Rory (Arthur Darvill) and Amy (Karen Gillan) drive around in the car making crop circles, with Amy giving instructions in the passenger seat (!) This is to contact the Doctor (Matt Smith) and they write his name in the form of a crop circle. Which becomes a headline in the local Leadworth paper. Amy asks if he's found Melody yet, he's had all Summer (and so have we waited around all Summer for the remaining episodes.) He reassures he'll find her cos of who she grows up to be. They notice a line running through the crop circle, which they didn't do. Mels (Nina Toussaint-White) drives up in a stolen car. (NO prizes for guessing Mel is short for Melody.) Oh spoilers, never mind. It was obvious. Mels tells Amy she "never said he was hot." Think Matt Smith's Doctor is probably the only one who'd be described as hot! Other than David Tennent.
Rory tells her she can't keep doing what she does, "you're going to end up in prison." Ain't that the truth! She asks if the TARDIS is the fun box? Mels is their best friend. The Doctor repeats, "never said he was hot." The Doctor doesn't know her and he danced with everyone at their wedding, even the men, most of whom were shy. Well she was around at the wedding, only with a different face, thus all the clues and allusions. If you get the feeling we're being toyed with here, well we are.
A long time ago in Leadworth: Schoolgirl Mels (Maya Glace-Green) asks if he's hot. Amelia (Caitlin Blackwood) replies he's funny (clearly Mels was more mature than Amelia.) He's got a time machine. Rory's ignored as usual, even back then. In class Mels gets into trouble when she replies the cause of the Titanic sinking was cos the Doctor didn't save it. Mels says the Doctor didn't stop Hitler. She's always in trouble and she needs a 'Doctor'. Amy's lucky she's got Rory, but Amy replies he's not hers and he's gay. Which Rory denies. The TARDIS goes haywire cos Mels shot at the console. He told her guns don't work in this place. Doctor: "that was a clever lie."
Berlin 1939: Miniature people are inside a Third Reich officer's body. The Captain, Carter (Richard Dillane) orders Harriet to check his skintone and is about to be killed by antibodies since her bracelet isn't green, thus she's not authorized. The man transforms into another version of Zimmerman (Phillip Rham) right before his eyes. He's guilty of war crimes so they can leave him to the antibodies. Which were like robotic Oods without bodies. Just as the transformed Zimmerman is about to shoot Hitler (Albert Welling) the TARDIS crashes though the window and saves him. The Doctor doesn't know what room they're in as he hasn't memorized all the rooms in the universe yet. They notice it's Hitler and realized they saved his life. Doctor: "it was an accident." He tells him it's a policebox from London. "The British are coming." Rory knocks Hitler out and puts him in a cupboard. Zimmerman faints and the Doctor calls it a 'perfect faint'.
Mels has been shot. The ship identifies the box as the TARDIS and they've come across the biggest war criminal ever. When they said 'she' it could only be Mels. She tells the Doctor she used to dream of him and the Doctor mentions the Vampires of Venice was a great story. She was going to marry him. He tells her if she recovers, he will marry her. He must ask her parent's permission and they're right here: Amy and Rory. She regenerates into River (Alex Kingston). She recalled being a toddler in New York (6.2). The Doctor realizes Mels is short for Melody and tells Amy, "you named your daughter after your daughter." River tells Rory to shut up, she's focusing on a dress size. See they got to be with her growing up after all. Though they appeared to be similar ages back then.
River has to examine herself like the Doctor did after every regeneration. She loves her new body, she's all 'sort of mature,' "Hello Benjamin...watch out for the bow tie." She utters when she gets close to the Doctor. For the first time he doesn't reply, "bow ties are cool." He calls her River Song and she asks who that is. Doctor: "spoilers." Did he get that line from her or did she pinch it from the Doctor? River: "What's spoilers?" They don't know her yet, she's here at her start and she doesn't know her name yet either. She pulled a gun on him. Thought they were getting married. The Doctor anticipated her going for the gun and emptied it. He knew she was coming. Knew she'd go for the gun after her bow tie line, so he gives her a banana. He tells her she could have killed him in the cornfield.
River: "I'm a psychopath, I'm not rude." She was born to kill the Doctor and he reminds Amy she was being built at Demon's Run (6.7). Doctor: "building my bespoke psychopath." She calls him sweetie and the Doctor tells her only River song can call him that. She kisses him and then adds "my love." He missed that she'd poison him with her lips. "Oh River, River, River, more than a friend I think." She tells him he doesn't understand all warfare except for the cruelest, it was never going to be a gun for him (as in 6.1). She's poisoned him. The Doctor knows she's been brainwashed and "she's a woman."
She rides off on a motorbike and Amy and Rory follow, also on motorbike. Jim (Davood Ghadami) comments the Doctor must die at a confirmed "fixed point, he always does." The Doctor inside the TARDIS needs a voice interface and it comes up with Rose (Billie Piper) , then Martha (Freema Agyeman). The Doctor calls them all guilt. And Donna (Catherine Tate) is the biggest guilt of all. There must be someone in the universe he hasn't 'screwed up yet' and the interface becomes Amelia. But she repeats she's not Amelia Pond several times. He'll hang on for her, but he can't regenerate. She finally says "fishfingers and custard," (from 5.1) giving him hope.
At a hotel restaurant, River sends everyone running in their undies and tries on their clothes. Rory and Amy drive up, hotly followed by a robotic version of Amy. The miniature people having transformed into her appearance now. Rory and Amy are trapped inside of her with the antibodies about to attack. Rory's stuck inside Amy's body, "how can I not see this as a metaphor." Jim gives them bracelets to show they're authorized. They're in a Justice Department vehicle, the Teselecta. They're not guilty of anything and can live.
The Doctor quotes Rule 408: "time is not the boss of you." He's changed into his wedding attire, top hat and tails, with a cane. Thought he was about to burst into song there. That's his new sonic, Amy having the other one. Rule 27: "never knowingly be serious." Amy signals him with the Sonic. River is caught in a beam, streaming from robot Amy's mouth. The Doctor admits he didn't see the miniatures coming. He's still alive and he's the Doctor so whether River kills him or not has nothing to do with them. Their job is to extract them near their time lines and "give them hell." Who (!) do they think he is? He demands to see his biography. Amy convinces them to let him do that. The Silence want him dead. The Silence being a religious order/movement. 'The Silence will fall when the question is asked. The oldest question in the universe hidden in plain sight. The question is unknown.'
The Doctor tells Amy and Rory to stop River getting hell (as she's engulfed in fire. That's hell.) She's their daughter. Amy uses the Sonic to turn everyone's bracelets red. Doctor: "rule 7: never run when you're scared." The miniatures are beamed onto the mothership. River notices he still cares. The Doctor calls her River and she says it must be a woman. He pleads for help to save Rory and Amy and why didn't River care enough to do that, they're her parents and she was brainwashed into killing the Doctor, not her parents. The TARDIS lands over them. River did it. The TARDIS let her fly and taught her. River refers to the TARDIS as 'her'. The Doctor said she's "the child of the TARDIS."
The Doctor says she must find River song and whispers what to tell her. River wants to see her biography and the Teselecta turns into River. The Doctor dies. River asks if he's worth it. She regenerates and saves him. Saying "hello sweetie" in the process. Amy says she used all of her regenerations in one go to save him. (That's so she'll have to remain as River now, with her face.) He told River no one could save him but he must have known she could. The Doctor tells them Rule number 1: "The Doctor lies." Mind you it could have been a cunning ploy on his part to make her use up all her regenerations and in the process, she became a better person. Considering the Doctor has died now and that she killed him, what of dying on 22 April 2011? River said the Doctor lies to Amy in The Time of Angels episode in season 5. The Doctor leaves a blue journal for River by her bedside, she's going to be amazing. So he gave her the journal, was it cos he already knew she had one, so he was responsible for her writing one. Which means he should have known who she was in the library but didn't, since his "foreknowledge" only extended as far as these events and his upcoming death.
The Doctor tells Amy they have to let her go her own way. "We have too much foreknowledge." 22/4/2011 appears on the TARDIS screen, when he dies. Rory recalls she was in prison for murder. Amy: "Whose (Who's) murder." Well she just answered that question. Amy asks how people look for him and he replies Amy should know that by now.
The Luna University 5123: River wants to study archeology as "I'm looking for a good man."
So this episode clearly shows the maxim of her past being his future, yet he's managed to find out some things for himself and also steered River in the right direction, making her a different person. The Doctor knew he was going to die so that's why he sent out those invitations in 6.1 The Impossible Astronaut. As I already said in my reviews for season 6 episodes, he already knew about this as only he could have invited them to Utah. It was the only thing that made sense. The girl regenerated into Mels in 6.2. Day of the Moon. So we know she used up three of her regenerations. The Doctor doesn't tell them here that he already knows of his demise, even when Amy asks him and that's why in 6.6 The Almost People, I also said he was aware of this when Amy tells him he's going to die, thinking he's talking to ganger Doctor, when actually she was telling the real one. River was meant to kill him on 22/4/2011, but this date's already passed for us.
The Doctor calls her River, but she doesn't know it's her name yet and she was programmed to be a psychopath, hence all the hell raising when she was growing up. A bit of a nice touch for Amy and Rory to be around her when she was growing up, suggesting they were all the same age when they went to school together and Mels was the one who got the two of them together, matchmaking her own parents. River saying she was going to marry him when she was little. He says he will marry her if she gets better, which she did, so he has to marry her now. This was the question they had fun with at the end of 5.13, The Big Bang, you know, was he asking her to marry him and did she think he asked her. Of course River was at the wedding leaving all those clues around for Amy to remember the Doctor.
The Doctor giving her the journal, kind of prophetic in a way, also knowing they'll see her again. Foreknowledge of events, which means he knows about his future, River's past. How did River end up in 5123. As for the title, a red herring if ever there was one, since the episode was all about Mels/River and not about Hitler or killing him at all. Though she did say that line. Fishfingers and custard was also mentioned in 6.1 The Impossible Astronaut. Mels was conceived in the TARDIS, so her DNA took on remnants of the Time Lord features/characteristics, as was said in 6.7 A Good Man Goes to War.
River's use of the phrase, "Hello Benjamin" when she sees the gun, was a line used in The Graduate by Anne Bancroft's character, Mrs Robinson. The Doctor being Benjamin (Dustin Hoffman's character), and she does the same motion as Mrs Robinson with her leg. In 6.1 The Impossible Astronaut, the Doctor likened River to Mrs Robinson. As for the banana ploy, the ninth Doctor (Christopher Eccleston) used the same tactic on Jack Harkness (John Barrowman) when he replaced his sonic weapon with a banana. In this episode, River kisses the Doctor for the first time, whereas in 6.2 Day of the Moon, it was the Doctor's first time he kissed River.
More paradoxes in this episode as in 5.13 The Big Bang. The Doctor tells Amy she named her daughter after her friend, i.e. she named her daughter after her daughter. Also he gives River the journal, possibly cos he's seen her with it already, but she didn't think about keeping a journal until he gave it to her. Mels was instrumental in getting her parents together; otherwise they wouldn't have gotten together, or married, with Amy under the mistaken belief Rory was gay.
The miniature people reminded me of the movie Fantastic Voyage (1966) when the doctors were shrunk and placed on a ship inside a man's body. In one scene, they're attacked by his antibodies. So what's the oldest question in the universe: 'will you marry me?' When the Doctor asks River to marry him, well the Silence are a religious order, or perhaps me just being romantically sentimental, ha!
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