**** Warning this post contains spoilers about Day of the Moon, and may references to previous episodes of Doctor Who. If you haven’t watch the episode, or don’t want to be surprised, do not read further. ****
Its four months after the last episode, and Agent Canton Delaware is on the hunt. He is hunting the Doctor's three companions. One by one, he takes each one of them down, the final being River who decided to jump off the 50th story of a building instead of being shot dead. Each time Canton finds another companion he visits the Doctor, who has been captured and imprisoned in Area 51. Canton has ordered that an impenetrable prison cell be built around the Doctor so that he can never escape. After the cell is complete, Canton orders that Rory and Amy's bodies (enclosed in body bags) be brought into the cell so that the Doctor can see them himself. Each of the companions has tick marks all over their arms and face that mark each and every member of the Silence that they see so that they remember that they have seen them.
Phew... that was a lot of action for the first five minutes of an episode don't you think? If we were looking for answers to last weeks episode, then we quickly realize its unlikely that we are going to get many. Every minute of this episode had significant meaning, so it is hard to just pick the highlights for this recap.
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As it turns out, Canton was putting on a show, and Rory and Amy are alive but were faking their death. The cell was built to keep the Silence out, so that they couldn't hear what the Doctor and his companions were working on. It is from that cell that they will all be sent on their respective missions. Oh and as it turns out the TARDIS has been invisible and has been right next to the Doctor all along. The Doctor quickly dials up a quick rescue for River by catching her mid-fall. With all of his companions reunited and off the Silence radar, they devise a plan to catch the Silence. Using a small implant in their hand they are able to record their thoughts when they see the Silence and a little light will let them know that a message is waiting after they forget.
The Doctor sets off to make a small modification to the Apollo 11 capsule, he adds a transceiver to the video feed, and we don't learn why until later. Of course the Doctor gets caught and has to have Nixon, himself, bail him out of NASA security.
Meanwhile, Canton and Amy are assigned the task of finding the little girl in the space suit who, by the way, survived Amy's shot. They decide the best place to search for a child that no one else seems to be looking for is to search orphanages. After an extensive search they try one last home that was supposed to have closed two years earlier. When they walk up to this creepy place it seem obvious that this is the place they have been looking for. There is writing on the walls and the proprietors arms saying "Leave me Alone" and "Get Out Now." The proprietor doesn't seem to know what year it is, probably from prolonged exposure to the Silence.
While Canton interviews the proprietor Amy investigates the upstairs rooms. There are no children to be found, only abandoned rooms with the same writing on their walls. In one room while Amy is walking around, she notices that her hand starts to blink. Its a warning to herself to get out of that room immediately. She is suddenly covered with tick marks and we realize its because there are a large number of the Silence sleeping like bats on the ceiling. Amy escapes and finds a door with a woman looking through a slot saying "it looks as though she is dreaming". Utterly confused, Amy opens (a now slot-less) door to find a small room that looks like it is currently lived in by someone. There are a number of pictures of THE little girl and one in particular of Amy holding a baby. *Wait... WHAT??!!!! Is the girl Amy's daughter? How is that possible? Why is she here? Why is she in a space suit? And who the heck was the woman in the door? Who was dreaming? *Next thing you know the girl in the space suit enters the room. Amy, visibly shaken, apologizes for shooting at her, and asks her who she is. The little girl only has a chance to say, "Help me, please. Please, Help me!" before the Silence arrives and takes Amy away, leaving only her hand implant behind.
Meanwhile, downstairs, Canton is asking the proprietor general questions about the property and the children. After a short amount of time, someone knocks on the door. The proprietor cracks the door and explains to somebody that he is just answering some questions. Canton opens the door and talks to the Silence standing at the door. The Silence explains that they haven’t just been controlling the world lately, but for centuries. “This world is ours. We’ve ruled it since the wheel and the fire. We have no need of weapons.” Canton responds to this in a stereotypical American fashion and shoots the Silence down.
The Doctor arrives and questions the wounded Silence. This is the first time that it actually introduces itself as "The Silence", it repeats an all too familiar warning from last season, "and Silence will fall." It is taken back to the prison at Area 51 where Canton takes a video of its warnings.
Back in the tiny room, the spacesuit has been abandoned by the little girl. The suit contains a full life support system, as well as an exoskeleton. Inside of it "you wouldn't even need to eat". Yet, somehow it seems as though she has forced her way out and escaped.
The Doctor devises a brilliant plan to save Amy and the human race by defeating the Silence. He tracks Amy's location using the implant from her hand. After they are all reunited, the Doctor questions and warns the Silence of his intention to kill them, but they don't respond. The Doctor takes the video of the captured Silence telling the humans to kill them all, and interlaces it with Neil Armstrong's live first step on the moon. Immediately it turns the entire human race against the Silence, and we are led to believe that they are all eradicated, and then the human race just forgot about the Silence when they looked away. "How fast can you run?" is the last thing that the Doctor says to the Silence, showing his much darker Time Lord side. The Silence are understandably pissed and try to use their electric lightning on the doctor, but everyone retreats into the TARDIS. Everyone except River who proceeds to mow down the entire room of Silence. She seems glad that the Doctor didn't see that side of her but extremely proud of herself at the same time. This will be an interesting thing to overcome between the Doctor and River if they do indeed end up as a couple like we are led to believe that they will. How can someone who abhors guns end up in love with someone who is so skilled with them?
The Doctor must return River to her prison cell, a task that seems to be the end to everyone of their encounters. It is there that they kiss for the very first time, well the first time for the Doctor, the last time for River. As the Doctor leaves, River looks devastated with the realization that their time together is running out.
Back inside the TARDIS, the Doctor asks Amy about the pregnancy, and Amy tells him that she isn't pregnant, she thought she was, but isn't anymore. When the Doctor looks at Amy with the TARDIS scanner, it seems that the pregnancy is in a state of flux of existence. * *
*Now if the show were to end here, it would have made for a good show that seemed to wrap itself up, without leaving any massive cliffhanger for anyone to fret over, well Steven Moffat doesn't seem to play nice. We are left with one last impossible scene to completely consume our thoughts for the following week. *
It is six months later in New York City, and we are in a dark alley watching a homeless man picking through trash. Along comes the little girl (yes, THAT little girl!) out of nowhere. She tells the homeless man that she is dying but that it is ok because.... She begins to regenerate, exactly like a Time Lord. How is this possible? There are only two possible time lords left in existence, the Doctor and his clone-like daughter from Season 4. Right? We have been hoping to see the Doctor's daughter return after she came back to life at the end of "The Doctor's Daughter", an idea that Russell T. Davis has attributed solely to Steven Moffat. If this is his daughter, then awesome, if not, then this little girl opens a huge can of Gallifreian worms!
What an episode?! All of it has made my head spin a bit. I've had to watch it at least three times just to write a recap, I know there are things I'm still missing that will be important in later episodes. There are so many questions left to be answered that its hard to just pick the most relevant, so I won't.
This season of Doctor Who reminds me of J. J. Abrams Lost, with its over-arching plot lines and questions whose answers only lead to more questions.
So, what did you think about all of the events that have happened the last two episodes?
