Doctor Who: The Impossible Astronaut
Let’s put tonight’s episode in context. Previous season openers tend to be jolly little adventures designed to ease you into the new season. As a result, they tend to be quite lightweight and not always that convincing – as Partners in Crime (possibly the worst episode since the show returned) so clearly shows. Even The Eleventh Hour was relatively light in terms of plot – it was all about showcasing (understandably) the new Doctor. Not so The Impossible Astronaut. It was undoubtedly the most involved, clever and striking season opener since the show returned. And possibly ever.
I’m going to withhold any proper analysis of the plot until I’ve seen the second installment. Instead, I’d like to make three observations:
(1) Regardless of whether you love or loathe this episode, I think you have to concede that any story that begins with the Doctor being murdered and ends with his main companion gunning down a child has to be worth watching.
(2) Steven Moffat is increasingly becoming a Doctor Who serial killer. Seriously, he killed off River Song when she first appeared, Rory halfway through the last season, and the Doctor at the beginning of the new season. Amy Pond should be very worried.
(3) Talk about giving nothing away. At the end of this episode, we know pretty much nothing. I mean, who is the astronaut? And what are the Silence? What is their plan? How can you defeat an enemy you don’t even remember seeing? What is that slightly grisly lab all about? And that attempt at a TARDIS that we first saw in The Lodger - what's that about? Why is the Doctor dead? How long have the Silence been around for? What impact is being pregnant going to have on Amy Pond's life in the TARDIS? And how the hell is this all going to be resolved?
But then again, that is the point of a first episode in a two part Doctor Who story. A successful first episode is all about creating anticipation for the second episode. And in this regard The Impossible Astronaut succeeds brilliantly.
Actually, I’ll make a fourth observation. It was bloody good.
Labels: Cult TV, Doctor Who, Reviews, TV
posted by The Nameless Libertarian @ 7:19 pm
12 Comments
12 Comments:
The Doctor has carefully arranged the circumstances of his death so he must have some plan that goes beyond getting shot. One of the aliens is watching, so logically this dramatic scene has been staged for their benefit.
Why? The aliens appear to be in hiding on Earth, skulking in underground tunnels. Presumably they are hiding from some terrible enemy of their own. River Song says that other alien races would tear the planet apart to get a scrap of Timelord. So perhaps the future Doctor has been forced to make a bargain with the aliens to save the human race. They will agree to leave the humans alone if he guarantees that all evidence of their existence is erased, but they think his mere presence on Earth is so dangerous to them that they won't accept anything short of his death and immolation as part of the deal.
Is the Doctor actually dead? His body has certainly been destroyed. But his regeneration energy went fizzing around in the air and shortly afterwards Pond is pregnant. What an interesting coincidence! I suggest that he has zapped his regeneration energy into Amy's uterus to grow himself a new body. So Amy Pond will become the mother of the Doctor's next incarnation. When the Doctor tells Amy that his life will be in her hands it's quite literally true.
Who actually shoots him? When the Doctor confronts the astronaut he says something to the effect of "don't worry, I know who you are". Later in the episode River Song reveals that her greatest fear is that one day the Doctor will no longer know who she is. So his line makes perfect sense if it is Song in the suit and the Doctor is trying to reassure her. After all, he cannot control the outcome unless the assassin is one of his own allies. Note also that when he asks Song why she was in prison he specifically asks her who she killed, not a more general question about what she'd done. Sounds like foreshadowing, but possibly also a continuity reference for future events. If the Doctor needs people to think he's dead then he might need Song to take the rap for his murder.
But who is Song and why would she agree to do this? She tells Rory about this astonishing man from the stars who knew all about her, and who fell into her life when she was young. That could easily be a description of Amy's first meeting with the Doctor. But it could also describe the experience of Amy in giving birth to a child who is the reincarnation of someone with whom she already had a unique bond. So I suggest that Song will turn out to be a future version of Amy Pond, utterly changed by her experiences of space and time travel. She calls the Doctor "sweetie" because of that future maternal relationship. Her diary records her travels with that future Doctor, not the current one (which also makes it OK for them to engage in flirtatious banter).
Once you start thinking in terms of time travel this sort of thing begins to seem perfectly logical. Either that or I've been out in the sun too long.
Incidentally, this does mean I've given up on my earlier theory that Song is Romana. If I wasn't able to change my theories in the light of new evidence I'd have to become a climate scientist.
See I maintain that it could all be in the name(s) - Amy Pond and River Song. One is an advanced manifestation of the other.
Then again, that sun was quite hot today...
@Andrew Zalotocky
"So I suggest that Song will turn out to be a future version of Amy Pond"
how awesome a plot would that be?!
Speculation aside, I really enjoyed the episode. Let's hope they can keep it up!
@Andrew:
No, then you would be a denialist.
I liked it, dark and yet funny in all the right places, all with an undelying sense of imminent threat.
I've mentioned before I like the running hat gag. Both the Stetson and the request (twice for a Fez)
I also like the Doctor still trying to find an awesome way of introducing himself "I'm 'The King of Alright' , no that's rubbish"
add in the River Song = Mrs Robinson reference for the oldies and it was a cracking season opener.
@ Andrew @ Kimpatsu
Actually, regardless of which side of the climate change debate you're on, you'd be a dogmatic thinker if you refused to change your views in light of new evidence. And both sides of that debate has dogmatists.
But this is meant to be a thread about Doctor Who, so that's enough on climate change.
Fair comment TNL. Back on topic, if the Silence are in hiding on Earth then the obvious reason to build a time machine would be to reverse whatever disaster put them into this situation. If they have been on Earth for a very long time then that reversal might pose a mortal threat to humanity - shades of the plot that Douglas Adams used in both "City of Death" and "Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency". This would fit the scenario suggested in my first post, as the Doctor would be much more willing to make a bargain with the aliens if they were desperate rather than evil.
I really enjoyed the episode, and am equally as baffled as everyone. But I have a couple of slight ideas.
When I watched the episode for the first time, when the Doctor tried on the Apollo space helmet, I spoke the only words uttered from my mouth during the whole thing; "How much do you bet that the Doctor is the astronaut?" To which my family responded "Ahhh Mmmm...."
Now, watching it again and reading other's opinions- who have left this bit out all together- I am beginning to doubt this. Though I do tend to trust my gut feeling.
I am hearing what people are saying about Song being Amy from the future, but I haven't really seen any interaction between River Song and Rory, because it is clear that Amy is deeply in love with him, so surely Song would show more affection towards him.
And the whole thing about Amy being impregnated with aliens... seriously? That sounds like some shady hentai type thing. It is just not nice. Blegh... they wouldn't do that, would they?
But Amy carrying an new incarnation of the Doctor? More plausible, but still a little strange.
Lastly, I have a question. Is Rory a robot? Because if he is, Amy can't be pregnant with his child, can she?
I don't know, I am very confused :/
Alice x
Not to be needlessly unorthodox here but...
Is Amy pregnant? The first hint of that is her stomach pains (morning sickness?) but then River suffers similar after a close encounter with The Silence. And when amy blurts out to the doctor the important thing she had to say, you're thinking she's going to tell them about The Silence. Ah, but no one can remember them, right? But Amy could remember Rory after he was wiped enough eventually to resurrect him and Amy had taken the photo. And she still has that thing in her eye from meeting the Angels.
Needless to say. I amplify these thoughts over at Counting Cats.
River Song and Melody Pond
SONG- MELODY
POND-RIVER
Extremely clever word play
could the doctor thats gets shot be a ganger which was connected to the original doctor until he got shot then disconnected before the second shot was fired thus creating the regeration effect then death of the ganger and the original doctor safe and regenerated to carry on doctoring
(pardon my spelling and grammar)
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