River Song has met the last three incarnations of her husband the Doctor since her Doctor Who debut back in 2008, so it’s no surprise that actress Alex Kingston has set her sights on encountering the next one, as played by Jodie Whittaker.
As fans know, River is famous for her flirtatious attitude and love for the Doctor regardless of the regeneration, which is something that Kingston doesn’t think would change now that the Time Lord is a Time Lady. Speaking at the Edmonton Expo in Canada recently, the actress said she knows what River would do if she ever met Doctor No. 13.
“I think [River would] just take her in her arms and give her a big kiss!”
Fans shouldn’t be shocked that River would still have romantic feelings for a female Doctor. As Kingston reminded those at the Expo, the character’s bisexuality has been alluded to before, with River being said to have had at least one wife (amongst her long list of husbands).
“I think it would be fantastic. It’d be great fun to explore that possibility, particularly now that the Doctor is going to regenerate into a female form,” said Kingston.
She then expressed a desire to see other old friends of the Doctor return so that we could get their reactions to the character becoming a woman as well.
“If you’re going to do that, why not explore other potentials in terms of his relationships with former, well not former companions because River was never a companion, but people who have been in his life in the past, or her life?”
But isn’t River’s story over? Last time we saw her in 2015’s “The Husbands of River Song,” she and the Doctor spent their final night together before River went off to her destined death. So, is there still room for her to come back? Kingston doesn’t think this is a problem, thanks to the handy plot device of time travel.
“She has a vortex manipulator, and while in a sense her timeline has somewhat been bookended, it doesn’t necessarily mean (given the way she time travels) that it would prevent her from being able to travel and meet this incarnation. After all, when she lifts up her diary and all the incarnations flutter out, there are one or two spaces. So I think it’d be great if she met with Jodie Whittaker’s Doctor.”
If River’s creator Steven Moffat was still in charge, there would be a high probability of her making a return. However, Chris Chibnall is set to take the reins of Doctor Who when Jodie Whittaker steps in, so it remains to be seen whether he’d want to pick up another writer’s character instead of creating his own. It’s likely that if fans make enough of a fuss, though, it could happen.
Doctor Who returns at Christmas, when Jodie Whittaker will make her grand debut.
