Hello, Sweetie!

October 2, 2011 9:16 PM

River Song: Her Story is a 14 minute long segment from the series finale of BBC Three's Doctor Who Confidential which presents Professor Song's story in HER chronological order. Narrated by Alex Kingston. Spoilers, sweetie! Spoilers!
posted by hippybear (127 comments total)

I just discovered Doctor Who Confidential this week, and I instantly felt that all this time spent watching just Doctor Who, I was only watching half a show. And then they decided to cancel it, argh!
posted by scrowdid at 9:23 PM on October 2, 2011 [2 favorites]

kmz, "A Good Man Goes to War" came out on June 4th. I think those who would care about spoilers who haven't seen it yet and yet also would know the reference have lost their claim by now.

Anyway, as I've said many times already, the timeline I want to see isn't River's (which isn't straightforward but at least makes sense in the ever-shifting rules of the show) but Amy and Rory's, which as of now does not, at least without a lot of extra explanation.
posted by Navelgazer at 9:39 PM on October 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

Married companions are boring.
posted by tylerkaraszewski at 9:40 PM on October 2, 2011

Married characters seem to be challenging to write for, especially if there are no children.
posted by ZeusHumms at 9:42 PM on October 2, 2011

I used to watch Confidential with my friends, but the problem was Confidential had settled into rehashing the show, in a less entertaining way.
posted by ZeusHumms at 9:44 PM on October 2, 2011

Sometimes when I watch Doctor Who, I feel like I'm only watching half a show. I find myself wishing there was some sort of behind-the-scenes documentary program out there, just waiting for me to discover it.
posted by scrowdid at 9:46 PM on October 2, 2011 [3 favorites]

I am still baffled by the whole whispering into her ear thing. It's very clear from Ten's reaction that she really did know his name. But Eleven is all "I just told you my name WINK WINK!" when he said something obviously very different.

And why did she love him so much? In Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead, it seems like River and the Doctor had a long, rich, powerful history. There was time in there somewhere for him to teach her how to fly the Tardis. She had her own sonic screw driver. But in this season, I get the impression that she loves him mainly because she knows she's supposed to love him, and nothing else is explained.

So, what did I miss? I want to believe I missed something.
posted by katillathehun at 9:47 PM on October 2, 2011 [3 favorites]

Sometimes when I watch Doctor Who, I feel like I'm only watching half a show. I find myself wishing there was some sort of behind-the-scenes documentary program out there, just waiting for me to discover it.

I like confidential, it's New Who minus the shit plot.
posted by the noob at 9:50 PM on October 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

So, what did I miss? I want to believe I missed something.

The Doctor has spent 200 years of his timeline between the last time he was seen by Amy/Rory/River and The Impossible Astronaut. I'm sure there are a lot of possibilities for development of a rich history during that time.
posted by hippybear at 9:50 PM on October 2, 2011 [3 favorites]

You missed nothing, katillathehun. What we have is a storyteller who's trying to get away with a multi-season romance without actually having to show any romantic moments.
posted by ZeusHumms at 9:52 PM on October 2, 2011 [4 favorites]

So, what did I miss? I want to believe I missed something.

Yeah, I kind of feel that way too, but in all fairness, no reason she can't spend time falling in love with doctors 11+ in new episodes and outside of the timeline. I do feel like that's a bit weird and lazy though. Such a powerful story suggested in the library. It feels like they plotted out everything mechanically pretty well, but left out the emotion. (Pro Tip: Plot twists are not character development)
posted by Garm at 9:58 PM on October 2, 2011 [5 favorites]

I think what we had is a character painted into a corner and the only way to get out was to trail paint all over the place. It was nice paint, but it's going to take a fair bit of work to scrub it out of the carpet.

A bit like my painted into a corner analogy

Or maybe that was meta
posted by fullerine at 10:04 PM on October 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

I agree, katillathehun. Watching that clip helped me understand River's personal timeline a little better, but there are still a LOT of gaps for me. So much more was alluded to when she was first introduced, and I feel slightly ripped off. I mean, not in a rage-y way. But by the end of the clip I was sort of like, "That was nice. Is that all there is?"

On the other hand, romance on Doctor Who seems so out of place to me. I really didn't enjoy the "Rose and the Doctor are in love!" storyline and was so glad to see it go. Part of me is relieved that the River/Doctor relationship hasn't been more detailed.
posted by That's Numberwang! at 10:04 PM on October 2, 2011

The Amy and Rory Timeline, as I can best make sense of it this season (OBVIOUSLY THIS CONTAINS SPOILERS):

December 25, 2010 (for all intents and purposes): Amy and Rory are honeymooning, and rejoin the Doctor, and conceive a child on the TARDIS.

Mid-April, 2011: Amy and Rory have been separated from The Doctor for some time, without any way of contacting him or assurance that they will ever rejoin him, and without explanation for their being dropped off at a home we've never seen before. Apparently "Word of God" says that Amy has been kidnapped and replaced with a Ganger during this time, though the actual kidnapping and replacement is unclear in the timeline of the show. The couple receives a TARDIS-Blue invitation to go to Utah.

April 22, 2011: Amy and Rory meet up with the Doctor, as well as River Song and the aged Canton Everett Delaware III to witness the Doctor's death. Amy, Rory and River immediately head to a diner where they meet a 200-years-junior Doctor and talk him into following a "blind" lead to go to Washington DC in 1969.

Mid-July 1969: Amy and Rory and River have been running for some time, gathering what information they can about The Silence. It is absolutely Ganger-Amy at this point. The "three months later" at the start of "Day of the Moon" makes it seem that they appeared in DC in "The Impossible Astronaut" also around April 22nd, 1969 (which I like because Douglas Adams used to write for the show and that means that they went exactly 42 years back in time.)

TARDIS-Time: after these adventures, Amy and Rory go to the pocket universe, where Amy learns the word "Petrichor" and it is given deep meaning to her, and eventually the fact that the Amy aboard the TARDIS is a Ganger is discovered, and the Ganger Amy is dissolved. Rory and the Doctor run off to find Amy at Demon's Run where she has just given birth to Melody. Melody is kidnapped, River announces she is, in fact, the grown Melody, and takes her parents home as the Doctor whisks off to find out what happened to the baby.

Undeterminable Time: The Doctor picks up Amy, Rory and Mels, who hijacks the TARDIS off to Berlin and becomes the River we know and (universally without any exception I've come across online or IRL) love. At this point, Amy and Rory rejoin the Doctor in the TARDIS without really mentioning their lost baby again. Or, you know, the photo of Amy holding her as an infant on (presumably) Earth, as shown in "The Impossible Astronaut.

Other Undeterminable Time: The Doctor lets Amy and Rory off with a new car and seemingly new house, without any promise to get back in touch with them.

And this is where shit gets troublesome. Because then we maybe-maybe-not go back around again, a bit.

Mid-April, 2011: The Doctor spies Amy and Rory at a department store. Amy is apparently famous now, either for modeling for, or perhaps more likely creating, fragrances, one of which is named "Petrichor" and is advertised with the tag, "For the Girl Whose Tired of Waiting." The date here is confirmed by the Newspapers in "Closing Time" as well as the contemporaneous run of Britain's Got Talent, mentioned several times in the episode.

5:02 pm, April 22, 2011: Time collapses in on itself as River refuses to kill the Doctor, creating a bubble reality of sorts. Only a few people in this reality seem to be able to remember any fragments of normal time, and even those are sketchy and incomplete. Amy is the head of a resistance movement and neither she nor Rory are aware of their marriage. The Doctor sets everything right so that River kills him at the lake as we've already seen.

Sometime seemingly shortly afterwards: Amy and River have wine at Amy and Rory's home. Amy updates where she is in her adventures by noting that the Doctor is dead (and her tone and way of putting it make it clear that this happened very recently) and River lets her and Rory in on the scheme.

In other words, something HAS to be fishy.
posted by Navelgazer at 10:09 PM on October 2, 2011 [8 favorites]

Hmm.. a few things were left out of that timeline. Didn't they omit "The Time of Angels?"

I totally forgot River Song was at the Library. But I do remember how pissed off I was at that ending. It reminds me of an old Stanislaw Lem story about a scientist who discovers people don't have immortal souls, so he creates one. He puts his dying wife into a crystal, where she will have eternal life. But the scientist has spent his entire fortune developing this soul and has no money to create them for the rest of humankind. So he goes to Ijon Tichy to ask for development money to continue creating immortal souls.
So Tichy asks, this crystal will last forever? And your wife's mind is in there in a simulated world of her own memories, alone, with no outside sensory input, forever, until the end of time? Tichy gives the scientist every cent he owns in exchange for the soul, and all the scientist's research, so that he can never create another one. And then he smashes the crystal.
posted by charlie don't surf at 10:18 PM on October 2, 2011 [4 favorites]

charlie don't surf: When she talks about the crash of the Byzantium, that was "Time of Angles"/"Flesh and Stone." They didn't omit it.

Also, I'm with you on the Lem story, but in the digital afterlife River wasn't alone. There were tons of people saved by the library system in the same way.
posted by Navelgazer at 10:33 PM on October 2, 2011

Undeterminable Time: The Doctor picks up Amy, Rory and Mels, who hijacks the TARDIS off to Berlin and becomes the River we know and (universally without any exception I've come across online or IRL) love.

I hate the character of River Song.

Just sayin'.
posted by tzikeh at 10:34 PM on October 2, 2011 [4 favorites]

Travel with the Doctor long enough and things are bound to get wibbly-wobbly. The Doctor tended to be careful with Rose (though he brought her back once after a pretty long worrisome gap) because she had family and friends waiting for her. Amy and Rory, seemingly, do not (though there were a lot of people at that wedding...)

I hope this means the River Song story is pretty well wrapped up. It proved to be a better ride than I expected, but please lets not keep milking it the way RTD loved to milk his best-loved creations.

Stephen Moffat has a way of making his end-of-the-universe season finales seem much more personal and intimate than RTD's big bomastic ones, which seemed shipped in from some other show. I worry, though, seeing that Karen Gillan & Arthur Darvill are signed on for next season. It seems like they've run their course. I want to see Matt Smith bouncing off someone else for a change. Moffat has proven that long, involved arcs can work in Doctor Who, but let's not get too ambitious. Stray too far from the show's core and you risk buggering it up.
posted by rikschell at 10:44 PM on October 2, 2011 [3 favorites]

In other words, something HAS to be fishy.

Oh, that's just Jim.
posted by maqsarian at 10:45 PM on October 2, 2011 [10 favorites]

I'm so looking forward to next season. I've enjoyed the last two seasons tremendously, but next season will be a great change of pace. It'll also be nice to see the Doctor try to figure out being humble.

Also, the pterodactyls? They remind me of the weird monster-things in Father's Day. In fact, I'd much prefer Father's Day if it was all about the wedding-goers being attacked by terribly confused pterodactyls.
posted by meese at 11:01 PM on October 2, 2011 [2 favorites]

Yeah, I don't think we're done with River by a long shot. On the contrary, I think we're set up for a season with River as the new Companion. (and tzikeh, I know, I was making a joke.)

I'm curious to see how that much River exposure could work. I'm actually optimistic that it could rid her of a lot of the irritating tics ("Spoilers!" and whatnot) and general Mary-Sueitude that we get from her when she only pops in at times, and rather lead us to the Doctor having a tempestuous Companion who he knows is his actual equal in many ways, and who begins to show weaknesses and flaws of her own.

There are a lot of issues, big and small, left unaddressed by "The Wedding of River Song," but it set up an end-point for Matt Smith, which both makes me sad and makes me happy. We're working towards a "Fall of the Eleventh," and thus starting to see the Smith era as a Trilogy of sorts. Season 5 was about Amy, Season 6 was about River. And Season 7 will seemingly involve the Doctor, with River, affecting things from a clandestine level while the Silence acts under the belief that the Doctor is dead.

Sounds exciting to me.
posted by Navelgazer at 11:39 PM on October 2, 2011 [7 favorites]

I just keep telling myself "Moffat is slowly undoing the tangled steaming mess left by Russell T", over and over again.

If you look in my loungeroom window on a Sunday night you might see me there, sitting on the floor, arms around my knees, staring at the screen and rocking backwards and forwards. It's getting to be the only way I can stand to keep watching…
posted by Pinback at 12:16 AM on October 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

On the contrary, I think we're set up for a season with River as the new Companion. (and tzikeh, I know, I was making a joke.)

Hopefully Alex Kingston will have time after her new stint on Upstairs Downstairs. There's an io9 review of the episode that points out that rather than being her own woman, River Song's life was molded around the Doctor, and, in some senses, is pretty warped. Does the Doctor love her? It's hard to say.
posted by ZeusHumms at 12:29 AM on October 3, 2011

One more spoiler: at the end of the season finale, Doctor Who reveals the Ultimate Question to the Ultimate Answer that Douglas Adams never told us. "Doctor Who?" "42." Makes as much sense as anything on that show since the revival.
posted by oneswellfoop at 12:36 AM on October 3, 2011 [3 favorites]

charlie don't surf: "I totally forgot River Song was at the Library. But I do remember how pissed off I was at that ending."

At least she's got company in there. And, bet: there's no way a universe as large and complex and full of crazy shit as the Who universe doesn't contain come kind of re-embodiment machine. River and all the other people in that computer core are coming back out, some day.

For a short while I was disappointed by this last season of Who. It's better than any given season in the RTD-era (imo) but duff episodes and silly plot resolutions still abound. But like a lot of long-term Who fans, who were into it as kids and who kicked around what I would do with Who ideas during the long hiatus, the show I want isn't a family show. Yeah, you could inject some more sense into some of the wilder plot twists but it still isn't what I want for the character and the universe, so these days I just unplug my brain and enjoy the ride.

For all its faults, Who is still a very fun ride. Moffat does good monster.
posted by ArmyOfKittens at 12:57 AM on October 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

me: "River and all the other people in that computer core are coming back out, some day."

In fact:

River and the others from the Library stumble out into the light, bald and blinking. In front of them, the Doctor stands with top hat and cane, beaming from ear to ear.

"Welcome to the Regeneration Room!" he exclaims.

"I'm so--" River starts.

"I'm so proud of this; isn't it clever? I got you out of there a little early, so sorry about the baldness and the lack of toenails and I'm not sure all of you have all the teeth you're supposed to but they make wigs and dentures and it's not flip-flop season for another three months."

"What did--"

"Don't interrupt. Do you know how long this has taken? I have a speech." The Doctor's pacing brings him close to River and he nudges her, winks at her, and whispers, "I wrote a speech!" before continuing on. Then he doubles back to River. "But I lost it. In Basingstoke. Had to run from a Flame Beast. It ate the speech! Well, burned it, really. And then turned out to be a seven year-old girl with a chemistry set."

"I don't--"

"So anyway, yes! I was very clever. Ran the TARDIS non-stop for four hundred years, circling a red giant star, building up the time energy to get you all out of there and into here! I wasn't bored; I had a magazine. I've tried to restore you all as you were but please don't count your fingers until I'm safely out of earshot. Yes, River?"

"I don't know whether to hit you or kiss you."
posted by ArmyOfKittens at 1:13 AM on October 3, 2011 [29 favorites]

I didn't watch this, mainly because I'm pretty sure it doesn't end in the best possible way: with the death of River Song, her deletion from the timeline, her eradication from Who continuity, and her complete erasure from my brain.
posted by Mr. Bad Example at 2:13 AM on October 3, 2011 [2 favorites]

As a fan of Ruddigore, I appreciate the Basingstoke reference.
posted by Navelgazer at 2:35 AM on October 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

My aunt lives in Basingstoke. We would visit when I was a kid and I would set off with bicycle and bagged sandwich and explore the maze of identical suburbs. I may have to pitch an episode of Who where Rory gets lost in the backstreets because someone the monster has stolen all the road signs and without them there is simply no way to know where you are.

I can see it now:

"Is this playground number 3 or number 5? Am I going in circles? I swear I've seen that manhole cover before. Oh no, the monster!" *snarfling noises as Rory is eaten*
posted by ArmyOfKittens at 2:47 AM on October 3, 2011 [4 favorites]

Now one thing that is bothering me is the resolution of the "fixed point in time" that River disrupts by not shooting and killing the Doctor. So instead, the Doctor hides inside a Teselecta robot and once again, River does not kill the Doctor. Problems solved. Yeah right.

Okay, this makes no sense at all. Why would time go bonkers like that if the Doctor weren't really dead? This makes River shooting the Fixed Point, not the Doctor dying. How the hell does River have such time-bending power, since she already gave up all her regenerative time energy and is now a mere mortal? It didn't come from the Doctor either, he's the same before and after the Fixed Point.
posted by charlie don't surf at 4:01 AM on October 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

Ennhh...at least she's not Donna Noble.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 4:28 AM on October 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

Or Adric.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 4:29 AM on October 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

You know, Adric gets a very bad press, but was he really that bad?


On the fixed point in time/death of the Doctor bit: I think.... and wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey etc - that it's about reportage. That is, the still point in time is the Doctor (appearing to) die, and his death being witnessed, reported etc.

Justification? Well, partly it's a backformation - if the Doctor visibly not dying breaks time, and the Doctor apparently dying fixes it, then the fixed point in time must be the recorded death of the Doctor, rather than the actual death of the Doctor. I realise this is a post hoc propter hoc.

Supporting evidence? Flimsy, at best. It doesn't feel like the Doctor faking his death ought to be a moment of such great significance, but we don't have a clear read on whether fixed points in time are themselves significant, or whether they are just anchor points for time in general. So, you can't stop Vesuvius exploding - but in the greater scheme of the universe, that isn't presumably a moment of cataclysmic importance. And you can tweak the moment in small ways, as long as the way in which it is a fixed point in time is maintained. So, Vesuvius erupts, but Peter Capaldi and his family can be saved. As long as the element that is fixed - an Apollo astronaut shooting what looks like the Doctor, him appearing to die, his body being cremated, say - is preserved, you can fiddle with the details - like whether the Doctor actually dies.
posted by running order squabble fest at 4:32 AM on October 3, 2011 [5 favorites]

You know, Adric gets a very bad press, but was he really that bad?

Yes. Yes, he was.
posted by 1970s Antihero at 4:39 AM on October 3, 2011 [3 favorites]

Excellent video. Genius writing. That is all.
posted by JtJ at 4:47 AM on October 3, 2011

Hopefully Alex Kingston will have time after her new stint on Upstairs Downstairs.

Well, considering that series one of the Upstairs Downstairs reboot was three entire episodes, I'm sure she'll have time. This new series is only six episodes. Not that huge a time commitment.
posted by hippybear at 5:32 AM on October 3, 2011

I really didn't enjoy the "Rose and the Doctor are in love!" storyline and was so glad to see it go.

I liked it. I didn't think it was exactly a romance in the normal sense of the word, because I don't really need to imagine Rose and the Doctor going on dates or having sex or whatever; that's not really the point. However, you have this situation where a fairly bright and capable woman stuck by class and education in a fairly dreary life suddenly finds an enormously expanded universe that lets her become the best person she can be travels on a series of crazy adventures with this badly damaged and lonely man-like being who is badly out of balance. Over time, feelings develop. Like I said, they aren't necessarily romantic feelings -- for one thing, the Doctor isn't going to have anything like a human romantic urge -- but the relationship develops differently from most previous Companion relationships (maybe because the Doctor is not capable of holding Rose at arm's length at that moment).

Anyway, the reason it worked was because it unfolds gradually and with various setbacks and complications. My problems with the latest bunch of seasons is that we don't see this stuff develop, we just get told it. Why does Amy Pond love the Doctor? Because it says so in the script. Why do River Song and the Doctor have this intense bond? Because the story arc calls for it. There's nothing organic about it at all. As I've said before, the Fifth season pretty much reads like the First and Second smashed together on fast forward. And not in a good way, no matter how many Autons with their stupid flippy hands we get to see.
posted by GenjiandProust at 5:42 AM on October 3, 2011 [10 favorites]

I do wish River got to develop onscreen a little into the character in the Library - who I have to say I actually rather liked (sorry!). As it is, it looks like we've now seen her entire arc - there are opportunities for her to guest, of course, if the Doctor wanders back into her timestream, but her dramatic arc is now done, and we never saw her actually get to have an honest relationship with the Doctor. Although that wish is at odds with the desire not to have a Doctor who has romantic subplots, admittedly, so pay your money, take your choice...

The other thing about that is that it feels a bit like clearing the decks - in the same way that when RTD finished showrunning, he tied up (in a more or less satisfactory manner) the Master, the Time War and all the core companions he had introduced (Martha and Micky getting together to become the Nick and Nora Fury of UNIT, Jack busy with Torchwood, Rose locked away in an unreachable universe with Doctor Boyfriend, Donna Noble unable to Companion ever again on pain of headsplode). In the same way, this season has ended with River Song, Amy Pond and Rory Williams all tidied away - they are all accessible again, but they don't have to be. It almost feels like Moffat might have been giving himself and his notional successor a clean departure point, if he had decided to leave at the end of this season.
posted by running order squabble fest at 6:18 AM on October 3, 2011

I really didn't enjoy the "Rose and the Doctor are in love!" storyline and was so glad to see it go.

The existence of River Song is possibly the only thing in the entirety of the new series that made me miss Mary Sue Davies Rose. And that is saying a lot. I am not kidding. Love and Monsters was the stupidest thing ever until they dropped the Stevie-Wonder-Can-See-This-Coming "reveal" about River in the last season. I might only be saying this because unlike 99% of the fanboys who whine like this and are just that, whining, I actually did ragequit Doctor Who after the last mid-season break over "it" and haven't returned. And I've been watching the show since the 80's.

I saw a spoiler about the new Batman game this weekend and got furious that I saw it. I've read a dozen spoilers about the last two episodes and haven't given shit one. I'm sort of sad about how telling that is for me personally. I've sort of accepted that I have to wait until Moffat leaves the show at this point and takes his Very Special Snowflakes with him. And this was the "good" writer. Sigh.
posted by XQUZYPHYR at 6:19 AM on October 3, 2011

River Song is the Poochie of Dr. Who.
posted by mobunited at 6:23 AM on October 3, 2011 [2 favorites]

I guess I am in the minority because if there is one character I do not want to see more of, it's River Goddamn Song.
posted by Legomancer at 6:24 AM on October 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

I just keep telling myself "Moffat is slowly undoing the tangled steaming mess left by Russell T", over and over again.

Me too. But sadly, this has not been the case.

I was told that this finale was basically resetting things and perhaps then we'd get back it back to an at least half decent show. At the end there was some sort of mention that he wouldn't be so central to the Universe, and therefore the show might not be so grandiose and melodramatic but I really couldn't pay that much attention to it and we've heard that before with time can be rewritten and changed in Moffat's first full season as head writer. He failed to change the terrible stories and the horrible RTD Whoniverse and indeed, has been trapped within the same.

As I watched I thought that those working on this series, the production crew mostly, must be like workers in the arms industry. I mean, we all have to work, we all have to earn money, and seldom do we get to do what we'd love to. The people producing the new Doctor Who do so very well but despite that, the writing makes it end up like a horribly destructive explosion as far as drama and characters go. I wonder what it's like to wake up each day and see all your hard work go into the manufacture of bullets and explosives, as it were.
posted by juiceCake at 6:29 AM on October 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

juiceCake: "He failed to change the terrible stories and the horrible RTD Whoniverse and indeed, has been trapped within the same."

After the trainwreck last season of RTD, Mrs AoK and I came up with a million opening scenarios for new Who; just about every single one revolved around the Doctor restoring Gallifrey somehow. I still think it was a lazy shortcut for RTD to have the whole Time War happen offscreen and pre-season, because he wanted his Doctor to be a lonely wanderer but didn't want to put in the work to justify that.

It's a bit of a hole in the Doctor's characterisation that he isn't trying to figure out a loophole to bring the Time Lords back. (And in fact one of our bits of fan wankery we liked was that he fucks up, and brings back height-of-evil time-scoops-are-fun yay-gladiatorial-combat Rassilon-era Gallifrey and has to spend a season cleaning up his mess.)
posted by ArmyOfKittens at 6:47 AM on October 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

katillathehun: "I am still baffled by the whole whispering into her ear thing. It's very clear from Ten's reaction that she really did know his name. But Eleven is all "I just told you my name WINK WINK!" when he said something obviously very different.

And why did she love him so much? In Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead, it seems like River and the Doctor had a long, rich, powerful history. There was time in there somewhere for him to teach her how to fly the Tardis. She had her own sonic screw driver. But in this season, I get the impression that she loves him mainly because she knows she's supposed to love him, and nothing else is explained.

So, what did I miss? I want to believe I missed something."


The whispering of the ear is fully explained in the episode. I won't explain it here due to spoilers but what he actually said was stated. I can explain it in a PM if you haven't watched the whole episode yet.

She loved him so much because they did have a long, rich, and powerful history it just wasn't televised. The Doctor and River travel through time. There are lots of events that they share that we don't know about.
posted by 2manyusernames at 6:51 AM on October 3, 2011

oh and I forgot to add that the bit about his name was just a ruse to keep what he really said confidential
posted by 2manyusernames at 6:52 AM on October 3, 2011

It's a bit of a hole in the Doctor's characterisation that he isn't trying to figure out a loophole to bring the Time Lords back.

I always assumed that he spent hundreds of years trying to do that, after the war. And then he gave it up at some point before he met Rose, and decided just to bum around and have adventures. So he doesn't try anymore because he has decided it's impossible.
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 6:53 AM on October 3, 2011

She loved him so much because they did have a long, rich, and powerful history it just wasn't televised. The Doctor and River travel through time. There are lots of events that they share that we don't know about.

And what an awful, awful cop out that is. Not only do we have to take it on faith that they really really wuv each other and that it's substantiated offscreen, never mind that on screen they have all the chemistry of two overcooked carrots, but we also have to only deal with only the irritating dipped-in-kinky-maple-syrup river as she and the doctor wade through the overly emotional and really just kind of dull storyline.
posted by litleozy at 6:55 AM on October 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

it may be a cop out but do we really want to watch a season of stories rehashing standard tired plots about two people who start out as antagonistic to each other and then gradually find that they love each other? That just wouldn't make for many good stories especially not Dr Who stories.
posted by 2manyusernames at 7:01 AM on October 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

Okay, now I'm curious. Quick show of hands: Love or hate River Song?

I'll start: Hate!
posted by orrnyereg at 7:02 AM on October 3, 2011

When the comics writer Grant Morrison wrapped up his Final Crisis crossover event for DC, he said he’d deliberately omitted some elements of “connective tissue” in the story, hoping this would encourage his more obsessive readers to participate in the story by building the missing bridges for themselves.

He saw this as an essential part of storytelling in the internet age, and I sometimes wonder if Moffat and co might have decided on a similar approach. Here’s two quotes from Morrison discussing Final Crisis on Newsarama. Much of what he has to say, I think, could apply equally well to the whole Silence arc:

“I choose to leave out boring, as I saw it, connective tissue we didn’t really need for this story to work. I choose to leave out long-winded caption-heavy explanations that bring readers ‘up to speed’, even as they send them to sleep. … When interestingly-shaped story spaces can be opened out to make room for enthusiastic speculation and debate that adds to the fun”.

Later, he added:

“ Is it presented in a carefully-composed ‘chaotic’ way? Yes, because getting caught between two entire universes as they skim past one another at the end of the world, while Justifier troops pour in through the walls to get you would be pretty chaotic and I wanted to capture that.”
posted by Paul Slade at 7:02 AM on October 3, 2011 [2 favorites]

ArmyOfKittens: "It's a bit of a hole in the Doctor's characterisation that he isn't trying to figure out a loophole to bring the Time Lords back. "

Not at all. I'm pretty sure that they addressed this head-on: The Doctor talks about having tried to do this on multiple occasions, having reached the parallel conclusions that it was impossible, and that the time lords were a destructive race that more or less deserved their fate. The Doctor even admits that he deserves this fate himself, and the fact that he cheats death in search of redemption (but never seems to quite earn that redemption, leaving a wake of destruction in his path)* is more or less the core of his characterization.

_{Of course, the cool part about The Doctor is that he clearly recognizes what he's done, and that "The Good Guys Win" is not necessarily a great outcome, and is one of the only characters on the show to show this nuance. He even sheds a tear when his mortal enemies, the Daleks, are believed to have been completely obliterated.}
posted by schmod at 7:02 AM on October 3, 2011 [3 favorites]

Somebody needs to Photoshop this to incorporate the Doctor...
posted by schmod at 7:02 AM on October 3, 2011

I always assumed that he spent hundreds of years trying to do that, after the war. And then he gave it up at some point before he met Rose, and decided just to bum around and have adventures. So he doesn't try anymore because he has decided it's impossible.

Hadn't Nine just regenerated when we meet him - hence checking his ears and teeth - having presumably died doing whatever he had to do to seal the Time Lords and the Daleks off.

Actually, this is an interesting question, which I'm sure someone must have the gen on - did the Doctor know that Rassilon was planning to destroy the universe in order to win the Time War for Gallifrey, as revealed in The End of Time, all the time? Because the original story was that the Daleks were about to destroy Gallifrey when he performed the time lock, I think, but maybe he was at that point in denial about how far Gallifrey itself had fallen - or at least not ready to admit it to lesser species.
posted by running order squabble fest at 7:06 AM on October 3, 2011

She loved him so much because they did have a long, rich, and powerful history it just wasn't televised. The Doctor and River travel through time. There are lots of events that they share that we don't know about.

It's funny you mention this, because one of the reasons I gave up on Who after the last season was I found myself being unable to watch it without becoming Harry Plinkett in the Star Wars reviews. And that was one of his main points about why the relationship of the characters in the prequels was so lame and uninteresting: because you are told that Obi Wan and Anakin are friends through references, since that's easier than showing actual examples of how they are friends.

Han and Luke went from hating each other to being best friends in a shorter amount of on-screen time than two or three episodes of Doctor Who.

it may be a cop out but do we really want to watch a season of stories rehashing standard tired plots about two people who start out as antagonistic to each other and then gradually find that they love each other? That just wouldn't make for many good stories especially not Dr Who stories.

Or, maybe, you know, just spitballing here, it's a sign that perhaps the overlying plot of Doctor goddamned Who shouldn't be about which character on the show is in love with him the most.
posted by XQUZYPHYR at 7:15 AM on October 3, 2011

So, what did I miss? I want to believe I missed something.
posted by katillathehun at 12:47 AM on October 3 [+] [!] No other comments.

Two options: he told her his name in "Let's Kill Hitler" as he was dying, or she learns his name in adventures yet to come. Probably when someone (maybe River herself?) asks "Doctor who?" and subsequently silence must fall (I think it's "Silence in the Library" that's falling--i.e., River's own death. But we'll see).

The Doctor has spent 200 years of his timeline between the last time he was seen by Amy/Rory/River and The Impossible Astronaut. I'm sure there are a lot of possibilities for development of a rich history during that time.

Alternately, he lied about seeing Easter Island and Jim the Fish, the two travels he confirmed in that diner so that River and/or Amy and Rory (in the event that River also lied) believed he was truly going to his death. Their travels are yet to come next season, where we'll watch River grow from a selfish Poochie to the self-sacrificing woman we first met.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 7:17 AM on October 3, 2011

orrnyereg: love! I actually (self-link warning) blogged last night about why the timey wimeyness of her storyline redeems her for me, despite teh fact that she's been kinda obnoxious lately. I adore her.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 7:19 AM on October 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

Actually, this is an interesting question, which I'm sure someone must have the gen on - did the Doctor know that Rassilon was planning to destroy the universe in order to win the Time War for Gallifrey, as revealed in The End of Time, all the time? Because the original story was that the Daleks were about to destroy Gallifrey when he performed the time lock, I think, but maybe he was at that point in denial about how far Gallifrey itself had fallen - or at least not ready to admit it to lesser species.

The "Last Great Time War" is good for two things. One, it's an amazing phrase, divorced from all explicit meaning or context. This is something that the (the new) Doctor Who does really, really, well. The Last Great Time War, the Shadow Proclamation, the Fields of Trensalore, they all sound really great even when we have no idea what they are. Two, the Time War gives an excuse to jettison all the other Time Lords with their silly costumes and other nonsense.

What the Time War is NOT good for is talking about; the further you dig the less sense it makes and the dumber it gets. This is part of what doomed "The End of Time" to being a terrible episode. It's better just to not think about it and enjoy the fact that you don't have to see those silly Time Lord hats anymore.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 7:25 AM on October 3, 2011 [2 favorites]

See, I think the timey-wimeyness of her story doesn't redeem her. (I am completely indifferent to her as a character. I neither love nor hate her.) All it has been, so far, is another way to take an effective female character and make her whiny and immature, and look, the authors have yet another reason to do it, so that in-story it makes sense, and from outside, we see an interesting, effective female character be reduced.
posted by jeather at 7:27 AM on October 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

orrnyereg, you can put me on the love side. There is also, this.

Also, as far as the writing on the show, the River and Doctor going opposite directions in time thing is mind blowingly cool to me.
posted by lordrunningclam at 7:29 AM on October 3, 2011

All it has been, so far, is another way to take an effective female character and make her whiny and immature, and look, the authors have yet another reason to do it, so that in-story it makes sense, and from outside, we see an interesting, effective female character be reduced.

But she's actually growing! From a petulant jerk who was not so different from me when I was nineteen or so into an awesome, noble, educated bad ass! It beats Amy's no-growth storyline, at least. My only hope is that Moffat doesn't give in to his urges to get overblown and lets us see that growth, which is the chunk of her story we're missing. But then, it was kind of love at first sight for me. I've always thought she was pretty awesome.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 7:34 AM on October 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

Well, she might have grown, but what we *see* is her regressing, because we started out with the mature River, and have ended up with a petulant one. It's possible to finish this well next season, just like it's possible to do good things with Amy, but we still have Moffat leaving character out for clever plotting, and not all his plotting is clever enough to make up for having a couple of near cardboard cutouts. Some is, of course; his plots are more intelligent than the RTD-era ones, and his story arcs are less stupid than Tinkerbell Jesus Doctor. But the plot "The Doctor realises he is hurting people and using them as his weapons and he has to figure out how to stop doing it and etc etc" is pretty much the last season of 10, and it's being repeated (ish) as the story of 11. And it's okay, because it's an interesting story and 10's redemption arc wasn't particularly redemptive, but 11 isn't really doing it much better.
posted by jeather at 7:46 AM on October 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

Well, she might have grown, but what we *see* is her regressing, because we started out with the mature River, and have ended up with a petulant one.

You know I'm with you on Amy, but I'm not sure that there's a way to track a character's development from birth to death, to show her as a complex, multifaceted character who grows and changes backwards without having her appear on a very surfacey reading to be outwardly diminished. The other option is to have her be simply perfect, iconic, but flat (which, really, is what we get with the Doctor, over all of his incarnations and even as he changes slightly). I'd rather have the character be more layered and thorny. It makes the sacrifice she makes in Forest of the Dead much more meaningful if we knew that, as a young woman, she would not have made that sacrifice--but now she's grown, her experiences have changed her, and she's learned.

I think there's a bit of a catch 22 when writing female characters, an expectation, in the moment, to make them always awesome. But growth from less awesome to more is more realistic and resonant for me, personally. And you're right--it's possible Amy might still become awesome. We'll see next season, if the bulk of her story isn't already over.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 7:53 AM on October 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

The whispering of the ear is fully explained in the episode. I won't explain it here due to spoilers but what he actually said was stated. I can explain it in a PM if you haven't watched the whole episode yet.


I think katillathehun is referring to the first time River meets the Doctor. She whispers something in his ear that surprises him. The assumption is that it's his name. So, in the final, the Doctor whispers something in her end, which seems to be a bookend, but isn't. If it wasn't his name he whispered, then what was it that she whispered to him.
posted by willnot at 7:56 AM on October 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

I liked how Matt Smith looked in the finale with his long scruffy hair. They should keep it that way. He looked older, and more like an out-of-time oddball hobo trying hard to be debonair. It reminded me of a mix between the First and Second Doctor's haircuts. And with a bit of Riff Raff from Rocky Horror mixed in as well.
posted by painquale at 8:09 AM on October 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

Justification? Well, partly it's a backformation - if the Doctor visibly not dying breaks time, and the Doctor apparently dying fixes it, then the fixed point in time must be the recorded death of the Doctor, rather than the actual death of the Doctor. I realise this is a post hoc propter hoc.

This isn't how it works at all. The fixed point in time was River shooting the Teselecta with the doctor inside. That's what we saw at the beginning of the season - that's what always happened. River changed history by draining her suit's weapon power and not shooting the Teselecta.

The doctor was never going to die. The fixed point was the scene exactly as we saw it - it's just that things weren't what they seemed.
posted by heathkit at 8:14 AM on October 3, 2011 [5 favorites]

You know I'm with you on Amy, but I'm not sure that there's a way to track a character's development from birth to death, to show her as a complex, multifaceted character who grows and changes backwards without having her appear on a very surfacey reading to be outwardly diminished.

The problem isn't that they are doing River's growth backwards, it's that she's the only (female) character who is changing much, and she's getting worse. If Amy were growing, if we didn't see her being awesome and then being erased, again and again, like a sitcom character getting a reset button every 22 minutes, then it wouldn't be at all an issue that we are seeing River get less and less impressive, because it is a very interesting story and a fun conceit.

I think there's a bit of a catch 22 when writing female characters, an expectation, in the moment, to make them always awesome. But growth from less awesome to more is more realistic and resonant for me, personally.

Which is fine! I am for that, especially with setbacks and all the other reasonable things. (I think an imperfect character who is growing and making mistakes is awesome -- awesome is a character who acts, not just reacts, who makes choices and takes responsibility, who sometimes follows and sometimes argues and is generally well-rounded.) Having always perfect female characters isn't particularly great, but this is not a problem in Doctor Who, or many other shows I can think of.
posted by jeather at 8:16 AM on October 3, 2011

Also, I agree that it's not that satisfying that river falling in love with the Doctor happens offscreen, but I don't see how else you could do that. I can't think of any TV show that had characters fall in love on-screen in a believable way.

The implication I took was that River spent a long time studying archeology and learning about the Doctor. She fell in love through reading stories about him, much like the audience.
posted by heathkit at 8:17 AM on October 3, 2011

Ennhh...at least she's not Donna Noble.

Oh no you didn't. Donna was fucking awesome. Say what you will about RTD (and I've got plenty of beef with his Who), his companions were all great, even Rose before she became Saint Rose, even Jack before Torchwood went off the fucking rails.
posted by kmz at 8:18 AM on October 3, 2011 [18 favorites]

This isn't how it works at all.

I think your correction then exactly maps to what I originally said - that the fixed point in time is the Doctor appearing to die - thus creating a fixed point in fanwank.

bulgaroktonos: My favorite comment on the Time War comes from, I think, Nicholas Briggs, the director of many of the "Big Finish" audiio adventures that carried on the Doctor Who stories after the cancellation of the series (and the failure of the TV movie). He said that it was best to avoid trying to depict the Time War, because how are you going to do it? "Oh, no - an alarm clock just exploded off the starboard bow, and there's time all over the ship"?

However, the difficulties of attempting to describe the Time War don't really make it unworkable for the Doctor to have a consistent (or at least explicably inconsistent) emotional response to it. All we really need to know is how it ends - and that is either with the Doctor sacrificing Gallifrey to stop the Daleks and save the universe, or the Doctor sacrificing Gallifrey to stop the Daleks and the Time Lords and save the universe. What happened up to the moment of that decision - all that stuff about the Cruciform and the Whatsitsface Nebula - can just stay as cool names.
posted by running order squabble fest at 8:36 AM on October 3, 2011 [4 favorites]

The problem isn't that they are doing River's growth backwards, it's that she's the only (female) character who is changing much, and she's getting worse.

But again, she's not getting worse. We've seen the final outcome for her character, which is a marked and palpable improvement from what she is now, at her origins. Having watched her episodes in River-order last season, I can assure you that the narrative there confirms this reading. If you think she's getting worse, then it's an artifact of watching her story from the wrong perspective.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 8:38 AM on October 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

The only thing awesome about Donna Noble was Wilfred Mott.

That being said, we still haven't seen companions in the new series on the same level as Sarah & Harry, or 2nd Romana.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 8:51 AM on October 3, 2011

If you think she's getting worse, then it's an artifact of watching her story from the wrong perspective.

I think we're coming at this from different directions, as it were. I agree that in her own timeline, she's growing as a character. I agree that this is an interesting way to tell a story, and that the only good way to do it is to have her regress on our timeline.

However, the upshot is that we have two female characters on Who, one who is at best stagnating in our timeline and one who is becoming less and less mature and capable. So we don't see, for instance, an interesting story comparing Amy & River, we see Amy stagnating in the main timeline, and doing stuff and then being reset in a bunch of individual episodes -- in essence, Amy is regressing. We also see River regressing (I know it's because she's getting younger, but as Alex Kingston is not actually getting younger, it's hard to see). We see the Doctor and Rory, on the other hand, growing. The story itself would be fine and interesting, but the story embedded in the larger Who arcs is problematic, just like many individual Amy episodes. (This also appears to be the case about the one-off characters, but I haven't really spent much time thinking about them other than a few eyerolls.)
posted by jeather at 8:52 AM on October 3, 2011

I hear you; I'm just not sure there's any other way to tell this story, which in and of itself doesn't feel too bad for me (except, perhaps, in the presence of Moffat's pervasive attitude that wimmins want marriage and men don't), but I understand how it looks bad when paired with Amy's story.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 8:55 AM on October 3, 2011

Reading this thread (as well as many others about many shows) I am struck by the need for a word.

The word would cover disaffected fans. People who's once favorite show is now grating on them, but who find themselves unable to look away.

I'm sure I'm not the first person to think of this. Is there a word that covers this?
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 8:59 AM on October 3, 2011

I'm just not sure there's any other way to tell this story, which in and of itself doesn't feel too bad for me (except, perhaps, in the presence of Moffat's pervasive attitude that wimmins want marriage and men don't), but I understand how it looks bad when paired with Amy's story.

And this is my problem with it. Imagine we had River paired with Donna during the period that Donna was growing from an annoying character to a great one (imagine further that Donna never got hit with the reset button). That would have been a really interesting, compelling story, and though it probably would have had parts that I disagreed with, the conceit of telling the story backwards so River was getting younger would have been a really fun one that didn't seem like another facet of Moffat's sexism.

River's story is good, and I like Alex Kingston, but in the context of these two series, it appears more "yet another cool girl becomes uncool" and less "we get a fun story that only works because of time travel".
posted by jeather at 9:07 AM on October 3, 2011 [3 favorites]

lordrunningclam: Also, as far as the writing on the show, the River and Doctor going opposite directions in time thing is mind blowingly cool to me.

You mean, the idea Moffat lifted wholesale from the 2003 novel The Time Traveler's Wife?
posted by tzikeh at 9:16 AM on October 3, 2011 [2 favorites]

Oh no you didn't. Donna was fucking awesome.

I found Donna sort of horrible and grating, but, after watching her arc, I felt she made a great tragic figure. Of all the recent companions, she was the one who really benefited from her experiences with the Doctor. Amy/Rory have this sort of "destiny" thing going on;Martha is just an all around expert; Rose gives the impression that she would have made something of herself regardless, but Donna was a modestly horrible person who found heroism of at least a sort in the Doctor's company. I don't love the character, but I respect what they seem to have been trying to do with her.
posted by GenjiandProust at 9:37 AM on October 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

The word would cover disaffected fans. People who's once favorite show is now grating on them, but who find themselves unable to look away.

I think we refer to those people as Lost?
posted by fullerine at 9:44 AM on October 3, 2011 [5 favorites]

The whispering of the ear is fully explained in the episode. I won't explain it here due to spoilers but what he actually said was stated. I can explain it in a PM if you haven't watched the whole episode yet. oh and I forgot to add that the bit about his name was just a ruse to keep what he really said confidential

I saw the episode, so I know. But again - we're led to think that what Eleven said to River is what River said to Ten. But Eleven only pretends to tell her his name. Ten, however, seems genuinely stunned to hear whatever River whispers to him, and his emotional "River, you know my name" speech doesn't sound like code language for "River, people will apparently think I'm dead in my future, but you know I was inside a robot."
posted by katillathehun at 9:52 AM on October 3, 2011 [5 favorites]

Okay, now I'm curious. Quick show of hands: Love or hate River Song?

Loved her as originally conceived. But I think it was a horrible mistake to make her Amy and Rory's daughter. I wanted a different backstory, spun out longer.

I think katillathehun is referring to the first time River meets the Doctor. She whispers something in his ear that surprises him. The assumption is that it's his name.

But we know he tells her his name at SOME point, as she whispers it back to him in The Library. And Tenth Doctor confirms onscreen that she did say it to him. He even says "there's only one reason I'd ever tell you my name." So -- the question becomes: if he didn't tell her his name at their wedding, what IS that "one reason"?

Dear Steven Moffat: please let's leave this plot thread alone for the time being kthx.

I'm also putting in a vote for Team Donna Noble. Don't forget, she came after two instances of companions mooning over The Doctor, so when she sputtered out, "I don't want any of THAT nonsense!" to him, it was a delightful change. Plus -- Tennant and Tate have some DELIGHTFUL chemistry, especially with comedic stuff.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 9:56 AM on October 3, 2011 [10 favorites]

You mean, the idea Moffat lifted wholesale from the 2003 novel The Time Traveler's Wife?

There was also a really well-done backwards love story in Hyperion, but I get your point.
posted by heathkit at 10:22 AM on October 3, 2011

You know, Adric gets a very bad press, but was he really that bad?

I will not hear anything bad about Adric. He learned the Block Transfer Algorithm on Logopolis which gave him some powers beyond those of a Timelord. And he suffered torture at by the Master to exploit those powers. And then he died, sacrificing himself, in a stupid death that I never have figured out why the Doctor didn't pull him out just in time, using the Tardis.
posted by charlie don't surf at 10:28 AM on October 3, 2011 [2 favorites]

Aw, poor Adric. I don't think he ever really got a fair shake. I do highly recommend listening to the commentary on the Earthshock DVD.
posted by orrnyereg at 10:44 AM on October 3, 2011

>She loved him so much because they did have a long, rich, and powerful history it just wasn't televised. The Doctor and River travel through time. There are lots of events that they share that we don't know about.<

I’m with this. I actually get irritated that we’re supposed to be watching a immortal time traveler but it seems the only events that have any impact or importance are the tiny bits we see, and are mostly centered around the last few years. I have an imagination, you don’t have to show me every bit for it to be part of the story.

I have friends who met and fell in love when before I knew them. I don’t discount their story because I didn’t see it unfold.
posted by bongo_x at 10:53 AM on October 3, 2011 [2 favorites]

EmpressCallipygos: "But we know he tells her his name at SOME point, as she whispers it back to him in The Library. And Tenth Doctor confirms onscreen that she did say it to him. He even says "there's only one reason I'd ever tell you my name." So -- the question becomes: if he didn't tell her his name at their wedding, what IS that "one reason"?"

[SPOILERS]

We're also forgetting the very end of the episode. For quite some time now, we've been hearing "Silence will fall when the question is asked," and the end of the episode makes it clear that the question pertains to the Doctor's name.

We also know that River doesn't know the Doctor's name, but eventually does learn it by the time that she meets David Tennant's Doctor during "Silence in the Library."

The doctor's own interpretation of the prophecy ("My Silence will fall") seemed forced and grammatically awkward, and doesn't fit in with what took place at the lake. As far as I can suss, the Doctor's interpretation of the prophecy is flat-out wrong, and the prophecy has not yet been fulfilled.

We also haven't quite figured out how River gets thrown in prison (although the Tesselector's (sp?) involvement during what happened at the lake could offer clues as to why the terms of her detainment were so flexible -- they know her imprisonment is a sham)

Putting 2 and 2 together, I think it's pretty obvious that River is the one who asks the question (and gets an answer), and that this somehow contributes to the downfall of The Silence.

Of course, in all these years, we've never really been told the significance of the Doctor's name, or why he's never told it to anybody. The Silence only showed up to the scene when River and the Doctor were traveling with each other with some degree of frequency, and seem to be doing everything in their power to keep the two of them apart. I'm not really sure that anybody (except The Silence) really know what's going on.
posted by schmod at 10:58 AM on October 3, 2011 [3 favorites]

Of course, in all these years, we've never really been told the significance of the Doctor's name, or why he's never told it to anybody. The Silence only showed up to the scene when River and the Doctor were traveling with each other with some degree of frequency, and seem to be doing everything in their power to keep the two of them apart. I'm not really sure that anybody (except The Silence) really know what's going on.

Fanwank theory: it's River's silence, as I mentioned upthread, and either the Doctor or River get things rolling with the Headless Monks (whose final resting place is in an archive filled with Doctor-related historical artifacts; who might have arranged that, hmm?) and/or the Silence (the religious order) as a way to try and stall her death.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 11:05 AM on October 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

How Good Doctor Who Has Gotten at Making Pepper Pots Scary Again (And Again)
posted by Artw at 11:05 AM on October 3, 2011

I also don't get why we care if the Silence falls. The doctor knows the question now, right? Why not just ask it, answer it, and let them fall? It's not like he hasn't destroyed whole races plenty of other times, and these guys seem as evil as anyone else. Let them fall, right?
posted by tylerkaraszewski at 11:21 AM on October 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

I also don't get why we care if the Silence falls. The doctor knows the question now, right? Why not just ask it, answer it, and let them fall? It's not like he hasn't destroyed whole races plenty of other times, and these guys seem as evil as anyone else. Let them fall, right?

Are we supposed to interpret the prophecy as "The Silence will fall" or simply "silence will fall" because I was interpreting it as the later rather than the former. With the fall of "silence" meaning some sort of universe wide cataclysmic event that they want to avert by killing the Doctor since they believe that only he can answer the question and cause silence to fall. Basically, it seems like a slightly longer form version of the "all the Doctors enemies lock in the Pandorica" plot from the end of last season, in that the "bad guys" are being motivated by a desire to save the universe, but mistakenly think that killing the Doctor is the way to accomplish that.

I might be understanding things wrong, though.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 11:44 AM on October 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

Bulgaroktonos: "I might be understanding things wrong, though."

I think that's the point. Even the Doctor doesn't understand the prophecy. His purported interpretation of it appears to be wrong.
posted by schmod at 12:55 PM on October 3, 2011

I'm kind of bored by this whole "when the question is asked" thing anyway, but the asking of the question isn't a thing out of context. It has to happen at the battlefield or whatever that Doriam mentions, at a point when no one can speak falsely.

Basically, he'd be forced to tell his name at that point, I think.

Anyway, count me in the "loves River" camp. Or I like her, at least. The "spoilers" shit got old super-quick but Moffatt seems to have let off on that one a bit. Also, it's worth noting that everything Moffatt writes for Who is a romance. Empty Child/Doctor Dances was between The Doctor and Rose, Blink between Sally and her friend's brother, Girl in the Fireplace, Silence in the Library, etc. Why are we surprised it's any different now?
posted by Navelgazer at 12:56 PM on October 3, 2011

I actually interpreted the re-interpretation of "Silence will fall" as in a comment on things from The Doctors' own perspective -- you know, "Oh, I thought it meant 'silence will fall' as in 'the whole Universe will collapse so silence will fall for everyone,' but really it means 'silence will fall for me,' as in 'I won't hear anything more after that because I'll be dead'."
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 2:17 PM on October 3, 2011

He'll swim with da fishes!
posted by Artw at 2:18 PM on October 3, 2011 [2 favorites]

Me: 'I just keep telling myself "Moffat is slowly undoing the tangled steaming mess left by Russell T", over and over again.'

juiceCake: 'Me too. But sadly, this has not been the case.'

I did say "slowly" - although the plot holes and pointless inconsistencies seem to be getting bigger, not smaller (e.g. a whole finale & subsequent season dedicated to how much Rory believes in Amy - but suddenly Rory's total lack of belief in anything becomes a major but totally unnecessary plot point when they're stuck in Space Overlook Hotel).

But much of Russell T's reign made me long for the days when Who alternated between (a) political intrigue plot with scary monster substory, and (b) a scary monster plot with political intrigue substory.

Oh, and put me firmly in the "Can't stand River" camp, although the character has grown grown slightly on me since her first appearances.
posted by Pinback at 2:24 PM on October 3, 2011

Having watched that recap, I'm a bit happier about it all. Also it reminds me how cool her appearance in the Byzantium episode was. And I'd forgotten that she mentions the Byzantium in the library.
posted by memebake at 2:47 PM on October 3, 2011

Rory's total lack of belief in anything becomes a major but totally unnecessary plot point when they're stuck in Space Overlook Hotel

I don't remember Rory having anything to do in that episode; we never saw him finding his room so his fear/faith responses weren't tested.

(On River: I rather sided with Madame Kovarian's "oh God, they're flirting" bit. The ho-ho-crackling-winking-banter stuff smacks rather too much of Moffat dragging his Coupling baggage into the show.)
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 3:08 PM on October 3, 2011

I don't remember Rory having anything to do in that episode; we never saw him finding his room so his fear/faith responses weren't tested.

The Doctor states that Rory's lack of faith means that there is no room for him and hence why the hotel shows him exits instead. Of course, the Doctor is extrapolating but it does seem like one of those times when the Doctor's deductions are supposed to be taken as stand-ins for plot exposition.

My problem with the fixed point in time stuff is that the Teselecta's records would not refer to the event as the death of the Doctor - as happened in Let's Kill Hitler - because their organisation (The Justice Department) would clearly be aware of the reality of the situation.
posted by MUD at 3:30 PM on October 3, 2011

In the timeline of the Teselecta they wouldn't have known the truth about the event until he dragged them there and made them part of it.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 3:36 PM on October 3, 2011

"This is a very silly idea and I'm consequently rather proud of it. "
posted by Artw at 3:36 PM on October 3, 2011

MetaFilter: creating a fixed point in fanwank
posted by hippybear at 3:37 PM on October 3, 2011 [5 favorites]

"This is a very silly idea and I'm consequently rather proud of it. "

I prefer this Moff rant.

I feel like he'd fit in well on metafilter.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 4:22 PM on October 3, 2011 [2 favorites]

P.S. I mean, the guy has one snog in thirty years of saving our
planet and you're all complaining! You utter, utter bastards!!

P.P.S. As soon as I'm in charge - ***SPACE WOODY ALLEN***.
posted by Artw at 4:24 PM on October 3, 2011 [3 favorites]

For the record, I'm very much in the "Love River Song" camp.

I also want to say I think Steven Moffat is a genius. I know he's gotten a lot of flack from jaded fans, and if he ever reads this I hope he takes some small comfort that I think he's awesome and those who say he's not are stupid.

But I can totally understand why many fans of New Who have come to dislike Moffat's approach to the show. Thew New Who fans were raised on a diet of Russel T Davies version of Who, and RTD and Moffat are complete polar opposites of each other in their approach to the show.

RTD did a very good job at making Doctor Who cool again, but I argue that that was mostly because he had a budget and better special effects, which meant shaky sets and the like weren't around to put off todays more shallow viewership. Beyond this, RTD was able to drag in audiences by a) dispensing with decades of backstory and b) dumbing down Doctor Who.

Not that Dr. Who was ever a particuarly complex show, but it had its moments. For example, in the days of the First and Second Doctor you had history being taught to kids via entertainment. During the days of the Seventh Doctor, you had the Doctor actually using his ability to travel through time to set up things sometimes centuries in advance so as to ensure he would defeat his enemies when he eventually faced them. Had the Cartmel Masterplan come to fruition, this would've made the 7th Doctor all the more cooler.

RTD cared not for that sort of complexity. He had something of an arc for each season, sure, but when the conclusion for most of his stories was always a deus ex machina (Rose wipes out Daleks using TARDIS energy, Donna becomes a Time Lord) or just plain stupid (the TARDIS tows the Earth back to where it belongs). Rather than use the mechanics of a character and universe to get himself out of the corner he had written himself into, he'd just have someone become a God and hey presto, problems solved!

As I watched Moffat's first season as showrunner, I enjoyed what I saw and enjoyed getting more glimpses into River's backstory (I had enjoyed her first appearance inSilence in the Library) and found the plots generally tighter and less crazy than what RTD gave us.

And then came the Eleventh Doctor's first season finale (The Pandorica Opens/ Big Bang). It was also pretty crazy... almost RTD crazy. But the Doctor, together with River, used Time Travel to fix the problems he was confronted with. Which was nice. And then the season finished and I realised "hey... silence will fall. Who blew up the TARDIS? We don't have answers to any of this yet!" And then I fell in love with Steven Moffat. Rather than just give us a season long arc, he wanted to engage viewers by giving them a multi-season arc. Indeed, by the end of The Eleventh Doctor's second series, we still have the Silence story to resolve, We've gotten a lot of answers as well, which is appreciated.

Multi-season stories are, of course, not a new concept in TV story telling. But for Doctor Who, it was a brand new concept. And together with a refreshing lack of Deus Ex Machinas, it was a sign that after the RTD era, Dr Who wanted to be smart again. And for New Who fans raised on a diet of RTD shlock, Moffat's complex, more layered approach would be hard to appreciate.

Indeed, this is probably why many people dislike River Song. Her story and history with the Doctor is the embodiement of Moffat's approach to writing for Doctor Who. Everytime you see her character you have to think about where she is in time relative to the Doctor, what she's experienced and what she's yet to experience, and how that shapes her interactions with the Doctor and his companions. Compare and contrast this to RTD's occasional companions, like Mickey Smith, who the time travelling Doctor would always meet in their chronological order, and you have now have a character who both you AND THE DOCTOR could know a lot about but suddenly know nothing about. It's great writing, and I look forward to more of it.

Infact, going back to the Cartmel Masterplan, I have a vauge suspicion that Moffat is trying to incorporate elements of it into his version of the Doctor. I think one day, when Moffat steps down and the Eleventh Doctor's arc is completely finished, we'll look back and say that the Moffat Masterplan was probably one of Doctor Who's finest hours.
posted by Effigy2000 at 5:00 PM on October 3, 2011 [7 favorites]

You know, Adric gets a very bad press, but was he really that bad?

Yes. Yes, he was.

I've been rewatching the E-Space episodes lately (I'm about halfway through Warrior's Gate). It upsets me to remember that Adric gets what is probably the most bad ass death in Doctor Who.
posted by The Great Big Mulp at 5:16 PM on October 3, 2011

Also: someone tell me I'm not the only one who teared up a bit when the Doctor tried giving Lethbridge-Stewart a call.
posted by The Great Big Mulp at 5:26 PM on October 3, 2011 [5 favorites]

MUD: "The Doctor states that Rory's lack of faith means that there is no room for him and hence why the hotel shows him exits instead."

Bingo. One of the major themes of the last couple of series has been that Rory has a totally unshakeable faith in Amy. The Nimon prisoner should have been lusting after that; a faith that has lasted 2000+ years through plastic and flesh would be an irresistible delicacy. Not to mention that if they really wanted to go with the "no faith at all" point there was at least one other character who, if slightly differently written and not played for laughs, was a perfect candidate for that.

Imagine the episode then - Rory is the true danger; the Nimon prisoner, driven mad with desire, is merely picking the rest off one-by-one in order to both boost its own power and strengthen Rory's faith in Amy. The Doctor would be forced to deduce, Holmes-like, from the actual clues - people's faith being destroyed (or driven from them for the Nimon prisoner to feed on) by what's in their room - and realise that its last steps would be breaking Amy's faith (in what? The Doctor?), thereby breaking Rory's faith in Amy, and giving it enough power to escape its prison. That would have been 10x better, added even more urgency, and totally bypassed the need for a huge gaping plot inconsistency that went completely against a painstakingly-developed multi-episode theme.

"Of course, the Doctor is extrapolating but it does seem like one of those times when the Doctor's deductions are supposed to be taken as stand-ins for plot exposition."

My gf prefers to call it 'lazy writing' ;-)

I'm inclined to agree with her, while at the same time noting that everybody else seems to be thinking about the type of piddling puzzles - muddled timelines, R. Song vs. the Doctor's name, what part of an event is the actual 'fixed point in time', etc - that Who has always largely ignored for its first 23 years, while overlooking the fact that now it keeps throwing away interesting, strong, and valid plot constructs because the writers weren't quite clever enough to make their episode's big finale fit into the overall theme.

Everybody's discussing and debating the little stuff, while the big stuff is a total mess.

(On preview: Effigy2000, I agree with most of what you've written there. As I said up above, I think Moffat is trying to slowly wean NuWho back towards something closer to the original by ratcheting down the big set-piece finales and more emotionally overwrought thematic excesses of Russell T's reign. But he knows he's got to do it slowly, and is doing it by transferring the God-based bullshit into a more thoughtful and complicated web of thematic elements.

Which is why it disappoints me so much when the writing team throws them out the window just because it's easier to write a "A Wizard Did It!" ending…)
posted by Pinback at 5:38 PM on October 3, 2011

One of the major themes of the last couple of series has been that Rory has a totally unshakeable faith in Amy.

Rory doesn't have faith in Amy at all. Faith is the wrong emotion. He has an unshakeable love for her, and he cares for her, but having faith in someone is trusting them and feeling that they'll make everything OK. Rory is most definitely not someone who thinks everything will be OK. He's an anxious, spluttering mess. He certainly doesn't believe at his core that Amy will always love him in the same way that Amy believes at her core that the Doctor will always save her. Rory can't believe that Amy likes him. At the end of The Big Bang, Rory asked Amy why she crying at her wedding, and desperately tried to suggest, "it's... because you're happy, right? Happy, happy?" But she said, "No, I'm sad," and although he was crushed, he accepted it. It wasn't unbelievable to him. He always feels like he's a runner-up.

And frankly, he should. This is Amy Try-to-snog-the-Doctor-on-your-wedding-night, "you-may-definitely-kiss-the-bride" Pond. Amy's grown a little and has eventually chosen Rory over the Doctor, but it's understandable that Rory would still feel rejected. Even if Rory wasn't neurotically insecure, which only compounds his lack of faith, he'd still have reason not to put complete trust in her.
posted by painquale at 6:26 PM on October 3, 2011 [11 favorites]

MOST PERFECT MASHUP MATCH-UP EVER.

Because this HAD to be what Moffit was thinking about when he put The Doctor in a cowboy hat and River in a spacesuit... it's all so obvious now!
posted by oneswellfoop at 9:00 PM on October 3, 2011 [3 favorites]

Rory doesn't have faith in Amy at all.

Hell, almost every single episode this season had some sort of scene where Amy says she loves him and the audience/Rory is meant to be confused on the "him" part.

Ugh. What an awful season. Way too much confusing complicated overarching plot, *really* poorly paced. I cannot emphasize this enough. You cannot start us off with "Holy shit the Doctor dies!" and then spend 5 episodes doing mundane shit. You don't feel any sense of urgency from Amy or anyone about what happened.

Filler episodes that were either straight up bad (that pirate episode) or solved through faith/belief.

River was a better character the less we knew about her.
posted by graventy at 9:21 PM on October 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

Bingo. One of the major themes of the last couple of series has been that Rory has a totally unshakeable faith in Amy.

Even if this were true (and painquale makes an excellent argument that it isn't), Rory's 'faith' is of a different nature than faith in Islam or Conspiracy Theories in that Amy is actually present - I can easily see that this category difference would be enough to make Rory's 'faith' unpalatable. Rory has faith in Amy because of what she does, whereas the others faith is dependent on what they themselves do.

My gf prefers to call it 'lazy writing' ;-)

I think 'lazy writing' tends to be a cliche way of saying "I didn't like it becaue I totally would have done it differently." (no disrepect to your GF - it just so often seems to be a crutch for lack of analysis).

On the subject of character development, and things being told rather than shown when it comes to the doctor's relatiionships with his companions - to a certain extant it's inevitable. We've been through that with practically every companion etc and there's a limit to how many times you can watch "the doctor shows star-struck young comanion the wonders of the universe and he/she/it is super-impressed and their relationship develops over half a season" without, at some point, needing to develop a short-hand for exactly that, because the alternative is been-there, done-that tedium.

That said, I don't think Moffat has quite perfected that short-hand, and some of the episodes have lacked the emotional resonance that comes watching from relationships develop and grow, But I still prefer Moffat's rational, consistent take to the mawkish bombast of RTD so I'm happy to see him do the legwork developing a different approach. And, whille the final was not mind-blowing, I was in many ways happy to see that some people were able to guess the method of the the doctors survival because it means Moffat was playing by his own rules, and the solutions made sense - unlike absolutely everything RTD ever wrote.
posted by Sparx at 12:52 AM on October 4, 2011

I cannot emphasize this enough. You cannot start us off with "Holy shit the Doctor dies!" and then spend 5 episodes doing mundane shit.

I think this is true. If I were showing someone this season, I'd just show them the five Moffat episodes in a row (with the cliffhanger endings of The Almost People and Closing Time too). All the Moffat episodes since Silence in the Library tell a very interesting story, I think, and putting the standard monster of the week stories in the middle really hampers it.

I don't think Moffat is more of a solo artist than a team player---more of a writer than a producer. He has his own story to tell, so he does his own thing in his own episodes, and then shoehorns other writers' stories into his grand one.

That being said, I still loved these last two seasons. Moffat's Doctor Who has become really mysteriously divisive among Doctor Who fans. After I watch an episode, I am never able to tell whether the internet will like it or not. I hated Closing Time, but people seemed to like it, and loved the finale, but all sorts of people here seemed to hate it. I like that they don't show any romance between River and the Doctor, because while I think having the Doctor fall in love is a good idea in the abstract, I don't want to actually see him dewy-eyed. Lots of people here think otherwise. No two people seem to have the same opinion about all the episodes, characters, and plots. I don't know if I've ever seen a show that generates so much disagreement.
posted by painquale at 2:10 AM on October 4, 2011

I've been trying to figure out the Silence's motivations. Their plan with River is clear enough, but what in the world were they trying to accomplish in season 5? Why blow up the TARDIS?

We now know that the Silence is a religious order consisting of the Church, the Headless Monks, and the Silents. I guess Prisoner Zero might also be a member. Many people online seem to assume that the Silents lead the Silence, but I'm not sure anything suggests that they're in charge. I assume that whoever took control of the TARDIS in The Pandorica Opens and spoke to River over the loudspeaker is the the Big Bad running the show.

The natural way to understand "silence will fall" has changed over the course of the show. Throughout season 5, it seemed to be a prophecy about the cracks in time. (Through the cracks, you could see "silence and the end of all things.") After The Impossible Astronaut, it seemed to refer to the Doctor's triumph over the Silents. After Let's Kill Hitler it seemed to refer to whatever would occur after the Question was: maybe the sort of eradication of reality that the time cracks threatened to cause. Now Dorium has made it clear that it's a mantra the order uses to rally the troops and express their cause: silence must fall before the Question is asked and he learns "what he must never know." They must keep the Doctor silent.

This changes the meaning of the what is said by the voice on the TARDIS loudspeaker in The Pandorica Opens. The Silence isn't trying to cause the end of all things... it's trying to keep the Doctor from investigating the Question. (It also turns Prisoner Zero's parting words into a personal threat, making them much creepier.) Maybe the goal is to keep the Doctor from investigation by causing Total Event Collapse and destroying the universe, but that seems like a rather extreme way to go about things. This new revelation about the Silence's aims makes the whole Pandorica plot really mysterious.

My guess is that the Silence expected the Doctor to escape the Pandorica and kick off Big Bang 2 to save the universe. This also explains why we didn't see any Silents or Church members at Stonehenge. The Silence seeded the idea among the Doctor's enemies that the TARDIS exploding caused the cracks in time, and then gave them the idea to trap him in the Pandorica, which is the very thing that the Doctor needed to reboot the universe. The alliance was duped. The plan was to get the Doctor to sacrifice himself.

Seeing things in this light makes me wonder about the Silence's plan in season 6. There are a lot of similarities between the plots in the two seasons. In each case, an object of the Doctor's love is weaponized. In each case, the Doctor goes willingly to his death. In each case, the Doctor's reputation is used against him. And in each case, time is destroyed and a wonky bubble universe forms, which the Doctor needs to correct.

These similarities seem coincidental. Even if I'm right about the Silence's plan in season 5, it seems incidental to the Silence's plan in season 6 that the Doctor goes to his death willingly and that River creates a pocket universe by trying to save him (if anything, that latter fact seems to work against the Silence's intentions). But I'm not sure. The Silence raised River to become a weapon, but it's curious why they bothered to do this at all. Why not just send an empty suit after the Doctor? I've seen some speculation that they needed two Time Lords at Lake Silencio in order to make the Doctor's death a fixed point. Here's another possibility. If, in season 5, the Silence went to such great lengths to get rid of the Doctor, they must know that the only way they can get rid of him is by drawing himself into sacrifice or suicide. They needed to engineer another situation in which he'd put himself down. It was part of the plan to make the Doctor willingly go to his death. His relationship with his murderer was a key part of this. Having the Doctor kill himself in the pursuit of some other goal, like saving the universe from Total Event Collapse, didn't work. It's probably not possible to get the Doctor to put a gun to his head. But being able to forgive someone you care about for murdering you as they murder you, and to save the world from a wonky pocket universe at the same time... that's a very Doctory way to accept death.

So there's my hypothesis: River and Doctor's whole romance and relationship was engineered by whoever is the head of the Silence. (Madame Kovarian didn't act like this was true, but we now know she's just an expendable flunky.) The Big Bang and The Wedding of River Song weren't just the titles of the season finales; they were each the final step of a Silence ploy.
posted by painquale at 3:45 AM on October 4, 2011 [3 favorites]

I think this is true. If I were showing someone this season, I'd just show them the five Moffat episodes in a row (with the cliffhanger endings of The Almost People and Closing Time too). All the Moffat episodes since Silence in the Library tell a very interesting story, I think, and putting the standard monster of the week stories in the middle really hampers it.

I think the real problem with the stand-alones is that both Moffat and the other writers who wrote them didn't seem to know how to build the tension in them. The cracks were more effective last season because, in and of itself, the idea of cracks swallowing up the universe--or following the Doctor around--is conceptually spooky, so the tension rose with that. This season, they replaced that with the conceit that in nearly every episode, the Doctor would look at some sort of screen saying either that Amy was maybe pregnant or he was going to die, and get kind of frowny. Silly, and a little shallow. There are other things they could have done, especially after "Let's Kill Hitler!" One option would have been to flash to River researching the Doctor's exploits and contemplating the Doctor's death date (making it seem a little more mysterious, and playing up her presence there), as they did in "Closing Time." But bottom line is it was a really weak way to connect all of those episodes together.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 6:57 AM on October 4, 2011 [1 favorite]

Why blow up the TARDIS? [...] Maybe the goal is to keep the Doctor from investigation by causing Total Event Collapse and destroying the universe, but that seems like a rather extreme way to go about things.

This assumes that the Silence knew that blowing up the TARDIS was going to have such a dire effect. Perhaps their only goal in blowing up the TARDIS was blowing up the Doctor.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 8:49 AM on October 4, 2011

Is there a name or TV Trope for the way they added the character "Mels" to the show (ignoring who she really was before and after she was "Mels")? How all of a sudden Amy and Rory have had a best friend through childhood who also loved the raggedy doctor but just never happened to have come up in conversation until now?

It seems like a sort of general retcon, but there must be a better name for it. I remember kids cartoons doing it a fair bit when they want to add new toy lines.

That bothered me a lot more than anything else River Song has done.
posted by Gary at 10:45 AM on October 4, 2011

I believe it was more of an Ass Pull than a straight retcon.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 10:51 AM on October 4, 2011

Ah, found it. Remember the New Guy. I figured there must be a name for it because Community parodied it really well with Jack Black.
posted by Gary at 10:59 AM on October 4, 2011

That bothered me a lot more than anything else River Song has done.

I was really pissed with that character, until they revealed it to be River, and then I was still a bit ticked at the contrivance. The whole "they didn't get to raise her but they did grow up with her" thing is just... meh.
posted by graventy at 11:55 AM on October 4, 2011

The reason why River is "special" is because she was conceived in the TARDIS, right? Why stop with her? Turn the TARDIS into a hot-sheet motel and bingo! you can repopulate Gallifrey. Maybe using non-anthropoid species! And if River is Time Lord-ish then doesn't that mean there's hope for Donna? I don't think they've thought through all the possibilities for lulz.
posted by orrnyereg at 1:08 PM on October 4, 2011

It'll take then centuries before they figure out that it wasn't just the TARDIS. You have to conceive in a bunk bed.
posted by ArmyOfKittens at 6:24 AM on October 5, 2011 [3 favorites]

Bunk beds are cool.
posted by Pallas Athena at 1:53 PM on October 5, 2011 [3 favorites]

Tardis Blueprint File 001
posted by Artw at 3:43 PM on October 5, 2011 [4 favorites]

So many of you people are smoking fucking dope.
posted by Legomancer at 3:52 PM on October 5, 2011 [1 favorite]

Artw: "Tardis Blueprint File 001"

That's very cool. I sort of imagined it bigger, though. Like if he ever accidentally took the Dimensional Whatsit offline and it all fell through into real space, it'd block out the sun and start affecting the tides.
posted by ArmyOfKittens at 11:09 PM on October 5, 2011

Apparently, it's a thousand kilometers across.
posted by ZeusHumms at 12:46 AM on October 10, 2011

Bunk beds are cool.

A bed with a ladder. How cool is that?

(If the Doctor ever saw king-size platform beds from IKEA, his head would probably explode. I used to have one of those, and I certainly thought it was cool, though tricky to get in and out of when you're drunk. Well, not so much tricky to get out of as painful.)
posted by Grangousier at 1:02 AM on October 10, 2011

Hey everybody, Matt Smith is on the Late Late Show tonight (Oct 17). He and Craig F are such a sweet couple!
posted by orrnyereg at 5:10 PM on October 17, 2011