So, after weeks
of speculation, I finally discovered who was destined to die in
this year’s opening episode, when The Sun decided to ruin the
surprise for everyone by printing a big picture of the Doctor being shot
in its TV section on Saturday morning. I only read the bloody thing at
work - if I’d had the day off, I could have watched it on broadcast and
avoided the spoiler! Thankfully though, this didn’t damage the overall
effectiveness of the scene. As soon as the Doctor tells his friends not to
interfere, whatever happens, and approaches the impossible astronaut that
has risen from a lake in the middle of America, there’s an air of tense,
foreboding and inevitability. It can only be deemed a great triumph of
writing, acting and direction that, even with events clearly going this
way, the scene still packs an incredible shock.
In retrospect,
it could only really have been the Doctor who died; who else could still
be a major player from beyond the grave? Nonetheless, the scene has a
powerful emotional resonance, due to some excellent performances all
around. Karen Gillan, Arthur Darvill and Alex Kingston portray absolutely
convincing horror and belief at the Doctor’s death that sells the scene
completely. Having the act itself play out at such a distance only adds to
the effectiveness of the scene, strengthening the feeling of helplessness
as we watch the Doctor walk calmly to his death. After several years of
seeing the golden regeneration effect used and reused, there’s immediate
recognition of what’s happening; this is then subverted when the Doctor is
shot again right in the middle of the regeneration, killed for good. The
series’ now arguably over-familiar tropes are utilised in such a way as to
shock the viewer.
“Just popped out to get my special straw. It adds more fizz.”
It’s indicative
of the confidence of this episode that the stand-out scene occurs within
the first ten minutes. This is a show that is now being produced safe in
the knowledge that five million people are going to come in from the sun
specifically to watch it. It’s a brave choice to open the year with a
deliberately challenging two-parter, rather than the more familiar
approach of kicking things off with a fun-filled romp. Not that fun and
humour are absent here; given the overarching seriousness of the
situation, the amount of comedy is gratifying and greatly needed, and
there are some truly hilarious lines throughout (the Easter Island one is
my favourite). Still, it’s questionable just how the casual or younger
viewer would take such a complex, talky episode. Such ambition and
confidence is laudable, but is also an undeniable risk.
A multi-layered
and slow-paced episode, The Impossible Astronaut demands, and
indeed deserves, close attention. There’s a great deal on offer here. The
central performances are superb; it seems that everyone has settled into
their roles now and are perfectly embodying the characters. Arthur Darvill
is hugely sympathetic as Rory, who brings a much-needed grounding to the
show as a recognisably ordinary and everyday character. Alex Kingston is
playful and likeable as River, never drifting too far into the cocksure
side of the character that can make her irritating, and instead showing us
a more emotional, vulnerable side. Karen Gillan is astonishingly good in
the small, quiet moments in which she has to face the Doctor, confront his
suspicions and earn his trust. Matt Smith shows just how much he’s made
the role of the Doctor his own, perfectly balancing slapstick humour and
straight, earnest drama to give a powerful performance. Mark Sheppard is
an immediate success as new face Clanton Delaware III, drifting
nonchalantly between gravel-voiced, hard-faced gravitas and schoolboy
enthusiasm. It’s a performance not a million miles from Smith’s, and he’d
be an interesting choice of Doctor one day (and before anyone gets irate
at the idea of an American actor as the Doctor, Sheppard is in fact
British, not that you’d guess from his flawless American-ness here).
Credit must also go to W Morgan Sheppard, his father, who plays the older
Clanton with great dignity.
“These tunnels... they’re
running under the surface of the entire planet. They’ve been here for
centuries!”
The much talked
about enemy, the Silence, finally make their debut appearance, and do not
disappoint. One of the series most effective recent designs, they combine
the look of such classic American sci-fi elements as Men in Black
and Roswell-style Greys with good, old-fashioned creepy skeleton men. The
voice of the creature that addresses Amy is somewhat indistinct, which is
a shame as this damages the scene. This is a small quibble, though, when
put against the ingenious concept of the creatures, beings who can remove
themselves from your memory as soon as you look away. The notion that
these skull-faced beings are all around us, watching but unwatched, is
creepy as hell (although I wonder why none of them have ever shown up on
film before - perhaps Amy’s mobile snapshot will lend some clues). The
mouthless face, suddenly opening up into a gaping maw, only adds to their
distinctly disquieting nature.
The pace
increases towards the end of the episode, promising a more action-oriented
conclusion. There are elements that are unsatisfying in this episode - the
continual feed of revelations means that, by the time Amy suddenly,
insistently reveals that she’s pregnant, the surprise is lost amongst the
information overload. In fairness, however, the pregnancy was signposted
half an hour earlier, when Amy didn’t object to the Doctor mentioning that
she’d put on a couple of pounds. What’s more interesting to wonder is
whether Rory knows about this yet - I’d suggest not, or he’d be even more
protective of her. Each scene is near perfect, yet the episode as whole
seems strangely less than the sum of its parts. However, I expect this has
as much to do with its nature as the first of a two-parter, and that the
overall package will be more satisfying. The mystery of the astronaut and
the little girl is strange and compelling - how is a child looking out of
the visor of an adult-sized spacesuit? How is she contacting President
Nixon? How is she involved with the Silence? And how is she related to the
astronaut that shoots the Doctor in 2011? We don’t know if they’re the
same or not. Other mysteries pertain to the Silence themselves, as we
still have no idea what they want, or, looking back, how or why they were
involved in the destruction of the universe in The Pandorica Opens.
They also seems to be holding a TARDIS-like control chamber in their
sewer-like base - one which appears to be the same, or at least very
similar, to the one seen in The Lodger.
“If we’re
gonna do this, let’s
do it properly.”
Of course, all
this pales against the mystery of the Doctor’s death and his plans
surrounding it. With references to the past and Doctors from the future,
The Impossible Astronaut builds on the successes of last year to
create a mystery that is characteristic of Steven Moffat’s
thought-provoking, complex approach. Under his stewardship, Doctor Who
has ceased to be a series that simply uses a time machine to move from
one adventure to the next. It is now a series about time travel, and the
nature of time itself.
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The Doctor who dies in this episode claims to be 1,103 years old. If he’s
been telling the truth and speaking in Earth years since Rose, then
this makes him 184 years older than the Doctor that he summons, yet not a
day of it is visible on his face. Earlier incarnations (particularly the
Doctor’s
first, fourth and seventh bodies) have appeared to age as their lives have
worn on.
Following the Doctor’s death, River speaks of how valuable and dangerous
the Doctor’s corpse is, before proceeding to immolate it. The notion of
the Doctor’s corpse as a commodity formed the basis of Lawrence Miles’
popular novel, Alien Bodies, which saw the eighth Doctor stumble
upon an auction for his future self’s cadaver. That novel also saw the
eighth Doctor bury his final incarnation’s body on the planet Quiescia.
The Impossible Astronaut
also has much in common with Steven Hall’s recent audio drama A Death
in the Family, in which the seventh Doctor dies outright in the
opening episode, only to return at the story’s
end. Let’s
hope Eleven does as well...
Silence technology
was first seen in The Lodger.
This episode reveals that the TARDIS is equipped with a cloaking device.
The Doctor’s lack of expertise when it comes to using it might explain why
it hasn’t been utilised before.
For River Song, this two-part
tale
takes place between A Good Man Goes to War and The Pandorica
Opens.
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