A quick theory about Doctor Who - now with extra theory in which I've worked it all out

[andrewducker]

So, River kills the best man she ever knew.

Which is, presumably, Rory. Unless it's The Doctor.

In either case - what if she did it _as a child_? We last saw childRiver in the 1950s, wandering the streets doing regenerationy stuff. What if the first time she meets The Doctor she kills TBMSEN by accident - and ends up locked up for it anyway. And then, clearly, she gets visited repeatedly in prison, and taken out here, there and everywhere by him - and he basically raises her, telling her just enough to prepare her for what she has to do when she meets him later on.

(I'm discounting the idea that childRiver in an astronaut suit killing The Doctor at the start of the current season is this event, as it seems too obvious.)

Edit:
Also! Whatever The Doctor does _next_ - when he gets _really_ angry - is what kicks off the war he's having right now. Because he's operating backwards in time to River, and thus backwards in time to the people he's involving himself with right now. So he does something bad to them, and their retaliation is what causes him to do it. It's a great big paradox in the middle of the plot! Genius.

And thought of first by Alan Moore in the Doctor Who comics he wrote back in the 80s...

Comments

[skington.livejournal.com]

Watch again the Doctor - River Song exchange around the cot. "I'm telling you", constant nervous laughs and quick looks around to Amy and Rory, references to them doing kissy kissy, "How do I look?" "Amazing" and so on.

And then consider that both Amy and River felt a little bit sick when viewing the Silents, but nobody else did.

River, assuming she's Melody Pond, and is kidnapped and raised by the Silents via the creepy orphanage guy in the 1960s, has no reason to recognise the Doctor's cot. Not unless she happens to have a child with the Doctor...

[cybik.livejournal.com]

Child River was early 1970, surely? The Day of The Moon was set in July 1969 and the scene at the end of it was set 6 months later..

[andrewducker]

D'oh - yes. 70s, not 50s.

[ami-bender.livejournal.com]

I have to say that some of the recent doctor episodes have been rather good in that they make you think or try to twist your brain into whatever potentially arcane plot lines they have in mind.

That said, if I was one of the writers, I would be going through all the fan sites and seeing what sorts of wonderfully devious and creative ideas I could nick for future episodes or plot.

[ami-bender.livejournal.com]

Although to be fair, several of them were also complete garbage when it came to having an internally or logically consistent plot line.

[blearyboy.livejournal.com]

The Moff has essentially confirmed on Twitter that last night's revelation is a bit of a misdirection. And some bits of it don't add up: he's off to rescue baby Melody, he seems unlikely to quit searching until he finds her, yet in the opening episodes we see she spends her early childhood being raised by the Silents, before dying and regenerating alone on the streets of earth. What happened in between. And I think the key line last night was another throwaway Amy line (remember she made an offhand joke about her baby having a "timehead" in ep 2), when she hears about the Flesh avatar being remote controlled and she says, "What, even inside the TARDIS?"

Reading Moffat's tweets and some of the fan reactions on the web, I think this episode was designed to lure us all into thinking that we had it all figured it out. He's going to take great delight in turning that on its head in the second sequence. I'm guessing that there won't be any answers until series 3.

BTW, has anyone rewatched the Library episodes since last night? Not only does it end with a virtual River in the library mainframe, but she also potentially regenerated without telling him.

[blearyboy.livejournal.com]

BTW - you mentioned the Cybermen thing at the end of your other post. Has it ever previously been mentioned that the Cybermen have been wiped out from all time & space? It seems it's only the Daleks who are completely gone, all other races existing somewhere in time and being left alone by the Doctor if they're not invading Earth.

[andrewducker]

I hadn't realised that they were original Cybermen.

It was the new, rubbish, Cybermen that I was curious about, as we hadn't seen them have any space-tech so far.

[blearyboy.livejournal.com]

I think it's likely it's the original Cybermen, although it's not mentioned either way.

Just had another thought. Those marine-priest dudes. They seem to be the same guys who were in the Weeping Angels double episode, although we don't know the chronology. But aren't they also the people who imprisoned River for murder?