The Husbands of River Song
| 263 – "The Husbands of River Song" | |||||
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| Doctor Who episode | |||||
Promotional image for the episode
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| Production | |||||
| Directed by | Douglas Mackinnon | ||||
| Written by | Steven Moffat | ||||
| Script editor | David Davis | ||||
| Produced by | Nikki Wilson | ||||
| Executive producer(s) | Steven Moffat Brian Minchin |
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| Incidental music composer | Murray Gold | ||||
| Length | 60 minutes | ||||
| Originally broadcast | 25 December 2015 | ||||
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"The Husbands of River Song" is an episode of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who. First broadcast on BBC One on 25 December 2015, it is the eleventh Christmas special since the show's revival in 2005. It is written by Steven Moffat and directed by Douglas Mackinnon. The episode marks the return of Alex Kingston as River Song, making her first appearance alongside Peter Capaldi's Twelfth Doctor.
On Christmas Day 5343 on the human colony of Mendorax Dellora, the Doctor is mistaken by a servant, Nardole, for a surgeon hired by River Song to attend to her dying husband, King Hydroflax. River, who has not yet met the Doctor's present incarnation, fails to recognise him and increasingly frustrates him with her flirtations with Hydroflax. River takes the Doctor aside to discuss the operation he is supposed to be performing; the Halassi Androvar, the most valuable diamond in the universe, has become lodged in Hydroflax’s brain during a raid on the Halassi vaults and is slowly killing him. It transpires that River does not want the "surgeon" to heal Hydroflax, but to remove his entire head (killing him) so she can take the diamond.
They are interrupted by Hydroflax, who has listened to their conversation. Being a cyborg, he detaches his head from his mechanical body for safety and orders it to kill them. While River defends herself, the Doctor grabs Hydroflax's head and threatens to put him in the garbage disposal, creating a stalemate and allowing Ramone, River's actual husband, to teleport her, the Doctor and Hydroflax’s head outside of the ship. Believing Nardole to have information about River, Hydroflax’s body (which operates independently) decapitates him to use his head as its own.
Although the Doctor is convinced that River knows who he is, she denies it. She reveals she purposely crashed Hydroflax’s ship in their location knowing the Doctor would be in the area with his TARDIS. Being unfamiliar with his new set of regenerations, she has an incomplete set of his faces and Ramone has only been able to find the TARDIS, not its owner. River decides they will just have to borrow it instead, which she has apparently done before without the Doctor's knowledge. However, the TARDIS's safeguards prevent it from taking off when it detects that Hydroflax’s head and body, although separated, are still linked to one another. That makes the head and body, paradoxically, both inside and outside the TARDIS.
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