Nerd School: Doctor Who S6E1 “The Impossible Astronaut”

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First off, I’m so happy that The doctor is back!

So let’s get down to the nitty gritty.

First, how awesome is that title?! One thing I love about sci-fi is great titles. “The Impossible Astronaut” just sounds like a great Bradbury or Asimov short story. Hell it even sounds like a single off Bowie’s “Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars”

A brief synopsis: Amy and Rory seem to be living sans doctor after the season finale last year.  After the doctor arranges a meeting between “the Ponds” and Rivera, he is seen meeting with the titular astronaut and is killed! a mysterious man instructs the people to burn the body. They go back to the diner, and surprise! The doctor is alive! (wibbly wobbley timey wimey!) apparently its a younger version of himself, but he can’t be told he’s dead because it could destroy the universe. Remember the doctor can’t interfere with his own timeline . Anywho The Doctor and Co. are instructed by the previous doctor to go to Washington DC in 1969 and find……President Richard Nixon! Here we find out a little girl calling Tricky Dick and complaining about aliens. The Doctor convinces Nixon that he can help. Meanwhile Amy keeps seeing weird aliens (They’re probably the silence) that she can’t remember them if she’s not looking at them.  So the gang plus Romo Lampkin travel to Florida where they discover that the weird aliens Amy keeps seeing have made tunnels underneath all of the  Earth. Also Amy drops the pregnancy bomb. and shoots the mysterious astronaut.

The Good: I love that the Doctor and co. are in America for the first time since “Daleks in Manhattan” and even that episode was about as American as Bangers and Mash. I also have a soft spot in my heart for the 60′s. There’s just something cool about the doctor visiting at time we see as nostalgic, but it’s the time when he debuted! I jut see that as neatly poetic.  Plus I’m on a vinyl kick so the 60′s are on my mind.

Who doesn’t love when some one says “Doctor who?” in the series. (twice!)

Tardis blue is what I want to paint my daughter’s room, though that has been vetoed.

OOOOO River’s in prison again just like at the beginning of  ”The Pandorica Opens“.

“The Ponds” classic Doctor.

I also want to mention that I didn’t know there were black secret service agents as early as Eisenhower. I learned that from watching Doctor Who, kinda cool.

“The legs, the nose,  and Mrs. Robinson” and “Star Trek” pop culture of the 60′s wooohoooo

The Silence are pretty creepy/bad- ass

The Bad: I just don’t see the chemistry between River and The Doctor. No knock on Alex Kingston who is fantastic, but  at 48 She just seems far too old for the 28 year old Matt Smith. She would have worked much better with Eccleston or Tennant. She does remark in “Silence in the Library” that he looks so much younger, but c’mon unless we’re getting a new doctor soon, this plot is not working for me with the current actors. I’ve been told by my wife this is kinda sexist, but I can’t help it. River talks about how she’s going to meet him when she’s younger. BTW I do love that they reference season 4 here, because I feel sometimes that even though Moffet is great he is kinda ignoring the first 4 seasons of the show.

BBC America does not have an HD channel in my area. Flip that spit!

Oh man, that Nixon is terrible.

I love Mark Sheppard, He’s one of the 12 apostles of sci-fi, but couldn’t his character been played by an American? in fact the American accents as a whole are way bad.

The weird: I don’t know how many people have caught onto this, but back before season 5 started off, the previews were making it seem like “Geronimo” was going to be the doc’s big catchphrase. Now it eems to be “I wear a ______ now, _____s are cool”, which I prefer.

Read Joe’s other articles Thor Primer, Doctor Who Season 6 primer, A Game of Thrones Primer, More