[Doctor Who] 6.07 "A Good Man Goes To War"
If you are watching on the American schedule and want to see what I had to say about "The Almost People", that's here.
Last week's warning still applies:
HERE THERE BE SPOILERS
*spoiler space*
Holy shit. Someone better have already put this episode on the Wham Episodes page at TV Tropes, because it kept dropping the bombs and never let up. So now that this half-season's over, let's see if I can figure out what I got right and what I didn't.
My previous theory: Amy was abducted by the Silence and had a genetically engineered half-human half-Time Lord baby created by the Silence implanted into her. She kept showing up as Schrodenpregnant because of some time muckery involving the Future Doctor from the premiere. The baby would grow up to be Ashley the Tiny Time Lady.
What we know so far: Amy was abducted by Madam Kozarian's forces and replaced with a Flesh doppleganger sometime during the two-month gap without the Doctor. The baby was not created by the Silence -- she is Amy and Rory's biological daughter -- but has been genetically manipulated to force Time Lord DNA into her DNA. Amy kept showing up as Schroedenpregnant because while Amy was pregnant, the ganger wasn't. The baby grows up to be River friggin Song aka Ashley the Tiny Time Lady. Well, at least that's what we're supposed to believe.
Yeah. I pretty much didn't see any of that coming. I guess I get like maybe half a point for figuring the baby was half-Time Lord half-human? And another half-point if Ashley the Tiny Time Lady turns out to be River after all? Whatever, sache is way ahead of me on points anyway.
So. River. Wow. No, I really didn't think Moffat was going to go there. I admit when I first heard the baby would be named Melody I was like, "huh, Melody Pond, River Song, that's kind of themey, and would Amy really name her daughter Melody?" but that's about as far as I made it. Does raise a whole bunch of interesting questions though.
What we know (or I'm conjecturing) about River so far: She's Amy and Rory's daughter (or at least believes herself to be.) The Forces of DOOOOOOM attempted to (succeeded in?) engineering her to be the perfect anti-Doctor weapon. She spent some time in the Gamma Forest as a child, long enough for her name to be changed to the Gamma Forest version of Melody Pond. If she's Ashley the Tiny Time Lady, then at some point she was moved to Earth (recaptured?) and stuffed in the spacesuit, from which she then escaped and ended up in New York, doing what looks an awful lot like a regeneration. At some point as a small child she met the Doctor (when he went to rescue her?) and he knew all about her. She then grows up, becomes an archaeologist (or a tomb raider) and at some point kills the best man she's ever known (Future Doctor? in the spacesuit? but I've been thinking it's going to be Rory for a long time) and is sent to the Stormcage. She's known who Amy and Rory are the entire time, which would explain why she and Amy get on so well in "The Time of Angels". And she and the Doctor are basically married and that basically makes Amy and Rory the Doctor's mother- and father-in-law and oh I bet Moffat just did all this because there's a joke about traveling through all of time and space with your mother-in-law in the backseat at the bottom of this.
So is River still a weapon that can be used against the Doctor? Or has the weapon already been used and that's why she's in jail? And is River the way she is because all this has already happened -- rescued from the Forces of DOOOOOOOOM, etc etc -- or are they changing her history and at one point she's just going to go fzzt! and there won't be a River anymore? And exactly what sorts of powers do her strand of Time Lord DNA give her anyway? It appears she can regenerate and she may age slower than humans (cause clearly the Doctor does not age like a human, that's for sure.) She can fly the TARDIS better than the Doctor (of course so could Romana, so maybe *all* Time Lords fly the TARDIS better than the Doctor) and she's pretty damn smart. Also I suppose this explains how they were planning to make Ace a Time Lord since clearly not all Time Lords are Gallifreyan (and not all Gallifreyans are Time Lords?) -- the DNA strand was identified specifically as Time Lord and not as Gallifreyan, possibly because there's only one Gallifreyan left and that would have been creepy and weird.
Plus, for as much as we just got dropped on us, there's still a lot of unanswered questions out there. Where is the Doctor going at the end of the episode? What's with Future Doctor? When does he start playing into this? Why stuff Ashley the Tiny Time Lady/Baby River into the spacesuit? If the spacesuit was meant to be a sort of automated babysitter then why give her the ability to call for help? Who was in the spacesuit when it shot Future Doctor? Why was Ashley/Baby River dying? Was it just malnutrition? How the hell did she get from Florida to New York? Who did River kill? When did the Doctor tell her his name?
Bullet point time:
- Rory knows here that Melody is his child -- he tells River as much. But in "Day of the Moon," it was a big Thing that Rory *didn't* know Amy was pregnant, that Amy had told the Doctor before telling him (and then of course Amy was like "ha ha not pregnant after all" which now we know was both true and not true.) And "The Almost People" confirmed only that Amy was having a baby. So how . . . I mean I guess he's just putting the dots together and going "oh, well, my wife and all, must be mine" but man I think I'd wait for some DNA testing before I went around assuming the parentage cause to me alien abduction + baby = ALIEN BABY (clearly.)
- Also I think I'm coming around to sache's point of view on Moffat and his obvious fucking with us. Amy's opening speech to Melody is pretty clearly constructed to make everyone think she's talking about the Doctor until that last line: "He's called the Last Centurion." Why didn't he just have Gillan do a take to the camera: "That was genius, there, wasn't it? Pretty clever."
- Also also the "people of our world" don't know Rory as ANYTHING because the timeline where he guarded the Pandorica for 2000 years NEVER FUCKING HAPPENED.
- I'd complain about the Cybermans being so wasted in this episode, but meh, I'm not hugely attached to them and it gave Rory an opportunity to be really fucking awesome.
- Guessing this probably takes place after "The Time of Angels" because I really can't see the Clerics being all "Oh hey it's the Doctor, osm" after gearing up to kill him here.
- The Sontaran nurse is goddamn awesome. Although I do wish they'd just let the parallel with Rory be instead of actually calling it out towards the end of the episode.
- "Why would you need me? I'm old! I'm fat! I'm blue! You can't need me!" made me laugh so hard.
- Nice bit of costuming on Karen Gillan to give her some baby weight.
- How do the Headless Monks' hoods stay up if they have no heads?
- "DOOR LOCKING OVERIDE" Oh come on, they couldn't have got that one fixed before the episode went out? It's override with two Rs.
- Still trying to decide which Doctor is scarier in this sort of situation, Tennant's Doctor or Smith's Doctor. The Tenth Doctor was quite impressively menacing in "The Family of Blood," silently and impassively condemning the Family to their various punishments, but also a good bit of the holy shit factor comes from watching the Doctor take such nasty and personal revenge on such lame friggin' enemies. In the "Colonel Run-Away" bit, the Eleventh Doctor is far more physically menacing but doesn't really have the "holy shit he just dropped someone into the event horizon of a black hole" factor.
- What happened to the cleric in Amy's room?
- Once again the Doctor sidesteps the issue of whether he's had children. Well, he did give Rose the straight answer "yes" but wouldn't elaborate.
- Commander Strax really can't tell humans apart. Heh.
- Also I have to give Rory a special shoutout. Finally, a personality! And it is badass. I admit I didn't like you much at the start, Rory, but like Mickey before you you have grown a personality and you are awesome.
- "The Doctor will be back in Let's Kill Hitler." Oh Moffat ILU never change. Ah ha ha ha. I live in a world where there's going to be an episode of a "children's show" called "Let's Kill Hitler." Take that, all you assholes who are like "QUIT OBSESSING IT'S FOR KIDS."
Eye Patch Lady sightings: It's Madam Kozarian thank you very much.
Rory deaths: He lives!
Things that are cool: Crying Romans with babies, bow ties
Amy: No longer pregnant, now a mum!
Next week: Let's Kill Hitler! Okay, so it's more like September, but Let's Kill Hitler!
Don't answer this question until you've seen the episode: Anyone else planning to watch Torchwood over summer? I figure it'll pass the time until Doctor Who returns nicely. (But no, seriously, don't answer that until you've seen the episode unless you don't mind spoilers. There are too many spoilers on here otherwise and What Has Been Seen, etc.)
Last week's warning still applies:
HERE THERE BE SPOILERS
*spoiler space*
Holy shit. Someone better have already put this episode on the Wham Episodes page at TV Tropes, because it kept dropping the bombs and never let up. So now that this half-season's over, let's see if I can figure out what I got right and what I didn't.
My previous theory: Amy was abducted by the Silence and had a genetically engineered half-human half-Time Lord baby created by the Silence implanted into her. She kept showing up as Schrodenpregnant because of some time muckery involving the Future Doctor from the premiere. The baby would grow up to be Ashley the Tiny Time Lady.
What we know so far: Amy was abducted by Madam Kozarian's forces and replaced with a Flesh doppleganger sometime during the two-month gap without the Doctor. The baby was not created by the Silence -- she is Amy and Rory's biological daughter -- but has been genetically manipulated to force Time Lord DNA into her DNA. Amy kept showing up as Schroedenpregnant because while Amy was pregnant, the ganger wasn't. The baby grows up to be River friggin Song aka Ashley the Tiny Time Lady. Well, at least that's what we're supposed to believe.
Yeah. I pretty much didn't see any of that coming. I guess I get like maybe half a point for figuring the baby was half-Time Lord half-human? And another half-point if Ashley the Tiny Time Lady turns out to be River after all? Whatever, sache is way ahead of me on points anyway.
So. River. Wow. No, I really didn't think Moffat was going to go there. I admit when I first heard the baby would be named Melody I was like, "huh, Melody Pond, River Song, that's kind of themey, and would Amy really name her daughter Melody?" but that's about as far as I made it. Does raise a whole bunch of interesting questions though.
What we know (or I'm conjecturing) about River so far: She's Amy and Rory's daughter (or at least believes herself to be.) The Forces of DOOOOOOM attempted to (succeeded in?) engineering her to be the perfect anti-Doctor weapon. She spent some time in the Gamma Forest as a child, long enough for her name to be changed to the Gamma Forest version of Melody Pond. If she's Ashley the Tiny Time Lady, then at some point she was moved to Earth (recaptured?) and stuffed in the spacesuit, from which she then escaped and ended up in New York, doing what looks an awful lot like a regeneration. At some point as a small child she met the Doctor (when he went to rescue her?) and he knew all about her. She then grows up, becomes an archaeologist (or a tomb raider) and at some point kills the best man she's ever known (Future Doctor? in the spacesuit? but I've been thinking it's going to be Rory for a long time) and is sent to the Stormcage. She's known who Amy and Rory are the entire time, which would explain why she and Amy get on so well in "The Time of Angels". And she and the Doctor are basically married and that basically makes Amy and Rory the Doctor's mother- and father-in-law and oh I bet Moffat just did all this because there's a joke about traveling through all of time and space with your mother-in-law in the backseat at the bottom of this.
So is River still a weapon that can be used against the Doctor? Or has the weapon already been used and that's why she's in jail? And is River the way she is because all this has already happened -- rescued from the Forces of DOOOOOOOOM, etc etc -- or are they changing her history and at one point she's just going to go fzzt! and there won't be a River anymore? And exactly what sorts of powers do her strand of Time Lord DNA give her anyway? It appears she can regenerate and she may age slower than humans (cause clearly the Doctor does not age like a human, that's for sure.) She can fly the TARDIS better than the Doctor (of course so could Romana, so maybe *all* Time Lords fly the TARDIS better than the Doctor) and she's pretty damn smart. Also I suppose this explains how they were planning to make Ace a Time Lord since clearly not all Time Lords are Gallifreyan (and not all Gallifreyans are Time Lords?) -- the DNA strand was identified specifically as Time Lord and not as Gallifreyan, possibly because there's only one Gallifreyan left and that would have been creepy and weird.
Plus, for as much as we just got dropped on us, there's still a lot of unanswered questions out there. Where is the Doctor going at the end of the episode? What's with Future Doctor? When does he start playing into this? Why stuff Ashley the Tiny Time Lady/Baby River into the spacesuit? If the spacesuit was meant to be a sort of automated babysitter then why give her the ability to call for help? Who was in the spacesuit when it shot Future Doctor? Why was Ashley/Baby River dying? Was it just malnutrition? How the hell did she get from Florida to New York? Who did River kill? When did the Doctor tell her his name?
Bullet point time:
- Rory knows here that Melody is his child -- he tells River as much. But in "Day of the Moon," it was a big Thing that Rory *didn't* know Amy was pregnant, that Amy had told the Doctor before telling him (and then of course Amy was like "ha ha not pregnant after all" which now we know was both true and not true.) And "The Almost People" confirmed only that Amy was having a baby. So how . . . I mean I guess he's just putting the dots together and going "oh, well, my wife and all, must be mine" but man I think I'd wait for some DNA testing before I went around assuming the parentage cause to me alien abduction + baby = ALIEN BABY (clearly.)
- Also I think I'm coming around to sache's point of view on Moffat and his obvious fucking with us. Amy's opening speech to Melody is pretty clearly constructed to make everyone think she's talking about the Doctor until that last line: "He's called the Last Centurion." Why didn't he just have Gillan do a take to the camera: "That was genius, there, wasn't it? Pretty clever."
- Also also the "people of our world" don't know Rory as ANYTHING because the timeline where he guarded the Pandorica for 2000 years NEVER FUCKING HAPPENED.
- I'd complain about the Cybermans being so wasted in this episode, but meh, I'm not hugely attached to them and it gave Rory an opportunity to be really fucking awesome.
- Guessing this probably takes place after "The Time of Angels" because I really can't see the Clerics being all "Oh hey it's the Doctor, osm" after gearing up to kill him here.
- The Sontaran nurse is goddamn awesome. Although I do wish they'd just let the parallel with Rory be instead of actually calling it out towards the end of the episode.
- "Why would you need me? I'm old! I'm fat! I'm blue! You can't need me!" made me laugh so hard.
- Nice bit of costuming on Karen Gillan to give her some baby weight.
- How do the Headless Monks' hoods stay up if they have no heads?
- "DOOR LOCKING OVERIDE" Oh come on, they couldn't have got that one fixed before the episode went out? It's override with two Rs.
- Still trying to decide which Doctor is scarier in this sort of situation, Tennant's Doctor or Smith's Doctor. The Tenth Doctor was quite impressively menacing in "The Family of Blood," silently and impassively condemning the Family to their various punishments, but also a good bit of the holy shit factor comes from watching the Doctor take such nasty and personal revenge on such lame friggin' enemies. In the "Colonel Run-Away" bit, the Eleventh Doctor is far more physically menacing but doesn't really have the "holy shit he just dropped someone into the event horizon of a black hole" factor.
- What happened to the cleric in Amy's room?
- Once again the Doctor sidesteps the issue of whether he's had children. Well, he did give Rose the straight answer "yes" but wouldn't elaborate.
- Commander Strax really can't tell humans apart. Heh.
- Also I have to give Rory a special shoutout. Finally, a personality! And it is badass. I admit I didn't like you much at the start, Rory, but like Mickey before you you have grown a personality and you are awesome.
- "The Doctor will be back in Let's Kill Hitler." Oh Moffat ILU never change. Ah ha ha ha. I live in a world where there's going to be an episode of a "children's show" called "Let's Kill Hitler." Take that, all you assholes who are like "QUIT OBSESSING IT'S FOR KIDS."
Eye Patch Lady sightings: It's Madam Kozarian thank you very much.
Rory deaths: He lives!
Things that are cool: Crying Romans with babies, bow ties
Amy: No longer pregnant, now a mum!
Next week: Let's Kill Hitler! Okay, so it's more like September, but Let's Kill Hitler!
Don't answer this question until you've seen the episode: Anyone else planning to watch Torchwood over summer? I figure it'll pass the time until Doctor Who returns nicely. (But no, seriously, don't answer that until you've seen the episode unless you don't mind spoilers. There are too many spoilers on here otherwise and What Has Been Seen, etc.)