The Husbands of River Song

“Why is everything sexy now?” - the Doctor

I don't like River Song. Let's do that first, before getting into the episode as a whole.

A lot of the problem is never really believing in the relationship. River's a cool character, but the Doctor's wife? I'm really not sure.

I'm not inherently averse to the idea of a married Doctor; I really like Patience, for example.

I also don't mind romantic relationships period – Jo, Rose, Romana, the Master – makes sense. Even love more broadly with somebody like Ace. But River is a flighty, amoral murdererous show-off - I'm not sure she's his type. I don't buy it. I think you can have that character, but not really as a romance. She'd be brilliant as the Doctor's tearaway daughter. I would watch that!

(in before "...but those are all characteristics describing the Master", hush my kitten, hush.).

Another part of the problem, probably the biggest part: the story is all out of order, so the viewer never has any context for what they are seeing. How can I even *begin* to understand the relationship if I don't know where it came from?

Especially because we've never seen what, surely, is the most important times in their relationship - the heart of it – the bit where they are together. Dating. Romancing. So far, we've only ever seen them out of sync, with the Doctor evidently always before they were together, and lukewarmedly fond of her.

Finally, I was always frustrated by River's soppiness. She's a time-travelling, sharp-shooting, quick-witted archeologist, and I want more for her than abandonment issues and intergalactic clinginess. We see it again here: under pressure, cool-customer River is being threatened, and decides to spill out her feelings about how she can never hope for the Doctor to love her, because he's like a star and she is but a lowly mortal. Jesus, woman, get a grip!

It occurs to me that this episode really goes to the heart of what's wrong with the whole River storyline. The problem isn't, as I always suspected, that I'm defensive of a huge canon-defining figure like the woman the Doctor is in love with. The problem is that he isn't and it makes for truly horrible viewing.

Moffat has never fully committed to his own storyline. God, give me that intergalactic romance. Wouldn't it be wonderful? I would watch that. Dazzling each other around the stars, laughing a lot, going for chips, listening to jazz on a hillside, risking time itself to get each other back.

Instead we get...he likes her enough to get jealous of people she's dating, but not enough to reassure her when she says she feels unloved? Classic noncommittal behavior. When we see her first, in Silence in the Library, that heartbreaking sorrow makes sense. She loves him, and he does not – he's never met her and is somewhat bemused by the whole thing. But that's always the tone of the relationship, every time. I guess I assumed at some point they had a relationship, and that's what gave Silence its poignancy. Apparently not. That's awful. He's cold, and she's a drip. God, this is horrible.

OK, so I understand the relationship now. Now, I want to know why this is a story or a character we should care about. We've spent a lot of time on this plot since 2008: is this it? Is this all? 

For a moment, I thought that this would be the episode where the Doctor finally said - “no River, River Song I adore you”, and maybe she'd be the new companion. All it did was confirm that there would be no development, again. The Doctor's still unwilling to be there, and River is still weepy, and I don't know what I'm supposed to think about any of this.

If this is the plot we're going with, it plays back into Moff's weird gender essentialism very badly indeed. I don't understand, and I really don't like straight-person relationship humour. “ho ho ho, isn't the wife a drag!” “ha ha ha, isn't the old man a nuisance!” ha ha ha. “marriage: can't live with em, can't live without em.” Funny jokes for people who can legally marry one another! The core of all these jokes about “the wife” or “the old man” is that all straight couples, at heart, hate one another, and I find it profoundly depressing.

Here we go: The Doctor getting all straight-man possessive of her other beaux, but then all flighty when she wants commitment. River is the Wife, incarnate: all these inconvenient, uncomfortable feelings, wanting to drag the Doctor down and trap him into marriage, quite literally in that episode where she blackmails him into marriage. River's like the cool, sexy, independent girlfriend who turns into an awful nag as soon as she gets a wedding band and you can't get away from her.

I'm just gonna leavethis clip from Doomsday here.

Back to the key question: why this is a story or a character we should care about? Where do you see this relationship going next? I can't see Twelve “No-Hugs” as the Doctor who finally makes it happen for her, do you? Which means it's going nowhere.

I also don't like the idea that the Doctor is such a monolith, such a sunset, that he doesn't feel something as “small and ordinary” as love. The Doctor's defining characteristic, the thing that set him apart from his people, is that he does.

Apart from that, I liked it. Time heists are fun. Lots of good lines (“I'm going to take your organs out in alphabetical order” “Which alphabet?”; “Archaeology is just theft with patience”; “I've got a bad back. It's aching under the weight of carrying a whole stratum of society”)

And the Doc is doing his professorial thing again – expressing his delight in the TARDIS in terms of its technical perfection (“euclidean geometry has been destroyed!”), and his delight in the singing stones in terms of unusual crystals.

But overall, this episode is about that relationship. I certainly understand it now, but I'm demoralised that's what they've gone with. As they both say throughout this episode: “it's really sad”.

Other Thoughts

You could more charitably rewrite this review to say that the Doctor/River's relationship is more mature and unusual than a straightforward sweethearts romance. This would be true -if there had ever been any love or enthusiasm there on the Doctor's part. But if this is truly River towards the end of her timeline saying "he's never loved me", then...this isn't a mature relationship which has stabilised into fondness over time. It's a depressing mess. 

I'm thinking, uncharitably, of Bagpuss. 

I like the idea that future-earth colonies also have crappy Christmas lights.

I like the idea of a cruise liner specifically for the genocidal rich.