Please Help Me Make Sense of The Wedding of River Song (finally finished S6 of DW)
I FINALLY finished S6 of Doctor Who last night! Whew. It only took me about 6 months. Now if I could just make sense of what I watched...Anyone care to explain it to me? Because my brain is in a bit of a fog about the finale, The Wedding of River Song. It didn't help that netflix was being a bitch and re-starting every five minutes (probably because hubby was watching something else at the same time).
I know Doctor Who isn’t generally big on explanations about how certain things are possible in the episodes, but so much about this one is making me go, “WHAT?! huh? how? um, okay I think I understand? Maybe? Oh wait, no I don’t.” Normally, I’d just re-watch it but I have about 10 more episodes to get through before I catch up as it is (and have very limited tv time).
There is a very large gap between when I watched The Impossible Astronaut and The Wedding of River Song so that could be part of why I am so confused (though I do think a lot of the fault lies with Moffat’s convoluted plot). I felt sort of disconnected from the show so I hadn’t been motivated to catch up until recently. I’m having trouble formulating specific questions (though I do have a few). Perhaps if I just tell you what I do think I understand, maybe you can enlighten me about what I don't and where I am completely off the mark?
I wish I knew how to do bullet points in html so this would look more organized but I don't. Here is what I think I "get" about the episode, along with a few random questions:
The Silence is a religious order. The leaders and followers of the movement wear the electric eye patches so that they can remember seeing the extremely creepy aliens that they worship.
The tally marks help people keep track of how many times they have seen them
River somehow creates an alternate timeline that is disintegrating time and also making all of history happen at once. No one seems to remember their real timelines, except for Amy, the Doctor, and River (and I guess the crazy Silence lady). Very cool concept but makes very little sense to me. How is she able to do this at all? Yes, I know she is "the child of the TARDIS." So I guess that's how??
Why does the Doctor marry her? I will admit that I don't ship them but even if I did, he doesn't exactly seem thrilled with the idea. Why is it necessary for him to do that in order to correct what River has done and also save his own life?
The timeline was destroyed so everything that happened there didn't really happen. Except that apparently it did because they - Amy, River, and the Doctor (not sure about Rory) still remember it?
The Doctor travels for almost 200 years between the time he drops Amy and Rory off and when he shows up at Lake Silencio. (I do not understand this at all. So has he done all of this before he goes to see Craig? How is he so much older? I guess this is when he also takes River all of those places that are in her diary etc? Except that he still doesn't seem that much closer to her by the time he sees her in the alternate timeline so maybe not?)
The Doctor's death is a fixed point in time that cannot be altered
Except it can if you get into a big Doctor robot suit (sorry, can't even remember what these are called) and if River creates an alternate timeline that you then destroy by marrying her. Okay, this is where I get REALLY confused.
The question the Silence wanted, well silenced, is apparently, "Doctor Who?" I suppose this is what we are leading up to with the S7 finale as well.
Why exactly did the Silence want him dead in the first place? (so much so that they stole Amy and Rory's baby and raised her to kill the Doctor and become completely obsessed with him)
Thanks in advance for helping to clear the fogged state that this episode has left my brain in :-)
(posted on my tumblr too but hoping I get more responses here since things get buried over there so quickly)
I know Doctor Who isn’t generally big on explanations about how certain things are possible in the episodes, but so much about this one is making me go, “WHAT?! huh? how? um, okay I think I understand? Maybe? Oh wait, no I don’t.” Normally, I’d just re-watch it but I have about 10 more episodes to get through before I catch up as it is (and have very limited tv time).
There is a very large gap between when I watched The Impossible Astronaut and The Wedding of River Song so that could be part of why I am so confused (though I do think a lot of the fault lies with Moffat’s convoluted plot). I felt sort of disconnected from the show so I hadn’t been motivated to catch up until recently. I’m having trouble formulating specific questions (though I do have a few). Perhaps if I just tell you what I do think I understand, maybe you can enlighten me about what I don't and where I am completely off the mark?
I wish I knew how to do bullet points in html so this would look more organized but I don't. Here is what I think I "get" about the episode, along with a few random questions:
The Silence is a religious order. The leaders and followers of the movement wear the electric eye patches so that they can remember seeing the extremely creepy aliens that they worship.
The tally marks help people keep track of how many times they have seen them
River somehow creates an alternate timeline that is disintegrating time and also making all of history happen at once. No one seems to remember their real timelines, except for Amy, the Doctor, and River (and I guess the crazy Silence lady). Very cool concept but makes very little sense to me. How is she able to do this at all? Yes, I know she is "the child of the TARDIS." So I guess that's how??
Why does the Doctor marry her? I will admit that I don't ship them but even if I did, he doesn't exactly seem thrilled with the idea. Why is it necessary for him to do that in order to correct what River has done and also save his own life?
The timeline was destroyed so everything that happened there didn't really happen. Except that apparently it did because they - Amy, River, and the Doctor (not sure about Rory) still remember it?
The Doctor travels for almost 200 years between the time he drops Amy and Rory off and when he shows up at Lake Silencio. (I do not understand this at all. So has he done all of this before he goes to see Craig? How is he so much older? I guess this is when he also takes River all of those places that are in her diary etc? Except that he still doesn't seem that much closer to her by the time he sees her in the alternate timeline so maybe not?)
The Doctor's death is a fixed point in time that cannot be altered
Except it can if you get into a big Doctor robot suit (sorry, can't even remember what these are called) and if River creates an alternate timeline that you then destroy by marrying her. Okay, this is where I get REALLY confused.
The question the Silence wanted, well silenced, is apparently, "Doctor Who?" I suppose this is what we are leading up to with the S7 finale as well.
Why exactly did the Silence want him dead in the first place? (so much so that they stole Amy and Rory's baby and raised her to kill the Doctor and become completely obsessed with him)
Thanks in advance for helping to clear the fogged state that this episode has left my brain in :-)
(posted on my tumblr too but hoping I get more responses here since things get buried over there so quickly)