Doctor Who/Recap/S32 E1 The Impossible Astronaut

File:The Impossible Astronaut 571.jpg

You're going to have to trust us this time. You have to do this, and you can't ask why.

Amy and Rory haven't seen the Doctor for two months, though they've discovered references to ridiculous adventures of his throughout history. They receive a letter through the post: a map reference and a date, inside an envelope of TARDIS blue numbered '3'. In the distant future, River Song receives a similar message within the Stormcage.

The message leads them all to Utah, where they meet up with the Doctor. Even more time has passed for him since Amy saw him last. He's nearly two hundred years older, and he talks merrily about the moon landing in 1969, stating that they're going to see it now.

But first, the four have a friendly picnic on a present day lake shore, and the Doctor explains that he's been running away from something for the last two centuries. And he's got to stop running now. The camaraderie is interrupted by the arrival of a number of enigmatic figures: a tall shadow witnessed by Amy, then just as quickly forgotten; an older man carrying a jerry can; and strangest of all, an astronaut rising from the lake. The Doctor warns the others to stay back, whatever happens, before walking forward to talk to the astronaut. After a brief conversation, which neither the other characters nor the audience hear, the astronaut shoots the Doctor.

And he's quickly shot again. In the middle of regenerating. Which kills him permanently.

The mysterious astronaut then sinks back into the lake, apparently unaffected by an enraged River's gun shots.

Amy can't believe it. But at this point, the old man explains that it is indeed the Doctor, and that he is truly dead. The can he carries contains gasoline, to burn the Doctor's body; Rory suggests they give their friend a proper Viking Funeral using a nearby boat. Afterwards, the old man introduces himself as Canton Everett Delaware III, adding that this is the last time he'll see them, but that they'll see him again. He explains his presence as being due to another mysterious envelope, his marked '4'. After he leaves, River notices that they haven't seen anyone bearing an envelope with a '1' — who does the Doctor trust most of all?

The answer, to their shock and disbelief, is the Doctor himself — but a younger version, only slightly older than when he left Amy and Rory last series. And he's having milk shakes at the little cafe where they all met up earlier that day. After getting past their initial reaction of shock and anger (and after River slaps him in the face), they're able to convince him to travel to 1969. Although hesitant, the Doctor is willing to blindly trust Amy (but not River) after making sure she isn't being compelled or threatened somehow.

In 1969, a young Canton Everett Delaware III is recruited by President Nixon to investigate a mysterious daily phone call that the President receives from a terrified young girl. Canton isn't thrilled: he was kicked out of the Secret Service previously because he wanted to get married. Nixon manages to coax him into working as a freelance agent for now. They're interrupted, though, when the TARDIS materialises in the White House and the Doctor fails miserably to be sneaky about it.

Nixon: But who — but who are they? What is that box? The Doctor: It's a police box, can't you read? I'm your new undercover agent, on loan from Scotland Yard. Code name: the Doctor. These are my top operatives: the Legs, the Nose, and Mrs. Robinson.

The Doctor is able to convince the President — after some difficulties with the Secret Service — that he is capable of solving the mystery. He realises that the child's "name", Jefferson Hamilton Adams, was actually answering the President's question "Where are you?". It's a little girl, and she's is at an intersection of streets each named after these of the founding fathers. (Two of which, the Doctor remarks, fancied him.)

Meanwhile, Amy excuses herself to go to the bathroom, because she's feeling sick. In there, she has an encounter with the shadow she saw earlier: a terrifying alien in a nice suit. The thing casually kills another woman, and warns Amy that she must tell the Doctor something. As soon as anyone looks away from these aliens, though, they forget that they have ever seen them. Amy, in a Genre Savvy mood, manages to take a photo of the creature using her phone.

Our heroes and Canton travel to the location that the Doctor deduced, finding strange alien technology there — including an astronaut suit. The Doctor realises that when the little girl said she was scared of a space man coming to "eat me", she probably meant the suit. River and Rory investigate an underground passage, unaware that it is full of the strange aliens which they keep seeing and forgetting. River tells Rory that she lives her whole life hoping to find the Doctor again, but that each time she sees him, he's younger and he recognises her less and less. One day, she says, she'll look into his eyes and he won't know who she is. And her sheer grief might kill her.

They discover a weird, TARDIS-like vessel which Amy and the Doctor might have recognised, but before they can discover anything about it, something unseen happens to Rory.

Canton runs off after he hears the little girl again calling for help; following him, the Doctor and Amy find him unconscious, his gun lying next to him. As she struggles to remember something, Amy suddenly tells the Doctor that she's pregnant. The Doctor asks why she's telling him, of all people. She tells him that he ought to know the answer to that one. But before she can elaborate, the astronaut appears. Hoping to change time and save the Doctor's life, Amy immediately grabs Canton's pistol and fires at the astronaut... just as it lifts its helmet to reveal that it is the little girl.

Next time: Day of the Moon.

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Tropes

• Actor Allusion: River is the one to warn the Doctor that the American agents aren't exactly gun-shy. Alex Kingston does have the most experience with both Americans and gunshots.
• Added Alliterative Appeal: "Rory the Roman."
• Alcohol Is Poison: Averted Trope. However, viewers asked why Amy, who thinks she is pregnant, is drinking wine during the picnic. Steven Moffat replied "She's Scottish".
• All Boys Want Bad Girls: This exchange.

Doctor: Now I love a bad girl, me, but trust you?

• All There in the Manual: Nowhere in the episode are the Silence/Silent named. Instead you have to look at the credits to find it.
  • Which lead some forum posters to mistakenly speculate that the aliens we met in this episode weren't actually the Silence.
    • Technically the aliens themselves aren't the Silence, as revealed in Let's Kill Hitler. The aliens are actually part of a religious order named The Silence, so the true name of the species is unknown.
• Ambiguously Gay: Canton Everett Delaware III, his statement about being unable to get married could be interpreted this way.
  • And it wouldn't be the first time Mark Sheppard played an Ambiguously Gay character.
  • Not so ambiguous any more, as the next episode shows.
• Amnesia Danger: If only they remembered long enough to call for help.
• Anyone Can Die: Dear God, the Doctor...one does not expect the main protagonist to die in the first ten minutes of a season opener.
• Armor-Piercing Slap: River slaps the Doctor in the diner.
  • And for added armor-piercing goodness, they weren't able to fake it convincingly, so Kingston was really slapping Smith. Over multiple takes.
• Awesome McCoolname: Canton Everett Delaware III (Mark Sheppard), and Marnix van den Broeke plays the Silent.
• Badass Boast: "I just walked into the highest security office in the United States and parked a big blue box on the rug. You think you can just shoot me?". Subverted when River pointed out that, as Americans, they probably did.
• Badass in a Nice Suit: The Silence.
• Bavarian Fire Drill: The Doctor in the Oval Office.
• Be Careful What You Wish For: Averted. The Doctor says he looks forward to the reason why River Song slapped him, but does so sarcastically.
• Belligerent Sexual Tension: River and the Doctor, natch!

Doctor: These are my top operatives, The Legs (Amy) , The Nose (Rory) and Mrs. Robinson (River). River: I hate you. Doctor: No, you don't.

• Big No: Several - Amy screams it after the Doctor is shot the first time, and River does the same when the Doctor is shot for a third time in the middle of regenerating, killing him permanently.
  • At the end, the Doctor shouts "No!" as Amy shoots at the Astronaut.
• Buffy-Speak: Rory when exiting the TARDIS in the Oval Office to aimed guns: "No shooting! Very much not in need of being shot!"
• Call Back: In the "prequel" there is a tape rolling while a child is talking creepily just like in "The Empty Child".
  • The TARDIS "decloaking" effect recalls the TARDIS being pulled into the Capitol in "The Deadly Assassin".
  • The Astronaut rises out of the lake like the Dalek rose out of the river in "The Dalek Invasion of Earth".
    • Or the way Ace rises out of the lake in "Battlefield".
  • The Doctor's meeting on the lake with the Astronaut resembles the meeting with the Watcher on Tower Bridge in "Logopolis".
  • Creepy astronaut that may not be an astronaut? Can we say "The Ambassadors of Death"?
  • Rory pokes the Doctor in disbelief and asks "How can you be here?" the same way the Doctor did to Rory in "The Pandorica Opens".
  • The Silents' control room in the tunnels is the same as the proto-TARDIS on top of Craig's apartment in The Lodger. Call Back? Chekhov's Gun? Or merely Set Recycling? We shall see...
  • The TARDIS has been invisible before, in "The Invasion".
  • "Human beings. I thought I'd never be done saving you." A line straight out (tense-shifted) of "The Time Of Angels".
    • Right before that, the Doctor notes that "a lot more happens in '69 than anyone remembers." While ultimately, it's foreshadowing of the Silence and what they are capable of, on the surface, it's a reference to the Doctor's many adventures in 1969, most of them as the Second Doctor.
  • The above mentioned Badass Boast recalls a similar response by the Doctor in when Winston Churchill threatened to take the TARDIS key by force.
  • The Doctor in the diner even brought his own straw.
  • When talking to the Secret Service, the Doctor refers to Mr. Delaware as "Canton 3." This is the same shorthand that was used in "The Beast Below" to refer to the Kings and Queens of England (Liz 2, Henry 12, Liz 10.)
  • The last time a future version of 11 died it was Rory who made sure the body was respected by draping his coat over him like a shroud. This time he makes sure to give him a Viking Funeral.
  • Funny that the Doctor doesn't like wine now; he used to like red wine quite a bit.
• Call Forward: River's talk with Rory towards the end of the episode perfectly predicts what happens when she meets the Doctor for the final time.
  • Apart from her fearing it more than death — and we know it's her death too. Kind of. In a reversed way. Only not really reversed.
  • River's actions in that episode now seem less like a Heroic Sacrifice and more like suicide - as if she cannot bear living in a world where the Doctor does not know her.
  • It's worse than that. Not only does the Doctor not know her, but she realizes that she'll never see him again afterwards. And if she doesn't take his place in the Library, she'll never have known him. Hell, she'll never have existed.
• Cannot Spit It Out: You cannot tell someone you have seen the Silence, even if you have told yourself to tell someone.
• Captain Obvious: "Canton Everett Delaware III. That was his name. How many of those can there be? Well, three, I suppose."
• Cardboard Prison: Stormcage is starting to look like one — this is the second time River breaks out. One wonders if she's only there because she wants to be.
  • It's got to the point that River will openly pack and inform the guards of her travel plans. This incites an armed response.
• Cargo Envy: River Song blows on the muzzle of the revolver.
• Catch Phrase: River and the Doctor have repeatedly said the same little bit of dialogue. The Doctor will say or do something that embarrasses River, River will say "I hate you," and he'll quickly retort, "No you don't." They also did it back in "Flesh and Stone" as well. They did it twice in this episode.
  • River and The (Tenth)Doctor had a similar bit of dialogue back in Silence in The Library:

River: I hate you sometimes! Doctor: I know!

• Chekhov's Gun: Back in The End of Time, the Doctor told Wilf that if he was killed before his regeneration could be completed, he would be fully dead. Over a year later (in our time), the astronaut kills the Doctor before his regeneration is complete.
• Cliff Hanger: Possibly even a Bolivian Army Cliffhanger. It is a two-parter, after all.
• Cloaking Device: The Doctor uses this to briefly hide the TARDIS in the Oval Office.
• Code Name: The Doctor, the Legs, the Nose and Mrs Robinson.
• Companion Husbandry: River says she first met the Doctor when she was pretty young and the Doctor knew everything about her at that point, which is beginning to worry her. Rory also seems troubled by the implications of this for Amy.
• Continuity Nod: When the companions tell the Doctor they're going to have to trust him and not ask who gave them the summons, he asks Amy to prove it by swearing on something that matters. Her choice? "Fish-fingers and custard."
  • Rory's nickname: "Rory the Roman".
  • "Brave heart, Canton" is a Fifth Doctor reference.
  • The Doctor is having trouble remembering exactly where he parked the cloaked TARDIS again...
  • The danger of the Doctor's body being used as a commodity was seen in the Eighth Doctor novel Alien Bodies.
    • It also sheds light on the Doctor's decision to give the Master a funeral pyre in "Last of the Time Lords".
  • The fez in the Laurel and Hardy film.
  • The Doctor's request for "twelve Jammie Dodgers and a fez".
  • When we see Stormcage Prison responding to River's packing, there's an establishing shot of men running down a windowless corridor/tunnel with a wet floor, a favourite shot of Russell T. Davies.
• Cool Car: The red Edsel station wagon.
• Cool Hat: "I wear a Stetson now. Stetsons are cool."
• Cool Helmet: The space helmet.

Doctor: (wearing a helmet) Look how cool this stuff is!

• Cool Old Guy: The Canton Everett Delaware III from 2011.
• Creepy Child: The little girl calling the President for help.
• Cry Into Chest: Amy cries onto the dead Doctor's chest.
• Dramatic Pause: After the Doctor is mortally wounded on the beach and the regeneration process starts, the music swells and becomes dreamlike — only to stop abruptly when he is shot a second time. A second later, another track, with a much more scary feeling, replaces the first.
• Eagle Land: The Doctor comments on the American agents' readiness to run around pointing guns.

The Doctor: You think you can just shoot me? River: They're Americans! The Doctor: Don't shoot, definitely no shooting!!

• Eenie Meenie Miny Moai: Apparently, in the Whoniverse, they were created in honour of the Doctor, whom they worshipped. Matt Smith does have the nose and chin for it.

River: "Have we done Easter Island yet? They worshipped you there. Have you seen the statues?"

• Elaborate Underground Base: The Silence seem to have built tunnels and control rooms under the whole Earth.
• Embarrassing Nickname: One of the times River says "I hate you" to the Doctor is when he gives her the codename "Mrs Robinson".
• Evil Sounds Deep: The Silence.
• Face Framed in Shadow: The Astronaut.
• Foreshadowing: The Doctor mentions that Amy appears to have put on weight. Seems like just a typically insensitive comment at the time. Amy feels sick a couple of times. Then at the end, we learn Amy is pregnant.
  • He also tries to get Rory and Amy to go back home and start making babies. Too late.
  • The Doctor's comment about "More happening in 1969 than anyone remembers." This is because the Silence (the aliens) make you forget their existence the moment you look away.
  • You can only remember things about the Silence when you see them, including past encounters. When River finds them underground right after they get to the warehouse, she looks terrified, probably remembering everything about them and what she endured as a child.
  • Amy, in shock of witnessing the Doctor's death, tries to insist that it's a clone of the Doctor that died, and not the real one. Oh, how right she is.
• Fridge Brilliance: The ship from The Lodger belongs to the Silence, which makes sense because both of them are forgotten when you aren't looking at them (or at least, its similar enough to the Wham! Line in that episode that there is no upstairs to bear mentioning.)
  • Why did the Tenth Doctor burn the Master's body in Last of the Time Lords? Even dead, a Time Lord's body is a miracle...
  • After River (whose marksmanship can usually be trusted) fails to shoot the titular astronaut, she mutters "No, of course not". She's saying that because it's her younger self in that suit. Of course she would miss — if she hadn't she wouldn't be standing there. She already saw herself miss.
    • Alternately, she could be pointing out how guns never work in the Who Universe.
• Genre Savvy: While's he's being arrested by the Secret Service, the Doctor successfully predicts and appropriately responds to River fixing the TARDIS scanner and saying "I hate you".
• Getting Crap Past the Radar: River Song says she can be quite a screamer, though that might be just a reference to how many female companions seemed to be there mostly to scream.
  • Although a later episode suggests that it refers to the TARDIS making her infant self cry.
  • Whatever the Future!Doctor did with the Cavalier's wife that led her to paint him naked.
• He Had a Name: Inverted horrifyingly with the Silence.

Amy: You didn't have to kill her, she couldn't even remember you. Silent: Joy. Amy: What? Silent: Her name was Joy.

• Harsher in Hindsight : River's shooting off the Doctor's hat seems like a funny bit, until you learn that it was given to him by his mate in a rather sweet scene.
  • To be fair, River didn't know that. But remember that Part where she immediately moves to shoot the Astronaut, resignedly muttering "No, of course not" after she misses it? That's her past self in there. What seemed like a quick act of vengefulness is basically another of her attempts at a Heroic Sacrifice, if not a fully blown suicide attempt... or indicative of how gaping the Silence-induced gaps in River's memory are.
  • Isn't it her future self in the space-suit?
  • The Stetson lives! Safe inside the Tesselecta...
• Heroic BSOD: When Amy returns to the diner, she staggers in with a thousand-yard stare on her face, and can't concentrate on what River and Rory are planning.
• Ho Yay: When talking about the Jefferson-Adams-Hamilton intersection, the Doctor mentions that two of the three founding fathers in question fancied him.
• Hurting Hero: The Doctor cannot convince himself he is the King of OK.
• I Am Not Shazam: Even though the lone member Amy met is credited as "The Silent", multiple press reviews have referred to him as "The Silence. The Silence is the name of the large group that River and Rory passed in the sewers.
• I Could Say It But: Of a sort. Doctor to Canton: "Under no circumstances follow me into this box and close the door behind you!"
• The Immodest Orgasm: Alluded to by River Song.
• In Memoriam: Dedicated to Elisabeth Sladen. Unlike past dedications in Doctor Who, this dedication card opens the episode rather than ending it. Meanwhile, BBC America placed it at the end of the episode.
  • BBC America also made one other change to their version of the In Memoriam card. Rather than just the black slate, they added a shot from "School Reunion" of Elisabeth Sladen walking away from the camera, only to turn around and wave at the audience before the card faded to black.
• In Space Everyone Can See Your Face: Averted Trope. The astronaut's visor is almost always shown down, and is very reflective. When it is raised, it's in broad daylight, but the camera cuts away before we can see it. The second time, it's dark, and the suit seems to be one stolen and possibly altered by aliens. Most little girls can't fit in, let alone operate, spacesuits made for adult men.
• I Thought It Meant: In-universe example.

River: I'm quite the screamer. Now there's a spoiler for you! Canton: What's going on here? Doctor: Uh...nothing! She's just a friend. Rory: I think he's referring to the possible alien incursion.

• In Medias Res: The opening scene for the season with the older Doctor getting shot? Not gonna happen in his time line until the last episode of the season.
• Kick the Dog: The Doctor twists the knife on River Song's heart when he says he doesn't trust her, but by the time the Future!Doctor gave her the envelope to set off this plot, she's the most trusted companion of the Doctor.
• Lampshade Hanging: On the nature of the Doctor-companion relationship:

The Doctor: I'm being extremely clever up here, and there's no one to stand around looking impressed. What's the point in having you all?

• • And in a bit of Leaning on the Fourth Wall, while explaining the entertainment value of days of the week, he ends by saying that most times the world hangs in the balance on a Saturday; the day that Doctor Who airs new episodes. In his own words: "Time isn't a straight-line. It's all... bumpy-wumpy. There's loads of boring stuff, like Sundays and Tuesdays and Thursday afternoons. But now and then there are Saturdays. Big temporal tipping points when anything's possible. The TARDIS can't resist them. Like a moth to a flame." Wink, wink, nudge, nudge...
• Like You Would Really Do It: Raise your hand if you think the Doctor is going to stay dead.
  • Ditto goes for Rory... who already has his name in the opening credits.
  • Also, he's back in the TARDIS in the trailer for the next episode.
• Line-of-Sight Name: Jefferson Hamilton Adams is taken from a set of street signs at a three-way intersection. It isn't actually an example, Nixon asked his mystery caller where and who she was; only the former was answered but Nixon mistook it for an answer to the latter.
• Meaningful Name: The Doctor is shot at Lake Silencio. Really?
• Metaphorgotten: The Doctor is not sure whether he wants to fly or knit in 1911.
• Merlin Sickness: River and the Doctor aren't just meeting in random order; they're travelling in opposite directions. Every time they meet, it's later for one and earlier for the other. [See also: Call Forward]
• Mind Screw: Plenty. The Doctor is truly killed at the lake, Amy says she is pregnant, the Silence have an Elaborate Underground Base under the whole Earth, and the Astronaut is the little girl, whom Amy shoots.
  • And the Silence themselves, who are Mind Screw incarnate.
• Mood Dissonance: The Doctor has died, seemingly permanently, and the surviving companions are fiercely debating what to do now. Cue younger Doctor stepping out of the gents' to crack jokes and ask what everyone seems so broken up about.
  • A little bit earlier, too. When the Doctor is shot, he begins to glow, and like all regenerations, it is painted as a scene of mournful beauty. Beautiful golden flames wreath his body, powerfully sad music rises- then bang, silence, death.
• Mood Whiplash: The scene in the bathroom, flipping between comedy and horror each time the woman turns her head. She asks the Silent if he is wearing a Star Trek the Original Series mask, and is then electrocuted.
• Morning Sickness: Amy feels sick in the White House, then feels very sick in the warehouse, prompting her to tell the Doctor she is pregnant. The nausea may also be an effect of the Silence.
• My Death Is Only the Beginning
• My Friends and Zoidberg:

Nixon: But who — but who are they? What is that box? The Doctor: It's a police box, can't you read? I'm your new undercover agent, on loan from Scotland Yard. Code name, the Doctor. These are my top operatives, the Legs, the Nose, and Mrs Robinson. River: I hate you. The Doctor: No, you don't.

• My God, What Have I Done?: Amy after she shoots at the Astronaut, who is also the little girl.
• Mythology Gag: "A lot more happens in 1969 than anyone remembers" may be a reference to the 1969 episode where Jamie and Zoe get their memories wiped.
  • Not to mention, this isn't the only Moffat episode set in 1969. Ten and Martha got stuck in that year in "Blink", and Martha mentions that they went to see the moon landings four times.
    • Which presumably means the Doctor and Martha have murdered four batches of the Silence, on top of any other Moon Landing videos they have watched on Earth.
  • This line is also probably Foreshadowing considering this is a Future!Doctor, especially because he uses the word 'remembers' possibly referring to the The Silence's forget-me effect
• Nausea Fuel: An encounter with a member of the Silence seems to elicit this reaction in people after their memories have been wiped.
• Nice Hat: "I wear a Stetson now. Stetsons are cool."
• Nightmare Face: The Silence. Especially when one kills Joy in the restroom and it looks like it's growing a MOUTH.
• Non-Action Guy: Rory is very reluctant to explore the cave with River, yet he is rather put out when he's relegated to explaining the TARDIS to Canton.
• Noodle Incident: The trip to Easter Island and Jim the Fish. Then again, given the Doctor and River's track record, this could just be Foreshadowing instead.
  • The Prison guard remarks imply that River has broken out before, after "packing".
  • The first minutes of the episode are filled with references to the Noodle Incidents the Future!Doctor gets into after seemingly dropping Amy and Rory off for a while.
• Not So Invincible After All: Word of Moff has this trope as part of the reason behind killing the Doctor. Regeneration is more like a saving throw than anything else: Time Lords can be killed (almost) as simply as humans, and the Doctor has only survived so long through guile and wit.
• Nothing Is Scarier: Just because you can't remember doesn't mean there's nothing there.
• Not What It Looks Like: The Doctor on being found naked hiding beneath a woman's skirts by a sword-wielding Cavalier. "You know, this isn't nearly as bad as it looks."
• Offscreen Teleportation: Done by the Doctor in a rare protagonist's use of this trope.
• Ominous Walk: The Astronaut has a very creepy Slow Walk, natural because a space suit is heavy.
• Ooh, Me Accent's Slipping: The Secret Service are played by fairly transparent non-Americans. Also, Canton says "Scotland Yard have..." instead of the American "Scotland Yard has..." when the Doctor gives his alibi.
  • Also, Canton seems to pick up a bit of Cockney accent in the 40 years since the space program...
• Overcrank: Used in the final scene.
• Papa Bear: When the Doctor asks if his companions are being threatened, you can practically feel him ready to kick some ass.
• Phrase Catcher: The always-popular "it's bigger on the inside" line in regards to the TARDIS, and good ol' "Doctor Who?"
• Please Wake Up: Said by Amy to the dead Future!Doctor.
• Politically-Correct History: Averted, see Reality Is Unrealistic.
• Power of Trust: Subverted; when River tells the Doctor that he has to trust her not to reveal what's going on, he bluntly points out that, as much as he likes her, he knows barely anything about her — and what he does know suggests that she's a murderer, and has possibly murdered him at some point. She might be many things, but 'trustworthy' isn't exactly one of them. He is, however, willing to trust Amy.
• The Public Domain Channel: Apparently Rory is watching it at the beginning; "The Flying Deuces" is out of copyright. Presumably, getting permission from a rights-holder to show a digitally altered clip from their movie would have been just too much of a hassle.
• Reality Is Unrealistic: Nixon actually did have at least one black Secret Service agent.
• Real Life Relative: Canton is played by Mark Sheppard, while the older Canton is played by W. Morgan Sheppard, Mark's father.
• Rebel Relaxation / Leaning on the Furniture: The Doctor leans on the hood of the Edsel. And makes himself comfy in the Oval Office. In Nixon's chair.
• Reverse Psychology: "Canton, on no account follow me into this box and close the door behind you!"
• Revolvers Are Just Better: River Song, Canton, and the Secret Service agents wield revolvers. Amy grabs Canton's revolver and fires it at the Astronaut at the end.
• Running Gag: From bow tie to fez to Stetson.

The Doctor: I wear a Stetson now. Stetsons are cool.

• • Also, River killing the Doctor's hat. First the fez, now the Stetson.
  • The old "Doctor who?" gag gets used twice.
  • The fez gets mentioned, and the Doctor wears one in a "blink and you'll miss it" moment during the Laurel and Hardy film.
  • And the Doctor repeatedly says something that prompts River to state 'I hate you.'
  • "Archaeologist" as an insult.
  • The Doctor eating or drinking something, and then spitting it out.
• Samus Is a Girl: The astronaut and the little girl are the same person.
• Scenery Porn: Have you seen the shots of Utah?
• Shock and Awe: One of the ways in which the Silence attack.
• Shout-Out: Joy asks the Silence in front of her whether it's "some kind of Star Trek the Original Series thing".
  • Also, the Doctor swears he ended up in the Oval Office by accident; he was looking for the Oblong one.
  • The underground tunnels seem borrowed from the Alien franchise.
  • The sound the aliens make sounds quite a bit like the Predator.
  • The Doctor calls River Song "Mrs. Robinson". Also possibly a reference to his recently having met Frank Sinatra.
    • A major song from The Graduate? The Sound of Silence.
  • The Viking Funeral resembles Darth Vader's funeral at the end of Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi, using the same shot, except with the Doctor's face instead of Vader's helmet.
    • It also closely parallels the Master's funeral a couple of seasons ago.
  • The Silence are a lot like the Gentlemen from Buffy, who could make people silent. They also resemble Slender Man, quite a bit.
  • The tapes of Nixon's telephone calls are a nod to his real-life taping of practically every conversation he held in the White House, which later came to bite him in the ass during the Watergate scandal.
    • The next episode shows that the Doctor actually gave him the idea first.
  • "Space. 1969."
  • A debatable one, but the seemingly male astronaut being female. Huh.
  • Mark Sheppard's Character is named Canton
  • The Tunnel King Thwarted Escape scene is of course a shout-out to all those WW2 POW escape movies.
  • Mark Sheppard's character is a carbon copy of his one from Dollhouse at first.
• The Space Race: The episode is set in 1969, just before Apollo 11 landed on the moon. The Astronaut wears the old A7L suit used by the Apollo astronauts.
• Stable Time Loop: The Doctor is trying to pull off one of these.
• Stage Whisper: Amy, Rory and River discuss an Awful Truth that they absolutely cannot tell the Doctor...under the glass floor of the TARDIS console room, with him directly above them.
  • It gets worse, he actually interrupts their conversation by sticking his head down over the edge of the floor and tells them to come up top. There is no way he could not have heard it.
• Sting: River slaps the Doctor hard enough for the background music to temporarily stop and change track.
• Take That: It's yet to be seen if it plays out in the character, but Amy and Canton's exchange about marriage could be about same-sex marriage, interracial marriage, or marriage to a political enemy.

Amy: "And [getting married]'s a crime?" Canton: "Yes."

• Timeshifted Actor: The Sheppards as Canton Everett Delaware III.
• Timey-Wimey Ball: In Moffat tradition. We have the Doctor inviting his companions to attend his death which he already knows will happen; invites someone else who they haven't met yet, but he's met them; and also invites his past self to meet up with them after he's died. Make sense?
• Title Drop:

Cavalier: Where is the Doctor? Noblewoman: Doctor who?

• • And it happens again later.

Canton: Doctor who, exactly?

• Tonight Someone Dies: It was rumoured that someone on the main cast would die. Amy? Rory? River? The Doct — no, wait, Matt Smith still has the rest of the season on his contract. It's the Doctor. Specifically, one 200 years older than the usual one. Team TARDIS has to convince Current Doctor to try and save Future Doctor without Current Doctor knowing who he's saving or why. If you're confused, blame Moffat.
• Transformation Is a Free Action: Averted. The Doctor begins to regenerate, only to be shot mid-sequence and die for real.
• Tranquil Fury: The Doctor is very, very annoyed that his companions are hiding who their recruiter is, a future Doctor, and says, quite calmly, "don't play games with me. Don't EVER ever think you are capable of that".
• Vader Breath: The astronaut.
• Viking Funeral: For the Doctor on the lake.
• Wham! Episode: What all the signs are pointing to. Big Bad of the series making a first appearance? Check. Main character soon being Killed Off for Real? Check.
  • To elaborate: the Doctor is killed mid-regeneration by the Astronaut; the fake TARDIS returns, probably connected with the Silence; and Amy is pregnant.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: Where exactly did the Future!Doctor leave his TARDIS?
  • Resolved in the season finale.
• William Telling: River shoots the Doctor's hat off.