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.
The moment itself stretches on for about twenty minutes. It's glorious. It may have ultimately been a futile gesture, but it gives us a glimpse of why The Doctor is known as The Oncoming Storm. We are carried along on a victorious tide as The Doctor's plan escalates. First he destroys an entire Cyber legion to extract a tiny piece of information, and then he pops up at the heart of the enemy's camp to spread confusion and dismay among Madame Kovarian's legions. It's Like some Errol Flynn-style swashbuckling hero, not only does he win, but he wins with aplomb. The girl is rescued by the dashing knight and the 'dragon' has been destroyed. Even the chief soldier of the opposing army has been made to eat humble pie. We know now that the entire episode was foreseen by Kovarian and that the baby was never rescued at all, but it was for a few minutes at least, an example of when The Doctor is the one calling the shots. He's the Time Lord Victorious again, but this time without the pride that nearly destroyed him. He's the invincible super-hero and it's only when the plan has come to fruition that he begins to realise he is not the healer he thought he was, but the warrior he never saw coming. It's a bitter-sweet moment, nevertheless that twenty minutes or so was a truly great pay-off as a passage of pure cinema.
Hello, I'm Paul Hammans, terminal 'Who' obsessive, F1 fan, reader of arcane literature about ideas and generalist scribbler. To paraphrase someone much better at aphorisms than I: I strive to write something worth reading and when I cannot do that I try to do something worth writing. I have my own Dr Who oriented blog at http://www.exanima.co.uk
