Doctor Who: The Impossible Astronaut
Okay, so I'm writing up this episode reaction because if I don't, next week, I will regret not having Said Stuff, but honestly, my overwhelming reaction is that...I wanna see the other half before I have an overwhelming reaction. I feel like I've seen half the story - even more so than most two-parters. Like, seriously, I have NO IDEA what's going on and am reluctant to speculate. So instead what I'm going to do is just like, list 9 things that occur to me, in no particular order, with varying levels of length and angst and squee:
1) I do not think that whoever is in the suit when it shoots the Doctor at the start is the little girl who is in it earlier.
2) I do not think that whoever is in the suit is the Doctor himself because of how he says, "It's okay, I know it's you," or something similar. That suggests to me that whoever is in there hasn't had a chance to extensively discuss this with the Doctor and the Doctor is taking the opportunity to say, "Hey, it's all right, I get what's going to happen; don't feel bad." But that doesn't really narrow it down.
3) Why is the girl telling the President that she's afraid the Space Man will eat her if she's already inside the space suit? Either she did get eaten by it in the five minutes between the phone call and when they arrived at the address (in which case, how was she calling the President anyway), or she was lying, or being made to lie. The whole setup is clearly a trap and we know that the Doctor never interferes unless there are crying children (or rather he always interferes, but especially when there are crying children). She's obviously at least bait in a trap. I'm honestly wondering whether she's a little girl at all (see also, the gas mask child and CAL, the girl in the computer in the Library), and if she is, what else she's implicated in. Is she an innocent, manipulated hostage? Quite possibly, but I'm not ready to assume that's all she is.
4) While I think it was actually a really effective cliffhanger, if River couldn't shoot whoever was in the suit in 2011, I don't think that Amy's going to be able to shoot the girl in the suit in 1969.
5) Amy being pregnant? Again, let's add this to the list of things I Do Not Trust. I have no idea if she really is or isn't, but I wouldn't be surprised if she wasn't and there's something very odd going on. In the White House bathroom, the Silence tell her that she must tell the Doctor what he must know and what he must never know. Then when she comes out of the bathroom she mentions - in a really hazy and confused way, that she needs to tell the Doctor something, and then acts confused about why she said that. Her decision to tell him right as the Silence are attacking, again comes across as some weird compulsion. Whether or not she's pregnant (and I'm cautiously leaning towards not because I can't see how that one's gonna work out long term through the series unless it's seriously nonchronological), The Silence definitely made her tell the Doctor at that point, in that way. And that's...weird. And thus I call Shenanigans.
6) River's Speech to Rory. Okay, yes, you must all have guessed, I was Not A Fan. I'm also not freeeeeaaaaaking out, I'm just vaguely disappointed that there was an element I have to be a bit ambivalent about instead of a nonstop stream of gorgeous River-related amazing asskicking awesome. However, I genuinely believe that most of that speech was...just a bad speech without much literal significance beyond that. The goal of it was clearly to introduce the story to new and casual viewers, same as Rory suddenly being thick about why they'd need diaries and Amy suddenly being thick about the concept of Doctors from different times even though she had no trouble with it in The Big Bang. This was just also used as a Big, Emotional Beat, and while I like that Moffat wants to give River Big, Emotional Beats, I could have done without the language in this one. Let's take it on a point by point basis:
6a) Reverse linearity. Cannot be literally true. It's got to be a generalisation. If they went in neat reverse order, they wouldn't need diaries. They would always have had mutually exclusive experiences - with the Doctor having experienced everything River hasn't experienced yet and vice versa. They'd always know what was coming next for each other, and they'd be able to infer a lot more about what version of each other they were likely to run into next too. River wouldn't have been surprised at the Byzantium that the Doctor didn't know who she was since her most recent experience with him would have been the Pandorica, where he also didn't know and she'd know she was heading towards a younger version of him. Neat reverse order means shared experiences like Easter Island or Jim the Fish wouldn't be possible in this model. I'm also pretty convinced that The Impossible Astronaut happens after the Pandorica stuff anyway. Partly because she knows Rory when she seemed to be meeting him for the first time in The Pandorica Opens (which can be explained by him being dead for a while, but also, she's River), and also because she has her vortex manipulator on the whole episode even if she doesn't use it. While it's possible an endless stream of black market vortex manipulators is part of her breakout-of-prison SOP, it seems wasteful somehow - I think it's more elegant to simply assume she stashed it somewhere for future use. So whatever, I'm largely unbothered by that implication because I think it's evidently not literally true. Although I do feel oddly irked that now loads of people will assume it is, and not just a tragical way of expressing how she was feeling right then because she'd just watched the man who knew her die and then get replaced by the one who doesn't.
6b) "I live for the days I see him." OH PLEASE RIVER, WE ARE NOT IN A ROMANCE NOVEL. I dunno though, I'm not overly manic about that either. See: her current frame of mind, and the fact she's currently in freaking prison and only seems to allow herself to break out when she is going off to see him. But more than that, River honestly can't be that co-dependent because if she were, then she'd be off running through time and space with him. And she clearly isn't doing that all the time because before she was in prison, she got a doctorate in archeology and after she got released she got to be a professor and that implies she does, indeed, have a life of her own off the TARDIS, which in turn shows that even when she's not punishing herself in prison, she doesn't choose to ditch everything and live in a Police Box (although yes, I do think that she's spent some extended periods traveling with him too). So again, I am eyerolly but it feels like a cheesy line to get an audience reaction, not a major indicator that they're going to change how they write her.
I kind of feel the same about the whole "It'll kill me when he doesn't know who I am," thing just because she has too much fun with the fact he doesn't know her sometimes (painful as it must also be beneath the surface), and also, I guess, because I think it over-explains the Library when it doesn't need it. And overexplaining is a dangerous thing. But whatevercakes.
6c) IMPRESSIONABLE YOUNG GIRL. Okay, I got nothing on this one really. It was the one thing that kinda srsly pissed me off. Partly this is cus I really dislike the fandom meme of who ought to play Young River and the trope of having him meet her as a younger woman because of its...pervasive voracity? And if it wasn't something I perceive as A Thing (again, not saying everyone who ever thought or wrote it is icky or anything; different strokes and all, just I don't like the general trend of it), I probably wouldn't be as irked. But. I would still be irked. Because it's...not original. We get story after story of the Doctor picking up young girls in the middle of the night, impressing them, showing them the universe. It's almost every companion's story and I loved Amy's version of that because unlike, say, Rose, for the first time in the new series I felt like it wasn't romantically exploitative in terms of power balance, and that the ways in which it was exploitative were explored. As Rory says, he doesn't have to imagine it, but that's Amy's story, and when it's told badly, when it's told in the way that stops me from being able to ship the Doctor with his companions, it's Rose's story. I don't want it to be River's also.
Now, I do think there are some differences; I appreciate that, at least, the Doctor falls in love with River when she's this River - when she's a mature adult with her own agency and who is not dependent on him. That still means a great deal to me. But there is then this implication that he made her into that person. Which is something I only have a problem with in two contexts. The first is that it harks back, as I said, to the way he intervenes in the lives of other young, impressionable girls which makes it a bit squicky. The second, though, is that the way you can improve on that, is to make sure that River also makes the Doctor into the version of the Doctor she falls in love with.
The problem, in turn, with this, that I'm not sure it's possible for this to be true. Because the Doctor is such an established character - 48 years or 908, depending on how you're counting. So, you know, as I said, I kind of got nothing on this cus it's disappointing.
But to point out a few things that may ultimately prove more interesting, "young" is the description applied to the Doctor by River the first day he meets her. I know many people speculate that "my doctor" refers to a specific incarnation, but I never thought that. It was a shock to her that he wasn't her doctor - that he was too young and unfinished to be really him. And it was...him not being him that broke her heart. So obviously that implies there is a change in him and one that, I suppose, we must assume River herself helps form. We see it as we go, in things like the organic development of "I hate you," and "You don't." The doctor responds to her statement with that response instinctively in the Byzantium, but the meme it has become between them suggests that it's something she must have begun to say at some point too. Obviously that's nothing like as important or formative as personality or attitude or whatever ineffable thing it is we're talking about, but it serves as well as any as a metaphor.
7) Having said all that, RIVER FUCKING SONG, PEOPLE. RIVER FUCKING SONG. HOW DID THEY GET THAT PAST THE CENSORS? HOW DID SHE BREAK MY HEART WITH HER SLAPPING AND YELLING ABOUT WHETHER OR NOT THEY'D DONE JIM THE FISH YET. RIVER FUCKING SONG. Yes, people, I still love her more than I can possibly express. HOW IS SHE REAL.
8) That astronaut was creepier than I thought it'd be, actually. It really was quite eerie, standing in a lake. I think the callback to River's first appearance must be deliberate? But I also don't think that means it's River in the suit.
9) I remember very clearly that I was nervous about the wedding dress reveal in 5x01 and basically the whole of Amy's Choice and what they were doing with Rory and Leadworth. And it turned out...ridiculously charming and not faily at all. I'm not saying that's what's going to happen this time, but I am saying that I feel...very uncomfortable making long-term assumptions without seeing the ending.
So like, in conclusion, there was one speech I didn't like and am feeling very grumpy is affecting my overall squee since ALL THE REST OF IT WAS AWESOME and like...just ridiculously awesome. But also I have no idea what's going on or where ANY of it's headed.
So...yeah. Those are my thoughts, but I feel like I'm halfway through a chapter.
1) I do not think that whoever is in the suit when it shoots the Doctor at the start is the little girl who is in it earlier.
2) I do not think that whoever is in the suit is the Doctor himself because of how he says, "It's okay, I know it's you," or something similar. That suggests to me that whoever is in there hasn't had a chance to extensively discuss this with the Doctor and the Doctor is taking the opportunity to say, "Hey, it's all right, I get what's going to happen; don't feel bad." But that doesn't really narrow it down.
3) Why is the girl telling the President that she's afraid the Space Man will eat her if she's already inside the space suit? Either she did get eaten by it in the five minutes between the phone call and when they arrived at the address (in which case, how was she calling the President anyway), or she was lying, or being made to lie. The whole setup is clearly a trap and we know that the Doctor never interferes unless there are crying children (or rather he always interferes, but especially when there are crying children). She's obviously at least bait in a trap. I'm honestly wondering whether she's a little girl at all (see also, the gas mask child and CAL, the girl in the computer in the Library), and if she is, what else she's implicated in. Is she an innocent, manipulated hostage? Quite possibly, but I'm not ready to assume that's all she is.
4) While I think it was actually a really effective cliffhanger, if River couldn't shoot whoever was in the suit in 2011, I don't think that Amy's going to be able to shoot the girl in the suit in 1969.
5) Amy being pregnant? Again, let's add this to the list of things I Do Not Trust. I have no idea if she really is or isn't, but I wouldn't be surprised if she wasn't and there's something very odd going on. In the White House bathroom, the Silence tell her that she must tell the Doctor what he must know and what he must never know. Then when she comes out of the bathroom she mentions - in a really hazy and confused way, that she needs to tell the Doctor something, and then acts confused about why she said that. Her decision to tell him right as the Silence are attacking, again comes across as some weird compulsion. Whether or not she's pregnant (and I'm cautiously leaning towards not because I can't see how that one's gonna work out long term through the series unless it's seriously nonchronological), The Silence definitely made her tell the Doctor at that point, in that way. And that's...weird. And thus I call Shenanigans.
6) River's Speech to Rory. Okay, yes, you must all have guessed, I was Not A Fan. I'm also not freeeeeaaaaaking out, I'm just vaguely disappointed that there was an element I have to be a bit ambivalent about instead of a nonstop stream of gorgeous River-related amazing asskicking awesome. However, I genuinely believe that most of that speech was...just a bad speech without much literal significance beyond that. The goal of it was clearly to introduce the story to new and casual viewers, same as Rory suddenly being thick about why they'd need diaries and Amy suddenly being thick about the concept of Doctors from different times even though she had no trouble with it in The Big Bang. This was just also used as a Big, Emotional Beat, and while I like that Moffat wants to give River Big, Emotional Beats, I could have done without the language in this one. Let's take it on a point by point basis:
6a) Reverse linearity. Cannot be literally true. It's got to be a generalisation. If they went in neat reverse order, they wouldn't need diaries. They would always have had mutually exclusive experiences - with the Doctor having experienced everything River hasn't experienced yet and vice versa. They'd always know what was coming next for each other, and they'd be able to infer a lot more about what version of each other they were likely to run into next too. River wouldn't have been surprised at the Byzantium that the Doctor didn't know who she was since her most recent experience with him would have been the Pandorica, where he also didn't know and she'd know she was heading towards a younger version of him. Neat reverse order means shared experiences like Easter Island or Jim the Fish wouldn't be possible in this model. I'm also pretty convinced that The Impossible Astronaut happens after the Pandorica stuff anyway. Partly because she knows Rory when she seemed to be meeting him for the first time in The Pandorica Opens (which can be explained by him being dead for a while, but also, she's River), and also because she has her vortex manipulator on the whole episode even if she doesn't use it. While it's possible an endless stream of black market vortex manipulators is part of her breakout-of-prison SOP, it seems wasteful somehow - I think it's more elegant to simply assume she stashed it somewhere for future use. So whatever, I'm largely unbothered by that implication because I think it's evidently not literally true. Although I do feel oddly irked that now loads of people will assume it is, and not just a tragical way of expressing how she was feeling right then because she'd just watched the man who knew her die and then get replaced by the one who doesn't.
6b) "I live for the days I see him." OH PLEASE RIVER, WE ARE NOT IN A ROMANCE NOVEL. I dunno though, I'm not overly manic about that either. See: her current frame of mind, and the fact she's currently in freaking prison and only seems to allow herself to break out when she is going off to see him. But more than that, River honestly can't be that co-dependent because if she were, then she'd be off running through time and space with him. And she clearly isn't doing that all the time because before she was in prison, she got a doctorate in archeology and after she got released she got to be a professor and that implies she does, indeed, have a life of her own off the TARDIS, which in turn shows that even when she's not punishing herself in prison, she doesn't choose to ditch everything and live in a Police Box (although yes, I do think that she's spent some extended periods traveling with him too). So again, I am eyerolly but it feels like a cheesy line to get an audience reaction, not a major indicator that they're going to change how they write her.
I kind of feel the same about the whole "It'll kill me when he doesn't know who I am," thing just because she has too much fun with the fact he doesn't know her sometimes (painful as it must also be beneath the surface), and also, I guess, because I think it over-explains the Library when it doesn't need it. And overexplaining is a dangerous thing. But whatevercakes.
6c) IMPRESSIONABLE YOUNG GIRL. Okay, I got nothing on this one really. It was the one thing that kinda srsly pissed me off. Partly this is cus I really dislike the fandom meme of who ought to play Young River and the trope of having him meet her as a younger woman because of its...pervasive voracity? And if it wasn't something I perceive as A Thing (again, not saying everyone who ever thought or wrote it is icky or anything; different strokes and all, just I don't like the general trend of it), I probably wouldn't be as irked. But. I would still be irked. Because it's...not original. We get story after story of the Doctor picking up young girls in the middle of the night, impressing them, showing them the universe. It's almost every companion's story and I loved Amy's version of that because unlike, say, Rose, for the first time in the new series I felt like it wasn't romantically exploitative in terms of power balance, and that the ways in which it was exploitative were explored. As Rory says, he doesn't have to imagine it, but that's Amy's story, and when it's told badly, when it's told in the way that stops me from being able to ship the Doctor with his companions, it's Rose's story. I don't want it to be River's also.
Now, I do think there are some differences; I appreciate that, at least, the Doctor falls in love with River when she's this River - when she's a mature adult with her own agency and who is not dependent on him. That still means a great deal to me. But there is then this implication that he made her into that person. Which is something I only have a problem with in two contexts. The first is that it harks back, as I said, to the way he intervenes in the lives of other young, impressionable girls which makes it a bit squicky. The second, though, is that the way you can improve on that, is to make sure that River also makes the Doctor into the version of the Doctor she falls in love with.
The problem, in turn, with this, that I'm not sure it's possible for this to be true. Because the Doctor is such an established character - 48 years or 908, depending on how you're counting. So, you know, as I said, I kind of got nothing on this cus it's disappointing.
But to point out a few things that may ultimately prove more interesting, "young" is the description applied to the Doctor by River the first day he meets her. I know many people speculate that "my doctor" refers to a specific incarnation, but I never thought that. It was a shock to her that he wasn't her doctor - that he was too young and unfinished to be really him. And it was...him not being him that broke her heart. So obviously that implies there is a change in him and one that, I suppose, we must assume River herself helps form. We see it as we go, in things like the organic development of "I hate you," and "You don't." The doctor responds to her statement with that response instinctively in the Byzantium, but the meme it has become between them suggests that it's something she must have begun to say at some point too. Obviously that's nothing like as important or formative as personality or attitude or whatever ineffable thing it is we're talking about, but it serves as well as any as a metaphor.
7) Having said all that, RIVER FUCKING SONG, PEOPLE. RIVER FUCKING SONG. HOW DID THEY GET THAT PAST THE CENSORS? HOW DID SHE BREAK MY HEART WITH HER SLAPPING AND YELLING ABOUT WHETHER OR NOT THEY'D DONE JIM THE FISH YET. RIVER FUCKING SONG. Yes, people, I still love her more than I can possibly express. HOW IS SHE REAL.
8) That astronaut was creepier than I thought it'd be, actually. It really was quite eerie, standing in a lake. I think the callback to River's first appearance must be deliberate? But I also don't think that means it's River in the suit.
9) I remember very clearly that I was nervous about the wedding dress reveal in 5x01 and basically the whole of Amy's Choice and what they were doing with Rory and Leadworth. And it turned out...ridiculously charming and not faily at all. I'm not saying that's what's going to happen this time, but I am saying that I feel...very uncomfortable making long-term assumptions without seeing the ending.
So like, in conclusion, there was one speech I didn't like and am feeling very grumpy is affecting my overall squee since ALL THE REST OF IT WAS AWESOME and like...just ridiculously awesome. But also I have no idea what's going on or where ANY of it's headed.
So...yeah. Those are my thoughts, but I feel like I'm halfway through a chapter.