[Doctor Who] 6.08 "Let's Kill Hitler"
Mary sweet mother of mercy I have missed this show.
And so we have the consequences of Demon's Run, and how Melody Pond becomes River Song, or at least is set on River's path.
As an episode, I thought it was pretty good. Very Moffaty. But entertaining -- River's line about the "gay gypsy bar mitzvah for the disabled" is solid gold, and the justice-bots are a whole show just on their own. Plus, in a nice sleight of hand, the episode seems like it manages to answer a lot of questions without actually answering anything. Hmm. There's a crack about Lost somewhere in there, but I'm too lazy to pry it out.
Well, that's unfair. It does answer questions. The problem is, it mostly answers the gimmes that everyone had figured out, and in some cases the answers are more confusing than the questions. Namely, River. Okay, so the man she killed was the Doctor. I think almost everyone had figured that one out, and I was mostly guessing Rory for that one so I wouldn't be going for the obvious. But how the crap does all this fit with what we know about her? Like, here, she doesn't know her name will be River Song, but in "A Good Man Goes to War" she said that she was given the name in the Gamma Forest as a child -- and we know that the Alex Kingston incarnation of River was always and will always be Alex Kingston, so when was she a child in the Gamma Forest?
Oh. Wait. Surely the implication is not meant to be that River is a child here. I mean she may be a little girl in Gallifreyan terms, cause clearly they live many times longer than a human does, but a, she's not Gallifreyan and b, ew, and c, eeeeeew the Doctor sure likes em young doesn't he. Oh cripes. I bet that's it. It would fit with the line about how River met the Doctor as a small girl and he knew everything about her. Ewwwwwwww.
And finally, some progress on the plot thread that's really had me intrigued the entire time: the death of the Doctor. So it turns out the Silence are not the specific aliens from "The Impossible Astronaut"/'Day of the Moon", they're a religious order. Okay, that's a bit of a cheat, but I'll roll with it. They're working with the Academy of the Question and they believe "silence will fall when the question is asked."
Sounds like we got us some arc words! I'm really hoping the question isn't the obvious suspect, "Doctor who?", because I'll be honest, title drops like that just annoy the piss out of me no matter where they happen. Yes, that includes Zefram Cochrane's line "So you're all just astronauts on some kind of star trek?" from First Contact. But it does fit as the first question, the oldest question in the universe, and hidden in plain sight, provided you're willing to get slightly meta about your definitions of a few of these.
Plus we've got another date to count towards: April 22, 2011. Interestingly I double-checked and "The Impossible Astronaut" actually aired on April 23, but I admit I wasn't paying attention to the information off the invitation in that episode. Still no working theory on how the Doctor gets out of that one, given how conclusively my two timelines theory has been shot down. Whatever he does, he's got 200 years to set it up. The clock is ticking.
(Okay, unless he was lying about his age to make it clear to Team TARDIS what was going on. It's certainly possible. Not only is Rule Number One that "the Doctor lies" but it's practically canon that the guy lies about his age.)
Bullet points:
- My favorite thing about this episode . . . well, second favorite thing. My favorite thing was the "gay gypsy bar mitzvah" line. My second favorite thing is that Hitler is built up as this thing -- you know, it's the classic time travel scenario, killing Hitler -- and then Rory shoves him in a closet after about 30 seconds and he has nothing to do with anything.
- I had Mels pegged as River from the moment she got out of the car, but that was pretty obvious.
- Nice vfx work/sound design on the justice-bot's transformation into Zimmerman.
- Also, some nice character work (if a bit emo) for the Doctor with the bit about finding a voice interface. Sure, it was really on the nose having him moan about how he can't stand himself and groan "oh! guilt!" when confronted with the images of his past companions, but at least he admitted he feels guilt about what he did to them. I've ranted and ranted about this, particularly in regards to Martha, when the Tenth Doctor's response to any accusations about how he damaged his companions was basically "Nuh uh! They're fine! Tee hee!" The devastation he wreaked on these women's lives was real and terrible and the Tenth Doctor (and Rusty) liked to pretend it didn't exist. No, Rusty, offering some bullshit "happy endings" in "Journey's End"/"The End of Time" doesn't make up for the loss and the tragedy . . . but that's a rant for another day.
- Honestly, mad props to Matt Smith for this episode. He just kept bringing it, and bringing it, and bringing it. Sure, he looked dumb as hell flopping around on the ground, but he was completely committed to looking dumb as hell flopping around on the ground.
- Hey look it's Platform One! Or, as the Googles call it, the Temple of Peace in Cathays Park. I figured they'd run out of locations to shoot stuff eventually.
- Rory continues to be stupid awesome. It's about damn time. Also, is it just me or is his hair a different color?
- I was all excited that they were gonna bring back the cat nuns but alas, it was just the costume, the lady has a human face.
Anyway, I liked it. Here's to finally addressing the plot thread that's been more interesting to me, the death of the Doctor. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to catch a flight to Wales. I have a brick to chuck through Steven Moffat's window. I promised way back when that I was going to chunk a brick through his window if River turned out to be a Time Lord, and what do you know, she did.
Hat count: 1 (although it was on River)
Eye Patch Lady sightings: Do the previouslies count?
Rory deaths: He lives! Not even a fakeout.
Amy: A robot!
Next week: Well . . . we'll see. I'm not a fan of creepy horror stuff.
Torchwood post coming tomorrow, provided I'm not too busy. We're having a fridge delivered.
And so we have the consequences of Demon's Run, and how Melody Pond becomes River Song, or at least is set on River's path.
As an episode, I thought it was pretty good. Very Moffaty. But entertaining -- River's line about the "gay gypsy bar mitzvah for the disabled" is solid gold, and the justice-bots are a whole show just on their own. Plus, in a nice sleight of hand, the episode seems like it manages to answer a lot of questions without actually answering anything. Hmm. There's a crack about Lost somewhere in there, but I'm too lazy to pry it out.
Well, that's unfair. It does answer questions. The problem is, it mostly answers the gimmes that everyone had figured out, and in some cases the answers are more confusing than the questions. Namely, River. Okay, so the man she killed was the Doctor. I think almost everyone had figured that one out, and I was mostly guessing Rory for that one so I wouldn't be going for the obvious. But how the crap does all this fit with what we know about her? Like, here, she doesn't know her name will be River Song, but in "A Good Man Goes to War" she said that she was given the name in the Gamma Forest as a child -- and we know that the Alex Kingston incarnation of River was always and will always be Alex Kingston, so when was she a child in the Gamma Forest?
Oh. Wait. Surely the implication is not meant to be that River is a child here. I mean she may be a little girl in Gallifreyan terms, cause clearly they live many times longer than a human does, but a, she's not Gallifreyan and b, ew, and c, eeeeeew the Doctor sure likes em young doesn't he. Oh cripes. I bet that's it. It would fit with the line about how River met the Doctor as a small girl and he knew everything about her. Ewwwwwwww.
And finally, some progress on the plot thread that's really had me intrigued the entire time: the death of the Doctor. So it turns out the Silence are not the specific aliens from "The Impossible Astronaut"/'Day of the Moon", they're a religious order. Okay, that's a bit of a cheat, but I'll roll with it. They're working with the Academy of the Question and they believe "silence will fall when the question is asked."
Sounds like we got us some arc words! I'm really hoping the question isn't the obvious suspect, "Doctor who?", because I'll be honest, title drops like that just annoy the piss out of me no matter where they happen. Yes, that includes Zefram Cochrane's line "So you're all just astronauts on some kind of star trek?" from First Contact. But it does fit as the first question, the oldest question in the universe, and hidden in plain sight, provided you're willing to get slightly meta about your definitions of a few of these.
Plus we've got another date to count towards: April 22, 2011. Interestingly I double-checked and "The Impossible Astronaut" actually aired on April 23, but I admit I wasn't paying attention to the information off the invitation in that episode. Still no working theory on how the Doctor gets out of that one, given how conclusively my two timelines theory has been shot down. Whatever he does, he's got 200 years to set it up. The clock is ticking.
(Okay, unless he was lying about his age to make it clear to Team TARDIS what was going on. It's certainly possible. Not only is Rule Number One that "the Doctor lies" but it's practically canon that the guy lies about his age.)
Bullet points:
- My favorite thing about this episode . . . well, second favorite thing. My favorite thing was the "gay gypsy bar mitzvah" line. My second favorite thing is that Hitler is built up as this thing -- you know, it's the classic time travel scenario, killing Hitler -- and then Rory shoves him in a closet after about 30 seconds and he has nothing to do with anything.
- I had Mels pegged as River from the moment she got out of the car, but that was pretty obvious.
- Nice vfx work/sound design on the justice-bot's transformation into Zimmerman.
- Also, some nice character work (if a bit emo) for the Doctor with the bit about finding a voice interface. Sure, it was really on the nose having him moan about how he can't stand himself and groan "oh! guilt!" when confronted with the images of his past companions, but at least he admitted he feels guilt about what he did to them. I've ranted and ranted about this, particularly in regards to Martha, when the Tenth Doctor's response to any accusations about how he damaged his companions was basically "Nuh uh! They're fine! Tee hee!" The devastation he wreaked on these women's lives was real and terrible and the Tenth Doctor (and Rusty) liked to pretend it didn't exist. No, Rusty, offering some bullshit "happy endings" in "Journey's End"/"The End of Time" doesn't make up for the loss and the tragedy . . . but that's a rant for another day.
- Honestly, mad props to Matt Smith for this episode. He just kept bringing it, and bringing it, and bringing it. Sure, he looked dumb as hell flopping around on the ground, but he was completely committed to looking dumb as hell flopping around on the ground.
- Hey look it's Platform One! Or, as the Googles call it, the Temple of Peace in Cathays Park. I figured they'd run out of locations to shoot stuff eventually.
- Rory continues to be stupid awesome. It's about damn time. Also, is it just me or is his hair a different color?
- I was all excited that they were gonna bring back the cat nuns but alas, it was just the costume, the lady has a human face.
Anyway, I liked it. Here's to finally addressing the plot thread that's been more interesting to me, the death of the Doctor. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to catch a flight to Wales. I have a brick to chuck through Steven Moffat's window. I promised way back when that I was going to chunk a brick through his window if River turned out to be a Time Lord, and what do you know, she did.
Hat count: 1 (although it was on River)
Eye Patch Lady sightings: Do the previouslies count?
Rory deaths: He lives! Not even a fakeout.
Amy: A robot!
Next week: Well . . . we'll see. I'm not a fan of creepy horror stuff.
Torchwood post coming tomorrow, provided I'm not too busy. We're having a fridge delivered.