Dinosaurs on a Spaceship review [Chris Chibnall]

It's all there in the title.

When and Where: A Silurian ark. For Amy and Rory, this is ten months after Asylum of the Daleks. It's been quite some time for the Doctor as well.

The Doctor's Case:

• A time-travelling nurse who collects bits of medical technology from the future to help during his adventures. It's a shame we never got to see Rory as the main or sole companion because one throwaway line made him more interesting than he's ever been. It's easy to forget that he's a nurse and it's good to see him away from his wife, teamed up with the Doctor and his father. Amy was terrible in series 5 and improved dramatically with series 6, but it's nice to see her as such a pleasant person in the build-up to her leaving.
• We've had Jackie Tyler, Wilfred Mott, Sylvia Noble and (considerably less successfully) Francine Jones, but in Moffat's era we've been missing out on the companions' family members. Amy's parents were rewritten into reality in The Pandorica Opens/The Big Bang and we've not seen or heard anything of Augustus or Tabetha Pond since, nor Amy's aunt and legal guardian Sharon. At last, just as Amy and Rory are about to leave, we meet Rory's father Brian, who's something of a Hobbit in that he's a normal man with a few old-man quirks who opens his eyes to the wonder of adventure. Brian Williams would have been a great part of the series if we'd met him early on. We could have learnt of Rory's feelings towards Amy through him and had a connection to Earth's invasions... Still, better late than never.
• The dinosaurs are very impressive for a BBC TV series. They're used sparingly but always look great, even when the pterodactyls attacking the Doctor and the Williamses could have looked like Birdemic.

The Valeyard's Case:

• A Bad Quotation:
• "Dad, I'm thirty-one. I don't have a Christmas list anymore." / "I DO!"
• Ancient Egypt, the ISA, the African plains, London, a spaceship... Moffat first did the jumping thing in The Time of Angels/Flesh and Stone, where it was fresh and new and exciting. Then we saw it in The Pandorica Opens/The Big Bang, where it effectively drew together the previous stories of the series by having a number of previous guest stars return across space and time. Then we had Day of the Moon, where it was unnecessary but quite the spectacle. Now even the other writers have started doing it. It's become quite tiresome and is no longer the awe-inspiring thing it once was.
• The Doctor's never needed a gang before. How lucky he happened to bring one made up of the perfect people for the story of the week. Brian's needed to pilot the ship because he shares genes with Rory, Riddell is a game hunter who proves to be good at shooting dinosaurs and Nefertiti is valuable and allows Solomon to move the plot along by kidnapping her. Brian allows us to see a little more of Amy and Rory's life before they depart (and until now we've only seen Amy's parents and only briefly), but the other two are entirely unnecessary.
• Ever since the Eighth Doctor and Grace Holloway, the Doctor has become more and more a romantic character. He fell in love with Rose, slept with Queen Elizabeth I and kissed (or was kissed by) Reinette, Christina de Souza, River, Joan Redfern, Donna, the TARDIS (in Idris's body), Astrid Peth, Cassandra (in Rose's body), Martha, Captain Jack and Amy. With Moffat, he's become increasingly sexual a character and here we have Queen Nefertiti lusting for him and Riddell telling us of two disappointed dancers. It's gross. Not only is it gross, but it's pointless and does absolutely nothing for the character other than confirming Clara's later claim in The Bells of Saint John that the TARDIS is his snog box.
• It's ten months later for Amy and Rory and they're living as happily as ever, in which case the divorce drama from Asylum of the Daleks was not only forced but entirely inconsequential. There was absolutely no point to that subplot.
• Solomon deserved to die, yes, but the Doctor wouldn't really leave him there knowing he'd die. He's not a Dalek, after all. He's a man. 
• The robots aren't funny.

I'll Explain Later:

• The Doctor disagrees with Solomon selling dinosaurs but is friends with a man who hunts down and kills animals?
• Why ride the triceratops? Running would probably be quicker given how slowly it seems to move.
• If the Silurians had space-travel technology as advanced as the ark, why are there small pockets of Silurians still on Earth? Why didn't they all take to the skies to wait it out?

This Reminds Me...:

• The Doctor had an adventure with dinosaurs in his third incarnation (Invasion of the Dinosaurs).
• Amy and Rory met Silurians early on in their travels (The Hungry Earth/Cold Blood)

The Inquisitor's Judgement: Dinosaurs on a Spaceship is one of the worst Doctor Who story titles around and, whilst it's not the worst Doctor Who story, it's not very good. Nothing really lands - the robots aren't funny, Nefertiti and Riddell feel like they've both been cut from another episode so they decided to get it on this one, and Solomon is a villain who's become retroactively memorable because he's played by David Bradley (AKA, the third First Doctor). The plot isn't incompetent but it's just not very good and a big step down from Asylum of the Daleks. This episode is very bad and that earns it an E.

Doctor Who (Series 7)

Asylum of the Daleks  |  Dinosaurs on a Spaceship  |  A Town Called Mercy