Wow.  Where do I start?

Maybe it’s best to back up and explain that in the lead-up to Series Six, especially in the last couple of weeks, I’ve been doing my desperate best to avoid seeing any spoilers for the series – I’ve even avoided some of the official BBC news items.  Hopefully this attempt at isolationism will allow me to come to the series with a suitable sense of surprise as new plot points are revealed to the Doctor and his Companions. (If you’ve already read all the spoilers, you’ll probably be able to tell me exactly where I’m going wrong in my analysis and speculations, but please don’t.  I really want to find out in my own time, by watching the episodes.)  I have to say, I found plenty of surprises, but even more tantalizing tidbits that could be either clues or red herrings (with Moffat you never know).

From the moment in the prequel when Nixon assures his caller that “there are no monsters in the Oval Office” (a beautiful political double entendre that you can apply to your administration of choice), it’s clear that we’re in for a doozy.  And the action really is pretty much non-stop from the rapid strides of an irate monarch right through to the moment we hear the sting into the credits.

As I understand it, one of Moffat’s goals was to make the season opener feel more like the finale in scope and drama.  For my money, he’s done it.  Surely there has never yet been a single episode so crammed full of quotable (and quite possibly notable, in terms of story arc) quotes.  Some are just plain hilarious (like the exchange when the Doctor’s asserts that River’s wearing her “‘he’s hot when he’s clever’ face”), some are poignant (“We do what the Doctor’s friends always do:  what we’re told.”), and some set off little alarm bells (“You lot.  Thought I’d never get done saving you…”).

But knowing the storytelling methods of The Grand Moff, one can’t help but examine every little detail with an eye to the future (or even the past).  How many of those moments leading up to (or immediately following) that terrible, mysterious incident on the beach will we be looking back on at the end of the series with a knowing nod?  Obviously, the Doctor knows what’s coming, what the individual in the Apollo spacesuit means to do, and who she or he is.  (I think it’s too simple for it to be River.  We’ve been led to believe it’s the Doctor she killed to get herself into the Storm Cage.  But why make it that “obvious”?  On the other hand, does she know something we don’t (again) as, after failing to hit the retreating figure with her six-shooter, she murmurs, “of course not…”?)  Something has compelled him to come offer himself up like a sheep to the slaughter, yet simultaneously call in his friends for some reason (“Avenge him?” “That’s not his style.” “Save him.” “That’s not his style either.”  Saving the universe, on the other hand…).  We’ve probably had some of the clues already, if we’re clever enough to find them.

What about the clues to the rest of the series?  Why do River and Rory end up in a space that looks disturbingly like the interior of the crashed ship from The Lodger, down to the hand-sized spheres in the consoles?  Is it some primitive form of TARDIS that our Big Bad (not the Silence themselves, I think) is working to build (as one friend hypothesizes)?  Regardless, there’s clearly some sort of connection back to that one otherwise utterly random episode from last series.

To me, though, the most tantalizing clue is Amy’s pregnancy.  It was my first interpretation of her nausea in the Oval Office (by the way – how brilliant to have the TARDIS in the Oval Office!), but I didn’t really credit that interpretation at first, especially after River also feels sick right after viewing the Silence (giving us a feeling that this is the Whovian version of Buffy’s evil-detecting cramps).  After reviewing her big reveal, though, I have to wonder about her urgency.  Why does she need so desperately to tell the Doctor, and why that look on his face when he finds out, if it’s a normal pregnancy (or, dare I say, if it’s Rory’s baby)?  Moffat also mentioned the pregnancy angle in Confidential.  There’s definitely more to this than first meets the eye.

Enough of the portents and predictions, though.  How about the overall effect?  Visually, I felt they did a stunning job – the shot of the viking funeral with everyone arrayed at different distances down the beach was gorgeous.  The Oval Office was beautifully and faithfully replicated, and the shots in the desert of Utah gave the episode a lovely scope.  (It’s great finally to see Who come to America!)  Moffat’s created a wonderfully creepy pop culture mix-n-match in the Silence, too.  Where else but in Doctor Who would you see a memory-stealing mash-up of a Roswellian alien and a Potterian Dementor?

The characters are also engaging, as usual.  I love how poor Rory gets n00b duty, babysitting Canton (himself a cucumber-cool addition to the team) until he acclimates.  But it is, of course, River who tickles our imaginations most.

For the first time, we get to be on the “in” side of one of her ubiquitous spoilers, and it’s refreshing.  Then we get that intimate little quiet moment with Rory (with the Doctor’s theme from Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead faintly reprised in the background), reminding us that, while River usually has the upper hand on us, we (and the Doctor) have all along known something of vital import to her timeline.  Yet somehow, when we’d like to feel smugly superior that we finally know something she doesn’t (and cares about), we can’t help just feeling rather sorry for her instead, because we’ve seen how that meeting plays out.

While I remain convinced that the overarching plot of the series will have a great deal to do with River and her story, I now think it will – again – have even more to do with Amy.  As I thought about the moment when the Doctor charged her to “swear to me on something that matters,” it struck me that in a sense, that’s what this episode is all about – puzzling out what matters.  What’s it come down to?  The identity of the “astronaut”?  The motivations of the Silence?  A way to save the Doctor?  Or the heart and soul of a little girl.  Fish fingers and custard.