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purplecatLooking back this is the point where Moffat's plotting falls apart. Or perhaps, more accurately, where he ceases to feel the need to fill in the gaps sufficiently.
The double episode of The Impossible Astronaut/The Day of the Moon opens the sixth series of new Doctor Who and sets up the over-arching plot asking who killed the Doctor and how will he get out of that?* As a pair of stand-alone episodes these work really well. The Silence are really good monster and the mechanism in which the Tardis crew record the number they have seen in marks on their hands and faces is incredibly effective in building tension. Canton Everett Delaware III is a fun character. The repeated appearance of Nixon reassuring miscellaneous US functionaries is a moderately good joke. The whole is both creepy and fun, as a good Doctor Who story should be.
Sadly, a lot of questions are left unanswered and the answers we eventually get vary from the mundanely obvious (how the Doctor escapes his death, the identity of the child), to the convoluted and throwaway (the nature and purpose of the Silence). In particular, while I've seen Alex Kingston's performance in these episodes praised, viewed through the lens of later revelations (particularly, her relationship to Amy and Rory, the identity of the Child, and the facts of the Doctor's "murder") it does not convince me at all, none of these revelations appeared to me to be foreshadowed and while you could argue that River is simply an excellent actress, as the viewer of a story, I want more.
Relatedly, the child's escape from the Silence seems, in retrospect, entirely pointless. She is, apparently, later recaptured in events we never get to witness. Similarly, it's not at all clear what the Silence are doing faffing around with technology on Earth in 1969 when they have Kovarian's resources at their disposal. I mean, assuming they are working with Kovarian (which I presume since they kidnap Amy who then ends up in Kovarian's care) which is a detail I'm waiting to see confirmed or denied. But the bottom line is that, although Moffat may know how all of this fits together, he is not giving the information to the viewer.
Which is a shame, because as I say, outside of the wider context these form an effective pair of episodes.
Mind you, even NLSS Child, who is oblivious to a great deal of nuance, commented upon how out of character it was for the Doctor to commit genocide, even by proxy.
*In one of the obvious ways, as it transpired.
The double episode of The Impossible Astronaut/The Day of the Moon opens the sixth series of new Doctor Who and sets up the over-arching plot asking who killed the Doctor and how will he get out of that?* As a pair of stand-alone episodes these work really well. The Silence are really good monster and the mechanism in which the Tardis crew record the number they have seen in marks on their hands and faces is incredibly effective in building tension. Canton Everett Delaware III is a fun character. The repeated appearance of Nixon reassuring miscellaneous US functionaries is a moderately good joke. The whole is both creepy and fun, as a good Doctor Who story should be.
Sadly, a lot of questions are left unanswered and the answers we eventually get vary from the mundanely obvious (how the Doctor escapes his death, the identity of the child), to the convoluted and throwaway (the nature and purpose of the Silence). In particular, while I've seen Alex Kingston's performance in these episodes praised, viewed through the lens of later revelations (particularly, her relationship to Amy and Rory, the identity of the Child, and the facts of the Doctor's "murder") it does not convince me at all, none of these revelations appeared to me to be foreshadowed and while you could argue that River is simply an excellent actress, as the viewer of a story, I want more.
Relatedly, the child's escape from the Silence seems, in retrospect, entirely pointless. She is, apparently, later recaptured in events we never get to witness. Similarly, it's not at all clear what the Silence are doing faffing around with technology on Earth in 1969 when they have Kovarian's resources at their disposal. I mean, assuming they are working with Kovarian (which I presume since they kidnap Amy who then ends up in Kovarian's care) which is a detail I'm waiting to see confirmed or denied. But the bottom line is that, although Moffat may know how all of this fits together, he is not giving the information to the viewer.
Which is a shame, because as I say, outside of the wider context these form an effective pair of episodes.
Mind you, even NLSS Child, who is oblivious to a great deal of nuance, commented upon how out of character it was for the Doctor to commit genocide, even by proxy.
*In one of the obvious ways, as it transpired.
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(no subject)
Date: 2015-07-22 09:41 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2015-07-23 06:01 pm (UTC)In light of Ten's massive guilt complex about having done multiple counts of just this, I find myself a bit perplexed.
(no subject)
Date: 2015-07-24 01:43 pm (UTC)And, of course, he had a massive guilt complex. The Doctor doesn't seem to have any problem with wiping out the silence at all.
(no subject)
Date: 2015-07-27 05:01 pm (UTC)Gallifrey and Daleks both, off the top of my head?
(no subject)
Date: 2015-07-22 08:36 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2015-07-22 09:05 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2015-07-22 09:13 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2015-07-22 09:17 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2015-07-23 01:35 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2015-07-23 11:25 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2015-07-22 09:14 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2015-07-22 11:17 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2015-07-24 09:17 am (UTC)I mean, I can see there are all sorts of potential explanations, especially given the gaps in both River and the Doctor's lives that we haven't seen, but Moffat really isn't giving us the information to work with.
(no subject)
Date: 2015-07-22 09:42 pm (UTC)Technically the Doctor might not commit genocide. It depends how fast the Silence can leave the planet... It is out of character, though.
Incidentally, this was arguably the first time in new Who where a historical character appeared who was not - or was not presented as - wholly heroic or admirable, which I think was a small achievement. I hated all that "Ooh, Charles Dickens, you're my favourite novelist"-type stuff in the Davies era.
(no subject)
Date: 2015-07-24 11:52 am (UTC)