Doctor Who: "The Beast Below" [Spoilers]

[Big Orange]

Anyhoo, someone above here was right about the Angelic Whale and eating people. Maybe the Whale knew about the forget/protest buttons and decided that they must have pressed forget at some point and were therefore culpable for its torture, so it ate them (and it didn't eat the kids because they dont go into the booth, as the little girl said)

OR

As for it not eating the children, maybe that isnt out of compassion or anything. Maybe children have a pheromone or something which makes the whale think the kids are inedible

Most likely the former than the latter (you see one of the Half-Life style tendrils acting in a tender/protective manner towards the school children near it). The half-human Smilers kinda make sense, since they're better at interviewing and interrogation than the more basic and purely mechanical Smilers.

[Admiral Valdemar]

Why the frak did they make the mouth Lancashire?!

I did love the Smilers and the way the new companion and Doc are turning out, and yes, I did think Gordon Freeman when I saw those tentacles too. The story was otherwise so-so, but the set-up for next week makes me look forward to it quite a bit now.

[Ryushikaze]

Completely unrelated to the content of the episode but to the series itself, does it seem like Karen Gillan loses her accent from time to time and slips into an American midwestern (IE- standard news presenter) one for a few words? She does it during the confidential episodes as well. I wonder if that's a result of her training as an actress. In any case, it's a very interesting little dialect she's created, and I think it works for the character, with her imposed 'otherness' both with her being a scot in britain and keeping her accent, but also with her fixation on the doctor.

Karen Gillan is from Inverness, I'm pretty sure her accent is natural but tempered slightly by a few years having lived outside of Scotland. Not all Scottish accents are as broad or incomprehensible as say.. Glaswegian though.

Oh, I wasn't speculating/ insinuating/ implying/ rutabaga that she was faking the accent, just noticing that at times, all traces of her accent seem to disappear for a moment. It's not that 'her accent is very light', just that sometimes she pronounces words in the manner of her normal accent, and other times, she pronounces those same words without any of that, in the 'midwestern standard'. A negative affectation, if you will. I'm not sure if it's deliberate or habitual, but it's interesting.

[Zac Naloen]

Yeh I got your meaning, I think it's habitual. She speaks in all her interviews in exactly the same way and to be fair to her, everyone I've met from the highlands sounds like her. With regards to occasionally dropping the accent, she spent her university years in London so it's not surprising that sometimes she'll pronounce words in a more neutral dialect... it may seem odd but in my experience Irish or Scottish mixed with a twinge of English ends up sounding a little bit american mid-west.

[andrewgpaul]

Why the frak did they make the mouth Lancashire?!

I took that line to mean the mouth was under Lancashire (assuming each tower block was a county).

[Gramzamber]

I voted 3. Meh. A black queen of Britain?

Britain is a spaceship built on top of a space whale, and your limit to your suspension of disbelief is that the queen is black.
Right.

[Revy]

I voted 3. Meh. A black queen of Britain?

Britain is a spaceship built on top of a space whale, and your limit to your suspension of disbelief is that the queen is black.
Right.

Don't you just fucking love it when people quote only a tiny part of your post and ignore the rest of it? And any other posts you make complaining about an episode?

Yeah. Love it.

[NecronLord]

It's umm, the specific point he's taking issue with?

[Revy]

In other words, because Doctor Who has really outlandish stuff in it I'm not allowed to moan about the little stuff like them having a black Queen of Britain? If there's something I want to complain about then I'm going to complain about it, whether it's something fantastic like space whales, or minor like this. They did the same thing with Guinevere in Merlin and Tuck in Robin Hood. It's something the BBC likes to do lately. Not a big deal, but then I didn't make it out to be. And I rated the episode a 3 because I thought the plot was weak and the Smilers were pathetic.

[Gramzamber]

In other words, because Doctor Who has really outlandish stuff in it I'm not allowed to moan about the little stuff like them having a black Queen of Britain? If there's something I want to complain about then I'm going to complain about it, whether it's something fantastic like space whales, or minor like this. They did the same thing with Guinevere in Merlin and Tuck in Robin Hood. It's something the BBC likes to do lately. Not a big deal, but then I didn't make it out to be. And I rated the episode a 3 because I thought the plot was weak and the Smilers were pathetic.

If it was a black queen of Britain NOW, you might have a point. But 1300 years in the future, on a spaceship?
Never mind the outlandish parts, it's entirely possible the royal line and nobility becomes more mixed race in that amount of time.
Also I wasn't criticising your rating.

[NecronLord]

In other words, because Doctor Who has really outlandish stuff in it I'm not allowed to moan about the little stuff like them having a black Queen of Britain? If there's something I want to complain about then I'm going to complain about it, whether it's something fantastic like space whales, or minor like this. They did the same thing with Guinevere in Merlin and Tuck in Robin Hood. It's something the BBC likes to do lately. Not a big deal, but then I didn't make it out to be. And I rated the episode a 3 because I thought the plot was weak and the Smilers were pathetic.

Why are you complaining? Do you really believe that it's so unlikely for blacks to marry into the English Royal Family in the next nine centuries that it shakes your suspension of disbelief?

Personally, I blinked at the idea that they'd have a monarch. Not her race.

[Darth Nostril]

Personally, I blinked at the idea that they'd have a monarch. Not her race.

As I recall the Queen said something about "everyone else had gone and we were desparate, and the whale couldnt bear to watch children cry"

Maybe the government tried building a normal ship but overran on the budget as usual. Fuckers

Tying these two comments together - notice that there is no mention made at all of the Prime Minister or Parliament or the rest of the democratic system?

Maybe this time round budget overruns and bureaucratic incompetence finally led to all of Westminster and Whitehall being decreed expendable and left behind.

[Revy]

Okay, fair enough. But despite it being over a thousand years into the future everything on Starship UK looks so archaic that if it weren't for the fact that they're in space you wouldn't think it was the future at all.

Tying these two comments together - notice that there is no mention made at all of the Prime Minister or Parliament or the rest of the democratic system?

It's still a democracy. One man, one vote. The Queen is the man, and she has the vote. Maybe in the Whoverse the position of Prime Minister loses clout after Saxon got voted in and murdered the President of the US on live television.

[Hillary]

In other words, because Doctor Who has really outlandish stuff in it I'm not allowed to moan about the little stuff like them having a black Queen of Britain? If there's something I want to complain about then I'm going to complain about it, whether it's something fantastic like space whales, or minor like this. They did the same thing with Guinevere in Merlin and Tuck in Robin Hood. It's something the BBC likes to do lately. Not a big deal, but then I didn't make it out to be. And I rated the episode a 3 because I thought the plot was weak and the Smilers were pathetic.

Next they'll have a white man playing Othello....

[Themightytom]

Does anyone know where I can get Dr Who episodes online? BBC Online says "Not available in your region" I'm always out Saturday night and i really don't want to be like "Ah sorry everyone, have to shoot home to watch Dr. Who. back in an hour!"








But my curiosity is getting to that point.

[Admiral Valdemar]

Wait, I thought they rolled iPlayer out to the US now?

[Admiral Valdemar]

By the way, any good theories on the cracks in space-time?

[Seele]

By the way, any good theories on the cracks in space-time?

I vote it's a return of The Beast.

[Lost Soal]

Wait, I thought they rolled iPlayer out to the US now?

Would be fun if it was caused by his TARDIS's self destructive crash. To my mind him causing them as he travels around would be better than the well of convenience which would be drained by him just happening to be at the location of every crack while having nothing to do with them.

[Admiral Valdemar]

That'd be a nice change too, to go with the change in characters we've got now, rather than another tired ominous re-emergence of an old foe. Again.

[Temujin]

3 out of 5. Not to much to add, as it seemed a bit of a ho hum episode compared to last week. Not bad, but not that great.

A bit ridiculous with Amy running around in her nightgown, especially since I thought they were talking about her being able to find some clothes in the wardrobe area of the TARDIS at the end of The 11th Hour.

Of note: I already consider Amy to be the best of the companions since the series restarted; and the Doctor is definitely showing elements of older incarnations.

[Eternal_Freedom]

IThey did the same thing with Guinevere in Merlin and Tuck in Robin Hood. It's something the BBC likes to do lately.

It's a shameless attempt to appeal and appease the ethnic minorities who now seem to be the most important part of British society. Not that I'm bitter as a white-english-middle class person

The idea is parodied rather wonderfully in South Park, with the aptyl named african-american child "Token Black"

[Lost Soal]

It's a shameless attempt to appeal and appease the ethnic minorities who now seem to be the most important part of British society. Not that I'm bitter as a white-english-middle class person
[/quote]

Really? I don't see how anyone could come to that conclusion.
They couldn't possibly have cast a black woman for any other reason than "a shameless attempt to appeal and appease the ethnic minorities" now could they. Any other parts which can't be black or Asian?

[NecronLord]

IThey did the same thing with Guinevere in Merlin and Tuck in Robin Hood. It's something the BBC likes to do lately.

It's a shameless attempt to appeal and appease the ethnic minorities who now seem to be the most important part of British society. Not that I'm bitter as a white-english-middle class person

The idea is parodied rather wonderfully in South Park, with the aptyl named african-american child "Token Black"

Again, because the Royal Family, if it survives, if it's still even vaguely important, must be the same horseyfaced white inbreds forever because...

...because...

WHITE POWER!

Seriously. The twenty ninth century possibly even the thirtieth what's so unusual or 'pandering' about it? Nine hundred years ago, the king was Henry I. And a thousand it was fucking Æthelred the Unready (first time round). Both have very little whatsoever to do with the modern day monarchy. Why the hell does the idea that they might not be "racially pure" in a thousand years strain your disbelief?

[Themightytom]

well now that I've actually been able to get it on Zune, I liked it. I was wondering at the end why the Doctor didn't just load everyone into his seemingly enormous TARDIS, and pop over to a habitable planet but then i answered my own question. no infrastructure, technology or equipment and a suddenly emergent huge population on an alien world is a dumb idea, moreover the last benevolent alien to try to help the humans got a hole drilled in its head and a laser beam shot into its brain for 300 years, so the Doctor may not be so eager to experience that.

Every time Amy speaks I think of




I'm an un cultured American tool.