#i feel like the plotline also suffered from the heavy-handed suggestions that amy & the doctor had a secret love child

[theajaheira]

so the thing i am noticing as i continue to watch the river eps is that the problem i have with the melody pond plotline is not necessarily its fantastical improbability/ridiculousness, because doctor who has always been a show about making the fantastically improbable and ridiculous feel charming and wonderful, and also i am soooo biased i love melody pond soooo much That's Amy And Rory's Baby To Me! if anything, the fact that this is a series of absurd coincidences endear me to the notion more. but the thing is, with the information we're given about river pre-reveal, there is absolutely no way that anyone could possibly guess river's true identity.

prefacing that statement -- i did a cursory google search & moffat did seem to intimate in some interviews that he had the river stuff locked and loaded as early as s5! i do think that clocks, because river makes lots of references to killing the doctor, amy and river are absolutely a lot alike from the get-go, and the amelia pond -> river song thing is also a clear hint, but the foreshadowing outside of that is literally nothing, in what seems to be a preventative measure. that is not enough info to figure out that river is melody.

i feel like this is most clearly shown in let's kill hitler -- they handwave mels not being present at the wedding or mentioned in any prior episode, when we absolutely should have met her! honestly, mels should have been a character that we see in the eleventh hour (maybe even someone who either helps out here and there or refuses to), to the point where when amy and rory name melody, we know that it's for mels. we need her to feel like amy and rory's best friend from the moment that we meet amy and rory, rather than being introduced in the River Backstory Episode. mels could turn down traveling with the doctor for some unspecified reason, but she needs to be either someone he knows or someone that we have seen make an effort to make herself invisible. her showing up only when she has Narrative Relevance, when she should have been the clearest hint to who river is, was not a good plan, and it makes me upset, because 1) we miss out on mels, a wonderful and adorable and slightly murderous incarnation of river who i'd have loved to see more of, and 2) mels not being there means figuring out who melody is becomes that much more difficult, which really does support my theory that the focus was on Creating A Shocking Timey-Wimey Moment rather than a long-term investment in river's character :( and that, for me, is a bummer.

at the same time, tho, i'm kinda like -- so much of river's character really is defined by being a Woman Of Mystery! the hints can't come from her, obvs, because i think she would lose so much of what makes her her if she's at any point able to be deciphered by the doctor or the narrative. and i do think it's very on brand for river (who is made of masks) to absolutely shut all of her feelings down when interacting with younger versions of her parents. but we really, really, really needed more time with river. i think that's what i'm getting at. we needed more time with river within the show, very possibly through mels, for this to work effectively.