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| "...and they were all wearing eyepatches." |
1 episode. Approx. 45 minutes. Written by: Steven Moffat. Directed by: Jeremy Webb. Produced by: Marcus Wilson.
THE PLOT
It's April 22, 2011, at 5:02 pm, and the Holy Roman Emperor Winston Churchill (Ian McNeice) is troubled. It's always April 22, 2011, and it's always 5:02 pm. "Tick-tock goes the clock," Churchill quotes, "but the clock doesn't tick." He's become aware that something is wrong with time, and sends for the soothsayer - who he locked up in the Tower of London for insisting that something was wrong with time.
The soothsayer is, inevitably, the Doctor, and he has a story for Churchill. A story involving a fixed point in time at Lake Silencio, on April 22, 2011, at 5:02 pm. The time at which the Doctor was shot by a spacesuit-clad River Song. Only River didn't shoot him, disrupting time and causing all of history to happen at once. Now the Doctor must work with his old companions, or at least their counterparts in this scrambled universe, to sort out history's failure.
His reward if he succeeds? The death that was prophesied for him - or so it would appear...
CHARACTERS
The Doctor: Apparently was energized by his encounter with Craig and the Cybermen, and has decided to finally push for answers as to why the Silence wants him dead. This involves killing a Dalek and tossing its eyestalk onto a countertop as if it were a calling card, then surviving a Raiders of the Lost Ark-style double-cross inside a crypt. Once he finds out the nature of "the question" the Silence wish to suppress, he seems resigned to his fate. He tries to push River to restart time in order for his death to move forward.
Of course, there's more to his "death" than appeared at the season's start, but that's no surprise. He may avert his fate, but he does acknowledge that his reputation has become a liability. "I got too big," he declares, "Too noisy. Time to step back into the shadows." Back to being a traveler who simply has adventures, rather than a legendary warrior who changes the very meaning of the word "Doctor" with his presence. I look forward to seeing that - though I wonder if either character or series truly can go back to those simpler times.
Amy: Thanks to growing up next to the Crack in Time, she is able to hold onto her memories of the Doctor even in this bizarre alternate reality. She also remembers what Kovarian did to both her and her daughter, and lets out her anger all at once, in a single memorable moment. The best scene in the episode for both character and actress, though, comes at the end - a lovely, quiet moment in which Amy and River share a genuine mother/daughter moment. Really, the only true mother/daughter moment they've had to date. Given that Alex Kingston is old enough to be playing Karen Gillan's mother, it's startling how convincing the relationship plays.
Rory: The Doctor isn't the real hero of Series Six: Rory is. In any reality, Rory has this season embodied all the greatest virtues: compassion, decency, patience, and unconditional love for his wife. All that without the arrogance the Doctor has so often been guilty of. The scene in which Rory stands at the door, insisting on protecting Amy, River, and the Doctor even while suffering enormous pain, is absolutely in keeping with the man who waited century after century for Amy's return and who couldn't bring himself to sentence Old Amy to death even to get back his beautiful young wife. I do regret that the script doesn't even allow him to get a shot off. Yes, Amy saving him is a cool moment and wonderful to see. But Rory should at least be allowed to stand a moment before his fall.
River Song: Has been so affected by the Doctor that even the control by the Silents' suit can't make her willingly kill him. Which, ironically, the Doctor considers just as bad a thing as the Silents do. The Doctor spends the last part of the episode pushing River to restore the timeline in which he dies... the one thing she is not willing to do, no matter what it might mean for Time in general.
THOUGHTS
I honestly didn't think Moffat could pull it off.
Although I appreciated the character work of Closing Time (if not the plot), I'll admit to some frustration at seeing the finale to such a complex season being confined to a single episode. So much had been planted in the early part of the season, it seemed impossible that it could be satisfactorily wrapped up in 45 short minutes. I honestly wondered if Moffat was perhaps admitting that he had reached too high, if he was just going to wrap it up with a quick throwaway before moving on.
I suppose I should have had more faith. There have been some "off" episodes here and there, and I still think the triggers of Amy's kidnapping and River's identity were pulled too soon, leaving too much dead space between the mid-season cliffhanger and the finale. But The Wedding of River Song does a remarkably good job tying the season together, while still leaving some questions and tantalizing hints for next year.
What really surprises me is that the episode manages to avoid feeling rushed. It moves very quickly, with the momentum that characterizes most of Moffat's episodes, but not so quickly that you're working to keep up. It enjoys the benefit of having so much set up in Moffat's previous Series Six episodes. We know what happens at Lake Silencio, we know who River is, and we know that the Silents want the Doctor dead out of fear of him. With so much groundwork already laid, this 45-minute episode is left with the luxury of simply pulling triggers.
The episode's big reveal isn't really how the Doctor avoids actually "dying." That's fairly mundane plot stuff, and the solution's very obvious the second a previous episode's creation reappears. The important moment comes a bit earlier, when River shows him in a big way what Craig tried to make him see in Closing Time: That even if he isn't perfect, he is a force for good. We get the inverse of last season's finale. Last year, we saw a universe of his enemies showing up to ensure his defeat. This time, we see a universe of those he's helped coming to return the favor. Which they do, if only by making him recognize the enormous amount of good that he's done.
Of course, this is a Steven Moffat episode, so it's stuffed to the brim with cool and clever concepts, many of which seem to exist simply to be cool and clever. For some viewers, I understand that this is a problem - and I genuinely do understand this, particularly if you really want every moment to "mean something" within the series context. But I find it rather enjoyable to stuff parallel universes, pterodactyls, and flying balloon-cars into an episode just because it "looks cool." Besides, while the alternate reality may be unnecessary (the basic plot components could have just as easily occurred in "our" universe, pre-Lake Silencio), it does allow Ian McNeice to show how good an actor he is, by simple virtue of appearing in an episode which doesn't suck. How odd that "Emperor Winston Churchill" feels like a more believable portrayal of Churchill than the live-action cartoon version in the episode that was actually set during World War II.
It's not a perfect finale, and some threads are still left dangling that shouldn't be. Moffat's script never adequately addresses the gaps that had been left in the opening 2-parter. We still don't know exactly when Amy was taken, we still don't know when or why the Doctor dropped Amy and Rory off before the trip to America, and we still don't know what happened to them during the 3-month gap between episodes. I don't know whether Moffat had something in mind that he just didn't have time to address, whether he changed his mind about something as the season progressed, or whether he just never came up with anything good enough to adequately fill the gaps. Regardless, the failure to address what I still believe were deliberate holes in the premiere is the one major failing of this episode.
But it is a fine episode, filled with lovely moments. Add in a tribute to the late Nicholas Courtney's Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, perfectly timed so that it not only acts as fan service but also moves along the plot, and this is very good work. Not quite Moffat at his best, but still thoroughly enjoyable.
Rating: 9/10.
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