Doctor Who Discussion: “The Impossible Astronaut”

We’ll likely be reviewing the season as a whole once again. Meanwhile, people may want to discuss the season premiere, in which the Doctor comes to America, dies, invites companions old and new to help him out, meets Richard Nixon, traces a call, and discovers a fairly creepy mystery.

It’s a good start– but Matt Smith’s Doctor still strikes me as a little thick.

11 replies on “Doctor Who Discussion: “The Impossible Astronaut””

    • I think it’s either River, the girl, Amy, or the Doctor himself. That’s in order of my opinion of likelihood.

      All in all it was a fantastic mind blowing episode. I do think the beginning of the episode will end up being undone. As a fan I don’t want that to be a “fixed point in time.”

      • As River said, she met the doctor when she was a child, and they’re travelling opposite directions in time. So it seems likely that the child in the suit is River. Triple bonus mindfuck points if River is Amy’s unborn daughter.

        • That would be brilliant, but the beginning really ticked me off as a major cheat: everyone *knows* the doctor isn’t going to be dead, so it loses all emotional impact, and I don’t believe they’re going to close the door to future Doctors after Matt Smith either. It would be interesting, though, if they setup future new companions squeezed into a gap in the current companions — say the Doctor goes away for a bit and comes back 50 years older his time, while the current companions aged 5 weeks… future shows with new companions could be fit into that gap.

          • My son believed that he was dead… , so it didn’t loses all emotional impact for everyone….

            And it got the heart pumping!! :)

        • The “River as Amy’s” daughter occurred to me as well .

          Of course, the real mindscramble would be if he came back as the first Doctor.

          (No, that wouldn’t actually make much sense).

          • Ditto about Pond begat a River theories. I also think it’s possible that the Doctor figured out a way to change his face at will, and that could be a later Doctor who honestly is dying.

            I pointed out that this means there is an extra TARDIS hanging around somewhere, and my wife suggests he fixed the Chameleon Circuit. She thinks it’s the car he was driving.

        • Actually, River said she met the Doctor when she was an impressionable young girl, which COULD mean a teenager .

  1. Great season opener! Moffat’s interweaving of time-travel plots is what I enjoy the most of his handling of Doctor Who. I’m hooked. YET AGAIN.

  2. I’m going to apologise for not having the review up on Saturday night, I was at my parents’ house and without much in the way of internet access, although I did get to watch the episode itself.

    I’ll be writing the review tonight in all probability, and should be more punctual on average with the rest of the series. It’s a lot easier to do the review when you can take notes while you watch, write it up immediately afterwards and get it all done that same night without having family obligations to attend to (and a giant, delicious dinner to eat – although there are worse problems).

    For the record, I really enjoyed it and I do like how Moffat plays around with time travel in ways we’ve not really seen in Doctor Who before.

    Very curious about River though – how come she can just saunter out of prison whenever she likes? And she seems to have access to a time machine, too.

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