Let's Kill Hitler
He arrives with his TARDIS, but Amy and Rory's childhood friend Mels coerces them to travel back in time to "kill Hitler".
Back in 1938 Berlin, the Teselecta, a shape-changing, 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 by torturing them.
[8] While activating the voice interface aboard the TARDIS, the Doctor is shown holograms of his former companions Rose Tyler (Billie Piper), Martha Jones (Freema Agyeman) and Donna Noble (Catherine Tate).
He eventually settles on the young Amelia (Caitlin Blackwood), who also appears (in flashback scenes of Amy's past) interacting with a younger Mels and Rory.
[6][8] Serving as the mid-series premiere, it is the opposite of the tone of the opening story "The Impossible Astronaut" / "Day of the Moon", which was "grim and dark".
[6] Writer Steven Moffat wanted to show Hitler in a comedic light and "take the mickey out of him" instead of making him "an icon of evil".
[16] The cast and crew felt that the costume and make-up artists did a good job with Albert Welling, as he looked so much like Hitler it was a "surreal" experience.
[7] The Temple of Peace in Cardiff used in the episode for the German dinner party was also used for Karen Gillan's first Doctor Who appearance, when she played a Soothsayer in "The Fires of Pompeii".
[7] One scene involving the Teselecta (disguised as a German soldier) chasing Amy and Rory on motorcycles through Berlin was cut from filming due to budget issues.
AT&T and BBC America worked with Moffat and Senior to create the 60 second scene, which was animated by Double Barrel Motion Labs.
Dan Martin, writing for The Guardian, was more pleased with "Let's Kill Hitler" as an opener than "A Good Man Goes to War" as a finale, and said it was "an energetic, timey-wimey tour de force with gags and flourishes like the car and the crop circles that still maintained a strong sense of what it was about".
He also commended Alex Kingston's performance, saying that "she got to steal her every scene even more completely than usual, masterfully swerving the episode into a properly emotional final act".
[31] Michael Hogan of The Daily Telegraph gave the episode four out of five stars, praising it for being "jam-packed full of ideas, twists, turns and wibbly-wobbly time-bending stuff" and "giddily thrilling entertainment, albeit rather exhausting".
[32] Radio Times reviewer Patrick Mulkern, unlike Debnath, admitted that Mels' true identity "took [him] completely by surprise".
He thought that a plot hole was generated in terms of what Melody did in between regenerating in 1969 and joining Amy and Rory, still as a child, 20 years later, but said that "the episode moves too fast for such quibbles to stick, and it is hilarious".
[33] Ken Tucker of Entertainment Weekly called it "a marvelously energetic, funny, clever, noble mid-season start" and praised the acting of Smith, Gillan, Darvill, and particularly Kingston, as well as the emotion that developed in the episode.
[34] IGN's Matt Risley gave the episode a score of 9 out of 10, saying that it was "arguably Moffat's most unashamedly fun Time Lord romp yet".
While he praised the humour, plot and character development, he was critical of the Teselecta; though they "score[d] high on the sci-fi kitsch factor" they were "anything but memorable".
[35] SFX magazine critic Richard Edwards gave "Let's Kill Hitler" five out of five stars, thinking it "has to rank among the cleverest Who episodes Moffat has ever written".
He praised Moffat's River Song arc, which made "the mind [reel]...in a good way", as well as the dialogue and "big concepts".
What "really trouble[d]" him was that it did not have the "impact" of some previous episodes and he thought it unlikely that Amy and Rory were willing to quickly accept that they were meant to raise their daughter as a school friend.
[10] Jim Shelley of The Daily Mirror was also negative about the episode, especially towards Alex Kingston, who appeared to be acting while "the rest of the cast play their parts perfectly naturally".
[37] The Daily Telegraph reviewer Gavin Fuller said that Moffat "delivered a pacy romp" and praised the concept of the Teselecta, but was disappointed with the "wasted opportunity" of the setting.
He also felt using Hitler as a comic relief "struck a wrong note given the nature of the man and the regime he led" and that it was "an odd way to treat such an historically significant character".
