Twice As Many Teeth: How Do You Start a Triceratops?

You may have remembered from my post about a truly great and wonderful movie that I enjoy it when the title is descriptive. It's not always effective, but I think in this episode, it is.

I loved this episode. The story had a few holes, but Dinosaurs was so filled with hilarious one- or three-liners, as well as a Doctor who was much more The-Doctor-y than last time, that it made up for whatever the story lacked.

What Happened?

The Doctor gains a whole bunch of companions for this episode:

1. Queen Nefertiti of Egypt.

"You had me at 'bowtie'"

2. John Riddell, a big game hunter

Wait, the Doctor is friends with a big game hunter?

3. Amy, Rory, and Rory's dad

Indira, a member of the Indian Space Agency, has decided to blow up this weird space ship thing that is hurdling towards the Earth, and the Doctor has 6 hours and 19 minutes to turn it around

6 Hours, 19 Minutes? That means they have eight episodes to solve this!

The Doctor and his "gang" arrive on the space ship to try to save the day, and discover (this would be a spoiler if it weren't in the title) DINOSAURS!!!

Wait, shouldn't they have feathers?

Also, it looks like they're putting a different skin on the logo for each episode. An interesting concept - I like it, although it means that I'm going to have to include a screencap of the logo for each episode.

This one looks like leaves!

The Doctor discovers the the teleportation feature on this ship is just a bit too efficient.

Don't you just hate it when you're telling a joke, and right before you get to the punchline- bzzzzzzzzt

Amy discovers that the other two random characters are really annoying, and somewhat one-dimensional.

"Dude, she's like 2500 years too old for you."

Oh, and that it's a Silurian ship.

The Doctor meets Solomon, who is a complete jerk.

When David Bradley asked the producers if he could play a nice character, there was a moment of silence, followed by gales of laughter.

Apparently, Solomon is driven by nothing but money, and he cruelly murdered all of the Silurians when they wouldn't give him the dinosaurs.

"It's not technically murder if they have something valuable, right?"

And the Doctor, Rory, and Papa Rory (also known as Brian), have to escape from Solomon's evil robots, which they do on the back of a Triceratops.

Rory is really enjoying the Triceratops ride.

Solomon kidnaps Queen Nefertiti, a bunch of T-Rex are attacking the gang, and the ship can only be steered by two members of the same gene line. Conveniently, there is a father-son pair present, and there's a big game hunter and a woman (Amy) who is more than happy to help, as long as she gets to look as sexy as possible.

"Dammit Riddell, did you give me a gun or a flashlight?"

This brings to mind a similar scene (with the same background music, actually) with a woman sexily firing a weapon while a man stands nearby

Spoilers!

So the whole plot gets resolved perfectly, and that is one of my issues with this episode.

Too Perfect

The story gets resolved way too perfectly. It's as if the whole thing were planned from the get-go to get resolved without any loss of life (Solomon doesn't count) or even, really, any risk. Not that I don't like an episode where everybody lives, but some parts of this episode were way too contrived.

First, the gene line thing. You'd have to be an idiot to design a spaceship that you can't fly if your dad suddenly dies or your daughter doesn't want to go to the Nursing Home Planet to visit your Great Aunt Violet for the third time this week.

"Isn't it lucky you were here, dad?"

Second, the only reason that I can think of for why 20 T-Rex would attack just outside the control room is that it gave Riddell something to do, and gave Amy an opportunity to give him a lesson in gender politics.

So a bunch of the circumstances just seemed too perfect to be believable. Because otherwise, an episode about Dinosaurs on a Spaceship would seem completely credible....

Solomon and his Robots

Unlike whoever Wikipedia quoted in its "Critical Reception" page, I actually really enjoyed the prissy robots; they were hilarious!

"No, your face glows when you talk!"

But that one scene where the robots were shooting at the Triceratops Three was absurd! They were so close, and yet none of the bullets even came close. The music didn't help either - it was goofy, not tense, and so there was no tension. I guess the goal of that scene was goofy, but a scene in which three characters are one accidentally-well-placed bullet away from death probably shouldn't be goofy, just on principle.

Moving on to Solomon, everyone's favorite evil man. First, he refuses to answer the Doctor's questions, even having his robots shoot Brian because the Doctor, but then is willing to tell him everything he wants to know about the Silurians only minutes later. Also, when he tries to teach the Doctor his lesson about getting in his way, Solomon chooses to kill not Rory or Rory's dad, but the Triceratops - hardly a huge lesson for the Doctor.

I will mourn you for about a third of a second.

It was obviously the low-stakes way of showing just how much of a jerk Solomon really is, and to me, at least, it fell a bit short.

Nefertiti Riddell

There is absolutely no way, under any circumstances, in any timeline, that John Riddell and Queen Nefertiti of Egypt would hook up.

There are not enough words in the English language to express how much this would not happen.

Let's get Amy's perspective on this.

So let's move on to the good stuff.

How Do You Start A Triceratops?

This episode was hilarious! Distressingly few episodes of television have me laughing heartily for 30 out of 44 minutes, but this was one of them (it may even have been 31 minutes - I wasn't keeping careful track).

I'll just list off a few of my favorites:

The Doctor not running when he sees Dinosaurs
The accidental teleport
The trowel
The Doctor has a Christmas list
The robots
"How do you start a triceratops?"
The Doctor's odd definition of obvious
And many more...

Oh, and don't forget Brian's balls.

The Williamses...Williamsi... What is the plural of Williams?

I thought it was great to see Rory and his dad get to enjoy a bit of father-son bonding time, and it was also nice to see that it wasn't one of those stories where they were originally on the outs. They were a bit distant, but no bad blood, and this whole adventure brought them just a bit closer.

They got to learn about new technology together.

"Is this that internet thing you kids keep talking about?"

Rory got to show off his medical skills.

"I'd call you a Nancy-boy, but then you might jab me with that needle again."

And the pair of them pooped together on a beach.

This is actually a Silurian toilet. Don't ask what the sand is.

Poop jokes aside, I really did enjoy the interaction between Rory and his dad. The dialogue felt real, and the whole thing was very well-played.

Siluria?

Since when did prehistoric lands populated by dinosaurs and sentient lizards do postcards?

Conveniently, they labelled their world in English, on a sign that they put right next to the TARDIS.

Did the Doctor Do the Right Thing?

Of course, I'm talking about blowing Solomon up.

Obligatory explosion screencap

My answer: Of course!

The Doctor may be known for abhorring violence and being a man of mercy, but he's also not an idiot. Solomon was established early on as someone who had no concept of justice, no concept of mercy, no concept of anything, really, except profit. In the end, he even demonstrated how callously he did not understand the wrongness of his ways by trying to bargain his way out. If he had apologized, the Doctor might have let him go, but even then, at the crucial moment where Solomon could have appealed to morality or mercy, Solomon thought that the Doctor was after profit.

If this isn't pure evil, I don't know what is.

In the end, leaving Solomon alive would have endangered every living creature out there, especially ones that might have a price tag associated with them. To spare his life would have been cruel; to kill him was the right thing to do.

And of course, nothing was more satisfying than watching Solomon's face contorted with fear.