Doctor Who – S6E8 – “Let’s Kill Hitler”

When we last saw The Doctor he’d just rescued Amy Pond and her newborn daughter, Melody Pond, from Colonel Manton (a.k.a Colonel Runaway), Madame Kovarian (Eyepatch Lady) and a bunch of headless monks.. or so he thought. Eyepatch Lady made off with the real Melody Pond, leaving Amy with a flesh avatar. River Song shows up after all the action is done and it’s revealed that she is Melody Pond. The Doctor rushes off claiming he knows where to find baby Melody.

And now…

Amy and Rory are back home in Leadworth, making crop circles that spell out Doctor in order to get The Doctor’s attention. It does and he meets them in the cornfield. It’s been all summer, he’s not answering his phone, and they want to know where their baby is. (So much for knowing where to find her.)

Amy and Rory were followed by their super hot best mate, Mels (a black girl who’ve never seen before now). She comes roaring into the cornfield in a stolen car. She knows all about The Doctor from the stories Amy told her when they were kids. They don’t have time to chit chat much as the cops are hot on her heels. She pulls a gun on The Doctor and suggests that since she needs to get away, he has a time machine, and she has a gun, they should go kill Hitler.

Next there’s a montage of Amy, Mels, and Rory growing up: Mels is always in trouble, Rory is constantly ignored by them both until Mels opens Amy’s eyes to the fact that Rory is in love with her.

Back on the TARDIS, shit just got real. Mels has shot the console testing The Doctor’s lie that a gun wouldn’t work on the TARDIS as they were in a state of temporal grace. They’re crashing.

Berlin 1938: A robot that looks human is being operated from the inside by a bunch of miniature people. They navigate the robot to take on the identity of one of Hitler’s followers, shrinking him, and bringing him aboard the robot where he is promptly terminated by robotic antibodies.

The robot goes into Hitler’s office and is about to inflict some “justice” when one of the robot’s operators realizes they’re in the wrong time. They shouldn’t be in 1938. I’m not sure how they didn’t realize this before, with all that technology, but okay.

The TARDIS crashes into the office and knocks out the robot. Everyone piles out of the TARDIS and The Doctor warns that they shouldn’t go back in because the smoke inside is deadly.

Mels

Rory notices the knocked out man (robot) and while they check on him, The Doctor starts to apologize to… Hitler. Hitler is all, “Who are you? And what is this box in my office?” The Doctor can’t resist being a dick, because, well, it’s Hitler. He tells him it’s a police box from London and the British are coming. The robot rises and Hitler freaks out, shooting at it.

Rory punches Hitler in the face (yes!) and The Doctor instructs Rory to lock Hitler in the cupboard. The people inside the robot decide to go into surveillance mode and they make the robot faint so that they can observe and regroup.

NOW everyone remembers the lifelong best friend that we’ve never met before. Amy realizes Mels has been shot.

The mini people in the robot scan the TARDIS and one realizes that they’ve got “the biggest war criminal ever right under their noses.”

Mels is dying and she tells The Doctor how, after hearing all the stories from Amy when she was little, she thought she’d marry him. He tells her if she doesn’t die, he’ll marry her. He’ll call her parents and get their permission. She says, “You might as well do it now since they’re both right here.”

Mels starts to regenerate, the first time since she was a toddler in New York City. She tells Rory and Amy that it took her years to find them, but she’s happy she did. It all worked out in the end. They got to raise her after all.

She then regenerates into River Song.

I could watch this scene over and over. In fact, I have.

The robot people remark that they are in the presence of Melody Pond, the woman who kills The Doctor.

River is all excited about her new hair and boobs and… other stuff. She doesn’t know who River Song is though. She does know, however, that she was trained to killed The Doctor and she tries to do so in a hilarious, flirtatious scene.

Now, THAT'S the River we know and love.

Unable to shoot or stab him, she kisses The Doctor and prepares to jump out the window.  Before she does, she reveals the kiss was a poison one. Her work there is done. And she jumps.

The Doctor, in pain and stumbling, gives Amy his sonic screwdriver and heads for the TARDIS. He tells Amy and Rory to go after River. On the ground, River takes out a few Nazi soldiers with her regeneration juices.

Aboard the TARDIS, The Doctor activates the voice interface which takes on the appearance of Rose, Martha, and then Donna Noble. It finally settles on young Amelia Pond and informs him he has been contaminated by the poison of the Judas tree. He will be dead in 32 minutes. When he asks for something for the pain, the voice interface breaks protocol and tells him, “Fish fingers and custard.”

Fuck yeah!

The robot has taken on the likeness of Amy, and shrinks Amy and Rory inside of it. They’re about to be terminated by the antibodies when one of the robot operators shows up and gives them clearance by activating some doohickeys on their wrists. He explains that the robot is a justice department vehicle and since they’re not guilty of anything, they’re fine.

The Antibodies

Robot Amy finds River in a restaurant she has just cleared out by shooting up the place. She’s trying on the clothes of the people she made strip before they ran. Robot Amy accuses her of killing The Doctor under the orders of The Silence. River admits she doesn’t remember much, but she doesn’t deny killing The Doctor.

Speaking of which, The Doctor shows up, pimped out in a tux and coattails, leaning against the TARDIS. The Doctor scans the Robot Amy with his “sonic cane” and realizes there are over 400 people inside. He asks Amy to signal him with the sonic screwdriver if she’s inside. She does.

Robot Amy starts to attack River with her laser eyes, but The Doctor orders them to stop. They explain that they use time travel to “give hell” to bad people throughout history. They don’t kill them, just extract them near the end of their established timeline and punish them. Because Amy is a “relative” she is able to give authorization for them to reveal The Doctor’s file. According to their records, Melody Pond kills The Doctor under the orders of The Silence, a religious movement which believes that silence will fall when the oldest question is asked. What that question is, they don’t know.

Lovely.

Robot Amy gives River hell once a scan of The Doctor shows that he is not long for this world. Meanwhile, inside Robot Amy, Amy uses the sonic screwdriver to take away everyone’s authorization. The antibodies show up and start killing people. This causes Robot Amy to stop torturing River. The Doctor tells River not to run, even though she’s scared. The remaining crew of the Robot call to the mother ship and asked to be beamed up immediately. When the antibodies realize there are only two life forms left – Amy and Rory – they set off to rectify that.

The Doctor, dying, crawls toward the TARDIS as River asks him who River is.

Just as the antibodies are about to kill Amy and Rory, the TARDIS appears around them. They assume The Doctor has saved them, but it’s River. River says that The Doctor told her she is the child of the TARDIS and that the TARDIS taught her how to fly it.

*This goes back to River saying that she learned to fly it from the best and “too bad The Doctor was busy that day.”

She takes them back to where The Doctor lies dying. He wants to talk to River alone. He whispers something to her before dying, a message for River Song. River asks Amy and Rory about River Song. Since Robot Amy is still there and Amy still has clearance, plus the wrist thingamajig, she asks it to access the file on River Song and show her to them. The Robot transforms into River, who sees herself.

River uses her regeneration energy to bring The Doctor back to life, kissing him with a, “Hello, Sweetie.”

River wakes up in a hospital bed with Rory and Amy at her side. She used her remaining regenerations to save The Doctor. River says that The Doctor said no one could save him, but he must have known she could. From his place by the window, The Doctor says, “Rule number one: The Doctor lies.”

*I love how that line came back.

They leave River at the hospital with those catlady nurse nuns from season 2 (and 3). The Doctor says that River will be amazing before leaving the TARDIS journal on her bedside table.

On The TARDIS, Rory asks who River is in prison for killing in the future. The Doctor won’t answer. He does say that River will come looking for them.

At The Luna University in 5123, River begins her archaeological studies telling the professor she is “looking for a good man.”

The End.

Notes and Questions

• They seem to confirm that the astronaut is River. If the mini Justice League robot people are right (and they seemed damn certain), The Doctor always dies in Utah in 2011 and Melody Pond kills The Doctor. That’s what she’s known for.
• Amy and Rory – Amy especially – seems a little too “okay” with never really seeing her daughter again. “Oh, so, I missed her whole life? No problem. Where we going next, Doctor?” I thought the whole point of him going to look for the baby was to bring her home to Amy. Then again, I guess there was never really an established maternal bond other than that month she was alone with Melody at Demon’s Run. But as Mom, I can say that’s enough.
• The picture of Amy and baby Melody that Amy finds in the children’s home in 1969, when the hell was that taken? Did Amy ever tell The Doctor/Rory about that? If so, they never showed it….
• … in fact, the only indication we’ve had that The Doctor even pieced together that the little girl from the spacesuit is Melody Pond is when he figures out that Madame Kovarian tricked him at the end of A Good Man Goes to War. As she speaks, he has a flashback of River saying how strong the little girl must have been to tear herself out of the spacesuit.
• I guess it’s safe to say that her brainwashing didn’t include Melody learning too much about the TARDIS or what being a Time Lord means.
• When he whispers to her before he dies, was that when he told her his real name?
• Note that Amy and Rory were told that when they left the robot, their memories would be wiped.
• Now that we know The Silence isn’t a species, anyone could be a part of it.
• We now know why River didn’t regenerate in S4.
• I don’t like the neat little tie-up of what happened to the baby, but I know there are still questions to be answered so I’m content to wait for them to revisit this in the next five episodes.

There’s more, but I’ll wait to dissect with my fellow Whovians. I will say this: I bet The Doctor implements a “no fucking on The TARDIS” rule after this.