Moffat Era Rewatch: Notes on "A Good Man Goes to War"

 A Good Man Goes to War

• ·      The first thing to note here is the size of the cast. The episode has a huge ensemble: The Doctor, Amy, Rory, River, Vastra, Jenny, Strax, Dorium, Lorna, Colnel Manton, and Madame Kovarian, with lots of plots to juggle, and yet somehow everything has room to breathe. Every new character feels distinctive and memorable, in most cases enough so to warrant at least one return appearance.
• ·      And their stories for this story are all well told. The dynamic of Jenny and Vastra’s relationship is established, and we get glimses of Jenny’ compassion as she comforts Amy, and Vastra’s relationship of equals with the Doctor, as she becomes one of the figures to directly critique his actions in this episode. Strax has a nice story about the conflict between his socially and biologically ingrained role of being a warrior, and his adopted role as a medic, a nice parallel to the plots the Doctor and Rory have in this episode. Dorium gets the story of a coward who’s forced to fight a war he is neither brave or decent enough to fight, and suffers the consequences when his drive for self preservation leads to him trying to escape said war. Lorna has a story about a brave girl desperately seeking to meet the dangerous hero, who selflessly dies fighting to protect people she barely even knows, only to tragically discover, upon finally meeting him, that her hero cannot remember her. Colonel Manton gets the story of a religious zealot who passionately believes in the righteousness of his cause, only to get cast aside in shame. And Kovarian is established as villain who is always ahead of the Doctor, with an unnamed but deeply personal grudge against him.
• ·      A minor note on The Fat One and the Thin One. Criticisms of the misjudged nature of the “why would we need names?” joke are warranted, but Moffat does succeed in giving them some distinctive character moments – I love the Fat One’s line “Do you guys have lent? Because I’m not good at giving things up.” It’s a genuinely funny line that adds a little to his character.  
• ·      Also worth discussing, and rarely commented on, is the scene with River and Rory. I love Rory’s discomfort in the Centurion outfit, best expressed in the “Float like a butterfly, Sting like a bee”/ “Look Ridiculous” exchange, a lovely moment that hints at Rory’s true nature beneath the guise of his pre-credits badassery: he can play the role of the “Last Centurion”, but it is not a role that comes comfortably to him. Also well judged River’s shock at seeing him, and the care she takes in interacting with her father before he knows the nature of their relationship, subtext that is beautifully written by Moffat and played by Kingston.
• ·      This also marks the start of River’s appearances changing in nature: from now on, she appears to trouble and destabilize the narrative. Her role has changed from sweeping in with her own brand of mystery and adventure, a role that will not return until “The Husbands of River Song”. From now on, she will either haunt the edges of the narrative, the role she takes on here and in “The Name of the Doctor”, or she will directly be a source of instability within the narrative, the role she takes on in “Let’s Kill Hitler”, “The Wedding of River Song”, and “The Angels Take Manhattan”.
• ·      Here, she haunts the story by being what everything is ultimately about, even though she only appears in two scenes. Baby Melody is the episode’s Maguffin, the thing everyone wants and is plotting to get, for reasons of varying nobility. River comes and turns the narrative on its head by revealing that this Maguffin has a meaning, and an identity.
• ·      Why does River turn this narrative on its head? Because she needed to. Here, it’s worth looking at a thread I seeded when discussing the opening two parter: season six’s engagement with cult television. Season Six thus far has taken on a distinctly “cult cable TV” tone, in which the Narrative of Doctor Who has crumbled away, to be replaced with something terrible: the Doctor is a taunting child playing aeroplanes as he reigns hell on Demon’s run, he’s a hero does not fit into this story, who seems wrong in it, out of place. We are teased, on three separate occasions, with the possibility that the Doctor is really the father of Amy’s child: the kind of Shock Twist™ that would be antithetical to Doctor Who’s nature. And finally, the heavily serialized, dark in tone and colour scheme, cult TV approach that has been taken on by Doctor Who this season is tearing the show apart, pushing it to breaking point: for much of “Good Man” we get a narrative about Amy being violated that focusses on the terrible nature of the Doctor’s wrath and manpain, in a way that sidelines Amy’s trauma and the support she needs. In this narrative, our protagonist is no longer a Doctor, but a blood soaked warrior, a dark legend, not a kind stranger, passing through and helping those in need. And the story is no longer about the people who don’t fit in, but a selfish white male antihero like any other. What the Doctor represents, what Doctor Who represents, has been turned on its head as it succumbs to the worst instincts of genre fiction. This is the narrative River arrives to undo, and she does so just in time.
• ·      By revealing her identity, River does two things. Firstly, she draws attention to the unnoticed victim of the actions of the Silence: Melody. There is a little girl who has been kidnapped, and is being turned into a weapon for an evil organization: she needs saving, to be given the chance to live her own life with her own autonomy and choices. The second thing River’s revelation does is offer Amy something concrete about the daughter she has lost. And now that she knows this, Amy may be able to find a way to connect with the daughter she has lost, and find a way to ease her trauma. There is now, in this cult genre narrative gone wrong, a new avenue to take. There are people who need to be healed. There is, once again, room for a Doctor.