The Wedding of River Song (TV story)

The Wedding of River Song was the thirteenth and final episode of the sixth series of Doctor Who.

Synopsis
The Doctor makes his final journey to the shores of Lake Silencio in Utah, knowing only one thing can keep the universe safe – his own death. But has he reckoned without the love of a good woman?

Plot
The War of the Roses enters its second year even as London picnickers are warned not to feed the Pterodactyls and Charles Dickens is interviewed about his new Christmas ghost special. Holy Roman Emperor Winston Churchill returns to Buckingham on his mammoth from a conference in Gaul with Cleopatra to wonder why it is always 5:02 PM on 22 April 2011. His Silurian physician, Dr. Malokeh, tells him it is always that time, but Churchill has his doubts. He summons his soothsayer from the dungeon of the Tower of London. It is the Doctor, who tells him it is because of a woman.

In a flashback, the Doctor wants to know why he must die. Taking all the information on the Silence from a dying Dalek, he tracks down Father Gideon Vandaleur, actually the Teselecta, who points him in the right direction: the Silence's agent, Gantok, who almost electrocutes himself in a game of live chess with the Doctor. To avoid checkmate and death, Gantok takes him to the head of Dorium Maldovar in the Seventh Transept.

Dorium explains that if the Doctor lives long enough, on the fields of Trenzalore, at the fall of the Eleventh, when no creature can speak falsely or fail to answer, a question that must never be answered will be asked: the first question, hidden in plain sight. He asks his visitor if he wants to know the question. The Doctor nervously agrees.

Taking Dorium's head with him, the Doctor determines to continue his farewell tour. However, when he learns that his old friend, Brigadier Lethbridge-Stuart is dead, his bravado crumbles. His time has come. He gives the Teselecta invitations to deliver. He goes to Lake Silencio with Amy Pond, Rory Williams and River Song, where they drink a bottle of wine that Napoleon threw at him. An impossible astronaut rises from the lake and he goes to meet it. It is River Song, trapped in the suit by Madame Kovarian and the Silence. River has no control over the suit as it prepares to kill the Doctor. He forgives her unconditionally, shutting his eyes as her arm rises to deliver the three deadly blows.

There are five bursts that make him flinch. The Doctor opens his eyes and demands to know what she has done. River smiles. She has discharged her weapons systems harmlessly, and the world shatters.

As the Doctor and Churchill discuss these events, they realize they're holding weapons. Tally marks are appearing on the Doctor's arms. They look up. The ceiling is infested with dozens of Silents. Before the Silents can attack them, a grenade rolls into the hall and they are rescued by a company of soldiers under an eyepatched Amy Pond. She shoots the Doctor.

The Doctor wakes from the stungun in Amy's office on a train bound for Area 52 inside the Great Pyramid at Giza. Amy grew up with a Crack in her wall, and so can remember both timelines. She has drawn pictures of the other timeline, but cannot remember that her husband is Captain Williams, a soldier in her force.

At Area 52, Amy shows him more than a hundred captured Silents. The Doctor and she walk past them to the King's Chamber, where River Song is waiting. Madame Kovarian is there too, a prisoner tied to a chair. They have used her eyepatch to create eye drives to let them remember the Silents even when not looking at them.

The Doctor goes to take River's hand, but she knows that they are the poles of an explosion waiting to destroy this timeline. She has him handcuffed and tries to convince him to live. The Silents escape; it is their trap the Doctors' friends have fallen into. As the soldiers retreat to the King's Chamber, their eye drives electrify and kill them. Kovarian mocks them, until her eye drive begins to spark. Rory stays to hold off the Silence, while River, the Doctor and Amy go to the apex of the Pyramid to see what River has been building. The door flies open and Rory falls to his knees as the Silence enter and begin to electrocute him, but Amy, remembering who he is, returns to kills the Silents with a machine gun. She cold-bloodedly kills a terrified Kovarian; River's psychopathic behavior did not arise solely from her rearing.

Atop the Great Pyramid, River has built a distress beacon, calling the universe across all time zones: the Doctor is dying. Please help. The answer comes back: yes, of course. The Doctor, however, insists that no one can help him. He must die. When River despairs and swears to suffer more than any living thing in the universe for him, the Doctor tells Amy to uncuff him. He uses his bow tie to marry River in a handfasting. He whispers a secret into his bride's ear and tells her that she must never tell anyone what he has just told her: his name. As she looks at him in wonder, the Doctor asks for her help.

They kiss and time moves again. The Doctor dies at Lake Silencio. River and Amy weep. Rory looks on in agony and the distorted time line vanishes.

Some time later, River, fresh from the crash of the Byzantium, is at her mother's home, splitting a bottle of wine. Amy wonders what what the events from the aborted, frozen time line say about her, in particular her murder of Kovarian. She needs to talk with the Doctor, but he is dead. River disagrees. Amy notes that her daughter is still having adventures with him in the hundreds of years before his death, but River tells her a secret which she probably shouldn't. As Rory joins his wife and daughter, they dance for joy until Amy realises to her horror she is the Doctor's mother-in-law.

A monk carries Dorium's head back to the Seventh Transept. Dorium realises it is the Doctor and demands to know how he escaped. The Doctor tells him: River actually shot the Teselecta, with the Doctor safe inside, waving happily at her. Now that the entire universe believes him dead, it's time for him to step back into the shadows.

As the Doctor leaves, Dorium shouts at him that Fields of Trenzalore and the first question still await him. As the Doctor pauses by the TARDIS, Dorium shouts: "Doctor who? Doctor who? Doctor who?"

Cast

 * The Doctor – Matt Smith
 * Amy Pond – Karen Gillan
 * Rory Williams – Arthur Darvill
 * River Song – Alex Kingston
 * Madame Kovarian – Frances Barber
 * Emperor Winston Churchill - Ian McNeice
 * Malohkeh- Richard Hope
 * Charles Dickens - Simon Callow
 * Dr Kent - Emma Campbell-Jones
 * Gideon Vandaleur - Niall Greig Fulton
 * Gantok - Mark Gatiss (Credited as 'Rondo Haxton')
 * Herself - Sian Williams
 * Himself - Bill Turnbull
 * News Anchor - Meredith Vieira
 * Dorium Maldovar -Simon Fisher Becker
 * The Silence - Marnix Van Den Broeke
 * Carter - Richard Dillane
 * Nurse - Katherine Burford
 * Barman - Sean Buckley
 * Canton Delaware - William Morgan Sheppard
 * Voice of the Dalek- Nicholas Briggs

Individuals

 * Rose Tyler and Jack Harkness are mentioned.
 * Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart is said to have passed away several months before the Doctor phones the institution where he was staying; he apparently talked about the Doctor all the time and insisted on having a spare glass ready in case he should show up.
 * Charles Dickens appears in the alternate timeline, being interviewed on television.

Technology

 * A Timey-wimey distress beacon is built.

Fashion and Clothing
The Doctor wears the stetson given to him by Craig Owens throughout his investigation, up to and including the time he was hidden aboard the Tesselecta. The hat was not in fact shot off his head by River in DW: The Impossible Astronaut since the Tesselecta was impersonating him at the time. The original is likely still in his possession.

Story notes

 * Following his death in February, this episode pays tribute to Nicholas Courtney, with the Doctor discovering that his character, Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart, died peacefully in his sleep.
 * A prequel for this episode was released online.
 * This is the first time an episode of Doctor Who has aired on the same night as an episode of fellow BBC Saturday night drama, Merlin. The first episode of Merlin Series 4, The Darkest Hour, was broadcast right after The Wedding of River Song.
 * Meredith Vieira, co-host of the American morning news/chat programme Today, filmed her cameo during a visit to the Upper Boat Studios as part of a profile of Doctor Who produced for Today. That feature, which aired on 9 May 2011, contained several minor spoilers for this episode, including revealing the cameo appearance by Richard Hope as Malohkeh.
 * This is the first series finale of the revived series not to be a multi-part episode. In fact, it is the first series finale ever to only be one episode (with the exception of DW: The Five Doctors, which aired between Seasons 20 and 21, but is often counted as part of Season 20).

Ratings
UK Overnight: 6.1 Million

Myths

 * The Doctor will get married. This was proven true.
 * Part of this episode will be set in Egypt. This was proven true.
 * The Doctor would indeed have died. This originates from fansite speculation, repeated comments by Steven Moffat in interviews, and articles in Doctor Who Magazine "playing along". This was, of course, proven false.
 * The Doctor who was shot would be revealed to be a ganger. This was proven false, though speculation that it wasn't the real Doctor was proven true.

Filming locations

 * Utah, USA (flashback footage from DW: The Impossible Astronaut)

Production errors

 * The Doctor's reflection in River's helmet shield is not reversed, as it should be.
 * When Gantok falls into the pit of skulls his hat falls off, yet it's back on right before he's devoured completely.
 * When River lifts the shield on the helmet, she uses two hands, whereas in The Impossible Astronaut the astronaut only uses one hand.
 * It was shown that time was frozen at 05:02:57, and progressed to around 05:03:06 the first time The Doctor and River touch, but when the Doctor and River kiss later, a clock is shown on screen, with time resuming from 05:02:00.

Continuity

 * Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart is said to have died. This is consistent with the Seventh Doctor's assertion in DW: Battlefield that the Brigadier would die in bed. As no indication is given as to when the Brigadier died, it does not contradict the post-2010 continuity established for the character in the Virgin New Adventures and the Brigadier's death in the 2050s established in PDA: The King of Terror.
 * Charles Dickens appears. (DW: The Unquiet Dead)
 * Winston Churchill returns, this time as the Holy Roman Emperor. (DW: Victory of the Daleks, The Pandorica Opens)
 * The Silurian scientist Malokeh returns. (DW: The Hungry Earth / Cold Blood)
 * Dorium Maldovar returns as a head. He was beheaded by the Headless Monks. (DW: A Good Man Goes to War)
 * The Doctor mentions his former companions Rose Tyler and Jack Harkness.
 * Amy's drawings include the Krafayis, the Weeping Angels, the Saturnyns, the Silurians, the Daleks, the Minotaur, the Cybermen and the Smilers, as well as a self-portraits of herself from DW: The Curse of the Black Spot and one of her emerging from the Pandorica (DW: The Big Bang).
 * The Teselecta returns, as does its captain. (DW: Let's Kill Hitler)
 * The Doctor again sports a beard. (DW: Day of the Moon)
 * When talking to Amy after the timeline has been restored, River mentions climbing out of the Byzantium and is still in her combat fatigues, as well as mentioning that she has just seen her when Amy had no idea who she is. (DW: The Time of Angels / Flesh and Stone)
 * Amy is partially protected from some kinds of temporal changes due to her long-term exposure to The Cracks. (DW: The Eleventh Hour, The Big Bang)
 * When River says to the Doctor that time can be rewritten, he responds with "Don't you dare." This echoes what River says to the Doctor in a similar situation (DW: Forest of the Dead) and the First Doctor trying to stop Barbara Wright interfering in Aztec history (DW: The Aztecs).
 * River mentions "Rule #1: the Doctor lies." (DW: The Big Bang, Let's Kill Hitler)
 * A Silent calls Rory "the man who dies and dies again", referring to his deaths in DW: Amy's Choice, Cold Blood, The Curse of the Black Spot, and The Doctor's Wife.
 * When the Doctor meets River in Area 52, he greets her by saying "Honey, I'm home." River replies, "And what sort of time do you call this?" They had the same exchange in DW: The Big Bang.
 * The Doctor mentions Elizabeth I waiting for him in a glade to elope with her. (DW: The Shakespeare Code, DW: The End of Time, DW: The Beast Below)
 * The Doctor says "Geronimo!" again. (DW: The End of Time, The Eleventh Hour, The Beast Below, The Big Bang)
 * The Doctor asks River, "Why do you always have handcuffs?" (DW: Forest of the Dead, DW: Flesh and Stone)
 * Dorium tells the Doctor what the "question that must never be answered" is. The question was first mentioned in DW: Let's Kill Hitler.
 * The notion of "Doctor who?" being a dark secret rather than simply a question was previously explored in DW: The Girl in the Fireplace.
 * The barman on Callisto B is a red humanoid. Members of his race appeared in DW: New Earth, Gridlock, The End of Time, The Pandorica Opens and IDW: Agent Provocateur.
 * While held captive, Madame Kovarian expresses annoyance at River and the Doctor's flirting, similar to the way Amy did in Day of the Moon.
 * River mentions having to pretend not to recognize a space suit in 1969. (DW: The Impossible Astronaut)
 * A heavily damaged Progenitor Dalek appears. (DW : Victory of the Daleks)
 * The Doctor makes marks on his arm when he sees the Silence. (DW: Day of the Moon)
 * River mentions being a child of the TARDIS. (DW: Let's Kill Hitler)

For the Doctor

 * This story occurs after DW: Closing Time
 * This story takes place during DW: The Impossible Astronaut
 * This story occurs before: 2011 Christmas Special

For River

 * This story occurs after DW: Closing Time
 * This story takes place during DW: The Impossible Astronaut
 * This story occurs before DW: A Good Man Goes to War

For River in the final scene

 * This story occurs after DW: Flesh and Stone
 * This story occurs before DW: Silence in the Library

For Amy and Rory

 * This story takes place after DW: The God Complex
 * This story takes place during DW: The Impossible Astronaut

Home video releases
This episode will be released on DVD shortly after the airing of the episode.