Sorry for the tardiness of this post. I had most of it written out, just never got around to finishing it. Thanks to other stuff this week.
The second part of this season’s opening two parter will either be remembered as the point that Stephen Moffat broke Doctor Who or we will all look back at this episode at the end of summer and realize just how detailed Moffat’s idea of the Doctor really is. No matter what though, we will hopefully remember just how silly this whole episode seems now.
The actual events of the episode start to get silly after a bit. Richard Nixon starts popping up in various locations to make officials stand down which I guess makes as much sense as psychic paper, but is distracting thanks to just how bland Stuart Milligan’s Nixon embodiment is. Canton Delaware on the Doctor’s side, but it doesn’t even seem like he really understands just why he is working almost against his government to help the Doctor. Also, why do they have to act like Amy, Rory, and River are enemies of the state? Any reason why that building the little girl was calling from wasn’t sealed off after they had to escape is beyond me. Oh, and how did the Doctor figure out that whole post-hypnotic suggestion thing?
Putting all of that aside though, the Doctor sends his companions out all around the US (but mostly the Southwest and some random urban local) to see just how vast the Silence’s network really is. Turns out they have been around since the stone age getting humans to build stuff for them, most likely because their hands seem kind of useless. The Doctor seems to have figured out that the Silence give off, even through video media, not just forgetfulness but suggestion. That’s how they are able to control humanity. So the Doctor goes off and puts a transceiver in the Apollo XI going to the moon soon.
Meanwhile, Amy and Canton go in search of the girl, something it seems like someone would have already done (or maybe they did…). So they go to an orphanage, because Moffat knows that orphanages are as scary as bow ties are cool. There they find a guy who has been driven a little mad by having constantly forgotten the Silence who have taken up residence there. After a scary scene in a room with the Silence sleeping upside down on the ceiling, Amy finds a photo of her with child then encounters the little girl in her space suit and is quickly taken by the Silence. Luckily Canton is a little more competent (and actually has a weapon). He shoots a Silence and calls the Doctor for backup. They also find the astronaut suit and Amy’s recorder which is not a little radio for everything she is saying.
Down an Amy, up a Silent and a astronaut suit, Canton takes the wounded creature back to the Doctor’s prison to fix up the alien and record it basically saying that Canton should “kill the Silence on sight.” River and the Doctor find that the suit was some kind of life support unit that could make distress calls to the president of the United States. Rory spends his time uselessly trying to figure out if Amy is using vague insults to talk about him or the Doctor. Why Amy is talking as if someone could hear here…?
Using the chip to find Amy the Doctor shows up shows the Silence that he has just used their own powers to tell every human watching the moon landing to kill the Silence on sight (thanks to the Doctor’s transceiver he couldn’t have known he would use and Canton’s lucky recording). This makes the Silence mad, but River shoots them all as they untie Amy and all get in the TARDIS.
In between all of this there were a few other things going on, but they all amount to the kinds of unanswered questions that the Doctor always seems all too comfortable with. Most crazy is the child. Outside of her life support suit she is wondering the dark alleys of Florida dying. She reveals to a vagrant that she okay though because she can just regenerate, and proceeds to do just that. Considering the Doctor just left her in 1969 he seems to be okay with having no idea why this girl was so important, so it will be a while before the Doctor meets whomever this person is (the Master?).
Amy’s is/isn’t preggers. The Doctor probably made sure to pop a few Allegra after finding this out, since last time that happen it was just allergies. This time it is probably safe to say that everything Amy and Rory have been through have clearly time radiated their reproductive parts so much that this was bound to happen if they tried to have a child.
Rory needs to get over his jealousy of the Doctor. Amy loves him, and seems to only have eyes for him. This has been established.
At this point it seems like River and the Doctor’s Benjamin Button relationship just hit a milestone: their last/first kiss. River has made it pretty clear what the Doctor’s next stop in River’s life will be up to this point, but she didn’t this time, other than that they will be on kissing terms. There can’t be more than just one time period in River’s life that she and the Doctor make out for serious right? Otherwise, the next time the Doctor stops in on River will be just as awkward as that last scene with River was this episode.
Other stuff I expect to see later this season:
The whole episode is a mess. Moffat seems to have been desperate to fit so many little hints and clues into episode that, unlike the whispers of the Silence in the last season, it is too obvious that he is setting something up. During Lost many talked about the long treks across the island as the piece moving that was so vital to making anything happening. Here we are not just seeing every piece move, we are being told in explicit terms that those pieces exist. Unfortunately, we don’t have any reason other than some love of the show to care about the pieces. The little girl may be a Time Lord, but who cares. Same for the Silence’s underground network, Canton, and the Eye Patch Lady. Amy’s pregnancy is something meaningful to me, I guess… I just hope next week is less smug with itself.
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