“Spoilers!” Oh, I really do love you River, you are brilliantly fantastic and wonderful and I don’t think there is a single thing wrong with you. Now, why are you in prison but packing to go to that planet called “America?” Anyway, let’s talk about “The Impossible Astronaut.” Of course, this just had to come a day after Michael Collins passed. There was no other way it would happen unless Neil Armstrong himself came back to warn us about the Moon worms that are set to kill us in three months. July 20th, 1969, the “Day of the Moon” is a special day, because it is the day of the moon landing.

Well, about three months before that day, a man with two hearts and an age of 1103 invites his past self and four friends to his murder. Well, you can’t have everything I guess. He is specifically murdered by an Apollo 11 astronaut-suited figure. This is just the first few minutes before River slaps him for going out and getting his special straw, it adds extra fizz.

So, where is the best place to go? Well, after burning the 1103-year-old’s body with the help of an old friend Amy, Rory, and River are yet to meet, it is off to 1969! The year of Nixon, riots, war, space, and something else I can’t quite remember. Anyway, Canton Everett Delaware the Third, an FBI agent discharged for not following the rules, is called to the President’s office to discuss a tape. All the while some geography teacher parks his police box on the Oval Office rug and takes notes.

Yes, of course, it is a Moffat episode, which means fun lines everywhere! Telling the president “It’s a police box, can’t you read?” would probably get you shot. Then there are the gems, “Fellas, the guns really? […] you think you can just shoot me?” followed by “They’re Americas!” Even the descriptions the Doctor gives such as “These are my top operatives: The Legs, The Nose, and Mrs. Robinson.” are delightful. That one little bit in the Oval Office is worth several hundred words on their own, but I’m a bit tight for time. I keep forgetting where I placed it.

The point is, a new objective is set: Find the little girl that is phoning the President from Florida; the only place in the whole country (probably) with three street names, Jefferson, Adams, and Hamilton on one intersection. It is a bit of a weird episode overall, because there is a constant objective setting pacing to it, wonderfully so. Though I can’t remember there being a villain or evil alien to speak of. It’s not the only thing I find strange, I have a weird little thing for watching the Secret Service when it comes to presidents and depictions of them. The way they are portrayed here is more of a post-1981 Reagan Assassination attempt, which is weird. It’s also strange I know it’s not protocol for nearly 12-years.

Shall we talk about River pouring her heart out to Rory about her Timeline with the Doctor’s? It is an excellent bit of foreshadowing I suppose, standing in the shade of what has and will happen between the two, i.e Jim the Fish. The love she has for him at this point spills out, but there will be a day where she loves him more than anything and he’ll have never seen her before in his life. A day that will break her heart, a day that will metaphorically and literally kill her. The same works in reverse. There will be a day where he knows everything about her, and she’ll know nothing about him at all. It is a sad little fairytale.

Oh, and Amy is pregnant. Well, she is and isn’t, according to the T.A.R.D.I.S. I guess that’s the problem with Clear-T.A.R.D.I.S.-Blue, the company went downhill when they had to predict the pregnancy of Raxacoricofallapatorians. Nonetheless, after she shoots the astronaut, the three-month chase is on. The hunt begins to find the Doctor’s allies and imprison him (and them) in a box at Area 51, dead or alive. Sometimes they have strange marks on their bodies. I think they are reminders of something, I just don’t remember what they are for.

Anyway, the beardy weirdy in the box who is chained up isn’t saying much, so might as well let Canton hunt down the allies. Yeah, that was always going to go well, wasn’t it? See I have a bit of a problem with the box that is “impossible” to escape from. That was the premise of a little episode call “The Pandorica Opens.” It is more or less the same thing, a prison that should be impossible to trick or escape. When you cloak a T.A.R.D.I.S. anything is possible, I guess. “The perfect prison” repeated only two episodes later is just… meh.

I guess I’ve not gotten to a common gripe I have with Doctor Who in situations like this. The Americans (or faux-Americans) tend to grate on me like a knife on the perineum when they are in Who. There is something about Peri and that awful 1996 film. The accents just pull me out of the story and into how unbelievable and big the sound becomes. Something about the writing in Doctor Who just feels better when it is done without that large, open, and expressive accent attempting to make even the tiniest of subtleties into something big and grand. Yet, between Stuart Milligan, W. Morgan Sheppard, and Mark Sheppard, there isn’t much to complain about. They understand not to overuse the accent.

Nonetheless, Amy and Canton go off to find the little girl, the same one in the spacesuit that Amy shot. They wander off to some open foster home that closed in 67, while the Doctor gets arrested for finding a spare part when reassembling the cockpit of the space shuttle. The man likes trouble, so how do you get him out of this one? Send River and Rory to pick up the President in the T.A.R.D.I.S. so he can pardon the alien, of course. I still don’t know why Amy went to that orphanage just to draw lines on herself again, though. Then there was that evil woman with the eye-patch, and the now-empty spacesuit without the very young woman.

See, everything is just a bit go, go, go, but there just isn’t an alien threat, I just don’t see it. Everything just gets resolved without much fuss. I think there was a bit I’d argue wasn’t very Doctor-y, but given River was firing a gun about an empty room I don’t think he minds really. There was something about shooting thin air on sight, which sounds like the most American thing possible, but I don’t understand why you would. It is all a bit weird, yet for some reason, I still enjoy the episode.

I think it is because of Moffat’s one-liners. I love the bit about Nixon supposedly doing some good with the Doctor saying “not enough.” There is also River telling him he’s a hippy with him retorting she’s too much of an archaeologist. There is another fun bit where Nixon asks the Doctor “will I be remembered?” only to be called Tricky Dicky and told to say hi to David Frost. The kiss in Stormcage is good. The pregnancy mystery starting here is fun. Let’s not forget Nixon asking Canton about the person he wants to marry, “This person you want to marry. Black? […] I know what people think of me, but perhaps I’m a little more liberal–” to be cut off with “he is.”

Call it a fault of Moffat’s if you like, but everything in his writing is just hitting you constantly. Bang, bang, bang, a little bit of political satire, little jokes to annoy people concerned with continuity, and everything else smacking you like waves, one after the other. I mean, we end on the small girl practically dying with a cough in 1970s New York, telling a homeless man that it’s ok because she can do a thing. Then her skin goes golden with regeneration energy, and who knows what that is doing?

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Dr Who "The Impossible Astronaut" & "Day Of The Moon"

8.5

Score

8.5/10

Pros

• A wonderfuly paced time and space hopping piece.
• Playing with the pseudo-historical.
• Fantastic one-liners.
• Love a bit of Canton!

Cons

• Resolving the problem with guns.
• A lot of setting up for the mystery throughout the series.