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. In the same vein as A Good Man Goes to War, it revealed much about River Song's origins.

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 when they see the Doctor standing by the TARDIS. He shows them the local paper with a front-page story about the crop circle that spells 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 they did not create. A Corvette races up to them, nearly running over the Doctor, and Amy and Rory's previously unseen friend Mels steps out. She knows about the TARDIS and the Doctor because she grew up with Amy's stories about him. She has stolen a car and is about to be arrested 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 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; Amelia states that she gets in more trouble than anyone other than boys. She makes rude remarks to teachers, continually references the Doctor, and steals a bus. 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 futuristic control room where a crew are discussing 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, and how the last time they relied purely on the computer it "made Rasputin green". She goes to 'the top level', where an electronic voice politely threatens her. After being allowed to pass, she looks through a viewport, which is revealed to be the eye of the janitor, who is actually a highly-advanced machine. The woman relays colour information to the control room. The janitor grows taller and changes into a duplicate of the general. It transports the general aboard, with a miniaturization ray. He is killed by the "antibodies" of the ship, known as the Teselecta. It now approaches Adolf Hitler, intending to punish him for his myriad war crimes. Just as the ship paralyzes him with an energy ray, a crewman realizes that they have travelled to 1938 and that it is "too early" in Hitler's time stream.

Before that is explained, the TARDIS crashes into Hitler's office, knocking the Teselecta over. The TARDIS occupants stagger out in a cloud of smoke, caused by Mels having shot the TARDIS' control console. The Doctor realises whom they have saved. Hitler tries to shoot the Teselecta, but his bullets do no damage. The Doctor has Rory put Hitler in a cupboard. In his panic Hitler has shot Mels, who reveals herself to be Melody Pond and regenerates into the incarnation the Doctor and company know as River Song. The Teselecta scans the TARDIS and realizes that they are in the presence of the most infamous malefactor in history, whose crimes dwarf those of Hitler: Melody Pond.

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 staggers into the TARDIS. Unable to reach the controls, he activates the TARDIS voice interface, which takes the form of a hologram of the Doctor himself. He asks the interface to take the form of someone he likes instead, and it cycles through the images of Rose Tyler, Martha Jones, and Donna Noble, all of whom he rejects as they induce feelings of guilt. The interface finally settles on the young Amelia Pond. After much debate, "Amelia" says the words "Fish fingers and custard," inspiring the Doctor to fight the pain and confront the Teselecta.

Melody steals all the clothes at machinegunpoint from diners 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 accuses her of killing the Doctor.

Amy and Rory awake inside the Teselecta, where the antibodies attempt to kill them. They are saved by one of the crew. The Doctor arrives at the restaurant in evening clothes. The Teselecta crew explain that as a form of temporal justice, they travel to unpunished war criminals near the ends of their lives, and then "give them hell", subjecting them to agonizing, non-lethal pain, allowing the timeline to continue. Following this directive, the ship captures Melody and tortures her. The Doctor begs it to stop. Melody is frozen in place. The Doctor asks the Teselecta for information on himself and who wants him dead so badly. Amy persuades them to give the Doctor what he wants; a crewman points out that according to their rules, Amy has the right to do so as a family member of Melody. The Teselecta 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. The antibodies attack the crew, forcing them to teleport away to safety. 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, and he dies. Melody asks who this "River Song" is, and Amy, using her status as a family member, tells the Teselecta to access Song's file and show them: the Teselecta shifts into River Song. Having learning that she is in fact the "beloved friend" that the Doctor kept mentioning, Melody energizes her hands with the glow of regeneration and asks her parents if the Doctor "is worth it". Though they don't seem to know what she is getting at, they confirm that he is. Melody transfers her remaining regenerations to the Doctor to revive him, giving him a new lease on lives but almost killing herself once and for all in the process.

The Doctor, Amy, and Rory leave Melody in the best hospital in the universe to recover. 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 the Battle of 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

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 adds more to his 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 uses 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.
 * Rory complains "I have this sort of banging in my head" in the same fashion as The Master in the human form of Professor Yana.

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 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 projections of Rose and Donna shown are publicity images from Series 4,. The projection of Martha is from a publicity image for Series 3.
 * The Doctor makes the "Doctor Who?" running joke.
 * 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 deliberately reminiscent of that of the Enterprise and other Federation Starships from the television series Star Trek.
 * The TARDIS's voice interface tells the Doctor that he will be dead in 32 minutes. Coincidentally in-universe, but likely intentionally in the real world, the invitation the future Doctor sent out to everyone in The Impossible Astronaut, to meet at Lake Silencio for the Doctor's death was for 4:30pm and according to the biography information the Doctor is shot during regeneration and killed at 5:02pm.

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 avatars for a TARDIS interface, rather than the characters themselves.

Filming locations

 * Swansea, Wales.

Production errors

 * When the Doctor and the TARDIS make their first appearance, they are facing to the right, parallel with Amy and Rory's car. However, when the camera pulls up to reveal the "Doctor" crop circle, they are facing down, perpendicular to the car.
 * Hitler shoots Mel in the stomach but there is no blood or puncture hole on her dress. Later when the german soldiers shoot River post-regeneration, there is again, no bullet holes or blood. Perhaps the blood and bullet holes heal or get replaced when a Time Lord regenerates.
 * When Rory asks "How can they just disappear?" two antibodies appear, but in the next shot there are three.

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 "more guilt" for what he did to Martha and "even more guilt" over Donna.
 * The Doctor mentions "the Vampires in Venice". (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)
 * 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 Teselecta data console states The Doctor's TARDIS is a Type 40 Mk 3 TT Capsule.
 * The Teselecta crew mentions something in "Kennedy"'s timeline is not a fixed point in time. While this is probably a reference to the assassination of American PresidentJohn F. Kennedy (an event witnessed by the Ninth Doctor), it could be a reference to the death of his brother, Senator Robert F. Kennedy, or another event involving a member of the Kennedy family.
 * It is mentioned twice that River uses her "remaining" regenerations to revive the Doctor, implying that she has a fixed amount. It is unclear whether the Doctor then gained that many new regenerations or if he still has only two remaining. The possibility of transfering future regenerations from one regeneration-capable individual to another has been presented before. (DW: Mawdryn Undead, Doctor Who (1996), The Ultimate Foe)
 * River has previously used a type of lipstick to her advantage. (DW: The Time of Angels, The Big Bang) This time however, she uses a poisonous version.
 * River was able to completely recover after being shot several times by German soldiers. This was due to her still being within the first 15 hours of her regeneration. The Tenth Doctor previously recovered from a severed hand while fighting a Sycorax due to a similar circumstance. (DW: The Christmas Invasion)
 * When first detecting that there are other life forms inside the Teselecta, the Doctor wonders if it is bigger on the inside.
 * The TARDIS was previously able to materialise inside a smaller object containing miniaturised life forms in a compression field. (DW: Carnival of Monsters)
 * Mels says "See you later, Time Boy" during a flashback, the person to refer to the Doctor as a Time Boy was Donna Noble.
 * Melody Pond says, "Hello Benjamin" to the Doctor, this is a follow on reference to the Doctor claiming River Song's code-name for scotland yard is Mrs Robinson. Both are a reference to the move "The Graduate" where a younger man, Benjamin is seduced by an older woman Mrs Robinson.

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