Doctor Who fans there have been alot of people who have payed The Doctor both in terms of canon and those that aren't considered canon. So since my last Doctor Who themed post dealt with a Doctor that wasn't canon I thought that i'd deal with an episode featuring a Doctor that is canon and well since i'm only reviewing things that I own right now that really did leave me with a very small amount of choices and so here is my review of the first episode of series 5 of the modern era "The Eleventh Hour" geronimo!!! Doctor Who fans.
The plot of the episode is a newly regenerated Doctor has just twenty minuets to save the earth before it's melted. I have to admit that the story for this episode was rather enjoyable it did a good job of mixing the seriousness of the earth being under threat with some slapstick moments as well some cool moments near the end of the episode , the episode also did a good job of handling the idea that the Doctor is an alien with the character at a few points in the story acting rather quirky something which hasn't been seen in alot of modern Doctor Who.
Being introduced in this episode is Matt Smith as The Doctor , Karen Gillan as Amy Pong , Caitlin Blackwood as Amelia aka young Amy Pond and Arthur Darvill as Rory Williams. Also starring in the episode are Nina Wadia as Dr Ramsden , Marcello Magni as Barney Collins , Annette Crosbie as Mrs Angelo , Tom Hopper as Jeff , Arthur Cox as Mr Henderson , Olivia Colman as Mother , David de Keyser as the voice of the Atraxi , William Wilde as the voice of Prisoner Zero and Patrick Moore as Himself.
In terms of what I thought about the acting in the episode it honesty wasn't that bad since like I said alot of the actors in this episode are playing these roles for the first time and so you would have forgiven them if they didn't give that good of a performance in this episode but no they knocked out of the park. As did alot of the guest actors with alot of them getting some really funny lines of dialog and like the main cast are really likeable as well.
Doing the CGI for the film is the ever trustworthy The Mill who have done all of the CGI for the show since 2005. So i'm glad to say that the CGI in this episode is actually really good with the episode making use of some nice looking green screen effects which given that this episode aired in 2010 i'm surprised that the green screen effects hold up as well as they do. Even the fully CGI aliens like Prisoner Zero and The Atraxi still look really good.
What really did shock me when doing some research for this review is that the company that did some of the effects for films such as Avengers: Infinity War , Avengers: Endgame and some of the Harry Potter films Framestore did the new title sequence. I honestly didn't know this but it's something that shocked me because i'm a fan of there work having love all of the effects for alot of the films that they work on and so to find out that they worked on a British institution like Doctor Who is to me a goof thing since they do produce good looking effects.
New production team means that we get a new TARDIS control room design and I have to say that I really like the look of this new TARDIS. I'm not going to say that it's the best looking one because honestly if you ask any Doctor Who fan that question you'll get a ton of different answers but I will say that this one suits the Doctors mad man in a box type of personality with the design looking very alien and strange.
Something which I think both works for and against the episode is the fact that it picks up metre moments after The End Of Time ends. It works to it's advantage because that episode had alot of people watching it and so of course there going to see the first episode with a new Doctor. However this is where it works to it's disadvantage because this episode could have been used as a way to draw in new fans since it's a new era of the show but by starting the episode right after the previous one means that newer fans are going to have homework to and no one wants to watch several previous episodes just to understand one scene.
Another thing that I personally don't like about the episode s the fact that it's an hour long and the reason why I don't like it is because there's not enough story to cover that running time. If anything the episode should have been forty five to fifty minuets adding in that extra time means things that would normally be explained in one scene now take several scenes because they need to fill up the run time which should never be the case the running time should always be decided by how much story there is and not the over way around.
What I wished that the episode spent a little bit more time on is the history that Amy and The Doctor shared since was honestly a really interesting thin to see play out and it even led to few really good jokes. However tho that aspect of the story seemed to get dropped pretty quickly which is a shame because I was honestly enjoying seeing it play out but I understand that this is basically a kids show and kids aren't going to like that story so while I liked it I fully get why they didn't go that much into the story.
Another thing that I wished that the episode spent a little bit more time on is the villain which they really could have done given it's just over an hour long. The fact that they didn't fully develop Prisoner Zero to me makes the character one of the more weaker villains that the modern ear of Doctor Who has ever produced since we don;t get to find out why he or she is a villain and while there was a line written and i;m guessing filmed saying Prisoner Zero had impersonated an army and invaded a planet it was cut for some reason.
Overall this was a rather fun episode to revisit and is honestly an episode that I would recommend to people wanting to get into Doctor Who since it is a new era for the show. Steven Moffat said in the commentary for this episode that he wanted the show to feel both new and old at the same time and in my opinion he did achieve that since there are elements that old Doctor Who fans will like and there are stuff to entice new fans but with all of that being said the episode does have some issues which i've covered in this review as such the episode gets an 8.5 out of 10 from me.