Doctor Who – The Power of Three

• Title: Doctor Who – The Power of Three
• tv.com: link

One week before the mid-season finale, and final episode featuring Amy (Karen Gillan) and Rory (Arthur Darvill) as The Doctor’s (Matt Smith) primary companions, Doctor Who delivers an episode about millions of mysterious small black cubes that suddenly appear all across the world. The cubes’ inactivity forces The Doctor to do the one thing he hates more than Daleks – to wait.

As the entire episode takes place on Earth over the better part of the year we see far more of Amy and Rory’s regular life than we’ve seen before. The episode also returns Mark Williams as Rory’s father Brian and introduces a new enemy in the Shakri (a race older than the Time Lords) and UNIT commander Kate Stewart (Jemma Redgrave) who is revealed to be the daughter of Brigadier Lethbridge Stewart (Nicholas Courtney).

Although the legend The Doctor tells Amy and Rory about the Shakri is ominous, the one alien we see of the race (through a hologram) doesn’t come off as anything more dangerous than your average monster of the week. And I’ll admit I was a bit miffed that an episode that included The Doctor dealing with UNIT didn’t bother to include even a  mention of Martha Jones (Freema Agyeman).

The unusual set-up of “The Power of Three” works well and includes several fun moments with the various characters dealing with the small cubes, The Doctor’s attempt to give his friends a proper wedding anniversary, and a great scene between The Doctor and Brian discussing the fate of The Doctor’s former companions (and foreshadowing, if the Internet rumors are true, what will be a sad end for at least one of the Ponds next week). The final scene involving Brian’s speech is a nice twist leading into next week’s mid-season finale “The Angels Take Manhattan.”