The Impossible Astronaut (TV story): Difference between revisions

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== Plot ==
== 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.
Amy is reading to Rory from a history book about stories relating to an unnamed "doctor". The first story is of a king who finds a "doctor" hiding naked in his wife's room. The Doctor eventually gets incarcerated without trial but soon escapes by means of a magical, mysterious spherical device which is 20 feet across floating over the city (the page in the book features an illustration of a hot air balloon). The second story is of a doctor being caught while escaping with mates at an army base after confusing 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.
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. 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 TARDIS Blue 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.


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:
{{quote|a date, a time, a map reference.|}}


<p style="text-align: center;">22/04/2011<br />
Elsewhere at the Stormcage Facility, River Song also received an envelope.
16:30 MDT<br />
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.
37°0'38"N -110°14'24"W</p>


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.
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 Song holding a pistol which she then puts back in its holster, saying "Hello, Sweety!".


Meanwhile, [[River Song]] receives a similar envelope with the number 2 on the backside, addressed to:
The group sits in a diner where River and the Doctor do diaries, laughing about their encounters on Easter Island and Jim the Fish, and he tells them they will visit 'Space 1969'. They later sit by the lake having a picnic, where the Doctor says that he's 1103, 200 years older than last time they met, and also comments on Amy gaining weight. Amy sees an alien on one of the mesas, but when Rory's head blocks it from her view, she forgets about it. The Doctor sees a man standing by a truck a few hundred metres from the picnic. River then notices an Astronaut standing in the lake. The Doctor becomes serious, telling his companions not to interfere no matter what.


<p style="text-align: center;">River Song<br />
The Doctor greets the Astronaut, saying that he knows who it is. 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. The Doctor begins to regenerate, but the Astronaut shoots him again, at which point River runs towards the Doctor as well. 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 a similar invitation to those received by Rory and Amy and River.The Doctor is then given a Viking funeral, before Canton departs, saying that the trio will meet him again.
[[Stormcage Containment Facility]]</p>
 
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 Milhous 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.


The group return to the diner and try to figure out what the Doctor meant by 'Space 1969' and who the other invitation was sent to, when the Doctor emerges from the back 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, 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 another 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, and that it has something to do with 'Space 1969', and Canton Delaware III.


==Cast==
==Cast==

Revision as of 17:42, 24 April 2011

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The Impossible Astronaut was the first episode of 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. [1]

Plot

Amy is reading to Rory from a history book about stories relating to an unnamed "doctor". The first story is of a king who finds a "doctor" hiding naked in his wife's room. The Doctor eventually gets incarcerated without trial but soon escapes by means of a magical, mysterious spherical device which is 20 feet across floating over the city (the page in the book features an illustration of a hot air balloon). The second story is of a doctor being caught while escaping with mates at an army base after confusing 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. 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 TARDIS Blue 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.

a date, a time, a map reference.

Elsewhere at the Stormcage Facility, River Song also received an envelope. 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.

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 Song holding a pistol which she then puts back in its holster, saying "Hello, Sweety!".

The group sits in a diner where River and the Doctor do diaries, laughing about their encounters on Easter Island and Jim the Fish, and he tells them they will visit 'Space 1969'. They later sit by the lake having a picnic, where the Doctor says that he's 1103, 200 years older than last time they met, and also comments on Amy gaining weight. Amy sees an alien on one of the mesas, but when Rory's head blocks it from her view, she forgets about it. The Doctor sees a man standing by a truck a few hundred metres from the picnic. River then notices an Astronaut standing in the lake. The Doctor becomes serious, telling his companions not to interfere no matter what.

The Doctor greets the Astronaut, saying that he knows who it is. 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. The Doctor begins to regenerate, but the Astronaut shoots him again, at which point River runs towards the Doctor as well. 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 a similar invitation to those received by Rory and Amy and River.The Doctor is then given a Viking funeral, before Canton departs, saying that the trio will meet him again.

The group return to the diner and try to figure out what the Doctor meant by 'Space 1969' and who the other invitation was sent to, when the Doctor emerges from the back 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, 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 another 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, and that it has something to do with 'Space 1969', and Canton Delaware III.

Cast

Crew

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.

Films

  • Amy Pond and Rory Williams watch a Laurel & Hardy film on television.

Fashion and clothing

  • The Doctor is also shown whilst wearing a fez in a Laurel & Hardy film.

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. 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[2]
  • This is the first two part opening episode of the revived series.
  • A prequel for this story was released on the official BBC website.[3]
  • The monsters in this episode were said to be "the scariest monsters yet".[4]
  • The episode was dedicated to Elisabeth Sladen, who had passed away four days before the episode's initial broadcast.

Ratings

  • Overnight figures for BBC was 6.4 million making this the least watched Series opener since the relaunch of the new series.

Myths

  • We will see River Song as a child.[5] This was proven false
  • The second episode will air the day after the first.[6][7][8]This has been proven false

Filming locations

Production errors

  • When Amy is talking to the agent outside of the toilet, a boom mike can be seen over his shoulder.

Continuity

If you'd like to talk about narrative problems with this story — like plot holes and things that seem to contradict other stories — please go to this episode's discontinuity discussion.

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.[9]

External links

Footnotes

  1. ↑ http://doctorwho.bbcamerica.com/seasons/6/episodes/1
  2. ↑ http://doctorwhotv.co.uk/series-6-titles-and-date-16375.htm
  3. ↑ http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/dw/news/bulletin_110325_01/The_Prequel_Has_Landed
  4. ↑ http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/cult/s7/doctor-who/news/a289472/smith-teases-scary-who-monsters-for-us-eps.html
  5. ↑ http://tardisspoilers.blogspot.com/2010/10/will-we-see-river-as-child.html
  6. ↑ http://doctorwhotv.co.uk/new-series-6-trailer-air-date-rumours-15879.htm
  7. ↑ http://tardisspoilers.blogspot.com/2011/03/talk-of-air-dates.html
  8. ↑ http://tardisspoilers.blogspot.com/2011/03/double-who.html
  9. ↑ http://doctorwhotv.co.uk/series-6-dvd-releases-15635.htm

Template:Series 6

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