Doctor Who Review: A Good Man Goes To War

So, we reached the final episode of this half of 2011's run of Doctor Who. There were many questions needing answered and some were, and some were left for the autumn. But was it any good? Well, I'm going to go against most people's opinions that I've talked to raving about how great it was, and say I thought was only good. I didn't hate it, it was a perfectly good episode of Doctor Who. But I just wasn't as impressed as I have been with other episodes this series.

Before I go into my problems with this episode, first the things I did like. Rory was great in this episode. From the brilliant first scene where they talk about him like he's the Doctor then it's revealed it's Rory, to the last, Arthur Darvill did a great job. And for once he didn't die. The idea of the humans being the Doctor's enemies, while he teams up with a set of aliens who would normally be against him was clever. I really enjoyed the character of Dorium, the blue fat alien, kind of upset he wont be back. I liked the cyberships being the same design as they were in the classic series. And I loved the speech by the Doctor to "Colonel Runaway". But it's always good TV when the Doctor gets angry.



There were other good parts but those where the bits that stood out to me. I just thought I'd mention them to make sure no-one thought I hated this episode. No, I really liked it. But that said there were definately flaws. The idea of the Doctor going round collecting his debts was a clever one, but it was terribly done. It reminded of the part in last year's finale where all the characters over the series make a return cameo to deliver a painting to the Doctor. Except last year it was people we knew, this year except for brief 30 second scenes explaining them, we had no idea who these people coming to help were, so they didn't really mean anything. There was a sontaran nurse, but I really don't like the new sontarans so I didn't enjoy him. There was a silurian detective, who I actually quite liked, so that's enough of her. There was the space-spitfire, which seemed really out of place since it came from an episode over a year ago. And there were the returning space pirates, but I hated their episode and all they did was remind me of it, so I wish they hadn't been in this episode. Seriously, fuck those guys.

 

Another returning alien was the cybermen, and it always annoys me when they turn up. Entirely because of the fact that Stephen Moffat decided the Daleks needed a redesign(which was a terrible idea) but has never bothered to redesign the cybermen, who currently still look like the cybermen from the alternate universe, but they cant be them because they dont have spaceships... and so on unnecessary geeky rant. Back to this episode though, I thought the poem was a bit weak. It sounded like something that was meant to sound epic, but it just didn't work for me, I just thought it was out of place. I was disappointed that the eyepatch woman was just another villian out to get the Doctor, I thought there might have been slightly more to it, but maybe there is and we just haven't found it out yet. But I was more disappointed after hearing River's description of "This is the Doctor's darkest hour. He'll rise higher than ever before and then fall so much further." Which gave me the impression something really epic and world changing was going to happen. But no. I mean it was bigger than the average episode, even in the last series the universe was destroyed then the Doctor created a second Big Bang before being removed from all of time and space. I think that might have been a slightly darker hour than losing one baby. And talking of the baby, it seemed pretty cheap to have that as flesh as well as Amy. I mean it was a bit like playing Mario, you think you have the baby, but then, sorry it's in another castle.



And now for the biggest problem. The twist. That River Song is Amy and Rory's daughter. My problem isn't what the twist was. I have no trouble buying that, in fact I'm looking forward to how it's dealt with. My problem is the fact that everyone seems to be completely blown by it, when I knew it from less than 5 minutes in. Maybe it was because I'd already thought of that as the sort of wild idea that Moffat would write for her origin, but I knew she was there daughter from about the first second in when the baby's name was revealed. Melody Pond, River Song. So I got the twist then, and the big reveal had no effect on me. Maybe that why I wasn't so impressed by this episode. It was all leading up to the reveal, and since I already knew it I was disappointed. Oh well. Overall a solid episode of Doctor Who, entertaining, but nothing better than usual, so disappointing as a half-season finale.

3/5