6x07 A Good Man Goes To War (Grade/Discuss) SPOILERS!

[David cgc]

#1 Who were these people? Awesome episode, but where the bloody hell did eyepatch lady and her giant, giant army of religious warriors come from? We've never seen her or them before and I have no idea WHY the hate the Doctor enough to form an entire army against him.

Well, we've seen the army before, in the Angels two-parter. I imagine more will come later. They mentioned a war or two going on (the Headless Monks were "Heaven-Neutral," IIRC, and Eye-Patch told the Doctor there was a war against him). If this were Babylon 5 or something where they were better about keeping track of their loose ends, I'd imagine there was some kind of 51st century metastory going on that would ultimately tie in the Anglican Marines, the Time Agency, the Library, and the other stuff we've seen (I'm pretty sure its the only time period the new series has dealt with on an ongoing basis aside from present-day).

#4 Why didn't the Doctor go calling on Captain Jack for his team of allies? Seems like the perfect man to fight this battle.

Ooh, ooh! 51st Century metastory! Young Jack's already part of events as Time Agent!

#5 If the Big Blue Guy (not gonna try and fail to spell his name) dies here, then how does he give River her vortex manipulator in the Pandorica Opens? I thought River was travelling backwards, meaning that each time we see her she knows less. She should not yet have her vortex manipulator, and thus Big Blue Guy needs to still be alive.

Like you said, the Doctor's a time traveler. Just because Blue and River are contemporaries doesn't mean that the Doctor had to pick them up out of the exact same moment. Also, River and the Doctor aren't necessarily meeting directly backwards every time. We shouldn't assume every time we see her is earlier in her life than the last. After all, she had a vortex manipulator in this episode and in the Astronaut two-parter. It's not necessarily the same one, but then again, it's not necessarily not.

Either way, Blue was definitely a Blue from after when we saw him in the Pandorica episodes, and River might've been. Or she might've been an earlier version, and she just steals another vortex manipulator every time she needs to nip out of prison to pick up some fresh bagels and milk.

#7 "This is the day he finds out who I am." She says this here and in the past as though it is a BAD thing, but it was rather good, wasn't it? Cheered the Doctor right up from his momentary mental depression or whatever.

We shall see. "Let's Kill Hitler!" sounds like a rather un-Doctorish thing to do, you know...

 

[backstept]

maybe 'Let's Kill Hitler!' has nothing to do with an early 20th Century German dictator, but instead with an immutable point in time as outlined in IATT Bulletin 1147 . You can't kill Hitler. Also The Waters of Mars showed a point in time that The Doctor couldn't change
so maybe the next episode isn't about Hitler at all, but a point in time, or series of events that MUST happen.

 

[Bacl]

Here's a question - how do the bad guys even find out to start with that Amy is with child?

How did they even find out who Amy is.

The Doctor may pop up in myth and fairy tale, but his companions are quite anonymous. The legends of 100 alien worlds do not tell the tales of Amy and Rory Pond who got pregnant in the TARDIS.

I have a hard time believing this many people know about the Doctor. He has always been fairly anonymous before, and when someone knew of him it was either an ancient enemy like the Daleks or someone really historical and famous like Leonardo DiVinchi. The way this episode was written, it seems everyone in the entire universe watches Doctor Who every week.

*How exactly did they send such a complicated signal into the TARDIS as it travelled in time and space and even LEFT THE UNIVERSE??? This goes against everything the show has previously established. The TARDIS is a safe house, no one gets in or out, its technology is one step below that of the gods and you can't just sneak inside. You certainly can't follow it while you sit in a command chair in the 51st century.

I am getting tired of "We'll just have to wait 6 months!" to find out the answers to a seemingly endless list of questions. It seems the show has gone from telling great stories in the moment to spinning its wheels promising that at the end of this season, or the start of the next, then the end of that season ALL WILL BE REVEALED. It's like someone who owes you money constantly promising all they owe you AND MORE if you'd just wait a few weeks. Where's the pay off?

The mid season is already over, and the only thing revealed was that River is Amy's daughter. I feel like we never even got started. The list of answered questions grows, and not in a good way, in the way where you get the feeling they don't know the answers, will lose interest in the answers, and when some are answered those answers grow less and less satisfying. This is Doctor Who, not Lost, and most people were unhappy with what Lost culminated in for many of the same reasons I just listed.

 

[ITL]

Based on some comments in this thread, I made a faux-Victorian Periodical cover:



The title of the first story comes from this lovely tweet by The Moff.

 

[Psion]

maybe 'Let's Kill Hitler!' has nothing to do with an early 20th Century German dictator, but instead with an immutable point in time as outlined in IATT Bulletin 1147 . You can't kill Hitler. Also The Waters of Mars showed a point in time that The Doctor couldn't change
so maybe the next episode isn't about Hitler at all, but a point in time, or series of events that MUST happen.

Well, who are we talking about when we say "Let's" in "Let's Kill Hitler!"?

Perhaps it's eyepatch lady trying to screw up the timeline and the Doctor actually has to save Hitler's life to keep things running properly.

Here's a question - how do the bad guys even find out to start with that Amy is with child?

*How exactly did they send such a complicated signal into the TARDIS as it travelled in time and space and even LEFT THE UNIVERSE??? This goes against everything the show has previously established. The TARDIS is a safe house, no one gets in or out, its technology is one step below that of the gods and you can't just sneak inside. You certainly can't follow it while you sit in a command chair in the 51st century.

Two ideas that come to mind are telepathy and quantum entanglement. Getting them to work across time, space, and outside the universe is a bit tricky.

Furthermore, based on what we've seen of Flesh technology, they'd have had to duplicate Amy before she was impregnated in "A Christmas Carol", then abduct her [probably] before "The Impossible Astronaut", otherwise the Ganger Amy would have been pregnant, too.

 

[Neroon]

Somehow the concern over "how did they find this" and "how did they do that" strikes me as a bit of an overreaction. Mind you, I'm not saying your concerns don't have any merit. It just seems to me that sufficiently advanced races would be able to find a way of identifying Amy, of getting a signal into the Tardis and so on. The Timelords were not gods, though they might have entertained that thought.

I'm still comparatively new to Whovian fandom, but I don't mind seeing some changes in the details. This is a long-running franchise that has been able to change with the times, for the most part. Certainly there are some basics that perhaps ought not to be changed, but they aren't all sacrosanct are they? YMMV of course, because I can't tell you how I'd react if someone made change to B5 or TOS and so on.

 

[Saga]

Based on some comments in this thread, I made a faux-Victorian Periodical cover:



The title of the first story comes from this lovely tweet by The Moff.

nice

 

[Skellington]

Based on some comments in this thread, I made a faux-Victorian Periodical cover:

Bravo! Very professional-looking.

Somehow the concern over "how did they find this" and "how did they do that" strikes me as a bit of an overreaction. Mind you, I'm not saying your concerns don't have any merit. It just seems to me that sufficiently advanced races would be able to find a way of identifying Amy, of getting a signal into the Tardis and so on. The Timelords were not gods, though they might have entertained that thought.

Actually, the Doctor did detect the signal and even followed it to its source, albeit a month after terminating it. Maybe the Doctor's enemies were gambling on his curiosity and on him not jamming the signal straight away.

 

[Bacl]

Somehow the concern over "how did they find this" and "how did they do that" strikes me as a bit of an overreaction. Mind you, I'm not saying your concerns don't have any merit. It just seems to me that sufficiently advanced races would be able to find a way of identifying Amy, of getting a signal into the Tardis and so on. The Timelords were not gods, though they might have entertained that thought.

I'm not against change. I am against baseless.

At a certain point, things are just happening with no anchor. Enemies we don't know appear and do things it has been said they shouldn't be able to do. The reason? Unknown. How'd they do it? Unknown. But it is done.

Now the Doctor appears and counters their out-of-nowhere unknowns by pulling his own unknowns out of his hat. How'd he do that? Unknown. Where'd he get those? Unknown.

It turns into a kind of Bugs Bunny cartoon, where anything can come out of that rabbit hole, and five seconds later it is forgotten about. No rules in a Bugs Bunny cartoon either.

Let me put it this way: Sure, this is Doctor Who, the science fantasy show about a alien who travels through time in a police box that's bigger on the inside...but there's still rules. If in one episode the Doctor turned invisible and flew through walls like a ghost, you'd want an explanation of how he did that. There IS a point where you can't keep saying "It's Doctor Who, relax. No explanation is needed." The Doctor can't walk through walls and turn invisible and fly without some explanation. He can't suddenly shoot laser beams from his eyes. There are rules even in a fantastical universe. They made the rules, and they can change them if they like, but I felt what has started happening isn't a changing of the rules so much as things happening for no reason and with no explanation.

Explain to me WHO those people are. Who are they? WHY are they? They came from nowhere and acted for no given reason. The Doctor might as well have shot laser beams from his eyes.

 

[Psion]

Agreed. And why do they think of themselves as at war with the Doctor? This is a theme Moffat started exploring last year with the alliance in "The Pandorica Opens" uniting to stuff the Doctor in a box. Everyone is afraid of him. Why? Did he do something really bad or are they just afraid of what he might do with all the power he wields?

Based on his behavior since 1963, it seems to me that most people should like the Doctor.

 

[Tom]

Now that Doctor can have future adventures with 'Melody' becuse she can be played by a different younger actess than AK since the current River could be one she regenrated to.

 

[Neroon]

I don't care for those "baseless changes", either. Enough of that and you almost get a "deus ex doctora". But in a series where there is a clear attempt at an overall arc of some type, I can't call anything "baseless" until the very end. At that point one can better evaluate what was resolved, explained or left unadressed... and just what did or did not need that.

 

[Deckerd]

I'm sorry but an overarching theme of Doctor Who since it restarted is the essentially dangerous nature of the Doctor. He has become a legend in the galaxy for defeating oppressors. Why wouldn't he become feared? This isn't baseless and it's been a long time coming. As to the 'who' part of the army and its leader, I can't imagine that isn't going to be addressed during the run.

 

[PorthosShadow]

I'm sorry but an overarching theme of Doctor Who since it restarted is the essentially dangerous nature of the Doctor. He has become a legend in the galaxy for defeating oppressors. Why wouldn't he become feared? This isn't baseless and it's been a long time coming. As to the 'who' part of the army and its leader, I can't imagine that isn't going to be addressed during the run.

Steven Moffat even said that this episode was going to take The Doctor down a peg or two. I remember someone on this board mentioning how he has been basically coasting on his reputation for a long time and that reputation was going to bite him in the ass some day. Well in this episode, it really did and in a big way.

 

[JoeZhang]

As to the 'who' part of the army and its leader, I can't imagine that isn't going to be addressed during the run.

I don't think we get those answers this series, I saw an article in one of the papers this weekend that said that we get some answers at the end of the year but that simply kicks off some more questions.

Anyway - it's The War Chief behind it all.

 

[Tom]

I guess another question is did River and the Doctor have a child in the doctors future??

 

[PorthosShadow]

I guess another question is did River and the Doctor have a child in the doctors future??

I asked the same question recently and it would be an interesting way of bringing in new Time Lords. Personally, I think the crazy universe destroying ones in The Time Lock should be left there. However, that doesn't rule out starting a new Galifrey with new Time Lords all descended from The Doctor and River.

 

[Tom]

I guess another question is did River and the Doctor have a child in the doctors future??

I asked the same question recently and it would be an interesting way of bringing in new Time Lords. Personally, I think the crazy universe destroying ones in The Time Lock should be left there. However, that doesn't rule out starting a new Galifrey with new Time Lords all descended from The Doctor and River.

And if there was a child, would that child have there own child, and maybe ..I don't now..call her Susan! The first Doctor could have then be traveling with his future granddaughter!! Timey Wimy!

 

[Photoman15]

Maybe all this animosity is a result of Timelord Victorious. Everyone heard about it and got scared. They haven't heard he back off of that position.

 

[HappyDayRiot]

After 15 pages here and 12 on the Guardian's blog, I have to ask: am I really the only person who was utterly convinced when Lorna died she was going to regenerate into River?