Who Is River Song? Take Two

(Spoiler warning for A Good Man Goes to War still in effect)So now we know who River is... or do we?

Unless she was lying (which doesn't appear to be the case), she's Melody Pond, the daughter of Amy and Rory. Let's first address certain fans' disappointment. Malcontents seem to fit into two categories. The first are those who claim they'd guessed it at the start of the episode or as far back as The Impossible Astronaut (those who did so even earlier were just taking shots in the dark, IMO). These are disappointed that it was all so obvious. Well, obvious to you, or obvious THIS series. I don't know why these people aren't celebrating their cleverness. You got it! Be proud of yourself! And as I said yesterday, Moffat reveals this idea at the start of A Good Man Goes to War, then toys with our expectations on purpose. The audience SHOULD be thinking they guessed it, then second-guess themselves for the rest of the episode. The other group of grognards are those who thought for sure River was going to be a character from the past - Susan, the Rani, Romana, Nyssa, some obscure character from the novels, even Rose or Donna. Sorry guys, this NEVER made sense from a production point of view. Imagine all the New Who fans looking at each other on finale night asking "Who the heck is the Terrible Zodin?" All the crazy (and not so crazy) theories in this post and its comments.

So she's Melody Pond. She's the little girl in the spacesuit. She's been turned into a weapon by the Silents. She was conceived in the vortex. She has Human+Time Lord DNA. She's able to regenerate. That about covers what we know. We STILL don't know what her exact relationship with the Doctor is though. Are Amy and Rory really the Doctor's "in-laws"? That's crazy! How did they meet from her point of view? How did she learn to pilot the TARDIS? Why are Daleks afraid of her? WHO IS THE GOOD MAN SHE KILLED, for God's sake! There are a hundred things we still don't know. The mystery hasn't been revealed so much as multiplied. With what we now know of River's Time Lord attributes, even more questions crop up. How many times has she regenerated? And will we ever see (in reverse order of course) River played by another actress turning into Alex Kingston? The future's going to be wild (by which I mean, her past!)

So while we wait for Series 6 Part Deux, we'll get to take a look back at every River Song episode there ever was, scrutinizing each moment to see how it ties into the most recent revelation. How does she act around Amy and Rory? What portentous spoilers slip out of her mouth? And what about her death and how it justifies her not regenerating? Folks, this isn't the last you hear of this on the SBG, not by a long shot.