S6E13: The Wedding of River Song

Mad Woman Kovarian can either come back, still "pals" with the creepy, white, Silence dudes.

OR

She remembers she was expendable and comes as a helping hand.

It depends on the "Story".

New from Nabisco Cookies.......Doctor with Doctor Filling

Silence will fall when the Question is Asked

Will Gene Simmons be faithful to Shannon Tweed????

bret_owen99 wrote:

I marked "OK" for this episode. I didn't hate it (as much as The Big Bang/The Pandorica Opens), but I didn't like it as much as the Tennant/RTD finale's.

First off, we get a reunion of every character/actor that Moffat can cram on-screen (just like he did in the Pandorica Opens, and I'm really getting tired of "how many actors/characters can we bring together for the finale"). The first half/Alternate reality seemed more like a re-cap show for me, and I thought they could have done much more with the first half hour, instead of reminding us of everything that's happened thus far (No fault to Moffat, though, since he says he's writing for children, and just like the Harry Potter books spend the first part of the book catching up with everything so far, he did the same).

Then we get not a whole lot of answers (yes, Scary, I'm looking at you). We find out nothing about Madame Kavorion, why she personally hates the Doctor, or why she works with/for the Silence, only that she has now be relagated to hired thug status (very disapointing in my eyes, since she was a major part of the first part of this series). We find out nothing new about the Silents: where they come from, who they are, why they have to kill the Doctor (Sorry, I'm just not sold on the Grey/Men in Black X-files looking Aliens whom I can't understand a word they say, which is why they had Madame Kavorian for the audience I'm sure). Anyone remember Julian Sands voice from The Big Bang, don't worry, neither does Moffat (and I swear, if he revisits this in a year or two, it will be the most drawn out plotline since LOST).

We get the "wedding of River Song", but I'm still kind of confused. The Silence went through all the trouble of kidnapping a baby, raising it to kill the Doctor, and one adventure in "Let's Kill Hitler", and now this 50 year old River Song is in love with the Doctor, and doesn't want to kill him anymore??? I don't know what to call that. Either really bad writing, or really bad brainwashing.

Then we get the big reveal. We all knew it would be a cop out. Sure it wasn't the Flesh, but it was still a cop out. Sure, the Doctor needs to lay low, but that means Moffat not bringing back every villain/actor for next years finale, and I"ll bet money that he will.

As far as "Doctor Who", this is a cop out in my opinion as well. I really don't think "We" the audience will find out. But in this future episode, River Song will be present. It is the only way for her to know his name for "The Forest of the Dead".

As much as I'm glad Amy and Rory are gone, who knows how many times he will keep bringing back River Song. Everytime she appears, I call weak writing all over the place, and it's like finding out who Wolverine is: The less known the Better.

All in all it wasn't the worst special ever, but Moffat seriously needs to stay conistent. No more bringing in armies, or a group of villains. If the Doctor is going to stay low, have him face off with one enemie, without a group of "allies" at his side (who knows, maybe he'll actually save the day for once).

Sorry, rant over.

brett buddy you rant as much as you want, you always give me the glass is half empty kind of pov and i always enjoy reading your posts. to answer several questions at once ive referenced your cartmal theory several times because i thought it was really good one and i think what moffat has done with the first two seasons is establish his doctor who universe, reset the doctor back to a mysterious figure, bring the daleks back to their roots, and most importantly for me give back to the doctor a sense of danger that he can die that i think was sorely lost during jnt's tenure.

i don't think that, the things we precieve as "cop outs" really are and here is my reason why. if you had watched the show as a boy in england like moff did you had cliffhangers in every episode until the stories completion. we in america if you were like me never saw the show with these cliffhangers, they were more like a tv series of short films each week on pbs, i mean most of the stories i watched growing up were at least an hour and a half plus each week. so what i'm getting at is that in the serialized format you always get a cheat so to speak, the doctor has a gun pointing at him but next week someone else shot the would be shooter and so on and so on, so the show has a long running tradition of brutally dramatic cliffhangers that have fairly simplistic fixs such as what moff did in the big bang.

i don't think that he reduced madame kavarian to a "thug", she thought she really was in control, thats why shes so shocked when they turn on her at the end and kill her with the eye patch of death. the real villians have always been the silents and they just allowed her to think they worked for her, when in reality they had their own agenda all the time. i personally love the silents, there is nothing creepier to me than giant aliens in suits that can be around me all the time and i would never know it.

on the subject of getting some answers and not getting others and posing more, to me thats just part of the fun, think of it this way, everytime in the classic series you got the daleks in one standoff episode, and they were always pretty much doing the same thing every time. even though there were some dissapointing moments in rtd's run i liked the way he gave the daleks a cohesive storyline that keep growing on itself each time they appeared as opposed to the old days where almost everytime the doctor encountered them he would say "the the last time i saw you, you were doing BLANK. what are you up to now on the planet of BLANK" just insert an answer in each of those blanks blanks and you have the formula for almost every dalek story from the classic run, heck even rtd used this formula a couple of times. so i for one am enjoying having a mysterious enemy that i don't know everything about, and i look forward to seeing more in the future and getting more pieces of the puzzle.

as for the midseasons finnaly including former characters willing to help out the doctor, i mean seriously whats so wrong with having cool characters from past episodes that are there to help advance the plot? i thought it was fun. i don't think that moff was trying to pack in every character, and the ones he did pack in advanced the story so my rule is unless they're there just for being there's sake its okay. who doesn't love to see the doc with winston churchill, c'mon its great!

the thing i think most people are missing and i only recently had this thought myself, is that in takeing the show back to its roots, this new lay low aspect of his character makes him a renagade on the run again, which i think is pretty cool.

i don't think that rivers reversal of character was bad writing in fact quite the opposite, she clearly was fighting it even when she was a child trying to escape, but because the brain washing was so strong she positioned herself to be with amy and rory to get to the doctor, but along the way she spent her whole life with amy who loved the doctor and that planted the seeds for her reversal in lets kill hitler, i mean she does kill the doctor, she did what she was brain washed to do, she just chose to save him after the fact. this reminds me of the old analogy that girls like the bad boy and who's more taboo to fall in love with than a man you've been programmed to hate since birth, in those moments at the end of lets kill hitler, all her brainwashing was being wiped away and she realized her whole life and what she was taught to think about the doctor was a lie, and she was inherientlly turned good by rory and amy's love for the doctor and seeing how he was a good man even as he layed there dying, she had if you will a darth vader moment of clarity and through the emporer down the shaft so to speak.

i think its fair to say you don't like moff or his style everyones entitled to like or dislike whatever they want, but at this point i don't think you can say that moff doesn't have it planed out there are too many little things that come back many episodes later that contradict this, and i for one love the adventure of seeing whats gonna happen next. jon

i think the doctor really did die, the first time and it was really him, thats why it was a fixed point and we see the regeneration start, but because of the wibbly wobbly timey wimey aspect it changes with rivers changing of the events, both of their characters were like in time crash, they only knew how to change things because both of them knew how to from seeing it in the future affecting it in the past the way the doctor knew how to fix the tardis from watching himself do it in the past. thats what i got out of it but if you guys are happy with it the other way, thats fine too. the important thing is that i thought it was great episode on many levels and like its been said before, c'mon you can't kill the doctor. lol

Ya know River Married the robot, the doctor was inside, is that legal?

So I guess in 10 months a bouncing Baby (Season 7s Plot shhhhh)

For answers on the legal Question Tune into the Judge on Fox Business Channel

And if you do not have Fox Business Channel Demand it

rmlextreme wrote:

Ya know River Married the robot, the doctor was inside, is that legal?

I'm good with it. The robot was simply a proxy in the ceremony

The Doctor never died. We saw the sequence relative to Amy's time stream. Amy's drawings would not have made any sense to us (Swashbuckler Amy).

The direction was to save the finale for the finale. We never saw the Doctor nor Churchill defend themselves. We filled in the blanks. This was how this episode was presented to us. We just filled in the blanks.

The end dialog between Amy, River and Rory makes sense.

I hope his real name is revealed as Thedoctorwhoisjohnsmith.

Evil Monkey Pope wrote:

I don't understand how people could say this was a cop out? ... You all had to expect that the Doctor wasn't really going to die. It was just a matter of how he was going to find a loophole.
Protecting himself inside the Tesselecta was a wacky yet relatively simple solution.

I'm trying not to write *too* much about it on the forums since I'm hoping to do a longer piece for SC, but I definitely thought it was a cop-out despite believing that the Doctor would weasel out of it somehow. Or maybe "cop-out" is the wrong word -- where you call it "simple," I'd sooner call it just plain "weak."

If you cut out all of the talking blue head and alternate timeline hijinx -- which most of you guys thought was jolly good fun; I found it annoying and largely pointless bullshite -- all you have is the Doctor hiding out in a robot... which seems to me like an incredibly lame way of resolving this big OMG DOCTOR GONNA DIE setup. Even the ganger Doctor solution would have been preferable to me, since at least they could have written some depth into that since, for all intents and purposes, the Doctor (if not OUR Doctor) would still be going to his death. (And I dunno, maybe they could have done something weird/potentially interesting with an unstable ganger Doctor being restored by fire and, bitter at having had to sacrifice himself, turning into the Valeyard or something.) Considering the heavy setup, this just seemed super cheap to me.

But then, that's largely how I've come to feel about Moffat's writing in general. He's all about setting expectations high with big ideas that inspire oodles of fanboy speculation -- and his actual answers never make good on the promise of the premise.

Its Captain Troy Handsome of International Rescue


Im thinking the 2nd Doctor may have omitted why he stole the Tardis in War Games.

In the 5 doctors the Masters says he went to the Academy with the Doctor. So were lead to believe he is a regular timelord. But what if the Doctor was part of possible a Timelord Royal Family? Or He was the President of the Council and went Rogue well we have until Christmas lol

There is totally no pressure if he gets named that Silence will fall no pressure Yikes

KIRKESS wrote:

The Doctor never died. We saw the sequence relative to Amy's time stream. Amy's drawings would not have made any sense to us (Swashbuckler Amy).

The direction was to save the finale for the finale. We never saw the Doctor nor Churchill defend themselves. We filled in the blanks. This was how this episode was presented to us. We just filled in the blanks.

The end dialog between Amy, River and Rory makes sense.

so the fixed point in time was the doctor robot dying and not the real doctor dying...right?

^Apparently. Or maybe it was River's shooty fingers discharging and appearing to kill a Doctor-shaped object. Or maybe it was the Silent's perception of said events that was actually the fixed point. Whatever.

The fixed point thing (and subsequent time breakdown nonsense) made it even less acceptable for me.

I find this episode to be inline with expectations. Amy is the "center of reality". "Young" Amy was at the picnic. "Old" Amy knew about the fragment of reality because she had all of reality flowing into her dreams. "Old" Amy was never at the beach yet she knew because Earth was the center of all realities collapsing.

Still place in time can become a fixed point in space and time. Never believe anything from a disembody head.

Simple explanation.

im gonna play matchmaker here

Introduce Dorium head to Cement Block Ursula from Season 2

i just don't see how any aspect of this is a cop out, unless you thought the doctor was really gonna die? if you thought that he wasn't gonna die, then he had to cheat it somehow right? i thought this was as good a way as any to escape death. like i said before if you had watched the show week to week in its original serialized format than you prob saw 1000 "cop outs" because they needed cliffhanger resolutions at least three times a story.

i'm only speculating and i could be wrong, but one of the things that i have wanted for a while is for the doctor to get back to his bouncing around devil may care roots, and i hope that this storyline has produced this, i could be wrong. one of the things i've been thinking about since i watched this story, is that most of the people who have been following the new series are not familiar with the old series, by which i mean they started with the new series and never watched the old one. those people are used to the rtd style that was stamped on his time with who, where every series had a connecting plot thread that lead to for better or worse grandious conclusions of epic proportions each topping the previous season. now i imagine the moff taking over, not wanting to abruptly change what they were used to and what might have made alot of them fans of the show. so he weaved a tale that spanned two seasons which i found more interesting personally, and at the same time within the story got the series to a point where it makes sense in the context of the show to now have the doctor free'd up to be more free wheelin. hopefully this will lead to more stand alone episodes and less intangled plot lines, which i have enjoyed but i'm ready for a change as well. matts a brilliant doctor, moff is a talented producer imo and i'm ready for what the future brings. i cut the moff some slack. his job is incrediblly hard, he has to as a fan of the show himself cater to the built in audience of die hard fans, the casual fans from the past who now watch the new series, and the fans who have only watched rtd's era. i imagine that this is a tough line to walk and i have respect for him. he's a fan in his heart and he's just trying to do what he thinks is best from his pov. i think this new era of who is paticularlly unique becase both of the producers who have taken the reigns so far are fanboys who grew up watching the show, as opposed to televison producer's just trying to make a quality programe. both have they're advantages and disadvantages but as a person who grew up watching it i love the fanboy producer's. maybe what would make alot of the people who are unhappy with the way the direction of the show is going would be happier if someone took over who didn't paticularlly care about who but made a televison programe that catered to the masses of television audiences like barry letts. and before i'm roasted i'm in no way suggesting that barry letts didn't care about who i just mean this from the standpoint of when he took over he was just doing a job and produced the best show for tv that he could, but wasnt a fanboy takeing a dream job. that has certin advantages as well and maybe after moff it would be a welcomed change of pace for some people who are really unhappy with the direction of the show.

at the end of the day as a doctor who fan i'm happy with each series of nuwho, i could count on one hand the number of eps that have not enjoyed from all six seasons of the new series.

Just by seeing the reactions of fans to this episode (and every episode), there are so many wildly different ideas of what Who should be. So, it is no shock to me that two fanboy producers have totally different ideas of what their shows should be. And those ideas never make everyone happy. Except me it seams, lol.

hitman hart wrote:

i just don't see how any aspect of this is a cop out, unless you thought the doctor was really gonna die? if you thought that he wasn't gonna die, then he had to cheat it somehow right? i thought this was as good a way as any to escape death.

Well, if you play an inevitable tragedy up like a Really Big Deal for an entire season -- even if I expect the tragedy to be somehow averted because it HAS to be -- I'm going to be disappointed if the tragedy gets averted by someone simply hiding behind a couch. This was the Doctor hiding behind a couch. Hated it.

hitman hart wrote:

like i said before if you had watched the show week to week in its original serialized format than you prob saw 1000 "cop outs" because they needed cliffhanger resolutions at least three times a story.

Ah, but the difference is that those cliffhangers weren't dragged on for nearly a year, with multiple references across multiple episodes and lots of hand wringing and shed tears and grim determination. Nor were they the culmination of a seasonal arc. You're right that this resolution was pretty much of the same caliber as those -- now imagine how you'd feel if you'd waited months and months and months to learn that the Dalek's gun was shooting blanks.

hitman hart wrote:

now i imagine the moff taking over, not wanting to abruptly change what they were used to and what might have made alot of them fans of the show. so he weaved a tale that spanned two seasons which i found more interesting personally, and at the same time within the story got the series to a point where it makes sense in the context of the show to now have the doctor free'd up to be more free wheelin. hopefully this will lead to more stand alone episodes and less intangled plot lines

Yeah, that'd be cool, but I tend to think Moff could've just started off like that (though personally I really enjoy seasonal arcs when they're done well; I just don't think any nuWho series has done them well thus far). If the last two years was just to give a robust story excuse for that, I feel like they've been a waste of time -- the new Doctor could just as well have decided that he wanted to be a little more clandestine in keeping with his new personality. Direction change explained, and in less than three minutes! And insofar as it was still the Doctor investigating alien disturbances, I don't think the change would've seemed that abrupt.

hitman hart wrote:

he's a fan in his heart and he's just trying to do what he thinks is best from his pov. i think this new era of who is paticularlly unique becase both of the producers who have taken the reigns so far are fanboys who grew up watching the show, as opposed to televison producer's just trying to make a quality programe. ... maybe what would make alot of the people who are unhappy with the way the direction of the show is going would be happier if someone took over who didn't paticularlly care about who but made a televison programe that catered to the masses of television audiences like barry letts.

I think there's a difference between a producer who wants to make a "quality program" and one who just wants to make something that caters to the masses -- arguably the most brilliant shows DON'T cater to the masses and some of the most beloved are utter trash (at least in terms of writing quality; see daytime soap operas). I do think you're spot on with respect to Moff and his writers being fanboys, but I think the real problem is that they're writing for (and perhaps exclusively for) the hardcore fanboys who are going to enjoy the show no matter what and will fill in their plot holes and handwave their nonsense for them.

But perhaps the bigger problem, fanboy or not, is that Moffat set (my) expectations really high with big premises that he wasn't up to fulfilling. I can certainly imagine Moffat echoing the Doctor's sentiment that he got too big and noisy with respect to his (and definitely RTD's) writing for the show.

Ronpur wrote:

Just by seeing the reactions of fans to this episode (and every episode), there are so many wildly different ideas of what Who should be. So, it is no shock to me that two fanboy producers have totally different ideas of what their shows should be.

Ha! True -- except I don't think what RTD and Moffat have done are all that different, really. Their intentions might have been different, but in execution and output things have been very much the same. (Though perhaps that's because all crap tends to look similar, even if one guy had corn on the cob and another guy had ham and eggs. ;P)

jaredofmo wrote:

For those complaining about Canton's line, "That is most certainly the Doctor," the Doctor WAS there. Miniaturized, but still there.

Still, I guess we can only assume Canton was mistaken when he said, "And he is most certainly dead."

This second line is what bugs me. I never thought the series was ending, but as Wes Crayon points out I had my expectations up really high for a creative way out of this. It took them the entire series to get here and both ganger/robots endings seemed just a bit too simple. Had the writer not been so emphatic in the opening death then I'd gladly give them more slack. But when they say "and he is most certainly dead" I'm hoping for something a bit special to resolve this. The end we got was okay, just not the super one I was hoping for.

I'm quite happy that the Doctor is now "on the run" again. Much more like the early days when the Doctor had to stay low key and he tells people "if anyone asks, I just came and went like a summer breeze".

rmlextreme wrote:

Ya know River Married the robot, the doctor was inside, is that legal?

So I guess in 10 months a bouncing Baby (Season 7s Plot shhhhh)

For answers on the legal Question Tune into the Judge on Fox Business Channel

And if you do not have Fox Business Channel Demand it

Well she married the robot with the Doctor inside in another reality so is any of it on the up and up?

Finally no More Amy, Rory Drama

Im hoping for a new companion from America

A Volleyball from the Castaway movie named Wilson!

This was pretty boring and predictable for a season finale. Definitely below average. Once again I can count the episodes of this series I would re-watch on one hand (The Doctor's Wife, Let's Kill Hitler and The Girl Who Waited).

Moffat's dialogue is great, but his plotting leaves much to be desired.

I too am glad to be rid of these companions and River. They were a major handicap on this Doctor.

More alien planets please. More references to the old series, more internal consistency. I would really like to see Smith meet up with a former version of himself (and I mean a former incarnation, like McGann or Tenant maybe, or even one of the older Doctors, with some DS9 style FX trickery). It's the only the thing the New Series hasn't attempted (I don't count Time Crash).

I predicted a lot of this, but I still loved the episode. When Time of Angels aired I speculated that the person River would kill is The Doctor and everyone said that made no sense. The first time the "unanswered question" came up I remembered Cartmell and said it would be The Doctor's name. Naw, that couldn't be it.

It's a fun show. Not high art. I actually really loved this episode.

Several people have cheered, "Yeah, no more Amy and/or Rory and/or River!" I have purposely avoided a lot of the "behind the scenes" stuff so as to avoid the stongest of the spoilers, so I'll ask whether or not this is verified fact. Do we know for certain these performers will not be returning next year?

As for wanting alien worlds, I thought the percentage increased once Moff' got the producer's chair, but I guess I'd better analyze and tally those numbers before making any definite claims.

Sincerely,

Bill

Redfern wrote:

Several people have cheered, "Yeah, no more Amy and/or Rory and/or River!" I have purposely avoided a lot of the "behind the scenes" stuff so as to avoid the stongest of the spoilers, so I'll ask whether or not this is verified fact. Do we know for certain these performers will not be returning next year?

Quite the contrary in fact! I read that it was confirmed that Rory and Amy will be returning in series 7 for one or two episodes as guest companions, much like Martha did is series 4.

I only just got to watch it last night, felt it was a very satisfying end to the series overall. Still several questions left unanswered but no huge, violence-inducing cliffhanger which I was really afraid of.

Been loving this series right along. To me, even when it's bad, it's good. But I will say I've felt it's gotten way too grandiose for it's own good. When you "reboot the universe" there very little room left to move

The promise of smaller, more individual stories really gets me excited. The series started out that way for a while back in 2005 then they practically turned The Doctor into a demigod, known the universe over. Happy to see him slip back into the shadows once again.

The tribute to the Brigadier was truly touching, I love that they included it. There is a moment, after the nurse tells The Doctor that he's passed where he draws the invitations from his pocket. I thought for a second he was going to take one and toss it aside. I think that would've been kind of cool. As it was though, still a wonderful tribute and even made it relevant to the story.