Doctor
Matt Smith (Eleventh Doctor)
Companions Karen Gillan (Amy Pond)
Arthur Darvill (Rory Williams)
Alex Kingston (River Song)
Others
Frances Barber – Madame Kovarian
Simon Fisher-Becker – Dorium Maldovar
Ian McNeice – Emperor Winston Churchill
Richard Hope – Dr Malokeh
Marnix Van Den Broeke – The Silent
Nicholas Briggs – Voice of the Dalek
Simon Callow – Charles Dickens
Sian Williams – Herself
Bill Turnbull – Himself
Meredith Vieira – Herself
Niall Greig Fulton – Gideon Vandaleur
Sean Buckley – Barman
Mark Gatiss – Gantok[1]
Emma Campbell-Jones – Dr. Kent
Katharine Burford – Nurse
Richard Dillane – Carter
Mark Sheppard – Canton Delaware
Production
Directed by Jeremy Webb
Written by Steven Moffat
Produced by Marcus Wilson
Executive producer(s)
Steven Moffat
Piers Wenger
Beth Willis
Incidental music composer Murray Gold
Length 45 mins
Originally broadcast 1 October 2011
Synopsis
The Doctor, aware of his imminent death at the fixed point of time on 22 April 2011 at Lake Silencio in Utah, attempts to track down the Silence to learn why he must die. He encounters the Teselecta shapeshifting robot and its miniaturised crew who are currently posing as one of the members of the Silence; they offer him any help within their power as he faces his death. Through them, the Doctor is led to the living head of Dorium Maldovar, one of the Doctor's allies taken by the Order of the Headless Monks ("A Good Man Goes to War"). Dorium reveals that the Silence are dedicated to averting the Doctor's future, warning him "On the fields of Trenzalore, at the fall of the Eleventh, when no living creature can speak falsely or fail to answer a question will be asked—one that must never be answered. And Silence must fall when the question is asked." ("The Time of the Doctor") The Doctor continues to refuse to go to Lake Silencio until he discovers his old friend Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart has died, at which point he accepts his fate. To avoid crossing his own time stream, he gives the Teselecta crew four invitations to Lake Silencio for Amy and Rory, River Song, Canton Everett Delaware III, and a younger version of himself.
As shown in "The Impossible Astronaut", the Doctor joins his friends at Lake Silencio and then approaches the astronaut, now known to be a younger version of River Song, Amy and Rory's daughter, trained to kill the Doctor by the Silence and Madame Kovarian. River does not want to kill him but is unable to fight the suit's control, and the Doctor says he forgives her and reminds her that the event is inevitable. River, despite his warning against interfering with a fixed point, surprises the Doctor by draining the astronaut suit's weapons systems and averting his death. Time becomes "stuck" as a result and begins to disintegrate; all of Earth's history begins to run simultaneously at a fixed moment of 5:02 p.m. on 22 April 2011. In London, Holy Roman Emperor Winston Churchill takes the Doctor, his "soothsayer", out from his locked cell to ask him about the condition of time. The Doctor explains the preceding events, as tally marks begin appearing on his arms, indicating the presence of the Silence. After noticing a Silence nest overhead, they are rescued by Amy and a squad of soldiers under her command. Due to the effects of the crack in her bedroom, Amy is cognizant of the altered timeline, though she is unaware that her trusted captain is her husband Rory. Amy takes the Doctor to "Area 52", a hollowed-out Giza pyramid, where they have captured over a hundred Silence and Madame Kovarian. River is also there; aware of the consequences of her actions, she refuses to allow the Doctor to touch her, an event that would "unfreeze" time and allow it to resume. They all wear "eyedrives", external memory eye patches which enable them to avoid the Silence's effect of erasing themselves from memory.
They realise that this was a trap arranged by Kovarian, as the Silence begin to escape confinement and overload the eyedrives (including Madame Kovarian's), killing their users. The Doctor and River escape to the top of the pyramid while Amy and Rory fight off a wave of Silence and Amy realises who Rory is. Madame Kovarian dislodges her own eyedrive as it begins to overload, but Amy forces it back in place with the intention of killing her as revenge for Kovarian taking her child (Melody Pond) away. Amy and Rory regroup with River and the Doctor. River tries to convince the Doctor that this frozen timeline is acceptable and that he does not have to die, but the Doctor explains that all of reality will soon break down. River claims she'll suffer more than anyone else in the universe if she has to kill the Doctor, despite his horror at the idea. To stop it, the Doctor marries River on the spot and whispers something in her ear, declaring that he had just told her his name. He then requests that River allow him to prevent the universe's destruction. The two kiss, and reality begins to return to normal.
Sometime later, Amy and Rory are visited by River, shortly after the events of "Flesh and Stone" in River's timeline. When Amy explains that she had recently witnessed the Doctor's death, River reveals that the Doctor lied when he said he told her his name; instead he had said "Look into my eye". The Doctor had asked the Teselecta to masquerade as him at Lake Silencio, and the Doctor and his TARDIS had been miniaturised within it. Elsewhere, the Doctor takes Dorium's head back to where it was stored and explains that his perceived death will enable him to be forgotten as he had been getting "too big" and drawing too much attention. As the Doctor leaves, Dorium warns of the prophecies that still await him and the question which Dorium calls out after him: "Doctor who?"
The Wedding of River Song