To celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the longest-running science-fiction show in the world, I’ll be taking weekly looks at some of my own personal favourite stories and arcs, from the old and new series, with a view to encapsulating the sublime, the clever and the fiendishly odd of the BBC’s Doctor Who.
A Good Man Goes to War originally aired in 2011.
Demons run when a good man goes to war.
Night will fall and drown the sun, when a good man goes to war.
Friendship dies and true love lies,
Night will fall and the dark will rise,
When a good man goes to war.
Demons run but count the cost.
The battle’s won, but the child is lost.
A Good Man Goes to War is pretty much the epitome of Moffat’s “let’s cram as much as possible into forty-five minutes” approach to Doctor Who. This is the episode directly following Matt Smith’s last proper two-part adventure, and it firmly sets the status quo for the rest of the Eleventh Doctor’s tenure. Moffat doesn’t opt for two-parters after this point, and you can see the roots of the “blockbuster” approach he adopted for the show’s fiftieth season.
A Good Man Goes to War has enough crammed into it to sustain a bombastic Russell T. Davies season finalé. There’s character arcs, betrayal, redemption, heroism, continuity, twists and radical game-changers – all bursting at the seams of this episode. There’s a staggering amount of ambition powering A Good Man Goes to War, and even attempting to do all this in the course of a single episode earns Moffat a significant amount of respect.
What’s even more impressive is that A Good Man Goes to War manages to carry it all off.
The Doctor goes with the flow…
Filed under: Television | Tagged: a good man goes to war, amy, amy pond, bbc, doctor, doctor who, DoctorWho, dr. who, Eleventh Doctor, Eleventh Hour, Forest of the Dead, Good Man Goes, Good Man Goes to War, matt smith, Moffat, review, River Song, rory, rory williams, russell t. davies, star wars, stephen moffat, steven moffat, tardis, Television | 6 Comments »
the m0vie blog 