It's Whosday! Recaps: "The Almost People"

Series 6, Episode 6
Title: "The Almost People"
Writer: Matthew Graham
Director: Julian Simpson

My Mariners just won an incredible game and I'm working without notes, so bear with me as I recap "The Almost People," the second half of the Ganger arc started by last week's "The Rebel Flesh." It's been a frantic week for the Who-niverse, with a long series of promos for the mid-season finale, Steven Moffat's announcement that the Daleks will be retired for a while and finally an insane twist ending to "Almost People." The excitement for this weekend's "A Good Man Goes to War" could not be more palpable, but the expectations of fans are also reaching dangerous levels. We're facing a three-month break without new episodes, we know that we're going to be left with a vicious cliffhanger and, on top of all that, we've been handed so many unanswered questions already this season. In a brief 45 minutes this Saturday, some of those questions will probably be answered. But some won't and other, new ones will be introduced. It's enough to drive a person mad, I tell you.

In "The Almost People," we pick up exactly where "Rebel Flesh" left off, with the Doctor and his human comrades facing off with the newly cloned Ganger-Doctor (who becomes known as John Smith, in good Who tradition). Needless to say, with two Matt Smiths onscreen, the great moments come fast and often. There's some homages to earlier Doctors ("I've reversed the jelly baby of neutron flow!") and a lot of agonized screaming before everyone settles down and runs away from the attacking Gangers. They run to an evac tower to escape choking gas, before running around to find Rory, and finally they all run into a series of catacombs to hunt down the TARDIS. Both episodes in this arc featured lots of running to new locations so people could talk, followed by more running, followed by more talking. So yeah, maybe writer Matthew Graham was just spinning wheels a bit, but at least we had two Matt Smith's this time.

The Gangers go through more of the same "us or them" talk, fueled by the increasingly unstable (both mentally and Flesh-wise) Jennifer. Eventually, most of them realize that they need to reconcile their differences with the human originals, but various forces conspire to pick off both human and Ganger until the only three left are both Cleaves, Ganger-Jimmy and Ganger-Dicken, along with the Doctor, Smith, Amy and Rory. Along the way there are emotional moments (such as when Ganger-Jimmy accepts fatherly responsibilities after the original Jimmy dies), but everything ultimately boils down to holding a door closed to prevent a absurdly mutated Jennifer from killing everyone. Then the Doctor and Smith reveal that they've switched places.

And this, kids, is where it gets complicated. Turns out that the Doctor devised this little plan to test the differences between originals and Gangers, lying to Amy about which was which to see if she placed her trust in the new, but technically identical Smith. Of course she didn't, even revealing to him in an emotional moment that she saw the Doctor die all the way back on the beach. But then he has to go and say that they switched. Seemingly, Amy spilled the beans on the whole "we can't tell him his future" bit, but we don't actually know for sure. The Doctor certainly didn't react in any big way and despite an off-hand reference at the episode's end (he talks to Smith about being invited to his own funeral), no time is spent dealing with something that previous episodes treated like a major plot point. So... I guess we'll find out?

More importantly, we learn that Amy has actually been Ganger-Amy since the beginning of the season and that the real Amy Pond has been controlling this copy mentally while secretly being ensconced in room somewhere to have a baby. The random appearances of the Eyepatch Lady have actually been caused by the image of a woman checking on the real Amy bleeding through her subconscious. Just when we thought everyone had been saved and no one had to die today, the Doctor reveals that he knows far more than he let on and melts Amy into a pile of Flesh-goo. Rory is distraught. The Doctor is stern. The audience is suitably confused.

"A Good Man Goes to War" will wrap up the first half of Series 6 and will be out last taste of new Who until September. The Cybermen, Silurians and Sontarans are all scheduled to make appearances, as will Henry Avery and his son, River, centurion Rory and that random blue guy from the beginning of "The Pandorica Opens." We're left with far too many questions and seemingly very little time for answers. I've all but given up speculating at this point, because I know that Moffat is operating at full evil genius mode right now and is far too pleased with his own wit to be actually predicted. So, we'll see what we get. We've been promised a reveal about River Song's identity. We've been promised an all-star lineup of the Doctor's most famous enemies. And now we've got an insane rescuing-Amy-and-her-newborn-from-doom plot line to contend with. I'm not sure a single episode can deal with all those things in a satisfying way. But I'm sure Moff is going to try. Let's all hope for the best, yeah?

Stray Observations (sans notes)

-This whole arc was a clusterfuck of bad CGI. Blech.
-Any fans of Moffat's Jekyll out there recognize the building where the Doctor drops Cleaves and Dicken off? I think it's the same one as the headquarters for Jekyll's company.
-Again, solid acting from the cast as a whole. Raquel Cassidy particularly had some great moments in this second half.
-Seriously, when do the Doctor and Smith switch? So much depends on this.
-The Doctor's final lines to Smith about how dying might not erase his consciousness seem like a major plant for something later. Please don't tell me the Doctor who died on the beach is a Ganger...
-I'm very interested in the order of the Series 6 episodes. I know I'm not the only one feeling slightly (or perhaps a bit more) disappointed with the season so far, but I wonder if we'll say the same thing after seeing what comes in September. Imagine if Series 5 had gone "The Eleventh Hour" - "The Beast Below" - "Victory of the Daleks" - "The Hungry Earth"/"Cold Blood" - "The Vampires of Venice" - "Amy's Choice" before taking a mid-season break. We'd all be whining our heads off.

(Photos courtesy of Emma-Jane)

It's Whosday! Recaps: "The Rebel Flesh"

Series 6, Episode 5
Title: "The Rebel Flesh"
Writer: Matthew Graham
Director: Julian Simpson

I don't know about you, but when I sat down to watch this week's Who, I was still basking in the glory of last week's "The Doctor's Wife." The early episodes of Series 6 have been a frenetic mix of exposition, stunning cinematography and occasional suckitude ("Black Spot," I'm looking at you). Getting one episode where everything seemed to be working was exactly what we all needed. So, I had hoped the good work would continue in "The Rebel Flesh," which is the first half of a two-part arc written by Matthew Graham. His only other Who credit is "Fear Her," an aggressively forgettable episode from Series 2 about a girl who could trap people by drawing them with crayons. Or something like that. Coupled with first time Who director Simpson, I was prepared for the possibility of another clunky, shoddy episode. Thankfully, "Rebel Flesh" is actually quite solid, marred only by some forced plotting and some rehashing of common Who plot devices.

The episode revolves around a 22nd century group of industrial contractors, who've been tasked with pumping dangerously corrosive acid from an island to the mainland. Due to the dangerous nature of the work, the group utilizes a big seething vat of goop known as the Flesh, which can be programmed into perfect replicas of themselves and controlled while the original people lie safely in fancy rigs. Basically, we're talking Avatar here. Should one of of these "gangers" (short for "doppelgangers") get melted into nothingness by an acid spill, the nerve endings just shut off and the worker wakes up in their own body, ready to summon up a new ganger. Unfortunately, the Doctor and Co. arrive on the island thanks to a solar tsunami, which in turn threatens the entire mining operation. One huge electrical freakout later, the gangers have been electrically severed from their masters, creating duplicates of all five members of the contracting team.


Even a casual Doctor Who fan can predict what happens next. After the necessary running around to figure out what just happened, the dramatic tension centers on the struggle between the contractors and their respective gangers over who is the "real" version of each person. The gangers have all the same memories as their original versions... but they're also unstable alien-critters made out of elastic goop. Everyone spends lots of time hiding from each other, before the Doctor tracks everyone down and brings them together. Just when it seems that these two warring factions might be able to cooperate, one of the original contractors blasts a ganger to death with electricity. Everyone panics, both sides declare war on the other and the Doctor, Amy and Rory are forced to mediate everything. The episode ends with the revelation that all this time, the Flesh has been forming into a ganger of the Doctor himself, leaving us with two spastic lunatics who think bowties are cool. Wonderful...

All in all, it's not a bad episode, but it closely resembles too many moments in Who's past to feel truly great. It's especially reminiscent of last season's "The Hungry Earth"/"Cold Blood" two-parter, which featured a very similar dynamic between humanity and the reptilian Silurians hiding under the Earth's surface. "The Rebel Flesh" seems to borrow many of the beats from the Silurian arc wholesale, especially once one of the contractors murders a ganger. Mind you, this episode is far better than all the Silurian stuff, which suffered from some horrible acting and ham-fisted Israel-Palestine parallels. All five of the day players here turn in quality performances, full of charming Northern accents and touches that give the sense of a close-knit group who've been working together for years. Rory even gets his own solo b-plot, since he tries to protect one of the gangers and thus finds himself on the wrong side of the battle lines when the episode's cliffhanger arrives. "The Rebel Flesh" will be hard to judge completely until this Saturday's "The Almost People" airs, but for now, I'm satisfied with it. Despite some odd moments and a slightly tired plotline, there's enough great acting and clever artistry to make it one of the better episodes of the series thus far.

Stray Observations

-The TARDIS is still trying to figure out if Amy is pregnant. I really want Moffat to stop shoehorning those scenes into episodes. We know, goddamn it, enough already.
-Same goes for the Eyepatch Lady, who makes another cryptic appearance here without shedding any light on anything whatsoever.
-The episode's intro was quite well done and bodes well for Simpson's future as a Who director. Spooky, mysterious and playful all at the same time. Yay.
-It's weird to hear popular music on Doctor Who. I actually enjoyed the Dusty Springfield jokes throughout. The Muse song playing during the TARDIS intro bit? Not so much.
-Speaking of music, Murray Gold knocks it out of the park this week. Listen to the understated score lurking in the background when we first see the Flesh vat. Great stuff.
-Missing time may or may not be a theme of this series. It rears its ugly head here again during the lost hour following the electrical blowout.
-The elasticly special effects used on the gangers are eight types of ill-advised.
-Matthew Graham cleverly avoids lots of tired sci-fi jargon. "Gangers" is a pretty fun word and I really like that the contractors say "plumbing in" when they take control of their Flesh-selves.
-Every once and a while, the show remembers that Rory is a nurse and those moments are wonderful.
-The Doctor to the TARDIS as she sinks into acid: "What are you doing down there?!" I hope he continues to talk to the TARDIS more and more as the series goes on.
-I'm quite sad there wasn't more cooperation time between the two sides. The moment with the two Jimmys tenatively working together is very well done.
-"Even more insanerer" is this week's addition to the pitch Doctor Who shirt idea collection.

(Photos courtesy of Emma-Jane)

It's Whosday! Recaps: "The Doctor's Wife"

Series 6, Episode 4
Title: "The Doctor's Wife"
Writer: Neil Gaiman
Director: Richard Clark

This past Saturday, the moment Doctor Who fans have been waiting ages for finally arrived. After much rumor-mongering, hand-wringing and nerd-tastic speculation, the long-awaited episode written by Neil Gaiman was aired. Being a complete superstar in the fantasy/sci-fi world, Gaiman's writing style seemed like it would be a perfect match for the show's whimsically dark style. Well, lo and behold, we were all absolutely right. "The Doctor's Wife" is an incredibly strong episode, highlighted by some wonderful acting performances anchoring Gaiman's sharp, fan-friendly script. So far, it's the clear favorite from Series 6 and I'm tempted to say that it's my favorite of the Moffat era entirely. Given time, I could even see it becoming my favorite episode of the entire series. Can you tell that I liked it yet...?

Unlike last week's pirate debacle, "The Doctor's Wife" can be summed up fairly quickly. After receiving a distress call from a Time Lord known as the Corsair, the Doctor sends the gang off to beyond the universe in the TARDIS. They land on a sentient asteroid known as the House (or often just "House"), populated by two odd people named Auntie and Uncle, one green-eyed ood named Nephew and finally Idris, a wacky woman who greets the Doctor by charging at him shouting "my thief!" and biting him ("biting's great! It's like kissing but there's a winner!"). After some sleuthing, it's reveled that Idris is actually the TARDIS' soul, which was ripped out of the blue box by House and stuffed inside a human body so that House could devour the TARDIS-shell. The distress call that the Doctor responded to was just one of many dying messages sent by Time Lords who suffered a similar fate.


Well, Amy and Rory get stuck inside the de-souled TARDIS during dinner time, forcing them to run through lots of corridors to avoid the lethal wrath of House. Meanwhile, the Doctor and his wonderful time (and space) machine are finally given the chance to speak face to face. Naturally, they quickly start to sound like an old married couple, jabbing and mocking each other before remembering all of their happy times together. They cobble together a make-shift TARDIS from parts they find on House's surface and intercept the real TARDIS as House drives it back towards the real universe (vaporizing poor Nephew in the process). Idris dies, since her squishy human body can't handle the raw TARDIS energy within her, but the escaping soul charges through the police box and obliterates House. There's a tearful farewell (of sorts) between the Doctor and his personified TARDIS, before she finally fades away.

It's a simple idea for an episode, but Gaiman and director Richard Clark execute it perfectly. The dynamic between Matt Smith and Suranne Jones (who plays Idris) is everything you could possible want between a man who's an semi-immortal alien and a woman who's a spaceship that exists at all moments in time and space simultaneously (or something like that). Even with the slightly boring b-plot involving Amy's and Rory's wacky adventures in the previously unseen TARDIS corridors, the episode zips along, full of quotable one-liners, exciting action sequences and some very emotional, affecting character moments. This is certainly an episode written for the fans (and by a fan, for that matter), since you need some appreciation of the history between the Doctor and his blue box for his conversations with Idris to carry their full weight. That doesn't stop it from being a wonderful episode of Doctor Who, however, and I'd bet it will be one of the most beloved of the new series for years to come.

Stray Observations

-This episode's use of the color green is awesome. Super creepy and far outside the usual DW palate.
-Auntie and Uncle don't get much screen time before they die (quite hilariously, I'll add), but in that short time, Adrian Schiller (who plays Uncle), manages steal all sorts of scenes with his accent alone.
-Idris seems like she was written for Helena Bonham Carter. Certainly Suranne Jones' wild hair seems familiar to anyone who's watching anything by Tim Burton... ever.
-Matt Smith has chemistry with his TARDIS. He also has chemistry with tiny message boxes ("C'mere, you scrumptious little beauty!). This season seems to be milking his flirtatious side for all it's worth.
-"Love an ood" has been added to my list of great DW shirt ideas.
-Not much time is spent on the Doctor's search for forgiveness from any Time Lord survivors, but it's something I'd love to see explored in later episodes/seasons of the show.
-The Doctor calls the TARDIS "Sexy" when they're alone. Because of course he does.
-They sort-of killed Rory again. You bastards!
-Unlike last week's episode, "The Doctor's Wife" seems to have had some money spent on it.
-Oh, by the way, House is voiced by Fake Tony Blair, ie: Michael Sheen. He does a great job.
-"Another ood I failed to save." Again, with the shirts...
-The final scene between Idris and the Doctor should be really corny, but Matt Smith's very honest performance saves everything. Also, it's really sad!
-Finally, the big, serialized plot point of the episode arrives at the end, when Rory tells the Doctor Idris' dying words: "The only water in the forest is the river." Speculate away, guys! This obviously has something to do with River Song... but I'm guessing we're just going to have to wait for Episode 13 to find out anything substantial.

(Photos courtesy of Emma-Jane)

It's Whosday! Recaps: "The Curse of the Black Spot"

Series 6, Episode 3
Title: "The Curse of the Black Spot"
Writer: Steve Thompson
Director: Jeremy Webb

It's telling that in interviews with the cast and crew of this episode, all anyone can really say is "Ohmigod PIRATES!" Yes, the Doctor is hitting the high seas and doing some swashbuckling. It's a pairing made in nerd heaven and the show's creators know that. The problem, then, is that Thompson and Webb never ease off the "let's make the nerds happy" button, leaving us with an episode that runs down the checklist of pirate tropes without developing, oh, say, compelling characters, dramatic tension or even some semblance of logical order. The amount of unexplained actions or inexplicable choices in this episode is staggering. "Black Spot" could have been a truly fun, lighthearted reprieve from the weighty plotting of "The Impossible Astronaut" and "Day of the Moon." Instead, it's forty-five minutes of sloppy television, with seemingly no other purpose beyond putting a cute Scottish redhead in a pirate outfit.

The thin story line of "Black Spot" takes place on a 17th century pirate ship, captained by Henry Avery (played by BBC veteran Hugh Bonneville). Whenever anyone on the boat suffers even the tiniest of scratches, a black spot mysteriously appears on their hands. Those who are marked eventually fall victim to the supposed curse of the siren, who is picking the men off one at a time. The Doctor and Co. materialize inside the ship and encounter the increasingly paranoid pirates. After some pointless swaggering and attempts to make every walk the mandatory plank, Amy grabs a sword, a pointed hat and flails around to rescue everybody. In the process, Rory and one of the pirates get scratched and we are confronted with the siren herself, played by the disturbingly beautiful Lily Cole.


Well, it turns out that when she touches the cursed men, the go "poof" and explode into dust. Dragging Rory away from certain doom, the Doctor and the beleaguered crew run through a bunch of theories (she wants blood, she uses water as a portal into the ship, etc), before discovering that she's after sick or wounded people. They also find Toby, Avery's estranged young son, who has stowed away on his father's ship following the death of his mother, who told him Avery was a noble sea captain. Somehow, despite being stuck on the boat for quite a long time, he never noticed the mob of pirates running everything. Steve Thompson proceeds to spend far too much time having his characters ramble about this father-son dynamic, despite the fact that no one cares. After some more pirate tropes (mutiny, beards, etc), the Doctor finally realizes that the siren is using reflections to gain access to the ship. All the gleaming pirate treasure is just an open invitation.

Cue the necessary freak storm. Amid the wind and rain, a crown that Avery was hiding allows the siren to nab the sickly Toby. Not long after, Rory gets knocked into the water and the Doctor inexplicably reasons that the only way to save him from drowning is to unleash the siren to go fish him out... by which we mean "kill him." Hmm. Not only that, but the Doctor also decides, with no evidence whatsoever, that the siren isn't actually killing people and that everyone she's taken is actually alive somewhere. He makes what is essentially a suicide pact with Avery and Amy and they all get siren-ed off to... a spaceship. Which is apparently tucked in some time-space-whatever trick alongside the pirate boat. Because of course it is.

They find all the missing pirates, sons and husbands (and the TARDIS!) in a creepy room, before discovering that the siren is actually a fancy, technologically nifty doctor, who's been trying to keep everyone alive. Long story short, they persuade her to let them take Rory away. Somehow, it is established that by taking him away, he'll go back to drowning, meaning Amy must make a big, dramatic effort to resuscitate him. After a whole lot of fake, forced suspense, Rory bursts back to consciousness (because of course he does) and we learn that Avery has chosen to stay with his son and crew as PIRATES! IN! SPACE!

So, yeah. All that happens. It's exhausting and it rarely makes sense. The original planned order of the episodes had "Black Spot" in the ninth slot, which would have made the dying-Rory drama seem a bit less forced, but still, very few things could have saved this confused and muddled script. Perhaps this has something to do with the pairing of writer and director, both of whom are new to the series. Steve Thompson has worked with Moffat before on Sherlock, but he seems wildly out of his league here, working in two genres (sci-fi and pirates) simultaneously. The characters-of-the-week range from bland (Avery) to downright infuriating (Toby, who can only be described as "the worst"). There are just too many pirate tropes and not enough storytelling. Lily Cole, who I'm told is a good actress, is completely wasted as the siren, who never speaks a word throughout the entire episode. It's scary to think about, but "Black Spot" is almost certainly the nadir of Moffat-era Who. It's a massively disappointing episode, coming at a time when the audience needed something familiar and easily digestible following two episodes of intense exposition. We can only look forward to next week, when we all will trust Neil Gaiman to save us.

Stray Observations

-Overall, this episode feels like the low-budget shoot that balanced out the trips to Utah and so on.
-Even the big plot reveal seems recycled, as the "confused alien healing tech" card was played back in the "Empty Child"/"Doctor Dances" arc with the nanogenes.
-Murray Gold's usually spectacular music fails us here. The siren song is far too similar to the Amy Pond theme, while the climactic music when Rory is dying is overblown and corny. It all sounds like something out of Beauty and the Beast.
-The Doctor and Amy save Rory by simply holding him back. Did none of the pirates ever try this on their mates?
-While using pseudo-science to explain genre tropes was fun in last season's "Vampires of Venice," using it to explain pirate tropes (sirens, block spots, blah blah blah) is mostly just boring and/or awkward.
-Arthur Darvill alone emerges with most of his dignity intact. "Cuddle me, shipmate" belongs on shirts.
-Oh, and the Eyepatch Lady shows up again. Damn you, Moffat. Just tell us things already.
-Several shots of the siren are repeated at different times in the episode. Again, was this all just a way to save money for the bigger, flashier stuff?
-The "Toby!" "Rory!" "The TARDIS!" moment is nothing short of wonderful.
-If the siren is a space-doctor, why did the pilots of the spaceship die from illness?
-So, Toby has to stay on the spaceship because he has a fever? And fevers can't be cured in 17th century England? Thompson! *shakes fist*
-The TARDIS still can't figure out if Amy is pregnant or not. Doctor Who audience members still can't figure out if they care.

[A word about my reviewing method: I watch every episode at least three times before writing these recaps: once with friends, once alone and once while taking notes. I also watch the companion episode of Doctor Who Confidential, do internet research and explore any other relevant texts. For example, this week I rewatched the Sherlock episode "The Blind Banker," which was also written by Steve Thompson. I take this shit seriously, y'know?]

(Photos courtesy of Emma-Jane)

It's Whosday! Recaps: "Day of the Moon"

Series 6, Episode 2
Title: "Day of the Moon"
Writer: Steven Moffat
Director: Toby Haynes

Dear god, where to begin with this episode? This has to be one of the most frenetic, blisteringly fast forty-five minutes of television I've ever seen. The characters relentlessly throw exposition at you, all while wild action is happening every five minutes. I know personally I was hoping for some resolution to the questions raised by last week's "The Impossible Astronaut," but instead, "Day of the Moon" has given us approximately eighty thousand new problems to puzzle about until our brains explode.

From the get go, this episode throws us a major curveball. Rather than picking up at the cliffhanger that ended the previous episode, "Moon" sends us three months into the future. Turns out that the Doctor has been held captive in Area 51, while Canton hunts down Amy, Rory and River, seemingly killing all three. Of course, as the audience, we know they'll all be fine, but Moffat gets a remarkable amount of eeriness and intensity out of the whole intro. It turns out that the whole gang, Canton included, has been staging this ordeal, just so they can get everyone together in the TARDIS. The rules of Silences are reestablished (the minute you can't see them, you forget they ever existed) and the Doctor goes all Memento on us, having everyone keep tally marks on their skin to keep track of the aliens. He also implants little recording things in everyone's hands, so they can record descriptions of the Silences and play them back once they've all forgotten. It doesn't all quite hold together, but it comes close enough.

The Doctor and Co. realize that the little girl in the spacesuit is important, so Amy and Canton are dispatched to find where she came from while the rest of the gang toy around with Apollo 11 (more on that later). This leads them to the creepiest orphanage ever (which is saying something), which includes one seriously addled caretaker, terrifying words scribbled on the wall and several dozen Silence nesting on the ceiling. It's all insanely dark and frightening by Who standards and the scene where Amy first realizes they're in the room with her is better than most horror movies. She explores some more, sees a mysterious woman behind a big metal door, finds a picture of herself holding a baby, meets the little girl in the spacesuit and then finally is attacked and seemingly kidnapped by a gang of Silence. Keeping up here?


As if all that wasn't enough, we find the Doctor installing a blinking science doohickey in Apollo 11, requiring a personal appearance (via TARDIS) from Richard Nixon to bail him out with NASA. They get a distress call from Canton and try to rescue Amy from the Silence, only to find her recording device on the floor. This leads to all kinds of emotional angst, with Rory listening to Amy's desperate pleas and thinking that she's pining for the Doctor instead of him. They capture a Silent (Canton's a bit trigger happy) and use Amy's phone (snazzy tech for 1969) to record the alien declaring that "you should kill us all on sight." The Doctor, who's busy learning that the girl's spacesuit is actually an exo-skeleton/life-support thing, is delighted when he gets the video of the Silent and everyone leaps into the TARDIS to save Amy.

The Doctor ends up broadcasting the video clip from Apollo 11, ensuring that every single person watching the moon landing has now seen the Silence and is encouraged to kill them. There's a big shoot out (River is also a bit trigger happy), Amy and Rory are happily reunited and River and the Doctor flirt uncontrollably. They say their goodbyes to Canton and good ol' Nixon (who's been a surprisingly good sport throughout this whole mess) and they're off to their next adventure. The episode ends in a New York alleyway, with the little girl telling an old man that she's dying, but that she can fix it, before being consumed by the now-familiar Time Lord regeneration energy. Umm... what?!

I can't decided how I feel about this episode, mostly because every time I've watched it, I feel like things are going too fast to even have opinions. This two-part intro to the season has undoubtedly laid the groundwork for the big arc of the season, so it will be hard to judge until we've seen where things are going. The Doctor's apparent victory over the Silence was fun, while the psychodrama generated while the gang were hunting them was impeccably executed, but the actual narrative is a bit hard to judge. Doctor Who currently has dozens upon dozens of balls hanging in their air and it will probably take at least a few more episodes before any of them come back down. I, for one, am welcoming next week's pirate-themed episode. At least that plot will be more-or-less contained by the end... right?

Stray Observations (by which I mean "some of the dozens of questions that replaced my normal notes")

-Why do the Silence always state people's names? Is this important?
-River's realization that the Doctor is knowing her less and less (along her timeline) seems to be creating quite the reckless streak in her. Which is cool.
-This episode featured the second "perfect prison" of the Moffat era.
-Pregnancy red-herrings? Does anyone have any way to make sense of this yet?
-Rory dressed as a 1960s executive is wonderful. Mad Men cameo much?
-I'm going to combine about eight questions into one when I say "What the fuck happened in that damn orphanage?" C'mon, Moff. Throw us a bone here.
-How and why does the little girl get out of the spacesuit?
-"Silence will fall" seems to coming true, in that the Doctor's actions are ruining their empire. Could this be part of their plan? Is the Doctor actually making a mistake here? What will happen when the alien overlords who've been ruling us all through post-hypnotic suggestion go away?
-The "your firsts are my lasts" stuff between River and the Doctor receives an incredible emotional payoff when the two kiss at the end of the episode. It's the saddest, cutest moment I've seen in a damn long time. Suddenly, Matt Smith and Alex Kingston have wild chemistry.
-The fact that the girl's spacesuit can repair and drive itself around seems important.
-Memory keeps popping up as a theme this season. This episode alone deals with the Silence rules, Rory's complex relationship with his years as the Centurion, the reverse timelines of River and the Doctor and even Nixon's concern about his legacy.
-In "The Lodger," the Doctor describes the alien tech thing the Silence have as "a time engine." What's up here, Moff? Will we ever know?
-Finally, the reveal that Canton is indeed gay feels like a fairly blatant slap at America's medieval views about homosexuality and gay rights. While I support this politically, I can't help but wonder if this was a weak move. It distracts from the rest of the show and feels forced, petty and a bit childish to me.

(Photos courtesy of Emma-Jane)

It's Whosday! Recaps: "The Impossible Astronaut"

As part of my attempt to bring diverse and varied writing to this blog, I'm proud to introduce It's Whosday! Recaps, Pretzel Logic's new Tuesday programming. Since Doctor Who, one of my favorite shows, has finally returned, I'm going to be covering each week's episode here on the blog. Be warned, though. Here be spoilers.


Series 6, Episode 1
Title: "The Impossible Astronaut"
Writer: Steven Moffat
Director: Toby Haynes

So, this Saturday, Doctor Who's sixth series began with "The Impossible Astronaut," the first half of the two-part intro to the season. Right from the start, this episode seems quite aware of the show's growing American audience. There's a bit more "this-is-the-Doctor-and-this-is-what-he-does" exposition than we usually get in a season premier. Oh, and the episode is set and actually shot in America. So there's that.

I cannot emphasize enough how incredible the production values for this show have become since Steven Moffat took over as showrunner. Gone is the harsh, BBC lighting, which inexplicably loved making everything neon green or purple. Instead, we get lots and lots of location shooting, which is positively put on display here. The show journeyed to Utah to shoot these first two episodes and the stunning cinematography does not disappoint. I mean, look at that photo up there. Just... look at it. Gah.

As for the plot, "The Impossible Astronaut" throws a lot at us, leaving approximately eighty-thousand balls hanging in the air for this Saturday's episode to catch. It seems that a version of the Doctor from later on in his timeline has recruited Amy, Rory and River Song for some unseen purpose, bringing them together (along with the mysterious Canton Everett Delaware III) in the middle of America. Suddenly, an astronaut emerges from the lake (what?), shoots the Doctor (what?!) and then shoots him again mid-regeneration (WHAT?!), just to make sure that he's really most sincerely dead. And we've still got another half-hour to go.

Long story short, the Doctor that fits our current timeline shows up and doesn't understand why everyone is so distraught. After lots of hugging and crying, the gang marches off to the TARDIS and goes in search of Canton. The find themselves in the middle of Washington, D.C., materializing in the middle of Nixon's Oval Office. Turns out Tricky Dick has been receiving phone calls from a mysterious child every night and, after lots of gun-pointing and jokes, the Doctor agrees to investigate.

While goofy stuff is happening, however, Amy discovers something far more serious and frightening. After briefly seeing a dark figure in the desert, only to mysteriously forget about it a moment later, she is finally confronted by the figure, who turns out to be an incredibly creepy alien. These, ladies and gentlemen, are the Silence (or Silents, depending on how you want to interpret things).


Like many of Steven Moffat's alien threats, the fear they create comes more from psychology than actual creepiness. Like the Weeping Angels, the Silence need to be observed. However, this is because the minute you stop seeing them, you forget that you ever saw them. Also, they can apparently channel some kind of electricity/magic to make people explode, which Amy discovers when her alien menace combusts an unsuspecting woman in a White House bathroom. Combined with their eerie faces, elongated hands and some stellar sound editing, the Silence are truly creepy and disturbing group of antagonists.

The episode ends with the Doctor & Co. traveling to Florida, determined to track down the young girl who's been calling President Nixon. They find lots of stolen astronaut gear, some clearly alien technology and a spooky interface that seems to have been foreshadowed by last season's "The Lodger." Oh, and River and Rory discover a nest of Silence (Silents? Silences?) underground. Meanwhile, Canton (who's been tagging along) gets knocked out by an unknown foe and, in a moment of panic, Amy reveals to the Doctor that she's pregnant. The astronaut from the episode's beginning appears and Amy grabs Canton's gun and shoots, screaming to the Doctor "I'm saving your life!" All things considered, it's a gripping cliff-hanger to end on, meaning this Saturday cannot come soon enough.

Now, since I'm an avid reader of the A.V. Club, it's time for some...

Stray Observations:

-Great use of music throughout. I particularly liked the Ennio Morricone-ish guitar theme heard throughout the beginning. I guess they're trying to emphasize being in America...?
-There's far too much stuff concerning River to go into here. I've discussed the nature of who she is and how she relates to the Doctor with friends and the resulting conversations have taken hours. For now, I simply suggest going back to "Silence in the Library," when we first meet her, and paying close attention to Alex Kingston's performances. Trust me. You'll thank yourself for doing so.
-The sequence where we first meet present-day Doctor reveals odd similarities between his hairstyle and Elvis'.
-The Doctor has a special straw. It adds more fizz. Because of course it does.
-Rory poking the Doctor to make sure he's real is eight types of magical.
-Has the Moffat-era TARDIS always had chairs? Have I somehow not noticed this the entire time?
-"NASA is where the spacemen live." Hilarious.
-Evidently, TARDIS hazing means that, if you're the newest companion, you have to explain the whole "it's bigger on the inside thing." Also hilarious.
-When asked why he lost his job at the FBI, Canton says "I wanted to get married." Amy: "Is that illegal?" Canton: "...yes." Hmm, should we read this as Canton being gay and, if so, how will this effect the plot of the next episode?
-Finally, Amy, Rory and River are so very concerned with keeping the knowledge of the Doctor's future death away from him, but one of them is obviously meant to tell him, since he walked knowingly towards the astronaut. Time travel creates all sorts of problems.

(Photos courtesy of marishna)