Dr. Who’s sixth season has been building towards ‘The Wedding of River Song’ since the premiere episode ‘The Impossible Astronaut.’ Some of the best writing and acting I have seen in Doctor Who EVER has been laid out along this very tense and suspenseful season-long arc starting with The Doctor’s death. Heartache, laughter, pain, anger; all culminating in one emotion: eh.
To give a quick synopsis of an always complicated plot, The Doctor is trying everything he can to find out why he must die. He’s accepted that it is a fixed point and that there is nothing he can do to avoid it, but he cannot accept that he doesn’t know why.
When he seems to finally find the answer thanks to the severed head of a friend, he arrives at Lake Silencio where River meets him dressed as the Impossible Astronaut. She alters the fixed point in time which causes a complete upheaval that only The Doctor and his companions can solve, of course.
This sixth season finale wasn’t awful. Then again, we’ve come to expect so much from The Moff and Company that “not awful” can quickly become a horrible disappointment.
As a whole the episode isn’t bad, per se, but one exchange completely ruins any enjoyment gleaned from the rest of the episode. When The Doctor has accepted his fate and stands at Lake Silencio with River Song staring at him from inside the astronaut suit, her weapons fire and… nothing. That isn’t the worst part, it’s the rapid fire almost flirtatious exchange between the two that is, in a word, horrendous.
I’ve grown accustomed to this type of dialogue between The Doctor and River. In fact, I’ve come to really enjoy it. But here at such a pivotal moment in the series and life of The Eleventh Doctor it just really puts me off. It breaks the pacing of the episode completely, as well as the tone. It’s akin to that one song on a concept album that is completely out of place and makes you think the studio made the group put it in so that they had a guaranteed radio-friendly hit.
Aside from that misstep, ‘The Wedding of River Song’ is a pretty solid episode. And I will make quick note that while I was off on the whole Tenza idea, I was somewhat on as far as The Doctor faking his death to appease The Silence and go “back into the shadows” while River takes the fall.
My favorite part of the finale came in the closing moments with Amelia Pond. Watching Karen Gillan sit in her backyard, two glasses of wine in front of her as she peers off into space contemplating all that has happened and the loss of her beloved Doctor showed why she not only is my favorite companion, but is starting to rank up there past even some Doctors as the best actors the series has seen in its decades long existence.
Her exchange with River at that moment also shows the genius of Doctor Who as it makes you re-think everything you’ve ever seen where River is on screen and, to a degree, Amy as well. Also, it was nice to finally see what would happen if one of the fixed points in time that have been referenced since the David Tennant years was finally altered.
Maybe I’m focusing too much on that one annoying exchange, but I didn’t leave ‘The Wedding of River Song’ feeling the way I had hoped to. Every episode this season of Dr. Whohas been better than the next for me, so the bar was set pretty high and the finale just made like Dan O’Brien during the ’92 Olympic trials: missed by “that” much.
– James Zappie
