6x02 Day of the Moon (Grading/Discussion) (SPOILERS!!)

[Checkmate]

I don't know, I really liked the episode. Of course, I think a lot of things were pretty blatant about it.

It seems obvious to me that the Doctor 1105 wasn't murdered; he sacrificed himself for his wife -- who at the age of 1105 he was intimately familiar with and undoubtedly in love with, which they demonstrated by him being familiar with every adventure River came up with in the diner scene. Due to the backwards nature of their lifetimes, his last act in life was to give her one. The nature of their relationship was driven home all the more with that final kiss; River knew (or at least suspected) that their first kiss from his perspective would be their last one from hers. That, alone, could be the "much worse day coming for me" bit.

Fortunately he had two hundred years to make a plan so that he can have his cake and eat it, too. Which is what we're seeing unfold during this season.

I also found it cute that the reason Nixon has his reputation tarnished is largely the Doctor's fault. Did anyone else notice the off-hand comment where the Doctor basically told him to record everything near the end of the episode? I mean if you look past the scandal, Nixon wasn't a bad president. He did all kinds of great things. It's just that little debacle that tarnished him forever... all courtesy of the Doctor. At least in this fictional setting.

But yeah, I'm looking forward to what's coming. To each their own I guess.

 

[DAK]

Then again, when you're 900 or 1200 or 2400 years old, if you're traveling through the infinity that is time and space, you're going to hold (and sometimes fire) an actual weapon occasionally.

Well, I agree with you. In a situation like that with the Silents turning on the charm is not an effective weapon. If River and her gun weren't there they would not have made it out alive. I don't get what the big deal is using one defensively, but then again I'm an American.

 

[Starkers]

Well I really liked it, but as with the Impossible Astronaut it was flawed. Again it seemed to take a while for the episode to get going, and the more you think about it the less sense the opening few minutes make (Why were they running, why mark their faces, how did the Doctor and Canton forumulate a plan when the Silence were watching, why didn't Canton see River drop into the TARDIS, why didn't the FBI try and recover her body from the ground where (presumably) they thought it had ended up.

Luckily the episode got better, although I still don't see the Silence as particularly threatening. Anyone else get a real X-Files vibe from Amy wandering around the orphanage?

Loved the Doctor/River flirting, loved the Rory Amy stuff (although its getting old now, she loves you Rory stop worrying!) loved the way he defeated them (although again in hindsight it is pretty genocidal!)

The end of the episode though...wow...I mean WOW! I was screaming at the telly (in a good way) and I'm so glad I didn't get spoilered!

So, now we know even little girls are more of a man when it comes to regeneration than the 10th Doctor was?

 

[Photoman15]

Oh, and the Doctor never participated/instigated genocide before? (*cough Daleks. *cough Timelords).

 

[Starkers]

Yeah but genocide when the two sides are engaged in a reality destroying war is one thing...this was a lot smaller scale.

 

[Brent]

I don't think the Doctor would consider it a small scale thing, he's always had a fondness for humans from Earth. That's like his world too in a way.

 

[Sindatur]

^ And in "Bad Wolf" as well.

And folks so busy whining about the gun shown in the trailer for season 5 where all the Doctor does is shoot the gravity globe, obviously forgot about this scene in "The Doctor's Daughter", where he actually points a gun at the head of a human.

Heh, of course folks are forgetting about that scene, many have worked very hard to wipe that entire episode from their memory

 

[Alidar Jarok]

Yeah but genocide when the two sides are engaged in a reality destroying war is one thing...this was a lot smaller scale.

He attempted to and initially enthusiastically agreed to kill the Daleks in Genesis of the Daleks. That was before the Time War began.

 

[Starkers]

He didn't do it though...

 

[Deckerd]

Has anyone mentioned the Racnoss? He did a pretty good job of saying "OMG they were supposed to have died out thousands of years ago" and then doing his level best to ensure they were wiped out again.

I'm not entering into any kind of ethical debate about it, mind. His job is to protect Earth and if that means wiping out the odd species, so be it.

 

[Starkers]

^Well yeah, that's how I see it, I just dislike it when he gets all hypocritical when someone else does the dirty work (See Harriet Jones for further details)

 

[Phily B]

Has anyone mentioned the Racnoss? He did a pretty good job of saying "OMG they were supposed to have died out thousands of years ago" and then doing his level best to ensure they were wiped out again.

I'm not entering into any kind of ethical debate about it, mind. His job is to protect Earth and if that means wiping out the odd species, so be it.

But wasn't it an us vs them type thing?

And if Donna wasn't there he would've taken himself with them.

 

[Deckerd]

I don't see how the Silence could be construed as benevolent. If they're not benevolent it doesn't matter how long they've been around, they should go. It's not their planet. It does throw up the question about how the Doctor has never run into them before though. As far as I'm concerned they were warned. They were warned by Amy and they were given a chance to leave of their own free will. Since they ignored both they were fair game.

 

[Bob The Skutter]

I don't see how the Silence could be construed as benevolent. If they're not benevolent it doesn't matter how long they've been around, they should go. It's not their planet. It does throw up the question about how the Doctor has never run into them before though. As far as I'm concerned they were warned. They were warned by Amy and they were given a chance to leave of their own free will. Since they ignored both they were fair game.

As I said earlier though, you could say the same for Americans. They invaded the continent, killed the natives, it's not their land but if you went over and told them to leave would you really expect them to?

 

[Pindar]

As I said earlier though, you could say the same for Americans. They invaded the continent, killed the natives, it's not their land but if you went over and told them to leave would you really expect them to?

You just made me think though, his TARDIS hologram clearly had the same powers as the actual silence, so he could have made and recorded any message he wanted to come from from the Silence.

 

[Deckerd]

I don't see how the Silence could be construed as benevolent. If they're not benevolent it doesn't matter how long they've been around, they should go. It's not their planet. It does throw up the question about how the Doctor has never run into them before though. As far as I'm concerned they were warned. They were warned by Amy and they were given a chance to leave of their own free will. Since they ignored both they were fair game.

As I said earlier though, you could say the same for Americans. They invaded the continent, killed the natives, it's not their land but if you went over and told them to leave would you really expect them to?

Except that people evolved on this planet and spread out. Throughout history some bugger's come and displaced someone else. It's what we do. We don't do it to other civilised planets though and if we did we should expect the same treatment.

 

[Count Zero]

And folks so busy whining about the gun shown in the trailer for season 5 where all the Doctor does is shoot the gravity globe, obviously forgot about this scene in "The Doctor's Daughter", where he actually points a gun at the head of a human.

And then proceeds to proclaim how he's "the man that never would". Which is probably why people were "whining" about 11 using the gun in the trailer because the trailer implied he was using it against someone, though in the actual episode he didn't. And for viewers of the new show that definetely would have been out of character for the Doctor.

Even for most of the old show, it would have been out of character. However, there are some instances where the Doctor has used a gun. Didn't Six shoot someone? Three also shot at people (in The Mutants, I think) and that felt out of character for him. But there are situations where you have little choice, I suppose.

Has anyone mentioned the Racnoss? He did a pretty good job of saying "OMG they were supposed to have died out thousands of years ago" and then doing his level best to ensure they were wiped out again.

But Ten usually did go out of his way to give the baddies a choice and he did so in this case, too. I can't remember that happening here. To me, it seemed as if they didn't try very hard to communicate with the Silents and come to some sort of truce. When the injured Silent was tended to and asked why they helped him, I thought that would be the beginning of trying to reason with them but no, it wasn't. So, maybe it would have been better to show how bad of a threat the were and that they were unwilling to give in under any circumstances. But it's probably not the last time we've seen them, anyway.

 

[Bob The Skutter]

As I said earlier though, you could say the same for Americans. They invaded the continent, killed the natives, it's not their land but if you went over and told them to leave would you really expect them to?

You just made me think though, his TARDIS hologram clearly had the same powers as the actual silence, so he could have made and recorded any message he wanted to come from from the Silence.

Stop nitpicking and just enjoy it!

 

[Bob The Skutter]

I don't see how the Silence could be construed as benevolent. If they're not benevolent it doesn't matter how long they've been around, they should go. It's not their planet. It does throw up the question about how the Doctor has never run into them before though. As far as I'm concerned they were warned. They were warned by Amy and they were given a chance to leave of their own free will. Since they ignored both they were fair game.

As I said earlier though, you could say the same for Americans. They invaded the continent, killed the natives, it's not their land but if you went over and told them to leave would you really expect them to?

Except that people evolved on this planet and spread out. Throughout history some bugger's come and displaced someone else. It's what we do. We don't do it to other civilised planets though and if we did we should expect the same treatment.

You never know, we might in the future.

 

[JoeZhang]

The silent are so sketchy you could pin pretty much any motivation on them.