Our son remained silent and attentive through this story until about forty minutes in, when he grumbled “There are some episodes of some programs that I just don’t like, and this is one of them.” He didn’t connect to this story about a terrified kid with psychic powers at all. We talked a little afterward and figure it’s possibly because even though our son has his own nighttime rituals, he’s never really experienced the monster-under-the-bed sort of phobias that this kid has, and couldn’t understand why George was afraid of absolutely everything.
As for me, Matt Smith sells a really excellent moment where the Doctor talks about how far into space George’s psychic message traveled, and structurally it’s a far better script than Mark Gatiss’s previous contribution, “Victory of the Daleks”, but it dissolves into another power of love resolution and never really gelled for me. Our son noticed the similarities between this apartment block and the Powell Estate from series one and two, but that location seemed much more real and full of people. The only people we see in this building have speaking parts. There’s no life or energy in the script or in the place they filmed it.
Fire Breathing Dimetrodon Time 