Doctor Who 6x02: Day of the Moon
May. 15th, 2011 12:02 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kerravonsenWhoa! That was awesome!
The opening scene, in media res; headlong, dramatic, desperate... I was going "no, no they can't all be dead, tell me this isn't happening!"
The Men-in-Black trope is right out in the open here, not just with the suits, but with Area 51.
"She was found with mysterious markings."
And then we find out what the markings are for, and it makes it even more creepy and desperate and conspiracy-theory-made-real. Tally-marks on the arms, the legs, even the face...
And then... not everything was as it seemed. Yay for Canton Delaware III!
Trust River Song to jump off a building. I think for her, it almost doesn't feel like a risk, because the Doctor has always been there for her.
"Open all the doors to the TARDIS pool!"
"You're going to use Apollo 11?"
"No, something much more powerful: Neil Armstrong's foot."
Oh, the poor man at the children's home. So creepy with the "get out now!" graffiti, even to the writing on his arm, and the way he is so under their thrall and is half-mad.
So creepy with Amy in the seemingly empty room - shades of not only the Weeping Angels, but of the Krillitanes, with the aliens sleeping hanging from the ceiling; though more creepy, because they were only half-seen in the strobing light.
What was the meaning of the vanishing door-slot and the phrase "she's having a dream"?
The girl... ah, the girl. More on the girl later.
So... they're called The Silence. "Silence Will Fall". When we heard that last season, it was ominous, presaging doom for the universe. Now I wonder if it was, instead, presaging doom for The Silence. But how is it all connected with the explosion of the TARDIS last season?
I guessed, almost as soon as the recording was made of the alien saying "You should kill us on sight", what the Doctor was going to do. Not that it was predictable, mind, but we had been given sufficient hints, not just with "Neil Armstrong's foot" but also the tidbit that a recording of one of the aliens was just as effective as a real alien for doing the post-hypnotic-suggestion-and-forget thing.
Nice editing, there, so that it looks as if the inserted footage is just a glitch in transmission.
An elegant solution to an almost insurmountable problem: poetic justice.
I wonder how long it would take for the Silence all to be killed?
They would likely do something desperate and drastic before the end. After all, just because humans have been ordered to "kill us on sight" doesn't mean that all humans would be capable of so doing. The question is, would it be possible for the Silent to undo what the Doctor has done? In order to do so, they would have to remove the subliminal order from all recordings of Neil Armstrong's feat (or foot). I don't know how many of those there would be. Since the subliminal message was inserted into the actual transmission, all versions of it would have that. So that's one level of difficulty. The next level of difficulty is that, if they ordered a human to remove the message, the human wouldn't be capable of doing so, since anyone who views the image forgets about it. Well, I suppose they could do it if they did it all in one go, but the compulsion would have to be pretty strong... and it would have to be made to a human who (a) hadn't seen the original message and/or was not capable of killing, (b) had the skills to edit and (c) had access to the recording. And that's only for one recording. An alternative plan would require the Silence to do the editing themselves, which I guess would be possible. However, they would still need to get access to the recording without being killed... which is rather tricky. Just because I don't think every human would have the ability to "kill on sight" doesn't mean that the Silence would be able to avoid killer humans when they were trying to access the recordings. The chances of them being able to edit every single one would be slim indeed.
They might actually consider it simpler to wipe out most of humanity and start again. Ulp!
Nice foreshadowing:
"Record everything" and "Tricky Dick - oh, you'll never be forgotten."
Also an example of not asking the right question.
Oh, my, more angst for River, as it's the Doctor's first kiss, and so she's certain that it's her last kiss with him. Like Merlin living his life backwards - which is rather fitting, since according to "Battlefield", the Doctor is Merlin.
I am sad that there seems to still be reasons for Rory to feel insecure with Amy's love for him.
Theories and questions:
The Girl. She's a Time Lord because:
1. Obvious regeneration is obvious.
2. Whoever was in the suit forced their way out of it, and thus was inhumanly strong.
3. We were told in the first episode of this adventure that even the dead body of a Time Lord was so valuable that aliens would kill to get hold of it, and thus it should be burnt. How much more valuable would be a living (half-)Time-Lord whom they could experiment on?
The Girl is the daughter of Amy and the Doctor, because:
1. Amy told the Doctor something "really important": that she was pregnant. At first, I thought that it was an evasion, that the alien had ordered her to tell the Doctor about his death, and she told him that instead, but now I wonder. Yes, she said later that she told him first because she was concerned about time travel affecting the baby, but she could have been ordered to say that when she was in the hands of the aliens. But contrariwise, why would the alien want the Doctor to know that Amy was (or had been) pregnant?
2. The photograph of Amy with a baby, in the child's room. The problem with this is, how could Amy have been kidnapped for 9 months without anybody noticing? Okay, perhaps they had alien equipment which extracted the fetus and incubated it, but then there wouldn't have been any reason for Amy to have been there when the child was born, and thus no photograph of Amy with the baby. Alternatively, how could Amy have been not-kidnapped, but pregnant, without anybody noticing? Though there was that incident last season with the false reality where Amy was heavily pregnant. Maybe it wasn't quite false?
There's another difficulty with the timing: if Amy was pregnant at the start of the adventure, and the aliens took the baby (or fetus) during the adventure, then how could the adventure be triggered by the girl calling the President? The things are out of order. Okay, that implies more time travel, but when? More on this below.
3. What was that scan on the screen that the Doctor was looking at? IIRC it was like a medical scan, showing a torso, bones, and it was flashing between "negative" and "positive". It could be a scan of Amy, first showing that she was pregnant, and then showing that she wasn't.
What was the purpose of the space suit? Was it to control The Girl as well as protect her? She certainly hated and feared the suit, what with calling for help that the Space Man was coming for her, and the fact that she forced her way out of the suit.
But that doesn't seem like the whole answer.
If the space suit is capable of moving independently, is there actually nobody in it when it shoots the Doctor? The Older Doctor obviously knew what was going to happen, recognised who the person inside the suit was (if there was a person inside the suit) and was determined that the others witness the events but not interfere. And the events have still not been obviously derailed; things are still quite possibly on track for the Doctor's death. It could still be a self-fulfilling prophecy.
I don't want the Doctor to die!
And from the Doyleist point of view, why would Moffatt decide to make it impossible to continue the show? Sure, it's set, what, 200 years later in the Doctor's life, but it prevents there being a 12th Doctor, and what then would happen if Matt Smith left?
But who killed the Doctor and why?
A. Revenge on the part of the Silent?
B. Revenge on the part of The Girl for abandoning her? There could be a huge amount of bitterness on her part.
C. Both?
D. Something else I have no clue about?
Sequence of events:
1. TARDIS-blue invitations arrive.
2. Invitees head off to the USA in 2011.
3. Doctor + car => picnic by lake; talk of 1969.
4. Space suited figure emerges from lake; Doctor knows what will happen, Doctor killed.
5. Younger Doctor found at diner.
6. Stealth travel to 1969.
7. Arrive in Oval Office with Nixon and Canton.
8. Amy feels sick, goes to loo, encounters alien, takes photo.
9. The Doctor figures out where the phone calls are coming from.
10. Doctor, Amy, Rory, River and Canton arrive at warehouse.
11. Canton knocked out.
12. Amy tells the Doctor she's pregnant.
13. Amy shoots at figure in space suit.
14. Chaotic retreat.
15. Presumed "investigation" while being chased as fugitives.
16. Three months later... the Doctor is imprisoned at Area 51, Amy and Rory are caught, River jumps off building.
17. Doctor, Amy, Rory + Canton escape in TARDIS and rescue River.
18. Doctor makes addition to Apollo 11.
19. Canton and Amy investigate children's home.
20. Amy discovers girl's room and photograph.
21. Amy is taken.
22. Canton shoots alien.
23. Doctor and Rory arrive in TARDIS.
24. Canton + wounded alien are taken back to Area 51.
25. Alien is tended by doctor, doctor forgets.
26. Canton takes incriminating recording of alien.
27. Amy wakes up, is told that it's been longer than she thinks.
28. Doctor and Rory and River go to rescue Amy just before moon landing.
29. Doctor inserts transmission into moon landing.
30. River shoots aliens while others retreat back to TARDIS.
Now... we don't know exactly how long Amy was in the hands of The Silent, but if they stole the baby then, they would have to take her back in time in order to have her make phone calls to the President just before point 7.
So something isn't adding up.
The opening scene, in media res; headlong, dramatic, desperate... I was going "no, no they can't all be dead, tell me this isn't happening!"
The Men-in-Black trope is right out in the open here, not just with the suits, but with Area 51.
"She was found with mysterious markings."
And then we find out what the markings are for, and it makes it even more creepy and desperate and conspiracy-theory-made-real. Tally-marks on the arms, the legs, even the face...
And then... not everything was as it seemed. Yay for Canton Delaware III!
Trust River Song to jump off a building. I think for her, it almost doesn't feel like a risk, because the Doctor has always been there for her.
"Open all the doors to the TARDIS pool!"
"You're going to use Apollo 11?"
"No, something much more powerful: Neil Armstrong's foot."
Oh, the poor man at the children's home. So creepy with the "get out now!" graffiti, even to the writing on his arm, and the way he is so under their thrall and is half-mad.
So creepy with Amy in the seemingly empty room - shades of not only the Weeping Angels, but of the Krillitanes, with the aliens sleeping hanging from the ceiling; though more creepy, because they were only half-seen in the strobing light.
What was the meaning of the vanishing door-slot and the phrase "she's having a dream"?
The girl... ah, the girl. More on the girl later.
So... they're called The Silence. "Silence Will Fall". When we heard that last season, it was ominous, presaging doom for the universe. Now I wonder if it was, instead, presaging doom for The Silence. But how is it all connected with the explosion of the TARDIS last season?
I guessed, almost as soon as the recording was made of the alien saying "You should kill us on sight", what the Doctor was going to do. Not that it was predictable, mind, but we had been given sufficient hints, not just with "Neil Armstrong's foot" but also the tidbit that a recording of one of the aliens was just as effective as a real alien for doing the post-hypnotic-suggestion-and-forget thing.
Nice editing, there, so that it looks as if the inserted footage is just a glitch in transmission.
An elegant solution to an almost insurmountable problem: poetic justice.
I wonder how long it would take for the Silence all to be killed?
They would likely do something desperate and drastic before the end. After all, just because humans have been ordered to "kill us on sight" doesn't mean that all humans would be capable of so doing. The question is, would it be possible for the Silent to undo what the Doctor has done? In order to do so, they would have to remove the subliminal order from all recordings of Neil Armstrong's feat (or foot). I don't know how many of those there would be. Since the subliminal message was inserted into the actual transmission, all versions of it would have that. So that's one level of difficulty. The next level of difficulty is that, if they ordered a human to remove the message, the human wouldn't be capable of doing so, since anyone who views the image forgets about it. Well, I suppose they could do it if they did it all in one go, but the compulsion would have to be pretty strong... and it would have to be made to a human who (a) hadn't seen the original message and/or was not capable of killing, (b) had the skills to edit and (c) had access to the recording. And that's only for one recording. An alternative plan would require the Silence to do the editing themselves, which I guess would be possible. However, they would still need to get access to the recording without being killed... which is rather tricky. Just because I don't think every human would have the ability to "kill on sight" doesn't mean that the Silence would be able to avoid killer humans when they were trying to access the recordings. The chances of them being able to edit every single one would be slim indeed.
They might actually consider it simpler to wipe out most of humanity and start again. Ulp!
Nice foreshadowing:
"Record everything" and "Tricky Dick - oh, you'll never be forgotten."
Also an example of not asking the right question.
Oh, my, more angst for River, as it's the Doctor's first kiss, and so she's certain that it's her last kiss with him. Like Merlin living his life backwards - which is rather fitting, since according to "Battlefield", the Doctor is Merlin.
I am sad that there seems to still be reasons for Rory to feel insecure with Amy's love for him.
Theories and questions:
The Girl. She's a Time Lord because:
1. Obvious regeneration is obvious.
2. Whoever was in the suit forced their way out of it, and thus was inhumanly strong.
3. We were told in the first episode of this adventure that even the dead body of a Time Lord was so valuable that aliens would kill to get hold of it, and thus it should be burnt. How much more valuable would be a living (half-)Time-Lord whom they could experiment on?
The Girl is the daughter of Amy and the Doctor, because:
1. Amy told the Doctor something "really important": that she was pregnant. At first, I thought that it was an evasion, that the alien had ordered her to tell the Doctor about his death, and she told him that instead, but now I wonder. Yes, she said later that she told him first because she was concerned about time travel affecting the baby, but she could have been ordered to say that when she was in the hands of the aliens. But contrariwise, why would the alien want the Doctor to know that Amy was (or had been) pregnant?
2. The photograph of Amy with a baby, in the child's room. The problem with this is, how could Amy have been kidnapped for 9 months without anybody noticing? Okay, perhaps they had alien equipment which extracted the fetus and incubated it, but then there wouldn't have been any reason for Amy to have been there when the child was born, and thus no photograph of Amy with the baby. Alternatively, how could Amy have been not-kidnapped, but pregnant, without anybody noticing? Though there was that incident last season with the false reality where Amy was heavily pregnant. Maybe it wasn't quite false?
There's another difficulty with the timing: if Amy was pregnant at the start of the adventure, and the aliens took the baby (or fetus) during the adventure, then how could the adventure be triggered by the girl calling the President? The things are out of order. Okay, that implies more time travel, but when? More on this below.
3. What was that scan on the screen that the Doctor was looking at? IIRC it was like a medical scan, showing a torso, bones, and it was flashing between "negative" and "positive". It could be a scan of Amy, first showing that she was pregnant, and then showing that she wasn't.
What was the purpose of the space suit? Was it to control The Girl as well as protect her? She certainly hated and feared the suit, what with calling for help that the Space Man was coming for her, and the fact that she forced her way out of the suit.
But that doesn't seem like the whole answer.
If the space suit is capable of moving independently, is there actually nobody in it when it shoots the Doctor? The Older Doctor obviously knew what was going to happen, recognised who the person inside the suit was (if there was a person inside the suit) and was determined that the others witness the events but not interfere. And the events have still not been obviously derailed; things are still quite possibly on track for the Doctor's death. It could still be a self-fulfilling prophecy.
I don't want the Doctor to die!
And from the Doyleist point of view, why would Moffatt decide to make it impossible to continue the show? Sure, it's set, what, 200 years later in the Doctor's life, but it prevents there being a 12th Doctor, and what then would happen if Matt Smith left?
But who killed the Doctor and why?
A. Revenge on the part of the Silent?
B. Revenge on the part of The Girl for abandoning her? There could be a huge amount of bitterness on her part.
C. Both?
D. Something else I have no clue about?
Sequence of events:
1. TARDIS-blue invitations arrive.
2. Invitees head off to the USA in 2011.
3. Doctor + car => picnic by lake; talk of 1969.
4. Space suited figure emerges from lake; Doctor knows what will happen, Doctor killed.
5. Younger Doctor found at diner.
6. Stealth travel to 1969.
7. Arrive in Oval Office with Nixon and Canton.
8. Amy feels sick, goes to loo, encounters alien, takes photo.
9. The Doctor figures out where the phone calls are coming from.
10. Doctor, Amy, Rory, River and Canton arrive at warehouse.
11. Canton knocked out.
12. Amy tells the Doctor she's pregnant.
13. Amy shoots at figure in space suit.
14. Chaotic retreat.
15. Presumed "investigation" while being chased as fugitives.
16. Three months later... the Doctor is imprisoned at Area 51, Amy and Rory are caught, River jumps off building.
17. Doctor, Amy, Rory + Canton escape in TARDIS and rescue River.
18. Doctor makes addition to Apollo 11.
19. Canton and Amy investigate children's home.
20. Amy discovers girl's room and photograph.
21. Amy is taken.
22. Canton shoots alien.
23. Doctor and Rory arrive in TARDIS.
24. Canton + wounded alien are taken back to Area 51.
25. Alien is tended by doctor, doctor forgets.
26. Canton takes incriminating recording of alien.
27. Amy wakes up, is told that it's been longer than she thinks.
28. Doctor and Rory and River go to rescue Amy just before moon landing.
29. Doctor inserts transmission into moon landing.
30. River shoots aliens while others retreat back to TARDIS.
Now... we don't know exactly how long Amy was in the hands of The Silent, but if they stole the baby then, they would have to take her back in time in order to have her make phone calls to the President just before point 7.
So something isn't adding up.
no subject
Date: 2011-05-14 02:49 pm (UTC)I don't think they have the means. If they had to influence humanity to go to the moon in order to get themselves a space suit, then it seems very unlikely to me that they have a space ship available. Remember, they've been on Earth "since fire and the wheel".
ETA: On the other hand, the Doctor probably wouldn't have offered to let them leave if they couldn't leave.