The Impossible Astronaut (TV story)

The Impossible Astronaut (TV story)

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The Impossible Astronaut
Doctor:	[[doctor::Eleventh Doctor]]
Companion(s):	Amy Pond Rory Williams River Song (guest)
Main enemy:	The Silence
Main setting:	Utah, USA, 2011 White House, Washington, D.C., USA, 1969 Florida, 1969
Key crew
Writer:	Steven Moffat
Director:	Toby Haynes
Release details
Story number:	214a
Release number:	Series 6
Premiere broadcast:	23rd April 2011
Format:	1x 45 minute episode
Production code:	2.1

The Impossible Astronaut was the first episode in the sixth series of Doctor Who. It introduced the Silence as a species, building on the references of the previous series.

Synopsis

Four envelopes, numbered 2, 3 and 4, each containing a date, time and map reference, unsigned, but TARDIS blue. Who sent them? And who received the missing envelope numbered 1? This strange summons reunites the Doctor, Amy, Rory and River Song in the middle of the Utah desert and unveils a terrible secret the Doctor's friends must never reveal to him. Placing his life entirely in their hands, the Doctor agrees to search for the recipient of the fourth envelope and figure out just who is Canton Everett Delaware the Third? Also what is the relevance of their only other clue: 'Space 1969'? Their quest lands them—quite literally—in the Oval Office, where they are enlisted by President Nixon to assist enigmatic former-FBI agent Canton in saving a terrified little girl from a mysterious spaceman.

Plot

The episode begins with Charles II of England (Paul Critoph) barging into the room with two other Cavaliers. A sword in hand, the monarch yells for the Doctor. Breaking into a room at the end of the hall, Charles enters a room with clothes thrown aside, painting equipment on a stool and a painting of the Doctor posing as Poseidon with two cupids. Across the room stands a woman (probably Catherine of Braganza) with a brush in one hand. The monarch asks where the doctor is and the lady simply replies saying "Doctor, who?". Charles draws his weapon and lifts the lady's dress up to reveal the doctor hiding within the folds.

This happens to be one of the stories Amy Pond is reading out to Rory Williams from a history book. The story later concludes with the doctor being incarcerated without trial in the Tower of London; where from the doctor later escapes by the means of a magical, mysterious spherical device which is 20 feet across floating over the cityscape. On the accompanying leaf of the story is the illustration of a hot air balloon suggesting that the spherical device may as well be such a device, since the TARDIS is not a sphere.

Amy reads out another story of the Doctor being caught while escaping with mates from a prisoner camp in Germany during World War II where they get caught when the Doctor confuses their escape route with the door to the commandant's office. A soldier shouts in German and pulls the Doctor out of their tunneled escape route.

Amy figures that the Doctor is trying to communicate by manipulating historic events of lesser significance while Rory continues to watch a Laurel and Hardy film completely disregarding the theory that the Doctor is waving at them from history books. Doorbell rings and as Amy goes to answer, Rory looks away. In this brief moment the doctor walks up to the camera in the film wearing his fez. The postman at the door hands over a envelope to Amy. The envelope has the number 3 written on its back in an etched white typeface. Upon opening the envelope, Amy discovers the following message written on a matted card:

22/04/2011
16:30 MDT
37°0'38"N -110°14'24"W

Rory asks what it is and Amy responds saying it's "a date, a time, [and] a map reference". Amy implies it's an invitation albeit unsigned, and the TARDIS blue colour would suggest it's from the Doctor.

Meanwhile, River Song receives a similar envelope with the number 2 on the backside, addressed to:

River Song
Stormcage Containment Facility

She opens the envelope and smirks while looking at the message within immediately hatching a plan of escape from the facility. Soon afterward, the facility is abuzz with loud alarms going off as a soldier reports to a superior on the phone how Doctor Song is acting suspiciously and packing ... again! He tells his superior that he thinks she is headed off to a planet called America.

Back on Earth, Amy and Rory hitch a school bus ride in San Juan going towards Goulding Arch near Oljato-Monument Valley, Utah where they had been summoned. The bus drives off revealing the Doctor sitting atop a car with a Stetson on. He calls them over saying, "Howdy!" and calls them Ponds rather than Williams implying that Amy is the dominant member in the relationship. Rory greets him by stating he is the husband; the Doctor simply calls him "Rory the Roman". While declaring his love for how cool Stetsons are, his hat is shot to the ground and we see River holding a Colt Revolver which she then puts back in its holster, saying "Hello, Sweetie!"

The group sits in a diner where River and the Doctor exchange and synchornise their diaries, laughing about their encounters on Easter Island and Jim the Fish. Amy explains to Rory that the Doctor and River as time travellers move opposite to each other in linear time and therefore have to synchornise their events in order to know which versions they are meeting. The Doctor tells the team that they are summoned here because they will visit "Space 1969".

Just before the sunset, the team sits by the lake having a picnic, and sharing a toast to their time together when the Doctor reveals his age being 1,103 (almost 195 years older than Amy last saw him). No one pays much significance to this detail however when Amy tries to question about this discrepancy, the Doctor comments on her gaining weight. Amy sees something standing on one of the mesas, but when Rory's head blocks it from her view, she forgets about it. The Doctor is distracted too looking at a man standing by a truck a few yards from the picnic and waves to him, knowing well what is to happen next.

A lone astronaut standing at the lakeside gets River's attention and the Doctor makes way towards the spaceman. With a serious face, the Doctor tells the team not to interfere in what happens next, no matter what. The Doctor greets the astronaut, saying that he knows who it was. The astronaut raises its visor to the Doctor, and shoots him. Amy starts to run towards him, but is held back by River and Rory. Being shot, the Doctor naturally begins to regenerate, but the Astronaut shoots him again during his regeneration process at which point River runs towards the Doctor as well.

The astronaut moves back towards the water and River shoots. She shoots five times and tries to shoot one last shot realising she'd already used that shot on the Doctor's Stetson. "Ofcourse not!" she says, as the Astronaut retreats into the lake, River scans the Doctor and confirms that he's dead. When Amy starts suggesting that this Doctor is a duplicate, the man comes over and confirms that it is the Doctor. He introduces himself as Canton Delaware III, and gives the group a tank of petrol as he was previously told to by the Doctor. He also reveals an invitation similar to those received by Rory and Amy and River. River suggests that a timelord's body is a miracle and there are whole empire "out there" that would rip his body apart to get hold of a single cell. Upon Rory's suggestion, the Doctor is then given a Viking funeral. Canton departs saying the trio will meet him again.

Bewailing, the team returns to the diner to figure out what had happened, and how they can work on the two clues - "Space 1969" and the mystery of Canton Delaware III. But the team are dumbfounded as the Doctor walks out of the rest room. After a short silence, River slaps him for 'something [he] hasn't done yet'. After talking about Jim the Fish (whom the Doctor has now never heard of), and having Amy ask the Doctor how old he is (909 years old), River deduces that the Doctor they are with is an earlier version of the Doctor they just saw killed, but keeps quiet about her suspicions. The Doctor reveals his invitation, with the missing number one on it. Upon his questioning, River tells him that they've been recruited by someone who trusts him more than anyone else in the universe. When the Doctor asks who that is, River simply replies "Spoilers!"

Back in the TARDIS, River insists that Amy, Rory and herself would keep the Doctor's death a secret from his earlier self. The Doctor becomes suspicious of the silence surrounding him in the TARDIS and asks them why the three are insisting on keeping the identity of the person who sent the envelopes a secret from him. The Doctor asks River but disbelieves her at first because she hasn't told the Doctor everything specifically why she was in prison and whom she had killed? However, Amy swears on fish fingers and custard and the Doctor sees the significance in the secrecy and how important it is to the trio. The Doctor fumbles around with the TARDIS controls as River manages to fix the tiny errors the Doctor leaves behind implying River knows how to fly the TARDIS better than the Doctor.

Signs on the TARDIS control and the inclusion of the two clues point to Canton (Mark Sheppard) being an ex-FBI agent who in 1969 was reassigned to a case by presidential order. The president of the USA, Richard Milhouse Nixon summons Canton to the Oval Office and tells him about the regular direct calls he'd been receiving suggesting that the calls were neither from a man or a woman.

The Doctor manages to cloak the outer shell of the TARDIS in invisiblity as the TARDIS discretely lands right inside the Oval Office. The Doctor slowly steps outside to find Nixon and Canton fixated on a recorded conversation on a voice recorder. This was the earlier conversation seen in the prequel to the episode. Canton suggests that the voice on the recording was that of a girl and takes back his statement when the kid utters her name - Jefferson Adams Hamilton. The call ends and the two find themselves in the company of a third man - the Doctor.

The president calls upon the secret service agents stationed outside the Oval Office who wrestle the Doctor to the ground. The Doctor asks River to switch off the invisibility cloak from the TARDIS exterior and the roomfull of agents, the president and Canton fall silent. Amy, Rory and River walk out of the TARDIS adding to the agent's further confusion. The Doctor asks the president to let him explain what is happening here insisting he was an agent sent from the Scotland Yard alongside Agents Legs (Amy), Nose (Rory) and Mrs Robinson (River). River angers in discontent telling the Doctor she hates him. Canton allows him his five minutes as the head of security Agent Carl Peterson begins to disapprove. Still, the Doctor asks for a SWAT team ready to mobilise, street-level maps of Florida, a pot of coffee, 12 jammie dodgers and a fez to be brought to him. Only his request for the maps is agreed upon.

Amy sees a first clear glimpse of the Silent standing in the doorway but forgets all about it when Rory blocks her view. She starts to feel herself throw up and asks for the rest room. Accompanied by one agent, Amy finds herself at the door to the rest room where upon entering she gets face-to-face with the Silent once again. Amy is afraid and confusedas a White House worker named Joy walks out of one of the cubicle and is eventually obliterated by the Silent. The Silent then asks Amy to tell the Doctor what he should and shouldn't know. Amy understands then that she would forget all about the Silent when she walks out and therefore takes a quick snap of the alien on her handheld mobile phone. Upon exiting she forgets about the incident and returns back to the Oval Office as nothing happened.

The Doctor chooses Florida because NASA was based in Florida in 1969 and soon discovers a point on the map where three streets named Jefferson, Adams and Hamilton, after the three founding fathers of USA. A distress call from the same caller puts urgency into the minds of the people present in the room and the Doctor tags Canton along on a ride to Florida in his TARDIS. Canton upon entering the TARDIS utters the infamous line everyone else does the first time: "It's bigger on the inside". The Doctor tells Rory to explain everything to Canton when they land on the designated coordinates in Florida. Canton realises that the Doctor can travel through both space and time, and that the bunch were actually from the future.

Cast

• Eleventh Doctor - Matt Smith
• Amy Pond - Karen Gillan
• Rory Williams - Arthur Darvill
• River Song - Alex Kingston
• Canton Everett Delaware III, 1969 - Mark Sheppard
• Canton Everett Delaware III, 2011 - William Morgan Sheppard
• President Richard Nixon - Stuart Milligan
• Carl - Chukwudi Iwuji
• Phil - Mark Griffin
• The Silent - Marnix Van Den Broeke
• Little Girl - Sydney Wade
• Joy - Nancy Baldwin
• Prison Guard - Kieran O'Connor
• Captain Simmons - Adam Napier
• Matilda - Henrietta Clemett
• Charles - Paul Critoph
• Busboy - Emilio Aquino
• Laurel and Hardy - Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy (archive footage)

Crew

• Writer - Steven Moffat
• Director - Toby Haynes

References

The Doctor

• An older Eleventh Doctor, who is 1,103 years old, begins to regenerate, but is killed before the process completes.
• The Doctor states his current age as being 909 years old.
• The Doctor says that he is late for a biplane lesson in 1911 but gets confused and wonders if it is actually knitting.
• The younger Doctor prefers a fez, while his older self likes stetsons implying that the Doctor would begin liking the stetson over the duration of series.

Films

• Amy Pond and Rory Williams watch a Laurel & Hardy film, The Flying Deuces, on television.

Fashion and clothing

• The Doctor is also shown whilst wearing a fez in the Laurel & Hardy film.
• The Doctor wears a Stetson upon encountering "the Ponds" which is then shot off his head by River.

Years

• The Doctor states that the year 1482 is full of glitches, but also says 1969 is 'easy'. This may suggest that some years are harder to travel to than others.

TARDIS

• The Doctor makes the TARDIS invisible when he materializes in the Oval Office, although the Doctor walks into it afterwards when he tries to enter it again.

Story notes

• This episode had the working title Year of the Moon
• This is the first two-parter opening episode of the revived series.
• A prequel for this story was released on the offcial BBC website.
• The monsters in this episode were said to be "the scariest monsters yet".
• The episode was dedicated to Elisabeth Sladen, who had passed away four days before the episode's initial broadcast.

Ratings

to be added

Myths

• We will see River Song as a child.
• The second episode will air the day after the first.This has been confirmed as false by a number of sources. It would instead be aired on April 30, 2011

Filming locations

• Valley of the Gods, Utah, United States of America.

Production errors

• When Amy is in the bathroom and sees the Silent, she looks at him, but looks to the left for a fraction of a second and looks back. By the time she looks back, she should have already forgotten about the Silent.

Continuity

• River can be seen wearing the vortex manipulator (DW: The Pandorica Opens/The Big Bang)
• Amy mentions fish fingers and custard (DW: The Eleventh Hour)
• The Doctor again expresses his dislike of wine, despite drinking it again. (DW: The Lodger) He also states that he must have drank it at some time. This is true as his third incarnation was quite fond of wine.
• The Doctor requests Jammie Dodgers and a Fez. (DW: Victory of the Daleks, The Big Bang)
• The Doctor once again asks River whom she murdered. (DW: Flesh and Stone)
• River Song suspects that she will one day meet a Doctor who hasn't met her yet, and it will be the death of her. (DW: Silence in the Library / Forest of the Dead)
• River Song suggests in this episode that her and the Doctor are not meeting in random order, as has been implied before, but are actually meeting in the opposite order. This has been true so far, as every episode she has been in has been earlier in her timeline than the one before it ((DW: Silence in the Library / Forest of the Dead, The Time of Angels/Flesh and Stone, The Pandorica Opens/The Big Bang)
• The attempted TARDIS is seen again. (DW: The Lodger)
• The Doctor looks at the front and then back of his hands before he is about to regenerate. (DW: The Parting of the Ways, The End of Time)
• The Doctor tells a scared Canton "Brave heart". His fifth incarnation told his companion Tegan this several times.
• The Little Girl is very similar (including his mysterious apparitions) in Chad Boyle, in Timewyrm: Revelation.

Timeline

• This story takes place after DW: Time (for all but the Future Doctor)
• This story takes place after at least the earlier Doctor's part in DW: Day of the Moon (for the Future Doctor)
• This story takes place before the earlier Doctor's part in DW: Day of the Moon (for all but the Future Doctor)

Home video releases

The DVD will be released in two halves. Part One, which will contain episodes one to seven will be released in Summer, shortly after the airing of episode seven.

External links

• The Impossible Astronaut at bbc.co.uk