"Day of the Moffat" or "Are You Leading Me On?"

I wanted to withhold judgment on Doctor Who's season opener until seeing the conclusion. On reflection, this was pointless because head writer Steven Moffat has set up his version of Doctor Who as an ongoing storyline even more so than his immediate predecessor Russell T Davies', who largely took things year by year. As a result, it's hard to even review the tandem of The Impossible Astronaut and Day of the Moon on their own terms, because they're obviously meant to be seen as steps on a journey more so than a trip in their own right.

While Moffat's ambition is admirable, the execution has been uneven. In particular, there's something out of balance in the interplay between the plot of these specific episodes and the character moments that feed into the ongoing drama. The lack of focus on the plot side is especially surprising because it was an area where his scripts for previous seasons had been excellent. Based on those scripts, it was also the aspect many fans expected Moffat would return to prominence after what they perceived as Russell T. Davies turning Doctor Who into a soap opera. Of course, what that notion ignored was that the difference between being the head writer and being a guest writer who does one story per season is comparable to the difference between a parent and the relative who stays with the kids for the night so the parents can go out to dinner. When you consider that none of Moffat's episodes during Davies' tenure as head writer really tied in with the over-arching story-lines for their respective seasons, it makes one wonder if Moffat got an overly easy ride from fans (aside Lawrence Miles, but that's another posting).

As things stand, the dissonance between the beautifully handled character moments and the ambitious but messy plot really encapsulates this particular story. There's no question that Moffat loves his lead characters and it's fun to see their interaction. As much as the story set-ups might strain credibility, the dynamic between the Doctor and his friends (including guest-star Mark Sheppard as Canton Everett Delaware III) feels very natural. The events surrounding them, however, didn't draw me in like some of Moffat's earlier stories.

Perhaps it's unfair to compare these new episodes to The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances, which may be the best Doctor Who story ever, but their use of similar central images (i.e. a child separated from the world by a life-support device) kind of calls out for it. While the earlier earlier story unfolded with a sense of urgency, balanced by some quiet moments to step back and get to know the characters, the more recent story meanders a bit and sometimes takes our affection for the characters for granted. As a result, the many intriguing ideas Moffat packed into the story feel like isolated flashes of greatness rather than parts of a coherent whole.

It's certainly possible that this seemingly unfocused structure is part of a cunning plan that will pay off later in the season, and Doctor Who will always get the benefit of the doubt from me. Still, much as I enjoy an ongoing storyline and seeing how disparate threads come together, part of the appeal of the show for me is the way it walks the between ongoing drama and anthology series, with each story intended to be enjoyed as its own entity. Having to guess which of the (too) many seemingly trivial elements will be relevant five episodes later takes some of the fun out of it.

Thankfully, even the weaker stories under the current production team have been fun thanks to one key contributor. As a reviewer said about Francis Coppola's 1992 Dracula movie, if you're only going to have one great performance in your Dracula movie it had better be the guy playing the vampire. A similar thing could be said about Doctor Who, and thankfully Matt Smith is a joy to watch as the Doctor. Some have suggested that he was somehow an overly safe choice as a successor to David Tennant, but they couldn't be more wrong. In many ways, Smith's take on the character is more alien than his predecessor, with more of the prickly nature that characterized the performances of William Hartnell and Christopher Eccleston on display. In particular, he captures the sense of an old soul in a young body better than anyone since Peter Davison. Here again, Doctor Who and especially this Doctor will always get the benefit of the doubt, even as I hope the next episode will stand up better on its own.