From Newsgroup: rec.arts.drwho.moderated   
   From Address: jphalt@aol.com   
   Subject: Re: jphalt's Doctor Who reviews   
      
   THE IMPOSSIBLE ASTRONAUT   
      
   2 episodes: The Impossible Astronaut, Day of the Moon. Approx. 88   
   minutes. Written by: Steven Moffat. Directed by: Toby Haynes. Produced   
   by: Marcus Wilson.   
      
      
   THE PLOT   
      
   Amy, Rory, and River Song all come together in present-day America,   
   summoned through numbered invitations sent by the Doctor. He is very   
   happy to see them, and explains that they are going to 1969, a year   
   when much more happened "than anyone remembers." But before he can   
   tell them more, a mysterious astronaut appears. He walks off to speak   
   with this apparition - and is immediately killed by it.   
      
   It's no trick. The Doctor is dead. But one other person was invited to   
   this reunion: the Doctor's younger self. Now his three old companions   
   must convince him to travel back to 1969, and must do so without   
   telling him what has happened/will happen to him. At the end of the   
   trip waits a President whose career will one day end in disgrace   
   (Stuart Milligan), a disgraced FBI agent (Mark Sheppard), and the   
   Silents - an alien race which can only be remembered when directly   
   observed.   
      
   "Silence will fall," Prisoner Zero had insisted way back in The   
   Eleventh Hour. Now, it seems, the Silents are here - and, quite   
   possibly, unstoppable!   
      
      
   CHARACTERS   
      
   The Doctor: Last season's The Time of Angels saw him trying to run   
   from the future River represented. Now, he's actively enjoying that   
   relationship. He still doesn't trust her, but he enjoys their flirting   
   and banter. The climactic facedown with the aliens sees them as a   
   comfortable team, with him confessing that he actually enjoys her   
   amoral side, even though he recognizes that he probably shouldn't.   
      
   Amy: Has the most overtly emotional reaction to the Doctor's death,   
   denying that it even could happen. She still sees him as the man who   
   came out of the sky during her childhood to fix the scary crack in her   
   bedroom wall. She focuses intently on preventing the death she has   
   just witnessed, which leads her to a rash action at the end of Part   
   One. Karen Gillan also gets a chance to play with creeping, quiet   
   terror in a memorable set piece in Part Two, and she is - as ever -   
   terrific.   
      
   Rory: Has the most grounded reaction to the Doctor's death. It's   
   happened. Now they must deal with it. He may be dead, but as he tells   
   Amy and River, "he still needs us." He seems to have the easiest time   
   immediately interacting with the younger Doctor when he arrives, while   
   Amy has the most difficulty. A very good, quiet moment in Episode Two   
   sees Rory confessing to the Doctor that he does remember his millennia-   
   long wait for Amy, but that he doesn't remember it all the time. "It's   
   like a door," he tells the Doctor, "I can keep it closed." Which is   
   likely the only thing that has kept him sane.   
      
   River Song: Previous stories have kept River at a distance. She's a   
   character we observe, not someone with whom we truly identify. But   
   this story pushes her into closer focus. She confides to Rory the   
   emotional toll of her backwards relationship with the Doctor. The   
   longer she knows him, the more times she interacts with him, the less   
   he knows her. For her, their relationship began with him knowing   
   everything about her. Now, she's nearing her end of that relationship   
   and his beginning. He still knows her - but less and less each time.   
   She is losing him, and he can't share in the loss because he's only   
   just getting to know her.   
      
      
   THE GAPS IN THE SILENCE   
      
   Disjointed.   
      
   That's really the word that best describes the 2-part kickoff for   
   Series Six. Not in a bad way, though. This is an excellent 2-parter,   
   superbly crafted, thickly atmospheric, and stuffed to the brim with   
   the kind of structural tricks that are Stephen Moffat's stock in   
   trade. It's not disjointed in the sense of a story badly told, but   
   rather in the strictly literal sense that not all of the joins are   
   there. There are connections we don't see, really from the very   
   beginning of the story, creating several points at which I had to stop   
   and ask myself, "Where are we now?"   
      
   When last we saw the Doctor, Amy, and Rory, they were all together and   
   off on another adventure. Here, we pick up with Amy and Rory settled   
   into a (very nice) house. What happened? We aren't sure, and the   
   episode doesn't explain. We just know that "time passed."   
      
   Next, everyone meets up with the Doctor. But it's a strange meeting,   
   with the audience trying to play catch-up to figure out what happened   
   in the gap while the Doctor has some extra knowledge he's not sharing.   
   Just as we think we might be catching up, the Doctor is killed. This   
   sets off the narrative... but not just the narrative of the serial,   
   which never comes full circle to the Doctor's death. Clearly, this is   
   set-up for later in the season. Within the episode, it actually   
   creates more distance by opening yet another gap just as the first gap   
   was starting to feel closed.   
      
   The rest of Part One plays normally enough. The tone is first fast and   
   jokey, as the Doctor takes rapid control in the Oval Office. Then   
   everything becomes very dark and creepy. We get a slow build to the   
   cliffhanger, one that leaves every character in direct physical or   
   emotional jeopardy. The sort of cliffhanger that demands the next   
   episode pick up from that very second.   
      
   Pop in Episode Two, and... It's three months later. Grainy flashbacks   
   quickly sketch in broadstrokes how Rory and River got away from the   
   aliens in the tunnels and what happened to the Doctor, Amy, and   
   Canton. But the details are left obscure, and we're left to play catch-   
   up regarding what's happened since.   
      
   More narrative gaps. Amy has some bizarre encounters, then wakes up   
   and is told she has been in a dark room for "several days," when she   
   knows she's only just been taken there. In Part One, Amy makes a claim   
   that Part Two flatly contradicts. Gaps upon gaps. For the direct   
   narrative of this 2-parter, it creates distance. But I suspect those   
   gaps are there to be filled later. If I'm right, this is the kind of   
   serial that will be much more rewarding on second viewing, once the   
   other pieces have fallen into place.   
      
      
   THOUGHTS ON THE STORY   
      
   But all of the above is really for later, as I get to the rest of the   
   season. I will say, this opening makes me even more thankful to have   
   kept myself unspoiled than I was when watching Series Five.   
   Discounting implications for the rest of the season, how does this 2-   
   parter work as a story in itself?   
      
   I've already mentioned how the disjointed narrative creates distance.   
   But it also creates a surreal atmosphere that greatly appeals to my   
   personal tastes. Part Two has a particularly nightmarish feel. There's   
   a vivid set piece that features Amy wandering through the labyrinth of   
   an abandoned children's home. The horror imagery here would put most   
   modern ghost and monster movies to shame. The Silents are wonderfully   
   designed, creepy and alien in a way that suggests their parasitical   
   nature. A scene in which Amy tries to pick her way unseen through a   
   roomful of Silents is genuinely frightening, and likely gave younger   
   viewers some very bad dreams upon initial airing.   
      
   Also, despite the deliberate gaps, the story does effectively hold   
   together. The effective bits creating atmosphere also tie together the   
   story: The aliens, which cannot be remembered except when observed;   
   the markings Amy, Rory, and River draw upon their bodies. Not only do   
   they heighten the tension in the set pieces, they feed in perfectly to   
   the way in which the Doctor ultimately defeats them. Throw away the   
   gaps, the surreal trappings, and the obvious setup for the season arc,   
   and the story still works on its own.   
      
   After the general excellence of Series Five and its outstanding   
   finale, Steven Moffat had a job on his hands to show that he could   
   keep that momentum going. The Impossible Astronaut is exactly the   
   season opener he needed to prove that he could continue to create that   
   level of television magic. It's narratively clever without blunting   
   the effect of the story's horror elements. And as a setup to a new   
   season and a new chapter of the ongoing narrative, it does its job of   
   raising anticipation for what may come next.   
      
      
   Rating: 9/10.   
      
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