Surfing Sci-Fi: Doctor Who – “Let’s Kill Hitler”

These spoilers have not had a good day. They’ve been the target of midget justice police from the future, had their office trashed by the British and been put in the cupboard despite. The upside, however, is that they’ve had their face blessed by the fist of Rory, an historical event in its own right that will no doubt be forever preserved in .gif form on Tumblr.

 

It’s back. Finally. Oh the wait’s been agonising, and whoever tells you that it’s only been two months (has it really been just two months?!) and that it’s not been an eternity clearly aren’t worth your time. So after the summer drought and that cliffhanger, our favourite Time Lord, Legs and Nose are back.

Despite essentially picking up where we left off, the opening and too the whole episode itself feels very much like a season premiere, which, when you think about it, it kinda is. It’s a clever trick to infuse proceedings with that certain energy and flourish, and as premiere episodes are normally light, it feels apt and not out of place, especially after the high-epic drama of the mid-season finale. Plus, with a title like “Let’s Kill Hitler”, coupled with the mythos of the show, it just had to be a jaunt.

Surprisingly, the titular character headlining makes nothing more than a cameo which, while somewhat disappointing, feels appropriate because you really couldn’t have the Doctor knocking shoulders with a power like that for a show with a teatime audience. What it does is act as a nice curveball for the real “villain” and allows for a grand backdrop to set the meat and potatoes of the episode to.

As for this “villain”, it’s not the monster-of-the-week in shape of the robot-humanoid ship inhabited by miniaturised pseudo-time-police who extract tyrannical souls at the end of their timeline to do unto them justice in the form of a fiery cloud of pain. No, it’s in the shape of Mels – Amy and Rory’s childhood friend who has been getting into trouble all her life and who’s obsessed with the Doctor after hearing little Amelia’s story. Soon as she was introduced and we heard her name, I chalked an invisible line up on my equally invisible tally. Mels bursts onto the scene with sassy aplomb when she drives a stolen sports-car into the crop-circle that Amy and Rory have mowed into a cornfield to garner the Doctor’s attention. They certainly are getting more creative, our Ponds. With the police on her tail, she holds up the Doctor with a gun and demands an escape in the TARDIS, and it must have listened to her joke of “let’s kill Hitler” as that’s where they end up. It’s in Berlin that she meets her demise at the hand of Hitler’s stray bullet meant for Eddie Murphy’s spaceship, Dave – and although I’ve never seen that film, I am confident in my assertion that Moffat pulled off the concept far more successfully, although I do worry for his soul if he has indeed seen it and this is where the idea stemmed from. But then Mels regenerates into the incarnation of River Song that we know and love and I proudly scored a line across my tally so confidently that my invisible board eraser was no where to be seen.

Okay, so it was kind of obvious from the get-go that Mels was Melody (and what a fetching version, too), and though the moment was prepared for, the reveal still retained that tingly-awesome feeling and was strangely satisfying with thanks to actually seeing how our River came to be. But of course she’s not our River. Not yet, and now face to face with the Doctor and empowered, Melody takes up arms to complete her mission to kill the Doctor, but not before checking her new body out, naturally. I’d be remiss in not saying how saddened I was that we didn’t get to see her in a jodhpurs, though, at least I can live in hope.

The whole cat-and-mouse of her going for the gun and the Doctor anticipating her actions was incredibly fun, again, light was kind of what we needed; though I’m sure Melody could have killed him with a banana if she wanted. It’s her womanly wiles – and my, what womanly wiles they are – that seals the deal with a kiss. Something poetically tragic that it’s the Doctor’s heart that gets exploited again.

Resultant romp and retro pastiche of the terminator robotic jelly-fish security system inside “Dave”, we’re afforded seeing the burgeoning steps that Melody takes to becoming River and how she overcomes her conditioning by Kovarian through seeing the Doctor’s devotion even in the face of death, and ultimately, returns this post-epiphany affection when she sacrifices herself to bring the Doctor back to life. And to top it off, we’re also actually given answers to a fair few questions, though that does mean that in tandem we’re also given a couple more questions to speculate on to even out the odds.

The biggest, at least for now, being how “Silence will Fall.” The Silence aren’t the Slender Man lookalikes that we saw back in “The Impossible Astronaut” and “Day of The Moon”. Or, well, they are, but that’s not the name of their species so who knows, our very own Ginger could be right that they’re pre-cybernetic Cybermen. No, The Silence are a religious group who believe that “Silence will Fall” when the question is asked – the first and oldest question in the universe that is “hidden in plain sight.”

Don’t know about you, but I feel a Tinfoil-Hat coming on.

So yeah, Doctor Who’s back and the taste is even sweeter for the wait. Again, really, just two months? Now, excuse me, I’ve a lung to cough up and I need to make sure that there’s no dolls in the house in preparation of next week.
Quotes

“I danced with everyone at the wedding. The women were all brilliant, the men were a bit shy.”

“A friend.” “Gay.” “I’m not gay.” “Yes, you are.”

“YOU WILL EXPERIENCE A TINGLING SENSATION AND THEN DEATH.”

“You named your daughter after your daughter.”

“Shut up, Dad, I’m focusing on a dress size!”

“I’m getting this sort of banging in my head.” “Yeah, I think that’s Hitler in the cupboard.”

“Oh, that’s magnificent. I’m going to wear lots of jodhpurs.”

“I’m a psychopath. I’m not rude.”

“Well, I was on my way to a gay, Gypsy Bar Mitzvah for the disabled, when I suddenly thought ‘Gosh, the Third Reich’s a bit rubbish, I think I’ll kill the Führer’.”

“Miniaturisation ray.” “How would you know that?” “Well, there was a ray and we were miniaturised.” “Alright.”

“Just had a quick left leg power-nap, I forgot I had one scheduled.”

“As first dates go, I’d say that was mixed signals.”
Bits

Young Rory. I can hear the fangirls squeeing “kawaii” right now.

- Can we say that we kinda called it that Madame Kovarian is in cahoots with what we knew as The Silence? ‘Cus we so did.

- Mels growing up alongside Amy and Rory is kinda sweet for both parties. Daughter spent time with her parents even if they were kids themselves, and parents did get to see their daughter grow up. Then factor in she was a contributing factor to getting her parents together… sweet, and only in science-fiction, though the sweetness is marred somewhat in that she was lying in wait for her time to strike the Doctor.

- River does kill the Doctor. Nice to clear that up.

- Also, River deliberately making herself look younger the old she gets to freak people out is hilarious and fitting with her personality, so I’ll overlook the convenience.

- It was touching to see her sacrifice her remaining regenerations, and to do it on basically faith as she didn’t “know” the Doctor shows the heart she says. Does make me sad though, because we really did she her death in “Forest of the Dead”, though as scant comfort as it is, at least we’ve got all the times between then to still see her.

- Oh, and who else thinks that her saving the Doctor is going to be brought up again and again, so she makes sure he doesn’t forget it? I bet she’s troll-facing right now.

- Karen’s acting during the scenes were the Teselecta (a.k.a. Dave) was stotic but screaming was eerie and a fantastic display of her skills.

When the Doctor got up from the floor in the Berlin dining room, did anyone else think his shoes scuffing the marble floor sounded like he farted?

- The whole Voice Interface guilt thing? AWESOME.

Rory’s Scottish accent. Need more of that.

- River’s German soldier outfit, oh I say.