Tuesday 4 October 2011

The Wedding of River Song (A Dr Who review...)

*** Spoiler alert for episode 13 season 6 ***
This episode was the last before the Christmas special, and so was supposed to be epic, intriguing and exciting, leaving a massive cliff hanger for the Christmas special. I'll give Steven Moffat (head writer and exec. producer) some credit though. This episode, answered the questions I wanted to know (how would the Dr die without ending Dr Who as a programme, and when would he supposedly marry Melody Pond?), whilst keeping me on the edge of my seat in my mental attempts to decipher how the narrative would play out.

Unfortunately though, as much as I was intrigued, I also found myself beguiled and quite confused in this complex,complicated,and  incomprehensible narrative. Now if me being an adult could not grasp this episodes' storyline, I wonder if the 11year olds who this programme is aimed at could?

 Let me try to reconstruct the story line for you: Ages ago, there was an episode which showed the Dr dying, and ever since then there have been hints that the future Dr will obviously die also, but that his death would be shown differently, explaining why he had to die.

In this episode, It is explained that the 'silence' (a religious movement) believe that a time will come when all beings will have no choice but to speak the truth, and that's when a question will be asked, a question that must never be answered which the Dr will answer if he is alive. The question is unknown. Following so far? Yes? Okay. So, because the Dr's been 'on the run' time (past, present and future) have intertwined in a way that they shouldn't have, and the Dr needs to touch Melody Pond (the present one) to bring him to the appointed time of his death. Why Melody Pond? Because Melody Pond (the future one) kills him. (His murder is supposed to be her whole reason for existence apparently.) He finds Melody, along with her parents, Amy Pond and Rory (who are visibly younger than her, and were the Dr's companions) who allow Melody and the Dr to marry.

Of course, tracing back to three episodes ago, there were a group of people who transformed themselves into tiny beings living inside a robot which was disguised as any human they wanted it to be, and these people were like the 'time police' travelling through time and torturing aliens/humans who committed serious offences which would affect time. The Dr asks them to transform him, and take his bodily form, so that when he does die, it isn't him dying, it is the robot thingy.

My obvious questions now are this:
- Wouldn't this 'silence' be smart enough to know that it wasn't the actual Dr who had died?
- Can the Dr still travel through time saving lives without being detected?
- Can the Dr still see Amy and Rory?
And finally-
- Is this programme just a little too confusing for adults and kids now?

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