Reaction: Day of the Moon

[kilroy]

To summarize a discussion with a co-worker today: it's a really ambitious piece of set-up but not all that sturdy as an independent story. This is something I've never seen before in Doctor Who: basically the entire two-parter was devoted to building problems to solve for the rest of the season (or longer). The plot-- such as it was-- seemed like a rushed byproduct.

So on one level, I want to really applaud Steven Moffat and co. for this one. It's brave and it's different, and there's so very much potential for good, complex drama. At the same time, I want to tap them on the collective shoulder and remind them not to sacrifice the trees for the forest. This one tried to so hard to cram in fifty things that a lot of things got short shrift ("Let's just ignore the child and go have adventures!" "Oop, the Doctor totally died but we're not really going to talk about it this episode." "I only have passing interest in someone coming up with TARDIS-like technology."). It's overextended.

I'm still looking forward to finding out where all this is going; I'll be speculating crazily like the rest of the universe about the various mysteries. I just hope that the payoff is freaking amazing to justify this one.

Comments

[lydiabell]

This is EXACTLY how I felt right after watching it. Not that there weren't parts I loved (oh, RIVER), but there was way too much setup and way too little follow-through. Now, they did a good job with setup and follow-through in last year's arc, so I'm willing to wait and see. But this just seemed sloppy. We end an episode with Amy shooting at a little girl, and the only fallout is that halfway through the next ep, she says, "Gee, sorry I shot at you. Glad I missed."? REALLY?

Did you think that the (900-year-old) Doctor was behaving particularly strangely in Part 1? He was so cold with Amy when he told her never to try to fool him, and with River when he said that he didn't trust her. Sure, he's an alien -- and Matt Smith plays him as more alien than a number of the Doctors -- and he doesn't have to be warm and fuzzy. But it's a bit at odds with how he usually behaves toward them. And then, later, everything was just back to normal, flirting outrageously with River and joking about "time heads" with Amy. I get that he was suspicious because he could see that they were keeping something from him, but I don't know. It just felt off, and I thought we might get more of a reason why.

[kilroy]

Maybe a little, but it didn't throw me too badly. Petulant is part of this Doctor's DNA.