'Let's Kill Hitler' (Story Code 6.8) by Steven Moffat

“Penny in the air… Penny drops...” - Mels

AAmy frantically directs Rory as he drives their Mini in a series of complex patterns to create a crop circle wrapped up in one single, giant word: ‘Doctor’. When they get out of the vehicle, they find their friend right in front of them, standing next to the TARDIS and holding a copy of the following day’s ‘Leadworth Chronicle’, which features a front-page photo of the mysterious crop pattern. With no word from the Doctor all summer, Amy and Rory are desperate to know if he has found their daughter, Melody; despite his lack of success so far, the Doctor vows that he will find Melody. Then Rory gets distracted by the newspaper photo, which shows a line striking out the Doctor’s name in the corn – just as a speeding red sports car screeches to a halt mere centimetres away. With the sound of pursuing police sirens blaring out in the distance, Amy and Rory introduce the Doctor to their best friend, Mels. But then the attractive black girl promptly pulls a gun on the Doctor, hijacking the TARDIS to go back in time and kill Hitler…

(A long time ago in Leadworth, Amelia Pond and Rory Williams grew up together with their best friend, Mels. She was the one person who believed Amelia’s stories about the Doctor, and was also the only person who knew that Rory was in love with Amy – something that Amy herself was oblivious to. Despite Mels’ penchant for constantly getting into trouble, the three friends became very close…)

Aboard the TARDIS, Mels causes more trouble when she tests out the Doctor’s claim that the ship exists in a state of temporal grace, shooting a hole in the central control column. As the console room fills with deadly smoke, the ship goes wildly out of control…

Berlin, Germany, 1938: in Nazi headquarters, a janitor watches an officer, Erik Zimmerman, striding through a hallway. However, this janitor is not all he seems: ‘he’ is in fact a shape-shifting, time-travelling robot called the Teselecta, controlled by a miniaturised crew. Inside, Captain Carter gives the order for “tessellation”: the ‘janitor’ follows Zimmerman into his office and transforms into his exact copy, before zapping the Nazi officer with a shrinking ray and beaming him inside itself. Learning that Zimmerman was guilty of hate crimes, Captain Carter decides to leave the Nazi to the Teselecta’s antibodies: Zimmerman wakes to find himself in a corridor inside the robot, where he is attacked and electrocuted by a number of jellyfish-like robots. Outside, ‘Zimmerman’ enters the officer of the Führer, and is about to kill Adolf Hitler when two things happen: Captain Carter learns that he and his crew have arrived in the wrong time zone; and the TARDIS crash lands through the office window, smashing the Teselecta to the ground. Emerging from the time-space ship, the Doctor, Amy, Rory and Mels are astonished to learn from a grateful Hitler that they have just saved his life. When ‘Zimmerman’ tries to kill him again, Hitler shoots him with his pistol – but the Führer is then punched out by Rory, who takes his gun and then locks him in a cupboard (yay Rory!). When the Doctor starts to examine ‘Zimmerman’ Captain Carter orders his crew to make the officer faint, but this only serves to make the Time Lord more suspicious. Seeing the TARDIS on the scanner, one of the bridge crew, Jim, identifies the ship from his records and advises his captain that its occupant is the greatest war criminal in existence… Mels surprises everyone by suddenly collapsing, having been fatally wounded by a stray shot from Hitler’s pistol; however, instead of dying, she begins to regenerate. As her body is enveloped in golden artron energy, ‘Mels’ reveals that she is actually Melody – she tracked down Amy and Rory just so that she could grow up with them. As Amy, Rory and the Doctor look on in astonishment – particularly Amy, who named her baby after her best friend, who was also the same baby – Mels transforms into her new form, that of the woman who will eventually call herself River Song. Melody at her new body, Melody kisses the Doctor and then rushes to find a mirror and a set of scales. Inside the Teselecta, Captain Carter and his crew observe the actions of the notorious war criminal, Melody Pond – the woman who killed the Doctor. Amy and Rory are shocked when Melody then pulls a gun on the Doctor – the woman is psychotic, having been trained and conditioned to kill the Time Lord by Madame Kovarian. Luckily, the Doctor is one step ahead of Melody: he has already disarmed her gun, and also swapped a banana for another pistol she stole; unfortunately he didn’t account for her lipstick– and as Melody jumps out of a window, the Doctor realises he has been poisoned by her deadly kiss. Taking the Doctor’s sonic screwdriver, Rory and Amy rush outside, where they watch as Melody comes face to face with a Nazi squad; the soldiers open fire – but Melody is still regenerating: the bullets have no effect on her, and, after stunning the Germans with a blast of artron energy, she grabs a rifle and then speeds off on a stolen motorcycle. Knocking out another nearby soldier, Rory steals the German’s bike and then, with Amy grabbing on to him for dear life, races after Melody. But then the ‘soldier’ gets up: under orders from the miniaturised crew inside ‘him’, the Teselecta creates another motorbike out itself and speeds off in pursuit. Meanwhile, the Doctor staggers inside the TARDIS and activates the extractor fans to dispel the deadly smoke. With the central console having repaired itself, the Doctor accesses the ship’s emergency hologram, only to find it looks like him; ordering it to change into something he likes, the Doctor becomes wracked with guilt at seeing it transform into Rose, Martha, and then Donna, before eventually setting on young Amelia Pond. But despite its now-friendly appearance the interface remains doggedly unhelpful, telling the Doctor that he will die in just thirty-two minutes – his regenerations have been disabled, and there is no cure for the poison of the Judas Tree. All seems hopeless, until the Doctor hears the words “fish fingers and custard” from the hologram, giving him a new burst of energy… Elsewhere, diners at an expensive restaurant are interrupted by Melody, who arrives in a burst of gunfire and then orders everyone to take off their clothes. Moments later, Rory and Amy draw up outside to see the terrified patrons running out in the underwear; they then see another Amy arrive on a motorbike. Moments later, this ‘Amy’ enters the restaurant, where Melody is busy trying on her new outfits. Meanwhile, the real Amy and Rory find themselves miniaturised and transported inside the Teselecta, where they are about to be electrocuted by the robotic antibodies when a crewman appears and gives them each a wrist strap that authorises their presence; together they are led to the bridge of ‘Justice Department Vehicle 6018’… Back in the restaurant, the Teselecta’s attempt to zap Mels with a holding beam is stopped by the arrival of the TARDIS and the Doctor, now dressed in top hat and tails and carrying a ‘sonic’ cane. In an attempt to save Melody, the Doctor tries to convince the Teselecta’s crew that he is unharmed; but when he then collapses, the psychotic assassin is enveloped in a restraining field. Using his sonic cane, the Doctor contacts Captain Carter and learns that the crew’s mission is to extract criminals from time and then punish them for their crimes. The Captain refuses to tell the Doctor of his future, but when Amy points out that her friend has only three minutes left to live, he acquiesces and allows the Time Lord access to their records on him. Interrogating the Teselecta, the Doctor learns that it is the Silence who want him dead: they are a religious order who believe that silence will fall when the oldest question ever is asked – but it is unknown what that question actually is. When the Doctor collapses in pain the holding beam around Melody intensifies, causing her extreme agony. Seeing her daughter in excessive pain, Amy uses the sonic screwdriver to access the settings on her wrist strap, deactivating the crew’s permissions and turning the antibodies against them. As chaos breaks out within the Teselecta, Amy and Rory flee from the control room. With his crew under attack, Captain Carter orders a system shutdown and then contacts his mothership, instigating an emergency beam out that transports everyone to safety – all except Amy and Rory, who find themselves pursued by murderous antibodies. Outside, a now-free Melody watches as the Doctor crawls towards the TARDIS, determined to save his friends even though he is on the verge of death... As the antibodies close in on them, Amy and Rory are overjoyed when the TARDIS materialises around them – but instead of the Doctor, it is Melody who has come to their rescue: as the child of the TARDIS, the ship itself taught her how to pilot it. Returning to the restaurant, the trio find the Doctor close to death. Asking to speak to Melody, the Doctor gives her a message for River Song – and then he dies. As a distraught Amy and Rory struggle to deal with seeing their friend die again, Melody asks them who River Song is; in response, Amy orders the Teselecta to make a final transformation – and Melody watches as the robot transforms into her own image. At last seeing the error of her ways, and realising the implications of the Doctor’s final words, Mel steps forward and uses her remaining regenerations to bring the Doctor back, restoring him to life in a blaze of golden artron energy… Sometime later, Melody awakes in a hospital bed surrounded by her parents and the Doctor. As she drifts back into sleep, the Doctor places a gift of a brand-new TARDIS-blue notebook on her bedside table, and admits to Amy and Rory that he knew their daughter would save him; he then ushers his friends into the waiting TARDIS, reassuring them that the Sisters of the Infinite Schism will look after their daughter, who now needs to find her own way in life. Aboard the TARDIS, the Doctor reviews the data he downloaded from the Teselecta, and sees the date of his death in two-hundred years’ time; when Amy and Rory wonder who River Song will kill in the future, the Doctor refuses to answer…

In the year 5123, Melody enrols at the Luna University to study archaeology, so that she can find “a good man”…

Matt Smith (The Doctor), Karen Gillan (Amy Pond), Arthur Darvill (Rory Williams), Alex Kingston (Melody Pond / River Song), Albert Welling (Adolf Hitler), Caitlin Blackwood (Amelia Pond), Ezekiel Wigglesworth (Young Rory), Philip Rham (Erik Zimmerman), Richard Dillane (Captain Carter), Amy Cudden (Anita), Davood Ghadami (Jim), Ella Kenion (Harriet), Nina Toussaint-White (Mels), Eva Alexander (Nurse), Maya Glace-Green (Young Mels), Mark Killeen (German Officer), Paul Bentley (Professor)

Directed by Richard Senior
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):
27th August 2011 @ 7.10 pm

Notes:
*Featuring the Eleventh Doctor, Amy, Rory and River

*The BBC's official website released an exclusive preview to this episode on 15th August; specially written by Steven Moffat, it bridged episodes 7 and 8 and revealed a little about how the Doctor and Amy were feeling following the events of 'A Good Man Goes to War': in the TARDIS Console Room, the Doctor listens to a voicemail left by Amy, who is worried about his progress in finding her daughter Melody...

*When this episode was shown on U.S. channel Starz, one advert break featured a short 'Doctor Who motion comic' made by Double Barrel Motion Labs. This one-minute sequence bridged the gap between Rory and Amy riding off on their stolen motorbike, and them later seeing the Teselecta draw up alongside them: as Captain Cutler and his crew discuss the Doctor’s scheduled death at Lake Silencia, the Teselecta motorcyclist takes drastic measures to evade a passing tank…

*Twenty-Three Doctors?? Melody saves the Doctor by giving him all her remaining regenerations – does this mean the Doctor can now regenerate an extra ten times? (It has been established that Time Lords can regenerate twelve times; we see Melody use her first in New York in ‘The Impossible Astronaut’, and the second in this episode, leaving ten…)