1 It’s a compelling, solid action/adventure episode, with a few irritating moments that don’t quite gel and some lapses in logic. If anything, it feels a little small scale and never really steps up a gear to a level you’d expect from a two-parter, but at least that means it can deal with its themes a little more thoroughly and concentrate on the characters.
2 The denoument is character based rather than technobabble based
3 The last couple of minutes are riveting.
4 The Doctor has a great John Culshaw moment
5 There’s some new footage – not just “story so far” clips – before the opening credits
6 Random words from the script: “Breathe” “Yowzer” “Mirage” “Bad boy” “Bisucuits” “Burnt onions” “Pop”
7 There’s a very Dali moment
8 The Doctor appeals to someone’s better nature
9 Rory makes a mistake
10There’s a lovely reference back to “The Doctor’s Wife”
11 The Doctor is very scary at a couple of points
12 Amy voices something that may have been on the veiwers’ minds if they’ve been following the series
13 The theme of prejudice and the nature of the gangers are explored in a number of effective dialogue exchanges
14 The Doctor once won a bet in a very unusual fashion
15 The Doctor asks Amy to do something he also asked her to do in the last series
16 Some waste product has a profound affect on Rory
17 There are some very icky FX
18 Somebody has a big mouth
19 The music at one point is very Blade Runner
20The TARDIS makes a very unusual landing
21 By the end of the episode you be left trying to work out when something that clearly happened actually happened
22 There’s a very random balloon
23 The TARDIS is better medically equipped than in “Curse Of The Black Spot”.
SFX
The Doctor returns, alongside newly weds Amy and Rory, to face monsters and mysteries and adventures all across time and space, in a thrilling new series of Doctor Who. Together they’ll find themselves in sixties America, battling the invasion the world forgot, then journey on the high seas of 1696 aboard a pirate ship, to solve the mystery of the Siren. In a bubble universe at the very edge of reality, the Doctor will meet an old friend with a new face, and in a monastery on a remote island in the near future, an industrial accident will take on a terrible human shape. And waiting for them, at the end of all this, is the battle of Demon’s Run, and the Doctor’s darkest hour. Can even the truth about River Song save the Time Lord’s soul?
