Pensamientos Acerca de Televisión

Doctor Who (The Second Series): "Let's Kill Hitler"

We the TV audience have come back from a summer-long hiatus in time to meet yet another old friend from Amy's past -- a person who proves to be more important to Amy's life than she ever figured. The mysterious Mels -- a young black woman who was Amy's bff back in the day shows up at a rendevous between Amy, Rory and the Doctor just in time to hijack the Tardis to 1938 Berlin. "Why 1938 Berlin?" you may ask. Well, haven't you read the title? They're going to kill Hitler.

Mels never explains why it's so urgent that she kill Adolf Hitler and it is not much of a spoiler to point out that she never gets around to doing it anyway. Nor does this episode ever explain why she is not similarly obsessed with killing Joseph Stalin or Chairman Mao Tse-tung. (Offhand, I am guessing it has something to do with the fact that Stalin and Mao never ordered the bombing of London.) The rest of the episode seems like an excerpt from one of X-Men writer Chris Claremont's "Dark Phoenix" stories since we basically watch Amy's old friend turn into something a bit more destructive than the old pal she knew so well in girlhood. Worse yet, the Doctor proves to be little help because in all the excitement, he gets hit with a bullet and starts dying. Plus there's a weird alien going around duplicating the exterior of people's bodies and then getting rid of the originals.

Will things get sorted out? Well, the episode is not a two-parter so it's safe to say, "yes." However, showrunner Steven Moffat has some serious explaining to do.