Shell Shocked by a Good Man's Battlefield

As a long-time fan of Doctor Who, when I watch newer episodes I sometimes find myself thinking about how certain stories are almost companion pieces to older ones. For instance, Neil Gaiman's The Doctor's Wife brings to mind the very early TARDIS based story The Edge of Destruction while 2008's The Unicorn & the Wasp, with its Agatha Christie trappings, pairs nicely with 1982's Black Orchid. This line of thought has also helped me home in on why the current mid-season cliffhanger A Good Man Goes to War doesn't quite work for me.

In 1989, the final season of Doctor Who's original run opened with a story called Battlefield. Battlefield was an interesting attempt to mix Arthurian legend with an updated take on the Doctor's 1970s allies from UNIT, but it was by no means a great story. Aside from some great character moments, especially the Doctor's final confrontation with Morgaine, the most noteworthy thing about it is the way its events suggest a multitude of other, far more interesting, stories (perhaps one reason why its novelization is better regarded than the TV version). That same questionable mix of good and bad ideas combining to suggest a larger world of events is on display in A Good Man Goes to War, as it has been in all of Steven Moffat's episodes since last year's Weeping Angels storyline.

Prior to last year's season finale, Moffat's Doctor Who episodes were typically the best of any given season. The combination of fanciful ideas and the discipline required to write the well-structured farce that was Coupling made scripts like The Girl in the Fireplace and Blink some of the most sharply written in Doctor Who's history. Since then, things have felt a bit more haphazard with some truly great moments vying for attention with things that just feel wrong, such as the ridiculous alliance of monsters in The Pandorica Opens. Without giving anything significant away, A Good Man Goes to War features more alien armies that shouldn't be there, at least not on the Doctor's side, and it just felt wrong.

I appreciate that the story plays up the question of how far down the path of war the Doctor willing to go. At the same time, anyone who's been watching the past few years knows that the answer is that he's been willing to go pretty damn far if the stakes are high enough. Put another way, it's an idea I'd like to see explored in a way that really adds to the character's moral dimension rather than just retracing the steps of Eccleston and Tennant.

All that said, by virtue of being anxious to find out what happens next, I have to admit that at least on some level the story ultimately did the job. I'm still not sure where it's all going, but I haven't lost faith that Moffat's path is leading to something really good. I just wish he'd trust the audience to enjoy the show without throwing in old monsters where they don't belong and let the regulars do their thing, because as with Battlefield back in 1989, A Good Man Goes to War is at its best when the focus is on them.