Doctor Who - The Beast Below

The Doctor constantly has some tough choices to make in his travels, but "The Beast Below" may have given him one of his toughest yet.

*Spoiler time, kids*

At first all we know is something big and bad is happening on the Starship UK, but that is all. Oh, and it is something big and bad enough that Amy sends a message to herself telling her to stop The Doctor from investigating the goings on of the space-age British Empire.

Then we find what is at the center of it all, and it is rather quite sad.

It turns out there is a creature guiding the ship, and it is being tortured to keep it going.

Once The Doctor finds the Beast, he has to decide what to do with it. Does he let it keep being tortured to protect the people onboard, set the creature free and kill an entire civilization in the process, or lobotomize the creature so it no longer feels the pain it has to endure? The Doctor is ready to set into motion option number three, but in the final moments Amy gets a realization that changes everything.

"Open your eyes," The Doctor had told her when they first arrived in the ship. Thank God for everyone that she listened to him. For she was the one who noticed how the creature behaved around the children. And, looking at The Doctor, she remembered what Liz Ten said about when they first found the creature. And she was the one who realized that they didn't need to torture the Beast for it to continue moving the ship.

"If you were that old and that kind and the last of your kind, you couldn't just stand there and watch children cry," she told them. (Quote of the night)

This episode showed the hard choices The Doctor has to make in his life. It also reminded us that sometimes he doesn't have all the answers and needs someone to show him the right path. Funny that another red-head teaches him this lesson, as Donna was best at doing this for him (as demonstrated by the Series 4 episode "Turn Left"). This season looks to be just as much Amy's story as it is The Doctor's.

As always, BBC America gives us a behind the scenes look at the latest episode with Doctor Who Confidential. This gave us a behind the scenes look at everything from cast reactions to set design.




Next week we're going to get the return of the Daleks and... Winston Churchill? That should be interesting. So tune in next week at 9pm on BBC America for another great adventure with The Doctor and his companion, Amy.