Doctor Who: The Eleventh Hour (2010) - FBC REVIEW (Written)

5 years ago, Doctor Who returned for its fifth series with a brand-new Doctor, companion and creative team steering the show into a new direction, kicking off with The Eleventh Hour.
The Eleventh Hour acts as a jump-on point for people new to Who, following the story at first from the perspective of little Amelia Pond, who meets a strange man who crashes in his time machine into her back garden. Promising he'll take her with him, The Doctor seals a crack in Amelia's wall and disappears, supposedly for five minutes (there's a lot of fives in this review so far). However, we then follow The Doctor as five minutes later he finds himself back at Amelia's house ready to pick her up several hours late...or possibly even twelve years late.
This is a really clever way to start the show for newcomers, but the focus on The Doctor (including a little comedic almost-crash scene as a pre-credits sequence to the surprisingly dark and haunting theme and title sequence, new for this episode) allows for long-time fans to be able to follow the story from The Doctor's perspective more.
The use of a fairy tale element for Amelia's introduction is great, and the recurring gag of The Doctor constantly mis-judging his time travel skills in the rebuilding TARDIS allows for some great twists throughout.
The plot in itself is mostly a re-introduction - reintroducing The Doctor and his world, introducing Amy Pond - but alas this leads to a rather thin storyline and nemesis. Prisoner Zero is a rather forgettable, slightly dodgy-looking CGI multi-form, and the Atraxi are more there as a countdown clock more than anything. Neither are poor aliens, but aren't very interesting so as to focus the episode more so on The Doctor and Amy Pond - a method used by many other films and Television shows, including most recently Guardians of the Galaxy.

The script from Steven Moffat here is magical - from the excellent dialogue, structure, jokes and characters - its clear how much fun and effort Moffat put into this script (far more than some of his later stories), and its just magical to behold. The direction and cinematography and excellent, the music from Murray Gold features new, fresh themes (alas only to be repeated all over again for every episode until 2014's Deep Breath) and the CGI is okay, if a little rough around the edges.
Matt Smith is absolutely brilliant as the Eleventh Doctor, surpassing David Tennant in just over an hour; and Karen Gillan is great as Amy. Caitlin Blackwood is good as young Amelia, Arthur Darvill is great as Rory Williams and the rest of the supporting cast are pretty good, and clearly enjoying some of the great one-liners they are given.
The updated title sequence and theme music are excellent as well. I love the time vortex and the logo and transitions (particularly the DW turning into the TARDIS) are all great, along with an excellent theme, despite the rather strange opening that bares little resemblance to An Unearthly Child's original. The end theme is also far too short.
Overall, The Eleventh Hour is an example of Doctor Who getting it right. Every element pulls together to produce a truly magical episode that is one of Steven Moffat's best, and probably one of the show's best too. The Eleventh Hour is a near-perfect reintroduction to the 50 year old show. 10/10
Happy Fish Fingers and Custard Day, Doctor Who.