Further Thoughts on "Let's Kill Hitler"

[kerravonsen]

After having read a few people's reactions, and thinking a bit myself, here are some further thoughts.

I wonder if the people who adored this episode are all River fans. Because some of the things I've seen people dislike about the episode have been the very things other people adored - both to do with River.

If Rose was RTD's speshul snowflake, then River is Moffat's. My own attitude towards River flips between liking her and finding her really annoying.

Mind you, I did like Alex Kingston's acting; she did channel the immature bad-girl Mels well. This was very much not the River we knew.

But, seriously - Melody Pond is a worse "war criminal" than Hitler? Someone who committed genocide is less evil than someone who committed a single murder? Talk about skewed priorities.

People have commented on the unbelievableness of River turning around in the course of ten minutes from someone who wanted to kill the Doctor to someone who saved his life. One of my theories was that the "giving them hell" thing of the "justice" people was a psychic field which confronts the person with the full evilness of what they've done. But on further thought, I'm not sure if that is what we're meant to think. After all, Moffat goes to great effort to make Mels even more of a Doctor fangirl than Amy (something which irritates me, because it belittles Amy's faithfulness to the Doctor's memory, in comparison). So perhaps what we're meant to believe is that River/Melody has always been in love with the Doctor, she didn't really want to kill him, it wasn't her fault, she's just a victim, programmed to do something she doesn't want to do.

Though that begs the question of why Mels didn't immediately try to kill the Doctor as soon as she saw him, rather than waiting until after she regenerated into River.

Leadworth crop circles! Why did I not squee about that before?

And I loved the completely stunned looks that they all had when the TARDIS crew realized that they'd just saved Hitler's life.
And can I say again how I loved Rory punching Hitler and shoving him in a cupboard?

I liked the shout-out to former companions Rose, Martha, and Donna in the scene where the Doctor asks for a voice interface - "guilt, guilt, and even more guilt". Indeed. Acknowledgement, without being emo about it. Good.

I've seen some people complain that it should have had Jack in that sequence. To which I respond, they only had so much time for that sequence. But that's an external explanation. However, tardis_stowaway gave an internal explanation that made me smile: Sexy-TARDIS ships Doctor/Rose. (grin)

After seeing the Confidential, there are a couple of things I'm certain of:
1) Amy and Rory are not going to get baby!Melody back.
Moffat didn't seem to be bothered about them not raising her, because he seems to think that being best friends with Mels is equivalent. (frowns)

2) Doppelganger-Doctor is going to turn up again.
This I am certain of because in the "story so far" sequence at the start of the Confidential, the Doppelganger-Doctor appears, and he wouldn't have been shown if he wasn't important to the storyline. Gun on the mantelpiece.

tardis_stowaway had a perfect description of this episode, which I must quote:
Let's Kill Hitler basically threw together a handful of shiny and wonderful things, a handful of total fail, and a few random plot elements from Moff's idea notebook that he hadn't found a way to include anywhere else. Then it stuck it all in a blender until it became a lumpy slurry of the wonderful and the infuriating and tried to pour the mixture into a too-small container.

The thing that I feared when Moffat took over has happened: he's writing below his capacity.