Doctor Who S06 E01 – Not My President

Previously: A Christmas Story with flying sharks idk.
—

The Impossible Astronaut 

Marines: An angry man charges through a palace, yelling for people to get out of his way. He bangs on a closed door and yells for the Doctor. We pan and see the Doctor’s clothes, paints, and then a painting of the Doctor in nothing but a strategically placed shroud and a trident. I’ll give you a moment to groan because honestly.

Kirsti: Personally, I’m gagging, but to each their own.

Dani: Someone needs to remind the writers that David Tennant doesn’t play the Doctor anymore.

Mari: lol.

The man busts into the room and asks the girl, the painter presumably, where the Doctor is. She tries to play innocent, but then the Doctor sneezes and gives himself away. Because he’s hiding underneath the woman’s big skirts. He says this isn’t as bad as it looks but, idk, sir. It’s not a great look to start off this episode. (K: NOPE.)

We cut to Amy reading from a history book while Rory unpacks the groceries. Amy reads about how the Doctor was incarcerated without a trial. Rory says maybe it wasn’t the Doctor but the rest of the account says that the Doctor escaped two nights later in a magical sphere that floated away. Rory’s like, “yep. It was him.” Amy keeps reading and we cut back to the Doctor, trying to escape via tunnel. We hear sirens and dogs barking, so it doesn’t seem like things are going well, even before the Doctor is pulled out of the tunnel.

Back at their house, Amy is wondering why the Doctor is being so ridiculous while Rory laughs at a black and white movie. Amy thinks the Doctor is trying to get in touch with them. Someone knocks on the door and Amy jumps up to get it. Rory is watching her, so they both miss the Doctor waving to them out of the black and white movie. Rory says it’s been two months since they heard anything, but Amy is hopeful. Two months is nothing. She opens the envelope that was delivered and it’s got a date, a time and coordinates. And the envelope is TARDIS blue.

Dani: Seems unnecessarily cryptic for the Doctor, but okay.

Mari: He was just waving at them out of a movie, but cryptic, okay.

We segue magic from their envelope to an identical one, delivered to River Song in her cell. She smiles when she sees the contents. Alarms blare in the prison as a guard calls his superiors and tells him River’s at it again. She’s packing and saying she’s going to some planet called America.

K: This is full of extreme cringe for me, because season 6 is when Doctor Who first aired concurrently in the US, so it’s like this super cheesy “LOOK WHAT I DID” joke from Moffat. *gags again*

Mari: Lonely highway. A school bus drops Rory and Amy off (K: It makes me want to rewatch the Buffy finale, tbh). Amy wonders if this is the right place. “Nowhere, Middle of…” Rory offers. But as the bus drives off, we see the Doctor is behind them, reclining on the hood of an old car. “Howdy,” he greets them and Amy runs over for a big hug. He asks if they saw him, and Amy says of course she did. The Doctor calls her a stalker. Amy calls him a flirt. Rory deadpans, “husband.” The Doctor pulls him in for a hug too, before explaining that he wears Stetsons now, because they are cool. And then it’s shot off his head by River, who greets him with an obligatory, “hey, sweetie.”

Dani: Cowboy hats, boots, and people shooting guns… sounds like America to me.

Mari: Nailed it.

Diner. River and the Doctor compare notes to figure out where they are in their timelines. Amy asks what’s really happening, because she thinks the Doctor has been up to something. He says he’s been running faster than he’s ever run and now it’s time for him to stop. Tonight, he’s going to need them all with him for a picnic and then a trip somewhere, somewhere brand new: space, 1969.

And then we get a weird Eleventh Doctor recap with an Amy voiceover before the DOO WEE OOH?

K: Again, I blame America. Apparently y’all need a “here’s what happened in the previous 48 years of television”?

D: I mean… we do seem to have a problem recalling/learning from past events. 

Mari: Damn, this recap is getting super real. 

Lakeside, picnic.

Rory asks when they are going to the moon, and River asks when the Doctor started drinking wine. He’s 1103 years old, he figures he must’ve had it at some point. He takes a big swig and spits it back out. Amy notes that he was 908 the last time they saw him. He gets testy and says that Amy put on a few pounds so we can all take a big eyerollgroangroan break again.

D: Yay, fat-shaming! My favorite part of TV.

K: MAKE IT STOOOOOOOOOOP.

Mari: Amy looks up and sees a strange figure silhouetted in the distance. She asks who that is. Rory asks who, but looks at Amy and not in the direction she’s looking, which isn’t very helpful. But then Amy seems to snap out of it and says she didn’t see or say anything.

The Doctor points out the moon and references the moon landing. Rory asks if that’s where they are going in ’69, but the Doctor cryptically says that a lot more happens in ’69 than the moon landing. “Human beings. I thought I’d never get done saving you.” 

Just then, a truck pulls up and an old man gets out. The Doctor waves at him, and Amy again asks who that is. River directs their attention to the opposite side, behind them. An astronaut is standing in the lake. The Doctor tells them that whatever happens now, they should not interfere. He walks toward the astronaut and greets them, saying he knows who they are. The astronaut lifts their visor, though we don’t see who it is. We cut back to the gang and watch what they see: the astronaut lift their arm, though it’s too far away to see anything else. And then the Doctor gets shot, twice. Amy tries to run toward him, but River and Rory hold her back. I guess because the Doctor said to stay back? The Doctor starts to ejaculate his regeneration light (D: accurate, but eiieewww please don’t use that word when referencing Matt Smith), but then he’s shot a third time and he’s down. This time, Rory, Amy and River run to him because suddenly that’s okay.

K: Can we just skip the rest of Eleven’s run and pretend he just regenerated into Peter Capaldi??

Mari: Have you met us? We struggle bus to the end.

The three of them are so busy with the Doctor that they let the astronaut escape into the lake. River stands and shoots the astronaut a bunch of times, but the bullets bounce off their suit. Amy cries over the body and thinks this can’t be possible. It must be a clone or a duplicate.

Dani: this would have had a lot more emotional impact if it weren’t like, the second episode of the season.

Mari: Also, Rory died twice last season, so crying over dead men is a THING we’ve seen from Amy. It never sticks. 

The old man with the truck approaches and says he can save them some time: that most certainly is the Doctor and he most certainly is dead. And the Doctor thought they might need the gas can he brought along. Rory explains that a Time Lord’s body is a miracle, even dead, so they can’t leave him here. Rory spots a boat and says they have to do this right. Amy is still sobbing over the body, asking what they should do. River says they are the Doctor’s friends, so they must do what they always do: what they are told.

That’s… even more sad that then Doctor being “dead” right now, tbh.

K: It really is. Like… is it really friendship if you just do what he tells you to??

D: It’s never felt like friendship to me. The Doctor is to humans as humans are to pets: 10x the lifespan and intelligence level, plus an expectation for unquestioned obedience and loyalty. There’s genuine affection (despite frequent exasperation), but deep, meaningful friendship? Impossible.  

Mari: Wow, we are digging our heels into the sad here.

The Doctor gets his Viking funeral and Matt Smith always looks like he’s smirking, even when he’s playing dead. The score is beautiful, as always, though. River asks the old man who he is and why he came. He says the same reason as all of them and pulls out his invitation. He introduces himself as Canton Everett Delaware III. He won’t be seeing them again, but they’ll be seeing him. River realizes that the Doctor numbered all the invitations. They head back to the diner as she says that River got 2, the Ponds got 3 and Canton got 4. River is trying to make sense of it all, the invites and space 1969. Amy is still in shock and doesn’t think it matters. River tells her the Doctor still needs them and they have to focus.

Dani: I’m really liking River more on this rewatch.

Mari: Rory spots another invitation on one of the diner tables. Rory asks the waiter who was sitting there, but all he offers is “some guy.” River runs over and grabs the invite and starts working it out. The Doctor knew he was going to die, and so he invited all the people he trusted the most here. And who does he trust the most? On cue, the Doctor strolls out of the back room. River tells him this is cold, even by his standards. The Doctor is confused and greets them all like he did at the beginning of the episode. River smacks him and he assumes that’s for something he hasn’t done yet. Everyone is very confused, even though they know he’s a time traveler, and it isn’t until Amy asks him his age, 909, that they all cotton on. The Doctor asks what is going on and River says they’ve been recruited for something to do with space, 1969, and Canton Everett Delaware III. The Doctor asks who recruited them, but River warns him off with a “spoilers.”

TARDIS. The Doctor is hopping around, doing his TARDIS thing, but his gang’s all real serious. He asks Rory if everyone is cross with him, and Rory offers to go find out.

Underneath the console, River is explaining to Amy that they saw a future version of the Doctor die. Amy asks if that still happens then. Is the Doctor still going to die? River says they are all going to die. Rory points out that they aren’t all going to arrange their own wake and invite themselves. Fair. Rory wants to know why the Doctor invited them. To avenge him? River doesn’t think that seems like the Doctor’s style. Amy thinks it’s to save him, but River doesn’t think that jives with the Doctor either. Amy wants to tell the Doctor about everything, but River doesn’t think they can because blah blah cross your own timeline don’t think about it too much blah. The Doctor interrupts because he’s being extremely clever and there is no one to watch him. Once he’s gone again, Amy asks how River can be okay with all of this. River says that the Doctor’s death doesn’t frighten her, nor does her own. There is a worse day coming for her.

Dani: duhn duhn DUHHHHNNNNN

Mari: Upstairs again, the Doctor is babbling about how he cleverly found the date they need: April 8, 1969 in Washington, D.C. Amy asks why they aren’t landing then. The Doctor says they aren’t going. The Ponds are going home to make babies. (D: EXCUSE ME???!!!) River’s going back to prison. And he’s off on more adventures. When they all look at him like WTF, he tells them that he’s not going to just jump into a mysterious summons, especially when he can tell they are all lying to him about who summoned him. River asks him to trust them. He jumps up and says okay, well, he knows she’s someone from his future but who? She won’t answer. Who did she kill and why is she in prison? She won’t answer. So he’s like, “nah on the trust.”

Amy tells him to trust her. He has to do this and he can’t ask why. The Doctor asks if she’s being threatened. She says she isn’t, but he asks her to swear on something important. “Fish fingers and custard,” she offers. The Doctor smiles a bit and tells her okay. His life is in her hands. River thanks her and Amy pats her arm comfortingly.

Back at it, the Doctor wonders who Canton Everett Delaware III is.

1969. Bar. A young Canton drinks alone when two men tell him he’s being summoned by the President.

K: IT’S CROWLEY!!!!!!! Sorry. I’ve been rewatching Supernatural, so…

Dani: You really are a glutton for punishment, aren’t you?! Also, Crowley with an American accent is WEIRD.

Mari: I mostly know Mark Sheppard from a bit part on Firefly so… 

Anyway, we learn that Canton was kicked out of the FBI until one day, six weeks later, the President called him for a private meeting. The Doctor wonders who was President in 1969, which seems very out of character for him, but whatevs. It was Nixon. We see Nixon in the Oval Office, while Canton takes his phone call from a car. (D: did we really have car phones in 1969?) (M: Wikipedia says yes!) Nixon explains that this is a personal matter for which he needs someone with FBI training. Canton says he’s flattered, to which Nixon replies that he was the second choice. “That’s okay,” Canton offers. “You were my second choice for President, Mister Nixon.”

D: #NotMyPresident #HubertHumphrey4EVER

Mari: Dying.

We jump back to the TARDIS for a brief rundown of Nixon-era things like Vietnam and Watergate. River says there were some good things in there too. The Doctor thinks not enough, so River calls him a hippie. And he calls her an archaeologist.

Back in the Oval Office, Nixon explains that every day, no matter where he is, he gets a phone call, usually late at night. Canton asks if it’s a man or woman. Nixon says it’s neither. He plays a recording, but we cut away before we hear anything.

And on the TARDIS again. The Doctor is trying to make the TARDIS invisible and silent, but River has to go behind him and fix all his mistakes. The Doctor warns everyone to proceed caustiously as they are in the most powerful city on Earth in the most powerful country. He steps off the TARDIS and directly into the Oval Office. He listens, with Nixon and Canton, to the recording. The child says he’s afraid of the spaceman. Canton thinks it’s a little girl, but Nixon thinks boy because the child says their name is Jefferson Adams Hamilton and then hangs up before Nixon can say anything. It’s cute that Nixon is like “Jefferson Adams Hamilton. Seems like a totally real name from a child.”

K: Look, with the number of Hamilton fans in the world now, it wouldn’t surprise me if we get kids with names like that in the next year or so… (Although probably more like Lafayette Washington Hamilton. No one likes you, John Adams.) (M: Sit down John…)

Dani: If I come across a kid named Jefferson Adams Hamilton, I’ma have a serious talk with his parents. Like, srsly, did they even LISTEN to the show?!

Mari: Canton asks why the FBI can’t handle this. Nixon says that this call comes through wherever he is. How’s he supposed to know the FBI isn’t involved. Nixon turns around and spots the Doctor, standing behind him taking notes. The Doctor motions him to keep on, but then realizes that he’s just been caught in the President’s office. He tries to run off, but runs straight into the cloaked TARDIS. Secret Servicemen flood into the office and take the Doctor down, but then River makes the TARDIS visible again, so that distracts everyone for a bit.

We cut to the Doctor sitting in the President’s chair, feet propped up on the desk. The Secret service all still have guns trained on him. The Doctor says that he’ll take the case of the mysterious phone calls. Plus, he points out that he just got into the most highly guarded office in the US and parked his blue box on the rug. Do they really think they can just shoot him. River runs out of the TARDIS yelling, “they’re Americans!” and the Doctor puts his hands up and says, “don’t shoot!” It made me laugh.

D: Same. And then it made me sad.

Mari: Same. 

Nixon asks who the Doctor is and what that blue box is. The Doctor says he’s an agent on loan from Scotland Yard, codename The Doctor, and he’s here with his three operatives, The Legs, The Nose and Mrs. Robinson. River gives not her first “I hate you” of this episode.

Nixon asks again who he is, but the Doctor says that’s a boring question. The fun question is who is phoning Nixon, especially because Canton was right and it is a girl who can only be calling from one place in the world. The Doctor wants five minutes to explain, but if they lay a finger on him or his friends, they’ll never know. The head Secret Serviceman is v against them, but Canton thinks it’s worth a shot, since the Doctor snuck in here with an entire blue box. And if after five minutes, they get nothing, he offers to shoot the Doctor himself. The guns all go down and the Doctor asks for “a SWAT team, ready to mobilize. Street level maps covering all of Florida. A pot of coffee, twelve Jammie Dodgers and a fez.” Sounds like a party.

D: Ain’t no party like a Doctor party.

Mari: Later, the Doctor is looking over all his maps, saying Florida is where NASA is and it’s where spacemen live. Amy asks River if it could be the same spaceman. River says probably. At the door, Amy sees an alien in a suit. (D: This scared the bejeesus out of me!) It’s the same thing she saw at the lake. “I remember,” she whispers, but then Rory steps in front of her and snaps her out of it, and she again doesn’t remember saying what she said. Everyone asks her if she’s okay and she says she’s fine. Just feeling sick. Canton yells at one of the servicemen to take her to the bathroom. Nixon tells the Doctor his five minutes are up, and the Doctor asks where his fez is.

The guy sees Amy to the bathroom and in there, the alien is waiting. She remembers him from the lake and from a few minutes ago and remembers forgetting him. Why? A woman exits her stall and Amy tells her to be careful. She sees the alien and laughs it off, wondering if it’s some kind of Star Trek mask. Amy yells for her to back up, but when she turns to Amy, the woman forgets the alien completely. This happens another time, just so we really understand that you forget the alien as soon as you don’t look at him. The Obliviate Alien (D: A+) kills the woman with a bunch of energy and skittering, sucking noises I hate.

K: The sucking noises and the face it makes remind me of a Dementor. And not in a good way…

Mari: The woman bursts into a bunch of pieces. Amy takes a picture of Obliviate and asks why it killed the woman. “Joy,” it says. “Her name was Joy.” Obliviate tells Amy that she must tell the Doctor what he must know and what he must never know. It keeps getting closer, so Amy runs out of the bathroom. Once she’s out there, she forgets Obliviate. The serviceman asks if she’s okay. She says she is. She just has to tell the Doctor. And then she wonders at why she said that. The serviceman is clearly confused and just tells her to come along.

Back in the Oval Office, the phone rings, just in time for the Doctor to announce that he’s found the only place the girl could be calling from. Canton calls him a genius and Nixon picks up the phone. The little girl says the spaceman has found her. The Doctor jumps into action, saying there is not time for SWAT. He runs into the TARDIS, Canton following behind, and Nixon watches as the TARDIS dematerializes. He tells the girl that he’s sending his best people.

On the TARDIS, the Doctor says that Jefferson isn’t the kid’s name. Jefferson, Adams, and Hamilton are surnames of founding fathers. The Doctor throws in that two of them fancied him because of course (K: Hamilton was defs one of them, let’s be real). The President asked the girl who she was and where she was, and she was answering the second question. Meanwhile, Canton is freaked out by the whole bigger on the inside thing. They land, and the Doctor leaves Rory the task of helping Canton out while the rest of them run out into a dingy, cluttered office. The Doctor shows them that just out the window are the cross streets of Jefferson, Adams, and Hamilton, the only place in Florida and maybe the country where that happens. The Doctor tells River she’s got that face on, the “he’s hot when he’s clever” face. River says this is her normal face. “Yes, it is.” River laughingly tells him to shut up. It would’ve been more charming if there weren’t like 17 other references this episode about everyone wanting to bone the Doctor, or whatever.

K: I make it tolerable by picturing Raymond Holt yelling “bone”. It helps.

D: It actually was a really cute exchange, but you’re right – coming on the heels of so many other the-Doctor-is-soooo-hot moments it totally gets lost.

Mari: As they walk deeper into the warehouse, the Doctor points out that this is certainly a trap. River noticed that the phone was cut off, so how was the girl calling? Amy asks why anyone would try to trap them, and we see the spaceman watching from the shadows. They come across alien technology alongside contemporary Earth technology and a bunch of spacesuits. Rory and Canton join them, and Canton seems to be dealing. River is examining the gross, goopy alien tech. Amy approaches her hesitantly, but River already knows she’s thinking about killing the spaceman now so it won’t be around to kill the Doctor later. River says they can’t because blah blah blah selective paradoxes and only some time can be rewritten don’t worry about it blah. Amy is insisting, but River found something new: a creepy manhole cover. She pulls it away and scans it. It’s a network of tunnels with no signs of life. River goes down, and the Doctor tells her to be careful and to shout if she gets in trouble. She says not to worry because she’s quite the screamer. “Now there’s a spoiler for you…” Innuendo!

K: MAKE IT STOOOOOOOOOOOP *cries quietly*

Mari: In the tunnels, we see a bunch more of the Obliviate aliens.

River climbs out of the tunnel and immediately forgets the Obliviates. She yells that everything is all clear, but she’s going back down for a second look. The Doctor asks Rory if he minds going with her. He’s like, “uh, yeah.” The Doctor says he’ll appreciate it all the more, then. Rory calls unenthusiastically to River that he’s on his way.

D: Don’t do it, Rory!! You’re too young and wonderful to die!

Mari: Down in the tunnel, River is taking deep breaths. Rory asks if she’s okay and she says she just felt a little sick. They continue down the tunnel, and we see an Obliviate cross behind them. Further in, River’s scan reveals that the tunnels are really old. She comes across a locked door and gets to work on it even though Rory objects to the insensibility of it all. While she works, Rory asks about her earlier comment about her fate worse than death. River asks him to imagine what it’s like to live her backwards timeline with the Doctor.

“Think about that. An impressionable young girl and, suddenly this man just drops out of the sky and he’s clever and mad and wonderful, and knows every last thing about her. Imagine what that does to a girl.“

Um, it sounds like child grooming now, congratulations.

K: Having just completed mandatory child safety training for the seven thousandth time, NOTHING ABOUT THAT IS OKAY OH MY GOD.

Mari: Anyway, the point is that their timelines are backwards. She lives for the days that she sees him, but she knows she’s working toward a day when she looks into her Doctor’s eyes and he won’t know who she is. She thinks it’s going to kill her. So, like, she’s kind of afraid of her own death.

Inside the locked room, there is some sort of computer-pod thing. An alarm is triggered, and River tells Rory to see if anything is coming. He looks out and sees Obliviates, but when he turns around to tell River, he forgets and says nothing is out there. River checks out the computer-pods and says that these tunnels actually run under the surface of the entire planet (K: That… seems implausible?). The lights start flickering and River calls out Rory’s name.

Upstairs, Amy asks about Canton being kicked out of the FBI. He says he wanted to get married, which was apparently a crime. He asks Amy, “Doctor who?” but that’s classified. She talks about how she’s the Doctor’s friend, but she hasn’t seen him in a while. And she has something to tell him, but stuff always gets in the way.

Suddenly, the little girl starts calling for help. Canton draws his gun and runs off. Amy doubles over in pain and tells the Doctor she has to tell him something really important. The little girl keeps yelling, though, so the Doctor pulls Amy along with him. By the time they catch up with Canton, he’s been knocked out. As they kneel over his body, Amy says again that she has to tell him something right, right now: she’s pregnant.

Before they process that, the spaceman comes in. Amy sees it and spins around to grab Canton’s gun. She doesn’t see when the spaceman lifts his visor and reveals the little girl, crying for help. Amy turns and shoots, saying she’s going to save the Doctor’s life. She screams when she registers the little girl and the episode ends. It was a weird few seconds because they did it in slow motion.

Otherwise, though, I enjoyed most of it! I can imagine that this is the fast-paced, twisty-turny kind of episode that would’ve been like fresh air after a season break. We’re delving further into territory where I only very vaguely remember episodes and plot points. I remembered the iconic spaceman in the lake shot and the Silence, but not enough to have feelings about the start of these plots. I mean, besides all the ill-will against Moffat and Eleven we built up in season 5. Besides that.

D: There was a LOT less shouting-at-women in this episode, which is always a good thing. The pace felt good, and the aliens truly frightened me, so yeah – apart from those icky Doctor-as-sex-symbol bits I enjoyed this one, too!

K: Mostly I remember that I haaaaaaaaaaaaated season 6, because it featured a lot of Moffat being all “LOOK AT HOW CLEVER I AM” which is never my favourite thing…

Mari: Besides some groan-worthy moments here, there was also some humor and a lot of moving parts and legit suspense. I love the use of the more traditional looking alien against the creepiness of a spacesuit played off of each other in the space episode.

Let’s take all the positive we can, folks!

 

Next time on Doctor Who: The Doctor is in prison and the FBI are after the gang in S06 E02 – Day of the Moon.