Day 786: Dinosaurs on a Spaceship

I wasn't a particularly happy person in 2012. It was my final year of high school and I wasn't doing too well in most of my courses, and with my school failing to provide any form of meaningful help to me at this time, I was left desperately seeking for those few and far between moments of pure joy in my life. And that's the probably the reason why I look so fondly on Dinosaurs on a Spaceship, because it's an episode that's completely and utterly joyful.

Dinosaurs on a Spaceship, from the moment when Matt Smith's Doctor gleefully drops the title of the episode, promises to be an episode that just wants to be fun. I can't stop smiling at the climax of the story, where the Doctor easily enacts a plan to save the day, that also focuses on giving his fellow travellers an experience that they want as well. We get Rory and Brian, flying a spaceship - not in any sort of way that would imply danger or stress, but in such a way that we get to see the joy on Brian's face as the adventure begins to sink in for him. Similarly, there's joy for Riddell and Amy who take down raptors left, right and centre in a splendidly choreographed sequence that gives the impression that they are perfectly in control of the situation and thus are allowed to have fun (and, perhaps most importantly, they're taking down raptors, which is such a joyful thing to this young person who screams regularly at the Jurassic Park films). Even Nefertiti, who in theory should play the role of damsel in distress in this plan, uses the Doctor as a distraction to take control of the ruthlessly evil Solomon and save the day. It's an all-round happy ending, without any real need to go into depth about darker elements of the story and to be at all serious.

That's not to say that there aren't darker elements there. The Doctor quite obviously murders Solomon at the end, as part of revenge for Solomon killing the Silurians because they got in his way. It sits oddly with the rest of the story, a moment that could have been focussed on but is ignored in favour of glee. And I'm not sure how I feel about that, because on the one hand I'd prefer a story that dealt with the ramifications of the Doctor's actions and how he copes with the blood on his hands, but on the other I know that sometimes I just need a story that's purely joyful without any need for darkness. 

But whenever I consider this question, I also consider my mindset when I watched this for the first time. Desperate for something to cheer me up, I looked to this episode for inspiration, and it provided it in spades, becoming at one point my favourite Doctor Who episode of all time. And maybe, in one small section of my heart, it still is, because I couldn't stop smiling whilst watching this fantastic episode.