the one episode you had no clue how sad the ending really was, until you saw the following seasons.

He even scan her with it, to set it too.

Woah woah woah! Emotions are forbidden! *a tear rolling down my cheek*

Crazy how it took 7 years for that line to be paid off.

kzfaq.info/get/bejne/qpOnmq93z5zGkn0.html

OMG CLEVER THANK YOU

oh frick that's clever!

Actually I don‘t think so, because then CAL!River wouldn‘t know who Miss Evangelista and the others were and what happened in the Library. She only would have known the things she knew the moment he scanned her. She wouldn‘t even have remembered him crying because that happened later at the balcony.

I'm assuming it was less of scanning her *current* data into the save bar and more like calibrating it to her for when she does kick it.

@@Nefertari442 He doesn't mean for the library, he means connecting her consciousness to the save bar in the screwdriver.

He expected it to be his last?

@@usualblokeluke yeah, there was a few times he was planning to leave before Twice Upon a Time. When he first took over he had a rough plan to leave after four series with Matt Smith. He decided to stay longer when Matt left after three. He was then going to leave after this episode but the BBC couldn't get anyone to take over at the time so he agreed to come back for series 10 after finishing Sherlock season 4. Both he and Capaldi were going to finish with the Doctor Falls but Chibnall didn't want to start with a special so they both agreed to do one last Christmas special.

Moffat could definitely be hit and miss, but when he was at his best, it showed. He was responsible for some of the best and worst of his era, but it seems that when he put his heart into it, Who in general also got a lot of heart too.

So, the doctor could have saved Melody Pond when she was captured.... but accepted River Song’s promise to never rewrite her timeline.

God damn it now I am crying... again

River to 11 at Lake Silencio: “Time can be rewritten”. 11 to River: “Don’t you dare”.

Do not say things like that! Now I want them to meet.

I totally forgot about Brian and his trowel, or rather not forgot but didn't make the connection. It works both ways, with River being an archeologist too.

They almost certainly met. River was best friends with Amy and Rory as kids! :)

@David of Yorkshire she would of known her granddad she grew up with Amy and Rory as their friend Melody

@@Ugnutz there is a comic where Brian and Mels talk about how Rory and Amy made a lovely couple

"Hello sweetie "

Me too. makes me cry every time.

Watch good omens. Samesies.

The Name of the Doctor kiss is the last in her timeline (after upload at the library), but not the last in the Doctor's timeline.

Not just that. 24 years of being on the same page. Before, she knew him more, he knew her less, but for that long night on Darillium, they knew each other the same.

It occurs to me that 24 years is long enough to raise a child.

*Silence of The Library (sorry for the lateness)

@@theamericanyoutuber Silence in the Library (sorry for even more lateness!)

@@theamericanyoutuber no he’s right

IZathrus I didn’t notice that! The Doctor is talking about her and she kind of reuses his words when talking about him. So sweet 😭💕

*"Everyone lives!"*

You know Capaldi had been SO looking forward to that moment. Learning that Capaldi got so emotional in this episode made me love him even more.

And yet 12 didn’t actually have to come up with a plan. He knew what to do because 10 already did it. “Wibbly wobbly...”

tconlon251 timey wimey

Who really wrote Beethoven's 5th?

Bookq36 whodve guessed?

@@tconlon251 yup its a paradox, bootstrap paradox

Jason Talks never realised that. Runs in the family it seems.

Curse you and your making of feels!

I thought i was the only one who saw that 😭😭😭

:O oh gosh!!!

Poor Brian doesnt even know he has a grandaughter

It's heartbreaking, though. As this is the last time River and the Doctor meet before Forest of the Dead, where she meets the 10th Doctor and, well, dies.

@??? She does meet the 11th doctor again after her death tho in digital form

It is a bittersweet resolution for the Doctor and River. Both know about River's impending fate but both are given one last night together, 24 years, and they both lived a happy life to their fullest in that time, which remains theirs and not ours to know. I'd like to leave it that way.

It's a good cautionary tale about taking the people you love for granted.

Yeah. Made that mistake. The most gut wrenching part was when River realized the Doctor, her friend, her lover , her husband did not know her face.

Disagree! Leave those years unheard, and give them that time together in peace. Our imagination will be much more fulfilling and perfect than anything the best writers can come up with.

Zerofever my sentiments exactly, also good reference and I'm not crying

I’m not sure how river would end up going to the library after this from her point of view. 24 years end, ‘ok doctor got to go now, nice to know this was our last night together, I accept I’ll never run into you again’ and then all of a sudden she expects 10 to know who she is when she goes to the library

+Obiwan Kenobi, well, "last night together" doesn't _necessarily_ mean "I'll never run into you again", does it; the script has one but not the other - WE know that the last time River saw the Doctor before the Library was indeed at Darillium, because she says so in _Forest of the Dead_ . But the River at Darillium can't know this for sure: 'last night' means exactly what it says on the can, and no more. But there is a definite logic puzzle around this, because _Husbands_ does seem to imply that River does have some kind of foreknowledge, or strong suspicions, when she goes to the Library. The script tells us that she knows of the 'last night' stories about her and the Doctor at Darillium, and it also twice draws our attention to her awareness of the almost-full diary. I'd say that the 'logic' just about gets away with it, but it is creaking a little. There's story potential there, about what happened to River between the 'last night' and the Library. To my mind, Big Finish would have done better to explore this than pulling the kind of story tricks they had to get into to have River 'interacting' with Doctors before the Tenth. But whenever I find myself puzzling over something like this, I eventually fall back on one of Harry Potter's lines in one of the movies (the sixth, I think) - _"Actually, Professor, after all these years, I just go with it."_ :)

Elder Wraith it’s Jenga logic where the tower is buckled but just hasn’t quite fallen over yet so Moffatt can get away with it XD I understand they had to play on our emotions but I wonder what the scene would have been like here if Riversong just seemed to be having a great time, not aware of what the night ending would mean for her and all of our sorrow and emotion was coming from the doctor, holding back tears and not telling river why he was crying. So we had the doctor in turmoil and river completely oblivious

ObiWan Kenobi i think i would like to see that alternative

Kevin O'Grady I agree so much

Yep and Christmas carol is second place

Aunchient Pistol hahahaha burn

TB?

I totally agree, TB. The transition from comedy to heartfelt is done well. When the doctor said "Spoilers", my heart was like.. 'Oh my."..

Well said, Torchwood boy. Appreciating those friends and family while you have them, keeps us from regrets later on!

Makes me think of Redbeard. I remember watching his reaction to this and him saying that he had not planned on watching because he didn't think it was gonna be any good. He said that he was so glad he did because he hadn't been feeling well for awhile and this episode made him feel better. I miss that dude and his reactions. He was one of my favorites.

The thing is, that means she KNEW it was going to crash on Derillium. And by extension, that the diamond's reward was used to build the restaurant. So she had to know that she'd not keep the diamond. I think she was trying to make sure the restaurant got built there so they could have their last night there.

The best part of that scene is that there aren't any words - Alex's facial expressions as it begins to dawn on her that the doctor is indeed "standing right next to me".. is a tribute to a great actor's talent - they don't need words to let you now what they are thinking or feeling.

Absolutely agree!

I imagine it's because they're not familiar with his UK TV work. I think us Brits loved Nardole right off the bat (although he does become BETTER later).

HellfireComms True, but I didn't get the impression Jess was familiar with Matt Lucas already? Not like us Brits are anyway

Careful with spoilers!

And now the timeline is closed.

And now you spoiled.

not really

Bob Dallas No i didn't, we already know from River's first appearance that the Singing Towers Of Darillium is the last place she saw her Doctor before The Library

Zak Rosenfeld Yes, but we don't know if she will going to appear somewhere along the line in the future with her being younger... With River and a time-travelling show we don't know what to expect.

Yes, I think it is fantastic how his character progresses. It seemed to me that the intention to make his character develop and change was far more present in 12 than in previous regenerations, at least since the reboot. My memory of the original series is too hazy to remember if that was as much of a trait in any previous regeneration. Maybe 5?

John Tate The 6th doctor becomes much more charming and warm near his end. 10 does the opposite IMO by becoming more jaded and maybe a bit self-obsessed

And then he went back to grieving River's death. Good times can't last for the Doctor I'm afraid.

Tyler Bailey me too, theres a brief deleted scene in season 10 where capaldis talking about when he got stevie wonder to sing for her at the last great frost fair and how he had to get the piano down onto the ice, and its just adorable, you can totally see him doing that rather than matt

Doctor Who had a whole year off after this episode. It's a shame the BBC didn't make a whole series with Alex and Peter having adventures over the 24 years. Missed a trick there BBC! It was actually BBC Worldwide that insisted that Moffat concentrated on filming Sherlock and drop Who for a year.

They were excellent together

They’d have to do what big finish does whenever she meets a Doctor, which usually ends with some sort of mind wipe or the Doctor not retaining the memory, but for River instead. However, I think it’d ultimately feel forced no matter what they did, unless they met in extended media.

She has to have met 10 at least twice, given that in Silence in the Library she didn't know just from seeing him that he'd not met her yet. There's room, then, for the 60th anniversary to be her final appearance, where a version of her that hasn't been to Manhattan yet meets a version of 10 from 2009. I'd like to imagine the 60th will involve all the characters travelling back to 1963, where she will be visiting Amy and Rory in their mid 50s.

@@rtozier2011 just a plot hole, does leave room though not for the 60th, maybe for a big finish production. If there hasn’t been one yet.

But he wasn't

12 is the Doctor where you can see the influence of past incarnations most clearly IMO (Capaldi builds a lot of nods to the past into his performance).

I pretty much agree but we also have to remember the River in the 'Name of the Doctor' was the one from the Library Data Core so The Doctor(11) has already met a version of River from after her time with 12. It was possible that meeting in 'Name of the Doctor', and remembering the personality storage devices from the Library, gave the Doctor the idea to fit one to the sonic screwdriver that 12 gives River. We have no onscreen confirmation it was 10 or 11 who did the modification. Given how we have seen 12 is about always saving at least one (hence the face) and he is a tinkerer (2-Dis device etc) it would fit his personality to do it. Just a theory but it works for me. Anyway if the current or future Doctor had to visit the Library again for some reason (it is a large repository of knowledge after all) it would be a good excuse to see THAT River again.

Oh yeah, it could happen. But I just mean from a storytelling stand point, this puts a nice bow on things. As her last episode, in respect to the way we watch the show, I think anything extra in the show will kind of ruin it

If River does appear with future doctors a story where she never finds out or looses her memory of it would work as well.

I think she was given one of those boxsets.

Oh cool, I hope we get a review later!

River and Tom Baker next set :)

Yeah (although TBH I'm looking forward to the set after even more). I hope Seska has the first set (not that it really matters).

Bobzilla456 Ah yes the set with Four Masters, i can't wait for that

Aron Crillco my favourite christmas special, twice upon a time in close second

TORR MTROOPER spoilers

This was best then Christmas carol then the next one

I love the little music quote of the Silence in the Library theme when her new sonic is revealed. Chills.

But the melody carries on forever...

Torchwood Boy 😭😭😭💔💔

I CANT WHYYYYYY

But the river will always flow :) @Torchwood Boy I bet you've already watched this montage, haven't you? kzfaq.info/get/bejne/sN98jady3b7FYmQ.html :)

I never bought River and Eleven. I just didn't believe them together. I thought their chemistry in this episode was magical.

Yeah probably cause the age difference between Matt Smith and Alex Kingston is twenty years while the age difference between Kingston and Capaldi is only five. I only wish that Capaldi and Kingston had more time together cause I love their chemistry.

It's also a context of narrative perspective: from *our* POV, 11 and River are "the couple"; *he* is "our Doctor" for *her*, from *our* POV. But in-narratively, from *her* POV, 12 is _her_ Doctor -- the one she spends the most time with and actually has a "proper" relationship with... just one we don't get to see as it occurs off-screen during the "meanwhiles" and the "never-weres"... ;) (Kingston did an excellent job over her years on DW of hitting _just the right_ contextual note/tone for when/where she was on River's personal timeline relative to each incarnation of the Doctor; the chemistry with each of them was fantastic...)