Inspirations: Let's Kill Hitler

Let's Kill Hitler was the deliberately provocative title of the opening story of the second half of Series 6.

River Song's identity now having been revealed, this episode would go back and show the audience some of her history.

Having the Nazi leader's name in the title is obviously intended to provoke a reaction. Back in 2006, when the titles for Series 2 were being released, a number of religious groups expressed concern with The Satan Pit, thinking that the episode was going to feature the Christian Devil. Some people do find certain words or phrases triggering.

The series has encountered some troublesome story titles in the past. Victor  Pemberton's "Colony of Devils" - a fantastic title - was vetoed, lest it offend whatever passed for a 'snowflake' in 1968.

Perhaps Sea Devils were too obviously nothing to do with the Biblical Big Bad to warrant a title change, though Barry Letts had been advised to make sure that the Rev. Magister was hanging out in a cavern, and not a church crypt, just a few months previously.

Later, Chris Boucher's "The Day God Went Mad" - another fantastic title - also fell by the wayside.

The Fuhrer does feature in the episode, though only briefly and is quickly punched in the face by Rory then locked in a cupboard. His inclusion really isn't necessary for the story at all, nor does the 1930's Berlin setting.

It's the story of how the Ponds' baby grew up to be River Song, and the setting simply provides an interesting and potentially dangerous backdrop.

When asked where / when they would go if they had a time machine, going back and killing Hitler is one of the more common suggestions.

We discover that the schoolfriend of Amy and Rory - Mels - is actually their daughter. We're denied any information about who has brought her up, or how.

She ends up a juvenile delinquent and goes on a bit of a rampage, which includes trying to hijack the TARDIS - and this is where the title comes in.

Throwing the toy TARDIS into the air, and cutting to the real one, was inspired by the famous bone / spaceship segue in 2001: A Space Odyssey.

The opening subtitle - "A Long Time Ago in Leadworth..." was a nod to the famous opening to the Star Wars movies.

Crop circles had been in the news since the 1980's, but there was a massive explosion of interest from the mid-1990's onwards as they became far more complex and widespread. They were believed by some to be the work of aliens, though fakers have shown how they achieved most.

At one point we see the Doctor, Amy and Rory framed through River's legs - imagery borrowed from The Graduate (1967). River is referred to as "Mrs Robinson" at one point, in case you didn't get the visual reference.

Mels fires a pistol inside the TARDIS - despite it having previously been stated that weapons couldn't be used due to the ship being in a form of "temporal grace". 

This first got mentioned in The Hand of Fear. Later, Nyssa questioned the Doctor about the use of Cyber-guns in the ship, but he doesn't answer, and we had seen how the console had been damaged by the Cybermen in the last story but one.

We've seen guns fired in the TARDIS in the interim - such as when Jack destroyed a Dalek in Parting of the Ways.

In this episode, the Doctor finally admits that he had been lying about this.

A significant role in the story is played by the Teselecta. This is a humanoid robotic construct, operated by a miniaturised crew.

The inspiration for this would be comic strip characters like The Numskulls, who made their debut in The Beezer in 1962.

They lived inside a man's head, operating his body. Later versions had them living and working inside a schoolboy.

There have been many variations of this, including another comic strip in which tiny people lived inside a TV set. A Far Side cartoon has a man opening up his radio to see a tiny string quartet within.

Woody Allen's Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Sex (But Were Afraid To Ask) (1972) had a segment featuring characters inside someone. There was also an early 1990's US sitcom named Herman's Head.

The Teselecta gets its name from the fact that it derives its outward appearance from tessellated blocks (from tesserae - the small coloured cubes which made up Roman mosaics).

The Anti-bodies are inspired by the 1966 sci-fi thriller Fantastic Voyage (one of the inspirations for our very own The Invisible Enemy).

In both, miniaturised people inside a body trigger the natural defence mechanism and are attacked by anti-bodies.

The bridge of the Teselecta is clearly supposed to mirror that of the Enterprise and other Federation starships of the Star Trek Universe.

Next time: it's back to the nursery for writer Mark Gatiss, as the TARDIS crew suffer a nasty case of pavor nocturnas...