Doctor Who is back. And so is the daunting task of attempting to blog about Steven Moffat’s intricate plotting. For my second, pre-blog viewing of Let’s Kill Hitler, I decided to don headphones to exclude the outside world and plumb every line of dialogue, every twist and turn and Moffat-esque flourish, directly into my head. Whilst, as usual, watching an episode penned by Moffat again was incredibly rewarding, it certainly didn’t clear up all of my confusion.
Firstly, what an awesome return Let’s Kill Hitler was. As many fans of the show doubtless predicted, Adolf himself featured minimally, bundled into a cupboard by an increasingly confident Rory, therefore avoiding all the implications of associating Britain’s beloved Time Lord with a genuine mass murderer. Even that controversy stirring line from the Fuhrer, when he thanks the Doctor for saving his life, is cleared up because the miniature war crimes tribunal on the Tessalator were never planning to kill him anyway. But by including the marvellous shape shifting robot Moffat didn’t cowardly dodge the bullet completely of all the questions a title like “Let’s Kill Hitler” raises.
As usual in amongst manic goings on Moffat has tucked away some intellectual substance. Reviews in the media have praised the Nazi setting of the show for its ability to educate as well as entertain youngsters. However in actual fact those ignorant of the period will have learned little besides a couple of dates and perhaps, if they paid close attention to Alex Kingston’s cheeky line to the Nazi guard, (“So I was on my way to this gay Gypsy bar-mitzvah for the disabled”), which ethnic and cultural groups the regime oppressed and executed. The really
thought provoking stuff comes in the form of the Borrowers style staff of a
human shaped robot, designed to punish history’s worst criminals.
They slot into the series arc because they want to torture Melody Pond, or River Song as we predominantly know her, because she kills the Doctor. Clearly these people think the Doctor is worth a lot and ought therefore to be on his/our side? At first I was expecting them to identify the Doctor as the real war criminal, given all the Time Lord/Dalek/other deaths he’s been responsible for in his 900 and something year lifetime. He has grappled with the consequences of the time war and his other mistakes repeatedly on the show.
Anyway I digress. Essentially we are presented with a positive picture of these little people. They care about the Doctor’s demise. They want to give Hitler what he deserves. But the Doctor’s reaction to them is hostile or at least he implies disgust at their actions. There’s an element of hypocrisy and arrogance from our Time Lord here, as he is forever fiddling with time but takes a “who do you think you are?” attitude to the justice delivered by the crew of a ship that’s a lot like Star Trek (there are also Terminator references and more in this episode), besides the hilarious and horrific floating anti-bodies. But then the Doctor is from Gallifrey and supposedly knows what he’s doing, and part of the brilliance of Moffat’s era has been to embrace the Doctor’s arrogance and high opinion of himself at times.
Even the title of this episode wrestles with the old sci-fi/philosophical debate about changing the past, as many people, when hypothetically asked what they’d do with a time machine, say something like “kill that bastard Hitler”. It’s the basic human urge to ask “what if?” and dwell on regrets. What if we’d shot Hitler before he’d got into his sadistic stride? The Doctor though clearly takes the view, in this episode at least, despite the fact that “time can be rewritten”, that what has happened in the past makes us who we are today. And it is wrong to presume you have the right to change that and risk even worse disasters via a butterfly effect.
Blimey. I’ve basically focused on the title of the episode for a long time there. That’s mainly because I’m putting off trying to digest the wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey complicatedness of a plot that’s been snaking throughout not just this series but the last, too. Here it goes.
We actually find out quite a bit and the really reassuring thing is that Let’s Kill Hitler had something to say, as I’ve already discussed, as well as a self contained, action packed story, with standalone emotional moments, despite revealing an awful lot about the series arc. Earlier this year I worried aloud that Moffat was sacrificing his ability to write amazing episodes for the complexity of the series. But Let’s Kill Hitler was brilliant, a step up from A Good Man Goes to War and probably my favourite episode of the series so far, teeing up brilliant performances and funny moments for all the TARDIS crew.
The birth of River Song steals the headlines though. Alex Kingston has her lovers and haters, and I stray closer to the love end of the spectrum, but if only we could see more of her predecessor as Melody Pond, or Mels, Nina Toussaint-White. She was better than Kingston as both a childhood friend of the Ponds and a brainwashed assassin. Kingston spent the episode, until she became more like River Song, having fun with mad Melody but not coming close to Toussaint-White’s wildness. She was incredible fun and surely far too sexy for a family show.
Moffat surprises us sometimes not with originality but by daring to pull the same trick twice. Mels hiding in plain sight as Melody, just as River Song had for a whole series. The Doctor dying AGAIN! In the RTD era the Doctor was rarely truly threatened, only his companions, but Moffat somehow manages it repeatedly for a man who supposedly can’t die.
River/Melody kills/saves the Doctor, using up all her remaining regenerations, thus allowing her to die eventually in the library with Tennant. She learns to fly the TARDIS so well because it shows her, she was born in it after all. She explains her reverse ageing is to just freak people out and the Doctor gives her the blue diary, along with a list of rules to travelling with or being with him, throughout the episode.
To the villainous Silence briefly then. They’re a religious order. And who reckons “the question” could be the one Matt Smith uttered in this episode; Doctor Who? They did say it was hiding in plain sight and the Doctor may well have whispered his name to River. But the real question is why would his actual name be so important? And who does River eventually become to the Doctor? Oo and how does Melody still kill him, is it a child version of her in that astronaut suit? So many questions.
That’s quite enough for this week. Next week Mark Gatiss, a brilliant actor and successful writer with Sherlock and other shows, finally looks like he might write an excellent episode of Doctor Who, set in that classic setting of a child’s bedroom. Don’t have Night Terrors in the meantime.
The Shadow Line – Episode 5
Let’s not muck about: this was the best episode yet. The first twenty minutes to half an hour in particular, were as gripping as anything on TV. The quality of the opening alone made this the highlight of a bold series.
What made the beginning so absorbing was the reveal of the much talked of, but never seen, Peter Glickman, and some superb writing and acting. Indeed it was the acting above all else that made this so good, especially when Stephen Rea’s Gatehouse squares up to Anthony Sher’s Glickman. Before that unbelievably tense encounter though, we’re treated to Sher’s portrayal of Glickman’s alter ego Paul Donnelly, who lives a simple life as a clock shop owner in Ireland.
The unlucky passing of an old business associate, an American flashing plenty of cash, transforms our Irish accented and mild mannered old chap devoted to his clocks into a slick and ruthless criminal. The script excels itself as we see Glickman follow the man from his shop, cleverly work out the number of his hotel room and then pull off a near perfect murder.
The conversation between Glickman and the American in his room is chilling and realistic. The moment Sher’s performance switches from one persona to another is astounding. Glickman is a quietly menacing character very much in the mould of Gatehouse but also somehow on another, less predictable level. The murder itself was surprisingly brutal, jumping out at you just as Glickman is showing a compassion Gatehouse seems to lack and contrasting starkly with the meticulous but unnoticeable preparation.
Accomplished ad hoc killing complete, Glickman slots seamlessly back into the shoes of an old fashioned and harmless shop owner. He has cultivated the last resort escape route of his alter ego for twenty years, making regular but short appearances in Ireland as Donnelly to flesh out the believability. Echoing all the talk of him dividing his life into boxes in previous episodes, he describes his double life as a room kept ready for him and where nothing looks odd when he moves in full time, because really, he’s been there all along.
Despite his calculating nature and devious credentials to match Gatehouse, Glickman nevertheless seems more human than Stephen Rea’s character. He claims to have genuinely loved his girlfriend and to deeply regret not having the opportunity to say goodbye. Later in the episode he meets Christopher Eccleston’s Joseph Bede for a dead drop on a bench, ignorant of the fact that he’s been banging the woman he misses. She has sought comfort in the arms of the florist/drug trafficker, somewhat predictably after last week’s flirtatious behaviour, because they both live in the “loneliness of the past” or something.
Anyway what do we actually learn when Gatehouse and Glickman have that awesome standoff? Admittedly I’ve been putting off an explanation because I’m not quite sure I’ve digested it all. But the big thing that surprised me, amongst the quick fire, back and forth dialogue was that Gatehouse is Glickman’s “controller”. I always assumed Glickman was the real big cheese and that Gatehouse was pissed because he’s the hired help, albeit a rather active, expert and efficient employee. But I guess a theme of the series is that people appear to have roles and responsibilities which they don’t, to protect the real puppet masters (e.g. Bede).
Glickman got Wratten out of jail because the two had been working together for thirty years. Gatehouse disapproved because Wratten was threatening to expose something massive, an extremely secretive operation called “Counterpoint”. Gatehouse implies he wanted the satisfaction of killing Wratten himself, rather than having him eliminated in jail. Glickman of course ends the conversation by trying to blow up Gatehouse, unsuccessfully, thus postponing the real showdown for a later date.
Crudely ejected from his cover life, Glickman tips off Gabriel about the drugs, kick-starting an unveiling of police corruption on a huge scale and taking us closer to the truth about Gabriel’s memory loss. The police are selling drugs from the evidence room (Honey and Gabriel discover UV codes; two sets from the police and one from customs) and even very top officers know about it. Gabriel, in trying to confront his superior, is confronted with his own apparent corruption and the extent of the rot. Blimey.
As if that wasn’t enough for one episode, Bob Harris pulls out of the deal to buy Bede’s drugs, only for his rent boy to bump him off and take his place. Someone must be backing him and this becomes one of the new mysteries, along with what exactly is “Counterpoint”?
As I’ve said before, this is a series that can infuriate as well as inspire, with some of the many references to “shadows” in this episode deflating the subtlety somewhat. But undoubtedly, The Shadow Line is now beginning to reward commitment in a big way.
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