#15 Doctor Who: The Wedding of River Song

Happy 2015 everyone, I know it’s been 3 months, but we’re back and to be honest, after raging about the Last Airbender for 6000 words, I was glad of the break. Let’s see what we’ve got for the return…

Oh boy… 2015 is not starting well.

For those of you who have read my previous Doctor Who reviews know I have a sort of love/hate relationship with the show. There are episodes I love, and those I hate, like Robots of Sherwood and this episode.

So, let’s get some background information in now. Since Matt Smith’s debut there had been a thing about an organisation known as the Silence. They somehow managed to take control of the TARDIS in the series 5 finale, causing an explosion that created cracks in time and space. In series 6 we start believing that the Silence are a race of creatures who photo-edit themselves out of people’s memories when you look away, we later discover that they are some anti-doctor religious sect lead by Madame Kovarian. For some reason she decided the best way to take out the Doctor is to kidnap the TARDIS-conceived child of companions Amelia Pond or Rory Williams who has Galifreyan Time-Lord abilities for some reason and to turn her into a weapon.  If you think that’s stupid, it only gets weirder

Despite being born on a space station named Demons Run in the future, I presume, she grows up in 19^th century Utah, granted the name River Song, rather than Melody Pond because the only water in the forest is the river or something and in the days approaching the Doctor’s death on the 22^nd April 2011, Kovarian comes back to River, and prepares her to perform the deed.

We open in London, 22^nd April 2011, the day of the Doctor’s supposed death. It’s a very weird place, with trains between buildings and cars on hot air balloons for some reason, there are also pterodactyls in the sky, in case the message wasn’t clear that something is wrong .The pterodactyls attack some kids, and suddenly there’s a centurion in the street, riding a chariot across a road. OK, we get it, something’s wrong. A newspaper states that the war of the roses has entered its second year Charles Dickens is on BBC News advertising his latest Christmas special (yes, the last Christmas special Doctor Who did was based on the Christmas carol, funny!) the Holy Roman Emperor Winston Churchill has returned to Buckingham palace, and OK we get it, something is WRONG, GET TO THE F*CKING POINT ALREADY!

You want an old steam train in modern day London, sure why not?

A Silurian (who is suddenly accepted amongst humans, when did that happen?) tends to Churchill whilst he claims he had an argument with Cleopatra in Gaul, despite the fact that Cleopatra lives in Egypt. When he asks for the time, it’s 2 minutes past 5, and Winston claims that day or night, it’s always the same time. And the date is always the 22^nd April, which raises the question of how a war manages to enter its second year.

Read all about it, we're at war, RUN!!!

Churchill calls the Sooth-Sayer from the Tower of London, Churchill, who for some reason is so smart he’s one of the only people who’s realised this, says that the clocks never tick or tock (as the old made-up song goes) and that all of time is happening at once (only someone like the Doctor could possibly know that, unless he’s just repeating words the Doctor has said before) by the way, Churchill returns for his third appearance, his first being an abysmal story called Victory of the Daleks.

Churchill asks why this has happened and we see that the Soothsayer is the Doctor (in case the clues weren’t already obvious) he says a woman happened to time (that’s dumb when you think about it)

We cut to earlier (which is weird since all of time is happening at once, which is stupid in itself as time is still progressing linearly, just without the clocks ticking, and a lot of eras meshing themselves together) anyway, the Doctor has destroyed one of the rainbow Daleks no-one cared for in Victory of the Daleks. The Doctor accesses the data-core of the Dalek for information about the Silence. Using his magic wand, I mean sonic screwdriver.

You will be extermin...

On the Docks of Calisto B the Doctor enters a bar, demanding to see Gidiam Vandeleur, a former member of the Silence but he’s been dead for 6 months and is actually a Tessallecta, a shape-shifting time-travelling robot hoping to kill people and end crime, powered by miniaturised people (yes, it doesn’t sound any less stupid if you say it twice) first introduced in Let’s Kill Hitler. The Doctor uses his sonic screwdriver to mess with their system and find a weak link in the silence

He finds one playing a sort of electro-static chess (nothing makes a game more interesting than adding death to the mix.) It’s called live chess and the more you move a single piece the more it charges up. If he moves the only piece he could he’s dead, unless the Doctor concedes the game. The Doctor will only do so in exchange for information. The Doctor wants to know why he has to die at their hands. The only person that can help him is Dorian, a guy who, in a Good Man Goes to War, was beheaded. If the Doctor concedes the game, he’ll be taken to him.

Chess 2.0: It's a shocking improvement

Dorian’s wealth meant that his head was in a box somehow alive, rather than left to rot.

Churchill laughs at this story... wait, he was telling this part of the story to Churchill, why? I mean seriously, GET TO THE F*CKING POINT!! Dorian says that on the Fields of Trensalore at the fall of the 11^th, when no creature can speak falsely or fail to answer, a question will be asked which must never be answered. (By the way, in the episode where this episode is referring to, they can fail to answer, in the Doctor does, for hundreds of years!) The Silence believe that the Doctor must never reach Trensalore as he knows the answer. The Doctor asks what the question is, but we cut away before we hear what it is.

Well I'm a head in a box, so how was your day?

The Doctor takes Dorian onto the TARDIS for some reason. The Doctor and Churchill are suddenly in a corridor, the Doctor knows a dangerous secret (I’ll come back to this point later, at length!) and that he must die or the secret will be revealed. They’ve been running and Churchill has his revolver, the Doctor looks to his arm and sees a mark. This is a method they’d once used to mark the sighting of a Silence monster (they never gave these guys an official name)

The Doctor travels and asks Dorian why Lake Silencio in Utah, Dorian responds that it’s a still point in time and makes it easier to become a fixed point in time and I’m calling bullcr*p on that explanation. A fixed point in time is an event that would have a profound impact on history should it be altered, it shouldn’t matter where it is!

The Doctor has been running around, trying to delay his death but as he’s making a phone call to Brigadier Lethbridge Stewart (from the old show) he finds out that he passed away (couldn't he just call to an earlier time) and the Doctor begins to realise that time must catch up with him. And yes, I get it, the actor who played the Brigadier had passed away, so I can why this resonates with some people. He retrieves a bunch of envelopes from his pockets (invitations for River, Amy, Rory and himself to come) and gives instructions to the Tesselecta from earlier to deliver them (you realise we’re now a third of the way through the episode, and we’re no closer to understanding anything than when we started, GET ON WITH IT!)

The tesselecta asks if there’s anything else we can do, and the Doctor walks away. We get some clips from the Impossible astronaut, as he tells Churchill that he didn’t have to die alone, he looks to his arm, and there are now 3 marks. More clips follow: The Doctor heads to his death. River, who is the astronaut that kills him remarks that the suit is in control and she can’t fight it, then she immediately fights it and ends up emptying the charge of his pistol on missed shots.

To my imminent death which is necessary for some reason

Then all of time starts happening at once. Wait, what? All of the future should change, maybe the time reapers come in to fix things up but what? I refer back to an episode in series 1 named Father’s Day. Rose Tyler altered a fixed point in time by saving her father’s life and the entire city started being erased by time reapers until Rose’s father sacrificed himself. Tell me something, why is this different?

So anyway, the Doctor and Churchill are armed as the Doctor has another mark on his arm, he says that in small numbers the Silence creatures aren’t that dangerous, then looks at his arm and there are hundreds of marks. We finally see them hanging from the ceiling of the room, suddenly a smoke grenade enters the room, and the room fills with a command force wearing those eye patches that Madame Kovarian was wearing in earlier episodes. They all point their guns at the Silence monsters.

The name's Pond. Amelia Pond

The leader of the group is Amelia Pond, she shoots the Doctor unconscious for some reason. The Doctor wakes up on a train, heading for Cairo. The Doctor tries to convince her that they knew each other, but Amy has pictures on the wall of her adventures and a model TARDIS, she already knew that they knew each other, apparently the crack on the wall in her bedroom she grew up with allows her to see alternate time lines, despite the fact that reality was rewritten to make sure those never existed, figure that one out.

She gives the Doctor his old clothes and he changes and shaves. She laments that she can’t find Rory, because she’s drawn a rather overly-flattering picture of him. She’s part of a team working to fix time, the Doctor warns that if he doesn’t die all of reality will fall apart, suddenly Rory enters, with neither Amy or Rory recognising the other, and informs them that they’ve nearly arrived (how long was the Doctor unconscious? Must take days to take a train to Egypt, assuming they took the train the whole way, which would be odd, since there's an ocean in the way) Amy thinks the Doctor looks older, and apparently it’s because time is still passing as he’s the epicentre of the crisis (this regeneration of the Doctor lives for a good few hundred years, he’s not gonna look that much older after just two!)

The train arrives in a pyramid, which has been retrofitted into a base of operations, seems like an odd choice to me, but… The pyramid now has the US flag and is called Area 52

I wanted to find a clip for that, but…

Guessing being conspicuous wasn't a thought building this base

Anyway, Rory explains that the eye-drive eye-patch allows people to remember seeing the Silence monsters . The pass a number of liquid containing insulating cells containing Silence monsters (because the silence can draw electricity from anything; they did not use this in the initial encounter) they seem to be looking at the Doctor strangely.  

The Doctor tries to get Rory and Amy together, for some reason (look, reality is disintegrating here, wrong priorities) River is in the base and they have Madame Kovarian as a prisoner. River attained the base through mind-control lipstick because… She has some? The Doctor grabs her arm and time begins to move again as we wind back to the scene in Utah but River releases herself before the scene can complete.  If they touch time can begin again but the Doctor will die. 

I want to kill her just looking at her now

As the guards check the Silence monsters, they begin to crack the glass. Rory notices water dripping from the floor above. Soon it’s noticed by everyone and the Silence monsters begin to escape. They were never trapped, just waiting for the Doctor to arrive. The military have them at gunpoint, but seem to be too scared to shoot, until one of the monsters kills one of them by shooting lightning from its fingers (again, power could’ve been useful last time) they are all wearing eye drives based on Kovarian’s design, and it has a feature designed to electrocute them to death or cause them unbearable pain. Kovarian’s confused when the feature is turned upon her as well.

What a shocking new power these monsters have

River and Amy are working on a plan to save time without the Doctor dying, the Doctor agrees to see it, leaving Rory to buy time as the Silence are attempting to burst down the door, his eye drive has activated, causing him pain, but he refuses to take it off. The electrocution weakens him, leaving him unable to shoot as the door is broken down, but Amy returns and butchers them with a machine gun.

What a shocking development!

Kovarian, whose eye-drive rather conveniently has popped off, begs Amy for help but Amy, citing what Kovarian had done to her, sticks the eye drive back on her face and leaves her to die.

Oh, you know what the joke is here. Still, it's satisfying to see her die, pity it wasn't in the real world

River has created a distress beacon (apparently time is happening all at once but only on Earth, how does that even happen, apparently something about a time bubble, but time is universal… Oh I can’t be bothered to explain Doctor Who Logic) they have received so many responses that it’s been interfering with radio signals, something that had been referred to in earlier segments of the episode.

How can we possibly get married without some sort of official documentation, or a ring, and... does it even count if it's in an alternate reality?

But it’s all in vein, the Doctor says there’s nothing they can do and billions upon billions will suffer if he doesn’t die. River says she will suffer more for killing him. Seeing an end he asks Amy to uncuff him, he takes off his tie and him and River wrap their hands around separate ends. Rory and Amy both give consent, the Doctor whispers something in her ear, and River is taken aback. The Doctor has told her his name. They embrace and time returns, River kills the Doctor and time is allowed to go on once again.

“Tick tock, goes the clock, he gave all he could give her

Tick Tock goes the clock, now prison waits for River”

Amy waits out in her garden, with a bottle of wine and River in check, this is (for River anyway) just after the events of a previous episode, I think (the weeping angels one?) Amy says she feels guilty having killed Madame Kovarian, but River assures her that it’s in a different reality few will remember (for that matter, how does she remember, another consequence of the time crack?) River reveals that the Doctor didn’t really whisper his name into her ear (although, if he didn’t, how does she find it out before she dies) she tells her what he really said and they celebrate as Rory arrives.

I'm ba-ack!

A man in a black cloak brings Dorian back to his resting place, it’s revealed to be the Doctor. The Doctor that was killed was actually a tesselecta, who he’d called upon when they asked if there was anything else they could do. He wants people to forget him as he got too big and too noisy (this lasts maybe 5 minutes). Dorian reminds him the Trensalore is still coming and that oldest question that must never be answered: Doctor Who?

OK, I probably need to tell you exactly why I don’t like this episode, before I say the line, I haven’t exactly ranted on it that much.

The biggest issue with the episode is that 2/3 is entirely pointless. The second is it doesn’t make any sense.

The entirety of time happening is just a plot device to stall for time until the cop-out where the Doctor would inevitably cheat death once again. Nothing that happens has any overall consequences whatsoever because it’s an alternate reality, for example: Amy killing Kovarian: never brought up again.

Had the episode been purely about the Doctor searching for the answers as to why he has to die and eventually accepting his fate, all be it with a few clauses of his own added, I would’ve respected this episode, instead that story is done under a framing device, and instead seeks to slow the already abysmal pacing of the episode.

Peek a boo!

As for it not making any sense: answer me these questions? Why home-grow a psychopath instead of hire one? Why choose Amy and Rory’s child? Why is River part Galifreyan (Time Lord is a rank, not a species)? Why is ‘Doctor Who’ a dangerous question that must never be answered? Why does the Doctor think the question is dangerous, so much that he realises that he has to die? (this one particularly irks me, why does he think his name's dangerous, explain! Also, how is it the oldest question with the answer hidden in plain sight? He's not the only Time Lord that has ever existed, and how is the answer hidden in plain sight? Sure it's the title of the show, but we never (and probably never will) find out the answer. What has happened to Kovarian and the Silence in the restored time line? How did the Silence take control of the TARDIS? And why will they never show up again (the monsters do but as kinda good guys)?! How does the Tesselecta mimic regeneration? And how does River know the Doctor's name if he didn't tell her at the wedding?

The answer to a couple of these questions will be revealed, in an episode a mere 2 YEARS LATER. And the answer to why 'Doctor Who' is a dangerous question is not that satisfactory an answer, especially because of the fact that you CAN FAIL TO ANSWER!!!

It all turns out pointless anyway, the Doctor makes noise, he always has, his reputation grows and his foothold in the universe will be preserved once again, he will reunite with Amy and Rory in the following Christmas special, so nothing is accomplished!

THIS EPISODE GIVES ME RAGE ISSUES!

Bad pacing, bad plotting, copout ending, leaving us with more questions than answers in a season finale for a second year running, questions they won’t even attempt to answer for another 2 years. This episode has so little going for it, it is categorically my least favourite episode of Doctor Who that I’ve ever watched.

Rage Rating 125%

For more reviews click here

Images used in this review are from Doctor Who and Looney Tunes: Back in Action and belong to their respective owners. All images in this review are subject to fair use.