5x02 The Beast Below (Grading/Discussion) (SPOILERS!)

[The]

Someone said that Eleven's clothes look like Buckaroo Banzai

^^ Not as much as Orville Redenbacher

Well if we're gonna play this game...

The wisdom and age of Orville, the ability to travel between dimensions of Buckaroo, and the zaniness of Peewee.

You're brilliant.

 

[Venardhi]

Ya know, an easy way to validate the Smilers presence throughout the ship (other than just as an obvious creepy government-is-watching-you image) would have been for them to act as guides and info kiosks. The Doctor could run up to one and tap on the glass, ask it for directions or something and have it answer in turn, then later have the little girl explain that no one uses them for that anymore in a spooky ominous kind of way.

 

[David_Leese]

To answer the question up-thread about being offended by the Queen being black - no, it didn't offend me - it's so many years in the future, anything could happen, and the idea didn't even nudge my 'offence radar'.

What did irk me though, was Starship Home Counties. Middlesex, London, Kent, Surrey... living slightly further north than that, I was moderately ticked off that there was never a mention of e.g. Cumbria, Staffordshire, Derbyshire, Cheshire... were we meant to be seeing the coast or something?

I thought this new series was meant to be less London-centric, and was disappointed that UK (minus Scotland) now only stretches 100 miles or so from London.

Otherwise, I took the story at face value, assumed that the starwhale was providing energy for the ship and enjoyed it.

 

[Bob The Skutter]

^I spotted Yorkshire...

 

[DimesDan]

^I spotted Yorkshire...

And Lancashire was mentioned while they were inside the Star Whale.

 

[Checkmate]

Ya know, an easy way to validate the Smilers presence throughout the ship (other than just as an obvious creepy government-is-watching-you image) would have been for them to act as guides and info kiosks. The Doctor could run up to one and tap on the glass, ask it for directions or something and have it answer in turn, then later have the little girl explain that no one uses them for that anymore in a spooky ominous kind of way.

Their purpose was demonstrated in the very opening scene of the show. They were teachers and offered warnings (by changing their face) when people were doing things they weren't supposed to be doing. They weren't aggressive or intentionally "evil" or anything; just an automated work force responsible for law enforcement, education, and probably other similar civil duties. The Winders, on the other hand, were there to keep things running and act as backup when the Smilers weren't able to perform their duty.

At least that's what I got from it. People only feared them because they were impartial disciplinarians, and they knew people disappeared from time to time. Which wasn't a function of the Smilers so much as the Queen and the Winders behind the scenes.

 

[davejames]

I have a feeling this will be one of those episodes 20 years from now that people will be calling one of the extremely underrated ones.

 

[Venardhi]

Ya know, an easy way to validate the Smilers presence throughout the ship (other than just as an obvious creepy government-is-watching-you image) would have been for them to act as guides and info kiosks. The Doctor could run up to one and tap on the glass, ask it for directions or something and have it answer in turn, then later have the little girl explain that no one uses them for that anymore in a spooky ominous kind of way.

Their purpose was demonstrated in the very opening scene of the show. They were teachers and offered warnings (by changing their face) when people were doing things they weren't supposed to be doing. They weren't aggressive or intentionally "evil" or anything; just an automated work force responsible for law enforcement, education, and probably other similar civil duties. The Winders, on the other hand, were there to keep things running and act as backup when the Smilers weren't able to perform their duty.

At least that's what I got from it. People only feared them because they were impartial disciplinarians, and they knew people disappeared from time to time. Which wasn't a function of the Smilers so much as the Queen and the Winders behind the scenes.

One in a classroom being a teacher doesn't really do well to show their purpose being in every hallway and room on the ship.

 

[The Mirrorball Man]

I have a feeling this will be one of those episodes 20 years from now that people will be calling one of the extremely underrated ones.

Let's hope that 20 years from now, we won't be measuring things on the underrated/overrated scale anymore.

 

[Guy Gardener]

So every other country on the planet built their own ship with engines, including Scotland... Or is that just part of the myth that everyone one else escaped? or did every country on the planet capture their own spacewhale?

You know except for the lot on Space Station Nerva.

 

[Checkmate]

One in a classroom being a teacher doesn't really do well to show their purpose being in every hallway and room on the ship.

That's probably why they showed all those other ones, complete with the warning and punishment faces. Or how many teachers would you need to see in order to figure out that they served as teachers, too?

 

[Thestral]

One silly, niggling question I still have. How did the Smilers have three faces? There's the normal "happy" face, the frowny face, and the "I'm going to eat you now" face, but it looked like the heads spin the entire way around.

 

[Sci]

One silly, niggling question I still have. How did the Smilers have three faces? There's the normal "happy" face, the frowny face, and the "I'm going to eat you now" face, but it looked like the heads spin the entire way around.

Wibbly-wobbly spacey-wacey.

 

[Venardhi]

One in a classroom being a teacher doesn't really do well to show their purpose being in every hallway and room on the ship.

That's probably why they showed all those other ones, complete with the warning and punishment faces. Or how many teachers would you need to see in order to figure out that they served as teachers, too?

The point is we saw one as a teacher, and the rest of them didn't do anything except smile and frown and try to chase our heroes. It just seemed a bit too 'out there' unless they served other purposes as well. I have to jump through a lot of mental hoops to make sense of a country building a ship full of clockwork smiling men who's entire purpose is grading papers, spying on the populace, and killing people.

 

[Checkmate]

Like you mentioned, they're clearly the forebearers to the Clockwork Men from the Fireplace episode. For all we know, Moffatt intends to delve into the whole thing later on, though I admit it would have been nice if this episode explained things a bit more clearly. If Moffatt has a major problem it's that he tries to cram too many ideas into each episode so far. I'd rather have that problem than the opposite, though.

 

[Venardhi]

There are good examples of throwing someone into a fully developed world without much exposition; Star Wars for example did this brilliantly. This one missed the mark mostly because it was too quirky and abnormal for that universe/setting/situation to even seem plausible and needed a bit of exposition to fill those gaps. Sometimes just one good idea (combined with good characters and a decent plot) can fill a story far more effectively.

 

[David_Leese]

One silly, niggling question I still have. How did the Smilers have three faces? There's the normal "happy" face, the frowny face, and the "I'm going to eat you now" face, but it looked like the heads spin the entire way around.

*That* for me was what made them particularly scary/creepy, and I thought it was a good design feature!

 

[Ryan Thomas Riddle]

I have a feeling this will be one of those episodes 20 years from now that people will be calling one of the extremely underrated ones.

Let's hope that 20 years from now, we won't be measuring things on the underrated/overrated scale anymore.

Prolly not since underrated and overrated are euphemisms for "like it" and "hate it".

 

[O'Dib]

One silly, niggling question I still have. How did the Smilers have three faces? There's the normal "happy" face, the frowny face, and the "I'm going to eat you now" face, but it looked like the heads spin the entire way around.

*That* for me was what made them particularly scary/creepy, and I thought it was a good design feature!

It means that their faces can actually move, and smiler doubles for demonic. Apparently creepy faces that only move when offscreen are a Moffat thing (Blink), and probably as cheap to do as they are scary.

 

[Bacl]

Like you mentioned, they're clearly the forebearers to the Clockwork Men from the Fireplace episode.

Oh, clearly.