saturday squee: "a good man goes to war"

[randomgirl666.livejournal.com]

Please post short reactions and comments to "A Good Man Goes to War" here. Tonight's episode is on BBC1 at 6.40pm.

If you're watching "The Almost People" for the first time today (most of you have seen it I know, but it's still possible), the reaction thread for that episode is here.
 

Comments

[loolaa.livejournal.com]

Loved the episode, even with the predictable ending. The Sontaran nurse was hilarious at the beginning and I liked what he said to Rory at the end about being a nurse. Speaking of Rory I couldn't take him seriously at the beginning. When he said he had a message from the Doctor and was trying to be tough (which always makes me snort with humour anyway) just before the explosion all I could think was Rory saying: "Smoke me a kipper, I'll be back for breakfast."

Didn't expect the baby to be a fake though. That was fun.

[loolaa.livejournal.com]

Also, "Let's Kill Hitler' made me LOL.

[randomgirl666.livejournal.com]

Well I'm really not sure what to think of that. I was going to post comments here throughout the episode, but due to a technical failure (i.e. me forgetting what time it was on) I ended up having to wait until it was finished so I could watch it on iPlayer. Then iPlayer crashed. So I didn't end up watching it until 8pm. I did make notes throughout, however. These are them:

___

"Don't give me those blank looks." Ha! Don't quite buy this action man shiz coming from Rory though. He should have downplayed it a bit.
Baby is Melody Pond. So it's obviously River Song then. Pah.
Army people. The fat and thin gay married ones. Moffat obv knows everyone will call them this anyway. They DON'T need names.
Victorian Silurian Jack Ripper hunting lady. LOVE!
Welsh Sontaran nurse. LOVE!
"I'm breaking out, not in." This scene a bit overdone, but Stevie Wonder joke is awesome.
So the Doctor is getting some people together and they are people we don't know? Bit anti-climactic.
These soldiers are a bit blah. Headless monks are boring. Of course they're headless. Why would we think not?
19 mins into the episode before Doctor appears. Is that a record?
"Amelia Pond, get your coat." Like.
"Why do you put up with me?" Very very long tongue. I see. I like.
Oh it's the pirate and his son. Couldn't. Give. A. Shit.
Colonel Runaway: THIS WHOLE BIT!
"Oh god, I was going to be cool." Awwwww...
Breastfeeding Sontaran = awesome
Creeky old cot looks unsafe and unhygienic. Wouldn't put a dog in there.
"It's mine... the cot." Rory's phewing is funny.
So she obviously is the girl in the astronaut suit. So River will kill the Doctor then?
Adorable Doctor not-liking-the-sex-talk bit. Yes, people have sex on honeymoon.
What is eye patch lady's PROBLEM? Seriously.
"No offence to the others, but let them all die first." I love.
Baby sludge - didn't see it coming
"You're a warrior." "Rory, I'm a nurse." So SAD!
He obv doesn't remember Lorna. So SAD!
River's moral speech = a bit much. Doctor is dodgy, yes, but most of those threatened are mass murderers after all.
Doctor's reaction to River revelation = adorable.
The shocking revelation! Which we all figured out six episodes ago! Which was made even more obvious 40 minutes ago! Well that was unshocking.

____

You know the problem? There are two problems actually. For one thing, I keep submitting to temptation and reading the "teasers" on SFX. And not only do they give away the best dialogue lines in advance, they also build things up beyond reason. For example: "there are lots of surprise guest stars." Well, no actually. There's the pirate and his son and NOBODY CARES BECAUSE THEY WERE IN A SHIT EPISODE FOUR WEEKS AGO. Stupid teasers. I will steer well clear now.

Also, the hype is becoming problematic. When Alex Kingston is appearing in interviews saying that River Song's identity "blew her mind" I was expecting something much better. I kept waiting to find out the Melody/River connection was just a red herring. And waiting. And waiting. And then it didn't. It's just a very unsatisfying ending to a three year old mystery. Also: it doesn't make me think that I can't wait for the next episode. We know that River turns out alright (until the library anyway). So where's the sense of danger?

There was SO MUCH good stuff. But between the hype and the teasers, it was overshadowed for me. So the lesson I have learnt is this: STAY OFF THE FUCKING INTERNET WHERE UNSCREENED EPISODES ARE CONCERNED. And I really should have worked that out before, I know.

[randomgirl666.livejournal.com]

And my original post says "short replies and comments." Ahem. Sorry.

[loolaa.livejournal.com]

So she obviously is the girl in the astronaut suit. So River will kill the Doctor then?

It's definitely looking like River is little girl in the spacesuit with her TARDIS-y powers. But I'm not sure about River being the one that kills the Doctor. It just seems too obvious. I'm convinced there is SOMEONE ELSE IN THAT SPACESUIT.

(Rory? Cuz the Doctors been shagging his baby daughter for centuries? That's a joke btw not real speculation.)

I never read spoilers or teasers. I has willpower. And I read very few interviews so most stuff is a surprise for me unless I venture into another Comm or guess something myself.

[loolaa.livejournal.com]

Also loving the potential for Eyepatch Lady to be a brilliant villain.

[rabiya-al-basri.livejournal.com]

I hope so! Not on board yet, but hoping!

[rabiya-al-basri.livejournal.com]

I hope that it's someone else in the spacesuit, things are too predictable around here! Speaking of ways around that scene, I know it's not what's actually going to happen, but part of me wants the Doctor to end up dying in that scene after making a ganger of himself and then the rest of the series it's just ganger-Doctor. This would make him unreasonably vulnerable to sonic screwdriver malfunctions, but would be in other ways kind of awesome. OTOH if it was ganger-Doctor who died there, it would feel really cheap.

(LOL YES IKR?)

[loolaa.livejournal.com]

I am very amused by ganger Doctor attempting to use the sonic screwdriver and turning to sludge.

Thing is, I can't see who else could have died instead of the Doctor. Unless something or someone else that can look exactly like the Doctor shows up in the second half of the series then I guess it is gonna be ganger Doctor that was shot.
Unless River faked the readings that both the Doctor's hearts had stopped for some unknown reason and he was actually alive, which seems pretty unlikely since she was extremely upset.
Or unless some timey wimey stuff is made to happen. If it's timey wimey I hope it's imaginative.

[rabiya-al-basri.livejournal.com]

My assumption is that it'll be timey-wimey. Or (I don't actually think this) they'll find a way to resurrect him like they did the Master (who could use some re-resurrection, yes? Or de-whatever-it-was-at-the-End-of-time-I-forget,mostly-just-remember-the-yaoi-fanservice).

[rabiya-al-basri.livejournal.com]

Also I don't think that a flesh version of the doctor could regenerate? IDK. That'd be weird if he could. Would he even stay flesh if he did? Oh, huh, that'd be an interesting resolution: it was the non-ganger Doctor who died, but a ganger-doctor lives on to die and regenerates to a non-ganger new body.

[rabiya-al-basri.livejournal.com]

I didn't hear the "lots of surprise guest stars" and I STILL thought it was anti-climactic and zzzzzz. Seriously.

Also, it all felt completely unjustified...or maybe, despite all the hype, it didn't feel built up to, earned. We start and there's this war and COME ON YOU CAN'T HAVE A WAR AGAINST ONE PERSON. And, yes, I AM an American, yes I've tried telling my government this. Unless they decided to play up that parallel, which would be, uh, inadvisable even if artistically interesting, I'm not buying it. Also if they want to kill him so bad why do they stand there and let him talk? Sigh. When it's the Doctor getting in the way of some other plan, I can understand letting him talk. When your plan is 'kill the doctor' and he stands right there in front of you, well do something about it. Anyways, it just felt like trying to make it BIG BIG BIG without it, you know, actually being big. There's pathos in characters, not in BIG BIG BIG. (I felt the same way about last year's finale, though not quite as hardcore.) And, like, all we know is that some group of humans (all humans? humans and cybermen? Are the cybermen on their side or against them or off doing their own thing?) have picked a fight with the Doctor--we don't know why, we don't know if they're good or bad, we don't know what their plan for the world is... *and the characters don't ask these questions either*. I felt overwhelmed with BUT WHY SHOULD I CARE. And all the posturing onstage and elsewhere felt completely unnecessary for the rescuing-Amy-and-Melody.

Also, the doctor's all "me, a weapon?? a warrior???" And I'm all, YOU JUST COMMITTED MASS MURDER IN THE OPENING SCENE FOR NO GOOD REASON, JUST TO SHOW OFF. Remember when The Doctor couldn't live with the choice of destroying the earth to save the universe from the Daleks and would rather let them win and it took Rose-TARDIS to kill them off? Where'd he go?

OK, so the two gay jokes at the beginning? Not a fan. Well, the one about why would we need names *would've been funny*--would've been about satirizing media homophobia--except that they then kill one of them not thirty seconds later, which turns it into "we wanted you to know that he was gay so when we killed him you'd get the message." Um, ugh. Then the "why do you put up with me [really long tongue]" joke I didn't actually get till you pointed it out. ...The straight culture equation of lesbianism with oral sex is insulting and tiresome, I am *so* over it, not to mention what that joke says about the quality of our relationships. They were at least charming together, and they did both live, but that's a pretty low bar.

Did like the Sontaran nurse, did like the Doctor's reaction to River's revelation, did like Rory "I was gonna be cool." Did like baby sludge! Had assumed it was going to be that Amy was really just another ganger who would carry off the baby, but this made more sense/was better.

River Song's identity reveal... I think it could've "blown her mind" back before any of season 6 had happened, it would've been interesting and unexpected back then. But, yeah, this episode's reveal (like the pirate episode) was apparently written for those very slow on the uptake. The past two episodes were so much better on the reveal-pacing front, it made this one all the more disappointing. But, yeah, I think even had it been paced better it still would've been unsatisfying, but more because it's not the real reveal, the one about who River killed that put her in prison, why, and what her agenda is; it still doesn't *really* feel like finding out who she is, just where she came from. So that being pushed off as an answer feels extra unsatisfying. (You know who I wish she'd been? I wish she'd been eyepatch-lady.) Oh, and since when are time lords incredibly strong?

[randomgirl666.livejournal.com]

"OK, so the two gay jokes at the beginning? Not a fan. Well, the one about why would we need names *would've been funny*--would've been about satirizing media homophobia--except that they then kill one of them not thirty seconds later, which turns it into "we wanted you to know that he was gay so when we killed him you'd get the message."

See, my take on these things is that it's not so much "let's kill the gay character" so much as "let's make you give a shit about this character that we're intending to kill anyway." So you establish that they're in a relationship, you give them a little humourous moment and then supposedly when they die it's a big deal (although it isn't really, because this is Doctor Who and you generally expect random people to die throughout the episodes). If he was the ONLY character to die in this episode, I might feel differently.

Also as a bisexual woman I don't particularly find the suggestion that some women would like to have a girlfriend with a really long tongue insulting. Some lesbians and bisexuals DO like oral sex. Acknowledging that isn't the same as saying "being a lesbian is all about oral sex." A gay character on a TV programme isn't intended to represent all gay people everywhere - it can't work like that or else they just become meaningless cyphers. She doesn't represent all lesbians, she merely represents herself.

I'm happy to see that joke there, because I grew up in an age where lesbian and gay characters were tokenistic and rarely shown to be in relationships, having sex, etc. It's subtle enough to go over kids' heads and amuse adults at the same time. For me, if we have loads of characters who are gay but they're all bland, sexless and Good Role Models, that's as patronising and insulting as having none at all.

[rabiya-al-basri.livejournal.com]

Some lesbians and bisexuals DO like oral sex. Acknowledging that isn't the same as saying "being a lesbian is all about oral sex." A gay character on a TV programme isn't intended to represent all gay people everywhere

This would be a valid point if this were the only incident of this trope ever, or if other kinds of queer female sexuality were acknowledged on TV-- but that is *the only* kind of female/female sexuality acknowledged in popular straight culture. Are they shown making out or touching each other? Do they (or other queer characters in other shows) make references to short clean cut fingernails or small knuckles? Dildos? Sure, it's ony one instance here, but every single time it's only one instance, so you can ever criticize anyone, despite the fact that it's always the same instance, and it's almost always either played for laughs or straight male titillation. Furthermore, it's rarely shown as something male characters do to please partners of any gender (and, when it is, even more rarely for it to be in a respectful manner)--it often feels like this reduction of queer female sexuality to oral sex fits into a paradigm where penetration-by-a-penis is the defining act of sex to which all other acts are inferior, and frequently doesn't even consider cunnilingus to be "real sex." Thereby 'lesbian sex = cunnilingus' becomes part of the positioning of queer female sex and relationships as inferior to straight ones (which I don't think this particular episode did in other ways or in ways that would have been explicit in the writers' minds (note: while I think the "let's kill the gay character to send a message" was intentional in a subconscious sense, I don't think it was THOSE ***** DESERVE TO DIE.).

I would argue that queer characters are *still* tokenistic and rarely shown to be in relationships--and when they are, it's rarely characters who matter to us emotionally, they're still disproportionately likely to die, and they're still most often treated as a joke, as villains, for pity, or for straight dudes. The *only* two significant queer relationships that I can think of on straight television that *don't* fall into one of those categories are Jack/Ianto and Willow/Tara (from Torchwood and Buffy, respectively)--and it's been a while since Buffy was on the air! (as for how w/t weren't shown having sex till season 6 or kissing until "The Body," that was a network issue they pushed and pushed really hard, and found ways around.) ...Also, the "returning guest stars you don't care about!" of that episode made everyone other than the core four feel like tokens more intensely than it would've in another episode.

I should be clear that I objected to that joke much less than I objected to the "he's gay let's kill him," (which, AGAIN, can't be evaluated on its own but only in the context of how frequently queer characters are killed off w/rt straight and presumed-straight characters; just because it can be explained in another way doesn't mean it doesn't fit into a pattern on the show and off), and in the context of other ideas about sexuality.