Our Doctor Who series coverage begins with Matt Smith’s debut as the Eleventh Doctor. So, what kind of start is the new Doctor off to. Read on and find out.

WARNING: THIS REVIEW CONTAINS A FULL PLOT SUMMARY AND IS SPOILER-HEAVY. THE EPISODE DOES NOT PREMIER IN THE UNITED STATES UNTIL APRIL 17TH. READ ON AT YOUR OWN RISK!

SPOILERS AHEAD…SPOILERS AHEAD…SPOILERS AHEAD…SPOILERS AHEAD…SPOILERS AHEAD

Ok, with the warnings out of the way, here we go. The episode begins literally where the End of Time left off, having been damaged by the Tenth Doctor’s regeneration, the TARDIS is crashing to Earth and the Doctor is hanging on for dear life… to the edge of the doorway! After passing by Big Ben and narrowly avoiding a horrible accident, the Doctor manages to use the Sonic Screwdriver, which he is still carrying to stabilize the flight enough for him to get inside. As the TARDIS careens away into the distance we cut to the new title sequence, WHICH IS AWESOME!!! The new rearrangement of the theme music keeps the best bits while adding some great new ones. And the new vortex in the opening is unbelievably cool.

Anyway, back to the main episode. The next thing we see is a house. In an upstairs bedroom a little girl is praying to Santa to send domeone to fix a crack in her wall. Suddenly, she hears a huge crash. Looking out the window, she sees that the TARDIS has crashed in her yard. Rushing outside, the TARDIS is laying on it’s side. The door’s suddenly open and a grappling hook flies out, latching onto a wagon at the little girl’s feet. Suddenly two hands appear, followed by the rest of the Doctor’s torso. Seeing the little girl, the Eleventh Doctor utters his first words: “Can I have an apple?” The Doctor emerges fully from the TARDIS, soaking wet, saying he was in the swimming pool, that was in the Library. He has a post-regeneration seizure and then the little girl asks him if he is here to fix the crack in her wall.

Following the girl into the kitchen, we begin one of the most hilarious scenes I have ever seen in Doctor Who. The girl gives him an apple, which he takes a bit of and then spits out. He states that apples are rubbish, which confuses the girl becuase he ahd previously said they were his favorite, he then asks for yogurt, which he also spits out, saying it’s just stuff with bits in it. He then tells the little girs that she’s Scottish and should fry something for him. She makes him some bacon, which he spits out, asking her if she is trying to poison him. He then moves on to beans, which he proclaims evil upon spitting them out. Moving onto bread and butter, he is so displeased with this that he opens the door and flings the plate out into the darkness. Finally, he opens the refrigerator and selects fish sticks and custard. Sitting at the table with the little girl, whose name we learn is Amelia Pond, the Doctor dips fish sticks into a huge bowl of custard. While getting to know Amelia, he discovers that she has no parents, only an aunt who is out.

The Doctor follows Amelia to her room to look at the crack in her wall, which he discovers is actually a crack in the skin of the world. Taking a glass and listening he can hear a voice say “Prisoner Zero has escaped.” Amelia tells the Doctor that she has heard the voice too. The Doctor opens the crack and sees a prison on the other side. Suddenly, a gigantic eye appears a fires a bolt at the psychic paper, again saying Prisoner Zero has escaped. The crack seals itself. Stepping out into the hallway, the Doctor checks a door at the end of the hall and feels like there is something amiss. Hearing the Cloister bell, the Doctor rushes outside to find the engines phasing. He must get back inside to stabilize them. Amelia doubts the Doctor when he says he has a time machine. She asks to ride in it with him, but he tells her it is not safe. He tells her he will come back for her in 5 minutes. As the TARDIS disappears, she runs inside to pack her suitcase. She comes back outside and sits on her suitcase waiting.

The TARDIS reappears. The Doctor emerges frantic. He rushes into the house, shouting for Amelia saying Prison Zero is here. Suddenly, he is hit in the face with a cricket bat.

Meanwhile, at a hospital nearby, an intern named Rory has paged his boss, Dr. Ramsden, because fo the patients in the coma ward have called out the word “Doctor.” She is skeptical, but it happens while she is in the ward.

When the Doctor comes to, he is greeted by the site of a young woman in a Police uniform talking on a radio. He says the knock on the head was just what he needed. Trying to move, he finds himself chained to a radiator in the hallway. The policeowman is calling for back up on her radio. The young woman tells him that Amelia has not lived here in 6 months, which the Doctor does not believe because he promised her five minutes.

Back in the coma ward, Dr. Ramsden is examining the patients, who, despite their outburst, remain comatose. She still does not believe it was a conscious action. She also confronts Rory about his accusations involving seeing the coma patients walking around town. He tries to show her the pictures on his phone, but her beeper goes off and she suggests he take an immediate leave of absence.

The woman tells the Doctor that she lives there. The Doctor discovers he is missing his Sonic Screwdriver. The Doctor asks her to count the rooms on the floor, which she does, answering five. The Doctor tells her to look in the corner of her eye. When she does she sees the hidden sixth room, the result of a perception filter. Despite the Doctor’s protestations, she goes in the room and sees the Doctor’s Sonic on the table, encased in a puddle of slime. As she retrieves it, she meets the first new monster of the series: PRISONER ZERO! Prisoner zero’s native form is a sort of space eel, with very sharp teeth.

Running from the room, she returns the Doctor’s Sonic to him. He locks the door, and then attempts to unlock the handcuffs, but the screwdriver malfunctions. The Doctor tells the policewoman to run, and that her backup will come to help. She reveals that there is no backup coming, and that she is not even a policewoman – she is a kissogram in costume, and that she had dressed up as she was worried when she heard the Doctor coming (She claims it was either this or a French maid). The door that the policewoman just ran out of suddenly falls forward, revealing a man and his dog. The officer asks how that is possible, but the Doctor points out that the man can only bark, not speak English – it was Prisoner Zero. The Doctor tries to convince Zero not to attack, but an announcement is suddenly made from somewhere outside: “Prisoner Zero will vacate the human residence, or the human residence will be incinerated”. While Zero goes to a window to locate the source of the announcement, the Doctor manages to use the sonic screwdriver to free himself from the radiator, and he and the officer escape. The Doctor tries to access the TARDIS, but it is still rebuilding and won’t let him in. Outside of the house, the Doctor notices a rebuilt shed, identical to the old his TARDIS destroyed when he landed on it the last time he was here. The Doctor smells (and tastes) the shed and deducts that it is twelve years old, meaning it had been twelve years since he had last seen Amelia. He asks the policewoman why she said it had only been six months, and she angrily replies, “Why did you say five minutes!?” in a Scottish accent, revealing this is the adult Amelia Pond. After a few minutes, they pass an ice-cream van that is playing the same announcement that they heard in the house. They look around, and every sound-emitting device is playing the same announcement. The Doctor realises that the ‘human residence’ is not Amelia’s house – It’s the Earth. They go into the house of one of Amy’s neighbors to discover that it is also on every TV station.  Amy’s friend Jeff and his Grandmother, the occupants of the house, recognize the “Raggedy Doctor” that Amy drew cartoons of.

The Doctor deduces that they have twenty minutes before the weapon powers up, and therefore only that amount of time to save the world. The scene then shifts to above the planet, where we see the beings that are chasing Prisoner Zero. They look like rotating crystalline anemones. The lead one has a gigantic eyeball on it’s underside. This is the eye that the Doctor saw through the crack in Amelia’s wall. The Doctor and Amelia head outside where he discovers he is in the village of Leadworth, which has no airport, no nuclear power station and is 30 minutes away, by car, from the nearest city. This lack of resources exasperates the Doctor, who remarks that ” all I’ve got is a Post Office, and it’s shut.”  The Doctor has another regeneration pang in front of a duck pond with no ducks in it, saying”I’m not ready.” Suddenly, the sky darkens. The upper atmosphere has been sealed off by a force field. The Doctor expresses anger at the humans, who have come out to take pictures and video with their cellphones. Amy is in disbelief. He thinks the Doctor is winding her up. Suddenly, the Doctor strikes his head trying to remember something he just saw. What follows is one of the coolest scenes in the history of Doctor Who as the camera takes us inside the Doctor’s mind and we see a tracking shot of the people on the green taking pictures. The sequence stops on Rory, the orderly from the Hospital, who is taking pictures of what we know is Prisoner Zero, masquerading as one of the coma patients. The Doctor tells Amy that he can save the world in twenty minutes. She screams “No” and locks his tie in the door of a car. Amy wants answers. She wants to know who he is. He takes the apple with the face on it that she gave him in her bedroom twelve years ago out of his pocket and tosses it to her She doesn’t believe him. He asks her to believe for 20 minutes. After looking at the apple, she let’s him go. They race onto the green to intercept Rory, who reveals that the eprson Prisoner Zero is posing as is one of the coma patients. Rory, who is revealed as Amy’s boyfriend, also recognizes the “Raggedy Doctor.” The alien ship appears in the sky, searching for non-terrestrial technology. The Doctor plans to use the Sonic Screwdriver to attract the ship. However, the screwdriver is destroyed when it explodes in his hand. Not able to detect Prisoner Zero, the ship leaves. Prisoner Zero, pleased by this, escapes through a sewer grate.

Back at the Hospital, Dr. Ramsden is trying to wake teh coma patient named Bernie, who is convulsing. This is the patient Prisoner Zero has taken the form of. Suddenly, Prisoner Zero comes through the grate above his bed. He explains to Amy and Rory that the “multiform,” or Prisoner Zero, needs a dormant host and can change into the shape of whatever the host dreams of. Therefore, Prisoner Zero has eight disguises because of the eight comatose patients at the hospital. He sends Amy and Rory to the Hospital while he goes back to Jeff’s house. He commandeers jeff’s laptop, much to Jeff’s embarrassment. He hacks into a high-level video conference with some very important people, including Patrick Moore. After proving his genius to them, he lays out his plan. He enlists Jeff”s aid in uploading a virus written on Rory’s cellphone all over the world. Amy and Rory get to the hospital, but the ward is sealed off. The Doctor is on his way there in a commandeered fire truck and he tells Amy to use her uniform to get in. Amy and Rory enter the ward and find it trashed. Suddenly, a woman and two little girls come around the corner. As Amy calls the Doctor, the girls begin talking in the woman’s voice. Amy realizes it is Prisoner Zero. Suddenly, they all display sharp fangs.Prisoner Zero chases Amy and Rory into the coma ward. The Doctor asks what window they are at. The Doctor crashes the ladder of the firetruck through the window and climbs it into the coma ward.  The Doctor tires to reason with Prisoner Zero, imploring ti to take off the disguise. It says the Atraxi, it’s pursuers, will kill it. The Doctor tells Prisoner Zero to reopen the crack and disappear. Prisoner Zero mentions that it is not responsible for the cracks in the skin of the universe, mocking the Doctor for his own lack of knowledge about their origin and telling him, “the Pandorica will open, silence will fall”. He uses Jeff’s laptop and Rory’s phone to transmit a computer virus around the world that sets all clocks and electronic displays to the number zero, therefore notifying the Atraxi of Prisoner Zero’s presence and allowing them to track it to Leadworth as the source of the virus.  In a standoff in the coma ward of the hospital, Prisoner Zero attempts to steal Amy’s dreams and memories to use as a disguise, having built up a psychic link with her from years of living in her spare bedroom and changes into the Doctor and Amy’s childhood self. The Doctor prompts Amy to instead think of the undisguised Prisoner which she saw earlier at the house; thus, Prisoner Zero manifests as itself, and is recaptured. Before disappearing, Prisoner Zero repeats the warning, “silence will fall.”

Angered by the fact that the Atraxi would attack Earth, the Doctor calls them back. Searching through the locker room, the Doctor picks out the pieces of clothing that will make up  his new outfit. He heads off to have a meeting with them on the hospital’s roof. He tells them that aliens have invaded before and to look up how they were defeated. The Atraxi discover, by clever reuse of clips from the previous series and the the infostamp footage from “the Next Doctor”, the fact that other aliens have come to Earth and who the Doctor is. The Doctor completes his new outfit, a tweed jacket, patterned shirt, black pants, boots, red suspenders and matching bow tie and walks through the holographic projection of the Tenth Doctor’s head. He ends the confrontation with an emphatic declaration: “Hello. I’m the Doctor. Basically…Run! As the Atraxi leave, the Doctor fells a burning in his coat pocket. He pulls out the TARDIS key, which is glowing. The Doctor then returns to the TARDIS, which by this point has finished repairing itself. Amy and Rory arrive just in time to see ti dematerialize. He leaves to perform test runs and then returns to Amy, though he is inadvertently two years late. He snaps his fingers to open the door and we are about to get our first look at the new TARDIS. OH MY GOD! Full Disclisure: I loved David’s TARDIS. But, OH MY LORD! This may be one of the most amazing sets I have  ever seen on a TV. It features a lower level, where the Heart of the TARDIS sits at the bottom of the central column, in the middle of a pool of water. The main floor is similar to the previous model, though the floor seems to be clear Plexiglas. In the center of the room is, of course the console. It is still six sided, with  several moving parts and a large amount of levers and buttons. There is an old fashioned phonograph, a typewriter and an antique TV screen. The new time rotor is blown glass. Most intriguing however, are the stairways that lead off from the console room. I can’t wait to see what rooms they will lead to. The Doctor receives a new Sonic Screwdriver, born from the TARDIS console. The Doctor tells Amy he is tired of traveling on his own. Amy agrees to go with the Doctor, provided he can have her home tomorrow. As the TARDIS dematerializes, we see a collection of the dolls and cartoons of the Doctor that Amy had done over the years. Panning past them we see Amy’s closet, with a wedding dress hanging there.

This episode introduces the two main themes of the season: The CRACKS IN THE UNIVERSE and the SILENCE and the PANDORICA. You will see these themes show up throught the series.

This was a great introduction for the Eleventh Doctor and I can’t wait to see where the series is going. Matt Smith’s Doctor has some of the Tenth Doctor’s boyish charm, but he seems to have a recklessness that David Tennant did not. This Doctor seems to be positioning himself as an adventurer and his “Archaeology Professor” look seems to perfectly accentuate that. The Doctor is back. And, I encourage everyone to jump in alongside him. As he would say: “Geronimo!”

The Eleventh Hour gets 5 out of5.

For more information on the series visit: www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho and www.bbcamerica.com/doctorwho

Here are some images, courtesy of BBC America.

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