Let's Kill Hitler
So, I was actually incredibly unimpressed with the new Dr Who.
1. Timeline
With all the foreshadowing they do for everything else, not a mention of their best friend ever until this episode? Not in the first ep when they're all running round Leadworth, not in Amy's Choice, not in Big Bang, not when Amy freaking names her baby? Okay, I mean, let's say for the sake of argument that this is a timeline thing, that we saw the original timeline and then Melody went back and inserted herself into it. Why wouldn't they have, I don't know, mentioned that? Even vaguely? Maybe just a hint? Having seen some of the incredibly obvious things some fans work themselves into confusion about, I can only imagine the reaction to this.
2. Temporal irresponsibility
Apart from the fact that no one ever got Hitler out of the cupboard, if these tiny people make a living out of punishing war criminals and make a point of extracting them at the end of their lives rather than preventing them in the first place, why do they suck so much? They have no problem grabbing River right at the start of this regeneration, they're totally cool with disappearing that first Nazi a year before the war even starts solely because he happened to have the bad luck to be walking past while looking like someone who could get into Hitler's office. Come on, guys, really?
3. Troublemaking
For a season and a half we've been led to believe that Amy was a difficult child. Now we get an episode that shows kiddie River getting into a lot of trouble while Amelia stands outside the headmaster's office waiting to scold her, with just a throwaway line about her counting as a boy when it comes to getting in trouble. What happened to "a best friend helps you move bodies?" Why wasn't Amelia in there with her?
4. Imaginary friends
Relatedly, Amelia had four psychiatrists. Because she kept insisting that the Doctor was real and no one believed her. But in Let's Kill Hitler, we only see her talk about the Doctor as real once, as a seven year old - after that it's just Mels. Mels being incredibly outspoken about it, in fact. The next time Amy actually talks about the Doctor is saying that he's not real in her late teens when she's either grown out of it or is pretending she's grown out of it. Half of Leadworth probably wouldn't even remember that it was originally Amelia's story, because Melody's the one going on and on about it.
5. Psychopaths don't make great friends
This is not my biggest quibble because lord, people do not make the best decisions when it comes to friends. But in between the mad hijinks and all would be a lot of really annoying shit. Mind you I don't actually necessarily think Mels is a psychopath, but even if she did in fact care a good deal about Amy and Rory, she does have an obvious lack of caring for consequences that would have ended up with bad things for them many, many times, even if she hadn't intended it.
6. Age
Last time we saw kid-River she was a little girl a few decades ago, regenerating. For this episode to make sense, what would have had to happen is this: she regenerates into someone new. That regeneration makes its way to the vague area where Amy and Rory will grow up, despite having actually barely met either of them before. (I'm going to pretend she was given all the information by the people who brainwashed her because otherwise it's even worse nonsense.) She then waits for time to catch up, while starting to grow up. At the appropriate time, she regenerates again and moves to Leadworth, in no particular order, and then continues to grow up (at the same age as a human child). She says she came back as a toddler "last time" so apparently she went backwards in development - okay, the Doctor comes back younger quite a lot, but he is already an adult. Regenerating as a baby seems kind of stupid. You go through the early stages of development, adolescence and puberty and teenage years and all that, you die... and now you're a toddler again. So are you really precocious now, or do you have to go through all that development again? Let's at least pretend that by "toddler" she means "child", as in, something younger than seven (the first time we see her). Did she get herself adopted? Did she raise herself? We don't know. We're forced to make wild guesses in order to make it make sense.
Depressingly, she also now looks really close to the age she gets put in the box kinda-dies at. Luckily she still has to do all her studying and adventures and be in jail for a while before then - and on the plus side, once she's in the virtual reality her life doesn't have to completely fucking revolve around the Doctor anymore. Pity it's, you know, a virtual reality.
7. Agency
So, what did Amy do to actually help in this episode? Anyone? I can think of about one thing - she stopped the Justicebot workers from extracting River, but even that was not done very well. She first deactivated their own authorisation, then everyone else's - why didn't she do everyone else's to start with, or if that was too hard, just everyone at once? And then why didn't she reactivate theirs so they didn't need saving? I guess they really wanted to get Mels flying the TARDIS in there and it wouldn't have been as dramatic if she'd just been, like, fetching them out rather than also saving their lives, but that doesn't justify it on a Watsonian level. Either way, that was pretty much her contribution to awesome this episode. Everything else went to River and Rory.
There's quite a bit more, though ultimately it doesn't annoy me as much as the complete logical quagmire that was the lonely angels two-parter, but I can't be bothered writing a whole novel about it. Suffice to say, it was completely lazy writing on Moffat's part and I really, really hope the next one is better.
This entry was originally posted at http://keieeeye.dreamwidth.org/190812.html. Feel free to comment there instead because LJ is a poo.
1. Timeline
With all the foreshadowing they do for everything else, not a mention of their best friend ever until this episode? Not in the first ep when they're all running round Leadworth, not in Amy's Choice, not in Big Bang, not when Amy freaking names her baby? Okay, I mean, let's say for the sake of argument that this is a timeline thing, that we saw the original timeline and then Melody went back and inserted herself into it. Why wouldn't they have, I don't know, mentioned that? Even vaguely? Maybe just a hint? Having seen some of the incredibly obvious things some fans work themselves into confusion about, I can only imagine the reaction to this.
2. Temporal irresponsibility
Apart from the fact that no one ever got Hitler out of the cupboard, if these tiny people make a living out of punishing war criminals and make a point of extracting them at the end of their lives rather than preventing them in the first place, why do they suck so much? They have no problem grabbing River right at the start of this regeneration, they're totally cool with disappearing that first Nazi a year before the war even starts solely because he happened to have the bad luck to be walking past while looking like someone who could get into Hitler's office. Come on, guys, really?
3. Troublemaking
For a season and a half we've been led to believe that Amy was a difficult child. Now we get an episode that shows kiddie River getting into a lot of trouble while Amelia stands outside the headmaster's office waiting to scold her, with just a throwaway line about her counting as a boy when it comes to getting in trouble. What happened to "a best friend helps you move bodies?" Why wasn't Amelia in there with her?
4. Imaginary friends
Relatedly, Amelia had four psychiatrists. Because she kept insisting that the Doctor was real and no one believed her. But in Let's Kill Hitler, we only see her talk about the Doctor as real once, as a seven year old - after that it's just Mels. Mels being incredibly outspoken about it, in fact. The next time Amy actually talks about the Doctor is saying that he's not real in her late teens when she's either grown out of it or is pretending she's grown out of it. Half of Leadworth probably wouldn't even remember that it was originally Amelia's story, because Melody's the one going on and on about it.
5. Psychopaths don't make great friends
This is not my biggest quibble because lord, people do not make the best decisions when it comes to friends. But in between the mad hijinks and all would be a lot of really annoying shit. Mind you I don't actually necessarily think Mels is a psychopath, but even if she did in fact care a good deal about Amy and Rory, she does have an obvious lack of caring for consequences that would have ended up with bad things for them many, many times, even if she hadn't intended it.
6. Age
Last time we saw kid-River she was a little girl a few decades ago, regenerating. For this episode to make sense, what would have had to happen is this: she regenerates into someone new. That regeneration makes its way to the vague area where Amy and Rory will grow up, despite having actually barely met either of them before. (I'm going to pretend she was given all the information by the people who brainwashed her because otherwise it's even worse nonsense.) She then waits for time to catch up, while starting to grow up. At the appropriate time, she regenerates again and moves to Leadworth, in no particular order, and then continues to grow up (at the same age as a human child). She says she came back as a toddler "last time" so apparently she went backwards in development - okay, the Doctor comes back younger quite a lot, but he is already an adult. Regenerating as a baby seems kind of stupid. You go through the early stages of development, adolescence and puberty and teenage years and all that, you die... and now you're a toddler again. So are you really precocious now, or do you have to go through all that development again? Let's at least pretend that by "toddler" she means "child", as in, something younger than seven (the first time we see her). Did she get herself adopted? Did she raise herself? We don't know. We're forced to make wild guesses in order to make it make sense.
Depressingly, she also now looks really close to the age she gets put in the box kinda-dies at. Luckily she still has to do all her studying and adventures and be in jail for a while before then - and on the plus side, once she's in the virtual reality her life doesn't have to completely fucking revolve around the Doctor anymore. Pity it's, you know, a virtual reality.
7. Agency
So, what did Amy do to actually help in this episode? Anyone? I can think of about one thing - she stopped the Justicebot workers from extracting River, but even that was not done very well. She first deactivated their own authorisation, then everyone else's - why didn't she do everyone else's to start with, or if that was too hard, just everyone at once? And then why didn't she reactivate theirs so they didn't need saving? I guess they really wanted to get Mels flying the TARDIS in there and it wouldn't have been as dramatic if she'd just been, like, fetching them out rather than also saving their lives, but that doesn't justify it on a Watsonian level. Either way, that was pretty much her contribution to awesome this episode. Everything else went to River and Rory.
There's quite a bit more, though ultimately it doesn't annoy me as much as the complete logical quagmire that was the lonely angels two-parter, but I can't be bothered writing a whole novel about it. Suffice to say, it was completely lazy writing on Moffat's part and I really, really hope the next one is better.
This entry was originally posted at http://keieeeye.dreamwidth.org/190812.html. Feel free to comment there instead because LJ is a poo.