The Impossible Astronaut (TV story)

The Impossible Astronaut (TV story)

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	[[doctor::Eleventh Doctor]]
	Amy Pond Rory Williams River Song (guest)
	The Silence
	Utah, USA, 2011 White House, Washington, D.C., USA, 1969 Florida, 1969
	Steven Moffat
	Toby Haynes
	214a
	Series 6
	23rd April 2011
	1x 45 minute episode
	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 Amy Pond reading out to Rory Williams from a history book. The first story is of a king who finds an unnamed doctor hiding naked in his wife's room. This doctor eventually gets incarcerated without trial but soon escapes by means of a magical, mysterious spherical device which is 20 meters across floating over the Tower of London (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 commandent's office. A soldier shouts in German and pulls the Doctor out of their tunnelled 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:

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

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

Meanwhile, River Song receives a similar envelope with the number 3 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 afterwards, the facility goes abuzz by loud alarms going off as a soldier reports to a superior on the phone how Rose 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 dominent 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 Song holding a pistol which she eventually purse back in its holster saying "Hello, Sweety!"

Cast

• Eleventh Doctor - Matt Smith
• Amy Pond - Karen Gillan
• Rory Williams - Arthur Darvill
• River Song - Alex Kingston
• Canton Delaware - Mark Sheppard
• Old Canton Delaware - 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

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.

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.

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

Filming locations

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

Production errors

to be added

Continuity

• Amy mentions fish fingers and custard (DW: The Eleventh Hour)
• The Doctor requests Jammie Dodgers and a Fez. (DW: Victory of the Daleks, The Big Bang)
• The Doctor once again asks River who she murdered. (DW: Flesh and Stone)
• The Doctor again expresses his dislike of wine, despite drinking it again. (DW: The Lodger)
• 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)
• 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)

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