In “Silence in the Library” she entered a room, walked right up to him, and said “Hello Sweetie”. But remember, her timeline is back-to-front, she had seen that face before.
Wasn’t River the one who summoned the Doctor to the Library?
“The” reviews? TwoP’s reviewer gave it a B+; the readers say A-. The AVclub gave it A-, with readers saying B+. Oh, those are mostly American sites. Well, I read the first review you posted; the reviewer liked the actors but thought it confusing & grim. (Yeah, the show that gave us “Blink” is always cheerful.) Reader replies were mixed but included:
The second guy was a flippant fool. Curious about the reputation of his paper, I’m too polite to run the article linking it with Mosely; hey, that was years ago. But I foundthis review
I doubt the showrunners are worried. I liked the episode just fine. What do you think?
Yeah, I’m not getting a sense that the reviews are that bad either. Wikipedia notes that “The episode was met with positive reviews from television critics.” before going into specifics.
It got an AI (audience appreciation index) of 88, which is very high, particularly for a mass audience show. The overnight audience figures were down a good bit, but it was a glorious day on a four-day-holiday weekend, and it went out in the UK at 6pm. Iplayer will be cranking out a million downloads and streams, so the overall audience figures will be, in UK terms, great. The audience share was 36.7%. So, no worries at all. I wish it would go out at 7pm though, 6pm is too early on a Saturday.
I absolutely believe the fellow from The Mirror didn’t understand it - I’d even believe he didn’t even watch it. Some factual errors:
- Misidentifies The Doctor’s age as 960 - it was (depending on where in the show you are) either 909 or 1103.
**- Says River Song is a “Time Lady” **- River Song is a human archeologist, murderer, and given her lockpicking skills, probably a thief as well, but she’s not a “Time Lady”.
- Babies in space suits - arguably, there is a young child in a space suit, but no babies.
Clearly, the reviewer is an idiot and not paying attention even while he was watching.
I still chuckle about The Doctor bluffing the Secret Service, saying that they could just shoot him. River reminds him that he’s in America.
“Oh Right! Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot!”
Whatever the method is, it can be fooled by The Master wearing a false beard.
*Tenth Doctor: And the Master. Oh! He just showed up again, same as ever.
Fifth Doctor: Oh no, really? Does he still have that rubbish beard?
**Tenth Doctor: **No, no beard this time. Well, a wife. *
The Master has, at times, delibrately disguised himself so it may be that in addition to a “rubbish beard” (or lack of it) he’s also doing something to fool whatever it is that Gallifreyans use to recognize each other.
For that matter, in “Family of Blood” The Doctor also disguised his Gallifreyishness (is that even a word?).
Deliberate disguise is different than walking down a street, bumping into someone making no effort at disguise, and saying “Hey, I know you…”
Say what?
Silence of the Library/Forest of the dead was an episode without internal time travel - for the Tenth doctor and River, they’re both going through that specific sequence in the same direction, beginning to end.
As far as we’ve seen, the tenth doctor never meets her again. We the audience don’t see her until “The time of Angels”, which is after the Eleventh doctor has regenerated.
Now, that doesn’t mean it isn’t possible that she didn’t meet Ten again. In particular, some incarnation of the Doctor visits her fairly soon before her own experience in ‘Silence of the Library’ and gives her the (modified) sonic screwdriver. I could see that Ten might want to take care of this detail as soon as he can track down the right space-time co-ordinates to meet her again. But that wasn’t shown or directly referenced, as far as I know.
Quite the episode tonight! I’ll need to watch again, but initial impressions are: Aaaaargh, some of that was creepy as fuck. 6pm on a Saturday tea-time. Sleep well, kids!
I look forward to seeing it tonight.
Song knew it was The Doctor when he first met her because she summoned him, as GuanoLad points out. A strange person there with a companion after she sent a summons? Who else was it going to be? But it wasn’t her Doctor. And she was a bit upset to find out that he did not know her yet.
I would have thought that it had to be Song in the space suit killing The Doctor, which is what she goes to jail for, but then wouldn’t that be in her current past so she’d know that it was her. So we gotta cross it off, right?
And you’d think she would have said something. I mean, yeah, she knew it was him. At the very least, we know she has pictures. But if someone you’ve known for a long time who only ever wore oxford shirts and slacks suddenly shows up wearing a three piece suit, or a kilt, or a tank top and shorts, I expect you’d make a comment, or at least do a double take. The only explanations I can see is that she’d either been through enough Doctors to have gotten completely used to his transformations, or she’d met this Doctor before.
Since the sonic screwdriver he gave her looked like a modified version of Ten’s, not the kind Eleven uses, I think we have to assume that at some point after “Silence in the Library” Ten visited her, gave her his screwdriver, and took her to see the Singing Towers. I like the idea that although she probably was a bit surprised at seeing Ten for what was, for her, the first time, she downplayed it by describing it as showing up “with a new haircut and a suit.” I think that was the writer’s (Moffatt’s) intention. I’m surprised they didn’t show it as part of his goodbye travels when Ten was dying, but the actress might not have been available or something.
Yeah, I agree. Though you can’t ever be sure with all the wibbley-wobbleyness.
I’m a bit stunned and confused. The plot leaped around so much that I don’t know what to think. It’s like an entire episode is missing.
I couldn’t understand half of what the silents said.
What the heck did that dying silent say that was broadcast from the moon? I listened five times and couldn’t understand. The accent plus the weird rasping sound is maddening to hear.
This was a rushed, steaming mess.
It was the quote that the American, Clayton ?, recorded on his “video phone whatever that is” - something along the lines of “you should kill us all whenever you see us”. Thereby implanting the reflex.
The Impossible Astronaut is replaying on BBC America right now. You know something? I think he crept after Rory and overheard at least some of their conversation about his future self’s death. There’s definitely a shadow of him coming up to the railing just above them.
I’m a bit puzzled why the Silent was so deadly in the Astronaut. Literally vaporizing that woman. Then they seem totally defenseless in the next episode.
The silent stands there and lets the FBI guy shoot him. Then River slaughters five or more at the end of the episode. The Silents are not very good monsters. 
Rewatching The Impossible Astronaut, Rory and River have reached the control room. Aren’t those the same controls from the The Lodger episode? [NB: The Day of the Moon has not yet broadcast where I am. Coming up in a few minutes now.]
Not sure about the machine but “The Lodger” did seem to have a reference to the USA. There’s a certain piece of art on the guy’s wall that, AFAICT, is the front end of a big American car. Specifically, a 1975 Ford LTD.