Doctor Who S32E8, "Let's Kill Hitler" [spoilers]

[Thanas]

"Crowds lined the mall today as Holy Roman Emperor Winston Churchill returned to the Buckingham Senate on his personal mammoth."

Wait, no-one's taking this quote literally, are they? Does anyone honestly think we're going to see that in the finale?

This reminds me of that quote that RTD leaked in the pages of Doctor Who Magazine, a few weeks before the Season 2 finale. I don't remember the exact quote, but people were using it as evidence that Rose was going to become a Time Lord (or possibly get cyber-converted) at the end of the finale, and all it turned out to be was part of a heart-to-heart talk between Rose and her mother within the first ten minutes of "Army of Ghosts."

Yeah, but even if you do not take it literally it makes no sense.

[evilsoup]

Eh, it could be the Doctor giving a sarcastic response as to why they can't change time.

[Broomstick]

"Crowds lined the mall today as Holy Roman Emperor Winston Churchill returned to the Buckingham Senate on his personal mammoth."

Wait, no-one's taking this quote literally, are they? Does anyone honestly think we're going to see that in the finale?

This reminds me of that quote that RTD leaked in the pages of Doctor Who Magazine, a few weeks before the Season 2 finale. I don't remember the exact quote, but people were using it as evidence that Rose was going to become a Time Lord (or possibly get cyber-converted) at the end of the finale, and all it turned out to be was part of a heart-to-heart talk between Rose and her mother within the first ten minutes of "Army of Ghosts."

Yeah, but even if you do not take it literally it makes no sense.

Grammatically it's a perfectly fine English sentence. Rather like Lewis Carroll's "Jaberwocky" or "The Walrus and the Carpenter". And really, I can totally see the Doctor quoting "Twas brillig, and the slithy toves did gyre and gimble in the wabe..." Actually, that bit about Churchill on his personal mammoth makes more sense than Jabberwocky. It's more like the penguins of the Nile and other nonsensical things from "The Big Bang" - it might be a sign of a time line gone wrong that needs to be fixed.

[ChosenOne54]

"Crowds lined the mall today as Holy Roman Emperor Winston Churchill returned to the Buckingham Senate on his personal mammoth."

Wait, no-one's taking this quote literally, are they? Does anyone honestly think we're going to see that in the finale?

I have no idea what to make of it. Well, I mean, it could be an indication that time is gonna get really fucked up, but...

[Thanas]

"really fucked up" is something of an understatement, considering there is no way in hell you can rationalize any more than two of these things.

[evilsoup]

Well, let's see... the 'Holy Roman Emperor' bit would be easy enough, you just need intermarriage with the British royals and a HRE; then when the Holy Roman Empire becomes defunct, it becomes a meaningless ceremonial title. Britain could quite easily be a republic, but keep such titles around; OR Buckingham Palace could be given as a gift to replace Westminster, which was destroyed by French bombers in the 1940s (and parliament was renamed the Senate in a pique of Victorian-era Roman-wank, possibly enhanced by Britain's possession of the HREmperorship).

The Mammoth would require techno-wankery ... unless 'mammoth' is the name of some kind of vehicle, or possibly a word used for regular elephants that are employed ceremonially.

Now, that would still be fucking retarded, but I wouldn't say impossible to rationalise.

[Lord_Of_Change 9]

I think it's supposed to indicate something bad happening to the timeline, judging by the trailer featuring a voice saying 'Something has happened to time'. Sort of like in the Big Bang. At least, I hope it's so.

[lance]

Couldn't it be a futuristic archeologist talking out his ass?

[Alkaloid]

Okay, this one I have to hear. How is Gilligan more competent than River Song?

You know, I was about to take that back and admit that I got a little caught up in hyperbole, but thinking about, I may actually be right.

I never watched much of Gilligans Island, not being alive when it was on TV, but going by the re runs I've seen, while Gilligan is a bumbling jackass, he was occasionally helpful, even if it was only in a 'what if it was 1 guy with six guns' sort of way.

But I cannot think of a single necessary thing River has done. She makes a big fuss about being able to fly the tardis 'better' than the doctor, but its also been made clear that he is capable of flying it just as well, he just does it the way he does cos its more fun that way.

The only thing she has done that I cant see anyone else doing is killing the dalek in The Big Bang. The crippled, unarmed and surrendered dalek that was completely irrelevant because the last 5 minutes had been the docter buying himself time to complete his plan to save the universe, that also involved changing the situation so that none of them had been in the room with it, and it had never been on earth in the first place. I admit, she didn't know thats what they were doing, but she stopped to exact vengeance on a helpless enemy that instead of going to the aid of her friend that she knew it shot several minutes ago. Thats the most useful thing I can remember her doing.

But she thinks shes awesome. Thats also why people hate her, not cos shes useless, Amy is essentially useless except she comes with an attached Rory, and no one hates her. Its because she's so fucking smug.

[FaxModem1]

I guess her using the 'square setting' and helping lead her crew, the Doctor and Donna out of a deathtrap doesn't count. Nor does her shooting up of the Silence, or sacrificing her life so that the Doctor would live on, or tracking down a Weeping Angel right before it hijacked the ship. she didn't stop the thing, but she did call the Calvary. She also is mostly smug just around the Doctor, which might have something to do with the brainwashing or training or relationship she has with him. With others, she's a lot more polite and contained. Consider how she acts around her parents, around Queen Liz the Tenth, Churchill, the Bishop.

I think she just likes riling up the Doctor. Also, the whole killing the Dalek thing was her being pissed. Wouldn't you be pissed if something just killed your lover?

[Stark]

You mean that relationship it is now clear we will never see without retcons? I can totally see why River thought Tennant would recognise/be in love with her, even though this would be almost impossible to concieve from her perspective!

[Alkaloid]

I guess her using the 'square setting' and helping lead her crew, the Doctor and Donna out of a deathtrap doesn't count.

I don't consider getting out of a situation that only existed because you led a team of ill equipped and woefully ill prepared people into a situation that lead to their grisly death and imprisonment, in what is essentially the matrix, for eternity with the same group of people a success, no.

or tracking down a Weeping Angel right before it hijacked the ship. she didn't stop the thing, but she did call the Calvary

I think its worse given that shes done the same thing previously with people far better prepared with those ones, and they all died and had their corpses reanimated by aliens that would have died if they never went there in the first place.

That's two situations that would have been better off if she just left well enough alone, one of which was only in any way successfully resolved because a person she had no idea was going to be there turned up and fixed the problems she caused.

or sacrificing her life so that the Doctor would live on

I'm drawing a distinction between Melody and River at this stage because the characters in the show are, and I actually thought she was a good, if again, completely ineffectual bad guy.

Nor does her shooting up of the Silence

I'll admit, her spinning around in a circle wildly firing her gun may have had a higher chance of killing her enemies than her allies, and I had forgotten that. Its things like that though, and her delivering her 'awesome' one liner before blowing up a dalek, that just reek of the writers trying to make us like a character that they want us to like by making her so 'awesome' that we cant not like her. Doctor Who is about problems being resolved in an amusing and clever fashion. If I want to see them resolved by forced dialogue and shooting things, I'll by 24 on DVD.

[Hillary]

You mean that relationship it is now clear we will never see without retcons? I can totally see why River thought Tennant would recognise/be in love with her, even though this would be almost impossible to concieve from her perspective!

Why so? It has been made pretty clear throughout the years that we do not see every adventure in the Doctor's life. Just because we only saw River with Tennant once, it doesn't mean that they didn't meet again.

[Thanas]

How? That is the first time she met Ten.

[Broomstick]

Between "Silence in the Library/Forrest of the Dead" and when Ten regenerated - plenty of time for off-stage adventures. It's already established that while they meet out of order with each other it's not a strict back-to-front situation, otherwise they wouldn't need to synchronize diaries. She never comes out and says that the Library is the first time she meets Ten, and indeed, she seems to recognize him and think they have met before. It's Ten's first meeting with her, not River's first meeting with Ten.

[Ahriman238]

The fact that she immediatly recognizes Ten lends credence to Broomstick's version. It's not like the Doctor hauls around a photo album with all his previous faces in it.

[Hillary]

Between "Silence in the Library/Forrest of the Dead" and when Ten regenerated - plenty of time for off-stage adventures. It's already established that while they meet out of order with each other it's not a strict back-to-front situation, otherwise they wouldn't need to synchronize diaries. She never comes out and says that the Library is the first time she meets Ten, and indeed, she seems to recognize him and think they have met before. It's Ten's first meeting with her, not River's first meeting with Ten.

This basically.

[SilverWingedSeraph]

Couldn't justify giving this episode more than 2/5. I have finally joined the "I hate River Song" camp. It took a while. I really tried hard to give her a chance and hope maybe they'd do something interesting and cool with her, and they sort of did except she's a massive, in-your-face Mary Sue, and I'm sick of it.

Rory is the best person in Doctor Who right now.

[Stark]

Between "Silence in the Library/Forrest of the Dead" and when Ten regenerated - plenty of time for off-stage adventures. It's already established that while they meet out of order with each other it's not a strict back-to-front situation, otherwise they wouldn't need to synchronize diaries. She never comes out and says that the Library is the first time she meets Ten, and indeed, she seems to recognize him and think they have met before. It's Ten's first meeting with her, not River's first meeting with Ten.

I'm not seeing how her recognising him means it's not hilarious that she has 'forgotten' that he's the first one she meets, and indeed appears to be most of their relationship - not that we have actually seen the relationship promised in their first meeting anyway. If they had a whole stupid novel of stupid adventures, she would still know that he'd regenerated and that acting like a dripping schoolgirl might make her look amazingly stupid due to the different perspectives she constantly harps on about. Frankly, it's obvious she met Tennant at another point; this makes her MORE stupid, not less, because in 'reverse order' this should have changed her expectations about what he would know by an obvious change of appearance.

I don't see how a need to 'synchronise diaries' means it isn't in exact reverse order (because it sounded she was just checking points to see how far along it was, and not checking a series of her experiences to avoid mentioning), either, but it's not important to the whole 'captain spoilers forgot to remember' joke.

It's all moot because it'll probably be totally retconned anyway. The only question is how terrible it is.

[Themightytom]

I scored it high, because, Rory puinches a Nazi. He also jumps on the motorcycle, and when asked if he knows how to drive one he's says "I expect I do, it's been that kind of a day.



I DEDUCTED a point, because why the fuck did I just wait two months wondering what's been happening while "The doctor's been travelling alone all summer". Apparently he's done nothing.

Did he abandon Amy and Rory at Demon's run so he could go sightseeing or... That was basically a redo of the Season opener.
AND they shoehorn/retconned River in as Amy's best friend. Fuck that. You planned far enough ahead to introduce the Silence with prisoner zero, but you couldn't throw in a cameo by Mel? You are bullshitting us Moffat, Bullshitting us...

Then I gave a point back, because Rory explained that it was a ray, that miniaturized them. Amy had that coming.

[Crazedwraith]

I DEDUCTED a point, because why the fuck did I just wait two months wondering what's been happening while "The doctor's been travelling alone all summer". Apparently he's done nothing.

Well it's been all summer for the Ponds who knows how long its been for the Doctor? Maybe the first place he flew he saw that newspaper and then decided to bring them along anyway. Hell, that's even more stupid isn't it? Hopefully he's actually being doing significant stuff that we will flashback to in later episodes that he just doesn't want to tell the Ponds yet...

[PREDATOR490]

The fact that she immediatly recognizes Ten lends credence to Broomstick's version. It's not like the Doctor hauls around a photo album with all his previous faces in it.

Not really, River says the Doctor gave her pictures about his previous incarnations.

River could have seen any number of incarnations throughout time through his jumping around the place without actually meeting them, possible even told by the Doctor to AVOID such meetings because of the issues it would cause.

As it happens, Silence of the Library specifically mentioned the crash of the Angel ship as being early days and that should translate as being end of days for River as a character of Doctor Who.

We already had the 'first kiss / last kiss' bullshit and the only remaining thing to be brought up is some night out where the Doctor will show up with a new Suit + haircut, take her to Berilyium to see singing towers, cry and give her the old screwdriver. Going by dialogue and reactions it would be reasonable to assume she saw Tennant at this meeting. Tennant still had his screwdriver for the duration of the run until Smith wrecked it. Given the state of that screwdriver it would be more reasonable to assume Smith gave it to her after some shody repairs.
Unfortunatly, this requires deception on the part of Smith to work without a retcon being shoehorned in SOMEWHERE.

Although, with the exceedingly annoying 'awesome' being pumped into the character I would not be surprised if they retcon her 'dying' in Silence of the Library so Smith can go back and download her into a new body or some stupid shit like that.

[The Romulan Republic]

Couldn't justify giving this episode more than 2/5. I have finally joined the "I hate River Song" camp. It took a while. I really tried hard to give her a chance and hope maybe they'd do something interesting and cool with her, and they sort of did except she's a massive, in-your-face Mary Sue, and I'm sick of it.

Rory is the best person in Doctor Who right now.

Yes and no. I'd say Matt Smith is probably the best actor of the group, but I don't really like the way the Doctor's been written this season.

[Stark]

The screwdriver is useless as a reference point, because it's not unique.

[Hillary]

I still reckon that this will be the last series containing River. We've seen the first meeting (from her PoV), the introduction of the diary, the explanation of her being able to fly the TARDIS better than the Doctor (and who 'the best' was) and how she sheds her regenerative powers. We know she was brainwashed by the Silence and how she loses that brainwashing. We also have the pretty big issue that if the Doctor resuces baby Melody, River is not the same person that we currently see.

I may be wrong and Moffat could completely piss all over everything that has come before, but I remain optimistic as present.