Doctor Who Season 6: 5 Questions About ‘The Impossible Astronaut’

Really? I never heard that, I thought the show itself made it quite clear that they were one and the same.

I agree. I liked that they had his dad do it and not just put Mark Sheppard in prosthetics.

Great episode and it’s nice to see the ideas all over the place (but mainly centered on Amy and River Song). I don’t see how the two characters could be at all related aside from a coincidence in names, but that is likely down to the fact that both were created by Moffat.

I think that the Doctor really did die in Utah (of all places), but that it will get unwritten in some way. River Song is a terribly convoluted character that must get resolved and done away with. This is no mark against the character or Alex Kingston, but she raises far too many questions just by appearing and it kind of stops the flow of a story. Viewers have to stop and guess at what point this version of the character is from… ugh… it’s far too much trouble especially in a story like Impossible Astronaut.

Due to a recent interview Karen Gillan gave, I don’t think we’ll find out who was in the astronaut uniform until episode 7… and that’s a long way away.

You can read my entire review (and a snippet from Gillan’s interview) here: http://dailypop.wordpress.com/2011/04/23/doctor-who-%E2%80%93-the-impossible-astronaut/

“The Doctor has had a couple of long periods where he hasn’t needed to regenerate, so it’s not too out of the realm of possibility to suggest he could go 200 years without needing to.”

Theoretically, the First Doctor lived in that form for 900 years before regenerating into the Second Doctor.
That’s why he appeared so old at the point the audience met him.
As regenerations happened more frequently, his appearance became successively younger.

The Universe was destroyed in “The Big Bang.” This actually happened. Even though it was restored, Rvier and The Doctor still remember it. It still happened for them (and Amy and Rory too). The end of the Universe in 100 Trillion is when the Universe would naturally die. There is a difference, sure, but both are the end.

I had been figuring River to be Amy based on Silence in the Library– when River dies, she handcuffs the Doctor to a pipe and when he asks her why she has handcuffs if she’s from the future, River goes “Spoilers!” Which it was- it’s a spoiler for the first time Amy met the Doctor as a grown-up and… handcuffed him to a pipe. But after the season premiere, I’m thinking that maybe River is Amy’s kid and also the astronaut kid…? I like the other way better, that Amy somehow regenerates into River– I thought that’d be really cool, but that would mean no more Karen Gillan and who the hell wants that. And River could have inherited the handcuffs…

That’s definitely River or Amy in the astronaut costume at the beginning of the episode though…

When Jack was a poster boy of his home district, he was called, “The Face of Boe.”

I know that. But RTD has gone on the record saying that that didn’t confirm them as being the same person. I’ll take his word over fan theory any day.

*rolls eyes* It’s not a different reality that ended. It’s the same universe. They were there when it was destroyed. Then The Doctor, in all his brilliance, brought it back. Same universe brought back to existence. Which then was around until 100 Trillion, when it died. The show has done alternate universes before. Remember Pete’s World? E-Space? Terra Nova? Those are other realities. Everything in Series 5 happened in the same universe as the events of nearly everything else in the show. The theme for Moffat’s entire run so far has been that Time can be unwritten. The cracks in time were unwritten. The TARDIS exploding was unwritten. But the memories of those events still exist within Amy, Rory, The Doctor and River.

Ok — Here’s what I think. Hold on to your hats.

To me, this kinda makes sense with what’s been happening lately.

Amy is pregnant. The child in the astronaut suit is probably Amy’s future little girl (Amy attempts to shoot her at then end of the epsiode). The Astronaut who kills the Doctor is the same little girl, but has now grown up. River Song has said that she’s killed a great man and was sent to Prison for it. Could the little girl who is in the Astronuat suit be Amy’s yet to be born daughter — River Song???

The Doctor’s attempt at gathering them all together to witness his upcoming, impending death is meant to also reverse that particular time path and ‘unwrite the future’.

This is totally crazy (and what isn’t in Doctor Who’s universe), but to me, this seems to make the most sense and ties everything together amungst all of these characters and gives them an out to make room for the next Doctor.

so one question. Since River Song is travelling backwards through the Doctor’s time – wouldn’t there come a time when she sees him and doesn’t know who he is or what is to happen to him once she crosses that actual time point?

That blank diary was River’s. River gave it to her to remind Amy The Doctor existed. It has since been refilled and returned to River (we saw The Doctor give it to her).

OH MY GOD! I just watched “The Beast Below” one and if you listen, you hear the sound that The Silence make!