Firstly - a quick note on The Girl Who Waited. It was amazing. The perfect emotional episode for Amy and Rory, a brilliant challenge for all the actors involved, and the best Doctor-lite episode yet. Possibly even beating Blink. And so, with three FANTASTIC episodes in a row, I had high hopes for The God Complex.
Oh dear. The God Complex was one of the worst episodes of the series. In fact, I'm so shocked it was bad, I'm actually rewatching it. But this review, as always, is based on my first view of the episode. First of all - scary. The papers said it was scary, the DVD rated it a 12 (on the same scary level as The Empty Child) and so naturally, I expected horror, scary stuff. And on the scary front, it was a huge disappointment. It wasn't scary, not remotely. It took what could have been a scary idea, and what was a very clever concept, and made it rubbish. It was filled with bad jokes and rubbish humour, and a standard performance from David Walliams as the worst alien ever created (possibly excluding the Abzorballof and Slitheen).
Forgetting about the scares, let's focus on the good thing in the episode. Thing. Singular. The only good thing in the episode was Rita. The conversation with the Doctor about religion was excellent, if only it had been a little longer. We've got an episode full of characters - so use them. Instead, they all played to their created stereotypes and gave an average performance. And they all detract for who should have been as the main focus of the episode. Amy and Rory.
Last week was Amy and Rory's episode, but they left! They left at the end of the episode! Red herring or not red herring, actual end of the Pond's continued travelling or not the end of their continued travelling, they left. And they got a rubbish episode to send them off. I hope the Ponds do come back. Because then they might get a proper proper send off. They should've left at the end of The Girl Who Waited cos it would have made a lot more sense. This leaving was the worst thing about the episode. Because it felt stuck on the end, it didn't quite connect with the episode, and it was a big disappointment.
What else didn't I like? Apart from Gibbis' comedy performance, the characters that detracted from Amy and Rory and the lack of scares, there's the hotel. The set for the hotel was poor. Even if it was realistic, it was poor. And the place it was built on was RUBBISH! The black thing with the blue grid was absolute rubbish. And the reference to the Nimon, while clever, was a rubbish throw away line.
The music was mostly repeated from Series 5. It's been like that all Series 6 Part 2 so far, but it was most noticeable and less well used in this episode. It was also mixed with a rubbish dramatic version of the "Muzak" it was playing in the hotel, and the music on the whole was poor.
Matt Smith gave a good performance as the Doctor, but by far not his best. Amy and Rory slipped back into old habits, detracted from by the other characters. The Minotaur was pointless, childish and rubbish, the whole episode was mainly just... disappointing. A disappointing realisation of a good idea, and a disappointing 'end' for the Ponds.
This episode should have been a David Tennant episode. The big "oh the Doctor is so alone and is so not the person you think he is" thing would be a perfect DT episode - not one for Matt Smith. Amy losing her faith in the Doctor was just a bad copycat version of the Curse of Fenric ending, and I am SO disappointed because this episode could have been so much more.
If there is one thing that was good and that was used enough - it was running round Hotel corridors.
Let's hope next weeks is a hell of a lot better, and doesn't change the Doctor's character even more than they have already.
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