The Impossible Astronaut is the first episode of the sixth series of Doctor Who. It starred Matt Smith as The Eleventh Doctor, Karen Gillam as Amy Pond, Arthur Darvill as Rory Williams, Alex Kingston as River Song, William Morgan Sheppard and Mark Sheppard as Canton Everett Delaware III and Stuart Milligan as Richard Nixon.
I have now watched every episode of revival Doctor Who, and my reactions to them have varied widely. Some of the episodes have been monster of the week style stories that required ignoring plot holes and nonsensical circumstances. But other times the show has stretched the boundaries of what a science fiction show can do. The two part story in "The Impossible Astronaut" and "Day of the the Moon" might be the high point of Doctor Who, weaving a convoluted, exciting and far ranging story with symbolism about time, identity, memory and perception.
SPOILERS!
The story begins with the Ponds being summoned to Utah in the United States, to a place called Lake Silencio. There, they find River Song and a man previously unmet, Canton Everett Delaware III, as well as The Eleventh Doctor, 200 years older than when they saw him in A Christmas Carol. They have a picnic on the side of a lake, but it is interrupted when Amy sees a strange figure silhouetted on the surrounding cliffs. Things turn even more shocking when The Doctor walks down to the lake side to see a figure emerge from the lake: the titular Apollo Astronaut, who shoots him, and then shoots him again, disrupting his regeneration and leaving him completely dead. River Song burns his body, giving him a Viking Funeral to prevent the earth becoming a battle ground for those who would like a Time Lord body. Canton Everett Delaware III mysteriously tells them that they will see him soon.
And then they return to The Diner, where they meet a much younger Doctor, happily chewing on a straw, oblivious to what as happened. We have just had a dramatic moment: The Doctor has died. But here he is, alive, and the episode is just starting. Because with the Doctor's death out of the way, we are presented with another, quite unforeseen problem: in 1969, Richard Nixon is receiving a series of mysterious telephone calls that reach him wherever he goes. He reaches out to exiled FBI agent Delaware (here played by Mark Sheppard, the son of William Sheppard, who played him in his 2012 appearance), and then the TARDIS lands in the oval office, setting up a somewhat slapstick scene.
While trying to figure out the mystery, Amy Pond goes to the White House bathroom, where she sees the same alien that she saw earlier: an alien that she has forgotten all about. And in the bathroom, she has the same experience again: turning away from the alien for a few seconds will erase her memory of talking to it. This despite the fact that it mercilessly kills another women in the bathroom. Amy leaves the bathroom, and forgets, although she has gotten a picture with her mobile phone.
And now it is time to get into the TARDIS and fly to Florida, with The Doctor, Rory, River and Canton, all to discover the mystery of who has been calling the Doctor. In a discarded building, The Doctor finds bits of space suits and alien tech, and the other members of the crew see, and then forget, hordes of the memory-proof aliens. And then, to end the episode, they are being slowly encircled, and the Astronaut figure they say earlier, 40 years in the future in Utah comes out, and Amy picks up a gun and shoots it...
Usually, when describing a Doctor Who plot, I don't try to give a complete synopsis, because it isn't necessary. In this case, however, there is so much happening in the episode that skipping one or two details makes the entire thing hard to explain. The opening scene where the Doctor is shot and killed should be the emotional centerpiece of the episode, but it is only a prelude to the real story, which in itself is hard enough to explain. Why is Richard Nixon, here played as both comedic and a little tragic, receiving these phone calls? What is the relationship between this mystery and The Doctor's death? Who are the aliens that can't be remembered? Why does Amy tell the Doctor she is pregnant? Why did Canton get kicked out of the FBI? What does the Apollo Program have to do with this? And how does this relate to deeper themes, such as memory, perception, identity and trust? Every scene in the episode is rich with meaning, some of which will be uncovered in the next episode, Day of the Moon, and some of which won't be uncovered until later in Series Six, and some of which is, at the time of writing, still unexplained.