I enjoyed the episode more than most, mostly due to the continuity porn tie-in to "The Ark in Space." I totally would have missed that had I not just rewatched "The Ark in Space" last week. But I would agree that there were a lot of half-baked ideas in the script. The Smilers, the giant scorpion tails, and the opening teaser with the child seemingly sent down into the fiery abyss seemed to be more like frightening imagery rather than something that made sense within the ultimate context of the story.
Agreed. Angry Matt Smith here reminded me of many of David Tennant's worst moments.
It's possible that the solar flares were far less severe than anticipated. Thus, the Earth was suitable for repopulation less than 1000 years later, making it totally possible for "The Dalek's Master Plan" & "The Talons of Weng Chiang" to still happen. Meanwhile, Space Station Nerva was just sitting up there in space, totally unawares, letting all of these repopulations pass them by until, many tens of thousands of years later, Earth went back to being an irrelevant, sparsely populated backwater like we saw in "The Sontaran Experiment."
It's a recurring theme, both here and in "Children of Earth." Students who score poorly on school tests will be fed to space aliens for "the greater good." Are you Brits having any sort of political problems with your education system that I haven't heard about?
Uhhh, Earth 2?
I was wondering when someone else was going to pick up on that "Idiot's Lantern" reference.
I'm looking forward to the upcoming Winston Churchill meets the Daleks story. That looks like a lot of fun.
Random idea: Maybe the Doctor can, at some point, run into the original Captain Jack Harkness.
Concerningly, after loving Matt last week his "anger-acting" wasn't very strong here.
Agreed. Angry Matt Smith here reminded me of many of David Tennant's worst moments.
It was okay, nothing too special really if you ask me. Felt a little bit confusing and muddled in parts. The Smilers started off as quite scary and evil, but in the end they didn't really do much at all. Also, is the exodus from Earth in the 29th century intended to be the same one referred to way back in the Fourth Doctor story The Ark in Space, where Earth was abandoned for about ten thousand years? If so, that's a major blunder in continuity, as many past stories depict Earth as still inhabited and powerful in the timeframe this story is set in. Mavic Chen was the Guardian of the Terran Solar System in the year 4000 (The Dalek's Master Plan), and there were still plenty of nations existing on the planet by the beginning of the 51st century, as we know from The Talons of Weng Chiang. Is Earth mentioned at all in Planet of the Ood, set in the 42nd century?
It's possible that the solar flares were far less severe than anticipated. Thus, the Earth was suitable for repopulation less than 1000 years later, making it totally possible for "The Dalek's Master Plan" & "The Talons of Weng Chiang" to still happen. Meanwhile, Space Station Nerva was just sitting up there in space, totally unawares, letting all of these repopulations pass them by until, many tens of thousands of years later, Earth went back to being an irrelevant, sparsely populated backwater like we saw in "The Sontaran Experiment."
And what did Timmy do to get scolded by the Smiler like that in the classroom? I don't know about anyone else, but that was the saddest part of the episode for me, when all the kids got let off 'cept him.![]()
He got a zero, presumably in a test of some sort.
It's a recurring theme, both here and in "Children of Earth." Students who score poorly on school tests will be fed to space aliens for "the greater good." Are you Brits having any sort of political problems with your education system that I haven't heard about?

Where were they going that they still needed the whale after the cleared the sun's rays?
Uhhh, Earth 2?

Magpie Electricals!
I was wondering when someone else was going to pick up on that "Idiot's Lantern" reference.
I'm looking forward to the upcoming Winston Churchill meets the Daleks story. That looks like a lot of fun.
Random idea: Maybe the Doctor can, at some point, run into the original Captain Jack Harkness.