32.01: The Impossible Astronaut

[PTeppic]

"Lots more happened in 1969 that anyone remembers." Hmm again. Not a throwaway line, methinks.

In a way, I think this is one of the key facets about this episode: for such a frantic episode there's not much room for truly throw-away lines. Each one has been edited in or out on purpose. I suspect the whole point to the episode, once we see part 2, is that the Doctor's entire mission (he tells Nixon he's tracing something else as well) is to stop The Silent, whom he presumably knows are memory stealers/wipers. [Thought: Perhaps they get their knowledge by somehow physically/mentally extracting (rather than just wiping) their victims' memories - that could be how it knew Joy and Amelia's names]

Extrapolating the theme above, Rory and Amy made comment that it appeared that the Doctor was deliberately inserting himself into history. Perhaps he was. Almost like he did at their wedding, he's ensuring something is there to prompt their remembering (and thus saving) him.

On a different tack, the Doctor deduced where the little girl would be calling from (in theory at least) within ten seconds. He identified the Dream Lord after twenty minutes. He surely had more than enough time before arriving in the diner, USA, to work out who had sent the invitation? We know he plays games with them - the stuff about River doing stuff with the TARDIS controls and later him telling her from the Oval Office to undo it - so maybe he's known the whole time.

 

[PTeppic]

To also have an additional "cloaking device" just seems over-engineering in the extreme.

...particularly since River has previously explained that the infamous and trademark materialisation sound is simply him leaving the handbrake on.

 

[Lenny]

Sorry to harp on about the chameleon circuit, but it turns out that the Doctor lies at times.

The chameleon circuit is in perfect working order these days, it just likes being a police box. The comments from the Eleventh Doctor were made in a couple of extra scenes from Series 5 which were added to the DVD release (they come under the title "Meanwhile, in the TARDIS"). The first bridges the gap between the first and second episode, whilst the second comes between Flesh and Stone and The Vampires of Venice.

The main quote, to put this to rest:

It’s camouflaged. It’s disguised as a police telephone box from 1963. Every time the TARDIS materializes in a new location, within the first nanosecond of landing, it analyses its surroundings, calculates a twelve-dimensional data map of everything within a thousand-mile radius, and then determines which outer shell would best blend in with the environment. And then it disguises itself as a police telephone box from 1963.

No mention of a cloaking device, mind.

The Doctor's TARDIS - TARDIS Index File, the Doctor Who Wiki

 

[TheEndIsNigh]

You all keep mentioning seeing aliens, but there were no aliens!!!

That part, at least was a good idea. I think Doctor Who has returned to being for kids and for them it works perfectly well. Series Continuity was broken a long time ago. My own kids enjoy it, though they are practically grown up. For younger children I suspect this episode was a little too complicated.

Yes it was OK. Though they over did it especially in the toilet

Not sure the Doctor could ever be said to have kept a low profile - large alien spaceships over London - aliens walking through London streets - happened on many occasions. Any big international project or major event and the Doctor was there. However, if he had appeared in Sons of the Desert I think I would have spotted him before. It seems like I have always lived in an alternative reality to that of the various Doctors.

The threats were public. I thought the doctors part in their defeat was meant to be hush hush.

The Doctor and River meeting in opposite directions in Time was very well covered last year. Repeating it over and over again like we didn't get it then (or we never read The Time Traveller's Wife) is insulting our intelligence.

I still don't get it. It just doesn't work for me.

***​

Some further thoughts :-​

The blue books they keep consulting. Where did that get adopted.

Obviously the cover is supposed to be based on the police box but wait: the police box is an Earth environment triggered thing. Why would TARDIS' be issued with a diary(?) with a cover like that. And as someone mentioned, why do other time lords they keep referring to TARDIS' in any case. This was his granddaughters made up name, not the official designation.

River: Where (or more to the point how is she able) to travel without her own machine. It seems she is able to just appear anywhere she fancies at a whim. Kind of kicks the whole need for TARDIS - You know the whole basis of the series' - in the head.

Why why why why do we have her carrying a tricorder around?

And the stupid business of her touching the controls of the TARDIS and Who asking 'did you just do something' - Crap IMO. It's bl**dy obvious she just did something.

Another possibility is that it's his mother.

The more I consider - (heaven forfend I should suffer to watch it again) - the more crap I see.

 

[Lenny]

The diary (blue book) is something that River Song kept to record her meetings with the Doctor, who, in the 200 years of his life that we don't see, also begins to keep one so that he can keep track of his meetings with her.

River Song is able to travel through time using a stolen Vortex Manipulator (the device the Time Agents from the 51st Century use to travel through time), which she bought from a big, blue, black market fella in the 52nd Century (shown in The Pandorica Opens) - "Fresh off the wrist of a handsome Time Agent".

The Doctor is seen using it in The Big Bang and, in the end, gives it back to River Song.

 

[TheEndIsNigh]

Thanks for that Lenny.

Though it would still seem to make the TARDIS redundant.

Why go to all that trouble and fuss if you can just go and buy a fancy watch in a car boot sale.

It seems unlikely the Daleks wouldn't have found this out a long time before they did.

Not to mention any other Tom Dick or Harry nasty alien race that wouldn't mind stomping around the universe making life a misery for the rest of us.

Never did like that part of the Jack/Torchwood plot.

 

[PTeppic]

Travelling through time without a capsule - not pleasant. As seen in "The Sound of Drums" (or thereabouts). So presumably only done when required.

For some reason I get the feeling that most of the time we see River she's in the 51st century, so not travelling around time too much, except with the Doctor.

 

[Null_Zone]

Enjoyed it but I find Alex Kingston/River Song incredibly annoying.

The whole conciet that she knows more about using the Tardis than the Doctor, the Master and any other Time Lord. Oh he's left the parking break on. Really?

 

[Perpetual Man]

River Song is able to travel through time using a stolen Vortex Manipulator (the device the Time Agents from the 51st Century use to travel through time), which she bought from a big, blue, black market fella in the 52nd Century (shown in The Pandorica Opens) - "Fresh off the wrist of a handsome Time Agent".

The Doctor is seen using it in The Big Bang and, in the end, gives it back to River Song.

I was going to say the same thing then realised we are looking at it in the wrong way.

In the Doctor's timeline, going forward River had the Vortex Manipulator but in River's timeline which for us is going backwards, this is before the Pandorica Opens, so she hasn't got the VM yet.

Unless we,re jumping all over her life line in which case I'm lost

 

[Null_Zone]

I believe we're jumping all over her life.

We've already encountered the worst day of her life when the Doctor didn't have a clue who she was and River Song seemed to take it very much in her stride, which suggests she's had time to get used to the idea or other stuffs happened to take the sting out of it.

 

[Lioness]

RANDOM GUESSES: At first I thought the Doctor was going to be in the suit, but then when he came through the door in the diner, that changed. Then I thought River, seeing as she kills a very good man, etc etc. Now I'm thinking...Amy's Child! Why it's American and in a suit and everything I'm sure will all be worked out...

This was my thought...Amy's Child...

Good catch by Hoopy that Amy being sick because of a pregnancy id fair enough, but why is River being sick? Is there some kind of sympathetic link - could (as has been suggested in the past) Amy be River...

I don't think that Amy is River, simply because of what River has said about the different points of her life...she says that when she meets the Doctor for the first time, he knows all about her. This doesn't happen when he meets Amy/Amelia

Is it her knowing there was something important she HAD to tell the Doctor, but with her memory being infringed by the aliens she blurted the only important thing she could latch onto.

Yeah...this was sort of what I was thinking.

River perhaps the daughter if not Amy?

Also sort along my train of thought, but River is from the 51st century, while Amy is from the 21st.

"Lots more happened in 1969 that anyone remembers." Hmm again. Not a throwaway line, methinks.

This makes me think that it's definitely something to do with the monsters. The creepy-ass monsters that make you forget them.

No joke...these are the scariest things I've encountered in Dr Who so far...at least you know the Angels are there. At least you remember them. Going down into a corridor full of them, and then going back up to report "All okay down there! "...scary.

Amy's pregnant! Again! For real, this time? And why so important to tell him now? Oh, no time for that, here comes the spaceman...and it's the little girl! And Amy's shot her! Has she? No, can't have. Oh, and roll credits.

It might just be me, and I'll have to rewatch to be sure, but it looked a heck of a lot like when Amy shot the thing in the suit, something bad happened to her.


But yeah...great episode. Just scary enough. Just cool enough. And I love the Doctor and River flirting..."He's hot when he's clever" face indeed...

 

[Ursa major]

If the dead doctor was indeed 200 years older than his original self....

Though we only have his word for this: how would Amy and the others react if they thought this Doctor was, say, only a few days older than the one they meet in the café?

The café Doctor may not know what's going to happen, but the lake Doctor does, to the extent he's arranged who is to attend his final moments. (I'm wondering if the occupant of the astronaut suit in the lake is the Doctor, there to dispose of either a decoy - for the benefit of the Silence - or a rather-more-than-inconvenient duplicate of himself.)

 

[Foxbat]

I'm confused. The doctor from the future is not dead until he is shot in the past (his past) but that can't happen because he is from the future (and therefore, did not die....because if he did die, then he wouldn't have a future). And how did he know he was going to die unless he'd come from further in the future and then knew it was going to happen (and knew to send out invitations for guests and petrol).....but he couldn't because he was dead.

Tell you what.....just forget I said anything

I'm sending my future self to eradicate this post.

 

[Ursa major]

He may know that he's going to die because he has promised someone (The Silence?) that he will let himself be killed.

I also suspect that the burning might be part of such a deal (if there is one). If the Doctor's cells are really that important, he doesn't have to be dead for them to be harvested.

 

[Lenny]

*shudders*

Why do I have a sudden feeling that a chopped off ear, or severed toe is going to play a part?

 

[Dave]

From the trailers for next week's "Day of the Moon":
very mild spoiler:-

Spoiler

The Doctor suggests that the aliens have always been here and 1969 is the start of a revolution.

But according to Torchwood, "The 21st Century is when it all happens!" I'm confused!

 

[FeedMeTV]

I always enjoy Doctor Who immensely then I come on here and my brain gets confuzzled reading everyone's posts. Time travel is confusing enough but adding River to the mix takes it to a new level. Bleugh.

But Lenny, I really do not want to see a loose toe flapping around

 

[Panther Fiction]

I thought that the alien dood's were a lot more... scary, than usual. It was quite a dark episode compared to the usual, and I loved every minute of it.
Reading through but an eyefull of posts there, I was going to give a bit more conversation, but i'm saving my expectations for saturday, I think it's going to be an impressive first couple of episodes of the new season!

 

[Dr.Jackson]

I wasn't disappointed by this episode; they promised the death of a major character and they delivered, although I'm still a bit confused about the whole thing.
True to form, Moffat seems to be laying down clues which will only make sense once we've seen the entire series. He is also continuing his wonderful theme of making ordinary things as scary as possible. Ever gone into a room and forgotten why you went in? It was the Silence!

There are many theories floating around, so there's certainly no lack of speculation to keep us busy until the next episode. One thing that most Whovians seem to agree on is that The Silence have to be some of the best dressed aliens we've ever seen. Tailored suits? Very dapper!


In another teasery/puzzle thing, check out the BBC website's Doctor Who page - BBC - BBC One Programmes - Doctor Who, Series 6, The Impossible Astronaut.

If you click on 'The Fourth Dimension' tab, it gives you all sorts of info.
Hidden within this info are words in italic which make up the phrase 'All the secrets you seek can be found here on the web' (highlight to read, I'm not going to spoil it if you want to work it out yourself!)

 

[Brian G Turner]

Finally watched this episode - with a little trepidation to be honest after the Christmas episode, worried it was becoming too much a kids program - but thoroughly enjoyed it and pitched at the "family entertainment" level that still allows it to be appealing to grown-ups.

Actually, my two youngest kids (7 & 9) were really scared by the aliens, so maybe not so "family viewing" after all.

Loved the feature of the mystery astronaut - very well used.

Curious about asking what Song does to be imprisoned - haven't we been told before that it's because she killed someone, with the implication that it was the Doctor? Considered the first astronaut sighting to have been her that finishes him off.

The underground ship - yes, I recognised that - it was always a loose end previously that I wondered why was never tied up.

Aliens making you forget you saw them - very clever.

Overall, a very enjoyable episode.