Dinosaurs on a Spaceship

Guys, comedy gold. Where's a Silurian audience when you need one?


Plot Summary

After helping Queen Nefertiti of Egypt the Doctor receives a signal from 24th century Earth. A space ship has been detected heading towards Earth and they can't signal it. He volunteers to investigate it and change it's course. The head of the space agency tells him that if he does not, they will be forced to destroy it.

The Doctor gathers a team to go along with Queen Nefertiti. He collects a big game hunter named John Riddell as well as Rory and Amy. However, when materializing around Rory and Amy, he scoops up Rory's dad Brian as well. Together they materialize on the ship where two ankylosaurs run down a hall. Fascinated, the Doctor finds a control panel and when investigating, accidentally transports himself, Brian and Rory to the engine room, which utilizes tidal power. They are chased off the beach of the engine room by a flock of pterodactyls and take refuge in a nearby passageway.

Following the Doctor's disappearance, Amy, Nefertiti and Riddell walk through the ship until they find a control panel in a small arboretum. Accessing a database, Amy discovers that the ship is an ark launched by the Silurians when they believed the moon would impact Earth rather than be captured by it. She also discovers that while the dinosaur population has been maintained, the Silurians are all gone.

The Doctor, Rory and Brian are collected by two robots who take them down to a docking bay. On their way to the docking bay, the trio runs into a Triceratops who takes a liking to Brian and the golf balls he has stored in his pockets. They continue on and the Doctor is taken to see Solomon, a trader and pirate who boarded and killed the Silurian crew when they refused to sell some of their dinosaurs to him. Solomon threatens the life of Rory and Brian if he doesn't repair his artificial legs which were created by his robots after he was attacked by a group of raptors. The Doctor does repair the damage, but also learns that Solomon can't steer the ship and it's guidance system implemented a return to Earth program following the attempts to override the controls.

After finishing with Solomon, the Doctor, Rory and Brian flee while Solomon sends his robots after them. They climb aboard the triceratops they met earlier and escape the robots. Reaching another control panel, the Doctor discovers that Earth is launching the missiles to destroy the ship and they will impact in about fifteen minutes.

Solomon and the robots teleport near the Doctor, telling him that since missiles are approaching, he is leaving without the dinosaurs. But he also mentions that in his scans, he detected Queen Nefertiti and demands her. He kills the triceratops to demonstrate his seriousness and prepares to kill the others. Nefertiti, Amy and Riddell teleport to the Doctor's location and Nefertiti gives herself up to Solomon who then teleports with her back to his ship.

A warning signal pops up on screen of the missiles locking on and the Doctor gets an idea. He and the rest teleport to the control room and the Doctor activates a magnetic lock, preventing Solomon's ship from escaping. He also notices that the controls of the ship are tied to run with two people of the same genepool. He has Brian and Rory take the controls while Amy and Riddell keep watch and hold off a group of juvenile T-Rexes that are trying to enter with stun guns.

With the ship moving away from Earth, the Doctor dislodges the signal transponder that the missiles have locked on to. He then teleports to Solomon's ship and disables his robots. Nefertiti breaks loose, knocking down Solomon in the process, and she and the Doctor leave Solomon's ship with the Doctor leaving the transponder behind. He then demagnetizes the ship and Solomon's ship shoots away from the Silurian transport and into space. The missiles follow Solomon's ship and destroy it.

The Doctor returns Rory and Amy home and Nefertiti opts to stay with Riddell on his big game hunt. Brian however, travels with the Doctor to see the dinosaurs established on a new planet they christen Siluria.

Analysis

A lot of folks dismiss Dinosaurs on a Spaceship as overly silly but I disagree. I think it's a lot of fun and a lot darker than people give it credit for. In fact, it is one of the only instances we get of the dark and angry Eleventh Doctor.

I always like the Tenth Doctor when he would give up on negotiation and mercy and just extract vengeance and it was rare to see that in the Eleventh Doctor because he was so much of a negotiator. Here, he is finally confronted with a situation that is non-negotiable and he gives in to those dark tendencies that the Eleventh Doctor kept so well hidden, though even here he hides them behind a mask of cheerfulness. But when he turns as Solomon begs for mercy, he pointedly asks if the Silurians begged for mercy and then walks out. He doesn't show the anger or even much of the cold fury that the Tenth Doctor did, but there is a coldness in his voice, given an unsettling edge by his cheery demeanor in how he delivers the death sentence. It is quite enjoyable.

The gang is interesting although a bit underused as you might expect in a 45-minute story. Brian is obviously brought along for the plot device of being able to steer the ship but he at least is used well for comic relief and to get a touch of depth in with Rory. Rory also does well in bonding with his dad and the two of them function as the true companions in this story.

The other three are highly underused except for some light comic relief and the plot device of giving Solomon something to take and be rescued at the end in the form of Nefertiti. Riddell does even less as his only scene where he does something of value is to hold off some dinosaurs and even then he is with Amy. Amy at least gets some crack lines and functions as a mini-Doctor with two inexperienced companions. I suspect that Chris Chibnall had some extra ideas for Nefertiti and Riddell but was forced to cut them for time.

What I wish could have been cut instead were the two robots. Solomon is an excellent villain: cold, shrewd and merciless. He is a good foe and it is also quite satisfying when he dies. His robots though are just terrible. They were voiced by a comedy duo but their jokes were lame at best and their delivery was pretty poor as well. It needed to be much sharper as a harsher sarcasm would have improved things a bit. It also was a bit lame that when the Doctor, Rory and Brian are escaping on the triceratops, the robots develop stormtrooper aim and couldn't hit such a large and relatively slow moving target. So in either case of how the robots were to be portrayed (henchmen or comic relief), they didn't deliver and pulled down a pretty good villain.

One of the complaints I've heard regarding this story is that the plot is too simple but I didn't see anything wrong with that. There was problem that manifested itself, the Doctor worked at it, thwarted the villain and saved the ship. Contrast to other stories, I don't recall too many instances where I felt the story was padding itself. I think the biggest one was the stuff with the triceratops and that was a by-product of desperately wanting the visual of the Doctor riding a triceratops. It could have been cut but some dinosaurs other than the initial viewing and the juvenile T-Rexes needed to be in to help justify the title.

Regarding the dinosaurs, I thought they did a pretty good job as far as the CGI goes. There were one or two moments where it looked a little bit janky, but for the most part, I thought the integration went well. It helped that the ship was kept dark and that smoothed over what could have been some rough spots where they could fudge in the darkness. But overall, I thought it a pretty good effort and can't recall any significant instance where I was pulled out of the story due to the visual effects.

Overall, I think this is a far better story than it is generally given credit for. Remove the robots (or upgrade their personalities) and give the other companions a little more to do and I think this would be a grand adventure story with a dark twist. It's about as dark as you'll see the Eleventh Doctor get which is a rare sight indeed. At the very least, it is a fun adventure with a good amount of comedy to lighten the mood but not so much as to ruin the darker tone. I'd happily pop this one in at any time for a fun romp.

Overall personal score: 4.5 out of 5