Doctor Who: A Good Man Goes To War

[andrewducker]

So, I kinda enjoyed that, but it felt like a lot of build up, with us being _told_ that things were going to be epic, rather than shown anything that looked more epic than we've seen before. We could blame budget for that - but only seeing a few squads of soldiers felt a tad unthreatening to me.

Also, it would be nice to have a reason to feel invested in all of this. We still don't really know the motivation for the baddies, except in the vaguest terms, nor do we know how this ties back in to The Tardis being remote controlled last season (and the whole end of the universe thing). It feels massively confused, still, and I am rapidly losing faith that Steven Moffat is actually interested in giving us any. I was rather hoping that he'd be giving us coherent plots, after RTD's constant refrain of "AWESOMENESS over sense", and while I'm just about prepared to believe that Mr M knows how it all hangs together, asking us to wait two seasons for an explanation does not feel like the kind of thing Doctor Who does well.

I mean, who are the headless monks, and what do they want? Are these religious soldiers the same ones as we saw in the Angels two-parter last season? If so, why did they not recognise him then, but now want to destroy him? If the plan of eyepatch lady was to leave the Doctor with a fake baby, why did she want to do that? How does this tie in to The Silence?

Oh, and how did the Cybermen go from being trapped in the void between realities to running chunks of the galaxy? Not that that actually seems to tie into the main storyline at all.

Comments

[matgb]

K, some answers. The soldiers are the same soldiers, but from later, River's timeline is going backwards, etc.

These Cybermen aren't the ones from the alt universe, these are established this universe cybermen, have a look at their chest pieces, no Cybus logo--they were supposed to be better established in Pandorica but there wasn't the budget to even change the costume, the 'C' is gone, etc.

Cybermen in the main timeline come from Mondas/Telos and exist for a huge chunk of time/space, so presumably they'll be in a bit more.

[andrewducker]

If they're the same soldiers then they're from _earlier_ in River's timeline - which means they go from knowing him to not knowing him, which doesn't make sense to me.

[gonzo21.livejournal.com]

Yes, it raised so many questions didn't it. And answered really, only the one.

[strange-complex.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I've got that same feeling of underwhelm, for the same sort of reasons. I liked bits of this, but the whole gave us so little to work with that there doesn't seem much point madly speculating for the next three months. Rather than being in a fever of anticipation, I feel more like someone who's got rather sick of playing a guessing game, and am at the "Oh for gods' sake, just TELL me!" phase.

[andrewducker]

Also, on Time Travellers and Hitler:
http://www.viruscomix.com/page382.html
and
http://www.abyssandapex.com/200710-wikihistory.html

(With thanks to gominokouhai for handily digging out the latter link)

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

Albert Einstein going back in time to kill Hitler is also how the Command & Conquer: Red Alert timeline starts.

[ajr.livejournal.com]

There's also this book, I Killed Adolf Hitler, by Jason.

[rhythmaning.livejournal.com]

I thought it was excellent AND irritating. I was strangely moved by River's revelation. (I was worried it would involve incest, and was saved that... I think.)

I thought it looked great, was well acted. And I had no idea what was going on.

And why we have to wait till September to find out more isa just stupid.

[andrewhickey.livejournal.com]

Basically agreed. I also disliked the constant action-movieness, the predictable beats (as soon as you see monks with cowls you know the Doctor's going to be one of them, etc etc etc), the casual attitude towards mass deaths (the Doctor should not be massacring several ships full of people, even Cyberpeople, just to get a piece of information), and the *really stupid* thing - that the Doctor is some kind of Dark God figure but *at the same time* people still think "Well, yes, I know he's defeated every single alien empire in the whole of Spacetime, but I'll still beat him."

Bits I liked - the talking in baby language and the Sontaran nurse.

New Who 6.7: <i>A Good Man Goes To War</i>

[pingback-bot.livejournal.com]

User strange_complex referenced to your post from New Who 6.7: A Good Man Goes To War saying: [...] feel we've really been given anything more to go on there, so (as I've just said on 's journal [...]

[blearyboy.livejournal.com]

Someone on twitter pointed out that the great thing about Melody Pond is that you can sing her name to the theme tune. I can't get it out of my head now. Melody Pond, Melody Pond, Melody Pond, Melody Pond (ooo weee ooo) Melody Pond, Melody Pond, Melody Pond, Melody Pond (wee oooo ooo)

[fyrie.livejournal.com]

I think eyepatch lady leaving fakebaby was to stop the Doctor following them and giving them time to get away with real!Baby, so they were out of his reach.

On the whole, I would like to know more about Eyepatch lady and what she wants. Also, I think Silurian/Jenny should have their own crime-fighting show. There aren't enough interspecies lesbian Victorian crime fighters out there.

[kashandara.livejournal.com]

If this was facebook, I would be clicking like and starting a campaign groups page right now :)

[http://users.livejournal.com/la_marquise_de_/]

Yes, very much this. I thought they were wonderful.

[henriksdal.livejournal.com]

"Are you boys dressing up as Romans now? I thought you never read my memos"

[mondyboy.livejournal.com]

The Cybermen thing was to find out where Amy was. Though why the Doctor doesn't just as blue fat man is a bit confusing.

Still, I thought it was awesome. Yeah, we still don't know stuff. And I'm not sure Moff has a clue either. But as an episode of Doctor Who on a limited budget I thought it was wonderful.

[skington.livejournal.com]

The headless monks are the ideal weapon for someone who expects to be attacked by the Doctor, and by "attacked" I mean "spoken at".

If these are the same order of religious soldiers, it still doesn't mean that they're the same ones, or that this happens before the Time of Angels / Flesh and Stone two-parter.

And I think it's brilliant that, even after all this time, we still have idea why or how the Silents are involved. Chances are that whoever the people behind the Flesh are, and the Silents, aren't actually in cahoots with each other at all.

[momentsmusicaux.livejournal.com]

I think the Cybermen were just eyecandy, same as the spitfires. That aspect of the episode was disappointingly similar to the finale of last season: 'Let's bring EVERYBODY the audience like back for a cameo'.

[steer.livejournal.com]

Are these religious soldiers the same ones as we saw in the Angels two-parter last season?

They are the same order but not the same individuals. The headless monks were mentioned in that two parter and also obviously one of the characters from that two parter was in this.

[momentsmusicaux.livejournal.com]

Oh the other mildly annoying thing was the 'We are not fools'. Someone needs to tell Moffat AND the scriptwriter of the Ganger episode that having a lot of people repeat the same phrase over and over for a bit does not make either character or plot development!

[ajr.livejournal.com]

I am rapidly losing faith that Steven Moffat is actually interested in giving us any.

Did you watch Confidential afterwards? There was a point in that where Moffat, explaining his thinking on some things, said something to the effect of:

"Just giving answers is boring. It cuts everything off and you can't make a story out of that. I like giving answers which raise even more questions, so you can keep the story moving."

When I saw that I though "Aw, crap. It's Lost all over again." It also seems to bugger my theory that at the end of this series, Moffat will have wrapped the whole Crack/River/Silence thing up and take an new direction next series.

[andrewducker]

I don't mind "keeping the story moving" so long as you tie things together at some point and start a new story.

As it is we still have questions open from episode one of the previous season.

And yes, it's been reminding me of Lost for a while.

[fenland.livejournal.com]

Watching the programme I (& my flatmate) got a sense of a whole mosaic of different stories that had been put together as a single story, but have yet to be properly explained, and are at very different stages of development, effectively being the spring board for the next set of episodes.

I mean each character now really seriously poses big questions. The How/The What/The Why and most cases the who(?!) to their involvement in the general scheme of the whole storyline/series.

Take, for example, the Silurian; Is this same Silurian who wanted to kill the other humans in the future and if so how the hell did she get there? (can of worms no.1) If not, or a future future cersion, again how did she get back to that past? What does she and the others owe the Doctor? (Can of worms No.2)

This Doctor series is very different from the previous, where each story-arc was self contained to a point and then only a small continuation of the background history to go to the next story.

I think what Steve is aiming to do is completely revitalise the whole background stories and allow other writers more scope for development or revising what has been considered to be cannon.