Doctor Who S6e13 "The Wedding Of River Song" [spoilers]

[The Romulan Republic]

True, he's not nice to Daleks. It would have been a lot more shocking if it had been, well, pretty much anything else.

Okay, so the Silence rigged the eyepatches, but how? Presumably with Kovarian's help. But why was Kovarian with the anti-Silent group? Was she one of the things Amy initially didn't remember?

[Parallax]

The Other is part of the Cartmel Master Plan, named after Andrew Cartmel, the last script editor for the original Doctor Who before its cancellation. He had a plan to substantially alter the Doctor's backstory that was never implemented in full (but was hinted at, such as with the Doctor's remark that he was "far more than just a Time Lord" in Remembrance of the Daleks.) Had the plan gone through, it would have established the Doctor as having once been the Other, an ancient Gallifreyan that, along with Rassilon and Omega, help establish the Time Lord civilization.

The full details are in the book "Lungbarrow," which I haven't read so I might have gotten some of it wrong.

You have it more or less correct.
Ancient Gallifrey used to be ruled by superstition and an old crone called the Pythia, who could do neat stuff like sort of see the future, etc.
Rassilon came to power gradually, championing science and rational thought. He managed to depose the Pythia through a revolution and usher in the age of the Time Lords - unleashing the power to regenerate but at the cost of blunting Gallifreyans natural telepathic abilities. As she fell, the Pythia cursed Gallifrey and the population became sterile. No more children.
Rassilon and Omega are well known for what they did for Time Lord society. But there was a third figure, one called simply The Other. Omega and The Other created the Hand of Omega which, in turn, created the Eye of Harmony - the main power source for all Gallifreyan technology.
To circumvent the Pythia's curse, Rassilon came up with The Looms - genetic weavers that could produce new Gallifreyans/Time Lords. Each House would be allotted a certain number of people it could have, referred to as 'cousins'.
Rassilon was a bastard, it has to be said. He didn't mind breaking eggs to make an omelette, so to speak. And then break a few more if he thought they were looking at him funny. He thought Omega was planning to topple him from power so sabotaged Omega's safety equipment first - when the Hand of Omega was used to transform a Sun, Omega was apparently destroyed just as Rassilon had wished.

This is where it gets a little complicated...

The Other had a family. The last naturally born Gallifreyan was a girl, called Susan. The Other's grand-daughter. There was violence on Gallifrey as some rose against Rassilon's bastardry, so The Other told Susan to get off-planet as soon as she could. Thinking her safe, The Other went to confront Rassilon - his efforts were for naught and he ended up throwing himself into Loom of House Lungbarrow.
In a sort of sarcastic/bastard moment, Rassilon declared a Gallifreyan holiday called Otherstide day - which is celebrated on Gallifrey to the current day, through few (if any) actually remember why. Those who think they know it was because Rassilon defeated the evil figure of The Other and threw him down for his attempt to steal power.

Skip forward a few million years to more modern Gallifrey. On the side of a mountain is House Lungbarrow. One of their number is thought to have died so the House Loom creates a new cousin. He emerges from the Loom screaming and is nicknamed 'snail' because he's the only Gallifreyan with a belly button.
'Snail' is bright and is set for a good career in Time Lord society. There's an incident where he's framed for murder but that isn't terribly important to the story. He does alright at the Time Lord academy but purposefully fails some exams so he doesn't get a high Time Lord post - he doesn't want one because he's starting to see the cracks in Time Lord society and what is wrong with it.

After a couple of centuries he's had enough. Now going by 'The Doctor' and sporting the same blue jewelled ring the Other wore, he plans to leave Gallifrey for good. He heads to a TARDIS repair bay, along the way encountering the Hand of Omega (or a prototype thereof, I don't remember). It acts like it's alive and together they find an old Type 40 TARDIS, set to be decommissioned. It's worn out and a lot of systems simply don't work as they should.

The Hand of Omega unlocks a lock Rassilon put into all TARDISes and it zooms off back into Gallifrey's past, the Doctor not really having a clue how to fly the thing yet. There the Doctor encounters Susan, who had never been able to make it off-planet afterall. She somehow recognises The Doctor as The Other (telepathic abilities? genetic link? The ring? It's never said) and starts referring to him as 'Grand Father'.

And off they zoom to have adventures as we see in the TV series, the Doctor burying the Hand of Omega sometime shortly after the TARDIS breaks down on 1963 Earth.

Not all of the above appears in Lungbarrow. It's sort of a story that gets pieced together from various novels and hints given in the TV series.

[Parallax]

Okay, so the Silence rigged the eyepatches, but how? Presumably with Kovarian's help. But why was Kovarian with the anti-Silent group? Was she one of the things Amy initially didn't remember?

I assumed she had been captured by Amy's forces. Quite possibly on purpose so they could all await the Doctor's arrival and set off the Silence's attack. The eyepatches were a component of the Silence's attack plan.

[mr friendly guy]

I would most probably give it a 3.5 (but that option isn't available). The Doctor cheating death was pretty neat, although if I had to cheat death and had the Doctor's knowledge, I would just build a god damn android double (See Android Invasion, Androids of Tara). Of course there are still questions which aren't quite clear to me.

1. In the first season various aliens were fleeing the "silence." But if the Silence's sole purpose is to kill the Doctor and be "custodians of time", why are they making life difficult for those aliens?

2. Why is the Silence out to get the Doctor? The answers are vague and lead to more questions. Presumably they believe the Doctor will create some disaster, but what? Was the disaster in season one even engineered by the Silence? Was that even what they referred to?

3. Why is madam Kovarian working for them? Why does she hate the Doctor?

4. What was the Doctor's great crime? I get it that the Silence believe he will do something in the future but it gets tiresome that Moffat doesn't reveal it.

5. Why use the impossible astronaut to kill the Doctor? Why even make up such a plan? In fact why do you need River to kill him? According to the "timey whimey physics" of the show, they just need to find a place which is a "still point" then they make into a fixed point. They seem to have the know how to identify these "still points", so why use River especially when the suit is controlling her? They could have just gotten any old tool.

These things sort of detracted from my enjoyment. As such, this entire season has been average at best, with some episodes I consider poor compared to what I have seen previously in Who. I don't plan to buy the complete season when it comes out in dvd.

[Temujin]

3 of 5

Had some good moments, but overall it was a lamer version of the Pandorica two parter. The resolution that the Doctor that was killed would turn out to be a duplicate of some kind was quite obvious given the previous episodes in this season. And frankly I'm tired of the "must save all of the universe / time / reality" themes that they've been running with, as well as just trying to weave a running theme through each season instead of just concentrating on writing good stories.

The good thing is if they stick with what the Doctor said about having gotten too big and going back to sticking to the shadows, they can avoid the Universe in peril crap and go with smaller in scope stories that don't come across as fanboy wank. I'll believe that when I see it though.

[mr friendly guy]

Yeah, the Doctor has saved the universe quite a few times already. Lets just cut back to say, one planet.

[LadyTevar]

The Doctor did say he was aging while inside that time-stop. Perhaps why he was so old. "Pond, Amy Pond" had obviously captured Korvorian and stole the plans for the eyepatch, most likely with River's help. One again, Rory gets to be badass too, even if Amy did have to come back and save him.

The actual Wedding was a fun scene, with an actual Handfasting. Thus the need for a strip of fabric. The quip about I'll make it a good kiss... yeah, it looked like a Great Kiss to me.

Another fun scene was at the end with River and Amy, immediately comparing time-lines to see who was where. It seems this little "family time" between them is normal, and it makes me happy to think they will still be a family, no matter what.
Although it may make it really awkward if they have more kids....

[Drooling Iguana]

So when does the Doctor give River her screwdriver?

[CaptainChewbacca]

I guess that pretty much confirms Rory for 'universe's greatest badass'. Something about 'Its already active, ma'am' just really WORKED.

[hongi]

I...really didn't understand it.

So it turns out that the fixed point in time is not that the Doctor dies, but that someone who looks like the Doctor dies. Why is that a fixed point in time?

Who determines what a fixed point in time is? Can the Doctor going to the loo be a fixed point in time?

[Parallax]

Beings with direct temporal ties tend to be walking fixed points themselves; The Doctor and Jack being two examples (Remember, the TARDIS didn't know what to make of Jack and tried to get rid of him in the Vortex. The Doctor, obviously, it knows better.) . Really, every Time Lord could be classified as a walking fixed point which is possibly one reason they hated leaving Gallifrey - too much potential to screw things up if they weren't careful.

I'm of two minds about what happened at Silencio Lake. Either it was the robot from the very beginning or the Doctor managed to fool time into thinking the fixed point had happened as it should have, when it really didn't.

[hongi]

Either it was the robot from the very beginning

If it was a robot from the very beginning, then what about the glowy regeneration effects? Can the robot imitate that too?

If the fixed point of time wasn't the Doctor dying but only everyone else thinking that he died, then that might explain why things didn't work out well when River stopped herself from killing the Doctor. Because everyone would know he was still alive and mess with that whole fixed point.

Personally, I think the whole Doctor is dead thing was resolved too quickly. As in, we needed more than the couple of minutes the explanation got, which was at the very end. This is the payoff from the very first episode of the season after all.

Why is River Song a wanna-be Time Lord again? Just because she was conceived in the TARDIS?

[Parallax]

It's a time travelling shape shifting robot from the future. I dare say it'd be capable of projecting some streams of light if it really wanted to - if not, a magic wave from the sonic screwdriver could probably do it.
Or something.

[xerex]

. Kovarian's presence made no sense either. So, there's an organization trying to help fight the Silence, but Kovarian's in it, and she's suddenly rigged all their eyepatches to kill them?

Kovarian was a prisoner. Her hands were handcuffed behind her back.

[FaxModem1]

I enjoyed the episode, but anyone else notice that in the past few seasons, this is the THIRD alternate timeline we've had in a season finale?

First the year of the Master ruling the Earth, then the Pandorica and the collapse of all the stars, and now all of time converging. But hey, at least we're now getting time travel in our time travel show.

I wish we got more usage out of Madame Kovarian. She's been a threatening presence for the entire season and we know barely anything about her and just a bit about the Silence.

Also, I really like the look of alternate London. I had to rewind my DVR to check the date, as I thought I read it wrong and that it was some odd future, and I wish we had gotten to see more of it.

4/5

BTW, Rory is a badass. The man who keeps on dying, so he's learned to deal with crap.

[lordofchange13]

Absolute best part " The holy roman emperor Winston Churchill"!

[Starglider]

I prefer episodes with a lot of ideas and variety, that go for the more far-out sci-fi concepts, even when the result is confusing or messy. Self-contained fantasy/horror episodes with token sci-fi elements are just less interesting, because so many other shows do the same thing and frequently better. As such I enjoyed this episode, it had a lot of energy and despite the logic issues it was still more fun to watch than the RTD 'big bad shows up, big bad gets blown up, group hug' finales.

[mr friendly guy]

Either it was the robot from the very beginning

If it was a robot from the very beginning, then what about the glowy regeneration effects? Can the robot imitate that too?

The Doctor mentioned he was just a little singed from when they burnt his (robot) body (while he was inside it). So I am going to assume that everything went according to that scene in episode one, from his shooting and fake regeneration effect and finally the burning.

[PREDATOR490]

Utter garbage, getting really sick and tired of these fuck around for 90% of the season and resolve the arc in 10 miniutes through contrived bullshit.

The Robot Doctor - Saw that coming the moment they asked if they could do anything for the Doctor.

It was a given the Doctor was going to survive but to bullshit so brazenly for the series with angst over the Doctor's death to resolve it so simply... utterly disgusting.

The Question that has to be answered - Seriously, follow through or piss off. Assuming they are going to tie it into the old Who Parallax helpfully described... how exactly is that gonna be a universe shattering revelation ?
Though I highly suspect they will never name the Doctor and follow through on Who he is directly... which makes this hype nothing but the worst kind of teasing you can get.

River Song gets locked up for killing the Doctor except she didnt... except the Doctor is going to let her rot in prison for a crime she didnt commit BUT he will sneak in and pay her visits that somehow dont get noticed. Utter stupidity of the highest order and as the series goes on your going to try and push the idea the Doctor is going to stay COMPLETELY under the radar ?

Incidentally, this whole fixed point in time rewriting would logically allow the Doctor to change River Song's fate in Silence of the Library. Doctor avoids dying by having a duplicate doing it... why cant he do the same for River ?
Ugh... only two things in this episode were worth watching
- Rory being his usual self... and the Silence acknowledging the fact he is always the poor bastard that dies.
- The curt node to Lethbridge Stewart. About fucking time they got round to it. It is an eternal monumental disgrace and regret the new series wasted precious years for garbage but never brought in Stewart. Then again, they tried with Sarah Jane and decided to retcon her into being jealous of Rose not to mention the abuse UNIT has taken.

[mr friendly guy]

I think the plan is for River to take the fall while the Doctor finds out more about the Silence. Obviously by being jailed it maintains the illusion that he died.

As for whether he can stay under the radar, it depends on a few things. Its quite possible that the Silence may attribute his appearance to his past self, ie before he was supposed to have been killed.

[Crazedwraith]

Especially if the 1100 thing in the first episode was a lie. Then The Silence might think they have 200 hundred years unaccounted for.

[The Romulan Republic]

Utter garbage, getting really sick and tired of these fuck around for 90% of the season and resolve the arc in 10 miniutes through contrived bullshit.

The Robot Doctor - Saw that coming the moment they asked if they could do anything for the Doctor.

It was a given the Doctor was going to survive but to bullshit so brazenly for the series with angst over the Doctor's death to resolve it so simply... utterly disgusting.

The Question that has to be answered - Seriously, follow through or piss off. Assuming they are going to tie it into the old Who Parallax helpfully described... how exactly is that gonna be a universe shattering revelation ?
Though I highly suspect they will never name the Doctor and follow through on Who he is directly... which makes this hype nothing but the worst kind of teasing you can get.

River Song gets locked up for killing the Doctor except she didnt... except the Doctor is going to let her rot in prison for a crime she didnt commit BUT he will sneak in and pay her visits that somehow dont get noticed. Utter stupidity of the highest order and as the series goes on your going to try and push the idea the Doctor is going to stay COMPLETELY under the radar ?

Incidentally, this whole fixed point in time rewriting would logically allow the Doctor to change River Song's fate in Silence of the Library. Doctor avoids dying by having a duplicate doing it... why cant he do the same for River ?
Ugh... only two things in this episode were worth watching
- Rory being his usual self... and the Silence acknowledging the fact he is always the poor bastard that dies.
- The curt node to Lethbridge Stewart. About fucking time they got round to it. It is an eternal monumental disgrace and regret the new series wasted precious years for garbage but never brought in Stewart. Then again, they tried with Sarah Jane and decided to retcon her into being jealous of Rose not to mention the abuse UNIT has taken.

Agreed on what the best points of the episode were, but I actually don't mind the robot solution that much. Sure, it was a bit confusing, but it was a better solution than actually overwriting a fixed point in time. It was as good an outcome, I think, as we could have hoped for, more or less. All the bullshit before that is what I hated.

[SylasGaunt]

Let's also not forget that River has made it abundantly clear that the only reason she's in prison is because she's willingly staying there.

[The Romulan Republic]

Let's also not forget that River has made it abundantly clear that the only reason she's in prison is because she's willingly staying there.

She's still taking the blame for something she didn't do. Granted, their are big advantages to her doing so in terms of fooling the Silence, but it kind of sucks for her.

[mr friendly guy]

Considering River is willing to screw over reality for the Doctor, staying in prison knowing she will eventually get out is a walk in the park, especially for the purpose of fooling the Silence. I still dislike this season overall, for various reasons, however this little fact isn't one of them.