Why Doctor Who’s Alex Kingston Won’t Watch River Song’s Last Episode

While many people count “The Husbands of River Song” among their favorite Doctor Who episodes, there’s one person who refuses to watch it, and that’s River herself.

Actress Alex Kingston, who plays the beloved character on the iconic sci-fi series, recently revealed that she finds it a difficult hour of television to sit through and that shooting it was hard for her as well. Speaking to Spoiler TV at a convention last weekend, she noted that one scene in particular from that episode took several takes to film, since she started crying while on set.

I can’t watch the one with Peter Capaldi, in ‘The Husbands of River Song.’ That last scene, was so hard for me to shoot because even though we shoot out of sequence, that scene they left until the last moment to film. And I, of course, know what’s coming up, now that she’s been given her sonic screwdriver, but yet, of course, River doesn’t. She has an inkling but she doesn’t know and so I had to work really hard not to cry and I didn’t succeed.

We had to do a couple of takes, I just started bawling and again I saw Peter, you know he’s tough, he doesn’t show or share those emotions and the last few moments we were filming and I was looking at him and said, ‘My God! You’re teary-eyed! Don’t do that, because it will likely be me too!’

It’s not only that moment which gets to Kingston, either, as the actress also revealed that there are scenes with both David Tennant and Matt Smith’s Doctors as well that really make her emotional.

Actually, I have to say, it’s interesting because with all three Doctors so far, there’s been a moment where it’s been difficult for me to just hold myself together. And obviously in the science in the library story arc it’s where River decides to sacrifice herself for the Doctor. And when I watch that back, I don’t get emotional at watching the character of River doing that, actually I get emotional when I see David get emotional because his Doctor isn’t kind of like that – he sort of holds that back a little bit and certainly not having known him other than just working on those two episodes, to see it get to him, that gets to me.

There’s a moment with Matt Smith, again, it’s where River and the Doctor have to say goodbye. All those moments are the ones where when I look at them it makes me get a bit teary.

The actress’ comments here are certainly interesting and have us wondering just how she’ll hold up while watching the upcoming Doctor Who Christmas special. After all, showrunner Steven Moffat has already teased that Peter Capaldi will break our hearts by the end of it, and given that the current Time Lord already brought Kingston to tears once before, it might be best if she watches Capaldi’s final hurrah in the role with tissues nearby.