Did the Doctor say what George was? In a sense it doesn’t matter, he’s just a McGuffin, but it’s another loose end (“I might be back around puberty, that can be a difficult time” - approximate quote, sorry). I don’t particularly care for loose ends.
Roddy
That line confused me a bit (until I remembered I was watching a TV show 
). I was thinking - “You’re a time traveler. Why wait?”
The Doctor: George is a Tenza. Of course he is.
Alex: He’s a what?
The Doctor: A cuckoo. A cuckoo in a nest. A Tenza. He’s a Tenza. Millions of them hatch in space and then—woof—off they drift, looking for a nest. The Tenza young can sense exactly what their foster parents want and then they assimilate perfectly.
Wow, I missed that completely; I vaguely remember something about a cuckoo, but that’s it. And George wasn’t really what they wanted (except he was a baby and they wanted a baby) and he didn’t exactly assimilate, since his fears caused such problems. Oh, well, one learns not to nit-pick the Doctor.
Roddy
Did he say that he’d be back at puberty? I’ll thought he told Alex to watch out for puberty, because… Wuff, that’ll be a difficult time.
“I might pop back around puberty, mind you. Always a funny time.”
Of course, with time travel and all, he could pop back tomorrow or in 200 years, relative to him.
I thought he said “It might pop back” - as in the condition.
I’m sure that I read somewhere that the Doctor claimed Theta Sigma was his old college nickname, and not his real name.
Hmm, that makes sense, too, but FWIW, I checked the closed captioning (like that’s never wrong) and it says ‘I’ as well.
I think he he just had regular fears, and his parents tried to be all parental and told him to just “put them in the cupboard”, thinking that would help him cope. It would probably work for a normal kid. But his fears started coming to life, and he heard his parents talking about sending him away for some help, but he misunderstood them and REALLY started freaking out.
And just to illustrate the terrifying way Moffat’s genius works, River’s message to the Doctor (the one she carved on the cliff) starts with a theta and a sigma. (Or so says one of the Doctor Who panels at Dragon Con. I haven’t gone back to check.)
Maybe the Doctor was in a frat at Gallifrey U.?
Interesting… So it does.
The missing ducks was actually referred to in a later episode, the one with the Angels in the Byzantium. I think it was a reflection on the crack making them go bye-bye.
I don’t think the Doctor and company did. Why should they? Someone would be along eventually, wondering where the Furher is and why he hasn’t come to dinner.
I don’t think that was being proposed as a cure, rather it was being dropped in as a psychological crutch. The interface was busy repeating that it wasn’t Amy just an interface, and he kept crying for something, and it finally gave him a psychological edge that allowed him to get up off his arse, get the tux on, and stroll back out for the rest of the exchange with the Tesselecta.
Explicitly stated that they were miniturized and being held that way by a containment field. When removed from the containment field, they reverted.
I think your sequence is slightly off. She called Richard Nixon because the scary spaceman was coming to get her. Then it ate her. Then she presumably goes off to Utah. Then she gets shot at by Amy. Then she breaks out of the spacesuit.
Agreed on both. Suddenly there’s this best friend of Amy’s we’ve never even heard of before? And the sonic screwdriver thing also bugged me. She operates the screwdriver just by thinking. She thinks to turn off her own wristband, thinks to turn off the whole ship’s wristbands. Seems obvious to me to turn back on Rory and her wristbands. Maybe she was flustered and didn’t think straight, but that was a simple solution overlooked to put them in imminent danger so [del]River[/del] Melody could save them.
The beginning of this episode in the field occurs some months after Demons Run. That’s the point of the crop circle. They whine that he’s been gone and no word, so they had to get his attention. And he says he he knows she’ll be fine, which means he hasn’t found her yet. So it’s real Amy, not Ganger Amy.
Agreed. Instant about face from homocidal psychopath on a rampage to saving the Doctor (“Is he worth it?”). Didn’t feel earned.
The Whovians all appear to be at some Who convention. They apparently found a convention and hit up any random person they saw in a Doctor Who outfit. I did enjoy a few of the costumes. Some took good pains to pick a Doctor incarnation they matched. Also, interesting take on ladies dressing as the TARDIS - Blue dress, lamp on hat. There were at least 3 versions of that.
I didn’t notice early, but yes, this is River with all of her worst characteristics on parade. Her arrogance, her aggressiveness.
He did say something about “I’d ask who you think you are, but that seems obvious.” Seems a comment about them playing God. But yes, he ultimately didn’t end up doing enough to stop them as a group. Sure, the Teselecta was interrupted and hijacked, but they had a “mother ship” to beam to, and even though he stopped the torturing of River, that seems as far as it went this time.
That was somewhat fun, a bit spoiled by the obviousness. In the scene where Melody stands up and spreads her legs, Hello Benjamin, she’s standing near the chair. Later we’re shown her reach over and pick up Hitler’s pistol. But she wasn’t that close to the chair - I watched it again - and her hand moved down something like 8 inches to retrieve the gun. No way that was subtlely done while they were looking at her. Similar thing with the gun/banana.
I did enjoy the exchange of wits and the trying to outmaneuver each other.
That was The Doctor trying to explain to Amy and Rory that she was a psychopath, not the relatively tame Archeologist they knew from later. I don’t think it was intended as any kind of comment on a particular sequence of running into her, just that it was early in her history, and therefore she was a much different person than they knew later.
I’ll try to give this a go - as suggested, the whole “Dawn has been here the whole time” thing.
Yep, part of why it doesn’t ring true.
I got the impression that would be during sex.
Swastikas are swastikas, doesn’t mean they are facing an infamous legend of history. Could have been any place in NAZI Germany with any random NAZI.
I watched Let’s Kill Hitler twice. Seems a lot was revealed, but more not.
Like The Silence. So we learn that they are a political/religious group (not species) who believe that when the essential question is asked, the Silence will Fall. Now the Doctor jumps over what is to me the most essential question: what the hell does that mean? What is the Silence Falling? Is that a good thing or a bad thing? Is that like all knowledge will depart the universe? Nobody will be able to talk? Their political movement will fail in it’s endeavor (to keep the Silence from Falling)? That seems too circuitous. So I really want to know what the hell it is supposed to mean. But no, the Doctor jumps over that and asks what the essential question is. Well of course they aren’t going to tell you. If the Silence Falling is a good thing, and they know the question,then they’ll ask the damn question and commence with the falling silence. If it’s a bad thing and they know the question, why would they tell you the question? So you can ask the question, the very thing they are trying to prevent? Duh, of course they aren’t going to tell you the question.
Last season (series if you’re British), or was it the season/series before, when the TARDIS blew up, destroying the universe, right before that happened, the doctor heard, “Silence will fall.”
I wonder if it means it already happened and the TARDIS destroying the universe is silence falling.
Probably not, but unless it turns out to be a distinct event, I’m keeping that as a possibility. After all, what’s more timy-wimy than trying to stop an event, you later found out already happened?
New Doctor Who tonight and it looks like a good one. A spoiler free review from io9:
http://io9.com/5838757/weve-seen-this-weekends-doctor-who-and-torchwoo%20d-episodes
I won’t say more until our US friends have seen it, but OMFG. Manly tears. It’s a slow burner, but stick with it. Classic Who.
Edit: Mind, I’m a sentimental fool
Loved this ep. Not sure when its airing in the US, so I’ll use a spoiler box for initial comments. [spoiler] Poor, poor Amy: she didn’t deserve that ending.
I think this is the first time I’ve seen Amy as a strong sympathetic character in her own right: telling Rory to keep the door closed was definitely her own crowning moment.
Yet another instance of waiting for each other: first, Rory guarding the Pandoricum for two thousand years, then Rory’s waiting for Amy in the Tardis while the House creature messed up time, driving him mad. And now this.
Did the Doctor even understand what he was doing to Rory? He just said, “She never existed” as though that was the end of it. I can see why The Silence are waging war against him, and I’m quite sure that is how Moffat has planned for us to see it!
After tonight, and all the guilt he showed in the Tardis in* Let’s Kill Hitler*, I wonder if this season is all building up to the Doctor’s “death” in Utah as allowing him a fresh start with a clean slate.[/spoiler]
Liked the concept, classic SciFi hook, great last act,
but I just couldn’t stop thinking during the episode that Karen Gillan isn’t a strong enough actress to convey the emotional complexities of both parts. I loved that the Doctor forced Rory to make a choice, enough with the back-seat driving
Terrific episode. 9 out of 10 for me. I’m deducting one mark, for
Rory not telling old Amy to shut up and stop whining because 36 years is nothing compared to 2000! 