Opening
Live from Master Closet Studios, you’re listening to the only podcast on the internet hosted by two humans and one Teselecta: it’s the Noobs and the Whovian!
My name is Austin and I’m the Whovian, and these are my sons Corbin and Tripp and we’re the noobs!
This is the podcast that introduces a whole new generation to Doctor Who by watching an episode each week and discussing it from the perspective of a dad who’s seen it before, and two sons who haven’t.
Welcome to Episode 84 covering series 6 episode 8: Let’s Kill Hitler.
Super-short Recap
This is the one where the Doctor, Amy, Rory discover that their daughter, Melody, became their childhood friend, Mels, who then regenerated into River Song. And no one, in fact, killed Hitler, but he was left locked in a cupboard.
Remember that one?
Production notes
- Story # 219
- Originally aired August 27, 2011 to 8.1 million viewers
- Written by: Steven Moffat
- Directed by: Richard Senior – his first TV directing gig!
- Award:
Misc Trivia
- The wait of several weeks was experienced by the Ponds as well as the fans. Amy says at the beginning, “You’ve had all summer to find Melody.”
Cast
- Young Rory – Ezekiel Wigglesworth
- This is his only acting credit on IMDB, I just wanted to say his name.
- Mels – Nina Toussaint-White
- She’s fairly active around the BBC and currently stars in The Feed on Amazon Prime
- I thought she was brilliant, if short-lived, here
Checklist
- Name of the episode spoken in dialogue?
- Mels “You’ve got a time machine. I’ve got a gun. Let’s kill Hitler!”
- Creature of the week
- The Teselecta
- They jump back in time and extract people near their death and then give them hell.
- The Antibodies
- You have a giant body and it needs a defense system. So you create antibody robots that
- You will feel a tingling sensation and then death.
- The Teselecta
- CGI
- The Tessalecta impressed Corbin and Tripp!
- Bow ties are cool
- River says, “Watch out that bowtie!”
- Hats
- Top hat
- Doctor Who?
- Eleven says it himself!
- Jiggery Pokery
- Sonic
- Sonic cane!
- Is this the first we’ve seen of the “think and point” operation of the sonic?
- TARDIS
- Extractor fans on! Oh, that worked!
- She taught River how to fly her.
- River is the child of the TARDIS.
- Sonic
- Silence will fall
- The Silence is not a species. It is a religious order or movement. Their core belief is that silence will fall when The Question is asked. What question? The first question, the oldest question in the universe hidden in plain sight. What is the question? Unknown.
- The Question
- Eye-patch Lady
- She did a good job making Melody into a psychopath.
- The Doctor’s Rules
- Rule 1: The Doctor lies.
- Rule 7: Never run when you are scared.
- Rule 27: Never knowingly be serious.
- Rule 408: Time is not the boss of you.
- Jammie Dodger sighting
- Running count – 2
- Existential Horror
Other stuff we noticed
- Like her daughter, Amy left a giant message for the Doctor to summon him. So who got the idea from who
- Who steals a bus?! Lady Christina de Souza, of course!
- The poison of the Judas Tree. He was betrayed by a kiss, like when Judas kissed Jesus.
- 32 minutes – I loved this bit.
- Oddly, the TARDIS blue invitations that everyone received to meet in The Impossible Astronaut had a meeting time of 4:30pm. The record from the Teselecta shows that he died at 5:02pm, 32 minutes later!
Who’s Who?
- Who is Rory?
- He’s been in love with Amy from the time he was like 8!
- He, like Captain America before him, socked ol’ Hitler in the jaw!
- Can you ride a motorbike? I expect so, it’s that kind of day.
- I’m trapped inside a giant robot replica of my wife. I’m really trying not to see this as a metaphor.
- Who is Amy?
- She counts as a boy
- Who is The Doctor?
- He dead
- Who is River Song
- She was Amy and Rory’s best mate growing up, Mels
- They hinted at this when she stepped into the way of the sunlight, gun in hand, in the cornfield much like River did in The Impossible Astronaut.
- Here we have the first time she calls him “sweetie”
- We also have it revealed that apparently she got “Spoilers!” from the Doctor… who got it from her.
- I was just on my way to this gay gypsy bar-mitzvah for the disabled when suddenly I thought, “The Third Reich is a bit rubbish, I think I’ll kill the Fuhrer.”
- She says she’ll take the age down just a bit, gradually just to freak people out.
- She used up her regenerations in one go to bring back the Doctor. So, she can’t regenerate anymore.
- She became an archaeologist so she could find the Doctor again.
- She was Amy and Rory’s best mate growing up, Mels
Can we talk about Mels?
- I love this character. What did yall think of her?
- The only thing I don’t like is that I feel like they didn’t earn her appearance here. This is like when a main character’s dad, or sister, or long-lost love interest shows up just so they can die by the end of the episode.
- With all the long-term plotting they did with this series arc, why didn’t we meet Mels a long time ago?
Classic Who Connection
- State of Temporal Grace
- The Fourth Doctor first used this term (or phrase) in the serial the Hand of Fear meaning that no hostilities or weapons could happen in the TARDIS. This is later explained more in a Doctor Who book to be linked to the telepathic circuits.
- However, Sontarans in The Invasion of Time, Cybermen in Earthshock and Attack of the Cybermen, a Terileptil android in The Visitation all fired off guns/blasters in the TARDIS.
- These instances have been explained over the years that it only works when the engines are running (by the Sixth Doctor), or simply “Nobody’s perfect” by the Fifth Doctor and now we have that it’s a clever lie.
- The Doctor has been strongly poisoned before and it caused a regeneration.
- The Teselecta correctly showed the Doctor’s TARDIS to be a Type 40 Mk3 TT just like the Time Lords designated it back in the Fourth Doctor serial The Deadly Assassin.
- The Megara (which were seen in the Fourth Doctor serial, The Stones of Blood) were also called Justice Machines. They were floating metallic orbs that flew through the air and upheld the statutes of Galactic law.
- The concept that regenerations can be transferred from one individual to another came up with the Fifth Doctor in the serial Mawdryn Undead, the Sixth Doctor in the serial The Ultimate Foe and the TV movie Doctor Who.
- We again have further revival while within the first mew minutes of regeneration. In the serial Destiny of the Daleks, Romana tried several new forms after regenerating.
- In the Third Doctor serial Carnival of Monsters, the TARDIS also materializes into an object containing mini people in a compression field.
- When the Fourth Doctor left behind Romana, he also said she will be “more than fine”
- We have seen the TARDIS materialize around people twice in Classic Who. The first time was with the Fourth Doctor in Logopolis and the second was with the Fifth Doctor in Time-Flight
Overall impressions
- Overall rating out of 10 –
- Jared – 9.5 – Hitlers with poor aim
- Austin – 8.5 not-enough Mels
- Corbin – 9 banana guns
- Tripp – 9.9 dead Mels
- Creep Level – out of 500
- Jared – 75
- Austin – 75
- Corbin – 65
- Tripp – 100
Theories
- What will happen with Eleven dying?
- Corbin thinks this will be the end of series 6 and they will avert Eleven’s death.
- Tripp
- Who is the impossible astronaut?
- Corbin thinks it’s River.
- Tripp thinks it’s River.
- Who is the little girl?
- She’s a timelord
- Corbin thinks she’s Amy’s daughter.
- Her regeneration and strength are a result of time travel.
- Tripp thinks it’s River.
- Who is River?
- Corbin thinks she’s married to the Doctor. She’s in Stormcage for killing someone.
- Tripp thinks it’s obvious that she’s married to the Doctor, and she’s in Stormcage because she killed the Doctor. She was put against the Doctor and that’s why she is in jail.
- Corbin’s whole theory
- The River, who is the impossible astronaut and Girl, kills the Doctor in the season finale and that is why she is in Stormcage. Also she is the Doctor’s wife.
The Game Plan
- Next week we’re covering season 6 episode 9: Night Terrors.
- Following that, we’re doing a Classic Who Rewind covering the Fourth Doctor serial The Genesis of the Daleks. We’ll meet Davros for the first time, and see Four face a real moral conundrum.
- Don’t forget that Classic Who is available via BritBox on Amazon video. If you haven’t already, sign up for a free trial period so you can watch these classic episodes with us.
- Use our link and help support the show!
Closing
Noobs and the Whovian is a production of Master Closet Studios, where it’s always smaller on the inside. Your Senior Producer is Austin Reason. Our Audio Engineer is Tripp Reason. Corbin Reason is our Production Editor. Special thanks to tardis.wikia.com for the trivia, Jared for the Classic Who Connection. Shout outs to Victor and Jared for their Patreon support.
You can find us at facebook.com/noobsandthewhovian and email us at [email protected]. Consider supporting us at https://www.patreon.com/noobsandthewhovian. Please subscribe and leave a rating wherever you found us, and share us with a friend not because we’re a great show but because we watch one.
