Doctor Who: The Husbands of River Song
Dec. 26th, 2015 09:41 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakWhich was great fun, with just the one touch of sadness necessary given the main characters and their history (and future). It just might displace The Runaway Bride as my favourite Christmas Special so far. It definitely overtook The Last Christmas from last year, though I had liked that a lot, and all the others, both Moffat and RTD era, with ease.
Okay, so the special just about allows for the interpretation that River was trolling the Doctor the entire time, i.e. knew who he was from the start, but you know what, I prefer the straight forward interpretation that she really didn't know (despite the heavy hints he dropped) until they were at the restaurant for genocidal bastards, both because it allows for great symmetry to the Library episodes, i.e. their first encounter from the Doctor's and last from River's pov (whereas this is the exact reverse), and because I really like the idea that both the Doctor and the audience with this special get a look at what River is like when not consciously in the Doctor's company (and thus to a degree performing for him).
The special also cleared away the problems I had with River's storyline during seasons 6 and 8, when it felt more and more claustrophobic and so tightly wrapped around the Doctor that she seemed to have no life of her own. Here, we see that she has (and two hundred years of it, thanks, Moffat, for clearing that up), plenty of adventures, that she's clearly not pining, and despite loving him and as we know ready to die for him, completely isn't opposed to using him (and his TARDIS) behind his back. Me being me, this restored the Doctor/River ship to something I can wholehearteadly root for again. Also, the Doctor's face when he hears River codenamed him "Damsel" to her associates is priceless.
River being a great deal more ruthless (occasionally to a not-just-aimed-at-murderers callous degree) when not around the Doctor (or her parents) fits with her background, too (not to mention the Doctor's type, ahem, looking at a certain someone), and again rectifies something that never sat well with me, i.e. River being imprisoned (never mind she clearly can leave whenever she wants) solely for something she was programmed to do and nothing else - whereas River as presented here clearly warrants Father Octavian's attitude towards her.
Alex Kingston and Peter Capaldi turned out to have great chemistry, and great comic timing together, and I now want to watch them starring in all the theatre plays. Get on that, British stage. They also completely sold me on the turn to the melancholy the special took near the end, starting with the Doctor's face when River said (not lying) that while she loves him she doesn't think he ever loved her, and then through the sequence when first he and then she are aware this will be their last encounter before her death. The fact that their last night together will last 24 years, btw, makes for a great parallel and counterpoint to Clara's ending this season, with her death impending (and already accepted) and yet also postponed for a happy interlude, which, as River says, is what happily ever after means to them. I also think this is the best point of the Doctor's life (so far) at which this (saying goodbye to River Song) could happen; he's wiser now than the Eleven who refused to see her ghost because that would have meant to acknowledge that she's dead, and than the man who risked breaking the universe for Clara.
(Though he still gives her the sonic screwdriver Ten will use to upload her into the Library. Acknowledging history (it always happened, it always will) or one last hope? The former, I think, but another interpretation is possible.)
In conclusion: loved it unreservedly.
Okay, so the special just about allows for the interpretation that River was trolling the Doctor the entire time, i.e. knew who he was from the start, but you know what, I prefer the straight forward interpretation that she really didn't know (despite the heavy hints he dropped) until they were at the restaurant for genocidal bastards, both because it allows for great symmetry to the Library episodes, i.e. their first encounter from the Doctor's and last from River's pov (whereas this is the exact reverse), and because I really like the idea that both the Doctor and the audience with this special get a look at what River is like when not consciously in the Doctor's company (and thus to a degree performing for him).
The special also cleared away the problems I had with River's storyline during seasons 6 and 8, when it felt more and more claustrophobic and so tightly wrapped around the Doctor that she seemed to have no life of her own. Here, we see that she has (and two hundred years of it, thanks, Moffat, for clearing that up), plenty of adventures, that she's clearly not pining, and despite loving him and as we know ready to die for him, completely isn't opposed to using him (and his TARDIS) behind his back. Me being me, this restored the Doctor/River ship to something I can wholehearteadly root for again. Also, the Doctor's face when he hears River codenamed him "Damsel" to her associates is priceless.
River being a great deal more ruthless (occasionally to a not-just-aimed-at-murderers callous degree) when not around the Doctor (or her parents) fits with her background, too (not to mention the Doctor's type, ahem, looking at a certain someone), and again rectifies something that never sat well with me, i.e. River being imprisoned (never mind she clearly can leave whenever she wants) solely for something she was programmed to do and nothing else - whereas River as presented here clearly warrants Father Octavian's attitude towards her.
Alex Kingston and Peter Capaldi turned out to have great chemistry, and great comic timing together, and I now want to watch them starring in all the theatre plays. Get on that, British stage. They also completely sold me on the turn to the melancholy the special took near the end, starting with the Doctor's face when River said (not lying) that while she loves him she doesn't think he ever loved her, and then through the sequence when first he and then she are aware this will be their last encounter before her death. The fact that their last night together will last 24 years, btw, makes for a great parallel and counterpoint to Clara's ending this season, with her death impending (and already accepted) and yet also postponed for a happy interlude, which, as River says, is what happily ever after means to them. I also think this is the best point of the Doctor's life (so far) at which this (saying goodbye to River Song) could happen; he's wiser now than the Eleven who refused to see her ghost because that would have meant to acknowledge that she's dead, and than the man who risked breaking the universe for Clara.
(Though he still gives her the sonic screwdriver Ten will use to upload her into the Library. Acknowledging history (it always happened, it always will) or one last hope? The former, I think, but another interpretation is possible.)
In conclusion: loved it unreservedly.
no subject
Date: 2015-12-27 11:01 pm (UTC)But this episode wasn't their first encounter from River's POV!? (Or am I misunderstanding what you're saying?) It kind of was the closest to "meeting in order" that they ever got IMO, since apart from that last meeting in the Library, which the Doctor knows about but River doesn't, they both have already lived through all of their other meetings when they meet here, so they have a lot of shared history.
the special just about allows for the interpretation that River was trolling the Doctor the entire time
I guess you could take some turns to get there, but I have a bit of a hard time seeing it TBH. Not only would I expect River to make it text afterwards and tease him if she'd been trolling him before, the realization scene read as very genuine to me; neither the dialogue nor the facial expressions support the idea that she knew IMO. I mean, it was a thin line to walk, not making River look totally dense when the Doctor dropped some pretty obvious hints, but it worked for me because a) he didn't insist too much and was kind of intrigued by the opportunity to observe her and the situation for a while (which I loved) and b) I appreciated that we were given a reason for why River didn't consider him as the Doctor earlier, namely that he would have used up his regenerations if everything went as it should have and that she seemed to know that ("he has limits").
The one thing that didn't quite work for me - at least in the context of the bigger picture, it did work well in the context of this episode alone - was River's clear awareness of Derillium's significance for them. I'll have to go and re-watch the Libary episodes, but from memory it seems that the level of awareness doesn't quite fit with what we see from her there.
no subject
Date: 2015-12-28 11:03 am (UTC)But this episode wasn't their first encounter from River's POV!? (Or am I misunderstanding what you're saying?)
Yes, you are, completely, but looking at my sentence, I phrased it badly, so it's all my fault. (I know their first encounter from River's pov was when she was Mels, in Let's Kill Hitler.) What I meant was: the Library encounter was the first meeting from the Doctor's pov, last from River's, and the Doctor did not know who River was. Whereas this one was their last encounter from the Doctor's pov, and River did not know who he was, i.e. the reverse of their first encounter from his pov.
was River's clear awareness of Derillium's significance for them.
They tried to explain in it in-universe by letting River say she looked up the stories about herself and the Doctor, and that some of these stories claim this would be their last night together. However, I agree with you that River as we meet her in the Library episodes does not show up expecting this to be her last Doctor encounter, or worried about impending death. Then again, 24 years happened (at least) in between the end of Christmas Special and the Library episodes from River's pov, so presumably she rallied, and/or convinced herself that the Doctor was wrong until the situation arose where she realised this was it for her.
no subject
Date: 2015-12-28 11:58 am (UTC)