Review/meta on Let's Kill Hitler. SPOILERS!
Outside the cut, two things:
Everybody kills Hitler on their first trip...
Because it is internet history, everyone should read it, and I'll bet anything that the Moff knows it. Plus it's hilarious!
And also, from Forest of the Dead, because I’ve lost count of the number of people who I've seen mis-remembering this:
RIVER: Difficult? It'll kill you stone dead!
DOCTOR: Yeah, it's easy to criticise.
RIVER: It'll burn out both your hearts and don't think you'll regenerate!
ETA: Almost forgot! I overheard Impish Girl (age 10) talking to my father-in-law when he said he'd tried to watch LKH and not been able to get into it (he also has a tendency to fall asleep when watching anything that isn't rugby...): "Of course you can't understand it grandad! You don't even know who River Song is!" (I have rarely heard anything so patronising. So don't believe anyone who says the show is too complicated for kids!)
Sealed with a kiss
“I’m going to wear LOTS of jodhpurs!”
This might have been my favourite line out of all of them. The sheer delight in her voice was just wonderful!
Anyway, I’m basically just going to go through the episode and address things as we move along. To begin...
~
The story so far...
Allow me to drag out an observation I made at the beginning of the season:
I said then that the Doctor’s death had re-written time, which meant that we are now in an AU.
My thoughts have... evolved, but I’ll get back to this. Just wanted to point it out, because I still think we’re in an AU, so everything that happens should be taken with a certain amount of caution. Yes, what’s happened has happened, but it might be re-written... Anyway, onto the episode.
~
The crop circles were fun, and even though Mels’ entrance had River Song written all over it I didn’t twig at all. Also (especially with hindsight) love that within the 10 minutes or so that Mels was on screen she and the Doctor a) flirted, b) argued and c) discussed marriage. Hurrah for not meeting Melody as a little girl and avoiding anything squicky! \o/
(Oh God he danced with EVERYONE at the wedding. My head is still flailing. It’s the cleverest little thing, which does about 5 things simultaneously.)
~
The teslator is a FABULOUS idea. And the moment where it turns itself into the Nazi official, I was - in my head - begging for it to reach out and take the glasses off the other... AND THEN IT DID! Oh it was perfect. Really, the whole thing was a truly delightful idea. The anti-bodies (and their design), the way the tesalator worked, with all the tiny squares turning over... *flaily hands* (Darcy was rather impressed too, and reckoned that they must have a fair bit more money now, since the show - this season in particular - has just far better production values [in his not-very-humble opinion]. I said that I was pretty sure their budget has been reduced, but he didn’t believe me.)
~
Oh and Hitler. Brilliant idea, esp Rory punching him (the Centurion beginning to bleed into Rory a fair bit now, I think, although he also went straight for the hurt people, as always) and the fact that Hitler was then locked in a cupboard for the rest of the episode. (“There’s a banging in my head.”/”I think that’s Hitler in the cupboard.”) Fabulous. Esp because the whole issue is very heavy for a children’s show, and steered clear of anything particularly difficult, but those parents who want to use this as a springboard for delving into the history behind it all, can. (There’s a whole page on the official website with links.) And it also, with the Tesalator, addressed the issue of vigilantism, but it wasn’t hammered home. The Doctor disapproved (of the Tesalator, and of Hitler), and that will have been enough for most kids. There is a difference between justice and vengeance, and the episode balanced all this very well.
~
And then... Mels revealed who she was. The flashbacks were beyond adorable!
Seeing Little!Rory, especially, and getting a glimpse into ordinary everyday life was extremely delightful, and the whole situation where Amy thought that Rory was gay... Too much love! Also “I count as a boy!” was just perfect!
As for Mels, then she was a very interesting character, in that she gave Amy someone who believed in the Doctor, but someone deeply critical. (The Titanic sank because the Doctor didn’t save it! Hitler rose to power because the Doctor didn’t stop him!) And Amy and Rory are SO parental, it’s hilarious.
Plus, I couldn’t help notice that Mels kept getting in trouble (Stormcage won’t be the first time she’s seen the inside of a prison), and I love the way this showcases a young Timelady with no one to really keep her in check, who just does whatever she wants, because she can. Well I say ‘no one’ - her parents *are* there, and she clearly does care what they say. But she's still rebelling.
(Also I'm now writing Mels/Jeff in my head. Because he's pretty.)
Now as for Melody finding her parents, I’m going to borrow a line from a little later on:
"I might take the age down a little, just gradually, just to freak people out."
Firstly, this is v. clever because this allows them to use Alex Kingston for as long as they like, without worrying about the actress ageing.
But secondly (since she talks as if she already knows that taking down her age is something she can do) could Melody have lived her way to her parents from 1969 (or 1970)? “Took me years to find you,” she says. Which would make her... About 40 when we first meet Mels, which would make sense from a Timelord perspective (the Doctor talks about being ‘a kid’ aged 97), and would also make Alex Kingston’s looks quite appropriate.
Plus, re. Amy naming her baby after her friend Mels, then this makes perfect sense of something that puzzled me at the time. Melody is not a common name, and I was a little surprised that Rory accepted that Amy had named their baby already - as if baby names was something they’d discussed, when of course this was quite unlikely. But with ‘Mels’ in the picture, the name would have been a logical choice, leaving only the surname to be argued over. :)
~
Anyway, Mels regenerates.
I love how young!River is a direct continuation of Mels. Overconfident, over the top, all bravura and (quite literally) in-your-face. Also her utter delight at her new body just puts a smile on my face. I’ve always loved the Doctor’s absolute self-confidence (just see him checking himself out in the mirror in Venice), and am pretty sure this is a general Timelord trait. They’re just that fabulous! Which of course also comes with a hefty dose of arrogance...
(Also more Graduate jokes! \o/ And now Eleven code-naming River ‘Mrs Robison’ in TIA is actually even funnier, since she undoubtedly remembers ‘Hello Benjamin’, and cringes inwardly.)
Anyway, then the 'dancing' starts, and oh, the Doctor is quite enjoying himself.
“My bespoke psychopath.”
Now in my head there is this kind of ‘You shouldn’t have...’ at the end of that statement. As if Kovarian was getting him the best present *ever* (he really has a thing for bad guys - see ALLLLLLL his Master issues), and he’s actually a bit excited to have assassin!River to play with. It’s a thrill. A dance, like I said. I’m going to try to keep Buffy quotes to a minimum, but this one I NEED to bring out:
SPIKE: She was cunning, resourceful... oh, did I mention? Hot. I could have danced all night with that one.
BUFFY: You think we're dancing?
SPIKE: That's all we've ever done.
The whole thing with switching the guns around and even sparring... It’s fun and zippy and the Doctor, I think, is playing, because he knows that she’ll be his in the end, so isn’t actually taking things seriously. And then comes the kiss.
The kiss works, because... Well, he’s conditioned to kiss her, as it were. He doesn’t pull away (as a matter of fact he leans in!), because kissing is what they do. He’s clearly thinking 'Hey, even when she’s evil, I get kisses! That’s way better than the Master!’
But here’s the thing: She just kills him. It’s not a game (or not for long), and she has no emotional investment in him (unlike the Master). He’s a mark, a target, and she’s there to do her job. Which, btw, she does unbelievably well. As a weapon she is undeniably effective and efficient, and I love it to pieces!
Also see Scott Evil:
Dr. Evil: Scott, I want you to meet daddy's nemesis, Austin Powers
Scott Evil: What? Are you feeding him? Why don't you just kill him?
Dr. Evil: I have an even better idea. I'm going to place him in an easily escapable situation involving an overly elaborate and exotic death.
[...]
Dr. Evil: All right guard, begin the unnecessarily slow-moving dipping mechanism.
[guard starts dipping mechanism]
Dr. Evil: Close the tank!
Scott Evil: Wait, aren't you even going to watch them? They could get away!
Dr. Evil: No no no, I'm going to leave them alone and not actually witness them dying, I'm just gonna assume it all went to plan. What?
Scott Evil: I have a gun, in my room, you give me five seconds, I'll get it, I'll come back down here, BOOM, I'll blow their brains out!
Dr. Evil: Scott, you just don't get it, do ya? You don't.
Or Watchmen:
Adrian Veidt: I'm not a comic book villain. Do you seriously think I would explain my master stroke to you if there were even the slightest possibility you could affect the outcome? I triggered it 35 minutes ago.
River just kills him. And I think he’s quite shocked at that. It rather throws a spanner in the works, to say the least. /understatement
The rest of the episode is essentially the Doctor trying to use his last remaining moments to save her (and Amy and Rory) - somehow.
~
River laughing off the guards shooting her is DELIGHTFUL (hurrah at continuity from The Christmas Invasion!), as is her quest for clothes. Not to mention ‘Well, I was on my way to this gay gipsy Bar Mitzwah for the disabled when I thought - Gosh, the Third Reich’s a bit rubbish, I think I’ll kill the Furher!”
And can we just get the Capt John Hart parallels out of the way before we go any further? There’s the killer lipstick, the dress sense (Mmm, military jackets), and this:
“Take off your clothes!” - the way she says it... *flail-y hands*
And Amy and Rory following (Yay for Rory and the bike!) and looking for a sign... (This episode is so FUNNY! :D)
I’m also reminded of ‘Why We Fight’ and:
ANGEL: Spike's not in the S.S. He just likes wearing the jacket.
~
Now about the scene in the TARDIS with all the guilt piling on. Love that Rose is the first option in ‘Give me someone I like!’ - it’s such a light touch, tying into the past without belabouring the point, and also - with the addition of Martha and Donna - brings us to the Doctor’s admission of the fact that he screws people up. (I mean, obviously he does, and obviously he knows it, but I like having these things acknowledged.)
But other than that, I’ve seen a few people wonder what was the point. And (thanks to owlsie, who asked this precise question), I had somewhat of an epiphany:
The thing is that he asks Amelia to give him a reason to live (or to hang on, more precisely): It's just like Bracewell! Remember the Doctor trying to get him to hang on to his humanity, and 'You're in pain, that means you're alive!'... Except that didn't work.
What did work was Amy reminding him of being in love. The same applies here. Guilt is not something that will keep you going (as Ten amply proved, and Eleven now knows) - but the simple fact that someone cares ('Fishfingers and custard') gives him the strength to go and try to save River.
Or, to quote the_royal_anna who once said:
We don't stop being human when we lose our hearts; nor when we lose our heads. And every last vestige of humanity can be drained from us, but as long as somebody, somewhere cares, we are not dust.
~
Robot!Amy (or Tesalator!Amy I suppose) was brilliant, and so were Amy and Rory trapped inside. (Imagine me applauding anything to do with them from now on.) Very clever set-up, and used brilliantly.
And then... Cue the Doctor. Who has changed into tophat and tails because he’s dying. (Remember what I said above about the peacock nature of Timelords?) Anyway, I think this is where this particular quote comes into its own (subversion, thy name is Moffat):
She left out the part where she KILLED him...
Now, to get down to the heart of the episode - the ‘redemption’ of River Song. I’m putting the word in inverted commas, because what we get is not really a redemption story. The word ‘psychopath’ gets thrown around, but River isn’t one. She’s a weapon, conditioned to perform a certain task, and what the Doctor tries to do is make her choose a different path. Try to get her to break her programming - or more precisely, show her why she would want to.
Here, let me drag a quote out from Buffy:
GILES: Maybe. Maybe not. In my experience, there are... two types of monster. The first, uh, can be redeemed, or more importantly, wants to be redeemed.
BUFFY: And the second type?
GILES: The second is void of humanity, cannot respond to reason... or love.
Capt John Hart is a psychopath. Melody isn’t. And it strikes me that Moffat isn’t really all that interested in bad!River. By the end of the episode she’s the River we know, albeit at the very, very start. And that’s the woman Moffat is interested in. All of this was filling in the blanks of how she became who she is, and if it feels rushed, that’s probably because it is: It's background, stuff we need to know, but not all that important. We can move on with the main story now.
~
Anyway, there are obvious parallels with the Library episodes, in that this is the first time Melody/Mels/River meets the Doctor. But there are differences too. Oh are there ever. And - bizarrely - I think River comes out with more agency than the Doctor. Let me grab some screencaps and explain what I mean:
River dropped into the Doctor’s life out of nowhere, and he didn’t have a clue what to with her. He resented her relationship with his future self, her self assurance and competence, her knowledge of *him*, full stop.
And then she sacrificed herself in his stead, leaving him with massive amounts of guilt, and the desire to run away from her as fast as he could at their next meeting.
The Doctor, on the other hand, is someone Melody 'knows all about', although he clearly has quite an impact on her. He, in a very real way, impresses her just by being himself. Daft and silly and caring with every fibre of his being.
But here’s the important part: Mels doesn’t know who River is.
“Only River Song gets to call me Sweetie,” the Doctor states (possessively), and Mels shrugs.
But River keeps coming up. It is clear to Mels that River is someone incredibly important to the Doctor, the person he needs. (It is quite fitting, metaphorically, that the Doctor can barely stand without River. She is the person he now relies on.)
And more mirroring from the Library:
RIVER: I trust this man. With my life, with everything.
~
DOCTOR: Who are you?
RIVER: Professor River Song, University of...
DOCTOR: To me. Who are you to *me*?
What LKH does so well is *show* young!River who River is to the Doctor, how much he trusts her. Even his final words are a message to River (I’m presuming he tells her his name - “There's only one reason I would ever tell anyone my name. There's only one time I could...”).
I am curious, now, as to ‘only one reason I ever would’. *pokes statement* What spacey-wacey thing could the Doctor’s name be used for...
ETA: I have changed my mind! And I think he tells her that he loves her. See other post for further thoughts on his name. And hey, new pictures (how much do I love all the Rose parallels?)
Anyway, to get back on track I shall quote Forest of the Dead:
RIVER: You know... it's funny, I keep wishing the Doctor was here.
ANITA: The Doctor is here, isn't he? He's coming back, right?
RIVER: You know when you see a photograph of someone you know, but it's from years before you knew them? It's like they're not quite... finished, they're not done yet. Well... yes, the Doctor's here. He came when I called, just like he always does. But not *my* Doctor.
And here LKH is far worse, because although Ten was rather hostile and argumentative, he was still ‘the Doctor’. In LKH, Eleven isn’t just deprived of his usual support, she is actively fighting him.
Anyway, when Mels discovers that she is River - or could be River, if she chose - bringing him back isn’t so much a sacrifice as an investment. She essentially (although at a steep price) creates herself a partner for whom she’ll be vitally important. (Is it any wonder she fears the day when he won’t know her?)
So yeah, despite the ways in which she’s been stolen and manipulated, by the end she is proactive, choosing her future. And I appreciate that.
Plus, it’s not just the fact that he cares, or trusts her so implicitly. That’s part of it, definitely, and the thing that spurs her into action. But when she makes her choice, it’s more than that, because she knew he was ‘good’ already. It’s the ‘clever and mad and wonderful’ that clinches the deal, I think. Because he puts on a show for her, gets dressed up, laughs in the face of death (Rule 27: Never knowingly be serious), spins everything around like a kaleidoscope and is just endlessly fascinating. Anyone who sees ‘goodness’ as dull, and ‘badness’ as exciting (notions Mels would certainly ascribe to), need only to actually *meet* the Doctor to see how mistaken they’ve been.
Plus, and I think this is worth mentioning - the Doctor (who can be arrogant as hell, as she has seen already), is not above begging for help when he needs it. Not for himself, but for those he loves. Plus, of course, he orders the Tesalator not to *dare* harm River in any way, and gets Amy and Rory to stop their punishment of her - risking their own lives.
(“Imagine what that does to a girl.”)
So her realisation at the end is essentially that she’s killed her perfect man...
~
There are also obvious parallels with Parting of the Ways:
And although the former was the Doctor sacrificing himself for the woman he loved, and the latter is River sacrificing herself for the man she will love, the parallels are still much too obvious to miss. (Would Nine have given up all his remaining regenerations for Rose? I don't think I need to answer that.)
Not to mention that Rose, in that moment, is as close to a Time Lady as the show gets until River comes along.
(ROSE: I can see everything. All that is... all that was... all that ever could be.
DOCTOR: That's what I see. All the time. And doesn't it drive you mad? )
Plus, it is Rose and the TARDIS, and River is a child of the TARDIS... The TARDIS is really quite interfering when it comes to looking after her thief. :)
The River/Rose parallels just keep piling up. Not just that Rose got her own bespoke human!Doctor, and the Doctor, in River, got a bespoke Timelady, but the fact that Rose and River in many ways echo each other.
MICKEY (quietly): If you go back, you're gonna die.
ROSE (completely confident): That's a risk I've gotta take. 'Cos there's nothing left for me here.
~
AMY (scolding, but proud): You used up all the rest of your regenerations. You shouldn’t have done that.
RIVER: Shut up, mother.
Or, to quote my own fic, where River meets Rose and says this:
“I think what I wanted to say is… He has travelled with so many people, but there are very few like you and me. Because choosing him every time comes with a price that most people balk at - and rightly so, probably. And yet, I'm sure you wouldn't change a thing. Am I right?”
~
Going back to a previous point, then I love that we can see how young ‘Mels’ is. ('Little Melody Pond, still such a child inside...') These two moments especially stand out, and Alex’s acting is just amazing:
The sudden helplessness, the way all the bravura fades away, leaving only a confused child... It’s incredible.
And yet, the Doctor doesn’t treat her as a child. He leaves her behind, on her own, in the 51st century, expecting her to float like a butterfly... And indeed she does.
All of which once more confirms that he doesn’t see or treat her as a companion, and never will. He did his best to save her (because she saved him, and because he's the Doctor), and he will always be there to catch her (because that is their game, and he owes her)... But she doesn’t need his protection. Quite the opposite in fact:
I love to distraction that he tells her to her face. (And that she quotes it so calmly in TBB.) I have a kink for truthful liars about the width of a galaxy, so the perfection of this cannot be overstated.
Plus it's echoed a fic I read recently ( To be continued by honeynoir). Actually MOST of the episode echoed various fics, including the big showdown, with River trying to kill the Doctor all kinds of different ways... (Which owlsie and I wrote, except with little!Melody.) But LKH was much better! ♥
~
Oh and the continuity was off the scale. We got the origin of about a million different things, such as:
Hello Sweetie.
The reason River is in the 51st century
The reason she studied archeology
The diary
All the rules
Spoilers
And there was clever tying in of so many lines. (I love the echoed 'Amazing' from the end of AGMGTW. They both are. Very much.)
~
Now, going back to the start...
We are in an AU.
Moffat has said that the Doctor’s reputation has become to big, so he is trying to undo it, and the way he is doing it is obviously by letting the Doctor’s reputation impact the story overtly.
”And now they've taken a child... the child of your best friends... and they're going to turn her into a weapon, just to bring you down. And all this, my love...in fear of you.”
They stole a child, and that child grew up to kill the Doctor on the 22nd of April 2011:
But from a Doylist perspective we KNOW that this can’t be final. Plus ‘Something has happened to time’ we get told in one of the trailers...
So my thinking is currently this: That somehow the Doctor’s reputation will be undone (how I don’t know. Nor do I know how this fits in with the Silence), and the effects ripple through time, Kovarian and co will never steal Melody and thus the Doctor won’t be killed, and River might not end up in prison.
Now how far the ripples will go, I can’t predict. But I’m guessing that something like the above will happen.
As for the whole ‘The first question’ etc, allow me to direct you towards this post by promethia_tenk, who delves into The Fisher King, rather than The Hitchhiker’s Guide.
And to finish off, because she’s clever and says it very well, here’s Promethia (I'm cutting and pasting this time) talking about the endgame:
...This isn't dark!River. This isn't quite River at all, or any person at all. Watching this episode, I spent a lot of time with my eyebrows furrowed at the screen going "how did they do that to her?" If she was properly dark, she'd have motivations of her own: purpose. But it's not that; it's like they hollowed her out. She's nothing but her own . . . reactivity and the simple goal of killing the Doctor. This is where I think the dual timelines come in because she's not a full person--not even a broken one. If she was properly dark, then a redemption storyline would make sense and you'd believe that she could reform herself and become River and this could be her origin story. But there's just not enough there to reform.
[Some people] talk about Moff and his multiple timelines and rewritings and how that annoyed them and they feel like he was trying to have it all, which I can totally see how it could feel that way. Myself, I see it a bit differently: I think he's doing a bit of a deconstruction of the individual, with different parts of each person separated in different timestreams so we can see them separately and then united in the person's memories so that they are whole again. A couple people have compared River in this episode to Moff's Jekyll, and I think that is spot on. This isn't a full person: this is River's crazy and a killer instinct separated out in its own body. The point in Jekyll wasn't that one side or the other of him won, but that they had to be united to realize their full potential. I think that's what will happen here, but with River's two lives as Kovarian's weapon and as Amy and Rory's daughter.
See also the Christmas special, where River was represented symbolically by both Abigail *and* the space shark to the Doctor's Kazran. Kazran was the one who took pity on the shark when it was trying to kill them because she was hungry and that's all she knew, but Abigail was the one to calm the shark through her singing, and at the end of the day Abigail singing *and* the shark in the sky as the transmitter working together were what saved the day.
To quote Buffy one final time. (Anya was a vengeance demon for around 1000 years before becoming human again):
...before I knew you, I was like a completely different person. Not even a person, really... and I had seen what love could do to people, and it was ... hurt and sadness. Alone was better. And then, suddenly there was you, and ... you knew me. You saw me, and it was this ... thing. You make me feel safe and warm."
It's not a perfect match, but Melody-the-weapon isn't really her own person, and she too chooses to risk the pain of becoming a person for the sake of someone who *sees* her. (Of course she is fortunate in knowing that the gamble will pay off... *g*) And she becomes quite literally a different person, as shown by the name change - names are very, very important, and I can't help wondering what role the Doctor's true name will play.
Anyway, we've already got Rory/The Last Centurion as two separate people who are also the same, so doing the same to River wouldn’t surprise me at all. Especially not if this would somehow be instrumental in fixing time.
(Also see River Tam, and her integration of her two halves etc.)
Mostly though everything's confusing, because causes and effects are still up in the air. Time is in flux...
Everybody kills Hitler on their first trip...
Because it is internet history, everyone should read it, and I'll bet anything that the Moff knows it. Plus it's hilarious!
And also, from Forest of the Dead, because I’ve lost count of the number of people who I've seen mis-remembering this:
RIVER: Difficult? It'll kill you stone dead!
DOCTOR: Yeah, it's easy to criticise.
RIVER: It'll burn out both your hearts and don't think you'll regenerate!
ETA: Almost forgot! I overheard Impish Girl (age 10) talking to my father-in-law when he said he'd tried to watch LKH and not been able to get into it (he also has a tendency to fall asleep when watching anything that isn't rugby...): "Of course you can't understand it grandad! You don't even know who River Song is!" (I have rarely heard anything so patronising. So don't believe anyone who says the show is too complicated for kids!)
Sealed with a kiss
“I’m going to wear LOTS of jodhpurs!”
This might have been my favourite line out of all of them. The sheer delight in her voice was just wonderful!
Anyway, I’m basically just going to go through the episode and address things as we move along. To begin...
~
The story so far...
Allow me to drag out an observation I made at the beginning of the season:
I said then that the Doctor’s death had re-written time, which meant that we are now in an AU.
My thoughts have... evolved, but I’ll get back to this. Just wanted to point it out, because I still think we’re in an AU, so everything that happens should be taken with a certain amount of caution. Yes, what’s happened has happened, but it might be re-written... Anyway, onto the episode.
~
The crop circles were fun, and even though Mels’ entrance had River Song written all over it I didn’t twig at all. Also (especially with hindsight) love that within the 10 minutes or so that Mels was on screen she and the Doctor a) flirted, b) argued and c) discussed marriage. Hurrah for not meeting Melody as a little girl and avoiding anything squicky! \o/
(Oh God he danced with EVERYONE at the wedding. My head is still flailing. It’s the cleverest little thing, which does about 5 things simultaneously.)
~
The teslator is a FABULOUS idea. And the moment where it turns itself into the Nazi official, I was - in my head - begging for it to reach out and take the glasses off the other... AND THEN IT DID! Oh it was perfect. Really, the whole thing was a truly delightful idea. The anti-bodies (and their design), the way the tesalator worked, with all the tiny squares turning over... *flaily hands* (Darcy was rather impressed too, and reckoned that they must have a fair bit more money now, since the show - this season in particular - has just far better production values [in his not-very-humble opinion]. I said that I was pretty sure their budget has been reduced, but he didn’t believe me.)
~
Oh and Hitler. Brilliant idea, esp Rory punching him (the Centurion beginning to bleed into Rory a fair bit now, I think, although he also went straight for the hurt people, as always) and the fact that Hitler was then locked in a cupboard for the rest of the episode. (“There’s a banging in my head.”/”I think that’s Hitler in the cupboard.”) Fabulous. Esp because the whole issue is very heavy for a children’s show, and steered clear of anything particularly difficult, but those parents who want to use this as a springboard for delving into the history behind it all, can. (There’s a whole page on the official website with links.) And it also, with the Tesalator, addressed the issue of vigilantism, but it wasn’t hammered home. The Doctor disapproved (of the Tesalator, and of Hitler), and that will have been enough for most kids. There is a difference between justice and vengeance, and the episode balanced all this very well.
~
And then... Mels revealed who she was. The flashbacks were beyond adorable!
Seeing Little!Rory, especially, and getting a glimpse into ordinary everyday life was extremely delightful, and the whole situation where Amy thought that Rory was gay... Too much love! Also “I count as a boy!” was just perfect!
As for Mels, then she was a very interesting character, in that she gave Amy someone who believed in the Doctor, but someone deeply critical. (The Titanic sank because the Doctor didn’t save it! Hitler rose to power because the Doctor didn’t stop him!) And Amy and Rory are SO parental, it’s hilarious.
Plus, I couldn’t help notice that Mels kept getting in trouble (Stormcage won’t be the first time she’s seen the inside of a prison), and I love the way this showcases a young Timelady with no one to really keep her in check, who just does whatever she wants, because she can. Well I say ‘no one’ - her parents *are* there, and she clearly does care what they say. But she's still rebelling.
(Also I'm now writing Mels/Jeff in my head. Because he's pretty.)
Now as for Melody finding her parents, I’m going to borrow a line from a little later on:
"I might take the age down a little, just gradually, just to freak people out."
Firstly, this is v. clever because this allows them to use Alex Kingston for as long as they like, without worrying about the actress ageing.
But secondly (since she talks as if she already knows that taking down her age is something she can do) could Melody have lived her way to her parents from 1969 (or 1970)? “Took me years to find you,” she says. Which would make her... About 40 when we first meet Mels, which would make sense from a Timelord perspective (the Doctor talks about being ‘a kid’ aged 97), and would also make Alex Kingston’s looks quite appropriate.
Plus, re. Amy naming her baby after her friend Mels, then this makes perfect sense of something that puzzled me at the time. Melody is not a common name, and I was a little surprised that Rory accepted that Amy had named their baby already - as if baby names was something they’d discussed, when of course this was quite unlikely. But with ‘Mels’ in the picture, the name would have been a logical choice, leaving only the surname to be argued over. :)
~
Anyway, Mels regenerates.
I love how young!River is a direct continuation of Mels. Overconfident, over the top, all bravura and (quite literally) in-your-face. Also her utter delight at her new body just puts a smile on my face. I’ve always loved the Doctor’s absolute self-confidence (just see him checking himself out in the mirror in Venice), and am pretty sure this is a general Timelord trait. They’re just that fabulous! Which of course also comes with a hefty dose of arrogance...
(Also more Graduate jokes! \o/ And now Eleven code-naming River ‘Mrs Robison’ in TIA is actually even funnier, since she undoubtedly remembers ‘Hello Benjamin’, and cringes inwardly.)
Anyway, then the 'dancing' starts, and oh, the Doctor is quite enjoying himself.
“My bespoke psychopath.”
Now in my head there is this kind of ‘You shouldn’t have...’ at the end of that statement. As if Kovarian was getting him the best present *ever* (he really has a thing for bad guys - see ALLLLLLL his Master issues), and he’s actually a bit excited to have assassin!River to play with. It’s a thrill. A dance, like I said. I’m going to try to keep Buffy quotes to a minimum, but this one I NEED to bring out:
SPIKE: She was cunning, resourceful... oh, did I mention? Hot. I could have danced all night with that one.
BUFFY: You think we're dancing?
SPIKE: That's all we've ever done.
The whole thing with switching the guns around and even sparring... It’s fun and zippy and the Doctor, I think, is playing, because he knows that she’ll be his in the end, so isn’t actually taking things seriously. And then comes the kiss.
The kiss works, because... Well, he’s conditioned to kiss her, as it were. He doesn’t pull away (as a matter of fact he leans in!), because kissing is what they do. He’s clearly thinking 'Hey, even when she’s evil, I get kisses! That’s way better than the Master!’
But here’s the thing: She just kills him. It’s not a game (or not for long), and she has no emotional investment in him (unlike the Master). He’s a mark, a target, and she’s there to do her job. Which, btw, she does unbelievably well. As a weapon she is undeniably effective and efficient, and I love it to pieces!
Also see Scott Evil:
Dr. Evil: Scott, I want you to meet daddy's nemesis, Austin Powers
Scott Evil: What? Are you feeding him? Why don't you just kill him?
Dr. Evil: I have an even better idea. I'm going to place him in an easily escapable situation involving an overly elaborate and exotic death.
[...]
Dr. Evil: All right guard, begin the unnecessarily slow-moving dipping mechanism.
[guard starts dipping mechanism]
Dr. Evil: Close the tank!
Scott Evil: Wait, aren't you even going to watch them? They could get away!
Dr. Evil: No no no, I'm going to leave them alone and not actually witness them dying, I'm just gonna assume it all went to plan. What?
Scott Evil: I have a gun, in my room, you give me five seconds, I'll get it, I'll come back down here, BOOM, I'll blow their brains out!
Dr. Evil: Scott, you just don't get it, do ya? You don't.
Or Watchmen:
Adrian Veidt: I'm not a comic book villain. Do you seriously think I would explain my master stroke to you if there were even the slightest possibility you could affect the outcome? I triggered it 35 minutes ago.
River just kills him. And I think he’s quite shocked at that. It rather throws a spanner in the works, to say the least. /understatement
The rest of the episode is essentially the Doctor trying to use his last remaining moments to save her (and Amy and Rory) - somehow.
~
River laughing off the guards shooting her is DELIGHTFUL (hurrah at continuity from The Christmas Invasion!), as is her quest for clothes. Not to mention ‘Well, I was on my way to this gay gipsy Bar Mitzwah for the disabled when I thought - Gosh, the Third Reich’s a bit rubbish, I think I’ll kill the Furher!”
And can we just get the Capt John Hart parallels out of the way before we go any further? There’s the killer lipstick, the dress sense (Mmm, military jackets), and this:
“Take off your clothes!” - the way she says it... *flail-y hands*
And Amy and Rory following (Yay for Rory and the bike!) and looking for a sign... (This episode is so FUNNY! :D)
I’m also reminded of ‘Why We Fight’ and:
ANGEL: Spike's not in the S.S. He just likes wearing the jacket.
~
Now about the scene in the TARDIS with all the guilt piling on. Love that Rose is the first option in ‘Give me someone I like!’ - it’s such a light touch, tying into the past without belabouring the point, and also - with the addition of Martha and Donna - brings us to the Doctor’s admission of the fact that he screws people up. (I mean, obviously he does, and obviously he knows it, but I like having these things acknowledged.)
But other than that, I’ve seen a few people wonder what was the point. And (thanks to owlsie, who asked this precise question), I had somewhat of an epiphany:
The thing is that he asks Amelia to give him a reason to live (or to hang on, more precisely): It's just like Bracewell! Remember the Doctor trying to get him to hang on to his humanity, and 'You're in pain, that means you're alive!'... Except that didn't work.
What did work was Amy reminding him of being in love. The same applies here. Guilt is not something that will keep you going (as Ten amply proved, and Eleven now knows) - but the simple fact that someone cares ('Fishfingers and custard') gives him the strength to go and try to save River.
Or, to quote the_royal_anna who once said:
We don't stop being human when we lose our hearts; nor when we lose our heads. And every last vestige of humanity can be drained from us, but as long as somebody, somewhere cares, we are not dust.
~
Robot!Amy (or Tesalator!Amy I suppose) was brilliant, and so were Amy and Rory trapped inside. (Imagine me applauding anything to do with them from now on.) Very clever set-up, and used brilliantly.
And then... Cue the Doctor. Who has changed into tophat and tails because he’s dying. (Remember what I said above about the peacock nature of Timelords?) Anyway, I think this is where this particular quote comes into its own (subversion, thy name is Moffat):
She left out the part where she KILLED him...
Now, to get down to the heart of the episode - the ‘redemption’ of River Song. I’m putting the word in inverted commas, because what we get is not really a redemption story. The word ‘psychopath’ gets thrown around, but River isn’t one. She’s a weapon, conditioned to perform a certain task, and what the Doctor tries to do is make her choose a different path. Try to get her to break her programming - or more precisely, show her why she would want to.
Here, let me drag a quote out from Buffy:
GILES: Maybe. Maybe not. In my experience, there are... two types of monster. The first, uh, can be redeemed, or more importantly, wants to be redeemed.
BUFFY: And the second type?
GILES: The second is void of humanity, cannot respond to reason... or love.
Capt John Hart is a psychopath. Melody isn’t. And it strikes me that Moffat isn’t really all that interested in bad!River. By the end of the episode she’s the River we know, albeit at the very, very start. And that’s the woman Moffat is interested in. All of this was filling in the blanks of how she became who she is, and if it feels rushed, that’s probably because it is: It's background, stuff we need to know, but not all that important. We can move on with the main story now.
~
Anyway, there are obvious parallels with the Library episodes, in that this is the first time Melody/Mels/River meets the Doctor. But there are differences too. Oh are there ever. And - bizarrely - I think River comes out with more agency than the Doctor. Let me grab some screencaps and explain what I mean:
River dropped into the Doctor’s life out of nowhere, and he didn’t have a clue what to with her. He resented her relationship with his future self, her self assurance and competence, her knowledge of *him*, full stop.
And then she sacrificed herself in his stead, leaving him with massive amounts of guilt, and the desire to run away from her as fast as he could at their next meeting.
The Doctor, on the other hand, is someone Melody 'knows all about', although he clearly has quite an impact on her. He, in a very real way, impresses her just by being himself. Daft and silly and caring with every fibre of his being.
But here’s the important part: Mels doesn’t know who River is.
“Only River Song gets to call me Sweetie,” the Doctor states (possessively), and Mels shrugs.
But River keeps coming up. It is clear to Mels that River is someone incredibly important to the Doctor, the person he needs. (It is quite fitting, metaphorically, that the Doctor can barely stand without River. She is the person he now relies on.)
And more mirroring from the Library:
RIVER: I trust this man. With my life, with everything.
~
DOCTOR: Who are you?
RIVER: Professor River Song, University of...
DOCTOR: To me. Who are you to *me*?
What LKH does so well is *show* young!River who River is to the Doctor, how much he trusts her. Even his final words are a message to River (I’m presuming he tells her his name - “There's only one reason I would ever tell anyone my name. There's only one time I could...”).
I am curious, now, as to ‘only one reason I ever would’. *pokes statement* What spacey-wacey thing could the Doctor’s name be used for...
ETA: I have changed my mind! And I think he tells her that he loves her. See other post for further thoughts on his name. And hey, new pictures (how much do I love all the Rose parallels?)
Anyway, to get back on track I shall quote Forest of the Dead:
RIVER: You know... it's funny, I keep wishing the Doctor was here.
ANITA: The Doctor is here, isn't he? He's coming back, right?
RIVER: You know when you see a photograph of someone you know, but it's from years before you knew them? It's like they're not quite... finished, they're not done yet. Well... yes, the Doctor's here. He came when I called, just like he always does. But not *my* Doctor.
And here LKH is far worse, because although Ten was rather hostile and argumentative, he was still ‘the Doctor’. In LKH, Eleven isn’t just deprived of his usual support, she is actively fighting him.
Anyway, when Mels discovers that she is River - or could be River, if she chose - bringing him back isn’t so much a sacrifice as an investment. She essentially (although at a steep price) creates herself a partner for whom she’ll be vitally important. (Is it any wonder she fears the day when he won’t know her?)
So yeah, despite the ways in which she’s been stolen and manipulated, by the end she is proactive, choosing her future. And I appreciate that.
Plus, it’s not just the fact that he cares, or trusts her so implicitly. That’s part of it, definitely, and the thing that spurs her into action. But when she makes her choice, it’s more than that, because she knew he was ‘good’ already. It’s the ‘clever and mad and wonderful’ that clinches the deal, I think. Because he puts on a show for her, gets dressed up, laughs in the face of death (Rule 27: Never knowingly be serious), spins everything around like a kaleidoscope and is just endlessly fascinating. Anyone who sees ‘goodness’ as dull, and ‘badness’ as exciting (notions Mels would certainly ascribe to), need only to actually *meet* the Doctor to see how mistaken they’ve been.
Plus, and I think this is worth mentioning - the Doctor (who can be arrogant as hell, as she has seen already), is not above begging for help when he needs it. Not for himself, but for those he loves. Plus, of course, he orders the Tesalator not to *dare* harm River in any way, and gets Amy and Rory to stop their punishment of her - risking their own lives.
(“Imagine what that does to a girl.”)
So her realisation at the end is essentially that she’s killed her perfect man...
~
There are also obvious parallels with Parting of the Ways:
And although the former was the Doctor sacrificing himself for the woman he loved, and the latter is River sacrificing herself for the man she will love, the parallels are still much too obvious to miss. (Would Nine have given up all his remaining regenerations for Rose? I don't think I need to answer that.)
Not to mention that Rose, in that moment, is as close to a Time Lady as the show gets until River comes along.
(ROSE: I can see everything. All that is... all that was... all that ever could be.
DOCTOR: That's what I see. All the time. And doesn't it drive you mad? )
Plus, it is Rose and the TARDIS, and River is a child of the TARDIS... The TARDIS is really quite interfering when it comes to looking after her thief. :)
The River/Rose parallels just keep piling up. Not just that Rose got her own bespoke human!Doctor, and the Doctor, in River, got a bespoke Timelady, but the fact that Rose and River in many ways echo each other.
MICKEY (quietly): If you go back, you're gonna die.
ROSE (completely confident): That's a risk I've gotta take. 'Cos there's nothing left for me here.
~
AMY (scolding, but proud): You used up all the rest of your regenerations. You shouldn’t have done that.
RIVER: Shut up, mother.
Or, to quote my own fic, where River meets Rose and says this:
“I think what I wanted to say is… He has travelled with so many people, but there are very few like you and me. Because choosing him every time comes with a price that most people balk at - and rightly so, probably. And yet, I'm sure you wouldn't change a thing. Am I right?”
~
Going back to a previous point, then I love that we can see how young ‘Mels’ is. ('Little Melody Pond, still such a child inside...') These two moments especially stand out, and Alex’s acting is just amazing:
The sudden helplessness, the way all the bravura fades away, leaving only a confused child... It’s incredible.
And yet, the Doctor doesn’t treat her as a child. He leaves her behind, on her own, in the 51st century, expecting her to float like a butterfly... And indeed she does.
All of which once more confirms that he doesn’t see or treat her as a companion, and never will. He did his best to save her (because she saved him, and because he's the Doctor), and he will always be there to catch her (because that is their game, and he owes her)... But she doesn’t need his protection. Quite the opposite in fact:
I love to distraction that he tells her to her face. (And that she quotes it so calmly in TBB.) I have a kink for truthful liars about the width of a galaxy, so the perfection of this cannot be overstated.
Plus it's echoed a fic I read recently ( To be continued by honeynoir). Actually MOST of the episode echoed various fics, including the big showdown, with River trying to kill the Doctor all kinds of different ways... (Which owlsie and I wrote, except with little!Melody.) But LKH was much better! ♥
~
Oh and the continuity was off the scale. We got the origin of about a million different things, such as:
Hello Sweetie.
The reason River is in the 51st century
The reason she studied archeology
The diary
All the rules
Spoilers
And there was clever tying in of so many lines. (I love the echoed 'Amazing' from the end of AGMGTW. They both are. Very much.)
~
Now, going back to the start...
We are in an AU.
Moffat has said that the Doctor’s reputation has become to big, so he is trying to undo it, and the way he is doing it is obviously by letting the Doctor’s reputation impact the story overtly.
”And now they've taken a child... the child of your best friends... and they're going to turn her into a weapon, just to bring you down. And all this, my love...in fear of you.”
They stole a child, and that child grew up to kill the Doctor on the 22nd of April 2011:
But from a Doylist perspective we KNOW that this can’t be final. Plus ‘Something has happened to time’ we get told in one of the trailers...
So my thinking is currently this: That somehow the Doctor’s reputation will be undone (how I don’t know. Nor do I know how this fits in with the Silence), and the effects ripple through time, Kovarian and co will never steal Melody and thus the Doctor won’t be killed, and River might not end up in prison.
Now how far the ripples will go, I can’t predict. But I’m guessing that something like the above will happen.
As for the whole ‘The first question’ etc, allow me to direct you towards this post by promethia_tenk, who delves into The Fisher King, rather than The Hitchhiker’s Guide.
And to finish off, because she’s clever and says it very well, here’s Promethia (I'm cutting and pasting this time) talking about the endgame:
...This isn't dark!River. This isn't quite River at all, or any person at all. Watching this episode, I spent a lot of time with my eyebrows furrowed at the screen going "how did they do that to her?" If she was properly dark, she'd have motivations of her own: purpose. But it's not that; it's like they hollowed her out. She's nothing but her own . . . reactivity and the simple goal of killing the Doctor. This is where I think the dual timelines come in because she's not a full person--not even a broken one. If she was properly dark, then a redemption storyline would make sense and you'd believe that she could reform herself and become River and this could be her origin story. But there's just not enough there to reform.
[Some people] talk about Moff and his multiple timelines and rewritings and how that annoyed them and they feel like he was trying to have it all, which I can totally see how it could feel that way. Myself, I see it a bit differently: I think he's doing a bit of a deconstruction of the individual, with different parts of each person separated in different timestreams so we can see them separately and then united in the person's memories so that they are whole again. A couple people have compared River in this episode to Moff's Jekyll, and I think that is spot on. This isn't a full person: this is River's crazy and a killer instinct separated out in its own body. The point in Jekyll wasn't that one side or the other of him won, but that they had to be united to realize their full potential. I think that's what will happen here, but with River's two lives as Kovarian's weapon and as Amy and Rory's daughter.
See also the Christmas special, where River was represented symbolically by both Abigail *and* the space shark to the Doctor's Kazran. Kazran was the one who took pity on the shark when it was trying to kill them because she was hungry and that's all she knew, but Abigail was the one to calm the shark through her singing, and at the end of the day Abigail singing *and* the shark in the sky as the transmitter working together were what saved the day.
To quote Buffy one final time. (Anya was a vengeance demon for around 1000 years before becoming human again):
...before I knew you, I was like a completely different person. Not even a person, really... and I had seen what love could do to people, and it was ... hurt and sadness. Alone was better. And then, suddenly there was you, and ... you knew me. You saw me, and it was this ... thing. You make me feel safe and warm."
It's not a perfect match, but Melody-the-weapon isn't really her own person, and she too chooses to risk the pain of becoming a person for the sake of someone who *sees* her. (Of course she is fortunate in knowing that the gamble will pay off... *g*) And she becomes quite literally a different person, as shown by the name change - names are very, very important, and I can't help wondering what role the Doctor's true name will play.
Anyway, we've already got Rory/The Last Centurion as two separate people who are also the same, so doing the same to River wouldn’t surprise me at all. Especially not if this would somehow be instrumental in fixing time.
(Also see River Tam, and her integration of her two halves etc.)
Mostly though everything's confusing, because causes and effects are still up in the air. Time is in flux...