'The Wedding of River Song:' A small sampling of reviews (yes, with some spoilers)

Add the Stetson and he's got a Rooster Cogburn look going for him.

A confession: I have not seen "The Wedding of River Song." I was out all day and returned much later than I had planned. Yes, I will watch the episode - after a good night's sleep.

But I could not go to bed without taking a peek at what other people are saying about the season-ender for Dr. Who. I did not read any of the reviews in depth to minimize spoilers to myself and saw nothing too surprising or that I had not already guessed.

Overall, I'm seeing a positive trend in the reviews. Hmmm ...maybe I'll stay up a little later.


But first, in no particular order:

From Juliette Harrisson at Pop Classics:

As a whole, then, this episode was great fun - Simon Callow returning as Charles Dickens was probably my favourite moment (talking to Bill and Sian, my favourite Breakfast TV presenters - this will mean nothing to anyone outside the UK I'm afraid). Major questions were resolved, things all the fans had deduced years ago were confirmed, and I like the idea of River tearing Time itself apart for love. I'm soppy that way. There was a strong Douglas Adams vibe about the whole thing as well, which is always good (the Question that cannot be answered, as opposed to the Answer without a question, and Time getting stuck at 5.02pm, surely a Long, Dark Teatime of the Soul). Oh yes, and a military base in the pyramids - that was cool too. But next year, it would be nice to have a few more episodes that get stuck into a real idea and give it some extended thought, and preferably an arc that doesn't leave me reassuring CurrentHousemate that no, it's not really supposed to make sense.

From Simon Brew at Den of Geek:

... by the time the credits rolled on this episode, it was a bit more straightforward than it might at first have appeared. That said, The Wedding Of River Song at times felt like a bit of a Doctor Who exam, albeit one that most ten year olds would be able to unravel at far greater speed than their parents ...

... It proved to be a cocktail of what makes Doctor Who brilliant, yet sometimes frustrating. But it sets things up in a strong position to take Doctor Who, with its next series, towards the kind of birthday that shows like these aren’t supposed to get to.

From Falco at Life, Dr. Who & Combom:

Questions were not only answered but, in an increasingly rare display of expositional Who, actually explained. The sheer volume of ideas thrown into this episode was positively breathtaking (memo to Sebastian Coe and Boris Johnson – Live Chess: too late for London 2012?). There were moments of delicious comedy – anyone else get the feeling Moffatt’s been just dying to write “Pond...Amelia Pond” since he first thought her up? – and there were also some genuinely creepy moments – carnivorous skulls, frankly, are an idea that will worm their way into the subconscious of your Inner-Eight-Year-Old and gnaw away at their peace of mind, and the moment when the Silence-creatures were discovered, en masse, upside down was disturbing and shocking – there’ll be more than a few actual eight-year-olds who have trouble sleeping tonight.There were nods to the past, and a telling, respectful homage to Nicholas Courtney, and his timeless Brigadier. And very very pleasingly, we saw the return of the “Numskulls” in the Tessalector, and perhaps more to the point, they turned out to be crucial to the solution of the whole series story-arc.

From Dave Golder at SFX:

VERDICT Remember back in the first half of the series when the Doctor would look at the TARDIS monitor screen and the image would flash back and forward between “Amy pregnant” and “Amy not pregnant”? I’m getting that feeling every time I think about the star rating for “The Wedding Of River Song”. Five stars! No, four stars! No, five stars! No, four…

Why? Well, it’s about nine tenths a great, great episode. From the audacious history mash-up teaser with pteradons, roman soldiers, and BBC Breakfast existing simultaneously (it looked like they spent more on that than the rest of the series put together) to the ominous ending when a 38 year-old question suddenly takes on a whole new edge (“Doctor Who?”) it’s an episode crammed with esoteric delights; witty, scary, emotional, crazy, surprising and action packed.

From Darren Blackburn, Cosmic Book News:

From the Doctor searching for the answer to the oldest question in the universe by finding the beheaded Dorium Maldovar, to bumping into a Dalek, to Live Chess(!), and to establishing the visual treat of seeing all of Earth's history in a mish mash stuck at 5:02 pm on April 22nd, Moffat excelled at bringing most of the various plot threads to a very neat closure - and adding the final jigsaw puzzle pieces to River Song's timey wimey timeline.