tv thoughts: Doctor Who - Series 6, Episode 2 -- Day of the Moon

[orangerful]

Definitely one of the creepiest episodes of Doctor Who ever. Plus, I think we have enough bits and pieces to keep us occupied for the rest of the season.

Okay, now on to my slightly more detailed thoughts (with pictures and spoilers):



Picking up 3 months from where we left off - both tricky, though a bit of a cheat! What happened in the warehouse after Amy shot the "astronaut"? Did she even remember shooting her? Was this done because they didn't feel like writing it or will it play into stuff later on in the season?

The hash marks have to be one of the most brilliant little devices -- they work for the characters to keep track of how many Silents they have seen, but they are also creepy as hell visually for the audience. Brilliant, Moffat. Brilliant.

Along those same lines, the little blinky recorder that The Doctor inserts into their hands - so eerie when we see it flashing.

Then there are The Silents, just perfectly creepy because they live in the dark, in the corner of your eye, just out of sight and out of mind *shivers*

So when we put it all together, we get this truly terrifying moment, a moment that rivals the Weeping Angels:



AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!

*pats jellibean on the head* I hope you don't have any nightmares!

While last week's episode was all about how awesome River is, this episode, I felt, focused a bit more on why we should adore Rory (like we needed any more convincing)



Seriously, how can you not love Rory? And Rory/Amy? Arthur Darvul <3<3<3<3

Plus, he is extra adorable with those 1960s glasses on (though, if he wore them today, they would be annoying hipster glasses...)



D'AW LOOK AT HIM, BREAKING THE APOLLO MODULE MODEL! SO CUTE *ruffles his hair*

And then we find out that he actually can still, kinda sorta remember being a Roman



Aw, he thinks Amy is talking about the Doctor - stupid face! *heart breaks*

Oh, and I also really liked that the Doctor hugged Rory first when they emerged from the body bags...he loves them both...

*gets distracted by Matt with his finger in his mouth*

We now return you to our Doctor Who thoughts post, already in progress:

SO WHAT WAS THIS ABOUT!??



My theories:
- picture of Amy holding the baby -- the baby is the little girl in the suit -- but who's baby is it? Amy's? River's? Bizzaro-World Amy??
- this is a memory flash that Amy has forgotten, possibly tied to the birth of the baby in the photo, and this woman is a nurse of some kind checking up on here...who uses her magical silver eye patch

ANYWAY - the Silents get Amy and take them back to their ship. Catton manages to injure one of them and trick him into giving away his secret plan on camera, because 1960s Silents don't know about camera phones either.

Apparently, Moffat was concerned that you might have forgotten, but River Song? She's a total BAMF.



This was such a clever sequence - the flirty banter mixed with River telling the Doctor who many Silents were in the room and their locations. Such great writing, but exactly what we expect from Doctor Who.



River hits every one of the Silents in the room. She shot the Stetson off of The Doctor's head. SO HOW DID SHE MISS THE ASTRONAUT? Hmmmmm???? Was it actually impossible for her to shoot the astronaut because of the timeline? Because it's the little girl? Or because it's HER??? She kills the Doctor and that's why she is in prison. That's why The Doctor makes them stay far away.

I still think that River is a Time Lord of some kind...maybe not 100% Time Lord. I was starting to think that maybe the little girl is River but that doesn't work in the timeline...BUT from what we see at the end of the episode...I feel they are all related...maybe it's River's baby...Doctor and River...bow-chicka-bow...

Also, I love The Doctor's reaction to being kissed by River:



*FLAIL* haha. He's like a little kid, worried about cooties. Of course, they had to turn around and break our hearts again by letting Alex Kingston make this face:



As maybedeadcat helped me understand, The Doctor's first kiss = River's last kiss (in her timeline). :(

So then Amy talks to The Doctor about being preggers or not. She says she wasn't pregnant. But when Rory says that he's a nurse and knows pregnancy, she makes a comment like "well, obviously not" which made me go "wha???" and then the TARDIS was all "scanning: pos/neg/pos/neg" -- did the Doctor see a result or was the TARDIS unable to figure it out, which means that something is really wrong. If she is pregnant, Is the child out of sync with time????

And then, there's this:



Time Lord? Part Time Lord? Engineered by The Silents? Kept trapped by The Silents in the suit because they knew she would bring abou their end? Kept in the suit to keep the universe safe? Is it Amy's kid? Is it River's kid? Or is it River??? As far as we could tell, The Doctor didn't really get to talk to her yet...

AH! So much going on!!!! Def. have some great plot threads lying around and you just KNOW Moffat has big plans for us.

Comments

[plumerri.livejournal.com]

The whole episode is brilliant. Was confused like hell in the first episode, but then things got cleared, and then it seems that another alien invasion was fought off, but then Moffat opens up SO MANY new plans that now I'm soooooo excited for the whole series. The last scene of the girl regenerating/no idea what is going on, I was like, oh my god, not this, I'll have to wait for quite long to get that cleared? But I love the characters, especially River.

[ragdoll.livejournal.com]

I think what Amy was saying that since she wasn't pregnant, then Rory clearly didn't know as much as he thought about pregnancy since he couldn't get her pregnant (yet). At least how that's I took the comment, although it took me a while to process it. :)

[orangerful.livejournal.com]

Oh yes that makes sense. It was an odd interaction. Poor Rory, so abused! It's rough being Mr. Pond. haha

[jellibean.livejournal.com]

I just watched the episode, so hopefully no nightmares for me! ^_^ But yeah, the first half of the episode was brilliant--creepy and unnerving but subtle enough to plant an idea in your head of how terrifying those creatures would really be. I thought Moffat struck a great balance between the Doctor's hilarity and the terror of the episode--he didn't really seem like himself to me in the first episode, but in this one, he was the Doctor I remembered from last season. I love 11 SO MUCH. The part with the TV? ♥! And the Doctor's solution to the problem of the Silents? Genius, and so perfect. He helped humanity help itself.

I also liked the flashbacks to the Season 5 episodes. I've been meaning to re-watch Season 5, but I won't have time for a while, and I liked that the flashbacks tied the seasons together a little bit.

I think that watching the Doctor die has made River decide to live more in the moment (especially with the Doctor), and I like that a lot. I like their dynamic more now than I have in previous episodes, even though I've always liked River.

IDEK what the deal with that little girl is. I just hope that the show goes back to her throughout the season instead of waiting until the very end. (I wondered if the Master was really, completely, finally dead, because the thought of the Master being a little girl is hilarious...)

[orangerful.livejournal.com]

I guess River never expected to see the Doctor die...she knew their timelines were wonky and that could never happen...hm...she's such a great character! I love that Moffat has already told Kingston everything so she can react to it correctly, while Smith knows nothing. SO MUCH LOVE FOR THIS SHOW!

It really is filling the little Whedon void left in my heart since there is no new Joss on my TV.

[ekaterin24.livejournal.com]

We watched that episode last night--OMG yes, everything you said! Debating: is the girl Amy's daughter (given a bit of TimeLordness from being in the TARDIS so much) who grows up to be River? Could be and wouldn't *that* be interesting. Also, what is this quantum "pregnant/not pregnant" thing Doctor saw on the monitor.

I love River to BITS. She is so many kinds of excellent from the way she works the TARDIS better than the Doctor to those bittersweet moments with him to her switches from freewheeling wickedness to beautiful sorrow over her time-swapped romance with the Doctor.

And Rory in 1960s nerdwear is love. So very, very cute!

Oh, and the Doctor himself--"My assistants--The Legs, The Nose, and Mrs. Robinson."