I actually like River more now than I did in the beginning. I also like that we got to see her with Amy bonding a bit. I’m not sure that I want River around all the time but I don’t mind glimpses. I always thought we only saw a few of all of the Doctor’s adventures, that many things happened off screen that we never knew about.
The skulls made me laugh but I didn’t hate them either. Of course, I’ve seen a lot worse. I watched the old Who. It felt…homey.
And while I knew Nicholas Courtney had died, when the Doctor learned that the Brigadier had died I actually cried. Matt Smith played that scene beautifully.
I really thought since the fifth episode of the season that it would be the Flesh (or a Flesh) Doctor who got killed at Lake Silencio, with some sort of faked effect of the regeneration. Didn’t see the Tesselator coming… actually don’t even like the Tesselator idea much except for the Doctor’s opportunity to mock it:
I like that the skulls were carnivorous, I just kind of wish they’d left the actual action off-screen. Would have been better that way.
I also hope we get to see more of River’s past… there’s a gold mine there of plot to work, it doesn’t have to be a whole season arc, but it would be nice to see more of it from time to time.
But Moffat does lie when asked direct questions that endanger his secrets. I remember seeing an interview where he claimed that the water theme between Amelia Pond and River Song was just a coincidence.
That pretty much summed it up for me. The beginning was fun, but nothing made sense and it ruined River Song for me.
The thing that bugs me the most, though, is that it cheated. Sure, Moffat lies, but having Canton emphasize that it really was the Doctor and he really did die seemed to me to be setting up a “contract” with the viewer that, yes, it really was the Doctor and he really did die. Of course, I expected him to come back. But all of the tension over the season was based on the viewer believing that the Doctor did die and that Moffatt was going to have to resolve that. Failing to follow through on that is the equivalent of having a deus ex machina or revealing everything to be a dream. It doesn’t resolve the dramatic tension, it just removes it. “The Doctor has to be seen dying” is a very different problem than the one we were given, and frankly a much easier one to solve.
I’m going to make a prediction. River Song isn’t dead. Or won’t be dead. Or will not have already died? Timey wimey’s confusing.
Anyway, in the Library (after the retrospectively interestingly titled “Silence in the Library”), River Song doesn’t die.
We all assumed that the Doctor would tell River his name as a way to engender her trust. We assumed he would tell her this in order to marry her. In fact, he said that he was going to tell her that right before he went to her ear.
But rule #1: the Doctor lies.
What he did was actually whisper “look in my eye” and she did and she saw a Doctor in a Doctor which saved him from death.
Rule #2: River lies too.
That’s the scene where River whispers something to Doctor Tennant. Again, we assume it to be the Doctor’s name. But why? We have no proof of that.
What we do know is that this is a future River who has seen how the Doctor cheats death and my guess is that she’s now pulling the exact same stunt. Why should The Doctor be the only one to cheat death?
Indeed, my prediction is that we find out that River doesn’t die in the Library and I’ll go so far as to say they’ll get David Tennant to surprise guest star in the episode that ret-cons it for us.
I’m pretty sure just before River sacrifices herself in the library, the Doctors says something like, “You said my name, the only time I would tell someone my name is-” Granted, the Doctor lies, but it was just River and him in that scene.
See, I took it that the Doctor that died in the first episode really was the Doctor, and he really did die. I can’t find it on youtube at the moment, but remember that short a few months ago where the Tardis accidentally got parked inside itself, and they were running in and out talking to themselves, and the Doctor was all, “Make sure you do exactly what you just did or you’ll mess up the time loop!” So what I gathered was that:
Old Doctor gets smoked by Astronaut River. For realz, no takebacks. They give him a proper Viking funeral and adjourn to the diner.
-Where they meet Young Doctor, who after some persuasion agrees to go to D.C. in 1969 to hook up with Everett Canton Delaware III, who at this point is their only clue as to what may have happened at the lake.
Hijinks ensue and Young Doctor learns more and more as the season progresses, to the point where when it’s his turn to be Old Doctor he decides “Screw that” and borrows the Tessalecta to take the fall for him.
HOWEVER, for whatever reason, this time around when River gets to the lake she’s strong enough to fight the suit, resulting in the time loop going wonky and pterodactyls flying around London and Winston Churchill reigning as Holy Roman Emperor. But we can’t have that, so the Doctor makes her kill him, after showing her that she isn’t really killing him.
Amy, Rory, and River, being speshul snowflakes, remember both realities, but are currently living in the one where the Tessalecta was at the lake. (The reality with the really dead Doctor is in the other trouser leg. )
Or, in short, the dead Doctor in episode 1 was actually the Doctor. But by the time Young Doctor got to that point, he’d changed things enough so that although the trappings and setting remained the same, the end result did not.
That all makes sense except that I don’t see how a staged death satisfies the fixed point in time requirement. I can see how it could fool the villains, at least for a while, but the Universe/Time itself?
…but he doesn’t need to ‘fool time itself’, he just needs to make sure that history is unfolds as it was recorded.
Its like when they were at pompeii. He said all along that the eruption of the volcano was a fixed point in time, and history had recorded this as a normal eruption. However, it turned out to be caused by the pyrovillians and a the doctor tinkering with their device. It didn’t matter though, as no-one knew, so as far as history was concerned, it WAS a normal eruption.
Oh and I’ve been wanting to ask, previous episode, he ‘shot’ the Cybermouse with some sort of green beam emanating from his sonic; was that the first time we’ve seen that effect? And isn’t it a bit weapon-like for the Doctor?
Yes, that’s it exactly. With a fixed point, you can always change a minor detail, one that wasn’t recorded by a witness. (Certainly not a detail that you, as the interfering agent, are personally aware of.)
You can’t stop the eruption at Pompeii, but you can save one family.
Another way to think of it is that the time traveller can participate in the events, but not create a new timeline - as long as what they do fits into what they know about the fixed point event like a jigsaw, it’ll work. (As in the Hitchhiker’s guide theory of history fitting together like a jigsaw.) So at Lake Silencio, for example, if you suppose that that never was the flesh and blood Doctor with two hearts getting shot, but always the Tesselecta, it fits with what the Doctor knows about the shooting, and what everybody saw.
The 10th Doctor tells River Song, “You know my name. There’s only one time I could tell anyone my name” at 35 minutes into Forest of the Dead. There’s no one else around and she’s about to die, so no reason to lie.
Marlitharn, I think you are looking for a causal line where it’s really a stable time loop with hidden information. But either way, really.
To lie to you.
Good grief, I’ve seen this objection repeatedly. The show tells you, “The Doctor lies.” You think that some bit of dialogue is telling you the truth. Moffat is known to lie about future plot developments. You whine about it. You lot would probably cry if you read a detective story where the culprit lied about being the culprit.
Canton Delaware was sent by the Doctor to tell you he was dead. How does he know that? He doesn’t. The Doctor told him to say that. Canton’s there to make the Silence think they’ve succeeded. Rather as the Doctor’s speech to the children outside Craig and Sophie’s house was. It’s a trick, it was always going to be a trick, and now you’re upset it was a trick?
It’s like Trekkies who insist that Vulcans don’t lie, due to not really paying attention to the episode that introduced that trope.
We don’t know what his letter said, but since he didn’t know anything extra on the scene all it took was “Don’t interfere. When it happens you can’t help. Tell them it really was me.”
Which this episode has set up. We know the question (“Doctor Who?”, which presumably means “What is the Doctor’s name?”) and where and when it will be answered (on the Field of blahblahblah I can’t remember what it was). We’ve been told that he must answer, so presumably this is the only time he could say it. We don’t yet know why this is such a big deal or how it will manage to avoid being either a cop-out (we don’t get to hear the name) or an anticlimax (“My name is…REINHOLD!”*) but I’m sure we will be told in due course.
Bonus points for anyone remembering which TV character’s name turned out to be “Reinhold”.
But all of the tension over the season was based on the viewer believing that the Doctor did die and that Moffatt was going to have to resolve that. Failing to follow through on that is the equivalent of having a deus ex machina or revealing everything to be a dream. It doesn’t resolve the dramatic tension, it just removes it. “The Doctor has to be seen dying” is a very different problem than the one we were given, and frankly a much easier one to solve.
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