Let's Kill Hitler (TV story)

Let's Kill Hitler was the eighth episode in the sixth series of Doctor Who and the first episode in the Autumn half. As with A Good Man Goes to War, it brought revelations about River Song.

Synopsis
In the desperate search for Melody Pond, the TARDIS crash lands in 1930s Berlin, bringing the Doctor face to face with the greatest war criminal in the Universe. And Hitler. The Doctor must teach his adversaries that time travel has responsibilities – and in so doing, learns a harsh lesson in the cruelest warfare of all.

Plot
Amy and Rory drive through a corn field with Amy giving directions badly. They stop in the middle and see the Doctor standing by the TARDIS. He shows them a newspaper: the local paper has a front-page story about the crop circle that spell out "Doctor" they have just created. He has not been answering his phone again. Rory takes the paper and spots a line in the corn field message that Amy and he did not create. A sports car races up to them, nearly running over the Doctor, and Mels steps out. She knows about the TARDIS and the Doctor because she grew up with Amy and Rory. She has stolen the car and is followed by the police, so she points a gun at the Doctor and orders him to take her to kill Hitler.

In a flashback, young Amelia Pond and a young Mels are talking about the Doctor when young Rory walks in because he has been abandoned in a game of hide and seek. Mels is a troublemaker in Amy's school. She makes rude remarks to teachers, continually references the Doctor, and steals things. Back in the TARDIS, Mels has shot the control console and the TARDIS is spinning madly out of control.

In 1938 Berlin, a janitor watches a Nazi general. The scene cuts to a Star-Trek-like interior with a captain and crew. They talk about copying the general. The scene cuts to the janitor walking into the general's office. In the futuristic room a woman enters, complaining about skin tones. She takes an elevator to the eye, where an electronic voice threatens her. After being allowed to pass, she looks through the janitor's eye and relays color information to the control room. The janitor grows taller and becomes the Nazi general's double, then sucks the real general into him, where he is killed by the antibodies. The Teselecta next approaches Adolf Hitler, but it is too early in his time stream.

The TARDIS crashes into the Teselecta and its occupants stagger out in a cloud of smoke. The Doctor realises whom they have saved. Hitler tries to shoot the Teselecta, but misses and is put in a cupboard. Hitler has shot Mels, who reveals herself to be Melody Pond and regenerates into the incarnation the Doctor knows as River Song. The Teselecta scans Melody and discovers that she will kill the Doctor.

Melody tries to kill the Doctor several times, but he thwarts her. She kisses the Doctor and jumps out a window to go shopping for clothes after revealing that she has poisoned the Doctor with her lipstick. The Doctor, dying, orders Amy and Rory to catch Melody; this is who she will be if Kovarian keeps her. The pair watch her knock out some Nazis using her regenerative energy, steal their guns and flee on a motorbike.

Amy and Rory follow on a second motorbike, and the Teselecta on a third. The Doctor climbs into the TARDIS. He asks the TARDIS voice simulator to take the form of someone he likes. The TARDIS chooses Rose Tyler, Martha Jones, and Donna Noble before settling on the young Amelia Pond. After much debate, Amelia says the words "Fish fingers and custard," giving the doctor the inspiration he needs to fight the pain and confront the Teselecta.

Melody steals all the clothes from people in a restaurant and works on her ensemble. Amy and Rory arrive outside the restaurant, pursued by the Teselecta, now disguised as Amy. In the restaurant, Melody is trying on outfits when Teselecta-Amy walks in and speaks, accusing Melody of killing the Doctor.

Amy and Rory awake inside the Teselecta, where the antibodies start to kill them, but they are saved by one of the crew. The Doctor arrives at the restaurant in evening clothes. The Teselecta starts to torture Melody. The Doctor begs it to stop. Melody is frozen in place. The Doctor asks the Teselecta for information on himself and Amy persuades them to give the Doctor what he wants. It informs the Doctor that the Silence are behind the plot to kill him. When the Doctor asks what the Silence are, the Teselecta explains that the Silence are not a species but a religious cult that believes "silence will fall" when the oldest Question in the universe is asked. It does not know what that Question is.

The Teselecta resumes torturing Melody, until Amy uses the sonic screwdriver to turn off all of the crew's security clearance devices, causing the antibodies to attack the crew, forcing them to teleport away. The dying Doctor begs Melody to save Amy and Rory, who are about be killed by the antibodies. The TARDIS materializes around them. Melody has flown the TARDIS, after it taught her how. The trio run to the Doctor but he says there is no way for him to survive. Melody sacrifices her remaining regenerations to revive him, almost killing herself.

The Doctor, Amy and Rory leave Melody in the best hospital in the universe. They must let her find her own way. The Doctor claims that he downloaded some boring information from the Teselecta: he has discovered the day of his death. River/Melody applies for a degree in Archeology at the Luna University two years before Demons Run.

Cast

 * The Doctor - Matt Smith
 * Amy Pond - Karen Gillan
 * Rory Williams - Arthur Darvill
 * Melody Pond (River Song)) - Alex Kingston
 * Melody Pond (Mels) - Nina Toussaint-White
 * Adolf Hitler - Albert Welling
 * Amelia Pond - Caitlin Blackwood
 * Young Mels - Maya Glace-Green
 * Young Rory - Ezekiel Wigglesworth
 * Zimmerman - Philip Rham
 * Carter - Richard Dillane
 * Anita - Amy Cudden
 * Jim - Davood Ghadami
 * Harriet - Ella Kenion
 * German Officer - Mark Killeen
 * Professor Candy - Paul Bentley
 * Nurse - Eva Alexander
 * Female Teacher - Tor Clark

Crew
to be added

The Doctor

 * The Doctor covertly switches a gun for a banana, leading River Song to pull the banana on him. The Ninth Doctor previously did this to Jack Harkness.
 * 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.

The Doctor's items

 * The Doctor gives Amy his sonic screwdriver.
 * The Doctor has a sonic cane.

Companions

 * Rose Tyler, Martha Jones and Donna Noble all appear as projections for the TARDIS voice interface to use, after the Doctor rejects a projection of himself and asks for "someone he likes." He rejects all three projections on the basis of increasingly strong feelings of guilt.

Foods and beverages

 * The TARDIS's projection of Amelia mentions fish fingers and custard.

Religion

 * The Silence are not a species, but a religious organisation of sorts.

TARDISes

 * The temporal grace in the TARDIS, which supposedly prevents weapons fire is said, by the Doctor to be a "clever lie".

Story notes

 * This is the first episode of the Autumn half of the series. The Spring half concluded on the 4th June with A Good Man Goes to War.
 * This is the first time in the Eleventh Doctor era that the companions of the previous two Doctors have been mentioned or seen in a proper episode since The End of Time.
 * The images of all the former companions are taken from publicity shots.
 * The Doctor makes the "Doctor Who?" running joke.
 * The projections of Rose and Donna shown are publicity images from Series 4, whereas the projection of Martha is from a publicity image for Series 3.
 * The car Mels steals is a vintage Chevrolet Corvette. This car was popular with American Astronauts during the 1960's. Tom Hanks drives a similar model in the film "Apollo 13".
 * The layout of the Tesselacta's bridge is reminiscent of that of the Enterprise and other Federation Starships from the television series Star Trek.
 * The Silence is in search of the answer to a mysterious question, the "first question". The search for the question behind "Life, the Universe and Everything" is a central theme of "The Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy".  The Tenth Doctor mentions that the central character of that novel, Arthur Dent, was a "nice man", although he may have been being facetious.

Irregularities

 * The same 2011 time zone as The Miracle was featured briefly in this episode ( Miracle Day). This means that Amy and Rory were in Leadworth during their summer vacation from the TARDIS while The Miracle was happening, meaning that part of the episode was in sync with Miracle Day. It is highly likely that from the perspective of the Doctor Who universe, The Doctor was informed about such events by Amy and Rory and The Doctor most likely reassured them that The Miracle would not be permanent, otherwise it would be inevitable that he would have intervened. However from the real world perspective this is just a continuity error, and the outcome of The Miracle remains unknown.

Ratings

 * UK Overnight: 6.2 million

Myths

 * The Daily Mirror reported that Rose Tyler, Martha Jones and Donna Noble will appear in this episode. Although an image of each was seen, they were for a TARDIS interface, rather than the characters themselves. These were stock images; the actresses did not record any new scenes.

Filming locations

 * Swansea, Wales.

Continuity

 * Images of Rose Tyler, Martha Jones, Donna Temple-Noble are seen. (DW: Rose, The Runaway Bride, Smith and Jones) The Doctor feels guilty for what he did to Rose, feels even guiltier for what he did to Martha and states he "screwed up" Donna.
 * The Doctor mentions "fish vampires". (DW: The Vampires of Venice)
 * The Doctor speaks about River at Demon's Run. (DW: A Good Man Goes to War)
 * Rory punches two people in the face to knock them on to the ground. Rory previously did this to the Doctor. (DW: The Big Bang)
 * River begins studying archaeology. (DW: Silence in the Library)
 * The TARDIS's projection of Amelia mentions fish fingers and custard. (DW: The Eleventh Hour)
 * Melody mentions regenerating into the toddler form of Mels in New York. (DW: Day of the Moon)
 * As this was in 1970, Mels would be two decades older than she appeared. She may have somehow used a method of time travel or, given her later reference to being able to control her aging process (planning to gradually "bring the age down a little" in her newest incarnation), it is logical that she prevented herself from aging at a normal human rate until she met up with her parents as children.
 * The Doctor switches Melody's gun for a banana, similar to what he did to Jack Harkness in The Doctor Dances.
 * River reveals she learned how to pilot the TARDIS from the TARDIS herself. (DW: The Time of Angels)
 * The Doctor tells Melody "Rule one: The Doctor lies." (DW: The Big Bang) One of the first things the Doctor hears River say is "I'm always lying." (DW: Silence in the Library)
 * River's diary (DW: Silence in the Library) makes its first chronological appearance in this episode, a gift from the Doctor himself.
 * The Tessalecta data console states The Doctor's TARDIS is a Type 40 Mk 3 TT Capsule.
 * The Tessalecta crew mentions something in "Kennedy"'s timeline is not a fixed point in time. While this may be a reference to the death of John F. Kennedy (an event witnessed by the Ninth Doctor), it could be a reference to the death of Robert F. Kennedy, or another event involving a member of the Kennedy clan.

Home video releases
This episode will be released on DVD and Blu-ray shortly after the airing of episode thirteen.