“Lord knows what Amy’s giving birth to, if it’s River or the Time Lord child or something else (assuming they're not the same thing). Welcome to my thought processes for the next seven days…”
TV Well of course she is. If the synonymtastic name connection didn’t at least make it a possibility before A Good Man Goes To War, as soon as Amy decided to designate her daughter Melody, the jig was up (good job she didn't name the baby after her Auntie Sharon). Except, I didn’t notice. Because as we’ve discussed before, if an episode is as entertaining as this the higher functions of my brain, the inquisitive ones which only once clicked in half way through as I wondered of Steven Moffat, “Where is he going with this?” take back seat to my emotional responses. This franchise is a love affair, and like the hottest of love affairs, when you’re in the same room as the person for whom you’ve pledged your heart and the whole rest of your being, you’re hanging on their every word even if you’re missing the detail of what they’re saying. Oh and you’ll forgive them everything, until you can’t.
Indeed right up until River said the words, I briefly thought she might even be the Doctor’s mother, Moffat becoming a good man going to war against the Cartmel Masterplan. But then he instead offered an Empire Strikes Back-style revelation for a new generation of kids and I was screaming: “I knew it! I knew it!”, pointing at the screen and roaring in that way that only Doctor Who seems capable of (allowing for the likes of All Along The Watchtower and the murder of Francie elsewhere). Because apart from the name game, she could plug herself into the mainframe in Forest of the Dead, something the Doctor explicitly suggested only his Time Lord brain was capable of because of all the empty space (the empty space which had previously contained a copy of Gallifrey let us novel readers not forget).
Moffat has seeded has also seeded plenty of other mysteries to fuel the engines of stories to come. We know she’s a Time Lady and the implication, judging by the flashbacks, is that she’s the little Time Lady from the opening couple of episodes. Which would mean that she hasn’t simply grown up from the baby in Kovarian’s possession. She’s regenerated in the meantime. That’s after she’s presumably been turned into a weapon, the weapon in the space suit which we’ve seen kill the future Doctor. Perhaps that’s why he’s so relaxed on seeing her. Perhaps the moment when River murders “a good man” and whoever brought her to justice, placed her in the leaky Storm Cage has a very long memory (or she was very good at evading capture all of those years).
The point is, as Moffat explains in Confidential, this might seem like the close of a story but it's, as kick-ass Rose Tyler might lisp, “only just beginning” and I’ve already written five hundred odd words without addressing much of the content of the episode. Is this a good episode? Yes, yes, I believe it is. It’s an atypical episode as Moffat’s stories tend to be, his “finales” in particular, no simple TARDIS landing at the beginning, sniffing about for adventure, then back inside for tea. It’s also superficially a fourth generation copy of a mis-remembered Kurosawa film, the Doctor leading his motley band of very noble outlaws into a hidden fortress to save a princess and her child. It’s also about, in a similar way to The Doctor’s Wife, making the audience as gullible as the last of the Time Lords.
The opening of the episode underscores the Doctor’s mythic status, reminding the viewer of all the previous moments, from Forest of the Dead through The Pandorica Opens, when he’s defeated an enemy simply by reminding them who he is, building him up to be the figure that River has previously suggested he will become or even has been during the time war, the oncoming storm. This is classic hero building, and Colonel Manton even sounds like he’s contradicting one of my old film studies essays about the Doctor where I quoted from Howard Bloch who describes this kind of wizard as ‘a shifter, trickster, joker, arbiter of value and of meaning’ (Bloch, 1983: 2) and Judith Kellogg who proposes they can be ‘a military strategist and master manipulator and yet a mediator and peacemaker – a paradox’ (Kellogg, 1993: 57). As River Song says later, his nom de plume has been subverted somewhat.
Moffat asks for our patience during these scenes as he subverts the traditional storytelling set up of the show. Like so many Doctor Who stories we’re introduced to a base, Demon’s Run, and some random humans who’ll become acquaintances to the Doctor later on, in this case the Anglican gay twins who cheekily seem to have wandered in from a Russell T Davies page one rewrite, one of which is viciously killed by the local alien regime in a moment which would ordinarily herald the opening credits and be followed by the TARDIS landing depositing the one man who can save them (replace the Character Options baiting Headless Monks with the Ood, the Smilers or Tractators if it helps). Except in this story, from their point of view, the Doctor’s the monster who’s going to put the base under siege, after he’s rounded up some rowdy old friends who aim to misbehave.
It is a disappointment that having introduced the Cybermen, they’re ultimately there for just for a good sight gag and don’t join this merry band – albeit a sight gag which underscores just how angry the Doctor is, wiping out a whole fleet as a negotiating tool. As a side note, what is the genus of these metal men? They look like the old parallel universe Cybus Industries model without the logo on their chest plate. Is this supposed to be the first appearance of the Mondasian Cybes in the nu-series bar a severed head in Dalek. Have they taken on this design and temperament through some kind of parallel development? Oh the joys of amortising old costumes. If only one of them had given us a good old David Banks style “Excellent…” Perhaps next time.
These scenes glance towards a view of the franchise which is closest to the spin-off universe as its ever been. The adventures which led to Vastra becoming a Victorian adventuress or Strax a nurse have yet to be written but sound like something from one of the novels or audios or comics and once again we’re reminded that these few television episodes are just a glimpse of a far wider narrative, tapping into the one magical moment in Timelash, the reveal that the Third Doctor and Jo had visited Karfel before in some unseen story, not to mention his inveterate name dropping when it comes to historical figures, helping Shakespeare to write Hamlet and the like. Someone’s presumably trying to fit these sidesteps into a chronology as you read and I type.
What we’re effectively seeing is the aftermath of the kinds of meanderings mentioned in The End of Time and seen in The Impossible Astronaut and I’d be interested to know how the casual viewer takes to all of this. I’ve already noticed one professional reviewer suggest that these new characters barely register, which is rubbish since by essentially tapping into what we already know about these particular races but introducing some new ironic quirks, she’s a lesbian who fancies humans just as much as she likes to eat them (and eat them out apparently judging by Catrin Stewart comic timing) and he’s been genetically modified to produce milk and still thinks himself masculine enough to go into battle. Beautifully realised by returning actors Neve McIntosh and Dan Starkey, I adored both of them, and blubbed when the latter died.
This was a large cast for, even with a five minute bump in the running time, a relatively short duration. But Moffat knows that the revelation that Amy’s baby is part Time Lord can’t be talked through with any of the existing ensemble so part of his rational in designing this “army” is to give the Doctor someone familiar to chat with. As ever I marvel at the ability of actors who are relative strangers to create prior relationships out of thin air. Apart from Dorium we’ve never seen these characters before (and even him only briefly) and yet we might as well be watching an episode of Friends from deep into season Eight in which one member of that other co-dependant, emotionally stunted, dysfunctional group dynamic is revealing to another his feelings for Rachel.
After keeping the Doctor off-screen for over twenty minutes we’re in position of the enemy, surprised as old friend and after old friend joins the skirmish and however outrageous it is to call Bonneville and co in for a single shot, Mark Gattis providing the voice for the spitfires in space again, it’s the myth going into action, with even people the Doctor’s only briefly met in the past and didn’t even know were in the vicinity, willing to give their lives for him. This is similar territory to Journey’s End and Davros’s big speech again, and its in these moments when the Doctor’s arrogance is being fed and simultaneously the audience’s gullibility. Because after all of the build up and as far as we can see, little Melody Pond having been rescued, Moffat does the unthinkable and hangs us with the same plot twist, then has Kovarian say so!
Much of this is because Matt Smith underplays the Doctor’s fury. When the Time Lord says that he’s angry and “that’s new”, it’s all under the surface, his body shaking slightly as though he wants to have a good old fashioned rant (cf, Dalek and The Waters of Mars) but he’s keeping it contained because he understands the power of not letting his foe discover in actuality what he’s capable of, nourishing that myth instead. It’s one of those occasions when Smith’s unusual face is able project the kind of unpredictability that hid behind Heath Ledger’s make-up as the Joker in The Dark Knight. He could stab Manton through the eye at any second and he’s so good, we somewhat believe that he’s won as Kovarian ushers herself and entourage away (see one paragraph ago for the terrible consequences).
Instead he reserves his shouting for River. Where was she? Who is SHE? Well, indeed. Doctor Song’s function in the episode is largely simply to reappear at the end and tell the Doctor who she is, knowing the moment would come all of her life, perhaps even remembering the details having already been there which is a typical Moffat trick usually deployed in charity specials (just how conscious are Time Lords at baby age? The little girl in the alleyway seemed precociously self aware). It’s perhaps unfair to suggest Alex Kingston didn’t need to do much acting in this scene, but Moffat presumably knew that having forced the actress to hold them close to her chest all of these years, the relief of finally being able to say the words would aid her performance.
This isn’t the first time that Frances Barber and Alex Kingston have been on the same casting sheet together – she essayed the role of Agrippina in Boudica. It’s also not the first time she’s played this kind of role, having stalked half of Europe chasing a young girl in the little known but highly recommended Eurosouper La sirène rouge, even if there, as I recall, the campery was with a cockerney accent. Apparently she didn’t know that she would be appearing in nearly every episode of the season; I wondering if she’s called her agent about the extra fees? We still barely know who this woman is or her beef with the Doctor beyond some loose threats about wanting to destroy him and requiring another Time Lord in order to accomplish this.
Meanwhile, Rory mans up in order to save Amy. Someone suggested to me in the week that Arthur only really projects three emotions, angry, bewildered and sad. That's probably as many as I'm capable of, but I argued and will again now, that there's a fair complexity to what Darvill is doing and that in A Good Man Goes To War, he's filling the shoes of the rational Doctor, the one we usually see who isn't trying to essay some higher state of godliness asking for guns to be put in his face. Watch how in the initial Storm Cage scenes he plays the mixture of familiarity and politeness with a somewhat distant River, not really knowing how to approach someone who in the previous story had been so familiar with him in talking about what she believes her fate will be.
I’m going to go out on not much of a limb admittedly and suggest Karen’s never been as good as she was in that scene with Lorna Bucket. Of all the emotions, Karen’s not had to play deliberate cruelty before and when she jokily asks for a gun so she can end Bucket’s sympathy it’s genuinely shocking, even as it’s undercut by her realisation that she’s gone too far and this soldier, this woman may well be useful once the Doctor returns. As I type this, I realise that the reason the sewing hasn’t already been translated is because the TARDIS hasn’t landed yet along with its translation circuit and that the River can read the Gallifreyan script on the side of the cot because her advanced brain is capable of it. That may have been explained in the episode. U've been writing this for five hours. Um, moving on.
But moving on to what? The cause of this cliffhanger was mystery and revelation, the mystery of where the Doctor’s buggered off to and the revelation that prompted him and that episode title. Where once we were teased with The Next Doctor, now we’re smacked around the face by the oldest time travel chestnut of them all and the reason a Nazi scene was cut from The Impossible Astronaut, “Let’s Kill Hitler”. Does this mean A Good Man Goes To War is the first half of a two parter or a single with a cliffhanger? Are we going to be having debates to rival the SOD U LOTT debarkle? As we watch, and rewatch these seven episodes looking for clues, one thing’s for sure. Doctor Who as a franchise continues to be in safe hands and those hands really know how to caress this fan's erogenous zones.
Bibliography
Bloch, R. Howard. 1983. Etymologies and Genealogies: A Literary Anthropology of the French Middle Ages. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago.
Kellogg, Judith L., 1993. The Dynamics of Dumbing: The Case of Merlin In Lion and the Unicorn 17:1 June
