Steven Moffat on River Song: “There’s No Way to Kill Her Off”

Andrew Reynolds is a writer at Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews - All the latest Doctor Who news and reviews with our weekly podKast, features and interviews, and a long-running forum.

River Song may have been missing from our screens for a while but now she’s back, Steven Moffat wants her around for good.

Speaking at the press conference for this year’s Christmas special The Husbands of River Song, Moffat was asked whether this would be the last time fans would see the feisty archaeologist.

“Look, I killed her off in her first adventure, I wrote her as a ghost in another adventure, I wrote her into some mini episodes in a DVD – which was definitely her last appearance. There is no way to kill her off, she was dead in the first place,” he explained.

This year’s special marks the first time she’s met Peter Capadi’s Twelfth Doctor, and Moffat went on to add that River’s character stays the same regardless of which version of the Doctor she encounters.

 “I think she’s always River and I don’t think she pays that much attention to which face he’s wearing. When she finishes an adventure I don’t think she remembers which one it was, it doesn’t matter – he is the Doctor – and she treats him sort of the same way as essentially fantastic, wonderful, the man she loves and slightly junior to her.”

Also at the press shindig was River herself, Alex Kingston, added that despite not altering her personality with each Doctor, she is very much her own person.

“I think that the way she treats the Doctor in this episodes, when she doesn’t realise who he is, I think is sort of quite indicative of who she is,” she said. “It’s just that we haven’t gotten to see her very often playing outside of being with the Doctor.”

And what of the newly united pair? What can we expect from the lighter, festive episode?

“I actually enjoy doing comedy and I don’t get that much opportunity, so to have a chance to do such a rollicking – like an old Hollywood comedy, the relationship between the two of us, it was just fantastic to have that opportunity.”

The Husbands of River Song is on BBC One on Christmas Day at 5.15pm.

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