Silence in the Library – S30 (4) 8
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6 July 2013 at 12:20 #13245
Famous for the first (or is it the last?) appearance of River Song. The Doctor and Donna land in the 51st century (again with the 51st century!) to visit the greatest library in the universe, which covers an entire planet. They find it strangely deserted until a team of archaeologists arrive.
6 July 2013 at 18:33 #13267It eats you, starting with your bottom… oops, no, sorry. Wrong fandom.
The obvious Moffat theme in this episode is that it’s the first time we see River Song, her TARDIS diary, the Doctor’s ‘sweetie’ nickname and her catchphrase of ‘Spoilers!’. So we’ve gone through the beginnings of an arc, here. With the exception of Blink, the Moffat stories have discussed whether the Doctor ‘dances’, shown him fancying a girl in a relationship cut short by death (Girl in the Fireplace), and now we’re onto a relationship that’s also cut short by death – but because he’s a time-traveller, death isn’t the end. The strong implication (which we now know to be true) is that the future Doctor is going to get married; River’s his wife.
From having forgotten how to ‘dance’, to re-starting the dating game, to meeting the person you’re going to marry. That’s the Doctor’s arc, in Moffat’s eyes. He’s coming back to life.
Slightly less obvious themes: the ‘timey-wimey’ is mainly tied up with River, but it’s still there. Not just because she knows the Doctor well – and he doesn’t know her at all. But also, for example, because River’s obviously puzzled when Donna ‘dies’. She knows, clearly, that Donna didn’t die at the Library. So how can she be dead?
‘It doesn’t do wood’. As far as I know, this episode is the first time that running gag about the sonic screwdriver appears.
The Vashta Nerada are another monster that are just looking for lunch; however they managed to hit pretty high on my ‘creepy’ factor when they took over the spacesuit and made it chase after everyone. We also get another Moffat theme here; the repeated catchphrase. Proper Dave is dead; but his electronic ghost is stuck in a loop, repeating and repeating some of his last words. Similarly, Jamie in The Empty Child can only repeat his last thoughts – is his ‘sister’ really his Mummy?
6 July 2013 at 21:30 #13273It eats you, starting with your bottom… oops, no, sorry. Wrong fandom.
I think we can accommodate the odd Buffy reference. 😀 After all, “by now you’ve got holovids, direct-to-brain downloads, fiction mist. But you need the smell. The smell of books, Donna” really does echo Giles opinion that “Books should Smell”.
I think you’ve caught all the ones I saw. I like the punchline delivered here for a joke set up in a couple of RTD episodes about “I love a little shop” (New Earth, Smith & Jones).
Donna “Doctor, the little shop. They always make you go through the little shop on the way out so they can sell you stuff!”
The Doctor “You’re right! Brilliant! That’s why I like the little shop!”Ahhhh Donna. I’ve said before, I grew to love Catherine Tate in the role. Lovely scene with Miss Evangalista before her death. A great opener for Alex Kingston as River and the hints of mystery. It’s going to be interesting watching these Moff episodes and following her timey-wimey path.
Nice to see Steve Pemberton as well. With Reece Shearsmith playing Patrick Troughton in “Adventures in Space and Time” we’ll soon have all the League of Gentlemen with Who associated parts.
The Vastra Nerada are an interesting idea. The concept of just the dark and shadow being alive with swarms is a great one for nightmare, but I do like the shambling Space suit “Zombies”.
The “Donna Noble has left the library, Donna Noble has been saved” end is a good cliffhanger as well.
6 July 2013 at 21:53 #13276By the way, did anyone else start screaming when the Doctor starts saying: “Whole continents of Jeffrey Archer”? Taken in isolation, that has to be the most chilling concept ever introduced in Doctor Who history.
I’ll have nightmares about being shipwrecked there on my own.
6 July 2013 at 21:59 #13277@phaseshift – it was a really terrifying cliff-hanger. Companion dead, everyone being chased by space-suit-zombie … arrgh!
One thing I did note was that – like Clara will later – River grabs the Doctor’s hand and drags him along. And riffing off @htpbdet‘s comment that Moffat originally hoped David Tennant would be in his first series, it seems clear that the Crash of the Byzantium was supposed to be an adventure with River and Ten – which explains why she’s so surprised he doesn’t know her, when we now know this story as the only time she sees that particular incarnation.
Unless it turns out that they sneaked a couple of scenes with Alex Kingston and David Tennant into the 50th, when filming for Name.
Yes, Catherine Tate was brilliant in her full run at Donna Noble. Again, I now wonder whether her heartbreaking, disastrous end to her time with the Doctor has just been retconned as part of the interference by the Great Intelligence. In which case, did Clara somehow manage to save Donna’s life, if not her memories? Or have things been changed from what we saw?
The Vashta Nerada. Brilliantly simple concept. Our fear of the dark is perfectly sensible. There really are monsters out there.
6 July 2013 at 23:04 #13279Oh, and for those who enjoy the Confidential for each episode:
It’s here.
7 July 2013 at 00:03 #13281It’s funny that in setting up both The Doctor and River and liers, you can read almost anything and nothing into their dialogue together, and their story can go anywhere. 😀 If Alex is up for it I’m sure a pre-Library River could gate crash an episode with 12.
When they announced 10 and Rose for the 50th, my immediate reaction was “Damn – not Donna”. Nothing against Billie Piper, but I think a mid-story Donna meeting 11 would have been hilarious.
On the Vastra Narada front, I don’t know if anyone else played the free adventure game “Shadow of the Vastra Narada”, but it is actually quite creepy. You have to run down corridors with intermitting lighting, and if you mistime it all goes black and you hear the munching begin. Not to mention being chased by Diving suit Zombies. Well worth an hour or two of your time.
7 July 2013 at 10:04 #13282SiL was one of the very few episodes of Dr Who BG or AG that I have found truely frightening. The other, oddly enough was Talons of Weng Chiang. It was years before we could persuade our sons to watch SiL and FotD. I was not initially overly impressed with SiL. I found it an episode that improved upon repeated viewings, maybe because initially I disliked R.S. (“Who is this woman getting familiar with our Doctor?”) The concepts behind the story, a planet sized library, (though I agree with @phaseshift, those Jeffery Archer continents would also be my idea of hell along with Barbara Cartland) and invisible, shadow, monsters, was the perfect combination. The childhood fantasy, (certainly mine) of living in a library was undermined by our most instinctive fear, the dark/shadows. As with the best of horror Moffat turns something which we find safe and comforting into a thing of terror.
Donna, by this episode, had grown nicely into a strong character and this was one of her shining moments. Had we ever douted that Catherine Tate could do pathos here we were assured that indeed she could. I was left wondering why she has wasted her acting talent upon the Catherine Tate show, (which I have fortunately avoided).
@phaseshift, I do hope that Alex Kingston can be persuaded to return to R.S. duty with the next Doctor at least once. She implied that she had met more than two regenerations. (And as an aside I am currently wishing my ancestors had not so thoughtlessly decided to immigrate as I would love to see her as Lady Macbeth playing against Brannagh.)
Cheers
Janette
7 July 2013 at 10:50 #13283Anonymous @
@bluesqueakpip – thanks for posting the Confidential. Upon re-watch, it’s clear that they didn’t have enough material for just this first part of the episode (without giving away things that won’t be revealed until next week’s part), because there are a heckuva lot of musical montages as filler.
That having been said, at the time I originally watched this, I wasn’t as aware of the significance of Steven Moffat writing this and the previous episodes that he had, so it was nice to see those bits from EC/DD, GitF, and Blink woven into this Confidential.
@janetteb – I agree with you on the ‘who is this woman?!’ reaction to River Song. I was intrigued but thought she was shoe-horning in our Doctor and Donna. The pathos of her reactions to 10 not knowing her are so very sad now that we have seen her story through to The Name of the Doctor
7 July 2013 at 22:56 #13322Just rewatched it. Donna is great in this episode, I do like the little throw away asides about her past life:
After kicking in the door of the Library.
D10: ‘Nice door skills Donna’
Donna: ‘Yeah, well you know, boyfriends. Sometimes you need the element of surprise’
I too wasn’t keen when I heard Catherine Tate was going to be the new companion, she’d been a bit shrieky and one note in things I’d seen her in before. However she grew on me and became one of my favourites.
A few things that stand out:
1) Doctor 10, as I think @jimthefish pointed out, was supposed to be in Time of Angels/Flesh & Stone.
2) Reuse of locations. The stairs where Donna and the Doctor 10 are first discussing the lack of people in the Library is where Doctor 11 tumbles down in the Pandorica Opens. Also the round reading room appears in Sherlock.
8 July 2013 at 15:55 #13372One item from the audio commentary: David Tennant suggests River might be one of his future incarnations, and Steven Moffat points out that this would mean the Doctor fancies his future self.
Cue much laughter (lots of laughter on that commentary; what kind of coffee was that?) – and Steven Moffat seems to rather enjoy playing around with the idea that the Doctor would fancy his future female self.
9 July 2013 at 09:45 #13414Donna is one of my favourite companions- second only to Rory. (River I don’t count as a companion except in a timey-wifey kind of way). I liked ‘ten’ (in inverted commas till the anniversary episode I suppose) a lot more when Donna was with him, and I gained a lot more respect for Catherine Tate as an actress than I ever thought possible. (My heart sank when I heard she’s going to do a Brit re-make of ‘Everybody loves Raymond’. Unless they completely smash up the source material, it seems a terrible waste).
Interesting that it is ‘ten’ who says spoilers first- its a lovely lead in to their story. He’s in a library. The shelves are full of spoilers. But one book, with the biggest spoilers in the universe is on it’s way in Rivers pocket.
One thing I’ve noticed with ten, re watching more of his episodes, is this: If the Guardian asked ‘Eleven’ ‘what word or words do you overuse’ he’d probably have to say ‘basically: run’. If you asked ‘ten’, it would probably be ‘sorry’. ‘I’m sorry, I’m so sorry’ and ‘and, I’m very sorry’ crop up a lot. Mostly for accidentally or indirectly causing harm to someone. It makes me think of ‘Eleven’ in TGWW- eleven, though genuinely remorseful, never apologies as often or as easily as ten.
River was amazing here. Not quite perfect, she wasn’t intended to be perfect, and her rather contemptuous dismissal of Miss E in contrast to Donna ‘the nice lady’ makes that clear (though Donna hadn’t just been stuck on a ship with her for what seems to have felt like a very long time.)
Young eyes- for, later, ‘Eleven’ and his old eyes. I do think it was set up that River knew different incarnations of the Doctor. And she’d have to be quite busy, but it’s still possible. But mostly I see this- and TGITF as indicating a kind of protest over the Doctor-Rose storyline. Moffat had no problem with the Doctor in Love- just not with his companion. Which is why I could never see his relationship with Clara turning completely romantic.
11 July 2013 at 19:21 #13647When looking back at this episode after having seen what’s come since, I’ve got to wonder if Moff was hinting at things to come with River Song in a spacesuit & the title Silence in the Library?
And is it just me or is River some sort of creepy-monster magnet? All the worst ones seem to come out of the woodwork when she’s around – the Vashta Nerada, the Weeping Angels & the Silence. The Doctor himself is the only other one who’s faced them all.
11 July 2013 at 19:55 #13648MadScientist72 – personally, I don’t think it’s about how long a game The Moff has been playing since he wrote this episode. Good pick-up on both the spacesuit and the Silence for future episodes; but it’s equally likely that those tropes / baddies were created later on in happy coincidence (and with more than a nod to people who had paid attention in the past).
It’s to be assumed that River herself was always supposed to return at some point; but, did The Moff know when this ep was written that he would be show-runner in the future, and determining timey-wimey story arcs, with the Professorial archaelogist such a key figure in relationship to a future companion? I think he just wrote a tantalisingly mysterious character, and shoe-horned her into his gleefully hand-rubbing cackling of a story arc at a later date.
It’s unnerving how close to conspiracy theory madness this kind of attention to detail – and assumption of future events controlled by past events – can lead us. As human beings, we are prone to patternicity and maybe this is the ultimate bedrock of our fascination with this programme: because no matter how intentional or random, there are patterns to be teased out of the smallest of details, and the largest of arcs.
I think I’ve just divined why Doctor Who has remained endlessly fascinating for 50 years – because it speaks to the basest of our instincts as human beings.
{need to lie down now!}
11 July 2013 at 20:15 #13649did The Moff know when this ep was written that he would be show-runner in the future
He very well may have known, as his imminent take-over of the reins was announced a few days before the episode first aired. This makes it likely that the change of leadership was known behind the scenens for weeks – if not months – prior.
11 July 2013 at 20:36 #13653MadScientist72 – The fact that the Moff knew he would be future show-runner around the time that SitL was aired, still doesn’t conclusively prove that when he wrote this episode and the mysterious River Song, that he knew exactly what he was going to do with her.
I.e., I’d find it difficult to believe that when he first imagined the character of a stranger suddenly coming onto the scene to tell the Doctor they’re meeting in the wrong order in their lives, and that she knows many things about his future which he’s warned her not to tell him [not giving away anything that’s only in next week’s conclusion to this 2-parter], etc., that he already knew that this character would be the time-head daughter of a future Companion conceived on the Tardis, who as a little girl fought her way out of a 1960’s NASA space suit, who was raised by a religious order called the Silence (whose name would be earlier invoked by a fat blue fella to warn the Doctor not to go to a specific place as it would lead him to ‘the fall of the 11th’).
Well, you get my drift. 😀
The patterns are lovely to appreciate in the end; but I don’t think we should spend too much time thinking that The Moff had years of specific episode plotting, details, and overall arcs already mapped out on a whiteboard in his office, when he wrote SitL.
11 July 2013 at 22:22 #13659You’re right in saying that it doesn’t prove anything, but Moff not knowing he was going to be taking over would have been proof that he didn’t have that particular long-term plan. I was merely saying that Moff’s foreknowledge means we can’t eliminate it as a possiblity.
11 July 2013 at 22:36 #13660@miapatrick re 10 and ‘Sorry’, thought you might like (or hate) this…
13 July 2013 at 13:35 #13754Yay! Finally caught up with the SM-viewing run (great idea, though I say it myself 😳 )
I’m loving re-viewing these as I haven’t watched any of 10’s run since Smith started. And he really is my AG Doctor (sorry 😉 )
First of all I think SitL/FotD is a stonewall classic story. It’s VERY scary (“not in every shadow. But ANY shadow” (damn you Moffatt!!)), Tennant and Tate are brilliant together – they mirror each other in several scenes, the dialogue between them is sharp. They have a great (completely platonic) chemistry. Like others I originally had reservations about Tate and Donna’s character, but she won me over unreservedly)
Interesting thoughts above re Moff’s intentions for long term development esp of River. Even if he didn’t know he’d be showrunner, he’d still expect to be a regular writer, so even if he didn’t have all the details of River’s arc planned out, he probably at least had “snapshots” in mind, particularly Time of Angels/Flesh & Stone. It’s also likely that “Wreck of the Byzantium” is one of those phrases like “fall of the 11th at Trenzalore” that he says he comes up with because they sound great, and which grow into more fully formed ideas later.
This is a link to an interview with Moffat, from Aug 2011, where he says the intention for Amy and Rory to be River’s parents was there at least from the start of Amy’s character. There’s a link at the end of it to an interesting little interview with Matt (also from 2011), talking about his Dr’s journey and death.
I do find it interesting how much of River’s essential “Riverness” is already present in SitL. She’s not as flirty as we see her later, but then this is a much older River than we’ve seen to date (except in NotD). I liked her from the first off, maybe slightly biased in that she wasn’t cliched eye-candy. I didn’t necessarily trust her at first, but I liked the character. Kudos to Kingston for nailing the character this early on.
Other than just to say lots of Moffat tropes in this – the scary out of the everyday, “ghosts” ie the last remnants of consciousness being held back in some way after death, “run”, memories, children, 51st century. Not to mention things in past episodes making more sense when you’ve seen the later ones 🙂
And I’m really enjoying the 2-parter pacing. A little bit of padding here and there, but on the whole, nicely textured
PS Nice spot on the stairs @chickenelly
14 July 2013 at 12:51 #13832@craig– thank you! I did in fact like that. Not just me on Ten’s contrition then. I love the fact that with the internet, any passing thought one might have about something like this, someone’s made a compilation! (See also: ‘Imagine if Edward had fixated on Buffy)
It’s a testament to Tennant’s acting that even though, about a quarter of the way through ‘Sorry’ stopped sounding like a word and just became a weird noise, he managed to seem sincere pretty much all the way though.
14 July 2013 at 13:08 #13835Sorry, but that clip was just great!!
Amazing how many different shades of meaning he can get in to 1 word… Sorry!! 😉
3 October 2013 at 18:32 #17819it is the last from her point of view and the first from everyone elses including the audience as it began the mystery of her
27 November 2013 at 20:47 #21794When wil Moffat explain to us how River got her sonic screwdriver and when will the doctor give it to her?
If this has already been explained can someone bring me up to speed?
27 November 2013 at 21:04 #21797@ahowe444 River explained in the second part of this two-parter. The Doctor gave it to her when they visited the Singing Towers (off-screen). He did it to save her. Because he knew she was going to her death.
27 November 2013 at 21:10 #21798And then Moffat arsed it up by having the Tardis able to make multiple screwdrivers, was called out on Twitter about it and shouted – well, tweeted – OH LOOK! KITTENS!!!
This problem was fixed in DotD by cunning (but spoiler free, just in case) means that ended up foreshadowing the way that the mahoosive ending worked.
27 November 2013 at 21:18 #2179927 November 2013 at 21:31 #21800@ahowe444 – have a look at our Help page with respect to @ mentioning other users. Not everyone’s display name is the same as their @ mention name.
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27 November 2013 at 22:07 #21803@pedant I didn’t mind that the Doctor could have a new one at will. River is still the first person he gave a screwdriver. So he has had a hard time parting with it.
That software bit did not make it much better for me. Could you explain how that changes things big time for you?
27 November 2013 at 22:14 #21804@pedant – how did Moffat arse it up? I never thought for a second that he gave River his one and only Sonic; he’s been able to come up with replacements for destroyed Sonics far too fast to be handmaking the things (since at least Smith and Jones, which was RTD).
27 November 2013 at 22:20 #21806@bluesqueakpip Well people who thought the screwdriver to be irreplaceable would treat it as a higher sacrifice of the Doctor, wouldn’t they?
27 November 2013 at 22:37 #21808@timeloop – true, but the Sonic has never been ‘irreplaceable’.* We’ve seen it being replaced, several times. The Doctor simply never trusted anyone else enough to give them a full spectrum version.
Sarah Jane was given a ‘Sonic Lipstick’ – a Sonic-lite.
*The Fifth Doctor did decide to go ‘hands-free’, but then he also decided to wear a decorative vegetable. 😉
27 November 2013 at 22:44 #21809@bluesqueakpip Oh, Sonic Lipstick…. What could that do?
Well then I amend my earlier statement:I didn’t mind that the Doctor could have a new one at will. River is still the first person he gave his screwdriver. So he has had a hard time parting with it.
27 November 2013 at 22:54 #21810Oh, Sonic Lipstick…. What could that do?
@timeloop – it might be shorter to say what it couldn’t do (wood. And deadlock seals). But basically – most things the Screwdriver could; unlock doors, disable electronics, deactivate cloaking devices, cut meteorites, shatter mirrors, activate and repair teleports, open ventilation shafts …
I think, myself, the reason the Tennant Doctor was so worried was that he really was wondering if River prised it from his cold dead hands. 🙂
27 November 2013 at 23:10 #21811I think it’s possible to just make a sonic screwdriver if you feel like it (and know how, obviously). Romana made herself one at one point. Plus I’ve never believed the sonic as used by Troughton was the same object as that used by Pertwee.
Maybe the sonic as seen in AG Who is an advanced model linked to the TARDIS ( which is how the Doctor knew it was at the South Pole). But I don’t think there’s anything remarkable about giving River one. I think he just wanted to give it to someone he was confident would know how to use it.
27 November 2013 at 23:24 #21812@bluesqueakpip @timeloop @arkleseizure
It is in the text that it was remarkable to give River one, so don’t take my word for it, take Moff’s. He “took it on the chin” when it was pointed out that the big “use the red settings” etc scene leading to
DOCTOR
So some time in the future, I just give you my screwdriver.
RIVER
Yeah.
DOCTOR
Why would I do that?
RIVER
I didn’t pluck it from your cold dead hands, if that’s what you’re worried about.made the sonic out to be something special (not *a* screwdriver, *my* screwdriver), not given lightly – but that this was somewhat negated in Eleventh Hour when it turned Tardis out churned ’em out like sweets. So Moff made us look at kittens.
The fix on DotD restores the sonic to *his* screwdriver, not just *a* screwdriver.
28 November 2013 at 00:00 #21815@pedant – yeah, well, I think people were misreading ‘special’ as ‘the one and only’ and Moffat was acknowledging that he’d written the scene in a way that wrongly suggested that. As I say to Timeloop – the Doctor’s fine with giving Sarah Jane a variant. And he’s replaced broken ones an awful lot.
All that happened in the Eleventh Hour was that the Doctor broke yet another screwdriver (as he’d done before in the Post Gap series) – and this time we found that the TARDIS is now able to do the machining for the replacements.
The Sonic Screwdriver is a device designed by the Doctor and he’s not given anyone else (until River) an exact copy. That doesn’t mean that he doesn’t have a spare in his toolbox. He has a spare in his toolbox. Which is effectively a locked toolbox; the TARDIS will only produce a new screwdriver for him.
[I also don’t believe that the Fourth Doctor knitted his own scarves. So sue me. 🙂 ]
28 November 2013 at 16:59 #21901@bluesqueakpip: Madame Nostradamus knitted the scarf, as stated in The Ark in Space 😉
8 December 2013 at 02:45 #22385I have a question about this episode that has been killing me. Maybe someone can help shed some light. Its stupid and simple but it bugs me none the less.
In the episode, Ten seems appalled by the fact they are archeologists, saying: “oh no tell me your not archeologists are you?” with a disgusted look on his face. Then saying “I’m a time traveller, I point and laugh at archeologists.”
Now to me, this is one of the most “un-doctory” things The Doctor has ever said. Wouldn’t you think knowing what we know about The Doctor, that he’d be proud of any humans who became archeologists as it is essentially a historical science dedicated to researching and understanding the past? I mean sometimes he seems proud of humans for certain things, like “Martha Jones, Protector of Earth” even though what she was doing was essentially a military operation, but then he’s annoyed by humans who study history and uncover its secrets?
anyone shed light on this peculiar comment that I feel he made?
8 December 2013 at 09:18 #22389@luxumbra – he’s a time traveller. He knows exactly how badly wrong archaeologists can sometimes get things; after a few of those, it must be impossible not to laugh. That said, he has travelled with archaeologists, so I wouldn’t say appalled – more ‘standing joke’.
🙂[The standing joke in archaeology is, if you have no idea what something was used for, class it under ‘ritual’.]
In Time of Angels there’s a scene in a museum, with the Doctor going: “Wrong, wrong, bit right, mostly wrong…wrong, very wrong! Ooh, one of mine. Also one of mine!” The joke there is that, while he’s happily complaining about archaeologists, one particular archaeologist is using the museum to send him a message.
8 December 2013 at 09:48 #22391:::waves hi @luxumbra:::
welcome
@bluesqueakpip beat me to the punch in responding to your question.
Time travel would tend to make you laugh at times at how silly and off-base people’s theories and predictions can be, I think.
What archeologist *wouldn’t* rather travel back in time to see how a society *really* lived rather than extrapolating, surmising, theorizing, and running the risk of getting it totally wrong at times?
What did you think of this episode now, after we’ve seen River’s past and the Doctor’s future together? Have your thoughts about it changed since you first saw it?
TardisBlue
9 December 2013 at 17:24 #22495Hey, guys, does anyone know what track played at the end of the episode? When they were running from the Vashta Nerada in Dave’s suit? I’ve listened to the series 4 soundtrack but it wasn’t there…
23 February 2014 at 03:35 #25686This has to be one of the creepiest episodes of Who I’ve ever seen…
“COUNT THE SHADOWS. IF YOU WANT TO LIVE, COUNT THE SHADOWS!”
3 April 2014 at 15:08 #26719So I’m getting my mom to watch Doctor Who and she’s really into it but she doesn’t take scary stuff very well. I warned her about the Weeping Angels and she didn’t want to watch it. I got her to watch Blink by convincing her that it wasn’t the scariest in the series, that the library was. Blink freaked her out and now she absolutely refuses to watch the library episodes. I’ve told her she has to or she’ll miss the introduction of a pivotal character but she keeps saying “just tell me who it is”. How do I convince her she needs to watch these episodes?
4 April 2014 at 02:26 #26725Doctor Who is timey-wimey, so there is no need to show your mum the introduction of River Song in order.
If she refuses to watch the Library episode, so be it.
I would suggest showing her The Time of Angels, and telling her it has the best opening of any Doctor Who ever (which it does) and after the two-parter is over, you can then explain that River Song appeared earlier (but it is all timey-wimey) and, who knows, she might agree to watch the Library episode.
Mums can be obstinate, but I am sure you will find a way!
4 April 2014 at 04:45 #26727@alicerose Maybe just fast forward through and only show her the crucial scenes. After all that “hello sweetie” is too good to miss.
Cheers
Janette
27 August 2014 at 05:37 #30376Oh look, I’ve found my way home!
I absolutely love this episode… The terrifying repeating of the last sentence you said, the fear of darkness and shadows, and the introduction of River Song! I really like how they introduced her in the tenth doctor’s time line when really most of her interaction is with the eleventh (although I do have a little theory up my spacesuit that she may have an encounter with the twelfth.). Fear the Vashta Nerada…….!!!
Fear the Vashta Nerada.
Fear the Vashta Nerada.
25 September 2015 at 00:13 #43388To date the only ep that has ever made me scared. Creepy shadow Zombies, a dark suspenseful setting normally associated with calmness, seeing Donna’s face on the statue with the whole “Donna Noble has left the Library. Donna Noble has been saved”, I couldn’t sleep for weeks. a perfect villain, and for once they only have one episode so that fear isn’t lessened.
24 April 2016 at 12:52 #51854Sorry 😉 if this post is long. Nobody has posted here in a while, but this happens to be my favorite River Song episode/two-parter.
Someone posted here so long ago that it seems like their account was deleted, but they pointed out something I hadn’t noticed before. Silence in the Library referencing the Silence. I had already made the connection between the space suits in this episode compared to in The Impossible Astronaut, but I find it interesting that Moffat could have been setting up River’s story from the very beginning.
He claims to have not even planned on using her character again. She would just be someone in the very distant future of the Doctor. As we should know by now, rule 1: Moffat lies. Maybe he didn’t have her entire story planned out, but considering he was just about to become head writer, he was probably already thinking about how to start off his first season.
Prisoner Zero was even setting up Season 6 in The Eleventh Hour, when it said, “Silence will fall.”
I loved the Sorry video with Ten posted here by the way.
3 May 2016 at 20:41 #52098I have always wondered about the scene where River dies. In the scene where the doctor tells her there was only one time he could have told her his name, as if it was a one of a kind moment. But there are no indications in later episodes about it.
Was it a dropped plot?
4 May 2016 at 01:00 #52109@petri19 It sort of is a dropped plot. You think he tells her in ‘The Wedding of River Song’ when he whispers in her ear, but he’s actually just telling her he’s inside the Teselecta. Moffat would probably just argue that he has 24 years on Darillium to tell her, but it seems like it’s linked to a big event in their lives together. IMO it’s a great way back in for River if they wanted to bring her back before Capaldi leaves. As much as I love the seeming finality of THORS, I hope they do.
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