10 Doctor Who Moments You Didn't See Coming

5. River's Real Identity

Doctor Who The End Of Time Part 2 David Tennant Tenth Doctor
BBC Studios

Speaking of Moffat doing Moffat things, Series 6 was a real rollercoaster ride of twists, reveals, and oh look! Even more reveals.

We had the Doctor dying, the regenerating girl in Day Of The Moon, the Doctor growing a twin, Amy being a ganger, and then Amy's baby being a ganger. For now though, let's talk about the last - and arguably, best - twist from that first half of Series 6.

Now, some fans say that the true identity of River wasn't a surprise at all, and that they'd been predicting it since Series 5. For others, the exact opposite is true. Whichever camp you fall in though, it was clearly constructed with the intent of being a surprise reveal, and undoubtedly, there will have been tons of people in the audience who didn't see it coming. It's not like your nan uses Reddit.

Even if you weren't surprised, the scene itself is a joy to watch. Murray Gold's beautiful music, Alex Kingston's beaming smile, Matt Smith's adorable "fake kiss" acting - and then, that final moment, with River revealing to Amy and Rory that she's actually their missing daughter, Melody.

Cue cheers, tears, and the collective groan of a fanbase that was forced to wait almost three months for the next episode. Outrageous!

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Danny has been with WhatCulture for almost nine years, and is currently Doctor Who Editor and WhoCulture Channel Manager, overseeing all of WhatCulture's Whoniverse coverage. He has been writing and video editing for 10+ years, and first got a taste for content creation after making his own Doctor Who trailers and uploading them to YouTube (they're admittedly a bit rusty by today's standards). If you need someone to recite every Doctor Who episode in order or to tell you about the making of 1988's Remembrance of the Daleks, Danny is the person to ask.