In her more recent appearances, Alex Kingston’s River Song has become something of a divisive character for Doctor Who fans. Some finds her insouciant charms liven things up whenever she crashes into the Doctor’s life, while others find her grating and overused. Depending on your thoughts towards her, she’ll be back to pester the Doctor – in this case Peter Capaldi’s incarnation – for this year’s Christmas special.
Announced by the Beeb, the now traditional special episode is being kept wrapped up in shiny Santa-covered paper for now, with no details on what will happen in the episode or who is joining Kingston as the rest of the guest cast (so no spoilers, sweetie). But we suppose having her anywhere near the Who team’s base of operations is enough to start tongues wagging, so the decision was taken to announce her return.
“To be honest, I did not know whether River would ever return to the show, but here she is, back with the Doctor for the Christmas special,” says Kingston in the statement. “Steven Moffat is on glittering form, giving us an episode filled with humour and surprise guest castings. I met Peter for the first time at Monday’s read through, we had a laugh, and I am now excited and ready to start filming with him and the Doctor Who team. Christmas in September? Why not!”
And Moffat seems happy to have her back. Which might not be surprising since he created her… “Another Christmas, another special for Doctor Who - and what could be more special than the return of Alex Kingston as Professor River Song? The last time the Doctor saw her she was a ghost. The first time he met her, she died. So how can he be seeing her again? As ever, with the most complicated relationship in the universe, it’s a matter of time...”
Doctor Who will return to our screens for a ninth series of 12 episodes on September 19, with the Christmas special following, as usual, on December 25.