Picoreview: Even after several days I’m still not entirely sure what the heck happened in that episode. Or, for that matter, what I think of it.
Random thoughts and reactions, in no particular order:
Still not a fan of that oversaturated color look.
It occurred to me only after the episode aired that much was made over the whole “bringing Doctor Who to America” thing–and yet, this seems to have meant making this story a “bangy bangy shooty shooty” story and I’m not really sure I approve of that in Doctor Who. I appreciate the attempt to reach out to American audiences, but please, Mr. Moffat, don’t go too far in that direction and lose the feel of story that made us American fans start watching it to begin with.
That said, goddamn River Song is awesome in a firefight. And I’ll be sad if further appearances of an accordingly younger River means she winds up losing some of that edge.
Did anybody else besides me think Amy had a bit of a Scully look going on when she went into the creepy former orphanage along with Canton? And also, CREEPY ORPHANAGE FULL OF SILENTS okay yeah that was creepy, it’s official. Creepy wackjob of a caretaker, too.
Watching the episode on BBC America with commercial interruption makes the whole thing feel a bit disjointed to begin with, but the very nature of this story seemed to aggravate this. More than once through the course of the episode we were all wondering if we missed something. Now, I’m pretty sure we didn’t miss any actual content–at least, I THINK we didn’t miss any, and I really hope that BBC America isn’t sacrificing content anymore to wedge commercials in there–and that the rushed nature of the plot was intentional. But then, it still felt way too rushed to me. And I say this as someone who came into the fandom with the new show to begin with, and who was quite accustomed to the RTD pacing of plots. I really, REALLY hope things get less frenetic as we get into the rest of the season.
I liked Rory’s uncertainty as to whether Amy was calling out for him or the Doctor, but I really hope we don’t make this an ongoing theme. We’ve had Amy have to reassure Rory that it’s actually him she loves a couple times now. A couple times is fine, but let’s not make it an ongoing thing. Let’s let Rory get secure in the love he’s won. He’ll be more awesome a character for it.
Relatedly, though, the conversation between Amy and the Doctor about her apparent pregnancy and then sudden lack thereof–whole lot of intriguing there.
Especially given that crunchy little scene with the little girl apparently REGENERATING WTF?!? at the end. Oh man, the theories that can arise in my brain from that. Toying with the idea that if that was in fact Amy and Rory’s child, did the TARDIS tinker around with her DNA? Did she pop out a baby Time Lord? And what the hell happened that Amy was apparently pregnant and then suddenly not?
