Tony: Given the constraints of the budget, this was a top-notch effort. Great makeup on Mark Gatiss and a fantastic design on the creature. This was the best episode of the series so far.
Daniel: Who cares if the monster was clearly CGI: it was incredibly cool. It's like some sort of Human Transformer; you can see the ribs and the shoulders, and despite its huge size suspension of disbelief isn't a problem. Easily one of the best Who creatures I've seen, and some of the best CGI animation the series has given us so far.
Cast and Crew
Tony: I could have lived without the hackneyed, creature-POV shots, but aside from that this was a much better effort from director Richard Clark. The acting honours go without a doubt to Mark Gatiss, completely convincing under a ton of makeup playing a 76-year-old. I’m now firmly convinced that the Doctor has made a huge mistake and picked the wrong sister as his new travelling companion: Gugu Mbatha-Raw is far more appealing as Tish than Freema Agyeman, who appears to have very little dramatic range. Reggie Yates is about as good as you’d expect a TV presenter to be (not very) and Adjoa Andoh is very good at frowning (and not much else).
Ian: Tennent and Agyeman are back at the top of there game here with some snappy interplay between the two leads. As previously stated I thought Martha’s family are a lot better here than they were in “Smith and Jones” and Gugu Mbatha-Raw as her sister Tish is actually rather good. I wouldn’t mind seeing her hitch a ride in the TARDIS at some point either.
Daniel: Funnily enough, my wife turned to me during this episode and described Agyeman as having a kind of "rabbit in the headlights" approach to acting. And much as I'd like to argue, I don't think I can. Thank God for Tennant then, who is incredible when the script allows. Despite that, I totally agree that Mark Gatiss steals the episode. It's a spellbinding performance that never hits a duff note. It makes me wonder what sort of a Doctor Gatiss would have been...
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