(772) Day of the Moon

As I mentioned in The Big Bang review, Moffat has a problem ending big epic two-parters. Whilst this isn’t the same as The Big Bang, its fair to say that this episode doesn’t suffer from the same problems but it certainly comes close. Doctor Who’s stateside holiday takes a decidedly grim and unexpected twist in this episode. The episode immediately starts with Amy running in the middle of the desert and is seemingly killed. Quite a grim start to the episode, things get grimmer when Rory seems to suffer the same fate. River seems to be jumping off a unbuilt floor and is going to fall to her death but I like how after a while the TARDIS appears and she dives into the TARDIS and seemingly into the infamous swimming pool. For Amy and Rory their fate is revealed because the perfect prison that has been built for the Doctor and Amy and Rory are alive and the TARDIS has been placed inside the prison but is invisible.

Action moves to a creepy abandoned children’s home. It’s very creepy indeed and one this is where some of the best stuff in the episode happens. When Amy is looking at all the silences hanging from the ceiling I thought that it was a great moment. Another great moment comes when Amy sees a woman called the Eye Patch Lady and she opens a slot in a door and then disappears. It’s unclear whether this is relevant to this part of the story but obviously as the series progresses it becomes more interesting.

The big scene comes when the Doctor has moment with the silence which leads to the death of the silence. The use of the moon landing is teased throughout these two episodes and the moment when it actually happens comes at the peak of the episode. When everyone is watching the moon landing they can suddenly see the silence which leads to their deaths. It’s quite a way of getting out of the current situation and does lead to a great shootout with River showing that she’s more than a match for the Doctor.

Nixon asks the Doctor if he will be remembered which is quite an amusing question and when the Doctor says “say hello to David Frost” that also made me chuckle. Milligan has portrayed Nixon as a bit of a comedy character in this episode which is a bit odd but after a while I got use to it and whilst it was clear that Nixon wasn’t the greatest person in the world. In the context of this story he was someone that the Doctor could trust

The final shot in the TARDIS is of the scanner checking to see if Amy is pregnant and it doesn’t make a decision. I’ll be honest and say I don’t really care about this and the only reason its getting a mention is that at least later on it becomes relevant but at the moment I just can’t get worked up about whether she’s pregnant or not.

The final shot of the episode is arguably the most intriguing because it’s the girl from the astronauts costume and she regenerates. There are too many loose ends in this story which are left frustratingly open. The opening story of the season should have a gentle open to the story arc and it feels like they have just gone overboard with it. It’s a good two parter but I think that they have started to high and the rest of the series will be poorer as a result.

(771) The Impossible Astronaut

This is where the Matt Smith era really starts to get dark. Unlike David Tennant’s first series, Matt Smith enjoyed quite a lot of success in his debut year and so there was some renewed excitement when the trailers started to air showing what looked like an awesome series. The trailer showed that the Doctor was going stateside for the first time since 1996 and unusually, the series was going to start with a two-parter. This was the first time that a series had started with a two-parter since Attack of the Cybermen in 1985. If this didn’t make it clear that they were aiming for epic this series then nothing would.

Amy and Rory start the episode in what seems like a normal life, River Song is in prison and they have been invited to a meeting with the Doctor. It’s an interesting sort of prison where River can seemingly leave at any time. In the real world that’s not a prison but that not important at the moment.

The Doctor mentions that Amy has put on a couple of pounds which seems like a horrible dig but comes on to take on significant importance.

The Silence makes it debut in this episode. It’s first appearance is far away and is a silhouette. It’s not until the 25^th minute before one appears in the oval office of the White House. The design of the Silecne is rather well done although it has similarities to the Slenderman. The cool thing about the Silence though is that the moment anyone sees them and looks away they forget.

The first big scene happens quite early on in the episode when Amy, River and Rory witness the Doctor being shot by someone in a spacesuit. We don’t see who it is even though the Doctor knows who it is. There is a nice sense of us not being in on the plan. No one could know that the Doctor would be killed so early on in the first episode of a brand new series. This shock only lasted a few minutes when he wanders out of the toilets.

The idea to use Richard Nixon is something that perhaps couldn’t be avoided so he is used to the advantage of the story. Stuart Milligan plays Nixon and I thought that it wasn’t that bad an impression. I cant help but think about the character he plays in Jonathan Creek but that aside I thought that it was a good performance from him.

I like how the control room of the Silence is the same as the one seen in The Lodger. I don’t know whether we are supposed to put two and two together but that episode aired quite soon before this one so people would still remember it.

This story has an end of series finale feel to it which is why this episode feels so different to pervious opening episodes. The episode ends with Amy (who has been on a weird mind trip) shoot at the astronaut who turns out to be a young girl. The mystery doesn’t end here because the question remains as to who the girl is and why did she kill the Doctor.

This was a very good opening episode. The good form that the show had during the previous series has continued with this episode. The setting has helped make this story seem more epic than it would have done had it happened in London or Cardiff. It gives it a truly international experience and I just hope that things continue.

(770) A Christmas Carol

Matt Smith’s first Christmas Special is arguably his best. This is incredibly the sixth Christmas special since the 2005 revival. It is also Matt Smith’s 14^th episode as the Doctor and he hasn’t been Doctor for a year at this point. The beauty of Christmas Specials is that it is the only Doctor Who episode that doesn’t have much to do with story arcs and the jolliness is rather evident.

There are two big names that guest star in this episode. The first is opera singer Katherine Jenkins who plays Abigail. Even though Rory and Amy are in the story and technically part of the story, Abigail essentially becomes the Doctor’s companion for the story. With Jenkins being a singer then it was obvious that she would do singing and thankfully she is a better singer than actress because to sound a bit harsh she isn’t the most convincing. The best bit for Jenkins comes when she is singing Silence is Golden at the end opposite Michael Gambon. The next big name is Michael Gambon. Yes the actual Michael Gambon who is best known for having a corner on the Top Gear track named after him. Gambon plays an Ebineezer Scrooge type character and for all intents and purposes he is because this is Doctor Who’s attempt at A Christmas Carol and its not just the title that Moffat borrows from Mr Dickens.

The first thing that strikes me when I started watching this episode after the titles have finished and that is that the episode looks visually impressive. The writing from Moffat is rather good but the problem is that at some stage in the writing process he realised that eh didn’t have enough material to sustaine 60 minutes so he’s added the whole stuff with Kazran and Abigail’s regular Christmas celebration which got a bit tiresome after a while. The flying fish is another thing that I like about this story. The sight of a flying shark is something that still looks impressive and is worth some of the poorer stuff that happens in the episode.

There is a part of the story where the Doctor is talking to Young Kazran and is also talking to adult Kazran. The story progresses with adult Kazran getting new memories of him as a young boy travelling with the Doctor and Abigail. There are moments which work quite well in the story but despite these things I still at times felt less warmly to the story. I don’t know if its got something to do with watching a Christmas episode on one of the warmest days of the year or not but it didn’t connect with me much.

I said at the beginning that this was the best Matt Smith Christmas Special but that doesn’t mean that it’s the best special. To be honest it gets bogged down quite early on and the whole Kazran/Abigail love story isn’t the most interesting but its more the directing of Toby Haynes that saves the day and I also thought that Matt Smith was really good and seems to have well and truly settled into the role. Now the 32^nd series starts to take on a darker tone.

(768) The Pandorica Opens

How would a Steven Moffat series finale work? We have had four from the RTD era and they have generally featured a story that ended in the second episode at the forty-minute mark and then there was a lot of sentimentality. The crack in the wall storyline reaches its conclusion and after being impressed with how the show and the different feel that Steven Moffat has come up with, I wanted to see how Moffat would deal with the finale. You could tell from the pre-title scene what he was going to do and it’s as definelty different from what RTD did.

The episode starts with Vincent Van Gogh making a cameo appearance and has painted something which is then owned by Winston Churchill who phones River Song in 5145 who then escapes and bumps into Liz Ten. The painting is then revealed to be the TARDIS blowing up. The thing is that it takes seven minutes for this be revealed and that long before the titles play.

The action takes the Doctor to Stonehenge. I can’t believe it’s taken this long for the show to film at Stonehenge and its used in a rather creative way.

There are many cool things that appear in this episode such as a headless Cyberman. Amy and the Doctor are attacked by a roaming hand and Amy is attacked by its head which has tentacles and splits down the middle to reveal a quite horrific skull before clattering at Amy’s face trying to bite it off. This episode feature an alliance of the Daleks, Cybermen, Teriltptil’s (The Visitation), Slitheen’s, Chelonian, Judoon, Nestene, Drahvin (Galaxy 4), Sycorax, Haemo-goth, Zygon, Atraxi, the weird monster from Love and Monsters & Draconian (Frontier in Space). The sight of them standing in front of the Doctor when he is sitting in the Pandorica is one of the highlights of the episode. It’s only at this point that you get an impression of the vastness of the problem that is happening in the story. There is no other reason why the Daleks and Cybermen would even entertain the same space.

The return of Rory is rather funny because the Doctor knows its Rory and yet doesn’t put two and two together for quite a while. At first there is no real explanation given as to why he has ended up as a Roman and saves Amy. The fact that he is in fact an Auton is something that I didn’t expect and that all the Romans. The reunion between Rory and Amy is rather sweet and if this had been Mickey and Rose then things would have been slushy and rather frustrating whereas due to the performances from Arthur Darvil and Karen Gillan, it is anything but annoying and when Rory shoots Amy is so

The Pandorica is according to River Song for the “Most feared thing in all creation”. The design of the Pandorica is spectacular and the thing about this episode is that the revelation is the story. The build up is done rather well and I remember speculating even at the time as to what it was. The revelation that it was a creative decision to imprison the Doctor is a brilliant idea. The idea is that the Doctor is the most dangerous thing in creation is clearly a stupid idea and

The scene where the Doctor is yelling at all the spaceships that are racing around above the Stonehenge. He gives a great speech about stopping each and everyone of them at some point and then seem to frighten them off. This is clearly just delaying the inevitable and the episode ends with the Doctor being locked in the Pandorica and things clearly going wrong straight away. It’s a great way to end the episode and it’s a great cliffhanger and hopefully things will continue to be just as good in the final episode of the series.