S06E07 - A Good Man Goes to War

Demon’s run when a good man goes to war.
Night will fall and drown the sun, when a good man goes to war.
Friendship dies and true love lies, night will fall and the dark will rise when a good man goes to war.
Demon’s run but count the cost, the battle’s won but the child is lost…

And watching ‘A Good Man Goes to War’ for a second time, just to do this review leaves me on a high greater than the first time round: THAT is the brilliance of Who on a fellow Whovian! That aside, what an episode! One of the greatest secrets since 2008 finally revealed and the first companion to ever have a child on screen (well not literally having it on screen, but I mean the first one to actually HAVE a child and to see said child on screen) and both of these linked in the most brilliant way possible. Although it was speculation in recent months that bordered upon the truth in the comWHOnity (see what I did there?), but to see it actually lived and played out on screen… well, just wow, eh?

Now I know every week I give immense praise and usually, regularly, repeat the words ‘fantastic’ and ‘wow’—the latter of which I have already done so, but they just have to be said, because other words just don’t cover the epic-ness and plot-y-ness of show, the brilliance of Moffat and his ties between, not only episodes, but whole series’ too. What a man… and for once not one of immediate important characters got killed! Okay; Dorium, Commander (Nurse) Strax and Lorna were killed off, but in relation to the main characters, there wasn’t an ‘Oh no they killed…’ moment, which was brilliant. See, brilliance CAN be made WITHOUT killing someone important to the show…

Then again, kidnapping a child, that’s almost as worse, especially since said child was Amy and Rory’s, but the matter remains that the child is SAFE, or at least alive for the moment… Of course we all know what happens to little Melody Pond (Williams, but Amy kept Pond so tough titties to Rory :P ) as per Impossible Astronaut / Day of the Moon, but the question lies in what happens BETWEEN those times, how Melody came from being with Madam Kovarian (evil but amazing, loving Frances Barber currently) to being kept under lock and key by the Silents. I suppose only time will tell, and in Who, that could be longer than expected…

Now I mentioned Dorium, Strax and Lorna before and have to add for name’s sake Vastra and Jenny to the list, because how brilliant were these secondary cast? Okay, a lot of recurring characters: Strax being played by Dan Starkey who appeared in the double Sontaran episode of 2008; Neve McIntosh portraying Vastra having appeared as the sisters Alaya and Restac in the Silurian two-parter last year; also of course Simon Fisher-Becker reprising that mysterious character Dorium Maldovar, having appeared briefly last year to give River Song a Vortex Manipulator; and to add to the juicy dish of recurrence Henry and Toby Avery (Hugh Bonneville and Oscar Lloyd respectively) turn up for all of five seconds. Then of course there are new actors, new characters, and those in the form of Christina Chong’s Lorna Bucket and Catrin Stewart’s Jenny, whom many feared would be the same Jenny of 2008 (a lot of recurrence from series four here, clever Moffat!) but luckily not so.

Lorna Bucket, now there’s a character we can hope to see again. From the peaceful Gamma Forests where the only exciting thing to ever happen was the Doctor, it seems a brief adventure, one that the Doctor might of course have already gone through, but one suspects a little mental manipulation on what Lorna had witnessed when she met the Doctor might have caused the Doctor to happily improvise on how she knew the Lord. Of course Lorna becomes very much an important character, creating Melody’s prayer leaf that so cleverly reveals Melody’s other identity to the audience and the Ponds right at the end of the episode, but more from that shortly.

What a madcap forty-eight minutes ‘Good Man’ was though, with an appearance too from the rather obtuse fighter planes last seen in Victory of the iDaleks (and the voice of Mark Gatiss as Danny Boy) and the brilliant, albeit petite, airtime for a full on Cyberlegion! One cannot forget the central plot though, which with the many distractions throughout must have been something to do with an army being raised to fight the Doctor, an army I would like to call—thanks to many speculation of certain insignia the men and women were supporting on their barrettes—The Omega Army; maybe something to come back to at a later date, possibly not even later this year but doubtful, considering they are the same army, well a similar one, to the soldiers whom appeared in the Angel two-parter last year. But I digress…

So many twists and turns though, with River’s clever little warnings (“He will rise higher than ever before then fall so much further”) to Silurian relatively living in the ordinary Victorian society, eating Jack the Ripper and all. Speaking of which, not Jack the Ripper, but a lot of sudden gay and lesbian references, not that I for one am complaining in the slightest, but the Thin Fat Gay Married Anglican Marines and Jenny/Vastra (with the long tongue…) were a wonderful look back on all the gay references placed in the RTD series and somewhat lacking in the previous (though not TOO much considering) series.

Headless Monks! What a complete genius idea. Monks… with no head! No, but listen: They’re Monks without a head! The idea being that the heart contains the faith and the head creates doubt, the solution being one should remove the head to rid all doubt, which seems a perfectly adequate theory and solution AND put a new spin on the phrase ‘running around like a headless chicken’ don’t you think? Although their lighting sword things… wow! Not exactly weapons one has to say—their lighting ball hand things do that job—but conversions, converting their victims to their own logical way of headless thinking, as seen executed on Dorium, poor fella. Oh, and let’s not forget the Fat One’s conversion too, but he HAD been selected.

What else have I missed? Oh yes! Anyone else get scared, not twice, but THRICE that Melody was going to be the lovechild of Amy and the Doctor; the first being Amy talking of RORY, using his reputation as the Lone Centurion (altered costume to the one seen previously by the way) to attempt to scare Kovarian and co. from taking Melody, then secondly to Melody’s Timelord DNA (although this was the result of Amy and Rory doing it on their wedding night in the TARDIS), and the third being the Doctor answering a previous question of whom the Timelord cot belonged to while looking like he was answering Amy’s question regarding Melody (Amy: “It our [Amy and Rory’s] baby, tell us something, one little thing.” / Doctor: “It’s mine. The cot, it’s my cot.”)—phew! Damn that Moffat!

OH! And another thing: Regeneration! Now, in the old series it was generally law that a Timelord was given the regeneration cycle AFTER succeeding the Timelord Academy, yet in the new-new series (Moffat-ine) it seems that all Gallifreyian have the regeneration within them. Now, the possibility presented must be that, in fact, all Gallifreyians had the ability, but lying dormant, only after succeeding the Timelord Academy were they able to access that part of them and are taught how to use and control it. River/Melody though must be different. What if the regeneration she has (seen in Day of the Moon) ‘heals’ her, but doesn’t change her? Could it be possible she was taught, to some degree, by Madam Kovarian? And if so, how?

Now as you all know I can’t completely cover everything, so without further ado I need to talk about River Song! Who else knew or suspected of River’s true identity? I had my suspicious but I would never have linked her to the little girl of the opening two parter! Now technically—technically!—by the language of the Gamma Forest, ‘Melody Pond’ (liked the whole ‘kick-arse Geography teacher’ thing; sort of like Archeology, one must suppose) translates directly into ‘Song River’, but one has to presume for a moment that either River herself rearranged the words to the order we now know of, or the Gamma Forestines swap the surname and forename around, and River kept to this law, but informally using ‘River’ AS a forename… oh, the possibilities! Now that’s in the open though, River’s character isn’t exactly over-exposed, is she? So many question left unanswered, so long ‘til Part Two of Series Six—argh!

Now moving on and here we go!

Doctor = 10/10 – Perfect Doctorish entrance, being disguised as a Monk: very Runaway Bride…

Rory = 10/10 – And I quote: “I have a message and a question. A message from the Doctor and a question from me: Where. Is. My. Wife?!”

Amy = 10/10 – We really do see a completely other side to her; the more caring and quite literally mothering side of her which is just, you guessed it, fantastic. One scene really sticks to mind though, horrible though it is, when the Melody Amy’s holding turns to Flesh, and Amy’s reaction… just tear-inducing.

River = 10/10 – Although only briefly seen in adult form, the entire character of Melody Pond is created and subsequently answered in one episode, and River is just SO lovably smarmy it’s impossible not to dislike her!

Madam Kovarian = 10/10 – The older dominatrix, the main villain of the series and finally more answers about her appearance since Day of the Moon.

All the others = 10/10 – Everyone gets a ten! The acting was completely top notch in this episode, nothing was worth looking away from or for, and everyone did just a superb job!

Plot = 9/10 – Not entirely sure WHAT the plot was other than the Doctor gathering an army to fight an army (and find Amy) and Kovarian stealing (shall we say) a weapon to eventually fight the Doctor.

Episode Rating: 10 out of 10. From the moment the episode started to the second the end credits rolled, you could NOT take your eyes or ears off the screen: Simple as that.

And now the wait for Let’s Kill Hitler—a rather daring title considering Hitler and the whole Nazism (nice reference to Christopher and his Kind though), how it’s still a rather sticky topic to some Europeans, but am sure it’s going to be fantastic, and hopefully with more River and no Churchill and Bracewell (à la, Victory of the Playdoh-Daleks). And did anyone catch that trail right after the episode finished airing? It’s below and rather jaw-dropping, gut-wrenching stuff! But NO speculation until some truth is uncovered. Oh, and this isn’t the end of reviews ‘til next month’s Torchwood (delayed first review though ‘cos of personal holidays), no, one hopes that within the next fortnight ‘The Doctor Who Series Six, Part One Review’ will be up for reading! Until then though, ciao caio fer naow!