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Sunday 18 September 2011

Doctor Who - The God Complex - a review

Couldn't wait for the BBC repeat so watched this online...

Not as wonderful as last week's The Girl Who Waited but still a fine episode. I will leave the shock ending for the very end of this review. The feel of the episode was very off-centre, odd camera angles, some sound distortion (or was that my PC?). The hotel's elongating and shape-changing corridors were nicely unsettling and the 'room for everyone' concept was neat. The minotaur was poorly executed, I presume the money saved by the making of this episode plus last and next week's means another end of season spectacular is on the way! The whole 'faith' aspect was oddly handled and the 'I'm a Muslim but don't panic' line struck me as peculiar.

Some questions that I think need answering: What was in The doctor's room? Was that the ringing of the cloister bell we hearrd when the Doctor had a peek and to whom did he say "Of course it’s you."? Is the Doctor's room number significant, it was 11 and Matt Smith is the eleventh Doctor? Is the way the hotel depixelated too similar to the way the robot in "Let’s Kill Hitler" depixelated just coincidental? if not does that mean that the robot's inhabitants created the hotel in attempt to capture and punish the Doctor?

The episode was shaping up to be a good one and then The Doctor says that Amy has to lose her faith in him in order to survive the Minotaur's attentions. That'll change the dynamic in the Tardis I thought; how right and yet wrong I was. The next thing I know The Doctor is saying goodbye to Amy. I don't believe that Amy thinks The Doctor is just "the mad man with a box" and somehow I think/hope that Amy and Rory will return to the programme either at the end of this series or in the next.

If this is the last we see of Amy and Rory then I feel it only fair to say that at the start of Matt Smith's Doctor I thought he and Amy were too young and Rory was just plain irritating. Since then my views have changed; Matt Smith has overtaken David Tennant and is up there with Jon Pertwee as a great Doctor - with time he may even get to the levels of Tom Baker. Amy turned into a seriously good companion, one of my favourites and Rory well he stopped being irritating and I even started to care about him.

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