Howling:River's Timeline in Light of TATM

It was pointed out on another board that The Angels Take Manhattan doesn't appear to properly follow the sequence of River moving backwards relative to the Doctor's timeline, as she has been pardoned and is Professor Song. I don't have the expertise to speak to this myself (at least, not without a bit more research), but I'd love to hear what others think. AthertonX ☎  21:43, September 30, 2012 (UTC)

I'd have to agree, Ath. Her first post-Library adventure was the Byzantium, and this is definitely set after that in her timeline, after her pardon and professorship. So, in theory, she is at the point in her timeline where the Doctor's memories of her should be regressing. Yet, this is the first time we see them together as a married couple, and they end by setting out together for some unspecified period of time. Very possibly they've had off-camera adventures together before this, when he knew less and she knew more, and I'd be willing to be that some of her undated appearances (end of Demons Run) probably are from later in her timeline... Still, at the Byzantium, their married life seemed to be in the past, and their first/last kiss was while she was still in jail, so what's up with having their first on-camera married journeys being 'after' her last kiss? Tough holiday. Wibbly-Wobbly ☎  22:39, September 30, 2012 (UTC)

The statement of River's timeline moving backwards relative to the Doctor's timeline is totally wrong. If it was true, there would be no need for the little tardis blue book the River has to keep track of their adventures. The fact is River and the Doctor's timelines cross randomly without any specific order. To be more specific, the last time River meets the doctor is the first time he meets her (Silence in the Library), however the first time she meets him is not the last time he meets her (Let's kill Hitler). Also, in last season's finale, when River visits Amy after she supposedly killed the doctor, she states that she just met them on the Byzantium. Therefore, there is no specific chronological order for their meetings, hence the need for the blue book to keep track of what adventures each of them has experienced.--62.84.91.6talk to me 22:43, September 30, 2012 (UTC)

I also agree. It's been a perennial topic on past threads. The back-to-front timelines interpretation is completely incompatible with the diary-sync interpretation. I've always seen the 'back-to-front' timelines issue as more of a general trend in their meetings that River has noticed, which leads to her fear about the Doctor forgetting her. But the end of Day of the Moon seemed to establish a literal reverse order, because River 'knew' that his first kiss would have to be her last. The problem now is that she was in jail then, and is out now (therefore forward on her timeline from the 'last' kiss) yet they are both in the TARDIS, married, and setting out to travel together. We're no longer just quibbling about interpretations, this seems to violate established events in her life. Their life together seems to be just beginning at a point in her timeline after it was supposed to have tragically ended. Anyway, I am happier with us in the diary-sync version, so it's more an observation than a complaint. Wibbly-Wobbly ☎  23:33, September 30, 2012 (UTC)

River was convinced the first kiss in the Doctor's timeline was the last in hers but it's entirely possible she got a pleasant surprise & found out she'd been wrong about that. As has repeatedly been said by those paying attention (& by Moffat), the "going in opposite directions" thing is at most a general trend. It may not even be that. If you list the numbers 1 to 10,000 in genuinely random order, you're very likely to have parts of the list looking as if they follow a pattern. The "going in opposite directions" thing could be the same. We look for patterns & see them even when they're not really there. (I'm usually 89 but I'm 2, just now.) --2.96.17.102talk to me 23:49, September 30, 2012 (UTC)


 * Much of her previously-established timeline never happened now. Up until this episode it was clear that she spent years, probably centuries in Stormgate Prison. She was sentenced for what, 12,000 consecutive lifetimes? And since around 200 years passed for the Doctor between The Time of Angels and The Wedding of River Song, one might assume that 200 years passed for River, too (but in a different order). But now the Doctor has erased his name from all of history; the authorities at Stormcage quickly discovered that the man she was convicted of killing could not be proven to have ever existed, and she was pardoned "long ago." As a result, all those years spent in prison in order to convince the Doctor's enemies that he was really dead didn't happen. What's more, there would be no point in her serving time to make the Doctor's death look good now that no one knows who the Doctor was; if she wasn't pardoned, she just would have escaped and never come back. In the old timeline, River is out on parole in The Time of Angels. In the new timeline, she was never paroled because she was pardoned instead. While their 'last kiss' might have happened in prison in the old timeline, in the new timeline River and the Doctor won't kiss for the last time until long after she was released. So my point is, you can't accurately try to fit River's adventures up to this point up with what she says in The Angels Take Manhattan, because they take place in different histories. -- Rowan Earthwood ☎  15:37, October 1, 2012 (UTC)


 * Or the records didn't show that the Doctor never existed until sometime after The Time of Angels for River, they pardoned her after that, and she was just wrong about it being their last kiss.Icecreamdif ☎  15:44, October 1, 2012 (UTC)


 * River thought it was their last kiss in her timeline because it was their first in the Doctor's timeline. She was assuming that the "meeting in reverse order" thing actually works. We already know it doesn't really work, so there's a fair chance River got a pleasant surprise when she found out she was wrong. --89.240.242.255talk to me 16:37, October 1, 2012 (UTC)


 * I'd like to note that it's never been said that the Doctor himself is removing signs of his existence. Him telling River "You said I got too big." doesn't really imply that he did it. Also, the Doctor DOES still exist, so the timeline hasn't technically been altered, only the databases containing information about him have. Even in Dinosaurs on a Spaceship, the Doctor didn't seem already convinced that Solomon wouldn't find information about him, he was just pleased to find out that Solomon didn't. If it were the Doctor himself deleting the information, you would think he would start with the Daleks, instead of Oswin doing it for him. He was surprised when that happened as well, and again similarly pleased about this fact. He may have no idea who or what is causing it, but he seems to be enjoying it too much to really care to find out. (That, or he does know the cause, but also knows that whatever/whoever is doing it seems to not be meaning any harm to the Doctor. Though even that is starting to slowly look wrong, since I have a feeling this is going to end up being a massively bad thing for him.) Not to mention UNIT clearly still knows about him, so he still exists to people outside of the TARDIS crew. There just happens to be a very select few of those people. Saghan ☎  17:39, October 1, 2012 (UTC)


 * Saghan, "it's never been said that the Doctor himself is removing signs of his existence": Good point. You've got me wondering if the removal of information about the Doctor is part of the Series 7 story arc. The series is said (by Moffat, who can't always be believed) to be "less arc-heavy" than Series 6 & the vanishing information would fit with that, being rather less obtrusive than apparent murders & memory-editing aliens. It also featured notably in the opening episode, intimately associated with a character played by Jenna-Louise Coleman, who's billed to play the new companion. There's also been talk of stuff happening out of chronological sequence but no very obvious evidence of it -- unless it's the information loss. Perhaps, in that reference by River to the reason she was let out of clink, we're seeing the effect of something that we'll not see being done until later in the series. (Like the Doctor wearing a jacket when telling Amy to "remember" in Flesh and Stone being a result of events we didn't see until the Series 5 finalé.) --89.240.242.255talk to me 19:09, October 1, 2012 (UTC)


 * I agree about it being a story arc. In fact, since the very moment Solomon scanned him in DoaS, I've assumed it was the story arc. Even if all the other references and connections between the episodes thus far turn out to be unrelated to the current story arc, this one most certainly will be. I already was assuming that this wasn't the work of the Doctor, and was a bit worried when the conversation started about it between River and him, but was glad to see he never actually admits to it. (Though even if he hadn't denied it, I would never put it past the Doctor to take credit for something he's suspected of doing, especially one that seems (rather big emphasis on "seems") beneficial to him.) I'm definitely interested to find out for certain who or what is erasing him, and the consequences of it. One thing to worry about is how many people tend to need the Doctor's help. How will they contact him or call for help if he doesn't exist in any database? Obviously there are other ways, (as both freak accidents and the TARDIS herself have led the Doctor to places that need his help) but it still limits anyone not already familiar with how to contact him from being able to. So, what if the time comes when he's drastically needed, and they call out for the Doctor or attempt to look him up, and they're smacked in the face with "Doctor who?" Or even worse, what if he tries to pull his most famous trick of threatening an enemy by reminding them who he is, only to once again be hit with "Doctor Who?" Imagine how differently so many moments would have occurred if the enemy he was facing didn't already know who he was, and/or had no way to find out. (The Pandorica, the Library ("look me up"), and countless other moments.) Worse still, the enemies that still know him now believe him to be dead. Even though that may give him an element of surprise, it also once again limits his ability to threaten an enemy, since they believe to know for a fact that he died, and that it was a fixed point. The Daleks are, admittedly, somewhat of a special case now because they only fall under the category of "enemies that do not fear the Doctor". Since Oswin essentially hacked their brains rather than just a database, they don't just think he's dead- they never knew about him in the first place. So even if they could have been convinced that he simply didn't die, it won't matter because he means absolutely nothing to them now. This is one hell of a double-edged sword. (I'd like to also note how interesting it would be if the Daleks trapped in the Time War ever manage to escape or be set free. Would their knowledge of the Doctor override the missing information? Or it could simply cause massive amounts of confusion between one set of Daleks going on and on about needing to exterminate their greatest enemy, the Doctor, while another group of them (once again) fires back with "Doctor who?" Though that could work out to be half of a good thing if the Time War Daleks destroyed the rest of the Daleks for "malfunctioning" or something.) I also wonder if Oswin herself is behind it, though I don't yet know enough about her to be able to imagine why she would do it, since the Dalek memory-wipe was just a quick fix to help him out.


 * I'm also a firm believer of the idea that he's travelling out of order- or more-so that the episodes aren't happening in order. We have been given visual evidence of this being confirmed for at least one instance. Rory's cellphone charger got left behind in Henry VIII's chambers during that episode, but it was talked about in A Town Called Mercy. That means that they didn't travel to Mercy until either after The Power of Three, or that it (like the visit to Henry VIII) happened during that episode when they were on the honeymoon trip. The importance of this is anyone's guess really, unless they explain it later. There may even be no reason behind it at all, but it most certainly happened. Saghan ☎  20:11, October 1, 2012 (UTC)

Also, I got distracted earlier and forgot to mention something. I find it interesting that if River has only recently a professor (from our most recent point of view), then the Doctor being erased from the databases has always been coming. Otherwise she would not have been able to "officially" become a professor, being too busy stuck in prison. Yes, some prisons offer education, but "professor" tends to imply that she's done some sort of teaching in her own personal timeline, as well as there never being any evidence that Stormcage houses such programs. (Nor does it seem very likely to me that they would, honestly.) Even if they did, I can say with a high degree of certainty that they would not then let her teach. Saghan ☎  20:24, October 1, 2012 (UTC)

River was a professor & was not a prisoner when we first saw her in Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead (in which she died). As far as I can remember -- & someone's sure to say if I'm wrong -- that story & The Angels in Manhattan are the only ones in which she's been Professor, not Dr, River Song. The oldest of the Rivers in Last Night presumably was a professor, as she & the Doctor were about to leave on their last tryst before she went to the Library, but her title wasn't mentioned.

As an aside, some US viewers may be missing the significance of the title because they don't know that, in British academia, "professor" is a high academic rank -- head of department or thereabouts -- not just "someone who teaches".

Being Professor River Song means she has a departmental chair (head of department) or a personal chair (same rank but without the burden of admin), which generally requires much more than "some sort of teaching". She must be well established in her field, with plenty of high-quality research to her credit. (I was 89 not long ago but I'm 78 now.) --78.146.184.166talk to me 21:13, October 1, 2012 (UTC)


 * Thank you for bringing the professor issue to my attention. Though I will say I was not trying to imply that it meant she had only spent time teaching, I'm still glad you defined it further. That also leads me to bring up another point.


 * I posted some of this in another thread on here just prior to this, but some of it is a bit more relevant on this one, so I'll try to sum up some of the points I made there: Though I could be wrong, I believe the River we see in TATM is from much further ahead in her own timeline than the ones we're likely to see in her next few appearances. Most likely from a point after the "Silence" is finally completely dealt with, since it seems like her only reason to keep returning to prison is to keep the Silence from suspecting that she didn't actually kill the Doctor. As someone else brought up, it seems unlikely for them to pardon her just because he's not in a database. They would still already know. She may end up being pardoned (or just breaking out for good once the Silence are dealt with permanently) but it could also be for another reason, and she's just lying. Again.. I believe all of this this for several reasons.


 * 1. She has suddenly matured quite a bit more than when we last saw her, and much closer to how she was in the Library. She still has her silly little quips, but even those were approached with a bit less of her normal childish attitude. She has also (upon this meeting with her) become much more willing to scold the Doctor. She has done this once before in A Good Man Goes to War, but only because it was absolutely necessary.


 * 2. We're never properly told why she was in New York in the first place, and it would appear she's been there for some time. She already knew quite well what was going on with the "time issues" around the city when Rory showed up, and she was already known as Melody Malone by Grayle- who also knew she had been studying Angels there. It may just be that she was having her own little adventure when her family happened to show up.


 * 3. Even her dialogue suggest that she came from further ahead than usual. "Pardoned ages ago"- this erasure of the Doctor from databases is a new development, and she seems to have been out of prison now for quite some time indeed. (Especially thanks to the fact that she would have had to do a lot of work to become a professor, as was stated above.) She also mentions that she would "travel with the Doctor, but not all the time" shortly before she leaves (meaning "not now either"). Personally I think its not because she can't travel with him permanently, but because this River simply already knows she didn't. It would also explain why she tells him not to travel alone if she knows he's supposed to find a companion- already knowing that he did in her own personal past, possibly even later being told that he found said companion "because you told me to".


 * 4. We've already concreted the fact that she isn't moving in a linear "back-to-front" manner but in more of a jumbled order that generally heads backwards, so an appearance like this would be bound to happen anyway.


 * 5. There was no diary swapping this time. That's pretty unusual for both River and even the show itself. It could have been on purpose so that they could reveal her "late"ness here later.


 * There are a few more examples, but I can't specifically recall. It's also still possible for me to just be wrong, and that's fine. Either way, it just seems like this River is much further ahead than usual. I'd be happy to see him call her "professor Song" in the next episode she's in, and her react by saying "that still hasn't happened yet" (since it would be the second time he's made that mistake).Saghan ☎  22:13, October 1, 2012 (UTC)


 * "A new development" doesn't mean much when you're a time traveler. Relative to what year? The Doctor is a century or so older now, from his perspective, than he was in The Wedding of River Song, and he seems to have been busy spending the last century or so of his personal history erasing himself from all records, for a span of thousands of years. Even if someone else has been doing it, that person clearly has access to time travel, since he's vanished from quite a few different centuries. In the few episodes since Oswin begun the process, we've seen databases in 19th century America and a 24th century spaceship fail to include him and River Song herself, a 52nd century archaeologist with a doctorate in the Doctor's history, has confirmed that he's vanished from public knowledge (which means, I guess, that she would have had to get her doctorate in some other historical subject). River remembers him because she knows him personally; Kate Stewart remembers him from her father's stories. I think River's dialogue in Angels Take Manhattan clearly indicates that the process of doctor-erasing has already changed history, and her time in prison was much shorter than before. Instead of being paroled under the close watch of the Church, she was pardoned outright, which means that as far as the authorities are concerned her crime is absolved and there was no need to parole her. We can't assume that any of the previous River stories that involved her prison time still happened the way we saw them before. I agree that there are some signs that River might be older now, but we can't use her time in prison to compare her to other episodes directly. She's a full professor now, but she seems to have begun her teaching career much earlier than she did in the previous timeline. It's also not clear that the Doctor has any enemies remaining that remember him, since lately he's been killing them off. The whole point of erasing himself is to prevent groups like the Silence, devoted to targeting him, from existing. The authorities who run Stormcage have never heard of the Doctor in this new timeline; River is very clear about that. It's not just that he isn't in databases - nobody knows him, not the Shadow Proclamation, not the Church, not the Headless Monks, not Torchwood (apart from people like Jack and Gwen who've met him). I wouldn't be shocked if they reveal that the Silence never formed, the Battle of Demon's Run didn't happen, and Melody Pond had a normal childhood at her parent's house in Leadsworth, interrupted only by the occasional time-traveling adventure. Or if I'm completely wrong then at the very least, I think it's clear that we can no longer safely make assumptions about how well the Doctor is known based on previous stories. -- Rowan Earthwood ☎  02:32, October 2, 2012 (UTC)


 * One thing worth mentioning about the "professor" thing: Do we know that River is _really_ a professor? After all, Professor Summerfield wasn't a real Professor, but later became a real Doctor. (If you don't know the novels, Benny was the witty archeologist companion from the future with a sketchy backstory, raised by foster parents, who spent a lot of time in prison; famous for her extensive diary, for sleeping with the Doctor, for meeting the 6th Doctor well after her travels with the 7th in her timeline, for getting her age set back a few years, and for being from two different centuries in a way that nobody ever made sense of…) --70.36.140.233talk to me 05:01, October 2, 2012 (UTC)


 * Saghan, I wasn't having a go at you over the "she's done some sort of teaching" bit. If I seemed to be criticising you, it was unintentional. It was just that you reminded me of the difference between the US & UK use of the title "professor". Since the topic is River's timeline & that difference is important in working out her timeline, I thought I'd better explain it immediately. It means that the point you were making is substantially stronger than it would appear to someone who was thinking of the US meaning of "professor". To have reached that rank, River must have been out of prison for quite a long time -- long enough to have done major research, get it published, build up a strong academic reputation & (on the basis of that) be appointed to an important post with a university or similar academic institution. That would take years, which ties in with "pardoned ages ago".


 * Where you say "I believe the River we see in TATM is from much further ahead in her own timeline..." etc., I agree. As I said, the only other time River has appeared & been titled "Professor River Song" was at the end of her life. The River in The Angels... is almost certainly the 2nd-oldest we've seen in an episode so far (ignoring the DVD-only mini-episodes). She must be far further along her timeline than she was in the scene with the "first time/last time" kiss with the Doctor (so she presumably was wrong about it being the last time she'd get to kiss him).


 * I'm not sure the lack of "diary swapping" was for any reason except that there wasn't time for it. They were pretty busy throughout the episode, after all. There might be more to it than that but there doesn't have to be. The pace of events would be enough reason on its own.


 * Rowan Earthwood: You're right that whoever has been erasing information about the Doctor must have access to time travel. You're also right that Kate (& some others) would still remember because personal memories can't be hacked into & erased the way online data can be. You may be a bit too sweeping, though, when you say that River's timeline has changed drastically. We don't know how long she spent in prison. We never have, so it'd be difficult to tell if the length of time had changed (which might be why Moffat's never given us the numbers). We don't know River's aging rate but we have some pretty strong hints that it's not the normal human rate (& that's pretty variable, anyway), so we can't use that to work out how long she was in prison -- or to work out anything else, for that matter.


 * So far, we've got good evidence of the removal of information about the Doctor. I don't think we have the evidence to conclude that that's associated with changes in history. You say, "Instead of being paroled under the close watch of the Church, she [River] was pardoned outright" but there's so far no evidence of that. She could have been pardoned outright after (not instead of) being paroled. The only time we saw her on parole & supervised by the Church was in The Time of Angels/Flesh and Stone (& the brief scene at the end of The Wedding of River Song, where she's "just climbed out of the Byzantium"). In The Time of Angels, she wasn't yet a professor -- the Doctor introduced her to Amy as "Professor River Song" & River said, "Oh! You mean I'm going to be a professor, someday."


 * There's no evidence (yet) for "It's not just that he isn't in databases - nobody knows him, not the Shadow Proclamation, not the Church, not the Headless Monks, not Torchwood (apart from people like Jack and Gwen who've met him)." What River said about her pardon was that she was in prison & the authorities suddenly found that they couldn't prove her supposed victim had ever existed. She did not say the authorities didn't know whose existence it was that they couldn't prove. She did not say the authorities suddenly found themselves with a prisoner whose crime was unknown to them. What she said demonstrated that they knew she was in prison for murder & they knew enough about who her supposed victim had been to be able to check & find they'd no records of him having existed. --89.242.70.8talk to me 06:28, October 2, 2012 (UTC)


 * 70, "Do we know that River is _really_ a professor?": Only dialog. The same evidence we have for her being "Dr River Song", earlier in her timeline. The organisers of the expedition in Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead had included her because she was known to be the best in her field. She was "Professor River Song" to them & they were not the type of people to have done that without checking that she really was Professor River Song & really was the best in her field. There's absolutely no countervailing evidence that she isn't really a professor. The Library expedition wouldn't have accepted her as Professor River Song on the basis of a nickname (like Ace calling the Doctor "Professor"). They were legalistic & humourless -- the kind of people who'd require documentary proof of absolutely everything. In triplicate. --89.242.70.8talk to me 06:50, October 2, 2012 (UTC)


 * With how randomly time time travel works in Doctor Who, I can't prove that the Doctor's erasure from public knowledge changed history, but it's strongly implied. Almost everyone seemed to know who he was before, and now almost nobody knows him. River gives this erasure as the reason she was pardoned; in the old timeline, when he was common knowledge, she couldn't have been pardoned for the same reason, and was unlikely to have been pardoned at all. Since she given 1200 consecutive life sentences, it's unlikely that short of an outright pardon she would've gotten out quickly, even with good behaviour (and a prisoner who escapes as often as she did is not going to be let off for good behaviour). In the new timeline, when she had no reason to stay in prison and they had no justification for keeping her, it's exceedingly unlikely she remained in Stormcage as long as she would have in a timeline when she was convicted of murdering a great hero and kept returning to her sentence just to make sure it was convincing. Absent further evidence, it's possible to argue that she spent the same amount of time in prison that she always had, but I think it's staggeringly unlikely. The way the dialogue was read, and the context it appeared in, signaled that River's history had become very different and the Doctor was somewhat surprised. Just be careful in treating previous stories as valid evidence in this debate. They aren't anymore. The odds are good that history has changed. -- Rowan Earthwood ☎  14:06, October 2, 2012 (UTC)