The Return of the Doctor: Doctor Who, The Impossible Astronaut, review

At last we earthlings have a protector again, with the return of the Doctor, after a slightly disappointing Christmas special (a version of A Christmas Carol with some witty touches, but too much singing) and a slightly nonsensical Comic Relief skit, the foal-like Matt Smith is back on our television screens ready to do battle with intergalactic beasties and jump around as if he were made out of lots of other people's limbs that have been randomly sewn together.

The Doctor

The Doctor seems to die a lot these days; as if it were a habit he couldn't quite shake off (like smoking, or the Lottery), he managed to get shot by a mysterious spaceman within about three and a half minutes of this new episode. Although it wasn't actually the Doctor; or rather, it was a future version of the Doctor who had called Amy, Rory and the ever-annoying River Song together in America (using some rather smart Tardis-blue invitation cards. Smythsons? No doubt). This being Doctor Who, of course, the future Doctor had also invited his past self to the party, which is a rather handy trick, and next time I have a party I'll be sure to do the same.

The Silence

On the invitation card was a date as well as a place: 1969, America. The past Doctor and his companions head off there, to find that Nixon has been receiving nuisance calls from a young boy who claims that a Spaceman is after him. Naturally the FBI are involved; the Doctor, (appearing in the Oval office with an invisible Tardis, in one of the better scenes) joins in the hunt. It's a trap! we yell, even before the Doctor self-consciously does so.

Introduced in this episode were some aliens (The Silence) who looked a bit like Matt Smith himself after a night out at Coachella; no doubt because of this, their defence mechanism was to make you forget you'd seen them after your back is turned. If only Matt had the same power. No more papparrazzi! This was a very effective trick, creating the right levels of dramatic tension, although after River Song had been down into a network of tunnels, and seen a whole load of them (including one who was wearing a suit, mysteriously; where one finds a tailor in tunnels miles underground is beyond me), came back up and said there was nothing there it just made me hate her even more. Who is she? Can't she have a better catchphrase than 'sweetie'? Anyway, never mind. Oh yes, and Amy is pregnant, and River is exhibiting signs of morning sickness: who's the father? The good Doctor? Or aliens? Or has Rory been over-active? At least if it was the aliens the children would be able to kill people with blue electricity coming from their fingers, which is better than looking like Rory.

So all in all, an okayish episode to start the new series: like a foal stumbling about it provoked both pity, protectiveness and laughter.

Coincidentally...

I was on the underground today – the Victoria line, to be precise, heading southwards at a leisurely pace. I threw my head back and emptied it. I'd been thinking about Sam Leith's novel, The Coincidence Engine, and about time travel, which has come up in discussions with friends about books for children; I remembered talking about chronological journeys with an old university friend, who recommended Daphne du Maurier's House on the Strand to me as being one of the best of its genre.

Du Maurier: Time Lady?

I tried to remember what it was about, having read it and loved it, and was picturing huge fields of corn and a rider galloping across them, when the train started to slow further as it came into the station. I sat up, glanced at the paper lying on the seat to my left, and at the three people sitting opposite me. One was a girl, who passed a newspaper to her friend; she then unzipped her rucksack and pulled out a book.

It was The House on the Strand, in the very same paperback Virago edition that I had. I couldn't help but whisper, 'god that's strange'; I hope nobody noticed. Perhaps I should have said something to her - but what? I was just thinking about that book, and you're reading it? Maybe I had gone back to a time when a girl on the tube was reading The House on the Strand. Maybe it was a message, from Daphne du Maurier, who is the last remaining Time Lord from Gallifrey and wants me to do something terribly important involving saving the world or writing a book or some such. I can but hope. (If you're listening, Daphne, and you'd like me to write an episode of Doctor Who - well, that would be marvellous.)

Or maybe it was just a coincidence. Whatever it was, it made me think about things twisting together, and making patterns in the world, and whether or not a pattern is intentional, or chaotic, it's still remarkably beautiful.