Last Night was the fourth of five Night and the Doctor shorts produced exclusively for the Doctor Who: The Complete Sixth Series DVD and Blu-ray box sets. It is the second of a two-part story which began with First Night. It was written by showrunner Steven Moffat.
Synopsis
The Doctor's first date with River has gotten more than a little complicated. With three versions of her in the TARDIS, it takes two of him to sort matters.
Plot
The Doctor lays an unmoving River Song on the floor of the TARDIS, terrified she is dead. He prepares to give her mouth-to-mouth, but realises she is only holding her breath with her eyes closed. She gets up to flirt with him.
She has escaped from Stormcage and asked some Sontarans if they were out on a hen's night, only for them to chase her halfway across the galaxy. As he chastises her, she notices the gold dress he has chosen for her for their visit to Caldoron Beta hanging near the console. She demands to know whom he has brought and storms up the stairs to find the hussy. A second later, the earlier River returns from the TARDIS wardrobe, demanding to know to whom he is talking. When he denies talking to anyone, she resumes her hunt.
A third River enters the TARDIS, actually wearing the gold dress. This River was expecting to meet the Doctor here, but on seeing the dress hung by the console, asks why he has bought another. The Doctor asks her to step outside to check if the light on top of the TARDIS is working. She does.
The youngest River reappears, certain she has heard voices. The Doctor tells her he was talking to himself and she bustles off again. The second River returns to the control room, likewise convinced she heard the Doctor talking to someone. The Doctor brusquely activates her Vortex manipulator to return her to prison. The third River re-enters the TARDIS. She is followed by a second, older incarnation of the Doctor in a tailcoat, who tells her she's in the wrong TARDIS. River is amused at the prospect of two versions of her husband, but as 'her' Doctor ushers her out, she calls back to the younger Doctor that she and her Doctor are off to see the Singing Towers of Darillium. The two Doctors share a brief, sad moment, knowing that this is the spot the Doctor took her just before her ill-fated expedition to the Library. The younger Doctor reverently wishes his earlier self good luck on his final date. The older Doctor wistfully looks back at the past version of himself and wishes him the same.
As the older Doctor exits, the youngest River returns to catch a glimpse of them together. Her Doctor will not tell her what has just transpired because of 'spoilers'. She expresses that she likes that word. He escorts her to the door to go on their date as she protests that she hasn't changed. He says she never will. River jokes that his secrets will be the death of her.
Cast
Crew
- Writer - Steven Moffat
- Director - Richard Senior (uncredited)
References
- The second River was being chased by Sontarans.
Story notes
- This is the second of a two-part story that began with First Night.
- The title makes reference to the implication that the future version of the Eleventh Doctor and River are on her final "night out" to the Singing Towers of Darillium, just before the events of Silence in the Library. However, the Doctor does not follow through with the date, as revealed in TV: The Husbands of River Song.
- This story is set entirely within the Doctor's TARDIS.
Myths and rumours
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Filming locations
Production errors
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Continuity
- River asks the Doctor, "How many hands do you have?" The answer was, at one point, three. (TV: The Christmas Invasion, TV: Utopia, TV: The Stolen Earth, TV: Journey's End)
- The Doctor distracts the eldest River out of the TARDIS by asking her to see if the roof bulb needs changing. She had asked him the same question at the cemetery in Queens moments before her parents were exiled into the past by the Weeping Angels. (TV: The Angels Take Manhattan) Among the questions rattled off to the Doctor by her mother, Amy Pond, when she first boarded the TARDIS was if the bulb needed changing. (HOMEVID: Meanwhile in the TARDIS 1) The Doctor has also changed the bulb himself while parked in front of Amy and Rory's house. (WC: Pond Life).
- The TARDIS is mistaken by the third River Song as belonging to "her" Doctor when it technically belongs to another. Susan Foreman and the First Doctor had mistaken the Fifth Doctor's TARDIS for theirs. (TV: The Five Doctors)
- The youngest and oldest Rivers' minds race at the possibility of two Doctors in the same place. She described such a situation to her father as "a whole other birthday". (TV: A Good Man Goes to War) Jack Harkness had a similar line of thought in the presence of the Tenth Doctor, the Meta-Crisis Tenth Doctor, and the Doctor Donna. (TV: Journey's End) Rory also had a similar idea about River's mother while on their honeymoon. (TV: Time)
- The two Doctors mention River's death. Later, River remarks that the Doctor will be the death of her, which was also something she would speak about metaphorically to her father later in her timeline. The future version of the Eleventh Doctor wears a black tailcoat and a top hat to take the future version of River Song to the Singing Towers; she already talked about his different outfit during that final date. (TV: Forest of the Dead, Day of the Moon) During her one adventure with the Twelfth Doctor, River reveals that the Eleventh Doctor ultimately cancelled their date on Darillium after he met his other self, something she references briefly. He also repeatedly canceled this date until the Twelfth Doctor took her on it after the crash of the Harmony and Redemption on Darillium. (TV: The Husbands of River Song)
- The Doctor wears a tuxedo with a black tie. This suit was first shown in TV: A Christmas Carol.
- The dress that all three versions of River remark on First Night and Last Night, is the same dress that River wears in the beginning of TV: Day of the Moon. River again wears the dress when she goes to the Singing Towers with the Doctor.
- The second River states that she has been in prison for five years by that point and that she still does not like the dress, placing TV: The Impossible Astronaut and Day of the Moon more than five years into her sentence from her principal perspective in those stories. She also hints that she went aboard the Doctor's TARDIS for the last time five years later, in occasion of their first date.
- The second River wears a vortex manipulator. (TV: The Pandorica Opens)
- From River's perspective, The Angels Take Manhattan, in which she had been pardoned for years, is set between her second and third incarnations in this story.
- Multiple versions of one person can coexist within the same TARDIS. While it can be claimed that this is contradicted by The Girl Who Waited, it should be noted that none of the River Songs that appear in this episode exist as a result of a paradox and are all from the "correct" timeline. Two incarnations of each of her parents and the Eleventh Doctor also appeared in the TARDIS simultaneously in their correct timelines. (TV: Time and Space).
- The Doctor ultimately postponed taking River to Darillium and continued to do so until the Harmony and Redemption crashed on the planet in his thirteenth incarnation. (TV: The Husbands of River Song)
Home video releases
Released in The Complete Sixth Series on DVD and Blu-ray in 2011. It was also released in Series 1-6 on DVD in 2012 and in Series 1-7 on Blu-ray in 2013.
External links
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