“The only water in the forest is the river” you couldn’t make that line more on the nose if you tried, could you? Well, I might have tried, as I immediately put the image of Mr. and Mrs. Pond in the 9th and 10th Doctor’s T.A.R.D.I.S after it. Almost as if to link the phrase with a dopey bloke and his “is she/isn’t she” pregnant wife. The same wife that turned out to be a white gloopy-liquid person that I do not like whatsoever, but we’ll need to mention “The Rebel Flesh.”

Right, so let’s set the entire record straight: Amy was either never there this whole series, as Beth Willis seemed to suggest at one point. Sometime around the first episode she was taken. She was pregnant, but because she was never really there, tests were coming back negative and positive. Come on, keep up Pond(/editor). The Doctor knew this the whole time and needed the Flesh to confirm it. Now he’s on the warpath to take down Madame Kovarian, “Eye Patch Lady.” The great pacifist calls in every favor/hired gun he can to rescue a friend, including one that you already have spoilers on.

As I, sort of, alluded in the review of “The Rebel Flesh” and the other crap one, that time for two parts could have been used so well to give a bit more to these favors. One of the best bits of the episode is not just the married Thin and Fat Anglican gay marines, but the introduction of the Lizard lesbian, her Victorian wife, and Mr. Potato Head. Those glimpses of them before the T.A.R.D.I.S appears for their summoning to war, are a brilliant little calling card moment. Not only is it introducing these three wonderfully distinctive characters before their four others return, but they are also just good moments, period.

This will (and does) sound weird but bear with me here: I love the Sontarans for their flagrant sexism and very patriarchal and Draconian mindset. It is the stupid little moments of calling a woman “boy” and men as “girl,” the (very dark) fact their ages are so low because of their war glorifying culture and cloning, and Strax’s friendship with Archie, that are funny and enjoyable bits to them as a species. I’d like to invite more Sontaran’s to Scotland, they’d all love it. It would be like home but they’d also get beaten to death by women too.

Shall we just get to the point that will have my editor messaging me asking how any of this works, I think we shall. So, River doesn’t want to come. She’s the woman in prison, the most secure prison in the universe, that she keeps breaking out of. This time when the Doctor comes calling, she doesn’t want to go. It is almost as if she has a little blue book, and for every moment she’s spent with Amy, the Doctor, and Rory, she’s known something deep down, just one of many little secrets. This is where you just have to stand up and either punch Steven Moffat in the head for breaking your brain or (the right option) applaud him for pulling strings with deftness.

Sure, I could talk about the headless monks, the military guns and Christina Chong’s Lorna having such a heart-string tugging small part in such an episode. I could even talk about the return of Hugh Bonneville as Henry Avery. However, I think it is worth noting there was a small blonde child regenerating at the end of the first story. A regeneration, a “is she/isn’t she” pregnant woman, and a blonde woman with a mysterious backstory. I wonder, could it all be connected? Of course it is, it is a Steven Moffat-led series, the daughter of Amy Pond and Rory Williams (Pond!) is River Song! Looking back, who else would it have been? Pope Innocent the 10th?

“The only water in the forest is the River…” or as my editor is currently saying, “Ohh!” Beyond wrapping up that hanging thread, there isn’t much else being done other than setting up for part two of the series. Yes, Moffat seemed to have gotten a sick idea from America that in the middle of the story you need to disappear for several weeks and claim this point “the mid-season finale.” That is something that happens to be needlessly annoying and is just used to break up a 24-episode long season into batches of twelves with their own little stories in each half. Yes, that’s fine when you’re doing 24-episodes, but when you’re doing 13 with only 11 stories, it might not be the best idea.

Yeah, we might know River is the baby. The baby grew up to be the small blonde child in New York, the child that was in a spacesuit. A spacesuit that was used to hide the person who killed the Doctor, but Amy and Rory don’t get the baby. Of course not, she needs to stay with Kovarian so she grows up to despise the man and kill him when he’s 1103 in “The Impossible Astronaut.” That way she can go to prison for killing him, thus she’s in Stormcage, where she is now but keeps breaking out. I’ve got a feeling I’ve just broken my editor trying to piece together all of Moffat’s wibbly wobbly timey-wimey nonsense, best not mention Jim the Fish or the singing towers of Darillium then.

Though my tangents might be everywhere, it isn’t a bad episode. In fact, there is very little to pick off of it. I mean, Rory’s bit at the start is… blah. It happens to be a bit overacted just by how grand it was meant to be. It is meant to be big and bombastic, but really it looks like a small English bloke in a cape telling tinmen “I’m going to kill you.” It is not the worst writing or acting in Who, just lacking something to make it as ‘believable’ as the rest of the writing and acting. Even Danny Sapani’s speech as Colonel Manton  doesn’t feel out of place (aside from “these guys”).

I don’t like the, as I’m sure my editor would prefer I call her, “sperm baby.” Yes, I really hate that Flesh, but when Melody (River) turns to that puddle of white liquid all over Amy, it is just a bit weird. Yes, it is one last twist in an episode that is made to convulse like an epileptic at a nightclub, but I simply do not like it one little bit. It is just a gloopy way around the Sci-fi/Star Trek trope of a hologram or person being pulled away with the teleporters.

At it’s core, it is still a fun sci-fi lead adventure, both heart-warming and heart-breaking at times. All with Steven Moffat’s never-ending mystery writing at its core. With the reveal of who Melody really is, and her gloopy disappearance, there is only one thing left to do. Find Melody before she becomes River. It is a big universe, a really big universe. Where are you going to find a woman that is a human and Time Lord and could be anywhere or anyone? Spoilers! Anyway, anyone up for killing Hitler next week?

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Doctor Who "A Good Man Goes To War"

9.5

Score

9.5/10

Pros

• River!
• The moment after Lorna dies, showing the age of the Doctor.
• "I've had a good life. I'm nearly twelve."

Cons

• Puddles the baby.
• A few dud likes and meh acting.
• More time could have been given to the favors.