Ranking River Song’s Stories So Far (Part 1)
Guest contributor Connor Hamilton begins his countdown.
With the recent announcement of River’s return I decided it was the perfect time to write this. In this article I’m going to take a look at all of her TV stories so far and count down from best to worst, in my opinion of course.
This was a very hard list to make purely due to the fact that I love the character and even her worst episodes are some of my best. So let’s look at her time in the show. Professor River Song, the psychopathic, flirtatious, Time Traveller’s wife, better known as hell… in high heels.
9. The Name of the Doctor
“It’s hard to leave when you haven’t said goodbye.”
I started off with this one, because as much as I love the story, the Whispermen and almost everything about it, it has to be my least favourite appearance from River to date. Firstly, I felt the only reason for her appearance was to have her say the Doctor’s name at the tomb so that we end up not getting to hear it from the Time Lord’s mouth. Secondly, it kind of graffitied all over the farewell of River Song in Forest of the Dead, a farewell made so beautiful for the fact we had that before we ever really got the ‘hello’. River could have appeared in that episode in plenty of ways, however the fact that it was made clear it was her AFTER the Library, made her involvement and her time in the episode very unappealing. I pray that after such a bad opinion of it happening in this one, that Moffat doesn’t make the same mistake and feature River post-Library this Christmas.
8. The Angels Take Manhattan
“Just you wait till my husband gets home.”
I’ll be honest, as much as I’m a fan of this episode, River’s participation in the story was nothing special. It only leaves me with two scenes of hers that I did like. The first was how she comforted the Doctor during Amy and Rory’s farewell, and the second being that beautiful line ‘It’s called Marriage, honey!’ after the Doctor questioned her changing the future. Sadly, this story didn’t change my opinion on her, it was quite right for her to be in the episode however, but I think with this being Amy and Rory’s farewell, her scenes were easily forgettable.
7. A Good Man Goes To War
“It’s me. I’m Melody. I’m your daughter.”
Cease fire! I need to make something clear before a lot of people judge me for placing this appearance in 7th place. I loved River in this episode, and Alex Kingston delivered some incredible scenes, and even though they were few, they were impactful. My reasoning for this being in 7th place is purely just because of the short amount of screen time River got. And like I said, even though it was a beautiful few scenes, it doesn’t deserve any higher of a ranking when other episodes which featured River in a lot of scenes delivered scenes to the same extent of quality and impact. But it goes without saying that this episode was phenomenal and the fact that this story is lower on my list shows just how incredible the character is, to have reduced such a reveal and story to 7th place, means only good things are yet to come.
6. Let’s Kill Hitler
“I’m a psychopath. I’m not rude.”
I am not a huge fan of the plot as a whole, if I’m honest. The Teselecta was nothing special and Hitler’s appearance in the episode made no impact on me whatsoever. It was as unnecessary and cringeworthy as that line that Mels dropped in the first few minutes about killing Hitler for the sheer fact she had a gun and a time machine as a getaway vehicle. However… while I feel Mels was nothing impressive, her successor to the title, Miss River Song, who regenerated her way through a wall of Nazi soldiers definitely made the episode what it was. I love it just because of it being an origin story, not necessarily for Melody Pond, but for River Song. We finally see when the transition from Melody to River happened and to be quite honest, Alex Kingston has delivered some beautiful scenes in her time on the show but that scene where she learns who she is and saves the Doctor… just beautiful. Such an incredible appearance and still only in 6th place.
Can you guess the top five in order? Check back soon for the conclusion to find out.
