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such_heights) wrote2011-04-26 10:38 pm
such_heights) wrote2011-04-26 10:38 pm
Entry tags:
Doctor Who 6x01 recap, part two
Part one here. Again, feel free to use the caps for whatever you like.
We rejoin our heroes as they track down Canton Delaware, who's not having a very good night.
"Aha!" says fandom. "It's Badger/Romo Lampkin/Crowley/Sterling/insert Mark Sheppard guest star role in cult show here."
Canton is an ex-FBI agent who's been recalled by President Nixon for help on a special mission. Nixon tells Canton about the mysterious phone calls he's been receiving - every day, no matter where he is.
The Doctor decides that they should sneak into the Oval Office, and attempts to put the TARDIS into silent and cloaked mode.
River quietly corrects the controls so that the TARDIS is actually cloaked and silent.
The scanner's not working so the Doctor sneaks out of the TARDIS by himself. He finds himself in the Oval Office as Nixon and Canton are listening to the tape recording of one of the mysterious phone calls, both of them with their backs to him.
For once, he's reasonably good at being stealthy!
The phone calls are coming from a child, who's scared of a 'spaceman'. The child only identifies themselves as 'Jefferson Adams Hamilton', which Nixon takes to be their name. Nixon thinks the FBI might be involved, which is why he brought Canton in, to be an outside perspective.
Inevitably, they turn around and see the Doctor. He attempts to make a smooth exit but crashes into the invisible TARDIS.
Nixon calls security and Canton pins the Doctor to the ground. There is then this amazing exchange:
Rory: "I thought he said the scanner wouldn't work."
River: "I know! Bless."
The Doctor: "River, have you got my scanner working yet?!"
River: "Oh, I hate him."
The Doctor: "No you don't!"
River makes the TARDIS visible again, which catches everyone's attention.
The Doctor takes the opportunity to make himself at home, and the other three gingerly emerge from the TARDIS. He introduces them all as undercover agents from Scotland Yard, code names The Doctor, The Legs, The Nose, and Mrs Robinson.
He says that the phone call that just played had already told them everything they needed to know, and if they give him five minutes, he'll explain.
Canton is impressed, and argues that they should give him a chance.
The Doctor asks for street maps of Florida, because that's where the spacemen live. (Not Texas, then?) He says there's also another lead he's following.
Amy asks River if the spaceman is the same one they saw at the lake - River agrees it probably is.
Amy then sees an alien - the first proper look we get at the Silence, and the fodder of nightmares to come! She's transfixed, and remembers seeing the same kind of alien back in 2011.
Rory comes over to ask what's up, she's distracted and she forgets. She's feeling sick, and gets escorted to the restroom.
As soon as she walks in, she sees the Silence again.
A woman walks out of one of the stalls, and Amy figures it out. You can only remember or be aware of these aliens when looking directly at them - as soon as you look away, you forget.
All the lights in the room start to flicker, and the Silence seems to draw their power somehow, killing the other woman.
Horrified, Amy takes a picture on her phone so that she can remember what she's seen.
The alien speaks. It names the dead woman as Joy, and calls Amy by name. It says, "you will tell the Doctor what he must know and what he must never know." Amy asks how it knows about that, and it's not clear what either of them are referring to. The Doctor's death? Amy's pregnancy? Both? Something else? Amy runs out of the room and forgets the whole encounter, including why she's holding her phone in her hand.
Back in the Oval Office, the phone rings again. It's the little girl, who sounds even more panicked, saying that the spaceman is going to eat her. The team run back into the TARDIS, with the Doctor telling Canton on no account to follow them in and close the door behind him.
And, as is traditional for the first episode of a new series, it's time for someone to experience their first time inside the TARDIS. Rory is on babysitting duty, because he's the newest, as Amy says.
The Doctor and River are figuring out where to go. They notice that Jefferson, Adams and Hamilton are three of the Founding Fathers - the Doctor noting that two of them fancied him - and that the girl was giving a location, not her name.
They're in a disused warehouse about five miles from the Kennedy Space Centre. The phone lines are disconnected, so how was the little girl calling?
River and the Doctor flirt some more, and Canton is still freaking out. "So, we're in a box that's bigger on the inside, and it travels through time and space. How long has Scotland Yard had this?"
They start exploring the warehouse, finding a mixture of alien and contemporary earth technology.
An astronaut watches from the shadows.
Amy and River discuss the possibility of finding the astronaut now and neutralising it before it can kill the Doctor in the future. River says they can't - they'd be preventing a future event because of their knowledge of it, which would create a paradox. Amy counters that time can be rewritten, but River says that not all of it can.
River gets distracted by an entrance to some tunnels, and goes down to have a look.
It's full of aliens, but as soon as River goes back up to warn the others, she's forgotten them. If you are me, this is the point where you are starting to really freak the fuck out, omg. D:
She decides to go back for another look, and the Doctor sends a reluctant Rory after her. When they go down again, River also starts feeling sick.
I would like to submit Rory for the Brave Little Toaster award.
River gets her archaeologist on and realises that these tunnels are really old - if they're so old, how come no one knows about them? They find a locked metal door, which of course River can't resist starting to break into it.
While she works, Rory asks her what she meant about the worse day that's coming for her, worse than either her death or the Doctor's. She says that she first met the Doctor when she was a young girl, and he already knew everything about her. He made a big impression on her - much like with Amy, as Rory realises sadly. However, River and the Doctor are travelling in opposite directions - whenever they meet, she knows him better, he knows her less. She's afraid of the day that's coming when she'll meet the Doctor and he'll have no idea who she is. She thinks it might just kill her.
She breaks into the room, and it all looks very similar to the spaceship from The Lodger last season. Rory checks to see if anything's coming, sees the Silence, and then forgets. River starts interacting with the spaceship and finds out that the tunnels they're in actually expand under the surface of the whole Earth.
Lights start flickering behind Rory. He turns to look, then we cut to River, her face illuminated by a bright flash, and she calls out his name in concern.
D:
Back above ground, Canton and Amy are talking. She asks why he got kicked out of the FBI, and he replies it was because he wanted to get married.
"Is that a crime?" "Yes."
They talk about the Doctor. Amy says she hasn't seen him in a while, and that there was something she wanted to tell him, but stuff always gets in the way. She looks as though she can't remember what it was she wanted to tell him, to my mind.
Then they hear a child cry out, "Help me!"
Canton rushes forwards, pulling out a gun, but the Doctor is distracted as Amy feels another bout of pain/nausea. Suddenly, Amy is gripped by the need to tell the Doctor something that is really, really important. They rush after Canton to find that he's been knocked out by something.
While the Doctor checks on Canton, Amy drops a bombshell: she's pregnant.
Then the astronaut appears out of nowhere, and starts to raise its arm. Amy makes a lunge for Canton's gun. The Doctor sees that the girl is inside the spacesuit. Amy doesn't, and yells to him to get down, she's saving his life. She fires, and screams as she realises what she's done.
The episode ends on her horrified face.
---
1. WHAT. WHAT. AHHHH.
2. Is Amy pregnant? I am tempted to call shenanigans because of the weird way the reveal happens - she doesn't seem to know she's pregnant throughout the episode, until she suddenly becomes gripped with the need to tell the Doctor right in the middle of a crisis.
3. Who is the little girl? How was she making the phone calls? Why is she in the spacesuit?
4. What was the other lead that the Doctor was following that took them to Florida?
5. Who are the Silence, what are they doing, and what do they want Amy to tell the Doctor?
6. Who couldn't Canton marry? I instantly read that line as queer, I've also heard a lot of other interpretations. As I was saying tonekare after we concluded he wanted to marry a Russian communist gay black man, I hope we get clarification on that just to save me further distress!
7. Okay, let's talk about River Song. I've seen some objections to some of the stuff she says to Rory, which I agree with. I think it's probably worth remembering, though, that from a Watsonian point of view she's under a lot of emotional stress at this point and hasn't really shown it in the way that Amy has. She's just had to watch a version of the Doctor who really knew her and trusted her die, and is now back to almost square one with a version who doesn't know who she is and doesn't trust her. I also think the line about living for the days when she sees him make more sense in the context of her currently being in prison the rest of the time.
Regarding her comment that they're travelling in opposite directions, I presume that's a broad pattern rather than completely true. For one thing, we know that later on a much older version of the Doctor is going to give her his screwdriver just before she goes to the Library. I suspect that right at that moment she's feeling particularly conscious of spending a lot of time with this younger version of the Doctor, and how things weren't always like that. That is my in-universe interpretation of her speech, anyway.
We rejoin our heroes as they track down Canton Delaware, who's not having a very good night.
"Aha!" says fandom. "It's Badger/Romo Lampkin/Crowley/Sterling/insert Mark Sheppard guest star role in cult show here."
Canton is an ex-FBI agent who's been recalled by President Nixon for help on a special mission. Nixon tells Canton about the mysterious phone calls he's been receiving - every day, no matter where he is.
The Doctor decides that they should sneak into the Oval Office, and attempts to put the TARDIS into silent and cloaked mode.
River quietly corrects the controls so that the TARDIS is actually cloaked and silent.
The scanner's not working so the Doctor sneaks out of the TARDIS by himself. He finds himself in the Oval Office as Nixon and Canton are listening to the tape recording of one of the mysterious phone calls, both of them with their backs to him.
For once, he's reasonably good at being stealthy!
The phone calls are coming from a child, who's scared of a 'spaceman'. The child only identifies themselves as 'Jefferson Adams Hamilton', which Nixon takes to be their name. Nixon thinks the FBI might be involved, which is why he brought Canton in, to be an outside perspective.
Inevitably, they turn around and see the Doctor. He attempts to make a smooth exit but crashes into the invisible TARDIS.
Nixon calls security and Canton pins the Doctor to the ground. There is then this amazing exchange:
Rory: "I thought he said the scanner wouldn't work."
River: "I know! Bless."
The Doctor: "River, have you got my scanner working yet?!"
River: "Oh, I hate him."
The Doctor: "No you don't!"
River makes the TARDIS visible again, which catches everyone's attention.
The Doctor takes the opportunity to make himself at home, and the other three gingerly emerge from the TARDIS. He introduces them all as undercover agents from Scotland Yard, code names The Doctor, The Legs, The Nose, and Mrs Robinson.
He says that the phone call that just played had already told them everything they needed to know, and if they give him five minutes, he'll explain.
Canton is impressed, and argues that they should give him a chance.
The Doctor asks for street maps of Florida, because that's where the spacemen live. (Not Texas, then?) He says there's also another lead he's following.
Amy asks River if the spaceman is the same one they saw at the lake - River agrees it probably is.
Amy then sees an alien - the first proper look we get at the Silence, and the fodder of nightmares to come! She's transfixed, and remembers seeing the same kind of alien back in 2011.
Rory comes over to ask what's up, she's distracted and she forgets. She's feeling sick, and gets escorted to the restroom.
As soon as she walks in, she sees the Silence again.
A woman walks out of one of the stalls, and Amy figures it out. You can only remember or be aware of these aliens when looking directly at them - as soon as you look away, you forget.
All the lights in the room start to flicker, and the Silence seems to draw their power somehow, killing the other woman.
Horrified, Amy takes a picture on her phone so that she can remember what she's seen.
The alien speaks. It names the dead woman as Joy, and calls Amy by name. It says, "you will tell the Doctor what he must know and what he must never know." Amy asks how it knows about that, and it's not clear what either of them are referring to. The Doctor's death? Amy's pregnancy? Both? Something else? Amy runs out of the room and forgets the whole encounter, including why she's holding her phone in her hand.
Back in the Oval Office, the phone rings again. It's the little girl, who sounds even more panicked, saying that the spaceman is going to eat her. The team run back into the TARDIS, with the Doctor telling Canton on no account to follow them in and close the door behind him.
And, as is traditional for the first episode of a new series, it's time for someone to experience their first time inside the TARDIS. Rory is on babysitting duty, because he's the newest, as Amy says.
The Doctor and River are figuring out where to go. They notice that Jefferson, Adams and Hamilton are three of the Founding Fathers - the Doctor noting that two of them fancied him - and that the girl was giving a location, not her name.
They're in a disused warehouse about five miles from the Kennedy Space Centre. The phone lines are disconnected, so how was the little girl calling?
River and the Doctor flirt some more, and Canton is still freaking out. "So, we're in a box that's bigger on the inside, and it travels through time and space. How long has Scotland Yard had this?"
They start exploring the warehouse, finding a mixture of alien and contemporary earth technology.
An astronaut watches from the shadows.
Amy and River discuss the possibility of finding the astronaut now and neutralising it before it can kill the Doctor in the future. River says they can't - they'd be preventing a future event because of their knowledge of it, which would create a paradox. Amy counters that time can be rewritten, but River says that not all of it can.
River gets distracted by an entrance to some tunnels, and goes down to have a look.
It's full of aliens, but as soon as River goes back up to warn the others, she's forgotten them. If you are me, this is the point where you are starting to really freak the fuck out, omg. D:
She decides to go back for another look, and the Doctor sends a reluctant Rory after her. When they go down again, River also starts feeling sick.
I would like to submit Rory for the Brave Little Toaster award.
River gets her archaeologist on and realises that these tunnels are really old - if they're so old, how come no one knows about them? They find a locked metal door, which of course River can't resist starting to break into it.
While she works, Rory asks her what she meant about the worse day that's coming for her, worse than either her death or the Doctor's. She says that she first met the Doctor when she was a young girl, and he already knew everything about her. He made a big impression on her - much like with Amy, as Rory realises sadly. However, River and the Doctor are travelling in opposite directions - whenever they meet, she knows him better, he knows her less. She's afraid of the day that's coming when she'll meet the Doctor and he'll have no idea who she is. She thinks it might just kill her.
She breaks into the room, and it all looks very similar to the spaceship from The Lodger last season. Rory checks to see if anything's coming, sees the Silence, and then forgets. River starts interacting with the spaceship and finds out that the tunnels they're in actually expand under the surface of the whole Earth.
Lights start flickering behind Rory. He turns to look, then we cut to River, her face illuminated by a bright flash, and she calls out his name in concern.
D:
Back above ground, Canton and Amy are talking. She asks why he got kicked out of the FBI, and he replies it was because he wanted to get married.
"Is that a crime?" "Yes."
They talk about the Doctor. Amy says she hasn't seen him in a while, and that there was something she wanted to tell him, but stuff always gets in the way. She looks as though she can't remember what it was she wanted to tell him, to my mind.
Then they hear a child cry out, "Help me!"
Canton rushes forwards, pulling out a gun, but the Doctor is distracted as Amy feels another bout of pain/nausea. Suddenly, Amy is gripped by the need to tell the Doctor something that is really, really important. They rush after Canton to find that he's been knocked out by something.
While the Doctor checks on Canton, Amy drops a bombshell: she's pregnant.
Then the astronaut appears out of nowhere, and starts to raise its arm. Amy makes a lunge for Canton's gun. The Doctor sees that the girl is inside the spacesuit. Amy doesn't, and yells to him to get down, she's saving his life. She fires, and screams as she realises what she's done.
The episode ends on her horrified face.
---
1. WHAT. WHAT. AHHHH.
2. Is Amy pregnant? I am tempted to call shenanigans because of the weird way the reveal happens - she doesn't seem to know she's pregnant throughout the episode, until she suddenly becomes gripped with the need to tell the Doctor right in the middle of a crisis.
3. Who is the little girl? How was she making the phone calls? Why is she in the spacesuit?
4. What was the other lead that the Doctor was following that took them to Florida?
5. Who are the Silence, what are they doing, and what do they want Amy to tell the Doctor?
6. Who couldn't Canton marry? I instantly read that line as queer, I've also heard a lot of other interpretations. As I was saying to
nekare after we concluded he wanted to marry a Russian communist gay black man, I hope we get clarification on that just to save me further distress!7. Okay, let's talk about River Song. I've seen some objections to some of the stuff she says to Rory, which I agree with. I think it's probably worth remembering, though, that from a Watsonian point of view she's under a lot of emotional stress at this point and hasn't really shown it in the way that Amy has. She's just had to watch a version of the Doctor who really knew her and trusted her die, and is now back to almost square one with a version who doesn't know who she is and doesn't trust her. I also think the line about living for the days when she sees him make more sense in the context of her currently being in prison the rest of the time.
Regarding her comment that they're travelling in opposite directions, I presume that's a broad pattern rather than completely true. For one thing, we know that later on a much older version of the Doctor is going to give her his screwdriver just before she goes to the Library. I suspect that right at that moment she's feeling particularly conscious of spending a lot of time with this younger version of the Doctor, and how things weren't always like that. That is my in-universe interpretation of her speech, anyway.
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5. I think they want Amy to tell the Doctor that he's going to die, but I can't figure out why.
6. I wanted to read the line about Canton wanting to get married as queerness, but it can't be, because there weren't any laws relating to marriage and gender back then. I believe we do get clarification, from the hints my roommate refuses to drop.
7. I wish they'd lay off the fake foreshadowing every time we see River. We know how it ends for her, we don't need reminders. And I am, frankly, really surprised by the amount of distrust towards her that younger!Eleven displays in this ep - it doesn't seem to jive with the end of last season. And I'm also a little sick of her always appearing from Stormcage, since it's not like she was still in there the first time we met her. It's kind of wearying -- more belaboring a point that I wish they would just explain instead of making all 'mysterious.'
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But then I really want it to be a reference to a Shiny Gay Agenda, which is the one thing I really miss about the RTD era! :)
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On the other hand Doctor Who and "historical accuracy" aren't exactly phrases that belong in the same sentence.
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I think it's what he's trusting her with that makes the difference. I mean, he trusts her completely with the TARDIS, and also relies on and trusts her competence and abilities. That's never an issue (although he did get cranky when she wanted to fix that transporter doohicky when Amy was stuck with the angels in the forest, but I think that was his own guilt gnawing at him.)
But in this case, he clearly knows they're keeping important information from him and he doesn't like it. All three of them are in on it, too, and it's not just River's usual "spoilers" from his future which he expects. So when they say to him "we can't tell you, you have to trust us", that's really a different aspect of trust - as he says to Amy, "my life in your hands." Obviously he trusts River to a fairly large extent, plus he knows that she knows his name and all that entails. But that doesn't mean it's not frustrating as hell to know she knows all of these intimate details about him and he, at this point in time, knows very little, including why she's in Stormcage/who she killed and why. So to trust her implicitly with his life at this point in his timeline is, for him, too much for him to give.
At least that was how I took it. :-P
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6. That is good to know. And jeez, yes, your living situation at the moment must be kind of interesting in that respect, good luck with surviving the next few days!
7. Yeah, I definitely felt they were laying some of it on a little thick here, presumably to set things up and remind the audience before progressing the story along. I hope said progression starts kicking off soon!
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I would like to submit Rory for the Brave Little Toaster award.
Hell to the yes. Such a great and quietly heroic moment for him.
The way you lay things out here, I'm more and more inclined to see something odd and alien about Amy's pregnancy, because it does seem as if the Silence wants her to tell the Doctor that she's pregnant. Why? Is the pregnancy alien in origin? Or is it connected to the timey-wimey stuff, so that the Doctor knowing about it will prevent him from interfering with their plan?
And I like your thoughts on River. I see and agree with all the objections, but to be honest I'm just enjoying having her on my screen again too much to care.
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And yeah, pretty much re. River - it took a good few watches of the relevant scenes before I was thinking anything more substantial than 'OMG RIVERRRR <33333'.
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Actually, that bit is off. At the time Moff wrote SitL/FotD, David hadn't decided to leave yet, and if I recall correctly, he was actually tempted to stay once Moff came on as Head even after he'd decided to leave. Also, nobody ever expected an actor as young as Matt to be cast in the role. They were even looking for an older actor initially, or at least one older than David. (In SitL, River even says he's younger than she's ever seen him when she meets Ten, although she does say, after Ten interjects that he's "so old", that it's his eyes that are young. But still.) So I think that whole bit of 'canon' there has been borked by unintentional circumstance.
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(I went back and watched SitL/FotD last week, and on another note, she actually does say something to Donna about how him not recognizing her is killing her. Obviously River didn't mean it literally when she said that to Rory, despite the fact that fans know it actually is.)
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I started freaking out the same time you did. OMG. Those things are terrifying. Halfway between Roswell aliens and dementors.
Hey look, I have a dreamwidth now!
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Who couldn't Canton marry? I instantly read that line as queer. Oh hecka yes and I would looooooove to get expansion on that one!
And as to River, yes and yes to the emotional stress and she loves him and watched him die and had him as him on the right page for once and that has to hurt very hard. And also agree with the "broad pattern" because of giving her the screwdriver, etc.
It's probably one of those big after death thought things about not doing all you wanted to do and wanted to say and hurts because so often she can't say because she keeps getting the doctor when he knows less. It's such a star crossed lovers story, only a time crossed lover and awww I never thought I'd ship the Doctor with anyone but they have won me over with River.
PS - Love your screen-cap re-cap!!!!