Holistic Review: An average-but-solid plot that gets a huge boost from well-honed scriptcrafting and a powerfully emotional ending.

Yes. That was more like it.

As with The End of the World, the second episode of the season improves upon the season opener in just about every way possible, eliminating most of the concerns I had about things that could be changed (i.e., not things like the theme tune, which will presumably remain consistent season-long). In particular, this is the sort of episode I thought I was signing up for with the Steven Moffat years. Granted, it's not perfect or a total joyous thrill ride, but it's very solid and the ending is so lovely that it fully justifies the entire episode. Moffat's skills as a writer really shone through here, particularly his ability to take scenes that we've seen all the time (welcoming an assistant onboard the TARDIS, watching her take her first steps on an alien planet, etc) and scripting them such that they feel completely fresh and different to any version we've seen before, yet also absolutely pitch-perfect. For example: the Doctor's still explaining the rules to Amy ("never get involved") but he does it in such a sweetly hilarious way (we see the Doctor immediately thereafter get involved, before Amy even gets a chance to fully absorb what he's just told her and without her realizing he's even left) that it puts an entirely new spin on the idea. It's got to be incredibly hard to write these scenes in such a way that it doesn't feel like a retread, because they're practically a requirement for every new companion, but Moffat makes it seem effortless.

If I hadn't already been convinced of Matt Smith's suitability for the role, this week would have banished all doubt from my mind. Tennant certainly had the same delightfully quirky manner, but somehow it's so natural with Smith that I find myself making mental comparisons between him and Tom Baker, surely the highest compliment I could bestow. In particular, the water-glass scene stands out, particularly the way he delivers the line "Sorry. I'm checking all the water in this area. There's an escaped fish." and then taps the side of his nose knowingly. (That makes twice in two episodes. Is it going to be the case that Matt Smith has great rapport with every water glass he meets?) He gets a lot of great moments, including another glimpse at the rate at which he processes and deduces information (as he takes one look around Starship UK, or a crying little girl, and has the society figured out in seconds). We're also getting to see his righteous-indignation side come out, when he dresses down the humans present for their involvement in his impossible decision; the eleventh Doctor seems to be slow to burn, but fiery when he does. I'm loving that this Doctor's default mode seems to be "bouncy quick-speed" but he can slow down to "pensive" when the need arises (such as his line "No. There were, but there aren't... just me now."). He gets a lot of great lines, including his absent-minded "I dunno. I think a lot, it's hard to keep track.", but absolutely my favorite delivery of his in this story is the very sweet, and very authentic, "Gotcha."

One of my biggest concerns this week was how, or indeed if, it would make me re-evaluate Amy. I'm happy to say that she's growing on me. It was a pleasure to see her actually smiling and laughing in her first scene, and I very much appreciated the fact that she was allowed to carry the dénouement. What I liked even more was that the Doctor used this story as a sort of "companion test" for Amy. It's similar to the way that the seventh Doctor used to test Ace, except in Amy's case, he's testing her suitability to be a companion. For me, this was crucial, because I still wasn't won over, so it was good to have the chance to see if she could be selfless, brave and clever. I'm not totally convinced yet that she's selfless, but her bravery is not in question, and the Doctor's tutelage seems to be rubbing off on her investigative skills. I did relate to her frustration at the Doctor being upset at her for something she couldn't even remember having done, and I really liked the fact that she didn't just accept the Doctor's decision to take her home lying down. (Um, that sentence could use some rephrasing.) I still don't really understand what motivates Amy, how she'll react to any given situation, or what sets her apart from other companions, but her likeability is increasing, which is a good first step. And at least, after this week, we know that she was a bit of a juvenile delinquent (she "never could resist a 'Keep Out' sign") and that she has commitment issues, although we could have guessed that already. After The Eleventh Hour, I read a lot of reviews that all mentioned how "beautiful" and "feisty" Karen Gillan is (and sometimes that was all they said about her), which made me wonder if maybe people would buy anything with "feisty" on the can, as long as the can were drop-dead gorgeous. But now I'm starting to see people (and not just the men) ranking her as possibly-favorite-companion-ever. I certainly don't understand this, but I'm keeping an open mind for now and hoping that I reach that point too. As for Gillan herself, I thought her performance this week was much more approachable (if still a little mannered... something about Amy just doesn't feel naturalistic to me), and I really liked the confused look on her face when the Doctor goes to comfort Mandy, and her smile after "Gotta help!"

As far as the script overall, I started out thinking that this felt like a rather straightforward plot, and then I got worried that maybe the Doctor wasn't really going to be able to make a difference in this society after all. So the last ten or so minutes were crucial, because first we get the twist that the "beast below" is the victim rather than the monster ("It's not infesting you, it's not invading, it's what you have instead of an engine!"), and then we get the twist that, not only does it not want to escape and/or kill them, it wants to help them. I've decided that extreme kindness and compassion is another theme that can instantly reduce me to a wibbling mess, and it does so here, particularly when I realized the parallel that Amy was drawing with the Doctor. ("What if you were really old, and really kind, and alone, your whole race dead...") So, along with his skill at scripting individual scenes really well, I thought Moffat did a beautiful job structuring this story such that the mystery and the unanswered questions (culminating in the surprisingly menacing voting-booth video) led neatly and beautifully into such a redemptive ending. Any story that can affect me this much gets an automatic thumbs-up, so even though I wouldn't rank this among the best-ever Doctor Who stories, I think it's very solid and one that I will enjoy rewatching. There are a lot of good themes woven throughout, including Amy's companion test (will she be detached and cold and not interfere, or will she do the right thing and help save the day?), the Doctor's investigative skills and the way he's teaching Amy, the importance of remembering the bad as well as the good ("And you know what, I'd love to forget it all, every last bit of it, but I don't. Not ever."), and the Doctor as a wise lonely kind man. Moffat's "fairy tale" theme is also starting to emerge more clearly, with the star whale resembling a more benevolent Pied Piper. I'm also really loving the fact that, like RTD in Boom Town, Moffat is writing situations very realistically, and isn't afraid to let a scene ask the difficult questions instead of simply presenting us with a neat tidy ending with a bow. This is one of the reasons that I'm such a huge Buffy and Supernatural fan, and it's so rewarding when it happens in Doctor Who. In particular, I like the Doctor's indignation that Amy tried to shield him from having to make a difficult decision, and the fact that he doesn't let Amy off the hook entirely just because she came up with a solution to the problem ("Amy, you could've killed everyone on this ship."). Finally, I have to praise Moffat for the ending. It was like an Agatha Christie tale in that all the elements were in place, and maybe I would eventually have figured it out, but as Amy was putting two and two together, I was still clueless and eager to find out what it all meant (which also means that Amy impressed me, because she figured it out faster than I did). I was pretty good about avoiding spoilers for The Beast Below; I knew that the Smilers were involved, and recently that it took place aboard Starship UK, and... that's probably about it. I'd wondered, early on, if this one contained our surprise returning monsters, and I was for some reason glad when I learned that it didn't. I'm not sure why, except maybe because the later they wait to appear, the greater the chance we haven't already seen them in the trailers.

Our only "proper" monsters this time out are the Smilers, and they're only partially successful. As looks go, they definitely succeed. They have a cool retro carnival fortune-teller look about them, which matches the old-fashioned mechanical way that they move. And their faces are great, particularly the red-eyed fanged version. However, I don't really understand what they do, apart from indicating when you're doing something against the rules. (And if you were in a crowd of a hundred people, how would you know which person they were frowning/snarling at?) I guess we can assume that they're the source of the various videorecordings we see of the Doctor. Are the Smilers also responsible for summoning the authorities to arrest anyone engaging in outlawed behavior? Given that the only time we ever see them stand up and move is when there's no back-up available (in the star whale's overflow pipe), it's a little difficult to figure out why the residents of Starship UK are usually so terrified of going near them.

Sophie Okonedo is in Doctor Who! Again! Properly! Of course, the last time she was in Who — as companion Alison Cheney in the webcast Scream of the Shalka, which I never got around to finishing and never read the novelization of — she wasn't famous yet, or Oscar-nominated, so it's really a delight that she was interested in coming back to try it live. (Somewhere out there, fanfic writers are busily typing away at a story in which alt-Doc9 and Alison have exciting adventures with Liz 10. I envision something like The Patty Duke Show... Alison gets to try ruling Starship UK in a swanky burgundy robe while Liz 10 goes out in dreadlocks for a burger and chips and a night of sock-hopping.) Um, where was I? Right, so, Okonedo is great as Liz 10, very self-assured with that beautiful big smile, and she's an excellent foil for the Doctor. The two of them have some of the same swagger, and a similar cavalier approach to their derring-do. Although Liz 10 is also packing heat, as presumably befits a futuristic queen. I love Okonedo's disgusted laugh after she shakes hands with a stinky-and-wet Amy. An absolute highlight of the episode is her vocal and physical delivery of the wonderfully double-entendred line "I'm the bloody Queen, mate. Basically... I rule."

The other actors are all good too, although the two who make the biggest impression are Hannah Sharp, who's very believable as distraught-but-shrewd Mandy, and the actor who does the Starship UK video. Distressingly, as the character is never named, I'm not sure who he is, although I assume he must be Christopher Good (who plays "Morgan"... couldn't they have just called him "Video Narrator" or something?). He lends a lot of gravity and compassion to the role.

Murray Gold's music is actually not bad here! By that, I mostly mean that it's not particularly noticeable, although there is some very nice music over the opening shots of Starship UK. Even his new theme tune is starting to grow on me slightly, particularly the echoey quality of the first few bars, although I still wish they'd ramp it up.

The visual effects here are back up to a high standard. A definite highlight is Amy floating outside the TARDIS while the Doctor anchors her by the foot. That's such a striking visual, and I thought they'd created it just for the promo they showed after The Eleventh Hour. (It's also another example of the sort of thing we probably should've seen every companion want to try, but nobody's ever thought of doing it until Moffat. Although budgetary reasons may have also been a factor, pre-RTD.) The shots of Starship UK look amazing, as do the scorpion-tail-like tendrils of the star whale. For that matter, the star whale itself looks pretty great, and adorably walrus-esque, even if it's difficult to figure out how the scorpion appendages match up with the visual we get of the rest of it. (Are they like hair, or spines?) Which reminds me, was anyone else expecting the star whale to have a song? Nice to see the idea of a "space whale" resurrected from the early 80s! I also love the shots of space through the viewing windows, particularly the lovely subtle shot of a starfield outside the classroom window. I've also got to commend the set designers on the star whale's waterbed-like tongue, covered in food refuse and disgustingly realistic sludge. (However, I would also like to ask them why Liz 10 has put up a tiny wooden fence in front of her fireplace...?) And this week, for the first time, I really noticed the new paint job on the TARDIS... the deeper blue is gorgeous and I love the way the wood grain really stands out.

We're welcoming a whole new stable of directors onboard for the 2010 season, and this week we get to say hello to Andrew Gunn. While his style didn't blow me away as much as Adam Smith did last week, it was nice, particularly the shot of the Doctor and Amy looking down at Starship UK, the awesome shot of Liz 10 sitting in her chamber with her burgundy robe pooled around her on the floor, Amy backing away out of the tent and into the open, and the little girls laughing and running around the bench while Mandy sits and cries. The one I didn't get, though, was the weird wipe to the shot of the Doctor staring out the window at the end.

Also, a bit of praise for the title. Didn't like it much when I first heard it, when I thought it was referring to some subterranean monster. But anytime you reassess a title after you've seen the episode (the "ohhhhhh" factor), you've gotta give points for creativity. So now I think it's just brilliant!

Minor points:

• This is another good case of "way to save the day, Doctor, but you missed the big picture" which has also afflicted stories like The Dominators. Yes, it's great that the star whale is free and Starship UK is intact, but wouldn't you like to inquire as to exactly why Liz 10 has such a soft spot for the star whale, but thinks it's perfectly okay to chuck their underachieving kids (and anybody with a strong conscience) into its tummy? (Apparently she has forgotten ever having ordered this, but — like Amy — what matters is that once upon a time, she apparently did. Unless this is Hawthorne's pet project.) Even leaving aside the morality of it, surely they could be useful to society somehow? Isn't there any job they could do, even menial ones? Or is that what the Smilers are for? I'm also a little alarmed that this would appear to be the first time that Timmy's gotten a zero (at least recently; certainly he doesn't seem to make a habit of it — Mandy's response is simply "You got a zero, didn't you?"), so he's probably not a repeat underachiever, which means one bad grade becomes a death sentence. (Incidentally, I also wonder, if they've been chucking kids down its throat for 300 years, and it's been spitting them out for 300 years... do they keep the kids around in the Tower for the rest of their lives, or do they try feeding them to the star whale again when they hit 16?)

• Okay, finally I understand this line of Mandy's. Up until my third viewing, I thought "You can't ride a vator with a zero. You know what happens! You'll get sent below." meant "[People in general] can't ride a vator with a [student who did poorly and is now referred to as a] Zero. [and therefore anyone who shares an elevator with them will] get sent below." The actual meaning — that Timmy isn't allowed to ride a vator if he has gotten a score of zero — makes much more sense, and makes Mandy sound much less self-obsessed. But if he knows he's not allowed to ride a vator, why does Timmy risk it? (Also — have to say — love the futurespeak clipping of "vator". I'm kind of surprised it hasn't already caught on in the present day, actually. Modern-style elevators, after all, are older (mid-1800s) than taxicabs (early 1900s), from "taximeter cabriolet", although "elevator" also has the distinct advantage of being a decidedly shorter word and therefore in less need of shortening.)

• I love the way that Starship UK is dotted with little bits of modern familiarity — like the Underground-style vator sign, "Mind the Doors", the Starship UK logo and the Tower of London.

• Mention of McClintock's Candy Burgers has me intrigued. They sound like a horribly unhealthy snack aimed at schoolchildren. I imagine they have a delightful jingle, much like Fruity Oaty Bars but probably with fewer toothy cephalopods.

• Now, what exactly is the function of Poem Girl? She adds considerably to the fairy-tale-like atmosphere, but I can't see any reason why she would appear in a vator to randomly spout menacing rhyme at the passengers, unless she's only activated when the vator is going to send someone below? (I do have to say, though, I like the way the poem bookends the story, particularly the very sweet line "while greater love lies further deep".)

• I am oddly tickled by the fact that the Doctor is chummily calling Amy by her last name ("Come on, Pond!").

• Along with a plunging elevator scene delightfully reminiscent of Paradise Towers (someone needs to count how many revival stories have had elements inspired by Paradise Towers, seriously), a voting system with a whiff of Vengeance on Varos, and a companion test hearkening back to Ghost Light and The Curse of Fenric, now we've got an explicit tie-in between this story and The Ark in Space. I love that the events of this story are part of the same chain of events that led to The Ark in Space. It's really cool to find out firsthand what some of the solar-flare survivors from Earth did... I guess I'd always assumed they all just burned up in the solar flares after sending the Ark residents to safety. (However, this does bring up a new question. If every other country on Earth built spaceships and fled to safety, why didn't the UK follow suit? They certainly seem to have been instrumental in building the Ark. Is it possible that while every other country was packing their entire population into spaceships, the UK focused their efforts on constructing the Ark to save their best and brightest? They wanted to repopulate the Earth with the cream of their crop, rather than abandoning it for a new home? Still, you would think that "saving everyone including the geniuses" would've been slightly higher on their priority list than "making sure nobody else comes along and claims the Earth". Anyway, it's not like the two are mutually exclusive.) Although it raises new questions, I love that this story also sheds some light on the events of previous episodes.

• Erm! How does Amy wind up clinging desperately to the TARDIS shell? Shouldn't there be something preventing her from getting whooshed back outside? Or did she do it on purpose? In which case, why? And what would've happened if she'd lost her grip? It's played as though it's a big deal (with Amy's wide eyes, and frantic gasps) but then the Doctor makes a joke, and we cut to her safely back in the TARDIS, so I'm not sure what all the fuss was about.

• Hah! This is rich. I like that the Doctor is trying to convince himself of "Thing One: We are observers only. That's the one rule I've always stuck to, in all my travels. I never get involved in the affairs of other peoples or planets." As if. What I especially like is that this is another example of Moffat taking a well-travelled scene and looking at it from a new angle. In this case, Amy compares them to directors of a wildlife documentary, which is brilliant, particularly since we promptly see a shot of a forlorn-looking Mandy over this line: "Cause if they see like a wounded little cub or something, they can't just save it, they've gotta... keep filming and let it die." Which of course we know is never going to happen. But Amy doesn't yet know quite how compassionate the Doctor is, which leads to this excellent line: "That's gotta be hard. I don't think I could do that. Don't you find that hard, being that, like, detached and cold?" The fact that Amy is already doubting and questioning the Doctor's instructions, because she believes they might be unethical, is a good sign that she's got the right stuff to be companion material. Really skilfully crafted dialogue. (Especially since the Doctor promptly fails to practice what he preaches, which makes for a very funny gag.) And this turns out to be the crux of their relationship this weeek.

• I like the stricken way Gillan delivers this line, and the Doctor's comeback is even better. (Amy probably is a pessimist, right?)

  Amy: "I've been dead for centuries!"
  Doctor: "Oh, lovely, you're a cheery one."

• Mentally, I'm patting myself on the back for thinking, when the Doctor put a water glass on the floor, "huh, they're on a spaceship but the water's not vibrating." Points docked, however, for me utterly failing to realize what significance that might have.

• Okay, this line is just obscure for obscure's sake. Presumably they're discussing the water-glass experiment, but why would Liz 10 be so fully expecting someone to come along and try it that she would have a (very original and creative) codeword for it? And, having established this codeword, why would she then share it with Hawthorne, who she seems possibly to believe is deceiving her about what's going on in Starship UK? And why use a codeword at all? Does she think someone might be listening in?

  Liz 10: "Did he do the thing?"
  Hawthorn: "Apparently."

• Great funny line, as the Doctor remembers what he's got in his pocket:

  Doctor: "Ooh! Er, this fell out of her pocket when I accidentally bumped into her. Took me four goes!"

• Love both the Doctor's line (finally he's approaching the truth) and the way he mocks Amy in saying it, à la Tennant bellowing at the Sycorax:

  Amy: "What're you gonna do?"
  Doctor: "What I always do, stay out of trouble. Badly."

• Another LOL moment, in a great followup to the Doctor's previous line:

  Amy: "You dropped this."
  Mandy: "Yeah. When your friend kept bumping into me!"

• Notice, though, how Amy almost completely fails at the task the Doctor sets her. Once she's delivered the wallet, she heads straight for the nearest danger zone, in an attempt to avoid having to ask awkward questions about Smilers.

• What fun to see Magpie Electricals onboard Starship UK! I'd expected to see them next week instead, although I had been wondering why Magpie Electricals would be around in the 1940s. How nice that they survive to the thirty-third century.

• So! Juvenile-delinquent Amy can pick locks, as well. And she carries around a lockpick. ...In her nightgown. One can only assume that she often sleepwalks and gets herself locked out at 3 am. And that she has an odd aversion to keys, or a baffling desire to continually challenge herself and keep her breaking-and-entering skills fresh.

• Gotta love the inability of the English verb tense system to handle time travel:

  Mandy: "When?"
  Amy: "Well, it's kind of weird. A long time ago, tomorrow morning."

• When Liz 10 whispers at the Doctor to "Keep your voice down! They're everywhere.", who is she referring to? Probably not the Smilers, because they're relatively fixed and stationary, so if they were there, you'd know. Whoever it is, if she thinks they're listening in, she doesn't have any problem letting them know exactly who she is.

• Why do the lights flicker as Liz 10 leaves? I don't believe we see any other signs that the ship is suffering from power losses. Did she orchestrate it in order to give herself a suitably mysterious exit?

• The noise that the voting machine makes before it speaks reminds me of WOTAN. Also, it's interesting that the machine somehow knows who Amy is, although she's most likely not in any contemporary records (assuming that she doesn't return to the 33rd century at some point and subscribe to Star Whale Weekly)... perhaps it's got access to DNA records?

• It was not clear to me at all on first viewing that, between the end of the film and Amy pushing the "forget" button, she had 20 minutes in which to think about her decision and record a message for herself. (I spent quite a while, on first viewing, expecting some sort of time-travel shenanigans, and thinking "well, she hasn't changed out of her nightie yet, so it's still possible...") I actually like this a lot; it makes me think that my intelligence as an audience member is being respected, and that Moffat trusts me to work out these details for myself. I do wonder, though, how the people in charge of Starship UK's secret can just trust that people won't watch the video, record a message relaying all the relevant facts, and then press the "forget" button so that they can have their cake and eat it too. (Then again, perhaps there's an assumption that nobody will come up with this plan, because if anyone wants to remember, they'll just push the "protest" button, not realizing that "protest" is shorthand for "feed me to star whale". Speaking of which, hasn't anyone noticed that some people don't return from the voting booth? Perhaps that's another reason why everyone chooses to forget.)

• Also very nice! I know we've heard similar lines like this before, but I like the way Moffat does it here (and Smith's one-up-manship-like delivery):

  Amy: "You look human..."
  Doctor: "No, you look Time Lord! We came first."

• When the floor opens up under them, where does the chair go? Does the star whale like to eat them too?

• One of the best lines of the episode:

  Doctor: "Ahh. It's not a floor, it's a... So."
  Amy: "It's a what?"
  Doctor: "The next word is kind of a scary word. You probably wanna take a moment, get yourself in a calm place. Go 'ohmmmm'."
  Amy: (confused but obedient) "Ohmmmm."
  Doctor: "It's a... tongue."

• Wouldn't the star whale's mouth lead out to open space? So, (a) how is there oxygen inside its mouth (which certainly doesn't look airtight; is it possible that there's an atmosphere bubble surrounding Starship UK, including the whale and the jutting buildings?), and (b) why don't the Doctor and Amy get flung out into space when they make it spit up? (Does the whale, for some reason, regurgitate through a blowhole-analogue instead?)

• Another favorite line this week:

  Doctor: "Right then! This isn't going to be big on dignity!"

• However, might I advise that, when one is in the path of an oncoming wall of star-whale vomit, one should not scream or otherwise leave one's mouth wide open...? Glurk. (Also, um, would it not be painfully acidic...? These are two topics I do not wish to visualize any more than absolutely necessary.)

• Oof. This gets the idea across plenty well!

  Amy: "It stinks!"
  Doctor: "Oh, that's not the pipe."

• Nicely timed: the Doctor's line "Oh Amy, we should never have come here" is exactly around the point when I was wondering why Amy hadn't yet tried bundling the Doctor straight back to the TARDIS, so it was the perfect spot for her to remember the warning she gave herself.

• If Liz 10 has been leaving out these water glasses as a reminder for 250 years, I guess she must clean and refill them constantly or else they'd be all scuzzy and nasty. Or perhaps she has her servants do it? Then again, I guess she could just put out a whole new set of glasses every week and send the last batch off to the dishwashing machine. (These are the things I think about, not having a dishwasher to call my own.)

• Hee!

  Liz 10: "They slowed my body clock. Keeps me looking like the stamps."

• "How can they be Smilers?" asks Amy, becoming the first person in the story to use the term. I could assume that she coined it on the spot, if not for the fact that Hawthorne later says that everyone "work[s] for you, ma'am... the Winders, the Smilers, all of us." So maybe Amy heard it from Mandy, but we weren't privy to that part of their conversation. (Speaking of, who are the Winders, anyway, and what do they do? Wind things, I suppose. [I see, from the Doctor Who Wiki, that the Winders are apparently "the police force of Starship UK".] Are the Smilers wind-up? And is everyone who's wearing a key considered a Winder, including Hawthorne and the half-Smiler (Peter!) who takes Liz 10 to the Tower?)

• I would also like to know, how is it possible for a being with a rotating head to be half-human? Wouldn't the whole "rotating head" thing kill them? I do not wish to consider options involving mechanical control of severed spinal cords, thank you very much.

• Another very-well-scripted line, that makes you go "ohhhh" as soon as you realize what it means:

  Liz 10: "On whose authority is this thing done?"
  Peter: "The highest authority, ma'am."
  Liz 10: "I am the highest authority!"
  Peter: "Yes, ma'am."

• As long as we're on a roll with very-well-scripted-lines-that-make-you-go-ohhhh:

  Liz 10: "What's that?"
  Doctor: "Well, like I say, it depends on the angle. It's either the exposed pain center of big fella's brain being tortured relentlessly..."
  Liz 10: "Or?"
  Doctor: "Or, it's the gas pedal, the accelerator. Starship UK's 'go faster' button."

• It would appear that Time Lords have a similar range of hearing to humans, given that the Doctor appears not to have heard the star whale's cries of pain either. (then again, perhaps he just couldn't hear them until he got inside the dungeon.)

• Tough moment when the Doctor finds the best possible solution to the dilemma, but it's one that neither he nor Amy is happy about. His line "And then I find a new name, cause I won't be the Doctor any more." is so great.

• Why does Timmy apparently not recognize Mandy? Surely being swallowed by a star whale doesn't turn you into a mindless zombie.

• I love that part of Amy's instinct for how the star whale will behave is based on her memories of how the Doctor treated her when she was a child. Very nice touch.

• Love these great companion moments:

  Hawthorne: "We've increased speed!"
  Amy: "Yeah, well, you've stopped torturing the pilot!"

• A touching way to sum up one tiny piece of what makes the Doctor, and this show, so special:

  Amy: "If you were that old, and that kind, and the very last of your kind... you couldn't just stand there and watch children cry."

• This is a really sweet one too:

  Amy: "Amazing, though, don't you think? The star whale. All that pain, and misery, and loneliness... and it just made it kind."

• I do wonder, though — as I'm sure does the Doctor — what makes Amy think that this apparent 27-year-old is "very old". I'm quite sure I didn't miss the line of dialogue where he fessed up to being "nine hundred mumble mumble" years old.

• This is so the Doctor:

  Doctor: "Well, it's always a big day tomorrow! We've got a time machine! I skip the little ones."

• Another very nice nod to the past:

  Amy: "Have you ever run away from something because, because you were scared? Or, or not ready, or just, just because you could?"
  Doctor: "Once. A long time ago."
  Amy: "What happened?"
  Doctor: (gestures all around them) "Hello..."

• Amy's wedding isn't being played as though it's just some character detail, it's being played as though it's going to be a major unfolding element... I wonder why? Is she marrying someone totally unexpected and malevolent, like... Kroll?

• Part of me is thrilling to this little lead-in for Victory of the Daleks. It's like the Hartnell years!

• You don't even know the half of it, Amy...

  Amy: "First the Queen, now the Prime Minister. Get about, don't ya?"

• And we have another crack, this time on the hull of Starship UK? I continue to be intrigued.

A satisfyingly meaty episode with an even more satisfying emotional ending, which reaffirms the greatness of Matt Smith and is starting to make me like Amy. My remaining fears following the premiere are beginning to dissipate. And next week I get to say hi to a Mark Gatiss script for the first time since 2006! My joy is great!