
16:44 Not necessarily. The cracks don't always erase history. In the eleventh hour it was just used as a portal. Her species could have just fallen through or been killed by something that came out of it. It's inconsistent but so are most concepts like this in Dr Who and the series is at least upfront about it.
My personal interpretation of Rosanna and the crack is that she escaped through it similarly to Prisoner Zero but her world was dying from a different cause. A Doctor Who episode exploring a world where the oceans are drying up would be a cool one, perhaps under RTD?
Considering that the Time Lords have fought the Great Vampires for centuries, it is understandable that the Doctor has a disdain for bloodsuckers. In many audios, comics and books they show the Doctor hating Vampires.
I don't really have much to say about this episode other than RIP Helen McCrory. the two hander scene between her and Smith is amazing. But her performance in this episode is one of the things that stands out and her passing is sad and tragic and she will be missed as she was a fantastic actress n everything she did. My she rest in peace and power and may her loved ones find strength and peace
"Weirdly borderline incestuous fish aliens trying to find girlfriends" sounds like a great monster concept to me. Then again, I love fish monsters, so I shouldn't speak.
@@TheToonMonkey Oh cool! I didn't know this episode took inspiration from an old movie with a similar(ish) premise but that's really interesting, especially since I've admittedly never heard of that one. I'll have to check it out then.
Series 5 was the start of Doctor Who that made me binge watch every episode back to back. Series 2 was more of a few days or weekly event. Sometimes it felt like a chore. Series 3 started to get interesting without Rose. Series 4 was a daily dose of stories. Love the Moffat era.
I really think the school should have been more explored as a concept, I think with it being so early in the season they missed out on the ability to flesh out the story and Rory in the early episode. I like that Rory puts his foot down with the Doctor to make him more aware of the risks that his presence has on the psychology of the people he interacts with. It would have been really beneficial to have the 'vampires' only active at night because it would have given a longer time frame for the episode and shown a greater risk for Amy rather than having her in and out so quickly.
I remember reading an issue of Doctor Who magazine where Davies and Moffat interviewed each other and Moffat just straight up says he regretted making Amy kiss the doctor.
The ancient vampires are in the time lord victorious same with the curse of fenric. And in the time lords used werewolves to defeat ancient vampires as well. And next is Amy’s choice
Terrible missed opportunity not to make this a 'Shadow Over Innsmouth' type episode. Just imagine if the classic Lovecraft story were re-adapted so that Dagon was transforming people to repopulate his near-extinct his race, and a newcomer character has to cope with the horrifying realization that he/she is one of these monstrous, alien fish-people
I only have one criticism and that's you view of the perception filter. It's like having an invisibility spell that "apparently"only hides you from those who are visible. So how do you know that you're invisible? The perception filter works on everyone for that same reason, and explains how it became obvious that it was malfunctioning to her son.
Funny how Harbo compares the school to (what could've been) something like Suspiria & one of my favorite movie reviewers Ryan Hollinger released an essay on the 1977 & 2018 Suspiria films yesterday. 😉🧧
to explain the cold open (from tv tropes):- "Originally, the second half of the Cold Open was placed after the opening titles, since the first scene of the episode ends with Isabella screaming, timed to the start of the title theme. However, as stated in the DVD commentary for the episode, the director thought the second scene of the episode (featuring the Doctor at Rory's stag party) ended with the same comedic awkwardness as the following scene, so they placed that second scene as part of the cold open. Luckily, the effect of the first scene's end does transition well into the second scene, so it wasn't a huge loss."
I'm confused. Harbo has said that Isabellla's death meant nothing to the Doctor, but then criticizes the Doctor for not helping Rosanna because Isabella's death meant nothing to *her*. And btw, the Doctor did not refuse to help Rosanna. He refused to help her take over Venice. He did not refuse to help her take her children to another planet to start over. He refused to sacrifice Venice (and more, since such a weather event would hardly affect just one city) just because Rosanna had decided it was a good home for her family. Rosanna never opted to try to emigrate elsewhere or formulate another plan; she just told him to deal with it on his own if he wanted to save his precious humans and stalked out.
Trust me, there are people that react to rain like they've never seen it before and it's the end of the world and they go to the store and stock up on canned food and bread and stuff like they're gonna be locked in their house for weeks...just go to Kansas 😂😂
Dang, you make great points about the episode’s flaws. I really liked the episode when I first saw it recently but it seems like it would be worse on rewatches.
The best Toby Whithouse episode of New Whu is Under the Lake/Before the Flood. If you disagree then you’re just wrong 😂 Edit: I think the God Complex is probably even, but the other story is a great 2 parter!
Alright, I’ve given this a fair shake, but I’m starting to think there’s some serious bias afoot here, and I have to be honest, it’s kind of ruining my experience watching your reviews recently. Don’t mean to insinuate anything here, but hell, you’re one who reads your comments and perhaps this might be useful. Take it with a grain of salt if you like, but this is what I’ve been noticing. I get that you believe the Amy plot to be contrived and paints her out to be an unfaithful homewrecker, but calling the intro scene the “Doctor bragging” feels like a hell of a stretch that I don’t I really felt you pulled often during your Davies era reviews. I feel like you’re very busy comparing the previous run of Who to this current one to realize that what would be illogical in the last run makes perfect since here. The Doctor is far more alien this time around, he’s confused and more detached, more of a Troughton than a Tennant, and if I’m honest it feels like there’s some begrudging going on underneath all your words because of that fact. I consider this episode to be the Idiot’s Lantern of the Moffat era, from the companion split-up to the characters that exist to further the plot and then die. What changed for me, though, is that unlike the Idiot’s Lantern a decent amount of the time, the comedy for me landed. I get it might have not for you, but calling it bad when it seems to be not your style feels a tad like punching down. Even if it is a tad more lowbrow, that remark came off as particularly mean spirited, and felt more again that you were spiteful the episode didn’t take a more serious tone that you were hoping for, like those of the Davies era. I also think you’re giving far too little credit to the subtext in this episode, the Doctor does in fact consider helping Rosanna earlier on, that’s the whole point behind the “flirting” scene, (which mind you can also read as the two taking sarcastic jabs at each other, perhaps it didn’t succeed on that, but the possibility is there and makes the most sense). He does decide to stop her over Isabella, but it’s probably a lot less the fact she forgot her name like the Doctor says, but the fact they killed her. It was likely a line from the Doctor there to instill fear and look cool, not literally why he was stopping her. Tennant had his fair share of those one-liners as well, so why does Smith take the hit for having one this time around? Overall, I don’t think this episode is very good at all, and you do raise a lot of legitimate points here. Hell, I’d actually place it right where you would as well, in the D tier, but I do think you’re keeping a closed mind and coming into these reviews with pre-established feelings rather than giving these a fair shot. That’s just me though, and I’m just some person on the internet, so who knows if I know what I’m talking about, eh? 😅
No I agree completely. Pretty much every review in Tenants era was “wow so amazing” even when most of the layout was similar, People die, Doctor makes speech, alien of the week. There seems to be a lot of hate on each episode, even ones that are pretty good. I love The Lodger and if that gets a bad review I’m out.
Thank you! He is always clearly biased toward series 3 &4. I remember plenty of issues in lots of those episodes that he does not bring up. But for series 2 and 5 (my personal favourites) he continuously bashes them just because of some of the plot points he does not prefer. Like just because he prefers when the companion and the doctor do not like each other does not make it a bad plot point.
While I don't like it very much, but I just watched it and then watched this I would say, it isn't so bad. It has good parts and while sunlight is very inconsistent, once completely ignored and another make him explode and Doctor's action about fish people was weird (maybe he doesn't believe they are last? Explanation about loss of their planet was weird. It sound to me, like they simply got lost from their planet and assumed rest died, but maybe I wasn't paying attention enough). There was some emotions with loss of characters. Doctor refugees cooperating because deat of daughter and is angry at Amy and Rory, when they stay against his orders, after father death. That storm at suddenly appeared from tower and somehow grow down in very weird way was scary and villain plan wasn't so bad, if you take into accords, they are basically refugees without much tech and resources. I would give it 6/10. Maybe 5 or 7.
4:30 It is extremely original and interesting decision by itself. Even if I do prefer the continuity of Doctor Who through eras. 16:55 I think Moffat (or Whithouse) tried to repeat what RTD did with “our species had to escape the Time War”, but didn’t think through the implications. As usual. To be honest, I didn’t find the jokes about lady D funny either.
Not gonna lie, I would have watched Helen McCrory do her taxes for three hours, she was so damn great. Still, I agree this material was definitely a waste of the talents she had. I will always be frustrated at how they handled Amy & Rory's relationship, especially in this episode. Rose & Mickey had a real, palpable warmth between them, even with their problems. I always appreciated those little bits of dialogue the writers came up with to show their friendship and affection beyond the Doctor's involvement. Amy & Rory's relationship always felt ultimately cold, like the affection would be turned on or off depending on plot demands. It was so jarring and inconsistent, for me it was like watching a writer use the actors like dolls that could be shifted about on any silly whim they had. Again, such a waste of potential because I think both Darvill & Gillan were 100% capable of creating warmth & depth with those characters, but the writers' obsession with plot contrivances & so-called "clever jokes" really robbed them of that opportunity.
I can imagine it'd be better if the vampires was the classic ancient one instead of a new vampiric alien. It's gonna be a lot darker though. Probably not exactly what Moffat wanted as Rory's introduction to TARDIS life.
Episodes could be really bad every once in a while during RTD and Moffat's era, true. But at least it's not just bad right the way through like Chibs era.
I like this episode it's a good standard doctor who episode. However Amy treats everyone around her awfully and never really apologises. She's incredibly horrible at times imo
Every time he complains about the lack of calling back to the older iterations of Who, I just want to say "Of course, it's Moffat, he refuses to acknowledge any era except his own".
In my opinion this episode is the least satisfying episode of this Series. I never rated The Beast Below higher until now. I forgot how many plot holes existed in this Episode.
The Moffatt era makes many similar jokes to the Davies era, but much of the time they completely fail to land, and I think that Ofsted joke epitomises that. I feel like in the Davies era that joke would have played out as some sort of questioning about Ofsted and Amy having to come up with a kingdom on the spot, or having to assume the title Amy of Ofsted, something along those lines. But here, the vampires laugh, as if they too are well acquainted with governing bodies of British education. They traded in for a joke which would get a quick laugh out of people easily rather than trying to write a follow through for their punchlines, and they constantly do this throughout the run. The bigger issue than trading quality of jokes is further breaking immersion. It completely takes you out of the episode if you think for a second 'wait, she shouldn't have laughed at that', and reminds you of the other shortcomings of the episode and its writing.
It’s my favorite Matt Smith Epsides and I see no issues with whatsoever (other than Amy cheating emediatly) , I fancied Lady Rosanna so bad , maybe that’s why I simp for Lady Dimitrescu :)
@@sad_tbh I disagree. As weak as it is, it fills a role in the series arc building the relationship between the principle trio and setting up the emotional stakes of the next episode. If series 5 has a skippable episode, and it does, it would be the lodger.
Eveyy time someone points out I said Rosanna wrong, you're legally obligated to donate to my Patreon:
www.patreon.com/harbowholmes
Hey Harbo! Looking forward to your thoughts on Amy's Choice next week and then Vincent & the Doctor later on! 🥰
Every time Harbo gets horny over a dominant woman, a puppy dies
@@PwnZombie That's a lot of dead puppies.
I don’t like that you associated the episode with Incels , that’s was unfair , I’m not in the Incel community and I loved it before Incels was even a thing , this is from 2010. If you think it’s sexist and all that then just say so , I littlery feel bad now for enjoying it so much over the years , this is one of my Favourite Dr who episodes of all time and your opinion on it has me at the Unsub button. This is the first time I’ve disagreed with your take on an Episode. The Reason I love Doctor who is because of its humor
@mark i loved Victory of the Daleks (not the redsign) but the episode was really good.
Harbo: criticises Moffat for writing with one hand down his trousers
Also Harbo: *STEP ON ME*
I feel there's a big difference between what Moff does and what Harbo does.
@@HiperPivociarz yeah I know :P just teasing
@@elliotcrossan6290 I assumed
Just checking
yes ;)
@@HiperPivociarz True, but Moff can only work with what God gave him
I love the way Amy happily declares the Doctor & Rory as "her boys," and Rory is the one who tries to deny it while the Doctor accepts it no problem. Idk, I just always thought that was really cute, and worked as a nice little hint to their later development as a time-travelling trio. 😆
I remember actually quite liking this one at the time. The concept behind the vampires is fine, it’s perfectly valid sci-fi twist, where an alien through its use of a dodgy perception filter and drying out in sunlight (because it’s a fish) appears like a vampire, but it does fall down when you consider that there are already actual vampires in Doctor Who lore. Rory is great, and vastly improves the TARDIS dynamic. But now you mention it I am struggling to think of anything else I really liked about it……
Two species of vampire already. This is the third. Not to mention that blood sucker in Smith and Jones that uses a straw; does that make four?
DOCTOR: ...she kissed me.
RORY: And you kissed her back.
DOCTOR: No. I kissed her mouth.
Best line of the episode.
I’d have left her then!
😊@@NotALiberalSoSkipTheScript
The "love triangle" trope is extremely played out; the "choosing between boring and exciting partners" trope has also been done to death. But I can't think of another instance of this in fiction where one of the prospective love interests actively wants the other one to be chosen over themselves. It's a refreshing spin on a familiar concept.
Definitely should not be done when two members are literally about to be married, though
Only other thing I can think of is in Back to the Future when Marty wanted Lorraine to fall in love with George
@@sentientwaffle535 why not? It made her an interesting character, and made complete sense in the context of her relationship with the Doctor. Plus a woman who’s very much in control of her sexuality is a great thing to see
@@tobylerone4285 It’s not really complete sense, he was a childhood ‘imaginary’ friend that she interacted with for 1 night. Whereas Rory and Amy grew up together, they were great friends, they got together and eventually got together then engaged. She not only tries to pretend he doesn’t exist for the first part of this season but she also tends to ignore or insult him. Her being in control of her sexuality is a good thing, however in the episode previous to this she did sexually assault the doctor. The concept of her being attracted to the doctor does work but the immediate disregard for anything else, including the doctor’s feelings, comes off as either very forced or as the character being mishandled.
@@tobylerone4285 A woman who is willing to cheat on her fiance isn’t a great thing to see, nor is it a woman “in control of her sexuality.” That’s a person who lets their sexuality control them.
Also this episode keeps up the continuity of the cracks in time but does it in a more subtle way. When the sky is changing back from dark to blue and the clouds are moving for a brief blink and you'll miss it second the clouds form the crack in time crooked smile shape
Wait I never noticed that!!
Series 5, and the Moffat era in general, is so weird to me. It continually fluctuates between really good episodes and absolutely terrible ones. Makes it really hard to decide how to feel about it lol. I love a lot of the characters though, which was the only thing motivating me to keep watching at points.
Yeah, Moffat era reached really high highs, but it lacked the consistancy of RTD era.
I still probably prefer Moffat era though.
@@matthewparker9276 I personally prefer RTD overall, though nostalgia probably plays a role in that. When it comes to Moffat's era, I've honestly come to like it a lot more on reflection. When I first watched it, I couldn't enjoy it fully because I was still so attached to how DW had been before. After some time to move on, I was a lot more able to just enjoy the fun of it, despite the flaws. Plus, since I know the overarching plot I can just skip straight to the good episodes lol
Just like the classic Series.
@@matthewparker9276 I’ve actually realised that a lot of my absolute favourite episodes are written by Russell, but so are a lot of my least favourite. Moffat to me ranges from excellent but not perfect to fun but flawed, whereas RTD resembles a hack when he’s not firing on all cylinders (ahem *love and monsters* ahem *the end of time* ahem)
Love and monsters is one of my fave eps, concept wise it's pretty unique in not featuring either the Doctor or the companion, and seeing it from someone else's pov
Looking back I can see now that Amy isn’t a good person and her relationship with Rory was all that was going for her.
My second favourite was the 9th and 10th doctors first companion, but looking back that might just have been ‘Rose-tinted glasses’
I’ve never understood the hate for this one, it does a lot of things so well. establishes the doctor’s fraught ideological dynamic with rory, which in turn feeds into Amy’s choice (easily the best episode of the series) and her eventual decision to join rory in the past. Substantiates the threat of the silence by making Helen Mcrory scared of them. Helen Mcrory… she’s just amazing, RIP. Matt Smith gets to flex his comedic muscles, but also gets some potent dramatic moments (sometimes intermingled; “I’m a time lord; you’re a big fish. think of the children”). The side characters, while thinly drawn, are very well performed. Plus it’s got a big goofy finale that for me absolutely works. 8/10 it’s such a laugh while not neglecting the character work necessary for the overarching series
blah blah blah
@@altinaykor364 noted
Not defending this but side characters just turning up to give exposition and then being killed off and not remarked on is pretty standard Doctor Who at this point... also it's fun looking at the difference of sowing the seeds of moons and planets being lost in the Tennant era which seems background and then comes around to have a big meaning, and the Smith era EVERYTHING IS BECAUSE OF THE SILENCE REMEMBER THE SILENCE which is about as unsubtle as it possibly could be
The whole "bees" thing is no so subtle.
The difference is no one (audience) cared that planets and moons were missing. When the finale happened it was like "Oh that's cool how Davies tied that in." With Moffat, at least I, wanted to know more about the Silence. "What was it? What does it mean? I need to watch the next episode to find out." It's not meant to be subtle, it's JJ Abrams' mystery box
@@DrTimes99 apologists
This was actually my first episode I watched. My mother loved Matt Smith's outfit, while I thought the fish aliens very goofy as hell. Before I know anything about the show, I assumed the whole show was set in Venice with time travelers being stuck there lmao. Thankfully I was wrong and kept watching a few more season 5 episodes. My father then bought the first two series on DVD and to this day, Series 1 and 2 are my favorite Doctor Who seasons of all time. Those early RTD episodes were the perfect mixture of Classic and Modern Doctor Who
Say what you like about this episode, but you can’t deny Helen McCrory is absolutely brilliant in it. 🙂
May she rest in peace x
Yes she was , sexy, seductive and intimidating , but I love the entire episode and the humour is fantastic int the whole thing
"Step on me" -Harbo Wholmes, 2021
I can't remember where i read it, but it goes like this:
Season 2 is a bad season full of good episodes and season 5 is a good season full of bad episodes
I don’t know if I’d ever describe season 2 as full of good episodes; everything aside from the impossible planet/the Satan pit, school reunion and girl in the fireplace is pretty average. Meanwhile every episode in season 5 is good except the chibnalls
Harbo said that in his season 2 overall review
Honestly I think season 2 had worse bad episodes than season 5, most of the "bad" episodes in this season feel meh at worst imo but I pretty much agree with the sentiment lol
@@alim.9801 wrong
Smith's really interesting here (aside from a horrible bit where he gets up in Rory's face and then smiles as if to say "just kidding bro"). He lies to Rory about the circumstances in which Amy kissed him, cause he kinda knows that the number he did on her as a kid has effected her relationships.
Rory's decent here too. The bit where he calls out the Dr makes much sense than the monologues Danny would do about soldiers and officers in S8.
I dunno, still weird that Rory's already worked the Doctor out. Not just that, but how confident he is in his assessment. I like to think it's more of a sly judgement on Amy, knowing she likes to take risks. Surely that's the only thing that could pull her away from her wedding? It's not the best, I have to make stretches to be happy.
@@nightowl8477 He has already had one adventure with the Doctor. He has been watching Amy around him for almost two episodes. I think you can extrapolate something from that amount of time. Whereas Danny literally only found out that the Dr was an alien one scene before he starts his monologuing
@@Ben-vf5gk - *grob*
@@nightowl8477 but he can already see the difference in Amy. He'd probably only seen her earlier that day and the Amy he knows now is a different person
The question after this essay is: does harby like what we do in the shadows?
All vampires are sexy. Especially the Hammar stuff, but even the source material. Sexuality is a key part of Dracula'a story; biting in the bedroom.
That's your opinion
@@the-scamp - an opinion backed up by a century and a half's worth of academic research. Still an opinion, yes.
@@nightowl8477 oh man, Najawin would be so proud of you right now
But why does Hasbro here say that the story is only enjoyed by Incels or sounds like it was written by Incels
Being sexy is part of their M.O.; they seduce their victims in order to bite them, so they represent the danger of giving in to temptation.
This episode predicted Lady Dimitrescu
Bringing Helen McCrory in this episode would be like casting Judi Dench as the Rani(by the way, Dench was considered to be in some 80s Who).
But Helen MacCrory is incredibly attractive and that helps
I always forget that the fish vampire creatures in this episode were led by Narcissa Malfoy. 😅
The weirdest thing about Amy and Rorys relationship is … I NEVER get the sense that Amy loves him. She never has a moment where she actually apologises for cheating in this episode - Rory just fights the fish boy and Amy kisses him and that’s presented as the moment they’re cool again, which incidentally frames Rory as the one in need of Amy’s approval…
She love him, in the same way Lois loves Hal in Malcolm in The Middle.
Yeah that's only really explored in the next episode
It’s revealed in The Season 6 opened that she does love him
@@RealBadGaming52 lmao, yes, we do later understand that she loves him, I should have clarified that right up until a few hours before her wedding she is kind of embarrassed by him and doesn’t care about him??? What the hell is that about? I would never want to be engaged to someone who treated me like that.
@@entertain7us148 she’s not embarrassed by him outright, she’s uncomfortable with the hero of her childhood meeting the pragmatic reality of her present. Rory isn’t just a placeholder, but it’s inevitable that she would question wether he is, whether he was just someone to keep her occupied until the doctor came back around. Is that good behaviour? No, but it’s compelling and understandable, and crucially is resolved by the time she leaves. We need more companions who make the wrong decisions for the right reasons
They could have simply lost the entire "school" part of the thing and it would make a lot more sense. In that time it was unfortunately very common for poor people to sell their children to aristocrats 1)because they couldn't afford to keep feeding that child and that child made less money for the family then the cost to feed, house and dress them; and 2)because very often this children faced a future even worse than becoming a servant in a rich house of they stayed with their parents. So it made sense for this parents to sell their kids and by consequence ending up losing all contact with those kids, but losing contact after just sending them to school makes no sense at all.
But the school was to lure the girls as kidnapping them would raise too much suspicion and they were Living in our past wich would not be kind to fish creature from space so they have to hide
I don't understand how Rory is a "0" in this episode. Because he's scared of the fish-vampire-alien? Despite his fear he still fight him (with a broom!) to defend Amy. He was being very brave, and i love that about him.
Ah yes, my first 11th Doctor episode, and the one that initially gave my mom in particular a bad impression of Matt Smith's iteration after we had just come off of David Tennant's run (whom we both loved), especially since our first scene was him bossing around his companions with that whole "What do I keep you guys around here for if you don't notice my brilliance?" bit. But with more episodes we came to better appreciate him down the line. 😊✨
Smith just didn’t have the gravitas to pull that off. When Capaldi had a line like that, you’d kinda chuckle, because it was like watching your overworked dad blundering into a tense situation. Smith just sounded like a spoiled kid. I don’t think he ever shook that youthfulness despite bounding from strength to strength. Moffat wanted an older Eleventh Doctor and it shows a lot in Season Five.
@@jackyzimmerman Agreed. 👏
@@jackyzimmerman I think that is the point, he was smug not gravitas.
I felt the same! I think I came around to Smith once River was a big part of his story.
@@jackyzimmerman If Moffat wanted an older Doctor he could have cast one, he was showrunner...
One thing that I'm not a fan of is Doctor Who trying to give scientific justification for the existence of folkloric monsters ("they're really aliens!") It sucked in Tooth & Claw and it sucks here. And it's especially weird considering the amount of suspension of disbelief the show normally requires. Why can't actual vampires exist?
You don't understand a fundamental aspect of the show. The fact that Doctor Who is using what we know of the universe and science ; and what we don't know, explaining the magic, the supernatural, the impossible by "science" ; that's what they did since almost the beginning of the show
@@hothemeep1219 aight, but can't they just be mutants or beings from another dimension or some ancient, long forgotten, race? Why does it always have to be aliens?
@@marcino457 you do realise that every creature who does not live on Earth is an alien right? That's what the word means, a foreigner, not someone from earth. A creature from an other dimension IS an alien too
@@hothemeep1219 I'm not sure that "it's aliens" is a satisfying "scientific" explanation of vampires. If anything, imagining aliens disguising themselves as vampires is a bigger leap of faith than just imagining vampires.
@@alexpotts6520 I'm not saying it's a satisfying way to do it, I'm just explaining to you how the show tends to explain the origins of myths and ancient creatures. By rationalizing what is irrational, by making us believe the unbelievable through science. If you don't like it, fine, but it's a fundamental element of the show, this link between science and magic. Of course it's not our science, it's ""science"", that's also what the show is good at, making us believe that it's "science" is accurate and realistic.
Doctor Who is like the other side of tv shows like The Twilight Zone. The
Twilight Zone would introduced supernatural elements to it's stories, without explaining it. Doctor Who does the opposite, whereas The Twilight Zone used the supernatural as magic, Doctor Who uses it as only unknown science, a good example of that is the story The Daemons, a 3rd Doctor's story broadcasted in 1971. In Dr Who, everything is science and it can be magic in very rare moments (like Midnight). In some way, Doctor Who is an answer to The Twilight Zone
Clara was supposed to be turned into a vampire during the Capaldi era in an unmade episode penned by Paul Cornell set around the Highgate Graveyard
This episode is a freaking masterpiece compared to the last two years of Chibnall.
No way
The Silence isn’t a race, it’s actually a more aggressive branch of the papal mainframe, the same religion we were introduced to in flesh and stone. This branch of the religion comes from the belief that Silence must fall when the question is asked (s6,e13) who’s aim was to kill the doctor before he could answer the question, the question which would bring the time lords back to the universe causing another time war with the daleks and plunging the whole universe into war (The time of the doctor). The Silence aim was to stop this, hence them blowing up the tardis to kill the doctor causing the cracks in time and abducting river song to get her to kill the doctor. This could also be seen in the time of the doctor where the papal mainframe switched to the Silence when the mysterious message coming from trenzalore was deciphered so everyone could hear it, causing them to use any means necessary to keep the silence
The Silence are drawn from the imagination of a writer 🙄
Except Moffat clearly changed what he meant by the silence as he went
I'll give them this. 11 did with Amy what 10 should have done with Rose.
bruh
The rain part annoys me because I’ve been to Venice before and when it rains IT RAINS, the rain is so heavy there.
Hell I had worse rain yesterday in Australia.
16:44 Not necessarily. The cracks don't always erase history. In the eleventh hour it was just used as a portal. Her species could have just fallen through or been killed by something that came out of it.
It's inconsistent but so are most concepts like this in Dr Who and the series is at least upfront about it.
My personal interpretation of Rosanna and the crack is that she escaped through it similarly to Prisoner Zero but her world was dying from a different cause. A Doctor Who episode exploring a world where the oceans are drying up would be a cool one, perhaps under RTD?
The Pescatons.
Considering that the Time Lords have fought the Great Vampires for centuries, it is understandable that the Doctor has a disdain for bloodsuckers. In many audios, comics and books they show the Doctor hating Vampires.
Not even the same species.
I don't really have much to say about this episode other than RIP Helen McCrory. the two hander scene between her and Smith is amazing. But her performance in this episode is one of the things that stands out and her passing is sad and tragic and she will be missed as she was a fantastic actress n everything she did. My she rest in peace and power and may her loved ones find strength and peace
@ they carried this whole episode on their backs.
Have you already forgotten that the Ninth Doctor was a bully with Mickey, and then a condescending pedant when he was the Tenth Doctor?
"Weirdly borderline incestuous fish aliens trying to find girlfriends" sounds like a great monster concept to me.
Then again, I love fish monsters, so I shouldn't speak.
Nah I'm with ya I love fish monsters 😂
I cried when Helen McCrory's character died the same way I cried when I saw Sarah Jane and Wilf for the last time when I rewatched those episodes
Still more rememberable than series 11.
“Step on me”
-Harbo wholmes 2021
I think it's pretty obvious which seasons/eras Harbo prefers lol
Not the best but i liked it. I love when Rory "fights" the vampire fish alien and when the Doctor climbs the church (i think?) to save the day.
The showrunner will rewrite and change almost all elements of guest writers' scripts - so this is mostly down to Moffat, not Whithouse.
But the Doctor hates to vampires is canon.
The only part of this episode I actually remembered prior to my rewatch was the "I'm Venetian. I can swim." line for some reason.
"Believing that vampires would fit the setting perfectly for some reason"...yeah, why in the name of Klaus Kinsky would you ever think that?
Ooh, what is that alluding to, if I might ask?
@@DJtheBlack-RibbonedRose 'Vampire in Venice' (a.k.a Nosferatu in Venice) staring the aforementioned Mr Kinsky.
@@TheToonMonkey Oh cool! I didn't know this episode took inspiration from an old movie with a similar(ish) premise but that's really interesting, especially since I've admittedly never heard of that one. I'll have to check it out then.
Series 5 was the start of Doctor Who that made me binge watch every episode back to back. Series 2 was more of a few days or weekly event. Sometimes it felt like a chore. Series 3 started to get interesting without Rose. Series 4 was a daily dose of stories. Love the Moffat era.
Series 3 4 and 5 are peak NuWho imo
👎👎👎👎
If it wasn't for the jumping out of the cake and "bigger than mine" jokes I would've forget about this episode's existance completly.
I really think the school should have been more explored as a concept, I think with it being so early in the season they missed out on the ability to flesh out the story and Rory in the early episode. I like that Rory puts his foot down with the Doctor to make him more aware of the risks that his presence has on the psychology of the people he interacts with. It would have been really beneficial to have the 'vampires' only active at night because it would have given a longer time frame for the episode and shown a greater risk for Amy rather than having her in and out so quickly.
I remember reading an issue of Doctor Who magazine where Davies and Moffat interviewed each other and Moffat just straight up says he regretted making Amy kiss the doctor.
The ancient vampires are in the time lord victorious same with the curse of fenric. And in the time lords used werewolves to defeat ancient vampires as well. And next is Amy’s choice
Terrible missed opportunity not to make this a 'Shadow Over Innsmouth' type episode. Just imagine if the classic Lovecraft story were re-adapted so that Dagon was transforming people to repopulate his near-extinct his race, and a newcomer character has to cope with the horrifying realization that he/she is one of these monstrous, alien fish-people
May Helen rest in peace ♥️
I only have one criticism and that's you view of the perception filter. It's like having an invisibility spell that "apparently"only hides you from those who are visible. So how do you know that you're invisible?
The perception filter works on everyone for that same reason, and explains how it became obvious that it was malfunctioning to her son.
Amy's boot's drive me crazy in this episode
Funny how Harbo compares the school to (what could've been) something like Suspiria & one of my favorite movie reviewers Ryan Hollinger released an essay on the 1977 & 2018 Suspiria films yesterday. 😉🧧
"Suspiria" 1977 Italian Horror...a MasterWork of Cinema
9:15 I mean Lady D is secretly a wicked great dragon thing underneath and I'd still bonk her so, yes?
to explain the cold open (from tv tropes):- "Originally, the second half of the Cold Open was placed after the opening titles, since the first scene of the episode ends with Isabella screaming, timed to the start of the title theme. However, as stated in the DVD commentary for the episode, the director thought the second scene of the episode (featuring the Doctor at Rory's stag party) ended with the same comedic awkwardness as the following scene, so they placed that second scene as part of the cold open. Luckily, the effect of the first scene's end does transition well into the second scene, so it wasn't a huge loss."
I always thought that the vampires of venice was a reference to merchant of venice
Doctor Who trying to do sexy vampires… this isn’t Resident Evil, no dommy energy.
Surely missing the key word "again". Doctor Who doing sexy vampires, again!
I'm confused. Harbo has said that Isabellla's death meant nothing to the Doctor, but then criticizes the Doctor for not helping Rosanna because Isabella's death meant nothing to *her*. And btw, the Doctor did not refuse to help Rosanna. He refused to help her take over Venice. He did not refuse to help her take her children to another planet to start over. He refused to sacrifice Venice (and more, since such a weather event would hardly affect just one city) just because Rosanna had decided it was a good home for her family. Rosanna never opted to try to emigrate elsewhere or formulate another plan; she just told him to deal with it on his own if he wanted to save his precious humans and stalked out.
Actually before Twilight there was Buffy/Angel.
Before Buffy there was Interview With The Vampire.
I think this was the 5th best of the series. I liked the commedic moments, but there are inconsistencies with the fish vampires.
The only think I remeber about Guido is him yelling "ISABELLA!"
I liked his Carachter actually
It would be really interesting to go through and compare when the Doctor offers mercy to a species to when he doesn’t.
Watch State of Decay, the Doctor hate vampires.
Did you mean to make that pun in your title. This is an episode about vampires who suck blood from people
Look. Venice. Vampiras in nightgowns....Venice...Vampiras in nightgowns.... what's not to Love?👄
11:29 sir i have read enough fan fiction to rebuttal the “straight” quality of his
Rory < doctor. Rory is a giga chad
You used the wrong symbol
Trust me, there are people that react to rain like they've never seen it before and it's the end of the world and they go to the store and stock up on canned food and bread and stuff like they're gonna be locked in their house for weeks...just go to Kansas 😂😂
Dang, you make great points about the episode’s flaws. I really liked the episode when I first saw it recently but it seems like it would be worse on rewatches.
The best Toby Whithouse episode of New Whu is Under the Lake/Before the Flood. If you disagree then you’re just wrong 😂
Edit: I think the God Complex is probably even, but the other story is a great 2 parter!
School Reunion, The God Complex, A Town Called Mercy are all far superior to that soggy mess
A Town Called Mercy is flimsy.
This is still one of my favourites of s5 and new who in general , partly due to the fit characters
Alright, I’ve given this a fair shake, but I’m starting to think there’s some serious bias afoot here, and I have to be honest, it’s kind of ruining my experience watching your reviews recently. Don’t mean to insinuate anything here, but hell, you’re one who reads your comments and perhaps this might be useful. Take it with a grain of salt if you like, but this is what I’ve been noticing.
I get that you believe the Amy plot to be contrived and paints her out to be an unfaithful homewrecker, but calling the intro scene the “Doctor bragging” feels like a hell of a stretch that I don’t I really felt you pulled often during your Davies era reviews. I feel like you’re very busy comparing the previous run of Who to this current one to realize that what would be illogical in the last run makes perfect since here. The Doctor is far more alien this time around, he’s confused and more detached, more of a Troughton than a Tennant, and if I’m honest it feels like there’s some begrudging going on underneath all your words because of that fact. I consider this episode to be the Idiot’s Lantern of the Moffat era, from the companion split-up to the characters that exist to further the plot and then die. What changed for me, though, is that unlike the Idiot’s Lantern a decent amount of the time, the comedy for me landed. I get it might have not for you, but calling it bad when it seems to be not your style feels a tad like punching down. Even if it is a tad more lowbrow, that remark came off as particularly mean spirited, and felt more again that you were spiteful the episode didn’t take a more serious tone that you were hoping for, like those of the Davies era.
I also think you’re giving far too little credit to the subtext in this episode, the Doctor does in fact consider helping Rosanna earlier on, that’s the whole point behind the “flirting” scene, (which mind you can also read as the two taking sarcastic jabs at each other, perhaps it didn’t succeed on that, but the possibility is there and makes the most sense). He does decide to stop her over Isabella, but it’s probably a lot less the fact she forgot her name like the Doctor says, but the fact they killed her. It was likely a line from the Doctor there to instill fear and look cool, not literally why he was stopping her. Tennant had his fair share of those one-liners as well, so why does Smith take the hit for having one this time around?
Overall, I don’t think this episode is very good at all, and you do raise a lot of legitimate points here. Hell, I’d actually place it right where you would as well, in the D tier, but I do think you’re keeping a closed mind and coming into these reviews with pre-established feelings rather than giving these a fair shot. That’s just me though, and I’m just some person on the internet, so who knows if I know what I’m talking about, eh? 😅
God this needs to be higher up the comments
No I agree completely. Pretty much every review in Tenants era was “wow so amazing” even when most of the layout was similar, People die, Doctor makes speech, alien of the week. There seems to be a lot of hate on each episode, even ones that are pretty good. I love The Lodger and if that gets a bad review I’m out.
Thank you! He is always clearly biased toward series 3 &4. I remember plenty of issues in lots of those episodes that he does not bring up. But for series 2 and 5 (my personal favourites) he continuously bashes them just because of some of the plot points he does not prefer. Like just because he prefers when the companion and the doctor do not like each other does not make it a bad plot point.
While I don't like it very much, but I just watched it and then watched this I would say, it isn't so bad. It has good parts and while sunlight is very inconsistent, once completely ignored and another make him explode and Doctor's action about fish people was weird (maybe he doesn't believe they are last? Explanation about loss of their planet was weird. It sound to me, like they simply got lost from their planet and assumed rest died, but maybe I wasn't paying attention enough). There was some emotions with loss of characters. Doctor refugees cooperating because deat of daughter and is angry at Amy and Rory, when they stay against his orders, after father death. That storm at suddenly appeared from tower and somehow grow down in very weird way was scary and villain plan wasn't so bad, if you take into accords, they are basically refugees without much tech and resources. I would give it 6/10. Maybe 5 or 7.
4:30 It is extremely original and interesting decision by itself. Even if I do prefer the continuity of Doctor Who through eras.
16:55 I think Moffat (or Whithouse) tried to repeat what RTD did with “our species had to escape the Time War”, but didn’t think through the implications. As usual.
To be honest, I didn’t find the jokes about lady D funny either.
Not gonna lie, I would have watched Helen McCrory do her taxes for three hours, she was so damn great. Still, I agree this material was definitely a waste of the talents she had.
I will always be frustrated at how they handled Amy & Rory's relationship, especially in this episode. Rose & Mickey had a real, palpable warmth between them, even with their problems. I always appreciated those little bits of dialogue the writers came up with to show their friendship and affection beyond the Doctor's involvement.
Amy & Rory's relationship always felt ultimately cold, like the affection would be turned on or off depending on plot demands. It was so jarring and inconsistent, for me it was like watching a writer use the actors like dolls that could be shifted about on any silly whim they had.
Again, such a waste of potential because I think both Darvill & Gillan were 100% capable of creating warmth & depth with those characters, but the writers' obsession with plot contrivances & so-called "clever jokes" really robbed them of that opportunity.
No. Rose was even more abusive with Mickey.
This episode isn't really good but i love Rory so i regularly rewatched this one
I'd probably have more to say if my brain didn't flatline after seeing Lady D
COLIN ROBERTSON! Best vampire! Besides Cassidy from Preacher.
I do like the vampires being fish though. Like the Deep Ones.
I can imagine it'd be better if the vampires was the classic ancient one instead of a new vampiric alien. It's gonna be a lot darker though. Probably not exactly what Moffat wanted as Rory's introduction to TARDIS life.
There was three times more chemistry between The Doctor and Rosanna in one scene than every scene with The Doctor and River Song.
Because The Eleventh Doctor is the gay friend in the closet Doctor.
@@mayotango1317 The Doctor is both omnisexual or asexual depends on the mood but never had any gender preference
@@timelord2024 Cof Rose cof
When the episode decides to climax, huh? Sorry I'll... I'll go..
Episodes could be really bad every once in a while during RTD and Moffat's era, true. But at least it's not just bad right the way through like Chibs era.
This one was a little odd, but I do love history so I like it
Despite the ending making absolutely no sense, it always freaked me out for some reason.
I like this episode it's a good standard doctor who episode. However Amy treats everyone around her awfully and never really apologises. She's incredibly horrible at times imo
R.I.P Helen Mcrory.
Every time he complains about the lack of calling back to the older iterations of Who, I just want to say "Of course, it's Moffat, he refuses to acknowledge any era except his own".
Like the Fourth Doctor era? No past refereces.
I used to not care for this one much but I do enjoy watching it for whatever reason, so I don’t hate this one at all.
Wat happened to the runescape transitions?
wished these vampire was the Great Vampires or revamped plasmavores
Do you mean haemovores? Plasmavore was the one from Smith and Jones who is barely vampire like at all, apart from the blood sucking.
In my opinion this episode is the least satisfying episode of this Series. I never rated The Beast Below higher until now. I forgot how many plot holes existed in this Episode.
I could never bring myself to watch this episode, it's full of fish but where's the hook?
Yeah, there's some issues. But I still love this episode so....
RIP Helen you were pretty
Dammit so many flaws when you pointed it out, Enjoyed this episode when I was young
The Moffatt era makes many similar jokes to the Davies era, but much of the time they completely fail to land, and I think that Ofsted joke epitomises that. I feel like in the Davies era that joke would have played out as some sort of questioning about Ofsted and Amy having to come up with a kingdom on the spot, or having to assume the title Amy of Ofsted, something along those lines. But here, the vampires laugh, as if they too are well acquainted with governing bodies of British education. They traded in for a joke which would get a quick laugh out of people easily rather than trying to write a follow through for their punchlines, and they constantly do this throughout the run. The bigger issue than trading quality of jokes is further breaking immersion. It completely takes you out of the episode if you think for a second 'wait, she shouldn't have laughed at that', and reminds you of the other shortcomings of the episode and its writing.
It’s my favorite Matt Smith Epsides and I see no issues with whatsoever (other than Amy cheating emediatly) , I fancied Lady Rosanna so bad , maybe that’s why I simp for Lady Dimitrescu :)
9:10 Yuss. Absolutely. I like sushi
Oh god the resident evil 8 jokes
This is probably the weakest episode of series 5, but I probably wouldn't call it a skippable episode.
it's incredibly skippable
@@sad_tbh I disagree. As weak as it is, it fills a role in the series arc building the relationship between the principle trio and setting up the emotional stakes of the next episode.
If series 5 has a skippable episode, and it does, it would be the lodger.
@@sad_tbh No with Rory as a companion.
@@sad_tbh disagree. I think it’s a guilty pleasure episode and it provides further character arcs to the main 3.