Pre-"A Good Man Goes to War" Thoughts
(I had an amazing beginning of a weekend! Met up with my girlfriend on her night off rehearsals, almost went on a pirate adventure, saw a hilarious satirical show at a tiny hole-in-the-wall theatre... Pretty amazing time. And then Doctor Who will be overrr for now! Then what will I have to ramble about?)
Yes, I know this episode is airing very soon, if it hasn't already aired, in Britain. But what the hell, I had a train ride to write during. I'm not even watching the episode tonight (having a party to see it tomorrow afternoon, with friends) so I will drop off lj after this. But first:
Last-Minute Speculation Time!
-In every episode in Series 6 so far, a child has been threatened or endangered. (Amy shoots a child in an astronaut suit, said child is later threatened by the Silence, Captain Avery's son is ill and appears to be killed, and Jimmy's son is faced with losing his father to acid.) Assuming this trend will be continued in the finale is about as natural a conclusion as Rory dying in "The Doctor's Wife." This would mean somewhere between 80% and 86% of Series 6A contains endangerment of children, depending on whether you count by individual episodes, or by stories/serials, which is what I did.
This is far more, as a proportion of stories, than even Series 5, where we learned Eleven was great with kids; by my count, that included threats to children in only 5.5 out of 10 stories, just above half the season. That's counting Amelia Pond twice, and the .5 is for the baby in "Amy's Choice," which was an unborn child, and existed only in a dream universe. That's about standard for New Who, as evidenced by Series 4 - its total was 4.5 out of 10 episodes, counting Jenny as a child and giving .5 for Luke, Clyde, and Maria, who suffocated in the alternate universe of "Turn Left." And just because I ran the numbers again, Series 3 has only 3 stories out of 9 involving threatened youth, counting .5 for the many children almost-killed in "Smith & Jones" and "The Sound of Drums," because I can't recall any specific kids imperiled onscreen.
-What's been even more at-risk than the aforementioned at-risk youth, though? Time and Space in Relative Dimensions. The TARDIS's physical form has been made invisible, diagnosed as "sick" by the Siren, stripped of its matrix, taken over by the House, and dissolved by acid. There's the trademark Moffat subtlety again! I don't think it'll come up in the mid-series finale, but I'm sure the TARDIS has not recovered 1000% from being blown up by Silence.
-Speaking of the TARDIS, Eleven has been waaay more lenient in welcoming people into the TARDIS than any of his predecessors that I've seen. I didn't start noticing it until "Vincent and the Doctor," but it's been way more pronounced since then. Just since "The Impossible Astronaut," we've had Mr. Delaware, Captain Avery, Idris, Cleaves, Jimmy's ganger, and the other ganger (Dicken, apparently) - also, the House came onboard, but that was not exactly consented to. Not even counting Kazran and Abigail from the Christmas special, or Amy's ganger, that's still six people invited to come aboard the TARDIS. In contrast, Nine or Ten hardly ever let someone into their TARDIS who wasn't a companion; Jackie Tyler, Mr. Cooper (the old man from "Voyage of the Damned"), and Sally Sparrow/Larry Nightengale are the only ones that come to mind, and in those cases they were all being saved from imminent danger. In contrast, Eleven lets people in willy-nilly, even if they attempted to kill him earlier. Again, not certain this will come into play in the finale, but what if it did? What if the Doctor were letting people in for a reason again, building up an army before "A Good Man Goes to War"?
-I don't think River's going to kill anybody here. First, in the grand New Who tradition, there seems to be way too many elements in this episode already. There's definitely not time for a proper death scene, with buildup and fallout; at most, River would have two minutes to blast someone or push them off a cliff or however River Song wants to get rid of the best man she ever knew. Second, between that time ganger!Eleven or somebody got shot and all the deaths of Rory Williams Pond, death has been cheapened here; for River to kill "the best man she's ever known" at this point would be a farce. Third, I have heard from hareth_dulin that this episode's really when we find out who River is (and in the preview she wasn't just trolling us); trying to fit two big River Song revelations into one episode seems against Moffat's style. He's spent this long building up River's mystery, so I doubt he'd undercut so much of it in one episode. If anything, I'd bet that her killing will be left to the second part of this episode in the fall, or the proper second finale.
-I think Rory is the good man in the title. Bam there I said it. (Still not sure if he is the man who'll get River Song arrested, though - he fits the description almost as well as the Doctor, and it'd certainly be more interesting than seeing Eleven fake-die again. But on the other hand, Rory's death is a running thing now. I don't want to say running joke, because it was handled well at least twice and not played for laughs even in "The Curse of the Black Spot," but it's certainly a recurring element and would not have nearly the emotional impact as killing...some hypothetical major character who has not died twice already. Whoops, there aren't any of those.
-Are the Cybermen in this episode meant to be Cybermen from Pete's World, or old-style Cybermen, or what? I thought the ones from "The Pandorica Opens" were supposed to be holdovers who escaped the Void, like the Cybermen in "The Next Doctor," but then I found something where it said apparently they aren't, they're just the Classic Who Cybermen designed in a completely different style that happens to be exactly the same as the Cybus Cybermen. So, um, Moffat, please clarify stuff like this. And these Cybermen look closest to the ones from the Christmas special, particularly the one I'm presuming to be the Cyber-Leader.
-Originally I was gonna question why there were Sontarans, too, but then again there are some good people going to war, so the Sontarans are kind of implied. I mean, Sontarans aren't gonna let some stinkin' Cybermen fight in a war if they are not there. Gotta maintain their reputation.
-I think Madame Eyepatch/Dorium/the ones trying to steal Amy's kid/whoever else Rory is fighting against will be winning the war, at least initially. Otherwise, 1) where's the tension, 2) where's the cliffhanger, and 3) how does the child disappear and end up in New York in 1969? Of course, in the long run (re: in the fall when the season resumes), this is Doctor Who, a show where good men win wars. (Unless they are Time Wars.)
-Lastly, this is not speculation, I would just really like for Rory and the Doctor to be super-wonderful to Amy and hopefully be there for when she gives birth - and if not, for lots of comforting postpartum fluff. This would be at odds with the darker tone of the series so far, I realize. BUT HOLY CRAP THE WOMAN WOKE UP ALONE IN A TUBE WITH A MYSTERIOUS LADY WATCHING HER, AND THEN SHE HAD A KID. COME ON PEOPLE, THAT IS TORCHWOOD LEVELS OF HORRIBLE. Please, Moffat, realize that would probably give her PTSD. (If she shows less emotion than she did for the Doctor dying, I would side-eye the hell out of this episode.)
-Thank you for reading. Here is a muffin.
Yes, I know this episode is airing very soon, if it hasn't already aired, in Britain. But what the hell, I had a train ride to write during. I'm not even watching the episode tonight (having a party to see it tomorrow afternoon, with friends) so I will drop off lj after this. But first:
Last-Minute Speculation Time!
-In every episode in Series 6 so far, a child has been threatened or endangered. (Amy shoots a child in an astronaut suit, said child is later threatened by the Silence, Captain Avery's son is ill and appears to be killed, and Jimmy's son is faced with losing his father to acid.) Assuming this trend will be continued in the finale is about as natural a conclusion as Rory dying in "The Doctor's Wife." This would mean somewhere between 80% and 86% of Series 6A contains endangerment of children, depending on whether you count by individual episodes, or by stories/serials, which is what I did.
This is far more, as a proportion of stories, than even Series 5, where we learned Eleven was great with kids; by my count, that included threats to children in only 5.5 out of 10 stories, just above half the season. That's counting Amelia Pond twice, and the .5 is for the baby in "Amy's Choice," which was an unborn child, and existed only in a dream universe. That's about standard for New Who, as evidenced by Series 4 - its total was 4.5 out of 10 episodes, counting Jenny as a child and giving .5 for Luke, Clyde, and Maria, who suffocated in the alternate universe of "Turn Left." And just because I ran the numbers again, Series 3 has only 3 stories out of 9 involving threatened youth, counting .5 for the many children almost-killed in "Smith & Jones" and "The Sound of Drums," because I can't recall any specific kids imperiled onscreen.
-What's been even more at-risk than the aforementioned at-risk youth, though? Time and Space in Relative Dimensions. The TARDIS's physical form has been made invisible, diagnosed as "sick" by the Siren, stripped of its matrix, taken over by the House, and dissolved by acid. There's the trademark Moffat subtlety again! I don't think it'll come up in the mid-series finale, but I'm sure the TARDIS has not recovered 1000% from being blown up by Silence.
-Speaking of the TARDIS, Eleven has been waaay more lenient in welcoming people into the TARDIS than any of his predecessors that I've seen. I didn't start noticing it until "Vincent and the Doctor," but it's been way more pronounced since then. Just since "The Impossible Astronaut," we've had Mr. Delaware, Captain Avery, Idris, Cleaves, Jimmy's ganger, and the other ganger (Dicken, apparently) - also, the House came onboard, but that was not exactly consented to. Not even counting Kazran and Abigail from the Christmas special, or Amy's ganger, that's still six people invited to come aboard the TARDIS. In contrast, Nine or Ten hardly ever let someone into their TARDIS who wasn't a companion; Jackie Tyler, Mr. Cooper (the old man from "Voyage of the Damned"), and Sally Sparrow/Larry Nightengale are the only ones that come to mind, and in those cases they were all being saved from imminent danger. In contrast, Eleven lets people in willy-nilly, even if they attempted to kill him earlier. Again, not certain this will come into play in the finale, but what if it did? What if the Doctor were letting people in for a reason again, building up an army before "A Good Man Goes to War"?
-I don't think River's going to kill anybody here. First, in the grand New Who tradition, there seems to be way too many elements in this episode already. There's definitely not time for a proper death scene, with buildup and fallout; at most, River would have two minutes to blast someone or push them off a cliff or however River Song wants to get rid of the best man she ever knew. Second, between that time ganger!Eleven or somebody got shot and all the deaths of Rory Williams Pond, death has been cheapened here; for River to kill "the best man she's ever known" at this point would be a farce. Third, I have heard from hareth_dulin that this episode's really when we find out who River is (and in the preview she wasn't just trolling us); trying to fit two big River Song revelations into one episode seems against Moffat's style. He's spent this long building up River's mystery, so I doubt he'd undercut so much of it in one episode. If anything, I'd bet that her killing will be left to the second part of this episode in the fall, or the proper second finale.
-I think Rory is the good man in the title. Bam there I said it. (Still not sure if he is the man who'll get River Song arrested, though - he fits the description almost as well as the Doctor, and it'd certainly be more interesting than seeing Eleven fake-die again. But on the other hand, Rory's death is a running thing now. I don't want to say running joke, because it was handled well at least twice and not played for laughs even in "The Curse of the Black Spot," but it's certainly a recurring element and would not have nearly the emotional impact as killing...some hypothetical major character who has not died twice already. Whoops, there aren't any of those.
-Are the Cybermen in this episode meant to be Cybermen from Pete's World, or old-style Cybermen, or what? I thought the ones from "The Pandorica Opens" were supposed to be holdovers who escaped the Void, like the Cybermen in "The Next Doctor," but then I found something where it said apparently they aren't, they're just the Classic Who Cybermen designed in a completely different style that happens to be exactly the same as the Cybus Cybermen. So, um, Moffat, please clarify stuff like this. And these Cybermen look closest to the ones from the Christmas special, particularly the one I'm presuming to be the Cyber-Leader.
-Originally I was gonna question why there were Sontarans, too, but then again there are some good people going to war, so the Sontarans are kind of implied. I mean, Sontarans aren't gonna let some stinkin' Cybermen fight in a war if they are not there. Gotta maintain their reputation.
-I think Madame Eyepatch/Dorium/the ones trying to steal Amy's kid/whoever else Rory is fighting against will be winning the war, at least initially. Otherwise, 1) where's the tension, 2) where's the cliffhanger, and 3) how does the child disappear and end up in New York in 1969? Of course, in the long run (re: in the fall when the season resumes), this is Doctor Who, a show where good men win wars. (Unless they are Time Wars.)
-Lastly, this is not speculation, I would just really like for Rory and the Doctor to be super-wonderful to Amy and hopefully be there for when she gives birth - and if not, for lots of comforting postpartum fluff. This would be at odds with the darker tone of the series so far, I realize. BUT HOLY CRAP THE WOMAN WOKE UP ALONE IN A TUBE WITH A MYSTERIOUS LADY WATCHING HER, AND THEN SHE HAD A KID. COME ON PEOPLE, THAT IS TORCHWOOD LEVELS OF HORRIBLE. Please, Moffat, realize that would probably give her PTSD. (If she shows less emotion than she did for the Doctor dying, I would side-eye the hell out of this episode.)
-Thank you for reading. Here is a muffin.