Day of the Moon

There is something about the serial form that I both love and hate and it can be summed up in one word: cliffhanger. That final minute of the episode that puts the hero and associates in a deadly situation and then cuts, leaving you a week or so to gnaw your fingernails off while you wonder how they're going to get out of this one... sweet agony and Steven Moffat knows how to go about it and I bless him and curse him for it.

In this episode, we finish up the season's two part premiere very stylishly, with lots of verve, starting the show three months after the last one concluded. We also see a stylistic reference to the old series. The classic Doctor Who series had long stretches of Gothic horror, with vampires, mysterious Chinese magicians and such like, notably THE TALONS OF WENG-CHIANG.

Moffat has dug back into that and expanded on it. After all, we are in America and so we have American Gothic, complete with a mad Southern orphanage keeper with messages written in blood on the walls of his ruined orphanage and the companions running around with strange markings on their faces while being shot down by the FBI.... paranoia run rampant and a happy ending.....along with the usual hairpin plot turns, silly lines and another cliffhanger.

Bless Steven Moffat's sick little imagination. And curse him, too.

I don't have much to comment on, but this episode wasn't as good as last weeks. I liked the direction though, and it was still a good episode.

Amy, River and the Doctor are rounded up and imprisoned by Canton. Which allows them to rescue River and crack on with the problem at hand, The Silence. Canton and Amy head to the Orphanage where she was, but the Silence have been there first. Whilst the Doctor, River and Rory head to the imminent space mission of Neil Armstrong, on its eve of launch, to do something rather clever.

It is absolutely all over the place as a story, for someone that didn't know the show they would not enjoy it, it jumps from one character to another, not one for the new fan. My main grim with Moffat's writing is that it does tend to be a little smug, and I get that here, the script keeps applauding itself. And why the hell is Frances Barber wearing an eye patch looking through a door!! This episode asks way more questions, and doesn't really answer any, it is very heavily embedded in a big story arc.

For all the criticisms though I really do like it, it's clever in a way that keeps you engrossed, if you take your eye off for a minute you've had it. It's wonderfully creepy and the scares are big, those monsters are scary, and that Orphanage is bleak. The fight scenes look big and work really well. Love River Song, and hope she's back soon.

Now I always used to love to watch Dr Who on a Saturday Night after a night out, no chance with this one, the Script and alcohol, don't mix :-)

After last weeks underwhelming opening episode to this two part story which lifted the curtain on the latest series as I was left a bit deflated by what was a very average instalment. Needless to say with it being Steven Moffat, a man who I know who can do much better given what his previous writing skills have produced I hoped at least he would not continue to disappoint and would pull something out of the hat with "Day of the Moon". How wrong was I.

Continuing three months after last weeks "The Impossible Astronaut" left off, Moffat barely gives us time to breathe before the action goes in to overdrive once more. The Doctor has been detained by the U.S. Government while Amy, Rory and River Song are being pursed by American agents, why this is, is anyone's guess but Moffat works with such hustle and bustle that we're given time to sink in what's going before he throws one plot point part at us after another with such speed that ultimately it begins to trip over itself. Yes, there is a great opening hook that draws you in to the story and quickly opens with Amy and Rory having seemingly been killed off which lends a dramatic verve but It's undermined all far too quickly with the "Surprise surprise, they're not really dead after all" revelation. The pace also falters as a result and It's frankly a case of Moffat throwing everything in but the kitchen sink in what is too short a time to adequately fill out the story which means that he is forced to arrive at a conclusion where it merely degenerates in to a tawdry final showdown against the Silence, a alien threat which potentially ominous are defeated far too easily for my liking which pretty much undermines the lethality of the threat they impose.

The whole "love triangle" angle with Rory's insecurity over Amy's feeling for him and the non-platonic feelings that he thinks she has for the Doctor is also something that personally I could do without. It's something to some extent we all saw before back in the RTD era and while it was all fine and well in fifth series as the relationship between the pair of them was being delved in to, It's really about time that Moffat steered away from this as it's already been done to death. This all culminates in a drawn out coda which although does hint at the makings of future plot points that will arise later in the series, I found it really had to care. But primarily what I had a problem with is how Moffat has begun to portray Smith's eleventh incarnation. Much of the gravitas which is something that I will at least credit to RTD for lending David Tennant's Doctor has become absent from Smith's. Not that It's Smith's fault, as wonderful as he has been in previous outings he Isn't being given anything serious to working with here and I get the feeling that Moffat seems more concerned with creating a two- dimensional, quirky clown that when faced with insurmountable odds just taunts and jeers without counter-balancing it with the darker and at times more philosophical nature of the character. Throw in what I can only think is supposed to be a tired joke of President Richard Nixon making an entrance to the strains of an oft heard presidential tune and It's all of a let down and the weakest of Moffat's episodes to date. A shame given what he has delivered before.

Hi Mr Moffat, I really like your work, but please - my brain hurts. Can the next episode just show the Doctor running away from some Zygons in a quarry on Southern England.

There is a fine line between complicated ( which is OK, there is enough dumbed down TV on the other side ) and downright confusing.

Your enjoyment is tempered when you have to pause and rewind BBC iPlayer every 10 minutes.

EFFECTS - great, ACTORS - brilliant, SETS - didn't wobble, ALIENS - not blokes in rubber suits.

PLOT - can you just run that past me again, and can I have a pad and pen to make notes ? I am sure it will all be explained and all fit together later.

I feel dizzy - anyone got a jellybaby ?