The Wedding of River Song

I suppose it's the presence of A Good Man Goes to War and Let's Kill Hitler in the middle of this series that means we end up with a one episode finale - so much of the story of this arc has already been told. I don't think it does this episode any favours. Like A Good Man Goes to War, The Wedding of River Song has to cram in a lot of spectacle in order to fill up the the running time because the actual story, regardless of it's great importance, doesn't take very long to tell.

Some of the hoopla is a lot of fun, of course. The crazy mixed up world, with its pterodactyls, Cleopatra and balloon cars, is very amusing, as is Churchill with his downloads, or Dickens on TV. But all this - along with, it must be said, much of what happens to Amy and Rory's facsimiles - is bread and circuses, a distraction from what really matters.

The substance of this episode comes in two parts. Firstly, the Doctor's slow acceptance that he must face his own death. Initially he's off on a quest for information, scaring a poor defenceless Dalek witless before trying his hand at some electro-chess. This is a great sequence that, like those at the beginning of The Pandorica Opens and A Good Man Goes to War, firmly depicts a vast and improbable universe, filled with adventure and intrigue. Most importantly it refreshes our memories about the existence of the Teselecta, a necessary reminder the significance of which is essentially smuggled away amongst the crazy mixture of novelty and call-backs. And then the Doctor phones the Brigadier. So many Doctor Who actors have died in the last few years, but Nicholas Courtney, who played the Brigadier since 1968, seemed an especially great loss to the show. His character had become so important, a spine of strength that ran through the history of the Doctor Who almost back to the beginning. He hadn't been seen in the programme itself since the Seventh Doctor adventure Battlefield, but he had continued to appear in books and audios, before wonderfully turning up in The Sarah Jane Adventures in 2008. Courtney's death in January 2011 was acknowledged on screen here, with the Doctor being informed of the Brigadier's passing. I can't think of a more appropriate way for the show to mark his death, because it demonstrates very clearly how terribly important both Courtney and the Brigadier were to Doctor Who, those that made it, and those that watched it. Mortality must be a rather nebulous concept to the Doctor, but this sad news provides a measure, an insight, that allows him to accept the idea of his own death.

The other important task of this episode is the resolution of the series' arc, something it applies itself to once the Doctor is finally brought before River Song. It turns out that the answer is quite simple - having previously, and secretly, availed himself of the Teselecta, all the Doctor need do is touch River in order to restore time to normal and fake his own death. (Except he isn't touching her, because he's tiny and inside a robot version of himself, so how does this short out the differential, hmmm?) The complicated bit is that he has resolved to do this without telling anybody his plan, so he has to try and persuade River that she should carry out his execution for the sake of the universe.

RIVER: I can't let you die.
THE DOCTOR: But I have to die.
RIVER: Shut up! I can't let you die without knowing you are loved by so many, and so much, and by no one more than me.
THE DOCTOR: River, you and I, we know what this means. We are ground zero of an explosion that will engulf all reality. Billions on billions will suffer and die.
RIVER: I'll suffer if I have to kill you.
THE DOCTOR: More than every living thing in the universe?
RIVER: Yes.
THE DOCTOR: River, River, why do you have to be this?

He is clearly exasperated with her, frustrated that she is preventing him from doing what is necessary. But he is also obviously affected by her love for him. What happens next is that he launches into a marriage ceremony, but is it an act of love or pragmatism? Well, it could and should be both, but the Doctor is nothing if not a schemer, and if this isn't a ploy, then he was must have been lying downstairs earlier when he told River he didn't want to marry her. What's certain is that the only way to save the world is to let River into his secret, to show her the Teselecta, so that she will be prepared to shoot him on the lakeside. The wedding allows him to do this, and in such a way that Amy and Rory can't also find out, and his new marital status gives them a reason to think he has persuaded her:

THE DOCTOR: Now, there you go, River Song. Melody Pond. You're the woman who married me. And wife, I have a request. This world is dying and it's my fault, and I can't bear it another day. Please, help me. There isn't another way.

At which point she acquiesces. I'm not saying for one second that the Doctor doesn't genuinely love River, but I do think we should consider that he might think that marrying her is the only way to achieve what he wants. It is clear that the Doctor is committed to maintaining the illusion of his own death, no matter what, even if it means keeping Amy and Rory in the dark. Perhaps he is even prepared to get married in order to preserve his new lower profile?

The final seconds of Series Six, with the Doctor slipping away from Dorium's repeated question, raised the hairs on the back of my neck, I must admit. It's a ballsy move for Moffat to move the show's title front and centre, and for some it grated, as if all he were doing was reheating a very tired joke - and, let's be honest, for many years that's all it has been. But he was absolutely right to draw our attention to it, because it was time to see it, hear it afresh. At some point since 1963 we had forgotten that those words have a meaning, an importance; that there is a story behind them, a mystery, one that has been remained for fifty years.

Doctor who?



NEXT TIME...