New Who Review : Day On The Moon
Posted By Kathleen David on May 2, 2011
But first a side note. I was working at Del Rey in the Bertlesman Building in Time Square when the Twin Towers were hit. A lot had changed since then. The news about the death of Bin Laden is significant for many reasons. Some of them, for me, are deeply personal. I am still processing what happened but I think I heard the collective letting out of breath by many here in the US. This won’t solve the problems of the world but it might give us and those effected by the events on that day some sense of peace that we haven’t felt in a very long time
I am grateful to everyone who worked so hard on this problem.
Now onto the Review. As always there will be spoilers behind the cut and in the comment section. And I reiterate that the current discussion is only for everything up to and including this episode.
I will say that the episode moved very fast and it did end with more questions than answers. The solution to the problem was rather elegant. And it reminded us that the Doctor tends to play the long game over the short win. The Doctor playing with history or being put into historical events can be a fun story which this was.
I am not dissatisfied with the conclusion because I know that Moffat is playing the long game. But there were a couple of things that I just said “Real?” in my best Heinz Doofenshmirtz impression.
Overall I was pretty happy with these two episodes and am looking forward to next weeks, which looks like Dr. Who vs. the Pirates of the Caribbean.
This is a prime example of the Doctor working long term on a plan to defeat an alien menace. The plan was conceived and executed like clockwork and once they let you in on what they are doing, it all makes sense.
And of course there was some of pipe-work laid last season to get to this point or Moffat noticed that he was repeating himself. I’m going to go with he knew what he was doing.
I think Amy’s pregnancy is a potential rather than a fact that this point. There is some time factor that is either going to cement it or kill it depending on what they are doing. Just because we have a regenerating little girl at the end of the story doesn’t mean it is either the Doctor’s or Amy’s nor is this positive proof that River is of time lord lineage. Remember Moffat tends to play the long game.
I am going to miss Delaware.
Unless I’m mistaken, the little girl was the girl in the space suit, and her regeneration scene took place a mere six months after the events of the story. So she can’t be a child of any of the protagonists.
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Unless Steven Moffat decides to have some sort of timey-wimey storyline, and he’d never do that.
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Actually, I think we should expect the unexpected, so I’m going to guess that she’s one of the Sisterhood of Karn. They weren’t Time Lords themselves, but they were familiar with regeneration. Their elixir could help it along. Maybe they decided to start regenerating themselves. To the best of my recollection, the sisterhood hasn’t been mentioned since “Brain of Morbius”, so a reference to them, however oblique, would probably be unexpected.
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Less likely, she’s Jenny, the Doctor’s daughter.
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But it’ll probably turn out that she’s an ordinary girl who was subjected to experiments by the Silence and/or the Doctor at some point in his personal future. Why would the Doctor experiment on her? The most likely reason would be to “fulfill destiny.” she was in the astronaut suit, therefore he must be certain that events occur to put her in the suit.
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Mind you, I don’t believe the Doctor will have/did have any direct role in the girl (if she is (or was) an ordinary human) apparently having the ability to regenerate, but if he did/does, it would be because he felt he had no choice.
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Such a scenario might explain the Doctor’s seeming acceptance of what happens in the scene on the beach in the previous episode, especially if he feels he “deserved” it.
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Rick
Spoilers only if I am right.
I think they are trying to subtly (or not so subtly) hint that the mystery girl *is* Amy Pond’s daughter. Now, whether that is a red herring or not is a separate issue entirely.
One problem I am having is with the whole River/Doctor wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey relationship. For the most part, I love it. However, they seem to be trying to do a weird Benjamin Buttons kind of thing. They almost seem to be treating it like it is in reverse order. River’s reaction to the Doctor’s reaction to being kissed made it seem like River knew it would be the last time she kissed him. (Or maybe I’m reading too much into it).
It should be a much more random kind of order. Neither shuold really know at what point they are at.
Just a theory for now, but what if the pseudo-Tardii and the regenerating girl are someones attempts to re-create the Time Lords?
One interesting thing from the Doctor Who Confidential for the episode is that it was revealed that the ship we saw in The Lodger was one from The Silence. If you compare it with what we saw in these episodes you’ll see the resemblance.
I also wish that the River/Doctor time sequence was in a more random order. This being his first kiss made her think that indeed it was her last one. The one thing in the meeting time order that has not yet been explained is when does River get the sonic screwdriver she used in Silence in the Library? The options I see are 1) Matt Smith’s Doctor gives it to her earlier in her timeline and tells her to hold onto it until some future date [this doesn’t seem very likely to me]; 2) Matt Smith’s Doctor gives it to her later in her timeline [meaning that the order of their encounters is not entirely reversed]; or 3) David Tenant’s Doctor gave it to her on his farewell visits and we just didn’t see it. I prefer option #2, but I guess we should find out one way or another.