The Power of Three

Brian: What happens to the people who travel with you?
Doctor: Some leave, some get left behind and some, not very many, but some die.

The Power of Three is the foreshadowing bat slamming the viewer over the head. Originally this story was supposed to be called Cubed and I'm not sure why it was changed. But it strongly spells out that the end of the relationship between the Doctor and Amy and Rory is coming and what kind of end will truly be required to separate the group.

Plot Summary

Approximately ten years after their wedding (in Earth time), Amy and Rory have begun to settle down in to normal life with only the passing adventure with the Doctor. One night, billions of small black cubes appear all over the Earth. The cubes appear inert but also invulnerable. Suspicious of them, the Doctor enlists Amy, Rory and Rory's father Brian to study them.

Their studies are interrupted by the arrival of UNIT who noted an increase in Artron energy at Rory and Amy's house while studying the cubes themselves. UNIT is now led by Kate Stewart, daughter of Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart. The Doctor agrees to funnel all his findings to her to aid in the understanding of the cubes, which the Doctor and UNIT are convinced could be dangerous.

The Doctor becomes bored trying to study the cubes and leaves for several months. In the meantime, the cubes do not change and Amy and Rory settle in to a more stabilized life with Amy committing to be a bridesmaid at a friend's wedding months away and Rory being upgraded to full time employment at the hospital. Only Brian continues with his full study of the cubes, though they continue to do nothing.

The Doctor returns at the time of Amy's friend's wedding and he whisks Amy and Rory off for an anniversary present trip. That trip ends up lasting seven weeks though they arrive back at the reception as though they had only been gone for a few minutes. Brian confronts the Doctor about their adventuring and does force the Doctor to admit that there is danger, though he promises to keep the two of them safe.

The Doctor elects to stay for a bit and take up the study of the cubes again. It is during this stay that the cubes become active, each cube manifesting something different. Rory is called in to the hospital and takes his father with him to help. The Doctor and Amy head to the UNIT base under the Tower of London to continue to watch the cubes manifest their powers. The cubes suddenly revert back to their normal inert state and both the Doctor and Kate are confused at what is going on.

The Doctor heads out for some air and chats with Amy about her and Rory's plans to stop travelling with him. He reassures her that he understands but suddenly has an insight into what the cubes are doing. As he relates his theory of the cubes collecting human responses looking for their weakness, the cubes begin to countdown. The Doctor locks himself in a chamber with one as the countdown goes to zero but nothing happens. Confused, they checked monitors around the world. They are shocked to see that people in close proximity to cubes begin to go into cardiac arrest. The Doctor also has one of his heart's shut down, leaving him weakened.

Using the electrical signals being emanated by the cubes, they trace a power source back to the hospital that Rory works at. In the hospital, Brian runs into two orderlies who have been abducting people and taking them back to an alien spacecraft. They grab him and wheel him away. Rory sees them and chases after them, finding himself passing through a wormhole in the back of a service elevator and also on the spacecraft. The orderlies knock him out as well and place him with the others.

The Doctor and Amy arrive at the hospital where the Doctor discovers and shuts down the drone controlling the cubes from that location (posing as a little girl). Amy shocks the Doctor's inactive heart to get it going again and get him back to full strength. The Doctor follows the energy signature and discovers the wormhole. He and Amy pass through and end up on the alien ship.

On the ship, the Doctor wakes Rory and Brian and orders Amy and Rory to take Brian back to Earth. He then confronts a holographic image of a Shakri, an alien race who were related in Gallifrean fairy tales. The Shakri have deployed the cubes to destroy humanity before it can colonize space and displace other power factions. The Shakri begin to deploy the second wave attack and the interface disappears.

The Doctor takes over the controls of the cubes and sets a feedback look to create a electric pulse that will restart the hearts of all those affected on Earth. The feedback works but it also generates a large amount of energy in the ship. The Doctor, Amy and Rory (who had come back to help him) flee and jump through the wormhole just before the ship explodes.

With the Shakri neutralized, the Doctor prepares to head out. Brian encourages Amy and Rory to go with him as he can tell they want to continue to be with the Doctor. The Doctor offers to let him come too but Brian declines, stating that someone needs to stay behind and water the plants.

Analysis

This is a story that can be properly defined as unfocused. There are a lot of little scenes that are quite good but it is so disjointed and with so much missing information that it is hard to enjoy it as a whole product.

I enjoy Amy and Rory in this story. What's more, I like to see them passing on into normal life. We find Amy is a pretty good writer who writes on-line columns for magazines and that Rory is a good nurse and highly respected by his supervisors. There is no natural conflict between them and its nice to see them just enjoy each other's company like an average married couple does without any dramatic conflict coming in to upset the situation. It's also nice to see them assess their situation and decide that it is good enough to consider leaving the Doctor for.

The return of Brian is much appreciated as well. He is played for laughs a bit more in his steadfast dedication but his down-to-earth demeanor and common sense, including concern for Amy and Rory, remind me strongly of Wilfred Mott. He unfortunately is underutilized in this story but does shine well when he is around. I had been hoping that Brian's continued dedication to watching the cubes would be the source of the solution as the one person who stuck with what the Doctor told him. Instead it is played off as just another joke.

The Doctor is fairly good in this but his contrast is a bit much to take at times. Most of the story is a slow burn and the manic energy of the Doctor is a strong counterbalance to that. It plays well for laughs at the beginning, especially with his constant chores while Amy and Rory watch the cubes. But after things get serious, his manic energy starts to clash with the tone of the overall story. His best moment at that point is when he sits quietly, staring at the counting-down cube. It plays like a game of chicken with the Doctor almost daring the cube to get to zero and do something nasty. That moment gets upended with the shutting down of the Doctor's heart and his overplaying of his discomfort.

One of the best things about this story is the introduction of Kate Stewart. She is a bit raw in her characterization and obviously a little awed by the Doctor, but still a good character with a nice connection back to the past. Her continued development in further stories has rounded her out and smoothed the rough patches first seen here, but the fundamental basics of character are here and given a lot to build with.

There are a lot of unanswered questions in this story and I feel like there might have been extra material filmed that was then cut out. We are never given any information on what the orderlies are or why they abduct people to take back to the ship. Similarly, we are never told if they are dead or just beyond hope because no effort is made to save them, meaning they are incinerated when the ship explodes. The girl is removed from the situation very quickly by the Doctor with only a passing bit of dialogue given to note that she is some sort of directing drone that was somehow never noticed in the seven months between the cube's appearance and things happening.

We are also not given any real information on the plans of the Shakri. In the conversation between the hologram and the Doctor, there is a sense that the Shakri are agents who have been hired to destroy humanity by someone else rather than initiating the idea themselves. But there is no follow up to that, no further information on their race. They are just a legend confirmed and once a ship is destroyed, everything goes back to normal.

Even the attack is waved off in a simple manner with the Doctor shocking everyone back to normal. Except that after four minutes of an inactive heart, the brain will begin to die from lack of oxygen. It is possible to revive someone from beyond this point, but significant damage will have been done to their system. It is very hard to believe that the Doctor sees everyone suffer cardiac arrest, get to the hospital, get to the ship and restart everyone in a span of four minutes. While I know much of this story is played for comedy, little things like that are a bit too much unreality to swallow.

The direction in this story was pretty good with some nice camera work. However, the director does get caught up in the afflictions of J. J. Abrams as there are a few prominent lens flairs here and there which serve no purpose. They don't seem to add to the mood of the scene and I couldn't see a situation where they might designate a certain set of circumstances to follow. Instead, they simply seem to be there because they look cool to the director.

Overall, I'd have to call this one middling. Individual scenes are good and some of the comedy works very well. But there are threads that don't go anywhere and the whole resolution is rushed with a number of unresolved questions. It's an easy and fun ride, but it's not a story that is going to make anyone's preferred list.

Overall personal score: 2.5 out of 5