Doctor Who:
The Impossible Astronaut/Day of the
Moon
By Steven Moffat
"Guys, sorry, but
you're way out of time. Now, come on. A bit of history for you. Aren't
you proud? Because you helped. Now, do you know how many people
are watching this live on the telly? Half a billion. And that's nothing,
because the human race will spread out among the stars. You just watch
them fly.
Billions and billions of them, for billions and billions of years, and
every single one of them at some point in their lives, will look back at
this man,
taking that very first step, and they will never, ever forget it."
Series 6 starts off with a
bang. I mean a BIG BANG. It turns out that the mysterious astronaut in
all the promos happens to be the one person to actually kill the Doctor. I repeat, KILLS THE DOCTOR! (Well we all know that to be not true after
watching The Wedding of River Song.) It
was rumored that someone was going to get killed off in the first episode but you
never thought they were serious. I
thought the main storyline for the season was going to be about the Silence but
now I'm not sure. Unless the Doctor's
death is resolved in the second part of this story then I believe preventing
the Doctor's death will be the main storyline which it ended up being among
other things. The thing that was so
clever about this scenario is that the Doctor who dies is 200 years older than
the Doctor we have been watching. The
whole thing that makes this complicated is that Amy, Rory and River saw the older
Doctor die and are now with the younger Doctor and agree to not tell him what
awaits him in the future. Amy seems to
be conflicted with this decision as she believes that the Doctor should be told
and apparently will go to lengths to prevent him getting killed.
For the first time in 7 years we
finally have a story that opens a new season that isn't silly and way over the
top. I mean the Impossible Astronaut is
downright scary. I was sitting at the
edge of my seat watching this episode as I couldn't believe what I was seeing
and I was anxious to see what would happen next. One of the main reasons I liked the
Impossible Astronaut is that you have to pay attention to what was going on
because if you missed something you will be lost. Steven Moffat has crammed in so much into
this opening episode that it will make your head spin. Not only did he introduce the Doctors death
dilemma he also adds that Amy is now pregnant. We also see for the first time the new alien
The Silence. This is one cool enemy for
the Doctor to fight. What intrigues me
about them is that after you see them they have the power to make you forget
that you saw them at all. So in theory
they wipe your memory. How cool is
that. I think that The Silence will pose
to be a big problem for the Doctor as they return in The Wedding of River Song
and apparently the regeneration story The Time of The Doctor.
As I mentioned
earlier this story is darker than we have seen and is a lot more serious in tone. Don't get me wrong there were still silly
moments from the Doctor but it has been curtailed from the previous series. It is now apparent that Matt Smith is 100%
comfortable with being the Doctor as his performance was one of the best so far
and you can tell that he took the character into a new direction from last
series being a bit looser. In fact all
of the acting was pretty well done. Even
that Nixon character was done pretty well.
The Impossible Astronaut posed lot
of questions that I believe will not be answered right away. So far those questions have sucked me in as I
am intrigued with what is still to come from this series. I have to say that Steven Moffat has spoon an
excellent first story of the season possibly the best so far from the relaunch
era of Doctor Who. The Impossible
Astronaut is an excellent start to this season and a classic in the
making. Hopefully the second part Day of
the Moon doesn't disappoint and kill the wonderful setup it has.
While the Impossible Astronaut
was the place setter getting the pins all set up The Day of the Moon knocked
all the pins down. The Day of the Moon
benefited from having more action and moving along at a quicker pace. Plus the silly moments was kept to a minimum. My favorite was when The Doctor was in the
Apollo 11 capsule and then saying "I put it all back together except for
these parts."
I liked the feel of this
episode. The Day of the Moon was scary
and very suspenseful. I was at the edge
of my seat watching this one as I was anxious to see what would happen
next. It was also pretty scary mainly
creepy scary most noticeably when Amy was wandering around the orphanage. That was a pretty creepy scene. Speaking of creepy I have to say that the Silence
is one of the creepiest and scariest creatures to appear in Doctor Who in a
long time. I can't remember a new
villain for the Doctor to face that is original and unique besides The Weeping
Angels.
The Day of the Moon had a pretty
good resolution to the problem. The
Doctor used his mind and didn't have to resort to a reset button, time travel
or the sonic screw driver to defeat the Silence. I like stories where the Doctor is clever and
comes up with great way to win. It was
pretty clever to see the Doctor using a recording of the Silence during the
moon landing. Using their own hypnotism
powers against them.
There was a pretty good scene
that could have been predictable but Steven Moffat swerved the audience
again. When Rory was listening to Amy
over the chip you were to believe that she was talking about the Doctor and
that there would be a rift of jealousy going on. It had me thinking that Amy was going to be
another Rose who falls in love with the Doctor.
Luckily Steven Moffat didn't go that route and it was Rory that she was
talking about. Thank goodness for
that. I liked the way that Steven Moffat
has kept the Doctor and Amy relationship to just friends. It also helps that Matt Smith and Karen
Gillian have great chemistry together.
Those two are most notably one of the best pairings in Doctor Who
history
I usually like it when Doctor Who
throws in big surprises and great big wow moments. Usually those are in stories that are kind of
weakly written and those scenes are thrown in to help the episode. Well The Day of the Moon had some big holy
cow moments in it. The first has to do
with Amy. While she was in the orphanage
rummaging around for the girl in the astronaut suit she comes across a picture
of herself and a baby. But nothing compares to what happens in the closing
moments of this episode. This one moment will undoubtedly overshadow
what a great story The Impossible Astronaut/The Day of the Moon really is. We find out that the little girl in the
Astronaut suit is a Time Lord. We
actually see her start to regenerate. We
all know that the little girl was River but at the time it was a Wow moment and
the speculation was in full overdrive over that.
After watching this story
multiple times I have to say that the season opener was very different and set
Doctor Who on a different direction than what we are used to. There are so many things to keep the diehard
fans guessing but could all these developments keep new fans or first time
viewers away. This starts a procession of an umbrella story with Madame
Kovarian appearing at Amy and is Amy pregnant or not plus not to mention the
date where The Doctor dies. Series 6 is
filled with a lot and is a pretty ambitious season so far.
Grade A
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