River Song Vs War Doctor : Who Performed The River Song?

Brilliantly written, incredibly clever, genuinely terrifying, and a complete joy to watch. the highlight of this episode, i can't decide; whether it's the doctor himself, the perfectly cast river song (played by alex kingston), or the weeping angels. the doctor becomes far less bumbling in this episode, and transforms into a much more self-confident, trustworthy character.

Even the music was a throwback to that two parter. alex kingston was as always amazing as river song, and capaldi gave another stellar performance. the special effects were great too, and the music was just beautiful.

The doctor's apparent death at lake silencio was a fixed point in time, but river song prolonged his final moment by refusing to take part, creating river song's world. as time fell apart, river was desperate to save the doctor, and built a timey-wimey distress beacon, informing all of time and space that the doctor was dying. responses came from all over the universe that they would help.

Now, he didn't press the button because the helpless bloodthirsty merciless time lords, on the verge of defeat, have to be saved under the hope of a better day in the future.i also question the necessity of adding the war doctor to the line of doctors possibly requiring a re-con of doctor's lives. i wonder if the script was written with the idea eccleston's 9th doctor would play the john hurt role, prior to eccleston turning it down, which would make more sense. or, alternatively, casting paul mcgann as the last days of the 8th doctor.likewise, i kept wondering why david tennant was there other than to have a multi-doctor episode.

The coup of getting john hurt to be the doctor was fantastic and well worth the required invention of an extra doctor and this little story makes perfect sense as the doctor is on the point of death and is given a choice of regeneration characteristics by the sisterhood of karn who had previously appeared in the classic 4th doctor story the brain of morbius. he realises a different kind of person is required to fight in the time war and so becomes the war doctor. we get a little glimpse of a younger john hurt as the newly regenerated doctor.the excitement of this idea and of showing hurt arrive is matched by the thrill of mcgann getting a tv appearance to follow on from his mostly audio based stories.

For the reviewer who said that the webisode would be incomprehensible to modern fans, i'm not even a fan and i found it comprehensible. all you really need to know to appreciate it is that paul mcgann was the eighth doctor but only appeared in a tv movie back in 1996.because it's been seventeen years, he's made enough of a physical change for him to look as if he's been hardened or wisened by events. mcgann gets a much better change to acquit himself and remind everybody that he's a very good actor.

A second full series of 13 episodes was commissioned for 2011, with smith and gillan both returning as the doctor and amy respectively (making it the first time since the show's relaunch in 2005 that both the doctor and main companion had remained the same from one series to the next). the series was broadcast in two halves, with the first seven episodes broadcast between april and june 2011, and the final six beginning on 27 august 2011. with the new series, darvill was upgraded to series regular and full-time companion as rory, and kingston continued to appear on a recurring basis as river song.