A Kind of Ending
Doctor Who: A Good Man Goes To War
Steven Moffat has a habit, which I rather like, of taking the some of the background noise about Doctor Who and dramatising it within the programme itself. Moffat’s well-publicised dislike of internet spoilers became a long-running part of the River Song timey-wimey storyline, and equally the various debates within fandom about the Doctor’s sexuality (or lack of it) became the central theme of both The Doctor Dances and The Girl in the Fireplace. He can’t stop teasing on this latter point – in a throwaway moment towards the end of A Good Man Goes to War when Amy asks if the Doctor has ever had children he seems to give a straightforward “No” only for the viewer to realise that’s he’s actually responding to Amy’s baby.
This is all good knockabout stuff, but there’s something much more significant going on in A Good Man Goes to War, which in many ways is the most important story since the series returned in 2005. On one level it’s about the law of unintended consequences – how just the simple fact of the Doctor’s longevity and his adventures have resulted in a legendary persona that is alternately worshipped but also feared and hated – but on another level it’s about more practical matters: how do you keep a long-running series fresh in the current television environment?
The Russell T Davies era of the show was incredibly successful but just as the Doctor’s actions resulted in some unfortunate consequences, so some of the creative decisions made over the years have left Moffat painted into a corner. The Doctor has become such a famous figure in the fictional universe that he just has to turn up for the villains to run away, and Moffat himself was one of the biggest culprits in episodes like The Forest of the Dead where the Vashta Nerada scarper as soon as they look him up. Moffat clearly recognises that this all-powerful Doctor has become a problem in dramatic terms and recently commented “…he can’t keep doing that. It could be damaging for the show. So it’s something that I’m bringing to a head, and kind of ending.” A Good Man Goes to War is Moffat’s attempt to move the show on, and his characteristic approach is to pack the story full of recognisable elements from the Davies era and then systematically dismantle them.
Some of the characteristics of the typical Davies-era “everything *and* the kitchen sink” finale are clearly present in A Good Man Goes to War. There’s an old enemy, in this case the Cybermen, with their massive space fleet, a la the Daleks in The Parting of the Ways, only in this case the fleet is wiped out before the opening credits have rolled. What’s interesting about this opening, and almost the entire first half of the story is that the Doctor does not appear in person, only by reputation. His enemies, the Clerics, talk about him in reverential tones, with his destruction of the Cyber fleet being the only the most recent of a whole host of legendary acts. Unlike in some of Davies’s finales however, the Doctor’s allies here are not old familiar companions, but characters like Madame Vastra and Commander Strax who are beholden to the Doctor and compelled to lend assistance when he asks for it. As one of the Doctor’s other, rather reluctant allies, Dorium Maldavar comments to Kovarian: “If that man is finally collecting on his debts then God help you and God help his debtors.”
There are other, less obvious moments that draw attention to aspects of the Davies era. The psychic paper is one of Davies’s signature devices – it’s a clever way of getting the Doctor to the heart of the action without getting bogged down in unnecessary explanations – but after five series its ubiquity is such that it could be seen to close down more dramatic possibilities than it opens. So it’s interesting that the first thing we see after the opening credits are two of the Clerics training themselves to recognise psychic paper. To the Doctor it’s just a handy tool, but to the Clerics it’s a sinister weapon – another manifestation of the Doctor’s power that they have to overcome. If whole armies are being trained to resist psychic paper then it’s not going to be dramatically useful for much longer, and I suspect Moffat included this scene as a precursor to dropping the device entirely.
One of the most powerful echoes of the Davies era is the character of Lorna Bucket. She is identified early on as someone who has actually met the Doctor and her description of their meeting is strikingly similar to Rose Tyler’s first encounter with the Doctor in Rose. The Doctor’s first line in that story was “Run!” and Lorna’s description “He said ‘Run!’. He said that a lot.” is surely Moffat’s nod to that first episode. Unlike Rose or Amy though, Lorna is just one of the many people left behind and forgotten by the Doctor in the course of his long life. He is unaware of the impact on those people in his wake, an impact which in some cases turns to fear and hatred, and in others a misguided form of worship. Moffat drives this home at the end of the story when Lorna dies, as although the Doctor tries to comfort the dying girl, he clearly doesn’t remember who she is, and there’s a tone in his voice both chilling and wistful when he says “Oh they’re always brave…they’re always brave’.
Lorna’s death epitomises the fallibility of the Doctor in this episode. His overweening arrogance and braggadocio as he captures Demons Run are brutally undermined when it’s revealed to be a trap by Madame Kovarian, and River Song spells out to him the impact that his actions have had on people: “You make them so afraid”. This, and the fact that even Amy seems repelled by the consequences of his actions, is why the Doctor has reached his lowest point. Moffat has put the Doctor in a position where he cannot continue to trade on his reputation because if he does, he will just breed more enemies bent on destroying him, or admirers like Lorna’s people who will revere him as a mighty warrior. Exactly how Moffat resolves this remains to be seen, but the Doctor’s ‘death’ on the beach will surely be significant. On the strength of A Good Man Goes to War the old Doctor has to die. Not just so the fictional character can move on, but so that the creative team can move away from the dramatic strictures that have naturally developed since 2005.
For all the significance of this story, Moffat, as usual, manages to have his cake and eat it and has tremendous fun with the epic first half of the episode while still managing to successfully resolve much of River Song’s narrative. Probably the most admirable thing about A Good Man Goes to War is that it put a completely different spin on two old monsters, the Silurians and the Sontarans. Both of these had been brought back at different points over the last few years and failed to set the world on fire, and yet here Moffat creates the two best representations of each species in the series history. There have already been calls for Madame Vastra and Jenny to have their own spin-off series (Tipping the Scales according to Moffat) but in many ways Commander Strax is an even more remarkable character. Sontarans are great in theory but in practice they’re just angry short-arses. Strax, a soldier doing a nurse’s job, is not only funny but when he meets his end, and we realise he’s only 12 years old, it’s very poignant. A poignant Sontaran is a real achievement.
Not all of the story is as successful. The Headless Monks are gimmicky and it’s hardly surprising when they turn out to be part of the trap. Colonel Manton should face a court-martial for crimes against acting, and the idea that it only required Amy and Rory shagging in the TARDIS to get a Time Lord baby is just encouraging Slash fiction when of course it should be discouraged by fines and limited prison sentences. But these are minor concerns. A Good Man Goes to War is a radical attempt to set both the Doctor and the series on a new path and as a result the second run starting next week with Let’s Kill Hitler is likely to be more controversial than any other group of episodes in the show’s history. It’ll be interesting to see where we are when the dust settles.
