'A Good Man Goes to War' (Story Code 6.7) by Steven Moffat

“Where... is... my... WIFE?!” – Rory Williams

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...

On a heavily-fortified asteroid known as Demon’s Run, Amy is imprisoned with her daughter, Melody Pond, inside a clinical-white cell; behind her stands a cruel, eye-patched woman named Madame Kovarian, who is accompanied by a squad of armed Clerics and a number of hooded monks. Amy tells her baby not to be afraid – she knows that Rory will come to rescue them…

Twenty thousand light years away, aboard the flagship of the Twelfth Cyber Legion, the commanding Cyber-Leader and his officers attempt to locate an intruder aboard their ship; but then the intruder comes to them: Rory Williams, now dressed as a Roman Centurion and in a blaze of fury. Knowing that the Cybermen have been monitoring communications across that quadrant, Rory demands that they tell him where his wife has been taken; just to enforce how serious he is, Rory also brings a message from the Doctor: as the Cybermen look out a viewing port, their entire fleet blows up…

Back at Demon’s Run, with the base on Yellow Alert, talk of the Doctor is rife amongst the Clerics. Two marines, a gay couple known as the Fat One and the Thin One, meet a fellow Cleric called Lorna Bucket; unlike them she is actually looking forward to meeting the Doctor, as she actually once met him, and now almost idolises him. After the trio split up, the Fat One attends a conversion tutorial with the ‘Headless Monks’, who offer him the chance to join their order if he just makes a special donation…

London, 1888 A.D.: Victorian adventuress Madame Vastra returns home to tell her maid, Jenny, the good news: she has put an end to the notorious murderer Jack the Ripper; Madame Vastra then removes her hood to reveal the reptilian face of a Silurian! Informing her mistress that they have a visitor, Jenny shows Vastra to the drawing room, where the TARDIS now sits. Knowing that a very old debt must be fulfilled, Vastra tells Jenny to pack her swords…

The Battle of Zarathustra, 4037 A.D.: Captain Harcourt’s family is under siege, his son gravely wounded. Luckily for them help arrives in the form of Commander Strax, a disgraced Sontaran now serving penance as a nurse. After saving the boy Strax sets off for the TARDIS, which has just landed nearby…

The Stormcage: having spent her birthday ice-skating with the Doctor and Stevie Wonder in 1814, River breaks into the prison facility to return to her cell. On her way she meets Centurion Rory, who asks her to join the army the Doctor is raising to rescue Amy and her baby. But to Rory’s surprise River sadly refuses: this is the Doctor’s darkest hour, when he will rise so high and then fall so far – and River can only be there at the end, when he finally finds out who she is…

At the Maldovarium, the blue-skinned proprietor, Dorium, prepares to make a hasty exit, only to be interrupted by the arrival of Madame Kovarian and a squad of armed Clerics led by Colonel Manton. Dorium refuses to join them – he knows that their base is named after the ancient saying “Demons run when a good man goes to war”, and also that an angry Doctor is now coming for them. After the soldiers have left, Dorium is shocked by the arrival of the TARDIS: the Doctor has come for him too…

Back at Demon’s Run, Amy watches from her cell window as Colonel Manton rallies his troops for the coming battle with the Doctor; she then receives a visit from Lorna, who brings her a gift of a ‘prayer-leaf’ that she has embroidered with Melody Pond’s name. Back in the hanger bay, Manton shows the Clerics the reason why their electric-sword wielding allies are known as “the Headless Monks”: they believe in following their hearts not their heads, so they decapitate themselves as an act of faith. However, when Manton pulls back the hood of the last monk, he comes face to face with the Doctor! The Colonel and his assembled army are stunned, but quickly compose themselves and raise their weapons at their enemy; but the Doctor is undeterred, and he shouts out a promise of rescue to Amy just before the lights go out. After the Clerics restore power they find the Doctor has gone – and then panic breaks out as the soldiers shoot at the monks, believing them to be their enemy in disguise. As the monks in turn shoot back, Colonel Manton attempts to calm the situation by ordering his Clerics to disarm their weapons; his troops comply, only to find themselves surrounded by hundreds of de-cloaking Silurian warriors and Judoon troopers! Finding himself staring down the barrel of Commander Strax’s gun, Manton then hears the Doctor’s voice over the base’s comms system as the Time Lord calls out to ‘Danny Boy’ and his squadron – the base is under attack by Winston Churchill’s spitfires! As Demon’s Run’s comms aray is destroyed Madame Kovarian makes her escape with baby Melody; unfortunately for her she is stopped by a sword-wielding Rory, who is also accompanied by space pirate Captain Avery and his son Toby. Manton is taken to the base’s control room, where a very angry Doctor instructs him to order his troops to run away; as Manton balks at the knowledge that he will become known as ‘Colonel Runaway’, Madam Kovarium arrives under escort by armed Silurians. In her cell, Amy is overjoyed to be rescued by Rory, who also brings with him their baby; as a tearful reunion ensures, the Doctor arrives on the scene and gives Amy a happy hug. Turning to meet Melody, the Doctor surprises his friends with the fact that he speaks ‘baby’! As the Judoon escort their prisoners from the base, Vastra tells the Doctor she is impressed that he won without a single drop of blood spilt – truly he has never risen higher. Some time later, after the Doctor sees that Melody is tired, he brings out a cot from the TARDIS; when Amy remarks on how old it is the Time Lord confesses that it was his when he was a child. Resolving to find out the purpose of the base, the Doctor tells Amy that she was taken before their trip to America, while her heart, mind and soul remained linked to her Flesh avatar; although the Time Lord suspected she wasn’t real for some time, he had to keep it from Rory until he was certain, hence his trip to St. John’s. While the Doctor leaves to join Vastra and Dorium, Commander Strax brings in a prisoner, Lorna Bucket, who slipped away from her fellow Clerics so that she could warn the Doctor he was walking into a trap. Having accessed the base’s medical records Vastra and Dorium show the Doctor the DNA records for Melody: she appears to be part human – and part Time Lord; the Doctor is incredulous, but when Vastra suggests that the baby could have been affected by the energy of the Time Vortex, he realises that the child must have been conceived on Amy and Rory’s wedding night – which took place aboard the TARDIS in flight… At that moment the base’s lights go out. When Strax notes no life forms other than the Doctor and his team are showing on his scanner, Lorna informs him that the Headless Monks don’t register as life… When the Doctor wonders why his enemies would want a Time Lord baby, Vastra comments that they want a weapon to combat him; suspicious that the battle was too easy, Vastra leads Dorium down to the hanger, while the Doctor recalls the girl in the spacesuit he encountered in 1950s America. At that moment Madame Kovarian appears on a nearby screen: smirking evilly, she confirms Vastra’s suspicion that the child was to be used a weapon in the war against the Doctor. Back in the hanger bay, sword-wielding Monks step from the shadows and slaughter the Silurian warriors. As Rory, Amy, Vastra, Jenny, Strax, Dorium and Lorna look on a force-field appears around the TARDIS – and then the Monks begin to close in on them. While Rory hides Amy and Melody behind a crate, Dorium steps forward to reason with his former clients – only to be struck down by their energy swords. Hearing Kovarian gloat how she has fooled her enemy twice, the Doctor races to save his friends. As the battle rages in the hanger bay, a hatch opens in the air behind Melody, and the face of Madame Kovarian appears; she utters the words “wakey, wakey” – and to Amy’s horror, Melody dissolves into a pool of Flesh in her arms. The Doctor arrives only to find he is too late: although the monks have been dealt with the cost was high, and both Strax and Lorna die from their injuries within minutes. Promising to find Amy’s baby, the Doctor turns to see that River has finally arrived. When the Time Lord becomes furious that the enigmatic archaeologist didn’t help in the battle, River points out that the situation is all his fault: he has become a warrior feared by countless races across the universe – his name no longer means ‘healer’, it means ‘mighty warrior’. When the Doctor demands to know who River is the archaeologist indicates the cot, referring to the ancient Gallifreyan text carved into the side. The Doctor’s reaction is one of astonishment, then of excitement; vowing to rescue Melody, the Time Lord instructs River to return everyone home, before racing into the TARDIS, which promptly dematerialises. Grabbing a gun, Amy orders River to reveal her identity. Explaining how it takes the TARDIS’ translation matrix a while to decode written languages, River shows Amy the prayer-leaf given to her by Lorna: it is embroidered with the words ‘Melody’ and ‘Pond’, which translate as ‘River’ and ‘Song’. Amy and Rory are stunned: River is their daughter…


Matt Smith (The Doctor), Karen Gillan (Amy Pond), Arthur Darvill (Rory Williams), Alex Kingston (River Song), Frances Barber (Madame Kovarian), Charlie Baker (Fat One), Dan Johnston (Thin One), Christina Chong (Lorna Bucket), Joshua Hayes (Lucas), Damien Kell (Dominicus), Danny Sapani (Colonel Manton), Neve McIntosh (Madame Vastra), Catrin Stewart (Jenny Flint), Richard Trinder (Captain Harcourt), Annabel Cleare (Eleanor), Henry Wood (Arthur), Dan Starkey (Commander Strax), Simon Fisher Becker (Dorium Maldavar), Hugh Bonneville (Captain Henry Avery), Oscar Lloyd (Toby Avery), Nicholas Briggs (Voice of the Cybermen)

Directed by Peter Hoar
Produced by Marcus Wilson
Executive Producers Steven Moffat, Piers Wenger and Beth Willis
A BBC Wales production, co-produced with BBC America

TX (BBC 1 & BBC 1 HD):
4th June 2011 @ 6.40 pm

Notes:
*Featuring the Eleventh Doctor, Amy, Rory and River, and introducing Melody Pond, Madame Vastra, Jenny Flint and Commander Strax

*Working title: 'Demons Run'

*This episode was slightly longer than usual, running at fifty minutes duration

*A specially-made prelude to this story was made available on the BBC's official 'Doctor Who' website, on 28th May: in the Maldovarium, Dorium meets with three mysterious hooded clients; he has the security software they requested, which his agents have obtained from the brain of a Judoon trooper – a brain that now resides inside the tiny box in Dorium’s possession. After receiving his payment in sentient money Dorium comments on the lengths his clients have gone to for one child, and then warns them of the danger of making the Doctor angry…

*Instead of the usual next episode teaser, a caption promised that ‘Doctor Who’ would return in the autumn in ‘Let’s Kill Hitler’

*After the end credits there was a shot of a skeletal hand lying on the ground clutching a glowing sonic screwdriver, which slowly dies out. This was followed by a caption followed saying ‘Time runs out’, and then ‘DW returns later in 2011’