Doctor Who Season 10: 7 Big Questions After 'Extremis'
1. Is River Song Returning?
The biggest surprise of the episode (for those who hadn’t watched the previous week’s trailer) was the appearance of River Song’s diary, which plays a major role in both saving Missy and the uncovering of the Monks’ invasion plans.
The diary was initially a gift to River from the Doctor, to help her keep track of their meetings and prevent a corruption of their timelines. It contains more adventures than its size might otherwise suggest (Time Lord technology?) and reveals that River has met all of the Doctor’s previous incarnations, including the War Doctor. We might have assumed that it was simply a travel log, but now we know that in fact its content was deeply personal and contained River’s thoughts about the Doctor and their time together.
Its final resting place was revealed in Forest of the Dead, which in true timey-wimey fashion was the archaeologist’s last meeting with the Doctor and his first meeting with her. After River is uploaded to an Earth simulation, the diary is left by the tenth Doctor in the 51st century library, where despite the huge temptation he resists taking a peak.
Can it really be a coincidence that the diary returns here in another story about an Earth simulation? Would Steven Moffat be so careless as to positively signpost another library? And did Nardole retrieve it from the library? If not then perhaps we can expect a future scene of Nardole or the Doctor returning the diary to River Song one last time.
We’ve been promised that there are more revelations to come, ones that neither the spoiler hounds nor the BBC publicity machine have revealed. Let’s go back to a very early clue in The Pilot. Next to the photograph of the Doctor’s granddaughter is one of River Song. Have we been led up the garden path with all the Susan references (both on and off screen) to divert our attention away from the return, in one form or another, of the Doctor’s wife?
What questions are you asking after Extremis? Share your thoughts down in the comments.