Doctor Who: A Good Man Goes To War
Q: When is an ending also a beginning?
Ok, it isn't as catchy as some of the poetry in the programme, but it alludes to a crucial point that we should probably deal with straight away. Yeah, this is not a stand-alone episode and yeah, you're doing to have to wait a while to see how this concludes. But I've only got this to say to the whiners out there who will be lambasting the complexity of the overall story arc and the long wait until September: deal with it.
And before we go any further, let me warn you, in the manner of one Doctor Song, that there are spoilers ahead. Seriously, heed that warning. If you haven't watched the episode, then go do so and then read on. I'm not going to be held responsible for ruining any of this for anyone.
This was a mighty fine piece of Doctor Who. Sure, it was showy and very ostentatious - it had the celebratory feel of "let's try to get as many different monsters into this as we can". But that's fine - why not, if it's going to be done so well? And I like the fact that the Doctor has an army he can call on if need be, and it makes sense that someone as startling as him would have others in his debt. And, of course, it is good that the Doctor is shown to be the man who can stop an army without shedding blood. Just as it should be.
But what was even better was the fact that the Doctor was tricked by enemies who know him all too well. It wasn't just that the army left to allow for a trap to be set, then sprung. It wasn't the further fact that his enemies managed to pull the substitution with the Flesh trick for the second time on him. It was the fact that Moffat let the audience in on this trick; for very early on, we understood that this was all a trap, and so we were allowed to see the arrogance of a Time Lord lead him right into a trap when really he should have known much better.
And the episode also managed to pull off some other surprising tricks as it went along. I mean, it managed to have a poignant moment with a 12 year old Sontaran, for heaven's sake. And I really like the idea of a Silurian adventuress living in Victorian England solving crimes. There's a spin-off show, right there.
Anything that didn't work? The Headless Monks seemed like a vaguely good idea that was not at all fleshed out. As it stands, they were a bit of a nothing - and I don't know why we couldn't have had the Silence back as the main adversaries. And overall I felt that the whole thing could have done with a little bit more time to, well, breathe a bit. I'm all for fast-moving Doctor Who, but this felt like a six episode story crammed into about forty-five minutes.
Of course, this is all window dressing around the main revelation of the story; the Ponds' baby and the identity of River Song. From the moment I heard the name "Melody Pond" I knew that those who have been speculating that River was Amy's daughter were right. But that didn't stop the slow reveal of River's identity being a joy to watch - especially since it was the information that reinvigorated the Doctor and galvanised him into action. There is also an added poignancy when you consider that the Doctor already knows how Melody/River will die - and that he has already made a sort of afterlife for her. And it does raise a number of questions - is River a Time Lady? It was strongly implied that she is and, following on from this, that she was the regenerating girl from the end of Day of the Moon. Which would also make her the girl that Amy shot... and it is increasingly looking like the person in the astronaut suit who gunned down the Doctor was River, and that is the crime that she is serving time for in the Stormcage. But if so, why? And how will the Doctor be saved from that brutal murder on the beach? I mean, surely he will be saved, right? But then there was that snapshot of a skeleton holding the sonic after the end credits had rolled...
The overall story is starting to fit together, but there are enough balls still in the air to make me desperate to know what happens next. But that's Ok, because Doctor Who will return in Let's Kill Hitler. And why not?
Labels: Cult TV, Doctor Who, Reviews, TV
posted by The Nameless Libertarian @ 7:36 pm
23 Comments
23 Comments:
"Let's Kill Hitler" - why not? Because you'd wreck so much causality you might blow up the universe. It's the kind of thing that an inexperienced and over-confident time traveller might attempt. So the title suggests that we will see the young River Song trying to change history (perhaps as a training or indoctrination exercise) and the Doctor trying to stop her.
The problem with the monks and the church militant is that they've suddenly become major villains without any proper build-up. We don't have any sense of what these people want or why they hate the Doctor. So instead of a memorable enemy character with a clear purpose we get a bunch of dull people doing evil stuff for no particular reason.
I'd certainly agree about the pacing. You need time to build up tension because it builds at the speed that the audience reacts rather than at the speed of the editing, and sometimes you need to give the characters time to introduce themselves to the audience and show what they're about.
As for the skeleton, it's probably meant to suggest that the Doctor's remains at the bottom of that American lake aren't as dead as we think. It wouldn't make sense to kill off the current Doctor as well because that would be creating such an extreme dilemma that no resolution would seem plausible.
How many Doctors are involved in this plotline? Current Doctor, future Doctor, and perhaps Flesh Doctor? Which one are we actually watching?
It's a wilderness of mirrors in four dimensions. If time travel ever becomes a reality the most valuable commodity in the universe will be paracetamol.
A further thought about the skeleton - remember how in the library River Song's soul/consciousness/whatever was saved in the sonic screwdriver that she was given by the Doctor? Well, what the preview clip emphasises is not the skeleton itself, but the fact that the sonic screwdriver in its hand is still active...
I have a feeling that the person River kills is going to be a high up cleric. Bearing in mind the views of Father Octavious on who River killed and the fact that the Clerics seem to be anti the Doctor it makes more sense than the fact that she kills the Doctor. I may be wrong but I commit think that the Clerics were introduced to the Doctor in the Time of Angels and obviously all the Clerics that got close to the Doctor were either killed off or erased from time.
The puzzle for me is why are the clerics / monk out to vet the doctor in the first place. Equally, how are they linked to the Silence (who, I would agree, would have been the better villain). And ultimately who is pulling all the strings (and I don't mean Stephen Moffat!)
Ultimately a very satisfying episode and let's face it, the title of the next episode is awesome (and unlikely to happen unless Hitler is also flesh!)
I don't think the Clerics were introduced (bloody autocorrect!)
Well. I find myself curiously underwhelmed by the whole thing. It’s not that there was anything particularly bad about it – it was kinda fine and I feel as if I ought to have liked it more. But instead I’m thinking ‘meh…’
Maybe I should be posting this as a comment on the ‘curse of the anti-climax’ thread, because it turns out that, after the huge promo puff, the episode was all wind and no trousers. In what way did the Doctor ‘rise higher than ever before’, or indeed ‘fall further’? I’m simply bemused by this. On the ‘rising’ motif, I can’t help feeling that re-creating the entire universe last year has the edge over dropping into a hostile asteroid and successfully saving Amy (a trick that he has performed before – but with considerable more panache – when rescuing Rose from the Dalek emperor). Or how about re-aligning multiple planets in the sky after the Daleks nicked them (and incidentally avoiding the destruction of the entire universe – again – along the way)? His ‘fall’ appears to be that he didn’t notice a rather underwhelming trap and has not yet managed to save a baby (who he does have the comfort of knowing is still alive and kicking further down her timeline). If an episode is going to be bigged up to the extent that this one was, it had better deliver, and this didn’t come even close.
This is all about over-claiming. I’m a huge admirer of a lot of Moffat’s work in this series, but there’s a real danger in his continuous claims (almost every week) that what’s coming up next is better/scarier/bigger/more epic/generally more awesome than ever before. Sometimes it is, but frequently it isn’t. To my mind, he comes across in interviews as horribly smug. I can’t help feeling a certain irony as I watch him pen scripts about the bad consequences of the Doctor’s overweeining self-confidence and borderline arrogance. If Moffat had claimed less and delivered more in this episode, it would have worked as a perfectly decent (though uninspired) episode. As it is, the sounds of balloons popping are deafening (at least in my house).
Furthermore on this matter, where is the jaw-dropping cliffhanger of which Moffat spoke? The one that was going to top last week’s big reveal? The revelation of River’s true identity – though handled extremely well, to be fair – ain’t it: if she had said ‘now I have to tell you who I really am…’ and then we cut until September, it would be a cliffhanger. This wasn’t. If the mid-season break had come after ‘The Almost People’, it’d make a great deal more sense.
By the way, I couldn’t agree more with Andrew’s second paragraph. That’s it in a nutshell, and it’s a problem which is going to occur every time a villain appears and their motivation/backstory isn’t explained until later. For me, the Silence suffer from the same deficiency; I’m interested in what’s going on, but I’m not sure I care all that much because they remain essentially ciphers.
On the plus side, at least the episode had great production values (though I imagine that the Star Wars guys will be demanding their designs back!), a few great jokes, a much better Sontaran than we’ve seen in recent times (a great twist on the usual character) and I absolutely loved the Silurian/human couple (the appearance of lesbian bestiality at teatime is surely a BBC first?). Oh, and the pre-title sequence was genuinely epic. For a few minutes back there I was actually expecting to be given what we were promised!
Oh, and Scienceguy - your theories on who River is going to kill parallel mine in a (horribly lengthy!) comment on the 'Curse of the Anticlimax' post. Good thinking, batman.
Jim,
Good points but I think you have to (I did) see the episode as what it is and ignore (if poss) Moffat's Fred Karno act.
First up, yes Andrew, I'm aware that the Doctor and co can't actually kill Hitler. I was more commenting on the audacity of the next episode title. Your speculation on the plot is interesting and really rather plausible though.
Secondly, having watched the episode again, I'd say that it is deceptively simple. Underneath, it is trying to say some really rather deep things about the Doctor's arrogance and aggressive nature. The Time Lord Victorious is still there - it's just that his enemies are starting to work out how to overcome him. There was also some beautiful acting in this episode - especially when River saw Rory again (daughter meeting dad) and Matt Smith was superb throughout the episode - his facial expressions took us through this rollercoaster emotional experience for his Doctor.
However it is fair to say that this episode really didn't live up to River's hyperbole. The Doctor scored a victory then got slapped in the face. He's risen higher than this and fallen lower than this before. Likewise, what was all her fretting about the Doctor finding out who she was? In the event, he was pretty happy about it.
Overall this episode rounded off the first half of the series nicely - it was a big, bold, brash (and almost RTD-esque) episode that left enough balls in the air to keep my interest going over the summer break. And yes, the cliffhanger wasn't the best the show has produced - the previous week's was better, for example. But it was a good way of rounding off the first half of the series - it creates interest without making the next three months unbearable.
Classic Who? No. The best episode of the season so far? No. But it did everything it needed to and left me wanting more. Fair play. Doctor, I look forward to seeing you again in the autumn.
TNL
Nick, I love the phrase ‘Moffat’s Fred Karno act’ – that describes it perfectly. I fell about laughing when I read that and I’m still grinning as I write this :) You’re right of course. But it’s difficult to ignore Mr Karno when he seems to be omnipresent on Confidential and the BBC website, puffing away. It’s a very double-edged sword: on the one hand I take my hat off to the genuine buzz and intrigue he’s created – I REALLY want to know what happens next in a way that I haven’t since I was a kid, and that’s a hell of an achievement. On the other hand, the cult of personality of ‘The Moff’ (I ask you!) is becoming burdensome and risks shooting the show in the foot – check out how many of the newspaper reviews are expressing disappointment that the show didn’t deliver on its hype, and a lot of fan comments on other sites are saying it too. .
I just wish he’d tone it down a bit. Well, quite a lot. Because ignoring the hype and taken on its own merits, the episode itself was okay. For me it was a bit of a dog’s dinner, with some elements working brilliantly and others falling oddly flat. In some ways that’s typical of Moffat’s writing since he became showrunner – a bit of me thinks that he’s not his own best editor, much in the way that Dennis Potter wrote brilliant (and brilliantly coherent) work when under some external editorial constraint, but became irritatingly self-indulgent (with elements of brilliance) when wholly let off the leash. That’s often the way for madly creative people – and Moffat is certainly madly creative. It’s like watching an ideas-bomb going off: exciting, but not all the pieces end up falling in the right place. That said, at least he IS fizzing with ideas – infinitely preferable to a formulaic plodder.
I think that there is a lot of mileage in the Moffat/Potter comparison - and also in a RTD/Potter comparison. All three writers have been told that the sun shines out of their arseholes and that everything they write is solid gold - with the end result that they stop checking that they are still producing solid gold.
Part of the problem is that both RTD and Moffat are doing the jobs done by three people during the era of the classic series - writer, producer and script editor. They need someone credible in a position to do at least one of those roles for them. RTD needed someone to tell him that Partners in Crime was shite, and he needed to massively rewrite it or scrap the whole thing. Moffat needed someone to say "look, the pirate one is shit - let's lose it until we have a decent script for it. And A Good Man Goes To War needs to be fleshed out, so let's make it two episodes - one about the Doctor's rise, and the second about the trap being sprung. That'll make the themes of the story more explicit, and generally make it more effective".*
All written work needs to be edited by someone different to the author. Otherwise it ends up being, well, blogging.
TNL
*BTW if anyone from the production team is reading this and wants me to do this role, I'm happy to get stuck in for a very reasonable fee ;)
I think they should off hitler, just to really fuck up the continuity. Or have the Dctr make a Flesh Avatar Hitler.
Think the Doctor's going to be too busy building (another) flesh avatar of himself to die in sixties America to worry about building one for Hitler.
You know, one way in which a 'weapon with a timehead' could be used would indeed be to screw up the continuity of history, create paradoxes and generally make the known structure of time fall apart. That'd keep the Doctor busy, wouldn't it? And dare I suggest that the alternate timelines thus created would allow for all sorts of possible resolutions for all sorts of plot threads...? Hehehe, perhaps Melody regenerates into the Meddling Monk ;-) Hmmm... that line started life as a joke, but it now occurs to me that the Monk (as last seen) is certainly a man in need of a Tardis... perhaps Craig Owens should look upstairs again... More seriously, I can imagine the scrambling of history into a pot pourri of surreal coexisting elements would appeal to Moffat. He's got form in this respect. And after all, the destruction of the universe has been done. How about the destruction of temporal continuity itself? Answers on a postcard please - which, the way things are going, will probably emerge from a Sumerian archaeological dig and next year simultaneously... ;-)
I'm just confused.
First of all Amy says that the person coming to rescue Melody is her dad, who is hundreds of years old. This implies Rory, the Roman. However, the universe was rebooted, so Rory is just plain Rory (unless you tell me otherwise). Also Amy seems more excited by the Doctor's appearance than her husband.
Then there is the strange incident of the Doctor deliberately blowing up the Cyberman fleet. Whereas the Doctor has acted defensively in previous episodes, has he ever been so aggressive? Sounds like he has taken on board George W Bush's politics. Afterall if the Dr can disguise himself as a headless monk, it wouldn't have been too hard for him to board the Cyberman ship and just download the data; or perhaps the Tardis could hack into the Cybermen's computers???
Also how did Francis Barber (the one eyed bad leader) escape? One moment she is captured and next she is a long way away with the real Melody Pond. Do we just assume that the headless monks killed her captors and she was able to make her getaway?
What is it with the "PC" stereotypes? Are gay couples always tall thin and fat ones a la Benidorm. And in the name of equality we then get not just the hint of a lesbian couple, but an intra species lesbian couple!!! And why was the black guy bad?
However, there is the small matter that the doctor has only one more regeneration left (or is it two?) By introducing a new hybrid Time Lord we can look forward to the River Song adventures long after Matt Smith (and successor) pop their clogs. Very clever...maybe.
I think this series is not particulary great as some episodes seem rushed and others just inconsequential (eg pirate ship). Perhaps I'll be proved wrong later on.
Oh, as the universe has been rebooted, then presumably the incident in the library (where River Song dies) hasn't happened. So there is no reason to believe that River Song's life has to follow the storylines previously set out? But I'm hoping you guys on this board will correct me.
Regards
Jonathan, I agree with the vast majority of that. Which is precisely why I get annoyed when people laud the 'genius' of the writing. The truth is that there are plot holes and logical inconsistencies throughout it. Of course it's easy to miss these because the plot moves at such speed that we're not given much time to think - a clever way of disguising the inadequacies of the scripting. A small number of these 'inconsistencies' will later be revealed as 'clever', 'genius-level' clues deliberately laid by Moffat. We're then expected to forget about the rest of the stuff which made no sense. The truth is that coherence is too often being sacrificed to showy plot devices designed to make us go 'ooooh'. The surface is glittering, but dig down a little and there's a lot of rubbish underneath - not all rubbish by any means, but too much. The pity of it is that with a bit more effort (and proper script editing) these problems could have been resolved. This is why I continue to think that the writing (and script editing) is - in some respects - lazy. It's a shame, because so much of this season has been great. Stuff like this shoots it in the foot.
If the plot of "Let's Kill Hitler" does involve the Doctor trying to stop Song changing history that would give us his moment of falling lower than ever before because he would be saving the life of a monstrous tyrant, even if it was for the greater good. After all, there's no reason that the high and low point have to happen in the same episode.
Jonathan,
Some of your questions are on issues that are open to interpretation (the status of Rory, for example) - others, however, require you to watch the episode a little more closely. The eye-patch lady got away because the Doctor let her go along with the rest of the clerics. And yes, the blowing up of the Cyber fleet was aggressive but (1) he's done that before (see Silver Nemesis, for example) and (2) he was called on his angry and warlike ways by other characters - indeed, that was one of the themes of the whole piece.
TNL
Andrew,
That would make sense - especially since the Doctor's enemies have been goading him about how many rules he has. His rules would make him save Hitler and therefore condemn millions to death - yeah, that's a pretty spectacular fall for a good man.
TNL
TNL
Thanks for that (re Silver Nemesis etc). I'm not sure I can watch it again (I've given it two goes already - lol). I did notice they were all calling the Doctor aggressive etc, but it seemed to be a sharp change in character from the previous episode (or I'm getting too old to pick these points up).
Re being at the low point by saving Hitler - you may be right. But I thought River said she couldnt be with the Doctor immediately as she had to wait till he had fallen to his lowest point. The program seemed to indicate that the rise and fall had taken place when River turned up...but perhaps I will just have to watch it again.
Kind regards
Well as to killing Hitler...
Wasn't there a Dirty Dozen movie which had a major plot point about not killing him? Indeed didn't the British have plans to off Hitler and decided against it because he was making such a Horlicks of running the war. To put it bluntly he was worth a few divisions. Now if the likes of Albert Speer had taken over - ouch!
I agree to the comments on the sloppiness of Who and that is because RTD and The Moff took it open themselves to be chief cook and bottle-washer. Both desperately need editing. I've even said much the same. The pirate ship episode was very poor and felt like a first draft. On Confidential Moff just said "We got pirates!" and it was fairly clear the script hadn't progressed beyond, "Let's have pirates!" which is great as an idea but an idea isn't a story.
Whilst invigilating an exam at Leeds University a certain Prof was bored and wrote "In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit". He later remarked he had no idea at the time where to take that random line. But he worked it and the rest is history. My point is you can't just have a "high concept" idea for a story, you have to do the spade-work and work out th details. And somehow I don't think cheap CGI helps. Certainly not when your star is a sort of demi-god. It makes it just too easy to pull out the Deus Ex Machina...
And BTW Jim my Fred Karno comment was carefully weighted. Karno's circus might have looked chaotic but it was actually run as a very tight ship. The business of producing comedy is business and very serious business. Show me a script-writer who is laughing like a drain at the keyboard and I'll show you a really poor script.
I just don't think The Who has enough re-writes.
The yanks get it. They regard screen-writing as a job.
Jonathan,
I think that River said she couldn't be there til the end is because if she is a Time Lord (and it's been stated she is) then Time Lords cannot interfere in their own timelines. Only when the flesh baby had been found out and gotten rid of could she make an appearance.
Now that brings up an interesting point if I'm right, because in the Impossible Astronaut and the follow up episode River is right there and so is the little girl (who I assume is River). If this is River, how does she not remember this and how can adult River be there?
Jamie
Or is the child (in the astronaut suit) just a flesh River? He he
I suppose we'll just have to wait and see if all these questions get answered. I suppose I'm just a bit hacked off that I can't remember all the "clues" from previous episodes. I think I'd like a few pointers/reminders during the program that there was a previous "clue" that is now being answered - otherwise I just think it is poor continuity.
Re the comments that young River is going to try to change history by killing Hitler: well we have had that with Rose Tyler trying to save her dad - then those giant winged bats started to wipe everyone out. Didn't the doctor say that you can't change major events and that there is no point trying - otherwise those giant bats come along and wipe everything out. So for Doctor (Matt Smith) to try to change history again seems pointless - unless he has forgotten what went before (and there was a hint of that when he said he couldnt remember the young soldier girl - but then again can you expect the doctor to remember absolutely everyone?)
Regards
Jonathan
From memory - so I might be wrong here! - I thought that the big problem was Rose directly changing her own timeline (or that of someone so intimately associated with her). Also, she was crossing her own timeline twice, in that she actually interfered when she got a second bite of the cherry. So the problem would be interfering with yourself. Maybe! I do remember that the Doctor explained in The Fires Of Pompeii that some points in time are fixed and immutable, whilst others are flexible and can be changed. How this squares with the more recent 'time can be rewritten' theme is perhaps open to debate. Last year the Doctor was interfering/interacting with his own timeline to an extent that might be considered dubious according to the previously stated rules. On the other hand, I think I remember him pointing out that he knows how to do it (being a timelord) whilst others don't - strikes me as a bit of a get out of jail free card, but then the programme has (perhaps inevitably) been making it up as it goes along.
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