A Good Man Goes To War (3207)

[Forseti (a.k.a. Thor's lawyer)]

In other potentially historical news:

Spoiler:

Am I right in thinking that this episode might reveal the Doctor's actual name for the very first time ever? We don't know what it sounds like (yet), but maybe we now know what it looks like. (Assuming that the Gallifreyan writing on the cot spells out the Doctor's name and not some kind of nursery rhyme).
Maybe this is how River knows of the Doctor's name? We know that she can understand and write Gallifreyan. And since it looks like she will be spending/has spent some quality time in this cot...

Come to think about it:

Spoiler:

In SitL/FotD did the Tenth Doctor realize River had been in his cot? Or might there still be something else we're missing?

[PMN1]

Got to say, was expecting a bit more.

Most interesting thing was the Sontaran....some amazing lines...and what Alex Kingston hinted at regarding the cot in the Confidential after.

[knowles2]

Well clearly it me but I was disappointed with this episode.

Far to rush in to many places, was there even a story. To many new characters just appear out of nowhere with no explanations. I spotted the baby being a fake a mile off, to obvious.

All I can say about River. is that at least I was right about her not being the doctor wife, but I along with half internet who all pretty much predicted River was pond daughter a while back. at least the Doctor wife episode, some guest it in the first episode.

The entire war was a complete disappointment, yes it great tricking the doctor, but when you bring that many people together I expected something bit bigger and more fearsome. Especially with the colonel speech, Cybermen fleets. An a name like demon run, I was expecting a huge battle, not a small ambush and a bit of hand to hand combat.

Some good individual pieces in the episode but as a whole a big disappointment, especially given the hype surrounding it. It was far to rush, lack story, lack the scale to impress me.

[knowles2]

In other potentially historical news:

Spoiler:

Am I right in thinking that this episode might reveal the Doctor's actual name for the very first time ever? We don't know what it sounds like (yet), but maybe we now know what it looks like. (Assuming that the Gallifreyan writing on the cot spells out the Doctor's name and not some kind of nursery rhyme).
Maybe this is how River knows of the Doctor's name? We know that she can understand and write Gallifreyan. And since it looks like she will be spending/has spent some quality time in this cot...

Come to think about it:

Spoiler:

In SitL/FotD did the Tenth Doctor realize River had been in his cot? Or might there still be something else we're missing?

I think the name on the cot is River Song/Melody pond. Which is how the Doctor connected the dots that River was Amy daughter before she spelled it out to Pond. Which means the cot was never the Doctors of cause and we are left with the big question of where it came from. At least that what I reckon anyway.

[Teddybrown]

Yes that's what I meant, after the credits you saw what Sealurk describes with the words "Time runs out" after it for about 3 seconds.

I had gone dashing off to the toilet and when I came back the Mrs had the credit's paused and simply said "you missed this"..

Thanks Sealurk, Ian-S and Nth Chevron for pointing that out
Unluckily, my family isnt that kind, I went out of the room and missed that bit lol and it isnt on the iPlayer version
Thanks for the links

[kcatlantis]

Interesting thought, River does not kill the Doctor. She's in jail because she killed someone important, and the people are against the Doctor. If she killed him they would praise her.

[knowles2]

cool episode. the sontaran was great, guess there will be even more surprises instore and how does the silence get involved in this since river knows nothing on them.

river actually might be the one that kills the doctor perhaps through some secret command in her brain or something since they intended her as a weapon.

In a prequial clip shown last week the blue alien sold a device that was to inserting in the brain. Sound like a mind control device to me.

[P-90_177]

I have to say that out of the 7 episodes so far this season I just cannot pick a favorite. Every episode has had so many grand and awesome moments with heartfelt character interactions to funny and witty one liners to action packed Doctor Who style excitement.

This episode however just turned the volume all the way up to ten.

It certainly started off with a boom. Rory the Roman is still absoloutley awesome. The fact that he can stand in front of a group of armed cybermen and demand that they comply is pretty much the ballsiest thing a Doctor Who Companion has ever done. Even Captain Jack had the good sense to run away from the Doctors Enemies.

I loved all the additional Allies the Doctor had. The Silurian and the Sontaran were just cool and it would make sense that the Doctor would trust them since out of all the Doctors enemies, those two races are the most honour bound so if you can get just one on your side then you've got a heck of a Go-to guy.
I didn't mind that we hadn't seen these characters before either. At the end of the day the Doctor has many other adventures we don't get to see and we know that he ended up travelling by himself after Rory and Amy finished their honey moon so it's only natural that he would make new friends even if they didn't neccesarily join him on his journey.

The headless monks also made for an awesome monster. Hideously simple I believe is the term.

I also liked the girl soldier. I'm afraid I didn't catch her name but she was obviously there to try and resemble Alex Kingston for much of it. Her manner of speech was even similar. But the best moment I think was when in her dying moments the Doctor knelt down to her and spoke to her like a friend and said that he remembered her......and then as soon as she was gone turned back to the Shilurian and had to ask who the girl was. The look on The Doctors face said it all at that moment.

The final reveal at the end was nicely done of course. Naturally rumours were abound that Amy's baby was River and in all honesty I was one of the people who didn't like the idea. I saw it as too predictable. Certainly as soon as I saw that on the Baby's hospital crib it had written "Melody Pond" I put two and two together. At first when I noticed that was the route they were going down I was a little dissapointed, but the reveal itself was so brilliantly written and expertly acted that I didn't care. It was fantastic to see the Doctors Crib too. We know it's his. But we don't know who else has used that crib over the years. It's an interesting concept that I definately hope they go further into.



So now.............Questions still to be answered:

Is it in fact River/Melody in the space suit that apparently kills the Doctor?

What plans do/did the silence have for Melody?

Where does the eyepatch lady come into this?

What exactly is written on The Doctors Cot?

Who is the Good man River kills?

Will the Flesh Doctor come back?

Could River still be The Doctor's wife?

How does papa Rory feel about the Doctor kissing his daughter?

[knowles2]

Interesting thought, River does not kill the Doctor. She's in jail because she killed someone important, and the people are against the Doctor. If she killed him they would praise her.

If she the girl in the Space Suit that walk out of the river, then there is a strong possibility she is the one that killed the doctor, at least a past version of her, and she may not remember it because of the Silence abilities to wipe memories.

I am going to take a guest and say the suit is capable of teleporting through Space and time , to keep her hidden from the Doctor. An her killing the Doctor what encourages her to break free from the suit, which why the killing of the Doctor by her hands had to happen, to set everything else up that is to come and has already happen. Which also explain when he says he understand why she doing this, because history has to happen the way it happens, and why she so protective about spoilers.

[Jonzey]

Fantastic, but disappointed that the whole River thing turned out to be the most obvious solution. I kinda expected more from Moffat, something totally unpredictable and out there, but something that makes perfect sense too.

[knowles2]

I also liked the girl soldier. I'm afraid I didn't catch her name but she was obviously there to try and resemble Alex Kingston for much of it. Her manner of speech was even similar. But the best moment I think was when in her dying moments the Doctor knelt down to her and spoke to her like a friend and said that he remembered her......and then as soon as she was gone turned back to the Shilurian and had to ask who the girl was

I am thinking we will run into her again. Out of all the characters she the only one that was interesting. An she also clearly intertwined with River/Melody past at some point May be a child hood friend, and the Doctor Future.

[Alan]

Aha! I thought this too! Glad to see that GW's resident WhoMaster had the same thought I wonder what it means for future storytelling though? I seem to recall that the original (real) Cybermen were utterly defeated in the Cyber-wars of the 2500s; their only survivors being the band that were rediscovered and defeated in Tomb of the Cybermen? Admittedly, that'd probably be about 2500 years prior to this episode so that's plenty of time to rebuild.

Wow. Thanks so much for the extremely kind endearment. Very much embarrassed now but balanced with an incredible appreciation. Cheers
Yes, I don't think much is known about our universes Cybermen past the 26th century. Presumably there's more Cyber Nomads out there like those seen in 1975's Revenge of the Cybermen so between the 26th century and what I took to be the 50th or 51st centuries in A Good Man Goes to War lord only knows what happened to make the Cybermen a significant power again. The parallel Cyberman in The Pandorica Opens was certainly different in that it contained more than just the removed brain of a human it contained the remains of an entirely upgraded human. Maybe there was a meeting between the Mondasian Cybermen and the parallel Cybermen and from that their technology and Cyber Conversion techniques took an upgrade?

Anyway, another fantastic episode. I think I preferred the original/rumoured title Demons Run, but that's such a minor issue that it's hardly worth mentioning. I loved this episode, and I can't wait to see how this story continues to play out and how it fits in with the Silence!

Yes, indeedy. I'm looking forward to seeing where the Silence come in to this story too. Problem is that we'll all forget about it once we see it.

edit; oh, something else I forgot to mention! It seems it's now canon that the homo-reptilia of last year's two-parter are indeed called Silurians

Were they not called Silurians in The Hungry Earth at all? I thought they had been. I have a homo-reptilia action figure from that story and its packaging has it marked up as a Silurian.

[Teddybrown]

I have to say that out of the 7 episodes so far this season I just cannot pick a favorite. Every episode has had so many grand and awesome moments with heartfelt character interactions to funny and witty one liners to action packed Doctor Who style excitement.

This episode however just turned the volume all the way up to ten.

It certainly started off with a boom. Rory the Roman is still absoloutley awesome. The fact that he can stand in front of a group of armed cybermen and demand that they comply is pretty much the ballsiest thing a Doctor Who Companion has ever done. Even Captain Jack had the good sense to run away from the Doctors Enemies.

I loved all the additional Allies the Doctor had. The Silurian and the Sontaran were just cool and it would make sense that the Doctor would trust them since out of all the Doctors enemies, those two races are the most honour bound so if you can get just one on your side then you've got a heck of a Go-to guy.
I didn't mind that we hadn't seen these characters before either. At the end of the day the Doctor has many other adventures we don't get to see and we know that he ended up travelling by himself after Rory and Amy finished their honey moon so it's only natural that he would make new friends even if they didn't neccesarily join him on his journey.

The headless monks also made for an awesome monster. Hideously simple I believe is the term.

I also liked the girl soldier. I'm afraid I didn't catch her name but she was obviously there to try and resemble Alex Kingston for much of it. Her manner of speech was even similar. But the best moment I think was when in her dying moments the Doctor knelt down to her and spoke to her like a friend and said that he remembered her......and then as soon as she was gone turned back to the Shilurian and had to ask who the girl was. The look on The Doctors face said it all at that moment.

The final reveal at the end was nicely done of course. Naturally rumours were abound that Amy's baby was River and in all honesty I was one of the people who didn't like the idea. I saw it as too predictable. Certainly as soon as I saw that on the Baby's hospital crib it had written "Melody Pond" I put two and two together. At first when I noticed that was the route they were going down I was a little dissapointed, but the reveal itself was so brilliantly written and expertly acted that I didn't care. It was fantastic to see the Doctors Crib too. We know it's his. But we don't know who else has used that crib over the years. It's an interesting concept that I definately hope they go further into.

I agree with most of the stuff you said here.
I really liked the Sontaran and hoped Rory or the Doctor would save him, but some great characters dont get saved...
I agree with you that just because we havent seen them before, doesnt mean the Doctor hasnt interacted with them as we dont see all his adventures.
I also agree with you regarding River being Amy and Rorys daughter. I too saw it as a bit predictable, but it was so well done that I didnt really mind... I didnt really put two and two together as I was too focused on the episode lol. When the other girl was dying, I had a sudden thought she might be River as River mentioned seeing the Doctor as a kid and she did too, but that thought didnt last long, then I thought she was the Doctors daughter by the way they were speaking, but then I finally realised as Rory, Amy and River were talking that River was their daughter.

Fantastic, but disappointed that the whole River thing turned out to be the most obvious solution. I kinda expected more from Moffat, something totally unpredictable and out there, but something that makes perfect sense too.

I wanted something unpredictable that made sense too, yeah Im abit disappointed it was a bit of an obvious solution, but it was done well, so Im half and half right now, need to do a full rewatch now...

[Teddybrown]

Aha! I thought this too! Glad to see that GW's resident WhoMaster had the same thought I wonder what it means for future storytelling though? I seem to recall that the original (real) Cybermen were utterly defeated in the Cyber-wars of the 2500s; their only survivors being the band that were rediscovered and defeated in Tomb of the Cybermen? Admittedly, that'd probably be about 2500 years prior to this episode so that's plenty of time to rebuild.

Anyway, another fantastic episode. I think I preferred the original/rumoured title Demons Run, but that's such a minor issue that it's hardly worth mentioning. I loved this episode, and I can't wait to see how this story continues to play out and how it fits in with the Silence!
edit; oh, something else I forgot to mention! It seems it's now canon that the homo-reptilia of last year's two-parter are indeed called Silurians

Sorry, cant edit my post, sorry about the double post
Thats what Im really interested in!
And all these pre 2005 cybermen stories kinda confuse me as I havent seen anthing pre 05 of the old Who

[Nth Chevron]

The young soldier womans name was Lorna Bucket.

Another weird name ..

N.C