Hmmmmmmm well remembered.

Incredibly late due to tearing my hair out without internet however have posted my review of A Good Man Goes to War, seen as a few of you from DS read my last one I thought I'd share, but didn't want to start a new thread especially.

http://bit.ly/lka1g0

Also posted a very long and possibly completely incoherent ramble about Series 6 so far, but that's the advantage of having your own blog, you can witter on as long as you like without worrying about word counts! If anyone would like to read and can make any sense of it whatsoever then it is here

http://bit.ly/m2Stpd

If The Doctor can speak all languages, as mentioned in the episode 'speaking baby', how come he was not aware Melody Pond would translate to River Song in a language (gamma forests), especially having been there as stated in this episode. Or is it a bit too much to ask of him to just know this?

Maybe he just didn't think about it? maybe he didn't think about translating names or think that River would have anything to do with the forest people?

For one thing, the Doctor didn't know the baby was going to be called Melody until near the end and, in any case, it's not about different languages. River Song and Melody Pond are both English so any English speaker would know they approximate to the same thing.

It's not, however, something that immediately springs out at you particularly since the names are reversed - otherwise all of us watching would have thought of it too

Exactly. The Doctor may know all sorts of languages, but I doubt that even he translates everything he hears into every language he knows the moment he hears it!

He hadn't known about Lorna until the battle, and definitely didn't know that she had any hand in River getting an alias.

Hiya, so I know this is very late but been through the whole head and wanted to comment on a few things and offer my own opinion

We know she missed because in the second episode she said to the girl "I'm sorry I shot you. I'm glad I missed."

yes i thought that retrospectively. How did Rory or the doctor not notice?

My only problem with this theory is that Steven Moffat said he based the idea of River on the time travellers wife. In that Henry meets Clare at all different times. It's not a straight your first is my last. What I'm saying is that every time the doctor meets river doesn't mean that she knows less and he knows more.

I share the same feelings as you. On the first viewing I was disappointed and felt let down. Have watched it several times since and everytime liked it more. It really has grown on me.

That's not River's first kiss though. She said to the doctor "aren't you forgetting something?" suggesting that she had kissed him many times before.

ye good point. I'm jewish and have a hebrew name and also have many friends who have different english names to their hebrew names. Prime example is the name Jacob who's hebrew name could be Yisrael which translated back into english is Israel.

It will be the second part of series 6

It does appear to be a bit of a hole; some scenes definitely suggest they're meeting in reverse order- the first/last kiss- but some meetings are definitely with a later doctor- Stevie Wonder etc- and there would be no need for a diary if they were meeting in directly the reverse order.

I do hope they know what they're doing. Though I'm enjoying it too.

Yes, the Stevie Wonder thing is a clear indication that River can meet both later and earlier Doctor's in quick succession. For that matter, in episode 1 she met 200 years older Doctor and didn't seem at all surprised that he suddenly knew everything in her diary even though, if she'd been meeting successively younger Doctors, that would have been a clear aberration.

Regards

Julian

Which could be misdirection. After all, the spacesuit is still shown with a clear bullet hole and crack in it. It was an odd line to just casually throw into the script, given the significance to the previous episode. Much like "I thought I was pregnant, but I was wrong".

I got to be honest I really didnt like it. It was far to distracting trying to work out why people were brought in. I liked the sonatron and the lizard woman but i didnt feel they worked as a whole. it would have been better done with former allies of his rathr than new people. I didnt understand why he killed the wrong cybermen either. To me it was a mess, nothing was really explained and the whole revalation left me vey underwhelmed.

They werent new people to The Doctor though, that was the point, to inspire fans to think about adventures they've never seen. You just want the same old shit. Not happening

And What wrong Cyberman? What are you talking about? Making up reasons to dislike this perfect episode now are we?


Nothing was supposed to be explained, it's all part of an ongoing story, stop being so used to the standalone stuff and realize that.

I don't want the same shit happening but with so much going on I just found that whole thing utterly distracting to be honest.
My point with cyerman as i was watching it was what the point of haivng in there for 5 sec to blow them up. No, I meant they don't have chest badges on so I'm assuming there not the parrallel earth ones but the other (wrong) ones from the xmas special. No, i'm not making up reasons at all, to my mind the epesode was far from perfect but its all personal opioin.
Well, something supposed to be explained or you'll get fed and not bother to wath anymore. As regards to the ongoing storyline i don't like it. To me when buffy, xfiles etc got to caught up in a overly complicated arc it made the show worse. I prefer the stand alone stories anyday of the week lol plus i'm fed up of defending the show to my mum and explaining whats happening lol

Other wrong ones from the Christmas special?! What are you on about?
The Cybermen in The Next Doctor were the parallel ones. These ones, because they lack the cybus logo, could possibly be the proper old Cybermen from the regular Whooniverse.

I thought this was an imense episode, and still I re watch it again and again !
I loved the rise then the fall of the Doctor !

When River describes the Stevie Wonder incident, she is only talking to Rory and he specifically says that he doesn't know what year she is in. We have no idea "which" River we are seeing - she could be from several years in her own past - i.e. long before we've seen her meet with the Doctor. The River that arrived at Demon's Run could be from a different time entirely - how much "out of time" may depend on whether or not her odd DNA affects her physically - shemay not be able to regenerate but may live for hundreds of years or she may only ever regenerate into the same appearance - or maybe all of these "meeting" over a period of years for us and the Doctor actually occur within a few weeks for her.

I don't understand why there's "no reason for a diary". People generally keep diaries for themself - hers just happens to be particularly useful because it describes events that have already occured for her (or that she's been told of when she was younger) but which haven't happened for us or the Doctor yet. In that respect, her diary is like a history book for the future - a reference book for her.

There's no suggestion that she is literally meeting the Doctor backwards - one day at a time. It's more like she visitis certain events starting with later ones and working backwards.

As an analogy - it's like you having a time machine and visiting historical events - starting with recent history and working backwards. You could visit WWII, then WW1, then Victoria's coronation and so on until you and up at the fall of Jericho. If there was a person who lived through all of those times and you met them each time you time travelled, you would be meeting them "in the wrong order" across hundreds of years - but to you, the whole thing would only last a couple of weeks - or as long as it took to visit each of those events. Whilst you in those times, you can stay hours or days and experience that specific event in "normal" time - an hour for them is an hour for you. You would always know what the history books say happened - or "will happen" to those present.

One possible (actually, very likely) explanation for River telling Rory about Stevie Wonder is that her visits to the past start much later (in our time line) and Rory simply met River some time earlier than we have yet seen her. That could be a few days or a few years "ago" in her time. She could have started her trips back in time by meeting the 27th Doctor and what we are seeing of her now is actually near the end of her time-trips (as well as the end of her life).

Don't forget also that the Doctor travels in time. It's quite possible that any Doctor from 10 onwards could travel to meet her - now that he knows she exists "he can look her up". Earlier Doctors could meet her but they would have to do so without knowing her identity (since 10 didn't know her).

Rewatched this over the weekend and, as with all of the Moffat era stories thus far, it just keeps getting better with multiple viewings.

Love the pacing, love the build up of the Doctor followed by the VERY rapid deconstruction of him (something that's been overdue ever since Christmas Invasion), love the 'battle' of Demon's Run (the Spitfires still bring a stupidly big grin to my face), love every single scene with Amy and Rory, love the ending with River (especially the Doctor's face as he realises in about a minute Rory and Amy are going to realise just who he has been going to be sleeping with) and the title of the next episode still makes me laugh at the sheer audacity of it.

The whole thing looks fantastic, though that could be said about Series 6 in general, the production design has just been astonishing. Better still the main cast are so damn good together at this point and the acting is just a joy to watch. Amy really is getting put through the wringer during her time on the show (your baby disolving in your arms has to be right at the top of the Nightmare Fuel list for any adults watching this show, surely) and, IMO, Karen continues to play her brilliantly well. Actually the whole Pond family is just fantastic, as someone put it "Pond" and "BAMF" are pretty much interchangable at this point.

Dislikes? Very few.actually. The tone in the middle of the episode drops a fraction too far and doesn't quite get the air of dread that should be hanging over it as we, the audience, wait for the trap to close. The ending leaves a lot of questions, which is fine by me, but I do wish we'd gotten just the start of the Amy / Rory / River conversation following that revelation. And I really wanted a one on one coversation between Amy and Madame Kovarian making it clear what Amy's likely to do if Melody is harmed (hurting Amy's loved ones has been proven a Bad Idea).

Other than that great episode, keeps up the superb average of S6 and roll on part 2 in the Autumn!

I can't put my finger on why this one left me so cold. I've generally been really enjoying Series 6, but this just underwhelmed me.

At first, I thought it was just from over-speculation making me see the twist coming, but it was more than that.

The cliffhanger of The Almost People turned an entertaining romp into an absolutely brilliant episode, and promised an epic journey. The Doctor promised that whatever corner of the universe Amy was in, they'd find her.

20 minutes into the next episode, she's been freed.

The journey to rescue Amy was so brief, so easy, that it fell flat. Yes, I acknowledge that the easiness was due to it being a trap, but in that case they shouldn't have bigged it up to such a ridiculous extent. "He will rise higher than ever before" my arse. It could have definitely done with an extra episode between the Flesh story and this depicting the Doctor and Rory's epic hunt across time and space (maybe the "raising an army" idea would have had more of an impact if they'd spent longer doing it).

It didn't help that it came with all of my pet peeves of New Who (which I love, before anyone jumps on me). People jerk off the Doctor and devote their entire lives to him after meeting him for a minute in their childhood. And the only thing worse than building up the Doctor as a god is building him up as the Devil. Just like Davros did in Journey's End, River Song starts telling him he's some kind of demon when he's done absolutely nothing wrong. The guy was saving his best mate from a pretty unambiguously evil baby-snatching organisation! I'm all for morally ambiguous hero, but at least make him do something morally ambiguous before you start claiming him to be one.

I did enjoy the episode, and it had some great moments. The Sontaran Nurse and lesbian Silurian crimefighter, Rory's epic speech in the opening*, the tender moments with the baby ("I speak baby"), the horrible moment when the baby melts in Amy'd arms, the Doctor's angry speech against Colonel Runaway**. The episode had so many good points, and I enjoyed it more on repeated viewings, but I almost get the feeling that you're really supposed to like this and find it REALLY EPIC. Maybe I'll change my mind when Let's Kill Hitler rolls around, but it fell flat for me.


*Speaking of which, "Rory goes mental and fights his way through the universe to save his wife, becoming the stuff of legends" would have made a more interesting episode than "Everyone says how brilliant the Doctor is. Again".

**The line "I'm angry, that's new" almost ruined it, though. Try telling that to poor Peri and she'd laugh in your face.

Umm, just a small point, River wasn't really talking about his actions at Demon's Run exactly, it was his reputation that had been building over the years that was the issue. His reputation that had gotten to the point his enemies were willing to steal a child and turn her into a weapon to use against him.

As for the whole "The Doctor is Brilliant / God" thing... that seems to be something that Moffat's not too keen on either considering pretty much all of S6 (and a fair bit of S5) has the Doctor being not quite as clever or on top of things as he thinks he is. I have a sneaky suspicion that Moffat's going to use Demon's Run as the tipping point to shift away from that part of the character and make him a more flawed and grounded Doctor again... in the nicest possible, still out there and nuts sort of way of course

You're not alone in feeling disappointed by this episode (see my earlier post in this thread:

http://forums.digitalspy.co.uk/showp...&postcount=977)


I believe JCR was referring to the practice of River and the Doctor comparing diaries not just owning diaries. River uses the diary to try to establish what point in time She and the Doctor are at relative to 'past' events. Logically, if she's always travelling backwards along his time line she can just start at the last point she identified in the diary and work back from there. I get the impression that, at least in the early episodes, she had no expectation of that being the case.

Plus the whole poignant moment when she realized that the kiss she had with the Doctor would be her last because it was his first doesn't make sense if, as you say "It's quite possible that any Doctor from 10 onwards could travel to meet her".

There's definitely a lack of consistency with this whole meeting backwards thing.

Regards

Julian

Good point, but I still think it was a bit dickish of River to give him such a telling off like that (not to mention hypocritical, considering she is far more gung-ho than he is). This reputation has been built up for the most part because the Doctor has gone around the universe defending innocent people from those who oppress them, destroy their civilisations or try to slaughter them. Yes, he might make a few enemies and some people might not know him as a saviour but River of all people should know better.



Well I'm hoping you're right . I've always thought Moffat's been into the whole "God-like Doctor" thing, though, perhaps even more than RTD. Moffat's Doctor makes unfearing shadow creatures run away by telling them to look him up, is the man who makes big speeches telling aliens to basically run or to never ever put him in, a trap, who is able to make an army of Daleks, Cybermen and god knows what so scared that they team up to imprison him. Every time the Doctor does an "I'm the Doctor and I'm awesome" speech, I just feel like cringing.

But we'll see how this character arc goes.