Brief reactions to "The Impossible Astronaut"
On the downside, I was surprised by how very unmoved I was by the thing that happens early on that really ought to be quite moving. Possibly Moffatt has gone to the complicated-temporal-paradox-to-be-unravelled-by-extreme-cleverness well too many times, but I do think it's a bad sign when you pull out something as major as that and the viewer's reaction is, "Yawn. I wonder how they're going to undo that timeline."
On the upside, the aliens were quite creepy and cool, Rory and River got some great dialogue (both individually and with each other), and that cliffhanger is the most suspenseful cliffhanger we've had in years. Next week cannot come fast enough.
I also like that this episode felt very different from other season openers we've had in recent years. I feel that I don't quite know what to expect from this season, and while I'd prefer to be just a bit more serenely confident that Moffatt is not going to disappoint me, I at least get the sense that I'm not going to be bored.