page_title: The Impossible Astronaut
section_title: Filming and effects
hierarchical_section_title: The Impossible Astronaut / Production / Filming and effects
caption_attribution_description: English: Karen Gillan signing autographs for the US premier of the Eleventh Doctor at the Village East Cinema
context_page_description: "The Impossible Astronaut" is the first episode of the sixth series of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who. The episode was written by show runner Steven Moffat and directed by Toby Haynes. It was first broadcast on 23 April 2011 in the United Kingdom on BBC One, the United States on BBC America and in Canada on Space. It also aired in Australia on ABC1 on 30 April 2011. The episode features alien time traveller the Doctor and his companions Amy Pond and Rory Williams, and is the first of a two-part story, which concluded with "Day of the Moon" on 30 April.
  In the episode, the Doctor, Amy, Rory and the archaeologist River Song are summoned together by a version of the Doctor from 200 years in his future. Trying to understand the enigmatic hints about "Space 1969" the older Doctor mentioned and a man they meet in 2011 called Canton Evrett Delaware III, they travel to the United States in 1969 and discover a scared girl who is trapped inside a spacesuit. The team deals with the Silence, a religious order of aliens which has members who can make people forget their encounter with them when they look away.
context_section_description: This pair of episodes marks the first time that Doctor Who has filmed principal photography footage within the United States; the American-produced TV movie of 1996 was filmed in Canada, and some second unit establishing shots of New York and the Statue of Liberty were filmed on Liberty Island for the episode "Daleks in Manhattan", but none of the cast of the episode were involved in the shoot. Filming took place in the state of Utah. For the opening shot for the location, director Toby Haynes wanted it to be epic so that the audience could recognise where the episode was set. Scenes on the roadway were filmed on U.S. Route 163  (several miles east of the coordinates listed on the Doctor's invitations). The crew wanted to add as many American icons as they could into those shots, including a Stetson hat, a 1950s Edsel Villager, and a yellow school bus. Moffat, having enjoyed writing episodes featuring River Song, wanted to give her an impressive entrance. Haynes had actress Alex Kingston block the sunlight from the camera angle and blow smoke from her revolver. The scenes involving the picnic and the future-Doctor dying took place on the shore of Lake Powell. The suit worn by the future-Doctor's killer was a fabricated replica of an Apollo space suit. In filming the death scene the filming crew noticed that Karen Gillan was genuinely upset and "was acting her heart out." In filming the "Viking funeral" scene, Haynes wished to film it during the sunset. However, the sun set over the desert, so was instead filmed during sunrise, as the sun rose over the water.
  Kingston had to genuinely slap Matt Smith several times in a scene because it was difficult to fake. Kingston recalled that after a few takes, Smith got red cheeked and grew frustrated at having to do the sequence over and over again. The Oval Office set was constructed at Upper Boat Studios in South Wales. Because the production crew had access to several pictures and plans of the real office, they were able to replicate it in almost every detail. The main problem for building the set was the plastering; the crew normally plaster one wall at a time for normal rooms, but because the Oval Office was round, they had to do the entire set at once. The American-style diner scene when the companions reunite with the Doctor in this episode is actually located in Cardiff Bay. The Laurel and Hardy film The Flying Deuces, in which the Doctor intruded, was done by Smith dancing in front of greenscreen.
caption: Karen Gillan (centre) was reportedly genuinely upset filming the death scene of the older version of the Doctor.
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