Invasion of the Very Small Cubes

I've read a little bit about the original series (Doctors 1-8), and from what I've read, the Doctor's MO used to consist of picking someone up, taking them on adventures for a while, and then ending the partnership, for whatever reason. That's certainly how the first five seasons worked, and how season 6 worked, for the most part. This season, the writers are obviously taking the show in an entirely new direction, with the Doctor's primary companions being people he sees, on average, once every 32 years in his timeline, rather than people he spends all of his time with. I don't know how much I will like it if they keep this trend going overall, but for the time being, it's leading to some interesting stories, and this is no exception.

A Quick Synopsis

The synopsis of this episode will be fairly brief, since the plot wasn't particularly complicated. First, a bunch of mysterious cubes appear.

The Doctor shows up in what is probably one of my favorite images of him to date.

The cubes spend a while not doing anything, and then all of a sudden, they open and start doing some strange things.

Vital Signs: POND-sitive!

Rory goes to the hospital and takes his dad. Amy and the Doctor go with Kate Stewart to UNIT, where they learn a little bit more about the cubes and about Kate's genealogy. The cubes start counting down from 7.

Whoa. It's the Power of Three!

Then once they reach zero, nothing happens for a few minutes, and then a third of the population dies. Apparently, the cubes' evil plan was to hang around for a year, and then induce heart attacks in everyone who was foolish enough to be near a cube when it hit zero.

Always good to keep a spare.

Turns out, the person behind this evil plan was a glitchy computer program modelled after a thing of the Doctor's nightmares, called the Shakri.

Oh crap. Segfault. 

Then, after the Doctor executes his millionth unsuccessful attempt to reason with a bad guy, the entire resolution of the episode is summed up in this screenshot:

Yes. In what is possibly the most pathetic episode resolution of all time, the Doctor waves his sonic screwdriver at the hexagonal see-through monitor for a few seconds and that brings 2.3 billion people, who just died of heart attacks, back to life.

And then the Doctor says goodbye to Kate, Brian tells Amy and Rory to join the Doctor, which they do, but only after posing for what will probably be Season 7's promo image.

Brian Williams

Don't he and Jon Stewart make a lovely couple?

Oh, oops. Wrong Williams-Stewart couple. Let's try...

Yes, her name is Amy Williams. 

So the Brian Williams in this episode was both my favorite character and my most frustrating. On the one hand, I thought he was hilarious, waiting in the TARDIS for four days because the Doctor told him to, and faithfully recording Brian's Log every day for almost a full year.

This is true diligence.

I also enjoyed the scene where everyone compared notes about what the cubes did.


Rory: "Hi, uh... The cube, in there. It just opened."
Amy: "The cube upstairs just spiked me and took my pulse!"
Doctor: "Ha ha ha! Really? Mine fired laser bolts and now it's surfing the net!"
Brian: (Coming in the door) "You're never gonna believe this! My cube. Just moved. It rattled!"

Although I was a little disappointed that there was no follow-up, like an unenthusiastic "That's great, Brian!" from the Doctor or "Great. Dad..." from Rory.

However, there were a few scenes where Brian was almost uncharacteristically hostile towards the Doctor. For instance, right after his four-day stay in the TARDIS (which he cheerfully shrugged off), he objected to Amy and Rory travelling away with the Doctor, even though it's something that they have done frequently in the past, and even though he knows that they could return later than evening.

Also, when Amy and Rory return from their "complication-free" excursion to Savoy, the fury on Brian's face is palpable.

And then he returns to Brian's log, just as devoted as ever.

For the most part, throughout the episode, I did enjoy Brian, and his encouragement to Amy and Rory at the end made him easily one of my favorite characters.

I wish he'd said yes. I would have liked to see Brian as a companion.

Family and Pacing


I thought the pacing of most of the episode was pretty good, but there was one glaring moment that must be addressed.

I liked the character of Kate Stewart, and it was kind of adorable that she turned out to be the daughter of Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, but the way they chose to reveal that fact was clunky at best. The Doctor is typing furiously as Kate is frantically telling him that the world is basically in need of serious guidance, with fast-paced, if slightly boring, music playing, and then all of a sudden, the Doctor mentions the Brigadier.

"Really, Doctor? We're in the middle of an international crisis and you're asking me about my last name?"

The music stops, and is replaced by soft, sweet music, and we are treated to a brief period of nostalgia for a character I've never seen (my only exposure to the Brigadier was that phone call the Doctor made in Wedding). It basically takes an episode that was so strong until this point, and throws a wrench into the pacing. And then throws another wrench just to be sure that we've forgotten that there was any tension whatsoever.

Twitter

I still would say that David Tennant is my favorite Doctor, but, Matt Smith demonstrates true theatrical brilliance with the amount of contempt he loads both into his tone and his facial expression when he says "Twitter". I love it!

Imagine the look on his face when he sees Instagram.

The Power of Three

I normally love puns, but Narrator Amy's statement about "The Power of Three" at the end of the episode ruined the whole story for me. She basically summed up the entire invasion as a pun on the fact that there were three people in the TARDIS. No. You cannot do that.

GET IT BECAUSE IT'S A POND IT'S FUNNY BECAUSE THAT'S ALSO AMY'S NAME WHY ISN'T ANYONE LAUGHING?!?!

When I watched the episode again, I muted it before Amy started her final bit of narration. I am a happier person now.

Worthless Villain

A Gallifreyan legend. The universe's self-appointed pest-control. This has got to be good.

Just kidding. The episode was right not to spend a whole lot of time on the bad guy, because the bad guy of this episode sucked. He goes on and on about some "Tally", which basically says that humanity tends to destroy things, which is bad, so the Shakri must destroy humanity. The logic seems a bit flawed, but I guess bad guy logic doesn't have to be perfect.

Oh and its appearance: What do you get when you cross Emperor Palpatine with a turtle, and then give it a Bluetooth headset?

It's Emperor Palpaturtle! Emperor Turtletine?

Hospital Security?

I would like to introduce you to my original two part series called "How Did They Not Notice?"

Part 1 features a lovely young girl who apparently sat in the emergency-room waiting area for at least seven months. She has radiant blue eyes, no internal organs, and curly black hair.

She managed to sit in the emergency room for over half a year without anyone trying to check on her. Even taking her temperature would probably have yielded interesting results, since androids don't necessarily have the same body temperature as normal humans.

So repeat after me! "How Did They Not Notice?"

Part 2 features two employees who appear to have been hired as nurses. When they were interviewed for the position, they must have already been wearing those mask things that nurses wear, because otherwise they would likely have received results of "No way am I hiring you", "You look alien. Do you have something to do with those cubes?" and "No, I am not your mummy".

Also, how do they talk?

Of course, it's always possible that they were not hired and were just imposters, but in that case, two orderlies whom no one actually hired are making their way around a well-staffed hospital. At some point, you'd think that someone would have noticed that there was something off about these two employees... like, I don't know, their entire faces. It's even more implausible given that Rory works there, and he should probably have a keen eye for extraterrestrial-type things, like people with hexagons for mouths.

Side note: What ever happened to these two? The Shakri ship exploded, but were these two on it?

So repeat after me! "How Did They Not Notice?"

Rory's Eagle Eyes

Rory looks down the hallway and sees this:

Somehow, even though it's moving, he knows that it's his dad. That is either impressive vision or a convenient plot device.

Music

For some reason, I really liked the music in this episode, especially the mysterious and slightly surreal whistling-type music that plays when Brian shows Amy and Rory the cubes, and the jarring, strangely-chorded music that plays during the beginning of the countdown.

Amy Pond

I've been really critical of Amy this season, because I thought she was kind of wasted in Asylum, Dinosaurs, and Mercy. But she was brilliant in Three. She didn't quite steal the show, because Brian, Rory, and the Doctor all had strong performances this episode, but it was really nice to see Karen Gillan get to play something other than the Doctor's two-line conscience or Riddell's gender politics textbook.

I especially loved the scene between the Doctor and Amy when they were getting fresh air, and the Doctor said "You were the first face this face saw, and you're sealed onto my hearts, Amelia Pond". It's the rare scene in a TV show can genuinely make me smile every time I watch it, and this is one of those rare scenes.

:)

Overall

I will transport myself into an alternate universe in which my computer exploded before I was able to finish the episode. Specifically, somewhere in the middle of the countdown, probably between 2 and 1. In that alternate universe, this is one of my favorite episodes, although I probably blame it for causing my computer to explode.

No I don't need a Doctor. I need someone from the Geek Squad and a firefighter! In that order!

So judging The Power of Three based on the first 27 minutes, it's amazing. It does a great job building up a mystery, and at the same time, grounding the episode in reality in a way that few Doctor Who episodes can. Brian was hilarious, Kate was charming, and the episode was well-paced (with the one exception that I've already complained about).

But the flat and non-existent bad guy, the profoundly simplistic and stupid resolution, and the "Power of Three" nonsense were all so awful that it really took the episode down several notches for me.

NEXT EPISODE: THE ANGELS TAKE MANHATTAN

Apparently, the NYPD consists of the Weeping Angels.

Spoilers!