The Beast Below

Dear Gary—

How do I even begin to tell you how much I hate The Beast Below? This episode is so far beneath the bottom of my list; I wish it didn’t exist. It is preposterous, calculated, and insulting. It is a manufactured drama that is patently absurd and a slap in the face to the audience.  It doesn’t fill me with anger like it used to because frankly I find I just don’t care enough anymore, but I can still get worked up just thinking about it. Hang onto your hat, Gary.

I’ll start with the Smilers. These are fantastically creepy creations that fill one with dread, but there is no logical explanation for them. They are designed to smile or frown, depending on if you have been naughty or nice; or, as in the case of Timmy and Mandy, if you have been stupid or smart. After rendering their verdict I presume they program into the lifts (Vators) whether to take you to your destination or send you below. It must be some sophisticated programming to know when certain individuals who have been designated naughty and/or stupid step into one of those Vators. I wonder, if Timmy had gone in with the other kids, would they all be sent below? Or would Timmy have been spared? And what if he had taken the stairs as Mandy advised? Would he have been spared, at least until the next zero he gets on a test? And would he be doomed to taking the stairs for the rest of his life? We’ll never know because he stupidly (guess that zero was accurate) gets into the next Vator to come along and he is sent below. Apparently Timmy has no parents; or his parents don’t care about him. Apparently none of the parents in this world take any notice of their kids and if they have gone missing.

And what of all of these kids wandering about below because the Star Whale has rejected them? Who takes care of them? Feeds them? Clothes them? Why aren’t they sent back up to their parents? Oh yeah, because their parents don’t give a darn. And do they then live out their entire lives down there, or are they in a holding pattern until they reach a certain age when they become digestible?

There is no reason for these Smilers to be. Other than programming lifts they don’t seem to have any practical threat. Just stay clear of Smilers and lifts and you can get away with murder. Only the idiots like Timmy walk right into the trap.

Now what about this international glass of water test? Except it seems that it’s not universally known; you have to belong to a secret glass of water test club I guess. It’s lucky that it is a glass of water the Doctor takes. Otherwise I imagine Hawthorne saying, ‘Sorry, Ma’am, false alarm. It was a cup of tea he used not a glass of water.’ And why would the Doctor use his newly minted, million and one uses sonic screwdriver to check for engine vibrations when he has a handy glass of water to swipe?  Maybe it isn’t luck. With the prescience of the Queen, perhaps the London Market is under orders to serve nothing but water, and in real glasses; none of this plastic or Styrofoam cup nonsense.

The Queen. Ah yes, the Queen. Gun toting Liz Ten sitting all day in her room full of water glasses for ten year stretches before she decides to do anything. Children yanked from their families; malcontents sent to the cleaners—no wait—sent below, frowned upon, whatever; tentacles crashing up through the streets. “Basically, I rule” indeed. Basically she sits and stares at a couple dozen glasses of water. They are different sizes and depths, so maybe she periodically gives water glass concerts while she waits out her eternity for the Doctor to perform her club’s secret handshake; I mean water glass test.

The Smilers and the water glass test; these are mere symptoms. Let’s get down to the real disease of this plot. This forget-me-not Star Whale plot.

Let’s start with the giant whale in the room. Earth is burning, people are dying, children are screaming. The UK traps a Star Whale and has the time and money and resources and expertise to build a spaceship around it to house the country’s entire population and comes complete with Smilers and feeding tubes and torture chambers and voting booths and mind wipers and marketplaces—BUT THEY CAN’T BUILD AN ENGINE?

It is unforgivably contrived.

OK, so the entire population is as dumb as a post. Or at least as dumb as their queen who not only concocted this whale of an idea but also the voting scheme. Or I should say scam. Because it is a lie. There is no vote. There is no democracy at work. It’s either agree and forget or be eaten. So she built these voting chambers to give the people the illusion of democracy but it is really a means for her to get rid of rebels. But then why did she install a giant ‘Record’ button? What possible purpose does that serve? Oh, I know. The one and only purpose of this giant ‘Record’ button is so that Amy can tape her warning. (Which, by the way, she doesn’t heed as she spends the rest of the episode running around after the Doctor in her nightie and never once tries to make him leave.)

Are we supposed to believe that this Queen is benevolent and compassionate? Not only did she trap the whale for torture but she’s feeding her people to it. But it’s OK because she forgot she did that. And it is all in order to save her people. Her dumb as a post people who don’t even know how to build an engine. And she must be having pangs of guilt because every ten years or so she investigates what’s up with—not her disappearing people or the Smilers or the tentacles that are ripping holes in her roads—but with glasses of water that don’t show evidence of engine vibrations. And like clockwork, every ten years she once again chooses to forget; only to start the cycle all over again. Here’s an idea, Queenie: why don’t you write yourself a note, or make a recording like Amy, telling you to R-E-L-A-X?  (My apologies to Aaron Rodgers.) Let yourself know that it’s you behind the water thing and to just chill out and enjoy your water glass concerts in peace.

What of the whale? The Last of the Star Whales? How does the Queen even know that the Star Whale will eat people? What gave her the bright idea to feed the whale her subjects? What did the whale live on before? Flying through the universe, did it visit planets to devour populations? Can’t it feed itself as it flies around with a country on its back?

This rubbish heap of a narrative has all been carefully crafted to drive home its message. A message of the Doctor and of Amy.

The first clue is obvious. “We are observers only. That’s the one rule I’ve always stuck to in all my travels. I never get involved in the affairs of other peoples or planets.” That is a bald-faced lie. That is a statement only William Hartnell’s Doctor could make and mean. Perhaps early in this new regeneration the Doctor has reverted to his original personality. Except this statement is immediately followed by the Doctor rushing out to interfere. And now we get the point hammered in by Amy: “You never interfere in the affairs of other peoples or planets, unless there’s children crying?”

From there everything leads to the Sophie’s Choice dilemma: “Humanity or the alien.” It is why Amy chose to forget. She can’t remember why she forgot, but the Doctor tells her: “You took it upon yourself to save me from that.” The Doctor chastises her for this decision, which she can’t even remember and for all he knows isn’t accurate, and washes his hands of her. It’s his choice to make, by golly, and no one is going to stop him from doing the worst thing he will ever do. Because he only has three choices and each is equally reprehensible: “One, I let the Star Whale continue in unendurable agony for hundreds more years. Two, I kill everyone on this ship. Three, I murder a beautiful, innocent creature as painlessly as I can.”

Oh, how many things can I find wrong with this? Let me just list a few more options. One, he stops the torture but leaves the whale hooked up to fly Starship UK where it chooses. Two, he tries to communicate with the whale to find out what it is thinking and what its plans are and what further options are available. Three, he builds an engine for Starship UK. Four, he transports the entire population via the TARDIS to an acceptable location and frees the Star Whale. I don’t think it’s necessary to list any more, Gary. Pick an option, any option. Mix and match if you like.

But the Doctor doesn’t even stop to think that there could be alternate solutions to the problem. More humane solutions. Instead he is going to render the whale brain dead. Will the whale still require sustenance? Will the Doctor allow the continued feeding of the undesirables to the whale? Will the whale be able to navigate once it has no cognitive thought left? (Which begs the question—were the peoples of the Starship UK even directing the whale or were they just prodding it to continual motion, never mind where it was headed? What was their plan in that case? Just eternal movement through the heavens with no destination in mind? If that’s the case, why bother with torture? They’re strapped on; just go along for the ride. Why would they need to go any faster?) The Doctor does not think through any of these questions. He just doesn’t think.

The script never allows the Doctor to think. It never allows the Doctor to come up with a Doctor-like solution. The script very decidedly steers the Doctor to this impossible choice with no other options considered. It does this so that it can steer Amy to her action. “Notice everything.” “The last of its kind.” “It won’t eat the children.” Blah, blah, blah. Voila. Amy sees the message that the episode has been spelling out for all to see. The big shiny message. Here is her long-winded and reiterative explanation: “The Star Whale didn’t come like a miracle all those years ago. It volunteered. You didn’t have to trap it or torture it. That was all just you. It came because it couldn’t stand to watch your children cry. What if you were really old, and really kind and alone? Your whole race dead. No future. What couldn’t you do then? If you were that old, and that kind, and the very last of your kind, you couldn’t just stand there and watch children cry.” She says this as she looks pointedly at the Doctor.

OK. We get the message.

But here is where the show adds the insult to the injury. Because the show thinks we are stupid. And so the show has Amy yet again spell out the message in big block letters for the dumb as a post audience: “I’ve seen it before. Very old and very kind and the very, very last. Sound a bit familiar?”

Yes, it sounds familiar because it has been explicitly stated again and again. We get the message already.

And then, the last straw: the show breaks out the big scary crack. What this big scary crack is doing on a starship on the back of a giant space whale is beyond me. It has no reason for being other than to act as a signpost for the viewer. An ominous signpost of big scary crack stories to come.

At this point I will paraphrase the Doctor and say, ‘Nobody connected to New Who has anything to say to me today!’

I’m done, Gary. I’m through.