8. Thats All Right Mr. Nixon. You Were My Second Choice For President
A couple obvious points to note here. First Mark Sheppard can clearly do no wrong and improves the awesomeness of anything he appears in by roughly 7.6%. And Second Its rare that you see as sympathetic a portrayal of Nixon as we ended up getting in The Impossible Astronaut/Day of the Moon. In fact, I think never is the word that Im looking for. And yet, its undeniable that in this two parter were given a Nixon who while flawed is not a terrible person. The episode even underscores this by having River upbraid the Doctor for refusing to acknowledge that in addition to Watergate and Viet Nam he actually did also did some good things as well. Which is why I like this moment toward the beginning of Nixons involvement in the story. It works as both a good joke and an interesting character moment. For those who havent seen it recently, what happens is this Nixon is lecturing Canton Everett Delaware III (the lovely and talented Mark Sheppard) about the mission hes been selected for. In a moment of one-upmanship he tells Canton flat out that he was his second choice for this mission. To which Canton calmly replies in kind with the quote above. There are again two things to notice about the exchange. -We are totally on Cantons side because we havent seen much of Nixon yet and as I mentioned, its traditional to rag on him as much as possible. (Not entirely undeservedly, but still) So the joke is on Nixon. But -Canton is talking to the most powerful man in the country, arguably the most powerful man on the planet. And he basically insults him to his face. And Nixon lets it go. Sure, you could argue that he needs Cantons help so hes letting him off easily, but he sure doesnt seem to resent Canton in any way after that. If anything it makes them sort of chummy. That says a lot about who he is (if only fictionally in this instance. Your real-world-Nixon mileage may vary)