DOCTOR WHO: "The Beast Below" and "Victory of the Daleks" (no spoilers)

Two more episodes of Eleven. "The Beast Below" was decent -- more in line with "The Girl in the Fireplace" than any of Moffat's other episodes, in terms of quality -- and had a nice feel to it; I got the impression it was more about showing off the sensibilities of this season, and of the Moffat years, than anything else. Smith was really solid, and Karen Gillan had a great part, and the guest stars were terrific. The episode was a little dopey, but it felt more like a kids' show than DOCTOR WHO has in recent years, and it was pretty fun.

Mark Gatiss's "Victory of the Daleks," OTOH, was the season's first real clunker. I haven't seen CONFIDENTIAL, but I really wonder about the origins of this script -- if you read DOCTOR WHO: THE WRITER'S TALE, you learn that Gatiss had a WW2 episode a couple of years back for RTD that I think actually got delayed/dropped twice. I wonder if this episode was it, rewritten a couple of times (Davies kept mentioning the British Museum in conjunction with the Gatiss WW2 episode, but it doesn't show up in the show as aired). VotD has a really weird feel to it, like a bunch of scenes got cut for time and others were padded; either they spent all the money on the brief effects sequences, or they decided to cut the episode to the bone and use the money on other episodes. It felt like a throwback to the classic series, in a way, with overlong scenes taking place on literally three or four sets, like Moffat threw Gatiss a "Tomb of the Cybermen" challenge. Smith felt not quite as on as his other episodes, too -- was this the first episode they shot? Browsing the filming spy reports, it seems that way.

I need an Eleven icon, I think.

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