The Wedding of River Song (TV story)

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The Wedding of River Song was the thirteenth and final episode of the sixth series of Doctor Who. It showed how the Doctor survived his supposed death.

Synopsis

The Doctor makes his final journey to the shores of Lake Silencio in Utah, knowing only one thing can keep the universe safe: his death. But has he reckoned without the love of a good woman?[1]

Plot

The War of the Roses enters its second year as London picnickers are warned not to feed the pterodactyls and Charles Dickens is interviewed about his new Christmas ghost special. Holy Roman Emperor Winston Churchill returns to Buckingham Senate on his mammoth from a conference with Cleopatra in Gaul to wonder why it is always 5:02 PM on 22 April 2011. His Silurian physician, Malokeh, tells him it is always so but Churchill has his doubts. He orders his soothsayer dragged from the Tower of London. It is the Eleventh Doctor, who tells him why: "A woman."

In a flashback, the Doctor wants to know why he must die. Taking the data on the Silence from a dying Dalek, he finds Father Gideon Vandaleur, actually the Teselecta, who points him at Gantok, the Silence's agent. They play a game of live chess. To avoid checkmate or death, Gantok takes him to Dorium Maldovar's head in the Seventh Transept.

Dorium insists that if the Doctor lives, 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 answered will be asked: the first question, hidden in plain sight. He asks if his visitor wants to know the question. The Doctor agrees nervously.

Taking Dorium's head with him, the Doctor determines to continue his farewell tour. However, when he learns his old friend the Brigadier is dead, his bravado crumbles. His time has come. He gives the Teselecta invitations to deliver. He goes to Lake Silencio with Amy Pond, Rory Williams and River Song, where they drink a bottle of wine Napoleon threw at him. An impossible astronaut rises from the lake and he goes to meet it. It is River Song, trapped in the suit by Madame Kovarian and the Silence. She has no control over the suit as it prepares to kill the Doctor. He forgives her unconditionally, shutting his eyes as her arm rises to deliver the three deadly blows.

There are five bursts that make him flinch. The Doctor opens his eyes and demands to know what she has done. River smiles. She has discharged her weapons systems harmlessly and the world shatters.

The Doctor and Churchill discuss these events. They see they are holding weapons. Tally marks have appeared on the Doctor's arms. They look up. The ceiling is infested with dozens of Silents. Before they can attack, a grenade rolls into the hall and a troop of soldiers under an eyepatched Amy Pond invade. She shoots the Doctor.

The train arrives at "Area 52."

He wakes from the stungun in Amy's office on a train bound for Area 52 inside the Great Pyramid of Giza. Amy grew up with a crack in her wall. She can remember both timelines and has drawn pictures of the other timeline, but cannot recall Rory is Captain Williams, a soldier in her force.

In Area 52, the Doctor and Amy walk past more than a hundred captured Silents to the King's Chamber, where River Song awaits them. Madame Kovarian is a prisoner, tied to a chair. They have used her eyepatch to create eye drives to let them remember the Silents when not looking at them.

The Doctor goes to take River's hand, but she knows they are the poles of an explosion waiting to destroy this timeline. She has him handcuffed and tries to convince him to live. The Silents escape; it is their trap the Doctor's friends have fallen into. As the soldiers retreat to the King's Chamber, their eye drives electrify and kill them. Kovarian mocks them, until her eye drive sparks too. Rory stays to hold off the Silents, while River, Amy and the Doctor go to the apex of the pyramid to see what River has built. The door flies open; Rory falls to his knees as the Silents enter and begin to electrocute him, but Amy, at last remembering who he is, returns to kill them with a machine gun. She murders a terrified Kovarian.

Atop the Great Pyramid, River has built a beacon, calling the universe across all of time: The Doctor is dying. Please help. Every reply is, "Yes, of course". The Doctor, however, insists that no one can help him. He must die to prevent all of time disintegrating.

River despairs and swears to suffer more than any living thing in the universe for him. The Doctor tells Amy to uncuff him. He uses his bow tie to marry River in a handfasting. He whispers a secret into his bride's ear and tells her she must never tell anyone what he has just told her: his name. As she looks at him in wonder, the Doctor asks for her help.

The Doctor reveals his plan.

They kiss and time moves again. River shoots the Doctor thrice, preventing his regeneration. He dies. The distorted timeline vanishes.

Some time later, River, fresh from the crash of the Byzantium, arrives at her mother's home to split a bottle of wine. Amy wonders what the events in the aborted, frozen time line say about her, particularly her murder of Kovarian. She needs to talk with the Doctor, but he is dead. River disagrees. Amy notes that her daughter is still having adventures with him in the centuries before his death, but River tells her a secret which she probably shouldn't. As Rory joins his wife and daughter, they dance for joy until Amy realises to her horror she is the Doctor's mother-in-law.

A monk carries Dorium's head back to the Seventh Transept. Dorium recognises the Doctor and asks how he escaped. The Doctor explains that River actually shot the Teselecta, with him safe inside, waving happily at her. Now the entire universe believes him dead and it's time to step back into the shadows. He leaves.

Dorium calls after him the question the Doctor has been running from his entire life: "Doctor who?"

Cast

Crew

General production staff

Script department

Camera and lighting department

Art department

Costume department

Make-up and prosthetics

Movement

Casting

General post-production staff

Special and visual effects

Sound



Not every person who worked on this adventure was credited. The absence of a credit for a position doesn't necessarily mean the job wasn't required. The information above is based solely on observations of the actual end credits of the episodes as broadcast, and does not relay information from IMDB or other sources.


References

  • The Doctor reads Knitting for Girls.
  • Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart passed away before the Doctor phones the institution where he was staying; he talked about the Doctor all the time and insisted on having a spare glass ready in case he should show up.
  • Charles Dickens is interviewed on television in the alternative timeline.
  • Amy has an office on a train. The Doctor has never had an office and envies both the office and the train.
  • River builds a timey-wimey distress beacon.
  • The Doctor wears the Stetson given to him by Craig Owens up to and including the time he is hidden aboard the Tesselecta. The hat shot off his head by River in DW: The Impossible Astronaut was a copy made by the Tesselecta.

Story notes

  • This episode pays tribute to Nicholas Courtney, who died in February. The Doctor learns his character, Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart, died peacefully in his sleep, fulfilling the prophecy made by the Seventh Doctor in the 1989 episode Battlefield.
  • A prequel to this episode was released online.[2]
  • This is the first episode of Doctor Who to air 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.
  • Meredith Vieira, co-host of the American morning news/chat programme Today, filmed her cameo during a visit to the Upper Boat Studios as part of a profile of Doctor Who produced for Today. The profile aired on 9 May 2011, contained several minor spoilers for this episode. It had revealing the cameo appearance by Richard Hope as Malohkeh and the return of Ian McNeice as Winston Churchill. Appearances by several Cybermen served as a "false flag" spoiler suggesting they might also appear in the episode. They did not.
  • This is the first series finale of the revived series not to be a multi-part episode. In fact, it is the first series finale ever to only be one episode (with the iffy exception of DW: The Five Doctors).

Ratings

UK Overnight: 6.1 Million

Final: 7.67 million

Rumours

  • The Doctor will get married.[3] This was proven true.
  • Part of this episode will be set in Egypt.[4] This was proven true.

Filming locations

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.
  • The Doctor's reflection in River's helmet shield is not reversed, as it should be.
  • When Gantok falls into the pit of skulls his hat falls off, yet it's back on right before he's devoured completely.
  • When River is about to shoot the Doctor, she begins raising her hand. In the next wide shot, it is risen fully and ready to fire. However, in the next close-up, she is still raising her hand.
  • Time was frozen at 05:02:57, and progressed to around 05:03:06 the first time the Doctor and River touch, but when the Doctor and River kiss later, a clock is shown on screen, with time resuming from 05:02:00.
  • When Amy and her team arrive to save the Doctor in the senate hall, the Doctor throws Winston Churchill to the floor and takes a few steps forward. A second later he is shown on the floor right next to Winston.
  • When the Doctor flashes back to the picnic on the lakeside, he fills River's wine glass about a quarter full, but when they all say, "Salut", the camera changes angles and the glass looks full; when the camera returns to its starting position, it is back to a quarter.
  • When the Doctor is talking to Rory about Amy in front of one of the Silence tanks, the Doctor's reflection shows both of his eyes completely visible, even though he is wearing his eye-drive.
  • When the Doctor has Dorium's head in the box and it's upside down in the TARDIS, you can see a small patch of non-blue flesh if you look towards the top of the box/his neck.

Continuity

Timeline

For the Doctor:

For River:

For River in the final scene:

For Amy and Rory:

Home video releases

Series6.2DVD.jpg

This episode was released on DVD shortly after the airing of the episode.[5]

External links