Rate "The Impossible Astronaut"

You're almost certainly right Stan.

Sid Seadevil wrote:You're almost certainly right Stan.

Yep. At the moment, I'm not fussed about their current level of use. If they disappear with the next team, that's all right too. I just hope they'll never get to be old hat, if only because I like them and want them to stay interesting.

Zoltar wrote:Yep. At the moment, I'm not fussed about their current level of use. If they disappear with the next team, that's all right too. I just hope they'll never get to be old hat, if only because I like them and want them to stay interesting.

Exactly. Variety is the spice of life - that should definitely extend to the shows storytelling war chest.

Dave Webb wrote:Hmm. I wonder if fans were unhappy about the Doctor exploiting timey wimeyto send himself explanatory notes in Battlefield?

I was unhappy with Battlefield.

But, yes, if it was in Battlefield and half of McCoy's stories I'd say it was overused.

I've never understood the dislike for Battlefield, including the complaints about its music. It's a fun little story with some very good moments and the Brig in his final WHO appearance, being just as fantastic as he was in 1968.

As for timey wimey, Moffat has said that the last series was just preparing people for this series, expect loads and loads of timey wimeyness, I'm glad that it's finally getting the attention it deserves in, what is after all, a show about time travel. Back to the Future did this in it's 2nd film, WHO has managed to not really do it until it's 32nd series. Moffat has made it clear that the current storyline is going to contain weird timey wimey elements. Once it's over I'm sure it'll stop being used as heavily as it is. We shall see. I agree that there is a danger of it being overused if it is used beyond this series though.

Sure, it's a show about time travel, but it's also a show about a group of people making sometimes difficult decisions that often have consequences. Pre-destination paradoxes, such as being told what to do by your future self, mean that no decisions are made. The characters stop being protagonists in their narrative and instead become slaves to it.

Rich Flair wrote:Sure, it's a show about time travel, but it's also a show about a group of people making sometimes difficult decisions that often have consequences. Pre-destination paradoxes, such as being told what to do by your future self, mean that no decisions are made. The characters stop being protagonists in their narrative and instead become slaves to it.

Hopefully this will be one of the main points that Moffat will be hammering home over the course of this series. If it isn't, then he'll have made a serious miscalculation.

I have faith that Moffat knows what he's doing, he does know how to rub a series after all. Whatever happens it'll be interesting to see how this one pans out.

Johnstone McGuckian wrote:I have faith that Moffat knows what he's doing, he does know how to rub a series after all. Whatever happens it'll be interesting to see how this one pans out.

I agree with Johnstone. Bear in mind that we've only seen the first episode, and it's only one of what? Five episodes? that the Moff will write for this series. Timey Whimey as a gimmack only carries the overall narrative story of an entire series so far, and I'm confident the Moff is fully aware of that.

What I'm tuned in for with Day of the Moon is answers to some immediate questions that I think will start to pave the way to understanding in what direction this series is heading:

1. What do The Silence want? Every alien monster on Who can kill, most of them in a fashion that makes them filmographically* interesting. And the ones the Moff has created usually have some interesting parlor tricks to go along with their menace. What makes them scary is the answer to the question 'what do they want?' That motivation has yet to be revealed.

2. What was the time pod from The Lodger doing in a series of caves in Florida? And why does it appear to be completely powered down? I recall there was speculation at the time of The Lodger's airing that this was an aborted design for the new TARDIS interior. But the fact that it was a time pod raises some intriguing questions, like what's it doing in Florida, 1969?

3. Why use a space suit? Space suits are internal environmental stasis chambers, so that who-ever, or whatever is inside, can function in an environment that would otherwise prove harmful. So, who-ever shot the Doctor apparently can't, or won't, take the risk of being outside, on Earth, without the suit. Is it an environmental issue that prevents this? A temporal displacement issue? Or just a case of wanting to conceal one's identity?

4. Why did the Doctor's adventures in the pre-title sequence appear to center around the theme of being caught in act of something? The Moff is not likely to draw our attention to something like that, in the first episode of a new series, without it being important somehow. And I don't think the answer is that he was simply "showing off" and "trying to draw attention to himself in history."

*if the word "filmographically" doesn't yet exist in the English language, I've just invented it.

Rich Flair wrote:Sure, it's a show about time travel, but it's also a show about a group of people making sometimes difficult decisions that often have consequences. Pre-destination paradoxes, such as being told what to do by your future self, mean that no decisions are made. The characters stop being protagonists in their narrative and instead become slaves to it.

You've hit the nail on the head.

For me, time travel was always a device to get the show's protagonists to interesting places and meet interesting people. It shouldn't be the story.

I don't think it is here, either. I felt it was being used to set something up, to create some tension between the characters and to flip the dynamic of the group. Just for once, the companions know something they can't tell the Doctor. Also, we now don't know whether their actions will lead to the events they have witnessed or if their actiions can change that outcome.

However, I certainly agree that if you take away choice you effectively make the characters puppets to narrative, and that is a really bad idea.

Rich Flair wrote:Sure, it's a show about time travel, but it's also a show about a group of people making sometimes difficult decisions that often have consequences. Pre-destination paradoxes, such as being told what to do by your future self, mean that no decisions are made. The characters stop being protagonists in their narrative and instead become slaves to it.

Which is essentially metafiction, and leads me to hope that Moffat takes a leaf out of Dennis Potter's book and the end product of all the pre-destination paradoxes/metafiction is a character trying to escape time's/the author's plans for them.

Personally, I've always loved a good bit of fiction about fiction, and think Moffat is a good wielder of it, and thought the Impossible Astronaut was marvellous.

I also agree with Stanmore: Moffat's vision may be slightly repetitious, but will only last as long as he's in charge-- and it's not as if previous periods of Dr Who haven't suffered from repetition (step forward Hinchcliffe and Holmes, season seven, or even the Davies era for that matter) yet still been lauded by fandom.

5/5 for me. Great start to a season.

Lee Carey wrote:5/5 for me. Great start to a season.

Genuinely delighted you enjoyed it as much as I did, Lee, old chap.

Just thought I'd post this here instead of creating a new thread - The Impossible Astronaut is the UK's most recorded show of all time according to Kantar Media.

How cool is that?!? Cooler than the link can handle, clearly. Check out the latest news story!

Starfighter Pilot wrote:How cool is that?!?

Very. I'm always glad to see the show hit new heights.

As one of those who recorded it may I say.: hooray!

I'm sorry, but I refuse to join the "Aint all these huge timeshifts grand!" bandwagon that seems to be so popular on Gallifrey Base. A good timeshift should be the icing on the cake, not the second layer of sponge. They say overnight ratings are not important anymore, what rot. If that were the case, then the BBC might just shut up shop, let BBC One become UK Gold and let the Drama Department become a pure strait to DVD Box Set production company.

Rich Flair wrote:

This.

The Browncoat Cat wrote: They say overnight ratings are not important anymore, what rot.

The 21st Century is when everything changes.

So that's what Captain Jack meant!

The Browncoat Cat wrote:They say overnight ratings are not important anymore, what rot.

T.S. Eliot once observed that "Television is a medium of entertainment that allows millions of people to listen to the same joke at the same time, and yet remain completely alone."

Cat, I think the business model for television is moving into a new paradigm: millions of people don't have to watch the same thing at the same time anymore. We have IPads, Android-powered versions of the IPad, smartphones, etc., that allow one to download content at any time. People have DVRs that can be programmed from a phone to record something to be watched at any time. We have websites like Hulu that allow you to watch a specific television program at your leisure. The result is that it's no longer just a case of how many eyeballs watched a particular episode on initial transmission, it's how many viewed it across a broad spectrum of places where it can be accessed.

No less a person than the Moff, himself, recently, has likened this new paradigm to that of being 'published' as opposed to 'broadcast.' Yes, overnight ratings are certainly important, but because your television set isn't the only place you can watch programming, how one tracks these other places where television content can be accessed is at least as important. Going forward, it may even become more important.

Dave Webb wrote:The 21st Century is when everything changes.

Indeed, I timeshift almost everything I watch.

Dave Webb wrote:The 21st Century is when everything changes.

Indded. For quite a while now I've effectively been my own programme scheduler. I choose what I watch and when I watch it. (With the rare exceptions such as Who - which I'll try and watch "as Broadcast" whenever possible).

The freedom and flexibility this model has given me is light years away from the locked-down approach forced on all of us for the early part of our televisual viewing lives. It's the difference between night and day - and I wouldn't have it any other way.