MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD. This is pretty much unavoidable, but by this point I think everyone’s seen the episodes, so oh well.
The story opens in 2011. It’s been a few months since Amy and Rory have seen the Doctor, it’ll be a few months until River experiences “The Big Bang” (no, not that. Get your mind out of the gutter), and it’s been about 200 years for the Doctor. We’ll call this Doctor 11.2. They all meet in America, and the Doctor and River compare diaries.
As a side note, why do they do this? Aside from this one time, the Doctor and River always meet in reverse order – the Doctor’s traveling backwards along River’s timeline. This means that if River has experienced Event X yet, then the Doctor hasn’t, and all she’s doing is spoilering it. Or maybe – hey, here’s a thought – the Doctor set up the diary thing with River specifically to manipulate her to this point, this one precious time when they do sync up. Given that 11 is shaping up to be the most manipulative and devious Doctor since 7 (and clearly draws a lot of inspiration from the quintessential wolf in sheep’s clothing, 2), I don’t think it’s too much of a stretch to say that…
That what, this is some secret test of character? Hey look, I’m rambling.
Anyway, the Doctor suggests they go watch the Moon landing, but then takes them on a picnic instead, where he gets shot and killed mid-regeneration by a spacesuit that may or may not have someone inside, and if there is someone inside, it may or may not be a little girl, and the little girl may or may not be Amy’s daughter but is definitely a Time Lord. (I did say there would be major spoilers.)
Okay, here are a number of facts that we need to consider before we go any further.
1. River is in prison for killing a good man, the best man she ever met. You have eleven guesses as to who that might be.
2. We never see the astronaut’s face during the shooting sequence. For that matter, we learn that the suit is capable of moving on its own.
3. Aside from her death in “Forest of the Dead,” a death that would have permanently killed 10 (a Time Lord), we never see River get injured.
4. River knows how to fly the TARDIS, and she’s had lessons from the best. It’s implied that she means the Doctor, but one never knows.
5. Amy is pretty clearly not a Gallifreyan – she would have regenerated at the end of “The Pandorica Opens” if she were.
6. Rory is… clutzy, nerdy, picks up the phrase “dimensionally transcendental” a lot faster than any other companion except River, and while it’s true that he did die that one time, the Silurians have fought the Doctor before and it’s not entirely unthinkable that they developed anti-Time Lord technology. (Do remember, the woman who shot him was aiming for the Doctor.) Alternatively, he may have been in shock.
7. The River/Doctor story is a pretty blatant re-imagining of “The Time Traveler’s Wife.” At one point(s) in that novel, the time traveler and his wife try to have a kid. It doesn’t go very well, because the fetus inherits Dad’s ability to jump through time and space… Meanwhile, Amy may or may not be pregnant. Yikes.
8. As confirmed in “The Doctor’s Wife,” Time Lords can indeed change sex when they regenerate.
Is any of this in any way conclusive? No, but I have hunches, and I can’t wait to see if they’re right or not.
Anyways, with 11.2 dead, 11.1 shows up. He’s 200 years younger and it hasn’t been that long since the events of “A Christmas Carol” for him. They all pack off for 1969, with Amy clearly dying to tell the Doctor what’s going to happen to him in 200/42 years. They get to the White House and meet President Nixon, as well as former FBI agent Canton Everett Delaware III. I’m just going to call him “Agent Badger.” Agent Badger starts working with the Doctor to investigate a case of a mysterious girl who keeps calling the President. However, they quickly run into a bunch of aliens they forget about as soon as they look away, and the astronaut shows up again. Amy reveals that she’s pregnant, and then shoots the astronaut, who had just lifted her helmet to reveal a little girl inside.
“Day of the Moon” inexplicably opens 3 months later. Amy doesn’t look any different, aside from the fact that she’s got some marks on her arms – she’s been keeping track of how many monsters she’s seen. Agent Badger has been reinstated and is hunting down all the Doctor’s associates. Amy and Rory are shot, and River jumps off a building because “she does that.” But it turns out that they’re not really dead, Badger’s still working with the Doctor, and everything’s hunky-dory aside from the fact that the aliens – the Silence – have been secretly ruling the Earth for forever. The Doctor examines the spacesuit and finds that it’s capable of moving on its own, though whatever implications that has for the case of his murder remain unclear. He also advises Nixon to record all of his conversations because of the Silence (ha!) and he later mentions that they’ll never forget Nixon (double ha!).
The climax is genuinely clever, even though it leaves so much unsolved (who’s the girl, why was she in that spacesuit, why is Amy important to the Silence, was anyone in the spacesuit when the Doctor was shot, and if so, who?) The Silence work via post-hypnotic suggestion; you forget them the moment you look away, but you remember their commands. So the Doctor gets one of them to say “you should kill all of us on sight” into Amy’s video-phone, and then broadcasts that during the Moon landing. Once again, if only this guy had been sent to murder the Daleks instead of Scarfman…
On its own, this two-parter has the same problem that "The Big Bang" did, in that it didn't completely wrap up the story, and there are still a number of threads left hanging. That's much less of a problem for a season opener than it is for a season finale, though. Because Moffat seems to be an arc-heavy writer, I've decided that all scores for Season Six are going to be tentative until after the season finale, at which point I'll fix them.
For now, "The Impossible Astronaut" and "Day of the Moon" have scores of 7 and 7.5 out of 10. Strong opening, good conclusion. The .5 is there to indicate that although I did like "Day of the Moon" a bit more, I don't particularly like the three-month gap in between the two stories, and I'm blaming "Day of the Moon" for that for now.
...as one final side note... 10 saw the Moon landing four times while he was stuck in 1969 (cf. "Blink"). Shouldn't the Doctor be brainwashed to kill the Silence on sight, and if so, why does he not?
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