The big CaB Doctor Who (2005) rewatch thread - starts May 30, 2022

[daf]

Closing Time

First aired 24th September 2011

Having left Amy and Rory behind for their own safety, the Doctor must soon face his death at Lake Silencio -- but first, there's an old friend he wants to visit. People are going missing, unexplained electrical surges plague the neighbourhood, and a mysterious silver rat stalks the local shopping mall . . .

Trivia largely nicked from :

Spoiler alert

http://www.shannonsullivan.com/drwho/serials/2011l.html +
https://tardis.fandom.com/wiki/Closing_Time_(TV_story) + https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Closing_Time_(Doctor_Who) + https://www.barb.co.uk/viewing-data/weekly-top-30/ + https://guide.doctorwhonews.net/info.php?detail=ratings&type=date :

[close]

• Since Doctor Who's return to television in 2005, each series had concluded with a two-part finale. For Series Six, however, executive producer Steven Moffat instituted a number of changes to the Doctor Who format, one of which was to end the year with a single-episode story: The Wedding Of River Song. The year's penultimate adventure would instead serve as something of a thematic prelude -- a "calm before the storm" in which the Doctor, preparing to face his apparently imminent demise, enjoyed a brief holiday by visiting an old friend. This would be Craig Owens, who was introduced in Gareth Roberts' The Lodger during Series Five. Moffat had been delighted with that episode's reception, and he quickly checked on the interest and availability of actor James Corden to return to the role.
• On July 8th, 2010, Moffat offered Roberts the opportunity to write a sequel, for which a storyline was prepared by mid-September. Keen for the Doctor and Craig's escapades to continue taking place in a mundane, everyday environment, Roberts considered settings such as a hospital, a police station and a supermarket before finally settling on a department store. The involvement of Craig's wife, Sophie, would have to be limited, due to actress Daisy Haggard's commitments to the play Becky Shaw. Similarly, Roberts was instructed to include only a fleeting appearance for Amy and Rory, because his episode would be in production alongside The Girl Who Waited -- which would focus on the Doctor's companions.
• Early drafts of The Lodger had included a villain from Doctor Who's twentieth-century iteration, in the form of the shapeshifting Meglos. Roberts was again eager to incorporate a classic monster in his new script. Settling on the Cybermen, Roberts decided that they should lurk in the background for much of the episode -- in the manner of Sixties stories like The Moonbase -- so that they would not detract from the interplay between the Doctor and Craig. As such, he also decided to resurrect the Cybermats, the Cybermen's rodent-like servitors which had not been seen since 1975's Revenge Of The Cybermen. Moffat proposed that the new Cybermat should sport fangs, making it more of a physical threat.
• Having decided that a key element of the narrative would be the challenges which Craig was facing as a new father, Roberts' storyline acquired the working title "Three Cybermen And A Baby". Craig and Sophie's child was originally a girl, first named Grace and later Tess. The disappearances were not a new phenomenon, but occurred every few decades, to be accompanied by strange graffiti. Various electronic and mechanical components were also going missing, and it was this trail which led the Doctor to the store. The narrative originally ended with Craig destroying the Cybermen with a wrecking ball. This was later revised to hinge on the Doctor transmitting the Guardian's personality into the Cybermen, overwhelming them.
• Roberts' first draft was completed in early November. By the end of January 2011, the baby had become a boy named Alfie, and the historical element of the disappearances had been dropped. The episode was now untitled, after a decision to double the number of Cybermen effectively scuppered "Three Cybermen And A Baby". An element introduced late in the script's development was the Doctor's ability to converse with Alfie; Moffat had come up with the idea of the Doctor speaking "Baby" while writing the series' seventh episode, A Good Man Goes To War, and he now suggested its inclusion to Roberts. The final two scenes -- the three children remembering their encounter with the Doctor, and Madame Kovarian's reunion with River Song -- were left for Moffat to write, forming a segue into the series finale, The Wedding Of River Song.
• In searching for an episode title, some consideration was given to "The Last Adventure" in order to further build up to the Doctor's putative death in the series finale. On the other hand, Roberts hoped to come up with a satisfactory idea which would incorporate the word "Lodger". Eventually giving up, he instead generated a list of options which would reflect the department store setting. It was his writing partner, Clayton Hickman, who finally suggested Closing Time.
• Three versions of the Cybermat were made. The first was simply a "stunt double" which did not have teeth and was meant for being thrown around or laid still. The second was a cable-controlled "close-up" version that had teeth and thrashed, and was used for when the characters handled it. Smith broke this one when he hit it with a frying pan in the scene where Craig is being attacked, and it was subsequently repaired with tape. The third was radio-controlled to dash along the floor. The post-production special effects team The Mill created a computer-generated Cybermat that leapt up to attack Craig.
• The episode received generally positive reviews, with critics praising the comic interplay between Smith and Corden. Dan Martin of The Guardian questioned the decision to air a standalone episode as the penultimate show of the series, calling "Closing Time" "something of a curiosity" as well as writing positively about Smith and Corden's "Laurel and Hardy act". However, he felt that the Cybermen had been deprived of their menace. Gavin Fuller of The Daily Telegraph awarded the episode three out of five stars, comparing Smith's performance favourably to that of Patrick Troughton. Neela Debnath of The Independent said it was an "intriguing change of pace" and succeeded with "great comedic moments" and the "brilliant chemistry between the Doctor and Craig". She praised Corden for excelling after his "average" performance in "The Lodger".
• Patrick Mulkern, writing for Radio Times, thought that the ending was an "emotional overload...but what better way to deal with the emotionally deprived Cybermen?" He was pleased with the "sweet cameo" from Amy and Rory and the "tense coda" with River Song and Kovarian. SFX magazine reviewer Rob Power gave the episode three and a half out of five stars, saying it "[worked] wonders" as a light-hearted episode before the finale and with "properly bad" Cybermen. Though he thought the Cyberman lacked "real menace" and Craig escaped in a "cheesy way", he considered the main focus to be on the Doctor's "farewell tour" and praised Smith's performance. He thought that the moments of "sad-eyed loneliness and resignation" added weight to "what would otherwise have been a paper-thin episode". Christopher Hooton of Metro found the episode to be "soppy" and "sickly sweet", criticising Corden for his "whooping", "annoying" performance, the reliance on "slapstick capers" that "lurched a bit too close to the CBBC end of the spectrum" and the "jaunty [and] smug" soundtrack.
• "Closing Time" was first broadcast in the United Kingdom on BBC One on 24 September 2011, and in the United States on BBC America. It achieved overnight ratings of 5.3 million viewers, coming in second for its time slot behind All-Star Family Fortunes. When final consolidated figures were taken into account, the number rose to 6.93 million, making it the fifth most watched programme on BBC One, and the eighteenth most watched programme on UK TV for the week.

The ELEVENTH DOCTOR Ratings (Series 6 edition)

Spoiler alert

1/10

- - - - - -
2/10

- - - - - -
3/10

- - - - - -
4/10

- - - - - -
5/10

- - - - - -
6/10

- - - - - -
7/10

- - - - - -
8/10

- - - - - -
9/10

- - - - - -
10/10

[close]

[daf]

86 | "Closing Time"



The Ballad of the Last Chance Changing Room

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Highlights :
• Sophie's Fridge Food Numbering Note
• "Oh, you've redecorated ... I don't like it!"
• The "No, YOU shush" Sketch
• Doctor's Magic Baby Becalming Shush Finger
• Stormageddon, Dark Lord of All
• The Craig Underdeveloped Brain Shush Finger Funnybit
• "The Alignment of Exeter?"
• The Doctor's "Here to Help" Toyshop Name-badge
• Nina's Emotional Journey (quite inspiring)
• The "beam-me-up Star Trek" Teleporter Tease
• "Bit out of practice, but I've had some wonderful feedback" Kissing Klinch
• Doctor Whotson Investigates : "That Silver Rat Thing"
• Amy Autograph Petrichor Poster
• Funny Finger "Playing Possum" Air-Quotes
• Craig's Cyberman Conversion Crushing Crybaby
• The Two Daddies Companion Confusion Chucklebutty
• Tricky Time-travel Tidy-up (Sunday glaziers)
• The Blue Envelopes and Cowboy Hat Callback
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -



- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Other Bits :
• Space Place #61 : Exedor (alignment of)
• Space Baddies #5 : Cybermen (or Cybusmen?)
• Space Critter #9 : Cybermat (silver rat)
• Sonic #69 : Craig's stairs (suphur emissions)
• Sonic #70 : Lift door opener (out of order)
• Sonic #71 : Cybermat Scrutineer (real mouth)
• Sonic #72 : Stormageddon Soothing Ceiling Stars
• Sonic #73 : Cybermat Cancelling Green Laser Beam
• Sonic #74 : Underground Cybermen Ship
• Just Said It #4 : Papoose Alfie ("Doctor Who")
• Diary Delve #5 : "Utah ---> Co-ordinates Space... 2/04/11 5:02pm. Lake Silencio"
• Kovarian Klue #6 : "Tick Tock Goes the Clock" (River Recruitment)
• Silence #8 : Kovarian's Horrible Heavies
• Technobollocks : Metastatic Energy
• Technobollocks : Bonded Disillium
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -



- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

9/10

[BritishHobo]

Yeah it's not bad is it? It has a pleasing dusk feeling to it - shop about to close,  that gives it a real sense of being the quiet moment before something huge. Playing Craig is the most likeable thing Corden's done, and I think it's nice to have a little returning mate for Smith to drop in on and catch up with.

Its biggest problem is the whole episode just serves as a reminder that Moffat doesn't seem to want to actually tell any of this series arc story onscreen. Just constantly putting it off. I hate the cliffhanger, because it does nothing but leapfrog over all of the interesting inbetween stuff that might have given more depth to River's battle with the urge to kill the Doctor. "Hi it's eyepatch lady again and it's time to put you back in the spacesuit now." Fuck off.

[daf]

Radio Times (24 September 2011)

[Alberon]

Closing Time

The title refers, of course, to the now imminent, totally unavoidable death of the Doctor. He has been avoiding the time and place of his death for as long as possible but now he's on yet another farewell tour.

This is, as far as we know, the first big time jump the series does. This Doctor is two hundred years older than he was when he dropped the Ponds off in their new house in the previous episode. Smith does a good job of portraying the extra years, though he is still essentially the Doctor.

The episode itself is a mostly lighter runaround with the Cybermen lurking in the shadows. This has, traditionally, when they have worked best rather than stomping around in lockstep like the modern series usually does. But here it doesn't really take off, mainly as the episode is leaning towards comedy.

While Amy and Rory make a cameo appearance the main guest star is James Corden as Craig and his baby son, Stormageddon. I suppose your mileage with the episode does depend on how much you like James Corden and for all his punchability at times he is very good at what he does. The jokes aren't bad and the episode bumps along amiably with a dark edge underneath as the Doctor does his best to think about his death the next day and live in the moment one last time.

The episode does feel a bit cheap to me, I'm not entirely certain why. It certainly looks like more money went on the other episode being made at the same time, "The Girl Who Waited". The Cybermat looks a bit shit but then, to be fair, they never looked great. The resolution is the same old 'make the Cybermens heads explode' which is a bit tedious.

In the end the episode is all fine, but I personally didn't get on with it in the rewatch and found it more than a little irritating. After the episode properly ends we get what is essentially a bit of next week's episode. Eyepatch lady is back and River is going back into the suit to kill the Doctor for reasons that frankly never come close to making sense.

6/10

[superthunderstingcar]

Closing Time? Shit For Cunts Time, more like.

[daf]

The Wedding Of River Song

First aired 1st October 2011

The Doctor is destined to die on the shores of Lake Silencio, Utah, at 5.02pm on April 22nd, 2011. However, River Song refuses to let events play out as they were intended, and she inadvertently fractures time in the process. The Doctor now finds himself on an Earth where all history is happening simultaneously . . .

Trivia largely nicked from :

Spoiler alert

http://www.shannonsullivan.com/drwho/serials/2011m.html +
https://tardis.fandom.com/wiki/The_Wedding_of_River_Song_(TV_story) + https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wedding_of_River_Song + https://www.barb.co.uk/viewing-data/weekly-top-30/ + https://guide.doctorwhonews.net/info.php?detail=ratings&type=date :

[close]

• Nicholas Courtney passed away on February 22nd, 2011. He had been a stalwart member of the Doctor Who family since 1965, when he appeared as ill-fated Space Security Service agent Bret Vyon in the first four episodes of The Daleks' Master Plan. However, Courtney's most famous role came in 1968's The Web Of Fear, in which he made his debut as Colonel Lethbridge-Stewart. He was back at the end of the year for The Invasion, now promoted to Brigadier and in charge of the United Nations Intelligence Taskforce. 1n 1970, with Jon Pertwee's debut as the Third Doctor, Courtney became a regular member of the cast. He was last seen as Lethbridge-Stewart in 2008's Enemy Of The Bane for the spin-off series The Sarah Jane Adventures.
• In late February, Doctor Who executive producer Steven Moffat started work on his script for the Series Six finale. Eventually known as The Wedding Of River Song, it would wrap up the year-long story arc about the Doctor's apparent demise at Lake Silencio, Utah. Upon learning that Courtney had passed away, Moffat quickly concluded that an actor -- and a character -- who had meant so much to Doctor Who for so long deserved more than just a dedication running in front of an episode. Instead, he incorporated two pivotal elements into his script as a tribute to Courtney. Not only would the Doctor be galvanised to face his own fate after learning that the Brigadier had died, but special eyepatches would also factor prominently into the story. The latter was an homage to Courtney's role as the alternate-universe Brigade Leader in 1970's Inferno, which had inspired one of the actor's favourite convention tales.
• Unusually, filming for The Wedding Of River Song had begun months before Moffat tackled the script. As his plans for the series coalesced, Moffat knew of certain developments which would have to take place in the finale, and so he wrote a few pages of script back in the autumn of 2010. They became part of director Toby Haynes' shooting schedule while recording material for the series premiere, The Impossible Astronaut / Day Of The Moon, in the United States. On November 19th, 2010, Haynes recorded the revelation of the mysterious astronaut's true identity at Lake Powell in Page, Arizona -- although not all of this material would ultimately suit the script in its final form.
• The director for the balance of the episode would be Jeremy Webb, who had recently completed work on The Curse Of The Black Spot. Webb's first task was to shoot the material on the bridge of the Teselecta at Doctor Who's usual studio home in Upper Boat. This took place on April 4th, during the recording of Let's Kill Hitler. Also completed in advance of the main shoot, on April 7th, was the sequence at the late Brigadier's nursing home -- actually Hensol Castle in Hensol.
• The cast of The Wedding Of River Song included a number of familiar faces. Frances Barber had appeared throughout Series Six as Madame Kovarian, and she would now be drawing her storyline to a close. This would also be the fourth and final Doctor Who episode for Ian McNeice as Winston Churchill, and the third and final story for Simon Fisher-Becker as Dorium Maldovar. Simon Callow, meanwhile, was reprising the role of Charles Dickens which he had originated for 2005's The Unquiet Dead. A familiar name wearing an unfamiliar face was Mark Gatiss, who would be hidden beneath heavy make-up in the role of Gantok. For his appearance in the finale, he would be credited as "Rondo Haxton" -- a tribute to actor Rondo Hatton, whom Gatiss felt he resembled in his Gantok make-up. Hatton had suffered from acromegaly, leading to a series of villainous roles during the Forties.
• The inclusion of a Dalek in The Wedding Of River Song was the culmination of a deliberate wind-up on Moffat's part. Although he believed that the Daleks were an essential part of Doctor Who and should appear on a regular basis, he had been teasing the British press that they were being "rested" for Series Six. All the same, Moffat's decision to include a Dalek in the finale came on the spur of the moment, and was not by design. To represent the malfunctioning Dalek, the white Paradigm casing introduced in Series Five's Victory Of The Daleks was heavily distressed. With the blue and orange Paradigm Daleks having been effectively destroyed when they were repurposed as the stone Daleks of the 2010 finale, The Big Bang, this meant that only the red and yellow versions remained intact. As it would transpire, however, neither would ever be used again on-screen; The Wedding Of River Song would mark the last use of an original Paradigm casing in a featured role.
• The cast found working with the eye patches strange as they had to act with one eye; Alex Kingston remarked that it made her "slightly dizzy". Karen Gillan was allowed to fire a specially-made machine gun used for films. The script called for an Indiana Jones style tunnel for the Headless Monks' chamber, but as that kind of location was not available in Cardiff a set was built instead. The skulls were hand-crafted and required a lot of preparation, so it was one of the first things started for the episode's production.
• During post-production, Sian Williams and Bill Turnbull, the hosts of Breakfast on BBC One, provided dialogue for the interview with Dickens. Dubbing was also required to introduce the term "eye drive" for the devices originally called "data cores", when it became clear that viewers might not understand that this was referring to the eyepatches.
• The seventy-four-second prequel for The Wedding Of River Song was released online on September 24th, immediately after the transmission of the preceding episode, Closing Time. It depicted two guards checking on the imprisoned Silents in Area 52.
• While Doctor Who would continue at Christmas with The Doctor, The Widow And The Wardrobe, this was the end of the line for the behind-the-scenes companion series Doctor Who Confidential, which had been running on BBC Three since 2005. On September 27th, it was announced that the programme was being cancelled as a consequence of budget cuts -- despite the fact that some material had already been recorded to chronicle the making of the upcoming Christmas special. As a result, the Doctor Who Confidential episode which accompanied The Wedding Of River Song, entitled When Time Froze, became the series finale.
• The episode received mostly positive reviews from critics, with some reservations over the resolution and character interactions. Dan Martin of The Guardian gave a positive review, believing that the episode "moves along the bigger, 50-year story and effectively reboots the show". He particularly praised it for being simplistic, as well as the visuals of all history running together at once. Rachel Tarley, writing for Metro, praising the "gripping race" against time and noting that the script was "snappy and witty throughout, but the episode had its eerie and touching moments where necessary, too". Gavin Fuller of The Daily Telegraph called it an "uneven ending"; he praised it for being "visually clever" and liked the way the Silence were handled, but thought the Teselecta solution was "a bit of a cop-out". Neela Debnath of The Independent was displeased with the episode, calling it a "brainteaser" that "refused to tie up the loose ends neatly", and that as a finale it was "underwhelming in terms of drama and overwhelming in terms of information". However, she praised the fact that Moffat appears to be spreading storylines over several series, believing it "strengthens the show".
• "The Wedding of River Song" was first broadcast in the United Kingdom on BBC One on 1 October 2011 at the slightly earlier time of 7.05pm; Strictly Come Dancing returned as its lead-in, while the premiere of Merlin's fourth series was scheduled immediately afterwards. Overnight ratings showed that the episode was watched by 6.1 million viewers, the third most-watched programme of the evening. Final consolidated figures by the Broadcasters' Audience Research Board were 7.67 million viewers, making it the seventh highest for BBC One and the fourteenth most watched programme on UK TV for the week.

Prequel:

Spoiler alert

[close]

The ELEVENTH DOCTOR Ratings (Series 6 edition)

Spoiler alert

1/10

- - - - - -
2/10

- - - - - -
3/10

- - - - - -
4/10

- - - - - -
5/10

- - - - - -
6/10

- - - - - -
7/10

- - - - - -
8/10

- - - - - -
9/10

- - - - - -
10/10

[close]

[dontpaintyourteeth]

also shite

[BritishHobo]

I watched this last night and it made me TOO ANGRY all over again. Review to follow on what a big old bag of shit it is

[BritishHobo]

The Wedding of River Song

This is really it I think, the proper nadir. Everything else I ever disliked about Moffat's Who, I've come around to on the rewatch. I get everything else he's going for, from here on out - from Clara's introduction through to Capaldi's regeneration. This, to me at least, is the one point that stands out as an absolute duff note.

Its core problem to me is it's taking the piss out of the audience. It's stringing you along. It's not a story, it's a collection of scenes putting off the inevitable. There are some great ideas in there - I really like all of time at once, with Roman chariots in the street, and trains going into pyramids and stuff - but Moffat doesn't seem to get that nobody cares about big flashy ideas when there's a very specific thing they're waiting to see. I'm not fucking bothered about the 51st century and Live Chess and Dorium's head and a spooky morgue. I want to know what's happened to River since Let's Kill Hitler, I want to know what's happened on Lake Silencio, I want to know what goes down when they finally face each other. But it's not even not answering the questions you want answered - does the Doctor die? How does he get out of it? - it's asked a load of new questions about a mad alternate-universe, and it's not answering THOSE.

When it keeps cutting back to Churchill going "oh bluster it all Doctor, get to the point!!", you just think... being self-aware about it doesn't change the fact that this is a fundamentally rubbish way to tell a story your viewers are invested in. There's also the bit where Dorium really builds up to the big key all-important fundamental earth-shattering question that's going to fucking change everything when you find it out, oh god this big terrible secret, oh this thing this enormous thing - and then it jumps over the question to the Doctor in the TARDIS and Dorium going "Well you know what it is now!!" And then back to Churchill. "What was the question, Doctor?" Absolute pisstake.

The only good moment is the phone-call about the Brigadier's death, which is a nice way of causing the Doctor to stop running. It's the only moment in the entire episode, potentially the entire series arc, which feels convincing on a character level. But even then, the thing that it's causing the Doctor to do is such a muddled mess that it can't be affecting outside of that. It doesn't make you think "oh how moving that it's made him finally accept his death", because you're too busy thinking "well I still don't really get why he has to die, because I'm not privy to all of the information, because of this wearying shit with The Big Question".

So almost half the episode is gone (in fact two minutes shy of half) before you actually get back to the companions you've grown to love. Except you don't, because they're dull alternate versions of themselves and Amy and Rory can't remember each other. So the twenty minutes we might get of character development, catching up with our TARDIS team after they've returned to normality, we just spend instead with a vague air of mystery about whether they'll remember each other, which yes obviously they will. There seems to be a surface-level awareness that it's fun when Rory is dressed as a soldier, but he's written as such a generic Army Man for most of his screentime that the sense of fun isn't really there.

Half an hour before we properly get to see River. Here we go? But then the hollow nature of it all is compounded, because this is a River AFTER making the decision not to shoot the Doctor, so once again we're jumping over the things that guide her character. Again nothing that is happening means anything, because we barely have a handle on the characters or why they would do what they do. "It was such an error Madame Kovarian - take a child, turn her into a psychopath, and make her fall in love with the Doctor." Well I wouldn't know, River; the show has done its absolute best to avoid showing me any of this. Similarly an angry Amy says "You took my baby away from me, and hurt her - and now she's all grown up and she's fine - but I'll never see her again." and this is the cherry on top. That's just stupid. What a stupid thing to have a protagonist tell the villain midway through the finale. It's rubbish!

The wedding is where it all falls down. It's just something they do just to do it. The Doctor is angry at River for the terrible crime of not wanting him to be dead - even though he knows full well that he has engineered a plan to stop himself dying. There's no sense of love there, no sense of the pair of them understanding each other and doing something together. They're against each other, in a way that we once again don't have a grasp on. Why is the Doctor so angry? When he says to Amy and Rory "This is your daughter - I hope you're proud", it's just a total disconnect. This episode does not have me on any level. The Doctor convinces her to let him die or whatever I don't care because I don't care what these confusing versions of my favourite characters do. The Doctor is dead now!!!!!

He's not though is he. Fundamentally the reveal at the end doesn't work, because the mystery all episode hasn't been about how the Doctor could get out of his death. It's just been "what the fuck is going on?" I think when you really dig down, the biggest failure of the episode is that Moffat seems to think people will be watching it genuinely believing the Doctor is going to die. That when it's revealed he did get out of it, you'll go HOLY SHIT, NO WAY! When it should be obvious that actually everyone is watching it knowing he obviously won't die, and obviously will have a clever way out of it, and waiting to find out the clever way he gets out of it. That's the only thing that matters, and to Moffat it's an afterthought. "Oh, how did he get out of it? Um... uh, the robot got shot instead. I hope that's satisfying enough for you!"

And it's not. Because I've just been watching noise and sound and stuff happen. I don't know why the characters have done what they've done. It's just an ourborous of questions. Questions all the way down. Why does he have to die? Because they see him die. Why do they see him die? Because he invites them to see his death. Well why is he so resigned to the fact that he needs to die? Because a computer record says so, I guess? The series arc has essentially happened because of something people read online. Why is River going to kill him? Because a nebulously evil woman has decided to make her. The threat is never established as a believable thing, so nothing afterwards is compelling, and I can't get interested in anything the characters do. The explanation of "I've become too big, I need to disappear" is yet another thing that feels bolted-on; maybe if that had been the storyline, this would all feel worthwhile. But it doesn't. It feels like I've been tricked into investing in something that just wanted to distract me before pointing elsewhere.

The biggest dick move at the end, and to be honest I couldn't fault anyone for switching off forever at this point, is all the new guff he brings up in the last scene. Oh Doctor, it's all coming for you. The fields of Trenzalore. The fall of the Eleventh. THE BIG QUESTION!!!!!! But Moffat has shown, with this very episode, that he doesn't actually care about making mysteries worthwhile or satisfying. He just cares about making them there, and making them be long. You didn't take the Lake Silencio mystery seriously, so why should I bother to get invested in whatever "the fields of Trenzalore and the fall of the Eleventh" is? This was supposed to be the fall of the Eleventh, and it wasn't. You're not telling me why "Doctor Who?" is an interesting question for his character, you're just saying it (again, and again, and again) because it sounds like it might be.

Doctor who? Doctor Who? DOC-TOR WHO?!

OH I DON'T CARE

1/10

[superthunderstingcar]

Superb post, BritishHobo. A deserved evisceration of a terrible episode. Moffat was right up his own arse here, having bought into his own hype for too long. He would go on to do the same on Sherlock, of course.

Dark Water/Death in Heaven still manages to be worse, somehow, so it's not quite the true nadir for me.


(I'm assuming this wasn't an April Fool's post by BritishHobo, who in reality loves it, because I really do hate The Wedding of River Sue.)

[BritishHobo]

Thank you! Yeah, you can really see the germ of the contempt that will be used in Sherlock - with exactly the same question of how the title character will escape death. I think he failed to understand that you want a show to be clever, but in a way that makes you feel clever as well. You and the show should be on the same page at the end. The show shouldn't be standing there, smirking like a smug smart-arse, while you go "...what? I don't get it!"

[Alberon]

The Wedding of River Song

Time has collapsed and it's all happening at one mushed together in a chaotic mess. And so is the episode. It's the series finale and it all hangs on how the arc resolves. The Doctor is going to die, irrevocably and it's impossible to avoid. The entire audience knows that he actually isn't, that he will, somehow, avoid his unavoidable fate. The fun comes from seeing how that is going to happen.

Except it isn't fun.

The storytelling keeps hiding bits of information from the audience, like how River avoided killing the Doctor after all, or the ultimate question (which ends up being a load of wank anyway).

Before heading to his death the Doctor spends the last few hours barreling around the universe collecting information on the Silence. I can sort of believe that he wouldn't have done it in the preceeding two centuries choosing to just ignore it all. The death of the Brigadier finally convinces him to go meet his fate. Lethbridge-Stewart gets to die in bed of old age just like the Seventh Doctor knew. It is the one part of the episode that rings true and gives a long-running character (whose on-screen appearances in the Whoniverse run for over forty years) a better send-off than just a dedication to the actor.

At the lake River in the spacesuit appears and manages to avoid killing him. Once again, the Silence's weirdly convoluted plans are thwarted. Except in defying the fixed moment in time everything collapses.

And you end up with an alternate world peopled by characters you know, but all playing mostly different versions of themselves. It's apparent very quickly that it means nothing and is just marking time until it arrives at the conclusion. In this world the time is always the same, stuck on the same moment. Again it's just like the episode. Nothing is happening, nothing is moving forward. There's an action sequence with the Silence attacking the soldiers, but nothing happens.

Up on top of the pyramid there's a rushed wedding between the Doctor and River Song that seems to happen just because it's in the title (very Chibnallian). Then he whispers her a secret and she understands. Time restarts and we're back to the moment of the Doctor's death.

We all know he's going to live. The fun, as said, is in how. It needs to be an elaborate plan, a dangerous threading the tiniest needle of success, managed through great endeavour and sacrifice and -- oh, he just borrows the Teselecta. After that there's the new arc suggested about Trenzalore and the ridiculous question and that's it.

An hour of nothing ending with Moffatt flipping off the viewers.

And so ends the two series arc of the Silence (except for the small bits in Smith's last episode). Too convoluted and ill-explained for the audience to keep in their heads for all this time. I've barely remembered the bits given over the much smaller time of the rewatch. It still makes no real sense. An utter mess.

2/10

[gotmilk]

My main memory of this episode is finding the resolution a massive cheat. That line in the premiere - "that is most definitely the doctor and he is most definitely dead" - felt like an implicit promise to the audience, so I can't help but feel there was some change of plan along the way. The fact that the numbskulls were introduced in the mid-series opener adds to the impression that Moffat was scrambling to come up with a new answer in the second half the series, seeding a way for the Doctor to escape so it wouldn't feel like a total cop-out. Maybe the original idea involved the Flesh in some capacity, but was deemed too obvious.

[BritishHobo]

This was my immediate reaction, back when I was first dipping my toes in the Doctor Who threads:

That was just a little bit impossibly shit, I'm sad to say. Just all crazy diversions for forty minutes or so and then a quick excuse as to how he didn't die.

Probably one of my only opinions on the show that's completely unchanged.

[Alberon]

A rewatch only exposes how truly empty it all is and the resolution is a raspberry to the viewer.

The worst of all the NuWho series finales?

[daf]

87 | "The Wedding of River Song"



I Do, I Who, I Do, I Who, I Do

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Highlights :
• The Balloon Car Rush Hour
• Dickens' Bill and Sian Sofa Spooky Sneakpeek
• Sherlock Churchill Interrogates : "The Ceased Chronometry Chin-scratcher"
• Knitting For Girls
• The Babbling Beheaded Blue Bonce Box
• The Shifting Skull Shelf Sketch
• Devastating Dead Brig Blue Envelope Delivery Decision
• Astronaut River's Doctor Death Dodging Disaster
• Special Agent Boss Lady
• Doctor's Dating Dudvice : "Texting and scones"
• Excruciating Egony Electric Eyepatch Execution
• Top of Pyramid Weird Wedding
• Baffling Time Restarting Snog Stumper
• Amy's Kovarian Killing Konscience Krisis
• Preposterous Tessalecta Death Dodging Twist
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -



- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Other Bits :
• Stardate : 22nd April 2011 (5:02pm)
• Space Place #62 : London
• Space Place #62 : Area 52 (Cairo Pyramid)
• Space Baddies #6 : Headless Monks
• Space Critter #10 : Pterodactyl (vermin)
• Space Critter #11 : Mammoth (Caesar Churchill's)
• Space Sport #2 : Live Chess (four million volts)
• Celebrity Name-Drop #9 : Napoleon (thrown bottle)
• Just Said It #5 : "DOC-TORR WHOOOOOO!?!?!" (Dorium)
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -



- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

3/10

[Kelvin]

The worst of all the NuWho series finales?

Nah. For all its many flaws, at least The Wedding of River Song has some fun visuals which elevate it above, say, Chibnall's nothingy first finale. 

It's also more dynamic than everyone standing on the spot for the series 4 finale.

[BritishHobo]

Yeah, I was surprised on the rewatch at how flat Journey's End was once it kicks off. It does have the Moffat series 6 vibe of getting you very excited with its cliffhanger - AHHH fucking hell is he gonna regenerate?! - only to spend the episode kicking the can down the road. Sticking Tate and hand-Tennant in a TARDIS and just holding them off-screen until the plot needs them again. It feels mechanical in the same way. Just as with the wedding here, when hand-Doctor comes in and kills all the daleks, and Donna's got a Timelord brain, you think "does this really have all that much to do with the character arcs I've been following, or is it just random?"

I've never considered it before, but it does make me appreciate at least that (with one caveat coming up in a couple of series time) Moffat always set his finales somewhere weird and wonderful. RTD couldn't resist every finale and story arc being set in contemporary London. Whereas Moffat's made a choice that, if he's gonna set a finale in contemporary London, it's gonna have to be a mad timey-wimey version of London where all of time is happening at once.

It's the big pro and the big con, I guess. I love his imagination and vision in setting his stories in mad, far-future places, but the core problem with series 6 is that there is absolutely no clear answer to the question "well where/when is this story set?" What is the central thing of this story? There's no clear origin for the events. It's mainly 51st century stuff, but it predominantly concerns a murder in 1969 that only our heroes are present for, all at the behest of a villain who we know is from the 51st century, but that's about all we know. And committed by a character whose timeline gets so muddled by this series that it's hard to tell where the bulk of her life actually takes place. Aside from her adventures with the Doctor, does River generally live a linear life in the 51st century? The series never bothers to tell us this, along with most things about Kovarian, so these holes are all we're left with. Who has put her in prison in the 51st century for something she did in 1969? Where is Kovarian now her grand plan is complete? Is there a big sigh of relief in 51st century space now the Doctor appears to be dead? We never find out. And the episode leaves us knowing we never will, 'cos it's on to the next thing.

[BritishHobo]

As a random aside, I wonder what it is about Wharton Street in Cardiff - the spot where the Romans in their chariot wait at a traffic light in this episode. Not only is it also the spot where Ruby and her mates wait at a traffic light in The Church on Ruby Road, as the big snowman head lurches above them. It's also where Rose escapes Hendriks at the very beginning of New Who, where Rose and Mickey get shot at by killer Santas in The Christmas Invasion, the Doctor and Donna escape from killer Santas (and hail a taxi) in The Runaway Bride, and where a forlorn Bernard Cribbins wanders at the beginning of The End of Time. It obviously brings out a Christmassy spirit in RTD, but I guess it's also good for city-centre traffic scenes as it's a rare road in the city that isn't pedestrianised but only serves a few trade entrances, so it causes very minimal disruption.

[superthunderstingcar]

Who has put her in prison in the 51st century for something she did in 1969?

Well Magnus Greel was, infamously, the minister of justice. So probably him.

[BritishHobo]

Who's his supervisor, I want words

[daf]

To avoid having a 2 month hole punched in the middle of our Season 7 re-watch by the 15th Doctor's new Series, the new schedule will be :

• 15th April : The next Christmas episode
• 29th April : Pre-Season 7A Bonus Episode

Spoiler alert

The second reason is that I'm very very tired and just need a bit of a break!

[close]

[mjwilson]

My main memory of this episode is finding the resolution a massive cheat. That line in the premiere - "that is most definitely the doctor and he is most definitely dead" - felt like an implicit promise to the audience, so I can't help but feel there was some change of plan along the way.

It also wasn't that long since a Big Finish story had done a story where the Doctor dies, and brings him back in a really clever way. So since Moffat was well-known for his puzzle-box plots, it seemed like you could expect him to do something equally clever in the show.

[daf]

Sunday Express (25 September 2011)  |  TES (30 September 2011)



Radio Times (1 October 2011)

[H-O-W-L]

The biggest relief of the Wedding of River Song is that it's so fucking bonkers it ends up being completely and utterly self-contained and is basically never fucking mentioned again. It's like being privvy an absolute deafening cacophony of pots, pans, cups full of springs, clockwork parts, cymbals, and bells getting hurled down a steel spiral staircase at 4am. But you're so fucking tired you just do not give a singular fuck about going to see what the noise was -- you are so jaded by your exhaustion you just go "ah, I'm sure that's all right." and then come the wake-up, there is absolutely no sign of the orchestra of shit you heard during the night-- you just completely forget about it by dinner time.

It's like an inverse version of the Timeless Child, its absolute insanity reaches such critical mass it becomes absolute mundanity and then folds in on itself like a neutron star of dreck and disappears from the canon forever. I'm pretty sure River next shows up with no references to this shite at all.

[daf]

Daily Telegraph (24 February 2011)  |  Independent (26 February 2011)  |  Sunday Express (27 February 2011)

[daf]

The Doctor, The Widow And The Wardrobe

First aired 25th December 2011

Just days before Christmas 1941, Madge Arwell's airman husband is lost over the English Channel. Madge dreads telling the terrible news to their children, Lily and Cyril, so instead she takes them out of London to an old mansion house owned by a distant relative. The caretaker of the estate turns out to be the Doctor, whom Madge rescued from a crisis years earlier. He plans to ease Madge's heartbreak by giving Lily and Cyril the merriest Christmas ever . . .

Trivia largely nicked from :

Spoiler alert

http://www.shannonsullivan.com/drwho/serials/2011n.html +
https://tardis.fandom.com/wiki/The_Doctor,_the_Widow_and_the_Wardrobe_(TV_story) + https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Doctor,_the_Widow_and_the_Wardrobe + https://www.barb.co.uk/viewing-data/weekly-top-30/ + https://guide.doctorwhonews.net/info.php?detail=ratings&type=date :

[close]

• Executive producer Steven Moffat's 2010 Doctor Who Christmas special, A Christmas Carol, was unambiguously based upon the Charles Dickens classic of the same name. When it came time to plan the 2011 edition, Moffat decided that he would again seek inspiration in a beloved novel associated with Christmas -- this time, CS Lewis' The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe. Published in 1950, it told the story of four children, who were evacuated to a rural estate during the Blitz. There they stumbled upon a wardrobe which led to the enchanted world of Narnia. Populated by talking animals and other mythical creatures, Narnia was in the grip of the forbidding White Witch, who had imposed an eternal winter. With the help of the lion Aslan, the Pevensie siblings defeated the White Witch and became the land's benevolent rulers.
• Moffat decided to adopt the general framework of the Lewis story for his Doctor Who script: it would be set during the Second World War and involve children retreating to an old house in the countryside from which they would pass into a wintry fantasy world where time ran at a different rate. Like A Christmas Carol, Moffat knew that his viewers would recognise the thinly-veiled source material, and so the special was ultimately known as The Doctor, The Widow And The Wardrobe.
• Moffat was keen for the special to stand apart from the intricate story arcs which had characterised his first two Doctor Who series. As part of the ongoing narrative, the Doctor's companions, Amy and Rory, had ostensibly left the TARDIS in The God Complex, although they continued to be a part of the programme. For The Doctor, The Widow And The Wardrobe, Karen Gillan and Arthur Darvill would be relegated to cameo roles; this would also help avoid clashing with a stage production of Doctor Faustus to which Darvill had committed during the special's recording dates. Instead, Moffat returned to the idea of pairing the Doctor with a one-off companion, as had been the case for each of the Christmas specials between 2006 and 2009. To this end, he devised the character of Madge Arwell, through whom he could celebrate the tenacity of motherhood.
• Moffat began work on his script around the end of June 2011. Of his two fellow executive producers, Beth Willis had left Doctor Who at the end of Series Six while Piers Wenger would be departing upon the completion of the Christmas special. Moffat therefore paid tribute to his colleagues by lending versions of their names to the Androzani rangers 'Billis' and 'Ven-Garr'. The concept of the Wooden King and Wooden Queen was an image drawn from Moffat's childhood nightmares -- in this case, a figure glimpsed standing by his bedroom door as he awoke in the dark. A late change saw Lucy Arwell renamed Lily. Lucy Pevensie was the pivotal character of The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe, but it was felt that including a young girl with the same name was an homage too far.
• Guest starring as Madge Arwell was Claire Skinner, a noted stage actress who was best known for her leading role in the sitcom Outnumbered. Amongst the supporting cast was Alexander Armstrong, playing Reg Arwell. Although this would be his first on-screen appearance in Doctor Who, he had spent five years providing the voice of the computer Mr Smith for the spin-off series The Sarah Jane Adventures and in The Stolen Earth / Journey's End. Meanwhile, the role of Billis would be portrayed by Arabella Weir. She had the distinction of having played a version of the Doctor, in the comical 2003 Doctor Who Unbound audio play 'Exile' from Big Finish Productions. Weir was also a good friend of Tenth Doctor David Tennant, and his former landlady; Tennant was the godfather to her two children.
• Ever since Doctor Who's return to television in 2005, the production calendar for a regular series had always begun in July, but this would not be the case in 2011. Because Series Seven wouldn't begin airing until the second half of 2012, only The Doctor, The Widow And The Wardrobe needed to go before the cameras prior to the new year. Apart from two days of recording on Let's Kill Hitler in mid-July, work on the Christmas special marked the first filming for Doctor Who in four and a half months. In the interim, Moffat had overseen the second series of his other show, Sherlock, which he was showrunning with Mark Gatiss.
• On 6 December 2011, a prequel to the episode was released online. The Eleventh Doctor is seen on a spaceship holding a red button which, when he lets go, will cause the space ship to explode. While holding the button, he has phoned the TARDIS to speak to Amy asking her to rescue him, although he does not have his co-ordinates, Amy cannot fly the TARDIS, and she is not on the TARDIS. The Doctor wishes Amy a Merry Christmas before letting go of the button, and the spaceship explodes.
• With recording for The Doctor, The Widow And The Wardrobe now complete, Smith travelled to California for a series of appearances. In an interview with cable channel VH1 broadcast on October 21st, Smith hinted for the first time that he might leave Doctor Who following Series Seven, and indicated that he hoped to spend time in Hollywood.
• Just before The Doctor, The Widow And The Wardrobe aired on Christmas Day, Moffat announced that Doctor Who was about to undergo a major change. During the press screening for the special on December 15th, he confirmed that Amy and Rory would be leaving the programme partway through Series Seven, after which a new companion would be introduced. Gillan and Darvill had met with Moffat earlier in the year, and it was mutually agreed that it was time to draw the Ponds' story to a close.
• The special received positive reviews. Dan Martin of The Guardian noted that it was "the smallest – yet perhaps the most enchanting – Christmas special we've had to date". Noting that it featured a typical "doomed spaceship", the threat was not to the universe but one family's happiness, and the only enemies were "some misguided and underdeveloped polluters", he concluded that "Any other time of year I would gnaw holes all over this, but it's Christmas, and today it felt perfect". He felt that Claire Skinner held the episode together and the appearance of Amy "made Christmas all the more special". However, his "major niggle" was that everything was the Doctor's fault, as he left the present while knowing that most children would open their presents before Christmas. Michael Hogan, writing for The Telegraph, gave the special four and a half out of five stars. He thought that the cast of comedians were "rather under-utilised" but thought that Skinner "excelled" and Smith was also "brilliant".
• Neela Debnath of The Independent described the episode as "the perfect recipe for a Christmas special", particularly praising the touching moments. In the same paper's DVD review, Ben Walsh gave "The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe" four out of five stars, calling it "best Doctor Who Christmas Special for some years". He commented that "the eco-message is a bit laboured, but the central tragedy that powers this scatty episode is a poignant one". Radio Times reviewer Patrick Mulkern was pleased, despite noting that he had low expectations for the special. He particularly praised Smith's performance, although he noted that the "heart-warming" scene with Amy and Rory called for a "companions shake-up" next series.
• "The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe" was first broadcast in the United Kingdom on 25 December on BBC One, and on the same date on BBC America in the United States, and Space in Canada. In Australia it was shown on 26 December on ABC1. In the UK, overnight ratings showed that the special was watched by 8.9 million, coming in fourth for Christmas Day. The final consolidated rating was 10.77 million viewers, making it the second most watched programme on BBC One and also the second most watched programme on UK TV for the week.

Prequel:

Spoiler alert

[close]

The ELEVENTH DOCTOR Ratings (Christmas 2011 edition)

Spoiler alert

1/10

- - - - - -
2/10

- - - - - -
3/10

- - - - - -
4/10

- - - - - -
5/10

- - - - - -
6/10

- - - - - -
7/10

- - - - - -
8/10

- - - - - -
9/10

- - - - - -
10/10

[close]

[Alberon]

The Doctor, The Widow And The Wardrobe

After one of the worst series finales the show returns with this for Christmas.

Clearly continuing the theme of mining literary sources for inspiration the Doctor tries to repay a family for the mother's help which almost ends up getting them all killed.

And I don't like it. I know Christmas specials are, almost by definition, a bit looser, but this doesn't work for me here.

The opening action sequence is fine, ridiculously over the top, but that's Doctor Who for you. It's after the Doctor crashes that things start going wonky for me.

Madge seems to accept the strange sight and the Doctor's story all too readily. Maybe that's part of the fairy tale aspect of it all and actually intentional. After this introduction the action shifts into WWII and Madge getting a telegram stating her husband is lost presumed dead. To avoid the bombing the family moves to their uncle's country estate. There they find the Doctor who is making all these gadgets and toys to try and give the children a great Christmas, before they find out they've lost their father.

There is a good section here between the Doctor and Madge as they discuss her anger at her children's enjoyment. That night the boy decides to open the big glowing present early and finds a portal to a land of snow and naturally self-decorating Christmas trees. He, of course, wanders off. Presently the Doctor and the daughter follow and later so does Madge.

On initial viewing I remembered being constantly annoyed by Murray Gold's music during the episodes over the years, but in the rewatch I've not really felt that at all to my surprise. I mention it here, because this is the exception. The music is often parping away in the background and perhaps is more obvious here because not a great deal is happening in the foreground.

The Doctor and the children find a tower and two wooden people while Madge runs into three rangers who are aghast to find her as the forest is about to be melted. Bill Bailey, Arabella Weir and Paul Bazely and basically an extended cameo and none of them are used anywhere near to their full potential which is a real shame. Rather than overpower her or threaten her with their weapons they put them down to try and calm her, but she pulls a gun on them, which really sends the wrong message. After they are beamed to safety, Madge tries to pilot their vehicle to the tower.

Meanwhile the female wooden creature rejects the boy and the Doctor for being 'too weak' and the girl for being strong but too young. Ultimately they need a grown-up woman as the Doctor realises that weak means male and strong means female. It's intended as female empowerment, but again comes at the cost of putting down the male gender, which is not the way this sort of thing should be done.

After getting there she absorbs the spirit of the forest and they all fly down the time vortex, rescue her husband, and saves everyone.

I don't mind the Doctor being the cause of the problems and not really the resolution either. I found Madge very hard to accept as a character, the story was uninvolving and the rest of the characters largely empty.

I was surprised that there was this large gap between filming the end of the previous series and this as the same problems that bedeviled a lot of Series 6 are here also.

5/10

[BritishHobo]

I really appreciate the strain, now. The schedule was already slipping because - through absolutely no fault of Moffat's - it was unsustainable. RTD had managed it for a few years because he had an insane team, but in retrospect 13 episodes every May was an absolute nightmare. And then knocking out a series of Sherlock inbetween series 6 and this? I would have had a nervous breakdown.

So I can't really fault him for it, but this is definitely on the lower end of the Christmas specials. A Christmas Carol took a well-known story and set it in a wonderful futuristic world that made it feel even more magical and Christmassy. Whereas this takes Narnia and makes it... well, less. It's just a doomed idea. When you've got a beloved fantasy book with a huge snowy fantasy world, which literally includes Father Christmas, your one-hour special is inevitably going to pale in comparison. Hard to do much on that budget than the cold, empty forest you get here.

I guess to be fair to it, it's the kind of pleasant thing you want on Christmas day, just a nice straightforward story, with a big grand bit of emotion slathered on at the end. Claire Skinner fits the role really well, and I think she's a lovely foil for the Doctor. A no-nonsense figure of strength, trying to keep everything together in the face of madness, and getting her reward at the end. Agree with Alberon on the gender stuff being rubbish though. It's textbook Moffat, with his inability to depict female strength outside of a very narrow "I know who wears the trousers in that relationship" dynamic.

My big takeaway is always that Matt Smith's performance shows that even in the less-liked episodes, Moffat still gives you an engaging, watchable Doctor. The sense of fun in those early scenes in the house, absolutely shits on a number of other episodes.