Doctor Who S06 E02 – The writing on the wall.

Previously: The Doctor invited his friends to his death.
—

Day of the Moon

Marines: The previously ends on Amy shooting at the little girl spaceman and we cut straight to her running through The Valley of the Gods in Utah, pursued by men in Jeeps.

Kirsti: I hate to be That Person yet again, buuuut it’s meant to be 3 months later and yet Amy’s pregnancy appears to have not progressed at all?? I AM CONFUSED.

Dani: Must be one of those wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey types of pregnancies.

Mari: But also, honestly, first time pregnancies are wild and I know lots of women who don’t show until very late in their first pregnancies. They probably did not think about this, tbh, but it’s a thing. 

She’s soon cornered and Canton hops out of one of the Jeeps. The other agent with him pulls out a body bag and lays it out. Amy points out that it’s empty and Canton smirks. Amy asks if he even knows why he’s doing this. Does he even remember the warehouse? We get a grainy black and white flashback to that warehouse: the Doctor pulls Canton out of the room, Amy didn’t shoot the little girl spaceman, The Doctor yells at Canton to look behind him, an Obliviate creeps up behind Canton. Out of the flashback, we hear a gunshot and watch as Amy collapses. In close-up, we see her arms are covered with tally marks.

Area 51. The Doctor is chained up and in a straight jacket. He also has a really gnarly beard.

K: It’s an abomination.

Mari: I don’t disagree.

Canton tells the Doctor that they found Amy Pond. She had strange markings on her arm, and he wants to know why. The Doctor tells him to ask Amy himself, but then looks back down at the photo of Amy’s arm and seems to register that it’s a dead body kind of photo.

New York. River is in a skyscraper that appears to be under construction. Her arms are covered in tally marks as well. She finds two Obliviates and makes two more marks on her arms as she tells them, “I see you.” Suddenly, Canton, who surely gets around, is there. His agents chase River up against what would be a wall, but there is just a big hole behind her. River tries to tell Canton that the aliens are here, they are everywhere, but he just mocks her warnings of invasion. He tells her she’s got no way out now, but River says there’s always a way out. She jumps out of the conveniently large hole in the half-built wall.

    

K: Do you think she was wearing a ballgown in this scene just so that it would look super dramatic as she fell?

D: I sure hope so.

Mari: Knowing River, it’s likely.

Back at Area 51, Canton shares the news of River jumping out of a 50th floor window. The Doctor is focused on the people around him, laying stones that seal up instantly. He guesses they are “zero balance dwarf star alloy,” aka really dense stuff, meant to entrap him in the perfect prison. Canton smirks some more, but then the Doctor turns and warns that it still won’t be enough.

Glen Canyon Dam, Arizona. Rory is also covered in marks and is also cornered and is also shot by Canton.

Canton drags the body bags into the Doctor’s now completed prison. The Doctor asks why he’s doing this. Canton loudly and grandly announces that he wants the Doctor to know where he stands: in a perfect prison, through which nothing can penetrate. Canton uses his palm print to close the prison door, effectively sealing them all off from the rest of the universe. The Doctor tells him he did good work and quickly discards his chains. Amy and Rory both bust out of their body bags, complaining about the lack of air. Amy thinks it’s going to look odd that Canton just sealed himself up with the Doctor. Canton says it’s odd but not alarming, since everyone knows they can’t go anywhere. The Doctor leans up against the cloaked TARDIS and snaps his fingers to open the door. Canton asks what about River? She still really did jump out of a hole in a wall/window. The Doctor casually says that she does that. He asks Rory and Amy to open up the swimming pool.

We cut to River still falling, but then she twists into a dive, falls into the TARDIS’ open doors. We hear a big splash.

At the console, River shows up, drying her hair. The Doctor explains that they now know that these Obliviates are here in great number and have been here for a very long time. Nobody knows them because nobody can remember them. The good news is that they have a secret weapon. The TARDIS lands and out everyone goes to see that they’ve parked near the Kennedy Space Center. River is like, “Apollo 11 is your secret weapon?” The Doctor says that would be silly. Their secret weapon is Neil Armstrong’s foot. (K: Somehow Matt Smith’s beard has gotten worse?? PLEASE EXPLAIN)

We get that really weird recap before the DOO WEE OOH. Is this going to happen forever?

K: I really hope not…

D: Stupid Americans. Oh, wait… that’s me.

Mari: Graystark Hall Orphanage. Canton and Amy drive up while they listen to radio news about the upcoming moon landing. They each check their hands and see that there are no tally marks. Canton rubs a bit of a scar he has in the middle of his palm.

Back to the TARDIS and we watch the Doctor inject him in the middle of his palm with something. The Doctor’s beard is gone, praise be. He asks everyone what they’ve learned in three months. As everyone talks, the Doctor injects their palms. He pauses by Amy and asks if she’s okay. She says she’s “better.” She thought she was pregnant, but she isn’t. Rory comes over to see what they are whispering about, but she assures him it’s nothing. They get back to business and the long and short of it is that it’s real hard to find stuff about an alien you can’t remember. The Doctor says they’ve been around for as long as you’ve seen something out of the corner of you eye or heard creaking in your house or breathing under your bed. (OMG, people hear breathing under their bed? SEND HELP.) (K: NOOOOOOOOPE) (D: Welp, I didn’t before, but I can guarantee you I will now. Thanks a lot, Doctor!)

The Doctor tells them to keep one thing straight in their head: they aren’t fighting an alien invasion. They are leading a revolution starting now. Canton asks how and the Doctor turns and injects River’s palm. He finally explains what he’s doing, you know, after injecting everyone with some unknown things. It’s a nanorecorder that will basically record them no matter what, so they can describe the Obliviates as soon as they see them and play the message back later. If their hand is flashing, that means they’ve seen the alien.

Canton looks away, turns back, and adjusts the Doctor’s bow tie. Everyone stares at him. River tells him to look at his hand. He does, and the nanorecorder is flashing. (D: I don’t know if I used to be braver, or what, but this gave me chills.) The Doctor tells Canton to play the message and we hear him wonder how it got in here. Then the Doctor tells him to keep eye contact with the creature, then to turn around and straight his bowtie. After the message plays, Canton turns and sees an Obliviate on the TARDIS. The Doctor says it’s a hologram, taken from Amy’s phone pic. He turns the image off and asks them to describe it to him. They can’t, but neither can he. He does point out that Canton straightened his bowtie because he made the suggestion while they were all looking at the Obliviate. So, the Obliviates could be using post-hypnotic suggestion to get people to do things for them.

The Doctor switches subjects to the little girl spaceman. They know where the aliens got the spacesuit from, but where did they get the little girl from? He tells them to find the girl, as he’s off to NASA, and suggests they look at nearby children’s homes.

Back to Graystark Hall Orphanage. A man answers Canton’s knock, a Dr. Renfrew, and seems hesitant to let Canton and Amy in, even after they tell him they are here about a missing child. Dr. Renfrew leads them inside and apologizes for the writing on the wall. It keeps happening, even though he cleans it every time. On the wall, in red paint (hopefully) someone has written GET OUT. LEAVE NOW. Amy asks if the children are doing that. Dr. Renfrew unconvincingly says it is the children, but we see that on his own wrist, he’s written GET OUT.

K: Okay, this is getting legit creepy. I think it’s partly because the house and the writing on the walls is giving me flashbacks to “Blink”…

D: I’m just glad someone else said it was creepy. 

Mari: 100%.

Dr. Renfrew leads them to his office. Canton admits that they almost didn’t come here because Graystark was supposed to have closed in 1967. Dr. Renfrew says that’s the plan. Canton points out that it’s like actually 1969, but this only further confuses Renfrew. Despite the creepy writing all over the wall and the lightning storm to boot, Canton and Amy split up. She wanders off on her own and finds an abandoned room full of little kids’ cots. Amy calls the Doctor to tell him that they’ve probably found the right place, on account of it being creepy and empty. The Doctor tells her to get what she can but not to hang around too long. Amy asks where he is. We see him working on a bunch of wires before he says he’s got to go. We pull out from the shot as he tells two scientists that he put everything back like he found it, except for the bit of wire in his hand. We pull back further to confirm he’s on the rocket.

Orphanage. The door slams shut behind Amy. She tries to open it but then notices the recorder in her hand, blinking. (K: Noooope) She plays it and hears herself say that they are here, but they appear to be sleeping. She tells herself to just get out. She can’t get the door to budge, so she runs to the window. As she tries to open it, we see that her hands are covered in tally marks. A lightning strike lights up her face and it’s covered, too. She turns around and looks up. There is a cluster of them hanging upside down from the ceiling (K: Oblivibats?). Amy tries to carefully make her way across the room, but she bangs into something. The Obliviates seem to come to. Amy lifts her hand to record a note, but the door in front of her suddenly opens. She walks out and forgets about what she saw. A full grown Obliviate is behind her, watching.

Dani: Having people forget what they saw the instant they turn away (and act all calm when the scary alien is RIGHT BEHIND THEM) definitely amps up the creepy factor. This is one of my favorite things about New Doctor – terrifying and inventive new aliens like Weeping Angels and the Silence.

Mari: Two scientists are questioning the Doctor, who insists that he’s doing secret work for the President. One of the men snarks that maybe he could call the President then. Nixon walks in with River and Rory dressed era-appropriate behind him. Nixon gets chummy with the scientists, thanks them for all their hard work, and then asks if maybe they could let the Doctor go, because he is actually doing secret stuff. They are reluctant, but eventually do listen to the President and let the Doctor go.

K: I actually giggled when they tell Nixon that the Doctor broke into Apollo 11 and the Doctor looks awkward and mouths “sorry…” at Nixon.

Mari: Rory breaks something on the way out and awkwardly salutes the men.

Orphanage. Canton asks Renfrew what he’s still doing here so many years after the place has been closed. Renfrew says that the child must be cared for. That’s what they said. Canton asks who said that, but we cut away.

Amy is still walking through the creepy orphanage. She comes up to a metal door with a small hatch. A woman with an eyepatch opens the hatch, then turns away and tells someone off screen that she must be dreaming. Amy opens the door, but then notices that it doesn’t actually have a hatch. It’s another empty child’s room. There is a collection of photos and one of them is of Amy with a baby. The little girl spaceman enters the room. Amy demands to know who she is, apologizing for shooting her, but kind of not because she is going to kill the Doctor. The little girl asks for help and then two Obliviates enter the room. Amy screams as the door shuts.

K: Legit, girl.

Dani: This is what you get when you ignore the writing on the wall. (Especially when that writing literally says GET OUT and LEAVE NOW.)

Mari: A+.

Downstairs, Dr. Renfrew opens the door and tells whoever is on the other side, clearly an Obliviate, that it’s “just some questions.” Canton asks who the eff is there, but he only has to wait a moment to find out, as the Obliviate itself walks in. Canton activates his recorder and asks the Obliviate who it is and what its super secret plans are, because he won’t remember, see, and they can totally reveal them. Canton asks if the alien is armed and it replies to that: This world is ours. We have ruled it since the wheel and the fire. We have no need of weapons. Canton shoots the Obvliate promptly with a “welcome to America,” and runs off after Amy.

I need a break to be so sad that people see Americans as running around all GUNS GUNS GUNNY GUNS!

🙁

K: I mean… The first time I went to the US by myself and was staying with a friend and her family, a bunch of her brother’s friends burst into the house waving guns around and I legitimately thought I was going to be murdered. Turned out they were just really excited about the new guns they’d bought. So. (Also, I kind of feel like they made Canton all “WHEE GUNS” to very clearly differentiate him from Crowley, because he’d already been on Supernatural for two years by this point and Crowley is kind of the complete opposite to Canton…)

D: Yeah, but the first time we meet Crowley it’s because he has the Colt, so … old habits die hard?

Also, I am very sorry (yet unsurprised) that that was your first solo experience of the US. There were always guns in the house when I was growing up. My dad has a gun safe the size of my closet, and my sister travels with one in her car. IT’S INSANE. 

Mari: If I know anyone who has a gun, I don’t know about it. The differences in experience are wild in a country as big as the US, though there is no escaping the huge, like, gun problem the U.S. has. And so, here we are.

The Doctor returns Nixon to the White House in the TARDIS. He tells Nixon to tape everything that happens in the office, or else he won’t know when he’s under alien influence. I’m sure Nixon recording a bunch of things will not get him into trouble AT ALL.

Nixon wants more information on what’s happening and what the Doctor did to Apollo 11,  but the Doctor won’t share. He tells Nixon to trust him and nobody else. River pops out of the TARDIS and says that Canton needs them NOW.

Orphanage. We hear Amy yelling for help because she can’t see. Canton finds the bedroom door and tells Amy to stand clear so he can shoot it open. The Doctor arrives and tells Canton to put his gun gun gunny gun away, because he’s got this. He sonics his way into the room and we pan back to see the little girl, now sans spacesuit, is hiding in the hallway.

Inside the bedroom, the now empty spacesuit is on the floor. Amy isn’t in the room. They are hearing her through her recorder, which was dug out of her hand and left on the floor. We hear Amy saying that it’s dark and she doesn’t know where she is. River asks if they are listening to a recording. The Doctor says the recorder has defaulted to a live-stream. (K: HOW???) (D: It’s Doctor Who magic – don’t question it, K.) Rory speaks into the recorder and tells Amy that they are coming for her. The Doctor says Amy can’t hear him. Rory very intensely says that Amy can always hear him, no matter where she is. And she always know that he will come for her.

    

On cue, Amy says, “Doctor, are you out there? Can you hear me? Doctor? Oh, God. Please, please, Doctor, just get me out of this.”

WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY.

Like, WHY.

The Doctor looks at Rory with awkward face, but he just tells Amy that he’ll bring the Doctor to her.

K: POOR RORY 🙁

D: Amy does not deserve Rory. As much as I dislike the Doctor-companion relationship thing, I’m starting to think she deserves Mr. Shoutypants.

Mari: As long as they stop doing this which one??? misleading junk, I don’t actually care, though I do agree that Rory is the best.

Dr. Renfrew wanders in and says someone’s been shot. But then he forgets what he was talking about. They all run downstairs and the Doctor approaches the shot Obliviate. He asks them what they are and it finally answers: they are the Silence and Silence will fall. I guess I have to stop calling them Obliviates now. RIP nickname. We get a flashback to a ton of references to the Silence from last season.

Area 51. The doors to the perfect prison open and Canton wanders out. All the guard soldiers draw their guns immediately. Canton asks to speak to Colonel Jefferson immediately. The soldiers are like “no, man” but then President Nixon exits the perfect prison.

K: Every time Nixon appears, Hail to the Chief plays and it’s REALLY jarring.

Dani: It’s for the American viewers, who would otherwise be going, “Hang on, who’s this guy, again?”

Mari: They all lower their guns and salute. Nixon greets them and starts to schmooze them, too.

A TV in the warehouse plays coverage of the Apollo 11 launch. River and the Doctor are examining the spacesuit, which isn’t just a spacesuit, but an exoskeleton with life support and about 20 kinds of alien tech built in. With the suit on, you don’t need to eat, and it’s got built-in weaponry and a communications system, defaulted to call the highest authority, which explains why the scared little girl was calling the President. Distracted for a moment, the Doctor licks his invitation envelope. River tells him he won’t learn anything from it. The Doctor is salty about being “summoned by a stranger who won’t even show his face.” He says that’s a first for him. River doesn’t answer in kind, but reminds him that they are living their lives in reverse.

The Doctor switches back to the matter at hand and pointedly says that the only way to save Amy is to figure out what the Silence are doing. River says that the little girl is human, based on the life support in the suit, but she also forced herself out so she’s incredibly strong. River says they need to find her. The Doctor thinks she’ll find them.

The TV shows the countdown to blastoff and the Doctor gets thinky face when River asks why the Silence used a spacesuit. The Doctor says that they are super parasites who only use other people to make things. If they’ve been around for thousands of years, influencing human behavior, why did humans suddenly decide to go to the moon?

On TV: Apollo 11 goes blastoff.

Perfect Prison. A doctor is attending to Shot Silence’s wounds. He’s freaking out about it pretty thoroughly, but then turns to leave and forgets about it completely. Shot Silence asks Canton why they are tending to his wounds. Canton asks what the Silence would do in his position and pulls out Amy’s phone to record, (K: Can we talk about the fact that this was shot in 2011, which was basically 5 minutes ago, and yet her phone has the video capacity of a potato?) (D: Humans are amazing!! (When we’re not being horrible.)) Shot Silence says that the humans should kill them on sight, seeing as how they’ve been ruling their lives since their lives began. Canton says thank you for that Evil Speech because he got it on videophone, even though he doesn’t know what a videophone is.

Canton sends the video to the Doctor who watches. Rory listens to Amy sobbing through the recorder. River watches as the spacesuit starts moving on its own. She asks the Doctor if the suit could move on its own because the little girl said the spaceman was coming to eat her. River thinks that’s exactly what happened and now the spacesuit is repairing itself.

As Rory listens, Amy gives this speech:

I love you. I know you think it’s him. I know you think it ought to be him, but it’s not. It’s you. And when I see you again, I’m going to tell you properly, just to see your stupid face. My life was so boring before you just dropped out of the sky. So just get your stupid face where I can see it, okay? Okay? 

It’s vague enough that it could still be Rory, right but again I ask: WHYYYYYYYYYYYY. WHO THOUGHT THIS WOULD BE WHAT THE PEOPLE WANTED? Why are we STILL playing this Rory or the Doctor game?

K: SRSLY. MAKE IT STOOOOOOOOOOP.

D: It was vague until the “just dropped out of the sky” bit. Are we srsly supposed to think that could refer to either of them? UGH! I have run out of words to express how very much I hate this.

Mari: The Doctor tells Rory that Amy will be safe because there’s no point in a dead hostage. (D: Okay, but there’s a very big difference between “safe” and “technically not dead”). The Doctor admits that he could track the signal and find her right now, but then what? This isn’t an alien invasion. The Silence live here. This is their empire. This is kicking the Romans out of Rome. Rory reminds the Doctor that the Roman Empire fell. The Doctor knows. He was there. Rory reminds the Doctor he was there, too. The Doctor asks Rory if he remembers all that, the 2,000 years he waited for Amy. Rory says no, but the Doctor knows he’s lying. Rory says he doesn’t remember it all the time. It’s like a door in his head he can keep shut. Amy sobs some more for someone to come get her.

We cut to five days later as Apollo 11 makes it to the surface of the moon.

Amy is strapped to an alien chair in the computer/pod room, though this might be on a spaceship? IDK. A Speaking Silence tells Amy that she should be honored because she will bring about the silence and then her part in all this will be over. Amy tells them to just wait and see what’s coming for them, but she’s forgotten that she’s been here for days. The Speaking Silence starts yelling at Amy to sleep (SLEEP! SLEEEEP!!!) but lucky for her, the TARDIS materializes. The Doctor opens the door, calls the set-up very “Aikman Road,” and mentions that he’s seen an abandoned room like this before. He tells Rory and River to keep one eye on a Silence at all times. He’s also got a TV in his hands (it seems like it appears there after a cut, but I may be wrong…) ’cause he wants to show the Silence something. He’s doing his threatening/rambling Doctor thing as “I Am the Doctor” plays. The Doctor points out that River’s got a gun and is very okay with using it. This sends them into some flirting.

Amy is like HELLO? Saving me trumps flirting right now. Rory makes it to Amy and starts trying to break her free of the alien chair. The Doctor keeps speeching about whether or not he’ll be forgiving. He asks about the little girl and why she’s important, but the Speaking Silence won’t answer. The Doctor turns on the TV and asks the Silence if they are proud of helping humans get here. Half a billion people are watching the live feed right now, which is kind of nothing because billions and billions of more humans will spread out amongst the stars for billions and billions of years. And all of them (seems like a stretch) will look back on this man taking the first step and they will never forget it.

K: It already seems like a bit of a stretch, given that when Neil Armstrong died, a fuckton of people were like “SO SAD, HE WAS SUCH A GREAT CYCLIST!” and it had to be pointed out to them that Neil Armstrong and Lance Armstrong were not, in fact, the same person. 

D: I rescind my “humans are amazing” comment of earlier.

Mari: It was bound to happen.

We watch the TV for a bit and the Doctor calls Canton and gives him the signal. Canton puts the videophone up against one of the Doctor’s satellite phones and it calls up to Apollo 11. On TV, Neil Armstrong says that’s one small step for man and then the feed cuts over to Shot Silence telling everyone to kill them on sight. We get several shots of people watching this and then blinking really hard so we understand they are receiving posthypnotic suggestion. The Doctor further explains that the Silence have just given their own execution order. More shots of people seeing Silence out and about and moving on them threateningly.

The Doctor asks the Silence how fast they can run because today is the day humans throw them off the planet. He shouts, “run!” but then clarifies that he means for his gang to run as the Silence are generating their energy bolts.

K: I still maintain that their sucky-face thing is totally ripped off from the Dementors.

D: They definitely remind me of PoA-era Dementors, which I really liked. But I hate how the design of the Dementors changed in later films. 

Mari: River stats shooting. Rory can’t get Amy out of the chair, but she tells him to just leave her. He won’t, but she insists that he just take his stupid face out of there. Rory is stunned and stares at her as they share a moment because it’s his stupid face that she loves! What a reveal! Again! Much touching.

K: I actually aww-ed. Like, audibly. 

D: You feeling okay, Kirsti???

Mari: The Doctor sonics Amy free and Rory helps her into the TARDIS. River and the Doctor stand back to back as she shoots ,and he uses his sonic screwdriver to do… something. He says he’s helping. River tells him to go build a cabinet and leave her to it. The Doctor runs inside the TARDIS to power her up and River spins around and basically takes out every single last Silence. Rory walks out and sees the carnage.

Rory asks what kind of doctor River is anyway. “Archaeology,” she says while shooting one final Silence without turning back. “Love a tomb.“

K: I am notoriously not a fan of River Song, but this moment is pretty fucking badass and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

D: It’s glorious.

Mari: Inside the TARDIS, River helps the Doctor fly the TARDIS. Amy asks Rory wtf is wrong with him, so he tells her about the stupid face thing. Amy notices he’s holding her recorder. Rory admits that he wasn’t sure if she was talking about him or the Doctor, mostly because of the “fell out of the sky” bit. (D: SEE?!?!?!?) Amy tells him it’s a figure of speech and kisses him.

Oval Office. Nixon asks if they are safe now and the Doctor is like “lol, no. But sure. But no.” The Doctor says goodbye to Canton and tells Nixon he just wants to get married, which is a bad reason to be kicked out of the FBI. Nixon promises to figure something out. Nixon wants to know if he’ll be remembered and the Doctor smirks and says he’ll never be forgotten. Nixon and Canton watch as the Doctor runs into the TARDIS and it dematerializes. Nixon asks if this person Canton wants to marry is black. Canton says yes. Nixon seems to be okay with that but then Canton finishes “he is.” Nixon says maybe the moon is far enough for right now. Canton figured it would be.

Stormcage. The Doctor is saying goodbye to River at her cell. He tells her that she could just come with them. River says she escapes often enough and she has a promise to fulfill. The Doctor is like “okay, cool, bye” but River pulls him in for a kiss. He is very awkward about it. River laughs and says he’s acting like they’ve never done that before. He says they haven’t. But it was nice. And there is a first time for everything. He heads back into the TARDIS as River sadly says that there is also a last time.

On the TARDIS, the Doctor sends Rory to go get something. He asks Amy if she’s okay. She says her head is a bit weird and she has flashes back to finding that picture of her and a baby and the little girl in the spacesuit and the Silence. The Doctor tells her it’s an aftereffect of the Silence, but that wasn’t really what he was asking about. She said she was pregnant. Why? Amy says she thought she was. The Doctor means why did she tell him. Amy says he’s her best friend. She didn’t tell Rory because she’s been traveling on the TARDIS for so long, she was scared that it would have an effect on her pregnancy. She didn’t want to tell Rory their baby might have a “time head.” The Doctor is like wtf is a time head. She doesn’t know, but her baby could’ve had one.

K: This just reminds me of the bit in Order of the Phoenix where one of the Deatheaters gets his head stuck in a jar that’s full of time and his head gets turned into a baby’s head and he’s got an adult sized body and a baby’s head and ARGH THAT ALWAYS TERRIFIED ME so no thank you, no time heads allowed.

D: I lol’d when I watched this bit in the episode, but now that you’ve mentioned this I am terrified of time heads, too. Thanks, K.

Mair: This whole time, Rory is listening in via recorder. Amy calls out to him, though, and he has to walk back out holding the recorder and admit he was listening in.

    

Amy tells him she’s going to definitely take that away. Rory says she should’ve told him about the pregnancy because he’s a nurse and good at pregnancy. They hug and laugh and make up.

The Doctor jumps back to the console and says this all revolves around that little girl or they could forget about it and go have adventures because you only live once. Amy looks at him sadly. Maybe she shouldn’t though because he’s in the process of using the TARDIS scanner to determine if she’s actually pregnant, like the non-boundary having creeper he can sometimes be.

Dani: Or he’s just visited Earth often enough to know women have no agency over their own bodies when it comes to pregnancy.

Mari: Wow, we’ve just been murdering fun all over this post. I like it.

New York, six months later. A man is in an alley going through garbage. The little girl comes out of the shadows, coughing. The man asks if she’s okay. She says she’s actually dying, but it’s okay, because she can fix that. And then we watch her regenerate.

Okay, so I remember enough apparently that I know exactly where that little girl story line is going. I’m trying to think if foreknowledge is coloring my take on it but it seems pretty aggressively telegraphed here, right? (D: I had no clue. But then I’m not as #good@TV as the other Snark Ladies). Still, I can only imagine that on first watch, that moment at the end where the little girl regenerates is AWESOME.

Despite the quibbles with some of the Rory v. Doctor stuff, I actually enjoyed this episode as well. Part of the reason I recapped two in a row is because I was just in the mood to keep watching, which I thought I might capitalize on since we had such a rough go of the end of season 5. I think the Silence are creepy and rather like the idea that they are forgotten as soon as they are seen. It’s sort of an opposite Weeping Angels, and they are also some of my favorite baddies. I also thought that the Doctor’s 11th hour solution was more clever than groan-worthy in this episode? The video, the posthypnotic suggestion and the payoff of all the space and moon stuff.

Probably especially, this episode sets up so many more questions before we’ve had the chance for disappointment. (Mainly, I can’t remember how I feel about S6 as a whole and so none of these season set-up things are negatively tainted for me.) We still have questions to answer about the little girl and about the Doctor’s death. While I think the first part did a slightly better job than this conclusion, this was a pretty well-paced and exciting start to a season.

K: I remember eyerolling a lot over season 6 because it’s SO Moffat-y and so much of it relies on reset buttons or LOOK HOW CLEVER I AM. But I was surprised to find that I actually quite enjoyed this episode. It was tense, it was creepy, and the ending was pretty damned great. I remember not liking the Silence the first time I watched this season, but I’m not hating them thus far. (WHO EVEN AM I??) All in all, this was a satisfying end to a two-parter. 

Dani: It was an excellent beginning to the season! Dare I hope this trend continues?

 

Next time on Doctor Who: A pirate ship and a killer mermaid in S06 E03 – The Curse of the Black Spot.