River Pond Song is Amy's daughter: a River Comes from a Pond.
The Doctor, by meeting Amy, has prevented her marriage to Rory thus prevented River being born.
We know that the Doctor encounters River at a place called "the Pandorica", and that she survives whatever Bad Thing happens there. Presumably River contributes in some way to the Doctor's victory.
So by meeting Amy and preventing River coming into existence, the Doctor has created a paradox which has brought about a space time split fracture crack thingy.
I assume that River is Amy's daughter by Rory: but it is possible that she is Amy's daughter by the Doctor. This would account for River's Time Lordyness. A lot of her flirting could be "grown up daughter" flirting rather than "wife" flirting.
But even if this is right, Amy's wedding day is still the epicentre of the paradox. What breaks time and space is Amy marrying Rory, as opposed to Amy not marrying Rory: the very actions which the Doctor is taking to prevent the paradox are, in fact, creating it.
Could it even be that the Crack is consciously removing the obstacles to the Doctor marrying / sleeping with Amy to bring River into existence and heal the wound in the universe? For example, it might be said to have dragged the TARDIS back in time 14 years in the episode one; and deliberately erased Rory from existence in the one with the Silurians.
I am somewhat afraid that we are going to be told that large lumps of continuity have also disappeared into the Crack; or even that the whole universe will be be sucked into the Crack and that Steven will say that, as of next year, the series is taking place in a new, post-Crack Doctor Who Universe to which the history of the pre-Crack Universe no longer applies. I hope not. It seems to me that if Doctor Who fans have spent 50 years happily believing that six impossible and mutually contradictory things happened in the same "universe" before breakfast; there's no reason to think we need a Big Continuity Clear Our this late in the day. But note that Moffat wanted to refer to Season 5 as "Season 1".
There's no reason that The Crack shouldn't be left lying around for fans to use as a hand wave. "The Romana regeneration doesn't make a lot of sense in the light of what we know about other regenerations, does it?" "Oh well, let's just assume it disappeared into the Crack."
Even before the trailer (and isn't Steven being good at keeping the trailers mostly spoiler free) we could probably tell that "The Pandorica", which is going to open, would be a box of some kind. There was a box in Greek mythology with a similar name. It contained something very horrible, I seem to remember.
Some people would like it to contain something Time Lordy: the Skaro Abominations or the Could Have Been King or something else that was referenced in The End of Time. Rassilon himself, maybe, or the whole of Gallifrey. I would cast my bet against "The Other" or "Omega": these are characters who only fans know about, and significant recurring villains in the new show have to be in the consciousness of the mainstream public. I can't believe that Moffat would be so boring as to make it the Daleks or the Master.
The Box is not the Crack, but opening the Box obviously has to be closely related to whatever caused the Crack. Several villains have implied that the contents of the box is obvious and it's funny that the Doctor doesn't know. The specific phrase "The Doctor in the TARDIS" has come up twice.
So my money is on the Pandorica containing an evil future incarnation of the Doctor. Fans will be able to say "The Valeyard" to their hearts content, but he won't be called that on screen, or only in passing. Seasons 1 – 4 kept on telling us that the Doctor would turn evil one day; and we've had the Toby Jones anti-Doctor to lay the groundwork.
Who will be playing the evil version of the Doctor?
I can't believe that this wouldn't have leaked out, but I do have to point out that in the one in the flat the Doctor becomes Craig's lodger. A person who pays him money to use a section of his property.
That is to say, a tenant. I've been wrong before, of course.
continues....
River Pond is Amy's daughter: a River Comes from a Pond.
ReplyDeleteUh, River Song. But apart from that one niggle, smart thinking! I’d pontificated that River might be a future Amy, based largely on that same name-similarity, but a daughter would indeed make sense of the wedding thing. (I’m till not sure how the Doctor goes from it all being about Amy to it all being about Amy’s wedding, but anyway...)
Yet... IIRR, River was surprised and excited to meet Donna, yet didn’t have any such similar expression over Amy. I know we all tend to take our parents for granted, but even so...
Also, when they first meet River talks about Byzantium and Asgard. This suggests Asgard is as essential to her (their?) story, so either Asgard will appear in the next two weeks or the book of River Song’s diary will not yet have closed.
Another way round, could River be the Doctor’s wife after all and Amy their daughter? The first episode made a big point of keeping her parents offscreen. (Though of course it’s a fairy story and fairy stories do that sort of thing.) This could also explain the Doctor’s alarmed reaction when Amy tries to snog him.
Either way round, though, I have trouble seeing this new Doctor as the father of anyone very much. It was kind of established with Tennant that he could have settled down to relationship-ness if he’d ever given up his Doctoring. (‘Girl in the Fireplace’ in particular was based upon this.) Matt Smith’s character, it seems to me, can only do Doctoring – he’s quite singularly cut out for the task. He has enough powers of observation to see when two humans need to get it on (as evidenced last week), but I can’t see him managing the task himself.
So my money is on the Pandorica containing an evil future incarnation of the Doctor.
Yet... we’ve already had one episode about some evil other Doctor. And there’s clearly some other Doctor running about (aka the ‘jacketed Doctor’ of so much internet conflab) who if anything seems much nicer and more personable than the regular Doctor. In ‘Flesh and Stone’ ‘our’ Doctor leaves her, while the ‘other’ Doctor stays with her.
It’s probably turn out to be the bloody Daleks again. Threatening to blow up the universe again. Only fiercer.
there's no reason to think we need a Big Continuity Clear Our this late in the day.
Besides which, any comics fan can tell you exactly how long clean slates stay clean for. There never was a time where the Whoniverse wasn’t< messy or extemporised. ‘Babylon 5’ this ain’t. It should look cluttered and lived-in, not neat and ordered like a show home.
You read it here first (after The Beast Below): not just River Song and Amy Pond, but also Jackson Lake. Just saying.
ReplyDeleteYou are a genius.
ReplyDelete