Doctor Who: The Wedding Of River Song

So it's come to this then: My review of Doctor Who Season Six's last Episode. I've been both dreading and awaiting this day for some time now, you see. If you're not up to date with the BBC's current release schedules then you should know that Series Seven of Doctor Who is currently slated for release in Fall 2012 (those bastards) which means that the first 3/4 of next year will be rather Doctor Who-less unfortunately. Apparently it's something to do with the upcoming 50th Anniversary of the show in 2013 but still it's rather disheartening to know that apart from this year's Christmas Special and the odd mini-episode for Comic Relief it's still going to be a FULL year before we get to see any new Doctor Who. And presuming that most of the questions that have been dangling around our heads for the past few years will FINALLY be resolved at the end of this Series, that left Steven Moffat 45 minutes to wrap-up at least a million bazillion questions before the long drought that is 2012. He wouldn't leave most of it unresolved for another year would he? That would be just sheer punishment for avid Doctor Who fans like me! Well after watching 'The Wedding Of River Song' for the first time I felt rather satisfied overall...but the second time? I hate to say it, but there are a few major problems I have with this Ep, and as a whole it brings down the quality of the Series in one important aspect that I'll get into in a minute. 


First of all let me just say that for the first 20 minutes this Episode was Steven Moffat's vision of Doctor Who at it's absolute peak, and was bloody perfection in my opinion. It juggles so many settings and so many compelling side-characters so quickly that you can't help but be in sheer awe of it all. It's exiting 500mph storytelling. In the first five minutes alone he introduces us to bashed up Daleks, flying Car-balloons, a Roman cart on the streets of modern day London, Pterodactyls trying to eat kids, Steam Trains emerging from the Gherkin, Charles Dickens on BBC Breakfast and even the holy Roman Emperor himself Winston Churchill being tended to by Lizard/Silurian Doctors! He even has his own personal mammoth to bout! I mean where do you get insane imagery like that? And yet the guy somehow manages to make it all work and fit in splendidly. And speaking about imagery, cor was this Episode visually stunning! The CGI department was clearly going into overdrive here: Special effects for this series have been a mixed bag overall, but here they looked practically filmic in quality. The first part of the Episode was just a visual treat, and the best stuff I've seen on British T.V all year. That shot of the Orient Express going inside the Great Pyramid with the American flag and Area 52 painted on it's side? Sheer brilliance:

And even if you took out all the fancy effects there was still so many 'wow' moments to be had, like the Space Viking* being eaten up by carnivorous skulls or the return of Dorium Maldovar (officially my favourite recurring character in the show now), Winston Churchill (another great addition) and Simon Callow who again reprised his role as Charles Dickens after five years of being absent from the show. The mention of the Brigadier was simply the icing on an already splendid cake (he's an old friend of the Doctor from the classic Series and is considered right up there with Sarah Jane in terms of fan popularity), and was a fitting tribute to actor Nicholas Courtney who sadly passed away earlier this year just a month before Elizabeth Sladen. Yes, two great Doctor Who icons perished this March, what a horrible month.

But even with all these *SQUEEE!!* moments, the overall arc about the Doctor facing his death and wondering if the Universe would be better without him was well handled, or at least until the end of the Episode. This is one of the reasons why I love this show, it can have so much fun playing with it's time travel trappings while also dealing with big themes and overarching storylines with such confidence. No one can deny that Steven Moffat has got balls for writing some of this stuff, and I find it hard to think of a show on T.V that has as much ambition as Doctor Who. I mean if you look back at it there was enough stuff crammed into the first part of this Episode to warrant an entire Series let alone a single Episode! 


Then comes the second act, which is set inside Area 52, the massive pyramid seen above. Here I was hoping for the Silence and Mme Kovarian to really dominate, breaking out of their imprisonment, killing everyone in the base and revealing their 'ultimate plan' to the Doctor while also tying up the loose ends from both this Series and last one. Or at least let them do something that was a bit more substantial than last time, like maybe say a bit more than just creepy monster noises? Well we get the Silence being bad-ass and killing people for a bit, and Dorium the head hints at something in the Doctor's future causing them to 'fall' but other than that little or NO explanation is given as to why they've constructed such an elaborate plan to kill the doctor that makes barely no sense. In fact, the only thing they say in the ENTIRE Episode is: 'Rory Williams, the man who dies and dies again, die one last time and know that she will never come back for you!!!!' and then they all get gunned down (albeit in a awesome manner) by alternate Amy! And Mme Kovarian? She's tied to a chair the entire time, gets five lines of dialogue, and then dies in the most bitchy manner ever.  WTF?! These are the supposed to be the MAIN villains of the entire Series guys, the ones who were behind River Song, behind the TARDIS blowing up last series! Behind EVERTHING, and yet they're treated almost like an afterthought with NO answers being given or even a proper send-off! Mr. Moffat, I thought this Episode was supposed to wrap everything up from the last two years apart from ONE 'new' question? Hang on, let me just make a list about what WASN'T answered in this Episode:


-Why did the Silence kidnap Amy in the opening two-parter?
-Why and how did they blow up the TARDIS?
-Where do they come from/their origins?
-How big/powerful are they? 
-What's they're main goal here? Any motivations?
-Why did they create a Spacesuit that can function on it's own, attach it with a gun so it can kill the Doctor and then put River in it? Does she need to be in that Spacesuit? Couldn't they have just programmed the suit to do it instead of putting someone in it that was emotionally connected to the Doctor? Surely this would eff' up their plan? 
-What's with the Lodger TARDIS? Are they capable of time travel or not?
-What's this 'endless, bitter war' with the Doctor Mme Kovarian was talking about?
-Why did they create a time-lord if they didn't really need her in the end?
-Dear Silence, what's up with the fancy wet suit look? Ok, that one really WAS nitpicking.
-If the Doctor was already trying to get River Song to kill him, then why did they have to get inside the Pyramid? Yes, they pretended to be captured so they could wait for the Doctor to arrive but why...why...WHY? Explanation: NONE. And believe me I've checked, I've rewatched this Episode a million times already.  
-What's with the old Canton? They never explained that did they? 


Now let's compare all this to what was answered in the Episode:


-River Song loves the Doctor, and they DO marry, kinda.
-How the Doctor escapes his death
-What the 'Question' is.
-Why the Doctor gathered up all his friends to witness his death.
-What the the eye patches are for. 


So as far as I can tell, that's a lot of stuff that hasn't been explained or even been eluded to in the show vs what was ACTUALLY answered, which wasn't a whole lot. This Episode  was fantastic for the most part, but if you take into account the fact that it was being toted as 'THE EPISODE THAT ANSWERS ALL!' it fails quite significantly. And yes, I get that they couldn't answer it all in one Episode, but then why don't you make it a two-parter?        


I suppose the Villains this Series have failed to meet expectations, but Mme Kovarian is wonderfully evil on screen and the actress is clearly having a ball with the part, I hope she comes back! Even the Silence, who are great as an idea, kind of fall apart as the 'Big Bad' simply because they aren't really a strong presence in the Story when you come down to it. And there's so many questions that probably won't be answered now because it's been faaar to long! And if they do get answered, then that won't be til' late 2012 at the MOST, and that's just complete BULLSH*T to keep us waiting for three to four years without any indication that they're all going to be answered...so I'll assume that Steven Moffat just wants us to forget about the many plot-holes he's created for himself. I can't make my mind up if he's a true genuis or just blatantly gives us the F-you finger every time he fails to make sense out of the mess of seemingly random things he's put together that appear to be tied together in a cool way. He appears to know what he's doing most of the time, but there are several flaws that present themselves the moment you scratch away the surface. 


So first act: brilliant, second act: frustrating but the third act? Well it wraps up the main storyline of this this Series quite well in a way that for the most part makes sense as well as offer a few more tantalising twists for the next Series. We finally understand River Songs true feelings for the Doctor, after ALL this time of countless 'Is she good or bad?' teasing. The so called 'Wedding' wasn't really a wedding though was it? It was just the Doctor trying to convince River to kill/fake killing him. Still, it was a good resolution to the Episode, albeit one that wasn't as epic as I would have thought it would be. For a Finale, it didn't have a 'Final' feel to it at all. The scene with Amy and River Song, now back in their proper universe/timeline was a nice touch as well, offering finality to River Song's arc while the last bit with Dorium and the disguised Doctor explaining just how the Doctor got out of this whole mess: He was in a Robot/Tesselecta, the ENTIRE time. Ok, I can live with that as a explanation, I mean I certainly didn't see that one coming! But if the Doctor was a Robot the entire time, then how come he was starting to regenerate the moment River shot him? And seemed much more Doctor-ly and life-like than those robotic movements we saw in 'Let's Kill Hitler'. Again unexplained! We could put it down to the Doctor doing some jiggery-pokery with his sonic screwdriver to the Tesselecta's systems but still an actual explanation on-screen would BE MUUUCH APPRECIATED!                


There are lots of valid accusations to make about this episode (and the whole Series in general, I mean they set up things that have no pay-off whatsoever and don't get resolved or even hinted at after years of speculation), but the rest of the Episode was so damn fun and entertaining telly that I find these so many of these problems being pushed to the back of my mind, even if they're pretty blatant plot-holes: 9,5/10. Yes I know, after half a book of explaining just why I'm so frustrated with this Episode turns out I actually really enjoyed it. 


So after all this weird imagery, epic plot-lines and twists, what did we get at the end of all this? Well we got a confirmation that the Doctor will indeed be stepping into the shadows next season, hiding from the universe who thinks him to be dead and another teasing question as it turns out: Doctor Who? Yes I think we all guessed what this 'big' question was at some point, and it's wonderfully cheeky...as well as being just a little exiting knowing that the upcoming 50th anniversay of this show will no doubt try to answer it...God I had shivers up my spine at the end when he looks at the camera!!!


So what did I think of this Series Overall then? In a word: Very Good. In many words: inventive, original, intricate, puzzling, sometimes frustrating, epic, superb, mind-bustingly good Doctor Who, so quite unlike any T.V program out there then. The only main criticism I have is that it doesn't really answer a lot of the main questions left over from Series Five and just poses MORE quite like the T.V show Lost, which never got around to answering the many questions left-over either. Hopefully next year will put an end to all these questions about the Silence and not just tease us with more. Please don't all fall to pieces! Anyway the only thing I have left to say is: Next Series NOW!!!!   


Episode Ranking for this Season:


1. A Good Man Goes To War/The Wedding Of River Song 
2. The Impossible Astronaut/Day Of The Moon
3. Let's Kill Hitler
4. The Rebel Flesh/Gangers
5. The Girl Who Waited
6. The God Complex
7. The Doctor's Wife
8. Night Terrors
9. Closing Time
10. Curse Of The Black Spot


Series Ranking:


1. Series 4
2. Series 3
3. Series 1
4. Series 2
5. Series 6
6. Series 5


Overall Rating: 8/10