River Song Rewatch Report #2: Is the Official Timeline Accurate?
You know how I said yesterday that it would take me awhile to get through the River Song eps? Well, um, I watched enough episodes yesterday to get me roughly halfway through.
But I’m at a bit of an impasse now. For the life of me, I just can’t figure out what happens next. This is one of those instances where I feel like we’re missing a huge chunk of story here. It’s compounded by the fact that the officially-sanctioned BBC video seems kind of, well, wrong.
The official video lays out her episode chronology following the Doctor’s death like this:
- Ice Skating on the Thames (A Good Man Goes to War)
- Reveals her identity to the Doctor and the Ponds (A Good Man Goes to War)
- Witnesses the Doctor’s death (The Impossible Astronaut/Day of the Moon)
- Leaves a message for the Doctor at the beginning of time (The Pandorica Opens)
- Speaks to the Doctor about her identity at Amy and Rory’s wedding (The Big Bang)
- The crash of the Byzantium (Time of Angels/Flesh and Stone)
- Visits her parents and tells them the Doctor is alive (The Wedding of River Song)
- Death (Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead)
I agree with everything after the crash of the Byzantium (though I think we’re missing a chunk of experiences between”The Wedding of River Song” and “Silence in the Library”)–those are pretty straightforward and reinforced by choices in wardrobe and acting. But the muddle in the middle doesn’t seem right to me, for several reasons.
The Vortex Manipulator
River breaks out of prison in the 52nd century at the beginning of the Pandorica Opens. There, she finagles a vortex manipulator off Dorium Maldovar so that she can travel to ancient Rome to warn the Doctor of the TARDIS’s explosion. She’s then seen wearing a vortex manipulator in “The Impossible Astronaut,” “Day of the Moon,” and the scenes at the end of both “The Wedding of River Song” and “A Good Man Goes to War.” She seems to definitively travel by vortex manipulator in both of these scenes.
It’s possible that this vortex manipulator is a red herring–maybe she has two! But there are other clues within these episodes that suggest that the official timeline is wrong.
River’s Clothes and Dialogue at the end of Day of the Moon
In “Day of the Moon,” River puts on a drab zip-front dress after falling in the TARDIS pool. Save for the scenes where she’s wearing a vintage outfit to blend in, she wears this dress, with a studded belt and holster, for the rest of the episode.
In most scenes, she’s also pretty clearly wearing a vortex manipulator.
Then, at the end of the episode–just before she kisses the Doctor for her last, and his first time–he invites her to travel with him. She declines, specifically because she has “A promise to live up to.”
What could that promise be?
The Big Reveal
At the end of “A Good Man Goes to War,” you hear the sound of a vortex manipulator. Then River appears and reveals to the Doctor and the Ponds that she’s Amy’s daughter.
And hey, check out what she’s wearing.
Now, we could chalk this up to low budgets (the Teselecta River wears the same dress in “Let’s Kill Hitler”), but the outfit, hairstyling, and accessories are identical–right down to the vortex manipulator on her left wrist (which you can’t see here, but is visible in the episode). And the dialogue in “Day of the Moon” might confirm that these are chronologically linked. She doesn’t have “promises to live up to,” but “a promise.” Perhaps she promised someone–who?–that she would reveal her identity to the Doctor at this point in her timeline?
Suggested Revised Timeline
In light of the above, I’d propose the following alternative timeline:
- Ice skating on the Thames (A Good Man Goes to War)
- Leaves a message for the Doctor at the beginning of time (The Pandorica Opens)
- Speaks to the Doctor about her identity at Amy and Rory’s wedding (The Big Bang)
- Witnesses the Doctor’s death (The Impossible Astronaut/Day of the Moon)
- Reveals her identity to the Doctor and the Ponds (A Good Man Goes to War)
- The crash of the Byzantium (Time of Angels/Flesh and Stone)
- Visits her parents and tells them the Doctor is alive (The Wedding of River Song)
- Death (Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead)
Caveats
My timeline isn’t without problems, either. For example, there’s no definitive way to date her Stevie-Wonder-on-ice birthday spectacular (we don’t see her travel at all in this scene–might be by vortex manipulator, might not), and we’re still missing big chunks of events–the Bone Meadows, the picnic at Asgard, the Singing Towers, and possibly Easter Island and/or Jim the Fish (they may go before “The Impossible Astronaut”–but see my last entry for an alternate theory). Most problematic, however, are two scenes in “The Big Bang”:
Amy: So what happens here? A Big Bang II—what happens to us?
River: We all wake up where we ought to be. None of this ever happens and we don’t remember it.
Amy: River. Tell me he comes back too.
River: The Doctor will be at the heart of the explosion.
Amy: So?
River: So all the cracks in time will close. But he’ll be on the wrong side. Trapped in the nether space—the void between the worlds. All memory of him will be purged from the Universe. He will never have been born. Now please. He wants to talk to you before he goes.
Amy: Not to you?
River: He doesn’t really know me yet. Now he never will.
and
The Doctor: River… Who are you?
River Song: You’re going to find out very soon now, and I’m sorry, but that’s when everything changes.
[Taps the manipulator and disappears]
The Doctor: Nah!
These lines could be read as an acknowledgement on River’s part that she already revealed her identity to the Doctor. I’m not closed to that as an interpretation, in which case the official timeline–placing “The Pandorica Opens” and “The Big Bang” after the scene in “A Good Man Goes to War”–makes more sense, vortex manipulator be damned. But I’d also remember that River was specifically conceived on her parents’ wedding night. The conversation with the Doctor happens at Amy and Rory’s wedding. It’s possible that River knows that the Doctor discovered her identity at her birth, without having actually revealed it to him (does it even need to be said? Wibbly wobbly, etc.).
Alternatively, we could place the scenes where she gets the vortex manipulator as occurring far earlier in her timeline than other scenes in “The Pandorica Opens” and “The Big Bang”–or her appearance at her parents’ wedding well after the rest of the events in this episode. That’s a pretty timey wimey way of making it all work. But it also makes my head hurt.
Phoebe
Phoebe is a 20-something writer who lives in New York State with her husband and cat. She is a dork, not a geek or a nerd.
Her debut novel, Starglass, will be released from Simon and Schuster Books for Young Readers in Summer 2013.
9 comments
[...] Added a second River Rewatch post today! Come weigh in on her timeline. Before my head explodes. [...]
Excellent detective work!
Though, sadly, it does throw the poverty of the creativity into sharp relief:
"The Doctor: River… Who are you?
River Song: You’re going to find out very soon now, and I’m sorry, but that’s when everything changes."
If they were REAL LIVING BREATHING PEOPLE, why wouldn't she say at this point, "Look, there are some things that you need to know, right now, just so you can be prepared for what's coming and not judge me too harshly"? This is the love of her life that she's talking to, surely she'd want to ensure that he doesn't turn away in disgust! The whole "He CAN'T be allowed to know, that would interrupt the space-time continuum" argument doesn't hold water: it was his being forewarned of his "death" which allowed the Doctor to organize the whole robot-simulacrum diversion thing. Forewarned is most definitely forearmed!
But she wouldn't say that! Spoilers!
I agree–the ominous dialogue was fairly artificial. I suspect that much of it arises out of the nature of writing something like this. Rather than planning explicitly, Moffat was much more likely to have things roughly planned/sketched out. Then I think he seeds in just enough clues that he can pick up and write off of later. I've noticed some other ones that we haven't seen play out yet, but probably will (ex: the Doctor walks into his cloaked TARDIS, and River says he does this "every" time).
Not that it necessarily excuses it. Though it beats all of the totally unplanned TV sci-fi that's out there, I suppose.
(cont.)
So the only reason why she would leave him in suspense HERE is because Moffat wants her to leave him in suspense. At this moment she's behaving like a fictional character with no needs or desires of her own other than to service a cliffhanger plotline.
But we knew that already. And like I said, great work on your part!
And thanks.
Ice Skating on the Thames doesn't necessarily happen before River tells the Doctor who she is at Demons Run.
When Rory visits Stormcage dressed as a Roman, River checks her blue book and realises that Rory's off to Demons Run. Rory asks her to come with him and she says "I can't. Not yet anyway" and "this is the day he finds out who I am".
I can think of three interpretations of this. One is that River has made up her mind to go to Demons Run, possibly literally later that day. Another is that someone has told her that a future River turns up at Demon's Run. The third interpretation is that she has already been there in her own timeline.
The phrases "not yet anyway" and "this is the day" don't necessarily mean she's talking about her future. River could be using Rory's (and the viewers') perspective. Maybe, from River's perspective she had already told the Doctor who she is, but she realises that in Rory's timeline "this is the day" it happens.
Whichever interpretation you use, when River gets to Demons Run she seems to know a lot about what happened there, so someone (the Doctor, Amy, Rory, Madame Kovarian) must have told her the story of the Battle of Demons Run. That's not particularly surprising because it's also the story of her birth.
While River clearly knows about Demons Run in advance I think it's less likely that anyone would have told her about her about her grown-up self arriving after the battle and spilling the beans about who she is. Kovarian wouldn't have known about it and the Doctor, Amy and Rory should probably have been worried about "spoilers".
I favour the interpretation that River has already been to Demons Run by the time she goes ice skating on the Thames, mainly because of the blue book. River uses the blue book to remind herself of her own adventures, not of adventures other people have told her about.
It also seems like a younger, angrier River who confronts the Doctor at Demons Run. She seems to have resolved her "your name means 'mighty warrior'" issues by the time Stevie Wonder sings for her in 1814. Telling your boyfriend that you're his companions' daughter would be something you'd want to get out of the way early in your relationship.
There's one more reason this scene seems later in River's chronology than Demons Run to me. River seems surprised to see Rory when she first recognises him, as if she thought she might never see him again. That wouldn't make sense if she knew Demons Run were still yet to come for her.
I agree that it seems later in the chronology–and agree that it could be because she's familiar with the details about her own birth. However, we don't know if River's chronicled her own adventures, or if the list there was supplied by the Doctor himself, which is another possible interpretation.
River seems surprised to see Rory when she first recognises him, as if she thought she might never see him again. That wouldn't make sense if she knew Demons Run were still yet to come for her.
Rory had been deleted from time at that point, which is how most people have interpreted her lack of knowledge about his identity. Not sure that I completely agree with that or not though. Anyway, thanks for the comment!
Oh Phoebe.
*nerd love*
[...] of all the River Song episodes, as viewed from her perspective. However, about halfway through, I ran into a brick wall. I just couldn’t quite grok the right order for the episode. I suspected that the problem was [...]