Ten Statements About....DOCTOR WHO SEASON SIX, EPISODE ELEVEN: The God Complex (2011)

Nooooes!!!  Creepy Dummy Alert!  A roomful of them!

"Your civilization is one of the oldest in the galaxy. Now I see why. Cowardice isn't quaint, it's sly, aggressive. It's how that dune of gutlessness has survived while so many others have perished. Well not today. No one else dies today. Right?"

1) Hmmm....it seems, at least in part, that this episode is going to be taking the piss out of the Found Footage Film...either that or telling us how cool the Stanley Kubrick Shining was...

2) Okay, I think we can add Amara Karan's Rita to the list of One Off Reboot Who Characters Who Should Have Been Companions...and I'm not just basing that on the fact that she, like Carey Mulligan's Sally Sparrow, is Wicked Hot.

3) You know...this feels like another one of these episodes that should've been aired earlier in the season, before we got deep into the Demon Run stuff at the break. The fact that we've had three stand-alones with almost no nod towards the Big Epic Storyline the first half of the season built up is stealing a lot of momentum from the overarc. Hell, it's almost like we haven't returned to the overarc at all since the end of the first half, and that could prove fatal to the season flow as a whole.

Trust me...it's not what you think.

4) So that's how we got the Weeping Angels into this season...and since it's not Real Weeping Angel Stuffage, the power of those monsters stays intact.

5) This is--given that this is an entire episode obstentively set in a hotel--surprisingly stylish. Between the 'found footage' shots, the deep focus pulls, the tracking and the subliminal text messages, it gives this episode a look and feel quite apart from the other episodes we've seen this season.

6) I do not trust this Gibbis guy (this is being written at the 16:21 mark)--the way he reacts after Amy tries to comfort him, reminding her that there's a room out there waiting for her, then smiling gleefully...

7) I love the scene with The Doctor and Rory...and once again, Arthur Darvil drives home something that is supposed to be part of the overarc--reminding the Doctor that sometimes small victories matter as much as the larger ones, and not everything has to be about Saving The Universe.

8) I can sorta see why this episode is in this season, as it deals head on with the way the Doctor can potentially wreck the lives of his companions, and how to give the minotaur the release it asked for he has to destroy the faith Amy has in him. It all ties in with the motivations behind the Silence Conspiracy and yet...there's something hollow there.

Oh, if only there was room in the TARDIS for you, my
lovely Rita...

9) Ahhhh....yet another connection to old Who...although I have to wonder if, of all the monsters we encountered in the classic series, we really needed a shoutback to the Nimon.

10) I would perfectly accept this as the final goodbye to Amy and Rory...if the whole Silence Conspiracy/Demon's Run/New Mexico Death thing wasn't hanging out there in space. Hell, I have this sneaking suspicion that Moffat intended 'Let's Kill Hitler' to close off that thread for a while. If that's the truth, I worry that's the first major misstep Moffat has made.

In short...I can see the whys and wherefors of this episode--but the placing of it toward the end of the season when it should've be at the beginning, and the willful ignorance of the overarc except in setting up a sympathetic resonance inhibits it from being a great episode. Pity, because there are some great performances in here, especially Ms. Karan.

This has proven to be a very frustrating season.