Monday, August 1, 2011

A Good Man Goes to War

I sometimes have a tendency to get a little obsessed with things. Just a little bit. Like the time I watched X-men 10 times in seven days when my dad first bought me a VHS copy when I was little. Or the time I watched the first episode of season seven of NCIS seven times in four days. Or, most recently, when I watched "A Good Man Goes to War", the last episode of the first part of season 6 of Doctor Who, 6 times in less than 48 hours thanks to an iTunes rental.

But I don't obsesses... much.

To steer away from my habits, wouldn't it be more fun to go back through some of the highlights of the episode complete with screencaps that I took while watching it? That sounds like fun to me. Almost as much as watching the whole episode over again! Which I would do... if my iTunes rental hadn't ended a few hours ago. Damn.

Oh well, here we go. Geronimo!

So the episode starts off with getting thrown right into the middle of the Doctor and Rory's search for Amy. A little disconcerting but who cares, we are soon presented with this:


Rory the Roman! And boy, is he pissed. "I have a message and a question. A message from the Doctor, and a question from me. Where. Is. My. Wife."

Of course, the Twelfth Cyber Legion is not sure what to make of the random appearance of a Roman in their midst and ask what he's doing there, forcing Rory to prompt- as things start to explode behind him- "Would you like me to repeat the question?"


And here's a shot of arguably the most important part of this entire episode:


Melody Pond! Was it just me, or did anyone else notice pretty quickly the similarities between Melody Pond and River Song? It stuck out to me but I thought that maybe Amy was just paying tribute somehow to their good friend River. It's pretty obvious now, though... River Song... Melody Pond... Brilliant.

One of the fun little things that I noticed as I was going through the episode for screen captures, was an image of a 'poster' with an image of the Doctor's sonic screwdriver. I love what it says.


Anyway, as the episode continues on we get out first look at Amy's baby as Amy continues to tell the baby how brave she'll have to be although the man who is coming for her- the Last Centurion- will come for her no matter what. I loved the setup and how it was made to seem like Amy was talking about the Doctor but it was actually Rory.

Also, it is finally revealed where Amy and the baby are: Demon's Run.


Then there are a bunch of scenes of the Doctor rounding up all his pals to help get Amy back. I love the look on River's face when she sees Rory. At first I didn't know why she seemed so surprised and happy to see him, but it made sense after another viewing. It also made sense why she couldn't go with him to help save Amy, we've seen what happens when people hang around their baby selves and it's not good.


My favorite part is when he shows up to pick up Doriam. "You can't need me! I'm old! I'm fat! I'm blue!"


The military guys are then all rounded up and the big colonel guy gives a moving speech about how they're all going to kill the Doctor and to not be afraid of him blah, blah. Then the really cool part. The lowering of the hood of the Headless Monks. And they're actually headless. Did not see that one coming.


The colonel goes to reveal the headlessness of the third Monk on the  dais with him only to reveal...


The Doctor then informs Colonel Manton that he had "3 minutes, 40 seconds". The lights go out, the army guys start to panic and point their guns at the Headless Monks. That turns out to be a bad idea.


I would not mess with that. Once the base is secure, Rory goes to rescue Amy. In classic Amy form when someone knocks on the door she grabs the first thing she can as a weapon and warns the intruder that she is "very, very cross." Maybe it's just me, but it looks like Amy grabs an electric toothbrush.


Then Rory comes in, looking like such a hero having rescued the baby even though Amy told him they had taken her. "Now Mrs. Williams, that's never going to happen."


Rory tries to be cool, but he's such a sucker and starts to cry. "Oh, I wanted to be cool." Amy tells him, "Crying Roman with a baby, very cool." They are just so damn cute!


The Doctor then interrupts and his first instinct is to run when he sees all the crying and kissing, but Rory leaves him no choice but to join them. And they make the nicest little family!


Now that the happy little family is back together, they start to get ready to leave Demon's Run. Amy is forced from the Tardis, though, as Melody "Doesn't like the Tardis noise. I asked him to turn something off but it was all 'but I don't want to punch a hole in the space time continuum'." The Doctor then appears with his 'cot' (which is apparently 'British' for baby crib).


The Doctor goes off, leaving them and the baby because he says they can't leave until he knows what the facility is for. With some help from Doriam and a Silurian whose name I don't remember, they start to help him figure out what they want with Melody. Her dna is apparently part Time Lord, and the Doctor starts to panic about how that happened. He declares "you can't just cook yourself up a Time Lord"! And seems fairly certain of that until the Silurian asks him when the baby 'began'. The look on the Doctor's face when he realizes the first time Amy and Rory were alone on the Tardis was on their wedding night.


The super creepy Madame Kovarian shows up and talks with the Doctor and can't resist a little gloating about using the same method to fool the Doctor not once but twice. He runs off to try to warn Amy as the group is fighting off a group of Headless Monks that hung around to hassle them. Before Rory leaves Amy and Melody to help fight alongside the others, he gives his daughter a quick kiss.


After the fight River shows up and after some arguing with the Doctor finally reveals to him who she is by making him read the writing on his cot. He starts and sputters for a while in typical Doctor fashion.


Doctor: Hello.
River: Hello.


Doctor: How do I look?
River: Amazing.
Doctor: I'd better be.
River: Yes, you'd better be.


The Doctor then swiftly disappears into the Tardis after telling River to get Amy and Rory back home and telling Amy that he swears Melody will be safe. Amy, understandably, wants some answers and demands them from River. River explains using the prayer leaf Lorna bucket made for Amy. "They don't have a word for 'pond' because the only water in the forest is the river."



"It's me. I'm Melody. I'm your daughter."


Cue the best 'wtf' faces ever.


And that wraps up episode 7, and the first half of series 6 part 1. I'm already counting down the days until the second part and I don't even have an exact date. When I do, I'll put up the countdown timer again. In the meantime, here's the old countdown timer, complete with a trailer you can click on.

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