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...

Closing Time

The Lodger was so good that it makes complete sense to go back for second helpings. Unfortunately, this just doesn't hit the spot. The kids love Craig to bits, love the talking to babies stuff, and laughed like drains throughout. Lynda Baron is great as Val, with her persistent, understandable and kindly gay-dad assumptions; the chemistry between Smith and Corden is still a joy, and there are plenty of jokes to ease us through, but Closing Time just isn't as much fun as its predecessor. What's the matter with me?

In The Lodger, Craig had two problems, his inability to speak to Sophie and the threat of the Doctor taking over his life, and both of these made him rather likeable. Now he only has one problem, which is that he doesn't believe he's cut out to be a father. It makes him seem whiny rather than adorable and, coming hard on the heels of Alex in Night Terrors, creates an uncomfortable echo. Also, great snakes, which parent doesn't feel inadequate? You might as well tell a story about water running downhill.

The other thing that irks is the (under)use of the Cybermen. The Cybermat picks up a lot of the slack and is used effectively, whizzing around the toy department and the lunging at Craig, but the Cybermen feel like an afterthought here, enfeebled and uninspiring, lurking under a department store to steal electricity. They do get a shot at their signature body-horror, human conversion, but the impact is diminished, partly because Craig has to escape, and partly because the dreadful process itself amounts to little more than making Craig dress up as a Cyberman. Not so much conversion, as costumery. They deserve bigger and better than this.

Worst of all, the rushed and improbable ending. The Doctor disputes Craig's claim that he "blew them up with love" as a "grossly sentimental and over-simplistic" explanation - but it's not the explanation that's the problem. The threat of the Cybermen, their strength, should be their emotionless state. Yes, they miss out on enjoying well-prepared meals, but they don't get scared, they don't feel pity, or experience doubt. Our humanity, the thing they want to take away from us, should be something we wish to protect because we value it, not because it gives us an advantage. In The Age of Steel, the Doctor defeated the Cybermen by sabotaging their emotional inhibitors, causing them to feel their own suppressed human angst - and that was fair enough. Here, it seems that the surge of Craig's parental emotions swamps those same Cyber systems, and the upshot of this would appear to be that the Cybermen have inadvertently been given a stupid Achilles' Heel. Sometimes a story needs a villain to have a convenient weakness, and goodness knows this lot have had their fair share. But please, let's not have the Cybermen be allergic to love.


NEXT TIME...

The God Complex

Another one of my favourites from Series Six, The God Complex has the air of an old Doctor Who story with its inexplicable opening, surreal environment and slowly unwound mystery. And it's the sort of mystery we rarely get to savour anymore: where has the TARDIS landed? These days, with trailers, Next Times, previews and prequels, we invariably know where the next story will be set. But long ago, back in misty 405-line black and white, finding out was the whole point of the show, as much for the Doctor and his companions as for the audience.

As such the hotel setting is inspired. An enclosed, artificial space, with endlessly repetitive corridors and hundreds of rooms, it could be anywhere. Even the awful music, wallpaper and carpet contribute to the unsettling effect, their oddness (and tastelessness) suggesting a cultural stumble, something alien trying to pass itself off as human. Add to this a great guest cast, superb direction and inventive from Nick Hurran, classical allusions, a monster roaming the hallways and a room for each of our personal nightmares, and we end up with a classic Doctor Who story.

The nightmares are an excellent addition, if only because they provide an insight into those trapped here, fleshing out characters with great economy. Howie's bullying girls, Rita's dad with his high expectations, Lucy's gorilla - each nightmare feels intimate and revealing. It's only Joe's ventriloquist dummies and Gibbis' Weeping Angels that feel a little 'off the peg', but then neither of them is quite as interesting as the others. Joe is there for mechanical reasons, to serve as an early example and to seed clues for the Doctor to use later on. Gibbis (a very controlled performance from David Walliams) is unreliable, and his shiftiness provides an edge to some of the intrigue in the middle of the episode, whilst the fact that he's an alien stops this being a completely Earth-centric environment.

Rory doesn't have any faith, but does that mean he doesn't have a room? Surely a lack of faith doesn't mean a lack of fear. The hotel does seem to want to show him the exit though - perhaps there's no point showing him his fear if he can't provide any nourishment. Amy's room, her fear of being left behind, is self-explanatory and fits beautifully with the other episodes of this series. But what's in the Doctor's room? "Ah," he says. "Who else?" It's obvious enough who he saw, and I think, now, we can even be fairly certain what face he was wearing as well.

But any mystery is only as good as its explanation. Luckily, The God Complex doesn't disappoint. Once again the Doctor shows his working, trying to explain the puzzle even has he's running around, but he only hits upon the answer when Amy herself comes under the beast's spell. The Minotaur - a fantastic costume - provokes his victims to draw upon their faith so he can feed upon it. In order to rescue Amy, the Doctor must convince her that he is unworthy of her. It's a wonderful moment, and none the worse for echoing a similar conversation between the Seventh Doctor and Ace in The Curse of Fenric. By forcing her to see herself, how she has outgrown him, the Doctor effectively shears the ties that bind her to him. It is a powerful emotional exchange and, not for the last time this series, we see that the Doctor will do and say whatever it takes to protect those around him, even if that means pushing them away.

We've seen, earlier in the episode, that Rory is already happy to move on. It's presented as a positive thing, evidence of his principles and strength of character ("I'd forgotten not all victories are about saving the Universe."), whereas the supposed altruism of the Doctor's lifestyle is called into question by Rita (the wonderful Amara Karan): "Why is it up to you to save us? That's quite a God complex you have there." The unexpected upshot of this adventure is that the Doctor decides to let Amy and Rory go. Strangely, Rory's the one that doesn't understand, while Amy get's it instantly ("He's saving us.")

It's an excellent goodbye for the Ponds, simple and satisfying. Best of all it makes perfect sense and I rather think I'd be happier if it had been left at that.


NEXT TIME...

The Girl Who Waited

An extraordinary episode, for several reasons, but is it science-fiction, or science-fantasy?

On the one hand, this is a clear case of hard sci-fi. Usually the TARDIS crew battle fantastic monsters of one kind or another, with the occasional moment of heartbreak thrown in along the way. Here the story is the emotional and moral dilemma that arises and confronts Amy, Rory, er, Amy, and the Doctor. The problem is caused by the impact of another culture and its technology upon our time travellers: which timeline will survive? There are two Amy's, old and young, but we all know that only one can leave in the TARDIS. In an inversion of Schrodinger's famous experiment, it's only when the (police) box closes that the ambiguity is resolved. Sounds like proper sci-fi to me.

But on the other hand technology can, famously, be so advanced that it becomes indistinguishable from magic. The temporal two-way glass is an enchanted mirror in all but name, and the alternate time stream into which Amy wanders might as well be the realm of Faerie. There's often a touch of the fable about Doctor Who these days and this is rich in fairy-tale trappings. Amy, locked away for a hundred years (alright, 36 years) becomes, in effect, a princess who needs rescuing, and Rory, her brave knight - although, this being 2011, there's an appropriate amount of  tweaking to those antiquated gender roles.

I suppose the answer is that neither label is useful. Doctor Who remains the one television show that can go anywhere, tell any story and be different things to different people. .

This episode is an astonishing piece of television full stop. Superb writing, gloriously realised. The production design on Doctor Who is currently outstanding, but this is a very fine example indeed, with its fine white expanses and blank-faced robots. At the heart of it all is an incredible performance by Karen Gillan, playing two versions of Amy thirty-six years apart.

I haven't said much about Amy, but she really has proved herself to be a top-tier companion, just as Gillan has shown real acting class. Big, important things have happened to her (getting married, becoming a mother), and these have been shown to have affected her, to a greater or lesser extent. But Amy has also been gently growing all the while in the background. It has been a very subtle and effective performance from Gillan who, assisted by a judiciously evolving costume design, takes Amy from her callow youth (she's 19 in The Eleventh Hour), to almost thirty by the time The Angels Take Manhattan.

She stretches the role even further here to play the old version of Amy and does so very well indeed. The older Amy walks differently, talks differently, her whole bearing has changed. Combined with some top notch make up the effect is startling, especially when, thanks to the magic mirror, the two Amy's are able to talk face to face.

With the Doctor stuck in the TARDIS (a clever and unobtrusive improvement on the Doctor-lite problem of past series), the heart of the story is once again the relationship between Amy and Rory. He does very well to get his head around a situation which, for him at least, moves very quickly, but his key strength as always is his compassion, and his indomitable love for Amy. Amy is the real surprise though. We've talked about her abandonment issues before, but she copes remarkably well left by herself. I'm not talking about her day-to-day survival skills, but the emotional strength she has needed to endure. Although she is embittered, she has not succumbed to hate in the way that she feared Rory had in The Doctor's Wife. Inside her, she is still capable of love. It's not self-preservation that makes her decide to help the younger Amy, she does it for Rory.

The final scene is really something else: the older Amy locked out of the TARDIS by the Doctor, desperate to survive, Rory prepared to let her in, to save her, even if it means ripping open the Universe. At the very last it is Amy's strength and her love for him that prevent that from happening: once again, and not for the last time, Amy chooses Rory over everything else.


NEXT TIME...

Night Terrors

Not quite a misfire, but certainly an odd one and, after the exhilaration of Let's Kill Hitler, one that possibly feels a little bit flatter than it deserves. But it's a nice change of tone, first back to the domestic urban environment that we haven't seen for a long while, and then off into the ancient stamping grounds of Doctor Who, a surreal hinterland like those of The Celestial Toymaker or The Mind Robber. Night Terrors does both of these rather well.

The block of flats, each one a compartment for a different occupant, a different set of values, reminds us of the cars in Gridlock and this environment, with its bins, dodgy lifts and inter-generational angst, seems just as exotic to the Doctor and the Ponds as a pirate ship, or sixteenth century Venice did. After the great grandstanding of A Good Man Goes to War, the Doctor is slowly remembering his earlier modus operandi and the notion of him making a house call, or interpolating himself between family and state, taking on the role of social worker, is an excellent and wholly appropriate one. It recalls the stories of Tom Baker knocking on random front doors during his tenure in order to watch Doctor Who with an ordinary family and melting a childs' brain in the process. It's a good example too of the extraordinary rapport the Doctor can have with children because he takes them seriously. The Doctor believes George's cry for help, and in return George trusts the Doctor.

The Other Place, the spooky realm in which Amy and Rory find themselves is also well realised, a 'sideways step in time' of the kind that was part of the show's original premise. The oddness of it, the mysterious emptiness of it, creates a unpleasant atmosphere even before the ugly and downright creepy dolls make themselves known. But it can't compete with the horrors George must confront inside his own bedroom. Poor little George's world, comprised of looming shadows and unidentifiable noises, is absolutely terrifying mostly thanks to the incredible performance of young Jamie Oram, who quivers, trembles and gasps with absolute conviction. Daniel Mays is good, too, as George's bewildered father, out of his depth and desperate for help.

Unfortunately, it's in trying to tie these disparate elements together that Night Terrors starts to fall away. I don't have any problem with George turning out to be an alien, possessed of special powers, although it does rather undermine the premise, which hints that the reasonable fears of an ordinary child might be real. But I am a bit bored of having another fantastical situation resolved by a parent demonstrating their love for their sceptical child. Okay this happens less often than I think it does (I've just checked) but the resolutions of both Night Terrors and the upcoming Closing Time feel like dim and feeble echoes of the wonderful ending to The Doctor Dances. There are episodes where love causes someone to do something that saves the day: 42 for example, or Fathers' Day, or Forest of the Dead, but magical declarations of love that fix everything should be employed more sparingly than this.


NEXT TIME...

Let's Kill Hitler

This is the best episode of Series Six. It's absolutely fabulous, I love it to bits and that's that. And it's just as well that it's really good because Let's Kill Hitler is absolutely crucial: it's the lynchpin, not just of the series, but of the whole story of River, Amy and Rory. A Good Man Goes to War may have revealed some of the answers, but it's this episode that explains them and makes them work. Time for another list of brilliant things.

1) Mels' introduction. Spoilerphobe that I am, I had no idea who Mels was supposed to be, other than that there had been some vague talk of a 'new addition to the TARDIS' so I was quite bemused when she screeched into view. The montage that follows, of Mels growing up with the Ponds, is charming and lovely, but at the time it felt like a curious bit of retro-justification for a new character. On any of the many, many subsequent viewings, it becomes totally wonderful: the weird side-by-side life of Amy and Rory with their daughter, is a wonderful temporal finesse that Moffat could have made the centrepiece of a whole episode. Instead it is gracefully, nonchalantly inserted here. I haven't said this before, and I should have done, but Caitlin Blackwood is excellent as Amelia, and her performance is so important for connecting past and present and convincing us that young and old Amy are the same person. Her contribution is very important indeed and a significant factor in the overall success of the Pond years. This neat sequence culminates in a beautiful shot that switches from Amy's toy TARDIS being flung into the air, to the real thing, out of control in a blue sky.

2) The Teselecta. Yes, it's a Star Trek version of the Numskulls, but that's a brilliant idea and surely one that only Doctor Who could get away with. Star Trek has always had a tendency for po-faced moralising that Who has managed to avoid - the Teselecta takes that self-importance (they travel through time judging people by their own values) and then gleefully splashes it with some good old fashioned British silliness, literally shrinking them down to size. The result is a craft that should be ridiculous but isn't, filled with people who want to be taken seriously but aren't. The realisation is excellent. The effect shots are very satisfying, the movement of the actors playing the Teselecta are superb, stilted but trying to fit in. Best of all: the dialogue of the crew. A little thing perhaps, but their internal business talk of skin tones, adjusting height and so forth is essential in convincing the audience that this is actually happening. Every word, is spot on.

3) Hitler. I was worried about the title, remember? I was worried about the show trying to visit Hitler. Stupid of me, because Moffat never had any intention of actually engaging with the man: this episode has got so much else on its plate. The title is a brick through a window, something to get our attention - but it is misdirection. As soon as the TARDIS turns up, Hitler is a joke, and then an irrelevance, shut in away in the cupboard.

4) The Death of Melody Pond. So I didn't see this coming. Watching it back, it becomes obvious just how much like River Mels is (a nice performance from Nina Toussaint-White) but then part of the fun is having things hidden in plain sight. When did I work it out? I can't remember, but certainly no earlier than Mels getting shot, and no later than her line "Shouldn't you ask my parents' permission?" The joy of it is that regardless of whether you knew or guessed, we are given a wonderful few seconds here to anticipate what happens next, like a slowly opening door. She is coming, heralded with that marvellous line "Shut up Dad! I'm focussing on a dress size!" A regeneration is always a shot in the arm, but this is a particularly good one that ends with the fearsome energies of the Time Lords transferred in a kinetic bounce to Kingston's magnificent curls. The aftermath of all this, as the new Melody spars with the Doctor, trading a succession of one-upmanship flashbacks, is scintillating. As usual, the Doctor anticipates everything except a kiss.

5) Rory, for once, gets all the best moments, and Darvill makes the most of them with a gloriously dry, slightly weary sense of humour. Not only does Rory get to punch Hitler in the face, disarm him and lock him in the cupboard, he does it all in that beautiful way that suggests he is just about keeping a grip on his own sanity. "Is anybody else finding today just a bit difficult? I'm getting a sort of banging in my head." "Yeah, I think that's Hitler in the cupboard," says Amy. Later, having been abducted by the Teselecta: "Okay, I'm trapped inside a giant robot replica of my wife. I'm really not trying to see this as a metaphor." When Amy asks him why he thinks they have been hit by a miniaturisation ray, he responds: "Well, there was a ray, and we were miniaturised." Best of all, having punched out another Nazi, Rory takes his motorcycle. "Can you ride a motorbike?" asks his wife. "I expect so," he replies. "It's that sort of day."

6) The Doctor in Trouble. Another blistering performance from Matt Smith, this time as a vulnerable Doctor, desperately trying to save the woman who has just murdered him. Why does the Doctor get changed? Perhaps it's a kind of armour, perhaps the white tie and tails gives him an excuse to use the cane. Whatever the reason, it gives the beautiful sense of a dying man trying to put on a show. His inability to give in, to succumb to bitterness even as his body succumbs to the poison of the Judas Tree, eventually inspires Melody to do something good herself.

7) The Birth of River Song. A marvellous conclusion, moving and emotionally satisfying, that also tidies up a lot of loose ends. In just a few minutes we see Melody's Damascene conversion, her learning to fly the TARDIS, her adoption of the name River Song, the beginning of her relationship with the Doctor, the sacrifice of her regenerative powers, the Doctor giving her the blue diary, and the beginnings of her archaeology degree. It's an amazing amount to sort out, but it never feels like housekeeping and it is the emotions of the moment that are always preeminent. And then those beautiful last lines that make me wish they had never stuck the Next Time trailers on the DVDs for Series Six - that last shot of River deserves to be a proper ending all by itself. Actually I think this should have been the series finale, swapped with The Wedding of River Song - it could easily be rejigged so that the Lake Silencio thing got cleared up mid-season but with the knowledge that an earlier River was still planning to kill the Doctor and destroy causality in the process. Ah well, it hardly matters - wherever Let's Kill Hitler fits, it is superb.


NEXT TIME...

A Good Man Goes to War

I think this was the first time I was disappointed by one of Moffat's stories. I don't want to overstate that, I mean it in the mildest possible way, and I certainly enjoyed the episode. I suppose disappointed is the wrong word. Whereas previous episodes of his, especially the big, important ones, had been outstandingly brilliant, this was only very good.

Lots of lovely elements and moments of course. Strax, Madame Vastra and Jenny are all instantly likeable and will quite rightly come back in the future. Rory's Roman assault on the Cyber fleet is just awesome, and the Doctor running rings around the Church troops is splendid. Lorna Bucket is a wonderful character, another of those potential companions that never gets their chance, like Lynda-with-a-Y. But that's the problem: all these fantastic ideas feel too hastily assembled, like songs from a Greatest Hits when we haven't heard the original albums.

Then there are the more familiar add-ons. Dorium's Sidney Greenstreet schtick is welcome, Avery turning up is a nice surprise, and I suppose I can't complain about getting some more use out of the Silurian costumes - but the Spitfires are definitely over-egging a pudding that is already in severe danger of turning into an omelette. Apparently the script originally made space for Captain Jack as well, and that would have been interesting. I think I would have liked a link, like that, between the RTD and Moffat eras - there is a sense in which a steel shutter came crashing down with the regeneration and Jack is the obvious man to crash through it. (River, of course, is aberrant in the other direction, being a Moffat creation who happened to invade RTD's show from the future.) As much fun as that would have been, one can't help but wonder what would have been cut to accommodate him.

But it's all enjoyable isn't it, and evidently heading towards one of those inspired, everything-you-know-is-wrong twists. Except that it isn't: the reveal that River is Melody is barely surprising, let alone mind-boggling.
This is a story that starts by throwing lots of new things into the mix, underdeveloped, and then proceeds to a conclusion that folds the series inwards. What I wanted, I think, is a story where we started with our known, familiar characters and a universe that was then expanded or changed by a revelation that moved us into new territory. In the context of Series Six, and of what happens even after that, this episode makes a lot of sense and is lots of fun - but taken as a standalone story, and especially on a first viewing, it appears to lack the ruthlessly-watertight plotting we've come to expect from Moffat.

Last of all, I was irked by the final caption announcing the title of the next story. Let's Kill Hitler! If there wasn't actually an exclamation mark on screen then surely it was because it was superfluous. It seemed to me to be the most brazen, desperate, look-at-me bit of publicity so far and, stupidly I spent much of the mid-season break worrying that things were only going to get even sillier. What I didn't know, what I should have guessed, is that everything that I didn't like about A Good Man Goes to War was going to be fixed by Let's Kill Hitler, and that it would be one of Moffat's best episodes yet.


NEXT TIME...