Plot:
The Doctor is called in by the Earth authorities of the future, as a mysterious object is hurtling towards the planet. He has only a few hours to investigate before it is blown up by missiles, so he assembles a team to help him comprising Amy, Rory, Queen Nefertiti, and a big game hunter. Rory's Dad, Brian, is brought along too by accident. They all materialise aboard the object, a huge Silurian spaceship that left Earth millions of years previously. It was designed to contain the escapees from a catastrophe on prehistoric Earth - including the last remaining dinosaurs - in suspended animation; but, while the dinosaurs are now roaming free on the ship, the Silurians are nowhere to be seen. Instead, inside the vast space of the ship's interior, is a second smaller spaceship.
On this second ship is a trader, Solomon, who's been injured after a dino encounter. He threatens the Doctor's friends to compel the Doctor into healing his wounds. Solomon proves to be not very nice at all: he has ejected all the Silurians into space, to steal their expensive Jurassic cargo. He's not able to steer the ship, though, so it has reverted to its point of origin. Solomon loses interest in the dinosaurs, even killing a Triceratops, when he realises Queen Nefertiti is even more valuable. He makes to flee with her in his ship, but Nefertiti escapes, and the Doctor traps Solomon in with a signalling device which draws off the approaching missiles. Solomon's ship gets blown up. The Doctor settles the dinosaurs on a new planet, Siluria. Rory's Dad, Brian, enlivened by his adventure gets over his reluctance to travel, and goes off to see the world.Context:
I
watched this from the Blu-ray with my three kids (boys of 12 and 9, girl of 6) one evening during half term; it went down well with everyone. The dinosaur effects on screen didn't blow the children's minds, they just took them completely for granted. This is probably an even better response, thinking about it - they all assumed they were real rather than just realistic. The only comment that the dinosaurs did elicit was a chorus during the engine room scene of "Christmas Pterodactyl!!!" from the two youngest. You'd need to have watched a Christmas episode of a particular comedy show a few too many times to understand that reference. In general, the children are excited about Doctor Who again after a little while, with the massive presence of the ongoing Jodie Whittaker series being the main reason. In the past week, we've passed a Doctor Who billboard, and seen a Doctor Who trailer at the cinema. It's like a mixture of 2005 and 2008 all over again. Also, one of the pro-am dancing couples on Strictly did a dance to the Doctor Who theme, with one dressed as Thirteen and the other as a Cyberman. Such a thing has never before happened, even back in the days of David Tennant's imperial pomp. As good a fit as the Doctor's new Sunday scheduling is, it was nice to see the TARDIS back on Saturday night TV just for a few minutes.
First-time round:
First-time round:
I've thought about digging out my old journal from 2012 for reference, as there's only so many ways to write "I have no strong memories of watching this one"; but, I've tried that before, and found that I didn't usually write anything down about Doctor Who. Maybe I was living too exciting a life to dwell on the latest episode of my favourite show, but I doubt it. Anyway, I would have seen this first on or very shortly after the Saturday of its debut broadcast on BBC1. I seem to think that my area of the South-East had finally got BBC1 in HD through the Freeview box by the time of this short run of Matt Smith episodes, so I'd have been watching this story in crystal clear high-def. I remember liking the story very much, and thinking the five stories shown that Autumn were something of a renaissance for the show.Reaction
This story is an absolute joy. It starts at a fair lick, packs in some great jokes as well as exciting moments, then keeps barrelling along, never letting up - with the narrative clock of the impending missile strike ticking all the while - to its conclusion. It's not in any way an intricately plotted construction, nor is it thematically deep, but it isn't aiming to be. It is unashamedly a straight-ahead adventure for children of all ages. So straight-ahead is it, in fact, that it announces its title just before the credits. What you see is what you get, but that's more than enough as the spectacle on offer is superlative: terrible lizards of which Invasion of The Dinosaurs - the last Doctor Who story that attempted to depict such creatures, in 1974 - can only dream.
At the end of the story, I very nearly pressed play to watch it over again. The characters and situations are larger than life, but it works, with almost all of the guest performances shining. Rupert Graves has lots of fun playing the lovable rogue, Riddell: I love his larking about, pretending to lose his balance while creeping through a room full of sleeping dinosaurs. Riann Steele more than matches him playing Nefertiti. David Bradley, in his first of many Doctor Who-related roles, excels as a very nasty villain. It's almost - but not quite - enough to make the Doctor's bloodthirsty dispatching of Solomon seem acceptable. The character of Brian Williams slots nicely into the by now well-established dynamic of the three regulars, disrupting it just a little, but enhancing things overall. Mark Williams is perfect casting too: watching him and Arthur Darvill standing side by side, you really do believe that Brian and Rory are father and son. The presence of a family member instantly makes Rory a more believable and rounded character too. The overriding impression is of a great cast having fun sinking their teeth into an enjoyable script. It's just a shame that Sunetra Sarker is wasted a bit, in a slightly 'meh' part.
Apart from Rory, the other two regulars are also well served. Matt Smith is effortlessly charming throughout - I love the bit where he kisses then slaps Rory - but able to turn on a sixpence into simmering anger when confronting Solomon. Amy, a character hard to warm to and never previously well used, is found a perfect function: she becomes the secondary back-up Doctor (this was a role that Romana, as played by Lalla Ward, occasionally fell into in the late 1970s / early 80s episodes, and it worked then too). She has grown too far from little Amelia after years of time crack energy, rebooting the universe, giving birth to a time-baby, being turned to goo, etc. The only option is for her to drop any pretence of being an audience identification figure, and step up. The script is explicit about this with the dialogue such as "I will not have flirting companions" and "I need you sober" and the like.
There's a few niggles; the plot contains a couple of major contrivances: before he knows exactly what he's up against, the Doctor has luckily gathered up a big game hunter who can shoot tranquiliser-blasts at dinos, and he just happens to have got himself a father and son who can use the DNA-locked spaceship dual controls. The fey robots are a one-joke concept that are quickly overused. But it's churlish to pick holes, when the story is so enjoyable and light.
At the end of the story, I very nearly pressed play to watch it over again. The characters and situations are larger than life, but it works, with almost all of the guest performances shining. Rupert Graves has lots of fun playing the lovable rogue, Riddell: I love his larking about, pretending to lose his balance while creeping through a room full of sleeping dinosaurs. Riann Steele more than matches him playing Nefertiti. David Bradley, in his first of many Doctor Who-related roles, excels as a very nasty villain. It's almost - but not quite - enough to make the Doctor's bloodthirsty dispatching of Solomon seem acceptable. The character of Brian Williams slots nicely into the by now well-established dynamic of the three regulars, disrupting it just a little, but enhancing things overall. Mark Williams is perfect casting too: watching him and Arthur Darvill standing side by side, you really do believe that Brian and Rory are father and son. The presence of a family member instantly makes Rory a more believable and rounded character too. The overriding impression is of a great cast having fun sinking their teeth into an enjoyable script. It's just a shame that Sunetra Sarker is wasted a bit, in a slightly 'meh' part.
Apart from Rory, the other two regulars are also well served. Matt Smith is effortlessly charming throughout - I love the bit where he kisses then slaps Rory - but able to turn on a sixpence into simmering anger when confronting Solomon. Amy, a character hard to warm to and never previously well used, is found a perfect function: she becomes the secondary back-up Doctor (this was a role that Romana, as played by Lalla Ward, occasionally fell into in the late 1970s / early 80s episodes, and it worked then too). She has grown too far from little Amelia after years of time crack energy, rebooting the universe, giving birth to a time-baby, being turned to goo, etc. The only option is for her to drop any pretence of being an audience identification figure, and step up. The script is explicit about this with the dialogue such as "I will not have flirting companions" and "I need you sober" and the like.There's a few niggles; the plot contains a couple of major contrivances: before he knows exactly what he's up against, the Doctor has luckily gathered up a big game hunter who can shoot tranquiliser-blasts at dinos, and he just happens to have got himself a father and son who can use the DNA-locked spaceship dual controls. The fey robots are a one-joke concept that are quickly overused. But it's churlish to pick holes, when the story is so enjoyable and light.
Connectivity:
Both this story and The Mysterious Planet feature a warrior queen, a rogue trader, two robots and at least one double act.
Deeper Thoughts:
A tale of two Chibnalls.
It was casting my mind back to Dinosaurs on a Spaceship that first made me hopeful that its author Chris Chibnall would make a good showrunner when he took over. He made a significant contribution to the 2012 mini-season (the first part of series 7, which continued with a second - and, to my mind, less successful - run in 2013, which Chibnall had no part in). Chibnall wrote two of the five episodes, Dinosaurs on a Spaceship and The Power of Three, plus the series of short online season prequels collectively called Pond Life. Each focused on Rory and Amy, and how their normal lives on Earth in the Doctor's absence were balanced or unblanced with their intermittent otherworldly adventures alongside him. After having sat through a lot of convoluted timey-wimey bobbins in the couple of years before this, I found much appeal in such a theme; it had a resonance that the sci-fi superheroics could never have, and finally made the Ponds into more rounded characters.
A lot of this was down to Steven Moffat as well, of course - it was on his watch; but, as it covered stuff he was not usually too interested in for his own scripts (he'd not given Rory any family before this point, and had given Amy only an unrealistic couple of fairy tale characters for parents who cameoed and then were never seen again) it seems likely that Chibnall was the one bringing this to the mix. I was hopeful something similar would be part of the show when he was running it too. Now that the Chibnall era is well underway, and Bradley Walsh is breaking all but the stoniest of hearts with his majestic but understated performance of Graham's grief and loss, it's obvious to see that Chris Chibnall specialises in real grounded characters with a full life beyond their adventures in the TARDIS. It was also interesting to compare and contrast other aspects of Dinosaurs on a Spaceship with the episodes of series 11 that have aired to date.
A tale of two Chibnalls.
It was casting my mind back to Dinosaurs on a Spaceship that first made me hopeful that its author Chris Chibnall would make a good showrunner when he took over. He made a significant contribution to the 2012 mini-season (the first part of series 7, which continued with a second - and, to my mind, less successful - run in 2013, which Chibnall had no part in). Chibnall wrote two of the five episodes, Dinosaurs on a Spaceship and The Power of Three, plus the series of short online season prequels collectively called Pond Life. Each focused on Rory and Amy, and how their normal lives on Earth in the Doctor's absence were balanced or unblanced with their intermittent otherworldly adventures alongside him. After having sat through a lot of convoluted timey-wimey bobbins in the couple of years before this, I found much appeal in such a theme; it had a resonance that the sci-fi superheroics could never have, and finally made the Ponds into more rounded characters.A lot of this was down to Steven Moffat as well, of course - it was on his watch; but, as it covered stuff he was not usually too interested in for his own scripts (he'd not given Rory any family before this point, and had given Amy only an unrealistic couple of fairy tale characters for parents who cameoed and then were never seen again) it seems likely that Chibnall was the one bringing this to the mix. I was hopeful something similar would be part of the show when he was running it too. Now that the Chibnall era is well underway, and Bradley Walsh is breaking all but the stoniest of hearts with his majestic but understated performance of Graham's grief and loss, it's obvious to see that Chris Chibnall specialises in real grounded characters with a full life beyond their adventures in the TARDIS. It was also interesting to compare and contrast other aspects of Dinosaurs on a Spaceship with the episodes of series 11 that have aired to date.
The obvious similarity is the Doctor operating with a 'gang'. Although Chibnall was probably running with an idea of Moffat's from the previous year (when the story A Good Man Goes to War saw the Doctor calling in favours owed to bring together a team to rescue Amy), the focus is much more on people using realistic skills, more than trying to be The Avengers assembling: Rory's moment where he talks about collecting nursing supplies wherever he goes, is a similar plot function - and character moment - to Graham in the current series using his bus driver knowledge. It's a world away from the same character threatening Cybermen dressed as a Roman centurion, as Rory does in A God Man Goes to War. The Dinosaurs story is a straightforward adventure narrative, of the kind much favoured currently; it contains a villain just as nasty as Tim Shaw with whom the Doctor gets to have a nice confrontation, and display some righteous anger. The story contains strong female and minority ethic characters.The differences are key too: Dinosaurs on a Spaceship's characters are larger than life, and spout glib one-liners rather than grounded dialogue. This fits in with the style of the time, but now looks a little false when compared to the still enjoyable and memorable but much less shallow dialogue and characterisation on display in the 2018 episodes. Most interesting of all, the backstory of the 2012 story is only fully understandable if you have knowledge of some specific Doctor Who lore: who are the lizard people that built this ship? What is their relationship with the Earth in its prehistoric times? Why would they have needed to escape from the planet at some point in the distant past? None of these points are explained in the narrative. The show assumes you've been watching for a few years; in contrast, everyone feels welcome to 2018 Who: no special knowledge is required.
In Summary:
I'm still loving these m****r-f***ing dinosuars on this m****r-f***ing spaceship.
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