'The Wedding of River Song' (Story Code 6.13) by Steven Moffat

“‘Silence will fall when the question is answered.’ All the times I’ve heard those words, I never realised it was my silence. My death. The Doctor will fall.” – The Doctor

London, 5.02 pm, 22nd April, 2011: cars float through the air on hot-air balloons; pterodactyls menace children in Hyde Park; Romans on chariots drive along the capital’s streets; the War of the Roses enters its second year; Charles Dickens is interviewed on ‘BBC Breakfast’; and Holy Roman Emperor Caesar Winston Churchill resides in Buckingham Palace. Consulting his aide, Silurian Doctor Malokeh, Churchill considers how it is always 5.02 pm throughout all day and night. Ordering his soothsayer to be brought from the Tower of London, Churchill asks his toga-wearing, bearded prisoner what has caused all of history to happen at once – and the Doctor replies: “A woman”…

Earlier: in his search for the Silence, the Doctor disables a Supreme Dalek and extracts information from its data core. This leads him to the Docks of Calisto B, where he meets Father Gideon Vandeleur, former envoy to the Silence – or at least his facsimile, as the Father died six months ago, and has since been replaced by the time-travelling, shape-changing robot known as the Teselecta, controlled by Captain Carter and his miniaturised crew. Knowing that Carter is also investigating the Silence, the Doctor asks for details of the religious order’s weakest link, which in turn leads him to take part in a live Chess match against an eye-patch wearing mercenary named Gantok. With the Doctor about to win the electrified game, Gantok begrudgingly accepts the Time Lord’s offer of conceding the game in exchange for information as to why the Silence wants him dead. Gantok takes the Doctor to the Seventh Transept; the crypt where the Headless Monks keep their living skulls, which is the final resting place of Dorium Maldovar’s decapitated head. However, as the Doctor prepares to question what’s left of Dorium, Gantok pulls a gun on him – but then trips a trap a promptly falls through a hole in the floor, into a pit of very angry and very hungry skulls… Sealing the hole with his sonic before the skulls can turn on him, the Doctor questions Dorium about the Silence; Dorium explains that the order see themselves as “the Sentinels of History”, and want to protect time from the Doctor’s dangerous past – and his even more dangerous future, when silence will fall after the ultimate question is answered. The Doctor asks what the Question is, and after some procrastination, Dorium tells him… Taking Dorium’s severed head back to the TARDIS, the Doctor prepares his next move; the time Lord is now aware of the consequences of his future, and knows that he has to die…

In the present, as the Doctor continues to recount his story to the Holy Roman Emperor Churchill; then he notices that he has a mark drawn on his arm…

Back in the TARDIS, Dorium explains that the events at Lake Silencio at 5.02 pm on the 22nd April 2011 are a still point in time: the perfect conditions to create a fixed point, such as the death of the Doctor. Knowing that his time is running out, the Doctor continues his plan of catching up on everything he has put off: finally addressing what he has put off for ages, he contacts a certain nursing home, only to learn that his old friend, Brigadier Lethbridge Stewart passed away six months ago. Hearing this tragic news, the Doctor finally decides to confront his destiny, and he takes out three blue envelopes from his pocket. A short while later, the Doctor hands the envelopes to the Teselecta and asks Captain Carter to deliver them for him…

The present: the Doctor tells Caesar Churchill how he wanted to spend his last day with his best friends, Amy and Rory. He then notices that he has more marks on his arm…

The Doctor recounts the events at Lake Silencio: how his enjoyment of a picnic with Amy, Rory and River Song was interrupted by the arrival of an ‘Impossible Astronaut’ emerging from the water. Inside the spacesuit was an earlier version of River, who was powerless to prevent the suit from taking control and shoot the Doctor. As River pleaded with the Doctor to run, the Time Lord reassured her that his murder must happen in order to save the universe; promising that River would have no recollection of events, the Doctor showed her how her later self was standing nearby. But after the Doctor forgave River for her actions and then took the deadly energy blast unleashed by her suit, he was surprised to discover that this time he was still alive – River had deliberately drained her weapons systems so that she could re-write time…

The present: the Doctor explains to Churchill how time is now dying thanks to River’s actions: it will be 5.02 pm for all eternity. When Churchill remarks that he can smell smoke from his gun, the Doctor finds that his other arm is now covered in tally marks; looking up, the two men see that the ceiling is swarming with Silence. But at that moment a gas canister rolls across the floor, and a troop of soldiers burst into the room; an eye-patch-wearing Amelia Pond steps forward and then shoots the Doctor point-blank… Sometime later, the Doctor awakes to find himself aboard a train bound for Cairo, in an office covered in drawings of his earlier adventures. Confronted by Amy, the Doctor learns that this no-nonsense version of his friend has some recollection of travelling with him, even though those events happened in an alternative timeline; somehow, Amy can remember both versions of the events at Lake Silencio. The Doctor is worried: time has split, and is now disintegrating –the damage will soon spread, and all of reality will be destroyed. At that moment the Doctor and Amy are joined by Captain Williams: Rory dressed in a uniform and eye-patch, although he is clearly unaware of his relationship with Amy. The train finally arrives at its destination: a huge pyramid branded with an American flag and the legend ‘Area 52’. Inside, Captain Williams gives the Doctor an eye-patch, which is actually a device called an ‘Eyedrive’, a storage device that enables its wearer to remember seeing the Silence. Learning that there are over a hundred Silents held captive inside fluid tanks, the Doctor is understandably concerned… Taken to the control room, the Doctor meets an eye-patched River Song and a captive Madame Kovarian. Seizing the opportunity to restore reality, the Doctor grasps River’s hand, and their contact starts to short out the time differential: the Doctor reverts to Lake Silencio and time starts to heal – until River breaks their grip, and the Doctor finds himself back in the pyramid. Elsewhere in the complex, the Silents begin to break out of the tanks that imprison them... As Rory notices that water has begun to leak throughout the building, Amy sees water spilling from a crack in the control room roof. Madame Kovarian tells the Doctor that the Silents are not prisoners: they have been waiting for him to arrive, and now they have broken free. As the Silents storm the control room, Rory seals the door and prepares for the coming attack. Then Madame Kovarian uses her connection to the eye-patches to overload the devices’ control system – causing every wearer throughout the base to collapse in pain. After Amy manages to remove Doctor’s patch, River takes off hers and then Amy’s; Madame Kovarian starts to gloat – but then her eye-patch starts to hurt her too: her usefulness to the Silence has apparently ended. As River escorts the Doctor and Amy to the Receptor Room at the top of the pyramid, Rory remains behind to cover their retreat; but as the Silence break into the room, Amy returns and guns them down, saving the man who would otherwise be her husband. Refusing to save Madame Kovarian, Amy makes sure the woman’s eye-patch is stuck on, and then leaves with Rory... At the apex of the pyramid, River shows the Doctor the timey-wimey distress beacon that she has used to send a message across all of time and space: “The Doctor is dying. Please, please help.” Convinced that he has to sacrifice himself, the Doctor refuses to listen to River – until she tells him that the sky is full of voice, all offering their help: the Doctor may have decided the universe is better off without him, but the universe disagrees. Finally realising that his actions have brought about a great good, the Doctor conducts an impromptu wedding: with Rory and Amy – the bride’s parents – presiding over them, the Doctor marries River, and after sealing the ceremony by whispering his name to her, they ‘officially’ kiss. The physical contact of the two lovers causes time to move on: at Lake Silencio, the Doctor is killed, and his body is subsequently burnt in a hero’s funeral pyre. Time heals itself, and history is restored…

Later: a disconsolate Amy sits in her garden. As she mourns the loss of her friend, Amy is joined by her daughter, who has just climbed out of the wreck of the Byzantium and travelled back in time to be with her. As Amy admits that she is wracked with guilt from letting Madame Kovarian die, River tells her mother a secret: the Doctor lied: he didn’t whisper his name, he whispered his back-up plan. As the two women dance for joy, they are joined by Rory, who is equally surprised to learn the truth behind recent events – and is somewhat astounded at the realisation that he is now the Doctor’s father-in-law…

In the future, a Headless Monk returns Dorium’s head back to the Seventh Transept. Dorium suddenly works out that his companion is the Doctor – but how? With a knowing smile, the Doctor reveals that it wasn’t him that died at Lake Silencio – it was the robotic Teselector, with him hidden inside! All along it was the Teselector that stood in for the Doctor, allowing the Time Lord to deliberately stage events to make everyone think that he is now dead, enabling him to slip back into the shadows. Although Dorium is pleased that the Doctor has survived, he reminds his friend that the future is still inevitable: the Fields of Trenzalore await, the “Fall of the Eleventh” must occur, and the First Question still remains to be answered: “Doctor Who?”

Matt Smith (The Doctor), Karen Gillan (Amy Pond), Arthur Darvill (Rory Williams), Alex Kingston (Doctor River Song), Frances Barber (Madame Kovarian), Ian McNeice (Emperor Winston Churchill), Richard Hope (Doctor Malokeh), Simon Fisher-Becker (Dorium Maldovar), Marnix Van Den Broeke (The Silent), Nicholas Briggs (Voice of the Dalek), Simon Callow (Charles Dickens), Meredith Vieria (Herself), Bill Turnbull (Himself),Meredith Vieira (Newsreader), Niall Greg Fulton (Gideon Vandaleur), Greig Fulton (Niall), Sean Buckley (Barman), Rondo Haxton** (Gantok), Emma Campbell-Jones (Doctor Kent), Katherine Burford (Nurse), Richard Dillane (Captain Carter), William Morgan Sheppard (Canton Delaware III)
**Pseudonym for Mark Gatiss

Directed by Jeremy Webb
Produced by Marcus Wilson
Executive Producers Steven Moffat, Piers Wenger and Beth Willis
A BBC Wales production, co-produced with BBC America

TX (BBC 1 & BBC 1 HD):
1st October 2011 @ 7.05 pm

Notes:
*Featuring the Eleventh Doctor, Amy, Rory and River

*A specially-made one-minute prequel to this story was made available on the BBC's official 'Doctor Who' website: in Area 52, two eye-patched soldiers check the complex, but fail to register a Silent suspended in a tank of liquid. Elsewhere, an eye- patched River Song prepares for the Doctor’s final day on the shore of Lake Silencio…