The Husbands of River Song

"He only has these twelve faces. He'll be around here somewhere."

Writer: Steven Moffat
Format: TV
Broadcast: 25th December 2015
Series: 2015 Christmas Special

Featuring: Twelfth Doctor, River

Synopsis

Christmas Day 5343. King Hydroflax is injured and is in need of a surgeon. His wife, Professor River Song, calls in the greatest the galaxy has to offer but she doesn't recognise her other husband when he turns up to the request. The Doctor plays along and we see a different side to River Song, but once his true identity is known, will this be there last night together? The Singing Towers of Darillium await...

Verdict

The Husbands of River Song was an excellent episode to serve as the 2015 Christmas Special and it means that I'm all caught up ready for tomorrow's big return of the Doctor after a whole twelve months off our screens! Well, he did appear in the Class series opener of For Tonight We Might Die but there hasn't been a Doctor Who episode in a whole year and that is a rather long time. I must say that it doesn't feel like a year since I watched this episode but I was glad to be able to give it a higher rating than what I did last year! It jumped up and I am actually quite surprised that I gave it a mark lower last year as when I was watching I thought this was pushing the perfect rating. It didn't quite get there but it wasn't all that far away. It has everything you can want in a Christmas Special and whilst the theme of the big day was kept consistent, we also had a lot of humour and actually a very good story unfold! We obviously had the return of River Song who was starring alongside Peter Capaldi for the first time and I liked the dynamic that River and the Twelfth Doctor brought to things. It was a meeting that shouldn't have happened but the Doctor was very excited to meet her. It was intriguing to see this incarnation of the Doctor alongside a regular character that was not Clara but I thought it was even more interesting that despite the regeneration and drastic personality change, his feelings for River Song certainly don't seem to have altered. He was very cross by the fact that River Song had another husband in the form of King Hydroflax and he literally was crossing his arms at what he had to watch in the earlier moments of the episode. The far future setting was very good and I liked how the Doctor stepped in as the surgeon who would work on Hydroflax. He had the world's most valuable diamond stuck inside his head and River had called for it to be removed. However, by it she meant his head and not the diamond. It was brilliant to see River Song getting up to her own adventures without the Doctor's company and although I experienced that earlier this year with The Diary of River Song audio series, there's nothing quite like seeing it on television. The Doctor's reaction to what she was doing was fantastic and he genuinely was surprised by some of her actions. She wasn't afraid to be committing genocide but she was trying to save people which I'm sure he admired. The reveal of another husband who wasn't the Doctor in the shape of Ramone was very comical and the Doctor once again seemed disgusted and annoyed. I loved that the Doctor got his own 'it's bigger on the inside' moment and it was good that in his mind he got to do it the correct way. His reaction to River having her own alcohol storage was terrific too. Scratch and his goons coming to collect the diamond was a brilliant moment as they were doing it for their ruling king, who of course turned out to be Hydroflax. River had his head in a bag and after some earlier hilarious threatening which saw the Twelfth Doctor laugh for one of the first times, there was a lot of improvisation and then an incredible moment where River poured out her emotion for the Doctor and learned that he had been there all along. That was magnificent and accompanied by later references to The Time of Angels/Flesh and Stone, The Pandorica Opens/The Big Bang, The Angels Take Manhattan, The Day of the Doctor, The Time of the Doctor and Deep Breath, we had ourselves one hell of a reunion. River had planned the escape and the Doctor helped save the day but the pair's story would soon be over. As mentioned in Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead, the Doctor had brought her to the Singing Towers of Darillium. He gave her the sonic screwdriver we saw all those years ago and with it completed one hell of a story arc. As much as I love River, I do hope her story with the Doctor is now told because it has been a bloody good one! I'm interested to see how Nardole returns tomorrow given what happened to him here as he didn't play a major role either so the fact that he's due to become a companion intrigues so I'm looking forward to his future! Overall, a terrific Christmas episode!

Rating: 9/10