Howling:River's Timeline in Light of TATM

The Howling → River's Timeline in Light of TATM

There be spoilers about un-released stories here.
Run back to the forums if you're scared.

It was pointed out on another board that The Angels Take Manhattan doesn't appear to properly follow the sequence of River moving backwards relative to the Doctor's timeline, as she has been pardoned and is Professor Song. I don't have the expertise to speak to this myself (at least, not without a bit more research), but I'd love to hear what others think. AthertonX ☎ 21:43, September 30, 2012 (UTC)

I'd have to agree, Ath. Her first post-Library adventure was the Byzantium, and this is definitely set after that in her timeline, after her pardon and professorship. So, in theory, she is at the point in her timeline where the Doctor's memories of her should be regressing. Yet, this is the first time we see them together as a married couple, and they end by setting out together for some unspecified period of time. Very possibly they've had off-camera adventures together before this, when he knew less and she knew more, and I'd be willing to be that some of her undated appearances (end of Demons Run) probably are from later in her timeline... Still, at the Byzantium, their married life seemed to be in the past, and their first/last kiss was while she was still in jail, so what's up with having their first on-camera married journeys being 'after' her last kiss? Tough holiday. Wibbly-Wobbly ☎ 22:39, September 30, 2012 (UTC)

The statement of River's timeline moving backwards relative to the Doctor's timeline is totally wrong. If it was true, there would be no need for the little tardis blue book the River has to keep track of their adventures. The fact is River and the Doctor's timelines cross randomly without any specific order. To be more specific, the last time River meets the doctor is the first time he meets her (Silence in the Library), however the first time she meets him is not the last time he meets her (Let's kill Hitler). Also, in last season's finale, when River visits Amy after she supposedly killed the doctor, she states that she just met them on the Byzantium. Therefore, there is no specific chronological order for their meetings, hence the need for the blue book to keep track of what adventures each of them has experienced.--62.84.91.6^{talk to me} 22:43, September 30, 2012 (UTC)

I also agree. It's been a perennial topic on past threads. The back-to-front timelines interpretation is completely incompatible with the diary-sync interpretation. I've always seen the 'back-to-front' timelines issue as more of a general trend in their meetings that River has noticed, which leads to her fear about the Doctor forgetting her. But the end of Day of the Moon seemed to establish a literal reverse order, because River 'knew' that his first kiss would have to be her last. The problem now is that she was in jail then, and is out now (therefore forward on her timeline from the 'last' kiss) yet they are both in the TARDIS, married, and setting out to travel together. We're no longer just quibbling about interpretations, this seems to violate established events in her life. Their life together seems to be just beginning at a point in her timeline after it was supposed to have tragically ended. Anyway, I am happier with us in the diary-sync version, so it's more an observation than a complaint. Wibbly-Wobbly ☎ 23:33, September 30, 2012 (UTC)

River was convinced the first kiss in the Doctor's timeline was the last in hers but it's entirely possible she got a pleasant surprise & found out she'd been wrong about that. As has repeatedly been said by those paying attention (& by Moffat), the "going in opposite directions" thing is at most a general trend. It may not even be that. If you list the numbers 1 to 10,000 in genuinely random order, you're very likely to have parts of the list looking as if they follow a pattern. The "going in opposite directions" thing could be the same. We look for patterns & see them even when they're not really there. (I'm usually 89 but I'm 2, just now.) --2.96.17.102^{talk to me} 23:49, September 30, 2012 (UTC)

Much of her previously-established timeline never happened now. Up until this episode it was clear that she spent years, probably centuries in Stormgate Prison. She was sentenced for what, 12,000 consecutive lifetimes? And since around 200 years passed for the Doctor between The Time of Angels and The Wedding of River Song, one might assume that 200 years passed for River, too (but in a different order). But now the Doctor has erased his name from all of history; the authorities at Stormcage quickly discovered that the man she was convicted of killing could not be proven to have ever existed, and she was pardoned "long ago." As a result, all those years spent in prison in order to convince the Doctor's enemies that he was really dead didn't happen. What's more, there would be no point in her serving time to make the Doctor's death look good now that no one knows who the Doctor was; if she wasn't pardoned, she just would have escaped and never come back. In the old timeline, River is out on parole in The Time of Angels. In the new timeline, she was never paroled because she was pardoned instead. While their 'last kiss' might have happened in prison in the old timeline, in the new timeline River and the Doctor won't kiss for the last time until long after she was released. So my point is, you can't accurately try to fit River's adventures up to this point up with what she says in The Angels Take Manhattan, because they take place in different histories. -- Rowan Earthwood ☎ 15:37, October 1, 2012 (UTC)

Or the records didn't show that the Doctor never existed until sometime after The Time of Angels for River, they pardoned her after that, and she was just wrong about it being their last kiss.Icecreamdif ☎ 15:44, October 1, 2012 (UTC)

River thought it was their last kiss in her timeline because it was their first in the Doctor's timeline. She was assuming that the "meeting in reverse order" thing actually works. We already know it doesn't really work, so there's a fair chance River got a pleasant surprise when she found out she was wrong. --89.240.242.255^{talk to me} 16:37, October 1, 2012 (UTC)

I'd like to note that it's never been said that the Doctor himself is removing signs of his existence. Him telling River "You said I got too big." doesn't really imply that he did it. Also, the Doctor DOES still exist, so the timeline hasn't technically been altered, only the databases containing information about him have. Even in Dinosaurs on a Spaceship, the Doctor didn't seem already convinced that Solomon wouldn't find information about him, he was just pleased to find out that Solomon didn't. If it were the Doctor himself deleting the information, you would think he would start with the Daleks, instead of Oswin doing it for him. He was surprised when that happened as well, and again similarly pleased about this fact. He may have no idea who or what is causing it, but he seems to be enjoying it too much to really care to find out. (That, or he does know the cause, but also knows that whatever/whoever is doing it seems to not be meaning any harm to the Doctor. Though even that is starting to slowly look wrong, since I have a feeling this is going to end up being a massively bad thing for him.) Not to mention UNIT clearly still knows about him, so he still exists to people outside of the TARDIS crew. There just happens to be a very select few of those people. Saghan ☎ 17:39, October 1, 2012 (UTC)

Saghan, "it's never been said that the Doctor himself is removing signs of his existence": Good point. You've got me wondering if the removal of information about the Doctor is part of the Series 7 story arc. The series is said (by Moffat, who can't always be believed) to be "less arc-heavy" than Series 6 & the vanishing information would fit with that, being rather less obtrusive than apparent murders & memory-editing aliens. It also featured notably in the opening episode, intimately associated with a character played by Jenna-Louise Coleman, who's billed to play the new companion. There's also been talk of stuff happening out of chronological sequence but no very obvious evidence of it -- unless it's the information loss. Perhaps, in that reference by River to the reason she was let out of clink, we're seeing the effect of something that we'll not see being done until later in the series. (Like the Doctor wearing a jacket when telling Amy to "remember" in Flesh and Stone being a result of events we didn't see until the Series 5 finalé.) --89.240.242.255^{talk to me} 19:09, October 1, 2012 (UTC)

I agree about it being a story arc. In fact, since the very moment Solomon scanned him in DoaS, I've assumed it was the story arc. Even if all the other references and connections between the episodes thus far turn out to be unrelated to the current story arc, this one most certainly will be. I already was assuming that this wasn't the work of the Doctor, and was a bit worried when the conversation started about it between River and him, but was glad to see he never actually admits to it. (Though even if he hadn't denied it, I would never put it past the Doctor to take credit for something he's suspected of doing, especially one that seems (rather big emphasis on "seems") beneficial to him.) I'm definitely interested to find out for certain who or what is erasing him, and the consequences of it. One thing to worry about is how many people tend to need the Doctor's help. How will they contact him or call for help if he doesn't exist in any database? Obviously there are other ways, (as both freak accidents and the TARDIS herself have led the Doctor to places that need his help) but it still limits anyone not already familiar with how to contact him from being able to. So, what if the time comes when he's drastically needed, and they call out for the Doctor or attempt to look him up, and they're smacked in the face with "Doctor who?" Or even worse, what if he tries to pull his most famous trick of threatening an enemy by reminding them who he is, only to once again be hit with "Doctor Who?" Imagine how differently so many moments would have occurred if the enemy he was facing didn't already know who he was, and/or had no way to find out. (The Pandorica, the Library ("look me up"), and countless other moments.) Worse still, the enemies that still know him now believe him to be dead. Even though that may give him an element of surprise, it also once again limits his ability to threaten an enemy, since they believe to know for a fact that he died, and that it was a fixed point. The Daleks are, admittedly, somewhat of a special case now because they only fall under the category of "enemies that do not fear the Doctor". Since Oswin essentially hacked their brains rather than just a database, they don't just think he's dead- they never knew about him in the first place. So even if they could have been convinced that he simply didn't die, it won't matter because he means absolutely nothing to them now. This is one hell of a double-edged sword. (I'd like to also note how interesting it would be if the Daleks trapped in the Time War ever manage to escape or be set free. Would their knowledge of the Doctor override the missing information? Or it could simply cause massive amounts of confusion between one set of Daleks going on and on about needing to exterminate their greatest enemy, the Doctor, while another group of them (once again) fires back with "Doctor who?" Though that could work out to be half of a good thing if the Time War Daleks destroyed the rest of the Daleks for "malfunctioning" or something.) I also wonder if Oswin herself is behind it, though I don't yet know enough about her to be able to imagine why she would do it, since the Dalek memory-wipe was just a quick fix to help him out.

I'm also a firm believer of the idea that he's travelling out of order- or more-so that the episodes aren't happening in order. We have been given visual evidence of this being confirmed for at least one instance. Rory's cellphone charger got left behind in Henry VIII's chambers during that episode, but it was talked about in A Town Called Mercy. That means that they didn't travel to Mercy until either after The Power of Three, or that it (like the visit to Henry VIII) happened during that episode when they were on the honeymoon trip. The importance of this is anyone's guess really, unless they explain it later. There may even be no reason behind it at all, but it most certainly happened. Saghan ☎ 20:11, October 1, 2012 (UTC)

Also, I got distracted earlier and forgot to mention something. I find it interesting that if River has only recently a professor (from our most recent point of view), then the Doctor being erased from the databases has always been coming. Otherwise she would not have been able to "officially" become a professor, being too busy stuck in prison. Yes, some prisons offer education, but "professor" tends to imply that she's done some sort of teaching in her own personal timeline, as well as there never being any evidence that Stormcage houses such programs. (Nor does it seem very likely to me that they would, honestly.) Even if they did, I can say with a high degree of certainty that they would not then let her teach. Saghan ☎ 20:24, October 1, 2012 (UTC)

River was a professor & was not a prisoner when we first saw her in Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead (in which she died). As far as I can remember -- & someone's sure to say if I'm wrong -- that story & The Angels in Manhattan are the only ones in which she's been Professor, not Dr, River Song. The oldest of the Rivers in Last Night presumably was a professor, as she & the Doctor were about to leave on their last tryst before she went to the Library, but her title wasn't mentioned.

As an aside, some US viewers may be missing the significance of the title because they don't know that, in British academia, "professor" is a high academic rank -- head of department or thereabouts -- not just "someone who teaches".

Being Professor River Song means she has a departmental chair (head of department) or a personal chair (same rank but without the burden of admin), which generally requires much more than "some sort of teaching". She must be well established in her field, with plenty of high-quality research to her credit. (I was 89 not long ago but I'm 78 now.) --78.146.184.166^{talk to me} 21:13, October 1, 2012 (UTC)