Doctor: Matt Smith (Eleventh Doctor)
Companions
Karen Gillan (Amy Pond)
Arthur Darvill (Rory Williams)
Alex Kingston (River Song)
Others
Nina Toussaint-White – Mels
Caitlin Blackwood – Amelia Pond
Maya Glace-Green – Young Mels
Ezekiel Wigglesworth – Young Rory
Philip Rham – Zimmerman
Richard Dillane – Carter
Amy Cudden – Anita
Davood Ghadami – Jim
Ella Kenion – Harriet
Albert Welling – Adolf Hitler
Mark Killeen – German Officer
Paul Bentley – Professor Candy
Eva Alexander – Nurse
Tor Clark – Female Teacher
Production
Directed by Richard Senior
Written by Steven Moffat
Script editor Caroline Henry
Produced by Marcus Wilson
Executive producer(s)
Steven Moffat
Piers Wenger
Beth Willis
Incidental music composer Murray Gold
Production code 2.8
Series Series 6
Length 50 mins
Originally broadcast 27 August 2011
In modern-day Leadworth, Amy and Rory create a crop circle to gain the Doctor's attention via its newspaper coverage. He arrives with his TARDIS, but they are soon joined by Mels, Amy and Rory's childhood friend who knows of Amy's "raggedy Doctor" and was responsible for Amy and Rory's relationship; Amy had subsequently named her daughter Melody after Mels. On the run from the police after stealing a car, Mels brandishes a gun and coerces them to escape in the TARDIS and "kill Hitler". Inside, she fires the gun, hitting the central console which fills the time machine with a poisonous gas and sends it out of control.
Back in 1938 Berlin, "Justice Vehicle 6018", a Teselecta,[6] a shapechanging, human-looking robot manned by a human crew from the future miniaturised inside it, is seeking to deliver justice on major criminals from the past. They do this by using the Teselecta's weapons to torture the criminal, near the end of their timeline. Having taken on the appearance of a Wehrmacht officer to meet with Hitler, they are surprised when the TARDIS crashes into Hitler's office. Hitler, already panicked, fires on the Teselecta, but his aim is poor and strikes Mels. As Rory punches Hitler and locks him in a cupboard, the TARDIS crew finds Mels regenerating, becoming the woman they know as River Song—Melody as a grown woman. River, having been trained by her captors to kill the Doctor, makes several attempts but the Doctor has taken precautions to nullify these. Instead, River kisses him and—before disappearing into the streets of Berlin—reveals that her lipstick is poison (from the "Judas Tree"), which will kill the Doctor within the hour and prevent his regeneration. The Doctor orders Amy and Rory to follow River, passing Amy his sonic screwdriver, while he returns to the TARDIS to try to discover a cure. The Teselecta, aware that the Doctor's death on 22 April 2011 is a "fixed point in time" ("The Impossible Astronaut"), instead follows Amy and Rory in chasing down River, having identified her as their most wanted war criminal, responsible for the Doctor's death.
The Teselecta's antibodies, as shown at the Doctor Who Experience.
Amy and Rory chase River to a café at the Hotel Adlon, but the Teselecta arrives, bringing them aboard as allies, and takes on Amy's appearance, allowing the robot to get close to River to attack her. Before they can complete the attack, the TARDIS materialises; the Doctor, spurred on by the TARDIS' "voice interface" hologram of Amy's younger self, Amelia, has found time to dress for the period and stops the attack, now aware of the Teselecta's nature. The captain speaks to the Doctor, informing him that River has been trained to kill him by the Silence, a religious order that believes that when "the oldest question in the universe" is asked, silence will fall across the universe. When the crew refuse to back down from attacking River, Amy uses the sonic screwdriver to turn the robot's "antibodies"—its security robots—against the crew. The crew abandon the robot by being teleported away by their mothership, leaving Amy and Rory to face the antibodies.
The Doctor finds himself too weak from the poison's effects to pilot the TARDIS to rescue his companions; River is inspired by the Doctor's sympathy, and finds herself guided by the TARDIS itself to pilot the ship, and rescues Amy and Rory in time. On returning to the café, the trio finds the Doctor near death; he asks River to find "River Song" and give her a message, then whispers something in her ear before he passes away. River, who at this point still only knows herself as Melody Pond, asks Amy who River Song is; Amy uses the Teselecta to show River her form stored in the robot's database of who she is to become. With this, River sacrifices her remaining regenerations to bring the Doctor back to life, and passes out. The Doctor, Amy, and Rory take her to a hospital in the far future, leaving the TARDIS-shaped diary as a gift by her bedside, and depart. Later, River is shown becoming an archaeologist so she can find the Doctor herself. Aboard the TARDIS, the Doctor has discovered the date of his death from the records aboard the Teselecta, but does not reveal this knowledge to Amy or Rory.
Let's Kill Hitler