Doctor Who mythology: River Song and the Eighth Doctor – a hidden relationship

While they had met briefly in her own spin-off series, River’s relationship with the Eighth Doctor truly begins in Doom Coalition 2…

(Photo credit: Doctor Who/Big Finish Productions.

Image obtained from: Big Finish Productions.)

River Song’s relationship with her husband has always been complicated in Doctor Who. But this is even more true with his Eighth incarnation – one who shouldn’t even know her at all…

We know that River Song has met many faces of her husband in Doctor Who. In fact, she’s met at least most of the Classic Doctors throughout her own spin-off series, The Diary of River Song. Usually, she either keeps her distance during these encounters, or finds ways of making the Doctors forget by the end.

However, with one incarnation, she shares a rather special relationship with. Because – while she’s aware that no Doctor earlier than the Tenth Doctor should ever remember her – things with his Eighth self became just a little more complicated, thanks to the events of Doom Coalition.

It begins at the end of the arc’s second box set. In The Sonomancer, River Song arrives on the planet Syra to investigate an inevitable disaster. She summons the Doctor’s help, but things get timey-wimey when the wrong incarnation of her husband arrives.

River had crossed paths with this particular incarnation of the Doctor before, in the first series of The Diary of River Song. But she was able to keep her distance then, using only a radio to communicate with him.

During Doom Coalition, she once again aims to keep her distance from him, making sure that he never meets her, or even finds out her real name. It’s a tricky situation, but she has help from one of the Doctor’s friends, Helen Sinclair. Trusting her to keep quiet, River is able to assist the Doctor from a distance, on this occasion. However, during their next meeting, she aims to help him even more directly…

River was able to help out the Eighth Doctor even more directly in the subsequent volume – while disguised as a nun!

(Image credit: Doctor Who/Big Finish Productions.

Image obtained from: Big Finish Productions.)

A perfect disguise?

After finding out about the huge Gallifreyan conspiracy that the Doctor had somehow found himself in the middle of, River decides to help him out in Doom Coalition 3. She does this in two ways: pointing him in the direction of the pieces of a broken clock. Not just any clock, but a clock designed to read the exact time that the universe will be destroyed.

She also helps him in another way: directly. To make sure that he doesn’t recognize her later, she makes sure to wear a disguise, using not just a nun’s habit but also a psychic wimple to ensure that her husband wouldn’t remember her later. She even gave herself an alias: “Sister Cantica”.

Spoiler ban

Naturally, this is where Eight and River’s relationship is at its most interesting. Particularly as River is rather restrained in just how much she can give away. She can’t say “Spoilers!” this time, or let him know just how much she knows.

She’s trying really hard to hide who she really is, even harder than she did with Ten and Eleven. While with these two later incarnations, she would often tease them about how much she knows, with Eight, she’s aware that she has to be careful. Especially since she can’t erase his memory this time – things are far too important for that. If the Doctor forgot anything about the events going on in Doom Coalition, then the universe was doomed.

River and Eight work together mostly in The Crucible of Souls. This is a particularly major episode. Not only is it revealed that the future has been destroyed due to the formation of the Doomsday Chronometer. Not only does it reveal exactly who was leading the coalition to destroy the universe. But it also gives us one of the biggest cliffhangers ever: the Doctor, Liv and Helen, trapped on an escape pod that’s heading into a future that’s already been destroyed.

River’s role in Doom Coalition ends with the episode Songs of Love.

(Photo credit: Doctor Who/Big Finish Productions.

Image obtained from: Big Finish Productions.)

Goodbye to Eight

However, while those three were trapped, River was free. More than that, she was able to pull off a spectacular bluff. Using the crime that she had been imprisoned for – namely, assassinating the Eleventh Doctor in The Impossible Astronaut or The Wedding of River Song (depending on how you look at it), she was able to convince the coalition that she was on their side, and travelled with them back to Gallifrey.

This is another highlight of River having a key role in Doom Coalition: she actually gets to visit Gallifrey. Considering her rather unique biology, it’s fantastic that the audios were able to do what the TV series couldn’t by allowing her to visit there. Once she was there, she was able to rescue Liv and Helen. Of course, she got caught out, but was able to escape into the time vortex through the Matrix on Gallifrey.

But while she was there, she was able to do one last thing: send the Doctor back to his TARDIS. Before she did, however, the Doctor was able to remember – just for a single moment – all of his previous encounters with “Sister Cantica”. Or, to go by her usual name: River Song.

What made this moment special was that it was saved for the very last scene shared between the two. The scene made it clear that he would shortly forget about her, but it was nice to have a moment when she was able to tell him who she really was. (At least, more or less.)

More than that: the scene makes it explicit that River doesn’t have much time left. She had already met Twelve in The Husbands of River Song, and she had tried to cheat fate by summoning him again in The Sonomancer. Instead, she met the wrong incarnation, and was eventually sent away, perhaps never to be seen again…

…that is, until Companion Piece.

Companion Piece represented a kind of coda to her story with the Eighth Doctor.

(Image credit: Doctor Who/Big Finish Productions.

Image obtained from: Big Finish Productions.)

Failing to cheat fate

Personally speaking, I was admittedly very wary of Companion Piece. The second episode in the Eighth Doctor box set Ravenous 3, the story was announced as featuring a team-up of several of the Eighth Doctor’s companions, including Liv, Helen, Charley, Bliss…and River. Considering how effective her final scene was in Doom Coalition, I was a little worried that this would undo that.

However, her role actually works very well within the story. Not only did we get to find out about what happened to her next, but the episode was almost entirely Doctor-lite. So while she featured in an Eighth Doctor story, there was no reunion between her and the Doctor.

This was something I was really glad about. Her role in Doom Coalition may have been a bit of a cheat, but that was kind of the point. There’s the clear indication that she was trying to cheat fate, to have one last adventure with her husband, and failed.

Oh, not entirely. She was able to have some fun saving the universe with him, at least. But she could never let him know who she truly was. It was a version of the Doctor before the events of Silence in the Library, and this time, she couldn’t make him forget her. So that allowed us to experience a very different, more restrained take on their relationship.

Even better, it’s a great parallel for The Husbands of River Song: just as River had no idea who Twelve was for an extended period of time, Eight had no idea who “Sister Cantica” was. So it’s nice watching and listening to these stories back to back, and having some clear parallels.

It’s funny how well River works with the Eighth Doctor. It shouldn’t work at all, but it does. Completely, really. A very unique take on a relationship that we know very well by this point.

Have you listened to River’s encounters with the Eighth Doctor? Do you think the unusual pairing worked well? Do you think the reasons given for why the Doctor doesn’t remember her later are satisfying ones? Let us know in the comments below.