From Small Beginnings: 'The Bells of St John' and 'Valar Dohaeris' Reviews

For absolutely no discernible reason other than that I misplaced my last bit of social shame the other week and am now gunning for the title 'Queen of the Nerds' with terrifying sincerity, I'm going to be reviewing Doctor Who and Game of Thrones alongside each other every week for the next ten weeks in order to settle the age old question that literally tens of productive members of society have asked: sci-fi or fantasy?  Well, how else to celebrate the fact that Easter weekend has clearly won at television and all other personified calendar dates should just go home?  (Spoilers, obvz, though I'll keep book spoilers for GoT to a minimum.)

Doctor Who Series 7, Part 2, Episode 1: The Bells of St John
I immediately want to dock points here because 'Series 7, Part 2, Episode 1'? It's a show about a man in a box.  Let's not get above ourselves.

Having said that, I watched this episode in a state of apprehensive terror, waiting for the remarkably non-power-mad Moffat-penned episode unfolding in front of me to devolve into the kind of nonsensical grandiose ridiculousness we've come to expect over the last year (the major moment of self-indulgence was that "eleven is the best" line, to which I say Steven, no-one likes a significant other who is jealous of the ex.  We got over Tennant ages ago*).  It's a remarkable relief to see the Grand High Moff exhibiting some signs of self-restraint, although also slightly worrying.  I do hope he isn't ill.  Factor in new companion Clara's posh-totty-ness and it's nothing short of a miracle.  It is not, of course, Clara's first appearance after her surprise drop-in in 'Asylum of the Daleks' as Quirky Dalek Oswin (good twist but wouldn't have wanted to sit next to her at dinner, and not really because of the dalek bit) and reincarnation as Victorian governess in the Christmas special who dies tragically of falling off a roof.  I decided to reserve judgement until such time as Clara appeared as neither a dalek nor a Victorian, and on balance I think I was right to because I found her much more palatable this lifetime round.  Stripped of eye stalks and corsets, she was even - dare I say it - likeable.  There's an obvious reason why, of course, and it's that some unsung hero at the BBC finally plucked up the courage to tell Moffat that television is traditionally a visual medium and thus the audience does not need to be reminded every goddamn minute that characters are attractive and/or special and/or attractive (again) when they can see that through the magical moving pictures on the wizardry box.  And to you, sir or madam, we are eternally grateful.

I do miss the days when companions were...y'know, ordinary, though.  I'm referring not just to Clara "Or Am I?" Oswald but also Amy "Rebooted That Universe You're Standing In" Pond and even Donna "Fused With David Tennant, Jealous Much" Noble and Rose "May Become Overly Messianic Upon Return" Tyler.  Personally, I don't need my companions to have anything 'special' about them at all, they don't need to be the most important person in the universe upon whom all our fates depend for me to want to spend cathode-ray time with them (I fully expect them to save the world at some point, but through pluck and grit and stiff upper lips, eh what).  How else are we supposed to use them as helpful self-insert fantasy sock puppets if we ourselves are not possessed of mysterious time/personality-skipping powers?  I do wonder if it's because Moffat, in this extraordinary streak of self-awareness, has realised that character-based drama is not exactly his forte; while in possession of a formidable skill set by way of taking ordinary things and making them the font of untold terrors, doing head-hurty things with time and smuggling inappropriate one-liners past the censors, I don't think he would or could create a Series 2-era Rose, for example (his attempt turned out Madame du Pompadour who, whilst possessed of many virtues, could not count 'everywoman charm' amongst them). I think it's possible that all these mystery superhero companions are supplementing a nagging insecurity that his 'normal' characters might be...well, boring.  Which is sort of sweet really.

And Clara certainly has a metric fuckton of mystery to be going on with.  I'm a little bit worried that Moffat is trying to retcon River Song given that thus far Clara is a flirty time traveller with multiple personalities whose timeline appears to be about as organised as the programmers in charge of making George Osborne look human (you're not the only one who can do social satire, Stephen "we can't always pass it off as a riot" Moffat).  I took that "time to find out who you are" line to mean that we'd be seeing a lot more of present-day Clara in the wrong order (along with all those tantalising hints about that leaf being 'Page 1', have we found Clara's equivalent of River's Big Blue Book of Spoilers?) and the Doctor is exactly the kind of 900 year old loveable eccentric who wouldn't consider delving into one's childhood as an invasion of privacy (or is he 1000 now? Would have loved to see that party).  We're already seeing the 'Asylum of the Daleks' character coming together, what with the origins of 'Oswin' and her convenient hacking skills (I love television's persistent fiction that touch-typing is somehow a convincing indication of computer genius).  I'd love the woman in the shop who gave Clara the number for the TARDIS to be River, rather than some parallel universe/future Clara herself or, indeed, her own daughter, but I don't want to sound like I'm ungrateful.

Amongst other possible trademark Moffat throwaway moments that will come back to bite, any, all or none of the following could be significant: that book by Amelia Williams - a last nod to Amy, apparently doomed to spend a lifetime in a hotel room with her husband and choosing to spend it writing slightly twee looking children's novels or something bigger?  The spoonhead under the streetlamp before Clara gets in the TARDIS (sorry, snog box) for the first time - couldn't tell who it was, but it didn't appear to be either a character we'd met before or the Doctor, so given that they apparently take their form from the subconscious of the victim, who exactly has Clara been thinking about?  One possible candidate is her dad, who we got a fleeting mention of; I took it to mean the dad of the family she was looking after, but on re-watch all the stuff the Doctor says about him being annoyed at the government in his phone message suggests otherwise - together with the reintroduction of UNIT at the end, I wouldn't be surprised if he turns out to be some kind of Brigadier Mk 2.  I thought the Big Bad was going to be Cybermen, given that Neil Gaiman is signed on to do an episode about everyone's favourite tin men with the brief to "make them scary" (I'm stocking up on cushions already) but instead we got a surprise appearance by Richard E Grant's floating head.  I'm still not convinced the 'Great Intelligence' isn't somehow linked to the Cybermen anyway - stealing people's psyches via the internet seems very like them, as well as providing a useful analogy for what this show does to its more invested fans.

So all in all, I am tentatively and lip-bitingly optimistic about the season ahead.  Perhaps it bespeaks low expectations when one is congratulating a primetime BBC family show for not being overtly sexist but that is the world we live in now.  Well, there was that incident with the monk blessing himself because of "a woman" but I've been watching The Pillars of the Earth and monks getting circumspect about ladyfolk and their ways is par for the course right now.  More importantly, it achieved what hasn't been the case for a good long while now and actually felt like an episode of Doctor Who: it had silly jokes about customer support helplines and the Doctor inventing the quadrocycle and a national treasure (Celia Imrie doing more acting her final scene than Karen Gillan did in three years) and the obligatory section I like to call 'Matt Smith is an Actual Alien Actually' which is just him touching things with his definitely non-human hands and I got to say things like "he just rode a motorbike up The Shard" to relatives late to the living room and it felt sort of safe to be excited about it again.  It's the show's fiftieth anniversary this year, after all - it would be a pretty bad year for Doctor Who not to celebrate all its greatest attributes and, indeed, its greatest flaws.  Welcome back, Doctor.  For two things that technically don't exist, this blog didn't half miss you.


Game of Thrones Season 3, Episode 1: Valar Dohaeris

I didn't really enjoy Season 2 of Game of Thrones, largely because I all but pulped the books and drank them as a delicious woody smoothie after Season 1 in order to get ahead of the storyline.  I failed, of course, to anticipate quite how much storyline there is in Westeros and beyond and by the time Season 2 rolled round I was staring dementedly at the screen going, "You're still alive?" and "Why are you in King's Landing when you should be crossing the spoiler in order to spoilerspoiler?"and, as always, "Who the fuck is Arthur Dayne?" I put this down to the fact that A Clash of Kings, upon which Season 2 was based, is not the best book in the series.  Hardly any of them are the best book in the series, in fact, except for A Storm of Swords upon which Seasons 3 and 4 will be based and THIS IS GOING TO BE THE BEST THING EVER, YOU GUYS.

After the excitement of the Battle of the Blackwater at the end of last series, I was more psyched about what this episode promised later in the series than what it delivered on the day.  It was a setting up episode, checking in with our main characters to see who was dead and/or raped and/or deformed, and who'd been really unlucky.  With an ever expanding cast ("Who the fuck is Arthur Dayne?") I doubt we'll be seeing everyone each week from here on out, possibly excepting the Tyrion-Dany-Jon Triumvirate of Angsty Awesomeness.  I thought the series opener chose well though, despite lack of Arya because there can always be more Arya, and more importantly was completely Branless and Greyjoyless because, and I cannot reiterate this enough, no-one cares about the Greyjoys.  I would also comment further about the lack of Brienne and Jaime but I genuinely cannot remember where Jaime is supposed to be in his Great Redemptive Arc at this point in the series and thus it is probable that when he does appear, he'll still be everyone's favourite incestuous hipster knight ("I was killing kings before it was cool.")

So here's Sam Tarly puffing along to confront us all with our own suspicions about how we would fare in a world where Sean Bean can die so easily**.  Here's Davos chilling on his rock before coming face to face once more with awkward ex-boyfriend Stannis and his new lady friend Melisandre (the sexual tension proves too much for Stannis to handle and he sends Davos off to the cells while he rethinks his sexuality again).  Here's Margery Tyrell doing a Princess Di that is both delightfully loathsome in its own right and causes Lena Headey's yummy queen mummy Cersei to go reaching for the mead in a way that makes me lament how utterly disappointing book!Cersei is in comparison.  Here's Sansa refusing heroically to display any character development*** while Shae stares at her with a horror usually reserved for small children crawling determinedly towards naked plug sockets.  Here's Ros stealing more screen time from characters anyone actually gives a shit about**** while Littlefinger strides smarmily around cementing his position as the Pete Campbell of Westeros (and not unlike Pete Campbell, there's a dark part of my psyche that wants him to end up running the shop, and an even darker part that wants to see him cry like a smacked child).  Here's Robb and his non-canonical bride riding around the North, being King in the North and generally saying "North" a lot before locking up his mother for telling him to tidy up his smoking ruins of Harrenhal (she also let Jaime Lannister go free which as a method for getting revenge lacks some forethought).  Here's Peter Dinklage as Tyrion managing to be at least seventy two times better than you will ever be at anything, coming together with Charles "I fucked Ripley" Dance to give dysfunctional families a bad (good?) name.  Here's Danaerys friendzoning Ser Jorah like a pro and buying up an army of baby-killing slaves after feeling bad for a good six minutes (I presume this is the Westeros equivalent of buying non-free range eggs but feeling really guilty about it).   Best of all, here's Jon Snow to look hilariously pained every time Ygritte makes an obvious pass at him and he remembers the whole no hanky-panky side of the Night's Watch deal he signed up for while I shriek Arrested Development-style "I've made a huge mistake"s at the television in his honour.

Oh, it's just all so...Game of Thrones-y.  It's almost comforting, all the nudity and killing and snow zombies and casual mutilation.  Something familiar in a crazy world.  Maybe not the most pulse-pounding episode there's ever been but they've got a lot to get through this season and I think they've hit the ground running.  If you haven't read the books, you're in for a treat.  If you have, you're possibly in for even more of a treat as we embark together on the journey of finding out if GRR Martin has left us any more tears to cry.  Still, you know it's nippy for the time of year when you're watching scenes set beyond the Wall going, "Ooh, that looks temperate." Winter is coming? You lucky bastards.

This Week's Winner: The Bells of St John pips it.  Valar Dohaeris is a solid episode full of returning favourites but is essentially a slow burner laying the groundwork for bloody, sexposition-fuelled times ahead.  Bells, while less than perfect, hints tantalisingly that Doctor Who may be on the verge of a - I can't believe I'm about to write this - regeneration.  And that's a finger-flexing-for-all-the-speculative-blog-writing-ly good prospect to risk getting excited about.

*Although then I saw this and my womb exploded.  Consider it the nation's drunken text message to the ex.
**Oh wait.
***Sansa in the books is one of those characters that divides opinion into "how is she still alive?" and "she's playing the long game".  Since the latter view requires a similar skill-set to determining that the moon landings were faked, I'm in the former camp.  I still wouldn't mind this on the show if Sansa's actress could...y'know, act, but sometimes I ask too much of television.
****I actually don't hate Ros, but this is the internet.  When you play the Game of Blogs, you rage or you squee.

Medical Emergency: Doctor Who - 'The Wedding of River Song' and Series Review

What the hell?

Was that - but -

WHAT THE HELL?

Um.

What on earth did I just witness?

Such, gentle reader, were the thoughts sending my brain into Control-Alt-Delete style screen-freeze after watching 'The Wedding of River Song'. Repeating "what?" more times than the 10th Doctor after the Space Titanic crashes into his TARDIS, I have only now composed and ordered my thoughts that I may impart them to you.

That's a complete lie, I have no idea what to feel. Did I like it? Was it good? WHO KNOWS (oh god, no pun intended, especially not with the episode ending on those words). I'm not even sure I was supposed like it. I'm not even sure it was an episode. I'm not even sure that reality exists anymore, perhaps it's just disintegrating and CGI balloon-trains are going to came sailing past my window at any point now. Anything could happen, because apparently the universe is now ruled by insanity and deceptively simple narratives.

Oh Moffat, you must be cackling in your tower like the evil genius you are, and I don't blame you.

I've found it hard to be really excited about the second half of Series 6. The fact that I didn't get round to reviewing the last few episodes stand as testament to that. I did start writing reviews but found my interest in the episodes fizzled out a few minutes after they ended.* In other words, Doctor Who became like regular TV: no drive to analyse or theorise endlessly. Largely I think this was because there was simultaneously too much mystery and too little. Too much in the sense of the late Sherlock Holmes stories: the reader couldn't possibly guess at the solution because it all hinged around an overload of meaningless information that could only come into focus by Holmes revealing a previously unknown character or object or plot point. All the "Silence will fall when the question is asked" stuff was impenetrable (and still is, to some extent) - I highly doubt that even the most dedicated of Whovians heard that and gasped "But of course!" A mystery where there's absolutely no chance that the viewer/reader can solve it is no fun at all. Then there was too little mystery, in the sense that the whole plot seemed perfectly laid out before us: River was in the suit, she killed the Doctor, she went to prison for it. There was nothing for us to guess at, except maybe how the Doctor escaped (because clearly he must) and surely Moffat would have some left-field solution for that - which (in a sense) he did.

Because, hand on heart, I totally forgot about the Tesselecta, bringing to an end my run of plot-guessing good luck. I dismissed the Flesh!Doctor as an obvious red herring but failed to notice the other doppelganger-maker of the series because it seemed like such a daft idea. Well, kudos, to you Moffat and I take my hat off to you. It turns out you knew what you were doing all along. Rather like the Doctor, in fact, I thought you were walking resignedly towards disaster, when in fact you were just waiting to pull a rather audacious backhand: a beautifully simple solution to a very complex problem. Too simple? Or too complex? Perhaps. But my goodness, it makes lovely television. Leaving aside his trademark plot-wrangling, Moffat showcased another of his abilities: an eye for spectacle. Trains over London, pterodactyls in the park, Winston Churchill on a mammoth: why? Because why the hell not. As in 'A Good Man Goes to War', it is this audacity, coupled with a keenly self-mocking sense of humour, that saves Moffat's episodes from falling apart under their own weight.

Speaking of self-mockery, this may well be the most meta episode of Doctor Who there's ever been. Matt Smith all but turned and winked at the camera with his references to Who canon and that rather touching inclusion of Old Who's Brigadier, whose actor died earlier this year. Then there was the Silents acknowledging Rory as "the man who dies and dies again", River's deliciously tongue in cheek "There are so many theories about you and I - am I the woman who marries you or the woman who murders you?" and (my favourite) Dickens teaser trailering the Christmas special. Then, of course, there was The Question which - much like the revelation of River's parentage - I might have guessed at jokily if I'd actually been blogging these last few weeks. So "Doctor who?" is "the oldest question in the universe, hidden in plain sight" is it? Plain sight being the title of a long-running children's sci-fi show that has never quite made sense because the character is clearly called 'The Doctor', perhaps? It's so meta, I could cry tears of self-aware joy. It's also completely preposterous but I just don't think Moffat cares, so perhaps neither should we.

On a deeper level, the meta-fun extends to the whole structure of the series itself. Ever since 2005, the show-runners have faced the problem of how to keep bettering themselves, how to keep producing finales that are bigger and shinier and more portentous and doom-laden than ever before and it just isn't possible. Tennant's messianic gurning nearly capsized the boat and, I'll admit, I was worried that we'd been seeing re-runs of the Time-Lord-on-Death-Row routine for the last few weeks. But now, with the universe thinking the Doctor is dead (oh Moff, for our lack of faith in questioning why you set up that storyline when he clearly couldn't be really dead, we repent), the show can return to classic adventures, romps and skullduggery, weird planets and bizarre aliens, familiar foes and old friends, and still keep the ticking clock of this new the-question-will-be-asked story arc in the background. A ticking clock, no doubt, that will reach zero hour in time for Matt Smith's exit ("the fall of the Eleventh"?) neatly coinciding with the show's 50th anniversary in 2013. That really is extremely clever.

If I have one major criticism of this episode (alongside all the other little things that just didn't make sense), it was that it didn't feel much like a series finale to me, more a bridge into the next series. In fact, the whole of Season 6 has felt like this to me, especially now we fully understand where it was going: the Doctor's death, River's role in things, these aren't really important in the long run. What's important is what comes after; it was all a set up for a sort of reboot of the reboot. I'm a little sad, because there's been some sterling work this year and to think of the whole thirteen episodes as simply paving the way for a bigger picture doesn't do justice to that. Then again, it's also sort of a relief: if the show is signalling a return to quieter episodes, more of the Doctor "in the shadows" then it means Moffat isn't actually the crazed megalomaniac we know and love. (Let's not hold out too much hope.)

So what have we learned from Series 6 of NuWho? Well, amongst other things, Moffat still has some very funny ideas about women. Both of the series' female protagonists started off as independent (fairly) well-drawn characters and ended up in story lines revolving around motherhood and the Love of Good Man. I can't quite fathom Amy and Rory's lack of crushing breakdown and depression when they realised they would never get to, y'know, hold their firstborn child in their arms and whilst their exit from the show was very well done, I won't miss them much. Not even Rory, who seems to have been forced to attend Masculinity 101 classes - when he wasn't involved in the sort of characterisation ping-pong game that had him still questioning Amy's love for him over the Doctor long after that should have been settled.

So maybe characters aren't Moffat's strong suit, but we've seen plenty of what is: namely, sheer cheek. His story lines may be ridiculous, but they're also immensely entertaining, and the minute we start clutching our pearls and shouting "unbelievable!" at the television about Doctor Who of all things is the minute we should probably step back and go "Guys. Let's calm the fuck down." Epic, extraordinary journeys to the furthest reaches of the galaxy and sparkling, witty dialogue are two things our revered showrunner has down. For next season, I'd like to see some more attention paid to what we might call the 'middle tier' of writing: the people actually doing the journeys to the Seventh Moon of Kallinda and speaking the funny gags about wi-fi. Presumably there'll be some new companions on the horizon and once I stop sobbing "It should have been me!" I'm sure I'll be very excited.

So. Series 7. Bring it, I say. Let there be Matt Smith, let there be Alex Kingston, let there be more lines like "as for the nights, they're between us" to send the old-school fanboys departing in waves of outrage howling "BUT HE'S ASEXUAL" and possibly even "LOOOOOOOOOOOMS" (google it) back to their basements. Let there be new companions who are smart and funny and who don't fall prey either to gender norms or the idea that they are the Single Most Important Entity Ever. Let there be silly weeks where they encounter the Trolls of Troy (I don't know), and let there be scary weeks where they encounter the Shadows of Broken Teeth (I really don't know), and let there be downright awesome weeks where the whole thing is pretty much Matt Smith standing atop the TARDIS yelling, "I AM DOCTOR, HEAR ME ROAR." And let Neil Gaiman back to write at least once per series until the end of time.

To sum up Series 6, it's been...odd. Some I've loved, some I've hated (Thompson), some just left me cold. And that is a sad thing. When Doctor Who fails to get a reaction from me, end times are surely nigh. We wave goodbye to Series 6 with fondness and a little relief, and look forward to Series 7 with high hopes. In the meantime, there's the Christmas special and I've already seen photos of Matt Smith in a 1920s motorcar and a charity shop version of Iron Man's suit. Can't. Wait.

So, the rankings are in and they're really, really unsurprising:

12) The Curse of the Black Spot

I imagine this may come as a shock to some of you, but I really hated this episode.

11) Let's Kill Hitler

Mels. Ugh.

10) Day of the Moon

A disappointing follow up to a storming series opener.

9) Closing Time

Sweet but insubstantial and crucially lacking in real villains.

8) Night Terrors

Heart-warming and atmospheric, but predictably resolved.

7)The Rebel Flesh/The Almost People

A solidly good story, if a little preachy, and very entertaining. (Also not much to separate the two, so I lumped them together.)

6) The Wedding of River Song

It was funny, it was fast, it involved the Doctor and River actually getting married, which personally I find highly erotic. (Please know I am joking. Mostly.)

5) The Impossible Astronaut

Oh look, I just really, really, really enjoyed it.

4) The Girl Who Waited

Even if I didn't have much of a connection to Amy, the episode was beautifully shot and written - a proper piece of grown-up telly.

3) The God Complex

Toby Whithouse at his best, all tea and philosophical debates about the fundamental nature of man. Funny and poignant and a great send-off for the Ponds.

2) A Good Man Goes to War

Utterly brilliant telly from beginning to end - audacious, high-spirited, packed to the gills with lesbian Silurians (no pun intended), blue man troupe ex-members, and Matt Smith with a grin so broad it was practically a northern accent.

1) The Doctor's Wife

Clearly the jewel in the crown of Series 6. To my mind, it was the only episode that really nailed what makes a classic episode: a strong, simple concept that causes emotional as well as narrative complexities, quotable dialogue, a beautiful and weird aesthetic, stellar performances and the most haunting use of the word "hello" I've ever heard. BAFTA, please.

And there we have it. Have a nice hibernation, Doctor. You have a lot of work to do in the spring.

*I'd actually like to finish and post those reviews, so we'll see if I get round to it. If you want a mini-rundown, I thought 'The God Complex' was great, if a little incongruously silly, and 'Closing Time' was a sweet, funny episode that never quite got as poignant as it wanted to be. So now you don't have to read them, even if I do post them. Possibly haven't quite got the hang of this blogging thing yet.

...

In other telly news, Doctor Who got a little shout-out on Community in its Season 3 opener 'Biology 101' with Abed drowning his sorrows at the impending demise of Cougartown with "Inspector Spacetime". "This is the best show I've ever seen," he says immediately. We're glad you feel that way.

I was also glad to see Community back up to speed again this week with 'Geography of Global Conflict' after an opener that was surprisingly low on laughs and high on mid-life crisis (crises?). This week the laughs came flooding back in - but then both of the previous seasons were (ahem) growers and the real gold came mid-season. Excitingly, Annie/Jeff now seems to be being touted as a real possibility - either that or it was blown out the water completely. I'm not sure which, it was kind of hard to tell.

And, best of all, Merlin is back without me even realising it for I have not seen a single trailer for it. For those of you who don't know, Merlin is set in a kind of alternate universe Camelot where Uther Pendragon is king, Prince Arthur is a prissy little bitch, Guinevere is a servant, Merlin has to keep his magic secret because it's banned (or something) and Morgana is a really terrible actress. It's in its fourth series now and, despite the "dark and edgy" makeover, occasionally goes "oh shit, this is supposed to be a kid's show, let's throw in a couple of fart jokes". It's silly and preposterous and if anyone wants to join me for wine and cake while it's on, a right good time will be had by all.

An Exercise in Awesome: Doctor Who - 'A Good Man Goes to War' Review

First, let me do this: OH MY GOD I WAS RIGHT I WAS SO RIGHT NO-ONE HAS EVER BEEN MORE RIGHT IN THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD THAN I WAS ABOUT DOCTOR WHO. Einstein? Bite me.

I don't know whether to dance for joy or weep at the preposterousness of my rightness. After all, this means that the Lulzy Mega Theory that I came up with to jokingly tie together every strand of the plot was...well, it was right. Like, actual bona fide canon plot. Steven Moffat you crazy man, I am no person to be filching storylines from their subconscious. LOL WUT.

Initial astonishment done with (it is quite lucky that I am so taken with the fact that I totally called this one because otherwise it could have been very disappointing), I genuinely loved this episode. Haters to the left, 'cos this is going to get raw like sushi. Honestly, I get why people might be disappointed. It's not like I've loved every minute of this series, it's been distinctly uneven in quality and I have serious doubts about the wisdom of a mid-series break in the first place. It obviously works for American shows that have a gazillion episodes per season and can take a convenient break around Christmas but for Doctor Who's thirteen episodes it just feels arbitrary and another ploy for the American market. Plus, it's just bad storytelling. Moffat is clearly invested in his overarching storyline and splitting the series in two means he gets to spend more time on it: three out of four episodes are justifiably siphoned off into Series Arc territory. But it does a disservice to the individual episodes - it makes us feel like we're just waiting to get back to the Important Stuff, especially when individual episodes turn out to really be about the series arc all along (Rebel Flesh/Almost People), especially especially when they have devastating cliffhangers tacked on the end (Almost People). And it's a shame because episodes like Neil Gaiman's are proof that the individual episode has as much to offer as the serialised one. So yeah, I'm not with you on this one, Steven: either do a four-part serial like Who of Yore or stick to the thirteen-episode series. No halfway house.

Plus the timelines are totally fucked now. I actually paused iPlayer to try and work out how River could know what happened at Demon's Run when Law of Inverse Timelines states she shouldn't know - I mean, it's her own future, right? It hasn't happened to her yet. I guess the Doctor told her or something? Yeah, Moffat has really screwed himself into a corner on this one. Personally, I hope they just abandon the prospect of trying to make the Inverse Timelines thing work because a) it doesn't and b) it's stupid. Plus it occasions unprecedented levels of angsting in my favourite badass and makes me all "Hey, Moffat, you got some 10th Doctor in my River". And please god, finally, I hope it means we just get to see them having crazy adventures together. Please. That would be awesome. Andtotallyhot.

And yeah, there wasn't really a story per se, just a load of build up and then...not much, and yeah, it really doesn't qualify as "the Doctor being raised higher than ever and falling harder than ever", like AT ALL, and yeah, for the 'Battle of Demon's Run' or even the titular War, it wasn't much of either but I honestly don't care. It was one of those ones where Moffat's real talent shines through: being awesome. If I'm totally honest, he's sort of gone mad with power and completely overreached himself this series, what with River's timelines and too much overarching plot but boy, can he make me forget his shortcomings quickly. There was some comment on the Guardian blog to tune that if this episode had been produced by Russel T Davies we'd all be baying for his blood and maybe so, but I think that just goes to show how much of the payoff is in the delivery: under RTD, this could have been a mess of mawkishness, goofiness and David Tennant's face collapsing under the strain of gurning. Under Moffat it was dry, tongue-in-cheek and Just. Plain. Cool.

I love that the show was finally confronting its own mythology - specifically NuWho mythology, that is. When they took the decision to rid the Whoniverse of Gallifrey and those pesky Timelords with a convenient genocide back in 2005, they might have done a service to the storylines but they lumbered the main character with a metric fuckton of angst and a dark side bigger than the freaking moon's. And yet they were always at pains to point that It's Totally The Same Doctor and He Never Really Changes. So, in my humble opinion, River's little speech where she called him out on what he'd become/was becoming was timely and effective, thank you. And again, will hopefully pave the way for glorious silliness come the second half of the series.

So there. I've dealt with all your petty complaints. Now can my joy be unconfined?

Because I flailed. Literally. And I do not use that word mistakenly, ever. I flailed with glee, I flailed with joy, I flailed with sorrow and I flailed with Matt Smithness. My limbs were all over the place with the wanton abandon of my flailing.

A long, long overdue Badass Upgrade for Rory there. I mean just that pre-credits sequence alone was great, with the callback to the Amy-talking-about-the-Doctor-but-really-talking-about-Rory trick (and yes, I admit, Moffat, you got me a second time) and that blank rage of the delivery of "Would you like me to repeat the question?" In fact, pretty much all the Rorytime of that episode seemed to be underscored by a little voice going, "Oh, you thought you didn't fancy Rory, did you? WELL WE'LL SHOW YOU." Seriously. Rory with cool explosions behind him. Rory in a centurion's outfit. Rory with a sword. Rory with a baby. Rory taking charge. Rory calling Amy "Mrs Williams". Rory Rory Rory, I salute you. Snaps for Arthur Darvill. (In fact, I think Moffat's having a wee giggle at the expense of the female fans there - after many episodes playing up excitingDoctor v homebodyRory, he suddenly gives us Rory in armour holding a baby in one hand and a sword in the other. He's practically the Old Spice man.) Plus, while I didn't totally buy Karen Gillan as a mum (no-one looks that good after childbirth), Arthur Darvill nailed it as a dad. (Or maybe find a female companion who can actually, y'know, act. It's just getting awkward.)

Some cracking classic Moffat one-liners in there as well. Stevie Wonder under the bridge in 1814 (we must never tell him), Jack the Ripper was stringy but tasty, all of Nurse Sontaran's Health Tips ("Don't slump, it's bad for your spine"). And I'm so glad River has the same thoughts as I do (Two Doctors? "That was a whole different birthday"). In fact, the whole episode had a distinctly Coupling-esque vein of British naughtiness running through it, as is only right for a story pivoting around the exact logistics of where and when Amy and Rory did ther nasty (presumably while roleplaying as a policewoman and a centurion - perhaps that's why the Doctor got Rory to dress up). I think my personal favourite (besides the Two Doctors gag, of course) was Cockney Strumpet pouting over her Silurian Lady Friend's roving eye, answered by "I don't know why you put up with me". Cue incredibly long, flexible tongue and some smouldering eye contact. Oh Steven, you are naughty.

I also love Moffat's PC vision of the ethnicity and gender diverse future (and the past) with the female president (speaking of which, it seems you really can't have a vision of the future without a bit of steampunk), the female pope, the thin fat gay married Anglican marines, the lesbian cross-species sword-wielding couple. Who are you, Russel T Davies? Seriously though, it was fun. And I know people say Moffat can't write character but honestly I shed a little tear over Lorna Bucket's death (what's the betting we get to see her encounter with the Doctor as a child in the second half of the series?), which is the second time I've cried over a character Moffat has introduced and killed off in the space of 45 minutes (thank you, Father Octavian). In fact, poor old Lorna Bucket. Let's take a minute to salute her. Yet another example of my favourite of the Doctor's qualities and its sharp edge: the ability to inspire people to be the best version of themselves, even if sometimes that just means dying. Anyway. Badass Silurian and her Sidekick of the Ridiculously Exaggerated Cockerney Accent were great. Blue Man Group Reject was amusing. Nurse Sontaran was Moffat at his most fun - he doesn't pull his punches on the show's more ridiculous aspects, does he?

But really, the star of all this was, of course, the Doctor. As I said, it was an episode that probed what the reboot had done to the character but celebrated it as well. It was a bold move not to have the main character in evidence for almost twenty minutes but for me it paid off; I was practically hopping with excitement by the time that ever-so-classy reveal of Matt Smith under the hood came around. And this, really, was why I loved this episode: it spoke to every adrenalin-junkie, explosions-and-one-liner-loving, lip-biting nerve of my inner seven-year-old. I bounced with excitement from start from finish; I didn't even mind the return of those goddamn Spitfires in Space. The whole thing was a feast of Woah Cybermen, Woah Explosions, Woah Cool Swords, etc etc. Steven Moffat is great at adrenalin. There's no other writer on television that manages to sustain quite that sense of snarky glee that I get from watching his stuff, and that's not just Doctor Who, that's Sherlock and Jekyll and countless others as well. And by the looks of it, it's not just me, I'm pretty sure that's the most fun Matt Smith's ever had, he seemed like he loved every minute of it.

Matt Smith who was, for the fourth week in a row, stellar. By the way. Not that I don't always think he's good, it's just that he hasn't been given much to do of late and I felt like the magic was lacking a little somewhere around the middle there. But what with Idris/Tardis and the Two Doctors and now this, he's fully cemented himself as My Doctor. I am seriously apprehensive about Doctor Twelve. I think Smith is at his best when he exploits that young-old appearance he's been gifted with, and this was a prime example - all that high energy glee when his plan went right, all that blushing prudery (somehow childish and old mannish at the same time) over the specifics of the conception. I also thought this was a tremendously endearing performance; I defy anyone watching not to feel at least a little affection for that space lunatic. Special mention to the Doctor imitating the Spitfires overhead, I was seconds away from doing the same myself. And the carousel of facial expressions as he realised that the first time Amy and Rory had been on the TARDIS together was their, ahem, wedding night. I am trying to be delicate.

And (because I've managed to avoid talking about The Reveal in detail so far) how great was that bit between the Doctor and River as he realised he was shortly to be hopping on the good foot and doing the bad thing with the daughter of his two best friends? It's a funny thing, that twist. I came up with my Mega Theory precisely because it would be preposterous for it to happen and now it has, it kind of is, but I've accepted it remarkably easily. So River Song is Melody Pond is the Regenerating Girl is Amy's Daughter. Yeah, I can get on board with that. Do we get to see her regenerate again? Will she join the TARDIS gang full time now? Will we have some Hilarious Shenanigans where Amy pauses mid-adventure to try and wipe her face? For the last, undoubtedly. For the others, we shall see. I hardly dare try and match my current Theory Predicting Success but the dots we're clearly supposed to join are that River kills Flesh Doctor and is sent to prison for it. I'm not sure though. With recent developments, perhaps she ends up killing Rory? 'Greatest man she ever knew'? It would be a neat way to end the They Keep Killing Rory arc and would continue Amy's trick of conflating descriptions of her two favourite men. Guess we'll find out. As to whether we'll find out this year, the jury's still out on that one; Death of the Doctor could be Moffat's way of linking this series to the next, just like the Silence linked us to the last. Anyway, so long as none of this affects River Being Awesome, I'm cool with it. (Also, remember when River said "he's not my Doctor yet"? I have a sneaking suspicion that now the Doctor's going to start being 'her Doctor'.) Plus, this sort of confirms something else I suggested a while back: River is completely justified in being a badass who tells everyone else what to do - she's a part timelord who's been specifically trained to be a badass. I can't even drive. I feel better about myself now.

Overall, a corking episode: wildly exciting, snarky-funny, tear-jerking, and with a reveal that most 9-year-olds probably saw coming a mile off because they have no concept that it just might be ridiculous. Not five star Doctor Who, but entertaining enough to be damn close.

...

So. What's the verdict on Series 6 Part 1? Um. Not sure. First off, it's a story only half told, there's still lots to come that may well determine what we think of the whole. Secondly, I don't feel like there's been enough of it to judge. But I do know that I preferred Series 5. Why? Well, it was just more unified. I've been thinking a bit about 'themes' in Doctor Who and whether they have a place there or should remain the preserve of more 'adult' drama (by which I mean, specifically written for adults, thank you).

Russel T Davies, he didn't really have themes. He had character arcs and, for the most part, he did them well: Rose, Martha and Donna all learned the value of themselves in one way or another and in turn, they were the show's links to the audience, our representatives. Moffat's characters don't really do that; they're more ciphers that represent certain things. I still don't really know who Amy is, beyond the fact that she's Scottish and 'feisty', and I certainly don't feel like she's my representative. (In fact, I sort of feel like Rory is my representative as the only one who ever suggests running away from the Scary Thing instead of towards it, but he's objectively a much better written character than Amy - but then, I don't think Moffat can really write women very well at all, although there are notable exceptions.)

But Moffat does do themes. Oh boy, can he do themes. Series 5 was dominated visually by the fairytale motif but there was also a strong Peter Pan-esque 'don't grow up' element as well as a 'real life v. adventure' aspect and, of course, the ever-present timey-wimey stuff. Most of all though, it was a discussion of storytelling and the way that the stories we tell end up shaping the tellers as much as the tellers shape the tale. I love that. That ticks every single one of my boxes. And it held together the series, elevating even the more formulaic episodes so that they became part of one long chain of adventure, Amy's Reward for Waiting. Ironically, Moffat stated somewhere that he doesn't 'do' themes consciously, he just writes his ideas and sees what happens. This seems to work well for him and I'd advise him to give it another go: Series 5's fairytale/storytelling preoccupation seems something organic, something even the Doctor didn't notice until it was important. Series 6, on the other hand, has suffered from too many decision by committee: we keep being told it's 'darker', 'scarier', 'more mature', elements which have clearly been shoe-horned in even where they don't fit. The Curse of the Black Spot should have been a romp - a proper one.

The current success of the show (and the Davies v. Moffat debate) really comes down to what you think Doctor Who should be. With Davies, it was a representation of our universe, in which there happened to exist this clever guy who talked too much and had a time machine and accordingly the Doctors were more humanised and the companions more woman-on-the-street. With Moffat, we hardly ever see our own earth; instead we're taken to mystical places with exotic names where fantastical events play out and consequently, the Doctor is extraordinarily alien and the companions are story archetypes. In a way, Moffat's era is just fleshing out all the planets Davies' Doctors name-dropped in Series 1-4: Davies showed us the familiar side of the universe with chips and council estates and daleks, now Moffat is showing us the unfamiliar side, where all it takes to bring back the Doctor is to remember him. I don't think either approach is necessarily better than the other but I prefer Moffat because a) my tastes run in that direction (beautiful escapism over hyper-realism every time) and b) I think he writes his approach better.

Series 6 has been a mixed bag. Jewels of episodes like The Doctor's Wife made up for clunkers like The Curse of the Black Spot. The scope and ambition has been impressive and the production values remain high, producing one very good-looking show. The series arc has been intriguing but overbearing and there are definite signs of Moffat overreaching himself. I prescribe cutting back on the timey-wimey, investing in a little more character development and continuing with the great line in wisecracks, scary monsters and awe-inspiring coolness. I may not be a Doctor, but I watch enough TV to know what's good for it.

My Dog's Got No Nose: Doctor Who - 'The Rebel Flesh' and 'The Almost People' DOUBLE REVIEW Part 2

RIGHT. Lightning fast Part 2, just in time for tonight's mid-season finale (and yes, I am very excited).

So. 'The Almost People'. It was good. A solid 4* two-parter, in my opinion. It was a little unsubtle compared to last week (that "Who are the real monsters?" line, for example - yes, I think we got that that was the moral dilemma of this episode, thanks) but more information needed to be conveyed quicker so it was forgivable. And of course, the problem with Big Reveals coming at the end of episodes is that they tend to overshadow the rest of it and I'll admit, fannish speculation is pretty much the only thing I concentrate on right now, especially after THAT ENDING. So let's deal with this as quickly as possible, yeah? Yeah.

Another excellent performance from Matt Smith - in fact, I think that was the best thing about the episode. Loved gangerDoctor's past regenerations burning through, that was a very nice touch, although I thought that the "we've moved on" comment after the 10th Doctor's voice resurfaced walked a fine line between funny and bitchy (although not unwarranted). On a side note, when gangerDoctor firmed up a bit and we essentially had two Matt Smiths, my reaction was basically that of Captain Jack Harkness's when faced with that ridiculous Doctor 2.0 cloning storyline with the two David Tennants which, as I recall, went something along the lines of "You don't even want to know what I'm thinking right now." The phone call with the little boy was great as well: simultaneously very touching and incredibly manipulative, which is sort of how the Doctor operates. Similarly, The Doctor telling Cleaves (who was much better written in this part) and gangerDixon (was that his name?) to go and speak well at the end was also lovely; I think the show is at its most inspiring (in a cornball kind of way) when the Doctor turns people into the best versions of themselves. Well that's when I tear up anyway, you can keep your Doctor/Rose goodbyes.

Once again Matt Smith also managed to pull off the trick of putting in two subtly differences performances of the same character. The obvious comparison here is with David Tennant's CloneDoctor in the Series 4 finale in more ways than Captain Jack and I needing to yank our minds firmly out of the gutter. Now, I'll admit I'm biased towards Smith because Eleven is My Doctor but I'll just say this: the difference between Clone10 and Regular10 had to be written into the script. Ganger11 and Regular11 were supposed to be completely the same person and Smith still managed to make them different. But not so different that the plot fell apart. Yeah, I pretty much want Matt Smith to be on Doctor Who forever.

I felt like Amy and Rory got a little shunted to the side, although this could be to prepare for the obvious centre stage roles they'll likely have in the mid-season finale. Rory is a massive dork, bless him ("I'll break out the big guns") and the writers really need to let him step up every now and then, I disliked how his (very Doctorlike actually) Righteous Anger about the Flesh was just swept aside and then turned into a big con anyway. Amy...I don't know what to say about this week, except that re-watching the episode knowing it was gangerAmy resenting gangerDoctor for being a ganger was nicely ironic and mindbendy.

In fact the episode was so layered with double meanings that there's a lot that actually doesn't make sense. For example, the Doctor pitching a spaz at Amy about the Real Human Pain of the Flesh after she tells him about seeing his death. Makes perfect sense if he was actually the gangerDoctor but as realDoctor, not so much. Maybe it was just to cover up his real reactions to that particular piece of information? That's assuming that that was gangerDoctor and they didn't switch after that point. And logically both Doctors must be tuned into the Flesh, not just gangerDoctor: if gangerDoctor and realDoctor switched then it was realDoctor saying all the stuff about how he could sense their plans and things – was he making it up? Did gangerDoctor tell him earlier so he could relay it back to everyone else? Doesn't really hold together but the premise that he was actually collecting data was cool. There was just a bit too much going on as it was; I would have cut Cleave's clot (I'm not sure that it added anything beyond letting Raquel Cassidy deliver that "them's the breaks" line) and Jen morphing into a standard CGI monster. Come on Doctor Who, when will you learn? Putting a human head on the body of a monster JUST. LOOKS. SILLY. Say it with me now: SILLY.

What's funny though is the amount of stuff I've unwittingly got right over the past few weeks" my observations about the Doctor feeling a bit enigmatic and cipher-y of late actually turn out to have some bearing on the plot (he's sorting the problem of the Disappearing Amy) and bolsters my hope that we'll get 'Real Doctor' back in the second half of the series. of course, the question we're all asking is whether gangerDoctor means a possible solution to his 'death' at the start of series. I'm pretty split on this one: Moffat doesn't tend to do left-field solutions, he's more a 'drop in hints so subtly no-one realises they're hints even after stuff happens' kind of guy and gangerDoctor as a solution feels both too obvious and plausible at the same time. Even if they don't use him as a get out, the door is still open for him to come back at some point with all the 'way back from being vapourised' stuff, just like the door was left open for Jenny the Doctor's Daughter and then mercifully slammed closed because she was a shit character.

So Amy-pregnancy questions of why and how and when and who by are being answered literally at this minute (and I do mean literally) so let's not dwell on them. I'll just say this: River Song. Amy's daughter. Regenerating little girl. Same person. If it doesn't turn out to be true then...I'll be quite happy because that would frankly be an appalling plot twist.

See you on the other side.

The Doctor Is In: Doctor Who - 'The Doctor's Wife' Review

*insert grovelling usual apologies for puntasticly titled review here*

HOW GOOD WAS THAT, EH? THAT'S MORE LIKE IT, DOCTOR WHO. I'M GOING TO TURN OFF THE CAPS NOW. That's better. But yeah, how bloody good was that? And not a single reference to the wider story arcs or anything (except that prophecy, more on which later), just a great standalone episode. Stephen Thompson, take note. Actually, this episode has even dried up some of my rage towards that unfortunate individual because, sadly, we can't all be Neil Gaiman.

And that episode was vintage Gaiman from start to finish. From the opening with "Auntie", "Uncle" and "Nephew" and the "I just wish I could go in your place, Idris... Actually I don't because it's really going to hurt", I was reduced to a state of lip-biting, toe-clenching glee. For those of you unfamiliar with Neil Gaiman (and for anyone with access to a bookshop/library/e-reader, there's really no excuse if you are), this is what Gaiman does: fantasy writing with a very homespun British feel to it that often plays off a core of darkness and unnerving...ness. This is a very general description though, and his short stories are probably the best illustration of his versatility, spanning from whimsical ones like 'Chivalry', where an old lady finds the Holy Grail in a charity shop and Sir Galahad turns up on her doorstep to get it back, to ones that play with established tropes and characters like 'A Study in Emerald', which is a crossover between the worlds of Sherlock Holmes and H.P. Lovecraft and does some very clever things in managing your expectations to unnerving ones like 'Babycakes' (the title is almost literal) and downright scary ones like 'Closing Time', which I can't tell you too much about without spoiling it but you'll never look at a wendy house in the same way again.

He's also written several novels, including Stardust (of which an ok-ish film adaptation was made a few years ago), The Graveyard Book (based on The Jungle Book, but the protagonist is brought up in a graveyard instead of a jungle, somewhat obviously) and a collaboration with Terry Pratchett called Good Omens, which I would sincerely advise everyone to read at some point because it is genuinely one of the funniest, warmest, scariest, most uplifting books I have ever read. Amongst various things, it's about prophecies and the apocalypse and the 11-year-old antichrist and witchfinders and the four horsemen of the apocalypse (on motorbikes now) and mostly focuses on the unlikely friendship between a fussy earth-bound angel who runs a bookshop and a sarcastic demon who "did not fall so much as saunter vaguely downwards" and has a tendency to hiss when agitated. And it's probably getting a four-part television adaptation soon, so there is a god. One last Neil Gaiman plug, I swear: he also collaborated with the Jim Henson Company to make a film called MirrorMask, intended as a kind of spiritual successor to 80s cult classic Labyrinth (yes, the film with David Bowie's crotch in it) and I think it succeeds admirably. Again, very English (it stars Stephanie Leonidas, Rob Brydon and Gina McKee) but very strange, absolutely beautiful design and some very unnerving moments.

Basically, what I'm trying to get across here about Nail Gaiman (apart from the, by now obvious, fact that he's awesome) is that he's basically the perfect person to write for Doctor Who - with the proviso that he does standalone episodes only. Because it was very...well, Neil Gaiman-y. I don't what it is but everything that man touches is marked with his own peculiar Writing Pollen. This is by no means a criticism - Gaiman has, quite simply, one of the best imaginations writing today and it's an imagination that goes into strange and dark corners of the world. If we could have Gaiman to write all the one-off adventures and Moffat to keep the series storylines on track, I would be a happy woman. Perhaps what made it feel so different was the warmth and heart of the episode - something which, sadly, Moffat episodes (for all their fantastic twists and turns and pitch perfect one-liners) seem to lack occasionally. I always feel, when reading Gaiman, that no matter what corner of time and space he's occupying at that moment, he's still this boy who grew up in Croydon (no, seriously) and read comics.

Sorry. I'll talk about Doctor Who now. And I really have to talk about Suranne Jones' Idris/TARDIS first, don't I? A tough act to follow for any future guest stars (again, Hugh Bonneville, take note), sort of Queenie from Blackadder II crossed with Helena Bonham Carter (which I think was actually the character briefing for the Red Queen in Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland film, but of that monumental disappointment, We Do Not Speak). To give the TARDIS human characterisation when she's always seemed to have a personality of sorts anyway could have been incredibly risky but I think Jones and Gaiman pulled it off with aplomb: capricious, naughty, haughty, vulnerable and very much in love with "her" Doctor. After all, the Doctor/TARDIS relationship predates every companion and the Smith/Jones (what is it with Doctor Who and Smiths and Joneses?) chemistry was excellent, a great reflection of this. I particularly liked the childlike joy and fear that seemed to infect the Doctor this episode; we don't often get to see him partnered with an entity even older and more complicated than he is and it seemed very appropriate that being able to converse with his time machine for the first time in 700 years would reduce him to a state of bright-eyed a-quiverment. Much like I was by this episode. The way the relationship switched from wariness to excitement to flirting to bickering to a display of extreme mutual appreciation and love was beautifully written and deftly executed and I salute all those involved. My favourite line was, of course, "Biting is excellent. It's like kissing, only there's a winner." Although all the references to calling the TARDIS "Sexy" were pretty - to borrow an internet neologism - for the win.

Essentially, this episode was a paean to everyone's favourite blue box. It's long been part of Whovian lore that the Doctor stole ("borrowed") the TARDIS and it's long been a favourite fan theory that the TARDIS takes the Doctor to trouble spots, rather than holiday resorts, no matter what he wants. We got closure and confirmation on both of these things and it was absolutely thrilling. I think part of it was that being told things about the Doctor is still a special treat. For a show called 'Doctor Who', we really don't get to know him all that well, a situation which is often exacerbated by the focus on the human companions because they're "us", they react how we would etc etc etc. I really loved the way the the focus was balanced in this episode, placing the Doctor right at the centre and focusing on his relationship with his past. Speaking of which, I'm willing to bet that throwaway line about 'The Corsair' being female in a few regenerations will have actually exploded a fair few internet message boards, blowing the lid off the "Will there ever be a female Doctor?" debate. My guess is that the answer is Yes, There Could Be But No, There Won't Be. I also love the literary referencing going on there: The Corsair was a poem by Byron, one of the clutch he wrote that crystallised the whole Byronic Hero thing, focusing on the adventures of a brooding rake rejected by society who went around bedding women dressed as men and men dressed women. The obvious conclusions to draw from this are that a) Gallifrey was very permissive society and b) Byron was a Time Lord.

But for all its grounding in Whovian mythology and Doctor/TARDIS shenanigans, the episode wouldn't have worked without the Ponds enduring a series of truly horrifying mind games in the bowels of the TARDIS. It was great to see Rory and Amy working on equal terms again, although they really, really must stop killing him off now. I'm sure it must be leading up to something bigger, although (as I've said in previous posts) I don't think it can be a permanent death for Rory because we just wouldn't believe it so...Amy dies? Perhaps in childbirth? RTD said he'd never kill off a companion but I wouldn't put it past Moffat. I think he forgets sometimes that he's writing a children's show. Anyway. Rory and Amy. I love that the TARDIS has a little crush on Rory, or possibly just completely different aesthetic standards ("Your chin is hilarious!") Plus Karen Gillan really dialled it up a notch this week in the acting stakes. No overblown shouting, no strident petulance, and some nice sobbing in those corridors. Actually, I just really liked the way Amy was written this week: in a position of fear and ignorance but still competent and trying to think her way out of the situation. That's how all companions should be. Including Rory. And he was. Nice.

The whole ending sequence, from Idris fading away to that great gag about the bunk-beds, was superb. "Hello, Doctor" has never sounded more heart-breaking. But we know all this. So let's just take a moment to think about that tasty little prophecy line, "The only water in the forest is the river." Of course, the question we're all asking ourselves is "river or River?" To which I would add, "forest or Forest of the Dead"? Forest of the Dead, being of course the library in which we first met River Song. Taken like this, it could be some kind of exhortation to the Doctor to trust River (and believe me, I would love it if River and the TARDIS were friends) but I actually sort of doubt it. I feel like it might be a red herring, much like the "He will knock four times" thing from Tennant's exit, where we all thought it was the Master and it was Wilf (well, it kind of was the Master so maybe that was more of a double bluff). I don't know though, the TARDIS said it was something he would "need" to know, so it could be way down the line and not to do with the series story arcs at all. Also just occurred to me if we're debating water sources here: River v. Pond? Some kind of choice? Ooh.

(Like a total idiot, it's also just struck me that if River is Amy's glow-y regenerating-y child, as per my mega-theory, then Rory is her dad, as I really don't think they'd introduce adultery into the show. It just puts that Rory/River conversation from The Impossible Astronaut into quite a nice, paternal light, that's all. Daw.)

All in all, I'd say that was a pretty flawless episode. Not quite as cinematic as we're used to but Doctor Who isn't cinema, it's bloody good TV. It was a tightly packed, beautifully designed, 45 minute feast of ideas and emotions and funny lines and it didn't need to tie into the series story arc to feel important. Satisfaction achieved. Next week looks like another 'too scary for the kids' week with something called The Gangers (off the top of my head but sourced from Wikipedia) and some creepy prosthetics. Goody. After this week, I'm expecting a natural drop in quality, something along the lines of the Silurians two-parter from last series (good but not great) but you never know, it could turn out to be a Human Nature/Family of Blood (way up there in my top five episodes). Either way, my faith in Doctor Who is restored. Neil Gaiman, please come back soon.

An Apple A Day: Doctor Who - 'Day of the Moon' Review

So, a somewhat shorter take on the proceedings this week, compared to last week's enthusiastic splurge of geekery.

The truth is, I don't really know what to think of yesterday's episode. Disappointed, probably. Not overwhelmingly, not crushingly, but slightly. I had such faith, y'see, that the mind-boggling complexity and frustration of the set-up would be brilliantly matched by a clever and well-executed pay-off and I don't think it was. The solution with the video clip seemed too easy - clever, yes, but nothing Moffat hasn't been doing for years - and also full of holes. So now every time a human being sees a Silent, they'll be filled with the desire to kill it? Fair enough when you're a roomful of armed security guards versus a single alien but what about children? What about wusses like me? One ordinary human being versus one Silent - I wouldn't fancy my chances. After all, look how well that ended for Joy. But I suppose we're just acceptable casualties.

And it's a shame, actually, because I thought the Silence were otherwise a great villain: the creepy look riffing off the Roswell Greys, the sleeping hanging from the ceiling, the ability to be the best sneaker-uppers in the history of ever. They sort of didn't even need the usual Moffat extra "it's the movement in the corner of your eye" nightmare fuel. I would have liked to see them have their own Blink-esque episode - be introduced simply and terrifying and then dispatched on a much smaller scale over the course of one 45 minute episode.

Therein lies the rub, I suppose. How much you liked the episode may depend on exactly what you want from Doctor Who: self-contained nuggets o' sci-fi fun or serial drama in the vein of Being Human or Lost. I have no problem with either but this was neither of them, a sort of weird halfway world between the two. Moffat's decision to split the series in half has allowed him to focus more on the series story arc but at what cost? I think the idea was that some questions were resolved and others weren't and would be saved for a rainy day/series finale but (and you can call me stupid but I'm really not) I wasn't entirely sure what had been resolved and what hadn't. There was no...adequate signposting. I hope Moffat doesn't consider the Silence over and done with because I certainly still have questions, not least about what they wanted with the little girl, but I suspect that's a matter for a series finale.

Lesser things niggle as well though: why kill Joy? It seemed needless, given that she wasn't going to remember the Silent, and if the point was to demonstrate their ruthlessness then that rankles as well because their precise morality was never explained. In fact, what they wanted was never really explained and I found it very odd that the Doctor made no attempt to uncover their agenda. If you've got complete control over the human race, you could do much worse things than sending them to the moon. I was right about the mind-manipulation element of suggesting to Amy that she tell the Doctor...whatever it was (still not sure) but again, why? I was also right about them marking themselves to remember the Silence but why on the face? They can't see it. I suspect that all these things can be attributed to Rule of Cool - it looks creepy to have marks suddenly appear on faces like whatever horror film that was and that's enough to justify it being there. Ditto killing Joy. Ditto picking up three months after unresolved cliffhangers to do a bit that shows off how clever you are but doesn't really make sense as to why Canton would need to pretend he wasn't on their side, given that they then have the President jollying around (seriously, does he not have a country to run?) telling people, Hey it's cool, they're with me. Also, "Silence will fall" still doesn't make sense. Also, there was so much going on that I nearly forgot the whole Frances-Barber-appearing-through-a-non-existent-hatch-wearing-a-space-age-eye-patch incident. Weird.

That's what I didn't like. Not enough questions answered and not enough enough promise that questions would be answered. And if I'm feeling like that, what must the kiddies and their mums and dads who are nominally the target market of this show be feeling right now? Bored and confused, I expect. In some ways, it's the natural evolution of a show that it gets darker and more complicated (episodes like this would never have got the show back on TV in the first place) but I hope it doesn't forsake its roots as a daft, time-travelling romp about a madman in a box who picks up girls young enough to be his several-hundred-times-great-granddaughter. Also the sacrificing of the show's internal logic for Hey, Cool Stuff didn't sit well, and this is coming from someone who could feasibly be labelled a Moffat Apologist.

So, what did I like? A lot, actually. In terms of isolated incidents there was some great stuff, pity about the way it hung together. I found the whole orphanage sequence terrifying and had to sing loudly and cheerfully to myself to ward off lingering urges to keep looking over my shoulder later on that night. Great American Gothic visual stuff going on, beautifully unnerving Southern drawl from the brain-addled proprietor, plus the whole reveal of the Silence hanging from the ceiling like a nest of the slimy hissing, rattling vampire-grub-foetuses they are. Brrr. Who locked and unlocked the door of the room, though? The little girl? A rogue Silent? Possibly another 'doesn't matter that it doesn't make sense, it makes good telly' moment, there.

Slightly sad to see Rory reduced again to second best, especially after all my gushing about him last week. Can we put this to bed now, please? Amy and Rory are a good couple, now let's just see them being a good couple, snarking and being feisty and snogging while the Doctor averts his delicate gaze. (Side note: anyone else think Rory looked quite the 1960s fox in those glasses? I would.) Also an annoying sitcom contrivance there, of the kind I hate - why couldn't Amy just say who she was talking to? Wouldn't have killed her, jeez. But wait, I was talking about what I did like. I like the timey-wimey pregnancy thing, partly because it means I was right to be so confused and "woah guys, this is a big deal" about it last week it. Don't think it's any evidence of Amy/Doctor shenanigans though, just the time vortex whizzing around her tubes. I also like my new Mega Theory that ties together every assumption we are supposed to make so far: the little girl is Amy's daughter who grows up to be River Song who goes on to be the astronaut who kills the Doctor and then goes to prison for it, all in some timey-wimey memory-wipey Silence-involved way that means none of them remember any of it. And if it's true, everyone must buy me several drinks. (This also applies if the little girl is River's timey-wimey baby because I made a throwaway crack about River being pregnant last week, so I've called that one too.)

Speaking of River, I hope she isn't going to lapse into excess angsting every time we see her. Part of the reason she's so great is that she's clearly had to deal with shit and knows the worst is still to come but straps on her gun with a happy smile and blasts some aliens anyway because shh, Spoilers. (Also I had enough angsting with OverlyMessianicTen and I love the fact that Eleven has not once tried to pull the "LAST OF MY KIND CURSED BURDEN SO FOREVER ALONE" business on us.) How is it that I still love River so much? She is definitely too awesome, taking down all those Silence, and yet I continue to sit with with head resting on hand and gaze dreamily at her. Plus, you cannot deny her chemistry with Matt Smith is amazing fun to watch ("Stop it." "Make me." "Maybe I will.") and the way she plainly worships the Doctor is a lovely antidote to her superiority. So what if she can take down a whole room full of Silence? She's not the Doctor and she knows it. And I'll admit, when it got to that kiss, I squeed. A full on fangirl squee and I haven't done that for a fair few years. I might even have clapped. Oh, I'm a shallow wee thing but I love it so.

Matt Smith continues excellent but oddly underused for the title character of the show. Hope we get some quality time with the Doctor soon. Do like how he inadvertently caused Watergate though. And his little "where do I put my hands?" moment during the kiss. Oh Doctor, we've all been there. And (because I criminally neglected him last week) a word must be said here for Canton Everett Delaware III, who was all kinds of awesome and excellently played by Mark Shepperd and I do hope we haven't seen the last of him.

I'm far too tired and head-spinny for theories this week (except above stated Mega Theory) although I'll just say that I bet that spacesuit's going to come back into things and if it's such a clever piece of technology could it have imbued an otherwise perfectly human girl with both the super-strength to bust out of it and the Time Lordy powers to regenerate? Or if it can move independently, could it have shot the Doctor on its own? Only time (and Moffat) will tell.

Anyway, next week looks set to get things back on track with Hugh Bonneville (yay), pirates (yay), Lily Cole-maids (yay) and general high seas rompery and is a stand-alone episode in a sea (no pun intended) of two-parters, so here's hoping for one of those fun nuggets o' sci-fi I was missing. Also the week after that is Neil Gaiman episode which, Wikipedia tells me, is called 'The Doctor's Wife' and this excites me greatly (although reportedly River isn't even in that episode, so it is probably a clever ruse but hey, Neil Gaiman). Actually this series has some great titles coming up. Go check it out. What, I can't do everything for you. Go away now. Shoo.

In Need of a Doctor: Doctor Who - 'The Impossible Astronaut' Review

I apologise for the title of this blog.

So. Doctor Who, eh? Last time I wrote something about Stephen Moffat creations being marmite entities but I eat my words (pun intended a little): if you hated that, we're done here. Okay, my one criticism (and Your Milage May Vary on this) is that maybe, maybe it was a little convoluted for the casual viewer. I did have much explaining to do to my mother and sister after the event and that was just to clarify the small handful of things that were certain. Personally, I followed it fine by assuming the persona of my alter-ego, the Shushing Nazi, so as not to miss a single line. The thing is with Moffat, you can't. It's one of his greatest strengths and hinderances – every single line holds some significance, either as a gag that shows how clever and funny he is (and will probably get echoed back in a serious emotional form at some point) and you won't want to miss it, or as a clue, in which case if you do miss it, you're screwed and good luck following anything for the rest of the series, let alone episode. And maybe there were a few too many clues. Maybe I'm struggling a little to keep a handle on every single question that was raised during the course of the forty-five minutes. But screw it. Because that was some of the best kids' TV I've ever seen. And I watch a lot.

It seems like the buzzword for this series is “scale”. Or “scope”. Everything is now bigger, grander, cinematic and sweeping, and it works. Ambition is a great thing for a show to have but it leaves the possibility of humiliating failure. RTD suffered from chronic Fisherman's Wife syndrome. For those of you not familiar with the story, a fisherman catches a fish who grants him a wish if he sets him free. The fisherman does so and wishes that the family shack was a sweet little cottage. Off he goes to the wife who, of course, demands to know why he didn't ask for a nice big town house. The man goes back to the fish. The fish gives him a town house. Then the wife wants a mansion. The fish gives them a mansion. Then the wife wants a palace. The fish gives them a palace. Are you starting to see a pattern? The point is, eventually the wife wishes something so stupidly huge (I think in one version she wishes to be Almighty God Him/Herself) and the fish goes, “fuck this shit, man” and sticks them back in the hovel.

Anyway, RTD was kind of like that fisherman's wife, never quite happy with the level of momentousness that the threat/companion/David Tennant's hair was at, so he always tried to go for one better and as a result the show nearly broke down under its own weight – Daleks and Cybermen? Bringing back all the cast members since the Reboot? Two David Tennants? Etcetera. And part of the reason it didn't work was because the show essentially stayed the same, it just told you it was harder/smarter/faster/stronger etc with OMG WORLD THREATENED LIKE NEVER BEFORE, WHATEVER SHALL WE DOOOOO? And then giving you some hugging, some rubber-suited aliens and some running along corridors. Moffat, I think, understands that if you want to up the scale of your show, the whole thing has to rise to the occasion. Pull out all the stops. You can be cynical all you want about the purpose of an American episode being to sell it to American markets but the cinematography was breathtaking. The art direction of the last series and that to come (if the trailers are anything to go by) was and will be stunning. Now, I'm a sucker for anything gothic and pretty so even clunky episodes like The Beast Below were made for me by the clever visual riffs on 'idyllic' 1950s Britain gone slightly sinister, mixed with all the red velvet/white mask fairytale imagery of Liz X and her court. Somebody give that art direction team a BAFTA or something. And The Impossible Astronaut didn't just look beautiful, sweeping from that glorious Utah sky and that golden lakeside to the gratifying visual shorthands for power of flag, eagle, rug in the Oval Office to the nightmare warrens underneath the cold, labyrinthine-wire-infested warehouse space of the NASA base, but it was beautifully scripted, acted and directed too.

Moffat was at his self-satisfied best with River's innuendos (that “screamer” line is going down in history but let's not forget the Doctor's opening line from under the skirts of a smirking seventeenth century paintress, “You know, this isn't nearly as bad as it looks”) and Amy and co's lightning banter (“Stalker” “Flirt”, “Hippy” “Archeologist”) and, of course, more twists and turns than the Amalfi Coast. And the next time someone says Moffat can't write/doesn't care about emotion/character development, I'm going to send them straight to that River Song monologue. It's a very interesting thing we've got here – usually we learn to love a character over the course of a few series and then the actor wants to leave/the execs make a decision/the writers need a big story and the character is killed off. Often a character death is quite rooted in the real world, and because nothing was leading up to it, it feels cheap and arbitrary. Not always but often (*cough*mayWashhauntyourdreamsJossWheedon*cough*). Here we have a character's death shown us and we go “oh ok” and feel a bit sad because she was kind of cool and a bit happy because she gets a nice afterlife and don't think about it much, just like with any guest character. But then the character comes back and she doesn't know what we know and we learn about her and how much she loves life and how she loves people we love and then we start to understand what exactly it means for her to die and how much we mourn her, both pro-and retroactively (wibbly wobbly, timey wimey). And for River, dying isn't even the worst bit.

Anyway, Moffat's really settled into writing for these four characters now, as have the actors playing them, and all are able to exhibit a little more boldness, a little more sparkle, now we have established canon to play around with. I particularly liked that the whole Amy/Rory will-she-won't-she thing has been definitively wrapped up with a yes-she-will-and-she-has and we can enjoy a bit of flirting between Doctor and Companion (as it was in the beginning is now and ever shall be, amen) and Rory is now able to have a full, proper personality, rather than simply being not-the-Doctor. Rory is snarky. Rory is every time you watch a horror movie and you ask “Why don't people ever run away from the room where the scary noise is coming from?” personified. Rory is you, every time the Doctor says “I'll explain later” and you sing Amy Winehouse's timeless lyric, “What kind of fuckery is this?” Although that could just be me.

Rory is also now also on equal terms with Amy, meaning that the show has also shown us a couple with a relationship in crisis that has been saved through mutual appreciation and hard work. Well done, show. But this is only a small part of another astonishing trick Moffat pulled in opening ten minutes: he gave the secondary characters power over the Doctor. It feels sick and wrong, but it's there, and we are faced with an omniscient hero no longer omniscient and I loved loved loved everyone's reactions to it. I loved the way Amy threw a hissy fit and refused to accept she was no longer in a world where her fairytale Raggedy Doctor could come and save her. I loved the way Rory grew a pair and dealt with Amy's fragility while not losing sight of what needed to be done. I really loved the way River was outwardly The Sensible One and The Grown-Up One parroting the obligatory 'fixed points in time' shpiel and inwardly scheming like the fox she is to get her Doctor back in one piece. And most of all, I loved the way the Doctor sat in the middle of it all, unhappy and moody one minute, then breezy and pragmatic the next but all the time that extra bit capricious and eccentric just to make it all a little harder for them so he could find out what in the name of the Time Lord was going on. In the current situation, each of these character's actions is now important, each one of them has the potential to influence the way things turn out. It's the complete opposite of River's comment that the Doctor's friends do “as we're told”. The novelty of it is exciting and kind of charming, but I hope it's temporary – it doesn't need to continue like this for its repercussions to be felt in future 'normal' Doctor Who dynamics and scenarios (assuming our motley crew get out of this one unscathed).

I'll turn briefly (well, I'll try) to the actors now. I still can't quite get my head around Karen Gillan's performance and Amy is currently my least favourite of the four for that reason only. (NB Least favourite also means I still like her, I just love the others.) For me, the overriding mystery of Doctor Who is whether she can act or not: moments of excellence followed by moments of weird, stilted...not-anythingness. It could just be that she's great at the stuff that involves being chippy and feisty and smart-mouthed and not so good at the deeper stuff: great banter this episode, not so convinced by her Doctor-grief. A friend of mine put it quite nicely, saying that Gillan might well fail in other roles but she's perfect for Amy. I can kind of see that, except that in Amy we have quite a psychologically complex character, one who was actually very screwed up by her encounters with the Doctor as a child and is only just beginning to heal. Gillan has talked in interviews about how Amy's confidence is just a front but I don't really get this from her performance – maybe she's just no good at playing the levels. When she's being brash, she's brash, when she wants to be vulnerable, she looks down and mutters tersely. I will say that I enjoyed Amy much more in today's episode than I ever have before, mainly because she seemed to have calmed down and started listening to other people, going from 'bolshy' to just 'headstrong'; evidence of the healing I was talking about, but evidence I'm more inclined to say credits the writing than the acting. Ultimately, I like to think of Amy as part of the cinematography – she's beautiful and helps to gives the show its current unique flavour, but she's not the deepest thing about it.

Arthur Darvill's Rory has already been complimented here today so I'll just say that I admire the way he doesn't mind being the actor who isn't Matt Smith. This is better than it sounds. What I mean by this is that he never tries to make his part bigger than it is, never mugs or opts for the easy Loser Boyfriend role favoured in the past by both RTD and Moffat but brings in a comic, understated, recognisable portrait of a grumpy bugger who likes a quiet life married to an energetic, thrill-seeking woman. Four for you Arthur Darvill, you go, Arthur Darvill!

River Song. I fear I may gush now. I understand that River Song is dividing opinion. I understand that many people dislike the way she shows up out of nowhere, talks technobabble at high speed, acts superior and flirts with anything that moves (which does not at all sound like any other much-loved character on the show, not at all, and definitely not the one whose name is in the title) but I think she is awesome and I hope she sticks around because things are a million times more fun when River's around. The Doctor knows it and you should know it too. Alex Kingston plays the part with such evident relish that it's surely impossible not to enjoy her performance. In many ways, River Song embodies the kind of female character I usually hate: cool name, mysterious past, anything-you-can-do-I-can-do-better attitude, impossibly sexually confidant. Too perfect. Matt Smith out and out said somewhere that Moffat is basically enacting a fantasy with River. So why do I love her? Because I do. No – because she's older. That's my theory anyway: Alex Kingston's age gives that little edge. She looks like a woman (a very attractive woman, let us be in no doubt about that) who has had time to become all those things I usually hate. She's earned the right to have a cool name and a mysterious past and a cleverer-than-thou attitude and it's heavily implied that she suffered and lived in order to become what she is. Imagine, for a moment, a woman in her early twenties, beautiful, slender and dressed in form-fitting army gear, turning up out of the blue and flying the TARDIS while shooting daleks and sexily blowing the smoke off her pistol. Ugh, what an obnoxious bitch. What's she doing here? She's worse than Jenny, the Doctor's Hopefully Never To Be Seen Again Daughter. Yikes. No, Alex Kingston/River Song – you rock. If I am half as badass when I am in my forties, I will be a happy woman. (And if you don't get it on with the Doctor sometime soon, I will pitch a strop the likes of which Amy can only dream of.)

And finally, the Doctor. Matt Smith is a very good actor. We know this already. We've seen him in things. But oh em literal gee, what a performance. Come on now, that was good. That was really very good. For the first ten minutes, I was sat there wondering what exactly I was seeing. “I guess he's just settled into the role,” I thought to myself (for the Shushing Nazi must observe the terms of her own demands), “but he's...really settled into the role.” He was sort of wiser and calmer and tireder, even when he was being manic. And then he said he was 1106. And then he died. And then he came back and he was 909 and he was younger. Even for the Doctor, an ancient being who has witnessed several lifetimes of despair and misery, he was younger and more immature and less tolerant and kindly and amused and yet exactly the same old Doctor we know and love and my mind was blown. To pitch it exactly right both times for both incarnations – kudos to you, Mr Smith. But really, as I've said many times, the best thing about Matt Smith is something entirely undefinable. Whatever it is that you need to convince audiences that a gangly twenty-six-year-old with indie hair and a smile like a Wallace and Gromit character is an infinitely wise, ancient creature who has witnessed glorious and terrible things and travelled to the ends of the galaxy and back, he's got it. I guess you do or you don't.

So all in all, an entirely satisfactory start to the new season, and by satisfactory, I mean bloody great. Too many questions and not enough answers to be a classic episode but the strongest series opener they've had since the reboot. Gorgeous, frustrating, scary, sexy, dark and poignant in equal measures, my Saturday nights for the next six weeks are booked up. It'll be me, the Doctor and a bottle of corner-shop plonk. Bliss.

Now comes the nerdy part. For my own edification, I decided to re-watch pretty much immediately after the episode aired, this time with the subtitles on because, like I said, gotta catch every single word. And here's some theorising and things that came up on a second viewing:

1. All sorts of clever things going on at the start. He said "I thought I'd never get done saving you" in the past tense (as I'd suspected but wasn't sure) so he definitely knew he was going to die. Also River implies that the numbers on the envelopes were in order of how much he trusts those people, hence himself being number 1. She had number 2, so 200yearsinthefutureDoctor trusts River more than Amy/Rory, in stark contrast to presentdayDoctor who refuses to trust River but trusts Amy (ref. scene in the TARDIS, custard with fish fingers, etc).

2. The Silent (as the credits call the monster) says to Amy "You must tell the Doctor what he must know and what he must never know." And Amy says "How do you know about that?" And then he just says "Tell him". So Amy's “that” could mean either the Doctor's impending doom or her pregnancy. Both are implied but the question is, which is the thing he must know and which is the thing he must not know? Leading onto...

3. ...which is Amy trying to tell the Doctor? She leaves the bathroom saying she needs to tell him something but then says “I don't know why I said that”. At first I thought it was implying that the Silent is forcing her (presumably through some kind of mind manipulation) to tell him something and she's resisting in some kind of Battle of Wills but I think it's actually simpler than that. The whole Silence schtick is that you forget them when not looking at them (nice variation on the Don't Blink riff there and I'll be sad if isn't referenced in the next episode as Moffat is usually so good at being smug and self-referential) so Amy really doesn't know why she's gripped with the desire to tell the Doctor...something. BUT WHAT? Is she really trying to tell him about her pregnancy all that time? Or is it a last minute switch for The Whole Death Thing?

4. And why is Amy feeling sick? Could be the pregnancy but probably not because River does a similar queasy thing after her own encounter with the Silence – Silence Sickness? Unless River's pregnant too, of course...

5. River/Doctor timelines. I am confused. We've seen River time travelling of her own volition (acquiring the vortex manipulator with some well-executed blackmail last series), turning up at the oldest cliff face in the universe, in Roman Britain and now present day Utah amongst others, leading me to believe her and the Doctor's timelines were a big old tangly ball of timey wimey stuff with shared experiences coinciding at random moments for both of them, hence the twin diaries we saw in The Impossible Astronaut. But now we're being told that it's a straight up Benjamin Button scenario and their timelines are parallel and oppositional – hence the first time she meets him, she doesn't know him, and the first time he meets her, he doesn't know her. Or are the two actually compatible? I may need a diagram. (Also, this messes up her reaction to meeting TennantDoctor, right? Because she expected him to recognise her, but as far as we know, she only met the 10^th Doctor once and could tell he was younger than 'her doctor', so therefore should have known he'd never met her before. Oh, my head.)

6. Hold up, I've just done some scribbling with pen and paper and it does seem like River's personal timeline is broadly running opposite to the Doctor's personal timeline. BUT it can't be a straightforward case of 'meeting in the middle', because we haven't seen all sorts of stuff that we know goes on in between, like the Doctor and River's last 'real' date before she dies, the one in which he gives her his screwdriver to 'save' her to the computer in the Library and in which (it is heavily implied) he knows her very well (they go to the Singing Towers of Sci-Fi Name Here and he gets emo, apparently). So not Crash of the Byzantium/Weeping Angels, then. Also, in order for this to be the case, she would have to be travelling steadily backwards through general time, which sort of seems impossible. So the whole 'travelling in different directions' thing must be a generalisation, unless there's all sorts of cool Doctor/River stuff we haven't been shown. Which would be sad.

7. The makeshift TARDIS from The Lodger! In the tunnels! And the tunnels are “centuries old” apparently and running under the surface of the entire planet (love how River's little gizmo is essentially an Exposition Device, while the Doctor's sonic screwdriver is more a Plot Resolving Gadget – what a team). Hmmm. This definitely ties in with the hints in the 'Next Time' trailer that The Silence aren't new to earth but have always been here, maybe right from the beginning, we just keep forgetting their existence. Brrr. It would also, perhaps, retroactively explain what the hell was going on in The Lodger anyway (which I'll now have to re-watch, obviously) because that was never really resolved. The Silence were living upstairs to James Corden?

8. Back to the Important Thing that Amy wanted to divulge – later on she has a line that there's something she wanted to tell him “but stuff always gets in the way”. Then she doubles over in pain and says to the Doctor “there's something important I need to tell you”. Could quite plausibly all be the pregnancy, right? a) “stuff gets in the way” and she can't find the right moment to tell him something as important as that. Simple enough. b) She doesn't realise she's in pain because of the Silence (because she doesn't remember them/hasn't seen River doing the same thing) and thinks the pregnancy is causing it, hence her urgent need to tell the Doctor about the pregnancy and the (melo)dramatic moment at which she reveals it – she thinks she or the baby might need help.

9. ...then again, her big significant “It has to be now” suggests that there's some pressing external reason why he needs to know at That Precise Moment. And that suggests that she's trying to tell him about his Impending Doom, because the astronaut is coming and she wants them to try and kill it to prevent the future from happening. So back to Square One. Damn you, Moffat.

10. And we're left on the twin cliffhangers of whether Rory is dead and whether Amy has shot a little girl. Well, clearly Rory isn't dead because he's in the rest of series and clearly Amy has shot but not killed the little girl. Unless she's already dead, which is my bet – hence being able to move in a full size space suit and contact the President wherever he goes. Plus the Next Time trailer showed Amy looking at writing on the wall of a room full of institutional looking beds that said “Leave me alone”, which sounds very child-like to me (more echoes of Moffat Past here with a bit of an Empty Child buzz to it). How about the little girl as some kind of pet for the Silence, kept in the room with all the beds? Or their envoy to the human race? Or even a hologram/their creation in some other way? She's standing shoulder to shoulder with two of them in the trailer and having them be on the same side might be a plausible Moffat twist.

11. Plus, what's with the Impossible Planet-esque scribbling on the faces? My bet is it's something to do with each time they see a Silent – either they are marking themselves so they don't forget or the Silent do it to them and, like the Silence themselves, you can't see it once you've forgotten.

12. And finally, the most pressing questions of all: what is with the Doctor's Beard of Sorrow, why is River Song in an evening gown, and how the hell does she manage to look so fierce?

Only time (or breaking into the BBC to steal the press tapes of the next episode) will tell.