The Wedding of River Song (TV story)

The Wedding of River Song (TV story)

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The Wedding of River Song
Doctor:	[[doctor::Eleventh Doctor]]
Companion(s):	Amy Pond (guest) Rory Williams (guest) River Song (guest)
Main enemy:	The Silence Madame Kovarian
Main setting:	Lake Silencio, Utah, April 22, 2011 London, 5:02pm, April 22 2011 Cairo, 5:02pm, April 22 2011 Nursing Home, c.2050s Callisto B Vegas 12, 52nd century Seventh Transept, 52nd century Leadworth, 2011
Key crew
Writer:	Steven Moffat
Director:	Jeremy Webb
Producer:	Marcus Wilson
Release details
Story number:	223
Release number:	Series 6
Premiere broadcast:	1st October 2011
Format:	1 x 45 minute episode
Confidential:	[[confidential::When Time Froze|When Time Froze]]

The Wedding of River Song was the thirteenth and final episode of the sixth series of Doctor Who.

Synopsis

As the Doctor makes his final journey to the shores of Lake Silencio in Utah, he knows only one thing can keep the universe safe – his own death. But has he reckoned without the love of a good woman?

Plot

As the War of the Roses enters its second year even as London picnickers are warned not to feed the pterodactyls and Charles Dickens is interviewed about his new Christmas special, Holy Roman Emperor Winston Churchill returns to Buckingham from a conference in Gaul with Cleopatra to wonder why it is always 5:02 PM on 22 April 2011. His Silurian physician tells him it is always that time, but Churchill has his doubts and summons his soothsayer from the dungeon of London Tower. It is the Doctor, who tells him that it is because of a woman.

The Doctor wants to know why he must die. Taking the information on the Silence from a dying Dalek, he tracks down Father Gideon Vandaleur, actually the Transelecta, who points him in the right direction; their agent, Gantok, whom almost electrocutes in a game of live chess. To avoid death, Gantok takes him to the head of Dorium Maldovar in the Seventh Transept.

Dorium explains that if the Doctor lives long enough, on the fields of Trenzalore, at the fall of the Eleventh, when no creature can speak falsely or fail to answer, a question that must never be asked will be answered, the first question, hidden in plain sight. He asks the Doctor if he wants to know the question and he nervously agrees.

Taking Dorium's head with him, the Doctor determines to continue his farewell tour. However, Brigadier Letheridge Stuart is dead and the Doctor decides that his time has come. He gives the invitations to the Teselecta to deliver and goes to Lake Silencio with Amy Pond, Rory Williams and River Song, where they drink a bottle of wine that Napolon threw at him. An impossible astronaut rises from the lake and the Doctor goes to meet it. It is River Song, trapped in the suit by Madame Kovarian and the Silents. She has no control over the suit and is about to kill her love willy-nilly. He forgives her unconditionally as her arms rise to deliver the three killing blows.

There are five bursts and the Doctor opens his eyes to demand what she has done. She has discharged her weapons systems and the world fragments about them.

The Doctor and Churchill are discussing these events. Hash marks appear on the Doctor's arms. As the Silents on the ceiling prepare to attack the Doctor and Curchill, a grenade rolls into the hall and they are rescued by a company of soldiers under an eyepatch-wearing Amy Pond, who shoots the Doctor.

The Doctor wakes in Amy's office on a train bound for Area 52 in the Great Pyramid in Giza. She grew up with a Crack in her wall, and remembers both timelines. She draws pictures of the other timeline, but cannot remember that her husbamd is Captain Williams in her force. They have captured more than a hundred Silents and walk past their prisoners to the King's Chamber, where River Song is trying to keep the Doctor alive. Madame Kovarian is their prisoner, too and they have used her eyepatch to create eye drives that let them remember the Silents even when not looking at them.

The Doctor goes to take River Song's ahnd, but she know that they are the tmerinals of an explosion waiting to destroy this timeline. She has him handcuffed and tries to convince him to live. Even as she does so, the Silents begin to escape. It is their trap the Doctors' friends have fallen into and as the forces beat a retreat into the King's Chamber, their eye drives electrify and begin to kill them.

--to be continued --

Cast

• The Doctor – Matt Smith
• Amy Pond – Karen Gillan
• Rory Williams – Arthur Darvill
• River Song/Melody Pond – Alex Kingston
• Madame Kovarian – Frances Barber
• Winston Churchill - Ian McNeice
• Malokeh- Richard Hope
• Charles Dickens - Simon Callow
• Dr Kent - Emma Campbell-Jones
• Gantok - Mark Gatiss (Credited as 'Rondo Haxton')
• News anchor - Meredith Vieira
• Dorium Maldovar -Simon Fisher Becker
• Supreme Dalek voice - Nicholas Briggs
• The Silence - Marnix Van Den Broeke
• Carter - Richard Dillane

Crew

to be added

References

Individuals

• Rose Tyler and Jack Harkness are mentioned.
• Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart is said to have passed away.

Technology

• A Timey-wimey distress beacon is built.

Story notes

• A prequel for this episode was released online.
• This is the first time an episode of Doctor Who has aired on the same night as an episode of fellow BBC Saturday night drama, Merlin. The first episode of Merlin Series 4, The Darkest Hour, was broadcast right after The Wedding of River Song.

Ratings

UK Overnight: 6.1 Million

Myths

• The Doctor will get married. This was proven true.
• Part of this episode will be set in Egypt. This was proven true.

Filming locations

to be added

Production errors

If you'd like to talk about narrative problems with this story — like plot holes and things that seem to contradict other stories — please go to this episode's discontinuity discussion.

• Mistaken for an Error: When Dorium's head is upside down, the brass plate his head is mounted on is visable below his chin, and can be mistaken for the actor's true skin.
• The Doctor's reflection in River's helmet shield is not reversed, as it should be.
• The Doctor marks his arm multiple times in the Buckingham Senate while seeing the Silence, yet there is no marker visible.
• When The Doctor and River kiss, a clock is shown on screen, with time resuming from 05:02:00, but earlier in the episode, it was shown that time was frozen at 05:02:57.

Continuity

• Following his death in February, this episode pays tribute to Nicholas Courtney, with the Doctor discovering that his character, Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart, died peacefully in his sleep. This is consistent with the Seventh Doctor's assertion in DW: Battlefield that the Brigadier would die in bed. And as presented in this episode it does not contradict the post-2010 continuity established for the character in the Virgin New Adventures novels as no indication is given as to when the Brigadier died.
• Charles Dickens appears. (DW: The Unquiet Dead)
• Winston Churchill returns as the Holy Roman Emperor. (DW: Victory of the Daleks, The Pandorica Opens)
• The Silurian scientist Malokeh returns. (DW: The Hungry Earth / Cold Blood)
• Dorium Maldovar returns as a head. He was beheaded by the Headless Monks. (DW: A Good Man Goes to War)
• The Doctor mentions his former companions Rose Tyler and Jack Harkness.
• Amy's drawings include the Krafayis, the Saturnyns, the Silurians, the Daleks, the Minotaur, the Cybermen and the Smilers, as well as a self-portraits of herself from DW: The Curse of the Black Spot and one from her emerging from the Pandorica.
• The Teselecta returns, as does its captain. (DW: Let's Kill Hitler)
• The Doctor again sports a beard. (DW: Day of the Moon)
• When talking to Amy after the timeline has been restored, River mentions climbing out of the Byzantium and still wears her combat clothes, as well as mentioning that she had just met her when Amy had no idea who she was. (DW: The Time of Angels / Flesh and Stone)
• Amy is partially protected from some kinds of temporal changes due to her long term exposure to The Cracks. (DW: The Eleventh Hour, The Big Bang)
• Amy is disturbed when she realizes that she is her best friend's mother in-law.
• When River says to the Doctor that time can be rewritten, he responds with "Don't you dare." This echos what River says to the Doctor in a similar situation. (DW: Forest of the Dead)
• River mentions "Rule #1, the Doctor lies." (DW: The Big Bang, Let's Kill Hitler)
• A Silent calls Rory "the man who dies and dies again", referring to his deaths in Amy's Choice, Cold Blood, The Curse of the Black Spot, and The Doctor's Wife; Rory also remarked "We're (as in he and Amy) dead, again," in Night Terrors.
• When the Doctor meets River in Area 52, he greets her by saying "Honey, I'm home." River replies, "And what sort of time do you call this?" The two shared the same exchange in The Big Bang.

Timeline

For the Doctor

• This story occurs after DW: Closing Time
• This story takes place during DW: The Impossible Astronaut
• This story occurs before: to be announced

For River

• This story occurs after DW: Closing Time
• This story takes place during DW: The Impossible Astronaut
• This story occurs before DW: A Good Man Goes to War

For River in the final scene

• This story occurs after DW: Flesh and Stone
• This story occurs before DW: Silence in the Library

For Amy and Rory

• This story takes place during DW: The Impossible Astronaut
• This story takes place after DW: The God Complex

Home video releases

This episode will be released on DVD shortly after the airing of the episode.