The Eleventh Doctor interrupts some Pizza, Booze, Telly in this incredibly polarising episode of NewWho
Our heroes draw reminders in places they can’t see without a mirror, telepathic beepers are manually operated, and River goes full-on John Woo
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Three months have passed since Amy’s trigger-happy tizzy in the Floridian warehouse at the end of The Impossible Astronaut.
While she, Rory and River are drawing lines on their faces and escaping the feds, The Doctor is babushka’d into a lego box of ultimate density — ably lifted into place by two average American GI Joes.
They have a plan, though, and off they plop with Canton III to find the missing girl in the oversized spacesuit, get to the bottom of the silent invasion and ruin one of the most seminal moments in mankind’s history in the process.
(Also, as it comes up in our review of this Doctor Who episode, flip through the screenshots below to see The Doctor firing green rays at The Silence from his Sonic Screwdriver.)
Hey all; it’s mini time!
Ooh. Part two. What will happen? Let me start by saying I’m so glad that last week’s “next time” segment showed the little girl was ok, because my daughter was extremely concerned.
While I could talk about the many interesting or poignant bits of this episode, there’s something I’d like to say about its narrative structure. In classic Who and other shows of that era, you had access to viewing at time of broadcast only. Shows made today are readily available for rewatch. Coupled with the advent of social media bringing better ways for fans to connect, this yields an almost entirely new viewing experience. Call it the “watch vs. rewatch” phenomenon. Older shows were designed to be watched a single time. Impactful details needed to be understandable the first time, the narrative had to be mostly linear for clarity. Shows made today can be convoluted, messy and confusing narratively, because if it doesn’t make sense you can rewatch it or connect with fans who have. In this case, it also bears rewatching after the season is done, to connect all the dots so-to-speak.
As a rewatch episode, there is so much going on here. The plot is thick. The plot thickens thicker, and so on. There are many unanswered questions. Who’s the little girl? Who’s that in the eyepatch? What’s up with the pregnancy scan? We will stay tuned to find out.
Stray comment: Are they taping phone calls because of the Doctor? Did the Doctor cause Watergate?!?
Rating: pretzels galore!
Now I’ll leave you with an exchange from the end of the episode between me and my daughter:
Amy has just asked the Doc if her hypothetical baby might have a time head. Then it cuts to the little girl regenerating.
Daughter: Amy!
Me: That’s a different actor than the one who plays young Amy.
Daughter: Baby! Amy!! Amy’s baby!!! That’s her!!!!
This episode embodies everything that is wrong about seasons 6 & 7. The build up is huge, and they pay out is always convoluted or contrived.
First they make you believe that the Doctor is totally dead. It’s definitely him, and he’s definitely dead. We’re not lying. But they WERE. It’s like in comics when Superman dies or when Captain America was part of Hydra. They always say, ‘there’s no catch’, and there’s always a catch. For the record, you can say that he can’t die because its about him, but then you’re implying that we never should’ve bought into it and the whole thing is dumb.
This is also where River’s character goes completely downhill. She was meant to kill him, but won’t, so they randomly put her in an automated astronaut suit. This also plays to the point earlier. They say River killed the doctor, it was totally her. But it wasn’t…it was some suit she was put it.
The Doctor’s solution is literally genocide against a race he doesn’t understand and he uses humans as mindless killing machines
This should he important for every major emotional arc they’ve had for the Doctor in NuWho (regret over time war, angst over turning people into weapons, issues surrounding weapons, etc) and it’s completely glossed over and never mentioned again.
I loved some elements; the Silence were never done better, but there were way too many plot holes and forced outcomes. Ultimately, I probably give it a 2/5.
Hey guys! I absolutely love River’s escape plan at the beginning of the episode, and the Doctor’s casual reaction to her leaping off a massive building. I can’t help but wonder about the story surrounding the first time she did that.
Serious kudos to the orphanage being ferociously creepy, though I can’t help but wonder why there was so much red paint available for all the writing on the walls. The walls aren’t red, neither is the outside of the building. What happens when he runs out? Does he go down to the hardware store and get more? Presumably he didn’t have an endless supply of red paint to begin with. Did the Silence Mind Trick him into getting more paint because they just love the Haunted House ambiance?
To have the words on every wall like that, there must be paint cans everywhere, just waiting. Or maybe every time he saw a Snoke, he’d zip down to the basement to get a paint can from the stack.
In spite of the Mystery of the Paint, I am very fond of this episode, and the scene where River and the Doctor flirt over her intention to kill Silence is both adorable and very double-standard of him. Ah, well. In the end, he’ll try to brainwash one species into the entire wipeout of another species.
I’m going to give this one a 4.3. I simply really love it, not gonna lie.