River-Doctor chronology question
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Re: Timeline confusion
And that's just it. Go back and re-watch Silence in the Library. River attempts to call out the Doctor, essentially saying she's playing along, but hopes there's a good reason he's pretending not to know her.
She does the same thing ... Not knowing when in the timelines she's meeting the Doctor, she generally acts like she doesn't know the companions, until she figures out when they all are, to avoid "spoilers." (you all just heard her voice saying that, didn't ya?)
And that's just it. Go back and re-watch Silence in the Library. River attempts to call out the Doctor, essentially saying she's playing along, but hopes there's a good reason he's pretending not to know her.
She does the same thing ... Not knowing when in the timelines she's meeting the Doctor, she generally acts like she doesn't know the companions, until she figures out when they all are, to avoid "spoilers." (you all just heard her voice saying that, didn't ya?)
Re: Timeline confusion
I am going to try and talk (or write) this through. The Doctor and River are traveling in opposite directions in the time stream (her past is his future). So shouldn't the last time the Doctor meets River be the first time River meets the Doctor? And the more the Doctor meets River shouldn't she know less about him and he knows more about her?
I am going to try and talk (or write) this through. The Doctor and River are traveling in opposite directions in the time stream (her past is his future). So shouldn't the last time the Doctor meets River be the first time River meets the Doctor? And the more the Doctor meets River shouldn't she know less about him and he knows more about her?
Re: Timeline confusion
Yep. I also think this explains her reaction to Rory in A Good Man Goes to War. She sort of looks at him with confusion for a second, which forces him to pause and ask if she knows him. Then she knows it's safe to act like she knows him.
Yep. I also think this explains her reaction to Rory in A Good Man Goes to War. She sort of looks at him with confusion for a second, which forces him to pause and ask if she knows him. Then she knows it's safe to act like she knows him.
But if they're meeting back to front, then they'll never have an experience in common except the current one, and the diary is pointless. Why would you keep asking "Have we done x?" if the answer is always "No"?
Unless Moffat means there are unseen adventures that aren't in reverse order, in which case the diary still makes sense.
Unless Moffat means there are unseen adventures that aren't in reverse order, in which case the diary still makes sense.
I like this theory myself.
Well, then I just feel left out.
Oh, that makes perfect sense, no matter what. The Doctor has a time machine. Even if he did try to pick up River before she experienced TPO, there's no reason he couldn't have picked up Dorium from a later point in history. Just because Dorium, River, and the Anglican Marines are contemporaries doesn't mean that the Doctor couldn't have brought any of them forward or back a bit to make his attack at exactly the right moment. It just would've been a few years at most, rather than a few thousand in the case of the Silurian or the Sontaran.
A few points:
1. Just because they are always meeting in reverse order it doesn't mean that they know they are always meeting in reverse order. And even if they know they are, it doesn't hurt if they go through the trouble to check where they are. They've established certain rules perhaps, and checking the diary is one of them.
2. We already have one meeting that wasn't in the reverse order. River saw the Doctor die long after she's spent a lot of time with him. The answers in this case would always be “Yes.”
You'd think they'd catch on eventually, though. And River seems to know it in "Day of the Moon" and "The Impossible Astronaut," where she treats the Doctor's first kiss with her as her last kiss with him.
Well, that might make for a decent retcon.
I thought of that instance, but until we know more about what's going on there, it doesn't provide much evidence either way.
^ The fact that when they find out they've both done Jim the Fish, River doesn't go, "ohmigod this never happens" would seem to indicate they don't meet in perfect reverse order.
^Or that River is, as some have suspected, playing a scripted part in events she already knew about. Or that Steven Moffat is still writing the diaries like they make sense even though they don't. I guess what I'm getting at is that, although you can probably use "River lies" and "timey-wimey" to construct a decent theory for how it all works, I do think Moffat has changed his conception of the River/Doctor timeline since the character was introduced. There's nothing wrong with that, of course.
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