Genius but.....

[Pamela Barnes]

When I watch the latest Who for the most part I think it's excellent, but something is missing. I'm not sure if the breaking of the season in two ruined the build up to the finale but I really don't feel a great deal of enthusiam for it and I can't put my finger on it.

River Song has been genius and the storytelling great, Matt Smith is wonderful so I can't fathom what it is that means it lacks the energy and flow of previous series of Who.

Does everyone else think its excellent as before or is there something amiss?

[sunshineboyuk]

James and I were talking about this the other day.

My feelings on it - It's very clever indeed. Very clever . But I don't feel any emotional connection to it . I want to love it like i loved most of the RTD era but so far i just sort of stare at it and think oh its very clever.
Splitting the series up has felt like disaster, what next , blocks of 2-3 episodes every 3 or 4 months? If viewers werent sticking around for the mid series stuff then its because it wasn't compelling, stretching it out doesnt make it better. The trend is now for less episodes and with the budget restraints this is unlikely to change .
I think its shame that Matt Smith hasn't got better material because he is just brilliant in the part. But its difficult to love it because its always about how clever and complicated it is rather than about a great adventure with a beginning, middle and end which is what the best of WHO has always had.
Look at eps like DALEK, THE EMPTY CHILD and the FAMILY OF BLOOD story , classic simple, atmospheric story telling , the cleverness was in the story and not the way it was told.
The current era lacks heart. It has no emotional drive . They hit us over the head with the girl who waited and all of that but really, do we need it bludgeoned? The Donna Noble story was done subtley and by the time the big pay offs came it felt earned but we seem to have had the same story about Amy rammed down our tv's over and over.
The best ep was THE ELEVENTH HOUR , the opener was brilliant, simple, clear and compelling and magical. But its been a very steady decline ever since.
As brilliant as RIVER SONG is , it feels as if ,when she isnt in it the whole show is treading water . She's almost too good, she's more interesting than the Doctor!
Perhaps thats what this era will always be about - River Song.

Maybe thats a great thing and I will look back on this era in a few years on dvd and think ' wow it was brilliant , its all about River Song ' .



The other perspective of course is that children may be seeing all this with very different eyes. They probably love it, wiithout all the hindsight and knowldege of the RTD era and all of that. Maybe..... and it pains me to think its true but it could be... some of us are just , slowly, growing out of loving DOCTOR WHO ?

Then, isnt this era what every fan boy and girl always wanted???? Long running arcs, convoluted twists and turns. It should be a fans joy. So, I'm a bit puzzled as to why I'm not loving it .

Time will tell . Everything looks better on dvd .

[Pamela Barnes]

I was having a conversation too this evening (at least we are still talking about it) My friend said that it lacked the emotional connections from previus series. Even though I love Matt Smith now, he just feels rather empty. I'm not sure if this was a mistake from the start by more or less starting from scratch without any carry over.

I'm not a Whovian to know the ins and outs but has a doctor ever regenerated and not had an assistant view it and carry over to the next doctor?

Tennants doctor was emotional where as Matt feels a little cartoonish, all bling. Brilliant performance but it all feels a bit polished, lacking any rawness.

The odd thing is all the ingredients are in place. Rory is just brilliant. But I find myself only caring for River Song. All the energy and character ambigiuty is with her, whereas before it was with the Doctor. But if Amy was killed off and Matt Smith left now I wouldnt really care.

Maybe before it was all a bit of a sci-fi soap opera. But again I feel River outshone the Doctor, which I don't feel would of happened when Tennant was in the role.

[sunshineboyuk]

The River Song story is perhaps a victim of its own success, its hard to imagine the TARDIS without her now, although we do know she will go off to "die" ( not really) in the library at some point but that could be so far into the future that the role could go on and on ...actually, having seen more of who River really is her eventual fate seems like a fate worse than death!!

Because its turned into a big soap opera its hard to judge it until this era is really over. My main gripe with it is that I dont think, so far, we've seen any really brilliant stand alone stories, classics. The good ones are the ones with River that revolve around her . Those eps are fab. But the rest arent that interesting.

Perhaps its too much to expect it all to be brilliant. I mean, the old stuff wasn't always good was it I think we've been well and truly spoiled by the Eccleston and Tenant years .

[Garrison]

sorry guys, but I think it's miles ahead of RTD Who

[Pamela Barnes]

sorry guys, but I think it's miles ahead of RTD Who

On all accounts it should be. I was excited when Moffat took over but still it doesnt gel and the Doctor is outshone.

I do think maybe it's Matt Smith as well or how he is written, hate to say that but if Catherine Tate was a sidekick now she would easily outshine the Doctor. That never happened before.

[J. R.'s Piece]

I'm not a Whovian

Neither am I ...but...

has a doctor ever regenerated and not had an assistant view it and carry over to the next doctor?

Troughton-Pertwee. All 3 regulars left at the end of Season Six in 1969.....although Lethbridge-Stewart was introduced as a regular, having appeared in two Troughton stories, The Web Of Fear (Season Five, 1968) and The Invasion (Season Six, 1968). Whether or not he was an "assistant" is debatable.

[sunshineboyuk]

Review of Doctor Who ‘The Wedding of River Song’
Neela Debnath

* By Neela Debnath
* Arts
* Monday, 3 October 2011 at 5:02 am

*
*

Doctor 9 300x204 Review of Doctor Who ‘The Wedding of River Song’SPOILERS: Do not read this if you have not seen episode 13, series 6/32 of Doctor Who

A finale that refused to tie up the loose ends neatly and reiterated the point that in the Who universe there are now no hard and fast rules when it comes to time travel.

The climax to this series proved to be brainteaser, with so much going on that it was easy to get lost in the melee. The Doctor didn’t really die instead he was inside the Teselecta which River shot, so he was actually fine. Surely, if the Doctor does not die, it changes a fixed point in time? Apparently, the universe now thinks he is dead, although once he starts turning up the save the day, won’t people will start to realise that he didn’t die? And in a ceremony quicker than a Vegas wedding, River and the Doctor tied the knot but only because it was the only way she would obey him and return to said fixed point in time.

There were also many ominous new riddles from the head of the decapitated Dorium Maldovar (Simon Fisher-Becker). The Doctor learns that on the fields of Trensalor at the fall of the Eleventh, when no living creature can speak falsely or fail to answer, a question will be asked, a question that must never ever be answered. The Silence must fall when the question is asked. The Silence are determined that the question will never be answered and that the Doctor will never reach Trensalor which is why they have been trying to kill him. All of this was mind-boggling and took a while to comprehend. Does the Eleventh refer to the eleventh doctor and is the oldest question going to be: what is the Doctor’s name?

From the multitude of questions thrown up by this enigmatic explanation, it is clear that Steven Moffat is trying to return to the epic story-telling quality that ‘Doctor Who’ once had. In the older series, there were plotlines that would be spread out over several episodes. Moffat has now taken this a step further with tales that span over several series in order to create longevity and maintain momentum. During Russell T. Davies’ tenure as showrunner, the end of each series would be neatly wrapped up and there would be no real momentum to move to the next series. The sense of foresight is important and in fact strengthens the show, building up a sense of continuity in terms of characters. River’s story is intriguing and watching it play out is thoroughly enjoyable.

However, there has been an argument running throughout the series about whether it is too complex for children (let alone adults) to understand. It has certainly been challenging to watch and there are times when the narrative becomes hard to follow. Moffat wants to make it more than just a show about a man with a blue box. But the next series must allow the viewer a moment to pause and catch up with what is going on. It could prove detrimental to continue at this break-neck speed which is already leaving some viewers feeling alienated.

As series finales go, it felt underwhelming in terms of drama yet it was overwhelming in terms of information. Maybe if it had ended on the same cliffhanger note as ‘A Good Man Goes To War’ it would have had more of an electrifying feel. Or if there had been more resolution, it would have worked in the episode’s favour.

Generally this series has been an interesting watch. The Doctor’s dark side has been shown along with the moral responsibilities and dilemmas he has in relation to his companions. The themes and character development has added a richness and depth that the show was lacking before. Sticking with the same characters could have proved to be a fatal error and made the series feel stale but instead it has made the programme feel more multi-layered. In some ways the show has felt more adult yet catering to the needs of the average 10-year-old. Aesthetically, the cheaply-made feel has vanished, now there is a cinematic quality to it which befits the series.

We will next see the Doctor in the Christmas special which will feature Bill Bailey, Claire Skinner, Arabella Weir and Alexander Armstrong.

[sunshineboyuk]

Review of Doctor Who ‘The Wedding of River Song’
Neela Debnath

* By Neela Debnath
* Arts
* Monday, 3 October 2011 at 5:02 am

*
*

Doctor 9 300x204 Review of Doctor Who ‘The Wedding of River Song’SPOILERS: Do not read this if you have not seen episode 13, series 6/32 of Doctor Who

A finale that refused to tie up the loose ends neatly and reiterated the point that in the Who universe there are now no hard and fast rules when it comes to time travel.

The climax to this series proved to be brainteaser, with so much going on that it was easy to get lost in the melee. The Doctor didn’t really die instead he was inside the Teselecta which River shot, so he was actually fine. Surely, if the Doctor does not die, it changes a fixed point in time? Apparently, the universe now thinks he is dead, although once he starts turning up the save the day, won’t people will start to realise that he didn’t die? And in a ceremony quicker than a Vegas wedding, River and the Doctor tied the knot but only because it was the only way she would obey him and return to said fixed point in time.

There were also many ominous new riddles from the head of the decapitated Dorium Maldovar (Simon Fisher-Becker). The Doctor learns that on the fields of Trensalor at the fall of the Eleventh, when no living creature can speak falsely or fail to answer, a question will be asked, a question that must never ever be answered. The Silence must fall when the question is asked. The Silence are determined that the question will never be answered and that the Doctor will never reach Trensalor which is why they have been trying to kill him. All of this was mind-boggling and took a while to comprehend. Does the Eleventh refer to the eleventh doctor and is the oldest question going to be: what is the Doctor’s name?

From the multitude of questions thrown up by this enigmatic explanation, it is clear that Steven Moffat is trying to return to the epic story-telling quality that ‘Doctor Who’ once had. In the older series, there were plotlines that would be spread out over several episodes. Moffat has now taken this a step further with tales that span over several series in order to create longevity and maintain momentum. During Russell T. Davies’ tenure as showrunner, the end of each series would be neatly wrapped up and there would be no real momentum to move to the next series. The sense of foresight is important and in fact strengthens the show, building up a sense of continuity in terms of characters. River’s story is intriguing and watching it play out is thoroughly enjoyable.

However, there has been an argument running throughout the series about whether it is too complex for children (let alone adults) to understand. It has certainly been challenging to watch and there are times when the narrative becomes hard to follow. Moffat wants to make it more than just a show about a man with a blue box. But the next series must allow the viewer a moment to pause and catch up with what is going on. It could prove detrimental to continue at this break-neck speed which is already leaving some viewers feeling alienated.

As series finales go, it felt underwhelming in terms of drama yet it was overwhelming in terms of information. Maybe if it had ended on the same cliffhanger note as ‘A Good Man Goes To War’ it would have had more of an electrifying feel. Or if there had been more resolution, it would have worked in the episode’s favour.

Generally this series has been an interesting watch. The Doctor’s dark side has been shown along with the moral responsibilities and dilemmas he has in relation to his companions. The themes and character development has added a richness and depth that the show was lacking before. Sticking with the same characters could have proved to be a fatal error and made the series feel stale but instead it has made the programme feel more multi-layered. In some ways the show has felt more adult yet catering to the needs of the average 10-year-old. Aesthetically, the cheaply-made feel has vanished, now there is a cinematic quality to it which befits the series.

We will next see the Doctor in the Christmas special which will feature Bill Bailey, Claire Skinner, Arabella Weir and Alexander Armstrong.

[sunshineboyuk]

By Gavin Fuller

8:00PM BST 01 Oct 2011

Comments52 Comments

So unsurprisingly The Doctor doesn’t die on a beach in Utah after all, but getting a shape-shifting law enforcement craft to impersonate him at the moment of his death does seem a bit of a cop-out, and by only revealing this after the event is like something out of the serials of the thirties when a crucial scene is deleted from the cliffhanger and only shown the following week.

And are the Silence so credulous that they’re not going to make sure appearances are deceptive and The Doctor is actually dead?

After all the build-up, it was a rather pat few minutes to end what the whole year had built up to, even if there needed a let-out clause for The Doctor to survive and the series to continue.

It also didn’t quite make sense that if River can dismiss Amy’s killing (by default rather than deed it has to be said, and we can only presume the Silence actually disposed of her) of Madame Kovarian as happening in an alternate time-line which invalidates shouldn’t that also apply to her wedding?

That’s successive years we’ve had a wedding in the final episode now to boot!
Related Articles

*

Doctor Who: Closing Time, BBC One, review
24 Sep 2011
*

Doctor Who: The God Complex, BBC One review
17 Sep 2011
*

Doctor Who: The Girl Who Waited, BBC One, review
10 Sep 2011
*

Doctor Who: Let's Kill Hitler - a wasted opportunity?
27 Aug 2011

On the plus side The Wedding of River Song was certainly a visually clever episode - only in Doctor Who could you get steam trains exiting the Gherkin and entering the Pyramids – with the scenes in the Transept with the skulls ranging from creepy to nightmarish; the scene of the monk drowning in them and their reaction was one of the most visually horrific images in the series since the Hinchcliffe-Holmes era.

The scenes with the Silence were also well-realised, and Aliens in suits going on the rampage was another quintessential Who touch, and talking of which, for fans of a certain vintage, the scene where news of The Brigadier’s death triggers the Doctor’s facing of his own was a great moment and a fitting tribute to the sad passing of Nicholas Courtney earlier this year.

This was also an episode with a few nods to climaxes of the Russell T Davies era (the use of real television presenters and people of the Universe telling the Doctor how much they appreciate it for example), and the closing scene with the question of “Doctor Who?” taking us all the way back to 1963 and the central question of the series.

Steven Moffat is obviously setting up future story arcs here, with hints that the question will be asked at the end of the eleventh Doctor’s life (presuming that’s what “the fall of the eleventh” is referring to) in what was quite a powerful closing scene.

In all it was an uneven ending to a slightly uneven series which at times has been in danger of overcomplicating itself, but still has been one of the most creative and distinctive series on television.

- Gavin Fuller is a Doctor Who expert and lifelong fan. In 1993 he became the youngest ever champion of Mastermind, with Doctor Who as his specialist subject.

[J. R.'s Piece]

sorry guys, but I think it's miles ahead of RTD Who

...in any particular way(s) for you?

[J. R.'s Piece]

Does everyone else think its excellent as before

When? Like during the Hinchcliffe/Holmes stories?

[J. R.'s Piece]

I'm not sure if this was a mistake from the start by more or less starting from scratch without any carry over.

What sort of carry over? Russell and Julie were leaving and David elected to leave too. Seasons 4 and 21 both ended with a completely different regular casts than the ones that began the season....and the season four finale, The Evil Of The Daleks, gets regarded as one of the finest Doctor Who stories ever....and the following year scored as one the most popular runs of Doctor Who in the last DWM story-ranking poll, as did Pertwee's first season.

[J. R.'s Piece]

Mind you, Peri arrived only 7 episodes (the penultimate Davison story...ooh, Peter Wyngarde was in that...) before the S**t* Doctor.....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=-C_SHJfUw9Y
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DnodQTzi700

[J. R.'s Piece]

Dan Martin's blog
http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-rad...-of-river-song

"You decided the universe was better off without you. The universe didn't agree."

The very best thing about this year's Doctor Who finale? How simple it all was. For all of the red herrings, teasing and the media storms about how complicated the show has become in the end everything played out pretty much as might have expected – if anything things were more simple than they might have been. It was River in the spacesuit, she did kill the Doctor after her brainwashing at the hands of Madame Kovarian. And how did he cheat death? He miniaturised himself and hid inside the Tessalator robot from Let's Kill Hitler. Well of course he did!

Not only does The Wedding Of River Song tie almost everything up, it moves along the bigger, 50-year story and effectively reboots the show. After seven years of saving the Earth/universe/future of humanity, The Doctor was in danger of becoming ubiquitous. Now, with everybody thinking he's dead, things will be different. Next year we will presumably be back to covert operations under cover of darkness. And that gives us somewhere new to go.

I admit that I am endlessly baffled by people who complain that Steven Moffat's version of the show lacks heart, when Russell T Davies, celebrated for that sort of thing, was incapable of finishing on a happy ending. Like last year, we go out with the most uplifting sentiment you could imagine. The Doctor, wallowing in guilt, had accepted the inevitability of his own death and even begun to believe that it was necessary. It's River, in a direct reverse of her speech at the end of A Good Man Goes to War, who gives him the shake he needs.

It's not quite as simple as being saved by the love of a good woman. Rather it's a a silly man being jolted out of his pit of self-obsession by the wife he needs – whether he realises it or not. It had shades of It's a Wonderful Life in that sense. But it also provided moments to make you leap off your sofa as the universe called out to The Doctor, snapping him out of his self-centred musings with such force that it triggered solar flares. (The same solar flares as in The Rebel Flesh?)

"The oldest question in the universe, hidden in plain sight."

I claim a gold star for calling out the question last week. I had no idea in advance, although in hindsight it was completely obvious. Yet here is another innovation. The title of the programme was originally a weird continuity quirk that has never actually made much sense. Now we learn that the show is now named after the Big Bad itself, which surely has to future-proof it for generations to come.

Other great things about this episode? Cars suspended from hot-air balloons. Pterodactyls in parks. Charles Dickens, Winston Churchill, the leader of the Roman empire, riding back into London on his mammoth. A resolution that allows Amy, Rory and River to stick around. And in a touching nod to Nicholas Courtney who died this year, news of the death of Brigadier Alastair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart. It is not just a throwaway line either – news of the death of his old friend makes the Doctor realise that all things must pass.

Fear factor

The Silence prove themselves to be more than a one-time threat, despite only doing one thing. When the tally marks appear on the Soothsayer Doctor's arms, we know we're in for trouble. And the sight of a whole gaggle of them on the ceiling of the atrium is splendidly horrifying.

Mysteries and questions

We've finished one lot of puzzles. Now it's time to start foreshadowing the events of Tranzalor and "the fall of the Eleventh". The long game leading up to Matt Smith's eventual departure has begun.

Time-space debris

• A Dalek! Much as they were beginning to feel tired, a Doctor Who finale without even a cameo would feel wrong.

• The eyepatches are revealed as "eye-drives" that enable the wearer to remember the Silence. "I've encountered them before, always wondered what they look like."

• Amy Pond shows some maternal badassery in not saving the life of Madame Kovarian. Once again, we see that there is nothing in the universe more fearsome than a mother's love. "River Song didn't get it all from you, sweetie."

• River has an off-screen standoff with Cleopatra, but last year we saw that Cleopatra actually was River. Timey wimey much?

• Rory is named by the Silence as "the man who dies and dies again," acknowledging his status as this show's Kenny from South Park.

• "You, me handcuffs – must it always end this way?" said River at the end of Flesh and Stone. And hey ho, in her timestream, this ending, with handcuffs, happened directly before that story.

• Did anyone else notice a nod to Battlefield with the Silence in the water tanks? The sequence where a stunt went wrong and Sylvester McCoy saved Sophie Aldred's life?

•Once again, a huge thank you to everybody who's come on each week and helped make blogging this series so much fun. Until we meet again, off you go…

[sunshineboyuk]

But if I have to read a Guardian blog every week to get all of this then.. ....You know , thats part of thye problem with it. Yes, when I read the blog I go 'oh yeah wow , its genius' but i dont feel it when i watch it like i did with the Tenant and Eccleston stuff . It's something tiny but integral , something around the pace of it perhaps, the soap opera ness of it ... which I do also like ... one things for sure , this era has been brilliant for re defining the show , it'll never be the same again. It's long running , complicated arcs all the way now for this show and thats probably a good thing really.

The heart question is not something you can define , its either there or its not. It doesnt have to be there. I dont find it in Sherlock either , there's something climical about it all. But thats surely part of the appeal ? Its now very clever , before it was very earnest and emotional.

[J. R.'s Piece]

Oh...it doesn't have to a blog from The Guardian. You could risk Simon Brew...

http://www.denofgeek.com/television/...iver_song.html
Doctor Who series 6 episode 13 review: The Wedding Of River Song

Simon Brew

The Doctor Who series 6 finale, The Wedding Of River Song, has enough in it to keep the Internet busy for weeks. Here's our spoiler-filled review...

Published on Oct 1, 2011


This review contains spoilers.

6.13 The Wedding Of River Son

Well, blimey.

If you were feeling a little puzzled watching The Wedding Of River Song for the first time, then you might not be alone. The following seven consecutive Tweets that popped across our feed during the episode seem to be a pretty effective cross section of where people’s thoughts were. The Tweets, which we picked up after the episode, ran:

“I am so confused”
“What the hell is going on”
“Is anyone else lost”
“My poor brain”
“Karen is so hot”
“I could use some spoilers”
“Oh, I get it”

So let’s try and sort some of it out. Because arguably, by the time the credits rolled on this episode, it was a bit more straightforward than it might at first have appeared. That said, The Wedding Of River Song at times felt like a bit of a Doctor Who exam, albeit one that most ten year olds would be able to unravel at far greater speed than their parents.

It opened in an alternative London, where time is frozen at 5.02pm, and CG stream trains breeze through tracks in the sky. I like CG steam trains. I could watch those again. It’s all part of the kind of ambitious, confident and really fun scene-setter that the show excels at, particularly in its bigger episodes.

It also opened, as did A Good Man Goes To War, with a few treats and faces from before. So we had a lovely Charles Dickens moment, teasing the Christmas special (what other show could get away with something like that? Not since Remembrance Of The Daleks have we had the show teasing itself so much), the return of Winston Churchill, a Silurian, Hitler’s study, and the contents of the BBC’s Roman costume cupboard.

One of those costumes was being worn by a bearded Doctor, who proceeded to recall how we’d got to this stage via a series of flashbacks, which took up the first chunk of the episode.

It’s probably fair to say that this is where The Wedding Of River Song was at its most confusing.

Various things were established, or re-established. That the Doctor’s death was a fixed moment in time (although, as it turned out, it wasn’t quite as it seemed). That the Silence is a religious order, who will basically bugger off when the oldest question in the universe is answered (even the Daleks seem to know about them). And that the Doctor’s future holds things far more terrifying than we know now.

After all, more than once, the fall of the Eleventh was referred to. It looks like that’s what we’ve got coming for the show’s 50th birthday in 2013.

It was all being thrown together with such speed and confidence, and with a verve that no other show of its ilk would even try, yet alone match. But sadly, this time you seemingly couldn’t help but fall behind a little. Those Tweets right at the start weren’t asking unreasonable questions, and more than once I couldn’t help but wonder quite what was going on.

At one or two points, for the first time in a while, Doctor Who felt like a party we weren’t all invited to. And if someone rang in the middle of the episode for a five minute natter at the wrong moment, you were doomed (that's not necessarily a criticism, of course).

But then, when it started to answer a few more questions and give a few more clues, crucial things began to fall into place. The fixed point in time, we learned, wasn’t really a fixed point in time. Furthermore, River’s refusal to kill the Doctor splintered time, which began to disintegrate (causing the mash-up that dominated the lovely opening of the episode). And it was only the bringing of River and the Doctor together, ultimately in marriage, that could repair things.

The episode went about addressing all of these by pulling in lots of touchpoints from throughout the series, and, as we sometimes take too much for granted, resolutions had been very carefully seeded in. That work began to pay off.

Earlier in the run, mind, it looked like it was going to be the Gangers that resolved the problem of the Doctor’s death. As it turned out, it was the Teselecta. The Doctor never died on the beach after all, it was a double (as many had suspected), and he was actually okay. Even though everyone now thinks he’s dead.

But! Hang on! If it wasn’t the Doctor that was shot on the beach in The Impossible Astronaut, and it was, in fact, the Teselecta Doctor instead (which would explain the fact that it wasn’t, actually, a fixed point in time), then how could they fake the regeneration? That’s a Time Lord trick alone, isn’t it? Or can the Teselecta do that too? They're bloody good if they can.

And while we’re talking about problems, what about Madame Kovarian? How quickly and easily was she beaten? She’d been teased and built up so much, it was surprising that she was brushed away as swiftly as she was. Is she being saved for a return at some point in the future? I’d certainly hope so, as she deserves a better final moment than the one she got here.

It all sounds like I’m being grumble-y here, and I suppose I am a little. Whilst occasionally brilliant, I didn’t find The Wedding Of River Song (the title, or the actual act) immensely satisfying. As a showcase for brilliant writing, excellent direction

and moments of genius, it couldn’t be faulted. But as a series finale (which it didn't feel like it was for the most part), and as a complete episode in its own right, I found it bumpy. At the end of a series run as strong as this one, that’s a disappointment.

There’s no denying, though, that the episode was full of lovely, lovely touches. No Doctor Who fan with any semblance of a heart can fail to have been moved by the fact that time was set aside to send the Brigadier off with real dignity. If you needed proof that those behind Doctor Who really care about the legacy of the show, then there it was (see also: the mentions of Rose and Captain Jack).

Then there were some of the smaller, yet brilliant, moments. Amy’s realisation that she was the Doctor’s mother-in-law (and her continuing evolution into a full-on bad-ass). Her explanation to Rory as to the situation with River (and the fact that even The Silence were taunting Rory about how often he dies). The texting and scones. Churchill’s downloads. And the confirmation that River knew everything, always.

I also warmed a lot to the big emotional moment, that tends to leave a chunk of Doctor Who’s audience cold (although I’m not always sure why). In a way, the series has played out like It’s A Wonderful Life, where an important, clever and vital man feels lonelier and lonelier, only to find, when the chips are really down, that he’s loved, and with no shortage of friends.

And one consequence of this is that it lets Steven Moffat, without cheating, reset things a little for the Doctor. He can now slink back into the shadows, and out of the glare of the universe. That should set up some fun for the next series.

That’s not the only thing left behind, as there are questions, inevitably, that remain unresolved. They were neatly summed up by the returning Dorium at the end. We’ve got the fall of the Eleventh. We’ve got the Fields of Trenzador (er, I think I’ve spelt that right). And then there’s the question that the show ends on: Doctor Who? The one that’s been in front of us all along. That’s a lovely one to ask, just before the end credits of a series finale.

I guess you could wonder if that question is just being posed, or if there's actually going to be some intention to answer it? It’s a wonderful tease, either way.

Let’s not forget, too, that we’ve still got The Silence, that there still seems to be things about River Song that we don’t know, and that Amy and Rory are surely gunning for a spin-off series of their own in the near future (both have been terrific this series).

Plus: what on earth blew up the Tardis last year? We’re still absolutely none the wiser about that. Has everyone forgotten? I doubt it.

The Wedding Of River Song was a bumpy mix. It was puzzling, yet ultimately straightforward by the time the credits rolled (although you really had to pay attention). It promised to answer questions, yet left some dangling (which isn’t something I have a problem with, it just feels that some have been dangling for a while now). And it wrapped up one of the strongest series of the show to date just a little below the peaks that it’s been hitting for my money.

It proved to be a cocktail of what makes Doctor Who brilliant, yet sometimes frustrating. But it sets things up in a strong position to take Doctor Who, with its next series, towards the kind of birthday that shows like these aren’t supposed to get to.

I can’t say that I loved The Wedding Of River Song, although I did like it (and it had some corking lines). But I have loved this series. And, as always at the end of a Doctor Who run, the Christmas special can’t come quickly enough. Well done to all concerned, and my continued gratitude that British television has the talent, at all levels, to make a show such as this.

[sunshineboyuk]

And the confirmation that River knew everything, always.






What did she know always ? You see this where I feel i need to sit an exam, what essay do i have to read ? Could someone just give me a two line synopsis so I know what River knew always or what River has always known....??

[J. R.'s Piece]

And the confirmation that River knew everything, always.
What did she know always ?

That she is imprisoned for a crime that she didn't commit, so that the Doctor appears to be dead.

[sunshineboyuk]

Oh right, well I always knew what River always knew too. I think I also know ,from Silence in the Library, that River knows the Doctors name so she'll presumably be tied in to the fall of the eleventh thing. By the time it returns at the end of next year I may have forgotten it all. They'll need to show a special hour long recap so we can remember it all. I may use the long absence to catch up on my Who homework.