History Recap / DoctorWhoS32E13TheWeddingOfRiverSong

** This one:
--->'''Dorium:''' Doctor ''who?''

!!Tropes

* AnachronismStew: An intentional version. All of time is happening at once, and so you have dinosaurs in a 21[[superscript:st]] century park and classical authors on modern television. It's pretty awesome.
** The Holy Roman Emperor, Winston Churchill, even mentions music downloads.

*** Alternately, what do you call asking someone to marry you? Popping the Question!

* {{Area 51}}: Area 52 is kept in the ''pyramids''.

* AsHimself:
** American news personality [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=89bRg50io9M Meredith Vieira]].
** Sian Williams and Bill Turnbull from BBC Breakfast.

* BaitAndSwitch: It's been known from River's [[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E8SilenceInTheLibrary first]] [[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E9ForestOfTheDead appearance]] that the Doctor would eventually tell her his real name. So first-time viewers will certainly have reason to believe that, when he says he whispered his name in River's ear, he actually did -- except no, he's actually let her in on his escape plan.

** The season première featured a temporarily-bearded Doctor who was brought to Area 51. The finale featured a temporarily-bearded Doctor who was brought to Area 52.

--> ''[lots of quiet scuttling noises]''
--> '''The Doctor:''' I hate rats.
--> '''Gantok:''' There are no rats in the transcept.
--> '''The Doctor:''' Oh, good.
--> '''Gantok:''' The skulls eat them.

* FailedASpotCheck: The Doctor reminds Amy of her RippleEffectProofMemory and begs her to try to remember her previous relationship with the Doctor and everything they've done together... and then realises he's waving her own model TARDIS at her and blundering past her sketches of those very adventures.

* [[LikeFatherLikeSon Like Mother, Like Daughter]]:

* MiddleOfNowhereStreet: "Why ''Utah''?" Compared to the times and places the Doctor has been, you can excuse him thinking that. Turns out that it's justified-a still point in time where not much happens makes it easier to create a fixed point, apparently.

* OffscreenMomentOfAwesome: Winston Churchill and the Doctor fighting the Silence. We never see it because they can't remember it.
** Amy and her soldiers capturing many of the Silence-even if it was faked, it was probably still pretty cool.

* ProtagonistCenteredMorality: River benefits from this. Her actions threaten the safety of the universe, and she claims that [[ItsAllAboutMe she'll suffer more than everyone else combined]] if she has to kill the Doctor. Normally, this act would be shown as one of horrendous selfishness, especially given that a.) her parents are included in the whole "everyone dies in agony" thing and b.) this also includes every single companion the Doctor has ever had (along with, [[DepartmentOfRedundancyDepartment again]], ''every single person in existence''). Aside from a quick WhatTheHellHero, River gets what she wants - and what she's done is never brought up again.

** Aliens being held at Area 51-- er, Area 52 in water? Sounds like ''Film/IndependenceDay''!

** Disembodied blue head in an ornate box...[[Series/PeeWeesPlayhouse Where have we seen something like this before?]]

* BigDamnKiss: [[WeddingDay Naturally.]] The Doctor even invokes this trope by making sure "it's a good one".

* WeddingDay: Duh, look at the title! Technically a ''hand-fasting'' day, but it still has a parent's give-away-the-bride thing and a kiss.

* INeedAFreakingDrink: Amy, upon realising that she's the Doctor's ''mother-in-law''.

* MamaBear: When Amy finally takes Madame Kovarian to task for stealing her daughter.

(Dorium joked around for a bit, until the Doctor simply picked up the box and questioned Dorium's head further in the TARDIS. He could still do so much before dying. He was going to visit more friends. Could [[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E17E18TheEndOfTime go and enjoy his marriage to Queen Bess]]. Could have helped Rose Tyler with her homework in disguise. Could have visited all of Jack Harkness' stag parties in one night. A phone call to a nursing home interrupted that train of thought, and he learned that Brigadier Sir Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart had [[WhamLine peacefully passed away]], after having waited for a nice visit from the Doctor for years. This means nothing at all to people only knowledgeable about the newer episodes, but trust us, it's sad. The Doctor couldn't even reply to that and simply hung up. He knew that death was inevitable. He visited the Teselecta again and asked them to deliver his blue envelopes to Amy, Rory, River and himself, and went down to Lake Silencio in Utah to die.)

* GondorCallsForAid: The distress beacon Amy and River rig up to call for aid outside the TimeCrash. It leads to a YouAreNotAlone CrowningMomentOfHeartwarming.

* YouAreNotAlone: A brief but [[CrowningMomentOfHeartwarming touching]] moment where River tells the Doctor that she and Amy rigged a distress beacon to broadcast a signal outside the sphere of the TimeCrash's influence, and planets all over the Universe sent a response saying "Of course we'll help!" in gratitude for everything he's done for them over his long lifetime. Bonus points for this essentially being the opposite of the previous series finale, "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS31E12ThePandoricaOpens The Pandorica Opens]]", in which all the Doctor's enemies came.

* EasilyForgiven: The Teselecta crew are very eager to help the Doctor, considering that the last time they met his companions sabotaged the ship's intruder defence system, which is strongly implied to have led directly to the death of at least one crewmember. It's justified as they are implied to be fans and emulators of the Doctor. In other words, they are part of the group saying "of course we'll help".

* Disembodied blue head in an ornate box...[[Series/PeeWeesPlayhouse Where have we seen something like this before?]]

* TimeCrash:''This'' is why the Doctor doesn't (usually) try to change fixed points in time. A different sort of Time Crash from last year's, but the same general idea. Interestingly, while Series Five's finale had ''space'' collapsing due to an exploding TARDIS, Series Six ended with ''time'' going to hell because a certain Doctor just won't... die.
* TimeStandsStill: Time has frozen at 5:02 pm MDT on 22 April 2011, the exact time of the Doctor's apparent death.
* TimeyWimeyBall: Time has collapsed into the exact time of the Doctor's apparent death, and every time River and the Doctor touch the events of his death start repeating themselves. Except all the messages responding to River's distress beacon inside the collapsed timeline are coming from outside of it, where time is apparently still working normally. [[MindScrew Good luck figuring out the mechanics of that...]]

* TrickedOutTime: The Doctor made his way out of a nasty predicament, avoiding either dying or having all of reality frozen by asking the Teselecta to pose as him as he's offed by River, with nobody, not the Silence, or even ''history itself'', recognizing the difference. Probably because the Teselecta being there was the fixed point. Well, he was on the beach, and he did get shot by River and burned on the boat -- he was just very, very tiny at the time.

** Which includes a failure of Amy's. If she can remember so much, why doesn't she recognise Captain Williams as Rory? If her sketch of him is anything to go by, he should look a lot more like Brad Pitt.

* MiddleOfNowhereStreet: "Why ''Utah''?" Compared to the times and places the Doctor has been, you can excuse him thinking that.

* SequelHook: Dorium leaves us with various [[ArcWords phrases]] that will likely come into play later on, including "The Question", which will apparently be asked at the Fields of Trenzalore, and most foreboding, "The Fall of the Eleventh".

* SmugSnake: Madame Kovarian is just as smug as ever... until her You Have Outlived Your Usefulness moment, and her fitting end.

* TakeAThirdOption: River, as the Astronaut, tries to do this by discharging her weapons packs so she ''can't'' kill the Doctor. While the Doctor is protesting that his death is a ''fixed point'', time promptly breaks. Then we find out that he took a third option '''himself''' by getting the Teselecta ship to take his shape, so the him that was "killed" was actually a robot with him in it.

** Which then segues into a genuine tearjerker when he finds the Brigadier's passed away, but that he always spoke fondly of the Doctor and made sure they poured an extra brandy in case he came around... But he never did. Similarly, while Creator/NicholasCourtney appeared on ''Series/TheSarahJaneAdventures'', he never appeared in the ''Doctor Who'' revival.

* YouShallNotPass: Rory versus The Silence. The device that lets him remember them is booby trapped and causing him ''agonizing pain'', but he keeps it on so he can remember them and cover the escape of Amy, the Doctor, and River Song once the Silence break in. Unfortunately, it gets too bad for even him once the juice gets cranked up. The Silence ''still'' don't get to pass, because Amy, who was told to run, comes back with a machine gun.

* ProtagonistCenteredMorality: River Song, who threatens the universe by breaking a fixed point in time, essentially ends up getting what she wants -- the Doctor living, and married to her. Notably, when the scenario nearly repeats itself [[Recap/DoctorWhoS35E12HellBent in a (much) later episode,]] the Doctor is treated as being in danger of crossing the MoralEventHorizon.

* ProtagonistCenteredMorality: River Song, who threatens the universe by breaking a fixed point in time, essentially ends up getting what she wants -- the Doctor living, and married to her. Notably, when the scenario nearly repeats itself [[Recap/DoctorWhoS34E11DarkWater in a (much) later episode,]] the person responsible is treated as being in danger of crossing the MoralEventHorizon.

* ProtagonistCenteredMorality: River Song, who threatens the universe by breaking a fixed point in time, essentially ends up getting what she wants -- the Doctor living, and married to her. Notably, when the scenario nearly repeats itself in a (much) later episode, the person responsible is treated as being in danger of crossing the MoralEventHorizon.

The Silence in their tanks are starting to crack. They weren't captured -- they were waiting. Waiting to activate all those eyepatches and electrocute the people wearing them. River and Amy manage to rip off theirs. Rory yells at them to escape while he holds back the Silence. He keeps his eyepatch on so he can see them. As Amy realises that this might kill him, she figures out who he is, and tells him to run before his patch activates. He tells her that [[IronWoobie it already has]]. Almost mad with the pain and with clenched fists, he stands his ground. But Amy manages to improvise an escape, and on their way out they confront Madame Kovarian, who is ''extremely'' confused as to why the Silence haven't skipped her own eye patch and why her eye has been burned out.

Written by Steven Moffat. Has a [[http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/dw/videos/p00kn2y6 prequel]] video. The series 6 finale.

* YouShallNotPass: Rory attempts this, but his eye-drive's electrocution becomes too much for him right as the Silence break in, leaving Amy to take them out with an assault rifle.

* LoveMartyr: River rather takes this trope to extremes, seeing as she is willing to sacrifice ''time itself'' to save her love.

[[caption-width-right:350:Today, the role of the Doctor will be played by Jesus Christ . . .]]

->'''The Doctor:''' She said you were a Mr. Hottie . . . ness. And that she would like to go out with you for texting and . . . scones.\\

What he whispered into River's ear at their wedding wasn't his name. Amy insists it was, because he said it was. Rule one: the Doctor lies. It was, simply, "look into my eye". Inside his pupil she'd seen a miniaturised Doctor happily waving his Stetson at her. Because when you happen to suddenly befriend a time-travelling, shape-changing robot, powered by miniaturised people, who specialise in replacing people just before they die without creating a TimeParadox . . . you have options. The Doctor had realised it a bit late (after asking the Teselecta to deliver the envelopes, actually) but not too late.

** UsefulNotes/WinstonChurchill, Dorium, the Silurians and, most surprisingly, Simon Callow's Creator/CharlesDickens from back in [[Recap/DoctorWhoS27E3TheUnquietDead "The Unquiet Dead"]].
** There's a very brief Dalek cameo (the only time they've appeared in this particular season), and the Teselecta from [[Recap/DoctorWhoS32E8LetsKillHitler "Let's Kill Hitler"]] returns.
* BadassArmy: Amy is in charge of one. They even managed to capture Madame Kovarian and the members of the Silence. Or so they thought . . .

** In [[Recap/DoctorWhoS32E1TheImpossibleAstronaut "The Impossible Astronaut"]], the Doctor threatened that instead of taking them to 1969 he could easily be learning how to knit. While he's waiting for Gideon Vandeleur, he's shown reading a book on ''knitting''.

** Also one to [[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E9ForestOfTheDead "Forest of the Dead"]]:

** In the scene in the Ponds' garden, Amy is wearing the jacket worn by Rory in [[Recap/DoctorWhoS32E8LetsKillHitler "Let's Kill Hitler"]].

** A classic series example: in [[Recap/DoctorWhoS26E1Battlefield "Battlefield"]], at one point when it seems like the Brigadier has been killed by the MonsterOfTheWeek, the Seventh Doctor despairs that he was "supposed to die in bed". In this episode, the Eleventh Doctor learns the Brigadier has done just that. He apparently always "spoke often" of the Doctor and had them "pour an extra brandy" just in case the Doctor "showed up one of these days". Awwww!

* DecoyGetaway: How the Doctor gets out of his death. Surprisingly foreshadowed by Amy in [[Recap/DoctorWhoS32E1TheImpossibleAstronaut "The Impossible Astronaut"]]:

* DisproportionateRetribution: The chess-playing Silence agent tries to kill the Doctor for beating him at a game of chess. It's evidently SeriousBusiness on his world, but still . . . Made all the more disproportionate when you remember that the Silence agent actually won the game -- the Doctor conceded in exchange for his help.

* FailedASpotCheck: The Doctor reminds Amy of her RippleEffectProofMemory and begs her to try to remember her previous relationship with the Doctor and everything they've done together . . . and then realises he's waving her own model TARDIS at her and blundering past her sketches of those very adventures.

* {{Foreshadowing}}: The dialogue given at the top of the page serves as a portent of Eleven's final hour; this episode reveals Madame Kovarian and the Silence were attempting to kill the Doctor in order to prevent the events of [[Recap/DoctorWho2013CSTheTimeOfTheDoctor "The Time of the Doctor"]].

'''The Doctor:''' Her days, yes. Her nights . . . well, that's between her and me, eh?

* HerBoyfriendsJacket: Amy, disconsolate after the death of the Doctor, is shown consoling herself by drinking wine on her patio, wearing the letterman jacket Rory was sporting in [[Recap/DoctorWhoS32E8LetsKillHitler "Let's Kill Hitler"]].

* LampshadeHanging: "This is absurd: living skulls, other worlds . . ."

** "River Song didn't get it all from you . . . ''sweetie''." Remember the Dalek from [[Recap/DoctorWhoS31E13TheBigBang "The Big Bang"]]?

-->'''Madame Kovarian:''' Amy . . . help me . . .\\

'''Amy:''' The Doctor is very precious to me, you're right. But do you know what else he is, Madame Kovarian? ''Not here.'' ''[reattaches Kovarian's eye-drive]'' River Song didn't get it all from you . . . ''sweetie''.
* MeaningfulEcho: Alllll the way back to [[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E9ForestOfTheDead "Forest of the Dead"]], in the same situation, but reversed:

* RedHerring: ''Lots'' of people theorised that the Doctor at the beach was the Flesh Doctor from [[Recap/DoctorWhoS32E6TheAlmostPeople "The Almost People"]] -- even Amy, in-story. Far rarer was the theory that it might have been the ''other'' entity from this series that could mimic form that perfectly -- [[Recap/DoctorWhoS32E8LetsKillHitler the Teselecta]].

-->'''The Doctor:''' Time is dying. It's going to be 5:02 in the afternoon for all of eternity. A needle stuck on a record . . .\\

* SmugSnake: Madame Kovarian is just as smug as ever . . . until her You Have Outlived Your Usefulness moment, and her fitting end.

* TimeCrash:''This'' is why the Doctor doesn't (usually) try to change fixed points in time. A different sort of Time Crash from last year's, but the same general idea. Interestingly, while Series Five's finale had ''space'' collapsing due to an exploding TARDIS, Series Six ended with ''time'' going to hell because a certain Doctor just won't . . . die.

* TimeyWimeyBall: Time has collapsed into the exact time of the Doctor's apparent death, and every time River and the Doctor touch the events of his death start repeating themselves. Except all the messages responding to River's distress beacon inside the collapsed timeline are coming from outside of it, where time is apparently still working normally. [[MindScrew Good luck figuring out the mechanics of that . . .]]

** The Doctor notes this about Rory; no matter what has happened to reality, no matter what timeline he's in, even if he doesn't even remember it . . . he is ''always'' going to protect Amy.

** Which then segues into a genuine tearjerker when he finds the Brigadier's passed away, but that he always spoke fondly of the Doctor and made sure they poured an extra brandy in case he came around . . . But he never did. Similarly, while Creator/NicholasCourtney appeared on ''Series/TheSarahJaneAdventures'', he never appeared in the ''Doctor Who'' revival.
* YouAreNotAlone: A brief but [[CrowningMomentOfHeartwarming touching]] moment where River tells the Doctor that she and Amy rigged a distress beacon to broadcast a signal outside the sphere of the TimeCrash's influence, and planets all over the Universe sent a response saying "Of course we'll help!" in gratitude for everything he's done for them over his long lifetime.

** Bonus points for this essentially being the opposite of the previous series finale, [[Recap/DoctorWhoS31E12ThePandoricaOpens "The Pandorica Opens"]], in which all the Doctor's enemies came.

* YouHaveToBelieveMe: Subverted; upon waking up in an office on a train after being shock-stunned by Amy Pond, the Doctor begins to desperately attempt to persuade her that although she doesn't remember and probably won't believe him, they're actually best friends in another version of time and that she needs to remember . . . only for Amy to patiently wait him out and then silently indicate to him all the copious amounts of evidence that he somehow hasn't noticed scattered around her office that indicate that she already remembers everything, including drawings and a model of the TARDIS, which the Doctor is actually shaking at her frantically while he's trying to get her to believe.

The one where the Brig dies.

([[Recap/DoctorWhoS32E1TheImpossibleAstronaut After two centuries of avoiding his death]] the 1103-year-old Doctor had started his final preparations. Torturing a Dalek for information gave him the name of a Silence agent. The Silence agent, though, was already dead. His place was taken by the Doctor's old acquaintances: the Teselecta robot crew. [[Recap/DoctorWhoS32E8LetsKillHitler The Teselecta usually replace criminals with robots before they die and torture the person]]. They've now infiltrated the Silence this way. They gave him the information he needed.)

-> '''Dorium:''' It's all still waiting for you. [[Recap/DoctorWho2013CSTheTimeOfTheDoctor The Fields of Trenzalore]]. The Fall of the Eleventh. And the question.\\

* AnachronismStew: An intentional version. All of time is happening at once and so you have dinosaurs in a 21st century park, and classical authors on modern television. It's pretty awesome.

(''{{beat}}'')\\

* BelligerentSexualTension: When the Doctor and River start bickering about the current mess, Madam Kovarian bemoans the renewed flirting.

** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS32E2DayOfTheMoon A sign reading "Do Not Approach the Prisoner."]]

* DelayedRippleEffect: The TimeCrash starts off on Earth and according to the Doctor will eventually spread throughout the universe until it all collapses.

---> '''The Doctor:''' I had to die. I didn't have to die alone.

* EyeScream: Most people freak out if their own eyelash gets in their eye. The eye-drives use ''electricity.'' As Kovarian found out the hard and painful way.

* {{Foreshadowing}}: The dialog given at the top of the page serves as a portent of Eleven's final hour; this episode reveals Madame Kovarian and the Silence were attempting to kill the Doctor in order to prevent the events of [[Recap/DoctorWho2013CSTheTimeOfTheDoctor "The Time of the Doctor"]].

** Blink and you'll miss it, but after the Doctor finishes changing into his usual clothes, he tells Amy that she can look again. [[FemaleGaze Only judging from her position she never seems to have stopped.]] [[Recap/DoctorWhoS31E1TheEleventhHour Again.]]

* LastNameBasis: The Doctor pointedly asks Amy if she knows Captain Williams's first name. She answers, "Captain".

-->'''Amy:''' River Song didn't get it all from you, ''sweetie.'' (''replaces killer eyepatch'')

** Aliens being held at Area 51- er, Area 52 in water? Sounds like ''Film/IndependenceDay''!

* WeddingDay: Duh, look at the title! Technically a ''hand-fasting'' day but it still has a parent's give-away-the-bride thing and a kiss.