In which the Earth is invaded. Very slowly.
One morning Amy and Rory are woken early by his dad, Brian. They see that the street is covered in small black cubes, all identical. The Doctor has parked the TARDIS opposite, and is examining a cube. They appear to be featureless, and impossible to open. The Doctor is at a loss to explain what they are, where they have come from, or why they are here, as the TV news reports that this is a global phenomenon.
As the Doctor and Amy discuss the situation, and Rory prepares to go to work at a nearby hospital, a squad of UNIT soldiers bursts in. They are commanded by a woman named Kate Stewart - a scientist rather than a soldier. She informs the Doctor that UNIT has set up an alarm to identify Artron energy, to let them know if the TARDIS has landed. The Doctor tells her that he will remain at the house to observe the cubes. It only takes him a short time to become bored. Brian decides to set up a video camera and train it on a cube, and to keep a log of any developments.
Time passes, and people become used to the objects. The Doctor, Amy and Rory then continue to make occasional journeys in the TARDIS. The Ponds have been discussing their life with the Doctor and have been thinking of giving it up. They are aware of missing out on a lot of things whilst they are away. Rory is being encouraged to work full-time. They see these new travels as a sort of farewell to the lifestyle. Things do not always go to planned. A visit to the Savoy Hotel on its opening night in 1890 ends disastrously when it transpires that the hotel is run by Zygon duplicates. One evening, at their wedding anniversary party, Brian confronts the Doctor - wanting to know if they will always be safe with him.
A year or so after the cubes first appeared, everyone has become complacent about them. This concerns the Doctor, as people have them in their homes and workplaces. They have yet to show any sign of life.
Then, one day, they begin to activate. Brian sees his start to move by itself. One flies into the air and fires laser bolts at the Doctor. Another produces tiny razor sharp needles, which cut Amy's hand.
The Doctor goes with Amy to UNIT HQ, still located beneath the Tower of London, where Kate Stewart reports that all the cubes seem to be exhibiting totally different activities.
At Rory's hospital, a strange little girl observes what is going on, a blue light shining in her eyes at times. A pair of orderlies, who appear to be identical twins, start abducting patients. Beneath their surgical masks they have inhuman features. Brian has been helping out at the hospital, and he too is taken by them. Rory had followed the orderlies, only to find they had vanished in a closed lift.
The cubes then all start to co-ordinate their behaviour - showing the number 7. When this changes to a 6, the Doctor realises that a countdown has begun. When the countdown reaches zero, all the boxes open. Across the planet, people begin to collapse - victims of heart attacks. The Doctor realises that the cubes have been silently monitoring the human race for the last year, looking for its weaknesses. The Doctor also suffers cardiac arrest, though only affecting one of his hearts, and is rushed to the hospital where Rory works. He spots the little girl and discovers she is an android observer. After Amy uses a defibrillator to kick start the Doctor's heart, Rory takes them to the lift. The Doctor reveals that it contains a disguised multi-dimensional portal. They pass through and find themselves on an alien spaceship. Brian is here. In control is a being who the Doctor identifies as one of the Shakri, an ancient, almost mythical race. They see themselves as the custodians of order throughout the universe, and they have foreseen how the human race will bring disorder. They have therefore come to prevent this from happening - by wiping out all life on the planet. The Shakri informs the Doctor that a second wave of cubes are about to be sent, then vanishes, as he was only a remote hologram. The Doctor realises that the cubes absorbed electrical energy to trigger the heart attacks, and this can be reversed. All over the planet, the cubes jolt people's hearts back into action. The Doctor then sets the spaceship to self-destruct, closing the portals to Earth.
Kate thanks the Doctor for his help, and he reveals he knows that her full name is Kate Lethbridge-Stewart - daughter of the Brigadier. Brian gives his blessing for his son and Amy to continue their travels with the Doctor...
The Power of Three was written by Chris Chibnall, and was first broadcast on 22nd September, 2012.
The story title is a play on both the alien cubes, and to the trio of the Doctor, Amy and Rory.
A number squared, multiplied by itself just the once, geometrically, would give a two dimensional object (length and breadth), whilst a number multiplied by itself twice (cubed) would give a three dimensional object (length, breadth and depth).
Viewers were already aware that Karen Gillan and Arthur Darvill would be leaving in the following story, so this episode provides their last hurrah, and very much focuses on them. We see a lot of their life without the Doctor, and what they have been missing whilst they have been away, and at the start they are contemplating giving up this lifestyle. They are now much older than their contemporaries, as they can be gone for months then returned a few minutes after they left. However, TARDIS travel is addictive, and it is clear that they will likely fail to make a clean break. This addiction to TARDIS travel will become a much deeper theme with the next companion. The ending is upbeat, but dark undertones have been introduced, and we the viewers know that ultimately an unhappy ending is looming.
Kate is played by Jemma Redgrave.
As we wait for the mysterious cubes to actually do something, there is plenty of time to show various little incidents in the life of Amy and Rory, including some TARDIS trips. Most significant of these is the Savoy Hotel visit, which was meant to be a romantic event for the pair. We don't ever see one, but it is revealed that the hotel has been infiltrated by Zygons. We also briefly see them in the time of Henry VIII, where Amy is supposed to have accidentally married the monarch. We mentioned this last time, under A Town Called Mercy, when a trip to Henry's court was mentioned and mobile phone charger lost. In many ways, this section of the episode is a companion piece to the Pond Life prequels, by the same writer.
This week's variation for the series logo is to have it patterned with the black cubes.
As well as Redgrave, the main guest artist is actor and playwright Steven Berkoff, who portrays the Shakri. He only appears very briefly in the closing section of the story, but makes for a sinister presence, with effective make-up. Berkoff is best known for more experimental theatre work and movies, but does go mainstream as well. He was one of the principal villains in a Bond movie - Octopussy - as a Russian general, and played a similar role in the second Rambo film.
Brian Williams is once again played by Mark Williams, having been introduced by Chibnall in Dinosaurs on a Spaceship two stories previously. The identical twin orderlies are indeed played by identical twins, David and Daniel Beck, rather than realised through any split screen / CGI means.
There are also two appearances from TV personalities playing themselves - Alan Sugar and Brian Cox.
Lord Sugar appears in a clip from The Apprentice, where the would-be apprentices have been tasked with marketing the cubes, and Dr Cox appears as part of a BBC news segment. In 2013, Cox would present a special programme about the science of Doctor Who, as part of the 50th Anniversary celebrations.
Overall, a fairly enjoyable episode, with enough variety to keep your attention. The main threat has an extremely weak resolution, meaning the journey is more enjoyable than reaching the destination.
Things you might like to know:
- The working title for this story was "Cubed".
- Chibnall stated that one of his inspirations was the running aground of a cargo vessel on the coast of Devon. The contents of its containers washed up on shore and there was a frenzy amongst the locals to collect the items, even though they didn't necessarily need them, or even know what they were sometimes.
- Back in 1971, the draft scripts for The Daemons gave the Brigadier a wife. She was to have been called Fiona. This was all cut before the final drafts, and Nicholas Courtney at the time was glad as he felt it a mistake to show the Brigadier's home life. The Daemons was directed by Christopher Barry, who also had a hand in the final drafts of the story, and he returned to direct a made-for-video spin-off in 1995 - "Downtime". Written by Marc Platt, it was a sequel to the two Yeti stories of the Troughton era. The Brigadier featured, and in this he had a daughter - Kate. She lived on a narrow boat and had a son, and the Brigadier had been estranged from them both. Kate was played by Beverley Crossman on this instance. This Kate also found her way into other spin-off material. There is little to connect her and the Kate we see here beyond the name. Kate Stewart of UNIT never mentions a son, and the Kate from "Downtime" showed no signs of joining, and taking over, UNIT.
- The satellite shot of Rory's hospital is actually one of the BBC's White City complex in Hammersmith, though turned upside down.
- Some of Brian's dialogue, where he wonders about what the cubes might be, is lifted from a computer game called "Surviving Mars".
- Chibnall is the first writer since 2005 to have more than one story commissioned in the same season - normally something reserved for the showrunner only. He was due to contribute a third story, for the second half of the series, but his crime drama Broadchurch was commissioned and he was too busy on that.
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