I generally agree with the rest of your post, but how is that a plot hole?
5x02 The Beast Below (Grading/Discussion) (SPOILERS!)
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Er, no, you've got the entire sequence of events wrong.
Amy never said she hit the "Forget" button for this reason or that reason, because she didn't even remember hitting the forget button. The Doctor presumed that she hit the forget button to spare him the impossible choice of saving either the Star Whale or the Humans.
Amy said that it was after she realized that the Doctor and the Star Whale were both the last of their kind -- and, though she didn't say this, we saw in her mind that she linked that to the fact that both intervened when they felt the need to end the suffering of children -- that she realized that the Star Whale must have volunteered to help the Britons escape the Earth, and that therefore there was no need for Queen Elizabeth X to hit the "Forget" button again.
ETA:
That's not a plot hole. That's a completely different story that really isn't important to this one.
Presumably because not all Scots left, or because there's still been contact with Starship Scotland, or because they still have historical videos of Scots, or all of the above. Is it really any more implausible than, say, people today still recognizing what members of the Roman Army looked like when that army hasn't existed for thousands of years?
Because they all choose to forget, too -- once every five years, in fact. Or have you forgotten?
1. I think the episode made it clear that the Star Whale's body is thoroughly embedded with the machinery of Starship U.K.
2. What makes you think that was the Whale's only mouth?
The Whale we saw at the end was huge. Apparently large enough to house millions of people; that was probably far larger than a mere city. Those tentacles would probably be too small to even notice.
Yes, and that's not a plot hole. It was even remarked upon at the end: "All that pain, and it only made it kind." It's a deliberate choice of characterization.
Because the U.K. in this era has adopted a totalitarian political system that automatically punishes all dissent and misbehavior, irrelevant of who does it. Real-life totalitarian systems often target people needlessly, too. And the episode seemed to make it clear that un-eaten children are enslaved in the bowels of the ship.
The episode established that organic waste is a major part of its diet, and I'm sure that the characters will find some other way to feed it. That's really not relevant to the story being told, though.
Again, not a plot hole.
Um, no. A Mary Sue is a character that's perfect, has all the answers, never makes mistakes, outshines the main characters, and is beloved by all. The very fact that Amy chose the "Forget" button and tried to keep the Doctor from learning about the Star Whale at first means that she's not a Mary Sue.
It's not, really. But it was the very first thing I thought in the whole episode... "Lordie! He's looking up her nightie!"
I also noticed the music is a lot less frenetic now. I wonder if Moff asked Murry to tone it downa bit, or if the show simply has new sound editors (too lazy to check).
Having had time to mull it over overnight, I do feel awfully disappointed that more wasn't done with the smilers. That really was an amazing design, but they really could have used a bit more explanation. Were they actually running everything, or just the teachers/police force? Was the ship controlled by a central computer that had gone a bit funny over the years? And what were the human/smiler hybrids all about? As someone suggested earlier, I'm sure there was more subplot, but it was probably a victim of time constraints.
Also, where did Amy's 'Get the Doctor off this ship!' video warning come from? Was it a projection of her subconscious mind? Or her future self trying to warn her? I'm confused.
I have to admit I'm still trying to come to terms with the Doctor planning to lobotomize the poor whale. (even though I loved his agonizing over it "I'm going to take you home, then change my name because I won't be the Doctor anymore.") It just seemed rather harsh on his part (though something I could see the sixth Doctor doing) Did he make his decision too quickly? Or are we just too used to him saving the day with a wave of his magic screwdriver?
Probably the same thing it lives on when not hauling the UK around on its back. Hard to imagine something that big subsisting on table scraps. Plus presumably, now that the general population is made aware of the situation, they'll be taking better care of their host.
Having had time to mull it over overnight, I do feel awfully disappointed that more wasn't done with the smilers. That really was an amazing design, but they really could have used a bit more explanation. Were they actually running everything, or just the teachers/police force? Was the ship controlled by a central computer that had gone a bit funny over the years? And what were the human/smiler hybrids all about? As someone suggested earlier, I'm sure there was more subplot, but it was probably a victim of time constraints.
Also, where did Amy's 'Get the Doctor off this ship!' video warning come from? Was it a projection of her subconscious mind? Or her future self trying to warn her? I'm confused.
I have to admit I'm still trying to come to terms with the Doctor planning to lobotomize the poor whale. (even though I loved his agonizing over it "I'm going to take you home, then change my name because I won't be the Doctor anymore.") It just seemed rather harsh on his part (though something I could see the sixth Doctor doing) Did he make his decision too quickly? Or are we just too used to him saving the day with a wave of his magic screwdriver?
Probably the same thing it lives on when not hauling the UK around on its back. Hard to imagine something that big subsisting on table scraps. Plus presumably, now that the general population is made aware of the situation, they'll be taking better care of their host.
The voting booth had three buttons: "Protest," "Record," and "Forget." I assume that "Record" was for the benefit of the malcontents that voted out of curiosity outside the cycle, and were won over by the video, so they could tell themselves to stop looking into the mystery of Starship UK. The malcontents who weren't won over were fed to the whale, of course (one wonders if they'd actually stop once they hit 1%).
The episode as aired made it very clear that the Smilers were the enforcers of Starship U.K.'s totalitarian system. It also made it clear that most of them were automated, and a few of them were cyborgs used when the automated ones were insufficient to do the job.
Again, the episode made this pretty clear: Amy saw the video, was horrified by what the Britons were doing to the Star Whale, realized that if the Doctor found out he'd be forced to make an impossible choice between the Whale and the Britons, made a video for herself to warn herself not to let the Doctor investigate, and then activated the "Forget" button to erase 20 minutes of her memory.
I think this is in part a symptom of what happens when the Doctor travels without a companion: He loses that extra sense of forgiveness and compassion, lets lose with that "Time Lord Victorious" mentality too much. He thought he was dealing with a choice between freeing the Whale and condemning the Humans, allowing the Humans to continue tormenting the Whale forevermore, or ending the Whale's suffering while saving the Humans. He'd forgotten the fourth possibility: That the Whale would still consent to help even after having been tortured. It took a companion to remind him to think outside of his own harsh and unforgiving perimeters.
We can easily explain away the mouth problem. When the whale was under complete submission, there was a harness/helmet/something-or-other over its head/mouth that was removed when they realized that the whale was doing this by its own choice. We just never saw the harness/helmet/something-or-other get removed.
For whatever reason, there was also a 'Record' button in the booth (which wasn't mentioned in the helpful video Amy was watching). When Amy presses the 'Forget' button, it's said that erasing her memory will take some time. I hope I remember that correctly. I guess it then occurred to her to record that message.
It was less mysterious than I originally thought. I thought at first that it was Amy at the end of the episode in the video or even further in the future with some connection to the overall arc.
He was trapped in a plot contrivance, in my opinion.
I feel the episode didn't arrive organically at those three options he enumerated. Especially the certainty that freeing the whale would destroy the starship came out of nowhere and later turned out to be wrong. I think he actually did have more options than he said he had, though they wouldn't have been very suitable for visualisation (e.g. evacuating the population with the TARDIS, then freeing the whale or just stopping the torture and then towing the ship to its destination before freeing the whale; the first one might seem a bit implausible but the Doctor has made similar offers to various large groups over the course of the series).
Watched it on iPlayer today, so thought I'd come in and comment.
I was kind of expecting more from this episode, but having said that, the resolution was well done in the end, Liz 10 was brilliant ('I'm the bloody Queen mate'), and the final minutes with the lead up to the next episode were fantastic. I'm really excited for Victory of the Daleks.
Very interesting to see the Doctor so angry with Amy early on. This could lead to interesting developments later.
Starship UK was an interesting concept and more could have been done, but well, the whole episode kind of felt like a cross between the Long Game and Gridlock and in terms of quality, somewhere in between those two.
An average, fairly bland second episode, but with enough good elements to make it enjoyable to watch.
I was kind of expecting more from this episode, but having said that, the resolution was well done in the end, Liz 10 was brilliant ('I'm the bloody Queen mate'), and the final minutes with the lead up to the next episode were fantastic. I'm really excited for Victory of the Daleks.
Very interesting to see the Doctor so angry with Amy early on. This could lead to interesting developments later.
Starship UK was an interesting concept and more could have been done, but well, the whole episode kind of felt like a cross between the Long Game and Gridlock and in terms of quality, somewhere in between those two.
An average, fairly bland second episode, but with enough good elements to make it enjoyable to watch.
Hopefully not enough to matter.
Especially since it'd be pretty amusing, given the ethnic changes the Royal Family has undergone in the past. They weren't always of German descent, for instance -- nor were they always of Scottish descent, or Norman descent! An ancient Anglo-Saxon might be pretty upset at the thought of the English throne falling into the hands of a Scottish, and then a German, dynasty.
And, of course, there's nothing in particular to stop the throne from falling into the hands of a Briton of African descent just within our lifetimes. If Prince William were to marry a black woman, they may well have biracial children by the time he ascends to the throne -- and from there, his heir could easily marry another black person, producing an heir who is him/herself visibly almost completely black. Were that to happen, the Royal Family would be black within two generations!
Dear lord I didn't realise that....guy...could look any more deranged/ugly/evil/insane than he usually does!
That looks like a DUI photo.
Actually I think it would have been more radical if the queen had been of Indian/Pakistani decent, especially considering that today those people make up a far larger portion of the UK population than those of afro-carribean origin. It's a weird quirk I've noticed, the news couldn't stop going on about whether we'd ever have a black PM after Obama was elected, I thought the same then, the liklihood is we'd have an Indian PM first.
Yeah that was the only bugbear I had as well. Heaven forbid the Queen should be posh!
I'd argue that the issue that determines the likelihood of a member of a given group ascending to high office is not so much population size as the question of to what extent that group is discriminated against or oppressed.
To put it another way: Jewish Americans make up a much smaller percentage of the American population than African-Americans. Yet, because Jews have not historically been hated and discriminated against to anywhere near the extent African-Americans have, it seemed much more likely that we'd see a Jewish American President before an African-American President than vise versa. That we ended up with an African-American President before a Jewish American President is actually a bit of a surprise.
So I'd argue the question is, are African Britons discriminated against as much as South Asian Britons? Are they as hated or as oppressed? The group that is less oppressed, to me, seems more likely to come to high office first, irrelevant of population size.
Actually, it would have been more radical if instead of Scotland going off on its own, Ireland had.
The whole of Ireland.
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