A Good Man Goes to War
218 – "A Good Man Goes to War" | |||
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Doctor Who episode | |||
Cast | |||
Others
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Production | |||
Directed by | Series 6 | ||
Running time | 50 minutes | ||
First broadcast | 4 June 2011 | ||
Chronology | |||
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"A Good Man Goes to War" is the seventh episode of the
The episode follows the cliffhanger of "The Almost People", which reveals Amy Pond (Karen Gillan) had been operating a Flesh duplicate of herself and is in fact held in a remote location and about to give birth. Alien time traveller the Doctor (Matt Smith) and Amy's husband, Rory (Arthur Darvill), muster an army of allies and set out to find both Amy and her child, a girl named Melody Pond.
The episode reveals the recurring character River Song (Alex Kingston) is Amy and Rory's child. River's identity was kept in top secrecy, and only a few members of the cast and crew were issued the correct ending of the script. The beginning of the episode contained many different locations which were challenging for the production team. The main setting, Demons Run, was filmed in a military base and hangar in Cardiff. "A Good Man Goes to War" was watched by 7.57 million viewers in the United Kingdom and received an Appreciation Index of 88. Critical reception was generally positive, and the episode was nominated for the 2012 Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation (Short Form).
Plot
Prequel
On 28 May 2011, immediately following the broadcast of "The Almost People", the BBC released a prequel to "A Good Man Goes to War". The prequel had Dorium talking to two Headless Monks. He gives them the brain of a Judoon, which contains a security protocol the monks need. Dorium tells them he knows what they are up to, as he has heard rumours around the area. He asks them, "All this, to imprison one child? Oh, I know what you're up to, I hear everything in this place. I even hear rumours about whose child you've taken. Are you mad? You know the stories about the Doctor? The things that man has done? God help us if you make him angry!"[1]
Synopsis
The Eleventh Doctor and Rory have discovered Amy, Rory's wife and the Doctor's companion, has been abducted from them and her place taken by an avatar made from "the Flesh", a semi-sentient shape-shifting material. The Doctor tracks Amy's location to an asteroid base called "Demon's Run", and he and Rory gather several of his allies to attack. Rory tries to convince River Song to help, but she insists that she cannot since this battle is where the Doctor will learn of her true identity.
At Demon's Run, Amy has been held by Madame Kovarian, who has taken her infant daughter Melody Pond. Amy befriends human soldier Lorna Bucket, who had met the Doctor before as a child on her home planet; Lorna gives her a good luck token with Melody's name, written in the Gamma Forests' language on it.
Demons run when a good man goes to war
Night will fall and drown the sun
When a good man goes to war
Friendship dies and true love lies
Night will fall, and the dark will rise
When a good man goes to war
Demons run, but count the cost
The battle's won, but the child is lost
River Song, explaining the meaning of the name of Demon's Run base
Aided by additional Silurian and Judoon forces, the Doctor and his allies, who owe him debts, secure the base, find Amy, and reclaim Melody from Kovarian. The Doctor celebrates his victory, but Madame Vastra informs him that Kovarian had been scanning Melody and found traces of Time Lord DNA; she asks if Melody could have been conceived while Amy and Rory were in flight through the Vortex in the TARDIS. The Doctor realises this is what happened.
Lorna arrives too late to warn the group about Kovarian's trap. The TARDIS is blocked by a force field, and her army of Headless Monks attack, killing many Silurians, fatally wounding Strax and Lorna, and beheading Dorium before they can end the battle. Kovarian contacts the Doctor, elated to have been able to fool him twice, and reveals she will use Melody as a weapon against him. She sends a signal to cause Melody, made of Flesh, to disintegrate in Amy's arms, with the real Melody in her possession.
River Song arrives, and the Doctor berates her for not helping. River shows the Doctor Lorna's token for Amy, and the Doctor sets off in the TARDIS excitedly, telling River to return the survivors of the battle home. Amy demands River explain what the Doctor saw. She shows them Lorna's gift with Melody's name on it, and as the TARDIS translation circuits engage, River explains that Lorna's people in the Gamma Forests have no word for "pond", the only water in the forest is the river; the words come out to be "River Song". River reveals she is Amy and Rory's daughter Melody.
Continuity
The
Production
Writing
"A Good Man Goes to War" is the seventh episode of series six and also the 777th episode of Doctor Who, but there are no seven puns as the production team did not realise this until after shooting.
Moffat had planned the revelation about River Song "for a long time"; when creating Amy, he chose "Pond" for her last name to create a link.
The episode sees the return of several minor characters. Dorium previously appeared in "
Filming and effects
"A Good Man Goes to War" began shooting in mid-January 2011.[10] The various sets seen at the beginning of the episode were challenging for the production team.[5] A Cardiff alleyway was dressed to look like a Victorian street for a brief introduction scene with Vastra, while a hotel bar in Cardiff was used for Dorium's nightclub.[5] Demon's Run was filmed in a military base and hangar in Cardiff. Steam was added to the set to give it a more spaceship-like feel.[5] The army of clerics was made larger with visual effects.[5] The set used for the chamber Amy was kept in was the same used as the Oval Office in "The Impossible Astronaut"/"Day of the Moon".[5] Baby Melody Pond was played by twins, a common practice used in filming so that one twin can rest while the other is on set. The twins were three months old.[5] Gillan and Darvill were both nervous about holding the infants, but they felt it added to their acting.[5] Gillan stated the episode showed a different side of Amy and thought female viewers would sympathise with her.[11]
The Headless Monks were played by stuntmen, and so the actors were free to improvise on their choreography when fighting them.[5] For the scene in which the hoods of the Headless Monks are pulled back, a shoulderpiece was created for actors who were shorter than the ones who normally portrayed the monks.[5] Dan Starkey, who plays the Sontaran Commander Strax, previously appeared as Sontarans in "The Sontaran Stratagem" / "The Poison Sky" (2008) and "The End of Time" (2010).[2] Neve McIntosh, who played the Silurian Warrior Vastra, previously played the sisters Alaya and Restac in "The Hungry Earth" / "Cold Blood" (2010).[12] Both Starkey and McIntosh underwent extensive make-up and prosthetics for their characters.[5]
Broadcast and reception
"A Good Man Goes to War" was first broadcast in the United Kingdom on 4 June 2011 on BBC One and BBC HD[13] and in the United States on BBC America on 11 June 2011.[14] UK overnight figures showed the episode was watched by 5.5 million viewers, a rise of half a million from the previous week and coming in sixth place for the night.[15] Final consolidated ratings showed the episode was watched by 7.57 million viewers with an audience share of 31%.[16] It achieved an Appreciation Index of 88, the joint highest for the series at time of broadcast.[17]
Critical reception
"A Good Man Goes to War" received generally positive reviews. IGN's Matt Risley rated the episode 9 out of 10, describing it as an "epic" mid-series finale which "opened with a grandstanding, wonderfully OTT pre-credits tease and didn't really let up from there". He praised the spectacle and character development, but felt it led to a certain amount of "the odd rushed scene...forgettable supporting [characters], and little opportunity to develop the Headless Monks into anything particularly imposing".[18] Dave Golder of SFX gave "A Good Man Goes to War" four and a half out of five stars, feeling it "saved" the sixth series and offered "a satisfying slice of fantasy television which ticked lots of boxes: it featured dashing, daring storytelling which was bold and confident; it looked fantastic, there were some hilarious lines and the performance of the star upped his wattage a couple of notches once again". However, he was more critical of the Headless Monks and the direction of the battle at the end.[19] Neela Debnath of The Independent was also favourable, praising the use of the cliffhanger and felt the complicated nature of the episode "draws people more into the show and gets them thinking about it".[20]
Gavin Fuller of The Daily Telegraph said the episode was good but lacked significant background motivation into the villains. Fuller also noted the revelation of River Song being Amy's grown up child "is perhaps a narrative strand which would sit uncomfortably with a series where loss has often been brushed off as soon as the next couple of episodes". However, he did have praise for the performance of Smith's Doctor, commenting "the last few weeks have seen Matt Smith's Doctor in a welcome generally more serious vein, which he kept up here, with leavening at the right moments where his alien lack of comfort with human emotions, although used to comic effect, rang very true, as did his awkwardness when discovering the truth about River".[21]
Dan Martin of The Guardian was less favourable, stating the producers "promised us a cliffhanger, and now we're left the whole summer long to contemplate whether our favourite show can really have just dropped the ball. Oh there was plenty to love about this mid-season finale, and even more to pick over. But as an hour of drama it was all over the place". Because the episode was so fast-paced with little being explained, he did not feel any emotional connection to the Anglican marines or Lorna Bucket. Unlike Fuller, Martin was not favourable to Smith's Doctor, stating "the non-event of the battle means the Doctor never really gets to show this dark side we've been hearing so much about" and that Smith's predecessor, David Tennant, "got angrier most weeks". Martin did have praise for the final reveal of the episode, stating that although it had been "hidden in plain view from the very beginning as soon as it's revealed Amy has called the baby Melody", he was unable to make the connection and was suitably surprised.[22] Martin later rated it the second-to-worst episode of the series, though the finale was not included in the list.[23]
The episode was nominated for the 2012 Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation (Short Form),[24] though it lost to Neil Gaiman's episode "The Doctor's Wife".[25]
Two of the new characters introduced in the episode, a 19th-century crimefighter Silurian named
in 2019.References
- ^ "A Good Man Goes to War Prequel". BBC. 28 May 2011. Retrieved 2 June 2011.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j Hickman p. 86
- ^ Steven Moffat (writer), Nick Hurran (director), Marcus Wilson (producer) (1 September 2012). "Asylum of the Daleks". Doctor Who. Series 7. Episode 1. BBC. BBC One.
- ^ "A Good Man Goes to War – The Fourth Dimension". BBC. Retrieved 7 August 2011.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o "The Born Identity". Doctor Who Confidential. Series 6. Episode 7. 4 June 2011. BBC. BBC Three.
- Usenet: [email protected]. Retrieved 30 May 2012.
- ^ Jeffery, Morgan (25 August 2011). "'Doctor Who' Steven Moffat planned River Song twist 'for a long time'". Digital Spy. Retrieved 26 May 2012.
- ^ Zaino, Nick (21 April 2011). "Alex Kingston on River Song, Being the Doctor's Equal, and Steven Moffat's Plans". TV Squad. Archived from the original on 16 April 2012. Retrieved 26 May 2012.
- ^ Sperling, Daniel (29 July 2011). "'Doctor Who' Steven Moffat: 'The Doctor will never star in Torchwood'". Digital Spy. Retrieved 1 August 2011.
- ^ Love, Ryan (13 January 2011). "Moffat confirms 'Who' episode shooting". Digital Spy. Retrieved 20 April 2013.
- ^ Love, Ryan (2 June 2011). "Karen Gillan: 'Female viewers will feel for Amy Pond'". Digital Spy. Retrieved 26 May 2012.
- ^ Hickman p. 84
- ^ "Network TV BBC Week 23: Saturday 4 June 2011" (Press release). BBC. Retrieved 20 November 2011.
- ^ "A Good Man Goes to War". BBC America. Retrieved 20 November 2011.
- ^ Golder, Dave (5 June 2010). "Doctor Who "A Good Man Goes to War" Overnight Ratings". SFX. Retrieved 20 November 2011.
- ^ Golder, Dave (12 June 2011). "Doctor Who "A Good Man Goes To War" Final Consolidated Ratings". SFX. Retrieved 20 November 2011.
- ^ "A Good Man Goes to War – AI". Doctor Who News Page. 6 June 2011. Retrieved 20 November 2011.
- ^ Risley, Matt (4 June 2011). "Doctor Who: "A Good Man Goes to War" Review". IGN. Retrieved 15 June 2011.
- ^ Golder, Dave (4 June 2011). "Doctor Who "A Good Man Goes to War" - TV Review". SFX. Retrieved 16 May 2012.
- ^ Debnath, Neela (6 June 2011). "Review of Doctor Who 'A Good Man Goes to War'". The Independent. Archived from the original on 16 June 2012. Retrieved 16 May 2012.
- ^ Fuller, Gavin (4 June 2011). "Doctor Who, episode 7:A Good Man Goes to War, review". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 15 June 2011.
- ^ Martin, Dan (4 June 2011). "Doctor Who: A Good Man Goes to War – series 32, episode 7". The Guardian. Retrieved 15 June 2011.
- ^ Martin, Dan (30 September 2011). "Doctor Who: which is the best episode of this series?". The Guardian. Retrieved 20 November 2011.
- ^ Davis, Lauren (7 April 2012). "The 2012 Hugo Nominations have been announced!". io9. Retrieved 7 April 2012.
- ^ "2012 Hugo Awards". World Science Fiction Society. Archived from the original on 9 April 2012. Retrieved 3 September 2012.
- ^ "SFX Spurious Awards". SFX. 10 June 2011. Retrieved 10 June 2011.
- ^ Setchfield, Nick (22 July 2011). "Madame Vastra Spin-Off". SFX. Retrieved 22 July 2011.
- ^ Pinchefsky, Carol (7 December 2012). "Spoiler-Free Tidbits on the Upcoming Doctor Who Christmas Special". Forbes. Retrieved 17 December 2012.
- ^ Moffat, Steven (30 March – 5 April 2013). Radio Times. Immediate Media Company.
{{cite journal}}
: CS1 maint: untitled periodical (link) - ^ "A look ahead to the dramatic series seven finale". BBC. 26 April 2013. Retrieved 30 April 2013.
- ^ "Doctor Who's Paternoster Gang are returning in their own Big Finish spin-off". Digital Spy. 5 November 2018. Retrieved 5 July 2019.
Bibliography
- Hickman, Clayton (2011). The Brilliant Book 2012. ISBN 978-1849902304.
External links
- "A Good Man Goes to War" at IMDb
- A Good Man Goes to War on Tardis Wiki, the Doctor Who Wiki
- "A Good Man Goes to War" at the BBC Doctor Who homepage