Doctor Who Season 6: 5 Questions About “A Good Man Goes To War”

Very nice theory, that would be most excellent indeed. Hopefully Eccelston makes it back thought he has said he won’t. I have a suspicion that Tom Baker will make an appearance as well. He has recently started opening up to more and recently did a couple of audio plays. I may be dreaming but it’s a good dream.

Actually, simplest explanation is Creepy Eye-Patch Woman IS River Song.

“Am I The Only One Who Felt A Little Deja Vu Here?”

No… and not in the good way. A lot of plot aspects here mirror The Pandorica Opens/The Big Bang. Mainly an army being raised to deal with the Doctor as a threat and him not “getting” it. We’ve been here before, it just that the army of the scared this time is human not a union of the Doctor’s “monsters”.

It’s also a bit of a symptom of the show since the relaunch. Each series has been capped by a massive universal threat, generally greater than the last. Aside from the need to find the plural for “apocalypse” this has cast the Doctor as being of ever increasing power. That doesn’t bode well in my mind for the series 6.5 or the series 7 finales.

Then again, I’m starting to wonder if the show should go back to the old school format – 13 hours of the season broken into unlinked stories running 2, 3, or 4 hrs each.

The 50th Anniversary is still two years away… The show started in 1963.

I wouldn’t mind a return to that format, but I prefer Moffat’s (some standalone episodes, but with a story running through them with a big pay off). Just dial down the threats. If it keeps getting grander and grander, it’ll collapse into absurdity.

and it also means they have 2 event episodes (the finales) which draws in more views.
and it means that they can have cliff hangers as well which they couldnt do when we’d have to wait a year for a new episode.

Nope. Time Lords cannot interact with their past selves. She can’t be River.

Yes, the Doctor did it last season. But that was while the universe was blowing up. The other times in the past all had the virtue of the Time Lords able to police reality back then. They aren’t there now to do that.

They don’t use sharks anymore. It’s military-grade warheads and refrigerators. I mean, come on man, it’s the 21st Century. Sharks were so 70′s.

People on board the Doctor’s TARDIS can read and speak all languages because the TARDIS translates for them. The Doctor has set it to NOT translate SOME Gallifreyan (remember they could read the cliffs but not his name on the cot).

I thought the episode was great. And a nice reveal of who River is at the end.

I didn’t really see it as Deja Vu, because like you said in your 2nd question – there were so many new characters, that I was abit lost for like, the first 15-20 minutes! haha…

All I know is that I am extremely excited about the final 6 episodes! And its nice to hear you say that its back in September – (I thought maybe October) – so only 3 months wait! And then its back again in December for the x-mas special! (last years was the best yet!). It just feels like we are getting alot more Dr Who!!

Yeah, I don’t buy the 3 to 4 ep single discs. Total rip off! I wait for the complete box set with all the extra features! ;)

I should of Added – if there are no other time lords – whos to stop him or her (River)?

‘Jumping the Shark’ doesn’t really mean much in relation to British TV, ‘Bringing Back Den’ would be a more appropriate terminology.

However I personally don’t think Whos been better since the relaunch and from chatting to alot of people, it seems that (in the UK at least) I’m not alone. It’s actually starting to do what a reboot should, modernise the ideas and concepts of the original material. Like it or not things like season long/multi season plot arcs answering as many questions as they raise along they way are part of modern television (and no, placing a word or name in the background of each episode, a la Badwolf, Torchwood, Saxon does not constitute a plot arc).

I agree in part with the dissapointing season finales, however alot of it I put down to RTD writing himself into a wall and having to come up with a convenient plot device to get out of it. For example:

Parting of the Ways: All of a sudden looking into the Eye of Harmony gives you god like superpowers? Despite the Eye being open for a long time during the film that immediately preceded this series and no one got them.
Last of the Timelords – The Doctor suddenly becomes Jesus and uses the power of the Earths belief in him to defeat the Master? WTF!
The Davros one – Suddenly has the power to divert regeneration energy into a severed limb and create a clone who for some reason is more ruthless than him and kills all the Daleks?
End of Time – Less said about this episode the better I think!

The rebooting of the entire universe may have been a Deus Ex but it was a sensible one as opposed to the eleventh hour saves that RTD pulled from somewhere.

According to the Cartmel Master Plan, wasn’t the Doctor the reincarnation of The Other, not the actual Other?  The other would have invented the Tardis and his reincarnation then stole/was stolen by Sexy Thing epochs later…

Just to add to my comment. Time Lords can interact with their past selves as long as it’s part of their present. What they can’t do is go backwards and interact with their past selves.

Remember what happened in “Father’s Day”? When Rose interacted with her past self to save her dad? That’s the kind of stuff the Time Lords stopped from happening when it was done in the past. Void creatures find their way in and destroy reality from the inside out. And that was just some nobody little earth girl. With a Time Lord it gets much worse. To do it as casually as described by River being her own kidnapper is insane and destructive to the extreme for all of time and space.

What if River is Susan’s mother?

He’s only the 11th. So while he has been full of himself in past episodes being the last time lord, it’s not because he’s the last incarnation.

There wasn’t an episode on Saturday (i’m assuming you aren’t American, since the show isn’t that popular stateside; otherwise, disregard all of this). This aired on June 5th on BBC and June 12th on BBC America. These articles are timed around the BBC America airings.

but she watch the Doctor die, if she was the one that killed him she wouldve remembered

I am new to Doctor Who and I cannot believe it has taken me this long to jump in the bandwagon. Each episode is well crafted and smartly written. I started watching in the David Tennant era and have been a loyal viewer ever since!

Except for when they do.

This is what makes a good mid-season finale: Having so much you want to find out in September. Also, since the next one’s called ‘Let’s Kill Hitler’ it’s obvious that they’ll be going back to WWII….Again. This is the third time I know of, in the revived series, at least, that The Doctor goes back to WWII. I know he did it early in Series 5, and I think the 9th Doctor did at some point. Maybe he actually plans on killing Hitler each time but he keeps missing it so now he’s going to make sure of it…But Hitler’ll probably pussy out and poison himself like we all know he does….

The Doctor is Melody’s father? What psychological crack in your mind cooked up THAT crazy theory.

Rory is Melody’s/River’s father, and the Doctor is her LOVER. Which, all things said, should be pretty damn obvious at this point.

Married? Who the bloody hell knows? River’s said that their timelines MOSTLY work in reverse: each time the Doctor generally sees River she’ll be younger than last time, and vice-versa. It’s implied that for both of them, the first time one meets (or remembers meeting) the other will be the other’s last time ever seeing them.

Actually, it’s a pretty potent love story, all things considered. A buttload better than the contrived ‘true love’ of the Tenth Doctor with Rose Tyler at any rate. IMO, anyway. Because although River came off as irritatingly smug and arrogant during Series 4 & 5, her backstory being fleshed out has made her a much more plausible character WITH all those qualities, and more likeable and understandable as a result. Helps that the more I’m learning about her, the more I’m convinced she and the Doctor are well-matched. Her origins definitely help in that area.

Don’t you get it? That’s WHY she screamed when the Doctor was shot the second time and killed for GOOD – because she can’t interfere with her own timeline like that, and yet is so FULL of self-loathing for shooting him at that time. She remembers, and it’s KILLING her to watch from an outsider’s perspective.

River was, after all, raised as an apparent assasin to eliminate the Doctor. Chances are good that the older Doctor she shot was when she was VERY young and didn’t know him very well, coming to regret it later in life. That’s what I think, anyway.