Doctor Who (again) [SPOILERS]

[Starscream]

This is why I watch this show. That was pure awesome from beginning to end. I loved it.

Especially liked the reformed Silurian and Sontaran. Sort of forms a nice counterpoint to the argument at the end about the Doctor being a warrior. Seems he's not seen as a monster by every foe he faces.

And now I have to wait until frigging September to find out what happens next! ARRRGGHH!

Also:

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Called it!

I knew there was some meaning to River and Pond being such similar names. I thought there would be some connection as soon as Amy's name was announced, especially since Moffat was now the head writer, and he's the one who created River.

When the child showed up and killed the Doctor (the crime for which it is implied River is in jail), it clicked, and this has been my favorite crackpot theory about the show ever since.

Admittedly, I also sought some connection between the two and Jackson Lake from The Next Doctor. That one is probably just a coincidence (Moffat didn't write that story), but who knows.

[Thufir]

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Pulling all the serialization threads that have been woven, and pulling them quite strongly. Somebody want to compile a list of who all the "Doctor's Army" were?

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Sontaran Nurse
Silurian Lady and Jenny (+additional Silurians)
Judoon
Dorium
Rory
Spitfires IN SPACE!
Pirates

I think that was everyone.

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Question for the more timey-wimey members of the playground: does the Doctor know for sure he will get Melody back since River is alive & kicking there, thus taking a nice leisurely detour to kill Hitler, or can he still fail and screw the universe royally?

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Time can be rewritten, so no. But it probably makes him fairly confident about it. And River will be pretty much certain it'll work.

Edit:

This is why I watch this show. That was pure awesome from beginning to end. I loved it.

Especially liked the reformed Silurian and Sontaran. Sort of forms a nice counterpoint to the argument at the end about the Doctor being a warrior. Seems he's not seen as a monster by every foe he faces.

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Well, they made the whole point last series about how the Silurians aren't monsters, they're another perfectly decent civilisation and the past problems have been more down to misunderstandings.
And the Sontaran was working out that punishment to retain his honour. Had it not been for that, he still would've been your average Sontaran. Which, of course, led to his excellent dialogue.

[Tiki Snakes]

I'd just like to add that I really, really enjoy Silurians and was very happy to have one not only running around having adventures in victorian london, (I demand spin-offs, now plz), but also being one of the major characters in the episode. Have enjoyed them imensely since their Nu-Who introduction.

I was slightly disappointed that we didn't get any Foll Doll Roll Colling after spotting the Judoon. I shall just have to amuse myself via youtube.

[Triscuitable]

so you know what the next episode is? (well the episode in two episodes time seeing as you're in America).

No, I do not have any idea what happens in the next episode. It just seems so bizzare for such a blunt title like "Let's Kill Hitler" instead of what episode we get tonight, "The Almost People", and Series one's "The Long Game", "The Empty Child", etc.

Besides, I don't think that having Hitler in a 25th Century-And-Up.

[Flame of Anor]

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I think we've pretty much got it confirmed now. Rory is the Good Man. Which means he's going to die. River's going to kill him.

Naw dude

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Or that she's the astronaught as a young girl and therefore kilsl the doctor?

It's this

[Mkhaiwati]

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My theory with the eyepatch lady ties in with Amy's baby and the confused scan results by the TARDIS. Amy is being implanted from another time/universe/dimension/alien race/whatever.

In the Impossible Astronaut, eyepatch woman says (while looking to her side) "No, she is just dreaming" or something like that ("No, I think shes dreaming", maybe). Anyway... This episode she looks at Amy and says "It's fine. You are doing fine. Just stay calm." which could be interpreted as a nurse saying this to a patient after a procedure. "It" could be the pregnancy. The speakeasy is just Amy's brains method of understanding when the eyepatch woman checks in on her mental state.

just wanted to quote myself there.

also..
About the Doctor having long range plans, in the 2nd part of that arc before he gets rid of ganger-Amy, he mentions he brought them there intentionally. He needed to see what Amy thought of gangers and her reactions (hence the switcheroo) and to get more information about her. He also states he wanted to drop Rory & ganger-Amy off someplace for ice cream (or whatever) but brought them there instead. The impression is that he knew she was a ganger before landing there.

[BRC]

just wanted to quote myself there.

also..
About the Doctor having long range plans, in the 2nd part of that arc before he gets rid of ganger-Amy, he mentions he brought them there intentionally. He needed to see what Amy thought of gangers and her reactions (hence the switcheroo) and to get more information about her. He also states he wanted to drop Rory & ganger-Amy off someplace for ice cream (or whatever) but brought them there instead. The impression is that he knew she was a ganger before landing there.

I got the impression that he suspected Amy was a ganger, he needed to get a scan on some flesh to be sure.

[Dienekes]

Great episode.

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Rory was awesome, it's nice to see him stare down the Cybermen. I think he may have just passed up Wilf for my favorite companion of New Who. Of the new companions the Sontaran was the best, he was simply hilarious.

You'll be up and around in no time my boy, and perhaps one day you and I shall meet each other on the field of battle and I will destroy you for the glory of the Sontaran Empire.
Priceless.

Also, the 11th Doctor just admitted to have been following rules of conduct.
Think about that. This is the Doctor who committed genocide without a second thought, destroyed an entire army of Cyberman just to prove a point, fed Weeping Angels into oblivion, ect. Him cutting loose is a terrifying thought.

Ultimately my only complaint is that Rise Highest Ever then Fall Furthest were a bit lackluster. Sure he rose pretty high capturing the meteor without a death, but this is the guy that outsmarted the freaking Devil, and sure he fell pretty hard when he found out he was duped, but does that really compare to being a slave to The Master for a year and discovering that at the end humanity is corrupted into mindless killing machines?

[twinkletoes]

I loved that episode. I have no complaints and I really want a spin-off involving the silurian and her friend (did she have a name? If so I didn't catch it.)

[factotum]

Few more thoughts I had overnight about this:

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It pretty clearly wasn't River who was in the spacesuit killing the Doctor, because she would have remembered doing it--and it clearly came as much of a surprise to her as it did to everyone else present.

However, we know the little girl--and thus River herself--can regenerate. Why didn't she do so when she got killed in the Library on her first appearance?

In addition, the troops at Demon's Run were clearly the same ones who were involved in the Weeping Angels two-parter from last year, yet their leader back then did not know who the Doctor was...and since that event must take place *after* Demon's Run in River's personal timeline, how is that possible?

[Serenity]

River pretty clearly stated that the lethal effect in 'Forest of the Dead' was one the Doctor could not regenerate from.

[Totally Guy]

This makes Amy the Doctor's mother in law...

[Helanna]

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This makes Amy the Doctor's mother in law...

Might wanna spoil that, it's kinda a big reveal.

Anyway . . .

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Wow. Just wow. There was hardly a single moment in that entire episode where I wasn't saying "What?" over and over.

I was extremely pleased with Rory being epically badass. The Last Centurion indeed.

"The only water in the forest is the river" - jeez, TARDIS, way to give cryptic, important-sounding advice that was completely useless until after the reveal.

River being Amy and Rory's daughter, though, well . . . first off, it makes her romance with the Doctor a bit creepy. Second, does this mean she won't grow up around the Doctor then? It's clear that she didn't meet the Doctor until she was old enough to be swept off her feet by him, so . . . why didn't she ever know him? Do Rory and Amy decide to go home and settle down after this? Does the Doctor not recover her until she's practically an adult? That'd be a bit of a downer.

Also, it's gotta be kind of hard to raise a daughter when you already know that she ends up spending a good portion of her life in jail, even if it does seem to be mostly by choice (side note: "Oh, turn it off. I'm breaking in, not out!" made me laugh.)

Speaking of, River seemed pretty upset when she realized that Rory was talking about Demon's Run. Because he's the 'good man' that she's going to kill, and she realized the time was getting close? Or because she realized that from now on Rory wouldn't recognize her as his daughter? Or something? It's four o'clock in the morning, River's personal timeline is giving me a headache.

I hope that the little regenerating girl isn't River/Melody - again, I want Rory and Amy to get their baby back, and her wandering around homeless and sick isn't really conducive to that. Right now it seems pretty likely to me (just how many other little girls are running around with the possible ability to regenerate?) but after this episode I'm not making any bets. Besides, actually having more than one regenerating girl would be pretty interesting.

[Flame of Anor]

Might wanna spoil that, it's kinda a big reveal.

If only there were a [SPOILERS] tag in the thread title...

[Jair Barik]

When she was breaking back in from having been somewhere with the doctor was that a call back to the episode in the library?

[Alcopop]

Throughly enjoyed the episode but was honestly a little disappointed in the doctors big fall, all that happened is that he got tricked, I thought the fall would mean that we would finally get to see a chink in the doctors paladin armor (aka waters of mars) but it seems that Moffat is afraid to make the new doctor anything but morally flawless.

[Closet_Skeleton]

I loved that episode. I have no complaints and I really want a spin-off involving the silurian and her friend (did she have a name? If so I didn't catch it.)

The whole episode was spin off fuel.

[Weezer]

Throughly enjoyed the episode but was honestly a little disappointed in the doctors big fall, all that happened is that he got tricked, I thought the fall would mean that we would finally get to see a chink in the doctors paladin armor (aka waters of mars) but it seems that Moffat is afraid to make the new doctor anything but morally flawless.

I agree, the Doctor didn't fall in any way meaningful which defeated the ominous sounding predictions. He was tricked and still achieved a partial victory, maybe if both Amy and the baby were Flesh and his whole army got wiped out in the trap forcing the Doctor and Rory to run far away that would qualify as a ''fall'', but as it is that part was a bit disappointing.

[Dvil]

When you're worrying about whether the doctor "fell" sufficiently, remember we've only seen half the episode so far.

[Eldan]

True, but he also didn't feel very "risen" to me.

[Jibar]

Man, I don't know what I should be spoilering and what I shouldn't here.

But okay, about the fall:

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I think the fall would've been total helplessness; outwitted by what appears to be a regular human, his best friend's baby stolen and hidden somewhere in time and space and his motley collection of heroes and debtors about to be destroyed by the Headless Monks.
It would've been, if River didn't show up and let the Doctor know that not only can he find her, he does, and everything works out fine. It's the encouragement he needs to keep going.
Also Rory being so badass and wiping out all the Headless Monks alone this is my personal canon don't ruin it for me.

[Weezer]

When you're worrying about whether the doctor "fell" sufficiently, remember we've only seen half the episode so far.

Didn't River say to Rory at the beggining of the episode something to the effect of ''I'm sorry but I can't show up until after he's fallen''. i might be wrong but if thats true then we've already seen his big fall.

[Niezck]

The Fall:

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I think it was more the realization of what he'd become and how an entire army and fleet of ships had risen up (again, after the Pandorica) just to fight him. Like, the whole scene in the control room with the silurian where it finally clicked for him that he'd inspired all the violence and hatred.

[Eldan]

I loved that episode. I have no complaints and I really want a spin-off involving the silurian and her friend (did she have a name? If so I didn't catch it.)

And did they come from an earlier episode? I don't remember all the details of The Hungry Earth, but as far as I remember, he didn't send any Silurians back to the 19th century.

[Thufir]

The Fall:

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I think it was more the realization of what he'd become and how an entire army and fleet of ships had risen up (again, after the Pandorica) just to fight him. Like, the whole scene in the control room with the silurian where it finally clicked for him that he'd inspired all the violence and hatred.

Also, notably,

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He gave up. Briefly, sure, River turned up and got him back in the game, but for that brief moment, he gave up. To a man who can do more or less anything, to feel he can do nothing... how much further can he fall?

Edit @^: I think the actress playing the Silurian was in The Hungry Earth/Cold Blood as the two warriors, but I don't think she was meant to be one of that group in this episode. Just an isolated Silurian who'd been woken up in Victorian times.

[Eldan]

Yeah, I thought I had seen her before, and she did look very similar to those. Hence my confusion when she showed up in Victorian times.

Of course, it could mean there's a later Silurian episode this season which ends with her back in Victorian times, hunting Jack the Ripper.

Surely Doctor Who has done a Jack the Ripper episode before some time in it's long history?

[Thufir]

Yeah, I thought I had seen her before, and she did look very similar to those. Hence my confusion when she showed up in Victorian times.

Of course, it could mean there's a later Silurian episode this season which ends with her back in Victorian times, hunting Jack the Ripper.

I doubt it, because then the Doctor wouldn't have already known her in this episode.
Unless you assume he came across her in Victorian times, then this, then later encountered her before she ended up in Victorian times. But I doubt that's going to happen.

[The Big Dice]

Yeah, I thought I had seen her before, and she did look very similar to those. Hence my confusion when she showed up in Victorian times.

Of course, it could mean there's a later Silurian episode this season which ends with her back in Victorian times, hunting Jack the Ripper.

Surely Doctor Who has done a Jack the Ripper episode before some time in it's long history?

I'd say it was more like a reference to what some people call an off screen adventure. Like the trip to Space Florida, or Rose talking about Woman Wept. It's not the first time they've alluded to things that happen when the cameras aren't looking.

[Helanna]

If only there were a [SPOILERS] tag in the thread title...

. . . Well huh. Shows how much attention I'm paying.

[factotum]

Edit @^: I think the actress playing the Silurian was in The Hungry Earth/Cold Blood as the two warriors, but I don't think she was meant to be one of that group in this episode.

She WAS--she mentioned how the Doctor had something to do with her sister and a bunch of miners!