History YMMV / DoctorWho2015CSTheHusbandsOfRiverSong

** The timing of this episode -- only three weeks after the emotional "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS35E12HellBent Hell Bent]]" -- led to some disquiet among fans, especially as this was another episode dealing with the Doctor saying goodbye to a woman he loved. The episode also causes issues with those who shipped the Doctor and Clara -- something the series ''itself'' supported -- due to the revelation that during all the time he was engaging in "an old fashioned romance" with Clara (as defined by WordOfGod - the actors and the showrunner), he was still married to River. The fact this episode establishes that River married not once but twice to other people ''while still married to the Doctor'' (the other marriages referenced may have predated her marriage to the Doctor) certainly helped break the base more! Even if shipping wasn't an issue, the frequently melancholic and tragic Series 9 (which had no {{Breather Episode}}s) leading into the most lighthearted Twelfth Doctor story yet was enough of a MoodWhiplash to garner complaints about timing.
** Doctor-Clara shippers weren't happy that Twelve ultimately spends twenty-four years with River. Twelve has lost his memories of Clara; he doesn't know ''why'' he once went so far for her. The shippers' last hope is that, perhaps as Twelve's tenure comes to its end, he and Clara's paths will cross again and he will miraculously recover his memories. Given that Donna Noble never regained hers despite massive fan outcry, the prospects for that aren't the greatest. The Doctor may be luckier, but at the same time his and Clara's relationship wouldn't, and couldn't, be the same as before -- she's quasi-immortal and has a date with death that must be met, he's sadder and wiser, and they both know too well their relationship can't overshadow the needs of others. And what if ''she'' forgets ''him''? Two Christmas specials later, the Doctor-Clara story came to its apparent end: shortly before he regenerated into Thirteen, Twelve had his memories of Clara restored by the Testimony and was able to bid her glass avatar goodbye.

** Months after this special's broadcast, the out-of-left-field announcement that Nardole -- who was last seen sharing Hydroflax's now-benign body with Ramone at the Singing Towers restaurant! -- would be the secondary companion of the Doctor (Bill being the primary one) in the 2016 Christmas special and Series 10 evoked responses of either "Ugh, not him again!" or "Interesting, wonder how that's going to work?" (Turns out the Doctor "reassembled" him; "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS36E6Extremis Extremis]]" revealed that later River made Nardole promise to look after the Doctor after she died, knowing he needed companionship, a MoralityChain, and someone to kick his butt as needed.)

* AuthorsSavingThrow: After River's story seemed to end two series ago without any explanation of the Singing Towers of Darilium, one of the few specific references she ever made to the exploits in her past and the Doctor's future, it's finally revealed here. (Actually, it ''had'' been revealed, in a made-for-DVD mini-episode titled "Last Night", but many fans never saw or were resentful that a major moment was blown off as a DVD extra.) Also, her having pictures of all the Doctor's incarnations removes the plot hole that she wouldn't immediately realize she'd reached the point where the Doctor had never met her before during her fateful adventure with the Tenth Doctor, when apparently her entire relationship had been with the Eleventh. Her mentioning having "borrowed" the TARDIS in the past could also mean she had met or at least seen previous incarnations -- a conceit promptly picked up by the ExpandedUniverse Creator/BigFinish audio dramas (which patches ''another'' hole left by River's whole relationship apparently being with Eleven - before we knew her history, it sure ''seemed'' like she'd known the Doctor through many incarnations.)

* IdiotPlot: The plot relies on River not figuring until the third act that this eccentriccally-dressed gentleman is the Doctor. And the Doctor strings River on a ruse because...ForTheLulz?
** Or FridgeHorror, with River spending so little time with the Doctor before this that she no longer recognized his behaviors, had (she thought) already kissed him for the last time, and had her diary very nearly full. Given this episode for her follows the death of her parents, she may have not especially cared if she died here.

* CriticalResearchFailure: The Doctor claims that River married Creator/StephenFry...who is gay and in a civil partnership. Of course, it could be just one more not-what-it-seems NoodleIncident.

* AuthorsSavingThrow: After River's story seemed to end two series ago without any explanation of the Singing Towers of Darilium, one of the few specific references she ever made to the exploits in her past and the Doctor's future, it's finally revealed here. (Actually, it ''had'' been revealed, in a made-for-DVD mini-episode titled "Last Night", but many fans never saw or were resentful that a major moment was blown off as a DVD extra.) Also, her having pictures of all the Doctor's incarnations removes the plot hole that she wouldn't immediately realize she'd reached the point where the Doctor had never met her before during her fateful adventure with the Tenth Doctor, when apparently her entire relationship had been with the Eleventh. Her mentioning having "borrowed" the TARDIS in the past could also mean she had met or at least seen previous incarnations -- a conceit promptly picked up by the ExpandedUniverse Creator/BigFinish audio dramas.

* CriticalResearchFailure: The Doctor claims that River married Creator/StephenFry...who is gay and in a civil partnership.

* ToughActToFollow
** Coming on the heels of a three-part Series 9 finale that saw the painful endgame of the Twelfth Doctor and Clara's relationship, a much-anticipated return to Gallifrey, and his temporarily and tragically becoming the biggest threat to all space and time, a fair chunk of fans and critics found this mostly broadly comedic episode to be underwhelming by comparison, even with its poignant wrap-up. On the other hand, those who were emotionally exhausted by Twelve's tragic StoryArc were happy to see '''him''' [[EarnYourHappyEnding earn a happy ending]] -- as he could not have achieved it without the events of the arc teaching him to deal with love and loss in a healthy manner -- at last. Creator/StevenMoffat, for his part, said the lighthearted tone of the episode and its timing after the finale was purely intentional.
** The Twelfth Doctor's previous ChristmasEpisode "[[Recap/DoctorWho2013CSLastChristmas Last Christmas]]" was a huge hit with the fanbase and critics for being scary, funny, twisty, and poignant -- the near-ideal of a ''Doctor Who'' story. A wacky RomanticComedy with a poignant ending that has very little, aside from its lead character, connecting it with the season that preceded it (whereas "Last Christmas" follows closely on the heels of the events of "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS34E12DeathInHeaven Death in Heaven]]" and sets up the season to follow - and both of its predecessors featured major character development moments tying in with episodes before and after) just wasn't going to have the same impact.

* AuthorsSavingThrow: After River's story seemed to end two series ago without any explanation of the Singing Towers of Darilium, one of the few specific references she ever made to the exploits in her past and the Doctor's future, it's finally revealed here. (Actually, it ''had'' been revealed, in a made-for-DVD mini-episode titled "Last Night", but many fans never saw or were resentful that a major moment was blown off as a DVD extra.) Also, her having pictures of all the Doctor's incarnations removes the plot hole that she wouldn't immediately realize she'd reached the point where the Doctor had never met her before during her fateful adventure with the Tenth Doctor, when apparently her entire relationship had been with the Eleventh. Her mentioning having "borrowed" the TARDIS in the past could also mean she had met or at least seen previous incarnations -- a conceit promptly picked up by the ExpandedUniverse Big Finish audio dramas.

** The timing of this episode -- only three weeks after the emotional "Hell Bent" -- led to some disquiet among fans, especially as this was another episode dealing with the Doctor saying goodbye to a woman he loved. The episode also causes issues with those who shipped the Doctor and Clara -- something the series ''itself'' supported -- due to the revelation that during all the time he was engaging in "an old fashioned romance" with Clara (as defined by WordOfGod - the actors and the showrunner), he was still married to River. The fact this episode establishes that River married not once but twice to other people ''while still married to the Doctor'' (the other marriages referenced may have predated her marriage to the Doctor) certainly helped break the base more! Even if shipping wasn't an issue, the frequently melancholic and tragic Series 9 (which had no {{Breather Episode}}s) leading into the most lighthearted Twelfth Doctor story yet was enough of a MoodWhiplash to garner complaints about timing.

** Not all Doctor-River shippers were happy either, given that the episodes put a comparable quantity to certain things. The Doctor devotes 24 years to River, after having devoted 4.5 ''billion'' years to Clara. Despite the contexts being completely different, some felt that River came off as the lesser in what ended up being a side-by-side comparison due to the episodes airing only weeks apart (or even ''minutes'' for those who viewed "Hell Bent" as part of the Christmas marathons that aired in the US and Canada prior to THORS being broadcast). One thought expressed was that this episode might have been better off being the 20'''16''' Christmas special in order to put more distance between it and the Series 9 trilogy. As it happened, ''that'' special ("The Return of Doctor Mysterio") softened the issue of River coming off the lesser somewhat: The Doctor left her for good after those 24 years but it broke both his hearts to do so and he went into Series 10 coping with that loss as best he could, with the later episode "Extremis" revealing that Nardole was now serving as his companion at River's request. The novelization of "Twice Upon a Time", Twelve's GrandFinale, also goes into some detail about his loving River so much that it was one reason he initially wanted to die for good rather than regenerate -- he had known such happiness with her that he felt he'd lived a truly full life by the time he was mortally wounded.
** Months after this special's broadcast, the out-of-left-field announcement that Nardole -- who was last seen sharing Hydroflax's now-benign body with Ramone at the Singing Towers restaurant! -- would be the secondary companion of the Doctor (Bill being the primary one) in the 2016 Christmas special and Series 10 evoked responses of either "Ugh, not him again!" or "Interesting, wonder how that's going to work?" (Turns out the Doctor "reassembled" him; "Extremis" revealed that later River made Nardole promise to look after the Doctor after she died, knowing he needed companionship, a MoralityChain, and someone to kick his butt as needed.)
** The events of "The Time of the Doctor" are now called into question as the Eleventh Doctor spent that entire episode preparing to die and fully expecting to, and if not for Clara saving the day by convincing the Time Lords to give him more regenerations he ''would'' have died. Yet this episode reveals (by way of explicitly retconning a made-for-DVD mini-episode from 2011, "Last Night", in which the Eleventh Doctor supposedly takes River to Darillium) that the Doctor had not released River to go to the Library and her death, a major fixed point event in the continuity of the series -- and violating fixed points in time dooms all of time and space to unravel, as episodes like "Father's Day", "The Waters of Mars", "The Wedding of River Song", "Before the Flood" '''and''' the just-broadcast "Hell Bent" all make clear. Beyond the continuity issue, this detail doesn't reflect well on the Eleventh Doctor since it suggests he wasn't concerned for River, Clara ''or'' the space-time continuum as he prepared for his death on Trenzalore. The fact that it was once again due to ''Clara saving the day'' (in this case successfully begging the Time Lords to give Eleven more regenerations) that the universe kept spinning annoyed those who were already annoyed at how powerful Clara had become.

* HarsherInHindsight: Watch Series 7's "The Angels Take Manhattan" after this episode: Amy asks River to "be good" before she is zapped by the Angel. This adventure is set immediately afterwards if her diary is any indication, so River has evidently ignored her mother's last wish as she's planning to ''murder'' someone! Sure, that someone is absolutely crazy and blows up planets, but it's ''still'' murder nonetheless. Evidently, judging by "Silence of the Library", River doesn't stay like this for long, but she still would have done it.
** As mentioned in BrokenBase, the very existence of this episode puts a negative light on the events of "The Time of the Doctor" as it implies that the Eleventh Doctor would have allowed for a major, possibly universe-ending paradox to occur by dying before he releases River to go to the Library and meet her death in "Forest of the Dead". This paints the Eleventh Doctor in a rather harsh light in retrospect.

* TearJerker:
** River's speech about not expecting the Doctor to love her back is heartwrenching, especially to viewers who just saw how far the Doctor went to save another woman he loved -- as far as River once did for him, in fact. Guilt trip, much, Doctor?
** As is the Doctor's expression when he hears it. You can clearly see him realising how much his relationship with River has messed her up.

** Coming on the heels of a three-part Series 9 finale that saw the painful endgame of the Twelfth Doctor and Clara's relationship, a much-anticipated return to Gallifrey, and his temporarily and tragically becoming the biggest threat to all space and time, a fair chunk of fans and critics found this mostly broadly comedic episode to be underwhelming by comparison, even with its poignant wrap-up. On the other hand, those who were emotionally exhausted by Twelve's tragic StoryArc were happy to see '''him''' [[EarnYourHappyEnding earn a happy ending]] -- as he could not have achieved it without the events of the arc teaching him to deal with love and loss in a healthy manner -- at last. Steven Moffat, for his part, said the lighthearted tone of the episode and its timing after the finale was purely intentional.
** The Twelfth Doctor's previous ChristmasEpisode "Last Christmas" was a huge hit with the fanbase and critics for being scary, funny, twisty, and poignant -- the near-ideal of a ''Doctor Who'' story. A wacky RomanticComedy with a poignant ending that has very little, aside from its lead character, connecting it with the season that preceded it (whereas "Last Christmas" follows closely on the heels of the events of "Death in Heaven" and sets up the season to follow - and both of its predecessors featured major character development moments tying in with episodes before and after) just wasn't going to have the same impact.

** Ultimately, the series offers no indication as to how long a companion-less interval there was for the Doctor between the end of the 24-year night and the opening of the Series 10 episode "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS36E6Extremis Extremis]]", which establishes how the Doctor ends up with Nardole as a companion, thereby also setting up his decades-long exile on Earth that forms the backstory of Series 10. As such, the opportunity exists for fans - and licensed media such as comics - to establish original companions, or reunite with previous ones, with Clara Oswald being a major figure. Many post-THORS/pre-Series 10 fanfics exist to resolve the Doctor-Clara relationship before the events of Series 10 that lead to his next regeneration, though they were all rendered AlternateContinuity by the events of his GrandFinale, which confirmed that he didn't fully remember Clara until just before he regenerated.

** Months after this special's broadcast, the out-of-left-field announcement that Nardole -- who was last seen sharing Hydroflax's now-benign body with Ramone at the Singing Towers restaurant! -- would be the secondary companion of the Doctor (Bill being the primary one) in the 2016 Christmas special and Series 10 evoked responses of either "Ugh, not him again!" or "Interesting, wonder how that's going to work?" ([[spoiler: Turns out the Doctor "reassembled" him; "Extremis" revealed that later River made Nardole promise to look after the Doctor after she died, knowing he needed companionship, a MoralityChain, and someone to kick his butt as needed.]])

** Ultimately, the series offers no indication as to how long a companion-less interval there was for the Doctor between the end of the 24-year night and the opening of the Series 10 episode "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS36E6Extremis Extremis]]", which establishes how the Doctor [[spoiler: ends up with Nardole as a companion, thereby also setting up his decades-long exile on Earth that forms the backstory of Series 10]]. As such, the opportunity exists for fans - and licensed media such as comics - to establish original companions, or reunite with previous ones, with Clara Oswald being a major figure. Many post-THORS/pre-Series 10 fanfics exist to resolve the Doctor-Clara relationship before the events of Series 10 that [[spoiler: lead to his next regeneration]], though they were all rendered AlternateContinuity by the events of his GrandFinale, which confirmed that [[spoiler: he didn't fully remember Clara until just before he regenerated]].

** Doctor-Clara shippers weren't happy that Twelve ultimately spends twenty-four years with River. Twelve has lost his memories of Clara; he doesn't know ''why'' he once went so far for her. The shippers' last hope is that, perhaps as Twelve's tenure comes to its end, he and Clara's paths will cross again and he will miraculously recover his memories. Given that Donna Noble never regained hers despite massive fan outcry, the prospects for that aren't the greatest. The Doctor may be luckier, but at the same time his and Clara's relationship wouldn't, and couldn't, be the same as before -- she's quasi-immortal and has a date with death that must be met, he's sadder and wiser, and they both know too well their relationship can't overshadow the needs of others. And what if ''she'' forgets ''him''? With the later announcement that Series 10, in which he'll be busy getting to know Bill Potts, is Twelve's final season, it looks like the best shippers can hope for is Clara ''somehow'' turning up in the 2017 ChristmasEpisode that will be his GrandFinale.
** Not all Doctor-River shippers were happy either, given that the episodes put a comparable quantity to certain things. The Doctor devotes 24 years to River, after having devoted 4.5 ''billion'' years to Clara. Despite the contexts being completely different, some felt that River came off as the lesser in what ended up being a side-by-side comparison due to the episodes airing only weeks apart (or even ''minutes'' for those who viewed "Hell Bent" as part of the Christmas marathons that aired in the US and Canada prior to THORS being broadcast). One thought expressed was that this episode might have been better off being the 20'''16''' Christmas special in order to put more distance between it and the Series 9 trilogy. As it happened, ''that'' special ("The Return of Doctor Mysterio") softened the issue of River coming off the lesser somewhat: The Doctor may have left her for good after those 24 years, but it broke both his hearts to do so and he's going into Series 10 coping with that loss as best he can, even taking on her associate Nardole as a companion (his first post-Clara in the televised continuity) so he won't be alone.

** Ultimately, the series will offer no indication as to how long a companion-less interval there was for the Doctor between the end of the 24-year night and the opening of the Series 10 episode "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS36E6Extremis Extremis]]", which establishes how the Doctor [[spoiler: ends up with Nardole as a companion, thereby also setting up his decades-long exile on Earth that forms the backstory of Series 10]]. As such, the opportunity exists for fans - and licensed media such as comics - to establish original companions, or reunite with previous ones, with Clara Oswald being a major figure. Many post-THORS/pre-Series 10 fanfics exist to resolve the Doctor-Clara relationship before the events of Series 10 that [[spoiler: lead to his next regeneration]].

** A mentioned in BrokenBase, the very existence of this episode puts a negative light on the events of "The Time of the Doctor" as it implies that the Eleventh Doctor would have allowed for a major, possibly universe-ending paradox to occur by dying before he releases River to go to the Library and meet her death in "Forest of the Dead". This paints the Eleventh Doctor in a rather harsh light in retrospect.