For some
Obviously there was a lot of build up for this episode. Online conjecture from fans, trailers, teasers, and major cliff hangers all added to the suspense. And who knows, maybe the wait did what it was intended to do--if Hurricane Irene hadn't knocked out the power I would have been right there on Saturday watching along with the world.
I'm sorry to report that I was mostly let down. I've come to expect a certain calibre of writing and wit from Doctor Who, even if it is a show about a time-traveling alien in a police box getting into adventures through space and time. Steven Moffat has written some amazing episodes with touching and complex plot lines. He makes full use of time travel to do some fantastic and dramatic things and has displayed an almost Whedon-esque ability to plan ahead.
Which is why the first seven minutes are so annoying. A character named "Mels" is introduced as the life-long and bestest friend of Amy, the second main character after the Doctor himself. We've never heard of Mels before. Ever. No passing mentions, no photos lurking in the background, nothing. We're subjected to a montage of Amy and Mels growing up together, in which Mels is obsessed with the Doctor and always gets herself into trouble because of it and Amy is always bailing her out. Even if she wasn't being shoe-horned into the story I'd still hater her--she's the type of two-dimensional "bad girl/boy" character (complete with black leather) that's so prevalent and so insulting in scripts these days.
We first see her barreling through a wheat field in a stolen Stingray (in England!) and skidding to a stop inches away from the Doctor and his TARDIS, police sirens close behind. She then nearly dry humps the TARDIS before pulling a gun (in England!) on the Doctor and delivers the line from which the episode takes its name: "You've got a time machine, I've got a gun. What the hell, let's kill Hitler." No reason is ever given or inferred. I hate to agree with my girlfriend on this point but the entire Hitler thing seems to be entirely for shock value. Later in the episode Hitler gets shoved into a closet and entirely forgotten, never to be mentioned again.
We cut from the the title sequence back to the TARDIS flying out of control, filled with lots of smoke and yelling. Mels has shot the TARDIS. Why? Because the Doctor said she wouldn't be able to. What a rebel. They careen through blue skies and presumably time towards Berlin, 1938, where we see a cheap SyFy channel Star Trek knock-off of a crew piloting a robo-ship that looks like a janitor. The ship itself is pretty crap, and not in the trademark everyday-odds-and-ends way of the Doctor's TARDIS (which actually has a reason behind it) or the lovably-cheap overall look of the previous seasons before the obvious increase of production capital came in. Everything about it seems poorly designed, e.g., a woman from the ship's art department travels to one of the robot's eyes to physically verify a target's skin color (because the last time they relied on the sensors it came out green) and we see the ship is riddled with robotic antibodies set into the floor so that one must step over or around them every two steps.
The robo-ship stalks a Nazi into his office and begins to slowly change its appearance to mimic his, with mechanical sounds and everything. Apparently it can't mimic glasses, so it steals them from the stupefied Nazi (which makes a metal scraping noise as they slide over its temples) before beaming him on-board with a miniaturization ray. The poor, nearly-sightless German stumbles down the catwalks for a moment before being menaced by blurry floating objects with some pretty good lines: "Remain calm while your life is extinguished." "You will experience a tingling sensation and then death." "It is normal to experience fear during your incineration." They look like robotic jellyfish with tazers and are the best things about the ship. "Who is he?" the captain asks. "Just some dude, guilty of some hate crimes and stuff." "Okay, let the antibodies have him." So they just kidnap people without any idea who they are? Way to be cautious with time travel there, guys.
The mechanical doppelganger makes his way to Hitler's enormous marble-floored office where the man himself is doing paperwork. The robo-ship declares Hitler guilty and announces "justice mode activated" before a bright light shines from its mouth to presumably kill der Fuhrer for his crimes against humanity. Just then one of the pseudo-Trekkies goes, "Oops, wait. Wrong year guys, we're too early!" Who the hell gave these guys a time machine? You'd think someone would have checked the year before Operation Smite Hitler claimed one life (a Nazi life, but still) and announced itself to the target. It's amateur hour on the S.S. Craptastic, apparently.
Luckily for Hitler the wounded, out of control TARDIS crashes through the window, knocking the robo-ship down and saving his life. As the Doctor and pals pile out and stand agape at having saved Hitler the robo-ship gets up (slowly) from the floor behind them. Hitler pulls his 1930's Luger from its holster and pops some caps in its metallic ass, apparently doing significant damage to the ship as we see sparks showering the tiny crew while they throw themselves around inside.
Rory (who looks better this episode than ever before) stands up and clocks Hitler in the face, turns his own gun on him, and tells him to sit down and shut up. Go Rory! He's awesome during the entire episode, cold-cocking another Nazi for his motorcycle and thankfully, finally, getting into the full swing of hanging with the Doctor. It's taken him long enough--he's been a hesitant, complaining, dumb-struck pansy for too long. (Rory the Roman notwithstanding. His toughness never felt believable to me, and all of that was erased in the universe reboot anyway.) There's nothing wrong with being overwhelmed at first by the Doctor's shenanigans but it gets old fast, and Rory has been wearing it thin for almost two seasons now.
Hitler got off a few wild shots before Rory decked him and put him in the closet, and an errant bullet hit Mels in the stomach. Woo! I was rooting for her exit the moment she opened her mouth. But to my dismay she begins to to glow with the signature FX of a Time Lord regenerating after being mortally wounded. I couldn't believe it. Seriously, Moffat? "Mels" is really Melody Pond\River Song, Rory and Amy's missing baby and a major reoccurring character since season three? I've come to expect more from you.
Done another way--a better way--Amy finding out that she grew up with her own child as her best friend (and naming her daughter after what turns out to be her daughter) would have been fantastic. As it happened though, the execution was forced and so rushed that it feels like a hasty afterthought. Had Mels been in the show longer than literally eighteen minutes it could have had so much emotional force. Instead it comes across as annoying and more than a little insulting.
The freshly regenerated Melody\River now stands before them as the character we've been curious about since Tennant's reign. She explores her new looks giddy as a hyperactive fourteen year old. "That's... Melody." Amy says in disbelief as she runs around the room annoyingly. I feel you Amy, I feel you. The only joy I got out of this young Melody\River is when she says she'll gradually make herself look younger to freak people out, a nice reference to the fact that we first saw her character when the actress was three years younger. Alex Kingston always looks fantastic, though. While Mels lay dying the crew of the clanky robo-ship discovered her true identity, and that her crimes make Hitler's almost inconsequential by comparison. "Melody Pond," Captain Jerk says as the camera zooms on his face dramatically, "the woman that kills the Doctor." Dun dun dunnn!
After Melody\River is finished excitedly checking out her hair, her teeth, and her new butt we're finally treated to something enjoyable: she gets down to the business of trying to kill the Doctor. What follows is a fun series of gags where Melody\River pulls a gun on the Doctor and fires, but wait! When everyone was distracted he'd taken all the bullets out. River was expecting that so she goes to pull a second gun out of the leather vest, only to find the Doctor has switched it with a banana(r). She finds the real gun but ha! The Doctor already removed the clip. It's a very well timed game of I know that you know that I know that you know that I know that you know the gun isn't loaded. If this is what it's like when Time Lords duel it's a shame there aren't more around.
In the end Melody\River gets the upper hand, sweetly planting a poisonous peck on the Doctor's lips in a move he should have anticipated given her past/future history (past for us, future for her). River stands on the ledge of the broken window, looks out over Berlin on the eve of war, and decides to go shopping. She warns Rory and Amy not to follow and disappears out the high window like Batman in a flowing leopard-print shirt.
Thus poisoned, the Doctor sends Rory and Amy after Melody\River while he drags his rapidly failing body into his wounded TARDIS. He collapses on the floor, unable to reach the console. Activating the ship's (heretofore unknown) voice interface he's presented with the holograms of his past companions from Rose Tyler on. Sadly each is just a still image that the Doctor rejects as the ship's visual representation after only a few seconds on screen. It would have been fantastic to have Billie Piper or Catherine Tate come back to the show even for five minutes. The Doctor asks for someone he isn't filled with guilt over and Amelia Pond, the young version of Amy, appears before him. I really like the little Scottish girl they got for this character, which I like probably more than the adult Amy.
In an adorable but slightly computerized voice young Amelia Pond informs the Doctor that he has thirty-two minutes to live. She repeats the line, "In thirty-two minutes you will be dead," with characteristic computer-stubbornness through the Doctor's quick-fire banter. He can't regenerate (surprise, surprise; any self-respecting fan knows Matt Smith is signed on for another season and they already cheated to keep the same actor once) and there is no cure for the Judas Tree poison in his system. The Doctor is upbeat as always, and just needs something for the pain so he can use his thirty-one minutes of remaining life to the fullest. The hologram has nothing to offer him on this. He begs, "Amelia, listen to me. I can be brave for you, but you have to tell me how. Please, help me..." He begins to pass out when we hear Amelia--not the subtly electronic voice of the hologram--say, "Fish fingers and custard." The Doctor's eyes snap open and the music rises. "What did you say?" But the hologram is silent. It took me re-watching the episode with headphones to verify the differences in voices, but it's there. This is the kind of subtle clue Moffat excels at, and I'd bet my favorite pen this comes back later in the season. "Fish fingers and custard!" the Doctor laughs as he pulls himself up and gets the TARDIS going... somewhere\when.
Speaking of subtle clues, the Doctor wears a new coat at the beginning of the episode and comes back from (presumably) getting himself some fish fingers and custard in a tux. Any time he changes clothes I'm suspicious, as Moffat has used this in the past to signify characters from a different point in their time steam. What one initially takes to be a continuity error or a meaningless wardrobe change actually turns out to be significant later on. I'm hoping the sudden and unexplained change into a tuxedo comes back around to be the kind of timey-wimey awesomeness I love Doctor Who for.
While the Doctor is off self-medicating, River has been busy toying with Nazis and brandishing machine guns at an entire resteraunt full of Germans, ordering them to disrobe so she can get some new clothes. Rory and Amy are in hot pursuit on a motorcycle taken from the second Nazi Rory clocked in his continuing out-of-character awesomeness. "Can you even ride a motorbike?" Amy asks. "I suppose so," he says, "it's been that sort of a day." You go, Rory Pond! Keep this kind of thing up and I may actually be sad to see you go.
But wait! The Nazi was actually the robo-ship in a new disguise. If a skinny Brit can take this thing down with one punch I'm thoroughly convinced it's a piece of crap. The robo-ship gets up, constructs its own motorcycle, and follows the Ponds. When it catches up to them at the restaurant of fleeing Germans in their unmentionables it looks exactly like Amy, and turns its head (slowly) towards them with a mechanical clicking noise you'd think wouldn't happen with technology capable of time travel. Cut to Melody\River playing dress-up in front of the mirror when "Amy" walks in, stone faced. Meanwhile Rory and Amy wake up on board the S.S. Craptastic and get chased by the antibodies before one of the crew members arrives. He slaps on electronic ID bracelets which signifies them as "authorized" and stops the attack.
Dopple-Amy accuses Melody\River of killing the Doctor and hits her with the same beam of light from its mouth that was going to kill Hitler. Just then the Doctor appears, upright and in tails, top hat and everything, leaning against his TARDIS dramatically. The robo-ship shuts off the beam and everyone turns to look at him. "You're dying," Melody\River exclaims, "and you stopped to change?" He spins around flourishing a stylish cane, "Oh, you should always waste time when you don't have any. Time is not the boss of you. Rule four-hundred and eight." The cane opens at the top to reveal his trademark green sonic technology and he scans robo-Amy. "Sonic cane," he says with a grin. "Are you serious?" Melody\River asks. "Never knowingly. Never knowingly be serious, rule twenty-seven. You might want to write these down." It appears he has begun mentoring her already, something fans have suspected for awhile now.
The Doctor's body is still shutting down despite his unflagging excitement, and he cries out in pain between jokes as his legs become unresponsive. Melody\River tries to run but is caught in a force field by robo-Amy and screams in pain as she is punished for her crimes. The Doctor yells at them to stop and engages Captain Jerk in a conversation that explains their purpose: They travel through time to extract those who've never been punished for their atrocities and "give them hell" (which we figured out like twenty minutes ago.) If it wasn't for their British accents I'd say these guys were Americans. The Doctor gains access to his own data sheet aboard the robo-ship and the audience is given some information on the overall story arc concerning his apparent death. None of it is shocking or exciting and does nothing but confirms the time and place, which we've already seen and he probably knows.
Finally the Doctor begins to succumb to his fatal poisoning, writhing and yelling in pain, barely able to move. A member of the S.S. Craptastic declares him finished and resumes punishing Melody\River, the force-field around her turning red and appearing to burn her. The Doctor implores Amy (still aboard the robo-ship) to stop them any way she can as he crawls along the floor. Amy uses the sonic screwdriver to disable all of the electronic ID bracelets and the antibodies come out of the floors to kill everybody. The crew abandons ship by "beaming up" (tossers) and Melody\River is released.
Rory and Amy are trapped in the ship however, and hordes of the antibodies are coming for them. Amy has the microphone that allows her to speak through the robo-ship and yells for the Doctor's help even though he's dying himself. I really liked the concept of Amy trapped inside a robot of her own likeness, calling for help through her mimicked voice as it stands inert.
The Doctor forces himself to stand painfully, falling again as he tries to make it to his TARDIS while Amy yells a few feet away. He begs River for help, barely able to move. Melody\River doesn't yet know who that is and wants information first. The Doctor pleads, "GRRAH JUST! ...help me," his teary eyes right up in the camera. I know he's not going to die, but I still nearly cry at this point every time. Matt Smith just gets better and better as the Doctor and his acting here is very powerful.
Bright light fades in and we see a weak River in the hospital. We learn she used up all of her regenerations (Time Lords only get twelve usually) saving the Doctor's life. "She'll be absolutely fine," the nurse says. "No she won't," the Doctor replies, "she'll be amazing," placing a new TARDIS-design diary next to her bed. The same diary future versions of herself have been sporting since River's first episode in 2008.
Back in the TARDIS we see the Doctor has downloaded the S.S. Craptastic's records on himself and now definitely knows the place and time of his death, down to the minute. Rory and Amy ask, "The River that we know, in the future, is in prison for murder. Who's murder?" The Doctor turns towards his view screen with his own picture on display but looking at Rory (significantly?) before smiling and turning it off, saying nothing as he fritters around the ship's console. "Will we ever see her again?" Amy asks. "Oh, she'll come looking for us." "Yeah but how?" "Oh Pond, haven't you figured that out yet?"
Cut to the Lunar University, year 5123. "Why do you want to study archeology?" a professor in a bow tie asks an unseen person. River leans into view and says, "Well to be perfectly honest Professor, I'm looking for a good man." I can't help but mentally add: TO KILL.
And so ends the mixed-bag premier episode of the 2nd half of the season. I can only hope the rest of the episodes turn out better than the 50/50 awesome-to-annoying ration of this one. A word of advice to Moffat and his team: more Doctor, less Pond. Companions come and go, but the Doctor is for ever.
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