Doctor Who, The Wedding of River Song, first thoughts

What a fantastic finish.  Quickly and easily dispatched the season long death of the Doctor storyline and set up many, many more stories to come.

"Silence will fall when the question is asked."

And the question, well, it has been there from the beginning, hidden, as they say, in plain sight...

The answer has actually been toyed with all season as well.  I mean, there is the obvious answer in terms of "What is the Doctor's real name?" but more fundamentally, who is the Doctor?

A group of people, after all, viewed him as a weapon.  They stole the baby of his companions to turn into a weapon to use against him.

The Doctor frightened them.

Another group has turned the meaning of the word Doctor into "great warrior."

Despite what the Doctor believes he stands for, there are those who view him as something different, and even he must acknowledge that all too often his attempts at a peaceful resolution fail.

But what about all of those that he has traveled with?  Surely they are better for having known the Doctor?

Adric - dead

Rose - lost in a different dimension

Donna - unable to remember  the Doctor or she will die

Okay, maybe not.

The Doctor has begun to doubt that he is good for those that he comes into contact with, so much so that he left Amy and Rory behind and traveled for a time companion-less.

But, on the other hand...

When River refused to kill him, setting up the alternate reality where time was forever stopped and all of history co-existed, River had set out a distress signal, informing the rest of time and space that the Doctor was in trouble, wouldn't anyone help him?

The response was overwhelming.  The Doctor has helped so many people through his long life, and they were all willing to return the favor.

Craig, in last week's episode, made the case that despite the dangers and even sometimes the horrible outcomes, traveling with and knowing the Doctor, having those adventures, would be better than the alternative, and after all, the dangers would be there regardless.

At least the Doctor gave them a chance.

I was reminded of the terrific episode Turn Left in series 4 when Donna was presented with an alternate reality where she never met up with the Doctor.  Instead of saving the world with Donna in The Runaway Bride, the Doctor died and wasn't there for all of the events of Series 3 and 4.

The world was certainly worse for wear.

The idea of who the Doctor is, what the Doctor means, not just to earth, but the entirety of time and space is an important question, and, perhaps, the oldest question.  A question with enormous repercussions.

Outstanding job, Mr. Moffat, I am ready for whatever is next.

A few other things before we're done, that makes two straight seasons that ended with a wedding; although this one was a little less formal than the last, I still got a little emotional.

The Brigadier in The Sarah Jane Adventures

I definitely think my favorite moment was the wonderful nod to Brigadier Sir Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart, portrayed for so long by Nicholas Courtney who passed away on the 22nd of February, one month before the events portrayed in the season finale.  (For more on the significance of the date of the Doctor's death, check out this post by James McGrath).  The fact that this revelation led to the Doctor finally accepting what he had to do was quite touching.


The use of the Tesselector to escape from his death was quite brilliant, made more so by the Red Herring of the Flesh running throughout the season making many of us overlook this solution.

Finally, the question I have is whether the Doctor traveled for nearly 200 years from when we saw him at the end of The God Complex to when he returns to Lake Silencio in the Tesselector.

If you recall, in The Impossible Astronaut, the Doctor claimed to be over 1100 years old as opposed to over 900 years old.

I'm asking the question because of rule number one... The Doctor Lies.

What are your thoughts?  Did the Doctor really take 200 years to say his goodbyes to people like Craig?  Have a few final adventures sans companions?

Or was he lying, and it hadn't really been that long?

That's what I'd like to know.

Until Next Time, while we await the Christmas Special, there is no better time to head back and acquaint yourself with some of the history of the Doctor.  There were 8 of them before Series One with Christopher Eccleston, after all.  (James McGrath suggests the same thing!)

Getting Ready for Doctor Who: The Wedding of River Song

If you haven't already checked out my first thoughts on Saturday's penultimate episode of the season, you can do so here

In the mean time, a few more things on everyone's favorite Time Lord as we get ready for the series 6 (season 32) finale,

The Wedding of River Song

First, Dr. James McGrath, author of the newly released book Religion and Science Fiction (which is on my Kindle and awaiting some free time so I can dive into it) is available, wrote a recent post on some of the recent questions posed by Doctor Who and some of the possible answers.  Click here to check that post out.

And second, the BBC has released a prequel to the final episode.  I have embedded it below for your convenience.



I can't wait!

Until Next Time, I'll see you here after the episode Saturday night!

Doctor Who, Let's Kill Hitler, first thoughts

Okay,

It is clear to me that the Impossible Astronaut can in no way be Melody Pond/River Song.

River uses all of her remaining regenerations to heal the Doctor.

Therefore, if River were the little girl that we saw in The Impossible Astronaut/Day of the Moon, and that little girl kills the Doctor, then River would remember that happening.

She would have already succeeded in killing the Doctor as a little girl, and therefore wouldn't have needed to worry about it in Berlin right after regenerating into our River.

I believe that it might be possible that the little girl in 1969 was in fact Melody Pond, the one that we saw regenerating in Day of the Moon, but the person in the astronaut suit in 2011 is in no way Melody Pond.

Look at River's face here.  She has no idea what is going on.  She is not the person in the astronaut suit.

I might be able to buy that River was at one point in the astronaut suit, back in 1969, but it isn't her that ultimately kills the Doctor.

Although you have to wonder why she would have been able to go back to 1969 if the little girl in question was in fact her, considering she couldn't help with Demon's Run (A Good Man Goes to War) because of the fact that she was there as a child.

That is part of the reason that I always felt like the little girl at the beginning couldn't actually be River.

It is possible, however, that since the Silence were involved, River has some trouble remembering that part of her life, although those memories should have come back when she was looking at them.

I still like the idea that the Doctor, now knowing everything that he does about River, goes back and somehow saves River from the computer in the Library.

Then River and the Doctor can have a child  (in both of their futures) and that child somehow gets kidnapped by this nefarious group and that child is the one in the astronaut suit who ultimately kills the Doctor.

A few other things that I loved about this episode...

Rory punching Hitler.

AWESOME!

I also loved the call back of Rose, Martha, and Donna, as well as the guilt the Doctor feels for what their association with him caused for them.  That was really well done.  And it was great to see them in the TARDIS again.

Something that reminded me of some older episodes were the mention of the state of temporal grace in the interior of the TARDIS.  The Tom Baker story, The Hand of Fear from season 14 (the last to regularly feature Elisabeth Sladen as Sarah Jane Smith) features the Doctor telling Eldrad that since they were outside of time Eldrad's weapons would not work, Eldrad couldn't hurt Sarah or the Doctor, and they couldn't hurt Eldrad.

Many later episodes seem to have forgotten about this, or threw in a line about it perhaps being broken, but this week, the Doctor claims that it was always just a bluff anyway, his way of getting others to think their weapons wouldn't work so that they wouldn't try to use them.  Beautiful bit of continuity clean up.

I was also reminded of the first Christmas special, David Tennant's first go round as the Doctor.  He was able to regrow his hand since he was early in his regeneration cycle, River threw off an execution style shooting, plus purged a nasty poison out of the Doctor.  Being in your new body right at first makes you pretty freaking awesome, but it still doesn't really make up for the horrible side effect of being really vulnerable before you make it to that next body.  Which is what allowed the Impossible Astronaut to kill the Doctor before he was able to regenerate. 

Until Next Time, We now know much more about River than River knows about herself, which is a full switch from before, that should be fun to watch as the remainder of the season progresses.

And of course, the big mystery of how to get around the Doctor's impending death still looms.  See you next week!

Doctor Who, A Good Man Goes to War, first thoughts

So, SPOILERS and all that...

TOLD YOU!

My exact words for the pertinent point...

Here's an interesting thought, considering that Amy's last name is Pond, a body of water, what if River (also water related, hmmm) is actually the daughter of Amy Pond?

I don't know.  Seems plausible though, doesn't it?  There is clearly something hugely (no pun intended this time) important about the baby in Amy's belly.

 I expanded on it the next week, with more theory I know really believe to be likely since the first part was confirmed...

What if the little Time Lord is the daughter of River and the Doctor.  And, as I postulated last week, River is the daughter of Amy and Rory.  Meaning that the picture Amy saw was a picture of the little Time Lord's mother as a baby.  River Song, as an infant, in the arms of her mother (the Little Time Lord's Grandmother), Amy Pond.

I do so like to look smart.

For those believing that the girl in the Impossible Astronaut suit/ the little Time Lord is actually River, that doesn't work at all, because then River would have known what was going on in the first two episodes, and certainly wouldn't have shot at herself as she walked away after killing the Doctor.  Go back and watch that scene, River had no idea that was about to happen.  River is not the girl in the astronaut suit.

It can, however, be River's daughter, since River never saw the face of the girl, and wouldn't think to mention that she and the Doctor have a daughter, since that would be "Spoilers, sweetie."

What a fantastic finale (of sorts).  Very big feeling episode, even if I did guess at the reveal long before it happened.

The second Amy's daughter was said to be "Melody Pond," I knew it was River.  After all, River=Pond and Song=Melody.

I still think that there is more to "The only water in a forest is a River."  Sure, it explains how to get from Pond to River, but I think it also harkens back to River being in the computer at the Library, also known as the Forest.

Now that the Doctor knows exactly who she is, don't you think he'll find someway to save her?  I do.

This eye-patch lady is clearly bad news, and I look forward to the Doctor giving her what for at some point in the future.

What is scary is that while the first try for a weapon to fight the Doctor, Melody Pond/River Song, is unsuccessful, it appears to me that they try again with the daughter of River and the Doctor, our little Time Lord from Impossible Astronaut/Day of the Moon.

That kind of behavior simply cannot stand.

The other thing that I loved about this episode was the payoff on the depth and development of Rory.  He is a full and awesome companion in his own right, and probably the best male companion since Jamie from way back with the Second Doctor.

Good stuff.

Well, quite some time until the next episode.  Autumn is after summer, huh?

Until Next Time, here are some BBC videos on the big reveal...

Doctor Who, The Doctor's Wife, first thoughts

Sorry, Blink.  Sorry Steven Moffat.  I have a new favorite episode of Doctor Who.

Neil Gaiman's fantastic episode, The Doctor's Wife.

Considering that many of us believe that River could be married to the Doctor, when the title was released, we thought that some more information about the Doctor and River's relationship might be revealed (and I would argue that perhaps it was, but more on that later), or perhaps it might mean that there would be revelation about the Doctor's Time Lord wife, assuming he had one at one point that led to his having a grand daughter, Susan Foreman, who traveled with him when the show began back in 1963.

However, the title seems to be referring to the TARDIS itself, and after travelling together for 700 or so years, the title probably works at least in common law purposes.

House, the junkyard planet outside the universe (voiced brilliantly by Michael Sheen, who played Tony Blair in The Queen and David Frost in Frost/Nixon, and David Frost was, of course, just referenced a couple of episodes ago) lures the Doctor to the planet in order to eat the TARDIS.  First, however, House must remove the matrix from the TARDIS and he places it instead in Idris.

This allows the Doctor and the TARDIS to finally have a face-to-face.

There were many beautiful moments throughout the episode as the Doctor, called My Thief by the TARDIS, and the TARDIS, as always, called Sexy by the Doctor, got to finally have the conversations which for 700 years had been too one sided.

In one fantastic moment, the TARDIS points out that she chose the Doctor as much as he chose the TARDIS, stealing him as much as he stole her.

But the best bit was confirmation of something that I had expected for quite some time.  While the Doctor doesn't always go exactly where (or when) he intends to, the TARDIS always makes sure the Doctor ends up where (and when) he is needed.

(Interestingly enough, another bit of confirmation that we got in this episode was that Time Lords can regenerate into the opposite sex.  Is a female Doctor in the future?)

I also loved that we saw a little more of the TARDIS interior this week, even if it was just a never-ending repetitive corridor.  But the running down those corridors was very reminiscent of Classic Who.

And we also got a return of the TARDIS console from the David Tennant era, so that was nice.

And a TARDIS re-materializing inside that console room.  A TARDIS, incidentally, designed by a young viewer in a contest on the British children's show Blue Peter.

I like to think of it as a TARDIS convertible.

The TARDIS herself was a little out of the regular flow of time, and therefore kept referencing things that hadn't quite occurred yet, such as the smell of rain hitting the dust.

Something she kept repeating as she died might be quite important, "The only water in the forest is the river."

If you did your homework from a few weeks ago, you'll already have re-watched the two part intro of River Song, Silence in the Library and Forest of the Dead, so you'll know that River's consciousness is housed, and kept alive, in the Library computer, and you'll know that the Library is referenced as a forest.  Therefore, the line "the only water in a forest is the river" signifies to me that perhaps River's future isn't as bleak as it appears to be from our standpoint.

Impossible Astronaut and Day of the Moon really highlighted the anguish that River was feeling, since every new experience in her and the Doctor's relationship from the Doctor's perspective is actually the last from her perspective.  And she knows that one day she will see the Doctor and he will have no idea who she is, and she has said that that might just kill her.  We, of course, know that in a way it does.  But maybe it doesn't have to.

Her consciousness is still alive, so maybe there is some hope.  The Doctor saved her consciousness by placing it in the Library, not knowing how important she would become to him, maybe after he knows how important she is to him, he will be able to revive her in some other way and they will finally be able to continue their relationship in a more linear fashion.

Considering that River is in prison for killing a good man and an upcoming episode is entitled A Good Man Goes to War, which is also the mid-series finale, I have a feeling that very soon a lot more about the River/Doctor relationship will be clear to us.

I can't wait to see what happens next.

For an episode of the past to rewatch, I recommend School Reunion, which will give you a chance to remember Sarah Jane Smith but also features a great moment between Sarah Jane and Rose where they talk about the Doctor's relationship with the TARDIS, and, if you can get your hands on it (it has been released on DVD), The War Games, the last story of the second doctor.  It is the story where the name Time Lord is revealed and it is the only other story to include the distress cubes shown in this episode.

Until Next Time, seriously, I believe that was my favorite episode of Doctor Who ever.  Thank you, Neil Gaiman.

Doctor Who, Day of the Moon, first thoughts

Remember, Spoilers!


What the....!


Okay, I did not see that coming.

Obviously, as a Time Lord, we are meant to assume that this is the Doctor's child.

And the episode itself showed us that the little girl is supposedly Amy's.

So, we are meant to extrapolate those two things into believing the the child is the child of Amy and the Doctor.

Sorry.  Don't buy it.

Especially with the great Amy and Rory stuff in the episode.

I'm a huge fan of Rory Williams, a huge fan of him ever since he dedicated himself to protecting Amy in the Pandorica for 2000 years.

"I was there." - The Doctor speaking about the Roman Empire.

"So was I" - Rory the Roman.

And the fact that he has access to those memories, and that Amy is aware of that dedication as well, makes it impossible for me to believe that Amy and the Doctor are going to procreate.

Especially considering the moment we witnessed between River and the Doctor.

How heartbreaking was that?

"First time for everything!" - The Doctor

"And also the last." - River Song

It's strange, because in a way it is also exciting.  For us, it is a beginning.  River and the Doctor's relationship has moved on to a new level.  For her to kiss him like that means that their relationship is that type of relationship for her, meaning that it is about to be that for the Doctor.

Which gives another reason to think that there is no chance that the little girl Time Lord is the daughter of the Doctor and Amy.  Not only are Amy and Rory rock solid, but the Doctor and River appear headed that way also.

What if the little Time Lord is the daughter of River and the Doctor.  And, as I postulated last week, River is the daughter of Amy and Rory.  Meaning that the picture Amy saw was a picture of the little Time Lord's mother as a baby.  River Song, as an infant, in the arms of her mother (the Little Time Lord's Grandmother), Amy Pond.

I like that theory.

Anyway, a few of the other things in the episode that were interesting,

I loved the ways they remembered their encounters with the Silence.

And the way they solved the problem of the Silence was awesome.  Love when the show uses huge historical moments in such clever ways.

So, it appears that the Silence aren't really the mystery of the series, the child Time Lord is.

The Impossible Astronaut.

Great red herring.

Also, how great was the Doctor being imprisoned in Area 51?

Pretty cool.

Not really sure what episode might help in understanding, but I can tell you what episode it made me think of...

The Doctor's Daughter, from Season 4.

Until Next Time, Can't wait for next week.  The Doctor, Pirates, and mermaids.  Cool.

Doctor Who, The Impossible Astronaut, first thoughts

As River Song would say,

SPOILERS

IF you haven't watched the episode yet, perhaps now is not the time to read this post.  It is written with the understanding that you have already seen the episode.

So.... if you're still here....

I'll get started.

And there really is no other place we can start other than where the episode really got going...

With the death of the Doctor

When it was announced that one of the main four characters would die in the opening, speculation seemed to center on River and Rory.

I believed all along that it would be the Doctor.

My theory was that we would see where the Matt Smith incarnation of the Doctor would die.  Meaning when Matt Smith finally left the role, it would come back to this.

Rory died last year (brought back first as an Auton and later thanks to the rebooting of the universe courtesy of an exploding TARDIS), so I didn't think it would be him.

And we all know when River dies, as it happened in Series 4 way back when we and the Doctor first met her.  (Silence in the Library and Forest of the Dead, and I'm wondering now if the title of the first episode was a little more significant than we realized.)  More on that in a little bit.

Obviously Amy is safe, so clearly that left the Doctor.

And the Doctor it was. But he is killed again right in the middle of his regeneration cycle, meaning he doesn't regenerate and is dead for real.

Ignoring for the moment what an inconvenient loophole that is for Time Lords, I find it hard to believe that this is really the end for the Doctor.

As Amy pointed out, "Time can be rewritten," and that seems to be an important theme in Moffat's work.

Hell, the Christmas Special this year was primarily based on that idea.  (And I'm loving that it is on as I'm writing this.  Thank you BBC America.)

Then there is the fact that the Doctor went to this death quite willingly, admonishing Amy, Rory, and River to let it happen.

"I've been running, faster than I've ever run, and I've been running my whole life.  Now it's time for me to stop."

Admittedly, that sounds a little final, so maybe the Doctor even believes this is for real; that he has to actually die, but time, as we all know is quite wibbly-wobbly, and there is more to this than that of which we are aware.

Therefore, the question is raised, how will they get around this?  I have a feeling that that is what the majority of the first half season arc will be about.

The other question raised by the frantic opening, is what exactly the Doctor was hoping to accomplish with his frenetic running around attracting the notice of Amelia Pond throughout history (and remaining oblivious to Rory even as the Doctor in a cool fez waved to him from the middle of the Abbot and Costello movie)?  Clearly the Doctor was up to something with all of that running faster than he's ever run before.

Just before the Doctor is killed, we discover that this Doctor (the Stetson wearing Doctor, Stetson's are cool) is actually two hundred years older than our Doctor, and after we see his death, we find out that our Doctor is blissfully unaware of the future that supposedly awaits him, giving Amy, Rory, and River knowledge that he doesn't have.  Knowledge that will apparently set in motion the death the of the Doctor, but presumably save the world as well.

Having a Doctor from 200 years further in the future set up an exciting moment, for the first time ever in our sight, and probably the only time in their relationship, the Doctor and River each know all about their relationship, whatever exactly it is.

Later in the episode, River opens up a little bit to Rory about how difficult their relationship is.  When River first met the Doctor, he knew everything about her although she had never seen him before.  When the Doctor first met River (in Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead) she knew everything about him (including his true name) even though he had never seen her before.  They've been traveling in opposite directions the entire time, except for this brief moment.  The end of the Doctor's life (although still before the end of River's), so he has already met the River who had never met him.  He and River, for the only time ever, are approximately in the same place as far as their relationship is concerned.  Too bad it doesn't last very long, and a few remembrances of Easter Island and Jim the Fish are all that we get to see because their are bigger fish to fry or dams to build, since that apparently is what Jim the Fish is doing.  (I apologize for the fish fry pun.)  It is a great moment, made even more poignant when River talks to Rory about the difficulty of traveling in different directions.

"The trouble is, it's all back to front.  My past is his future.  We're traveling in opposite directions.  Every time we meet, I know him more; he knows me less.  I live for the days I see him.  But I know that every time I do, he'll be one step further away.  The day's coming when I'll look into that man's eyes... my Doctor, and he won't have the faintest idea who I am.  And I think it's going to kill me."

Which, of course, in a way it does.

River Song is a fantastic character, Alex Kingston plays her masterfully, as that monologue was expertly given, and I love how we are riding along with the Doctor in this relationship, learning a little bit more about River with each meeting, knowing some things about her future that she does not, but recognizing that she knows a lot more about the Doctor's future than he does, and that we really still don't know who she is at all.

Now, of course, Amy and Rory know some things about the Doctor's future of which he is unaware as well, and that sort of shakes up the dynamics inside the TARDIS a little bit, Amy and Rory having such important information that the Doctor isn't privy to.

Not sure how long that will play out, especially since the episode ends with Amy trying to kill the little girl/impossible astronaut.  I'm pretty sure the Doctor won't let that attempt go without an explanation.

Right before then, Amy announces she's pregnant.  But she seems to give it a lot more import than just a normal announcement of impending birth, as if there is something sinister about this pregnancy.  She tells the Doctor that this is information that can't wait, which gives it a lot of import considering everything that is going on at the time, including her knowledge of the Doctor's impending death.

Why do you think that is?

Here's an interesting thought, considering that Amy's last name is Pond, a body of water, what if River (also water related, hmmm) is actually the daughter of Amy Pond?

I don't know.  Seems plausible though, doesn't it?  There is clearly something hugely (no pun intended this time) important about the baby in Amy's belly.

I think that the reason she felt she had to tell the Doctor about being pregnant is because the Silence in the bathroom told her to.  "You must tell the Doctor what he needs to know and what he must not know."  Obviously what he must not know is about his impending death, and apparently what he needs to know is about her pregnancy.  Since the Silence is somehow controlling Amy, making her tell him, that could explain the urgency with which she tells him at such an inopportune time.

Speaking of, what were your thoughts on the Silence?

An enemy that you forget as soon as you stop looking at them are pretty intriguing.

At least they suit up.  They are classy if deadly, scary aliens.

Last season, we were warned that "The Silence Would Fall."

We still aren't exactly aware of what that might mean, but its possible that silence already has fallen, but since you are only aware of the aliens while you see them, most of the time we forget completely that these aliens are everywhere.

Much like the tunnels behind the warehouse our fearsome fivesome (with the outstanding addition of Mark Sheppard, who played Badger on Firefly, Romo Lampkin on BSG, and has also been in The X-Files, Star Trek: Voyager, Dollhouse, Chuck, and Supernatural, in other words, pretty much every awesome sci-fi thing ever) arrive at towards the end of the episode.

Which, of course, brings us to the interesting discover that Rory and River make down there.

Look familiar?

It appears to be the same TARDIS room featured in last season's episode The Lodger.

Where the Doctor got a roommate.

This is what I'm really loving about Moffat's tenure on the show so far.  Everything matters.  The title of the very first River Song episode seems to play into what's happening now, almost three years later.  What seemed to be an episode outside of the greater arc last year apparently has everything to do with the arc this year.  Every little thing matters.



With that in mind, I figure that at the end of each of these first thought posts I'll suggest an episode (or three) that is worth a closer rewatch based on what we just saw.

Clearly, for this episode, that is The Lodger, but the first two River Song episodes, Silence of the Library and Forest of the Dead, might be worth a gander as well.  You can't really go wrong with those outstanding episodes anyway.

Until Next Time, the series is off to quite a breathtaking start, and I can't believe it will be a week  before we find out what happens next.  Remember, Look Behind You!