The Doctor takes Amy on a new adventure, landing on the Spaceship UK. All of the UK on a ship, until Amy can't help being curious and they stumble upon the real creature behind the ship.
Children in school and one of them has been bad since he got a zero. So Timmy ( Alfie Field) has to walk home or he'll get sent below. The Test Card girl in the lift recites a rhyme about "the beast below."
Amy (Karen Gillan) : "My name is Amy Pond, when I was 7 I had an imaginary friend. Last night was the night before my wedding and my friend came back." Hang on, somethings not right, he can't be her imaginary friend cos we know he's real, yes the Doctor is very real, so clearly this is an arc for this season. The Doctor (Matt Smith) says his box is a spaceship. He tells her in the twenty ninth century the human race moves to the stars. They're on the Starship UK: "it's Britain, an entire country looking for a new home." He calls them observers and he doesn't get involved in other's problems. No he doesn't! And Amy hasn't changed her pyjamas yet.
He notices something is wrong, it's a police state and tells the man he thinks an escaped fish is on the loose (a future Christmas special to come!) A man reports the sighting of the Doctor to a woman, after he placed a glass of water on the ground. The Doctor notices the girl crying alone. Amy asks if he's a parent. The people know what's wrong so they don't ask her. He sees the "smiley fellows in the booth," they're clean. Amy: "never interfere in the affairs of people or planets unless there's children crying."
Amy wants to investigate the hole in the road and tells the girl, Mandy ( Hanna sharp) she's getting married. Smiley fellow's (known as Smilers) head in the booth turns and his expression changes to scary. The Doctor notices a glass of water on the ground whilst investigating the ship. The woman says he sees it in a glass of water. The ship has no engine as the water would move. She asks for his help. She's Liz 10 (Sophie Okonedo) i.e. Elizabeth 10. Amy wakes in a voting cubicle to watch the history of the Starship UK. After she's seen it, she can push the 'Protest' button or she can vote to 'Forget'. She chooses the latter and hears a message from her to the Doctor telling him to leave. The Doctor calls himself "worse than Scottish." He looks Time Lord. He came first, there were others, but now there's only him and he can't forget it. (A recap for those who didn't watch the 2009 Christmas special all about the Time Lords and their destruction.) This is what he does everyday and presses the 'Protest' button.
He and Amy fall into what looks like a garbage dump below. It's actually the beast's tongue they're standing on and the only way out is to find the eject button. Doctor: "This isn't going to be big on dignity. Geronimo!" The beast throws up, expelling them out. The Doctor wonders what the beast is doing on the ship, he's not going to forget. Smilers/men come out and Liz shoots them. The Doctor tells Liz she looks better without her mask. She hasn't voted, as she's not a British subject; and he has the "hair of an idiot." She's heard stories about the Doctor. Then mentions Victoria, Elizabeth II and the Virgin Queen. People are fed to the creature. The Doctor regrets coming here, but then he always does that before helping out. The man, Hawthorne ( Terence Hardiman) begins the Protocol. Liz needs to discover what her government's been doing and so wears a mask when she ventures out. She's been doing this for ten years or so she believes, but the mask has been sculpted to her face. The Smilers are half human. Liz must be taken to the Tower.
Hawthorne tells her the beast won't eat children. The Doctor refers to this place as the "torture chamber of the Tower of London." The creature's brain is being tortured, the ship was incapable of flying and they trapped the creature to fly it for them and it's been tortured to keep the ship moving. He makes them listen to its pain. Liz is the highest authority, but her mask is old, at least 300 years old, that's her age. She always returns to the 'Forget' button.
On her message she says the creature is a Star Whale, the last of its kind (like the Doctor). She wants them to press the 'Forget' button to end her reign and set the creature free and the ship will be destroyed. Amy voted for this too so the Doctor didn't have to make this choice. "Humanity or alien...you don't ever decidefor me." He doesn't care and he's taking Amy home. He's going to turn the whale into a vegetable so it can't feel the pain and he won't have to make his choice. After he kills them, he won't be the Doctor anymore, no one should speak to him today. (That's what River will say to him in 6.7: that he's the Doctor, he's meant to save people and how he's come to be known, but instead some fear him.)
Amy says the whale volunteered, it didn't have to be tortured because it couldn't bear to see the children cry, just like the Doctor. The pain and loneliness is amazing, she's seen it before, "very old, very kind and the very, very last." Alluding to him again. The Doctor ran from something once years ago. The phone rings in the TARDIS. It's Winston Churchill and the Daleks.
"In bed above, we're deep asleep, while greater loves lies further deep. This dream must end but this world must know, we all depend on the beast below." As the Doctor said people will write about them and the whale in years to come. The episode ends with the crack from Amy's wall visible at the side of the spaceship.
Amy rescued the creature to save the day in this episode. The Doctor couldn't resolve this problem cos he's stuck in his own way of doing things, which inevitably and ironically involve choosing one species over another, usually the humans to the detriment of the aliens etc, which he has to do most all of the time. Whereas Amy realizes the real picture - that he doesn't have to choose as the whale has already made that choice. The Doctor's reaction to Amy making his choice for him is exactly in character; he's been alone all these years and he won't have someone else making such serious decisions for him.
Great to see the Doctor's dark side finally getting some exploration and it's evident Matt Smith is excellent at portraying funny, to angry, to understanding. The relationship between Amy and the Doctor isn't as passive as some of his other companions have been, she can think for herself and make choices that she believes are right but he doesn't agree with. She's always questioning him. Amy takes an integral role in this season and most of the time, she's the one who comes to his rescue, as the season is apparently about her in the most part.
Liz 10 mentions Victoria from the earlier episode Tooth and Claw. Elizabeth/the Virgin Queen from The Shakespeare Code and mentioned in the End of Time episode and Elizabeth II in Silver Nemesis, Voyage of the Damned and Planet of the Dead.
Liz 10 makes another appearance later in the episode The Pandorica Opens.
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