For the most part that was a flawed - the shaky cam at the end of the teaser was especially annoying, and the teaser ended at a weird spot - if fun romp with some funny lines.
Amy's great, Matt Smith got to show some impressive callousness in his delivery as this Doctor's dark side got a line or two, and the monsters looked good.
The bloke playing Rory is still crap, but I've now remembered who he reminds me of- Steve in Time Gentlemen Please. I'm assuming Rory has, like, a 15-inch cock, cos I can't think of *anything* else somebody like Amy could see in a dopey prat like him.
But...
It started off great that it actually was about the consequences of Amy flinging herself at the Doctor last week, though it did threaten to wander in angsty sitcom territory but pulled back at the brink. The story arc was introduced nicely but far too reminiscent of the Pyrovile/missing planets thing in season 4 - and now we've got (as promised in the first episode) a bit of silence falling.
The space-fish were good and so was whoever was playing the mother - her showdown with the Doctor was great. Loved the Casanova gag too.
Unfortunately, what really fucked things up was the Doctor pulling a "you can't change time" speech at the end - exactly the opposite of what he pronounced last week! For a moment I wondered if this had meant to air first, but the consequences-of-Amy's-snogging means that can't be the case...
There was also some *appalling* telling-not-showing. I can't believe the "Something brushed my leg... they're around me... they're biting!" got past the first read-through! I mean, seriously, it's Muir and Norden's version of Zulu made real. Fuck right off! Especially since Fran's following line about "my brothers might think they're being fed twice" would have done the job better if left on its own. (Still telling and not showing, but doing so without drawing attention to itself with stupidity)
Why did the fish-vamps bare their fangs to scare the new recruits then not actually bother biting them at that point? And what about the ten-thousand man-eating space fish in the canals? They'd die out eventually with no females, but how many people would they eat first?
Teh dumb, it burns!
Oh, and the guy playing Francesca (oh, BTW that's a girl's name!) was rubbish as well.
Mostly entertaining, but crashes and burns in the end, to become the first - relatively speaking, it was good fun - clunker of the season. 6/10. On the upside it probably won't be the season clunker for long, cos next week's episode looks *shit* by dint of having a basic premise who's outcome is obvious, and a really rubbish baddie.
Here's hoping it's just bad trailer syndrome.
