Future Context – The Impossible Astronaut/Day of the Moon Review

[u/ZeroCentsMade]

This post is part of a series of reviews. To see them all, click here.

Historical information found on Shannon Sullivan's Doctor Who website (relevant page here) and the TARDIS Wiki (relevant pages here) and here)). Primary/secondary source material can be found in the source sections of Sullivan's website, and rarely as inline citations on the TARDIS Wiki.

Story Information

• Episode: Series 6, Episodes 1-2
• Airdate: 23rd - 30th April 2011
• Doctor: 11th
• Companions: Amy, Rory
• Other Notable Characters: River Song, Madame Kovarian (Frances Barber, Episode 2)
• Writer: Steven Moffat
• Director: Toby Haynes
• Showrunner: Steven Moffat

Review

"Careful". Tried that once. Ever so dull. – River

When I reviewed the Library two parter I hinted at the fact that once Steven Moffat took over as showrunner it was going to become harder and harder for me to review each story without making heavy reference to future stories. I generally try to do this because I believe strongly in taking stories on their own terms. And to this point, I've been largely successful at upholding that idea.

But we've hit a bit of a brick wall at this point. That's because the two parter that opens Series 6, "The Impossible Astronaut" and "Day of the Moon", plays very differently depending on whether you've seen the rest of Series 6. I talked a lot in reviews that I made during series 5 (particularly the first two two parters) about how the series arc would come crashing into ongoing stories. Well that doesn't really happen in Series 6 (well, maybe once) because instead we've got several stories this series that are entirely devoted to building up its arc. And that all begins here.

This two parter leaves a lot of questions unanswered. The good news is that, by the end Series 6 most of those questions will be answered and by the end of the 11th Doctor era pretty much all of them will be. The bad news is, those answers largely won't make much sense. And so it's kind of hard not to come back to this two parter and find myself not nearly as engaged with it as I was the first time.

Which is a shame because, if you don't know the future of those unanswered questions, this is an amazing two parter.

There's a lot of takeaways that come naturally after watching this story for the first time, but perhaps the most universal is "holy shit, Steven Moffat did it again". The Silents, with their Edvard Munch's The Scream mixed with alien Greys aesthetic and their memory erasing gimmick instantly drew comparisons to the Weeping Angels. It's especially an obvious comparison since in both cases characters have to keep staring at the monster. But also it doesn't feel like it's derivative of the Angels either. The Angels, especially in their initial appearance in "Blink" tend to feel like unknowable entities and are primarily driven by their hunger for potential energy. The Silents have more recognizable motivations, even if the entirety of their plans aren't explained by the end of this story. But they're also in some ways more threatening than the Angels. With the Angels, at least you always know what you're facing and that you're facing something. With the Silents…the second you turn away, you will forget that there was even a threat to be faced. And on top of all of that, any instructions given to someone while they're looking at a Silent will remain as a form of post-hypnotic instruction, allowing them to subtly control whatever they want.

It's a concept for a villain that almost demands a two part story, as information about these guys necessarily is discovered very slowly, both by characters and audience. Opening Series 6 with a two parter was a big shift for Doctor Who, the first time a multi-part story has opened up a series in the Revival. It sets the stage for a grander scale story to open the series. In many ways, it feels like an opportunity that was opened up because, for the first time ever, the Series opener doesn't have to introduce (or reintroduce in the case of "Partners in Crime") a new character to the main cast. Instead, this two parter, in addition to all that plot stuff I referenced earlier, can take a darker tone than past openers.

After all, this is the story that starts by apparently killing the Doctor.

Yeah, after the Doctor sends out letters to River and Amy and Rory to meet him in the middle of nowhere in Utah, and has a nice picnic with his friends by a fictional lake called Lake Silencio, an Apollo astronaut walks out of the lake and shoots him. And then when the Doctor starts to regenerate, the astronaut shoots him again, apparently killing him. It then transpires that the Doctor sent himself another one of those letters, sending our cast, including the younger Doctor to 1969 to investigate events surrounding Canton Everett Delaware III…whose older self was also present at the Doctor's apparent murder, because of course.

And the first time you watch this, all of this is very shocking, and intriguing. There's the visceral moment where the astronaut just shoots the Doctor and you're left in nearly as much shock as the characters on the beach. Then the reality sets in and it's not even clear what's going to happen next. And then the younger Doctor shows up and there's this mystery that's set up. And while elements of the mystery, such as what's going on with the spacesuit, are dealt with in this story, the largest portion of it remains unsolved.

We know that there's a little girl in the spacesuit, a little girl that, according the final scene of the story can regenerate, but who is she? It's heavily implied that it might be Amy's daughter, but Amy isn't pregnant at the story, in spite of thinking she was, except she might be. The TARDIS is unclear on the topic. Then there's the "why" of it all. Why did the Doctor go to Lake Silencio, apparently knowing he'd die? Why was this little girl shoved in the spacesuit and why is she carrying out the assassination of the Doctor some 42 years later, especially since she seems to have wanted to escape? Why would the Silents be so intent on killing the Doctor, to the point where they've taken control of Earth (in classic conspiracy theory fashion) to do it? Oh and of course there's the "how" questions. Most obviously, how is the Doctor going to survive?

As I said, we will get answers to these questions. But they won't be good answers. And that means that, in retrospect, it does damage the moment. Nowadays, when I watch that scene of the Doctor dying, none of the emotions from my first time seeing the scene hit me. And it's not because I can't be shocked by something I already knew was going to happen. It's because I don't care anymore, because those answers won't be satisfying. And that does extend, albeit to a lesser extent, to the rest of this story because while there is something resembling a standalone story here, it is a story that is so intrinsically tied in to Series 6's arc that it cannot be separated out from that arc.

Still, once the younger Doctor enters the picture those concerns do largely get set aside. The focus shifts to a mystery where President Nixon is getting mysterious phone calls from a child. He's concerned that the FBI might be involved in the calls (Nixon? paranoid? shocking) so he pulls in ex-FBI agent Canton Everett Delaware III. Nixon in this story…well it does remind me a bit of the issues I had with the portrayal of Churchill in "Victory of the Daleks". Obviously the portrayal of Nixon is a lot less positive, but Nixon, like Churchill, ends up feeling like a bit of a caricature rather than a real person. It's not as bad as it was with Churchill, mind, and it does get a little more justified. In a lot of the scenes where Nixon feels more like a caricature (which often have "Hail to the Chief" playing in the soundtrack) it plays a bit more like Nixon is playing up a persona. We're maybe seeing Nixon the politician. In that first scene, and in a final scene where he asks the Doctor if he'll be remembered, there's a bit more of a human feeling to his behavior.

Canton ends up essentially joining the TARDIS team for this story, meaning that, since River's here, we effectively have a five person crew for this one. Canton's fun. He gets a ride in the TARDIS which, naturally, confuses the hell out of him. He remains a solid presence throughout, unsurprising for a character played by Mark Sheppard. He's not the deepest character mind, and can fall into generic action hero clichés, but serves the role of a (relatively) ordinary 1960s man to round out a cast that otherwise has no connection to this time or place. His story of leaving the FBI does deserve something of a look. Canton wanted to marry someone that the FBI didn't approve of. For most of the story that's all we know, but at the end we discover that it's because he wanted to marry a man (and a black man at that). Richard Nixon, predictably, does not approve. It's probably one of the better presentations of a queer character in the Moffat era (which until Moffat's final series, is sadly not saying much), where Canton's sexuality is an important part of his story, but he's still given a fair amount of characterization beyond that. Again, not the deepest character, but a consistent and fun presence.

A lot of this story is an investigation into the Silents, and the naturally slow pace that information comes out. "Day of the Moon" actually starts with a three month timeskip in which time Amy, Rory and River have been trying to work out the extent of the incursion. And by the end one thing is very clear: it's deep. There's even a clever spy trick that they play, where Canton pretends to be hunting them down so that the Silents, who have, of course, infiltrated the government, don't know what's really going on. In the time since apparently our heroes have managed to learn a small amount about them, most notably that information about the Silents doesn't even stick in your brain after you've learned it, though the Doctor, naturally, seems to be immune to at least that much of their powers.

In the three month gap, it would seem that the Doctor has formulated a plan. And credit where it's due, this is a clever one. He also needs information, sending Amy and Canton to investigate children's homes to see what they can learn about the girl in the spacesuit, and to see if they can capture a Slient. We get one out of two on that point as while not much information is gained, Canton does manage to shoot a Silent. Unfortunately, Amy gets captured herself. Now we, as the audience, don't really realize how much of this is the Doctor's plan until the end (and obviously he didn't intend for Amy to get captured), but the Doctor does announce that he has a plan (claiming, falsely, that his secret weapon is "Neil Armstrong's foot"…seriously that line means absolutely nothing). So we get this building mystery as to what the Doctor is up to throughout the second episode…especially when he's fiddling around with Apollo 11.

The plan, it turns out, is this. Using Amy's cell phone (which he barely understands), Canton films one of the Silents. Canton goads this Silent into declaring that "you [humans] should kill us all on sight". And then, in the middle of rescuing Amy from the Silents, the Doctor interrupts the transmission of the moon landing to broadcast the Silent saying that. Turning the Silents post-hypnotic suggestion against them is one of my favorite Doctor plans. Seriously, it's just so satisfying to see it all come together at the end here. Somehow, while dealing with massive gaps in his memory, the Doctor manages to pull off a brilliant solution to what seemed like an impossible problem.

And the Doctor has a good story all around. We saw the Doctor be manipulative a lot in Series 5, but not since "The Eleventh Hour" has he pulled off something this clever. And, in spite of the fact that Amy and Rory have a big secret to keep from the Doctor (the bit where they saw his older self die), he's keeping a big secret from them at the end – but I'll touch on that more when we talk about Amy. Also, while we don't have the full context yet, the older Doctor organizing all of these details around him getting killed, including bringing in his younger self after the fact implies the kind of manipulations that is usually reserved for the 7th Doctor in expanded universe material.

And speaking of that, one of my favorite 11th Doctor scenes occurs in this story when his friends tell him that they need to find Canton Everett Delaware III in 1969 and he does all of this work to show he can find him…and then sits down and tells them very plainly that he's not just going to follow a mysterious summons. He knows his friends know more than they're letting on, and when River tells him to just trust her…well he points out the obvious point that he has no real reason to trust her. It's just a great performance from Matt Smith and as always, when the 11th Doctor gets emotional, he goes quiet, giving him menace. His interaction with Amy in that same scene hints at some future development. When Amy insists that he needs to trust her, he goes into protective mode, as though he can still only see the seven year old girl he first met. And it's Amy referring back to that meeting with "fish fingers and custard" that gets the Doctor to finally relent and take them all to 1969.

And as for Amy…oh geez. So honestly most of this story is good to her. I think the scenes of Amy interacting with the Silents represent their most memorable bits, and that's partially down to Karen Gillan's performance. Her reaction to the Doctor's apparent death is the most outwardly emotional, which definitely tracks – Rory doesn't have the same emotional connection to him as her while River is much better at keeping her emotions in check (and also she knows way more than she's letting on, but we'll get there). She gets some fun interactions with Canton and Rory in this one too, and definitely feels like she's the veteran time traveller in comparison to the two of them.

But then there's her relationship with Rory and this story absolutely bungles this. There are, as I said, some really fun scenes, but a lot of the time things are rough here. First, we should note that Amy doesn't tell Rory when she thinks she's pregnant. She tells the Doctor that this is because she was worried that her time in the TARDIS might have some adverse effect on her child, but that just doesn't feel like a good enough reason. As a reminder, these two characters are married. There should be better communication than this, although when Rory does find out, he reacts more mildly annoyed than upset, which is something I guess. Also I should mention this is the secret the Doctor is keeping from his friends at the end of the story, as a scan of Amy shows her pregnancy seemingly in flux, as though the machine can't tell if she is or isn't pregnant.

And then, we should probably talk about Amy's words over her removed implant (which is somehow still connected to her because…science?). She says, "I love you. I know you think it's him. I know you think it ought to be him, but it's not. It's you," and, "My life was so boring before you just dropped out of the sky." So naturally every audience member is going to suspect that Amy is actually in love with the Doctor based on these words. Because that is the only reasonable conclusion that can be taken from them. Except at the end of the story we learn, thanks to both scenes including the words "stupid face" that she was talking about Rory. Which makes no sense. Sure, "fell out of the sky" is a figure of speech, but it's hard to see how it applies to Rory. Especially given what we'll later see about the history of their relationship, with the two of them having known each other all their lives. I suppose you could argue that the revelation that Amy has that Rory is actually into her comes so suddenly it's like he fell out of the sky but that's such a massive stretch that I don't know if I can credit it.

And then there's the first part of that line that doesn't even have an attempted justification: "I know you think it's him. I know you think it ought to be him". In what world does Rory think that it "ought" to be the Doctor? Hell, after the events of Series 5 he really shouldn't even think it's the Doctor. These lines were written first and foremost to deceive the audience. I don't think that Steven Moffat seriously intended for Amy to actually be in love with the Doctor as that lines up with pretty much nothing else that has ever been written about these characters. It especially doesn't line up with "Amy's Choice", the last time that trying to make this love triangle a thing would ever work. And I don't think I ever seriously believed when first hearing these lines that Amy was actually in love with the Doctor. It's just bad writing, plain and simple.

There is a little to say about Rory this time. Obviously he's incredibly distraught when Amy gets taken. We get in an actually good piece of romantic dialogue when he insists that, even though the implant doesn't allow Amy to hear him, "She can always hear me, Doctor. Always. Wherever she is, and she always knows that I am coming for her." See, sometimes this romance is well-written. He, for the first time really, gets a longer interaction with River and it's endearingly awkward, especially with the context of knowing the truth of their relationship. Rory doesn't know (like the audience) of course, so he's mostly just put upon to have to keep an eye on her. It's not that he dislikes her, just that she's not really the kind of person he'd normally hang out with. And their interactions do include one of the most blatant foreshadowings of that "true" relationship I mentioned earlier, which you'll still never realize in the moment without knowing in advance.

Oh and speaking of River, it's this story where stories featuring River really become about River to a greater extent. River mostly does exist as a figure of mystery in this one, but we do drop a number of more substantial hints. And, in retrospect, this story serves as a major part of her origin story though of course you wouldn't know it at the time.

It's also in this story that the romantic subtext between River and the Doctor starts being text. Whether it's Amy actively calling out that the two are flirting when they should be saving her, or them ending the story on a kiss (more on that later), we've reached the point where we know that River's not just flirting with the Doctor for fun, but because there's an actual relationship building here. I know that a lot of people don't like 11/River specifically, and I can kind of see why. Putting the 11th Doctor, who often comes across as very sexually naive with the very sexually aggressive River is probably off-putting to many. Personally, this relationship works for me. A lot of it is that Alex Kingston is one of those performers who has excellent chemistry with whoever she's paired with, and that includes Matt Smith. But also, aside from being surprised when River kisses him (and that's more because the Doctor has never kissed River and she's acting like it's a normal thing for them), I always felt like that sexual naiveté kind of vanishes when he's with River. He's still awkward about it, because the 11th Doctor is awkward about 75% of the time, but awkward in a way that, to me at least, always felt enthusiastic rather than uncomfortable, again, at least with River.

I do have a complaint though, and it will allow me to make a more generally observation about one of the flaws of Steven Moffat's writing. Moffat has a tendency to write really beautiful poetic pieces of dialogue that are just so obviously not true. Specifically, River tells Rory, and then later the Doctor, that she and the Doctor are traveling in "opposite directions". "Your future's my past. Your firsts are my lasts," she says. This sets up their kiss at the end of the episode being the Doctor's first but also River's last. That's an interesting idea except…it very obviously isn't true. If that were true, there would be no need for the diaries, since they'd actually never have any shared experiences. Now that's a really interesting idea, but it is, quite simply not the story being told. And I probably wouldn't spend so much time with it, except Moffat writing very poetic language that is just flat out wrong is going to be a trend worth keeping our eyes on.

So, at the end of all of this, what do we do with this story? The Silents are a great adversary, one of the all-time best. The elements of the story that don't extend past this one are almost all phenomenal, with the exception of the serious mishandling of Amy and Rory's relationship. However when watching this story, I can't get past the knowledge that a lot of the questions raised by this story are going to have really underwhelming answers. On the other hand, it's hard to come down too harshly. I mean, that climax is still incredibly satisfying, one of Steven Moffat's better skills as a writer, and the build up is excellent. So on the whole, this is a good story, but unfortunately gets dragged down by some of its follow-up.

Score: 7/10

Stray Observations

• This story was set primarily in the United States to take advantage of the increased viewership for the show in America. Series 5 had set records for viewership on BBC America.
• Writer/showrunner Steven Moffat intended this to be one of the darkest series openers ever for Doctor Who.
• The idea for starting off Series 6 with the Doctor's apparent death came from Steven Moffat's concept for Series 5 should David Tennant had remained, where that series would have started with the 10th Doctor regenerating, before the rest of Series 5 would have built up to that point.
• Part of the reason for using the White House as a setting for this one was that Steven Moffat was a fan of television series The West Wing, and wanted to do a scene in the Oval Office.
• This was the third consecutive story that Toby Haynes directed a after the Series 5 finale and "A Christmas Carol" (which also means Haynes directed 5 consecutive episodes). Curiously, after directing so much significant material, Haynes would never direct for Doctor Who again, though he did work on Steven Moffat's other project around this time, Sherlock.
• Haynes had done some work for the television series Supernatural where Mark Sheppard, who played Canton, had starred as the villainous character Crowley. This connection wasn't entirely accidental, as there was some hope that the association would make fans suspicious of Canton's motives.
• Originally it was thought that Sheppard could play Canton's older self for the opening sequence at Lake Silencio. Mark Sheppard, however, suggested that the production team cast his father, William Morgan Sheppard, who was also an actor. This did indeed happen, and wasn't even the first time that the pair had played older and younger versions of the same character, having done so on NCIS just a couple years prior in 2009.
• Originally, the first episode opened with a dedication to Elizabeth Sladen, which doesn't appear in my version. Sladen, who of course played Sarah Jane Smith, both on Doctor Who (Classic and Revival) and in her own spinoff The Sarah Jane Adventures, had died just four days before the episode aired after a battle with cancer.
• The King at the beginning of the first episode is meant to be King Charles II.
• Rory and Amy are dropped off at their rendezvous with the Doctor via school bus. They couldn't rent a car?
• River shoots off the Doctor's stetson, making this two straight episodes (not stories mind you, but actually episodes) that River has appeared in where she's shot one of the Doctor's hats.
• The Doctor referring to their eventual destination as "Space: 1969" was a deliberate reference to popular science fiction series Space: 1999.
• For various international releases, the title sequence was preceded by a monologue from Amy Pond, giving a brief rundown of the show's premise and backstory at the time. This seems to have been included specifically to appeal to American audiences where this practice, often called a "series sell" was more common. So a few thoughts on this. The first is, this is a bad series sell. I don't like them in general (though there are a few good ones, for instance Avatar: The Last Airbender's really helped set the tone for that show), but this in particular does a poor job at setting up the premise and an awful job continuity-wise (not only does it not mention Rory despite Amy and Rory being married and traveling together with the Doctor at this time, but also what do you mean, Amy, "and I've been running ever since", we opened the first episode showing that you and Rory had settled down and were living on your own. Granted, only for three months, but still).
• Second, I always found it odd that this was done specifically for the American audience. Yes series sells were more common over here (Star Trek's, for instance, being particularly iconic), but it's not like they're unique to American television. One of the better series sells I've seen is actually from British show Life on Mars. And it's not like every US show, or even every US speculative fiction show used them, there have been plenty that didn't, or dropped them early in their runs. And, as mentioned above, the show had gotten popular over here in the prior couple years, notably without a series sell. It really feels like something that was done just to do it.
• Third, this means that instead of going straight from the opening sequence into the "scream" at the beginning of the theme song, you'll first get this "boom" sound effect and then the narration, and the whole thing just flows better when you go straight into the theme.
• Anyway, I'm watching on a DVD copy, and those were released without the series sell, which means, thankfully I don't have to deal with this.
• The Doctor expected wine to taste more like "the gums". This line confused me for years until I learned that "wine gums" are a specific type of candy that seem to only exist in the UK. And have no wine. And usually no grapes from what I can tell.
• Alex Kingston had had all of the revelations about her character explained to her before this episode was filmed, and so she decided to play her scenes with Amy after the Doctor's death very tenderly and comforting. This confused Karen Gillan.
• After the Doctor shows up in the diner, Rory pokes him in the chest. That's pretty much the same thing that the Doctor did to Rory upon realizing that Rory was back from the dead in "The Pandorica Opens".
• The mid-story "Next Time" trailer proves, as always, that a countdown timer is a cheat code towards building tension, even if said countdown actually has very little to do with the story in question.
• The "Previously On" trailer is decent, if a bit scattershot. Still it does the two most important things: reminds you of how the Silents behave and gives you the cliffhanger from the previous episode…
• …which transitions immediately into the first scene of "Day of the Moon". It's not quite transitioning directly into the cliffhanger resolution like we saw in Series 1, but given that the cliffhanger from "Impossible Astronaut" isn't actually properly resolved immediately it sort of functions the same, and I still prefer it to going straight into the title sequence.
• In that first scene which sees Amy running away from Canton's men in The Valley of the Gods in Utah, she stops running when she gets to what initially appears to be a cliff. She certainly reacts like going any further would lead to, at the very least, serious injuries. Unfortunately a wide shot reveals this to be little more than a gentle incline.
• Rory, like Amy, is apparently shot by Canton's men. This is the fourth time that Rory has appeared to die, and the fourth time in five straight stories he's appeared in. I'm starting to think the only reason that he didn't seem to die in "A Christmas Carol" was that he was barely in it.
• So River does a jump off of the 50th floor of a building which she turns into a dive. The TARDIS "lands" on the side of the building she jumped off of, and River dives through the open door into the swimming pool, which Amy and Rory have opened all of the doors to. We'll accept that either the TARDIS got reconfigured so it was a straight shot to the swimming pool or it just always was like that. My question is, how did she avoid crashing directly into the central column with a very loud "splat"? I'll say this, would have been a hell of a way to rewrite River's death. And to destroy this version of the TARDIS main control room.
• There aren't many things funnier than Rory, somehow managing to be more British than normal and with absolutely no confidence, saying "America salutes you" before quickly walking out of the room and closing the door behind him in what has to be sheer embarrassment.
• The Doctor tells Nixon that he has to tape everything in his office. This, famously, is something that Nixon actually did, and was a huge part of how his part in the Watergate scandal was uncovered.
• The Doctor realizes that the room that Amy is trapped in resembles the abandoned time machine from "The Lodger". Based on his dialogue, it sounds like it might actually be the same one.

Next Time: Buckle your swashes everyone

[u/[deleted]]

Like you, I was more impressed by this two-parter when it first aired than I am watching it now. Even on repeat viewings, it's still got a lot going for it (the groan-worthy return of the fake love triangle notwithstanding). The mysteries are compelling, the Silents make for an amazing new monster, and I'm never not happy to see William Morgan Sheppard pop up in something. And I agree that River's romance with the Doctor really works here. It feels a lot more like a relationship between equals than he and Rose ever did.

However, it really is difficult to sit back and enjoy the ride when you know how where it's going, which, in my opinion, is a major downside to the current trend of heavily serialized television. Also, the relatively harmless caricature of Richard Nixon went down easier in early 2011, decades after his resignation in disgrace, than it does in the wake of the Supreme Court's decision that, to paraphrase the most infamous line from his interview with David Frost, if the president does it, it really does mean it's not illegal.

That being said, I can still appreciate this story for the well-crafted piece of television it is. I don't think the show ever looked this good before, and Smith is as awkwardly charismatic as ever. I don't even mind the "series sell," as much as it used to annoy me. I guess anything can provoke nostalgia given enough time.

[u/pagerunner-j]

"Moffat has a tendency to write really beautiful poetic pieces of dialogue that are just so obviously not true."

This is it exactly. I know this won't be a popular sentiment, but I feel like i'm losing my mind half the time when people get into discussions about best DW quotes, and about two-thirds of them are Moffatisms that seem like they're trying very hard to sound profound, and might succeed at it if you don't take the time to think them through even a little. Sometimes they just make me roll my eyes a bit; sometimes it's a platitude that's so far off-base that it actively hurts hearing people parrot it like it's helpful or meaningful. And it makes me want to sit an editor worth their salt across the table from him and ask what he actually MEANS by half the things he writes, and not let up until he whittles it down to something that actually makes some fucking sense.

[u/Zagreus_time → u/pagerunner-j]

I think he has some good ones but the one I really don't get why is so popular is

"Everything ends. And it's always sad. But everything begins again too and that is always happy, be happy"

Like this is such a obvious statement there is nothing profound here.

[u/pagerunner-j → u/Zagreus_time]

Right. And for God’s sake…haven’t you ever been relieved when something bad ended? Sometimes endings are a mercy, and the only thing that makes it possible for something better to come along. That statement is only valid if your life is nothing but puppies and sunshine and rainbows. And if you’re maybe four years old.

[u/BumblebeeAny3143 → u/pagerunner-j]

I heard someone once say Moffat tries to have a "Tears in the rain" monologue moment in every episode, and I think that's true. Some of his attempts are as deep as a puddle; some are truly profound. Mileage varies.

What really bugged me personally was when the official Doctor Who YouTube channel put out a video of inspirational Doctor Who quotes, and almost the whole list was Moffat lines! Yeah, he has some good ones, but there was almost nothing from Classic Who or RTD1 in the video! On the channel that's supposed to represent all of Doctor Who as a brand! That made me upset.

[u/Baron487]

This is a cracker of an opener. The Silence are awesome and Moffat striking monster gold again, there's clever timey-wimey elements, Canton is a good side character and they play Hail to the Chief pretty much any time Nixon appears which is hysterical.

I will say that the overarching Silence arc does get confusing though. I don't remember for example why the Silence use a spacesuit specifically or why the child is calling to the White House (this is probably just me not remembering though). My actual gripes are mostly minor, but I will say that the biggest mistake they make with the plot point of the Doctor's death is making it a fixed point in time. That leaves only three conclusions really:

*The characters somehow make changes to the actual mechanics of time as established in this show, which is a big decision.

*The Doctor actually dies and the show ends.

*They do an explanation that doesn't make sense beyond the surface.

Guess which one happens. Anyway, I don't like that they tease the love triangle again. That already irritation plot point was resolved in Series 5 so why bring it up again? It's mostly minor but it does come back once more just to create more tension (looking at you, A Good Man Goes to War) and I'm not a fan. Then I think the way part 2 opens up is jarring since it completely skips the cliffhanger in part 1 and that gets resolved through dialogue. I don't hate that but I'm not fond of it.

I also think there should have been some commentary on the fact that Eleven basically tries to do genocide against the Silence. Like yeah they are very evil and are unlikely to be convinced to stop in any non-violent way, but it does feel like the Doctor should've felt some hesitation over what he's doing even if he didn't have much choice. Also him waving the sonic around like a laser pointer while River shoots the Silence was kinda dumb-looking.

Finally, not fond of River saying "I'm quite the screamer" to Rory. Not only an eye-roller of an innuendo... but (SPOILERS) THAT IS YOUR DAD YOU ARE TALKING TO. Sure, he doesn't know that yet but come on, that's just weird to say to one of your parents.

Overall, similarly to the S5 finale, the unconvential nature of the plot makes it difficult for me to recall everything, but I remember really enjoying this story when watching it.

TIA gets 9/10, DotM gets 8/10.

I have quite a few opinions on several Series 6 episodes that, as far as I can tell, deviate from the "fan consensus". I'll tell you one right now:

I think the next episode is good.

[u/rand_althor → u/Baron487]

Regarding that screamer line from River...

Alex Kingston had had all of the revelations about her character explained to her before this episode was filmed

That makes the inclusion of that line even worse!

[u/Baron487 → u/Baron487]

Most of this comment was my grievances but trust me, I do really like the story, I was just not super-detailed with my positives section lol.

[u/Next-Geno_N]

Yeah I do wish that River and the Doctor had experienced everything in reverse order to each other, tbh. It would have been a much more interesting and deliberate way of exploring their evolving relationship, and would have been quite a beautiful romantic tragedy. Especially the inevitable final episode where River looks at The Doctor, and she looks right through him, and it shouldn't kill him, but it does.

(And if nothing else, it would have have actually forced Moffat to plan out his arcs ahead of time).

[u/AlbertTheAlbatross]

I really like the core plot of this one. The silence are fantastic monsters and the episode really shows them off well. I don't quite get why the one in the White House bathroom killed that lady though - it seems like doing villain stuff just for the sake of it and it doesn't really mesh with how they're presented in the rest of the episode.

In terms of the mysteries that the episode sets up, to be honest I don't really fully remember how it all resolves. Partly that's because it's been a while since my last rewatch but I think partly it's because there's so much. It's quite busy and messy, and I think it could really benefit from a good pruning.

Specifically, River tells Rory, and then later the Doctor, that she and the Doctor are traveling in "opposite directions".

This annoyed me too, for basically the same reasons. They've taken a relationship that's quite interesting and that has a bit of depth, and sort of flattened it.

I will say, I really appreciate how River is the "sexy one" of the team. If my maths is right then Alex Kingston was 48 when this was filmed. I love the fact that her character is treated as sexual and sexy, and - crucially - that her age is never called attention to. We have a woman in her late 40s getting to be the romantic lead (ahead of 24-year-old Gillan) and that's just treated as the entirely normal thing that it is. It's something you don't see much in media even 15 years later.

[u/Unhappy-Ad4648]

"I know that a lot of people don't like 11/River specifically, and I can kind of see why. Putting the 11th Doctor, who often comes across as very sexually naive with the very sexually aggressive River is probably off-putting to many."

Seriously? You think that's the only reason. 

Look. I can totally believe in the love between River and the Twelfth Doctor. They're kindred spirits. They're lonely, they've lost so much, and River's close to death. They both secretly dreamed of a "safe haven" where they could find happiness, even if only for a short time.

But River and Eleven are a different story. It's a fascinating and rather terrifying combination of guilt, obsession, deception, manipulation, and inevitability. River was raised to be the Doctor's future killer, and she essentially had to fall in love to overcome her "programming." The Doctor hid from her that he was inside the Teselecta and would survive no matter what. And then he allowed her to be imprisoned for a crime that never happened. River, in turn, didn't help the Doctor fully recover from the loss of Amy and Rory (in "The Snowmen," he's sad and indifferent). Yet they were in equal positions and both needed support, but they couldn't provide it to each other.

You can criticize Ten/Rose for being saccharine all you want. But there was a warmth and sincerity there that Eleven/River sorely lacked. And they also had hope (faint, but still), because the Doctor didn't know when or under what circumstances Rose would die. They were free. The Doctor knew about River's death from the very beginning. There was no freedom or hope there. 

The only thing that holds their relationship together is humor and acting. They have chemistry that more or less covers up the plot's problematic aspects.

[u/dccomicsthrowaway]

Sorry if someone already said it, but I took "open the doors to the swimming pool" to mean "set the TARDIS so that the open doors are directly above the pool itself". Baffled me for years but it explains why there's a splash instantly, and why it floods out of the doors

[u/zyrowyro]

I think you are very right in saying it’s hard to talk about this story or many of the others in this season in retrospect. There are things that I want to say about this episode, but in many ways they are more about the implications of the endings of both series 6 and 7.

Isolated purely to this story, the silence monsters are another beautifully simple Moffat monster idea. You ever get that weird sense of Déjà vu? That you went to go do something and lost track of what just happened? That’s actually a slender man the scream looking gremlin out of the corner of your eye.

As much as I kind of roll my eyes at the transparent pandering to American audiences, Moffat uses the setting really well leaning into the conspiratorial men in black aesthetics and classic sci-fi iconography.

Without going too deep into the conclusion of the series, I feel this story and by extension the greater arc is where some of Moffats motifs in writing lead characters supersede some other elements.

Moffat can often write the doctor as a messianic saint, at least in regards to their importance to the supporting cast of his stories. The show can sometimes grind to a halt in the middle of a story to allow a scene where a side character waxes poetic about how the doctor is the single greatest and most important character in the whole wide universe, and all should basque in that greatness.

Of course this wasn’t started purely by Moffat, cases of it increasingly appeared later in RTD1, but I feel that moffat really leans into that framing of the character and it begins to have greater implications for the plotting of arcs and stories.

To bring this all back to this episode, it’s disappointing in hindsight, as the stories conspiratorial stylings suggest a grand and greater mystery that stretches out into the future. As those arcs unfold though the stories increasingly orbit around the doctor himself, and the show as a result can become inward looking and navel gazing.

[u/Official_N_Squared]

 (claiming, falsely, that his secret weapon is "Neil Armstrong's foot"…seriously that line means absolutely nothing)

This line does have meaning. His secret wepon is Apollo 11 yes, but more specifically Neil Armstrong's first step on the moon becouse that's what "every human will eventually watch" (ignoring the fact it was lost media for awhile). Its indirect shure, but a referance to Armstrong taking that step with his foot. I've also always assumed its a referance to that famous photo of the bootprint on the moon, which probably isnt actually that specific step.