What did y’all think of “Let’s Kill Hitler”? I’m mixed on it- and more than a little disappointed that we didn’t get any real historical hijinks. Here’s my review.
My wife and I thought it was fantastic. So many good lines, twists, and rich detail. “I think I’ll subtly getypunger just to freak people out”, bwahaha! Awesome.
I’m a bit confused, but that’s nothing new. Overall it was “ok”
Not one of Stephen Moffat’s best, I’m afraid.
It felt “silly for the sake of being silly” and the story line was rather weak. I agree, not one of Moffat’s best.
Complete agreement, Shi. While I love anything that continues the River Song arc (because let’s face it, that’s a great little back-alley to wander, plot-wise), the whole Mel-is-Melody and “using up all her regenerations” is just…well…bollocks. Almost as if Moffat and company had 75% of the idea of where they wanted to go with the arc, and just slapped in a few lines to clean up loose threads.
Yes, I know, they do that all the time, and not just the Doctor’s writing team, but sci-fi writers the world around, time eternal (pun intended), but after setting up a nice, complex, multi-faceted premise of the reverse-crossing timelines, and then muck around the whole thing with flesh doppelgängers and a trip to 1938 Berlin that could have just as well taken place in 2004 Hoboken, New Jersey, just left me feeling a little cheated.
But then again, I’m a curmudgeon when it comes to that sort of thing – you set the bar that high a couple times, and you better leap for that sucker at every pass from then on. I think. I’m often wrong, though. Or so I’m told.
I’m glad to hear that I’m not alone in having problems with this episode. There seems to be a lot of love out there for this one that I just don’t get. I absolutely agree with you, Keir- it smacked of, “Well, we wanted her to be regeneratey, but now we want Kingston to be her final incarnation- how can we do that?”. Especially when compared to its thematic counterpoint, “Silence in the Library”/“Forest of the Dead”, it just isn’t up to par.
I do like that Amy ended up naming her daughter after her daughter…
however… this episode could have taken place anywhere and anytime. AND there really was no need for Melody to regenerate into River Song during this episode. I think the entire thing would have been better if she had regenerated into ‘someone else’ and then gave the doctor an ‘unknown’ amount of her future regenerations.
I also would have liked it if when Melody, broke with her life long programming to ‘kill the doctor’, we saw her choose to change her name since she wasn’t ‘that person’ anymore.
I feel the story lines are as good as ever, but the internal story telling within them is not as strong as once it was.
ALL in ALL i am glad for the new content, i am just feeling a little patronized right now.
I seem to be the only one here who really liked this episode, so I guess that makes me the big bad wolf the last couple posters mentioned. I didn’t mean to ‘patronize’ anyone, I just really enjoyed it. Sorry. 
I’m glad you liked it! I just wish I did too. You’re not being patronizing at all- I think Wolfgeek means that the show feels patronizing.
Oh! Sorry, my bad, I am, how you say, not so good with the social skills? 
Oh DUDE! NO No No No. I feel Patronized by the Show writers…
I have always found your posts to be thought out and supported, even when we didn’t agree…(which lets face it part of the fun.)
… it was just the internal writing of this episode… i hold out hope for the rest of the season… and all that said… it would a lot more of a down turn for a long time for me to give up on the doctor…
we good?
Obviously, here there be spoilers:
One thing to consider is that the episode after a series break will always be looked upon with a more critical eye - everyone’s excited that the show is back, having been starved for new content, and let’s face it, the previous episode was a massive climax. Until we discover that Mels is River, I wasn’t overly enthusiastic about the episode, but once that fell into place I went back and rewatched the first part and was really pleased with what they did. I loved how polite the antibodies were when dealing out executions. Sonic cane was fantastic. I love how the Doctor was able break Mels’ programming just by being who he is - River never got to give the Doctor a natural introduction in S4, as they were in crisis, and she kinda had to force the relationship upon him. Such a great mindfrak.
Also, the time travel/alternate universes nerd in me is really tickled that Amy’s backstory keeps being rewritten/retconned in-universe. (no-parents living w/ aunt, no Rory, no-stars universe, rebooted universe, rebooted universe w/ the Doctor, rebooted universe w/ Mel) Awkward Rory/Amy was hilarious, both the hide and seek moment as well as: Amy: “when have you ever shown interest in a girl?” Rory: <runs away>. Brilliant.
Also:
Doctor: “You show my TARDIS!”
Mels: “You told me guns won’t work in here!”
Doctor: “Well, that was just a clever lie, you idiot!”
So much to love about this episode, now I’m even more excited for the rest of the series.
We are super green! I totally misread it, it was a comprehension failure on my part.
Cheers!
I was hoping for more and I have a few niggles with some of the pacing, but overall I liked it. I loved the part with the old companions, “Give me someone I like…GUILT! GUILT! MORE GUILT!” 
I thought the Hitler thing was unnecessary when I first watched it. The second time around it didn’t bother me as much. Interesting parallels between killing Hitler and killing the Doctor, who in a sense is like Hitler to Mels and the Silence movement at least.
The Impossible Astronaut was my first look back into Dr Who since the Tom Baker days and K-9. I am enjoying the Matt Smith Doctor. I can not measure his performance to the previous 5 series like most of you here. What I would like to do is watch the previous 5 series so that I could see some of the awesome. I am not ready to invest in buying all the other 5 series, so I need to check if they are in the local library system.
Was this the best episode…no. Was it the worst? Far from that. This just established how Mel/River was to be used and in the end that failed. People on this show are holding too many secrets. When are they all coming clean. I do have a thought though about the lil girl in the space suit. I don’t think it was Mel/River. I think it was someone else we have seen. Just haven’t seen how they tie it yet. Gotta remember there are things that occurred last series that have not been fully explained or revealed.
I do think when it is all said and done we are all gonna be Gobsmacked. BTW get the Kennedy reference?
If The Doctor is supposed to be meeting River in reverse order, and he just saw Mels regenerate and become River Song, how are we ever supposed to see River again?
It’s not really perfectly reversed, its all jumbled up – that’s why they keep the journals, which they write down their experiences in each time they meet. If it were completely reversed, the journals would never overlap, and each time they met they’d never have anything to talk about. Though they meet out of order, it’s just coincidence that The Doctor first meets River at the time of her death – note that River has met the Doctor at the end of his life when he’s killed by the astronaut, and like you said, The Doctor met River when she first came into being. It’s all jumbled up.
Yeah, but this is in direct conflict to River’s description of their timestreams earlier in the season. That’s what gave the significance to the moment we saw in, I believe, Day of the Moon, when they shared what was for the Doctor their first kiss and for River their last kiss. The look on River’s face supported her earlier assertion to Rory about this 100%. The more recent changes to this have robbed that moment, and several other ones, of their significance. Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad Moffat changed his mind about this, as I want to see more of River, but it is rather sloppy.