| 218a – "A Good Man Goes to War" | |||||
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| Production | |||||
| Writer | Steven Moffat | ||||
| Director | Peter Hoar | ||||
| Producer | Marcus Wilson | ||||
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| Production code | 2.7 | ||||
| Series | Series 6 | ||||
| Length | 50 minutes | ||||
| Originally broadcast | 4 June 2011 | ||||
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"A Good Man Goes to War" is the seventh episode of the sixth series of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, and was first broadcast on BBC One on 4 June 2011. It is the first episode of a two-part story,[1] which is continued in "Let's Kill Hitler".
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On 28 May 2011, immediately following the broadcast of "The Almost People", the BBC released a prequel to "A Good Man Goes to War". The prequel had Dorium talking to two Headless Monks. He gives them the brain of a Judoon, which contains a security protocol the monks need. Dorium tells them that he knows what they are up to, as he hears a lot of rumours around the area. He asks them, "All this, to imprison one child? Oh, I know what you're up to, I hear everything in this place. I even hear rumours about whose child you've taken. Are you mad? You know the stories about the Doctor? The things that man has done? God help us if you make him angry!"[2]
The Doctor (Matt Smith) and Rory (Arthur Darvill) have discovered that Amy (Karen Gillan), Rory's wife and the Doctor's companion, has been abducted from them and her place taken by an avatar made from "the Flesh" ("The Almost People"), through which Amy has been experiencing events as if she were physically present. The Doctor has come to learn that the real Amy is being held on a secret asteroid base called "Demon's Run", and collects several old debtors from across time and space, including Sontaran Commander Strax (Dan Starkey), Silurian Madame Vastra (Neve McIntosh) and her human companion Jenny (Catrin Stewart), and the black market trader Dorium Maldovar (Simon Fisher-Becker), to lay an assault on the base. Rory, after collecting information on the base's location from a Cyberman fleet, attempts to recruit River Song (Alex Kingston) from her Stormcage prison cell, but she refuses, saying she cannot be with the Doctor at this time as this battle is when he will discover her identity. Aboard the base, Madame Kovarian (Frances Barber), who has been watching over Amy during her pregnancy and taken her child, Melody, from her, prepares her human troops to fight the Doctor alongside the Order of the Headless Monks who reside at Demon's Run; the monks are literally headless and incapable of being fooled or intimidated. Human soldier Lorna Bucket (Christina Chong), who had met the Doctor as a young girl in the Gamma forests, attempts to befriend Amy and gives her a cloth good luck token with Melody's name on it in her language. Amy warns Bucket of the Doctor's fury if she fights against him.
Demons 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
Demons run, but count the cost
The battle's won, but the child is lost
Assisted by additional Silurian and Judoon forces, the Doctor and his allies launch a surprise attack and secure the base. The Doctor and Rory free Amy and retake Melody before Madame Kovarian can escape with her. As the Doctor celebrates, considering this his greatest achievement, Vastra and Dorium discover that Kovarian has been scanning Melody and has found that the child has both human and Time Lord DNA. The Doctor surmises that Melody was likely conceived on Amy and Rory's wedding night aboard the TARDIS, the baby's DNA influenced by the time vortex. The rest of the Doctor's allies regroup, and Amy and Rory tend to their daughter using an ancient wooden cot that the Doctor claims was his own. Kovarian, well away from the base, contacts the Doctor, explaining that they will be using Melody as a weapon in the war against him. She takes delight in telling him he has fallen into another trap, and that "fooling [the Doctor] once was a joy, twice in the same way is a privilege." The Doctor races to the hangar to warn his friends. Meanwhile, Bucket has arrived and warns the group of Kovarian's trap, but they are too late as the TARDIS is blocked by a force field and they are attacked by the Headless Monks. Several Silurians and Dorium are killed immediately, while Strax and Bucket are fatally wounded in the battle. At the same time, Kovarian, appearing through a hatch opening in midair near where Amy and Melody are hiding, tells the baby to wake up. The baby dissolves into the Flesh liquid, leaving Amy horrified and in shock.
The Doctor arrives too late to help his wounded allies, and helps Rory to console Amy. River appears, and the Doctor berates her for not helping. She tries to explain that she could not, and tells the Doctor how these recent events were partially his fault, having been brought about by those that feared his reputation. The Doctor, angry and emotional, demands to know who she is. River shows the Doctor the cot, and The Doctor recognises River's identity. Elated, he goes off on his own in the TARDIS to rescue Melody, asking River to return everyone to their proper time period. Amy demands that River explain what the Doctor learned, and she shows them the cot. Initially Amy believes River is referring to the Gallifreyan symbols engraved on it, but they cannot be read by humans even with the aid of the TARDIS translation systems. Instead, River shows them Bucket's cloth prayer leaf with Melody's name, still in the cot. Amy tells River that she knows her daughter's name; River tells her that the people of the Gamma Forest don't have a word for Pond, as the only water in the forest is the river. As Amy and Rory stare at the prayer leaf, the writing is translated into English, revealing the child's name: River Song. River then reveals the truth, "It's me. I'm Melody. I'm your daughter."
Rory wears the armour of a Roman centurion, as in "The Pandorica Opens" / "The Big Bang" and "A Christmas Carol". Amy also tells Melody of Rory's nickname of "the Last Centurion", derived from his two thousand-year vigil over the Pandorica in "The Big Bang".
Dorium previously appeared in the opening to "The Pandorica Opens", selling River Song a vortex manipulator; she is wearing a similar one at the end of this episode. Henry and Toby Avery, from "The Curse of the Black Spot", appear briefly to secure Madame Kovarian's ship; Henry Avery was also repeatedly mentioned in the First Doctor serial, The Smugglers. The space-worthy Spitfires modified by Professor Edwin Bracewell and piloted by "Danny Boy" as shown in "Victory of the Daleks" are shown to disable the base's communication array.
Fat One and Thin One refer to the Doctor sending the Atraxi away from a planet before calling them back "for a scolding", an incident that took place in "The Eleventh Hour". The Headless Monks were previously mentioned in "The Time of Angels", added to that episode's script to help explain the Delirium Archive's monastic look.[3] Bucket refers to her unit as "the Clerics", the unit which was introduced in "The Time of Angels". This episode introduced additional units in the same military organisation, the Church.
Surprised by the Doctor's possession of an infant's very old cot, Amy asks the Doctor if he has or ever had children; she had previously asked him in "The Beast Below" if he had children. The Doctor states that he does not have children, echoing his statements in "Father's Day", "Fear Her", and "The Doctor's Daughter". The Doctor's daughter Jenny was "born" fully-grown, never using an infant's cot, and her regeneration is unknown to the Doctor who assumes she is dead. Amy saw a photograph of his granddaughter, Susan Foreman, and other female companions in "Meanwhile in the TARDIS 2", although she is not told their individual identities.
Shortly after the revelation that Melody has some Time Lord DNA, the Doctor has a brief flashback of the girl in the spacesuit from "Day of the Moon" in which River states that "I'd say that she's human," and "She must be incredibly strong."
"The only water in the forest is the river," the phrase River uses to explain why the people of the Gamma Forest translate Pond to River, was first said to Rory by Idris in "The Doctor's Wife".
When the Doctor greets "Melody Pond", Rory corrects him, "Melody Williams", which Amy immediately over-rules. The Doctor had likewise congratulated the newly-wed "Mr Pond" in "The Big Bang". Amy's justification for Melody bearing her surname is that Melody Pond is a superhero, and Melody Williams is a geography teacher.
River Song explains the impact the Doctor has left by his travels. Cultures with whom he has interacted throughout the universe have incorporated the word "Doctor" into their languages to mean "healer" and "wise man" – except some worlds, such as the Gamma Forests, where it means "mighty warrior".
The Doctor's cot in which Melody's living flesh doppelgänger rests features a mobile of stars and planets, like the mobile which Amy finds in the mysterious child's room in "Day of the Moon".
The seventh episode of series six was the 777th episode of Doctor Who, but there are no seven puns as the production team did not realise this until after shooting.[4]
The set used for the chamber Amy was kept in was the same used as the Oval Office in "The Impossible Astronaut"/"Day of the Moon". Baby Melody Pond was played by twins, a common practice used in filming so that one twin can rest while the other is on set.[5]
Dan Starkey appears as the Sontaran Commander Strax. He previously played Commander Skorr in "The Sontaran Stratagem" / "The Poison Sky" (2008) and Commander Jask in The End of Time (2010). Neve McIntosh appears as a Silurian Warrior Vastra. She previously played the sisters Alaya and Restac in "The Hungry Earth" / "Cold Blood" (2010).
Steven Moffat said he planned writing in a cameo for John Barrowman to reprise his role as Jack Harkness, but Barrowman was busy filming Torchwood: Miracle Day and was unavailable.[6]
"A Good Man Goes to War" was first broadcast in the United Kingdom on 4 June 2011 on BBC One and BBC HD[7] and in the United States on BBC America on 11 June 2011.[8] UK overnight figures showed that the episode was watched by 5.5 million viewers, a rise of a half a million from the previous week and coming in sixth place for the night.[9] Final consolidated ratings showed that the episode was watched by 7.57 million viewers with an audience share of 31%.[10] It achieved an Appreciation Index of 88, the joint highest for the series at time of broadcast.[11]
Matt Risley of IGN rated the episode a 9.0/10, stating that the episode was an "epic" one that "opened with a grandstanding, wonderfully OTT pre-credits tease and didn't really let up from there."[12]
Gavin Fuller of The Telegraph said that the episode was good but lacked significant background motivation into the villains. Fuller also notes that the revelation of River Song being Amy's grown up child "is perhaps a narrative strand that would sit uncomfortably with a series where loss has often been brushed off as soon as the next couple of episodes". However, he did have praise for the performance of Matt Smith, commenting that "the last few weeks have seen Matt Smith's Doctor in a welcome generally more serious vein, which he kept up here, with leavening at the right moments where his alien lack of comfort with human emotions, although used to comic effect, rang very true, as did his awkwardness when discovering the truth about River".[13]
Dan Martin of The Guardian was less favourable, stating that that the producers "promised us a cliffhanger, and now we're left the whole summer long to contemplate whether our favourite show can really have just dropped the ball. Oh there was plenty to love about this mid-season finale, and even more to pick over. But as an hour of drama it was all over the place". Because the episode was so fast-paced with little being explained, he did not feel any emotional connection to the Anglican marines or Lorna Bucket. Unlike Fuller, Martin was not favorable to Matt Smith's Doctor, stating that "the non-event of the battle means that the Doctor never really gets to show this dark side we've been hearing so much about" and that Smith's predecessor, David Tennant, "got angrier most weeks." Martin did have praise for the final reveal of the episode, stating that although it had been "hidden in plain view from the very beginning as soon as it's revealed Amy has called the baby Melody", he was unable to make the connection and was suitably surprised.[14] Martin later rated it the second-to-worst episode of the series, though the finale was not included in the list.[15]
The two new characters introduced in the episode (a Silurian 19th century crimefighter named Madame Vastra and her assistant Jenny) have proven quite popular among fans, with numerous forums and SFX Magazine calling for the BBC to commission a spin-off series.[16] Steven Moffat stated in an interview that he did not have time to work on a spin-off but was open to the possibility of the characters returning.[17]
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