Thankyou, apolicebox

So after an evening visit with some friends over tequila tasting I decided to do some late night trolling of Google videos for the premiere episode of Doctor Who Season 5 where Matt Smith would be taking over as the iconic lead role.  Many thanks to apolicebox, who had posted the episode successfully and allowed me to watch "The Eleventh Hour" with in half a day of it's BBC-1 release.

By the time I watched episode 1 the forums and blogs had pretty much the whole plot posted in prose, images, and video clips.  The general consensus was that people can now relax.  Matt Smith's first trip in the Tardis was well received after speculations that the show would lose the magic brought by former head writer of the show, Russel T. Davies, and the 4 year performance of David Tennant as the lead role.

What did I think?  I agreed with the consensus.  The episode had a good entertaining story but kept simple since the main focus of the story was the events which lead the Doctor and his new companion, Amy Pond (played by Karen Gillian) to team up. 

***SPOILER ALERT***

The Doctor crashes the Tardis to earth in North England after energies of his regeneration set the Tardis's control room on fire.  The opening sequence of the new Doctor hanging for dear life out side of the out of control Tardis was comical but set the stage for the rest of the show.

He crashes into the backyard of a 12 year old girl, Amelia Pond, who has a mysterious crack in her bedroom wall where she claims a voice whispers to her "Prisoner Zero has escaped".  Still suffering from the shock of his regeneration, the Doctor investigates her bedroom wall to find the crack is an opening to dimensional prison where one of its detained has just escaped.  The Doctor closes the crack but before realizing the mysterious Prisoner Zero has escaped into Amelia's home he is drawn away to tend to his dying Tardis.  The Doctor takes off in his Tardis promising Amelia to return in five minutes.

Of course true to his reckless habit of making mistimed promises, 12 years and 4 psychologists later the Doctor returns to a 24 year old Amy Pond, Amelia grown up.  She is a working kiss-o-gram living in the same house the Doctor meets her in her childhood.  After some culture shock that comes from meeting a time traveler (again) the Doctor and Amy are now faced with the episode's plot line to find Prisoner Zero that has been living in her home for 12 years or Earth will be incinerated by Prisoner Zero's wardens.

The Doctor saves the day predictably with out his Tardis and his trusty sonic screwdriver and just in time to see his brand new regenerated Tardis.  The Doctor takes off again and (again) in true Timelord fashion returns to Amy 2 years later with an offer to accompany him on his further adventures on the eve of her wedding.

The opening episode was almost a throwback to the show's previous "change-overs" but in my opinion did a better job of keeping fans new and old interested in an episode of introductions.  It also doesn't waste time introducing 2 series arcs which was hinted as the cause of the time crack which started the whole mess, and an out of place reference to the Doctor's later time line crossing paths with Amy's aunt's earlier life.  I just keep wondering, though, how the writers manage to keep saving the world on Christian holidays, stealing runaway brides, and saving red heads from dull and boring lives exciting.

The new episode of Doctor Who Series 5 can be found for us North Americans on the usual clip video venues or if you have good cable just wait a week for it to appear on BBC America.