So Doctor Who is back! And so is my blog.
Doctor Who 6.1 "The Impossible Astronaut"
Written by Steven Moffat
Directed by Toby Haynes
Originally broadcast 23 April 2011, 6pm, BBC1
The following review contains spoilers (to quote River Song)
I've come to the conclusion that I'll always be a Doctor Who fan at heart. No matter how bad times get, I will always go out and buy the T-shirts and the figures and the underpants and I will never miss an episode. I'd cancel my own funeral if Doctor Who was on. It's in my blood, in my genes, in my DNA, it's a part of me and always will be. All that said, I wasn't particularly excited about the opening episode of Series 6 (or Series 32), because the last series left me colder than a snowman's heart. I've said it time and time again, I've shouted about it to confused strangers in the street: I hate the Pond-life that currently occupies the role of the Doc's faithful companion. Honestly, shave my legs, give me an orange wig and a very short skirt (actually, no, because I already own both of these) and tell me to shout a lot and I could do a better job than Karen Gillan. In fact, my 96-year-old Nan could. She's ace at running down corridors. Sorry, I'm doing it again. But, I was somewhat heartened by the Christmas Special, which,with it's whimsical, winning and wacky marriage of a Welsh opera singer warbling into a screwdriver and a sleigh-pulling flying shark soaring through the sky reawakened my interest in my favourite show.
So, I sat down at 6pm to see what current Who supremo Steven Moffat, a man I want to passionately ravish and savagely dismember in almost equal measure, had in store for us. We began with a tribute to the legend that is, and forever will be, Elisabeth Sladen, also known as Sarah Jane Smith, the most wonderful, beautiful and heroic companion of all-time. And then we're slap bang into the action, and we're treated to an opening ten minutes that is both thoroughly enjoyable and thoroughly audacious. Yes, I was surprised too! We see the Doctor in the middle of the Utah desert shot stone dead by a masked spaceman. Ooh. So now I'm sitting bolt upright. I've stopped imagining Rory naked and I'm paying attention. The Doctor... dead... no... he can't be!? As it turns out, no... he can't be... or at least, not yet. We're lead to believe that the tragic death we've just witnessed is the Doctor unquestionably our beloved Time Lord, but a future version... timey-wimey, wibbly-wobbly, bumpy-wumpy. And that's where things started to get messy...
The rest of the episode (which was, quite frankly, a bit slow) didn't manage to capitalise on the intrigue or momentum created in the opening 10 minutes or so, but it did manage to ask an awful lot of questions. I don't have a clue what the hell is going on and I doubt next week's conclusion will fill in many of the chasm-wide gaps, but that's okay. I got the impression that the Moffster is playing a bit of a long game with us, dangling enormous, gleaming carrots of temptation in front of our noses and then jeering nastily and pulling them away. As series openers go therefore, "The Impossible Astronaut" is a bit of a tough one, a real mixed bag: a bit like a delicious cake covered in snot and earwax. It's absolutely nothing like the funny, frothy, fast series openers that have begun the previous five series and instead seems to be taking us into a darker, mistier territory with it's mysteries and story-arcs. I felt like I'd wandered into a Joss Whedon show: with it's sharp, snappy dialogue and stylish locations. The episode can't really be properly judged or graded without seeing the conclusion ("Day of the Moon"), but what it lacked in pace and character (Moffat can't writing decent supporting characters to save his life, despite having Mark "Battlestar Galactica" Sheppard and Stuart "Jonathan Creek" Milligan at his disposal), it made up for in WTF-ness. Despite myself, I *do* want to know what everything means. Who is the little girl in the spacesuit that Amy shoots? How can Amy be pregnant (well, she could have had sex without protection, I guess). Just who the Dickens is River Song (My guess is that she's the Doctor's Uncle Brian). Who sent out the five TARDIS-blue envelopes? And did the FBI bring the Doctor his fez...?
I'm in two minds about the episode then, I suppose. I certainly didn't hate it but it's also hard to love an episode that just feels like a very small cog in a much bigger engine or one jigsaw piece in a whole puzzle. It's wetted my appetite, but I thought it was too talky, not enough action, not enough by way of characterisation and the episode title itself sucks. On the plus side, The Silence (first alluded to in 5.12 "The Pandorica Opens") are excellent. Even though they only appeared sporadically here, the idea behind them is creepy and just so very Doctor Who. The concept of a monster that exists but can make you forget it existed in mere seconds is pretty terrifying and I'm looking forward to seeing them at the forefront of the action next week.
That'll do for now, I think. Russell T Davies standard it was not, but I liked it well enough.
And one more thing, that nobody in the universe other than me will care about - 6pm, baking hot sunny day... it's going to die a death in the ratings. I know we have iPlayer, BBC3 repeats and consolodated final figures now, but tomorrow morning's raw overnight is going to be miniscule. Doctor Who should be on later in the evening; 6pm is barely even primetime. Who watches television at 6pm in the summer? Most people are outside in their pants drinking iced tea. Curse you BBC schedulers!
BEST LINE (it's the best 'cos it's true)
The Doctor: I wear a Stetson now. Stetsons are cool.
