Name:
River Song
Main Aliases:
Melody Pond
Mels Zucker
Melody Malone
Mrs. Robinson
Species:
Human
Proto-Time Lord
Data ghost
Place of Origin:
Demons Run
Job:
Archaeologist
Detective
Writer
Assassin
Affiliated With:
The Silence
Luna University
Felman Lux Corporation
Grandparents:
Tabetha Pond
Augustus Pond
Brian Williams
Rory’s mother
Mother:
Amy Pond
Father:
Rory Williams
Siblings:
Lake
Rindle
Tarn
Stream
Creek
Wadi
Beck
Brooke
H-One
H-Two
O
Adoptive Brother:
Anthony Williams
Adopted Children:
Charlotte Lux
Spouses:
The Doctor
Ramone
Hydroflax
Stephen Fry
second wife
Jack Harkness
First Seen In:
Silence in the Library
Appearances:
The Time of Angels
Flesh and Stone
The Pandorica Opens
The Big Bang
The Impossible Astronaut
Day of the Moon
A Good Man Goes to War
Let’s Kill Hitler
Closing Time
The Wedding of River Song
Prequel to The Impossible Astronaut
Prequel to The Wedding of River Song
Night and the Doctor
First Night
Last Night
The Angels Take Manhattan
The Name of the Doctor
Rain Gods
The Husbands of River Song
Monster File: Weeping Angels
Monster File: Vampires
Monster File: SiluriansThe Eternity Clock
The Boundless Sea
I Went to a Marvellous Party
Signs
The Rulers of the Universe
The Unknown
Five Twenty-Nine
World Enough and Time
The Eye of the Storm
The Lady in the Lake
A Requiem for The Doctor
My Dinner with Andrew
The Furies
Time in a Bottle
Kings of Infinite Space
Whodunnit?
The Bekdel Test
Animal Instinct
The Lifeboat and the Deathboat
Concealed Weapon
An Unearthly Woman
The Web of Time
Peepshow
The Talents of Greel
Colony of Strangers
Abbey of Heretics
Barrister to the Stars
Carnival of Angels
Slight Glimpses of Tomorrow
A Brave New World
A Forever Home
Queen of the Mechonoids
The Sonomancer
The Doomsday Chronometer
The Crucible of Souls
Songs of Love
Companion Piece
The Power of River Song
R&J
The Eighth of March
Emancipation
The Legacy of Time
Lies in Ruins
Expiry Dating
Precious Annihilation
Ghosts
The Angel’s Kiss: A Melody Malone Mystery
The Time of Angels
Dr. Eleventh
The Day of the Doctor
Mels at School
Just a Minute…
When It Was Fun
Judge, Jury and Executioner
The Dark Scrolls of the Valeyard
Picnic at Asgard
Suspicious Minds
A Gamble with Time
Death in New Venice
Riverof Time
Student Bodies
The Guide to the Dark Times
Visiting Hours
The Paradox Moon
Imaginary Enemies
The Birthday Boy
The Judas Goatee
The One
Downtime
Running to Stay Still
First Rule
Fast Asleep
Physician, Heal Thyself
Pond Life
An Adventure in Brine and Plaice
Double Date
Summer Wholiday
Timeliney Wimey
Take a Bow (Tie)
New Year, New Who
No Win, No Fez
Who Who Who, Merry Christmas
Without a Paddle
Four Doctors
The Lost Dimension
Main Actor:
Alex Kingston
Other Actors:
Harrison and Madison Mortimer
Sydney Wade
Maya Glace-Green
Nina Toussaint-White
click on images to enlarge
Melody Pond, later River Song, was a Human, with Time Lord DNA, due to being conceived on The Doctor’s TARDIS, and therefore being exposed to the Time Vortex. She was later an archaeologist and a convicted murderer.
The daughterof Amy Pond and Rory Williams, Melody shared a close and somewhat romantic relationship with The Doctor. She was a doctorof archaeology, and later a professor in the 51st century. Like Melanie Bush and Charley Pollard before her, she was an example of the rare companion whose timeline was not synchronous with that of the Doctor.
BIRTH
Melody Pond was born on the asteroid of Demons Run to Amy Pond and Rory Williams, after her mother had been kidnapped. Shortly after birth, Melody was replaced with a Ganger, and taken from Amy by Madame Kovarian to be used as a weapon against The Doctor. She was chosen for this purpose because she had traces of Time Lord DNA as a result of having been conceived onboard the TARDIS while inside the Time Vortex. This was similar to how exposure to the Untempered Schism on Gallifrey had caused the Time Lords to evolve from normal humanoids over generations. Kovarian’s scientists experimented on Melody to bring these traits to the fore. The extent of her Time Lord-like abilities and characteristics let her regenerate, but her full abilities are not yet known. (Let’s Kill Hitler)
EARLY LIFE
THE SPACESUIT
As a child, Melody at some point left the care of Madame Kovarian and became indoctrinated by the Silence. She was made into a weapon to kill The Doctor. (Let’s Kill Hitler) at an unknown point in her time-stream, while still only a little girl, Melody ended up in an orphanage in America in 1969 (where photographs were left of her and Amy) and later at a warehouse base in Florida. They put her into an Apollo astronaut suit that had been upgraded with alien life support systems. She used the suit to make calls directly to President Nixon in the Oval office, begging for help. This led to her first physical meeting with The Doctor (in their meeting as a baby she had been a Ganger), though a brief one, due to her escaping from the spacesuit. (The Impossible Astronaut/Day of the Moon).
Melody was still inside the spacesuit during August 2011, Andrew and the Doctor were trapped with her and she was scared.
FIRST REGENERATION
She moved to England under unknown circumstances, where she searched for and befriended the younger versions of her parents, Amelia Pond and Rory Williams. Nicknamed “Mels”, she became close friends with them and helped them realise their love for each other. During this period in her time stream it is unknown where, or who she lived with, however it is highly possible that Madame Kovarian, or The Silence arranged for her to be raised by adoptive parents.
Six months after the moon landings, in New York City, Melody was suffering from an illness, causing her to Regenerate for the first time. (Day of the Moon) She later remarked that her new incarnation started as a toddler. (Let’s Kill Hitler)
Mels continually found herself in trouble, with outbursts of unthinkingly destructive criminal behaviour. She was obsessed with Amelia’s “Raggedy Doctor” as well, dreaming about marrying him and claiming in school that historical disasters were his fault because he did not intervene. Through all of this, she was fully aware that Amy & Rory were her parents and that she intended to kill The Doctor. She would later happily call herself a “psychopath”. (Let’s Kill Hitler)
ADVENTURES WITH THE DOCTOR
SECOND REGENERATION
When The Doctor arrived in the year 2011 in a Leadworth cornfield, Mels forced her way onto the TARDIS at gunpoint to escape the police. She damaged the TARDIS by shooting the console, leading them to meet Adolf Hitler in 1938. Mels was shot by Hitler but, to the surprise of everyone, regenerated into her third incarnation – a more mature-looking woman. Acting on her conditioning, she almost immediately tried to kill The Doctor – first with guns, then with poisoned lipstick. She cheerfully called herself a “psychopath” and ran amok in 1938 Berlin. However, she was later proven to not be a psychopath when she showed empathy for how devoted The Doctor was to his friends and to the “River Song” he kept mentioning, and how he struggled to save her from the Tessalecta. She asked her parents if The Doctor was worth saving and they said yes. She sacrificed all her remaining regenerations to keep him alive.
The Doctor took her to a hospital in the 52nd century and gave her a TARDIS-shaped diary. She later applied to study Archaeology at Luna University, so that she would be able to find him again. (Let’s Kill Hitler)
IMPRISONMENT
Some time after this, River was imprisoned in the Stormcage Containment Facility for murdering someone she described as, “A very good man. Best man I’ve ever known”. (The Time of Angels/Flesh and Stone) The Doctor would discover from the Tessalecta data records that the person she’d murder was him, in April 2011 in Utah, at Lake Silencio. (Let’s Kill Hitler)
THE BATTLE OF DEMON’S RUN
River travelled to meet The Doctor, Amy, and Rory at the end of the battle of Demons Run in the 52nd century. It was here that she revealed her true identity, first to The Doctor. After he left, she assured Rory and Amy that their daughter would be safe, that The Doctor would find her and revealed to them her identity.
At one time, River was taken by The Doctor for her birthday to the last Winter Frost Fairon the River Thames in 1814. Stevie Wonder unknowingly performed before being taken back to his original time. Returning to Stormcage from this escapade, River encountered Rory in his Roman uniform. She refused his request when asked to come aid them at Demons Run, saying she “can’t be there until the very end”. (A Good Man Goes To War)
SILENCE IN AMERICA
On receiving an invitation containing co-ordinates from the Eleventh Doctor, River escaped from Stormcage to meet him in United States of America in 2011. She met The Doctor, Amy, and Rory in the middle of the Utah Desert. After reminiscing with her about their adventures on Easter Island and with Jim the Fish, The Doctor took them on a picnic, where they saw him murdered by someone wearing an astronaut’s space suit. River, Amy, and Rory cremated The Doctor’s body in a “Viking Funeral”. They went to a cafe and discovered another version of the Eleventh Doctor, claiming to be approximately two hundred years younger than the one they had seen die. (The Impossible Astronaut)
River helped The Doctor defeat the Silence by using the Silence’s brainwashing of humanity against themat her request, The Doctor returned River to Stormcage, where she kissed him goodbye. From his shocked reaction, she realised that from his perspective, it was their first kiss, and from her perspective their last. (Day of the Moon)
OPENING OF THE PANDORICA
The TARDIS rerouted a phone call for The Doctor from Winston Churchill to River in Stormcage. She escaped from prison to try and warn The Doctor of a deadly prophecy of the TARDIS exploding. After receiving a Time Agent’s vortex manipulator from Dorium Maldovar, River travelled back in time to the Roman era of Earth, where she met the Eleventh Doctor and Amy.
they rode to Stonehenge to find the Pandorica. After finding it, they discovered Stonehenge to be transmitting a signal summoning an alliance of the Doctor’s enemies to Earth. The Doctor managed to convince the assembled aliens to back away for a time. He sent River to bring the TARDIS to him. Instead, the TARDIS took her to Amy’s house on the 26th of June, 2010. When River told him the date, The Doctor realised the TARDIS was about to explode and urged her to escape. Instead, she found herself trapped as the TARDIS came under the control of an unknown force and started to explode. (The Pandorica Opens)
Right after The Doctor restored the universe, erasing himself in the process, River (who was somehow in 2010) left her now blank TARDIS-shaped diary with Amy on her wedding dayin 2010 so that she could remember The Doctor, and bring him back into existence. The plan worked, and the Doctor returned from the Void. After a brief conversation with The Doctor about her martial status and her identity, River told him that he’s”…going to find out very soon now, and I’m sorry, because that’s when everything changes.” River left The Doctor wondering about her martial status, and her identity. (The Big Bang)
Inside the TARDIS, River was trapped in a time loop of the first moments of the TARDIS explosion. The Doctor, using River’s vortex manipulator, retrieved her and brought her to 1996. On joining The Doctor, Amy and Rory, she learned of the Doctor’s plan to use the Pandorica’s restoration field to reverse the erasure of the universe. However, The Doctor was soon badly wounded by an energy blast from the Stone Dalek that was hunting them. Angered at the apparent loss of the man she loved, River told The Dalek to look into its data banks for her identity and taunted it into begging for mercy, before killing it.
CRASH OF THE BYZIMUMN
Some time after River had returned from 2010 to prison, she was put in Father Octavian’s custody: this occurred in the 51st century (see OTHER INFORMATION). If she were to carry out the mission assigned to her, she would earn her pardon.
DALURAIUM
While working for Father Octavian, River was sent to be a guest on the ship Byzantium. She infiltrated the lower levels to find the Home Box, into which she carved the message “Hello Sweetie” in Old High Gallifreyan writing to attract The Doctor’s attention twelve thousand years later. Leading The Doctor to Alfava Metraxis, she helped him defeat an army of Weeping Angels who had been awakened in the planet’s Maze of the Dead. (The Time of Angels, Flesh and Stone)
At some point, River received a surprise visit by The Doctor, who had a new haircut. He took heron a trip to Darillium to see the Singing Towers. The Doctor knew, although River did not, that her death was impending, and gave her an upgraded version of his sonic screwdriver. (Forest of the Dead)
THE LIBRARY
Where The Doctor was in his timeline, but soon realised that he was a much younger version of the Doctor who did not know who she was, nor did he trust her.
In the 50th century, River, now a professor, was hired by Felman Lux to lead an expedition to the Library to discover what had happened there a hundred years earlier, when a cryptic final message had been sent: “4022 saved. No survivors”. Anticipating trouble, River summoned The Doctor by sending him a message via psychic paper. By mistake, the earlier version of the Doctor who turned up had not yet met her. Though bewildered, he agreed to help River and her team.
River physically died when she chose to sacrifice herself in the place of the Doctor to save Donna and the other 4022 people trapped in the Library’s computer. She pleaded with him to not try and change history, not to change one moment of what had/would come for them. (Forest of the Dead)
As the situation with the Vashta Nerada deteriorated, River realised she must prove to The Doctor that she was someone he would come to trust completely and, with profuse apologies, whispered his true name into his ear. The Doctor was stunned by this information, and River had won his trust.
After saving all the trapped people, The Doctor realised his future self must have given her his sonic screwdriver for a reason. Inside he found a data chip, a “Neural Relay”, which contained River’s Data Ghost. The Doctor saved her by uploading her into the virtual world contained in The Library’s data core, CAL. The library’s data core, was controlled by a human girl (Charlotte Abigail Lux, or CAL) wired into its mainframe. CAL had also saved the data ghosts of all of River’s dead archaeological team, giving her company in the virtual world. River would go on to take care of her two virtual children and Charlotte in the virtual world, reading out her diary of adventures with The Doctor, and how sometimes, “everybody lives” when The Doctor comes to call. Her story ended with her wishing the sleeping children sweet dreams. (Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead)
The Tenth Doctor would later remember her death when Davros reminded him of the people who had died in his name. (Journey’s End)