Doctor Who S32E1, "The Impossible Astronaut"

[NecronLord]

And why do we not just have a general spoiler tag in the title, like we usually do? So we don't have to use these frelling stupid boxes?

Because it's redudant to have a discussion thread about an episode that requires spoilers for things in it, it's not been my policy to spoiler tag these things for some time.

[Broomstick]

Because the non-spoiler thread was locked and some of us on other continents do not have a reliable way to get the latest shows without a several months delay.

Of course, there is probably a better way to handle all this....

[Dahak]

It was a decent start. I am still not 100% warm with Smith's Doctor, but it's getting better. Still missing Tennant
And for me, any episode with River Song in it is a definite win. One of my favourite Who-characters.

[Crazedwraith]

Given that there has been some confusion in this thread perhaps your policy is not entirely clear? Most people have just been using spoiler boxes for speculation and for spoilers from previews but some has used it for details of the episode under discussion.

Anyway, I voted it at a 2/5. Some lines and individual moments were amusing but this episode put me on edge in a bad way. It wasn't easy to watch and it wasn't 'fun'. The Doctor's death is a very cheap way to create tension and is going to have to eventually be retconned. Unless the BBC is going to end Doctor Who permanently when Smith wants out.

I agree with Shroom Man 777, it seems like Moffat's recycling himself. From the big stuff like the creepy walking spacesuits, and children's voices. To small stuff like the hat shooting thing from Big Bang. (like the re-use of the 'complicated' catchphrase in the Comic Relief this bugs me a lot. The bowtie line is a good reoccuring gag. Those other two felt more forced)

Still can't stand River. The section with her talking about Silence In The Library was especially annoyingly 'cute' writing.

[NecronLord]

Given that there has been some confusion in this thread perhaps your policy is not entirely clear?

Very well. Henceforth, I shall reinstitute the use of spoiler tags in all episode discussion threads that I post.

As for otherwise, well, I'n honestly not sure if there's that much of a way to discuss the show other than 'it's good' or 'it's bad' that wouldn't rate as spoilers by the prevailing definition, but I suppose we can have a 'no plot developments' discussion covering themes and quality and technical details etc.

[Lord Woodlouse]

I personally think it's daft to have a thread discussing anything to have "no spoilers" as implicit. If you don't want spoilers in a thread I think it should be stated from the outset, otherwise assume they're contained therein.

Of course part of the reason for this is that I often find myself reading these threads on a smartphone, and find opening spoiler tags a pain in the arse on a 4'3 inch touchscreen.

[Broomstick]

Seems to me that if the thread title refers to a specific episode (such as the one for this thread does) it should be assumed spoilers are likely.

On the other hand, for a thread like "Who is your favorite NuWho Doctor?" a no-spoiler rule, or a spoiler warning (as appropriate) makes more sense.

[Shroom Man 777]

Moffat's bag of tricks

Creepy Children That Scare Us / Scared Children That Also Scare Us:
Gas Mask Boy (Doctor Dances/Empty Child)
Little Big Space Man Girl (Impossible Astronaut)
AI Boy (Library)
Little Girl Pompadour (Fireplace)
Fake Little Girl Amy / Funny Voiced Children and Parent (Eleventh Hour)
Whale Food Children (Beast Below)

Masks:
Gas Mask Boy (Doctor Danes/Empty Child)
Little Big Space Man Girl (Impossible Astronaut)
Clockwork Robots (Fireplace)
Space Suits With People Inside Them Eaten By Shadows (Library)
Urban Queen Elizabeth and Funny Faced Monster Machines (Beast Below)

Optical Illusion Tricks:
Blinky Angels (Blink/Time of Angels/Flesh and Stone)
Perception Filter Space Eel (Eleventh Hour)
Skeletonizing Shadows (Library)
Look Away And You'll Forget Thin Faceless Man (Impossible Astronaut)

Faceless/Emotionless Spooky Scary Enemies:
Gas Mask Boy#
Blinky Angels*
Skeletonizing Shadows Inside Space Suit After Eating Man*
Little Girl in Big Space Suit #
Clockwork Robots #
Funny Green Head Disciplinarians That Feed Children To Space Whale #
Faceless Monstrosity Tall Man In Spiffy Suit* #

*with asterisk denotes they also have Optical Illusion Tricks
#involves scaring children

Moffat has made 9 full length episodes so far. His tricks appear in the majority of his episodes.

The latest one had a Scared Child (1) who was Also Creepy on a Faceless Space Suit/Mask (2) inside a warehouse full of Faceless Spooky Scary Enemies (3) that used Optical Tricks (4) to Scare People.

Viola! He used all his tricks in this one!

He should make an RTD action sequence where the fighting guys all use optical illusions. They are fighting shadows and the shadows are fighting blinking guys and if they don't see you they forget you and everyone has masks and there are scared children running from scary children. With the proper camera angles, this may be THE MOST SCARY EPISODE IN DOCTOR WHO HISTORY!

[NecronLord]

I'm not sure what you're trying to say, Shroom, apart from being ... shroomy. Yes, we all know that Stephen Moffat's monsters are a little repetitative. They're also fundamentally different from one another. Yes, his stories have similar elements to them, that's why, of course, they employ more than one writer on the show.

[Shroom Man 777]

My point is that he uses almost exactly, or at least extremely similar, mechanisms in more than half his episodes. Does that seem right to you? I mean, come on.

All I know is that majority of his episodes have scared children or scary children and masked villains, and the biggest thing in Astronaut was that the scared child was also scary and was also the one who had a mask. But that's not really that new, come to think about it, because The Empty Child also had a scary scared child with a scary mask.

he uses the same 'tension'/'suspense'-causing devices all the time

guess what when you use the same devices all the time to cause tension and suspense

they end up losing tension and suspense

For all we know the plot twist in the next episode, Moon, will be that all the Apollo astronauts are actually victims of the Space Child. Maybe he spreaded a nanite disease that makes them mutate spacesuits on to themselves! Are you my mommy Mister President?

[DaveJB]

There's nothing wrong with having a certain set of story elements that feature in all of a writer's work, so long as the stories they come up with are good ones. In the classic series, Robert Holmes had a lot of elements that tended to appear in his stories, yet is rightly regarded as being in a whole different league to any other writer that ever worked on the show. Likewise, RTD came up with a lot of varied stories during his time on the show (and for the classic series, I suppose the best comparison would be probably be Bob Baker and Dave Martin), but his output was wildly uneven, and not nearly up to the par of Moffat overall.

[2000AD]

You might as well lump 'Masks' in with 'Emotionless/Faceless' as that's one of the main points of why a mask can be scary.

And frankly I can't see how you can call children being scared of monsters a trick of a specific writer, monsters scaring children is a staple of scary stories the world over.

[Shroom Man 777]

He uses scared children all the time as a mechanism to generate suspense or tension in the viewer.

Point, the Masks and Emotionless/Faceless bad guy are more or less in the same category.

[Broomstick]

Two odd things that bothered me - they might be minor and they might not:

1) just before the Viking Funeral, River Song says "we're the Doctor's friends and we'll do what the Doctor's friends always do - as we're told". My kneejerk reaction was "No you don't!" Geez, half the episodes involve the Doctor's companions NOT doing what they're told to keep the plot moving. WTF? Which makes me think (again) that Song and Delaware were both coached in their actions and met The Doctor prior to the meeting in the diner with Rory and Amy, and prior to the beach picnic, even if we don't see it.

Of course, Delaware knows a lot more than they do at that point, since the future events of the episode are his past. Really, this one does a lot of interesting time travel stuff without utilizing the TARDIS, between that and Song and the Doctor syncing their diaries and Song/Amy/Rory having seen a future version of the Doctor then having to see the present/past Doctor and deal with knowing more about the Doctor's future than the Doctor does at that point.

2) When Delaware sets down the gas can Rory says "Gasoline?". Um... don't they call that stuff "petrol" where he comes from? Or is that wrong? Or is it a nod to being in America?

[Shroom Man 777]

Maybe by then, he's already been to a few gas stations.

I want to know, just how accurate were those NASA Apollo Moon suits they used as props?

[NecronLord]

I want to know, just how accurate were those NASA Apollo Moon suits they used as props?

Very

For comparion

There are differences (unsurprisingly, as the TV prop isn't pressurised) but in the main, pretty cool.

[2000AD]

He uses scared children all the time as a mechanism to generate suspense or tension in the viewer.

Yeah, but the point is that children being scared is a common occurence in Doctor Who irregardless of the writer, it's like complaining that too many episodes feature time travel or aliens.

It's not like the tricks you listed as Moffats signature are unique to him, just going through the last season episodes not by him you have:

Victory of the Daleks -
Faceless/emotionless enemy

Vampires of Venice -
Optical Illusion

Amy's Choice -
Optical Illusion
(IIRC the aliens disguised as old people were quite emotionless too, but it's been a while since I watched it)

Vincent and the Doctor -
Optical Illusion

The Lodger -
Optical Illusion
Spooky child

Only the two parter with the lizard people avoids all the tricks you listed (Or was there a young kid that got scared in that too?), and it would appear that Optical Illusion can be stricken right off the list of tricks limited to Moffat.

[Big Orange]

Spellman the Clown from The Sarah Jane Adventures was an optical illusion.

Anyway, our 'ole buddy, Lawrence Miles, thinks Steven Moffat keeps repeating himself:

Put in the spotlight, Moffat returns to a stimulus-response kind of thinking. If he does something that works, something that people like, then he does it again. This is how all comedy writers, those who demand an instant reaction from the audience, are primed to think.

Link

[Broomstick]

I want to know, just how accurate were those NASA Apollo Moon suits they used as props?

Very

For comparion

There are differences (unsurprisingly, as the TV prop isn't pressurised) but in the main, pretty cool.

Meh, except the helmets were noticeably different to me in detail even without having to go back and compare to actual shots of the Apollo program. I wonder why they didn't make the helmets more identical? Heads are important people notice those.

But certainly close enough for TV.

[Iroscato]

Spoiler

It's so obvious the whole thing is part of some bigger plan that the Doctor has. Why would he let himself be killed in the first place? Why even meet the astronaut, since he seemed to know he was going to die? Though, if this is going to be running throught the whole series, it's going to drive me nuts.

[Serafina]

Spoiler

It might just be possible that something finally managed to break the Doctor. Remember that 200 years had passed, a lot might have happened during that time.

Also: Why was the Silence trying to destroy the Universe at the end of the last season?
Perhaps they had planned for the Doctor saving it the way he did, and purposefully implanted false memories in Amys head in order to alter the reality of the new universe, thereby becoming as strong as they currently are.

[Shroom Man 777]

He uses scared children all the time as a mechanism to generate suspense or tension in the viewer.

Yeah, but the point is that children being scared is a common occurence in Doctor Who irregardless of the writer, it's like complaining that too many episodes feature time travel or aliens.

It's not like the tricks you listed as Moffats signature are unique to him, just going through the last season episodes not by him you have:

Victory of the Daleks -
Faceless/emotionless enemy

Their facelessness isn't used as a trick to generate suspense.

And you're right, the Faceless/Emotionless Enemy is basically redundant with the 'Mask' category I also brought up. Many of Moffat's Faceless/Emotionless Enemies are faceless and emotionless because they wear masks.

Vampires of Venice -
Optical Illusion

True, but I don't think their "is actually fish monster" shtick was used for suspense. Not in the same way as Moffat, with the camera angles, suspenseful music ratcheted up, etc. It wasn't at all a major device to generate audience suspense.

Amy's Choice -
Optical Illusion
(IIRC the aliens disguised as old people were quite emotionless too, but it's been a while since I watched it)

I thought the aliens were inside the old people's bodies.

Vincent and the Doctor -
Optical Illusion

The Lodger -
Optical Illusion
Spooky child

Very good points. I would've mistaken them for Moffat episodes, actually.

Only the two parter with the lizard people avoids all the tricks you listed (Or was there a young kid that got scared in that too?), and it would appear that Optical Illusion can be stricken right off the list of tricks limited to Moffat.

But do these tricks appear in the vast majority of episodes those other writers/directors made? Do the writers/directors of those episodes use the same trick all the damn time?

Those tricks are recurring in fiction, not just in DW, big whoop. But they seem to dominate Moffat's works. More than half of his works feature the permutations of those same tricks again and again and again. If the writers/directors of those episodes you listed also had more than half of their works also feature faceless masked enemies with optical illusions or scared scary children, then that's something, and I'll concede that they're all being as repetitive as Moffat.

[2000AD]

Well since I have tommorow off work and I've finished my 2nd run through of Portal 2 I guess I'll have time to kill. Looks like I'll be going through the nuWho episode list on wikipedia and seeing which of those tropes each writer likes.

[Broomstick]

If the writers/directors of those episodes you listed also had more than half of their works also feature faceless masked enemies with optical illusions or scared scary children, then that's something, and I'll concede that they're all being as repetitive as Moffat.

On the other hand, if that repetition hasn't interfered with - or even contributed to the success of - a franchise that's been in existence since 1963 it's hard to argue that repetition is a problem even if you, personally, don't care for it.

For another genre - soap operas make me want to puke, but the formula (and they're very formulaic) is commercially successful, or at least it was until recently. I don't care for them myself but clearly a lot of people do so the demand has been filled for decades.

So, Shroom, it might be only a minority of Who episodes appeal to you. No big deal. Enjoy what you enjoy, and ignore the rest.

[Ugolino]

This one didn't do it for me. The Silence looked silly, even by the standards of Doctor Who (too much rubber suit, not enough Slenderman), and their "ominous" actions degenerated into comedy. The actor reactions felt off, Amy is still closer to the Doctor than to Rory (probably intentional, but doesn't really send a good message), and it started to degenerate around the time the Doctor committed suicide by spaceman.

Tell me why the protagonists aren't all dead already, given the Silence's ridiculous abilities? At least the Angels were shown as credible threats, as you'd expect from the description of their abilities.