lizbee | (Reply)

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See, I don't think that River IS there just to be the love-interest for the male lead, any more than Captain Jack was. I loved the living hell out of 'Silence in the Library' for taking the central conceit of 'The Time Traveller's Wife' - which isn't so much the romance as it is the complexities and implications of two people who are travelling through time in different ways connecting at wildly different points in their lives, and knowing one another in very different ways as a result - almost more like a mystery story than a romance. Granted, we're stuck with the Doctor's POV, so we don't know all the back-story they have - but I love the idea that there is all this back story. I'm sure that The Doctor came across as unspeakably smug when he encountered River for the first time in her own personal Time Stream - hell, he comes across as tremendously smug an awful lot of the time just on general principles. And it's clear that they've spent much of their relationship with him teaching her things, and having the advantage of knowing all about her personally, on top of the normal I Am A Fucking Time Lord! advantage he has over most people. I think it would take a much more saintly and dull sort of person to NOT have a twinkle in their eye at finally seeing the Doctor lose some of his massive advantage.

The Doctor is pretty much always the smartest, most knowledgable person in the room - and I am very fond of him (with reservations), but it's VERY nice seeing him having to operate in contexts where he isn't being all Omniscient Lonely God figure - whether it's with The Master, or with River Song. River may turn out to be Romana or The Rani or somebody, I suppose, but I find myself hoping that she's actually just a human who happens to be smart and capable and ruthless, and whose only advantage over the Doctor is the simple fact that she's from further ahead in his personal timestream, and knows him very well indeed.

She could be his offspring or one of his descendants, or even his mother or something, but I'm charmed by the idea that she's his wife, and given that the relationship is clearly a nod to 'The Time Traveller's Wife', down to the diary, it seems pretty clear that that's the case. (Whether or not they are lovers is another question entirely - the Doctor does rather seem to have inadvertently proposed, so it's entirely possible that their relationship remains intense but asexual - I could buy them getting married for some plotty reason that has nothing to do with romance.)

Afaic it makes little sense to say that she's there just to be the love interest - because right now she ISN'T a love interest. The Doctor evidently finds her intriguing, but he isn't smitten - he was much more smitten by Reinette, and Rose. She's clearly leading her own very interesting life, which has been interwoven with The Doctor's for quite a while. She may very well end up killing him, or betraying him terribly in some fashion - there were certainly hints that this was the case, and there would be a rather splendid symmetry in her sacrificing her life in the the library to save him, knowing that she has been/will eventually be responsible for killing him.

I think it's one of the most interesting and potent plot threads they've introduced in AGES, and I actively enjoy the fact that we only see the edges of the story.

I'm not saying that this is the case with you (I mean, really not - I'm not being passive aggressive here), but I do think that an awful lot of the criticisms I've seen leveled at River Song would NOT have been leveled at her if she had a penis. And I find that quite galling.

Anyway, notwithstanding the fact that imho River is an awesome BAMF and a splendid recurring character (because, I have to say, I am well and truly over the daleks, and think they need to take a season or two to go chill somewhere - although I'd be happy to see the Master again), it has been pointed out to me that there's a recurring theme in Season 5 - and in much of Moff's work - of women being passive, or of being tidily married off. This, combined with some of the twaddle he's apparently spouted about women being needy, does make me headdesk a bit - and, yes, I can agree that the guy may have some issues. But I think River Song is an awful lot more than that.

I also very much enjoy the fairy tale sensibility that he brings to the show, and I think he's got a terrific knack for dialogue. I'm hoping he'll get a bit more of a clue about not feeling he needs to put women on ice/in cells/in Pandora's box/otherwise have them waiting around for Prince Charming. (This is, after all, the guy who gave us Lynda on Press Gang.)