Let’s face it, A Christmas Carol was the most christmasy Festive special yet. With this in mind I was half expecting jingling bells and reindeer’s to pop out of my speaker when I listened to the score of this episode. They weren’t evident in the TV programme but you never know, I’d had a couple of beers and half a bottle of red wine by the time Doctor Who came on on Christmas Day.

As far as I am concerned Murray Gold can do no wrong when it comes to a Doctor Who soundtrack. His music draws you in to the episode and is almost seamless whilst watching, By that I mean you don’t notice the actual music you just notice that you’re being drawn into the action even more. It’s only when you go back for a second or third watching that you pick out the soundtrack and realise that the episode would be a hundreds times worse if it wasn’t there.

The undoubted highlight of the whole soundtrack is Katherine Jenkins singing Abigail’s Song (Silence Is All You Know.) As has been said over and over again Jenkins was the surprise of this years special. She outshone Kylie Minogue in Voyage of the Damned and [arguably] shone a little brighter than Catherine Tate did in her Christmas episode. For a first acting job it was a pretty good effort and it was hard to tell that she was making her début as a thesp.
Sadly the song she sings to soothe the Shark is not included in this soundtrack and that is quite possibly the most startling omission from the soundtrack. It seemed kind of pivitol to the story and one would have thought that it would have made the cut.

Overall, this is one of the shorter Soundtracks to be released (it weighs in at just over 46 minutes) I doubt there is much more they could have put in there(barring the shark music.) I hope that in the future we get more single episode soundtracks as Murray Golds work really should be highlighted more.

You can order the soundtrack from all good online retailers including Amazon.co.uk and Play.co.uk. Look to spend around £9

The Beast Below

Where do you take the plucky duo after they save the earth once again. Well for a start you whip Amy Pond off in her nighty to see the universe… she has a deep secret that was let out of the bag in the closing seconds of the premier episode… A Wedding Dress… and Amy needs to be back in the morning.

In The Beast Below, The Doctor and Amy are drawn to a flying city, that has all the hallmarks of England… well it’s given away by the fact that all the sky scrapers have English county names emblazoned up the side of them. They have come across Starship UK.

Quite a few people I have spoken to about New Who have bemoaned the fact that a lot of the stories are earth bound and as such do not have that spacey Sci Fi feel. I think that setting this in space is a nice way to start to appease the Space Junkies and not lose it’s UK-centric audience as well. Maybe that’s a load of old guff but that’s how I perceive it.

The Beast Below is part ‘villain of the week’ and part ‘Eco Tale’. The villain of the week are the ominous Smilers, with on up on being two faced these guys are three faced, you just can’t believe how fast these guys get pissed off. One minute they are smiling away, next minute they are snarling like a rotweiller with a bug up his butt and the next they are baring fangs like a vampire at Happy Hour at the blood bank. These guys have major mood swing problem, Prozac anyone?

Within Starship UK there is a hierarchy that rules the ship like a rod of iron. They have voting booths that can wipe your mind if you don’t like what you see, they have creepy looking Monks who are in fact Smilers with only two faces (A human one and a Snarly one.) One level up from the two faced Smilers is the head monk Hawthorne after him comes the Ultimate Word in what goes on.

The ultimate word comes from the head of Starship UK’s Government and Monarch, Liz 10. There is a nice little twist with Liz 10 towards the end that shows how much power she really does have and at the same time how little power she has. It’s all self inflicted though folks… after all she has the final say on pretty much all rules of Law.

I said earlier that this was part Eco-Story. The eco part is all about the “Beast” below. The last of its species, a Star Whale is the one who powers the Starship UK. The authorities in the distant past have come up with the bright idea that if you send electric shocks through a Star Whales brain they will continue to work for you. The Doctor has a massive problem with this. How could a civilised society be so cruel to an innocent creature, not top mention the last of its kind. You see the story goes that if the one person in the UK decides to protest the action that is being taken a mass vote is taken of everyone on the Starship and if just 1% agree with the protest then the consequences will be dire for the UK. So, thusly, The Doctor is left with three options.

1. Release the Star Whale and have the Starship break up and slaughter the millions who live on it,

2. Give the Star Whale an almighty Electric shock to the brain that will kill most of the Whales brain but he will still function but will no longer be in pain.

3. Or leave the status quo as is and just leave the Whale and the Starship in one terrible cohesion.

The answer comes not from the Doctor though but rather from Amy who realises that the Star Whale has been helping the Humans by powering the ship all of these years and in fact would probably do so without the Electric charges being shot through is cranium.

Once it’s all explained by Amy with a few references back to the Doctor being the last of his Kind and he is after all a saviour many times over to the Universe, they leave quietly through the back door to the TARDIS. All is right with the world again and as they set off a phone begins to ring in the TARDIS (it is a phone box after all.) After a little probing from Amy the caller is identified as the:

Prime Minster

Which Prime Minister?

The British One!

Which British One?

You’re never going to believe this, welcome to Sir Winston Churchill.

Winnie has a problem that only the Doctor can help with… little does the PM realise, but his problems are a whole lot bigger than he could ever imagine!