Back....and bonkers

Let's Kill Hitler marked the bizarrely-titled beginning for the second half of this year's run with the now-typical blend of fun and confusion.

Amy and Rory catch up with the Doctor after a seemingly fruitless search to find Melody/River, only this time with 'friend' Mels in tow. Mels was drawn straight from the 1970s Master playbook of having one of those character names that in retrospect is an obvious clue to their true identity but, for me at least, wasn't immediately recognisable as being Melody herself. She wasn't quite Roger Delgado/Anthony Ainley in a wig/beard combo so I'll forgive myself for not spotting the link.

Given that this is a mid series opener we do start to at least get some answers to the puzzles set by arch quizmaster Moffat. Mels lets slip it was her character that regenerated at the end of episode two, we finally see the 'first' meeting of River and the Doctor and we see why River cannot regenerate further (thus leaving the library two-parter in tact). That's a decent start to what had become an almost-overlong list of questions to answer (and there were possibly others I've forgotten!).

The episode seems to pass by leaving Amy and Rory as confused as some of the viewers. I suppose understandably given that their mutual friend was in fact their daughter, who regenerated into River Song, but it is not Amy and Rory's strongest showing here. In fact the star of the show is undoubtedly Alex Kingston - revelling in the fun she can have with an earlier incarnation of her character who has been trained to kill the Doctor and who does just that (sort of). Luckily there's still more than enough we don't know about her character to warrant a return for the brilliant Kingston.

The most disappointing thing about the episode had the be the missed opportunity of the Doctor vs Hitler. Poor old Adolf (well, ok, no sympathy for him) was a comedy aside and the fantastically realised bits of 1930s Germany left me pining for a story that used the setting even more. The shape shifting robots were decent and have potential for a return. In fact, they join the list with 1930s Germany of 'aspects of this story that would have made a story in their own right'.

Was there too much crammed in here to make it enjoyable? Not quite. This was still a fun return for this half of the 2011 run and it did at least start to provide solutions to the riddles of the first half (and before). As much as I did enjoy it I also hope it paves the way for a couple of standalone tales until we build up for the return to Lake Silencio, and finally answer the mystery of the beginning of episode one...

7/10