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shadowkatRe-watching last night's Doctor Who before skipping off to church. Last night's Doctor Who
entitled "Day of the New Moon" had an ending that was a game-changer. It also did something I didn't think they'd have the guts to ever do, in fact I remember having discussions about on lj prior to Matt Smith being announced as the new Doctor Who.
Moffat is clearly a gutsy writer, who is willing to take risks and shake up a mythology. This whole episode discusses the inability to handle change, how we are ingrained and programmed to do certain things, and ignore others - without even knowing it. It is a rather brilliant piece of writing to analyze. Unlike Vamp Diaries, Supernatural or some of Whedon's more recent fare, when you start doing the analysis...you don't find yourself slapping your head against the increasingly misogynistic and sexist views that have been ingrained in us over time. To the point that you wonder if the writer is even aware of them and think, damn, I really wish I hadn't analyzed that. True sci-fi is a different trope.
I have no time to do it now. So this is a place keeper of sorts. I will most likely analyze in more depth at a later point. It's an episode you sort of want to percolate inside your brain for a bit.
At the very end of the episode...we find out several things, Amy Pound is pregnant. The child has most likely been affected by her and Rory's travels through time. Both parents have been wandering about in the Tardis and living outside their own timelines or space-time continuum, cheating death and time much like The Doctor. Amy wonders if this would affect her child. She denies she's pregnant or is uncertain. We're also told that her child has been taken at some point by The Silence and put in the orphanage. And it is strongly indicated that Amy's child kills Doctor Who.
That her child is the one inside the space-suit at the beginning of the Impossible Astronaut, and it is her child that we see escaping from the nightmarish prison of Graystoke Manor...the orphanage.
Then...the big reveal, the child we see, that Amy had shot and potentially killed, is regenerating just like the Doctor does. She is clearly like him, a Time-Lord.
This brings up a lot of questions:
1. Will she become Doctor River Song? It does fit, River has red hair like Amy and does bear a family resemblance to both Amy and Rory (it would also be highly ironic and explain why River can't say certain things).
2. Is Doctor River Song a Time Lord like Doctor Who?
3. Did Doctor River Song kill the Doctor and is this why she is in prison? Serving time?
4. What are the two things the Silence told Amy she had to tell the Doctor, the one that he should know, and the one that he must never know? Is it that she is pregnant and it is her child that will kill him?
5. Does this mean the Doctor dies in the future looking like Matt Smith (can't see that working since that cuts off the series with Smith...there has to be a loop hole).
Bits I loved?
* The incredibly creepy exploration of the orphanage by Amy and Canton. Particularly that odd bit - where a woman opens the viewing slot in the door that feels like a prison cell and says no one there, you must have dreamed it. Explanation - space-time disturbance.
*River and the Doctor's kiss at the end.
*River taking out all 7 of the silence and her quip to Rory's question, "What kind of Doctor are You?" "Archealogy, always love a good tomb."
*The child regenerating at the end - which made my jaw literally drop.
*Canton telling the President that his significant other was black and male.
*Doctor Who's assurance to Tricky Dicky that he will never be forgotten.
Okay off. May do a more lengthy review/meta later.
entitled "Day of the New Moon" had an ending that was a game-changer. It also did something I didn't think they'd have the guts to ever do, in fact I remember having discussions about on lj prior to Matt Smith being announced as the new Doctor Who.
Moffat is clearly a gutsy writer, who is willing to take risks and shake up a mythology. This whole episode discusses the inability to handle change, how we are ingrained and programmed to do certain things, and ignore others - without even knowing it. It is a rather brilliant piece of writing to analyze. Unlike Vamp Diaries, Supernatural or some of Whedon's more recent fare, when you start doing the analysis...you don't find yourself slapping your head against the increasingly misogynistic and sexist views that have been ingrained in us over time. To the point that you wonder if the writer is even aware of them and think, damn, I really wish I hadn't analyzed that. True sci-fi is a different trope.
I have no time to do it now. So this is a place keeper of sorts. I will most likely analyze in more depth at a later point. It's an episode you sort of want to percolate inside your brain for a bit.
At the very end of the episode...we find out several things, Amy Pound is pregnant. The child has most likely been affected by her and Rory's travels through time. Both parents have been wandering about in the Tardis and living outside their own timelines or space-time continuum, cheating death and time much like The Doctor. Amy wonders if this would affect her child. She denies she's pregnant or is uncertain. We're also told that her child has been taken at some point by The Silence and put in the orphanage. And it is strongly indicated that Amy's child kills Doctor Who.
That her child is the one inside the space-suit at the beginning of the Impossible Astronaut, and it is her child that we see escaping from the nightmarish prison of Graystoke Manor...the orphanage.
Then...the big reveal, the child we see, that Amy had shot and potentially killed, is regenerating just like the Doctor does. She is clearly like him, a Time-Lord.
This brings up a lot of questions:
1. Will she become Doctor River Song? It does fit, River has red hair like Amy and does bear a family resemblance to both Amy and Rory (it would also be highly ironic and explain why River can't say certain things).
2. Is Doctor River Song a Time Lord like Doctor Who?
3. Did Doctor River Song kill the Doctor and is this why she is in prison? Serving time?
4. What are the two things the Silence told Amy she had to tell the Doctor, the one that he should know, and the one that he must never know? Is it that she is pregnant and it is her child that will kill him?
5. Does this mean the Doctor dies in the future looking like Matt Smith (can't see that working since that cuts off the series with Smith...there has to be a loop hole).
Bits I loved?
* The incredibly creepy exploration of the orphanage by Amy and Canton. Particularly that odd bit - where a woman opens the viewing slot in the door that feels like a prison cell and says no one there, you must have dreamed it. Explanation - space-time disturbance.
*River and the Doctor's kiss at the end.
*River taking out all 7 of the silence and her quip to Rory's question, "What kind of Doctor are You?" "Archealogy, always love a good tomb."
*The child regenerating at the end - which made my jaw literally drop.
*Canton telling the President that his significant other was black and male.
*Doctor Who's assurance to Tricky Dicky that he will never be forgotten.
Okay off. May do a more lengthy review/meta later.
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no subject
Date: 2011-05-01 03:01 pm (UTC)Yeah, I'm betting that there's a twist to that. But the whole thing sets up a great mystery. ::rubs hands together::
no subject
Date: 2011-05-02 01:02 am (UTC)there's lots of twists and turns.
no subject
Date: 2011-05-01 03:21 pm (UTC)I think that you are right that #1 & 2 are implied or suggested... it is certainly what I was guessing.
#3 (River Song shot the Doctor and was imprisoned for it) weren't we told that last season?
And #4 & 5: I'm guessing that a couple more episodes will unfold more information this season, and then the season finale will deal with all this (either 'fix it' or seriously change the game).
It is definitely the beginning of a great season!
no subject
Date: 2011-05-02 01:03 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-05-02 02:39 am (UTC)I don't pretend to understand it all, I just think it is going to stay complicated and inexplicable for the entire season (to be resolved in the finale... if we're lucky).
no subject
Date: 2011-05-01 06:23 pm (UTC)Well it's implied. But we don't know. It could be another case like the Master, when he ran from the Time War:
YANA: An orphan in the storm. I was a naked child found on the coast of the Silver Devastation. Abandoned with only this. (He holds up the fobwatch)
The child could be Amy's. But all we've seen is a picture of her holding a baby. Could be someone else's baby. Even her pregnancy is uncertain.
2. Is Doctor River Song a Time Lord like Doctor Who?
Could be. But if so, she's hiding it, or he'd have sensed it immediately.
3. Did Doctor River Song kill the Doctor and is this why she is in prison? Serving time?
It is possible that it is her in the spacesuit, but this murder can't be the reason she gets locked up, since she's already in prison and she doesn't have a clue what's happening as she watches. (And I'm pretty sure that she knows why she's in prison...) Plus, how on earth would authorities in the 52nd Century bring her to justice? How would they know it was her, or what happened? Whoever she gets sent to prison for killing, it's *not* the Doctor. But it still could be future!River killing him. Or a past!River, who then gets mindwiped or something.
Really, there are too many unknowns for me to really speculate...
It is a rather brilliant piece of writing to analyze.
Oh it is, it so is. The sheer number of layers is amazing. The thing I keep coming back to (esp when everything is very head-bend-y, like now when we don't know what's going on at all) is to trust the metaphors. The story will follow, and fall into place.