Day of the Moon (TV story)

Day of the Moon was the second episode in the sixth series of Doctor Who.

Synopsis
The Doctor is locked in the perfect prison. Amy, Rory and River Song are being hunted down across America by the FBI. With the help of new friend and FBI-insider, Canton Everett Delaware the Third, our heroes are reunited to share their discoveries, if not their memories. For the world is occupied by an alien force who control humanity through post-hypnotic suggestion and no one can be trusted. Aided by President Nixon and Neil Armstrong's foot, the Doctor must mount a revolution to drive out the enemy and rescue the missing little girl. No-one knows why they took her. Or why they have kidnapped Amy Pond...

Plot
Three months after Amy shot at the little girl, she is chased down in the middle of the Valley of the Gods in Utah. She has strange pen markings and tally marks all over her skin. Eventually, she is cornered between two SUVs and a cliff face. Canton Delaware advises her to surrender, but eventually shoots her. Her body is brought before the Doctor, who is being kept prisoner at Area 51 in chains and a straitjacket.

River Song, also covered in markings, is caught in New York, between the unfinished edge of a skyscraper and Canton's FBI unit. She decides to jump instead of be arrested. Finally, Rory -- also covered in markings -- is shot on a dam. He is also taken to the Doctor, who is now having a wall built around him -- blocks that seal together perfectly to make one solid box. It is soundproof and impregnable -- the perfect prison. As it is finished, Canton steps inside and seals the door from the inside.

Once the door is closed, the pretense is dropped and the Doctor easily frees himself. Amy and Rory free themselves from the body bags, and Canton takes on a much friendlier approach to the three. After saving River from the fall by landing the TARDIS on the side of the building and opening the doors into the swimming pool, the three begin to clean themselves of markings, actually tally charts of how many aliens they had seen in the three months. The "Silence" have been found to be everywhere -- across the world. It is not an invasion, but a revolution. In private, Amy tells the Doctor she is not actually pregnant - she made a mistake.

Canton straightens the Doctor's bow tie after the Doctor implants all the occupants of the TARDIS with a small voice recording device. It flashes red when a message has been left, and Canton -- despite him not remembering -- has a flashing hand. The Doctor has extrapolated the image of the Silent from Amy's phone and turned it into a hologram, which is now being projected behind Canton. The message told Canton to turn around and straighten the Doctor's bow tie -- like post-hypnotic suggestion, it was the last thing in Canton's head, so he did that. Even the information would eventually disappear.

Canton and Amy investigate a children's home, where the girl in the astronaut suit was believed to have been taken from. The only person in the building believes that it is 1967, not 1969, and he is delirious. Amy begins to explore, when a room door locks itself. She notices her hand is flashing - the message advises her to leave, as do markings on the wall. She then realises that she has begun to tally her arm again. She looks up - the ceiling is infested with the Silence.

She runs out of the room, quickly forgetting her encounter. Down the hallway, she sees a mysterious woman with an eye patch looking out from a slot hole in a metal door. She goes to investigate, but finds the room empty. Inside she finds a photo of herself with the girl. Suddenly the girl in the astronaut suit walks into the room and begs Amy to help her. Before Amy can do anything, however, a pair of Silents enter the room and trap Amy.

Canton hears Amy's screams and a Silent suddenly appears in front of him. Canton activates the implant in his hand, then pulls out his gun and shoots the Silent, wounding it.

The Doctor, meanwhile, has been busy -- he is apprehended at NASA after breaking into the Command module, Columbia, atop the Saturn V rocket, and rearranged some of the electronics. After President Nixon arrives and orders the Doctor's release, he receives a call from Canton, asking for help.

Amy has gone missing, and her recorder device is left on the floor. It is still recording -- Amy's voice can be heard. They also find the girl's astronaut suit which now lies empty on the floor. The Doctor then confronts the wounded Silent and asks who and what it is. The alien reveals its species to be the Silence, and warns the Doctor that "silence will fall" - echoing the warnings of Prisoner Zero.

While Rory, River and the Doctor set about finding Amy, Canton returns to the cell at Area 51 with the Silent in tow, and talks with it. The alien gloats that the Silence have ruled the world since the Stone Age. It tells him that it was a mistake to bandage him and that, as a general rule, "you should kill us all on sight". Canton reveals that he recorded this on Amy's camera phone and leaves. Having been gone several days, the soldiers are naturally curious -- they calm down after President Nixon puts in another appearance.

The Doctor and River begin to dissect the astronaut suit, whereupon they find it is in fact a perfect life support machine -- hence how the girl could survive Amy shooting her. It is comprised of at least 20 different types of alien tech, and the occupant would not even have to eat to survive while wearing it.

Meanwhile, Amy wakes up and finds herself tied in a chair and surrounded by the Silence. The Silence inform her that she has been there for several days and that she will "bring the silence."

The Apollo 11 launch goes without a hitch, and the Doctor tracks the signal from Amy's voice recorder to a room at an unknown location. He brings an old television with him, and River brings her gun - she claims she could take down at least seven should they choose to attack. The Doctor doesn't seem to mind, unusually. He sets up the television, and Neil Armstrong's foot touches the lunar surface. As it does, the image turns to Canton's video of the Silent saying "You should kill us all on sight" -- in short, sealing the fate of all the unarmed Silent on the planet, since half a billion people were watching the program. The Doctor's transmitter in the Columbia beams the transmission back to Earth repeatedly, so that people would see, and the worldwide culling of the Silent begins.

The enraged Silence try to attack the Doctor, prompting River to shoot all the Silent present, while the Doctor and Rory free Amy. They withdraw to the TARDIS, and Canton is delivered to the Oval Office, where Nixon asks the Doctor if he will be remembered. The Doctor replies "Forever," without going into detail. As the TARDIS disappears, Canton asks the President if he can leave the FBI for personal reasons - he wishes to be married. Nixon realises that, since he is asking the President, the partner must be "black", and he states he is quite liberal, and that Canton can marry her. Canton corrects the President -- "she" is actually a "he". Nixon promptly changes his mind.

River is delivered back to jail, where she and the Doctor finally (at least, finally from the Doctor's perspective) kiss each other. The Doctor is shaken and does not know how to react, and ends up bolting.



Rory continues to listen to Amy and the Doctor over the communicator. Amy had not told him she thought she was pregnant since she is worried that the TARDIS may have had an effect on the child, giving it abnormalities such as multiple time heads. After Amy reassures Rory that he is safe, the Doctor prepares to leave on an adventure, while having the TARDIS computer scan Amy for pregnancy -- it flickers between a positive and a negative reading, leaving the actual reading unclear.

Six months later, in New York, the girl comes across a homeless man in the street, while coughing. She tells the man that she is dying, "but that's OK". To the man's astonishment -- and fear, resulting in him fleeing -- the girl begins to regenerate.

Cast

 * Eleventh Doctor - Matt Smith
 * Amy Pond - Karen Gillan
 * Rory Williams - Arthur Darvill
 * River Song - Alex Kingston
 * Canton Delaware - Mark Sheppard
 * President Richard Nixon - Stuart Milligan
 * Carl - Chukwudi Iwuji
 * Phil - Mark Griffin
 * The Silent - Marnix Van Den Broeke
 * Little Girl - Sydney Wade
 * Doctor Renfrew - Kerry Shale
 * Gardner - Glenn Wrage
 * Doctor Shepherd - Peter Banks
 * Tramp - Ricky Fearon
 * Eye Patch Lady - Frances Barber
 * Grant - Jeff Mash
 * Sergeant - Tommy Campbell

Crew

 * Writer - Steven Moffat
 * Director - Toby Haynes

Individuals

 * The Doctor asks Nixon to say "Hi" to David Frost for him.
 * The Doctor tells the Silence he is lying about going easy on them, claiming "it's not Christmas" which likely references the time he allowed the Sycorax to leave alive after they tried to take over the human race. (DW: The Christmas Invasion) Though this does contrast with the time he killed all the Racnoss offspring at Christmas (DW: The Runaway Bride)

Objects

 * When the Doctor, Amy, and Rory enter the TARDIS, the Doctor asks him to grab some thermocouplings (DW: Space)

Story notes

 * This episode had the working title: Look Behind You.
 * This is the first two part opening episode of the revived series, and the first since Attack of the Cybermen.
 * The flashing red lights seen in the palm of the hand is also seen in the science fiction film Logan's Run.

Ratings
to be added

Myths

 * We will see River Song as a child.
 * This episode will air the day after The Impossible Astronaut  This has been proven false

Filming locations

 * The Prequel to The Impossible Astronaut was shot on 11 November, 2010. Other scenes shot that day included the scene in the 'perfect prison'. These sequences were shot metres from each other as the Oval Office stood about half a dozen paces from the Doctor's cell.

Production errors

 * As the densest material in the universe, the Dwarf Star Alloy would have been too heavy for two people to lift on their own. It was described as zero-balanced dwarf star alloy. Perhaps the term "zero-balanced" refers to a quality which enables it to be lifted easily. Given that advanced technology may have been required in acquiring the alloy, there may also be advanced technology allowing it to be easily moved.
 * When President Nixon arrives to bail out the Doctor, he and River follow the Doctor back into the TARDIS. When the camera focuses on Rory, you hear the TARDIS doors close, but when it shows Rory again, they're still partially open.

Continuity

 * River Song mocks the Doctor for using his sonic screwdriver and tells him to go "build a cabinet", similar to a conversation Captain Jack had with the Ninth Doctor in The Doctor Dances.
 * The Doctor tastes the TARDIS blue coloured envelope to find out information. (DW: The Hungry Earth)
 * The Doctor recalls Prisoner Zero, a silent Venice, and the voice claiming "silence will fall". (DW: The Eleventh Hour, The Vampires of Venice, The Pandorica Opens)
 * Rory remembers the two thousand years he spent as an Auton guarding the Pandorica with Amy inside. (DW: The Big Bang)

Timeline

 * Day of the Moon takes place three months after DW: The Impossible Astronaut.

Home video releases
The DVD will be released in two halves. Part One, which will contain episodes one to seven, will be released in Summer, shortly after the airing of episode seven.