This is the second part of a two-part story following on from The Impossible Astronaut.
The fun previous episode is followed by this dark, mysterious and rather grim episode which jumps around in its own timeline and throws too many needless ideas into the mix in my opinion. If it all came together really well in the end it would be fine but a lot of things are left to be resolved later and I am not a fan of how those threads finally turn out in subsequent episodes.
For my tastes, this episode started to show that instead of clever complexity the story arc veers into being rather messy and overblown. I still enjoy it up to a point but considering all the great elements this has it had the potential to get a 9 or 10/10 from me which I think it falls well short of. I recognise a lot of fans LOVE this style of story but it doesn't satisfy me personally.
I do recognise the positives: Acting, effects, cinematography etc are all excellent, there is some smart dialogue, bits of good humour and a load of great creepy thrills with the scary monsters 'the Silence'. It is also very dark and complex which are things I normally love.
The problem is that this does not satisfy the suspense built up in the previous episode for me, it instead throws numerous new items into the mix which I don't enjoy very much.
I love River Song but I don't like the back story and character choices which lead from this episode and are made clear later in the series. This is where I felt things started to go wrong.
Various other things within the episode do not work for me either such as when people mark a tally of times they've seen the silence why would anyone mark them on their face where you cannot see it? How can they add to a tally on their face without a mirror? If they have used mirrors a lot doesn't that defy the idea you have to mark the tally immediately wherever you are?
The idea that the Silence have been on Earth influencing humanity "since fire and the wheel" and are all around us is also odd. It is another of Moffatt's cool sounding ideas that he takes too far and just seems wrong when you analyse it: A relatively small number of such creatures living mostly in hiding over all that time makes sense and I would have loved that idea on its own. But the idea that such numerous aliens are ever present in everyone's ordinary lives (they are shown in crowded rooms, bars etc as if they are everywhere) just seems very odd. Yes they are forgotten when you look away but in crowded rooms they would be in sight by various people all the time and would cause reactions such as screaming from one person after another all the time. It just does not ring true for me.
The concept of disappearing from your memory when you are not looking is a twist on Moffatt's other invention the Weeping Angels who only move when you are not looking so he is trying to recapture the same dread of sinister things around you in ordinary life. He manages to make the Silence frightening and unsettling but stretching it to say they have are all around us all the time was not a good idea in my opinion. Moffatt always wants ideas and villains to be of epic proportions when a bit of understatement would sometimes be better I think.
The Silence's motives and push of landing man on the moon seem very vague. The orphanage setup doesn't make much sense and neither does the way the child who appears to be captive also appears to be free to roam around before finally escaping.
The aspect of the space suit is very odd too. What is meant to be the point of using a child in a space-suit? It is just a gimmick that has no relevance to their plan to kill the Doctor when we learn what is really going on.
The opening sequence with the apparent deaths of River, Amy and Rory annoys me. This brings the number of apparent deaths of companions and the Doctor in the first 16 episodes of the Moffatt era to an extraordinary 10 (if you count the Doctor apparently dying twice in The Big Bang)! That is easily more than Russell T. Davies had in his entire 60 episodes as Showrunner. Incredibly Moffatt features yet another apparent death for Rory (his 4th 'death' in 17 episodes!) in the very next episode after this and continued this trend through his time in charge. It makes it all seem very fake and diminishes the power and emotion each time as all death scenes and grieving turn out to be for nothing. To me it is a cheap trick. (Moffatt ends up reversing deaths of companions and Doctors a ridiculous 34 times in his time as Showrunner which is crazy!) The scenes also do not fit together with the ending of the previous episode (what happened after that cliffhanger?) and are a bit nonsensical. If Canton watches River jump off the roof and looks down why does he not see the TARDIS catch her? Why do the FBI/CIA think she is dead if she never hit the floor?
Some of the added confusion and convoluted content is over the top and gimmicky and some of the quickfire dialogue is a bit daft for me too. Sometimes less is more in my opinion whereas for Moffatt and his biggest fans it seems that more and more and more extreme stuff getting thrown at a story is always seen as being a great thing
The Doctor and River flirting in this episode goes too far for me and the Nixon stuff gets a bit cheesy too I think.
The qualities of this episodes production values, acting and its scary villains make this episode avoid falling really low in my ratings but this should have been safely 9/10 and instead I rate it 6/10 due to its aspects I do not like.
I do give credit for the good bits but it isn't really to my taste sorry.
My Ratings: The Impossible Astronaut - 9/10 Day of the Moon - 6/10 Overall 2-part story average - 7.5/10.
The fun previous episode is followed by this dark, mysterious and rather grim episode which jumps around in its own timeline and throws too many needless ideas into the mix in my opinion. If it all came together really well in the end it would be fine but a lot of things are left to be resolved later and I am not a fan of how those threads finally turn out in subsequent episodes.
For my tastes, this episode started to show that instead of clever complexity the story arc veers into being rather messy and overblown. I still enjoy it up to a point but considering all the great elements this has it had the potential to get a 9 or 10/10 from me which I think it falls well short of. I recognise a lot of fans LOVE this style of story but it doesn't satisfy me personally.
I do recognise the positives: Acting, effects, cinematography etc are all excellent, there is some smart dialogue, bits of good humour and a load of great creepy thrills with the scary monsters 'the Silence'. It is also very dark and complex which are things I normally love.
The problem is that this does not satisfy the suspense built up in the previous episode for me, it instead throws numerous new items into the mix which I don't enjoy very much.
I love River Song but I don't like the back story and character choices which lead from this episode and are made clear later in the series. This is where I felt things started to go wrong.
Various other things within the episode do not work for me either such as when people mark a tally of times they've seen the silence why would anyone mark them on their face where you cannot see it? How can they add to a tally on their face without a mirror? If they have used mirrors a lot doesn't that defy the idea you have to mark the tally immediately wherever you are?
The idea that the Silence have been on Earth influencing humanity "since fire and the wheel" and are all around us is also odd. It is another of Moffatt's cool sounding ideas that he takes too far and just seems wrong when you analyse it: A relatively small number of such creatures living mostly in hiding over all that time makes sense and I would have loved that idea on its own. But the idea that such numerous aliens are ever present in everyone's ordinary lives (they are shown in crowded rooms, bars etc as if they are everywhere) just seems very odd. Yes they are forgotten when you look away but in crowded rooms they would be in sight by various people all the time and would cause reactions such as screaming from one person after another all the time. It just does not ring true for me.
The concept of disappearing from your memory when you are not looking is a twist on Moffatt's other invention the Weeping Angels who only move when you are not looking so he is trying to recapture the same dread of sinister things around you in ordinary life. He manages to make the Silence frightening and unsettling but stretching it to say they have are all around us all the time was not a good idea in my opinion. Moffatt always wants ideas and villains to be of epic proportions when a bit of understatement would sometimes be better I think.
The Silence's motives and push of landing man on the moon seem very vague. The orphanage setup doesn't make much sense and neither does the way the child who appears to be captive also appears to be free to roam around before finally escaping.
The aspect of the space suit is very odd too. What is meant to be the point of using a child in a space-suit? It is just a gimmick that has no relevance to their plan to kill the Doctor when we learn what is really going on.
The opening sequence with the apparent deaths of River, Amy and Rory annoys me. This brings the number of apparent deaths of companions and the Doctor in the first 16 episodes of the Moffatt era to an extraordinary 10 (if you count the Doctor apparently dying twice in The Big Bang)! That is easily more than Russell T. Davies had in his entire 60 episodes as Showrunner. Incredibly Moffatt features yet another apparent death for Rory (his 4th 'death' in 17 episodes!) in the very next episode after this and continued this trend through his time in charge. It makes it all seem very fake and diminishes the power and emotion each time as all death scenes and grieving turn out to be for nothing. To me it is a cheap trick. (Moffatt ends up reversing deaths of companions and Doctors a ridiculous 34 times in his time as Showrunner which is crazy!) The scenes also do not fit together with the ending of the previous episode (what happened after that cliffhanger?) and are a bit nonsensical. If Canton watches River jump off the roof and looks down why does he not see the TARDIS catch her? Why do the FBI/CIA think she is dead if she never hit the floor?
Some of the added confusion and convoluted content is over the top and gimmicky and some of the quickfire dialogue is a bit daft for me too. Sometimes less is more in my opinion whereas for Moffatt and his biggest fans it seems that more and more and more extreme stuff getting thrown at a story is always seen as being a great thing
The Doctor and River flirting in this episode goes too far for me and the Nixon stuff gets a bit cheesy too I think.
The qualities of this episodes production values, acting and its scary villains make this episode avoid falling really low in my ratings but this should have been safely 9/10 and instead I rate it 6/10 due to its aspects I do not like.
I do give credit for the good bits but it isn't really to my taste sorry.
My Ratings: The Impossible Astronaut - 9/10 Day of the Moon - 6/10 Overall 2-part story average - 7.5/10.