"I'm the bloody queen, mate, and basically I rule." Also the moral dilemma at the end, and the "very, very old, and very, very kind", and the mirroring of the whale and the Doctor.

Thanks for taking the series up. I'm sure you'll do great with it :)

I'm a bit surprised to hear Moffat holds this episode in low regard. I quite enjoyed it. I particularly liked that only the Queen - the person at the very top - had any real power to save the Star Whale. Everyone else who protested was silenced by the very people who gave them the option. It's an interesting discussion to have about power dynamics.

Also, "I'm the bloody Queen, mate. Basically, I rule."

It's interesting that Moffat's one episode to not be bound by the structures of the overall story arc for the series during the Smith era (well, the only one with his name on it) is this one. Rather than a structural timey-wimey piece like Blink or something that's generally regarded as pushing some sort of narrative boundaries within the series it's in (as with S1 and S4) we have this thing. Which is kind of weird in comparison, right?

It's almost like Moffat doing Davies, it's his most political Doctor Who episode in a lot of ways. Or, at least, it's his Doctor Who episode most about political institutions. Many of his others feature themes of feminism and social change, but not politics as an institution. Instead you have a searing indictment of the UK. It sees itself as an island that stands alone, adrift in space, cut off from everyone else. It functions only by oppressing an underclass (as it were) that people actively choose to ignore and forget about. Every five years people choose to forget what they know in order to perpetuate the system and continue to maintain it. All the while the undying, unyielding queen seems like a benign figure but actively participated in the original oppression of this underclass, even as she tries to forget.

And yet.... I get where Moffat is coming from in his comments on the show. I dunno. Maybe it's the refusal to go all the way - Liz X still comes off well in how she's portrayed even as she's not written sympathetically, technically. There are silly moments when I think there shouldn't be. It's juggling too much, what with being a companion's first outing and all.

You can see what Moffat was going for, and you can see all the good in the script, but at the same time you can see why he never attempted this again and was scared off. The solo episodes he did in later series that weren't plot related were Listen and (kinda) Extremis. And they're very different things. And I think it's a shame, because I don't think the flaw was the premise. It was just doing a little too much. I do hope he gets political (re:institutions) again in other shows, he so rarely does it.

I really like the two voting options in this one - very well done social commentary.

Liz 10

Scotland having its own ship

The acting

Mandy

The music

Yes, I liked Sophie's role. But the episode, no criticism, felt too much like the start of The Matrix, red pill vs blue pill.

The clockwork felt a bit...does clockwork still exist in today's age, by and large? You usually see stuff like this on Antiques Roadshow, The Repair Shop, and the like. Again, this is my observation.

From the promising start we had at the end of the previous episode, this seemed...quite mad.

@Kevin 'Chalky' Kaiba I'm not sure I follow what you mean about the "clockwork".

@Kevin 'Chalky' Kaiba Mad in a good way? Or a bad way? And what do you mean about the clockwork?

I loved the doctors disgust at humanity

@FH2104 and @Aquanafrahudy, it's the wind-up tech that's everywhere aboard ship. I mean, you hardly see that by and large in today's world, do you?

By mad, I just mean it was...well, mad, rather like 11's personality.