A Good Man Goes to War

A Good Man Goes to War is unfortunately a bit messy.

It is a lot of things - essential to understanding the larger narrative arc of the Moffat era, but also confusing enough I definitely didn't fully understand it until re-watching this series. It tries to be this big, epic battle thing, and it kind of still feels small and weak.

I'm not against an angry doctor and it does feel quite warranted given the Silence has been quietly stowing away pregnant Amy for months. That's pretty sinister stuff and like a hundred other ideas in this episode, none of them are quite fully fleshed out.

I do love Matt Smith who carries this episode against a lot of other weaker performances. His delight on learning the identity of Melody Pond with Alex Kingston (who also stands out here acting-wise) is profoundly memorable. Everything else is a pretty rough mix of cheesy, forgettable, and silly. I mean, just look at the enormous, insanely long plot summary for this review page up above. This episode is bloated and dense to an extreme fault.

And it is all a real shame because I like the idea of this episode a lot. When we're exploring stuff like the Doctor building an army and the nature of his identity - that stuff and the aforementioned ending buoy up this score quite a bit. That it becomes a bit more informative on a second viewing also helps repeatability. I don't really hear people talk about this one much one way or another, which I think is most telling about the emotional impact of A Good Man Goes to War

It’s a grab bag full of elements, back references and treats. We’re half way through the season, do we really need Danny Boy and Captain Avery to pull in a favour? A bizarre choice. This is somewhat softened by Vastra, Jenny, Strax, the brilliant blue guy, the headless monks. But note that the best bits are the new bits, not the call backs. It feels like they had enough ingredients in the pot to flesh out without stuffing in a bunch more ingredients.

The incessant cringey flirting has also reached fever pitch and I could do without the poem. I also don’t like the Doctor being made into being perceived as a “mighty warrior” without having bedded in the idea ahead of this episode. I’d have rather they spent more time on this concept than the eye patch lady who needed less foreshadowing.

It feels churlish to complain when they got so much right. The idea of conceiving a baby in the presence of time travel, changing its DNA, is a very clever sci-fi concept. The Doctor taking down an army by calling in some favours is very effective, as is the death of the goo baby and the heroic death of Strax. The Lorna Bucket scene is also exceptional.

But you get what I’m saying right? There’s just so much going on! Following a two parter which should have been a single part episode, we have a single part episode with more than enough elements to justify two episodes.

The bit that will stay with people is the reveal of River as Amy and Rory’s daughter. Very smartly done. I’m not sure I’m sold on the idea of a mid-series finale but they couldn’t have left things hanging on a stronger note.