The Long, Timey-Wimey History of River Song

By Brian Long

The classic sci-fi TV series Doctor Who has long been a stable of British culture (special shout-out to our UK Wookiee Wednesday fans are, I believe, appropriate at this moment) and it has finally gained true notoriety and fandom here in the States. One of the major mysteries at the heart of this season is the enigmatic River Song. A character who could just as soon kill our hero the Doctor as she could kiss him. The following article contains some MAJOR SPOILERS for this season and past episodes of Doctor Who, so if you haven't seen the show yet then not only should you not be reading this article, but you should be watching it right now. The first five seasons of the new series are on Netflix. Don't let the nearly 50 years of continuity scare you, start with the new stuff and you'll be alright.

Now, let's start with what we know: River's true name is Melody Pond, she is part Time Lord, she has been held by a mysterious organization led by a woman named Madame Kovarian since she was young and she is the daughter of the Doctor's current companions Rory and Amy. And honestly, that's about it. We know she is in prison for killing, as she puts it, killing "a good man" who may or may not be the Doctor himself. Although the latest episode Let's Kill Hitler seems to suggest she is the one who does our dear Doctor in. Part of what makes this character so interesting, and confusing, is the random order in which she meets the Doctor. Her first appearance in the two-parter Silence in the Library/Forest of the Damned featured her death and since then we've been working our way backwards through her life. Being Wookiee Wednesday's resident Whovian, I have made this handy timeline of events that we've seen of River's life in chronological order. Well, chronological for her, anyway.

4037-Melody Pond is born. After being taken by Madame Kovarian, she is shipped off to be raised in the crazy scary orphanage seen in The Impossible Astronaut/Day of the Moon. (A Good Man Goes to War)

1969-Melody Pond is discovered by Team TARDIS (the Doctor, River Song, Amy, and Rory) in the worst orphanage ever. Unfortunately, she is decked out in the same space suit that was seen killing the future version of the doctor earlier in the episode so she is promptly shot by her mother. (The Impossible Astronaut/Day of the Moon)

1970-Flash forward a few months to Melody Pond’s first regeneration into “Mels.” (Day of the Moon)

1996-2011-Mels (somehow) winds up in Leadworth with the younger versions of Amy and Rory. She grows up with one of them as a fellow student and, in a play right out of the Marty McFly handbook of time travel, gets her future parents to FINALLY realize their feelings for one another and fall in love.(Let’s Kill Hitler)

1938-After hijacking the TARDIS with the plan to assassinate Hitler, Mels is hit by a stray bullet and regenerates into the River we all know and love, officially meeting the Doctor for the very first time. (Let’s Kill Hitler)

5123- The Doctor leaves River in a hospital with the hopes of hiding her from Madame Kavorian and any other forces that may try to use her. Shortly after, River enrolls in the Luna University and we learn how River got her start in archeology. (Let’s Kill Hitler)

4037- River is now in prison for killing, as far as we know, the Doctor. This one is a bit trickier to place since we don't get any strong clues as to where the Doctor and River are at in their relationship, but this is undoubtedly the youngest we've seen River in the Stormcage Holding Facility. At the beginning of A Good Man Goes to War Rory tries to recruit River to save his daughter, who he doesn't know is actually River herself yet (ugh, my head). River is breaking back into her cell after spending her birthday with the Doctor which suggests to me that their relationship has gotten more serious, but not close to its "ending" yet where the Doctor doesn't know River as well. This is one of the few moments where they were experiencing an event simultaneously. River shows up again after the Battle of Demons Run has ended to reveal who she truly is to Amy, the Doctor, and Rory. (A Good Man Goes to War)

1969- Things begin to overlap as we loop back around to 1969 as River, now older, joins Amy and Rory at the shore of Lake Silencio to see the Doctor get killed by the mysterious “impossible astronaut.” We know this episode comes before any of the other events featuring River because this marks the first time the Doctor and River have actually kissed. So far, the Doctor and River have been meeting in reverse order so the Doctor’s first kiss with River would be her last with him. (The Impossible Astronaut/Day of the Moon)

5145- River, still in prison, receives a phone call from Winston Churchill and breaks out of the Stormcage to steal Vincent Van Gogh’s “The Pandorica Opens” painting from the royal collection. I’m going to pause for a moment because that may be the craziest sentence I have ever typed. (The Pandorica Opens)

102 BC-With the painting in hand, River travels to the year 102 and hangs around with a camp of Roman soldiers while posing as Cleopatra. When the Doctor arrives, they seek out the greatest prison known to man: the Pandorica. River and the Doctor realize that the latter’s greatest enemies are interested in the prison as well, so River heads off to the TARDIS in the hopes of finding equipment to assist the Doctor. Suddenly, the TARDIS begins flying on its own to…(The Pandorica Opens)

2010-…June 21^st, 2010. Specifically, the date of Amy and Rory’s wedding. River realizes that the Pandorica is a set-up and quickly bolts back to the TARDIS without realizing that it is booby trapped (The Pandorica Opens)

Alternate 1996- The Doctor is placed into the Pandorica by his enemies and all of reality begins to unravel. Thanks to some clever timey-wimey, wibbledy-wobbledy thinking, the Doctor escapes the prison and rescues River from the time lock failsafe the TARDIS has installed in case of an explosion. Those Time Lords think of everything. (The Big Bang)

2010- Back to the happy day of Amy and Rory’s wedding. The Doctor has closed the cracks in time (YEA!) but he has erased himself from existence in the process (…boo). Luckily, River is there to drop off a gift with her mother-to-be to help her bring the Doctor back to reality. (The Big Bang)

Unspecified 51^st century dates- River’s final adventures with the Doctor (but for us, her earliest) involved investigating the crash landing of the spaceship Byzantium and fighting with the Doctor through a herd of Weeping Angels.

Finally, we get River’s meeting with the 10^th incarnation of the Doctor in The Library. A planet sized collection of books and every bibliophile’s dream. Here we first discover that River has not only met the Doctor previously but she also posses her own Sonic Screwdriver and knows the Doctor’s true name. (The Time of the Angels/Flesh and Stone/Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead)

River’s sacrifice at the end of Forest of the Dead suggests that there is still a lot of her time with the Doctor that we have yet to see, but we will just have to wait until the end of the season, and probably the end of the 11^th Doctor’s run on the show to find out how it all comes together. We can’t peek ahead, after all. Spoilers.