8 Doctor Who Fan Theories That Became Fact

5. The Truth About River Song

Doctor Who Heaven Sent clone theory
BBC Studios

Another Steven Moffat arc, the mystery of River Song didn't just run for a single series - it ran throughout Series 4, Series 5, and Series 6, before the truth about her backstory was finally made clear.

There were so many puzzles surrounding River - her true identity, the identity of the man she killed, the full extent of her relationship with the Doctor - and while all of these question marks did have satisfying payoffs, there were many theories that accurately predicted said payoffs long before the show itself got to them.

Right from the moment that River met Amy Pond in Series 5, a good number of fans speculated that the two characters were somehow related - a theory that was proven true with the Series 6 revelation that River is Amy's daughter, Melody.

The same thing happened with the slightly more obvious identity of the man River was imprisoned for killing. In Series 5, the show itself strongly telegraphed that this man was the Doctor, and as a result, pretty much the entire fanbase latched onto this theory - which was again confirmed in the closing episodes of Series 6.

The speculation that River was secretly the Rani though? Yeah... that didn't age well.

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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.