Contributor: Bronzethumb
Written by Chris Chibnall
Directed by Saul Metzstein
After the previous epsiode’s big, brassy return, “Dinosaurs on a Spaceship” takes a different road and celebrates the fun rompyness of “Doctor Who”. From minute one it’s an utterly ridiculous affair, piling up one bit of nonsense after another into an enormous stack that by all rights should topple over, but the team pull it together into a rollicking adventure. It’s a brilliant example of why damn near everyone loves this show.
An enormous spaceship is hurtling towards the Earth and in six hours, the Indian Space Agency will have no choice but to shoot it down. To avoid this, the Doctor assembles a crack team from across space and time — Egyptian Queen Nefertiti, Edwardian adventurer Liddell, Amy, Rory, and Rory’s dad Brian — to board the ship and figure out why, among other things, it’s loaded up with dinosaurs. It’s a plot very reminiscent of the classic series (serials like “The Ark in Space” spring to mind) but infused with the pace and energy of the revival, launching straight into the adventure and hardly stopping for breath along the way.
The opening scene with Nefertiti should give audiences a taste for what they’re in for. It’s not the celebrity historical, it’s not the creepy villain episode and it’s not the budget buster, all of which have become standards of the revival: instead, “Dinosaurs” blends all kinds of writing archetypes into something that jumps around like a jackrabbit. There’s never a boring moment, and just about everything one could want from a “Doctor Who” episode is present and accounted for.
More impressive is how the tone builds cohesively rather than feeling like too many elements jammed together. It never stops being an insane amount of fun, either in the quiet moments of characters having a light-hearted conversation to the big sequences of fighting dinosaurs or piloting spaceships. The sense of childlike wonder and enthusiasm is threaded into every frame, and when Rory and Brian make a big, excited declaration during the climax, they capture the feel of the whole episode. Chibnall’s record on “Doctor Who” has been spotty, but with “Dinosaurs” he delivers easily the best script of his tenure.
And it’s backed up by great performances from the regulars and a fantastic guest cast. The announcement that Mark Williams would be playing Rory’s dad was the kind of casting that can only be met with a response of “Yep, of course, who else would you get?” He’s got that same great mix of bumbling nervousness and heroic resolve that Arthur Darvill has always nailed, and the scenes between the two are full of brilliantly natural father-son moments. Riann Steele and Rupert Graves have great supporting roles, playing out a fun gender politics-meets-battle of the sexes dynamic.
David Bradley (lately of “Game of Thrones” and the Harry Potter films) shows up relatively late in the episode to pull out a fantastic villainous performance, recalling Simon Pegg and Mark Gatiss in series past as a shrewd, wicked but utterly watchable foil for the Doctor. It pretty quickly seems like they couldn’t have pulled together a better supporting cast — and then Mitchell and Webb turn up.
Thrown into the mix is some subtle moments that feel like foreshadowing to the 2012 finale, with talk of the Doctor finally parting ways with the Ponds, but these serious beats barely make a dent on the brilliantly insanely rollercoaster of fun that Chibnall, Metzstein and the cast have pulled together. “Dinosaurs on a Spaceship” is constantly topping itself with something zanier, funnier and punch-the-air awesome, a nice change of pace from the premiere’s grim-dark (but no less brilliant) instalment, and it exemplifies why “Doctor Who” is such an institution of geeky viewing.
Score: 8/10
