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.

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?[1]

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 he almost electrocutes in a game of live chess. To avoid death, Gantok takes him to the head of Dorium Maldovar in the Seventh Transept. Gantok then tries to betray him, but triggers a trapdoor and is drowned in a sea of living skulls.

The severed but still-living head of 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, when he learns that his old friend Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart has died, 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 Napoleon 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 killing blows.

There are five bursts, but the Doctor is still alive. He opens his eyes and demands what she has done. River explains she has discharged her weapons system, depleting it. The Doctor berates her for changing a fixed point, when suddenly the world fragments about them.

The Doctor and Churchill are discussing these events. Tally marks appear on the Doctor's arms. As the Silents on the ceiling prepare to attack the Doctor and Churchill, 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 husband 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 hand, but she know that they are the terminals 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. Madame Kovarian mocks them, until her own eye drive begins to spark. As Rory prepares to hold off the Silents, River, the Doctor and Amy go up to the apex of the Pyramid to see what River has been doing. The door bursts open and Rory collapses to his knees as the Silents enter and begin to electrocute him, but Amy kills them all with a machine gun, then takes her revenge on a terrified Kovarian despite her pleas for mercy; River's psychopathic behavior did not arise solely from her rearing.

Cast

Crew

to be added

References

Individuals

Technology

Story notes

Ratings

UK Overnight: 6.1 Million

Myths

  • 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

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.
  • When on the news Charles Dickens talks of a Christmas special but this is not possinble as it is always the 22nd of April.And an other possible error is that they talked of last year but as the dates are the Same as the Doctors death it should be 2011 and stay that way.

Continuity

Timeline

For the Doctor

For River

For River in the final scene

For Amy and Rory

Home video releases

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

External links