dbskyler

For me, it wasn't that "Beast" was rushed, it was that things didn't make sense. Feeding low-performing children to the whale didn't make sense -- or at least, it wasn't supported at all in the "reveal" at the end; there was no reason for it given (not even a "we have to feed the whale something" reason as the whale doesn't eat the children and the government knows that). Getting rid of people who vote the wrong way didn't quite work with the reveal moment either. There should have been some sort of remorse expressed for killing off the dissidents, but we didn't get it. Although I personally think it would've worked better if it turned out that no one had ever voted to "protest" and therefore no one had ever been fed to the whale. Also, the whole need to enslave the whale in the first place wasn't supported -- if every other nation managed to successfully build a starship (including Scotland), why couldn't the (rest of the) UK? The bit with Amy seeing the Doctor as kind and old didn't work for me either; it felt pasted on rather than something that arose out of what happened in the episode. How does she know that he's old, anyway? I guess you can argue she saw all those versions of him on the roof with the Atraxi, but a line or two about it would've helped. But then, how does she know that the whale is old? I also didn't like the "no interference except when children are crying" bit. Since we know the Doctor always interferes whether or not there are children around, I didn't understand why he would say that to Amy, and I needed that explained somehow. Then her subsequent "insight" that the Doctor is kind for the children and therefore the whale must be the same didn't work for me because she's wrong, there's not some big exception he makes for children. In fact the whole ending felt artificial, like it was a destination Moffat was going for, didn't quite get to in the script but magically arrived at anyway.

Well, maybe you're right, maybe the ultimate issue was lack of time to build the support for all these things, but it just didn't work for me at all.