Howling:The first incarnation of River couldn't have killed the Doctor on Lake Silencio...

Is it just me, or does it have to be the third incarnation (Alex Kingston) of River that kills the Doctor? Because the media constantly reports that it was "a toddler", etc., that did. Assuming that the little red-haired girl at the orphanage was the first incarnation of Melody/River, she could not have killed the Doctor because she regenerated in 1969 into Mels after escaping out the astronaut suit. In "A Good Man Goes to War", the Doctor said that the Silence (Madame Kovarian, etc.) would take her to Earth to "raise her in the proper environment", so I guess that would be the Silence-infested orphanage, where maybe some of her training took place. I think the spacesuit was "coming to eat her" so the Silence could transport her to 2011 so she could kill the Doctor, but she escaped, got a disease, and regenerated six months later. Based on "Let's Kill Hitler" (where River says she might gradually take down her age to freak people out), it seems that, being half-human and half-Time Lord, she can change her age as she likes. So she probably lived 20 years (because it appears she has no access to time travel) before she caught up to Amy and Rory's timestream and lived with them. By the time she regenerates into River ("Let's Kill Hitler"), she has not yet killed the Doctor and is eager to accomplish the task. At the end of this episode, Rory remarks how the River they know is in prison. So, presumably, the astronaut came back for her (somehow...I'm assuming this will happen in the finale) and she killed the Doctor in 2011.

So this opens a lot of questions that make it more interesting than it seems: What would compel River to kill the Doctor after we saw her change in "Let's Kill Hitler"? Is she part of a big Silence master plan...or is she the creator of it? And by the way, since Lake Silencio is spanish for "Silence", do you think there could be a Silence stronghold underneath it? That would explain the astronaut rising out of the water. Glimmer721 22:08, September 18, 2011 (UTC)

So far we don't know which incarnation of River/Melody was in the spacesuit at Lake Silencio. From the records available to the crew of the Teselecta, we know they believe it was River/Melody and that they also believe the Doctor's death on that date is a fixed point. However, the older River/Melody who was watching (with Amy and Rory) seemed quite genuinely not to know what was going on. Bearing in mind the abilities of the Silence aliens, it's entirely possible that the little girl (Sydney Wade) incarnation could have been the one in the spacesuit but subsequently have had her memories suppressed. Later incarnations would not then know that the programmed mission had already been accomplished (or apparently accomplished). In that case, the Mels (Nina Toussant-White) incarnation and the pre-change-of-heart River (Alex Kingston) incarnation might well still have tried to kill the Doctor -- the programming was still in effect and (as far as memory was concerned) the mission had yet to be fulfilled. If it was the post-change-of-heart River (Alex Kingston) incarnation who was in the spacesuit then, as noted above, we have to explain not only a switch back to murderousness but a further subsequent switch to the River we've seen most of -- the one who eventually gives her life to save the Doctor in the Library. The trouble is, given what we know the Silence can do and the (potential) availability of time travel, it's possible to explain any of these possibilities, plus others I can think of but haven't put in here, plus (I expect) more others I've not thought of. What's not (yet) possible is to eliminate any of them. To put it briefly: Insufficient data! --89.242.66.251 23:01, September 18, 2011 (UTC)

The interesting thing about the Teselecta records is that they know Melody was the one in the spacesuit, and it's the River Song incarnation that they know. Notice right after she regenerates, one of the crew says, "That's definitely Melody Pond", as if they hadn't been sure until seeing the face the recognize. Of course you can explain this in other ways. For example, their records would presumably have the face she had in the Library, because that's where they're supposed to punish her, at the end of her life. And yet, Amy doesn't ask the Teselecta to show records of Melody Pond, but of River Song. Maybe this means that Melody Pond, in her River body, kills the Doctor in 2011, without having ever changed her name. Amy and the Doctor are remembering, and the records of River Song are showing, a previous version of history or whatever where she didn't kill the Doctor and did change her name. (Remember, Moffat has established that time travelers remember the old history when history changes.) In other words, the Doctor's death is on an alternate timeline, and may even be the point of divergence for that timeline; by preventing his death, they enable Melody to become River. Which sounds great at first, but when you think about it, it's horribly tragic, because they know River will fall in love with the Doctor, then begin meeting him earlier and earlier in his timeline (before the first kiss, etc.), and in a few short years she'll die in the Library with a Doctor who didn't even know her.

As for the 1970 stuff, just one comment: If she didn't time travel (and wasn't put into stasis or something by the Silence), are you suggesting she lived 20 years as a toddler in New York? Out of all the possibilities, that one seems the least likely. She could have lived 20 years in New York and then regenerated into a toddler in 1990, but in that case, we have no reason to believe she was a toddler in 1970. (The only evidence that she was a toddler in 1970 is "Last time I tried this, I ended up a toddler", not "every time" or "both times".) If you don't want another regeneration, then you pretty much have to assume that the spacesuit "coming to eat her" was either going to put her in stasis or send her into the future (or just hold onto her so the Silence could send her into the future through other means). --70.36.140.19 02:43, September 19, 2011 (UTC)

I've not seen anyone suggest Melody lived 20 years as a toddler in New York. We don't know how she got from NY in 1970 to Leadworth in the 1990s. That's one part of the puzzle but, in a time travel show, it doesn't have to be an important part because there are several ways she could have done it. The trouble isn't that nobody can think of a way to account for the known facts; it's just the opposite: lots of people can think of lots of ways to account for the known facts but, so far, nobody has enough information to narrow it down to just one way. --89.242.66.251 04:13, September 19, 2011 (UTC)


 * Quoting Glimmer721 from the start of this thread: "So she probably lived 20 years (because it appears she has no access to time travel) before she caught up to Amy and Rory's timestream and lived with them." And she was very young when she caught up to them. Which means she either stayed a toddler for 20 years, was able to not just tweak her age but change it from 22 to 2, or regenerated again. There are, of course, many other possibilities that don't involve her living 20 years through normal time, but those were explicitly excluded. --70.36.140.19 04:21, September 19, 2011 (UTC)


 * Quoting from your quote of Glimmer721: "it appears she has no access to time travel". That only (so far) means we don't know whether she had or not -- and it needn't have been Melody herself who had access to it. The people who originally kidnapped Amy and later kidnapped the baby Melody obviously did have access to time travel. They equally obviously were not the kind simply to let their "weapon" slip from their grasp without trying to retieve her. I fully agree we don't know time travel was used but we have no way yet of knowing it wasn't. It's not the only possibility but it remains one of the possibilities. --78.146.179.196 20:59, September 19, 2011 (UTC)
 * Glimmer721 is clearly saying that she probably lived 20 years, given that his actual statement is "she probably lived 20 years". The fact that you disagree with that statement is fine, but it doesn't change the fact that he said it. --70.36.140.19 03:10, September 20, 2011 (UTC)


 * It's rather clear that I was disagreeing with what Glimmer721 said, not denying he'd said it. That being so, your response seems somewhat pointless. --78.146.178.98 12:28, September 20, 2011 (UTC)
 * 89 said that no one suggested such a thing. I quoted Glimmer721 suggesting exactly that. You replied as if you were trying to argue with that.


 * Anyway, getting back to the original topic of this thread: If the spacesuit at Lake Silencio is the little girl, and the little girl is the first incarnation of River, and Amy hasn't been snatched and replaced until 1969, then at the Lake there are two copies of her first incarnation (the embryo and the spacesuit girl), and one of her last (River). Somehow, it seems neater if she's there in three different incarnations. The little girl could have already regenerated once (explaining how she already knows she can fix dying in New York in 1970). Or, if you assume the Silence have time travel, it could just as easily be Mels as the little girl or River (which makes sense since we saw Mels trying to kill him, while we saw the little girl trying to get help from him). And either way, you avoid the problem of trying to explain why River goes back to trying to kill the Doctor after giving up all of her regenerations to save him. As an aside, I like the image of multiple Rivers come together at a Lake (not to mention a total of five Ponds… where's Adelaide Brooke?), but I doubt that bit actually means anything… --70.36.140.19 05:36, September 21, 2011 (UTC)


 * You need to develop the habit of reading what's actually written. The statement was: "I've not seen anyone suggest Melody lived 20 years as a toddler in New York." The statement was not: "I've not seen anyone suggest Melody lived 20 years in New York." Glimmer721 did suggest the 20 years in NY but didn't suggest she spent the whole time as a toddler. The difference is fairly important. Glimmer721 and others are pointing out that it's the combination of the 20 years with her apparent age in the 1990s that requires explanation. Time travel is one possible explanation but Glimmer721 is saying (wrongly, I think) that, because we don't know she had access to time travel, she didn't have such access. To quote Spock from Star Trek: Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Just before his/her comment about not having time travel, Glimmer721 referred to the comment Melody made after regenerating into her River incarnation about reducing her apparent age. That reference seems to suggest Glimmer721 favours the explanation that, at some point (probably after locating Amy and Rory but before moving to Leadworth to become their friend), Melody reduced her apparent age to make herself seem like a contemporary of theirs -- and we certainly can't rule that out. Why would Glimmer721 mention age reduction if he/she meant to suggest Melody had managed to remain a toddler and, therefore, wouldn't need to reduce her apparent age?
 * You ought also to develop the habit of listening to what's said in the show. According to the Doctor, Amy was kidnapped and replaced by a ganger before going to America. That means that the in utero Melody was not present at Lake Silencio. The real (pregnant) Amy was not there; Ganger-Amy was.
 * Where you're certainly right is in pointing out the difference in attitude between the "little girl" (Sydney Wade) incarnation and the Mels (Nina Toussant-White) and early River (Alex Kingston) incarnations. Not only was the "little girl" trying to get help from the Doctor but what we saw of her -- admittedly not much -- suggested she was far saner and more mature (mentally) than the later incarnations. When she started to regenerate, she frightened the daylights out of the man in the alley, of course, but she had been trying to reassure him: "It's all right. It's quite all right..." etc. Physically, she was a child of 9 or 10 but her demeanour was adult. Without more information, we can't know for sure but that difference in behaviour does make it look as if she wasn't messed up by the conditioning to murderousness until after her regeneration in that alley in NY. --89.242.78.198 07:40, September 21, 2011 (UTC)
 * I've already listed all of the obvious ways she could have lived 20 years without access to time travel, multiple times. Most recently: "Which means she either stayed a toddler for 20 years, was able to not just tweak her age but change it from 22 to 2, or regenerated again." So, I don't see why you think you need to explain that there's more than one possbility. If you're just looking for something to argue about, either pick something more interesting or find someone else to argue with. --70.36.140.19 17:48, September 21, 2011 (UTC)
 * I wasn't the one who decided to pick an argument over something nobody had said, in the first place. You midunderstood or misread, so just drop the argument and get on with the discussion. --89.240.250.76 20:58, September 21, 2011 (UTC)


 * We know that Melody/River can choose how she ages in each incarnation; she deliberately chooses to age backwards (slightly) when she becomes Alex Kingston. Probably all Time Lords and Time Lord-like beings can do that, which would explain why the 11th Doctor looks exactly the same 200 years later. So Melody might in theory have chosen a complicated scheme in which she'd remain a toddler until she caught up with her parents, then age along with them. On a semi-related note, if the Doctor is indeed 200 years older when he dies (and therefore meets River for the last time), River might well have lived 200 years as well between the time she meets the Doctor for the first time (in Let's Kill Hitler) and when she meets him for the last time (in Silence in the Library). -- Rowan Earthwood 00:53, September 22, 2011 (UTC)


 * Certainly, we've never been given any indication of River's age in (for example) Silence in the Library. Indeed, except for the baby who turned out to be a ganger, we've not been given anything but her appearance to go on -- and we know that's a totally unreliable guide. I expect that, by the end of this season, we'll have some of the gaps filled in, at least a bit, but probably not all of them. Moffat will reveal as much as he needs to to make the plot work -- plus, perhaps, a little extra that he wants us to know -- but he's not the type to worry about leaving some stuff still mysterious. Anyway, given that the Doctor is (almost certainly) going to find a way of surviving, even if he also dies, Lake Silencio may not be his last meeting with River. At least, with the Doctor, we ought actually to find out by the end of Series 6. --89.242.64.139 02:54, September 22, 2011 (UTC)

The Doctor doesn't need to age backwards or anything to look the same in 200 years as he does now. Afterall,it took the first Doctor something like 500 years to look like the old man we know him as, so Time Lords clearly age in physical appearance more slowly than humans. Of course, that does mean that from River's perspective there may be centuries in between Let's Kill Hitler and Silece in the Library.Icecreamdif 04:20, September 22, 2011 (UTC

Or it may be two weeks. Speaking about what Gallifreyan Time Lords do may be completely irrelevant to what Human Time Lords do.Boblipton 08:08, September 22, 2011 (UTC)


 * I think the Doctor would have aged at least slightly in two centuries, if he was aging at the same rate he aged in his first incarnation (since 200 years is almost half his age when he regenerated for the first time). As someone said below (and as Peter Davidson said back in the classic series, in Castrovalva, I think, or thereabouts) he looked old in his first incarnation because he wanted to be stern and serious, like people do when they're young, while as he got mentally older he learned to relax more and become more light and youthful in personality. -- Rowan Earthwood 01:00, September 23, 2011 (UTC)

just a comment on something said earlier, i think all timelords can alter their age, from what was said in time crash. in that mini episode, he talks about always wanting to be old and grumpy before being in his 5th incarnation, which suggests he had some control over his apparent age. Imamadmad 09:29, September 22, 2011 (UTC)

I thought he just said he was always old and grumpy before his fifth incarnation, not that he wanted to be. Two and Four weren't particularly old and grumpy anyway, so I don't know what he's talking about. Just going by River's aging it could be two weeks, but there still has to be time for her to lget her doctorate in archeology, learn to trust the Doctor, learn the docctor's name, kill a good man, go to jail, break out of jail a few times, get a pardon, become a professor, and go on all the other adventures that have been mentioned in passing. Icecreamdif 21:54, September 22, 2011 (UTC)

True enough. Make it four weeks.Boblipton 22:05, September 22, 2011 (UTC)

In Time Crash, there was a line to explain why 5 looked older than (going by the original TV stories) he should have -- 10 said, "It's because I'm here." Out of universe, that's obviously a glib way of dealing with the fact that Peter Davison has gained weight and lost hair over the last 30 years. In universe, the implication was that the older appearance was a temporary effect and 5 would revert to his younger appearance once the two of them disentangled themselves. That, in turn, implies that a Time Lord's apparent age can be altered when circumstances override or overpower something else (something unspecified but presumably a personal ability).

The biggest hint about a Time Lord's apparent age normally being controlled by a personal ability is in The Sound of Drums/Last of the Time Lords, where the Master forces the Doctor to show his full age, then the Doctor uses the power derived from the people, via the Archangel satellites, to regain his normal appearance -- and, of course, to defeat the Master. --89.241.70.70 00:21, September 23, 2011 (UTC)


 * I don't think she can "change her age as she likes". I'm not denying that Time Lords' aging is partially under their control. The fact that the 10th Doctor aged at about 50% human speed while the 4th aged about about 15% human speed proves it's not an immutable constant, even before River deciding to age at negative 50%. But that doesn't mean they have absolute control. We've never seen a Time Lord suddenly put on or drop decades, except during the first 15 hours after regeneration (some of Romana's try-on bodies were decades apart in apparent age). If they could do that all the time, they wouldn't need disguises. (Of course you could argue that the one we see disguised the most is the Master, and he's usually disguising himself around people who've never heard of him anyway, so he didn't need them in the first place…)


 * Compare aging to growing a beard. It seems like the Doctor can choose to not grow a beard, or to grow one faster than normal humans. The 11th Doctor never even had stubble; then he decided he wanted a beard, and he grew a huge bushy monster in at most 3 months. Presumably it's no problem at all to stop your beard growing, or grow one a few times faster than humans, but it's at least very difficult, if not impossible, to grow one instantly, or he would have done it. So, why wouldn't the same be true for aging?


 * That's all just from TV; there's more corroboration from the novels. The 8th Doctor explicitly said that he'd never had to shave, and then decided to grow a beard, and it came in at an impressive but not implausible rate. He also said that he could radically change his appearance if he had a few years to himself, and even transform himself into a being of pure energy with a few millennia. So he could probably put on or take off a few decades over a few years, but not all at once. --70.36.140.19 02:40, September 23, 2011 (UTC)


 * That's a good point about how long it would take for River to change her apparent age radically. The only instances we have of a rapid change seen on screen are from The Sound of Drums/Last of the Time Lords, with the first change (to extreme age) being artificially forced and the second (back to customary appearance) being artificially assisted and, anyway, being a reversal of the forced change. On the other hand, if Melody did reduce her age to match that of Amy and Rory in the 1990s, she might have had a fair amount of time in which to do it. It depends when she located them, and we don't know that. --89.241.70.70 03:15, September 23, 2011 (UTC)


 * Sure. She could even have aged from 2 to 18 from 1970 to 1986 at human speed, then gone back down to 7 from 1987 to 1996 at negative human speed. One more possibility among all of the many.


 * Actually, if I were writing it that way, I'd tweak it a little bit. If she was brought to Earth in 1963, she might as well progress up to 1989 learning all about the Doctor. Then she could start regressing into childhood, too young for the Silence to explain to her to story of the Timewyrm at Cheldon Bonniface or tell her about all the sex the Doctor's companions were having, until 1996, when she'd find Amy and Rory and have a whole new Doctor story. (Not that I'm comparing the TV movie to a story by a 7-year-old or anything…) --70.36.140.19 07:18, September 23, 2011 (UTC)

Well the end of Closing Time has answered the questions about which incarnation of River did it and approximately where in her life she did it. The Light6 10:45, September 25, 2011 (UTC)

And it has also answered the question about why, having had a change of heart in Let's Kill Hitler, she reverted to trying to kill the Doctor. It intensifies another question, however: Why has nobody (not even the Doctor) got it into the records that Melody/River herself is not responsible for the killing? It's very obvious from the end of Closing Time that Kovarian's description of her as "a weapon" is entirely accurate and that she's being used against her own will. Despite that, River is imprisoned for murder and the "Justice Department" operating the Teselecta regards her as deserving punishment (cruel and unusual punishment, at that). Maybe we'll find out on Saturday. --89.242.71.211 13:21, September 26, 2011 (UTC)

It may be irrelevant to the law as written by the time she is imprisoned. And sometimes, even the law is rewritten by particularly heinous crimes. Where was the precedent for the Nuremburg trials, after all? Other than the right of the winner to hang the loser? Boblipton 13:28, September 26, 2011 (UTC)

You might be right about the law but it would still be a puzzle if the Doctor didn't do anything about it. I'll not divert us on to the subject of the Nuremburg trials -- far too contentious, as well as off-topic! --89.242.71.211 14:27, September 26, 2011 (UTC)

How would the Doctor have done anything about it? He died after she killed him, didn't he?Icecreamdif 19:06, September 26, 2011 (UTC)

So he'll have to do it before she kills him. Or maybe River will use the TARDIS to fix it. Boblipton 19:21, September 26, 2011 (UTC)

She might not be arrested for killing the Doctor. Yes, that's why the Tesselecta was after her, and she's obviously on her way to kill him at the end of CLosing Time, but the Doctor's death will obviously be reversed somehow, and I doubt that they will negate River going to jail as that would mean completely chnage most of the 11th Doctor episodes she's been in. If it is for killing the Doctor, then I'm sure there's a good reason why she can't tell people she was brainwashed. In The Impossible Astronaut, she said that she had made a promise to serve her prison sentence, so maybe the Doctor needed her to pretend that she did succesfully kill him.Icecreamdif 21:18, September 26, 2011 (UTC)

i think the problem of her sering the proison sentence can be solved when you think about how easy it is for river to break out of jail. she probably had to go to jail because she "killed the doctor" (and the doctor wanting to lie low would prevent him from changing that oppinion) but because it was out of her control, they probably pulled a few strings to make break outs easy so she wasn't really trapped. Imamadmad talk to me 07:59, October 10, 2011 (UTC)

Well, what do you do if you're the prison warden and the murder victim comes by to take his wife/murderess on a picnic? Boblipton talk to me 11:50, October 10, 2011 (UTC)

Probably either hit the bottle or swear off drink forever! Seriously, though: If River's in jail (even part-time) to promote the idea that she killed the Doctor, the Doctor isn't going to blow the gaff by letting people know he's the one who keeps taking her out. As Imamadmad suggests, it's much more likely that he'd arrange things so River could get herself out. Most what we've seen makes it look as if the usual routine was for River to break out (somehow) and to meet the Doctor elsewhere. The scene near the start of The Impossible Astronaut certainly only makes sense that way. The Doctor sent her an invitation and she went to 2011 Utah to meet him (and shoot another of his hats); he didn't go to collect her. --89.241.74.243 13:30, October 10, 2011 (UTC)

Quite obviously he's a time traveller and as in The Time of Angels/Flesh and Stone, doesn't know it's him she killed. Besides, isn't this a chance at rehabilitation? Besides, you can use her absences to check her cell for where she can be hiding that d***ed vortex manipulator. Boblipton talk to me 13:40, October 10, 2011 (UTC)

Except that, if she's absent, the vortex manipulator is probably going to be absent, too! --89.241.74.243 15:58, October 10, 2011 (UTC)