Eighth Doctor Vs River Song : 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.

Retrieved 3 january 2014. ethan lewis (27 november 2013). "doctor who: 8 reasons paul mcgann's eighth doctor deserves a series".

"doctor who: paul mcgann regenerates into john hurt in the night of the doctor, a new 6 minute 49 second prequel film". radiotimes.com. retrieved 14 november 2013.

This finally gives mcgann his regeneration episode. the big finish references are nice, effectively canonising that great set of adventures, and it certainly fits into the character of the eighth doctor, now broken down by his experiences. great to see karn again, which fits into the new eighth doctor adventures where the doctor met the sisterhood.

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.

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.