Overall, I did not like this episode. Yes, I know that you're shocked.
The Doctor gets a message on the psychic paper, and he and his Companions show up at the estate where the message is coming from. They split up to search for the sender, and the Doctor meets Georgie, a little boy who is terrified of everything. When something scares Georgie, he puts it in the cupboard.
While Amy and Rory are searching, they get into a lift which seemingly falls out of control. When they land, they find that they are in a house, and no one else is around.
Meanwhile, an old lady on the estate as well as the landlord disappear; the old lady gets sucked into a pile of garbage bags, and the landlord gets sucked into the floor. They both also end up in this house. Some terrifying, nightmare-inducing life-sized dolls grab the landlord, and he turns into a doll as well. And then, guess what? Amy gets turned into a doll, too!
Back at the ranch, the Doctor is working with Georgie's father to try to figure out what's going on. Suddenly, both the Doctor and Georgie's dad get sucked into the cupboard and also end up in the house. Because it's actually the dollhouse that's inside the cupboard! But Georgie faces his fears and everything turns out okay. Except for Georgie, who is really an alien who got himself adopted by his Earth parents and changed their memories slightly so that they thought he was really theirs. And he doesn't know it. I dunno.
Repeat Ideas:
1) Really? The Doctor saves another child from a scary monster? I suppose this isn't a shock, as Doctor Who is (supposedly) a children's show, but haven't we had enough of this from Moffat for a while?
2) I'm not really sure why I'm putting this next item here, but instinct says it goes here: Amy and Rory are miniaturized and put into the dollhouse. So weird ... why would I think this is a repeat? That time when they got miniaturized and transferred into the head of that robot thing was like forever ago - what? OH MY GOD! THAT WAS ONLY THE LAST EPISODE?!?!
3) The idea of planted memories of children has been done before - anyone remember Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead? Seriously, does Moffat just have a list of plots that he goes over every time he gets a story pitched to him and says, "that's great, but instead of an original idea, why don't we use this one? We haven't used that storyline in four episodes. Let's just change one or two things and people will think it's totally original". (And yes, he absolutely says that just like a Valley Girl.) Look, I understand that there are what, two or three basic plots in the world that just keep getting used over and over and over, but those are simple ideas. Moffat keeps reusing very specific plot devices. Oh, and also, this reeked of Dawn.
Dislikes:
1) I didn't like Georgie. To be specific, I didn't like the actor. And I feel bad about that, because he's just a kid. I think I've been spoiled by Amelia Pond.
2) Wow, they could have really done a fantastic job with the dollhouse idea. I LOVE the concept, but it was so half-assed. With the exception of the doll's eye and the copper pot, everything else was scaled to Amy and Rory's size, NOT to dollhouse size. Have the set designers ever seen a dollhouse? Unless it's Colleen Moore's Fairy Castle (the weeping willow cries real tears!) or the Thorne Miniature Rooms, most dollhouse furniture is NOT to scale, especially a cheap dollhouse like Georgie would have. Yeah, that dollhouse as a whole was way too elaborate. I love the idea, and I'd love to see it done well, but then it would have to move to the top section of the blog ...
3) Since when does the Doctor knock on doors? Something about that really irritated me. I supposed it shouldn't, but it did.
4) The second hand of the clock in the kitchen doesn't move. Normally this stuff doesn't bother me, but that's because it's not noticeable. During the entire scene in the kitchen, I was staring at the clock and actually had to rewind to see what had happened.
Likes:
1) Psychic paper! I love the psychic paper. I can't remember where I read this, but apparently Russell T. Davies invented the psychic paper to cut out all the explaining that the Doctor has to do so often. Just - here ya go, this is who I am, doesn't it look official? Also, I cannot stress enough how happy I am that Georgie didn't call the Doctor. I love it when psychic paper is used as a message board.
2) I loved the Doctor in this episode - more proof that I like him when he's not with Amy. I love the exchange he has with Georgie's dad about opening and not opening the cupboard.
3) When Rory and Amy tumble out of the lift, Rory says something like, "we're dead - again!" I love that he hasn't actually died for a while.
Here ya go:
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