Series 6 (2011)
Episode title: Let's Kill HitlerFeaturing: Eleventh Doctor
Companions: Amy Pond, Rory Williams
First shown: 27th August 2011
Related articles: River Song
Guide: Looking to reunite with the Doctor, Amy and Rory drive through a crop field in Leadworth to create a crop circle message, writing the word “Doctor” in the crop field. Sure enough, in the middle of it lands the TARDIS with the Doctor holding a newspaper depicting the crop circle. However, his copy shows an extra line running through the design that Amy and Rory did not create, prompting the entrance of Amy’s childhood friend, Mels, and creating the line to meet the Doctor in a stolen car. With the police closing in on Mels, she produces a gun and demands the Doctor takes them somewhere else in his time machine, choosing to go back in time to kill Hitler with her gun. Meanwhile, in the Third Reich’s headquarters in Berlin, 1938, a mechanical cleaner with tiny people working inside enters the office of one of Hitler’s officers and assumes his identity. The chosen officer is then left to be killed by the anti-bodies within the mechanical person, later revealed to be a Teselecta. This Teselecta then enters Hitler’s office and orders him to be silent as it prepares to serve justice for the war crimes that he has yet to commit. In the TARDIS, Mels has shot the console, causing the TARDIS to go beyond the Doctor’s control, resulting in it crash landing in Hitler’s office, knocking the Teselecta and Hitler to the ground. As the Doctor, Amy, Rory and Mels evacuate the TARDIS and get their bearings, Hitler stands back up, revealing himself to the group.
After the Doctor apologises for the mess, and Hitler thanks him for saving his life, the Teselecta stands back up, prompting Hitler to draw his gun in an attempt to shoot down the thing that tried to kill him. Rory punches Hitler, knocking him to the ground and takes his gun, ordering him to stay silent, while the Teselecta states that Hitler’s aim must have been off, as it wasn’t hit by any of the bullets. The Doctor tells Rory to lock Hitler inside the cupboard before finding that Mels was hit by a stray bullet. As Mels died, she states her intention to marry the Doctor, to which he says he will if she lives. Mels says he should ask her parents, who are in the room with them before regeneration begins to take hold. The Doctor, Amy and Rory stand back as it is revealed that Mels has been Amy’s friend through all of her childhood, though both Amy and Rory acted as parents to Mels naturally. As they watch, Mels regenerates into the form they know as River Song, though she still insists on being called Melody Pond. Amy says that she named her baby after her childhood friend, to which the Doctor notes that she therefore named her child, after her child, which is technically a paradox. Melody goes to inspect her new body, while the Teselecta, which had feigned fainting just before Melody’s regeneration, recognises the TARDIS and Melody as the greatest War Criminal in the Universe, guilty of killing the Doctor. Melody returns, and attempts to shot the Doctor, though it is revealed that he was one step ahead of her with every trick she attempted, while Melody admits that she has been programmed and conditioned to kill the Doctor.
Following multiple failed attempts to shoot the Doctor, Melody and the Doctor get close, with Melody kissing the Doctor before turning to the broken window and preparing to jump. There she reveals that guns never were going to kill a good man, at which point the Doctor realises that he’s been poisoned by her lipstick. Melody jumps out of the window, where the Doctor instructs Rory and Amy to follow, giving them his sonic screwdriver so that he can follow them, before going into the TARDIS to get a diagnosis of his situation. Melody leaves on a motorbike with Rory and Amy in pursuit along with the Teselecta, which assumes the form of Amy. Inside the TARDIS, the Doctor calls for emergency voice interface, which produces a hologram of himself. He says he wants something he likes, so it assumes the shape of previous companion Rose Tyler, to which he sarcastically thanks for making him feel guilty as well, causing it to switch to the form of Martha Jones and Donna Noble. The Doctor questions if there’s anyone left in the universe that he hasn’t screwed up yet, prompting the voice interface to assume the form of the young Amelia Pond, prior to him meeting her. The emergency protocol tells him that he will be dead in 32 minutes, with there being no cure for the poison and his regeneration cycle disabled. Meanwhile, in a dinner room, Melody orders the guests to remove their clothes so that she can pick a new outfit for herself. Before Rory and Amy can enter after her, they’re both miniaturised and taken inside the Teselecta, in the form of Amy, where they both face death by the anti-bodies, before someone else comes and rescues them. Inside the dining room, the Teselecta Amy tries to make Melody verbally confess to killing the Doctor, to which the Doctor, now dressed up in smart evening wear, questions how they can trial her when he isn’t dead yet. The Doctor deduces that the Teselecta is after War Criminals that have evaded justice but questions why they’re after Melody when he isn’t dead yet. He notes that they must have his biography on file but they refuse to let him know it, because they know the date of his death in Utah. They do let Amy have access as a relative of Melody’s, prompting the Doctor to question the Teselecta after Amy accesses files. He finds that the Silence aren’t a race, but a religious organisation that want him dead instead.
With the Doctor’s continuing decline, the Teselecta chooses to unleash hell upon Melody as her punishment, which the Doctor tells Amy and Rory to stop from inside the Teselecta. They manage to do so, by forcing the anti-bodies on the workers, who request to be emergency evacuated by the mother ship, leaving only Rory and Amy inside the Teselecta, being hunted down. As Amy and Rory become trapped, the TARDIS materialises around them, where they find Melody piloting it after the Doctor told her to help them. Outside the Teselecta, Amy and Rory kneel by the Doctor who enters his final moments and requests to speak with Melody. He whispers something into her ear, and dies. Melody asks who River Song is, the person the Doctor wished to have a message delivered to, prompting Amy to order the empty Teselecta to transform into the form of River Song. Melody sees herself and realises why the Doctor kept saying River’s name around her. Melody kneels back down by the Doctor and uses her regenerations to bring him back from death, sacrificing all of her remaining regenerations. Melody awakes in a hospital, surrounded by Amy, Rory and the Doctor, who gives her a brand new book, a blank notepad with a TARDIS on the cover, ready for her to note her adventures with him in later life. The TARDIS crew depart, leaving Melody in the hospital. Inside the TARDIS, the Doctor reads some files that he downloaded from the abandoned Teselecta, notably the file containing the date and location of his death before continuing their travels. Meanwhile, in the future, River Song embarks on a course in Archaeology at University, stating that she wishes to find a good man as her reason for studying it.
This episode is a concluding episode of a two part storyline. You can read the first episode guide of the two parter by clicking here.