I genuinely cannot tell if he's made so much stuff in so many places that I'm just bound to keep seeing him, or if it's just that he has a niche in the type of media I gravitate towards?
In America, the Doctor (Doctor 11) and his companions Amy, Rory, and River, along with FBI special agent Canton Delaware gathered evidence that the world was secretly being controlled by a race known as the Silence (that look like the classical “gray aliens” and could not be remembered once you look away from them). The Doctor used the Apollo 11 Moon landing to change the humans from slaves to up risers. ("The Impossible Astronaut"/"Day of the Moon" Dr Who vlm 3, TV)
Did everyone know at the time that old Canton Everett Delaware III was played by Mark Sheppard (Canton Delaware III)’s Dad???? I feel like I’m late to the party but I’m so jazzed right now!
Title – Dr Who (6x1 ‘The impossible astronaut’ 6x2 ‘Day of the moon’)
Year- 2011
Character- Canton Everett Delaware III
Synopsis- Dr Who and crew have to go back in time to 1969 to infiltrate the moon landings in order to alert humanity to an alien menace that’s been stealthily controlling the human race since early history.
Medium - Netflix
Entirety or episode?- Episodes
Overall verdict- So, one of my many, many unpopular opinions is that I’m not into new Dr Who. I was SO INTO it as a kid – ‘my doctor’ was Sylvester McCoy (fight me) but something seemed to happen between me being ten and now that made me seriously go off sci-fi. So, whilst I have an early love of Dr Who and solid grounding in it, I tried to start watching again when they brought it back and made it all funky and sexy and all that nonsense, but I just couldn’t get back into it.
Another (less unpopular) opinion of mine: I am not even a tiny bit fond of Steven Moffat’s writing and that’s putting it politely.
That said, I (for the most part) really enjoyed these two episodes.
I love The Silent as an antagonist. They’re a cool design and genuinely creepy: the whole ‘you can only remember them while you can see them’ thing is super neat and the ways the good guys get around it are clever. The crosshatches appearing on skin, and the Silent standing around (particularly in the closed orphanage scenes) are really effective and unsettling. Canton executing the escape plan at the start of Day of the Moon is airpunch-awesome. The final solution to planting the idea in humanity’s head to kill The Silent (and of course they’ll remember nothing about doing so) is satisfying and a really good idea. So, basically, the plot of this is pretty cool (for the most part.)
There is however SO MUCH that I HATE about these episodes, not least the lame-o romantic subplot that’s lifted wholesale from The Time Traveler’s Wife, which incidentally is a book I unreservedly loathe. The most annoying part is, if they’d framed it as an allegory of dementia or something it’d be poignant but instead it’s just wall-to-wall schoolyard sexual innuendo. I am nostalgic for the days when Dr Who didn’t contain non-stop chemistry-free flirting that makes my arse clench up tighter than a balloon knot and OK, I’ll shut up now because I could go on and on.
Screen time- Main character
Accent- American
Mark’s character- Mark S should get to play heroic sweethearts more often. I love Canton, he’s the highlight of these episodes and I’m pretty sure it’s not just because I’m biased towards his actor. Mr S is the star of the show.
Canton – an ex-FBI agent who lost his job because he ‘wanted to get married’ - is clever, cautious, brave and badass. Most of all, his reaction to the TARDIS is the best thing I recall ever seeing on Dr Who – it takes him a good long time to get his head around it, and for the rest of the first episode he’s still looking mildly bemused at the technology. It really grounds the plot in reality and it is very well acted.
Having William Sheppard play older Canton is super cute as well (although ngl I find it hard to get past the fact they have noticeably different eye colours so I’d never have got that it was the same character if it wasn’t pointed out.)
Also, the ending: I can almost forgive Moffat for writing pretty much every female character horribly* for making Canton gay. Nixon’s face when Canton graciously accepts that allowing men to marry might just be that one step far considering they’d just literally bent time and space to defeat an alien race, is the most cuttingly perfect satire you can get. “I think the moon is far enough for now, Mr Delaware.” “I figured it might be.” Ugh.
*yeah, no I can’t. Moffat, get in the bin.
Highlight- Canton’s “That’s OK. You were my second choice for President.” Sass level critical.
“I like your wheels” – Canton (after so much delightfully expressioned gazing around) finally gets his head around the TARDIS.
“Would you mind going with her?” “Yeah. A bit.” Rory, same.
That glorious fake death bodybags and secure prison escape from episode 2.
Humanity being reprogrammed to fight back at their captors.
“Yes… HE is.” MIC DROP.
Rewatch?- You know what, I’m going to actually try and watch Dr Who from the start, as a gesture of faith. I started the first Christopher Ecclestone ep after writing this and I’m actually not hating it so far, so perhaps miracles may happen (or perhaps the yuck factor really is just Moffat.)
There’s the tongue.
A+ perfectly accurate TARDIS face /standing ovation/
