River Song
Melody "Mels" Pond, later River Song, was a human being with Time Lord DNA, due to being conceived onboard The Doctor's TARDIS in the Time Vortex. She was also a doctor and professor of archaeology and a convicted murderer.
The daughter of Amy Pond and Rory Williams, River had a mad, passionate marriage with the Eleventh Doctor. She was one of a few to know his true name. She was also one of the few companions whose timeline was not synchronous with the Doctor's.
Biography
Birth
Melody Pond was born on the asteroid of Demon's Run in the 52nd century to Amy Pond and Rory Williams, after her mother had been abducted. When a month old, she was replaced with a Ganger, and taken by Madame Kovarian to be raised as a weapon against the Doctor. She was chosen for this task because she had traces of Time Lord DNA as a result of her conception onboard the TARDIS inside the Time Vortex. The extent of her Time Lord-like abilities included immense strength (DW: Day of the Moon) and the abilities to understand complex principles of time and space, (DW: The Wedding of River Song) regenerate and pilot the TARDIS. (DW: The Time of Angels, Day of the Moon, A Good Man Goes to War, Let's Kill Hitler)
Early life
As a child, Melody was brainwashed by the Silence to kill the Doctor. (DW: Let's Kill Hitler)
While a little girl, Melody ended up in an orphanage in America in 1969 and later at a warehouse in Florida. She was put into an Apollo astronaut suit upgraded with alien technology. She used it to telephone President Richard Nixon directly, begging for help. This led to her first physical meeting with the Doctor; as a baby she had been a Ganger. Her mother shot at her. She returned to the orphanage, and tried to ask Amy for help, but Silents arrived. She forced her way out of the spacesuit and fled. Six months later, in New York City, dying, Melody regenerated.
(DW: The Impossible Astronaut / Day of the Moon)
Mels
By the late 1990s she was an adolescent in Leadworth under unknown circumstances. She became her parents' close friend and helped them realise their love for each other. (DW: Let's Kill Hitler) Mels was often in trouble, with outbursts of reckless criminal behaviour. She was obsessed with Amelia's "Raggedy Doctor", dreamt of marrying him and claimed in school that historical disasters were his fault because he did not intervene. Through all of this, she knew Amy and Rory were her parents and that she intended to kill the Doctor. (DW: Let's Kill Hitler)
Adventures with the Doctor
Regeneration into River
When the TARDIS landed in a Leadworth cornfield in 2011, Mels forced her way onboard at gunpoint to escape arrest. She shot up the console, exposed the temporal grace feature as a "clever lie" and forced a landing in Adolf Hitler's office in 1938, inadvertently saving Hitler from the Teselecta; he shot her. Shocking the Doctor and her parents, she regenerated into River Song. Acting on her conditioning, she almost immediately tried to kill the Doctor — first with guns, then with poisoned lipstick. She cheerily called herself a psychopath, and ran amok in Berlin, yet showed empathy for the Doctor's devotion to her parents, jealousy for the "River Song" he kept mentioning and compassion for his struggle to save her from the Teselecta. She demanded to know who River was. Amy ordered the Teselecta to show her. It morphed into the form of her new incarnation. She asked her parents if the Doctor was "worth it". When they said yes, she sacrificed her remaining regenerations to revive him.
A New purpose
The Doctor took River to the "best hospital in the universe" to recover. Knowing of her future as his on-and-off companion, he left a "thank you" gift at her bedside - a TARDIS-shaped diary. After recuperating, River entered the Luna University shortly before her birth. When asked why she wished to study archaeology, she said she was "looking for a good man". (DW: Let's Kill Hitler)
The day River received her doctorate, Madame Kovarian, agents of the Church and Silents seized her, forced her into a modified astronaut suit, took her to Utah on 22 April 2011 and submerged her in Lake Silencio to await the Doctor. (DW: Closing Time) When the time came to kill him, River drained her weapon pack to defy a fixed point in time. Time shredded into a reality where every moment happened at once. She refused to rectify her error, but after wedding the Doctor, she went through with his apparent murder to restore the timeline, knowing he was really the Teselecta. (DW: The Wedding of River Song)
Imprisonment
River was imprisoned in the Stormcage Containment Facility for the Doctor's murder. When he asked her about this earlier in his timestream, she said he was "A very good man. Best man I've ever known". (DW: The Time of Angels / Flesh and Stone). Though River knew the truth, she served the sentence to make the Silence believe the Doctor was dead. She escaped frequently to spend time with her husband, then returned to her cell, beginning with her first night. (DW: The Wedding of River Song, DW: A Good Man Goes to War, DW: First Night')
The Battle of Demon's Run
On one of her birthdays, the Doctor took River to the last Winter Frost Fair on the River Thames in 1814. Stevie Wonder unwittingly performed there before being returned to his proper time. Returning to Stormcage from this escapade, River met Rory in his Roman uniform. She refused his request to come aid them at Demon's Run, saying she couldn't be there "until the very end". River had already met the Doctor, Amy and Rory at the end of the battle of Demon's Run in the 52nd century. She had revealed her identity, first to the Doctor and then to her parents. (DW: A Good Man Goes to War, CON: When Time Froze)
Silence in America
On receiving an invitation from the Doctor, River escaped from Stormcage to meet Amy, Rory and him in Utah in the United States of America in 2011. The Doctor took them on a picnic where he was shot. They burned his body, then went to a cafe to find a version of the Eleventh Doctor two hundred years younger than the one who had died. (DW: The Impossible Astronaut) Although she concealed it, River knew full well the assassin was an earlier version of herself and the dead Doctor was in fact the Teselecta. (DW: The Wedding of River Song) River helped the Doctor defeat the Silence by using their brainwashing of humanity against them. At her request, the Doctor returned her to Stormcage, where she kissed him. He was shocked and she realised that from his perspective, it was their first kiss, and from hers, probably their last. (DW: Day of the Moon)
The opening of the Pandorica
The TARDIS rerouted a phone call for the Doctor from Winston Churchill to River. She escaped from Stormcage to warn the Doctor of a prophecy of the TARDIS exploding. After blackmailing a Time Agent's vortex manipulator off Dorium Maldovar and stealing a painting from Liz Ten, she travelled to the Roman era of Earth to meet the Eleventh Doctor and Amy. The Pandorica lay under Stonehenge, transmitting a signal to summon an alliance of the Doctor's foes. The Doctor got them to back off and sent River to fetch the TARDIS. Instead, it took her to Amy's house on 26 June 2010. When River told him the date, the Doctor realised the TARDIS was about to explode and told her to escape. Instead, she was trapped in a time loop of the first moments of the explosion. (DW: The Pandorica Opens) The Doctor used her vortex manipulator to rescue her and bring her to 1996, where she learned of his plan to use the Pandorica's restoration field to reverse the erasure of the universe. The Doctor was badly wounded by the Stone Dalek hunting them. Angered at the apparent loss of the man she loved, River told the Dalek to look in its data banks for her, taunted it into begging for mercy, then killed it. After the Doctor had restored the universe by erasing himself, River left her now blank, TARDIS-shaped diary with Amy on her wedding day in 2010 so she could remember the Doctor back into existence from the Void. After a brief conversation with him about her marital status and identity, she said he was "going to find out very soon now and I'm sorry, because that's when everything changes" and left him wondering. (DW: The Big Bang)
The Crash of the Byzantium
Some time after River had returned from 2010 to prison, she was put in Father Octavian's custody in the 51st century. If she carried out her mission, she might earn her pardon.
Sent as a guest on the ship Byzantium, she infiltrated its lower levels to find its Home Box, into which she carved "Hello Sweetie" in Old High Gallifreyan and her temporal coordinates to attract the Doctor's attention twelve thousand years later. Leading the Doctor to Alfava Metraxis, she helped him defeat an army of Weeping Angels which had been awakened in the planet's Maze of the Dead. (DW: The Time of Angels, Flesh and Stone)
After this adventure, she visited Amy and Rory after the Doctor had "died" and exposed the truth behind that and other lies to her parents. (DW: The Wedding of River Song)
Darillium
Some time after, River received a surprise visit by the Doctor, who had a new haircut. He took her to Darillium to see the Singing Towers. According to River, the Doctor wept as he said goodbye to her. The Doctor knew, although River did not, that her death was imminent. He gave her an upgraded version of his sonic screwdriver as a present. (DW: Forest of the Dead, Last Night)
The Library
In the 51st century, River, now a professor, was hired by Strackman Lux for an expedition to the Library to learn what had happened there a hundred years earlier, when a cryptic final message had been sent: "4022 saved. No survivors." Expecting trouble, she sent the Doctor a message by psychic paper. The version of the Doctor who turned up had not yet met her. Though bewildered, he agreed to help River and her team.
River still had her battered diary of her times with the Doctor. She tried to use it to find where the Doctor was in his timeline, but realised he was a far younger version, who neither knew nor trusted her.
As the situation with the Vashta Nerada worsened, River knew she must prove to him she was someone he would come to trust completely. With profuse apologies, she whispered his true name into his ear. The Doctor was stunned, and River had won his trust. River died physically when she sacrificed herself in the Doctor's place to save Donna and the other four thousand twenty-two people trapped in the Library's computer. She pleaded with him to not change their history, not one moment of what had/would come for them. (DW: Forest of the Dead) After saving the trapped people, the Doctor reasoned his future self would give her his sonic screwdriver for a purpose. Inside it he found a data chip, a "Neural Relay", which held River's Data Ghost. The Doctor saved River by uploading her into the virtual world in The Library's data core, CAL. CAL had also saved the data ghosts of River's dead archaeological team, giving her company in the virtual world. River would take care of her two virtual children and Charlotte (the girl wired into the mainframe) in the virtual world, reading out her diary of her many adventures with the Doctor, and how sometimes "everybody lives" when the Doctor comes to call. Her story ended with her wishing her audience sweet dreams. (DW: Silence in the Library / Forest of the Dead) The Tenth Doctor would remember her death when Davros reminded him of the people who had died in his name. (DW: Journey's End)
Alternate timeline
In an alternate timeline, River regained control of herself, drained the suit's weapon system and did not kill the Eleventh Doctor. A fixed point in time - the Doctor's death - was ripped open; all time collapsed into a single moment, 22 April 2011 at 5:02:57pm. In this new, crumbling timeline, River belonged to a group seeking to fix time and yet not end the Doctor's life. They were led by Amy Pond, who also remembered the original events from her childhood exposure to the Cracks in Time. River built a distress beacon to beg the universe's help for the Doctor, to which much of the universe responded with resounding agreement. She was wed to the Doctor and he revealed he was really the Teselecta. River and the Teselecta kissed, and River killed "the Doctor" to restore the timeline. (DW: The Wedding of River Song)
Undated/Unchronicled events
- The Doctor and River had a picnic at Asgard. (DW: Silence in the Library)
- The Doctor and River shared an adventure in "the Bone Meadows". (DW: The Time of Angels)
- The Doctor and River visited Easter Island together. (DW: The Impossible Astronaut)
- The Doctor and River met a being named "Jim the Fish"; this meeting proved to be important in determining that the Doctor who had arrived at a Utah diner after his "death" was an earlier version (since this Doctor had never heard of Jim the Fish). (DW: The Impossible Astronaut)
- The Doctor tells River his name (DW: Silence in the Library). It seems like he tells her his name but he actually tells her "look into my eyes" (DW: The Wedding of River Song)
Personality
In her first incarnation, as the 'little girl', Melody Pond was shy, innocent and terrified of the "monsters" that had trapped her in the spacesuit. (DW: The Impossible Astronaut) Her second incarnation as 'Mels' was independent, feisty, often in trouble, and chased by the police shortly before her regeneration. She resented the Doctor and blamed him for many historical disasters, but wanted to marry him nonetheless. (DW: Let's Kill Hitler) In her final incarnation, River was very strong-willed; though brainwashed in her childhood and raised to kill him, she decided the Doctor was "worth it" and saved his life, sacrificing all her regenerations in doing so. (DW: Let's Kill Hitler) She had the will to resist her brainwashing and drain the upgraded astronaut suit's weapons, preventing herself from killing him regardless of the results. (DW: The Wedding of River Song) In her final and best known incarnation, River was feisty and cheeky like her mother, Amy. From her father, Rory, she got a sense of responsibility, stubbornness and fierce compassion for loved ones. She enjoyed showing off, especially for the Doctor. She was very secrective and enjoyed teasing the Doctor. She would say "Spoilers!" to refer to her knowledge of his future, or his knowledge of hers. She was good at keeping secrets, especially anything which could change the future. This included keeping her personal diary from the Doctor (DW: Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead), and hiding the fact that the Doctor's death at Lake Silencio was an elaborate hoax. (DW: The Wedding of River Song) River loved the Doctor wildly and cared very much for her family. She did not seem to resent being imprisoned for much of her life for a crime she did not commit, probably because she could escape easily by herself or with the Doctor's help. Once she joked that she was breaking into prison instead of out, implying she was perfectly at home in that environment. (DW: A Good Man Goes to War) However, although she was very caring to her loved ones, she could be joyously bloodthirsty - for example killing the Stone Dalek after it had shot the Doctor, even though it pleaded for mercy when it realised who she was, or shooting dozens of Silents to cover the escape of the Doctor and her parents (DW: Day of the Moon). She was very confident in her abilities, intelligence and sexuality. She was often flirtatious and bawdy, but was serious when the situation called for it. (DW: The Big Bang) River was ready to die for the Doctor the instant she decided he deserved to live. She freely gave up her remaining regenerations to save him after poisoning him herself. (DW: Let's Kill Hitler) She took the Doctor's place when he tried to release the people saved in the computer that controlled the Library. To stop his killing himself, River knocked him out and handcuffed him before hooking herself up to the computer. Just before she died she comforted the Doctor, saying although it was her last meeting with him, it was his first with her and he would see her again. (DW: Forest of the Dead) She also offered herself to close the Time Field on the Byzantium to stop the Doctor from doing it, until he told her it wouldn't be enough. (DW: Flesh and Stone)
Known family
- The Doctor - husband
- Jenny - step-daughter
- Susan Campbell - step-granddaughter
- Rory Williams – father
- Amy Pond – mother
- Augustus Pond – maternal grandfather
- Tabetha Pond – maternal grandmother
- Sharon – maternal great-aunt
Other information
- River's "present day" spanned the 52nd and 51st centuries - in that order. She entered Luna University in 5123 and was in Stormcage by 5145. One of her last Stormcage appearances was in the 51st century, which was also when she died. How the outside world saw this, and just when she was released from Stormcage, is unknown.
- River Song seemed to take shorter trips with the Doctor, living a "normal" life between trips, rather than taking one extended trip with the Doctor and never seeing him after parting ways, as usually happened with his travelling companion.
- River Song was a skilled TARDIS pilot, with techniques very different from the Doctor's. She claimed she "learned from the best", and joked the Doctor wasn't available that day. (DW: The Time of Angels) She had learnt from the TARDIS itself, which recognised her as its "child" because she had been conceived in the ship. (DW: Let's Kill Hitler)
- River knew about Time Lord anatomy. She knew that destruction of both of the Doctor's hearts would make regeneration impossible. (DW: Forest of the Dead). She also understood that if the Doctor died before his regeneration cycle was complete, he was dead for good. (DW: The Impossible Astronaut)
- River Song could write Old High Gallifreyan. (DW: The Time of Angels)
- River had pictures of all the Doctor's incarnations (DW: The Time of Angels), though she did not know their order.
- River told Rory she and the Doctor were meeting in reverse order; every time she met him, he knew her less. She feared the day when she met a Doctor who did not know her. (DW: The Impossible Astronaut)
- Both the name "Melody" and "River Song" are ontological paradoxes. Amy named her daughter after her friend, who unbeknownst to Amy was her daughter Melody. Melody later began using the name "River Song" after learning about her own future as River Song. (DW: Let's Kill Hitler)
Behind the scenes
- All of River Song's full-episode appearances have taken place in stories written by Steven Moffat. Her only other appearances were in a flashback in DW: Journey's End (her death) and at the end of DW: Closing Time (which acted as a cliffhanger to her appearance in DW: The Wedding of River Song).
- In an interview for a short video about the Eleventh Doctor's companions, Alex Kingston stated that River Song has encountered many incarnations of the Doctor and that the Doctor "sends her into his past, where he knows he needs her expertise". Arthur Darvill stated that Kingston had been told more than anyone else about who River really is.
- Humourously, the conversation at the end of The Doctor's Wife implies that River was conceived on a bunk bed. When asked about this, both Steven Moffat and Neil Gaiman independently and simultaneously acknowledged this, joking about the possibility of the ladder. They later agreed they had accidentally canonised this by agreeing on it.
- To date, River has been played by six different actors, the most to portray a single companion on-screen.
- River Song is the second Time Lord to change skin colour via regeneration on-screen, after K'anpo Rimpoche, whose second actor, Kevin Lindsay, was made up to look Asian. The actresses who played her in her Melody Pond and River Song incarnations were white, while both of Mels' actresses were black. Earlier in SJA: Death of the Doctor, the Eleventh Doctor noted that his racial characteristics were not limited to white; he "can be anything." Rassilon has been portrayed by white actors Richard Mathews, and Timothy Dalton on-screen while black actor Don Warrington was Rassilon's voice actor and cover-art model in Big Finish Doctor Who audio stories. A black Time Lord was also seen in DW: The Sound of Drums.
- In Let's Kill Hitler, River says that she will gradually bring down the age of her body a little "just to freak people out", referring to the fact that a younger Alex Kingston will play later versions of River.
References
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