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{{article | publication = The Times | file = 2010-04-12 Times.jpg | px = 300 | height = | width = | date = 2010-04-12 | author = Andrew Billen | pages = Times2, p. 52 | language = English | type = | description = | categories = | moreTitles = | morePublications = | moreDates = | text = Last Night's TV Doctor Who Saturday, BBC One {{stars|5|5}} Doctor Who, in contrast, showed what quality writing was like in Matt Smith's second outing in the title role. Saturday's The Beast Below sparkled with ideas and wit while providing nightmarish images — in the form of arcade machine ventriloquist dummies — to keep the kiddies sleepless. Older viewers will have spotted the tribute to Terry Pratchett in the giant whale that powered a space station version of England across the universe. Older ones still will have appreciated the topicality of an election in which citizens every five years "choose to forget what they have learned". Sophie Okonedo, no less, was a splendid future Queen Liz, and Karen Gillan came into her own as the Doctor's deceptively wise companion, Amy Pond. Smith is a wonderfully mercurial new Doctor, who dismissed the death of his people as "a bad day", thus sparing us his predecessor's soliloquies on the subject. My only worry is that the writer Steven Moffat, whose 2007 story Blink featured the Doctor even less, may not be as interested in the Time Lord as the rest of his fans. }}

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