Bold, Bonkers, Brilliant: The Impossible Astronaut Is the Opener That Swings
Steven Moffat’s season six kickoff isn’t just ambitious — it’s a masterclass in nonlinear storytelling, conceptual horror, and emotional misdirection.
Plot Summary
The Doctor, River, Amy, and Rory investigate a death of someone close to them, then instigate a revolution in the USA in 1969.
Notable for:
Series opener of Series 6
Return of River Song
Features another “death” of the Doctor, fake-out regeneration and all.
Introduction of the Silence, giving a face to “Silence will fall,” a line originally uttered by Prisoner Zero in The Eleventh Hour.
The Doctor’s age is explicitly stated: 909 for the younger version, 1103 for the older version.
The Doctor says he doesn’t like wine.
Another Star Trek reference: Joy thinks the Silent in the bathroom is a mask.
Lots of footage shot in the USA, in Utah and Arizona.
A “prequel” minisode was shot and produced. It’s on the Blu-ray. It features a phone call between Nixon and the child, with a Silent observing in the Oval Office.
The TARDIS can turn invisible, though it mucks up the scanner (unless you’re River).
Space: 1969 is an obvious reference to Space: 1999
The set for the Silence ship was originally in The Lodger.
Pete commentary:
The Impossible Astronaut/Day of the Moon needs to work on a couple of levels:
Does it successfully set up a season-long arc that you’re interested in?
Does it work on its own?
I’d say it succeeds on both extremely well, though perhaps a bit more on the arc than as a standalone.
The dynamic between all the leads is excellent, and I’m really glad Moffat didn’t make us wait to see the Doctor, the Ponds, and River all together again. We really like these people and how they are with each other—it’s why we watch.
Equally, the episode levels-up bigtime when the Doctor dies, and it’s largely because you see that dynamic ripped apart. Huge props to Karen Gillan for giving everything to make us believe it, to go through that trauma with her character. It’s such a moment when the Doctor walks out of the bathroom—you’re shocked, but you’re also angry. When River slaps him, you know he doesn’t deserve it, but you completely understand why she does it.
This all sets up perhaps my favorite scene in the whole episode: when they’re poised to follow their lead from Canton, and the Doctor just says, “No.” It’s perfect because the Doctor can’t be a boob in the dark in his own show, and it’s a superb reminder that, although we like River, we don’t know her. Asking her point-blank, “Who are you?” is an excellent, commanding moment for Matt Smith’s Doctor.
The Silence: Fantastic choice for an alien. The design aligns nicely with this script—they look like a hybrid of the “grays” and the Men in Black, which matches the 1960s/USA/FBI vibe they’ve got going on.
The Silence’s ability to make people forget them and then suggest things for them to do later is INCREDIBLY powerful, obviously. While I understand you want to show what they can physically do to you, too, and that you need some kind of special-effects-laden climax, they really don’t need their electro powers on top of that.
Speaking of, why did they murder Joy? While no one will see/remember the Silence, they will remember Joy. You’d think there’d be a massive security alert if someone were to disappear from the White House. And there are a little bit of remains.
The bathroom scene seems to be the moment where Amy is taken.
Generally, though, the power of the Silence is really extreme, so they have to “de-power” them a bit to ensure they’re defeatable:
The Silence are overconfident, don’t carry weapons or even have any major ones. They simply can’t conceive of a way the Doctor and his companions could do anything against them, so they don’t try very hard to stop them.
Their success is solely measured by getting a spacesuit for the girl. They really don’t care much about conquering or occupying Earth.
The Doctor says the Silence are parasites. They simply aren’t that creative or capable on their own and are more like magical thugs. Which makes sense, since they’re not the ultimate boss.
Given all that, I’ll buy it, but Moffat really did have to stretch things back to ensure his characters could come out on top.
And do they ever: I really like the cleverness of the climax: inserting a tiny bit of Silence footage onto the moon landing. Great, triumphant moment, and most important it’s smart and in character for the Doctor. It’s too bad we only see a couple of scenes of people rebelling against the Silence—it would be amazing to see it happening worldwide.
Day of the Moon has some great bits of comedy, like when Nixon asks the NASA security people to let the Doctor go,
Nice moment at the end when Canton reveals he’s gay. The exchange with Nixon is pretty fun, and reminds you that you’ve really gotten to know these characters a bit and care about them. Wild that Doctor Who of all franchises got us to like Richard Nixon, but there you go.
I can’t say enough about all the great dialogue between the regulars:
The Doctor yelling to River if she’s got the scanner working yet.
The Doctor telling Rory he appreciates him all the more for not wanting to join River the dark.
River: “I’m quite the screamer.”
HORRIBLE choice to keep the Doctor-Amy-Rory love triangle thing going, with Amy speaking to the glowy thing about how she loves “you” (meaning Rory), but wording it in a way that it plays on Rory’s insecurities. Just… no.
That said, great moment where the Doctor asks Rory if he remember being the lone Centurion. His response is an easy, “have your cake and eat it too” explanation, but I’ll take it.
What did Pete’s family think?
Grace was very interested. She really wanted to watch the second part after we finished The Impossible Astronaut. She still wants to know how the Doctor gets out of being killed.
Four Questions to Doomsday - Pete
Why did the Randomizer take us here? I think it just missed Matt! Last time we hit the Matt Smith era was The Girl Who Waited, last September. Certainly the death of the Doctor and regeneration are probably on its mind after Gatwa’s finisher. And double-Doctor fun from Android Invasion is repeated a little bit here with the two Elevens.
What if the evil plot had succeeded? Taking the evil plot as the Silence’s: They want to occupy Earth and manipulate the human race to… get a spacesuit? That seems to be the entire point of their “invasion,” so the evil plot ultimately succeeds. In fact, that is, in a big way, the entire structure of Series 6: It kicks off with “paramount success” (as the Daleks would say) of an evil plot—the murder of the Doctor. And the whole season is about figuring out how to undo that when it can’t be undone.
To entertain the idea of the Silence’s dominance of Earth being somehow the point, you’d have to think that the Silence have some kind of designs for Earth even absent the events of The Wedding of River Song and The Time of the Doctor (which they probably do—I don’t think the Doctor’s actions here are completely irrelevant; they just clearly don’t prevent the Madame Kavorian’s plan to kill the Doctor). In this case, they might anticipate the Doctor’s plan, jam his device for uploading the footage, but still allow him to believe he’d defeated them.
Where's the Clara splinter? She works at the National Archives, ensuring the marked timestamps of all the moon landing footage line up with what people expect, not the actual footage.
Dalek, Ogron, Professor Hayter, Viscount Banger, Fixed Point in Time, Lady Cassandra, or Zarbi? Dalek-Banger hybrid! Crazy good, even if the 2nd part has some nonsense.
Chris commentary:
Fever dream par excellence
Wine gums, did anyone get that?
DW at the height of its power
Brilliant of Moff to set this up as "one of the four leads will die"
Four Questions to Doomsday - Chris
Why did the Randomizer take us here? I bloody mentioned the Silence during the Whomoji challenge last time. I literally summoned them. And I said "spoilers!"
– also the lots-happening-cold-open connection. And Jim the Fish! Fish. People. Oh, and it's so nice to do a bit of a Moff retrospective when everyone's hating on RTD2.
What if the evil plot had succeeded? It … did? Human history continues as it always has pre 1969?
Where's the Clara splinter? Where indeed?
Dalek, Ogron, Professor Hayter, Viscount Banger, Fixed Point in Time, Lady Cassandra, or Zarbi? Doctor Who is a Banger now. Bangers are cool.