A Good Man Goes to War is the seventh episode and mid-series finale of the sixth series of Doctor Who. It was written by Steven Moffat, directed by Peter Hoar and featured Matt Smith as the Eleventh Doctor, Karen Gillan as Amy Pond & Arthur Darvill as Rory Williams with Alex Kingston as River Song.
Overview[]
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Synopsis[]
With Amy captured and an entire army being readied to fight him, the Doctor calls in on his debtors all throughout time and space, building his own army, including Rory, Dorium Maldovar and Madame Vastra and her wife Jenny, to band together and take Amy and her baby back from the relentless Madame Kovarian and her cohorts. However, with the Doctor on the warpath, he doesn't realise that Kovarian has been working against him for a long time; an ever-developing trap is being prepared for springing, a trap which shatter the hearts of the Doctor and his companions. Meanwhile, River Song waits for the moment to enter the fray, knowing the day has arrived for the Doctor to discover her identity...
Plot[]
Aboard the military base Demons Run, Amy cradles her newly-born daughter Melody, telling her a story and promising her that despite the threat that they both face, there is somebody coming to save them - her father - just as Melody is taken from Amy by the eye-patched woman, Madame Kovarian and her cohort monks. Across the galaxy, a fleet of Cybermen prepare to engage an intruder on their flagship, revealed to be Rory in his centurion armour, presenting one question from himself "Where is my wife?" and a message from the Doctor. When the Cybermen ask for the Doctor's message, their entire fleet is engulfed in flames behind them and Rory utters his words: "Would you like me to repeat the question?"
On Demons Run, a pair of marines paid to fight the Doctor, the Thin One and the Fat One, discuss whether it is acceptable to praise the Doctor's achievements. When the ask about the Headless Monks, one other marine, Lorna Bucket, noted as being one of the few of the army built to combat the Doctor to have met him, insists their title of 'Headless' is just a statement of their beliefs. The Monks suddenly come and take the Fat One off for his conversion tutorial, which, when he arrives, is the procedure of taking his head as a donation.
While Lorna and the Thin One ponder on where the Doctor is and what he's doing, a montage shows him calling in his debts, visiting Madame Vastra and Jenny Flint in London, 1888, collecting Commander Strax, a disgraced Sontaran made to serve as a nurse to redeem the honor of his clone batch, from a battlefront and, while Rory tries to recruit River only for her to insist that she must stay on the sidelines until the battle is done, when the Doctor finally realises who she is, a reluctant Dorium Maldovar trying to hide from his debtee.
On Demons Run, Colonel Manton addresses his army, talking them up for the fight against the Doctor while Lorna visits Amy and presents her with a prayer leaf, a tradition of the people in the Gamma Forests symbolising the belief that it's owner's child will always return home before she returns to the gathering. Manton follows his tirade by announcing that the Papel Mainframe has permitted that he may show his army the truth about the Headless Monks, permitted to lower their hoods without fear of death. He lowers them in sequence to reveal that they really don't have heads and instead knot at the neck; when he gets to the third monk, however, it lowers it's own hood to reveal himself as the Doctor in disguise.
While Vastra and Jenny take control of the security room, the Doctor blacks the room and disappears, leaving the soldiers to try and figure out which of the monks is him. After a brief firefight breaks out between them, Manton manages to sooth the conflict and orders his people to disarm while Lorna goes looking for the Doctor and the main chamber is suddenly infiltrated by packs of Silurians and Judoon, who hold the army at gunpoint. Manton warns them that an automatic distress call is sent if Demons Run goes down, but World War II Spitfire pilot Danny Boy has his men destroy the dish on the side of the station, cutting off all communications.
Madame Kovrian has her men take Melody to her ship when Rory emerges behind her and holds her at the point of his sword while Captain Henry Avery and his son Toby emerge from the port to her ship, having overpowered the crew and taken control. In the control room, Manton and Kovarian and brought to the Doctor, who, in an outrage, orders Manton to give his army the command to run away, wanting him to be forever known as a coward for trying to get to him through those he cares about; Vastra is clearly concerned by his sudden face of rage.
In her prison, Rory returns Melody to Amy and they tearfully watch over their daughter, inviting the Doctor in to meet her. Vastra arrives and informs the Doctor that the army is departing, a bloodless takeover, citing that the Doctor has never been higher. Returning to the TARDIS, the Doctor pulls out a cot for Melody to sleep in, one that used to belong to him, while he goes to join Vastra and Dorium in the control room, when Strax comes in with Lorna, who had been listening the entire time and they demand to know what she's doing. In the control room, Vastra voices her concern over the validity of Melody's humanity as scans of her indicate that she has both human and Time Lord traces in her DNA.
As the power goes out in the main chamber and a forcefield goes up around the TARDIS, a confirmation of Lorna's warnings about the approach of the Headless Monks, Vastra goes on to ask if the circumstances of Melody's conception may have had a hand in her Time Lord traces; while struggling to believe it as possible, the Doctor stops in his tracks when he realises that the last time Amy and Rory would have had a chance to conceive was in the TARDIS on their wedding night. While Strax attempts to scan for the Headless Monks, to no success as Lorna had said, they get in through the back and kill the Silurians stationed there.
Dorium starts to suspect that the fight may not be over by how easily the Monks seemed to surrender and Vastra, sharing his concerns joins him in returning to the others. Kovarian contacts the Doctor in the control room and he swears to her that Melody is now safe from her grasp and he'll never let her near her or allow her to be used as a weapon in her self-acclaimed war against him again; however, she gloats that she's successfully managed to trick him the way a second time. Taking her meaning, the Doctor runs off to get to Amy in time.
Dorium and Vastra join the others just as the Headless Monks advance their attack; after the Monks behead Dorium for selling them out to the Doctor, Rory joins the fight, Amy hides from the conflict. As the Doctor runs to the fray, a narration of River is heard reciting the famed poem of Demons Run. As the battle draws to a close, the Doctor is too late; a panel appears in the air to Melody and Kovarian tells her to wake up and the baby dissolves into a puddle of Flesh in her mother's arms. As Amy screams for Rory, mortified, the Doctor arrives to see the aftermath. Amy and Rory mourn the theft of their baby, Strax dies from an injury he'd sustained in battle and the Doctor has a brief moment with Lorna as she dies, pretending to remember the time she's met him so she can die in peace.
The Doctor loses hope of being able to find Melody when River suddenly arrives; incensed that she wasn't there for the fight, he demands answers when she blames all the events of the day on him. She accuses him of inciting fear enough in his enemies for them to form an army to fight him, only to turn them around and make them run as soon as they know he's coming - and now the baby of his best friends has been taken to be used as a weapon against him. Having had enough, the Doctor demands River's identity, once and for all; she draws his attention to something that makes him realise.
He falls into a moment of joyous hysteria and excitedly dashes into the TARDIS, promises Amy and Rory that he will find their baby and leaves. Angry and afraid, Amy holds River at gunpoint and demands to know what she said to him. She hands over the prayer leaf that Lorna gave her to translate her daughter's name from the language of the Gamma Forest into the common word; the name 'Melody Pond' on the leaf transforms into 'River Song' and she informs the two that she is their daughter - she is Melody. Amy and Rory look at their grown child is stunned shock...
Cast[]
- The Doctor - Matt Smith
- Amy Pond - Karen Gillan
- Rory - Arthur Darvill
- River Song - Alex Kingston
- Madame Kovarian - Frances Barber
- Fat One - Charlie Baker
- Thin One - Dan Johnston
- Lorna Bucket - Christina Chong
- Lucas - Joshua Hayes
- Dominicus - Damian Kell
- Madame Vastra - Neve McIntosh
- Jenny - Catrin Stewart
- Captain Harcourt - Richard Trinder
- Eleanor - Annabel Cleare
- Arthur - Henry Wood
- Commander Strax - Dan Starkey
- Dorium Maldovar - Simon Fisher-Becker
- Colonel Manton - Danny Sapani
- Henry Avery - Hugh Bonneville
- Toby Avery - Oscar Lloyd
- Voice of the Cybermen - Nicholas Briggs
Crew[]
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References[]
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Story Notes[]
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Continuity []
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Home video and audio releases []
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External Links []
- Official A Good Man Goes to War page on Doctor Who Website