A Good Man Goes to War Cliffhanger Breakdown

Hello. A Good Man Goes to War left us with a huge cliffhanger. It wasn't quite like the cliffhanger in The Almost People where we couldn't think of what would happen next but it will have a dramatic effect on the TARDIS Crew. I have broken down the cliffhanger for you all so that you can understand it easier.

As Amy and Rory inspect the cot the Doctor gave them, Commander Strax brings Lorna into the room who warns them that the whole thing was a trap.

The Doctor checks up on Dorium and Madam Vestra. Vestra warns the Doctor that when he is mad, he makes mistakes.

Madam Vestra asks the Doctor whether Melody is human or not. The Doctor seems worried and suddenly nervous. On closer inspection, the Doctor notices that...

...Melody's DNA is human plus Time Lord!

The lights suddenly turn off and everyone looks around. It seems like tha trap is beginning...

The Doctor and Madam Vestra discuss when Melody could have had the Time Lord DNA put into her biological system. The Doctor explains that they weren't actually together in the current universe until their wedding night.

Commander Strax scans Demons Run and says that the only alien species are the Silurians. Lorna then says that the Headless Monks are not recognised as actual aliens.

Meanwhile, a Silurian stands guard. Behind it, a Headless Monk comes closer...

The Doctor is very confused and says that Amy was worried that the baby might have a Time Head. Dorium begins to get worried and says that the clerics gave in too easily. Vestra agrees and they run off to help the others.

Madam Kovarian suddenly appears on a screen. The Doctor and Kovarian begin to talk. She says that there is a war against the Doctor.

The Headless Monks kill the Silurian guards and begin to sing a mysterious prayer.

The TARDIS is engulfed with light. Dorium and Madam Vestra return to the others. Vestra moves towards the light and realises that there is a force field around it.

As the Headless Monks come closer, Rory becomes alert. Lorna tells him that the doors are locking with them inside.

Dorium realises that the prayer the Monks are singing is the Attack Prayer. Rory and Amy go to hide Melody.

The Headless Monk begin to prepare to fight. Rory hides Amy and Melody and runs off to fight.

Dorium tries to convince the Monks to stop fighting. Rory attempts to stop him but Dorium is confident. He probably shouldn't have gone to stop the Monks though...

...he gets his head chopped off! The headless Monks come forward with their laser swords ready to fight to the death.

The Monks come forward about to fight...

Rory arms himself with a sword and a gun.

"The child IS NOT A WEAPON!"

"Give it time. She can be. She will be."

The Doctor becomes angry and tells her that he will never let her near her again. Madam Kovarian tells him that fooling him once was a joy but fooling him twice in the same was was a privilege. The Doctor runs off to help Amy.

Madam Kovarian appears behind Amy on a screen.

The fight begins. Unfortunately, Strax and Lorna are both killed by the Headless Monks.

The Doctor runs to Amy's aid but he doesn't make it in time...

It turns out that Melody was a Flesh Avatar! Amy scream for Rory. The Doctor bursts into the room and finds that the fight is over and that Rory and Amy already know. Rory comforts Strax as the Doctor talks to Lorna before they both die.

Suddenly, River Song appears. The Doctor gets angry at her for not coming sooner and then she gets angry at him and tells him that he's become more of a soldier than a healer as his name indicates. When the Doctor asks her who she is, she tells him. He is astonished and can't believe it. He runs into the TARDIS and leaves Rory and Amy.

Amy becomes angry and asks River what she said to the Doctor. River tells her that in the Gamma Forests (where Lorna came from) they have no word for Pond. The sewing Lorna made for Amy did not read 'Melody Pond' in English. It read...

The Almost People Cliffhanger Breakdown

Hello. The cliffhanger to the Almost People must have left a lot of you very, very, VERY confused! Luckily, I am here to help you understand what's going on at each point of the episode. So let's get started:

Jennifer has escaped... and she seeks revenge.

The Doctor, Amy and Rory discover a hideous monster...

It's a mutated Jennifer!

The Doctor, Amy, Rory and the workers run away from Jennifer. The Doctor finds the TARDIS.

With another worker dead, the TARDIS appears.

The Clone Doctor and Ganger Cleaves hold the door whilst everyone else climbs into the TARDIS.

The Clone Doctor and Cleves melt Jennifer and themselves.

The Doctor treats Cleaves and removes her blood clot. The Doctor drops off all of the workers to their rightful places. Cleaves and another worker enter a room to say that her company has told the world that the situation is over but that the situation has only just begun. The two enter, and that's when everything goes wrong... and confusing.

"Breathe, Pond, breathe."

"Why? Oh!"

Amy begins to have pains in her stomach and the Doctor and Rory take her into the TARDIS.

The Doctor explains that she is having contractions and that she is going into labour.

But that can't be true.

She has no bump from the baby.

The Doctor then explains that he wasn't going to bring them and that he was going to drop them back on Earth for fish and chips, but 'stuff' got in the way.

"I scanned the Flesh to block the signal."

"The signal to what?"

"The signal to you."

Something very strange is going on with Amy...

When asked to step away from Amy, Rory says no. The Doctor tells him that he needs to do it and that he needs to stand away.

Rory backs away reluctantly. It seems to Amy like the two closest men in her life are turning their backs on her.

Amy is frightened - incredibly frightened.

The Doctor says that she was not actually there for a long, long time. He points the sonic screwdriver at her...

...and she melts into white liquid Flesh! She was a Ganger all along!

After the Ganger Amy melts, the real Amy wakes up in a white bed.

A hatch opens above her head.

Madam Kovarian looks down at her:

"Well dear, you're ready to pop, aren't you? Little one's on its way."

Is she a midwife?

Amy looks down.

She is clearly nine months pregnannt, going into labour!

Madam Kovarian tells her to push. Amy screams.

To be continued...

Matthew Graham: Fear Her, the Rebel Flesh/the Almost People and Future Writing

Hello again. Matthew Graham, the writer of the Rebel Flesh and the Almost People, was interviewed recently by Den of Geek about his next few episodes, Fear Her and some other subjects. The link to read the whole interview is at the bottom of the page.

When asked about how he came to write for Doctor Who Series Six:

Well, I was hoping to do the last series, the first Matt Smith series. I had a very nice lunch with Piers [Wenger, executive producer] and Steven [Moffat] and we talked about ideas and had this storyline for a single. And we were quite excited about it, but I was whizzing backwards and forward to America a lot at that time, and I was also gearing up on the last series of Ashes To Ashes, which I knew needed all hands to the pumps.

So, I just panicked and thought I wouldn't have enough time. So, I contacted Steven and said I've got to bow out, regretfully. And then after the series went out, I got an e-mail from Steven, a typical Steven e-mail in capital letters, that read "thanks for abandoning me to do the series on my own. So what about series 2?" I couldn't say no, really!

When asked about the connection between Fear Her and The Rebel Flesh/The Almost People:

It's brand new. It's totally brand new. I've just watched them, actually, and I think they are absolutely fab. I think they're some of the best writing that I've ever done. And it's brilliantly directed, and brilliantly made. And I just hope everyone likes it.

I really hope that those who maybe thought that Fear Her was too childish and too silly, I'm hoping that that will silence them. This is my response!

When asked about Fear Her:

I'm actually thrilled with it. It's not what I'd have chosen if I'd come to Doctor Who, obviously. When you come to Doctor Who, you want to tell a story with monsters. You want spaceships. You want the Tardis in mortal peril. You want big, epic science fiction adventure. Of course, you do. That's why you write it.

But I was just so thrilled to be asked to write it, even when Russell [T Davies] said, "Look, it's going to be a more inexpensive episode, and it has to take place on a housing estate," I still said, "Fine."

I wanted to write for David Tennant, for Billie Piper, and be part of TV history. So, I said, "Absolutely." I was thrilled with it.

What we had set out to do right from the start with Fear Her was tell a story that was aimed very much at children. For children, not really for adults, not really for the older Doctor Who fans.

It was aimed at the kids, because Army Of Ghosts and Doomsday were coming up, and they were going to be very big, very dark and very traumatic. And Russell wanted a playground adventure. He said, "How old is your son?" At the time he was seven. So, he said, "Write this one for your son." That's what I did. I did something that was in primary colours, that had a scary voice in the cupboard. I always say that other people got cybermen, I got two blokes with a red lamp rattling a wardrobe!

But, to be honest with you, I didn't go online particularly and read the responses. From my side of it, the response was brilliant. I had loads of kids write to me and say how much they enjoyed it. And it was only later I realised that the older fans had reacted badly to it. So, I went, "Well, it's a shame that they have, but it wasn't meant for them."

The Rebel Flesh and The Almost People are different. As far as I'm concerned, this is proper, across the board Who. Adults, kids- if they can watch it, because it is scary. I showed it to my wife the other night, and there were a couple of images in it where she went, "Actually, that's quite scary. That's not very pleasant." And I notice that it's going out a bit later. I wouldn't be surprised if they put a warning out beforehand.

I was happy with Fear Her, but when I came back I did say, rather selfishly, "I want epic, I want monsters! And science fiction, and gadgets, and lots of stuff happening." And they gave it to me!

When asked about the Flesh:

The Flesh? Well, all the stories in Doctor Who start with a basic idea from Steven. And I went and spent a day with him in his kitchen, and he said, "I want to do something about avatars." And I said, "Oh, Steven, are you sure?" I mean, the film was still playing at the time in cinemas. And he said, "No, no, no, this will be good. This will be like The Thing."

So, it's workers that create copies of themselves to do jobs that are too dangerous, too unpleasant. And he said, "I don't know how, but somehow, these things take on a life of their own." And I thought, "Okay, that's better," and then we started talking.

He planned to set it in a factory and I had it in my head that I wanted to do something in a monastery with a The Name Of The Rose feel to it.

When asked about any ongoing narrative bits:

Yes, yes I have. But I've got two cliffhangers, which is not bad for a two-parter. I've got my part one cliffhanger, and I've got a part two cliffhanger that leads into Steven's A Good Man Goes To War.

I can say this because the premise of this final scene was given to me. I wrote [the cliffhanger scene] and I put my own dialogue in. [Steven] said, "This is what's got to happen," and it was just great. Just whoa! People are not going to be able to wait until next Saturday!

When asked about the episode cliffhangers:

I wrote the script, I said, "I'm finished," and then Steven said, "Now I know exactly what I'm doing with episode seven. I need you to do something like this." And he explained what he wanted it to include and I loved it.

I've said it before, I think, that it's like being the writer and the viewer at the same time. And you're also going, "Wow, what's going to happen next?"

What I find about cliffhangers is that there's the easy cliffhanger, which is to put the Doctor in jeopardy. And everyone knows that the next week he's not going to be dead. They used to do that in the old days as well. I tried to make my cliffhanger something that is just a ratcheting up of the story. So, at the end of The Rebel Flesh, you're not thinking, "Is the Doctor going to die?" You're thinking, "Oh, my God. What's going to happen now?"

Finally, when asked about writing future episodes:

I haven't, no. I said to Beth at the read through that if I can do any more I'd love to, and she said, "Oh, yeah. That'd be great."

But I didn't push it then, because I know they've still got their heads still full of this series. But I floated it out there, that I'd happily come back.

They seem very, very pleased with the episode, so I hope that they'd consider asking me back.

To read the whole interview, follow the link below:
http://www.denofgeek.com/television/891987/matthew_graham_interview_on_writing_doctor_who.html