Not so sure about this "no soldier" thing, that just didn't seem right though not exactly out-of-character. Rather hypocritical I would say.
The "no-soldier" thing is both hypocritical and entitled on the Doctor's part. It doesn't make any sense at all.
The Doctor has always had a somewhat hypocritical ambivalence at best towards the military and guns. Remember the disrespect with which he treated UNIT in "The Sontaran Stratagem"/"The Poison Sky?"
But there's a very specific reason for it in this episode: The idea of a soldier has triggered his own self-loathing.
Remember that bit where he says to Journey, "The Dalek is a better soldier than you'll ever be, you have to find another way?" And then as he's trying to find a better way, Rusty looks into his soul... and sees hatred and war. Rusty defects, but he remains dedicated to death and violence because of the Doctor's influence.
And then he turns to him and declares that the Doctor is a good Dalek. And a Dalek is nothing if not a soldier.
The Doctor knows the necessity of the military. And he cares about soldiers and can respect them. And in the past, he's been friends with them, and probably will be again in the future. But at that particular moment, he can't go there emotionally. Because he's seen his own darkness again, from the time when he was a soldier in the Time War. He sees a soldier's uniform and all he can think of is the worst of himself.
I'm not sure why Journey decided all of a sudden that she wanted to join The Doctor.
I think it's pretty obvious: Because he showed her a better way than war.
And again, with the Doctor's hypocracy...she finds another way to deal with the Dalek and he still rejects her. The Daleks apparently took over her world and want to wipe out all of humanity. So tell me why again it's wrong to be a soldier and fight them?
It's not. But the Doctor can't see past the addiction to violence right now.
I had a few problems with it. Okay, two. And they're related.
I would have liked more backstory on the situation. When does this take place? (The script says 31st-century, but th episode itself doesn't say.) How long has the war gone on? What's the deal with the paranoia and the duplicates? How did things get this way? There's basic world-building that this episode doesn't have. It's poorer for it.
The episode spends its time on Clara's personal life instead. The ten minutes spent on Clara and Danny could have been spent on making the setting more than the generic.
I for one do not give a shit about these incredibly minor details, and am
far more interested in the story of Clara and Danny. The domestic lives of the companions are vital to the show for me.
Isn't the brigadier his best friend?
^ The Doctor is a hypocrite. Just like he stance of mass destruction and homicide is hypocritical.
Yep. The Doctor is more than capable of hypocrisy.
I'm really not understanding this whole "am I a good man" thing Moffat's got going on. Pre-Day of the Doctor, sure. But after he found a way to save Gallifrey and everyone on it, you'd think the Doctor wouldn't struggle with the question so much.
The morality of the Doctor has been an ongoing question since the revived show began. Sure, he saves the world -- but he's pretty callous about the lives he disrupts or ruins. You'll notice that he never apologized to Mickey for getting him under investigation for the presumed murder of his girlfriend after he failed to return Rose to 2005. (To say nothing of the fact that he literally ran off with Mickey's girlfriend while the man was right there.) He's emotionally manipulative and addicted to the adoration of young women, to the point where he'll lead women on when he has no intention of starting relationships with them (Martha, arguably Clara). He's willing to perform mentally invasive medical procedures on unconsenting patients if he deems it in their best interests (erasing Donna's memory in "Journey's End"). He's lied to his friend and loved ones God knows how many times -- from lying to Amy about why he invited her aboard, to refusing to tell her and Rory that his scans show her as pregnant sometimes but not other times in Series Six, to letting his closest friends think he's dead for months and months. He let River Song rot in prison for his murder rather than exonerate her.
Goodness knows how many people he's deliberately let die over the years -- from his victims in Pompeii, to the crew of Bowie Base One he was ready to abandon, just to name a few.
He often risks his companions' lives. Most recently, of course, he abandoned Clara to the
Marie Antoinette clockwork drones, taking the risk that she wouldn't be able to talk herself out of death in the name of "no sense both of us being captured."
I don't even want to think about how many times he's screwed over his companions -- kidnapping them onto the TARDIS, abandoning them in strange cities, invading their lives at random moments, not being there for them when they needed him.
He is, of course, a thief many times over.
And then there are all the people who've sacrificed themselves in his name or who have become dedicated to violence in the name of planetary defense after meeting the Doctor, as Davros pointed out in "Journey's End."
And even if he ultimately realized that it was wrong and he needed to find a way, he still planned to commit genocide against the Time Lords. (In fact, arguably he tried to do it four times -- three times at once when War, Ten, and Eleven were all set to press the Moment's button together, and a fourth time when Ten sent Gallifrey back into the Time War to be burned at the end of "The End of Time, Part Two.")
Add to this the fact that Twelve literally stole the clothes off a homeless man's back before possibly throwing the Half-Faced Man to his death at a time when the Half-Faced Man did not pose an immediate threat to anyone, and I'd say the Doctor has some pretty good reasons to wonder about himself.
