Who Review: The Wedding of River Song

WARNING: The following review assumes you’ve seen the episode. If you haven’t, and you care about spoilers, don’t continue reading!

So here we are, the season finale. Questions answered. And the prize goes to my brother for figuring out/correctly guessing how the Doctor escaped death at Lake Silencio. Well done, Ian! Of course, as he freely admits, he didn’t get all the details, but he got that it was a Tesselecta Doctor and not the real one or a Flesh version (which was my tentative suggestion). I think we all guessed that the Doctor didn’t really die, since there’s a Christmas special coming up starring Matt Smith as The Doctor. Our guess is that Matt Smith is in for at least a few more years. If they’re going to do a regeneration anytime soon, we think it’ll be at the end of the 2013 season–the 50th anniversary. But if this doesn’t happen, Matt’s young enough that he could keep going for a good while yet. Anyway, enough of the future–back to Saturday night!

It seems to be the thing to bring back past friends and foes for the finale. This time we saw Winston Churchill, a Dalek, the Tesselecta, the Silence, the Silurians, Madam Kevorian, and Charles Dickens (last seen in The Unquiet Dead, played by Simon Callow both then and here). There was also a touching tribute to the Brigadier, when the Doctor calls him only to be informed of his recent death. Nicholas Courtney, who played the Brigadier, died in February. Some of these returning characters were necessary to the central plot, but while it brings a smile to see familiar faces, it does leave you wondering if it’s really necessary. It just seems a bit too convenient that when all of history is happening at the same time, the Doctor manages to meet up with people we’ve met in the show before. He couldn’t have run into Julius Caesar, or had George Washington or Benjamin Franklin fill the role taken by Churchill? So much history, so many characters to choose from.

I thought the resolution of the Doctor’s supposed death was satisfactory. I didn’t feel cheated, or as if it was some kind of deus ex machina explanation. We’d encountered the Tesselecta before in more than an incidental fashion, and using them to allow the Doctor to die (satisfying the demands of the “fixed point in time”) but yet live worked for me. As was much speculated since Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead, it turns out River Song is/was the Doctor’s wife–making Amy and Rory his in-laws. Hmmm. I wonder if that’s the last we’ll see of River Song, at least for a while, since I think the lingering questions have been answered. We know where she came from, her relationship to the Doctor, how she knows so much about the TARDIS, and why she was in prison. Anything I missed? From this point on, I think she’ll just be a character the Doctor runs into from time to time.

As for Amy and Rory, the way the story wrapped up it looks as if the Doctor’s off on his own again, with Amy and Rory enjoying domestic bliss. However, the revelation that the Doctor is alive could change everything. As I think I mentioned in my review for the last episode, Closing Time, there hasn’t been any announcement about Karen Gillan and Arthur Darville leaving the show, so I presume we’ll see them again at Christmas where they’ll re-join the TARDIS crew.

In short, I thought it was a nice wrap up to the season. Not as high velocity as last season’s finale, but I’m okay with that. I have some thoughts about Doctor Who season finales that I’ll blog about sometime soon. But this was a good story, and a nice way to round up season six. And what’ s more, we only have a few months to wait until the Christmas special!