Doctor Who - Day of the Moon

Director: Toby Haynes

Writer: Steven Moffat

After last episode’s stunning cliff-hanger, Doctor Who pulls another Last of the Time Lords, skipping forward several months. The companions are fugitives, on the run from Delaware and his FBI cronies, being shot dead one by one. Things seem grim until the body bags burst open, revealing the hoax that the FBI agent pulled on the bureau, just like The Television Movie. It is their cunning resourcefulness that leads them to save a very bearded Doctor from the confines of his prison in Area 51. This leads to all sorts of continuity issues. Has the Doctor always needed to shave? Has he been popping off-screen every few episodes to have a quick trim? Is it just 11 that needs to shave every day? The Doctor does not seem the type to shave. It is an impressive amount of scruff… From here we follow the Doctor’s cunning plan to defeat the Silence and save mankind using Neil Armstrong’s foot.

Similar to last episode, Moffat thrusts the show towards the darkness, with some of the most frightening Doctor Who scenes ever. The next logical step from Moffat’s Weeping Angels and the final montage sequence of Blink, The Silence work on the same basic principle. This suggestion that The Silence could potentially exist within our own reality and we’re simply forgetting them when we look away breaks the forth wall, with the intention to make us no longer feel safe with the thin glass separating us from the monsters. Half the children in Britain surely resorted to carrying a marker around with them for days after this episode aired, ready to mark their own bodies in case of a sighting. In one particular scene, The Silence are compared to the terrifying xenomorphs from Aliens. The real question though is: What is with the suits? Nothing like a finely dressed homicidal alien occupation – clearly a reference to Octodad.

The resolution to this battle is simultaneously brilliant and confusing. The Doctor’s lyrical checkmate is indeed cunning, yet it seems entirely out of character for him, a Time Lord who abhors violence and bloodshed. Sure, The Silence are evil, but compared to the Daleks and Cybermen, they’re hardly deserving of a Time Lord’s wrath. He offers them an ultimatum, but takes the literal silence as defiance and stubbornness, and launches an eternal assault on their species, slaying countless of them. 11 seems to have a mad temper, like 5 and 6 had all those years ago. As usual, he makes his companions do the dirty work for him, River Song showing how bad-ass she can be in her middle-age.

The River Song arc is progressing towards a conclusion nicely as well, with an intimate time together presenting the tragedy of meeting in reverse. When will be their next smoochy smoochy time, and will be, will be their last? There’ll come a time when the Doctor will need to take the initiative, and steal her first kiss, but if they hadn’t already kissed, would the Doctor ever be able to draw up the courage? We’re in for some awkward moments if his advice towards the ladies in A Christmas Carol is anything to go by…

Although this episode finally presents us with some closure as to the unexplained TARDIS-like space craft first glimpsed in The Lodger, it manages to raise a dozen more questions. Moffat must delight in making us guess, and will inevitably toy with the obvious solution to these questions, leading us on a wild goose chase through crackpot theories.

Despite a few flaws, like Doctor Renfrew’s slipping accent, Day of the Moon is pure Doctor Who excitement, more than making up for the misgivings and recycling of ideas in the previous episode. Not only is the overall story more impressive, but the production values of late are well up from Russell T Davies’ run, with the cinematography and lighting particularly impressive. It only looks like it will get better from this point on, with the profitability of the program finally being pumped back into it. It’s Pirates next weekend, with Amy fitting right in as a swashbuckler. Bring it on!


4½ / 5