Theory:Doctor Who television discontinuity and plot holes/The Husbands of River Song

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This page is for discussing the ways in which The Husbands of River Song doesn't fit well with other DWU narratives. You can also talk about the plot holes that render its own, internal narrative confusing.

Remember, this is a forum, so civil discussion is encouraged. However, please do not sign your posts. Also, keep all posts about the same continuity error under the same bullet point. You can add a new point by typing:

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• In the episode, the TARDIS fails to start as River and the Doctor try to escape with King Hydroflax's head, and the Doctor explains that the TARDIS has safeguards that prevent it leaving while someone is "both inside and outside the TARDIS". So when the King's body enters the TARDIS and the TARDIS is immediately able to leave, the inconsistency lies in the fact that Ramone's head is on King's body while his own is elsewhere. Furthermore, as the episode later reveals, Nardole's head is still inside the King's body, while his own is also elsewhere. It seems to be a case of convenient forgetfulness that when the King's body returns there are still 2 heads without a body in the TARDIS, and this should still prevent them from leaving.

True, very true. Another Moffat mistake.

This could be due to the fact that Hydroflax's Body was still 'alive' whereas Nardole and Ramone's bodies would have died upon being decapitated. Remember Hydroflax was a cyborg, Nardole and Ramone were Human.

Doesn't this contradict Handles?

No it does not, you can see that Handles' head is not 'new' and we can assume that the Maldovarium aquired the Cybermen head after a battle (in which his body would have died) ... Also you can see the marks of a fight on Handles' head.

It is mentioned that there is still a link between Hydroflax's head and body which would not be the situation with the other examples.

• In The Time of Angels, River claims that although she has pictures of all the Doctor's faces, she doesn't know their right order. Silence in the Library supports this claim, showing River asking to the Tenth Doctor about the Crash of the Byzantium. However, the pictures of the Doctor River gave to Ramone is in perfect order. Is it just a coincidence?

Production wise, the props manager didn't know of that line and placed them in the order they recognized. In-universe, this episodes takes place sometime after Angels, so River may have found the number of some of the Doctors and placed Ten were she thought he would be, and was correct by mere happenstance.

The Eternity Clock, a video game heavily featuring River, states through her journal entries her initial meetings with Doctors One through Nine; this suggests she is at least aware of their chronological existence, or somehow managed to meet them in the right order by chance. Assuming she dug up a photo of War and knowing him to have fought in the Time War, she could place him before Nine (she says she accidentally riled him up about the Time War). She could have therefore made an educated guess as to where Ten should be placed.

The Time of Angels takes place a long time before this episode. This episode takes place shortly before the events of Silence in the Library. Especially since we now know River uses the TARDIS when the Doctor isn't around, she likely got the proper order at some point.

She knows what order the faces are in but may not remember which adventures she's had with which face. For all she remembers, the Byzantium was with 10. It's been more than 24 years since that adventure, possibly much more, so it's reasonable that she forgot that she did that with 11. In fact, in The Time of Angels she says to 11 "I hate it when you go all baby face" which suggests her last adventure may have been with 10. Clearly the adventures are not even close to the right order and it's difficult to get it all right in her head.

• We learn that River occasionally borrows the TARDIS when the Doctor isn't looking and is familiar with the current interior appearance of the TARDIS. Yet the current TARDIS interior (which is similar to but not the same as that used by the Eleventh Doctor) was only created after Twelve was "born". Yet she doesn't seem to notice anything is amiss. She doesn't even remark about it having been redecorated.

She's met previous Doctor's so is not stunned at the TARDIS being very different from when she last saw it. Plus she is in a hurry.

It's possible she's borrowed the Twelfth Doctor's TARDIS before without realising it. Maybe even future versions.

To build on this, she is currently borrowing the TARDIS without knowing she's met the Doctor. This is implying that there have been multiple occasions where she's run into the TARDIS without seeing the Doctor, borrowed it, dropped it back, and left without ever seeing the Doctor. It's even possible this happened during 12's adventures.

• At the end of the episode the doctor says that a night on Darillium lasts 24 years, so we can presume that an entire day lasts around 48 years. When they crash and the doctor peeks outside the Tardis' doors it is night. He then travels slightly further in time where he meets an emergency response guy, who tells him the ship just crashed and that there were no survivors, even the wreckage is still burning. Oddly enough, it seems to take place during the morning, so logically speaking years should have passed since the spaceship crashed.

It could have been the final "day" of the 24th year of that night.

We don't know how long twilight lasts.

A 'night on Darrilium' may just be a metaphor. My theory, is that River named the encounter "A night on Darrilium" as she labels others "Picnic at Asgard", "Crash of the Byzantium" etc.

How far away the planet is from the sun, a 48 year day/night cycle seems 'unlikely' (I know it's the whoniverse and its not the same as ours, but logic) so my guess is, River titled the adventure "A night on Darrilium" and the Doctor then told her how long they would be there, to which he replies with 24 years. This closes the plot hole about the crash site being night, then day in fairy short succession.

Day comes from rotation along the axis of planet, so it doesn't depend directly on distance to the star - the rotation along the central star is called a year. For example Venus is close to the sun, but day there lasts 243 Earth days, while the year is 225 Earth days, so the day there is takes over a local year or ~2/3 Earth years. Many possible combinations are possible and even more if we won't define if we are talking about Earth days or local days vs Earth years or local years. So when it comes to astronomy, it's fine. The night might have more meanings. If it would be "when there's dark", then another planet (not just rotational movement) might cause secondary night, which could last very shortly comparing to the night as part of the day, i.e. time of full rotation of planet along its axis. Ship could have crashed on that secondary night, which happens during the day and such night would be over quickly - when other planet/object is not in line with star. I don't see any abuse of the laws of physics, especially when we are using cultural concepts as "night".

How about Darrilium takes 48 years to rotate once on it's axis, so a night is 24 years, but it also has a very large moon orbiting once per 24 hours (ish) that reflect a lot of light onto the planet. Scene 1 had the sun and moon on the opposite side of the planet. Scene 2 occurs a few hours later when the moon has come around and is reflecting light onto the crash sight. It's still night as the sun is on the opposite side of the planet, but you can see stuff as the moon is huge and reflecting lots of light back to Darrilium.

• In The Time of the Doctor, the Doctor was convinced that he was at the end of his life. He had no more regenerations left, he was dying of old age. It was only the intervention of Clara that changed all this. Yet in this episode we discover that the Doctor had yet to make his final goodbye to River and, very importantly, give her the sonic screwdriver that would save her consciousness in the library. How could he have even assumed he was going to die in Time of the Doctor if he knew he still had to do this? This plot hole is made even more glaring by the fact River assumes the Doctor did not live beyond his regeneration limit.

I think the only explanation that makes sense is that he may have assumed it was a Doctor from an alternate timeline that gave her the sonic screwdriver. Which, in a way, it was since he died on Trenzalore in the original timeline.

I will ignore that last sentence to stay on subject. Maybe he just brushed it off as time being rewritten, or forgot he hadn't met her there yet (he's old and senile).

you're ignoring the last sentence because in your mind it strays from subject? This forum is open for debate, for anyone to bring their opinions and conjecture, especially when taking about discontinuity. If you are going to ignore previous points that someone else geeks relevant, then there's no point in you contributing.

The final sentence of their point was an aside, an observation that had nothing to do with the point at hand. Keep your hair on.

Still doesn't work considering that had the Eleventh Doctor died at the end of "Time of the Doctor" the universe would have been destroyed due to the paradox (basically the "Hell Bent" scenario playing out to its fullest). This major plot hole appears to be a consequence of Moffat deciding much later to do a River Song episode with the Twelfth Doctor and forgetting he'd already ended the story with "Last Night" and "The Name of the Doctor".

You're assuming that the original timeline was The Name of the Doctor one, but this paradox was expressed in other stories such as The Pyramids of Mars or a reference in Before the Flood. No, the original timeline is this one where the Doctor escaped from Trenzalore and regenerated. What we saw in The Name of the Doctor was a potential future like we've seen in The Pyramids of Mars, hence it did not happen after all, there was no paradox at all. Imagine a tree being the Doctor's timeline and a branch which leads to the Name of the Doctor and from that brach the fire will star burning and will eventually burn all the remaining tree.

Doesn't work as "The Day of the Doctor" establishes that Clara remembers the events of "The Name of the Doctor" and the episode - the 50th anniversary episode so therefore decidedly not taking place in any alternate timeline - has Eleven tell Ten outright about the events of that episodes. There was no negation. The Eleventh Doctor went into The Time of the Doctor expecting to die on Trenzalore. The fact he doesn't only means that his death on Trenzalore occurs at a different point. The fact he meets the Curator (confirmed by the Titan Comics and I believe Moffat himself as a future Doctor) before this is irrelevant as it occurs mere moments after it is confirmed in canon that the Doctor cannot remember meeting his future incarnations.

• Another thing to note is the events of the Mini-episode "Last Night", in which the Doctor has two River Songs running around the TARDIS, and then a third comes in through the door. An older Doctor (but still the Eleventh Doctor) follows her in, and in the ensuing dialogue River states that "He's taking me to see the singing towers of Darillium". When the Doctor asks the older Doctor if that is now, he does not exactly confirm it, saying "Spoilers". However, the general implication is that it IS now, and this is the last time River and the Doctor will be together before the events of "Forest of the Dead".

This was explained in the episode. She said he'd planned to take her to Darillium but always cancelled at the last minute. She even mentioned "that time there were two of you".

Correct, and odds are something - like another adventure - might have come up that distracted them away from their planned destination. Precedent for that happening goes way back to the classic era (for example, the Fifth Doctor kept being distracted from taking his companions to the Eye of Orion in the stories leading up to them finally getting there in the 20th anniversary special).

It's also very possible that the fact he met his earlier self and had their brief discussion about River might have triggered the "he doesn't like endings" aspect of his personality.

• The episode establishes that it takes place soon after the events of The Angels Take Manhattan. River was last seen in that episode talking about communicating with her mother, Amy Pond, regarding her Melody Malone novel. Considering how dear Amy and Rory were to the Doctor - and of course, they were River's parents - it's odd that at no point are either mentioned here. Of course, they had plenty of time to talk about them during the 24 years, but dramatically it's an omission given that the script for Hell Bent took time to recognize Amy and Rory.

For more than half the episode River is oblivious to the Doctor being with her, and by the time she realizes it's the Doctor, the story offers no breathing room for them to have such a conversation as their priority is staying alive. Dramatically it would have been too forced for them to stop what they were doing to catch up. So they did most likely cover off Amy and Rory during the 24 years just as most likely the Doctor told River about Clara and recent events - Hell Bent established he only erased his memory of Clara's personality and a few key things like the Cloisters conversation, not their adventures, and if nothing else the Doctor likely had to explain to River about Trenzalore and how he even came to exist.

No, the Doctor lost all memories of Clara, through gaps in his memory did he only suspect there was someone else there on all he adventures her had with her. He didn't even recognize her in the diner do he definitely lost far more than her personality and conversations from his mind.

Also, from a dramatic, Moffat probably didn't want to overplay the references to Amy and Rory given that the Doctor mentioning them in the diner gave emotional thrust to the farewell scene with Clara; to cite them again in the very next episode would be repetitious. Then again, it could be argued that having two consecutive episodes focusing on the Doctor's love for two women is just as repetitious.

• It's very hard to believe River would not even twig that the Surgeon is The Doctor. After he keeps saying "It's me!" or saying she doesn't recognise him or saying "I'm The Doctor" or "For a Doctor" or how he has a very good theory on why the TARDIS doest work, or his strange clothes? or Sonic Glasses? if you had a friend that could change faces and they kept referencing their name or knew a lot about something that's theirs, or kept saying "It's me" you'd eventually guess.

It's established in the episode that River believed the Eleventh Doctor was the last given the regeneration limit. Since she thought it was an ironclad law, it's understandable that she wouldn't get the hint that this man she's never seen before is in fact the Doctor. I don't think he ever specified that he was saved at Trenzalore, though. In Name of the Doctor, which takes place in River's personal future, she is adamant that the Doctor must NEVER go to Trenzalore. If he had told her about it, she wouldn't have panicked as she did in that episode. So far all she knew, his death on Trenzalore was still a possibility.

Given the nature of River's character it's possible that at some point she becomes aware of the location, if not other details, of the Doctor's final death. Given the franchise will never depict the final death of the Doctor (this is a safe assumption to make), he might very well still meet his maker there, given the events of "Time of the Doctor" don't really match up with the planet-decimating events suggested in "Name of the Doctor."

I highly doubt that, given the fact that the Time Lords prevented those planet-decimating events by granting the Doctor a new regeneration cycle.

I suppose it depends what you mean by "final". They can show us a final death and then history can change. Even if they tell us it's a fixed point. Or they could kill him finally for real, then just decide that story doesn't count. And people can just come back from even the most "final" of deaths. Or the franchise can finally kill off some future last-ever incarnation of the Doctor or another and even stick with that, without in any way affecting their ability to tell stories about as many incarnations as they want before that one.

Death Comes to Time already didn't count when it came out. They released a movie with the 8th Doctor, then 5 years later said the Seventh Doctor was the last one? It was never canon.

• If a younger version of River dug up Flemming's remains, why is she surprised by the ship crashing towards Darillium? Should she not already know that's where the ship is crashing to if she's already done archaeology work on the wreckage there?

I don't think she meant that she physically dug him up, but more that she gathered information on him. i.e. Dug up his dirty secrets. She would learn a lot more that way then she would from examining his corpse.