History Recap / DoctorWho2015CSTheHusbandsOfRiverSong

* TeleFrag: The TARDIS has a safeguard in place to avert this by preventing the doors from engaging and the TARDIS dematerializing if it detects a lifeform as being inside the TARDIS and outside at the same time. This prevents River and the Doctor's immediate getaway until Hydroflax's body enters the TARDIS.

* AIIsACrapshoot: Hydroflax's robot body destroys Hydroflax's head (and thus kills Hydroflax) once it determines that the head is irreparably damaged. The body proceeds to claim Hydroflax's throne for itself.

-->'''The Doctor:''' He [Hydroflax's body] had a bad day on the market. [''Leaves, then returns to observer''] Sorry, I appreciate that wasn't really funny but I couldn't help saying it.

* CallBack: The Doctor doesn't like being sure about things!
--> '''The Doctor:''' One minute you're sure, the next minute [[Recap/DoctorWhoS34E1DeepBreath everyone turns into lizards and a piano falls on you]]. It's been a long day.
** At one point the Doctor says, in disbelief, "Seriously?" This had been Clara Oswald's catchphrase towards him.

** River gets some too -- she's crashed a spaceship into a human colony ''BUT AWAY FROM ANY PEOPLE'' so no one gets hurt, gets on board a ship due to be destroyed by meteor strikes (which results in the death of many bad guys) and, finally, comes to terms with her final night with the Doctor. This also ties into ''[[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E8SilenceInTheLibrary Silence in the Library]]'' & ''[[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E9ForestOfTheDead Forest of The Dead]]'': She knows the Doctor ''does'' love her and that he ''will'' come if she asks -- so when she gets sent to a mysterious and abandoned library she calls for him, knowing he'll come. Only it's the wrong Doctor who turns up; Ten shows up - she's expecting ''Twelve'', who could ''easily'' defuse the matter as he knows to trust River.

* ChristmasCarolers: Referenced; the Doctor has a sign on his TARDIS door that says "Carol Singers Will Be Criticised".
** Creator/StevenMoffat must dislike carolers since Amy Pond threatens them with a water gun in a [[Recap/DoctorWho2011CSTheDoctorTheWidowAndTheWardrobe previous Christmas special]].

** We get to see River's [[Recap/DoctorWhoS31E4TheTimeOfAngels "spotter's guide"]] for the Doctor which confirms that River knows about all of the Doctor's incarnations by this point, including the War Doctor (who is supposed to be a secret from everyone). In retrospect, this means she only knew of the Doctors of his first regeneration cycle (plus Twelve), as there are no images of any future Doctors.
* ContinuitySnarl: The fact River has not yet been sent to her death by the Doctor causes issues with the 2013 Christmas special, "[[Recap/DoctorWho2013CSTheTimeOfTheDoctor The Time of the Doctor]]", in which the Doctor prepares to die - and expects to die - at the end of his current incarnation, without having resolved River's timeline. It's difficult to HandWave this away when one considers the ''[[Recap/DoctorWhoS35E12HellBent episode immediately preceding this one]]'' was built around the fact that preventing a fixed point in time - which could have happened had Clara not convinced the Time Lords to give the Doctor another life and he'd died without taking River to the Singing Towers - would have been catastrophic for the universe.

* DissonantSerenity: "The starship ''Harmony And Redemption'', minimum ticket price one billion credits, plus the provable murder of multiple innocent life forms. Suites are reserved for planet-burners... Even the staff are required to have a verifiable history of indiscriminate slaughter. This is where genocide comes to kick back and relax. Do try the fish."

* GoodScarsEvilScars: Scratch and the other members of the Shoal of the Winter Harmony have a diagonal scar running across their face. It turns out this is so they can open up their heads; the bank transfer orb is stored inside Scratch's. (The Doctor notes upon the reveal of this ability "you probably shouldn't do that in a restaurant.")

* KarmicJackpot: A young man on Darillium investigates the crashed spaceship, trying to rescue any survivors. The Doctor assures him there aren't any (and they wouldn't be worth saving anyway), but gives him the most valuable gemstone in the universe for his trouble. Even just the reward for returning it, rather than selling it, is a ''lot'' of money. The Doctor's only condition is that he use the money to build a restaurant on the spot--which will quickly earn even more money.

* LaserGuidedAmnesia: Ramone doesn't recall that he married River because she mind wiped him of that event! (He was getting "annoying", according to her.)

* MonstrousCannibalism: It is apparently normal for the children of Flemming's species to eat their mother.

* BiTheWay: River had at least two wives, one of them Cleopatra (who apparently married the Doctor as well). Not surprising, given that in "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E8SilenceInTheLibrary Silence in the Library]]" she told Strackman Lux to put his helmet back on because he was the only one in the group she didn't fancy, and the group in question included women as well as men.

* DramaticIrony: For the majority of the episode, River didn't know Twelve was the Doctor, not knowing he had gained more regenerations past his Eleventh incarnation. This lead to poignant moments when she spoke about him in his own presence. It also lead to some amusing moments when she finally realized it.

* TheGoodTheBadAndTheEvil: While the Doctor doesn't see himself as a particularly good man, he's the Good character in this story, compared to River, the Bad girl who's prepared to kill Hydroflax for profit, and Hydroflax and everyone on board the ''Harmony and Redemption'', who are almost cartoonishly Evil mass-murderers.

* MoreHeroThanThou: The Doctor and River argue over which one of them should stay behind to save the ship. It's subverted when they both remember that everyone on the ship except for themselves is a monster who deserves to die and escape together on the TARDIS.

* MustMakeAmends: The Doctor choosing to see through his final night with River Song after years upon years of avoiding it is clearly his way of making amends for not truly returning her love before once he's heard her AnguishedDeclarationOfLove. This is in line with his recent CharacterDevelopment; his parting advice to Clara (as he underwent the mind wipe) in "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS35E12HellBent Hell Bent]]" included "Never be cruel and never be cowardly. And if you ever are, always make amends."
* MySkullRunnethOver: When the cyborg body connects to the payment orb to access various banks it is overloaded by the respective security systems ''and'' the constantly fluctuating stock markets.

* ThemeMusicPowerUp: "A Good Man? (Twelve's Theme)" underscores the Doctor and River's attempts to stop the starliner from crashing and and save each other at the same time.

** Also, the Doctor's response to River asking him how long a night on Darillium is -- "Twenty-four years." -- is clearly this to her, and to anyone in the audience who didn't suspect that time on that planet might run a ''little'' differently than it does on Earth; it significantly shifts the tone of the BittersweetEnding as in a sense their relationship is just ''beginning''.

* ContinuitySnarl: The fact River has not yet been sent to her death by the Doctor causes issues with the 2013 Christmas special, "[[Recap/DoctorWho2013CSTheTimeOfTheDoctor The Time of the Doctor]]", in which the Doctor prepares to die - and expects to die - at the end of his current incarnation, without having resolved River's timeline. It's difficult to HandWave this away when one considers the "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS35E12HellBent episode immediately preceding this one]]" was built around the fact that preventing a fixed point in time - which could have happened had Clara not convinced the Time Lords to give the Doctor another life and he'd died without taking River to the Singing Towers - would have been catastrophic for the universe.

* StealthJoke: Doubles as a MeaningfulName. Hydroflax loses his head, and gains two more, like a decapitated hydra.

** ''Hybrid'': River Song, the Child of the TARDIS, is effectively a human-Time Lord hybrid, while WordOfGod confirms that the Doctor was half of the Hybrid of a Gallifreyan prophecy, Clara Oswald being the other half. He ''might'' even be half-human himself, the previous episode raising the possibility of the latter for the first time in almost twenty years.

* ObfuscatingStupidity: According to WordOfGod from Steven Moffat in April 2017, this is the explanation for Nardole's ditzy behaviour in this episode.

* PromotionToOpeningTitles: Alex Kingston. Finally.

* IdiotBall: Even though she believes the Eleventh Doctor was the last, and is also a bit distracted by the number of gambits she's got going on, it still takes River a lot longer than one would think to realize the "doctor" she's talking to is in fact ''the'' Doctor. Especially with all the hints he drops, such as:

** Hydroflax is infamous for devouring his enemies, [[EatenAlive sometimes while they are still alive.]] Which is impressive for a guy without a throat.

* MundaneUtility: After the spaceship has crashed and the TARDIS has landed at the Singing Towers, the Doctor uses a series of quick jumps to wait out the fire, give the diamond to a random aid worker so he'll build a restaurant, reserve a table at the restaurant four years in advance, and finally take River to dinner. Because of the time machine, this all happens in about two minutes.

* ReplacementLoveInterest: This is a tricky example. Although technically River Song predates Clara Oswald as a love interest of the Doctor, the timing of this story, coming off three seasons of the Doctor/Clara relationship and airing only three weeks after the events of "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS35E12HellBent Hell Bent]]", casts River in this role, emphasized by the fact the Doctor has at this point lost his emotional memories of Clara.

* CallForward: The Doctor finally [[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E8SilenceInTheLibrary gives River]] [[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E9ForestOfTheDead a screwdriver]].

** River gets some too -- she's crashed a spaceship into a human colony ''BUT AWAY FROM ANY PEOPLE'' so no one gets hurt, gets on board a ship due to be destroyed by meteor strikes (which results in the death of many bad guys) and, finally, comes to terms with her final night with the Doctor.

* ArcWord: Two Series 9 arc words and concepts are revisited, subtly.

** This is also

** To MaeWest -- when River catches the diamond in her cleavage, she brags about being good. The Doctor's response? "I'm not sure 'good' is the word." In other words, goodness had nothing to do with it.

-->'''The Doctor:''' ''[winks]'' Hello, Sweetie.

* BookEnds: In River's last on-screen appearance, we finally get to see the Singing Towers she mentioned in her first one. The episode was nearly this for the whole Moffat era, provided you count her one RTD-era story as an extended preview.

** There's also the fact that he's apparently just been on an adventure that involved everyone turning into lizards and a piano fell on him, which ''has'' to hurt.

-->-- '''River Song''', [[FailedASpotCheck not knowing that he is standing right next to her.]]

* MoodWhiplash: On two levels.

* SerialSpouse: Both the Doctor and River.

* BiTheWay:
** River had at least two wives, one of them Cleopatra (who apparently married the Doctor as well). Not surprising, given that in "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E8SilenceInTheLibrary Silence in the Library]]" she told Strackman Lux to put his helmet back on because he was the only one in the group she didn't fancy, and the group in question included women as well as men.
** She also married Creator/StephenFry, making him this as well.
* BigNo: King Hydroflax is in the middle of one of these as his body vapourizes his head!

* GenreSavvy: River's attempted to murder her husband and steal a diamond. This is probably going to get her killed. So, what's the best way to hide the crime? Do the sale on a spaceship you know is going to ''be destroyed in a meteor shower'' with no survivors.