New Who Review: The Wedding of River Song

[puppetmaker]

We are at the end of the 6th season of New Who. We get a Christmas episode and then it looks like nothing until Christmas 2012 and onto 2013 which is the 50th anniversary for the program. 50 years is a long time for a TV program to survive but I think Doctor Who has done more than survive, it has thrived.

Over all not a bad ending. I didn’t see one of the elements coming but more on that in the spoilers section.

Acting was solid all the way around. The casting director got it right as always.

I am fine with the ending and leaving things where they are with all the toys pretty much neatly back in the toy box. I have a few issues with how we got to putting all the toys back and restoring balance to the universe.

Also this is the BBC, which has one of the best make-up departments in the world. What is the problem with Matt Smith’s face that they have to put such a rubbish beard on it? Took me right out of the scene. I know he was suppose to look unkempt but there is a difference.

The rest of this is going to be behind the cut. The whole season is in play so here there be spoilers.

I am grateful that the BBC has already declared that there will be a 50th anniversary episode.


Best double take award goes to Karen Gillian for her reaction to figuring out that she is now the Doctor’s Mother-in-law. She did an excellent job with everything that was thrown at her including a good deal of the exposition.

Rory was great fun too. Talk about destine for each other.

The eyepatch explanation worked for me. It made sense given the Silence’s power.

The robot solution I didn’t see coming but it doesn’t quite work for me. If they had said “History is written that the Doctor died that day.” But they kept thumping on that the Doctor HAD TO DIE at THAT DAY at THAT TIME. That is different. You can’t trick time. If the universe can only continue with the Doctor’s death then he has to die because the universe is going to know if he is dead or not.

It does explain why River takes her incarceration so lightly. She knows that she didn’t do it but must keep the illusion going for history. I thought Alex Kingston had the hardest job of all of them to sell the audience on this cockamamie explanation for why the Doctor was not dead.

Overall the season did hold together. I really would like to know what the original order was for the episodes because I have a feeling that the bottle episodes got pushed to the latter half.

Will I be back for the next episode? Yep. But then I am a whovian.

Comments

[yachiru]

I'll have to agree about the beard. Looked like some sort of brown foam. o_0

[tiggerallyn.livejournal.com]

The robot solution I didn’t see coming but it doesn’t quite work for me. If they had said “History is written that the Doctor died that day.” But they kept thumping on that the Doctor HAD TO DIE at THAT DAY at THAT TIME. That is different. You can’t trick time. If the universe can only continue with the Doctor’s death then he has to die because the universe is going to know if he is dead or not.

Because everyone thought the Doctor died that day. When, in reality, all the way back in "The Impossible Astronaut," it was the robot that "died" that day. After leaving Craig and before he went to Utah, the 1103-year-old Doctor wanted to find out how he died. And then he made the deal with the Tesselecta. Which River completely buggered by overriding the programming, which kicked things into an alternate timeline, which somehow gave the Doctor a second chance to make it go right. To make a long story short, everything we saw in "The Impossible Astronaut" still happened exactly as we saw it; we just assumed it was the real Doctor that died, when in reality it was the Tesselecta robot that got shot.

What bothered me, though, was that in between leaving Craig and going to Utah, the Doctor did all that other stuff, like playing chess with Mark Gatiss, meeting the robot, and finding Dorium's head. None of that fits in with the funereal tone the Doctor had at the end of "Closing Time." I think what they needed to do was to make all that flashback stuff happen before "Closing Time." The Doctor does the stuff with Gatiss and Dorium, then he drops in on Craig, then he goes to Utah. Which would have made the Doctor in "Closing Time" a robot, but so be it. On the other hand, if the Doctor was already a robot in "Closing Time," the scene of funereal doom with the children wouldn't have worked, unless that, too, was all part of the plan to convince history that the Doctor was meekly going to his pre-ordained death.

To quote Imzadi, "Time travel gives me nosebleeds," and this is definite nosebleed territory. :)

[gryphonrose.livejournal.com]

I didn't care for this season anywhere near as much as last season, but that's because this season was all River Song all the time and I can't stand that character. Needless to say, I didn't care for most of this episode. I do love Amy and Rory, though.

[querldox.livejournal.com]

I dunno. It bothers me a bit that the solution to how the Doctor wasn't killed wasn't introduced until 6 episodes later, so really there was no way at the time of the Impossible Astronaut for us to figure out how he'd survive. Then again, there were multiple other options also introduced later, such as the Flesh.

It also appears we skipped over 200 years of 11s life, which seems a bit much. And also potentially reinforces the corner they wrote themselves into during this season in terms of how they explain the Doctor having companions from now on who aren't at the Captain Jack/River level of nigh peer as opposed to the more blokes off the street type all but Martha have been since 9.

[scarlettina.livejournal.com]

I'm with gryphonrose with regard to not caring for this season very much. It started out as a season with a strong story arc and then, halfway through, abandoned key story elements that were never addressed again, things that Moffatt himself promised would be resolved this season, things like who raised Melody, things like all the holes in Amy's memory which goes back a whole season. Are we to assume that they're because of the Silence? OK, sure, but why? I don't think this season's story arc holds together at all. I think that some of the stand-alone episodes, like "The Girl Who Waited" and "The Doctor's Wife" were terrific. I think the first 40 minutes of "Closing Time" were sweet and fun and clever. But the season as a whole? It feels unfinished to me. Moffatt writes great short stories--individual episodes. But if this season were a novel, I'd have written him a ten page editorial letter and told him to go back and revise-revise-revise.