Doctor Who Series 7 Episode 4 - The Power Of Three - Review

Starring: Matt Smith, Karen Gillan, Arthur Darvill & Mark Williams

Written By: Chris Chibnall

Directed By: Douglas Mackinnon

 

The Power Of Three is an episode with one main purpose. Its job is to give us more of a look at Amy and Rory’s daily human lives and how different this life is from life with the Doctor. It is also Amy and Rory’s final regular adventure, before they leave next week. So can Chris Chibnall deliver a story that fleshes out Amy and Rory a little more before they depart from the TARDIS?

 

One day, all over the world, millions of small black cubes appear seemingly from nowhere. The cubes don't do anything, don't harm anyone and are seemingly indestructible. Both the Doctor and U.N.I.T suspect alien involvement and begin studying the cubes. But the days go by, and still nothing happens, and this leads to the Doctor spending time with Amy and Rory in their everyday lives. Days soon turn into months, and still nothing happens with the cubes. It would seem that Earth is now host to a very slow invasion.

 

Of all the episodes lined up for the first half of Series 7, this is the one that intrigued me the most. Really we knew very little about this particular story, compared to what we knew about the other four. We had an asylum filled with Daleks, Dinosaurs On A Spaceship speaks for itself, a trip to the Wild West, and next week’s story will focus on Amy and Rory’s departure and the Weeping Angels invading Manhattan. But what did we know about The Power Of Three? All that I knew was that the episode would be a modern day story featuring the return of U.N.I.T.

 

One of the best things about The Power Of Three, and what sees the episode get going, is the mystery around the small black cubes that have sprung up overnight. This is an invasion unlike many that we see, its slow, its dull and nothing happens … but it’s different. Something that can’t be faulted is the great sense of scale that this episode had, with guest appearances from Professor Brian Cox, Alan Sugar, and various BBC newsreaders. The cubes became the subject of mass media spotlights, various Twitter accounts and even the suggestion that the cubes are part of the biggest stealth marketing campaign in history. This is a brilliant and believable look at how humanity would almost certainly react to such an event. This is the best sense of scale Doctor Who has seen in ages, and it's something I really glad of, because for an episode like this to really work, it needed that crucial global feel.

 

It's not until the cubes have spent around a whole year on Earth, that they begin to activate, and do various things. The cubes are seen doing everything from firing lasers, surfing the net, causing mood swings or taking a pulse. The mystery surrounding the cubes was engaging and very entertaining to watch. However, the whole idea of an invasion taking an entire year is a deliberate move, allowing the Doctor to try and fit in with Amy and Rory’s life on Earth. This leads to the plot revolving heavily around our three main characters, but how were they here? Firstly, the Doctor. Matt Smith doesn’t have much to go on with his role as the Doctor in this episode. This isn’t any fault of Matt Smith’s, but the concept of the Doctor having to wait for something to happen, has been explored before, largely in Series 5’s The Lodger. However, Chris Chibnall made this concept much more entertaining than what we saw in The Lodger. Still, Matt Smith manages to hold up some wonderful scenes, particularly during the beautiful "optimist" speech. Amy and Rory spend a large amount of time deciding whether or not to keep travelling with the Doctor. The episode does a brilliant job of balancing the two aspects of their ordinary human life, and their adventurous life with the Doctor together. You can really see how difficult this decision is for our two companions. We also get to spend more time with Rory's father, Brian. Brian is really up there with the likes of Wilfred Mott as one of the best family characters the show has seen in a while. He’s brilliant and funny to watch throughout the episode, and his admiration and loyalty to the Doctor make him an even more lovable character.

 

As far as the supporting cast go, one particular character is guaranteed to stick in your mind - Kate Lethbridge-Stewart. Her character starts off as likeable and enjoyable enough to watch, until we late discover that she is the Brigadier's daughter. I really, really liked this twist. If Kate does become a recurring character, then it could mean a new Brigadier-esque hero for a new generation of Doctor Who viewers to enjoy. This may not be the case, but I really hope so. Speaking of U.N.I.T, I was glad of their return, seeing their last appearance was in Planet Of The Dead (3 years ago!). U.N.I.T still prove they have a part to play in defending the Earth and I’m glad of it.

 

So while The Power Of Three has a solid opening thirty minutes, the last fifteen minutes see the story start to crumble. (Spoiler Warning!) The Doctor and Amy go to the hospital and discover a little girl holding one of the cubes, and the Doctor concludes that it is her job to monitor everything. The little girl and the two surgeons were recurring characters throughout the story, but here’s my question: What was the point of them? We understand that she’s supposed to be monitoring everything, but why does she have to monitor anything at all? Later, we discover that a portal to a spaceship in Earth’s orbit exists in the hospital lift. On board the ship, the Shakri, a race who serve something called the Tally have released the cubes in an attempt to kill the human race before they colonize space. This is a good enough motivation, and a good reason for the invasion of the cubes. However, if this was the cubes’ function, why did they initially activate for just forty-seven minutes? We’re told that its so the cubes can learn as much about humanity as they can, but why? The Shakri and the unseen Tally seem to have already made up their minds to wipe out humanity, so why bother researching them? Why did the cubes take a year to activate, other than the humans taking them in? We saw that they didn’t need a whole year for that to happen, as they started to be accepted within a month. Also, why are the cubes being released in waves? Why not just send them in all at once? Why were the two surgeons kidnapping patients, and taking them on the ship? Did the patients die when the ship blew up and nobody tried to save them? So many unanswered questions!

 

Easily the most dissatisfying part of this episode is the Doctor's way of stopping the Shakri. The Doctor points his sonic screwdriver at the screen on the ship and the humans who’ve died from cardiac arrest wake up again. The Shakri ship then explodes as they escape. After a year of build-up, the Shakri and the cubes are defeated by … the Doctor pointing his sonic screwdriver at a screen. If anything, this is just frustrating considering the premise and brilliant first thirty minutes that the episode had, not to mention that in the context of the story, this was the result of a year's worth of build-up.

 

So how does The Power Of Three fare as a whole? It's a solid, entertaining episode, with both the main and supporting cast being terrific, particularly Jemma Redgrave as the brilliant Kate Stewart. The premise was unique and intriguing and I was glad to see U.N.I.T return to our screens. However, the final fifteen minutes are an absolute mess, leaving loads of unanswered questions and offering a dissatisfying solution to the story. The Power Of Three is a story that’s good but with a poor final act.

 

 

The Power Of Three



7/10