User Reviews

Yes, essentially this is part two of River's origin, with part one being the mid-season finale "A Good Man Goes To War." Of course, looking at it from this point of view makes it a bit disappointing, not because the episode is bad (it is quite excellent, despite what its detractors say) but because it is an obvious step down from the near-perfect frenetic and epic previous episode.

I have to admit, I was not expecting Mels to be River, even though in retrospect it was rather obvious. The twist was done quite well none the less, and while many were put off by her murderous and immature personality, it makes sense within the context - - still a rather young woman, brain washed and traumatically kidnapped/stuffed into an astronaut suit (sort of making the season opener a somewhat River origin 1.5), what would one expect?

Others disliked her extreme fascination with the Doctor, which at first definitely seems more like infatuation rather than love. But again, it makes sense given the context. Young, immature and impressionable, it is easy to see her attraction to this man who basically saves her from herself, willing to sacrifice himself in the process.

All these things that others complained turned her into a weak character in reality show a complex and layered character arch, but we see the finished character first in season four - - the mature, strong, self-assured River from "Silence in the Library" and in this episode we can understand just how far she had come as a character and I find that fascinating.

Strong performances by all, The episode featured another bait and switch - - not about the ramifications of using time travel for assassination, as it seemed at the outset, but in fact was about the complicated relationships between the Doctor, River, and her parents (the Doctor's best friends) Amy and Rory. It also contains fun adventure filled with wit and humor with the Doctor cheating death and robot mimics piloted by time-traveling miniaturized people in true Moffat fashion. 9/10

DOCTOR WHO returns from its midseason hiatus with the Doctor in pursuit of the kidnapped Melody Pond. It is a fast, furious and frequently funny episode that shows off show-runner Steven Moffat's ability to make hairpin turns in plot, but often pushes the unfortunate edge of melodrama. I enjoyed it tremendously, particularly for the wonky lines, but...

A story is composed of character and plot: the people who inhabit it and the course of action they follow from beginning to end. In a well-made story, the characters drive the plots. Their actions, and the story are driven by who they are and their characters change -- which is what makes a story, rather than an anecdote -- in response to events.

"Let's Kill Hitler", however, gives me the definite feeling that the plot is driving the characters, particularly Melody Pond. The changes in her character seem more driven by her plot than the other way around. We see her as a psychopath who has been focused and programmed to kill the Doctor, as set out in the last episode. We know she will become River Song, who so loves the Doctor that she will sacrifice her life to save his in season Four's "Silence in the Library" two-parter. That is her plot, and her change in character here seems to proceed from a simple need to get from the psychopath to the loving woman. It feels like the lines of logic in the 1960s TV Batman, justifications and excuses. It's not drama, it's melodrama.

I enjoyed it immensely, but it's not great Doctor Who by any means. The jokes are funny and the performances are great. Nina Toussaint-White as the psychopathic Mels is wonderful, and Alex Kingston, as the newly-regenerated Melody Pond, entranced by her new body, is uproariously, bawdily funny. Arthur Darvill, as usual, makes the most of the put-upon Rory Williams, who knows how idiotically dangerous it all is, yet copes throughout. The story though, the plot, needs tinkering and probably another twenty minutes to fill in the details to make Melody's change in character work.

According to Patrick Mulkern of 'The Radio Times', 'Let's Kill Hitler' is a 'massively entertaining episode that's fizzing with spectacle, funny lines and breath-taking twists'. He must have seen a completely different episode to the one I viewed - I found it a massively boring farrago with as much fizz as a flat bottle of Tizer and shot through with insane, half-baked ideas ( the shape-changing robot inhabited by a 'Star Trek'-like crew ), leaden dialogue and breathtakingly awful acting ( from Smith and Gillan ).

Ignoring the finale of the previous episode - 'A Good Man Goes To War' - it shifted the story away from Amy and Rory discovering their baby 'Melody' is really River Song, to them finding crop circles outside their home village of Leadworth. Why? We then got pointless flashbacks to their childhood, and the introduction of a previously unmentioned loudmouthed friend called 'Mels' who then ( surprise, surprise ) turns to be really River. The story then moves to 1938 and a brief encounter with Hitler ( why bother mentioning him in the title if he is not a major character in the plot? ). Moffat then decided the story wasn't really about Hitler after all, and focused instead on a newly-regenerated River. All these elements needed a coherent plot to make them work - they didn't get one. How many of us yelled at the screen during the Doctor's ludicrously unconvincing 'I've been poisoned' scene: "Go on! Regenerate! Turn into someone else! Please!".

As the episode unfolded, I sat shaking my head in utter disbelief. It is incredible that something so stupid ever made it to television. Every aspect was jaw-droppingly bad. Moffat is on a colossal ego trip, so busy is he building up mysteries he forgets to care about things like plot. character, excitement, and entertainment. He is repeating the mistakes John Nathan-Turner made back in the '80's. He thinks the viewers will wait patiently as the story unfolds over a period of months/years. They will be more likely to switch off. There are signs this is beginning to happen now. When the Doctor appeared dressed in top hat and tails, I came close to throwing a brick at the set. What in the name of all that is holy is Moffat doing to my once-favourite show? It is like watching a close relative being tortured. Since 2009, his episodes have plumbed new depths for sheer awfulness. 'Warriors Of The Deep' from 1984 looks like a classic compared to some of Moffat's recent efforts.

I was amused at the comment of a fan boy who said 'L.K.H.' makes sense on the tenth viewing. Nothing in the world would induce me to sit through it more than once. I'd rather have teeth drilled without anaesthetic.

Its depressing to see so many have been taken in Moffat's spin about the show being 'darker' and scarier. It was dark before, particularly with the excellent 'The Waters Of Mars'. Scary? Try watching 'Inferno' and 'Terror Of The Autons'. Though over 40 years old, both outdo anything seen in the present series.

I will continue to watch 'Dr.Who', but as long as Moffat continues to churn out dross such as this, I will remain pessimistic about its long-term future.

Rating 0/10

The second half of this series starts well and gets better. Amy and Rory drive through a wheat field and find The Doctor and the Tardis in the middle of a crop circle; there reunion is cut short my the arrival of Amy's old school friend Mels who pulls a gun and suggests that that travel back in time and kill Hitler! She fires the gun in the Tardis and it crashes into Hitler's office in pre-war Berlin… saving him from almost certain death! Hitler's would be assassin isn't human though; it is a robot that can change appearances to mimic humans and has a miniaturised human crew who travel through time to punish criminals. In the confusion that follows Mels gets shot and in the biggest surprise of the episode is revealed to be none other than Melody Pond; AKA River Song. She regenerates into the River we recognise as the people in the robot realise she is a more wanted criminal than Hitler. In the remainder of the episode River poisons The Doctor, Amy and Rory get miniaturised and taken aboard the robot which now looks like Amy and River gets dressed like a Nazi before saving The Doctor… I won't go into any more detail, as that would spoil the fun.

I when I learnt of this episode's title I feared it would be one of the weaker episodes; thankfully I was wrong; it had some decent action, nice scares and a genuine surprise. There were also some shockingly funny moments… River Song telling a group of German soldiers that she was on her way to a gay Gypsy bar mitzvah for the disabled was priceless! It was nice to see Caitlin Blackwood back as young Amelia Pond and the avatar of the Tardis's information system. Wisely Hitler was quickly put in a cupboard so that attention could be turned to the people in the robot and their intention to punish River as Nazis are a little too cliché to be the main villains. If the remainder of the series is as good as this I can't wait.

Only Steven Moffat would have the audacity to name an episode "Let's Kill Hitler" and then limit Hitler's screen time to a cameo, as he is locked in a cupboard for almost the entire episode! This one is crazy, wacky, unpredictable, funny and sad - just what "Doctor Who" should be. It's also a very important episode for plot progression, as we see the beginnings of River Song, we learn more stuff about her, we see the Doctor coming face to face with his fixed (?) death date, etc. The story-of-the-week ain't bad either, with another new and fresh concept from Moffat (miniaturized people controlling robots from the inside!) and some great dialogue for the AntiBodies: "Please remain calm while your life is extracted. Please co-operate in your officially sanctioned termination"! In short, another terrific entry in what is so far my favorite season of "Doctor Who". *** out of 4.

Let's Kill Hitler... With a title this good it's got a lot to live up to. And it does.

This is our second trip into WW2 for NuWho and third overall, excluding spinoffs and extended media. The plot sees the TARDIS hijacked by a young Doctor-obsessed woman with a gun demanding that the 11th Doctor take her to kill Hitler only for the disgusting moustached man to shoot her and cause her to... regenerate? SHE'S RIVER SONG!!!! As twists go it's hard to beat.

This story deals a lot with Song's origins by building upon the foundations set in the previous instalment and it advances the story arc of the Doctor's apparent death via the Tessalecta, a robot controlled by tiny people who travel through time punishing war criminals. And it turns out that there's none more dangerous or deadly than Melody Pond.

This episode has received a lot of unfair and harsh treatment over time by the fandom but it's unwarranted. There's nothing that bad in here, nothing to dislike, nothing but good writing and good acting and good direction. I can't see the problem myself. 7/10

This episode didn't really work for me. The main reason why was the introduction of Mels. Her being Amy and Rory's childhood friend didn't make sense. It felt jarring, out of place, and felt like a retcon. It wouldn't have felt this way if Mels was established earlier in the season or the last season. The Teselecta was a weird idea and didn't seem to fit inside the Doctor Who universe. A time traveling robot that can change its face, whose job is to punish people before they die felt off. Before watching The Wedding of River Song I didn't understand why the Teselecta was even in this episode. It's basically a plot function. River Song in this episode was also a little off putting. Her character came off as campy and over the top. There's a surprising lack of Hitler in a episode called "Let's Kill Hitler". Lastly, I didn't feel any emotional connection between Amy, Rory, and River.

For the first time since the resurrection of the show in 2005 I found myself trying and failing to look forward to the restart of DOCTOR WHO . A Good Man Goes To War had left a lot of loose ends for the show's millions of fans . As one of these fans I had a sneaky suspicion of what Steven Moffat might come up with - resolved plot threads by confusing the audience so much they won't know if it makes sense or not . Hey guess what ?

Even the title of the episode involves cheating . Let's Kill Hitler has a ridiculous contrived scene with history's most hated man just so Moffat can come up with an impacting and intriguing title . In reality both this scene and the title are disposable . Instead we have the most over complicated unstructured mess involving River Song except she's not River Song she's an old school friend of Amy's called Mel's . Oh she's just regenerated in to River Song . Oh but she's also Amy's daughter and not River Song and she's been shot by Nazis but she regenerates in to River Song who she's not and she's poisoned the Doctor and he's died . But he hasn't because River Song is River Song again and she uses up her regenerations in order to save his life

If you haven't seen the episode yet I'm not making this up . That's exactly how the plotting pans out . What Moffat has done is effectively make things up as he's going along while ignoring both common sense and internal continuity from the series . If the Doctor is slowly dying why doesn't he just regenerate ? I for one am sick of death of seeing characters being continually killed just to have them resurrected at the end of the episode/season . Rory was a victim of this and now it's the Doctor . Let's not forget that this season's running thread is building up to the Doctor dying at Utah in 2011 so for some reason we have a mid season episode where the Doctor dies and is brought back to life . Itis cynical , self indulgent unentertaining nonsense by a head writer bereft of any ideas

This episode is perhaps a watershed for the show . Previously DOCTOR WHO was remembered as being the show that sent young children hiding behind the sofa . Even under the producership of RTDwe saw stories like The Unquiet Dead , The Impossible Planet and Midnight which celebrated the fear factor this legendary show could generate . Now however any casual viewer will find themselves being alienated by the confused , confusing , cheating type of writing coming out of Moffat . It says something when the spin off show TORCHWOOD despite its plodding nature is more compelling than this season of DOCTOR WHO . One wonders if DOCTOR WHO will be canceled in 2013 if it continues in this way

Too complicated for its own good. They don't kill him, they lock him in the cupboard and that's it. It's not a bad episode, but I can't say it's that good either to be honest. Mediocre I'd say.

This episode is another which has so much potential with good acting, action and drama but has plot lines that do not come together in a way that satisfies me personally.

The idea presented is that Amy and Rory's daughter Melody Pond was stolen as a baby and brought up to kill the Doctor but she ran away as a young girl, regenerated and grew up as Mels who found Amy and Rory becoming Amy's best friend. She knows all about her origins and she knows about the Doctor. She finally meets the Doctor and amidst regenerating again into River Song, she attempts to kill the Doctor with a poisoned kiss.

My problems with this story are as follows:

1. If all it came down to was some poisoned lipstick, which mysteriously can also halt regeneration (or shooting him from a mechanised spacesuit), then why did they need to kidnap and train a Time Lord baby in order to achieve that? Why not just get the 'flesh' avatar Amy to do that to him or any number of easier ways to kill him with such effective poison that could so easily have been given to him rather than bringing up a child to kill him over twenty years later? This is just silly and undermines the whole plot for me. It makes no sense.

2. If Melody is successfully raised as an assassin to kill the Doctor why was she scared and why did she 'escape'. Then why does she stick with her mission after all that time with Amy and Rory? She can see plenty of evidence that she was stolen by the bad guys and the Doctor is the good guy. She is a very clever so should see this. If she has a type of Stockholm Syndrome forcing her to carry out her mission no matter what and never reveal to her parents who she is then then why does she change her mind so easily, tell them her identity and save him by giving up her own regenerations? This is a very extreme and sudden change of mind! I don't think it is done convincingly in this episode.

2. If Melody/Mels/River is part Time Lord why does she age at seemingly normal human rate? Time Lords age differently so would Mels grow up through teenage years right into adulthood at the same rate with Amy and Rory?

3. Why is River immune to bullets when regenerating yet Moffatt's storyline is that the Doctor was shot again whilst regenerating at Lake Silencio and was supposedly believed to be killed as a result. We also are never given the impression in other Doctor Who lore that regeneration makes you invincible in this way. Also how does she know how to use her regeneration energy as a defensive weapon against the Nazi soldiers?

4. Why can River wear this poison without dying and how has she got it on after regenerating? When did she put it on?

The involvement of Hitler and the title of the episode are just gimmicks really and the deliberate complications and the introduction suddenly of the Teselecta, a time travelling 'police force' (which never appeared before or has ever appeared since this story arc) creates a gimmicky deus ex machina - a convenient sudden solution to a seemingly impossible problem.

This all sounds really bad but I have to also say that I do enjoy this episode as pure entertainment if you ignore all the plotting. Matt Smith acts at his best, Alex Kingston is great as River as usual, Arthur Darvill is always great too and Karen Gillan does a solid job. The regeneration and the Doctor slowly dying are dramatic additions although the Doctor dying is less impactful given it is the 4th time he has 'died' only to return already during the Matt Smith/Steven Moffatt era. With Rory having apparently died 5 times and Amy having apparently died twice (not including flesh avatars) it is an over use of trick deaths as a plot device.

There is some good humour in the episode. There is also good emotional acting when the Doctor thinks he is dying and when River sees the light. The episode is fun if you switch your brain off but is highly questionable to me when I think through the plot. Moffatt is capable of much better having written some all time greats.

My Rating: 5/10.

Possibly this is the worst episode ever. They already have been during WWII (Germany bombing UK, great two part story, where's that Moffat? In a cupboard?), why do it again? I tell you why: 'cause it's so easy fantasizing on Hitler's death that someone made a whole movie on this idea and it was a masterpiece.

But here no one kills Hitler, they just lock him in a cupboard in the beginning of the episode. Instead we meet the Teselecta, something like "Fantastic Voyage" but with the quality leve of Transformers: terrible.

And obviously here it comes: River Song who doesn't know she is River Song 'cause at first she is Mels. Who's Mels? A girl that Rory and Amy know since they were children but the authors forgot to tell us before. Why? Plot twist? No, they just didn't plan the whole season and have to fill all the crates of their narration: amateurs.

Mels turns out to be their daughter and dies but since her parents had sex in the Tardis she can regenerate into our beloved River Song. Additionally we find out that Amy named her daughter after her daughter, what a coincidence. In a extremely hilarious Futurama episode, Fry is his own grandfather. That's how a clever, funny author writes about time paradoxes, Moffat uses them 'cause he doesn't know what to do next.

The Doctor almost got killed by Melody Pond / River Song, but Amy shows to her daughter who she'll become (what does River Song says? "SPOILERS!") and after years of training and brainwashing in order to kill the Doctor, she suddenly decides she loves him forever and ever and sacrifices all her future regenerations saving his life. Pathetic.

There's another thing that I don't understand. The Doctor sees the date of his death and he doesn't say a word about it. But didn't Amy already told him in "The almost people" she saw him die in his future? So what's the point of keeping the secret?

A complete disaster.