Doctor Who Series 6.13: "The Wedding of River Song' [SPOILERS] + Series wrap up

[batuea]

What an awful end to a truely awful series of Dr Who. Only the james cordon episode was really good, spoiled by Amy Pond's cameo. This series has been full of continuity errors, more retcons than you can count and the truely tiresom plot of Amy pond and river song. River song has been the most over used and underwhelming character to hit dr who. Poorly devised retcons to turn her into a central character, which just wouldnt end.

Theres no subtlety to the writing, it was too obvious she was the Dr's wife from her first encounter, but they tried to make out that was not the case. It takes thme 3 series to tell you, actually yeh you were correct. Thats all without admitting shes a pretty wooden actress that has zero chemistry with the dr, past or present. Amy pond is the worst thing to happen to TV. The sooner she is off our screens the better. Her entire character makes no sense, we are ment to accept she is some sort of martial arts science genius with timelord capabilites aparently. She can build you a sonic screw driver from scraps simply because she has seen one. Or she go be a swashbuckling sword fighting pirate when she wants, all the while without taking a moment to pause and be suprised by anything along the way. She has no wonder about anything the Dr shows her, an awful personality and just an assault on the senses!

Matt Smith is a truely fantastic Dr, but he doesnt get the screen time. Its the Amy, Rorey and River show. The best Episodes of the 11th dr have been when smith is on his own and aloud to shine.

They need to stop making an overall theme so obvious. In the tennant days, the seemingly random episodes had a loose link in some way to the final episode, it was subtle and you thought oh that was clever how they all linked. Now its all about the build up to the finale, it is literally thrown in your face from minute 1 of episode 1.

P.S Dr Who writters, please stop doing the Dr is going to die story lines, we all know it is an empty threat as you cannot kill off the Dr from Dr Who, or you would have no show. Therefor where is the suspense and drama when we as an audience know he is never going to die. once in a while it's nice to see him cheat death with genius, but its so often he is in some sort of mortal danger. Try putting a dispensable character that we care about in danger, as at least we wont know if they will survive or not.

Rant over

this times infinity, this latest series has been a complete cock up *thats the british term for F**** up right?*. I cant stand Moffat, he has screwed up the story of the doctor so much its not even funny, pretty much the quoted person has it right. I cant stand Amy or Rory, Riversong could have been a interesting character, but Moffat decided to use her as a walking talking Mc'Guffin for the doctor. nothing interested me this series it was all, Every disposable character: "I love the doctor" Amy: "I love the doctor more" River: "I love the Doctor the most because he marries me.". It is so Freudian, I get the feeling that if Moffat could he would make sweet sweet love to the doctor. It is just so damn annoying how almost EVERY character in the show loves him, and how every episode has that in it, well Moffat written ones at least. and the finale was just the cherry on the crap Sunday Moffat has served to us this series, just such a dang cop out its not even funny. the only good thing to happen this series is the silence creatures *the memory proof ones*, they were interesting, and now we can never explore them again because of Moffat, and that episodes *number 2: day of the moon* ending was horrid, made no sense to me, so I get the creatures are memory proof, but what about the dead bodies, or how about when people shoot them, how would the smoking gun that was just shot be explained, or random panicked gun shots every where, also, are there just millions of silence bodies lying every where in the world dead? this whole season has just been... Disheartening, I no longer like doctor who, I really don't, I hate it now, and I feel sad about it. Truly sad, Moffat has broken... no... killed my spirit and love for this show. I don't think I can EVER watch it again. so I am going to go bust out my 20 year old scotch that I have been saving for 4 years *since I turned 21 it was a present* and go sit out side and drink it all. I will try to remember the good stuff of the doctor, but I believe Moffat has tarnished it forever and even has succeed in tarnishing the very loving memory's of the show, that I use to cherish, but no longer can. so to quote another great series that was utterly destroyed, *by a movie*

"So long, and thanks for all the fish."

*now to go get drunk and look at the stars*

 

[Sonic Doctor]

Very interesting episode. I think it would have been better as a two-parter. I liked the alternate Earth with all parts of time squashed into one. And we of course haven't seen the last of the Silence!
I did like the Doctor's escape! Made me smile.

Office-trains are cool.

And the question, the most obvious question of all; Doctor Who?
We know it will eventually be answered as River knows the Doctor's name.

Overall, I think I could have done without most of the second half of the series. It was definitely the weakest of the re-boot. However, Matt Smith made up for the poor story choices, and the series finale was excellent!

I've got to agree about this half, at least with half of the second half.

I liked everything about the first half except when they revealed that River Song was Amy and Rory's kid. That totally ruined the River Song story arch for me. It doesn't sit well with me that out of thin air they make up that when two humans make a baby in the TARDIS, the baby becomes a Time Lord. It just doesn't making any sense.

That is actually the problem I have had with the show since Moffat took over, a majority of the episodes haven't made much sense. Every episode I have watched, the new series/Davies run, and the old series, all the episodes made sense in some way from a sci-fi as well as a literary standpoint. That is my creative writing training bleeding through when I watch the show. Everything in a story must make sense in some way, there can't be point that just is and isn't explained, the whole "Human, human, TARDIS, Time Lord baby" thing made no sense and it wasn't explained, it was just a cheap explanation of who River Song is, the problem is that the explanation doesn't have an explanation.

Getting way from that, the episodes I liked from this series were of course everything until the River Song reveal debacle, and after that out of part 2 I liked "God Complex" and "Closing Time".

Though, I'm on the fence about this finale. It gains major points from having a proper way for The Doctor to escape death, unlike the wished back into existence fiasco at the end of series 5, my fists tighten every time I think about it.

It loses points by being only a one episode finale. I whole agree with you on that point. It felt slow in the beginning and incredibly rushed in the last half. I looked at the video player time and it said 17 minutes was already viewed, and the beginning exposition before the rising action was still going.

I'm also not liking the whole, Doctor Who question thing. To me this should strike fear in the hearts of all fans, because really, it is the biggest question of the whole the whole show old and new. Who is The Doctor really? To me it is a question that once it is actually answered, that is the end of the show. As much as a gold mine the show is for the BBC, I think they are wrapping up the show because they are thinking like The Doctor, that it has, "lived a long time, perhaps too long".

Even I have seen it, in the first three episodes of this second half showed great stagnation in the writing. The majority of the River Song story arch shows stagnation to me, because they didn't go to the canon like the should have to explain who River Song was, instead they pulled the stupid TARDIS time baby thing out with no proper explanation.

I don't know what to expect now. So...only time can tell.

 

[TimeLord]

Very interesting episode. I think it would have been better as a two-parter. I liked the alternate Earth with all parts of time squashed into one. And we of course haven't seen the last of the Silence!
I did like the Doctor's escape! Made me smile.

Office-trains are cool.

And the question, the most obvious question of all; Doctor Who?
We know it will eventually be answered as River knows the Doctor's name.

Overall, I think I could have done without most of the second half of the series. It was definitely the weakest of the re-boot. However, Matt Smith made up for the poor story choices, and the series finale was excellent!

I've got to agree about this half, at least with half of the second half.

I liked everything about the first half except when they revealed that River Song was Amy and Rory's kid. That totally ruined the River Song story arch for me. It doesn't sit well with me that out of thin air they make up that when two humans make a baby in the TARDIS, the baby becomes a Time Lord. It just doesn't making any sense.

That is actually the problem I have had with the show since Moffat took over, a majority of the episodes haven't made much sense. Every episode I have watched, the new series/Davies run, and the old series, all the episodes made sense in some way from a sci-fi as well as a literary standpoint. That is my creative writing training bleeding through when I watch the show. Everything in a story must make sense in some way, there can't be point that just is and isn't explained, the whole "Human, human, TARDIS, Time Lord baby" thing made no sense and it wasn't explained, it was just a cheap explanation of who River Song is, the problem is that the explanation doesn't have an explanation.

Getting way from that, the episodes I liked from this series were of course everything until the River Song reveal debacle, and after that out of part 2 I liked "God Complex" and "Closing Time".

Though, I'm on the fence about this finale. It gains major points from having a proper way for The Doctor to escape death, unlike the wished back into existence fiasco at the end of series 5, my fists tighten every time I think about it.

It loses points by being only a one episode finale. I whole agree with you on that point. It felt slow in the beginning and incredibly rushed in the last half. I looked at the video player time and it said 17 minutes was already viewed, and the beginning exposition before the rising action was still going.

I'm also not liking the whole, Doctor Who question thing. To me this should strike fear in the hearts of all fans, because really, it is the biggest question of the whole the whole show old and new. Who is The Doctor really? To me it is a question that once it is actually answered, that is the end of the show. As much as a gold mine the show is for the BBC, I think they are wrapping up the show because they are thinking like The Doctor, that it has, "lived a long time, perhaps too long".

Even I have seen it, in the first three episodes of this second half showed great stagnation in the writing. The majority of the River Song story arch shows stagnation to me, because they didn't go to the canon like the should have to explain who River Song was, instead they pulled the stupid TARDIS time baby thing out with no proper explanation.

I don't know what to expect now. So...only time can tell.

They don't acctually HAVE to answer the question though. They could have it answered to River (we know it will happen eventually) and not let the audience know. It's the 'Doomsday Arcade' problem, whatever you make his name, someone will be pissed off. So better to not reveal it at all.

Also, I wish people would stop with "Doctor Who is dying because the writing wasn't as great so it will stop soon". It gets the BBC tons of money and has millions of fans. If there are problems with it, replace the writer or the main character. That's just not me saying "It's too good to die". It's more, "The BBC would never let it die unless things got really really bad."

 

[MercurySteam]

'Silence will fall' when the question "Doctor Who?" is answered, correct?

Why? It's a bit strange, I mean why is The Doctor's name so important? Perhaps he's been keeping it secret for a good reason.

 

[Maeta]

I really wanna ride a car attached to a balloon to the local steam train office station thingy to go meet Winston Churchill and feed the pterodactyls...

OT: I liked the way that in this series, things that may well have just been put in for a one episode villain (for lack of a better word) like the living flesh and the little people in the big people malarky were actually quite central to the overall, sorta like the whole BadWolf thing, but more subtle due to increased variation and not being shoehorned in EVERY episode... The problem with it for me was that they announced Matt Smith had signed on for more before the series ended, so you knew he would live...

The biggest problems I have with it: what the hell happened to Hitler from earlier in the series, and the mistake made by the tiny people in killing a dude too early in the Nazi regime? And for that matter, in this last episode, the Doctor damaged the body the tiny people were in... but then it was all fine later on, and there was no real mention of it, and they were so willing to help him? Ok that was a bit picky... but if they had dragged it out into 2 episodes to allow for better build up of drama and more awesome Pterodactyl bits, it would also have removed that travesty of an episode featuring the cybermen, and the amorphous absence of acting and comic talent that is the awful James Corden... though that one billed as really scary wasnt at all scary, and would never be if it was tailored to being the biggest phobia customised to specific people who aren't you (if that makes sense?)

All round though I liked it, especially Amy killing the woman with the eyepatch, the Silence in their awesome suits, and the LIVE CHESS sign, as well as what I mentioned in the first para

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

I think it is time they took out of the hands of the Brits and gave it to some Americans who understand how sci-fi should work.

There's a reason Doctor Who keeps defeating the Daleks; they're far too convinced of their own racial superiority.

 

[Satosuke]

If anything, this episode (combined with The Big Bang) exposes one of Steven Moffat's glaring, gargantuan flaws writing this show. He handles time travel like it's magical instant plot convenience. Always the same time everywhere? Then how the hell are people still walking around? Who cares? I write the show, dammit! Time falling apart? Hey there stable time loop starting just in time to see the doctor pop right out of the pandorica! MAGIC!

People shit on Russel T Davies all the time, but at least he never truly meant to insult our intelligence when he wrote duds like Love and Monsters. For all of Moffat's strengths as a writer of exciting, clever, gothic horror sci-fi stories, it often really does feel like he's hand-waving his treatment of time while repeating 'wibbly wobbly timey wimey'. Way to talk down to us there, buddy.

 

[Maeta]

'Silence will fall' when the question "Doctor Who?" is answered, correct?

Why? It's a bit strange, I mean why is The Doctor's name so important? Perhaps he's been keeping it secret for a good reason.

Maybe he has a really embarrassing name?
If the hero of the whole universe's real name was, say, Tiddles, then everyone may laugh themselves to death...

I think it is time they took out of the hands of the Brits and gave it to some Americans who understand how sci-fi should work.

Because that worked so well with Red Dwarf
And the HitchHiker's guide film...

 

[Soeroah]

I may be wrong here, also, but didn't Doctor Who start out as more of a children's show anyway? I mean way back in the 60s. I know adults enjoy it and everything, but what was the traditional target audience?

Because if it turns out that the creators are writing for children/young adults, the continuity and science can be weaker without impacting the show that much. If it's a pure adult's show, people will expect it to always be clever, iron-clad. If it's a kid's show, people can reasonably expect each episode to make up its own little rules to tell the story.

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

I may be wrong here, also, but didn't Doctor Who start out as more of a children's show anyway? I mean way back in the 60s.

Quite Correct.

It's always been a children's show that's enjoyed by adults.

 

[Lug100]

My guess is that his name is gunna be the verbal equivilent of dividing by zero

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I am the only one who feels how while the all-times at once thing was nice, it was a bit of a cop-out for Amy and Rory to suddenly be in control of pretty much everything, managed to aquire tons and tons of those eye-patch thingys, and havee captured the woman in control of the whole evil plot this series, ALL of-screen?

To me it felt a bit like the writers had gone "oh sh*t, weve run out of episodes for the series, quick do everything at once!"

 

[Sonic Doctor]

What an awful end to a truely awful series of Dr Who....

Fair enough, point well received.

I don't think he had no foward plan with regards to the story, as im sure he knew from day one her overall role. Its just the journey getting there I have a problem with. Humans making timelords in the tardis, and half episode cameo characters to explain new developments. It is not the high standard of writing that as Dr Who fans we have come to love and expect. He most probably knew where he wanted the character to be, just the journey there from my stand point, was not a coherent and well planned one.

Wow, reading those two posts, I thought I was reading things that I posted. Technically they are since, I have been mentioning such things in the spoiler threads even before the second half, and even pointing out many flaws from series 5 as well.

High five on being apparent mind twins.

Really, series went downhill because of Moffat. He was exposed to much of the light of day and now I see him for who he really is:

Somebody that can't write himself out of a paper bag, and even if he was able to, it would make no sense.

Instead of writing that he walked out of the paper bag, he would write that he wished the paper bag was gone, but then he realized that the paper bag was his mother.

To be honest I found this kind of dull and I sighed heavily when there was the whole oh look River is still going to continue in the series....most likely with Rory (tolerable) and Amy (diaf) in tow.
I miss the random episodes, these "plot" heavy ones really aren't that interesting to me because they are rarely filled with any meaningful consequences. Oh look a story line where the doctor is going to die...yea the exact same second you said that my response was yea I know he isn't going to die. You can't build drama and suspense when the audience already knows that the threat you put out there isn't going to happen. Sure the audience might wet their beaks in the curiosity of how he gets out of it, but it isn't the nail biter the writers think they are presenting.
Hell just a few changes here and there could have at least added some sense of dread as to maybe this will actually have some consequences. Hell maybe have the green sonic blow up and be replaced with the one River was wielding in the library...etc.

So so true. I'm glad that I'm seeing that more and more people are popping out and showing me that there actually are a good amount of people that aren't following the word of Moffat like it is gold and aren't strangely star struck by Amy and Rory.

I positively hate Amy. Rory, he's just so dull, I basically nothing him. He could be replaced by some random bland actor each episode and I probably wouldn't notice a difference.

Definitely agree on the plots. I miss the subtle plots of the Davies episodes; even in the random episodes that you say you miss, there was always something hidden in them, and you could miss it if you blinked. It made me actually think about what might happen, how was each little hint linked.

Then when Moffat takes over, here comes series 5. Yes it had something in every episode to lead up to the finale, but it was basically a slap in the face. First episode, crack in wall, next episode crack, next crack, next crack, and they didn't even try to hide it, each time the practically zoomed in on it "oooohhhooo, look at the crack, ain't it scary?" Yes I wondered what the crack was, but it gave me no hit at what the finale would be, well, until halfway through the series when The Doctor reaches into the crack and pulls out the piece of the exploded TARDIS. Well, thank you very much Mr. Moffat, you just blatantly told me exactly the big point of the finale, ruined any suspense and didn't even give good hints to at least let me figure it out myself. And then Mr. Moffat, what do you do, instead of redeeming yourself and making a kick ass series like the Davies ones were, he pulls relatively the same crap like series 5, just a slightly different wrapper.

Plus, if you noticed, the big danger of his finales were the same, reality and time were crumbling and ceasing to exist. But really, the first instance wasn't original, think back to what Davros was doing at the end of series 4, he created the reality bomb to destroy reality, time, and all universes. So basically Moffat just copied that, but as I said, with a slightly different wrapper.

Moffat puts up lots of smoke, mirrors, and other effects to try and fool people that he is a great writer, but it is easy to see he isn't because when it all comes together, he always has a weak and predictable plot and it all falls apart in the end. Even when he does throw something out there that really can't be seen coming(human on human in TARDIS, makes Time Lord baby), it is unpredictable because people wouldn't have thought about it as a possibility, because the idea is a load of bull crap. Moffat wrote himself into a corner and the only way out was to create some new messed up TARDIS property that some how nobody knew about for the hundreds of years The Doctor has been alive.

Well sorry about that, I really have been going strong with my marathon rants.

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

Well sorry about that, I really have been going strong with my marathon rants.

And I totally disagree with almost everything you say, but then, that's fandom.

I really liked it. Most of your criticisms could be laid onto any other Sci-fi show, but you're arguing vehemently against this version of Who - possible as badly as I loathed Davies' Who.

Try and look for the things you like - or jump ship to something else. You can always come back.

 

[Sonic Doctor]

'Silence will fall' when the question "Doctor Who?" is answered, correct?

Why? It's a bit strange, I mean why is The Doctor's name so important? Perhaps he's been keeping it secret for a good reason.

I bet he reveals his name is God. Basically, it does seem like time revolves around him. I bet some time it will be revealed that he went back before the big bang and caused it to happen.

Though, technically, The Doctor has already been back that far. In the old series story 117 "Castrovalva". In the first episode of the story, caused by one of The Master's schemes, the TARDIS is thrown back to what the TARDIS identifies as "Event 1", which is explained as the inrush of hydrogen that happened at the start of the big bang.

 

[Sonic Doctor]

Well sorry about that, I really have been going strong with my marathon rants.

And I totally disagree with almost everything you say, but then, that's fandom.

I really liked it. Most of your criticisms could be laid onto any other Sci-fi show, but you're arguing vehemently against this version of Who - possible as badly as I loathed Davies' Who.

Try and look for the things you like - or jump ship to something else. You can always come back.

Well, my problem with it is that everything I watched from the old series to the end of Davies new series run, has made sense. It all connected to me, then Moffat came along and started making absolutely no sense.

I'll admit that I like Smith as The Doctor, but that is only because his acting is great. The problem is he's having to work with crap script after crap script. It's obvious to see that the one problem is he doesn't get enough air time, because the best episodes in his reign are the ones where he nearly 100% is in every scene, that only he is the focus.

Because that is what the show is really about, The Doctor, not the red haired ponce and her dullard husband. They are the ones that ruined the River Song storyline. I'm seriously thinking about writing some fan fiction, as sick as that makes me feel, and erase ponce and dullard and go with canon and make River Song somebody from the past, possibly from the old series, that The Doctor has forgot about. Effectively eradicating that awful idea that humans can make a Time Lord in the TARDIS.

Meh, well, I don't have to think about it until the Christmas episode. Until then, yeeeaaa, a new season of Merlin. (Goes to finally watch the first new episode online.)

 

[Riesel87]

The Silence..... you forget them instantly once you look away is an established fact of the Dr who universe.

So I ask, in this finale, the Dr says " I've always wondered what they looked like"
That makes no sense, how can you wonder about something you cannot remember. Every encounter is forgotten once you look away, thats the point. If you argue that he was told about them, then these people are new to his time stream, and can only have informed him within the context of this episode, as none of them had those reminder eye patches.

That whole marking the hand thing is stupid. YOU FORGET THEM AS SOON AS YOU LOOK AWAY. So you will look at yourself, and think why the fuck do i have felt tally marks on my arms?
You will not be able to remember its a reminder of an enemy you have no recognition of. The mark is not a photo of the silence, its just a mark, which means nothing without the power to remember what its for. The silence make you forget, therefore its a retarded system.

They are such a retarded enemy aswell (cool suits though). They want the Dr dead because it saves the universe, but if they are the enemy who others have said are responsible to for the collapse of the universe in a previous series, what is there moral stance? In our first encouter, their greatest wrong doing was to further mankind by making us go to the moon. Yet then they decide to in other encounters to electricute people?

Can they make up their mind, because I think they are overall an enemy, but they keep doing things for the greater good.

 

[llew]

I hope he's called Steve or something. That would be the best thing ever!

thats exactly what i thought! when he gets asked "doctor who?" i just want him to say "well my name is steve, does that answer your bloody question?"

 

[Sir Strange Of The House Lycan]

That episode was amazing, I absolutely loved it. Maybe some plot threads could of been tied up but oh well, I really enjoying it and loved how he got out of it. Now I guess next series is gonna leap up to the question and the Silence again.

If the question is "Doctor Who?" then, what is so important about his name? Or time lords names in general?

To bad i figured out how he would survive the second he was talking to those "tiny people in robot body". Very interesting eps though.

Since everyone is lying the doctor and river song , does or doesn't she know his name.

Will be an interesting next series since mentioning that the doctor gotten to big and that he should go back to working more from the shadows (or someone will try to kill him again).

And yeah Doctor Who ?

We know she definitely learns his name eventually since she whispered it into 10th version Doctor in Series 4.

Sorry if someone's said this already,but you would do well to remember there is power in names.

This and Praise him are the only Smith episodes I watched properly (I was really bitter over Tennant leaving...) and I loved it. So much that I'm going to get the box set for christmas to re-watch the past season.

 

[Plan10FromSpace]

I think it is time they took out of the hands of the Brits and gave it to some Americans who understand how sci-fi should work.

doctor who is a pretty uniquely British thing, he travels round in an old english police phone box and is friends with Winston Churchill, im sorry but giving it to America would make is so much worse.....for evidence of that id ask you to watch the newly americanised torchwood

 

[Teachingaddict]

I think it is time they took out of the hands of the Brits and gave it to some Americans who understand how sci-fi should work.

doctor who is a pretty uniquely British thing, he travels round in an old english police phone box and is friends with Winston Churchill, im sorry but giving it to America would make is so much worse.....for evidence of that id ask you to watch the newly americanised torchwood

Whereas I do not disagree with the Dr Who comment, I thoroughly enjoyed the americanised Torchwood, and I wasn't expecting to.

But again, far too many questions left unanswered, I really wish Moffat would just tie up everything in one series, then start a new series afresh...