The feminine side of time-travellers
- Publication: The Times
- Date: 2010-06-28
- Author: Andrew Billen
- Page: Times2, p. 52
- Language: English
Doctor Who
Saturday, BBC One
★★★★
If television programmes had dedications in the way that books do, Steven Moffat would have dedicated his first series of Doctor Who to Audrey Niffenegger, author of The Time Traveler's Wife. Saturday's finale played, as did the entire series, with Niffenegger's notion that the lives of time travellers have chronological integrity. The Doctor may know lots, but he does not know what will happen to him next. What is more, he will run into people from his future who do. Chief among these was River Song, Alex Kingston's bossy, bossy screwball-comedy alien, who has been hinting throughout that she is something big in the Doctor's future. Is River Song this time-traveller's wife? Towards the end of the tale, in a scene set at Amy Pond's wedding to the restored Rory, she hinted that we shall soon find out.
Fans of the book will have registered on Saturday that Pond, like Clare in The Time Traveler's Wife, first meets her time traveller as a child and that one crucial encounter occurs in a museum. But perhaps Niffenegger's strongest influence has been to persuade Moffat to approach his unknowable new Doctor through the eyes of a perceptive female companion. Pond, fiercely played by Karen Gillan, has come closest to any of his assistants to knowing him; at times Matt Smith's Doctor appears to have been caught by her and River in a female pincer movement more painful than any threat to his life.
Saturday's wordy and complex finale closed down suggestions that Pond is the Doctor's soul mate. Instead, she married Rory who, we are told, has spent 2,010 years guarding the Pandora's box in which she has been incarcerated. Considering that in episode one Amy absconded in the Tardis on the eve of her wedding to him, making their relationship the love story of the past two millennia seemed a little unearned. To be picky, also, the 55 minutes were ludicrously jargon-ridden: reality was facing "total event collapse"; the Doctor had to "reboot the universe" by means of a "restoration field powered by an exploding Tardis"; the cost would be the Doctor being trapped in the "netherspace, the void between the worlds". As for the Doctor being willed back into existence by an effort of memory, it was all a Rile too "I believe in fairies". But never mind; this series has been a feat of virtuoso storytelling by Moffat and acting by Smith, the 27-year-old who now looks ageless in the role. There is no more assured drama on British TV.
Disclaimer: These citations are created on-the-fly using primitive parsing techniques. You should double-check all citations. Send feedback to whovian@cuttingsarchive.org
- APA 6th ed.: Billen, Andrew (2010-06-28). The feminine side of time-travellers. The Times p. Times2, p. 52.
- MLA 7th ed.: Billen, Andrew. "The feminine side of time-travellers." The Times [add city] 2010-06-28, Times2, p. 52. Print.
- Chicago 15th ed.: Billen, Andrew. "The feminine side of time-travellers." The Times, edition, sec., 2010-06-28
- Turabian: Billen, Andrew. "The feminine side of time-travellers." The Times, 2010-06-28, section, Times2, p. 52 edition.
- Wikipedia (this article): <ref>{{cite news| title=The feminine side of time-travellers | url=http://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php/The_feminine_side_of_time-travellers | work=The Times | pages=Times2, p. 52 | date=2010-06-28 | via=Doctor Who Cuttings Archive | accessdate=12 March 2025 }}</ref>
- Wikipedia (this page): <ref>{{cite web | title=The feminine side of time-travellers | url=http://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php/The_feminine_side_of_time-travellers | work=Doctor Who Cuttings Archive | accessdate=12 March 2025}}</ref>
