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

[Lonemagpie]

Anyway, has anyone else seen this? Check the date.

ooooo..... that is very cool! thanks for finding that.

So, assuming that's what The Moff is playing with here, and take into account what we've seen in this episode, I wonder what we've seen here will change Doctor Who stories in the future?

For the past 6 years, we've had the Lonely God, the Oncoming Storm, as the persona for The Doctor. This facade of him probably started with the end of the Time War. What River said here to him would get him thinking of what he has done in these past lives, and may change the way he treats situations forever? No more, Mr "no second chances", perhaps?
.

It's interesting that the BBC's Dr Who site now refers to the Doctor's origins and home planet as "unknown" - which suggests this is all about getting over and past the thing where everybody in the universe knows who and what he is, and goes back to being, well, more like the classic series' approach of him being a mystery man who turns up.

 

[The Mirrorball Man]

Though those epic kitchen sink episodes are not my favorites, I thought this one was very entertaining. Matt Smith was excellent.

 

[YellowSubmarine]

It's interesting that the BBC's Dr Who site now refers to the Doctor's origins and home planet as "unknown" - which suggests this is all about getting over and past the thing where everybody in the universe knows who and what he is, and goes back to being, well, more like the classic series' approach of him being a mystery man who turns up.

No, this is only foreshadowing for the fact that the Doctor is his own father, doh...

 

[Haggis and tatties]

By the way – and apropos of absolutely nothing – was the theme music a new mix this week? There was a heavier emphasis on the violins reminiscent of the RTD-era theme that I don't recall before. I liked it, though.

Thats good, i thought i was going quietly mad as I'm sure last week i thought the music had changed ever so slightly to a more bassy du du du du bit from the old theme....plus there were sound effects when the logo hit and then when the Tardis carried on after the logo had gone.

I like it.

 

[Saul]

Good episode. Not exactly a big reveal. It was and wasn't, it might have had more dramatic effect earlier. I like that we now know how River knows the Doctors real name. That was a subtle twist. I thought for a moment she was his mother. I thought also that maybe the Doctor was actually the little girl and somehow it explained how he was mentioned as half human in the TV movie.

 

[Australis]

"Captian Harcourt, I hope someday to meet you in the glory of battle, where I shall crush the life from your worthless human form. Try and get some rest."

 

[Zulu Romeo]

Awesome, enjoyable, unashamedly great stuff. Great to see some of the more familiar faces again, especially Dorium. And yes, count me in among the "crime-fighting sword-wielding lesbian lizard woman in Victorian London" fan crowd, and loved the comedy Sontaran with all the best lines.

Matt Smith was on top form again - surely now one my favourite Doctors if not THE favourite. I also loved the work from Karen and Arthur. Frances Barber, Neve McIntosh and Christina Chong were all fantastic.

I'd say that the "fall" wasn't as great as I hoped, although the baby dissolving into ganger goo was unexpected. That said, the episode was epic, and the Doctor's (for me unexpected) joyous reaction to the (not unexpected) revelation added a somewhat welcome feeling of unease as some of the pieces from past episodes began to fall into place at this episode's conclusion.

There were moments in the final scene where I was beginning to wonder if River was going to be something else other than Amy's daughter, but the combination of the baby's given name at the episode's beginning, all the snippets of dialogue from the other episodes in this series so far, and what we know of River, all seem to come into some focus now. Now we need to see where this will all go, what it means for The Doctor himself, and all the other remaining questions...

We shall see what happens to them with Series 6, Part 2, and that next episode title. Goddamnit, Steve!

 

[Timelord79 (he/him)]

Anyone else thought that the Doctor went off at the end to put his relationship with River on the fast track for (his) next 200 years?
So the next time we meet him he'd have done Jimmy the fish with her and synch up with his other self from the season opening?

 

[Winterwind]

Some good scenes and some good characters (loved Rory and the Silurian) but very average for me. The great Battle of Demon's Run wasn't much of a battle and making River Amy's daughter was rather weak. I thought RTD was the king of forced epic kitchen sink fanwank but it seems Moffat wants that title all for himself now.

 

[Australis]

One thing: River's travelled with them all this time... and never thought toi say who she was? Wow, that's tough! Or scary! Or something!

 

[Timelord79 (he/him)]

Keep in mind from her point of view she has already told them... at least later incarnaions of them.
now we have reached the point where we have caught up to her revelation.
From now on she travels toward the other direction of that.

Does that mean that The Doctor, Amy and Rory have to keep it a secret from her that they know who she is, because she won't know an older version of her has already told them?

My head hurts.

 

[Cutter John]

Having rewatched it, I did think the Doctors 'army' pulling off a win would have been a lot more dramatic and effective if the stakes had been higher and they'd been facing a more powerful enemy.

 

[Count Zero]

The one big thing that bugged me about the narrative of this story is the idea that the Doctor has somehow lost his way, become a warrior-like figure and thus screws up people's lives. This strikes me as fundamentally untrue, in the same vein I felt that the main plot point of Planet of the Spiders felt untrue where the Doctor had to face his fundamental flaw of being greedy (for knowledge) and die for it. It didn't quite ring true and neither does this characterisation. The Doctor, all in all, is a decent and good person even if he himself might not think that at the moment (I refer to this dialogue between the eyepatch lady and him: "Good men have too many rules." "No, they don't. Which is why I have so many." Or something like that). In fact, I'd argue thinking of himself as not a good person is usually the sign of being one because 'evil' people rarely acknowledge what they are.
Sometimes, however, good people have to do bad things. But it seems a bit much to overemphasize thuis aspect of the Doctor.

 

[DS9Continuing]

Although this was an epic episode, Moffat loses points for saying River's identity would shock and surprise people. It was the revelation that practically everyone saw coming.

Everyone being online geeks who basically worked out ever possible reveleation. Most of the audience at home didn't see it coming.

I think everyone's getting the wrong end of the stick with this - the "revelation" isn't necessarily that River is Amy's daughter. Well, that's part of it obviously, but the lesser part. The greater revelation is what River, not who she is - part Time Lord. And that therefore new Time Lords can be created by being conceived within the Time Vortex.

Having rewatched it, I did think the Doctors 'army' pulling off a win would have been a lot more dramatic and effective if the stakes had been higher and they'd been facing a more powerful enemy.

The Doctor's army didn't really pull off a win though, did it, because the whole thing was one big misdirection. It was a series of misdirections actually, with each side pulling one over on the other over and over again - but Eye Patch Lady was the one who got the last laugh.

The bit I wondered about was why exactly River couldn't help out on this one, and why she just plopped herself down at the end of the episode seemingly just for the purpose of delivering the revelation.

Then I figured it out - she couldn't be there, presumably because of a Blinovitch situation. Like when Adult Rose touched Baby Rose, if adult River were ever to accidentally touch Baby Melody, it would screw up everything even worse than it was and bring down the Reapers (as someone mentioned upthread). So she daren't appear to the Doctor until after the baby was already stolen.

Although that doesn't take into account the fake baby - does Blinovitch still take effect if it's only a ganger?

Still, that does seem to imply that, either the Doctor never gets Melody back, or River can never be with the Doctor or Amy again, until Melody grows up into her, or at least until she regenerates in New York in 1963.

Still, having River just pop in to say, "Oh btw, here's the answer to the question you've already all been wondering about for the past three years," rather than having the Doctor figure it out for himself, is a bit of a narrative cheat.

Was that even the same River as at the beginning of the episode, timeline-wise? Or was Stevie-Wonder-River from a different point in her own timeline than Luke-I-Am-Your-Father-River?

 

[Australis]

Luke-I-Am-Your-Father-River

 

[Skellington]

Omega, of course, is Latin for "last" or "final". Just saying.

No, it's not. It's the last letter of the Greek alphabet. But it's figurative use as meaning the end has been well established due to the Bible.

D'oh! Yes, Greek and not Latin. That was a brainfart on my part.

 

[exalted one]

There were black UNIT brigadiers in Planet of the Dead and Children of Earth, and the Doctor finally broke the on-screen color barrier by taking on Mickey and Martha as companions. So should we start griping about some sort of muli-racial agenda?

Funny you mention that, because the overabundance of blacks in recent British television shows actually does make me wonder about possible agenda of some kind.

I never been to Britain; all my cultural experience with it comes from British TV shows and movies, and I don't remember seeing such a huge amount of blacks in older shows, like say "CI:5 - The Professionals", "Doctor in the House", "Randall and Hopkirk", "Dempsey & Makepeace" or "Robin of Sherwood" (being East-European, I'm not exactly used to seeing black people, so I'd surely notice if there was more than a handful of them.)

On the other hand, modern shows are completely different in this aspect. In recent "Merlin", they have black people encroaching the Arthurian legend as well. And watching the Doctor Who episodes with Martha Jones and her family felt almost like watching "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air" or some silly blaxploitation flick, complete with a white blonde bimbo.

Where did this trend came from? I always thought inserting "token ethnic people" into TV shows was solely an American practice. Are British people becoming a minority in their own country, much like Americans did during the last century?

 

[ITL]

Are British people becoming a minority in their own country, much like Americans did during the last century?

British people aren't all white, you know. FFS...

And no, it's not tokenism.

 

[Skywalker]

Last I checked, ~300 million Americans constitutes quite a sizable majority in the United States.

 

[Count Zero]

Where did this trend came from?

Reality.


Ok, I'd like to apologise for jokingly bringing up the 'gay agenda'. I didn't expect the discussion to take this turn. Sorry.