Doctor Who 6.02 The Day of the Moon
May. 1st, 2011 03:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakIn which Eleven channels his inner Seven and the Moff delights in making fun of the American obsession with guns while proving Scots can groove on them, too.
First of all, I think whether the Doctor's method of driving the Silence away from Earth strikes you as ooc or entirely ic depends on whether, if you're an Old Who fan, you take your Doctor characterisation more from Five or more from Seven. The former wouldn't have done it. The later so would have. It was his thing to trap enemies who thought they had laid out a trap for him and turn their own weapons against them, which is what happens here. (The weapon in question being the Silence's ruling by post-hypnotic suggestion.) Now, the Doctor (Eleven, that is) does not trap the Silence on Earth. He creates a situation where when they want to live they have to get out of Dodge post haste. I don't recall Seven being as scrupelous with Davros, the Daleks and Skaro in Rememberance of the Daleks where - spoiler for Rememberance of the Daleks alert! - he created a situation where D & the D end up using the very device they intended to blow Earth up with on Skaro. Even within New Who, Ten offered the Empress of the Racnoss and her children passage off planet as an alternative to their plans of consuming the human race, but when she declined, he went through with the flooding and thus annhilation of all the Raccnoss (other than the Empress herself). The Doctor never was a pacifist. He (post early stage One) was someone who'd look for another solution first, and if that solution worked and/or was accepted (see the Vashta Nerada in the Library episodes deciding to accept Ten's offer, a rare case for villains), all the better. But he also most of the time was characterized as someone who'd go through with the alternative if he had to.
(It's something that I mentioned more than once when commenting on Children of Earth - Jack's grand plan of telling the 456 to leave isn't that different from what the Doctor (most regenerations of same) would have done, but the difference is that the Doctor (in most cases) would also have had something ready in case the 456 called his bluff, or would have improvised something on the spot.)
What he does with the Silence here is actually more a plan A than a plan B case, or rather a mixture of the two. The Silence are given the chance to save their lives and leave, but the situation created is also one where if they don't, they'll be killed, and this is only possible due to their own type of oppression. So basically - it's ic for me.
Now, the River-shoots-all-the-Silence-around-her moment is something that didn't work as well for me; like River-shoots-the-Dalek in the s5 finale, it's something that comes across as like it's supposed to be cool but doesn't feel that way to me. Not, I hasten to add, that River doesn't have reason to shoot the Silence. They started to use the exploding humans electricity which got Joy killed in the season opener, so it was self defense. It's more a matter of staging and filming - I don't like too on the nose "oh so cool" moments - of course just personal viewer impression. Everything else River does in the episode, though? Definitely cool, and I think by now she and the Doctor are reminding me of Duncan and Amanda, with Eleven's "she does that" re: River throwing herself from a building, and moving the TARDIS into position to catch her by the by, and their flirting in between getting things done. I also appreciate how the kiss played out, the aftermath, that we got to see both the Doctor's reaction (since it was their first for him) and River's when she realized it was, since that sums up their non-linear relationship in a moment.
Rory having to go through some more anxiety of does she love me or the Doctor more felt a bit redundant but otoh it gave us that great conversation between the Doctor and Rory about Rory's 2000 years as a plastic Centurion, thus answering what I hadn't expected we'd get more canon on, how/if Rory remembers it all, and how he feels about this. Aw, Rory.
The whole sequence with Amy in the house was among the creepiest Moffat has written. Not sure I'm happy about the pregnant/not pregnant/pregnant? thing, but we'll see how it plays out, and I'm very intrigued by the speculation that River is in fact Amy's and Rory's daughter. I don't really thinks so for now, but am open to changing my mind.
Of course, the big new bit of puzzle is the little girl (who might, or might not at all - for now, I think it's a deliberate mislead, and she's not - be identical with the child Amy is or isn't pregnant with) regenerating at the end. (Thus, btw, answering one of the things I've occasionally wondered about - can Time Lords regenerate while still phyiscally children?) There's the obvious possibility she could be the Doctor's daughter (again?), either by gene extraction (he was a prisoner for weeks, after all) or in a more natural way (bone thrown at D/Amy shippers). But again, I don't think so, because Jenny was too recent. Otoh I do think she's at least partly Gallifreyan and not of another race who just happens to regenerate the same way New Who Time Lords do. But you know, there are other possibilities than the Doctor. Maybe there were some leftoever genes from when the Master changed the entire human race into himself, for starters. :) No, I don't really have a theory yet. I'm waiting to be surprised.
Seasonal arc, here we come...
ETA: damn, I forgot about him again and I very much enjoyed the character: Clanton continues to be great, and go, Moff, for having him date a black man.
First of all, I think whether the Doctor's method of driving the Silence away from Earth strikes you as ooc or entirely ic depends on whether, if you're an Old Who fan, you take your Doctor characterisation more from Five or more from Seven. The former wouldn't have done it. The later so would have. It was his thing to trap enemies who thought they had laid out a trap for him and turn their own weapons against them, which is what happens here. (The weapon in question being the Silence's ruling by post-hypnotic suggestion.) Now, the Doctor (Eleven, that is) does not trap the Silence on Earth. He creates a situation where when they want to live they have to get out of Dodge post haste. I don't recall Seven being as scrupelous with Davros, the Daleks and Skaro in Rememberance of the Daleks where - spoiler for Rememberance of the Daleks alert! - he created a situation where D & the D end up using the very device they intended to blow Earth up with on Skaro. Even within New Who, Ten offered the Empress of the Racnoss and her children passage off planet as an alternative to their plans of consuming the human race, but when she declined, he went through with the flooding and thus annhilation of all the Raccnoss (other than the Empress herself). The Doctor never was a pacifist. He (post early stage One) was someone who'd look for another solution first, and if that solution worked and/or was accepted (see the Vashta Nerada in the Library episodes deciding to accept Ten's offer, a rare case for villains), all the better. But he also most of the time was characterized as someone who'd go through with the alternative if he had to.
(It's something that I mentioned more than once when commenting on Children of Earth - Jack's grand plan of telling the 456 to leave isn't that different from what the Doctor (most regenerations of same) would have done, but the difference is that the Doctor (in most cases) would also have had something ready in case the 456 called his bluff, or would have improvised something on the spot.)
What he does with the Silence here is actually more a plan A than a plan B case, or rather a mixture of the two. The Silence are given the chance to save their lives and leave, but the situation created is also one where if they don't, they'll be killed, and this is only possible due to their own type of oppression. So basically - it's ic for me.
Now, the River-shoots-all-the-Silence-around-her moment is something that didn't work as well for me; like River-shoots-the-Dalek in the s5 finale, it's something that comes across as like it's supposed to be cool but doesn't feel that way to me. Not, I hasten to add, that River doesn't have reason to shoot the Silence. They started to use the exploding humans electricity which got Joy killed in the season opener, so it was self defense. It's more a matter of staging and filming - I don't like too on the nose "oh so cool" moments - of course just personal viewer impression. Everything else River does in the episode, though? Definitely cool, and I think by now she and the Doctor are reminding me of Duncan and Amanda, with Eleven's "she does that" re: River throwing herself from a building, and moving the TARDIS into position to catch her by the by, and their flirting in between getting things done. I also appreciate how the kiss played out, the aftermath, that we got to see both the Doctor's reaction (since it was their first for him) and River's when she realized it was, since that sums up their non-linear relationship in a moment.
Rory having to go through some more anxiety of does she love me or the Doctor more felt a bit redundant but otoh it gave us that great conversation between the Doctor and Rory about Rory's 2000 years as a plastic Centurion, thus answering what I hadn't expected we'd get more canon on, how/if Rory remembers it all, and how he feels about this. Aw, Rory.
The whole sequence with Amy in the house was among the creepiest Moffat has written. Not sure I'm happy about the pregnant/not pregnant/pregnant? thing, but we'll see how it plays out, and I'm very intrigued by the speculation that River is in fact Amy's and Rory's daughter. I don't really thinks so for now, but am open to changing my mind.
Of course, the big new bit of puzzle is the little girl (who might, or might not at all - for now, I think it's a deliberate mislead, and she's not - be identical with the child Amy is or isn't pregnant with) regenerating at the end. (Thus, btw, answering one of the things I've occasionally wondered about - can Time Lords regenerate while still phyiscally children?) There's the obvious possibility she could be the Doctor's daughter (again?), either by gene extraction (he was a prisoner for weeks, after all) or in a more natural way (bone thrown at D/Amy shippers). But again, I don't think so, because Jenny was too recent. Otoh I do think she's at least partly Gallifreyan and not of another race who just happens to regenerate the same way New Who Time Lords do. But you know, there are other possibilities than the Doctor. Maybe there were some leftoever genes from when the Master changed the entire human race into himself, for starters. :) No, I don't really have a theory yet. I'm waiting to be surprised.
Seasonal arc, here we come...
ETA: damn, I forgot about him again and I very much enjoyed the character: Clanton continues to be great, and go, Moff, for having him date a black man.
no subject
Date: 2011-05-01 10:57 pm (UTC)Because the technical thing line was the predominant view for many, many years in fandom, was it not? Now, I suppose Moff could later pull a trick out of the bag and say that The Girl is bio engineered - and he's certainly left himself plenty of outs on that front, but we're clearly meant to be speculating whether or not that's the Doctor's daughter via River or Amy.
(One speculation I loved: Bleeding Cool suggests that it is Amy and Rory's child but pulled a Daniel-from-the-Sandman in having been conceived aboard the TARDIS.)
no subject
Date: 2011-05-02 05:24 am (UTC)We'd have to ask
Daniel from Sandman? Oh, I like! It would fit with Amy's not quite jokes about how the baby could be affected via TARDIS travel. And this being The Season With Neil. I've also by now read yet another speculation, to wit, that it is Jenny who in her personal timeline (read: since Moffat wouldn't/couldn't reuse Georgia) already had one proper regeneration altering her appearance to that of a child, since, bio-engineered as she is, she's not exactly an adult inwardly yet.
no subject
Date: 2011-05-02 08:03 am (UTC)I think she could easily be River. River's reaction when her shots missed was 'Of course'.
no subject
Date: 2011-05-02 08:05 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-05-02 12:12 pm (UTC)