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eve11I have seen episode 2 but am keeping away from discussing major plot points of it, and still trying to pin down my thoughts about episode one. That said, I don't give spoilers away but the fact of me discussing questions might reveal in hindsight things that DON'T get answered in episode 2, so if you want to remain utterly unspoiled for any of them, skip my speculations.
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So, then. The little girl. She spends episode one terrified of a space man, but at the end of the episode we find out she is the one in the space suit. She says on the phone "The Spaceman is coming! He's coming to eat me!" Eat her? That was such a strange line. And here's the deal; if the little girl is the one in the space suit, then who, oh dear Internets, is the Spaceman? Who is this little girl terrified of? There are two obvious choices:
1) A Gray silence-alien
2) The Doctor
It would be an interesting choice if the little girl was afraid of the Doctor, wouldn't it? Though the thought of the Doctor being a monster who eats children is a bit dark. Though, he did also end up in the Pandorica didn't he? The goblin/trickster who would descend out of the sky and destroy your world. Dark show is dark, eh?
ETA: The Spaceman being the Doctor also makes sense in the context of the little pre-quel episode we saw, where the girl calls the White House and tells the President that he has to look behind him because of the monsters, and that the Spaceman told her how to call the President (?)
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When in River's timeline does this two-parter take place? Someone online mentioned that River knew about the Pandorica in this episode but I can't figure out the spot where we may have learned that. When they are underneath the TARDIS, Amy brings up the fact that the Doctor has interacted with his own past before, and Rory mentions, "In fairness, the universe did blow up." (LOL Rory, I love you). But River is rather silent on that issue. I think this is earlier for her. She is still in Storm Cage at the beginning, so I think that it takes place before both Pandorica/Big Bang and Time of Angels/Flesh and Stone. Well if it takes place for her before the Pandorica then it is before Time of Angels because River doesn't know about the Byzantium at the start of the Pandorica episode.
So, back-to-front there. But she knows Amy and she knows Rory in this episode. And yet, and yet, in The Pandorica Opens, she doesn't know Rory. She meets him as a Roman and is not clued in at all that this is odd, until she sees the photo of Rory in Amy's house.... ooooh oh wait. Rory had been erased from history at that point. Which means he was erased from FUTURE history at that point too, correct? Which means that River's past--IE, Rory/Amy/Doctor's future--was also edited to remove Rory, when he got erased from history apparently at every point in time at once. And as the Doctor said, there are always traces--photographs, half-eaten meals, etc. Right, okay, so I have convinced myself that River could still be going back-to-front and yet NOT know Rory in TPO/TBB but, had he not been erased from history, she would have known him from that point in her timeline.
Ow. Brain. Hurts.
So in short, River knows Amy and Rory at this point in her history, which means she meets them before. She is still in Stormcage, which means she hasn't gotten pardoned yet, which means it's before Time of Angels (ostensibly). She mentions the back-to-front thing, which I still don't believe is strictly true (as evidenced by them oh, meeting a Doctor from 200 years in the future while in this episode), and she doesn't mention anything Pandorica related (despite what some folks on the interwebs were saying) so it's safe to say that this is the earliest we've seen River.
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The Doctor must have some sort of clue about what is going on just from the diner scene. Amy's "But you said that..." when River asks how old he is, and the general "Wha--how are you here?" bits; well, I understand that meta-wise Moffat needs to explain things to little kids, but... the Doctor is a 900-odd-year-old Time Lord who is used to experiencing things out of order; he HAS to get the gist that they've just seen an older version of him, and that something bad has happened. Otherwise I don't believe that he is the cleverest man in the universe ;)
Naturally, he tries to run. Oh, Doctor. And his friends don't let him. Which he must have known would happen as the older version of himself and... right, heading back into brain hurting territory...
--
"Off you pop to go make babies." Goodness, that is quite a narrow minded view of marriage. I know, I know, Steven Moffat is playing with the idea of the Doctor "sticking around too long" in companion's lives. And because it's TV this has to be done on a much shorter scale, because the interesting stories that drive the characters are like Saturdays. Narratively, the Doctor skips the little days. And so in the meta-sense, tied up with realities of a TV series and storytelling arcs, we get companions' journeys and lives crammed into too short a space. It's rather unfortunate but I think that in order to get to telling the interesting stories, it kind of has to be done. The actors aren't going to stick around forever. So, okay, I will handwave that, as long as it's there to tell a good story. This payoff/revelation/what-have-you that is coming in episodes 7 and 8 (and yeah, okay, probably some not coming until episode 13) had better be worth it. Moff, I have been burned before (looks harshly at Farscape and David Kemper and hopes Steven does waaaaaay less drugs).
And in a way, it makes sense that the Doctor doesn't really understand or keep track too well of how lives actually do pan out once he's left people behind. So to him and his understanding of humans, he leaves them behind and they get married and have babies. He has no actual clue as to generally how long this takes or what goes on in between. This life is completely alien to him, cleverest man in the universe. Though it did take him a while to track down Jo Grant, didn't it? Punting down the Yangtze on a tea chest. Arg, this makes that conversation from the Sarah Jane Adventures that much more heartbreaking.
--
Oh man, there is a lot more I want to say, and a crackpot theory I have (just one?) but it involves things what I remember from episode 2 so I will not go there.
--
So, then. The little girl. She spends episode one terrified of a space man, but at the end of the episode we find out she is the one in the space suit. She says on the phone "The Spaceman is coming! He's coming to eat me!" Eat her? That was such a strange line. And here's the deal; if the little girl is the one in the space suit, then who, oh dear Internets, is the Spaceman? Who is this little girl terrified of? There are two obvious choices:
1) A Gray silence-alien
2) The Doctor
It would be an interesting choice if the little girl was afraid of the Doctor, wouldn't it? Though the thought of the Doctor being a monster who eats children is a bit dark. Though, he did also end up in the Pandorica didn't he? The goblin/trickster who would descend out of the sky and destroy your world. Dark show is dark, eh?
ETA: The Spaceman being the Doctor also makes sense in the context of the little pre-quel episode we saw, where the girl calls the White House and tells the President that he has to look behind him because of the monsters, and that the Spaceman told her how to call the President (?)
--
When in River's timeline does this two-parter take place? Someone online mentioned that River knew about the Pandorica in this episode but I can't figure out the spot where we may have learned that. When they are underneath the TARDIS, Amy brings up the fact that the Doctor has interacted with his own past before, and Rory mentions, "In fairness, the universe did blow up." (LOL Rory, I love you). But River is rather silent on that issue. I think this is earlier for her. She is still in Storm Cage at the beginning, so I think that it takes place before both Pandorica/Big Bang and Time of Angels/Flesh and Stone. Well if it takes place for her before the Pandorica then it is before Time of Angels because River doesn't know about the Byzantium at the start of the Pandorica episode.
So, back-to-front there. But she knows Amy and she knows Rory in this episode. And yet, and yet, in The Pandorica Opens, she doesn't know Rory. She meets him as a Roman and is not clued in at all that this is odd, until she sees the photo of Rory in Amy's house.... ooooh oh wait. Rory had been erased from history at that point. Which means he was erased from FUTURE history at that point too, correct? Which means that River's past--IE, Rory/Amy/Doctor's future--was also edited to remove Rory, when he got erased from history apparently at every point in time at once. And as the Doctor said, there are always traces--photographs, half-eaten meals, etc. Right, okay, so I have convinced myself that River could still be going back-to-front and yet NOT know Rory in TPO/TBB but, had he not been erased from history, she would have known him from that point in her timeline.
Ow. Brain. Hurts.
So in short, River knows Amy and Rory at this point in her history, which means she meets them before. She is still in Stormcage, which means she hasn't gotten pardoned yet, which means it's before Time of Angels (ostensibly). She mentions the back-to-front thing, which I still don't believe is strictly true (as evidenced by them oh, meeting a Doctor from 200 years in the future while in this episode), and she doesn't mention anything Pandorica related (despite what some folks on the interwebs were saying) so it's safe to say that this is the earliest we've seen River.
--
The Doctor must have some sort of clue about what is going on just from the diner scene. Amy's "But you said that..." when River asks how old he is, and the general "Wha--how are you here?" bits; well, I understand that meta-wise Moffat needs to explain things to little kids, but... the Doctor is a 900-odd-year-old Time Lord who is used to experiencing things out of order; he HAS to get the gist that they've just seen an older version of him, and that something bad has happened. Otherwise I don't believe that he is the cleverest man in the universe ;)
Naturally, he tries to run. Oh, Doctor. And his friends don't let him. Which he must have known would happen as the older version of himself and... right, heading back into brain hurting territory...
--
"Off you pop to go make babies." Goodness, that is quite a narrow minded view of marriage. I know, I know, Steven Moffat is playing with the idea of the Doctor "sticking around too long" in companion's lives. And because it's TV this has to be done on a much shorter scale, because the interesting stories that drive the characters are like Saturdays. Narratively, the Doctor skips the little days. And so in the meta-sense, tied up with realities of a TV series and storytelling arcs, we get companions' journeys and lives crammed into too short a space. It's rather unfortunate but I think that in order to get to telling the interesting stories, it kind of has to be done. The actors aren't going to stick around forever. So, okay, I will handwave that, as long as it's there to tell a good story. This payoff/revelation/what-have-you that is coming in episodes 7 and 8 (and yeah, okay, probably some not coming until episode 13) had better be worth it. Moff, I have been burned before (looks harshly at Farscape and David Kemper and hopes Steven does waaaaaay less drugs).
And in a way, it makes sense that the Doctor doesn't really understand or keep track too well of how lives actually do pan out once he's left people behind. So to him and his understanding of humans, he leaves them behind and they get married and have babies. He has no actual clue as to generally how long this takes or what goes on in between. This life is completely alien to him, cleverest man in the universe. Though it did take him a while to track down Jo Grant, didn't it? Punting down the Yangtze on a tea chest. Arg, this makes that conversation from the Sarah Jane Adventures that much more heartbreaking.
--
Oh man, there is a lot more I want to say, and a crackpot theory I have (just one?) but it involves things what I remember from episode 2 so I will not go there.
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Date: 2011-04-25 04:01 pm (UTC)I think it might be difficult to do *more* drugs than the FS crew appeared to use on a normal day!
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Date: 2011-04-25 07:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-04-25 10:15 pm (UTC)1. Wibbley-wobbley timey wimey stuff. I think that whole concept is basically an asterisk to anything that happens in the show's time line. I get the feeling that they wanted to try some more 'time out of sync' style plot lines but knew that people would pick it apart if it wasn't 100% perfect from start to finish, which it never would be. And we all know how much sci-fi fans love to attack minor inconsistencies in their favorite shows. It's like the more we like a show, the more time we spend looking at the pencil holder on the desk in the background on scene eight just to make sure that that red one is always to the left of the blue one. But, I digress. I think the overall time line is going to work out but attempting to dissect the minutia of it is going to prove a bit fruitless and the show has basically said that there are points in time that do matter and points in time that don't matter. If they screw something up and it doesn't cause the universe to explode (again), then that point didn't matter and the problem just wobbles away. They've built themselves a very clever little plot device to cover over the inevitable continuity errors that are going to arise when you attempt to write something like this. And I for one say 'Bravo!'.
2. Makin' babies... I think The Doctor knew she was pregnant or knew she was going to become pregnant shortly. I don't think 'I'm pregnant' was the thing he must not know. I think it was the thing he does know. I think him telling them to make babies was a slip on his part, although it does fall into the category of what River said about everyone dying at some point. No spoilers, just hints of something you pretty much know is going to happen at some point. All he was doing was telling them to get on with it.
Personally, I think River and the Ponds are genetically related somehow. Won't say parent/child directly, but something nice and familial.