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)