Doctor Who Series 7b: 5 Ways To Assess The Damage
2. Phantom Death
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Quite a lot of the time death isnt the end in Doctor Who. Strax died in A Good Man Goes to War only to suddenly pop up again in The Snowmen. Jenny died in the first part of The Name of the Doctor, but was rather easily revived. In past series Amy died more than once and Rory knocked upon deaths door with alarming regularity. Series 7b was quite preoccupied with the idea of ghosts. Bells of Saint John brought us data ghosts and Hide discovered a time traveler masquerading as one. No spirit, however, haunts the eleventh Doctor more than that of his dead wife, River Song. While River is unequivocally dead, The Name of the Doctor reminds us that in the Doctor Who universe that doesnt necessarily mean much. The loss of a body doesnt have to be a definitive end. The Doctor, however, calls River an echo. This begs the question does a copy, one could even say a clone, have less validity than the original template? When Clara leaps into the Doctors time stream she is split into millions of copies. These duplicate Claras have lives of their own they are born into families who probably love them and miss them when they die for the Doctors sake. When River warns Clara about this, she seems to be considering her own status as copy or echo. If she was cloned from the original River Songs memories is she still River? Even if she is not, isnt she worthy of respect and love in her own right?