Doctor Who Series 6: Episodes 1, 2 and 3

Well, in preparation for tonight's Neil Gaiman episode, I sat down and rewatched The Impossible Astronaut, Day Of The Moon, and The Curse Of The Black Spot.  I'm happy to report that they benefit from repeat viewing, but I'm still none the wiser as to what's going on.  Here be spoilers.

The Impossible Astronaut.

 At the start of this episode, it's clear that the Doctor knows he's going to die.  He shows up, looking older, cracking less jokes.  He even says "I thought I'd never be done saving you", a hint that he IS done saving them.  He has Canton turn up with gasoline.  There's a boat.  This also suggests that the Astronaut, whether moving on its own or with the girl inside, also received a letter with instructions to be at the lake.  Did the Silent who showed up get one too?  Was this a ploy by the Doctor to make them think that he was dead?

Canton also seems to have gotten a more instructional letter than Amy and Rory and River.  He brings the aforementioned gasoline for burning the Doctor's corpse.  He's unsurprised to see the others.  This does beg the question though, why bring Canton along?  Why organise his death for 2011, in that place?  The fact that it's in 2011 explains Amy and Rory's presence, they are his companions from that time.  River is explained by the fact that a Doctor 200years older would know her completely, and want her to be there.  It's clear that his decision to be killed has everything to do with the events in 1969.  But what?

And yes, I am calling it his decision to be killed.  He must have known why the astronaut was there, he took the action of summoning his younger self, he does nothing when the astronaut pulls its gun, he tells his companions to do nothing when they go to meet it.  River's reaction here surprises me too, not because of her lack of one when the Doctor gets shot - she knows he can regenerate - but what she says when she runs out of bullets without killing the astronaut: "No, of course not." What did she mean?  She can't know what the suit is, she hasn't lived through that yet.

Amy also seems to be stalked by the Silents in this episode.  It's her who sees one at the lake; her they appear to in the Oval Office; her they speak to in the bathroom.  The Doctor must have noticed she saw one at the lake too, and he showed no reaction.

This brings me to the Silents themselves.  We now know that they are the hidden enemies from last series, but there's not much actual information about them.  They seem to draw power from electricity to blast their victims, you can't remember them once you look away, they seem to live in tunnels under the earth, they have consoles with Time Lord technology (according to The Lodger), they can make humans do their will.  I have to wonder why they need the human race to make space suits for them if they already have Time Lord technology, though.

One of them tells Amy that she must tell the Doctor what he must know, and what he must never know.  We, the viewers, think this means what happens in the lake, but Amy somehow feels the need to tell him she's pregnant.  I know in the next episode she says she isn't, but the Doctor's scanner says she both is and isn't.  With all the talk of colliding parallel universes in the third episode, is Amy pregnant in another world, but not this one?

Also, we see the little girl in the astronaut's spacesuit.  Is it keeping her alive, or keeping her trapped?  Has it eaten her?  River claims that the girl is human from the life support technology, but also notes that she must be incredibly strong to have escaped from the suit.


Day Of The Moon

I hated this episode first time I watched it, but second viewing improves it.  It still doesn't help solve any mysteries from the first episode though, and indeed creates many more.  Like:

Why are Amy, Rory and River on the run from the FBI three months on?
How did the Doctor get imprisoned?
They're all still wearing the same clothes, bar River, who is somehow in New York.
How do Amy and Rory fake their own deaths?
How can any of them remember the Silents?

I think I can answer that last question.  Obviously, Amy had the photo on her phone.  That reminded them all, and they made the hologram.  The FBI would have obviously taken this alien threat seriously, and tried to stop word of it getting leaked.  River must have been sent off on another mission (is it coincidence that the child turns up in New York six months later?)  The visual reminder on their arms must also have been enough to job their memory: They told themselves "I remember" while staring at the Silents.  Plus, as soon as any of them see the neural transmitters flashing in their hands, they know what it's for, and the Doctor implants a suggestion in Canton's head while he's looking at the Silent.  It's not made very clear, but yeah I think that's how they recall them.

The orphanage that the little girl is being cared for is a strange, scary place.  GET OUT NOW and LEAVE ME are scrawled all over the walls and the Warden, presumably by himself? It could have been the girl I guess, but more likely him, although he's now too muddled to notice the messages.  He thinks it's 1967, and knows he has to care for the little girl, but that's it.  One has to wonder why the Silents think that leaving her in the care of a mad old man is a good idea, but I suppose, as Amy finds out, there are plenty of them there too in case things go wrong.

I'm going to assume that the little girl was placed in the orphanage in 1967.  The place has been empty since then, and it's the last date that the Warden remembers.  I may be wrong, who knows! But if she's only been there two years, where did she come from beforehand?  The picture of Amy and the baby suggests some connection between the two of them, though knowing Steven Moffat this is too easy an explanation.  Unless...

How long was Amy in the orphanage that time?  The marks on her arms and face suggest long enough to have several sightings of the Silents, and when Canton emerges from the prison, he's told he's been gone several days, even though it seems like only one has passed, as far as I can see.  Also the Silents tell Amy that they've had her for several days, and that she will help bring the Silence.  We find out that five days have passed between the Doctor messing with Apollo 11 and the moon landing - What happens over those five days? Bear with me and my mad theories here.  We can see that the little girl can regenerate (bit of Time Lord going on there).  Also the Silents are able to time travel (the Doctor tells us that the control room in The Lodger is someone trying to build a TARDIS).  Amy is very important to the Silents; they follow, kidnap her, tell her they do her honour and obviously think she's going to help them in whatever they have planned.  Say the child is hers, and is half Time-Lord (sorry, Rory...).  The Silents are raising her in an orphanage and suddenly need a space suit for her... Why?  Are they trying to send her to the moon?  WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN?!

Anyone else seeing parallels between these double episodes and Silence In The Library/Forest Of The Dead?  The Silence/Silents.  River Song.  Young girls with special powers, and a moon watching over them.  Spacesuits.  Could just be Steven Moffat and his thing of repeating themes, but I'm suspicious.

There's also this mysterious woman with the eyepatch.  The way she opens the hatch at the door, looks in and talks about Amy rather than to her... It's as though Amy is imprisoned somewhere, being watched, and just dreaming up what's happening.  Who is this woman? The next episode leads me to believe she's some sort of midwife; the stay calm, you're doing fine thing is the sort of reassuring thing a woman in labour needs to hear.  The way she appears reinforces the prison image.  She's just staring through a hatch in a door.

I keep seeing parallels to the Amy's Choice episode too.  Amy being pregnant, Amy being not pregnant, the whole "No, I think she's just dreaming."  Could be wishful thinking on my part, given my love for the character of the Dream Lord, but still.  It's something to consider.

Going back to the little girl.  She must have seen the Silents taking Amy, and used it as her chance to escape.  Very clever of her.  I know she's only a kid, yet she didn't spare a thought for Amy or go to find Canton, who would of helped her.  She just ran, and made it to New York from Florida in 6 months.

And speaking about not sparing a thought for people.  I think Amy definitely was talking about the Doctor through the transmitter.  Rory never fell out of the sky, literally or figuratively - they grew up together, we're told in The Eleventh Hour.  Yes, yes, Rory forgave her when she called him stupid, but she clearly didn't know what he was on about, and she didn't tell him she loved him.  Plus she calls the Doctor Stupid in The Doctor's Wife.  So there.

Another big question: Why is the Doctor suddenly advocating genocide? That is entirely not his style.  Nor is using his sonic screwdriver to augment guns to help with said genocide (that is what he was doing with it during the gunfight, wasn't it? He wasn't actually using it as a gun...)

At least River well and truly put to rest the rumours about her being Jenny, the Doctor's Daughter.  Still no real mention of who she is, though she refers to the Doctor as her old man, a very wifey thing to do... Though again, probably nothing is as it seems.

A full body scan shows that Amy is both pregnant and not pregnant.  This is repeated in The Curse Of The Black Spot, and with all the talk of parallel universes there, something tells me that two versions of Amy are colliding, like they did in The Big Bang last year.

Okay, so the little girl can regenerate.  How does she know she can? What is she dying of? Why did she go to New York?  WHY CAN SHE REGENERATE AT ALL? After seeing The Doctor's Wife, is she something to do with the TARDIS?

The Curse Of The Black Spot

Filler episode, really.  The story wasn't great and it didn't really seem to further the series, but there were a few important things in it.

Okay, so the Siren was a nurse.  She noticed when people were ill, and took them onto her ship.  She took people who bled, people with coughs, people who were drowning, and was able to use reflective surfaces to go between the universes.  Did she not notice Amy was pregnant? Wouldn't she want to help her with that?  I know pregnancy's not an illness, but it's a condition requiring care, and surely more care than a scratch.

The eye-patch woman turns up again, as I've noted.  Is she in another universe too?  The Siren's ship seems to be trapped in between two universes, placed right on top of the pirate ship.  Could this be what's going on with Amy too? Two Amys placed over each other, one pregnant one not, a remnant from The Big Bang perhaps?  My head is starting to hurt.

As always, feel free to agree/disagree in the comments, leave your own theories, tell me I'm crazy :) The Doctor's Wife review goes up later!