Well that was a little bit disappointing, wasn’t it. Perhaps a better statement would be anti-climactic. But lets start at the beginning.
This episode has a strong opening; I really liked the whole Doctor not seen right up until the attack stages thing that was going on. It had the risk of turning into a Davies-esque worship session, but it was short and well managed enough to avoid such annoying and sanctimonious elements. And it was pretty cool to see the Doctor’s army forming.
The Headless Monks (first referenced in “The Time of Angels”) are a very good villain and continue the new Doctor Who tradition of light religion bashing, by suggesting that the ultimate in religious worship is to remove your whole head (and brain) from the equation.
Evil one-eyed lady now has a name (and it isn’t Rani, which is annoying), and she seems to be evil and locked in a war with the Doctor, because the plot requires her to be. She’s pretty well acted, coming across with an understated anger and hatred towards the Doctor, earning the series slight reprieve from the last female villain we had, who was just loud and crazy.
But like I said her motivation isn’t exactly clear. It could be something that going to be explained in Autumn or it could be that Moffat was hoping to ride the what’s the baby/who is River Song question out for the whole episode. I mean there is an explanation offered by River at the end of the episode, when she says that the Doctor simply makes everyone so scared, by being so awesome. Erm, I can see where that point comes from, but it doesn’t seem to make much sense, in terms of the way that the Doctor reacts, in that he seems to agree.
I mean there’s two ways of looking at that reaction, one is to ask if Moffat seriously trying to get the audience to reflect upon the many times that the Doctor has killed the Daleks, or the Cybermen or any other villain, and consider whether he was doing something wrong. This would lead to the conclusion of someone from the BBC having to say “Steven, go get yourself checked out for Russell-T-Davies-itus...seriously, it can lead to stage two career cancer.”
The other way to look at it is to consider that this series has been running for almost fifty years and in its whole canon, the Doctor has never once agreed with the Timelord policy of never interfering with the Universe. This could be seen therefore as the first time that the Doctor has been made to look upon his actions and consider that perhaps it was not pomposity that led the Timelords to that policy but the fact that the whole Universe would eventually want a piece of their power and abilities and wage as many wars as it took to get them. I prefer to look at it this way, as it paints the Timelords as characters, and not simply the morons who didn’t see the wonder of the universe like the Doctor could. So the Doctor’s viewpoint that his race should be perfectly entitled to interfere and save/defeat whomever they like, is smacked right in the face, by the events of the episode.
But therein lies the problem, the Doctor really hasn’t done anything to make ordinary people scared. Why is the one-eyed lady so evil? River insinuates that this fear of the Doctor is wholly to blame for the events of the episode. But outside this episode, he really hasn’t done anything to make everyone fear him. Yeah, he’s the guy who can make whole armies turn and run away, but he only ever does that when they’re in the wrong. So anyone who’d be afraid of the Doctor would already be evil to start with. Now that doesn’t make River’s point any less valid in relation to those people, but the suggestion that all the good the Doctor had done by defeating evil armies, can be written off because it’s resulted in the events of this episode is kinda stupid. I mean yeah, I’m sure everyone’s really upset about the baby being stolen by evil one-eyed lady, but I really can’t get behind a motion that the Doctor should have allowed the universe to be taken over by the Daleks or enslaved by the Master or in any other way changed by some evil force, simply because it would have avoided this situation. The fact that evil people are afraid of the Doctor (based on his awesomeness) does not make him responsible for the actions of said evil people and to suggest that it does, makes me consider whether River’s IQ has taken a serious nose-dive since last time she was on screen.
And so, the little girl is River and she’s also part Timelord. Right, River I could buy (in fact Amy being her mother accounts for that sudden drop in her IQ), but part Timelord. How the fuck did that happen? She was conceived while the TARDIS was in flight.
Huh… the Doctor isn’t the only time traveller in the universe; there are plenty of people that one-eyed lady could have employed to get it on while travelling through the time vortex. I mean if that’s all it takes to make a Timelord why aren’t there loads running around?
I really hope that this gets elaborated on in Autumn and if it doesn’t I may call the police and look into whether they can visit Steven Moffat’s house to make sure that Russell T Davies isn’t hold a gun to his head and forcing him to write plot lines like this.
Right…so now we come to it, the baby is River Song. River Song is the baby. I wanted the baby to be the Rani goddamnit! Really don’t have much to say on this other than, it was, strangely enough too obvious to be the answer. Now I’m not trying to make excuses for not even putting the River/baby theory in my “Doctor who’s that little girl” post, I’m just saying that I thought, given the amount nostalgia and classic series canon clarification that Moffat is known for, both the child and the River would not turn but to be something linked exclusively to the revived series, but something that would call far back into his past. And also, is the Doctor porking River? That’s horrible man; there’s age difference, then there’s AGE DIFFERENCE. He held her as a baby! And he once made out with her mum!
However, given the apparent regeneration ability that this gives her, this does mean that River Song could potentially be played by anyone in the upcoming episodes, given that her appearance would be different. I mean that would also make sense. No offence to Alex Kingstone, but she does appear to be a bit older than Matt Smith and the idea of him going after a younger version of her would seem to make sense…I’m not trying to be ageist here, but honestly look at the companions he’s had a romantic connection with. They’ve always been younger than him.
Well writing this is hurting my head now, so I’m going to summarize.
Not exactly a good episode; definitely one of Moffat’s lesser achievements. The River Song reveal is a bit disappointing, but hey, what can you do, other than mail a box of human excrement to the BBC.
One more thing before I go; baby exploding into goo, on family show…ALWAYS AWESOME!
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