The Beast Below

Steven Moffat puts a childish take on our fears--so of course his first example of a police state is primary school grading! The immediate followup makes clear the seriousness of this--with children alone. The scene is scored not with just one but two terrifying music cues. Obviously, once a heavy, low 10/8 vamp starts, nothing good is going to come of that elevator trip! And so the result is a trip "below" for Timmy--to a staccato choral section in 3-3-2, followed by high flute/trumpet flourishes.

But the mood spins gently away immediately after the credits--to a return of variations on Amy's theme. The lovely voice of Yamit Mamo provides as much of the 'floating' sensation for Amy's introduction to space as do the special effects crew.

This episode interweaves the solving of the first scene's mystery--and Amy's first journey as a companion. The story and the score reflect the dynamic between these processes. There are tinkly 'magical' cues of wonder, and brooding cues of secrets--like the "impossible truth" of Starship UK (expressed by Liz 10 with a low reed melody).

The new sound library is already getting some mileage. As I said, Amy's theme came in early, but in one of my favorite ever repeat usages, the Doctor's new action theme plays while... well... while the Doctor and Amy are humbled by nature in such a ridiculous way as to remind us Americans why we used to describe Doctor Who to the uninitiated as "Star Trek as done by Monty Python."

There is naturally a surfeit of tense music in this episode. Threats and mysteries. But then... at the climax, there is a ‘bookending’ of string adagio cues. On the first side--there is the denouement of the starship's secret, the society's terrible choices. The music is a set of slow string variations in D minor, with high octave notes of pathos, but no resolution--only regrets and a return to the start of the melody. On the other side--as Amy explains the secret of the star whale--the other string adagio begins. Modulated to (I believe the relative) major, and then rising upwards with the simple epiphany of understanding, it finally resolves into a gentle downwards progression (before the next storyline intrudes)...

Those paired string cues frame the core moment of the story--from what the society's choices and actions did to its victims, to the internal change of heart, and of understanding, needed to escape from reliving that choice over and over again. So... the music cues are doing more than signifying characters, or specific idea lines. Here they're signposting the plot's complexity of ideas and social morality. It's very subtle and well suited to Amy; string lines instead of orchestral flourishes. But it's there as melodic scaffolding for the plot and the scene, in the structure as well as the tunes. And not bad showing what you can do with a couple of quiet string cues.