A Good Man Goes to War

So I still think last season was better.
I've really had it with 2 parters this season.

But on to the episode...
I really don't know what to say. I had fun watching it, but everything plays out the way you would expect - right down to the River Song reveal.

My only surprise - I thought helpful-cleric-girl would turn out to be a young River Song, thereby giving us 3 Song's in one episode! But it was not to be.

Here's the problem I have...
Clearly, baby Melody ends up on Gamma-Forest World to be raised. There's two ways for this to go down...

(1)Baby is rescued in the next episode (Let's kill Hitler) and goes to Gamma World
(2)Baby is rescued in the season finale and goes to Gamma World.

Option 1
Now, given that this episode ends on a cliff hanger you'd assume for baby to be rescued in the next episode, (I don't but more on that later)

My problem with this is that we know Amy and Rory continue till the end of the season. This means that baby goes off to live on Gamma World WITHOUT Amy and Rory. So once again we have the stereotypical tv-deadbeat-dad-syndrome or as I like to call it the Jin and Sun Complex. This just gets under my skin like you wouldn't believe. It's such a tired tv plot device and I hate it. The heroes can't be carrying a baby along with them so it's time to push baby Moses down the river. Ugh.

Option 2
Baby isn't rescued until the finale.
This is the more likely plot given that we know that child-River was in The Impossible Astronaut, and clearly still in danger and on the run.

Here's my problem with that, it makes the cliff hanger in A Good Man completely pointless and anti-climatic. It means nothing gets resolved in Let's Kill Hitler, and that Let's Kill Hitler will probably be a stand alone adventure with the Doctor showing up and telling Amy "still looking for your baby, let's get side tracked with this!"

Not to mention that this means that the Doctor has left baby Melody to be mind raped for some 10 odd years.


I don't know, I'll wait to see how it all plays out. But I feel like Moffat has been too wrapped up in this arc thing and the individual stories are suffering.

How is that clear at all? All that's clear so far is that the language of the Gamma-Forest World is the inspiration for her alias.

^
I thought it was pretty spelled out.
The whole "nothing ever happened on Gamma World accept a visit by the Doctor" translated nicely to 'this is a good place to dump the kid.'
The whole Lorna situation will clearly be resolved soon with a trip to Gamma world to meet younger Lorna.
It's a forest (ie episode tieback - Forest of the Dead)

I'd be very surprised if baby Melody wasn't ditched on Gamma world.

Hmm... I might even be disappointed if she wasn't left on Gamma world. But I've always felt that Amy and Rory should finish up on Earth like Barbara and Ian, so I'm really divided on the subject.

Hmm...

You know, thinking about it some more since I pressed reply 10 secs ago, if Option 2 happens and Amy/Rory picks up little kid Melody then I guess they could all live on Earth.

I think it all ties back better if River stays on Gamma world though. The name connection is stronger, the fact that River spends most of her time in the 51st century ties back alittle stronger.

I see no reason whatsoever for Gamma Forest to have any further involvement in the plot at all.

Really? I think the name connection is pretty weak if she's never spent any time there. Some lady she never met, at a period of time she doesn't remember translated her name wrong so years later as an adult she started using it as her real name?

It makes much more sense if she grew up being called that.

It was crap worthy of RTD. I'm about ready to give up on nuWho.

Actually, they should call her "Song River" as Song = Melody and River= the closest thing to a pond that world had.

What, exactly, the hell are you all talking about? Is this a television show? A radio show? A serialized novel? What show/novel is it you're talking about? Forest World? Gamma World? Is this a Disney film, an anime or what?

It's the latest episode of the show which is pretending to be Doctor Who.

Maybe they're Bajoran?

Meh.
I keep hoping there'll be something awesome and memorable this season, but there just isn't.

Oh, give it up and get over yourself.

Seriously.

You don't worry about me.

Apparently he does.

This whole series has felt like a sidetrack, in the back of my mind. Or did they spend the off-season figuring out who took control of the TARDIS in the two-episode finale?

That was an order not an observation.

The season finale better be mind blowing after this whole season long set up. At this point I can't imagine The Silence had the ability to highjack a Tardis.

I see 3 possibilities...

1. A greater force is in control of The Silence. It highjacked the Tardis.

2. A Silent(?) was in the control room piloting the Tardis and by passing River's commands when it crashed the ship. Hmm... I know the universe was reset, but could a lone Silent still be wandering the Tardis corridors?

3. River Song lied. She intentionally crashed the Tardis so The Doctor would have to reboot the universe and bring Rory back to (human)life - ensuring her own personal time line remains intact.

I'm slowly leaning toward #3.

The thing I noticed is that if they hadn't abducted Melody, the war they forced The Doctor into wouldn't have happened... and there wouldn't have been a need to abduct Melody.

I suspect all this will be rewritten.

Somehow the Doctor will make it so that Amy and Rory will leave when she is pregnant and will get the chance to raise Melody..thus changing her life and preventing her from being fashioned into a weapon. River Song will never exist...and who knows how much else that would change.

The plot point that rankles the most to me is the idea that simply conceiving on the TARDIS can make a human baby a Time Lord, or at least gain their traits. It almost insinuates Gallifreyans are far-future humans. That would be lameness to me.

Although that's got major continuity problems of its own, it really does jive with a long held fringe fan theory. Plus it goes a LOOOOOOOOONG way towards explaining exactly why the Doctor likes Earth so much, he's a history buff!

I don't think River is part Time Lord. I think she's part TARDIS.

Ya. She is not part Time Lord, she just has some aspects of her that Time Lords also have. That's my $.02

[spoilers]The whole "Mislead the audience into thinking Amy is professing her love for the Doctor, then reveal she was talking about Rory" schtick is getting really fucking old. It wasn't cute the first time, and the repetition isn't improving it.

So when does the "Rise higher/fall lower than he ever has" moment supposed to come? I'm hoping that reunion of aliens who owe the Doctor a favor wasn't the "rise higher" moment, because it wasn't all that impressive.

So River is the daughter of Amy and Rory, infused with magic TARDIS-ey, goodness, huh? Is she also the little girl in the space suit who apparently spontaneously regenerates like a Time Lord?

Looks like we're supposed to believe the Doctor we saw killed by someone in a space suit was the "ganger" Doctor, somehow reconstituted from a puddle of goo. Not all that thrilled about that obvious route being the one the writers take, but on the other hand I'd rather it not be used to drop an unlikely twist that stretches the audience's suspension of disbelief too far.

And how long is this mid-season break supposed to last?!?!
[/spoilers]

^^ I heard September/October timeframe, but no one really knows but the BBC.

Here's what I think.

[spoilers]
I could stand to see something bad happening to Rory. As long as it's permanent this time.

[/spoilers]

I'm of the opinion that The Old Girl did it intentionally...

I did like River calling the Doctor on his behavior, he has been acting very un-Doctorly for a long time. Even during the Tennant years. What would be interesting would be if this was leading to the creation of the Valeyard, although I doubt SM would go that route.