A Semi Review of Impossible Astronaut/ Day of the Moon

[FlyingBeastie]

So, some of you on the board know me personally, and know I'm stationed in NYC. So I was fortunate to get into the screening for the first two episodes today.

It was a mad rush, by 6am there were already 70 people lined up and by the time I got there, 11am I was number 350 something. They actually had to free up three auditoriums to do a sort of CCTV thing so we could all see the two parter and the Q&A afterwards.



Anywho, I'll get to the flesh and bones of the matter cos this is obviously what you came upon this thread for.

I can't give you too much, cos I'd like to honor my word as an audience member when Moffat asked us that we not spoil anything.

HOWEVER...

(PS I really don't spoil anything, but just in case I'm wrapping it up)

While the two parter is enjoyable and fun and The Silence are quite an impressive baddie... I can't help but roll my eyes that we're in for another series full of complicated things that really shouldn't be all too complicated in the first place. The two parter started off well enough, but by the second part we all stopped cheering cos there were more and more questions sprouting up as time went on.

And not in a good way, in a frustrating way!

Not to mention, the cliffhanger ends on what I can only call a gross abuse and jump the shark moment

While the previews of what's to come looks very exciting and the episode had its moments... I really don't trust Moffat all that much. I dunno where he's headed is anywhere good, especially after what we saw in this two parter. Without giving much away, all I'll say is The Silence amounts to nothing but hype and inconsistency.... I have to watch the episode again (again, not a good sign- I didn't need to see 11th Hour a second time to get what happened) but I still dunno what their aim was.

Also, Moffat is officially a one trick pony. Let me count the ways in a drinking game:

1. Drink everytime there's a creepy girl saying "Help me"
2. Drink everytime Moffat employs any form of static recording or creaky transmission.
3. Drink everytime there's a monster you have to keep a steady on or something bad will happen.
4. Drink everytime there's a big box/prison meant to trap the Doctor.
5. Drink everytime there's a passage of time/ showing of sequences out of order.
6. Drink everytime someone is transmitting through a "ghosting" type effect thing.
7. Drink everytime a perception filter is being used.
8. Drink everytime you are lead to believe Rory's died
9. Drink everytime there's a moment where so much is going on and being "spoilered" that you just feel like ramming a spoon into your ear.

Plastered yet? Not to mention there's a moment where... I feel like he ripped off a plot point from the episode "The Wire"...

Again, this isn't to say the episodes were horrible or that these things are so glaring you can't enjoy the episode- but, there are always unanswered questions with Moffat and I always feel this is due more to him not knowing where he wants to go, as opposed to it being done on purpose. Also, his gimmicks are getting old- FAST, cos he's essentially doing the same tricks but calling them different names.

Unfortunately, all of the audience questions sucked (and I was in the spare auditorium, so I couldn't ask anything) so none of the questions lead to anything that could've given us an inkling for the coming season, but the trailer was quite good (Cybermen still haven't been redesigned so I'm immediately panning the episode just for that) there was a set that looked a lot like The Mind Robber set- the aliens also had that look, so I'm quite looking forward to that.

I also enjoyed Mark Shappard a lot, and I think it's safe to let ya'll know he's probably going to have more to do in the coming season (I assume, anyway, cos he wasn't shown in the trailer but... let's just say he has to show up again)


In conclusion, the episode begins with a bang (well, five minutes in there's a bang) and it ends with a bang. Both lead to questions that will be answered in this coming season (I goddamn hope so) and the two parter is definitely a must see that has loads of creepy moments and (FINALLY) a gruesome death!

But I still contend 11th Hour is the best season opener of (probably) all of Doctor Who (that I've seen thus far, cos I haven't yet seen Troughton's first episode or Tom Baker's)

[J.R. Southall]

Hmmn. Looks like the opening two-parter is basically a remake of the whole of Series Five, boiled down into 90 minutes (or 120 minutes, if the rumour I've heard that The Impossible Astronaut is 80 minutes long is true; perhaps you can confirm/deny this...?).

[J.R. Southall]

Oh, and ...

10. Drink every time you meet someone as a child and as an adult in the same episode.
11. Drink every time there's some convoluted, temporally devious message delivered to the regulars, which gets the TARDIS to the action at the top of the episode.
12. Drink every time someone knows more about what's going to have happened than the Doctor does (alternative name for this one: "Spoilers!")
13. Drink every time the Doctor knows what to do because he or someone else has already told him how to save the day.

Back with more later. Much more.

[Zbigniev Hamson]

Is there any reason why there was a big showing of these episodes in America in the first place? I feel a bit peeved

[WhiteCrowNZ]

Possibly they're trying to big up the American audience - what with so much of Torchwood and Doctor Who being filmed there this year.

[FlyingBeastie]

J.R. you've just hugely hit the nail on the head with that last one!!! It was especially glaring in "The Beast Below", I mean... he's The Doctor, and yet I'm a step or two ahead of him when, in fact, he's supposed to be steps ahead of everyone else.

Uhm, well they showed it back to back, so I'll say they're both one hour episodes? They just showed it as a film, essentially.

Is there any reason why there was a big showing of these episodes in America in the first place? I feel a bit peeved

Um, cos we watch it here too...

Last year they did the poor job of already having had premiered The 11th Hour in the UK and stupidly thinking no one in the US torrents, so the premiere last year was much easier to get into, even though, apparently, the line went around the block.

This year, the numbers were astounding as they had to open 3 auditoriums and still ended up turning people away. The line literally went around in a U shape on the block (and blocks in Manhattan are quite long, I'm not sure what they're like in the UK)

I literally got there at 11am and was number 350 something in line... so yeah, that's why we get a big showing. That, and the two-parter was filmed and takes place in America. Also, Doctor Who really is BBC America's anchor show drawing in many viewers (especially for a cable channel)

[J.R. Southall]

It's alright - I read last night a correction on that rumour and the first episode is just the standard 45 minutes! I don't know where someone got the 80 minutes thing from; between the two parts that would have taken the story to over 2 hrs screentime (without ad breaks)...

[FlyingBeastie]

Granted... maybe it should've been 80mins. The way it carried on, perhaps it deserved a three-parter cos certain things were rushed, I felt.

[Zbigniev Hamson]

Um, cos we watch it here too...

Well yeah, I wasn't suggesting it wouldn't be popular. Just that it urinates in the face of licence-payers somewhat. It's not even any sort of co-production is it? Just a bit of a "here you go, why don't you lot have a premiere 2 weeks ahead of the people who funded it" moment. Not that I'm bitter or anything

[FlyingBeastie]

Well yeah, I wasn't suggesting it wouldn't be popular. Just that it urinates in the face of licence-payers somewhat. It's not even any sort of co-production is it? Just a bit of a "here you go, why don't you lot have a premiere 2 weeks ahead of the people who funded it" moment. Not that I'm bitter or anything

You guys had a screening too in London, didn't you??

[J.R. Southall]

Yes, we did. But I think the "problem" might be that this was a press preview to which fans weren't invited ...

[J.R. Southall]

Does anybody also get the impression there's a bit of one-upmanship going on here too? For example:

A companion who has a boyfriend who takes the occasional TARDIS trip? I'll raise you a companion who gets married and brings her husband along as a regular.

A finale in which the Doctor is reduced to a little weakling thing and then is resurrected by the power of positive thought (albeit the positive thoughts of an entire planet amplified through a series of satellites orbiting the Earth)? I'll raise you a finale in which the Doctor is reduced to nothing at all, and is resurrected by the power of a single person making a wish.

A finale in which the Earth is rebooted by a year? I'll raise you a finale in which the entire universe is rebooted from scratch.

A finale with Daleks and Cybermen? I'll raise you a finale with Daleks and Cybermen and Sontarans and Silurians and Autons and ...

The Doctor's Daughter? I give you The Doctor's Wife ...

Sonic paper? How about messages scrawled into the rocks at the very beginning of time ...

... and so on and so forth. There are plenty more to be had ...

[FlyingBeastie]

I had no idea! That is quite unfair, cos you guys do pay the licenses that essentially fund the show they really should've opened it to the public.

Does anybody also get the impression there's a bit of one-upmanship going on here too?

I still can't wrap my head around last series' finale. I mean, I'm continuously being told that "Amy's special cos of the crack, remember? Cos she spent such a long time next to it."

Uhm, well, seeing as her parents, and probably her aunt as well, were swallowed by the crack- why wasn't Amy swallowed along with it too? Seriously, why is she so special again?

I just don't buy the whole, "She can make things become real with her mind" angle. It's lame and doesn't hold much weight, in my opinion as a plot device.

A main problem with Moffat's writing is that a lot of things get left unexplained (you'll see the pattern continue in the premiere for series 6) and I get the sense that the reason why his episodes were as brilliant as they were in RTD's era is because you had the two of them working together. You have Moffat's originality and creativity at play, and then RTD went back and rewrote/edited things.

Also, it's just more and more evident that Moffat keeps recycling the same premises over and over again now that he has the series all to himself. That, and he adds in things for the sake that they're "cool" without further explanation or their purpose (again, you'll see this a lot in the premiere- namely, the beginning of "Day of the Moon" suffers a lot from this. If you're expecting a reason as to why things happened the way they did- keep expecting, cos it won't get explained...)

[WhiteCrowNZ]

I get the odd feeling Moffat is hoping for a high-paying Hollywood gig (once he's finished) the way he's going out of his way to do more in America!

[J.R. Southall]

Which reminds me of another one...

Remember when Dreamland came out? And it was said at the time, we're doing this story as a cartoon, because there's no way we could afford to go to America to film something like this live action - and then what happens ...