Rate and Discuss 6.8: Let's Kill Hitler (!)

[Perry Vale]

SO FAR*** the only point of it is to (a) give a 'cool' cliffhanger at the end of Day of the Moon, and (b) to save the Doctor at the end of LKH, since it was clear there was no conventional cure to the poison.

I'm not quite sure what point people are trying to make with this. They've hinted she's something Timelordy for absolutely ages, pretty much since Silence In The Library. So as I see it, the decision to make her Timelord (or lady) wasn't anything to do with either DotM or LKH. If it's 'convenient' writing in any way, it's convenient because it ties up everything we'd seen about her since the character's introduction, imo.

[Perry Vale]

Even though you wish you'd given it a 10... hmm.

Yes, a Doctor Who fan of 30 years, on a Doctor Who forum, voting on an episode of his favourite show....I can see how that might appear odd.

[Zbigniev Hamson]

Well a 10's the same as a 1 in my book.

[FlyingBeastie]

They did explain, of course, that they don't simply turn up and execute people. They take people out of their timestream as close as possible to the end of their life, so the timestream isn't adversely affected and a proportionate punishment ("Give 'em hell!") can be meted out.

Yeah, exactly as I thought. It's still crap and doesn't make one bit of sense.

[FlyingBeastie]

Why? How did you get there? It doesn't matter whether or not she was part Time Lord. The ending of Library is simple. She sacrificed herself to save the Doctor, and she knew he couldn't regenerate. How does now knowing she once had the ability to regenerate make that ending 'cheaper'?

I think what Ms Beastie was trying to say is - what was the point? Why make her part-Time Lord? After A Good Man Goes to War, we were left with the impression that she had given up something more significant than just her life for the Doctor at the end of Forest of the Dead. But now, we find out that she didn't. She wouldn't have regenerated anyway.

So, there wasn't a huge amount of point in making her part-Time Lord.

Yep

There was more weight to her sacrifice when they revealed she could regenerate (least in my opinion)


Which is why this episode sort of amounted to being a non-episode, really. There was really no threat or drama or stakes and there was a lot of contradiction going on.

Like someone mentioned before, why did the little people want to kill River right then and there if The Doctor's death hadn't happened yet? Cos just 3 minutes before they were so keen on getting Hitler's death right.

As for this whole, "she sacrificed her life twice to save the Doctor"- it made sense in Library, but it made no sense here. She was programmed to kill The Doctor. She didn't really fight all that much the moment Amy and Rory were revealed to be stuck in Mecha-Amy.

So why did she end up caring?

Given there was no substantial motivating factor (s) for her to make the decision, it made the climax that much less important, that much more shallow, and killing The Doctor in this episode that much more a pointless waste of time.

And to say, "Oh, it's all part of an arc"- is an empty consolation prize people keep telling themselves to reduce the cognitive dissonance that what they just saw was quite crap, a waste of their time, and if enough episodes pass they'll completely forget that by the end of said arc many questions and loose threads they kept telling others will be resolved actually won't be.*

But don't mind me, I'm just the big-lipped alligator in the room.


*And before anyone wants to question why I even bother watching anymore, again, it's my choice, and frankly I quite enjoy ripping the bad writing apart, coming on here and discussing/pointing out why said episode was simply wrong.

[Andrew Curnow]

I'm not quite sure what point people are trying to make with this. They've hinted she's something Timelordy for absolutely ages, pretty much since Silence In The Library. So as I see it, the decision to make her Timelord (or lady) wasn't anything to do with either DotM or LKH. If it's 'convenient' writing in any way, it's convenient because it ties up everything we'd seen about her since the character's introduction, imo.

I may have just missed the Timelordy hints before now, in which case my bad. But really, I'd not considered there being anything like that to River until the very end of Day of the Moon - and even then I was only 50/50 as to if the little girl was her anyway. So for me (and I can only give my feeling on it) there's a sense of River turning out to be Timelordy in one episode, only to stop being so in the very next episode. A bit like Adams' sperm whale which "had very little time to come to terms with its identity as a whale before it then had to come to terms with not being a whale any more."



Just to dodge the impending barrage though, I don't come on to "rip bad writing apart" - I'm enjoying the discussions (4 pages already!) and (to tackle Dave's comment to Ant about why not stop watching) Who is so varied from week to week that if you don't like episode X, next week's episode Y could be so different that it'll be your all-time favourite... so why stop!?

And, FWIW, I wouldn't ever refer to bad writing in Who, the writing itself seems as good and as sharp as ever this year - it's the stories and some of the ideas that don't really 'do it' for me, but that's a matter of taste not a matter of fact.

[Perry Vale]

Well a 10's the same as a 1 in my book.

It isn't for me, and I guess that's why I'll never understand this.

1/10 just seems to me, for want of a better word....harsh. For me to vote 1/10, that would taint everyone and everything involved with the production with the same brush. 1/10 for Nina Toussaint-White's performance. 1/10 for Matt, Karen & Arthur's performance. 1/10 for Alex Kingston. 1/10 for all the gags. 1/10 for Rory punching Hitler. 1/10 for the special effects, and the Tardis flying through the air and crashing in to the room. 1/10 for the anti-bodies. 1/10 for the design and visuals. 1/10 for Caitlan Lockwood and young Rory. I just couldn't do that. A vast team put these episode together, and if I voted it 1/10 I'd feel I was insulting them, frankly. I guess those that do must feel they've been insulted by what they've seen.

The lowest I can remember voting for any episode I 'hate' is 4/10, TEoT Pt.1 springs to mind. I probably approach it as a balance. RTD's script probably felt like a 1/10 to me, but performances from Cribbins, Whitfield and other stuff balanced it out at a 4.

And one other reason I don't think I could ever vote an episode 1/10 is I guess I'm not confident enough, because I wouldn't be able to help seeing myself as this guy...





Sorry for wittering on. I guess as well as us all having different opinions on DW, we also have different opinions, and scales we use, for voting.

[Jason Thompson]

There was more weight to her sacrifice when they revealed she could regenerate (least in my opinion)

Ah, well that's where we disagree then. To me, a sacrifice of life is just that, regardless of regeneration. Out of curiosity, do you therefore view all the Doctor's sacrifices as shallower because he can regenerate?

So why did she end up caring?

Another case where you and I see very different things on screen. She ended up caring because the Doctor cared. She was programmed to kill the great warrior known as the Doctor. She thought it would be easy. But then he turned up again, minutes from certain death, still fighting to save her parents, and more to the point saving her. Even when he was almost entirely incapacitated he still tried. It brought her around to the idea that the man she was programmed to kill was better than she had believed, and that she was as well.

And to say, "Oh, it's all part of an arc"- is an empty consolation prize people keep telling themselves to reduce the cognitive dissonance that what they just saw was quite crap, a waste of their time, and if enough episodes pass they'll completely forget that by the end of said arc many questions and loose threads they kept telling others will be resolved actually won't be.

Once again, can you please refrain from disagreeing with people by accusing them of lack of shrewdeness or some sort of cognitive dissonance? Everyone has the right to their opinions, and to hold them without someone coming along and trying to explain away their opinions as the product of a somehow limited mind. Attacking the people holding those opinions is not acceptable. I am not a blind fool caught in the sway of the brilliance of the Moff, nor am I suffering any form of mental disconnect that blinds me to the flaws in the series. I just enjoy different elements of it than you do, and I resent the implications of your comments.

[J.R. Southall]

Yup Perry, a score of 1/10 would indicate that the person voting thought there was nothing whatsoever of value in the episode. I haven't encountered an episode of any television drama yet for which that was true, least of all Doctor Who.

Conversely, a score of 10/10 would indicate the voter thought there was nothing whatsoever wrong with the episode in question. Still not likely, but far less unlikely in my opinion. It's why I'm as careful with my 10s as I am with my 1s, 2s, 3s, 4s and 5s. And in the event, I very rarely score a Who with anything less than a 6.

Does that make me a bad person...?

[Rob McCow]

Well - a score of 1/10 could also register extreme annoyance and displeasure. I'm sure we've all seen episodes of things that have actually made us cross.

[Awesome Wells]

I think a 10/10 indicates that there is nothing within the show that the person giving the score would change, not that there was nothing wrong with it. Perfection in the literal sense is rare - but sometimes flaws add to, rather than take away, the magic. I'm not saying that shit equals good or that people are satisfied with mediocrity instead of demanding better; merely that true perfection is all but impossible, and that cracked, torn magic is still magic. "Let's Kill Hitler" is as good a modern episode of Doctor Who as there's ever been; there's nothing in it that I would change - even the Ponds' apparent lack of dismay over their lost baby. That's why I awarded it full marks.

[Andrew Curnow]

I must admit, I never ever score episodes because I find it very difficult to do that - I'm glad to see some debate on it, suggesting it's not as easy as might first appear!!

Even though I wasn't nuts about LKH, there was plenty to like in it (or at least, plenty to compliment) so I wouldn't have given it a 1 in any case. Although I'm not a huge River fan, I thought Alex Kingston played some of the later scenes (where Melody is starting to question what she's done) very well, almost like a toddler uncertain and questioning. And the moment where the penny drops, where Amy 'accuses' Rory of never having paid any girl any attention, was both heartwarming and heartbreaking.

Plus the little people inside the machine delighted me by being (as the Telegraph reviewer mentioned) just like the Numskulls in that old comic strip. To this day, if I have a really bad headache or just can't sleep, I close my eyes and picture those little bald guys inside my head, and imagine them switching things off, and powering down - sometimes it even works!

Hmm, maybe too much detail?

[Si Hunt]

I think my parents have almost given up on Doctor Who now. They sat with us through Saturday's episode, which was full of people spouting on about Melody and River and things they didn't understand. My Mum didn't get how River could be Amy's daughter, but the complexity had long since marched on into how Mel could be River and how River could have killed the Doctor in an episode months ago. I think they'd have been happy if some Daleks had turned up.

Make of all this what you will!

Si.

[brandynigma]

*And before anyone wants to question why I even bother watching anymore, again, it's my choice, and frankly I quite enjoy ripping the bad writing apart, coming on here and discussing/pointing out why said episode was simply wrong.

Goodo- that leaves me to get on with things I actually enjoy watching on a non-ironic level.

Although The Curse of the Black Spot was rather idiotic.

[Zbigniev Hamson]

1/10 just seems to me, for want of a better word....harsh. For me to vote 1/10, that would taint everyone and everything involved with the production with the same brush. 1/10 for Nina Toussaint-White's performance. 1/10 for Matt, Karen & Arthur's performance. 1/10 for Alex Kingston. 1/10 for all the gags. 1/10 for Rory punching Hitler. 1/10 for the special effects, and the Tardis flying through the air and crashing in to the room. 1/10 for the anti-bodies. 1/10 for the design and visuals. 1/10 for Caitlan Lockwood and young Rory. I just couldn't do that. A vast team put these episode together, and if I voted it 1/10 I'd feel I was insulting them, frankly. I guess those that do must feel they've been insulted by what they've seen.

Doesn't a vote of 10/10 similarly imply that every single part of the cast and production was sheer perfection? How often does that happen realistically? But then almost every episode a vote of 10/10 is given.

Another way of looking at it (which is probably a bit closer to how I see it) is that a vote of 10/10 means you'd put the story in your top 10% of stories, and a vote of 1/10 means you'd put it in the bottom 10%, and so that's a bit less extreme. Either way though, I'd say that they're oposite ends of the scale, but similarly extreme.

[Zbigniev Hamson]

I think my parents have almost given up on Doctor Who now. They sat with us through Saturday's episode, which was full of people spouting on about Melody and River and things they didn't understand. My Mum didn't get how River could be Amy's daughter, but the complexity had long since marched on into how Mel could be River and how River could have killed the Doctor in an episode months ago. I think they'd have been happy if some Daleks had turned up.

Make of all this what you will!

Si.

That the series is disappearing up its own arse perhaps?

[Dirk Gently]

Another way of looking at it (which is probably a bit closer to how I see it) is that a vote of 10/10 means you'd put the story in your top 10% of stories, and a vote of 1/10 means you'd put it in the bottom 10%...

That's probably the best way of doing it in my opinion. Although I don't believe I've given anything less than 2/10....and that was Twa...er Twin Dilemma.

[Ian Lethbridge-Stewart]

It wasn't bad per se, I'm just sick of the whole of Doctor Who always being about River, Amy & Rory. I just want the TARDIS to land on a strange alien planet and for the Cybermen to be up to no good.

This is the show that can go anywhere, but plotwise it goes to the same place now every week.

Si.

I agree with a lot of the comments on here, both possitive and negative. I did enjoy much about this episode and certainly don't think that the series is declining in any way (which appears to be suggested in one of the reviews or associated comments that we've had links to in this thread). I am finding the clever stuff a bit too difficult to follow now; don't get me wrong, I like a drama that makes you think, but I don't like my head to hurt too much after viewing!!!

I think Si's comment (above) pretty much sums up how I feel abaout the show at the moment. In fact (sorry but this is going to sound very gushing and cringeworthy) but I look forward more to the next PS Audio being available to listen to than I do for the next TV episode being aired. I think it's just because even though the new TV series is referred to occasionally in the PS audios, the style of the plays is more akin to the classic series and I think I'm just 'old school' when it comes to Doctor Who.

Having said all that, I still think that Matt Smith is brilliant!!!

[FlyingBeastie]

Ah, well that's where we disagree then. To me, a sacrifice of life is just that, regardless of regeneration. Out of curiosity, do you therefore view all the Doctor's sacrifices as shallower because he can regenerate?

How can his be shallow if him "dying" and regenerating into a whole different person is similar to, well, dying? He won't be the same "person" anymore.

I just think that adding the element of her being part Timelord ended up not really adding anything to the arc and if you took it away wouldn't detract from it either, so what was the point of having it there.

Another case where you and I see very different things on screen. She ended up caring because the Doctor cared. She was programmed to kill the great warrior known as the Doctor.

So why does she care? What difference does it make to her?

Again, it would make sense if the context was that a major priority of hers was to save Amy and Rory when they were trapped in Mecha-Amy but it wasn't. She was all ready to leave when he told her that she shouldn't run cos she's scared.

Then the scene cuts to the Tesalector, and when we come back to them, The Doctor is out cold and River's sitting in a chair. That tells me that in all that time nothing happened and River certainly wasn't all that bovvered about her parents or, quite frankly, much. So motivationaly speaking, the writing is quite meh (since apparently saying "bad" is too strong a word and easily misinterpreted).

But then he turned up again, minutes from certain death, still fighting to save her parents, and more to the point saving her. Even when he was almost entirely incapacitated he still tried. It brought her around to the idea that the man she was programmed to kill was better than she had believed, and that she was as well.

See point above, and as for her believing he was better than they had told her and herself and yadda-yadda, then that means that whatever outfit that programmed her didn't do their job well and she's easily influenced. If she's so easily influenced why bother sending her out at all? Cos she was influenced in such a short timeframe that it took away from the dramatic tension that was meant to be felt at the end of the episode when she gave up her regenerations to heal him.

Sure we all know River ends up sort of a goodie at some point, just as we all knew the Titanic sinks at the end of Titanic, but the tension can still be executed so well you either forget or doubt that end happens.

Moff had the best doubt there is when the Tesalector folk were saying, "Time can be rewritten" and yet, in execution, it failed.


At some point this series will be back to being awesome again (doubt it'll be under Moff), so for the time being I'll just sit back and enjoy the trainwreck. Cos secretly I think that whenever someone tells someone else who doesn't like what they have been watching to "stop watching" it's cos they're taking the negative comments to heart and it annoys them. It's a discussion forum for a reason so it's none of your business anyway to tell someone to stop watching or ask why they're still watching or mock why they're still watching.

[J.R. Southall]

Did the Doctor not die as a result of River Song poisoning him?

And once that has happened, is River Song not now free of her conditioning, and thus free to bring him back to life by using her regeneration cycle...?

[Jason Thompson]

How can his be shallow if him "dying" and regenerating into a whole different person is similar to, well, dying? He won't be the same "person" anymore.

Well if River could regenerate neither would she.

You said that knowing she had the ability to regenerate added more weight to her sacrifice. Why? She, the River we know, still 'dies', whether she can regenerate or not.

I just think that adding the element of her being part Timelord ended up not really adding anything to the arc and if you took it away wouldn't detract from it either, so what was the point of having it there.

Apart from giving her the ability to heal the Doctor?

It's a discussion forum for a reason so it's none of your business anyway to tell someone to stop watching or ask why they're still watching or mock why they're still watching.

I have neither told you not to watch nor mocked your reasons for it, though frankly it does baffle me why anyone would watch something they were not enjoying, apparently just to tear it to shreds. Asking why is a perfectly legitimate question, however.

[Rob McCow]

The only reason that they were all interested in her was because she was part Time Lord. If she was a normal baby, then they wouldn't have kidnapped her, placed her in a weird spacesuit, brainwashed her to kill the Doctor etc.

I think the River Song arc will become more enjoyable for everyone in retrospect. Once it's all wrapped up and completed, it'll be easier to see the whole story. For now, it's rattling on and we've no real idea if we're near the beginning or at the end. Much as I've enjoyed it, I sincerely hope she doesn't turn up again next year. She's almost the longest-running off-and-on companion since Rose "Is she EVER going to p*ss off?" Tyler.

[Awesome Wells]

I hope Amy leaves at the end of this year and all the stuff about her staying on is just misdirection. I love Karen but the character's arc was nicely wrapped up last season and this year she's just been a bit of a Martha. It would be interesting to see Rory stay on with the Doctor, but this won't ever happen ... will it? The only logical way it would work would be if Amy dies; and the long, drawn-out grief for both remaining principal characters would be interminable viewing. So if they both leave and we get a new companion, I think it's inevitable that River will make at least a couple more appearances over the next few years. I don't mind this at all - she's vastly more entertaining than Amy anyway.

[Darren]

that means that whatever outfit that programmed her didn't do their job well and she's easily influenced.

They did what every enemy of the Doctor has always done. They underestimated him.

[Si Hunt]

I for one will be dissapointed if Amy doesn't die this year as usual.

Si.