Dinosaurs on a Spaceship

David Bradley was cast as Solomon, the episode's main villain.

Showrunner Steven Moffat said that putting dinosaurs on a spaceship was "the secret of success".[1] The idea to use dinosaurs in Doctor Who came from the special effects teams The Mill and Millennium FX.[2] As "Asylum of the Daleks" was a darker opening episode, "Dinosaurs on a Spaceship" is more about fun.[3] In Moffat's pitch to writer Chris Chibnall, he proposed, "Maybe it's a ship heading towards Earth, and Earth is on alert".[4] Chibnall had previously written the Doctor Who episodes "42" (2007), "The Hungry Earth"/"Cold Blood" (2010), as well as work for the spinoff series Torchwood.[5][6] The Doctor had previously encountered dinosaurs in the 1974 serial Invasion of the Dinosaurs.[7] Moffat suggested the spaceship was Silurian, and Chibnall, who had written the return of the Silurians in "The Hungry Earth"/"Cold Blood", felt that it was "a nice reveal and shows you more about them, even in a story that isn’t really about them".[8]

Chibnall suggested including a "bonkers" gang of characters picked from around time and space.[4] He felt that Doctor Who could have "collisions of characters that no other show in the world can do", and that it was about finding a "disparate" group of characters who would "bounce" off each other.[3] Nefertiti's decision not to return to her own time fits in with the historical record, as the date and cause of her death are unknown.[9] Chibnall asked to introduce Rory's father, as Amy and Rory would be leaving in four episodes and Rory's family life had not been explored yet.[2][10] Mark Williams, who played Rory's father, previously appeared in the Fifth Doctor audio adventure The Eternal Summer.[11] Rupert Graves, who played an Edwardian hunter in this episode, previously worked with Moffat on the BBC series Sherlock.[12] David Bradley's character, Solomon, was modelled on a "well-known nightclub owner with long hair".[13] Chibnall described him as "half businessman, half Somali pirate".[4] Bradley and Williams had previously worked together on the Harry Potter film franchise.[14] Bradley was later cast as the First Doctor William Hartnell for the 50th anniversary documentary drama An Adventure in Space and Time and reprised his role in the Twelfth Doctor (Peter Capaldi)'s last Christmas special episode, Twice Upon a Time.[15] Comedy duo Mitchell and Webb provided the voices of Solomon's two robots; executive producer Caroline Skinner called the casting choice "perfect".[16] Richard Hope, who played the Silurian Bleytal, previously appeared as Malohkeh in the episodes "The Hungry Earth", "Cold Blood" and "The Wedding of River Song".[14]

"Dinosaurs on a Spaceship" and the following episode, "A Town Called Mercy", were the first episodes to be produced for the seventh series, both directed by Saul Metzstein.[17][18] The two episodes are Metzstein's first Doctor Who credits.[19] The episode contains one of the biggest sets ever built for the show.[20] The scenes in the "engine room" were filmed at Southerndown beach, Vale of Glamorgan in late February 2012.[7][21][22] The beach had previously been used as "Bad Wolf Bay" in "Doomsday" (2006) and "Journey's End" (2008), and as the planet Alfava Metraxis in "The Time of Angels"/"Flesh and Stone" (2010).[23]

The Triceratops prop, on display at the Doctor Who Experience.

The production team had to be mindful of the series' budget when planning the effects and sets; Chibnall commented that "it would be very easy to spend £300m on this but we don’t have it".[2] As such, the dinosaurs could not dominate the episode, and Chibnall had to tell "a big other story".[3] The scene where Amy, Riddell, and Nefertiti stumble upon a sleeping Tyrannosaurus rex was almost cut as it was originally intended to feature computer-generated (CGI) raptors, which were too expensive. However, Millennium FX realised they could use a baby T-Rex that had been in an exhibit they designed.[8] The episode contains a variety of "favourite" dinosaurs; some were built from scratch, while others were CGI.[3] Smith had to wear padded trousers when riding the triceratops, and recalled it was "a painful couple of hours, a laugh though and definitely worth it".[24] Half of the triceratops was actually built and pushed by crewmen when Smith, Darvill, and Williams were riding it. The rest of it was filled in with CGI by The Mill.[25] The Doctor Who logo in the title sequence featured the texture of a dinosaur's hide,[14] in keeping with the varied "blockbuster" themes for each of the opening five episodes of the series.[26] A preview clip of the episode was released at the 2012 San Diego Comic-Con International.[1]

"Dinosaurs on a Spaceship" received generally positive reviews from critics, with a few detractors. Dan Martin of The Guardian described it as "fun", with praise to the expensive-looking sets and dinosaurs, the usefulness of Amy and Rory, and the concept of the gang. While he admitted it was "flimsy" and "pretty much a story built around a title", he thought it was "the finest episode two from Doctor Who in some time". However, he was unsettled by the underscore of darkness that was "almost disturbing enough to ruin everything".[9] Similarly, Charlie Anders of io9 called it "the most fun I can remember Doctor Who being in years", while also noting gradual distancing between the Doctor and the Ponds and identifying a recurrent theme in this season: the Doctor "not being recognized".[35] Radio Times reviewer Patrick Mulkern was pleased that the "flawlessly realised" CGI dinosaurs redeemed the ones seen in Invasion of the Dinosaurs. He also praised Bradley's Solomon and the "fresh slant" of having the ark built by Silurians, rather than humans as previously seen in the programme.[8] The A.V. Club's Keith Phipps gave it a B, finding that it was formulaic but executed well. Unlike Martin, he enjoyed the dark turns.[36] Will Barber-Taylor of The Consulting Detective wrote that "[a] mixture between good CGI and a rather nicely paced story means that 'Dinosaurs on a Spaceship' keeps you hooked to the end."[37]

Dave Golder of SFX gave the episode four out of five stars, describing it as "slight and fluffy and silly, with the occasional creaky bit of plotting ... but enormously entertaining". He was pleased that the guest characters were played "straight" rather than for comedy, and found the dinosaur effects "great" and the Silurian twist "enriching continuity". However, he felt that the teaser was too fast-paced, Nefertiti was "rather bland", and wrote that it was unlikely the Doctor would have a friendship with a big game hunter.[14] IGN's Matt Risley rated "Dinosaurs on a Spaceship" 7 out of 10, noting that it "isn't going to win any awards for scriptwriting or pathos, but it certainly succeeded on a family-friendly level full of whimsy". Though he wrote that Brian was "brilliant", he overall criticised the "gang", feeling that they "served little purpose other than to inject some conveniently timed plot devices when needed". He also did not like the "bickering Marvin the Paranoid Android-lite" robots.[38] However, Neela Debnath of The Independent enjoyed the gang, writing, "the more companions there are the more variety it adds to the show because each one has their own flaws and backstory".[39]

Digital Spy's Morgan Jeffery was more mixed, giving it three stars out of five. He described it as "rather over-stuffed", with Riddell and Nefertiti one-dimensional and under-used. He also criticised the robots and felt that the Doctor leaving Solomon to die might have been "a step too far". However, he praised the three leads and Brian, as well as the foreshadowing with Amy and Rory.[40] Gavin Fuller of The Daily Telegraph was even more negative, only rating it two stars out of five. He described it as "ultimately a bit of a mess", calling the contrast between the "uneasy mix of the humorous and downright daft" gang and the "sinister" Solomon story "jarring". Fuller also noted that the dinosaurs were "a sideshow to the main plot". Like Morgan, he also felt that the Doctor's actions at the end would "sit uneasily within the viewers".[41]