The Impossible Astronaut, Day of the Moon
Aug. 23rd, 2011 10:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
torkellSince the second half of this series is fast approaching, I thought I'd better actually watch all the episodes of the first half (never got round to watching that much of it, though I did record all the episodes). So I thought I'd start by rewatching series 6 from the beginning...
"Swear to me, swear to me on something that matters."
"Fish fingers and custard."
from The Impossible Astronaut
So, apparently, all one needs to do to get rid of the Doctor permanently is to shoot him during his regeneration? That seems suspiciously easy. Then again, this *is* Doctor Who, where canon is cheerfully rewritten to be whatever this week's plot requires.
The alien spaceship thing they find in the tunnels looks rather familiar, though this could just be set reuse (like the BBC quarry back in the classic series).
"Ah, no stay where you are. Because look at me, I'm confident. You want to watch that, me when I'm confident. Oh and this is my friend River, nice hair, clever, has her own gun, and unlike me she really doesn't mind shooting people."
from Day of the Moon
So, we finally find out what the silence is, and it turns out that it's a race of beings rather than an abstract concept or a specific entity. This feels a little anti-climatic. I was expecting the silence to be some grand cosmic force, rather like the Snarl in the Order of the Stick webcomic. I've mentioned it before, but this doctor is definitely not nice. Even #10 wouldn't have done this, but #11 seems to have no qualms about utterly destroying the silence.
That said, there's still several unresolved questions from the previous series. Back in The Vampires of Venice the monster of the week specifically mentioned that they saw the cracks, and through those cracks saw the silence (which implies that the silence is something more fundamental). There's also the grand question of just why did the Tardis explode, or for that matter if it even exploded at all (since it sort of unexploded and did some grand timeline reset).
Something else that struck me on rewatching this: why doesn't the Doctor remember River? He's seen her before twice that we know of: once as his first encounter in Silence in the Library, and then later on in The Time of Angels/Flesh and Stone. But in this two-parter, he seems to have completely forgotten about her when he should actually know more about her.
On the very end of the episode: the little girl has to be at least part Time Lord in order to be able to regenerate. But the Time Lords are supposed to be very much extinct in the Who 'verse. So just who is she?
"Swear to me, swear to me on something that matters."
"Fish fingers and custard."
from The Impossible Astronaut
So, apparently, all one needs to do to get rid of the Doctor permanently is to shoot him during his regeneration? That seems suspiciously easy. Then again, this *is* Doctor Who, where canon is cheerfully rewritten to be whatever this week's plot requires.
The alien spaceship thing they find in the tunnels looks rather familiar, though this could just be set reuse (like the BBC quarry back in the classic series).
"Ah, no stay where you are. Because look at me, I'm confident. You want to watch that, me when I'm confident. Oh and this is my friend River, nice hair, clever, has her own gun, and unlike me she really doesn't mind shooting people."
from Day of the Moon
So, we finally find out what the silence is, and it turns out that it's a race of beings rather than an abstract concept or a specific entity. This feels a little anti-climatic. I was expecting the silence to be some grand cosmic force, rather like the Snarl in the Order of the Stick webcomic. I've mentioned it before, but this doctor is definitely not nice. Even #10 wouldn't have done this, but #11 seems to have no qualms about utterly destroying the silence.
That said, there's still several unresolved questions from the previous series. Back in The Vampires of Venice the monster of the week specifically mentioned that they saw the cracks, and through those cracks saw the silence (which implies that the silence is something more fundamental). There's also the grand question of just why did the Tardis explode, or for that matter if it even exploded at all (since it sort of unexploded and did some grand timeline reset).
Something else that struck me on rewatching this: why doesn't the Doctor remember River? He's seen her before twice that we know of: once as his first encounter in Silence in the Library, and then later on in The Time of Angels/Flesh and Stone. But in this two-parter, he seems to have completely forgotten about her when he should actually know more about her.
On the very end of the episode: the little girl has to be at least part Time Lord in order to be able to regenerate. But the Time Lords are supposed to be very much extinct in the Who 'verse. So just who is she?
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2011-08-23 10:51 pm (UTC)I figure the Silence ship reuse thing is probably budget related, but it does tie quite nicely together.. the Lodger ship could have crashed while the Silence were trying to escape the events of Day of the Moon.
I seem to be alone in thinking that what the Doctor did to the Silence wasn't really that bad, they aren't exactly defenseless and are surely capable of escaping to a nice, humanless planet. Plus he's killed loads of races off before (Time Lords! Daleks! Racnoss!)
The Doctor did remember River? Remember the whole "Jim the Fish!" synching diaries thing?
Also this
no subject
Date: 2011-08-23 11:14 pm (UTC)When River was shooting at the Astronaut she was just using an ordinary revolver, not her space blaster from 6x02. That said, later on Canton's gun (fired by Amy) did damage the visor, so it's odd that River didn't do more damage.
On the Doctor killing the Silence: it was less what he did than how he did it. Looking at other doctors from new Who, #9 wouldn't have been able to bring himself to wipe out the Silence. #10 would have, but only after the Silence had completely failed to take whatever way out he was offering them. And even then he wouldn't have been that happy - look at what happened with #10b and the Daleks in Journey's End. #11 on the other hand, he seems much more trigger-happy and a lot less reluctant to wipe out whatever the monster of the week is.
Future!Doctor did remember Jim the Fish, but present!Doctor didn't. And if you look at the end of 6x02, he seems to hardly know River even though this is at least the third time he's met her, and earlier on in the episode he does seem to know her more (there's the quote I was considering using: "She *jumped* off a *building*" "She does that sometimes. Amy, Rory, open all the doors to the swimming pool!").
I'm not sure what you mean by that gif - is it about the person walking in the background, or just a random gif?
no subject
Date: 2011-08-24 01:56 am (UTC)It is odd, I don't think space suits are that robust, and River didn't seem to be surprised when her bullet didn't rip straight through it.
Yeah, 9 has that whole pacifist survivor guilt going on, but 10 did happily drown a litter of innocent Racnoss babies that one time. I thought 11 did offer an alternative to the Silence, but after rewatching the scene I see that he didn't! So I'll concede this point to you.
I think they deliberately played down present!Doctor's knowledge of River to emphasize future!Doctor's, but I didn't get the impression that present!Doctor didn't know her at all.
It's not a person walking in the background! It's a weird floating skull thing. The gif is the extent of its appearance in the scene at any rate, and it looks cgi so it must be deliberate? I dunno, I just thought it was weird.
no subject
Date: 2011-08-24 05:53 pm (UTC)Watch the bit at the end when she goes back to Stormcage. I got the impression that she expected this Doctor to know more than he did. Either that or it's just general Merlin Sickness angst.
Hmm... having rewatched that scene in higher quality, I still claim it's someone walking the background. Since they're not in the cut just before it's probably poor continuity.
no subject
Date: 2011-08-27 12:04 am (UTC)Yeah, I see what you're getting at, but River never synched her diary with that Doctor in the way that she did with the future Doctor, so she had no way of knowing whereabouts in her timeline he was? And that's more of a River's knowledge of the Doctor rather than a Doctor's knowledge of River issue anyways?
A really bald, grey someone with a tiny head? It could be, but reading crazy things into otherwise mundane scenes is half the fun!