The Wedding of River Song

[tardis_stowaway]

There were a lot of things I liked about "The Wedding of River Song" and some things I loved, and overall I enjoyed it.  However, I don't feel that it managed to salvage some of the messy, frustrating plot arcs of S6 as a whole, and it didn't speak to me emotionally as strongly as previous New Who finales. 


The paradox universe of collapsing time was shiny and fun.  The cars attached to balloons were a nicely fanciful way to show that this was not the normal universe without causing confusion with Pete's World and its zeppelins.  I literally flailed my arms in glee at Charles Dickens on the tv talking about a "Christmas Special."  Unexpected Unquiet Dead actor cameo for great win!  I have now decided that Torchwood's pterosaur Myfanwy did not fall through the Rift from an earlier time but instead came from this parallel universe.  Also, everybody wears an eyepatch now.  Eyepatches are cool.  And sexy.

I enjoyed Amy and Rory's interactions, especially Amy proposing a drink and marriage in practically the same breath.  Oh, Ponds.  Never be normal.  I also loved that Rory's reaction to finding out that River was their daughter was "...okay."  He reminds me more than a little of Oz in BtVS, who reacted to finding out that he was a werewolf with a simple "huh."  Regarding Rory being called "the man who dies and dies again," I don't know whether to be more amused at the delicious meta or worried that lampshading this characteristic of Rory means that Moffat is thinking of killing him permanently sometime soon. 

I have conflicted feelings about Amy leaving Madame Kovarian to a painful death.  On the one hand, it was good to see Amy finally exhibiting a strong reaction to the fact that her baby was taken away and brainwashed.  On the other hand, damn, that was dark.  I'm trying to remember if we've ever had a New Who companion do any killing quite so coldblooded (other than some of Jack's actions on Torchwood.  That's another show, and Jack was a soldier before he ever met the Doctor.)  We've seen companions kill before, but all the instances I can think of were to avert a clear and present danger, which wasn't the case here.

The Doctor finding out about the Brigadier's death was a lovely and sad moment.  I briefly wondered if they were going to pay tribute to Lis Sladen as well by having the Doctor learn that Sarah Jane was dead also, but I suppose that with SJA episodes still airing they weren't going to do that. 

I am so confused as to why the Silence went to all the trouble of kidnapping pregnant Amy, taking baby Melody, and raising her to be a weapon if they ultimately only used River as simply an unwilling passenger in the spacesuit that killed the Doctor on its own.  That could have been anyone in there, or just an empty shell.  Why is she later imprisoned for a crime where she was more witness than perpetrator? 

Her real crime was in choosing to sacrifice the entire universe for the Doctor's sake.  That's definitely a "laws of time will obey me" sort of mistake.  I think River is an interesting character when she's morally ambiguous, and I don't think this choice is out of character for someone who has been conditioned to have the Doctor at the center of her world (first in hate and now in love), especially so early in her timeline.  However, I wish the Doctor had called her on it a little more forcefully.  Nine chewed Rose out for putting the universe at risk with a paradox in "Father's Day," and she had no clue what she was doing.  River knows the gravity her actions, but Eleven's reaction is basically asking her to please stop and then marrying her. 

In my headcanon, the Doctor is married to at least a dozen people across space and time.  Sometimes it's due to accidentally taking part in some local ceremony he didn't realize was a marriage, sometimes for expediency's sake to protect a companion from some silly law.  The marriage to River is not so very different.  It was the most expedient way to get her to consent to letting the fixed point of his death happen.  He needed to counter her selfish, reckless romantic gesture with a more genuine sort of romance.  The Doctor and River do love each other, and the marriage isn't without meaning, but I don't think this marriage is a massive relationship-changer to the Doctor the way marriages often are on today's Earth.  I do rather love that they got handfasted with his bowtie. 

So it was a Tessalator reproduction of the Doctor that got shot at Lake Silencio.  This was a bit of a twist from the Ganger that I thought was likely, which was nice.  However, I am confused as to how the appearance of the Doctor's death averts a paradox when he didn't actually die.  Maybe the Silence and everybody else were wrong and the thing that was fixed was not the Doctor's death at all; the fakeout was exactly what the universe needed to happen the whole time.

When the blue dude's head revealed that the Ultimate Question was "Doctor who?", I guffawed.  I'm not sure if this was the intended response.  Really, show?  Really?

We still don't know why the TARDIS blew up in The Big Bang, dammit.  We're left with more prophecies that don't really interest me and a running joke as the huge question. I've been semi-hoping that maybe we could get a rewrite of River's awful childhood and actually let Amy and Rory raise their baby, but that seems not to be in the cards.  For all the good stuff in TWoRS, I didn't find it anywhere close to as emotionally fulfilling as I've found most of New Who's series finales.  I'm getting increasingly bored and frustrated with Moffat's overarching arcs this series.

But hey, Rose and Jack got namechecked, so that's something.  I still love this show fiercely.  That fierce love is why I'm disappointed when it's good rather than great. 

Comments

[netgirl-y2k.livejournal.com]

Yes. This. There was lots of really cool stuff in there. "Do Not Feed the Pterodactyls" anybody? But I wanted something amazing to counteract the frustration I've been feeling with Moffat and this series arc, and this definitely wasn't it.

[yamx]

I think this all goes back to reality being what everyone thinks is real. If everyone thinks the Doctor died there, and if everyone thinks River killed him, then that's what happened. The thing about a fixed point as I understand it, is that a lot of other events hinge on it. If everyone thinks the Doctor is dead and River murdered him, then everyone will act like they would if that was really the case, so all events that hinge on it will unfold correctly.

I am curious to see the Doctor's attempts to stay "in the shadows" from now on. Somehow, I don't think he'll be good at it. *g*

[reverendjmg.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the "Doctor who?" question is something they've used as a joke several times, as in "That's the Doctor," "Wait, Doctor who?" Trying to use it as a serious question occurred many times with Seven, when at the end of another intertemporal mystery being solved the Doctor's companion would close the episode by saying, "That just leaves one question...Doctor, who are you?" Trying to use it as a Big Evil Of The Season is awful and disappointing to me.

I am glad that Amy was vindicated a bit from her perfume line--what with her train-board office and being in charge of an international gang of eye-patch people.

The TARDIS exploding has not been explained, nor is Amy's ability to remember everything even if she's not "at the center" of the timey-wimey.

[skalja.livejournal.com]

There was a line explaining Amy's abilities shortly after she first appeared this ep, wasn't there? The Doctor said she could remember because growing up next to a rift in spacetime made her more sensitive to fluctuations in reality, or some such.

[reverendjmg.livejournal.com]

I never liked that as an explanation. They throw it around every time it comes up--like in this episode, when the Doctor is trying to encourage her to remember without knowing that she already does--but it does not explain why the rift gave her these superpowers, instead of eating her, like it did to everyone else in her house who lived right next to it.

[skalja.livejournal.com]

I thought Amy leaving Kovarian to die was interesting -- she's always struck me as the darkest of the long-running New Who companions (it's hard to compare her to Jack or Mickey for entirely different reasons), and I can believe it of her when I couldn't really buy such an action from Rose, Martha, or Donna. The fact that she did it out of grief over losing River makes the difference between "dark but sympathetic" versus "moral event horizon," to my mind. (Not that I'd condone what she did in real life, either way! But for fiction, yes.)

I loved the tribute to Courtney/the Brig -- easily the most emotionally compelling moment in the episode for me! The namechecks for Rose and Jack were also great, and encourages my hopes that John Barrowman will get his wish for a guest appearance sometime in the future.

I'm pretty sure the fixed point was always the fakeout -- it's just that this episode we finally learned that it was a fake.

While this episode wasn't as much of a rush as TPO/TBB or any of RTD's finales, I found I rather liked it that way? I'm getting a bit tired of every single finale having to have the fate of the universe at stake, and I'm hoping the Doctor going underground will shake up that formula a bit in upcoming seasons.

[morelindo.livejournal.com]

I do rather love that they got handfasted with his bowtie.

Whatever else I have to say about this episode, that handfasting and that kiss are possibly the most satisfying TV moment this year for me personally. Probably because, for the longest time, I really wasn't sure whether I liked River and Eleven/River, but somehow they really managed to sell it to me.