"Here, then, is the truth about Starship UK, and the price that has been paid for the safety of the British people. May God have mercy on our souls."

And then a thing happens that is completely obvious, if you've ever seen a TV show before, but seems to be completely mystifying for most viewers: Rather than seeing Amy watch the video in question, make an informed decision, film a post-memento message to herself, and then wipe her own memory, we experience this subjectively: The images scan across her brain, and we see her hand hit FORGET, and obviously what's happened is that she's made the choice. Unless you're hidebound and needy and unimaginably unsophisticated -- unless you are the kind of person we're talking about, in other words, who doesn't even understand the thing they're making themselves ugly to defend -- in which case the one cool thing in this episode passes you by. Next thing you know Past Amy is onscreen saying, "This isn't a trick. You've got to find the Doctor and get him back to the TARDIS. Don't let him investigate. Stop him. Do whatever you have to. Just please, please get the Doctor off this ship!"

Well, what would you do? The Doctor appears out of nowhere, as the message she doesn't remember leaving plays from the beginning, and she shuts it down. All told, the Doctor figures -- having sonicked the light fixture, like that's not stupid as shit -- she's lost about twenty minutes. And why would she forget? Because everybody does, even citizens 1300 years gone. I mean, what a fuckin' brilliant, awesome metaphor. And if it got more than three seconds in the episode, like say the story it deserves, we'd be handjobbing the fandom out the wang. Instead, we get her frozen face and then her hand pressing FORGET, and even the good ideas go sailing over our heads.

Mandy explains that you're only eligible to vote once you're sixteen, at which point you vote and renew your vote every five years. Maybe this happens to coincide with some British thing, I don't care enough to check because this shit is retarded. In case you didn't get it -- or thought it was so stupid you must have missed something, you faithful few -- the Doctor snorts, "Everyone chooses to forget what they've learned. Democracy in action!" I love it when the Doctor makes idiotic irrelevant judgments about 2010, don't you? God forbid somebody take a photo with their camera, Granddad.