User:Zythe/River Song

Background
River Song is a character whose backstory is revealed over a number of non-chronological appearances across series four, five and six of Doctor Who.

Television
River first appears in the 2008 Doctor Who two-parter "Silence in the Library"/"Forest of the Dead" (written by Stephen Moffat) in the Russell T Davies era of Doctor Who. Here, she encounters the Tenth Doctor (David Tennant) in the 51st century, and claims to be someone he will come to trust completely in due time. She is able to prove this between her diary (which contains information about the Doctor's future), the fact that he gave her his sonic screwdriver, and because she knows his real name. The adventure on the Library is River's last with the Doctor in her chronology, but is their first in his; she sacrifices herself to save the Doctor's life, and he is able to upload her consciousness into a computer, in which she is able to live on. According to Moffat in the accompanying Doctor Who Confidential episode, River's blaster gun is the same one previously owned by Captain Jack Harkness (John Barrowman) in the 2005 series.

After Moffat takes over from Davies as executive producer of the show, Song appears in the 2010 series in a number of episodes. She re-encounters the Eleventh Doctor (Matt Smith), with whose appearance she is more familiar, at an earlier point in her timeline in the two-parter "The Time of Angels"/"Flesh and Stone". She leaves co-ordinates for the Doctor to eventually find so that he may rescue her in the 51st century, and with him she investigates the crash of the spaceship Byzantium. She proves herself to be more adept at flying his spaceship, the TARDIS, than he is, and reveals to him that she is a convicted murderer. An earlier River Song appears to assist the Doctor in series finale "The Pandorica Opens"/"The Big Bang" after she is contacted in prison in the 52nd century by Winston Churchill (Louis MacNeice); she leads the Doctor to 102 C.E. and assists him in closing the cracks in the universe in 1996. When they depart once again, she hints more explicitly that she is his wife.

Online media
Coinciding with the 2010 series, Alex Kingston portrays River Song narrating the "Monster Files" on the BBC website, an in-universe documentary account of Doctor Who monsters. This series had previously (in 2008-9) been narrated by John Barrowman in character as Jack Harkness.