(Spoilers for A Good Man Goes to War)
10 and 1? Hardly seems enough, does it? Well, let's give it a try...
Let's Kill Hitler. Starting from the end, I just have to say that's a brilliant title for the next episode. Crazy! Inglourious Basterds really started something there.
Flesh! This invention has proven to be really important to the series' twists and surprises! Not only was Amy replaced by a Flesh self some time ago, but Moffat gets us with the same trick AGAIN (just as Mrs. Kevarian does the Doctor) by horrifyingly turning Amy's baby into milk at the end. Let the water metaphors multiply... To date, Melody's been a Pond, a River and a puddle. Of course, we won't let Moffat trick us with this a third time, will we? Everyone fully expects the future Doctor killed in The Impossible Astronaut to be Flesh. So of course, it won't be.
What the Doctor's become. The theme of AGMGTW is whether he's become something other than a "good man", or as the poem intimates, whether a good man can remain good in times of war. And it's been a long time coming. The Doctor who started out as a virtual unknown, cosmically speaking, at first pleading with his companions not to interfere, is now commanding armies against armies. We're told he avoided bloodshed, but he didn't really. Even if we don't count the people felled by Headless Monk swords, there's the matter of all those Cyber-ships blowing up to make a point. This downward spiral likely started in his 7th incarnation and has been particularly built up through New Who. Moffat is not only continuing the story begun by Cartmell and Davies, but also examining it, possibly in a bid to reverse its trend. I've heard some fans complain (as Who fans invariably do) that the Doctor has somehow devolved into something that's not Doctorish, but that's the whole point here. How far can he go in this direction? AGMGTW teaches us that his repeated incursions into spacetime have had a cumulative effect and that his name may now come to mean "warrior" rather than "healer". He's done so much that the entire universe is against him (in The Pandorica Opens and here). And it makes sense. In a continually updated timeline (the Whoniverse is certainly not made of "solid time"), the Doctor's travels first made him a legend (as in "Rose") and later a threat to the universe. We'll see if this is the "fall" foretold by River, or if she means his reaction to this self-realization.
The poem. Apparently, Moffat scribbled this thing down quickly during editing. Had me fooled, I was sure it was a quotation from the English canon. Here it is:
Demons run,
When a good man goes to war.
Night will fall and drown the sun,
When a good man goes to war.
Friendship dies and true love lies,
Night will fall and the dark will rise,
When a good man goes to war.
Demons run but count the cost,
The battle's won but the child is lost.
Demons run... and in this story they do (from Demon's Run), just as River prophesied way back in Forest of the Dead. Moffat is either playing a long game, or seeking inspiration in the throwaway lines of older scripts. Either way, it's great.
The Doctor's crib. When the crib came out, I immediately thought of Susan. Might she have been stolen away from Gallifrey as a baby? But then the Doctor said it was his own, but is this an item you'd bring along when stealing a TARDIS? Which brings us back to Susan. Or did he pick it back up later, on one of several trips, or even during the Time War? Again, why? I'm imagining all sorts of scenarios in which the Doctor erases Gallifrey from space and time by wiping out all the time-cribs except his own, but of course, that's madness. And here's another crazy question: Is this where River learned his name? It's written in Gallifreyan which she can read, and what does that mean for their supposed intimate relationship?
Rory shines and lives. And aren't we glad? After all the foreshadowing - which perhaps only existed to remove all doubt that he wasn't Flesh - Rory gets to dress up in that epic Last Centurion costume and intimidate a Legion of Cybermen. All through the episode, he fights the good fight, defending wife and daughter to the best of his ability, a wet blanket no more. And on the softer side, he's also got that beautiful scene where he cries over his baby daughter. I hope Rory sticks around for a long time yet.
The Cybermen of Universe-1. The question we asked ourselves back in Pandorica was whether Moffat's Cybermen were "our" Cybermen or Pete's World's Cybus-Men. Once again, we get a melding of the two. The look is that of the Cybus-Men, including a "Next Doctor"-style Cyber Leader, but they stand around round tables like Classic Cybermen did in "Earthshock" and have the same "axle" ships they did as far back as "The Wheel in Time". To me, that says that in the future, the Cybus-Men meet our Cybermen, and the two assimilate each other.
Untold adventures. AGMGTW's unusual structure starts with the Doctor recruiting characters both old and new into his rescue party. Mostly new. And mostly awesome. The Sontaran nurse is both funny and poignant, my favorite Sontaran ever (it's not a race I think I even have a favorite member of, really). The Victorian lesbian Silurian samurai detective (and friend) are equally great and it's quite understandable that fans would now clamor for Madame Vastra & Jenny to team up with Jago & Litefoot in some medium or other. What's fun is that these (and other parts of the story, like the debt owed by Dorium or the Doctor's adventure in the Gamma Forests) hint at a number of untold adventures. The way Doc11 embraces timey-whimeyness, I wouldn't be surprised if he met and befriended all those people just so they could join his army. But that would be crazy, wouldn't it? WOULDN'T IT?
Time Lord origins. Madame Vastra has been told a lot about Time Lords, it seems. She reveals that it was exposure to the vortex through the untempered schism (seen in flashback in "The Sound of Drums") that made the Time Lords what they are. Since the discussion is about Melody's Time Lord DNA elements, and we know Melody can regenerate, that would seem to include that ability. It's not necessarily a contradiction with Classic canon where it's a Time Lord gift. If Time Lords are brought to the schism early in their schooling, it may be that in addition to whatever reaction you get, you'd also unlock certain genetic powers. "Rassilon imprimatur" may also be part of it, explaining why the TARDIS lets River fly it. Time sensitivity is almost certainly included. Perhaps a heightened intellect. (Hey, why CAN'T normal people read High Gallifreyan? Is it because the writing is bigger on the inside? I.e. that parts of it are dimensionally transcendent?) The idea that an advanced time sensitive race would have developed because of some kind of temporal anomaly on its doorstep does have a precedent in Who lore. Think of Gwyneth's psychic powers and how she grew up on a time rift.
A whole other birthday. Glib as ever, River recalls one of her birthdays where there were two Doctors. It's the kind of maddening double entendre she's known for, but could it be more? Possibility 1: The revelation that a copy of the Doctor was killed in The Impossible Astronaut (though her reaction then says no). Possibility 2: A multi-Doctor story, the first since "The Two Doctors" with Doc6 and Doc2, in the offing for Series 7?
Red Hair-ings. One of the first shots of the episode is that of Melody Pond's name plate. As soon as you see that, you start thinking of Melody being River and you're right. However, Moffat manages to make you constantly reject that idea in favor of another. Case in point: Lorna Bucket. Like Amy, she was a young girl who ran with the Doctor. Was this something that would happen in the Doctor's future? Was she the "impressionable girl" River talks about? Bucket is a terrible name, but as a container of water, it fits into the Pond-River motif. She came from a forest world, and the TARDIS did just tell us that the only water in the forest is the river. She is stationed on Demon's Run as a soldier, and might that give her occasion to kill the title's "good man", thereafter being relegated to the Stormcage? It didn't even register that she wasn't really a redhead. False lead. Or how about the many hints that Melody was really the Doctor's daughter and not Rory's? All of that makes you ask questions about the baby, blurring the obvious conclusion that she grows up to be River Song. But that revelation doesn't really tell us as much as we'd like... What is her relationship to the Doctor? Who did she kill? Why is she feared by the Daleks? Which brings us to...
Who Is River Song? Finall--what? That would make TWELVE things about AGMGTW? I'll just have to let this last one stew until tomorrow then...
10 and 1? Hardly seems enough, does it? Well, let's give it a try...Let's Kill Hitler. Starting from the end, I just have to say that's a brilliant title for the next episode. Crazy! Inglourious Basterds really started something there.
Flesh! This invention has proven to be really important to the series' twists and surprises! Not only was Amy replaced by a Flesh self some time ago, but Moffat gets us with the same trick AGAIN (just as Mrs. Kevarian does the Doctor) by horrifyingly turning Amy's baby into milk at the end. Let the water metaphors multiply... To date, Melody's been a Pond, a River and a puddle. Of course, we won't let Moffat trick us with this a third time, will we? Everyone fully expects the future Doctor killed in The Impossible Astronaut to be Flesh. So of course, it won't be.
What the Doctor's become. The theme of AGMGTW is whether he's become something other than a "good man", or as the poem intimates, whether a good man can remain good in times of war. And it's been a long time coming. The Doctor who started out as a virtual unknown, cosmically speaking, at first pleading with his companions not to interfere, is now commanding armies against armies. We're told he avoided bloodshed, but he didn't really. Even if we don't count the people felled by Headless Monk swords, there's the matter of all those Cyber-ships blowing up to make a point. This downward spiral likely started in his 7th incarnation and has been particularly built up through New Who. Moffat is not only continuing the story begun by Cartmell and Davies, but also examining it, possibly in a bid to reverse its trend. I've heard some fans complain (as Who fans invariably do) that the Doctor has somehow devolved into something that's not Doctorish, but that's the whole point here. How far can he go in this direction? AGMGTW teaches us that his repeated incursions into spacetime have had a cumulative effect and that his name may now come to mean "warrior" rather than "healer". He's done so much that the entire universe is against him (in The Pandorica Opens and here). And it makes sense. In a continually updated timeline (the Whoniverse is certainly not made of "solid time"), the Doctor's travels first made him a legend (as in "Rose") and later a threat to the universe. We'll see if this is the "fall" foretold by River, or if she means his reaction to this self-realization.
The poem. Apparently, Moffat scribbled this thing down quickly during editing. Had me fooled, I was sure it was a quotation from the English canon. Here it is:
Demons run,
When a good man goes to war.
Night will fall and drown the sun,
When a good man goes to war.
Friendship dies and true love lies,
Night will fall and the dark will rise,
When a good man goes to war.
Demons run but count the cost,
The battle's won but the child is lost.
Demons run... and in this story they do (from Demon's Run), just as River prophesied way back in Forest of the Dead. Moffat is either playing a long game, or seeking inspiration in the throwaway lines of older scripts. Either way, it's great.
The Doctor's crib. When the crib came out, I immediately thought of Susan. Might she have been stolen away from Gallifrey as a baby? But then the Doctor said it was his own, but is this an item you'd bring along when stealing a TARDIS? Which brings us back to Susan. Or did he pick it back up later, on one of several trips, or even during the Time War? Again, why? I'm imagining all sorts of scenarios in which the Doctor erases Gallifrey from space and time by wiping out all the time-cribs except his own, but of course, that's madness. And here's another crazy question: Is this where River learned his name? It's written in Gallifreyan which she can read, and what does that mean for their supposed intimate relationship?Rory shines and lives. And aren't we glad? After all the foreshadowing - which perhaps only existed to remove all doubt that he wasn't Flesh - Rory gets to dress up in that epic Last Centurion costume and intimidate a Legion of Cybermen. All through the episode, he fights the good fight, defending wife and daughter to the best of his ability, a wet blanket no more. And on the softer side, he's also got that beautiful scene where he cries over his baby daughter. I hope Rory sticks around for a long time yet.
The Cybermen of Universe-1. The question we asked ourselves back in Pandorica was whether Moffat's Cybermen were "our" Cybermen or Pete's World's Cybus-Men. Once again, we get a melding of the two. The look is that of the Cybus-Men, including a "Next Doctor"-style Cyber Leader, but they stand around round tables like Classic Cybermen did in "Earthshock" and have the same "axle" ships they did as far back as "The Wheel in Time". To me, that says that in the future, the Cybus-Men meet our Cybermen, and the two assimilate each other.Untold adventures. AGMGTW's unusual structure starts with the Doctor recruiting characters both old and new into his rescue party. Mostly new. And mostly awesome. The Sontaran nurse is both funny and poignant, my favorite Sontaran ever (it's not a race I think I even have a favorite member of, really). The Victorian lesbian Silurian samurai detective (and friend) are equally great and it's quite understandable that fans would now clamor for Madame Vastra & Jenny to team up with Jago & Litefoot in some medium or other. What's fun is that these (and other parts of the story, like the debt owed by Dorium or the Doctor's adventure in the Gamma Forests) hint at a number of untold adventures. The way Doc11 embraces timey-whimeyness, I wouldn't be surprised if he met and befriended all those people just so they could join his army. But that would be crazy, wouldn't it? WOULDN'T IT?
Time Lord origins. Madame Vastra has been told a lot about Time Lords, it seems. She reveals that it was exposure to the vortex through the untempered schism (seen in flashback in "The Sound of Drums") that made the Time Lords what they are. Since the discussion is about Melody's Time Lord DNA elements, and we know Melody can regenerate, that would seem to include that ability. It's not necessarily a contradiction with Classic canon where it's a Time Lord gift. If Time Lords are brought to the schism early in their schooling, it may be that in addition to whatever reaction you get, you'd also unlock certain genetic powers. "Rassilon imprimatur" may also be part of it, explaining why the TARDIS lets River fly it. Time sensitivity is almost certainly included. Perhaps a heightened intellect. (Hey, why CAN'T normal people read High Gallifreyan? Is it because the writing is bigger on the inside? I.e. that parts of it are dimensionally transcendent?) The idea that an advanced time sensitive race would have developed because of some kind of temporal anomaly on its doorstep does have a precedent in Who lore. Think of Gwyneth's psychic powers and how she grew up on a time rift.
A whole other birthday. Glib as ever, River recalls one of her birthdays where there were two Doctors. It's the kind of maddening double entendre she's known for, but could it be more? Possibility 1: The revelation that a copy of the Doctor was killed in The Impossible Astronaut (though her reaction then says no). Possibility 2: A multi-Doctor story, the first since "The Two Doctors" with Doc6 and Doc2, in the offing for Series 7?Red Hair-ings. One of the first shots of the episode is that of Melody Pond's name plate. As soon as you see that, you start thinking of Melody being River and you're right. However, Moffat manages to make you constantly reject that idea in favor of another. Case in point: Lorna Bucket. Like Amy, she was a young girl who ran with the Doctor. Was this something that would happen in the Doctor's future? Was she the "impressionable girl" River talks about? Bucket is a terrible name, but as a container of water, it fits into the Pond-River motif. She came from a forest world, and the TARDIS did just tell us that the only water in the forest is the river. She is stationed on Demon's Run as a soldier, and might that give her occasion to kill the title's "good man", thereafter being relegated to the Stormcage? It didn't even register that she wasn't really a redhead. False lead. Or how about the many hints that Melody was really the Doctor's daughter and not Rory's? All of that makes you ask questions about the baby, blurring the obvious conclusion that she grows up to be River Song. But that revelation doesn't really tell us as much as we'd like... What is her relationship to the Doctor? Who did she kill? Why is she feared by the Daleks? Which brings us to...
Who Is River Song? Finall--what? That would make TWELVE things about AGMGTW? I'll just have to let this last one stew until tomorrow then...
Comments
So, are we timey-wimey here, and the Doctor is being "punished" for things he hasn't done yet? Or is he being framed (and remember, at some point we know there is "another" Doctor running around--for 200 years??)?
I mean, the Doctor himself says he isn't a good man. Too many rules, too much blood spilled. I mean, he's got more than one count of genocide to his credit.
And I kinda see the angle that River's coming from. He's stopped pitching himself as a nice guy cosmic vagabond (who happens, sometimes, in the tragic course of events, to kill a LOT of people.) to the most feared being in the galaxy. Sure, neither is necessarily immoral, but one is a lot more what the Doctor seems to want than the other.
It's pronounced BOUQUET.