Doctor Who Series Blog – Dinosaurs On A Spaceship

Think of a space age remake of Jurassic Park and you’re probably along the right lines. Episode two of series seven featured a spaceship overrun with these scaly prehistoric beasts; but unfortunately, they weren’t alone…

Having just survived being blown out of the sky whilst inside an asylum filled with Daleks, any sane person might take a trip to some distant planet and have a holiday. Instead the Doctor leaps back into the fray with more missiles heading his way. A spaceship is headed towards a collision with Earth, and if the Doctor can’t stop it, the Indian Space Agency will, for want of a better word, obliterate it. One big difference in this episode, however, is that the Ponds don’t seem to completely satisfy the Doctor’s need of companions.

Step forward Queen Nefertiti of Egypt and Riddell, hunter of the African plains. Nefertiti, or Neffi as the Doctor calls her, seems to have taken a shine to the Doctor and is determined to have her wicked way with him, whether he wants it or not. Indeed, she appears to do away with any older patriarchal notion of the chaste and subservient queen and is quite the lusty innuendo maker. Riddell on the other hand is more vulgar, misogynistic and irritating. He scorns help from either Amy or Neffi, thinking them not up to the task. Poor conceited man, it’s a wonder he wasn’t a shivering wreck after spending time with these two self-assured, no-nonsense women. Indeed a bout of rather intense flirting and his offer to put Neffi over his knee and “spank” her felt slightly eyebrow raising for its pre-watershed airtime.

Of course, Amy and Rory are also present and they seem to have worked through their marital problems. But when the Doctor materialises them into the TARDIS, an unexpected guest comes along for the ride: Arthur Weasley! Well, the actor who played him, Mark Williams, anyway, although wizards wouldn’t be too far to push the realms of reality considering the cargo of this particular spaceship. Williams plays Rory’s bumbling old father, Brian, a man who carries a trowel on him at all times. One can’t help but wonder if he swapped it for his wand… It turns out that he’s even more important than an ancient Egyptian queen and a renowned animal hunter, seeing as only he and Rory can fly this particular ship as, coincidentally, it can only be driven by two people from the same gene-pool. Well that was lucky.

Now to the main event and the other guests upon the spaceship were, of course, dinosaurs. The spaceship belongs to the Silurians (the lizardy/humany people) who have transported the dinosaurs in an “arc” to save them from the destruction of their planet. It’s kind of like Noah’s Arc mixed with Snakes on a Plane; you want to save them but at the same time they’re trying to kill you whilst you’re flying through space. If you encounter a bear, you’re told that it’s best to stand your ground and not flinch when they charge. If you were to have the misfortune to meet a triceratops down a dark alleyway, the correct procedure would be to produce a golf ball and get said triceratops to chase after it, apparently. Time and time again, Doctor Who asks its viewers to suspend their disbelief until, one day, a rapping turtle will be no more unusual than rain in the UK.

Dinosaurs on a Spaceship features a surprisingly anti-capitalist narrative as well as its majorly absurd combination of animals and characters. Solomon, a space pirate, has boarded the ship in an attempt to sell its cargo to the highest bidder. He uses a purple ray (that looks like it came straight out of a nightclub) to scan everything to determine its value, even people. Having found Neffi to be worth a lot of “dollar”, he kidnaps her and tries to flee. If any commercial channel had aired this episode, any channel whose very existence depends on advertising, the irony would have almost been too much to bear. When Solomon treats the companions and the dinosaurs as possessions, the dark side of the Doctor is unleashed as he orchestrates Solomon’s death. Rarely does the Doctor let a villain die when he could easily be saved. Word of warning, don’t shoot a dinosaur in the presence of the Doctor, or you will find yourself in a burning ball of flames.

Sadly, we have to wait until Saturday for the next instalment. Episode three looks like it’s a slightly more reasonable setting, the Wild West to be precise. Oh, minor snag: there’s a cyborg on the loose with guns and rockets.