History Recap / DoctorWhoS32E2DayOfTheMoon

'''Original air date:''' April 30, 2011

'''Production code:''' 2.2

Written by Creator/StevenMoffat.

** When River falls off the skyscraper, she is caught by the TARDIS, which is parked sideways on the wall. This sequence is shot the same way as Franchise/{{Superman}} catching the wall-climbing thief in [[Film/{{Superman}} the 1979 Superman film]].

** Which is something of a subtle MomentOfAwesome when you realise she wouldn't have known about the Silence behind her: she made that shot just from watching Rory's reaction to it.

[[caption-width-right:350:Huh... thought there were more people in this picture... ||]]

IIII

The one with tally marks. Lots and lots of tally marks.

On-board, the Doctor and Amy have a heartfelt conversation. How is she? Amy says she can't quite remember everything (the most significant "everything" being what she saw in the child's room), but the Doctor isn't talking about that. Her pregnancy. Then Amy says that it was a false alarm, but that's ''still'' not what the Doctor is talking about. Why did she tell him, but not Rory? Below, Rory listens via the microphone to Amy's voice. Amy explains that she was afraid that having done all this time travel while pregnant would affect the fetus. What if it had three heads? Or a Time Head? So that's what she wanted to ask [[Recap/DoctorWho2011RedNoseDaySpecialSpaceAndTime a few months ago]].

** River asks whether what they are hearing from the device in Amy's hand is a recording, fearing that if it works like the devices in [[Recap/DoctorWhoNSS4E8SilenceInTheLibrary Silence in the Library]], Amy is dead.

Of course, they don't take to that very kindly, and promptly begin to attack. River, of course, ''begins unleashing all of the shit on the Silence'' and solidifies her status as the Resident Badass, while Rory desperately tries to break Amy free of her shackles. It's no use, and Amy tells him to get his "big stupid face" out of there. Suddenly, Rory realises that it ''was'' him she was talking about. The Doctor releases Amy using his screwdriver, and they make their escape under the cover of River's gun.

* ActionGirl: River unleashes the seven bells of hell onto the Silence. They all die. All of them. Literally every single one in the room. To a lone woman with a gun.

She holds out her hands, which begin to glow. The man runs away in a panic as the the girl's whole form is engulfed in orange light, and she explodes with the full force of regeneration.

* ActionGirl: River Song defeats a group of Silence.

* AloneWithPrisonerPloy: At Area 51, Canton Delaware walls the Doctor up in a "perfect prison" from which no sound or particle can escape. Which is what the Doctor wants, and what Canton wants to.

* BackToBackBadasses: River and the Doctor take this position in the climax to defeat the Silence, except River is the only one shooting. The Doctor is just pointing his screwdriver.
* BadassBack: River points her gun at a Silence that was sneaking up on her.

* BettyAndVeronica: The Doctor and Rory again. Amy [[Recap/DoctorWhoS31E7AmysChoice chose Rory again]].
* BewareTheNiceOnes: River unleashes the seven bells of hell onto the Silence. They all die. All of them. Literally every single one in the room. To ''a lone woman with a gun.''

** Canton's shooting of the Silent proves the truth behind the Doctor's fear from [[Recap/DoctorWhoS32E1TheImpossibleAstronaut the previous episode]], that yes, Americans ''do'' think they can [[JustShootHim just shoot you]].

* CeilingCling: The Silence hang upside-down from the ceiling in the orphanage, in an early contender for "Most disturbing thing seen this season".

* CreepyChild: The girl, but she isn't necessarily bad. [[MindScrew We think.]]
* DamselInDistress: Amy is kidnapped, and thanks to the nano-recorder they leave behind, ''the others can still hear her''.

* {{Eagleland}}: There is an ''awful'' lot of gunplay in this episode. The diner also has an ''entire wall'' painted as a giant American flag.
* EasilyConqueredWorld: The Silence's ability to mind-wipe people meant that this essentially happened. They didn't even have to bring ''weapons''.

** Canton was kicked out of the FBI for wanting to get married; to a man.

* TheGreys: The Silence are basically just your standard Greys mixed with pure horror. They have already invaded, a long time ago, they came from another world, they look alien-ish and that alien superoriority.
* HiddenAgendaVillain: We still don't know why the Silence monkeyed with the TARDIS in series 5.

** The Doctor tells Nixon to tape everything that happens in his office as it's the only way to be sure he hasn't been compromised by the aliens. He kept following the Doctor's advice even after the episode.

** The audio glitch in the Moon landing transmission of "One small step for (a) man..." was caused by the Doctor splicing in his secret message. You don't remember the aliens' "you should kill us all on sight" message when you view the landing transmission on Website/YouTube because you're supposed to forget completely about them the moment you look away.

* HollywoodDensity: The dwarf star alloy is said to be the densest material in the universe. Fair enough, white dwarf stars are among the densest objects in the universe, only beaten by neutron stars and black holes. So there's no way two people could move those bricks, as they would weigh thousands of tons. Well, they ''did'' say it was an ''alloy''.

* {{Irony}}: One line of River's dialogue, in light of "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS32E7AGoodManGoesToWar A Good Man Goes to War]]":
-->'''River:''' My old fella didn't see that, did he? He gets ever so cross.

* LiteralMinded: When Rory hear Amy talking about how the person she loved 'fell out of the sky' into her life, [[Recap/DoctorWhoS31E1TheEleventhHour he assumed she meant the Doctor]]. Amy clarifies that she was talking about him with a metaphor.

* TheMenInBlack: The episode opens with our heroes being hunted down by government agents in black suits and dark glasses and taken to {{Area 51}} to keep the aliens secret. The aliens themselves have many MIB-ish qualities, and can probably be assumed to be the in-universe inspiration for the trope.

* MysteriousWaif: The girl in the astronaut suit is hinted to possibly be Amy's daughter, and ''regenerates'' at the end of the episode.

* NoodleIncident: Apparently they scouted every state in the three months they were running from the FBI. We still don't know how long the Doctor was a prisoner, how he got the TARDIS there... and why was Rory at a dam, of all places?
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%% Please no natter.
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* NoNameGiven:
** The girl.
** Technically, the Eyepatch Lady.

* NotThatKindOfDoctor: River Song is a doctor of {{a|dventureArchaeologist}}rchaeology.

** Which is something of a subtle MomentOfAwesome when you realise she ''wouldn't have known about the Silence behind her'': she made that shot just from watching Rory.

** The Silents have a truly epic moment when they realise that they have effectively written their own death warrant as a result of the Doctor's plan.

* ReasonableAuthorityFigure: Unlike his usual villainous appearances, Richard Nixon is depicted as one in the series, trusting the Doctor entirely and going along with his advice despite the occasional jabs and the fact that the Doctor is eccentric to put it mildly, only asking the Doctor how he's remembered. He's also given excellent reason for his infamous paranoia. He's even willing to intervene on Canton's behalf, overcoming his own prejudices to support his mixed marriage and intervene on his behalf... until he finds out that Canton's partner is a black ''man''. Even then, all he does is say, after a moment of shock, that perhaps the Moon is far enough for now (which, while a little sad, is considerably more reasonable a response than you'd expect).
* RefugeInAudacity: There's nothing like ''coming out to Richard Nixon in the Oval Office'', isn't that right, Canton?
* RoomFullOfCrazy: All the "GET OUT NOW" messages scrawled across the walls in the orphanage.

** Whenever the Doctor or the people working with him are in trouble with the personnel at the base, they bring out Richard Nixon to tell them to reconsider their actions.

* ShipTease: River×Doctor continues from previous episodes. The ShipTease between Amy and the Doctor is also very strong but ends on more Amy×Rory.

* ShutUpHannibal: A Silence is bragging about how tough his species is and how humanity is nothing but chattle to them, and Delaware just shoots him.
%%* ShutUpKiss: River invokes it with the Doctor.
* SmallReferencePools: Florida is the only place in the country that could possibly have a space suit; the Doctor never even considers to search anywhere else for Jefferson, Adams, and Hamilton. Good thing there is no intersection like that in Washington, DC (where NASA is headquartered), or anywhere near Mission Control in Houston, TX.
* SoftWater: The TARDIS' swimming pool, after River Song's falling stunt in New York. Of course, it ''is'' the swimming pool of an advanced alien.

* StableTimeLoop: Subtle. In [[Recap/DoctorWhoS32E1TheImpossibleAstronaut the previous episode]], the Doctor is disdainful towards Richard Nixon, because of things like [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watergate_scandal Watergate]]. It turns out he's indirectly ''[[BeenThereShapedHistory responsible]]'' for Watergate by [[NiceJobBreakingItHero encouraging Nixon to be paranoid and suspicious of everyone]] because of things like the Silence.

* StraightGay: Canton wants to marry a black person, who also happens to be a man. No biggie.

* ThatCameOutWrong: Amy might not have known Rory was listening, but her poor choice of idiom when talking about how much she loved Rory does not go unnoticed. When you know someone who ''literally'' dropped out of the sky, using that as an idiom when speaking about another person might cause confusion/heartbreak, yes?

** Rory and the Doctor are talking about the Silence and there's this bit, revealing that Rory remembers his ''entire'' time as the [[Recap/DoctorWhoS31E13TheBigBang Lone Centurion]].

* WhatHappenedToTheMouse:
** What happened to poor Dr. Renfrew? Is he still in that orphanage? And did he ever catch that broadcast and if so, how's that skinny-addled bugger going to kill all those Silence "on sight" anyhows?
** The Doctor considered Canton trustworthy enough to ensure his body is disposed of following his faked death, but after his first appearance he is never seen nor mentioned again.
* WhatTheHellIsThatAccent: The orphanage director is only kind of Southern. This could be explained by him being a Southerner who faked a Yank accent for part of his life, and the brain damage keeps him from remembering which one to use and[=/=]or how to use it correctly. More likely, it seems to be a [[http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0787715/ British-Canadian actor's]] attempt at a Louisiana/Cajun drawl. Which you don't usually find in central Florida, where Cape Canaveral is. Poor mind broken Dr. Renfrew.

* WhyDontYouJustShootHim: Canton [[TheAllSolvingHammer firmly believes]] in this method. See a Silence? Shoot while it brags.

* EverythingsBetterWithSpinning: Eventually River is just twirling around and firing seemingly at random. But still hitting her targets.

* AluminumChristmasTrees: Many fan reviews referred to Canton's desire to marry his partner as "anachronistic", argued that this wouldn't even have occurred to someone in 1969, and so on... but the episode is set [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_same-sex_marriage#1970 only ten months before a gay couple applied to be legally married]].
** Also, people complained about Nixon having a black secret service agent, also saying it was "historically inaccurate" and "unrealistic". Nixon actually had at least one black secret service agent in real life.

* SmallReferencePools: Florida is the only place in the country that could possibly have a space suit; the Doctor never even considers to search anywhere else for Jefferson, Adams, and Hamilton. Good thing there is no intersection like that in Washington, DC (where NASA is headquartered), or anywhere near Mission Control in Houston, TX.[[note]] The Apollo spacesuits were manufactured by ILC Dover, of Delaware. Cue Twilight Zone theme for the name of our hero, Canton Delaware.[[/note]]

* SmallReferencePools: Florida is the only place in the country that could possibly have a space suit; the Doctor never even considers to search anywhere else for Jefferson, Adams, and Hamilton. Good thing there is no intersection like that in Washington, DC (where NASA is headquartered), or anywhere near Mission Control in Houston, TX.[[note]] The Apollo spacesuits were manufactured by ILC Dover, of Delaware. Cue Twilight Zone theme [[/note]]

* SmallReferencePools: Florida is the only place in the country that could possibly have a space suit; the Doctor never even considers to search anywhere else for Jefferson, Adams, and Hamilton. Good thing there is no intersection like that in Washington, DC (where NASA is headquartered), or anywhere near Mission Control in Houston, TX.

* CombatPragmatist: Wisely shot one of the Silence when it started bragging how tough they were.

* {{Foreshadowing}}: When Amy and the Doctor talk about the fact that she thought she was pregnant, she says that one of the reasons she didn't tell Rory was because she thought that the baby might have been affected by their travelling on the TARDIS.

* ReasonableAuthorityFigure: Unlike his usual villainous appearances, Richard Nixon is depicted as one in the series, trusting the Doctor entirely and going along with his advice despite the occasional jabs and the fact that the Doctor is eccentric to put it mildly, only asking the Doctor how he's remembered. He's also given excellent reason for his infamous paranoia. He's even willing to intervene on Canton's behalf, overcoming his own prejudices to support his mixed marriage and intervene on his behalf... until he finds out that Canton's partner is a black ''man''. Even then, all he does is say, after a moment of shock, that perhaps the Moon is far enough for now (which, while a little sad, is considerably more reasonable a response than you'd expect). Even taping all his Oval Office conversations was actually The Doctor's idea (to monitor for the Silence's influence), not Nixon's!