Doctor Who Series 6

[LazarX]

Wyrd_Wik wrote:

Re Impossible Astronaut

Well that was a very different first episode of the season. Mostly, the first episodes have always been fairly run of the mill but this one definitely goes in a different direction, that and being a two parter. Kudos to Moffat et al for kicking things off in style. Looking forward to part 2.

Also liked the fact they shot it in the US this time (unlike Daleks in Manhattan). The Doctor meeting Richard Nixon? Can't say I ever expected that.

So one question

** spoiler omitted **

Spoiler:

I recognised it, but I suspect it's mainly a case of set reuse since I saw that some of the panels had been repainted a different color. The Tardis at the end of "11th Hour" was a reuse of the old Torchwood set.

[Dragonsong]

That was my take on it as well Lazar X.

[Nevynxxx]

Dragonsong wrote:

That was my take on it as well Lazar X.

But:

Interesting how the ship hid itself in plain sight in the same way as these aliens seem to.

The more interesting part for me is 1) Have they just pinned down the number of regenerations the Dr will get (this is his last) and made it impossible to use another actor for the Dr without it basically being a pre-quel, or 2) are we going to get one almighty crazy paradox?

Also, why do the aliens want the Dr to know the s$%% he shouldn't, hence causing the paradox, but at the same time, blank the info from Amy's mind *right after telling her to tell him!*

Also, pregnant? It was only a matter of time with the beautiful Amy Pond.

[Matthew Morris]

Wyrd_Wik wrote:

Re Impossible Astronaut

Well that was a very different first episode of the season. Mostly, the first episodes have always been fairly run of the mill but this one definitely goes in a different direction, that and being a two parter. Kudos to Moffat et al for kicking things off in style. Looking forward to part 2.

Also liked the fact they shot it in the US this time (unlike Daleks in Manhattan). The Doctor meeting Richard Nixon? Can't say I ever expected that.

So one question

** spoiler omitted **

Spoiler:

I noticed that too. Well I noticed the Tardis style column before I noticed the similarity. (Still miss the old series Tardis control room actually)

I was just tickled to see Mark Sheppard. I was half expecting Warehouse 13 or Firefly jokes :-)

[Epic Meepo]

My memory is failing me, so I've got a question for the other Who fans.

Spoiler:

At the end of last season, wasn't the collapse of the Universe caused by the TARDIS crashing and exploding after being commandeered by an as-yet unidentified outside force?

Yet, in Impossible Astronaut, River mentions that particular event as an example of what can happen when one causes a paradox by interacting with one's past self.

So, is River's statement Moffat's first official hint that the future Doctor of this season is the one who causes the TARDIS to crash and explode last season?

[Vic Wertz]

Wyrd_Wik wrote:

So one question

** spoiler omitted **

I have little doubt that it's intended to be the same exact type of thing (but I'm guessing it's not the exact same one we saw before).

However...

Future Series 6 Episode Spoiler:

James Corden will be reprising the role of Craig Owens (the landlord from The Lodger) in the second half of the season—probably in Episode 12.

[Vic Wertz]

Wyrd_Wik wrote:

Re Impossible Astronaut

Well that was a very different first episode of the season. Mostly, the first episodes have always been fairly run of the mill but this one definitely goes in a different direction, that and being a two parter. Kudos to Moffat et al for kicking things off in style. Looking forward to part 2.

I thought this episode was a home run, and had pretty much everything I want in an episode. (Ok, I could do with more Amy and less Rory, but still...)

[Dragonsong]

I was happy to see a cameo from William Morgan Sheppard (AKA Blank Reg from Max Headroom)

[LazarX]

Epic Meepo wrote:

My memory is failing me, so I've got a question for the other Who fans.

** spoiler omitted **

Spoiler:

The Total Event Collapse was a special event where the TARDIS was simultaneously 1) Made to explode and 2) the explosion was transmitted to every point in time and space at the universe at the same time. The Doctor corrected this by adding the restoration field of the Pandorican which was simultaneouly powered and spread by that same explosion thus nullifying the event. What River Song was warning against was a more basic violation of the Laws of Time which would screw up at least 200 years of the Doctor's personal history, the difference between his "present" age and the age of the self that was killed on the beach. And screwing with a timeline of someone as temporally important as the Doctor would have far reaching effects.

[Epic Meepo]

LazarX wrote:

** spoiler omitted **

Huh. For some reason, I thought River was specifically referencing the aforementioned event. But you're right. After watching it again, I see that River just mentions paradoxes in general and doesn't mention any specific examples.

[Matthew Morris]

Epic Meepo wrote:

LazarX wrote:

** spoiler omitted **

Huh. For some reason, I thought River was specifically referencing the aforementioned event. But you're right. After watching it again, I see that River just mentions paradoxes in general and doesn't mention any specific examples.

Maybe she got the Doctor drunk off panel and he told her about 'Father's Day'?

[Bhrymm]

About the ship they find:

Spoiler:

I beleive it is the same one as from the lodger. You just need to remember that the only one who saw the Lodger one was The Doctor. Amy was trapped in the Tardis, River was in prison, and Rory was dead at the time. No reason River or Rory could have recognized it.

[LazarX]

Nevynxxx wrote:

Dragonsong wrote:

That was my take on it as well Lazar X.

** spoiler omitted **

Spoiler:

It's not that surprising. Just about all of the "Aliens on Earth" type of stories involve some sort of hiding in plain site. Perception filters don't seem to be that uncommon a technology. I tend to thik that the control room found is most likely a reuse with a bit of repaint to save some production budget.

[DM Wellard]

Wel folks not giving away anything about tonights ep.

But I can say it left more questions than answers

[Matthew Morris]

Spoiler:

They remembered the Swimming Pool!

Thank you!

Edit

Spoiler:

So he's not alone?

[Andrew Betts]

DM Wellard wrote:

Wel folks not giving away anything about tonights ep.

But I can say it left more questions than answers

Gah ... that ending. *goes to pull hair out*

[Epic Meepo]

That episode didn't even feel like a real episode. It felt like a teaser trailer for a future episode.

Also...

Spoiler:

Amy exists in a quantum superposition of pregnant/not-pregnant? Who's the father? Schrodinger's cat?

[Dragonsong]

Epic Meepo wrote:

That episode didn't even feel like a real episode. It felt like a teaser trailer for a future episode.

Also...** spoiler omitted **

Spoiler:

The TARDIS itself, maybe its "gotten a taste" for humanoid forms, after Bad Wolf? Might also push towards her "child" being the first Time Lord what with the whole regeneration scene. Just from being in the time displacement thing while developing.

[Loztastic]

all I will say is, when IT happened, my hair stood on end!

well, what little hair I have anyway!

[Epic Meepo]

Dragonsong wrote:

Epic Meepo wrote:

Also...** spoiler omitted **

** spoiler omitted **

Spoiler:

Is the child a Time Lord? The life-support system the Silence built for her was calibrated for a human. If regeneration is just another technology the Silence have cannibalized, she could just be a genetically-engineered human.

In fact, there's a chance that we've already seen the Silence cannibalizing regeneration technology. In the Christmas special, there was a scene where the Doctor kept insisting that he felt a flying fish biting the back of his neck. That could also have been one of the Silence standing behind him taking genetic samples. Since the Doctor wouldn't remember seeing it happen, he could have erroneously assumed that the pinch in the back of his neck was a flying fish.

In fact, I suspect that at some point during this season, someone is going to regain their memories of every time they saw the Silence. Then we're going to see a bunch of flashbacks to events in previous episodes showing the Silence doing things in the background.

[DM Wellard]

Epic Meepo wrote:

Dragonsong wrote:

Epic Meepo wrote:

Also...** spoiler omitted **

** spoiler omitted **

** spoiler omitted **

That could explain a lot..maybe the so called discrepancies were not discrepancies after all..

[Nevynxxx]

This series just got a whole lot more meta.

Oh, and yeah, getting up at 3am to check on a crying child is *great fun* after watching "The Silence". I don't think.

That episode stands up next to Alien on the "completely creeped me out scale" and I'm 15 years old than I was when I watched Alien!

[Chris Mortika]

One of the things that made Episode Two so powerful for me was Moffat's storytelling.

Spoiler:

During the first extended sequence and through all of the encounters with the Silence, we as an audience don't always know what's going on, and there are in-story reasons for that. We don't see encounters with the Silence, so we can react with the characters when they see them again.

By the by, we know that the Silence survives to 2011.

So, what do y'all make of the "no; she's dreaming" woman? Of the door that does and doesn't have a viewing slot?

Who took the pictures on the bureau?

[JoelF847]

I was wondering if the Silence have any relationship with the Ood. They both have a 'grey' alien look to them (even though the Silence are way scarier looking) and both have strong psychic abilities.

[Matthew Morris]

Chris Mortika wrote:

One of the things that made Episode Two so powerful for me was Moffat's storytelling. ** spoiler omitted **

So, what do y'all make of the "no; she's dreaming" woman? Of the door that does and doesn't have a viewing slot?

Who took the pictures on the bureau?

Spoiler:

Do they? I'm not sure how Dr. Who time travel works completely. I thought the entire point here was to change the Doctor's timeline without the Doctor knowingly changing it

I do wonder if she was suffering post hypnotic suggestion, or if she's still sensatized to events from growing up next to the crack. Maybe she got pregnant with Shroedninger's baby behind Shroedniger's door. (yeah, I likely butchered that)

I do like the origin of the alien's appearance (The painting The Scream)

Were the photos there when the rest of them got to the room?

And it may have been meant as a 'slam' against Americans, but I laughed at "We have been here since the fire and the wheel, we do not need weapons." *blam blam blam* "Welcome to America."

[Decorus]

I don't think the Silence were the ones responsible for the forgetting. I think the girl is responsible for the forgetting. The girl is hinted at being Amy's child, but then who is the father and since Amy knew Rory was listening was she lying when she said its because she was afraid the baby was affected by the Tardis or does she think the father is the Doctor?

The Silence were the ones who blew up the Tardis, but we still don't know why they did it or why they wanted Amy to tell the Doctor that he was killed. Obviously events will be altered so the Doctor won't die 200 years from now in his timeline. River being alarmed that they had never kissed before was interesting. Is it because she knows this means she is going to die soon or is it because she had already kissed him before and he should have remembered it...

[Chris Mortika]

Decorus, River and the Doctor are living their lives in opposite directions. The first time the (tenth) Doctor meets her, is the last time she meets him. Each time he meets her is earlier in her history. We're seeing her from the end of their long history together, and him from the beginning.

So when he demonstrated that it was the first time he'd kissed her, she realized that it was the last time she would kiss him.

[Matthew Morris]

Actually that was one of the sadder moments of the premier for me. I mean River always jokes about that she knows things that the Doctor doesn't (yet) but we see for the first time just how painful it is for her. It's almost like a temporal Alzhimers in a way.

Though they way Alex Kingston delivered that line "Oh, I'm quite the screamer. How's that for a spoiler." Made me laugh out loud.

Amusing coincidence?

Spoiler:

Went to the IMDB to make sure I got her name right. She had a recurring role on Law and Order as Miranda Pond.

Coincidence, or in joke on Moffet's part?

[Epic Meepo]

Chris Mortika wrote:

So, what do y'all make of the "no; she's dreaming" woman? Of the door that does and doesn't have a viewing slot?

Spoiler:

Given Amy's Schrodinger baby and Rory's comment about his memories of the pre-reboot universe being "behind a door" in his head, I'm guessing we're dealing with a parallel universe storyline. The Silence blew up the TARDIS not to destroy the universe, but to create a second one from a divergent timeline. (They might also have arranged the construction of the Pandorica that was needed to reboot the universe.)

That could make the regenerating girl in the super-life-support space suit a sort of parallel-universe space program, where the Silence create an invulnerable astronaut who can survive a perilous trip to the parallel universe they've created. And the Doctor who dies 200 years in the future could be a parallel universe Doctor sacrificing his independent existence to reconcile the two competing timelines.

[LazarX]

Nevynxxx wrote:

This series just got a whole lot more meta.

Oh, and yeah, getting up at 3am to check on a crying child is *great fun* after watching "The Silence". I don't think.

That episode stands up next to Alien on the "completely creeped me out scale" and I'm 15 years old than I was when I watched Alien!

I think basically this is going to be the reigning theme for Moffat's Dr. Who. He's going to take every classic phobia that scared the bejeezus out of you as a child and crank it up to Eleven.

[LazarX]

Matthew Morris wrote:

Actually that was one of the sadder moments of the premier for me. I mean River always jokes about that she knows things that the Doctor doesn't (yet)

It goes even further than that. the actress that plays River has been given the spoilers on the entire season plot, the bulk of which has been kept hidden from the rest of the cast.

[Matthew Morris]

LazarX wrote:

Matthew Morris wrote:

Actually that was one of the sadder moments of the premier for me. I mean River always jokes about that she knows things that the Doctor doesn't (yet)

It goes even further than that. the actress that plays River has been given the spoilers on the entire season plot, the bulk of which has been kept hidden from the rest of the cast.

Yeah, I guess that holds true for most of the cast, that they know bits about their characters the others don't. (per the special on BBCA)

I do want to find more of Alex Kingston's work though.

[Chris Mortika]

Incidentally, and more appropriate if I were to scrounge around and find the Series 5 thread, I found these deleted scenes, all post-produced and scored.

[DM Wellard]

Matthew Morris wrote:

I do want to find more of Alex Kingston's work though.

She did a wonderful Moll Flanders in 1996. Alex Kingston is one of our sexiest, wittiest actresses and I have adored her for ages.

[Vanulf Wulfson]

Alex Kingston:

IMDb

Wiki

[Chris Mortika]

If the mysterious, dying girl were born of a Scottish woman and lived most of her life in America, why does she have an English accent at the end?

[Epic Meepo]

Chris Mortika wrote:

If the mysterious, dying girl were born of a Scottish woman and lived most of her life in America, why does she have an English accent at the end?

For the same reason everyone in the universe speaks English.* :P

*:

And yes, I am aware that the telepathic circuits in the TARDIS gift the Doctor's companions with the ability to interpret any and all languages as English, thus allowing them to communicate with everyone they meet. But that doesn't explain the scenes where non-Companion characters overhear and are magically able to understand aliens. Unless, of course, those aliens just happen to be speaking amongst themselves in English.

[Nevynxxx]

LazarX wrote:

Matthew Morris wrote:

Actually that was one of the sadder moments of the premier for me. I mean River always jokes about that she knows things that the Doctor doesn't (yet)

It goes even further than that. the actress that plays River has been given the spoilers on the entire season plot, the bulk of which has been kept hidden from the rest of the cast.

Oh Joy.

[Uchawi]

Mrs. Uchawi and Mr. Uchawi believe that the child potentially could be River's and the Doctor's. In the episode with the weeping angels in season 5, Amy confirmed that River and the Doctor were married. We think the regenerating child is possibly their daughter ...

[DM Wellard]

Apparently all the cast have been given their spoilers and sworn to secrecy on them..according to the latest interview with Karen Gillan in this months SFX.

[DM Wellard]

Happy happy DM Wellard..Dr Who with the incredibly gorgeous Lily Cole...not to mention the greatest real life pirate of them all Henry Avery..and now we know why he vanished in 1696

[Kthulhu]

Uchawi wrote:

In the episode with the weeping angels in season 5, Amy confirmed that River and the Doctor were married.

Apparently wild guessing with little basis now qualifies as "confirmation".

[XperimentalDM]

Matthew Morris wrote:

LazarX wrote:

Matthew Morris wrote:

Actually that was one of the sadder moments of the premier for me. I mean River always jokes about that she knows things that the Doctor doesn't (yet)

It goes even further than that. the actress that plays River has been given the spoilers on the entire season plot, the bulk of which has been kept hidden from the rest of the cast.

Yeah, I guess that holds true for most of the cast, that they know bits about their characters the others don't. (per the special on BBCA)

I do want to find more of Alex Kingston's work though.

ER? I loved her character in that.

[DM Wellard]

I thought it amusing that Alex Kingstons first role was as an uncredited St Trinians girl at the age of 17..I can quite see River as a St Trins girl.

[Nevynxxx]

For the UK Amy Pond lovers, check out iPlayer.

Ohhh how I would love to have the image they have used for this weeks episode as the background on my computer.....hmmmm.....

[Chris Mortika]

Still thinking about the Silence:

It appears that machines, such as the TARDIS, can "remember" the Silence. The aliens can be recorded, and those recordings persist, even though people forget the recordings as easily as they forget the aliens.

I wonder what K-9's take on all of this is.

I'm hoping that we get the "missing episode" that takes place between "Impossible Astronaut" and "Day of the Moon".

[Matthew Morris]

Two things to ponder about the episode.

The Tardis fleeing.

Spoiler:

Did the TARDIS flee, or did the Siren (EMH) take it? I was under the perception with the glowing light under it that when the Doctor tried to push her, I heard the Cloister Bell. (why is it that I'm almost 40 and it *still* sends a chill down my spine?) Since Tardises are alive, then if the Doctor hurt it, the EMH would take it. Plus I thought that's what the green glow under her was (It didn't look like a normal dematerialization).

Could the Siren/EMH recognize mental issues? If it could, then Amy's *not* hallucinating.

Thought on Amy's Shrodinger-Pregnancy.

Spoiler:

Amy was pregnant before the universe exploded. When she remade the universe she didn't consciously know she was preggers and thus didn't 'remake' the baby. But since the baby was still part of her, it's trying to 'remake' itself.

[Dragonsong]

On Multiple Ships Becalmed:

Spoiler:

Was the eye patched woman talking to Amy about the baby, about the Doctors death, or part of the long play with the doctor bringing up overlapping universes? Did she becalm the ships to bring Amy to a place where she could communicate with her?

[LazarX]

Chris Mortika wrote:

Still thinking about the Silence:

It appears that machines, such as the TARDIS, can "remember" the Silence. The aliens can be recorded, and those recordings persist, even though people forget the recordings as easily as they forget the aliens.

I wonder what K-9's take on all of this is.

I'm hoping that we get the "missing episode" that takes place between "Impossible Astronaut" and "Day of the Moon".

K-9 doesn't quite have the inherent connection to all Time and Space that the TARDIS has. for that matter he's probabably nowhere near as intelligent as Mr. Sid.

[Dragonsong]

LazarX wrote:

Chris Mortika wrote:

Still thinking about the Silence:

It appears that machines, such as the TARDIS, can "remember" the Silence. The aliens can be recorded, and those recordings persist, even though people forget the recordings as easily as they forget the aliens.

I wonder what K-9's take on all of this is.

I'm hoping that we get the "missing episode" that takes place between "Impossible Astronaut" and "Day of the Moon".

K-9 doesn't quite have the inherent connection to all Time and Space that the TARDIS has. for that matter he's probabably nowhere near as intelligent as Mr. Sid.

But the image was from Amy's Cell phone.