The BBC is giving us all a grand Christmas present – Alex Kingston will return to Doctor Who for the Christmas special as The Doctor’s Paramour and assassin, River Song.
Day one of filming the eleventh Doctor Who Christmas special starts this week and is written by lead writer and executive producer, Steven Moffat, produced by Nikki Wilson and directed by Douglas Mackinnon (Doctor Who, Sherlock).
Award-winning Alex Kingston comments on her reappearance:
“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. Steven Moffat is on glittering form, giving us an episode filled with humor 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!”
Steven Moffat, lead writer and executive producer adds:
“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 …”
River Song’s timeline with The Doctor has always been a topic of great discussion among fans. From her point of view, her first appearance in Silence in the Library / Forest of the Dead was the last time she saw The Doctor, having died and all. Up until the recent episode The Name of the Doctor, all of River’s appearances have been from earlier in her life / timeline – only in the latest one have we seen her from after the events of that first (well, I say “first”…) meeting. So there’s no knowing from whence we’ll be seeing her appear this time.
As fans of their relationship know, there’s one very important moment we’ve yet to see – The Doctor has not yet presented her with the souped-up version of the sonic Screwdriver she used with such style in the Library. And considering Christmas is traditionally when presents are exchanged, who’s to say this isn’t when it’ll happen?
Curse you, Moffat, we haven’t even gotten to the premiere of the new season (September 19, as if you didn’t know) and you’ve already got us looking ahead to Christmas.
Went out to dinner tonight – that’s last night now – with Editor Mike, where I discovered that Mr. Gold does not like broccoli rabe. It’s a case of false advertising, people – Mikey, it turns out, does not eat anything. Personally, I think he’s nuts. Give me a plate of broccoli rabe, a loaf of fresh-out-of-the oven crusty Italian bread, a nice Merlot or Pinot Noir, and that’s what I call a meal!
Watched the trailer for Trumbo over the weekend, starring Bryan Cranston (Breaking Bad), Ellie Fanning, John Goodman, Diane Lane, Alan Tudyk, Louis C.K., and Helen Mirren, which is hitting theatres in October. One of Hollywood’s greatest screenwriters, Dalton Trumbo’s early credits included Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo and Kitty Foyle. He also wrote the classic anti-war novel, Johnny Got His Gun. In 1947, Trumbo was one of the Hollywood Ten who refused to testify before the House of Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), and so was blacklisted from the movie industry – although he “unofficially” won two Academy Awards – for The Brave One and Roman Holiday – during this period, the first under the pseudonym of Robert Rich, the second through a “front.” It wasn’t until 1960, when Kirk Douglas publicly announced that he had hired Dalton Trumbo to write the screenplay for Spartacus and Otto Preminger went public in revealing that Dalton Trumbo was the true writer of Exodus, that the blacklist started to crack.
When President John F. Kennedy crossed the American Legion picket lines protesting Trumbo’s involvement with Spartacus and entered the theatre to watch the film, the blacklist was over. But it wasn’t until 1993, after the screenwriter had died, that the Academy awarded him an Oscar for Roman Holiday, and it took until 2011 that the Writers Guild of America gave Trumbo full credit for the screenplay.
Bottom line, guys – go see this movie.
Regarding comics, I’m currently reading two with the same title: Strange Fruit. Yes, one of them is the comic that caused all the “hub-bub” a few weeks ago, even though that particular comic was not about Waid and Jones’s work but about political correctness and how I find that offensive, although I admit that got lost in the translation of my thoughts to the keyboard. The other is a graphic collection of, as the sub-title says, Uncelebrated Narratives from Black History. It’s by Joel Christian Gill. Stay tuned for my thoughts about both – political correctness will not be required, nor, do I need to say, should not be expected.
Listening to a soundtrack titled Doctor Who Epic Soundtrack 50th Anniversary Music Mix, which I found on YouTube and was complied by Juan Sam. BigShout Out!!!!! to this guy. Running two hours and change, it is absolutely fantastic… as the Ninth Doctor would say. I heartily, strongly, robustly urge you to seek this out. Not only is it fabulous to write to – along with a nice buzz from that nice dinner Merlot – but also a tremendous means to get your Whovian mojo up and running for the September 19th premiere of Capaldi’s second season as our favorite Time Lord. And btw, just “Who” is Maisie Williams playing?
The Doctor: You…
Maise Williams’s Character: What took you so long, old man?
Is it possible that she is Susan, the Galifreyan’s granddaughter?
Opinions are welcomed and valued.
I haven’t gotten into any political rants lately, unless you count the “hub-bub” column, and I do have a lot to say about Mr. Trump and Ms. Clinton and Mr. Biden, et. al. But like the title of this column says, it’s late Sunday night and my buzz is wearing off, so it’ll have to wait. Not to worry. I’m sure the shenanigans that we call our elective process will continue to give me lots of fodder in the coming weeks.
Don’t blink. Blink and you’re dead. They are fast. Faster than you can believe. Don’t turn your back. Don’t look away. And don’t blink. Good Luck. • The Doctor • “Blink,” written by Steven Moffat
Adelaide: But you said we die. For the future. For the human race!
The Doctor: Yes, because there are laws. There are laws of time. Once upon a time there were people in charge of those laws but they died. They all died. Do you know who that leaves? Me! It’s taken me all these years to realize that the laws of time are mine and they will obey me! • The Waters of Mars, written by Russell T. Davies
Like you, John, I’ve been in the midst of the summer doldrums eagerly awaiting the return of new episodes of Marvel’s Agents Of Shield, Downtown Abbey, The Flash and, of course, a certain alien from Gallifrey.
Saturday night I tuned into BBC America to watch the first two episodes of The Doctor’s Finest, the network’s lead-up to the premiere of Peter Capaldi’s second year as the Time Lord, otherwise known as Series 9 of the modern era Doctor Who, or the 52nd year of wibbly wobbly timey wimey…stuff. (A bit more on those five little words a few paragraphs down.)
Hosted by Hannah Hart of My Drunk Kitchen on YouTube, and with “special guests” and “behind-the-scenes” interviews, the next four Saturday nights will feature two “essential” episodes of the Doctor’s story – “essential” in this case meaning that in some very important “essential” way these stories have contributed to the still-evolving mythos of the Whovian universe.
First up was Blink. Here’s a brief synopsis:
2007. In an abandoned house on the outskirts of London, photographer Sally Sparrow – the absolutely terrific Carey Mulligan – finds statures of weeping angels, and an even creepier message hidden under the wallpaper: ‘Sally Sparrow. Beware the Weeping Angel. Love from The Doctor (1969).’ The next day, Sally returns with her friend Kathy Nightingale – who suddenly vanishes. As Sally looks for her in the house, a man delivers a letter addressed to Sally from his grandmother, who has recently died. The grandmother’s name? Kathy Nightingale. And she has a message for Sally.
Meanwhile Kathy’s brother, Larry, who owns a DVD shop, has been tracking down “easter eggs” found in 17 unrelated DVDs, featuring a man with glasses who seems to be having a conversation with the viewer. The man is the Doctor – David Tennant – trapped in 1969 without his TARDIS. And the “easter eggs” are for Sally.
Blink, written by Steven Moffat and based on his short story “‘What I Did on My Christmas Holidays’ By Sally Sparrow” in the 2006 Doctor Who Annual, is essential because it introduces the Weeping Angels, im-not-so-ho the creepiest and scariest of all of the foes and “monsters” ever seen on Doctor Who. They also appeared during Matt Smith’s run as the Doctor in the two-part “The Time of Angels/Flesh and Stone” and, most notably, as the adversaries responsible for the “deaths” of Amelia Pond and Rory Williams in “The Angels Take Manhattan.”
The episode is also the first time we hear five essential words as the Doctor attempts to explain the concept of time to Sally: “People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but actually, from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint – it’s more like a big ball of wibbly wobbly…time-y wimey…stuff.”
Blink won the 2007 Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form. Steven Moffat won two BAFTA awards for Best Writer. Carey Mulligan won the Constellation Award for Beset Female Performance in a 2007 Science Fiction Television Award. In 2009, readers of Doctor Who Magazine voted it the second best Doctor Who story ever.
My Saturday night Whovian feast continued with the 2010 special The Waters of Mars, which won the 2010 Hugo for Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form, and was Russell T. Davies’s last episode as writer/showrunner.
November 21, 2059. The first human colony on Mars, Bowie Base One. The Doctor – David Tennant – is there on this pivotal day in history, when the colony is destroyed in a nuclear blast. But it is precisely this disaster that inspires the granddaughter of the mission’s leader, Captain Adelaide Brooke (Lindsay Duncan), as well as the rest of humanity, to continue their journey into deep space exploration and colonization.
The fixed point in time is an “essential” concept in the Whovian universe – and it is in The Waters of Mars that the Doctor is brutally taught that not even he, the “Victorious Time Lord,” as he refers to himself towards the climatic moment, is capable of changing it.
For it is not precisely the destruction of the colony that is the crucial event, but (SPOILER ALERT) Captain Adelaide Brooke’s death that is the necessary, critical, fundamental and central point – a fixed pointin time – on which the future of humanity rests. If she does not die, her granddaughter, Susie Fontana Brooke, will not pilot the first faster-than-light spaceship to Proxima Centauri, nor will her other descendants, nor humanity, follow her into space. And so Adelaide accepts her fate, and confronting the self-congratulatory Doctor who has saved her – “I don’t care who you are…the Time Lord Victorious is ‘wrong’.” – walks into her home and kills herself with her laser gun.
“Your song is ending…he will knock four times.” The Doctor has been running from a prophecy of his death (“Planet of the Dead,” “Planet of the Ood”) as a fixed point in time. This episode (though not “officially” part of the final arc – “The End of Time” – leading up to the regeneration of Tennant into the 11th – I mean the 12th – Doctor, Matt Smith) is essential in its portrayal of Tennant’s Doctor’s dark side.
He is the last of the Time Lords, and in his arrogance he no longer believes that he has to obey the rules. Two rules especially – the first being that he cannot change a fixed point in history, and more important, and more personal, that he must die and regenerate. Just as he refuses to accept the death of Adelaide Brooke and her mission mates, he refuses the prophecy, even going so far as to deliberately electrocute one of the mutated members of the Mars mission to stop him from “knock[ing] four times” on a bulkhead door.
“I don’t want togo.”
But he must.
Time is not just a wibbly wobbley time-y whimey ball of stuff.
Fathom events will team with BBC Worldwide North America for a national broadcast of the Doctor Who series eight climax Dark Water/Death in Heaven this fall. Scheduled for September 15th and 16th, and presented in 3D, the event will also feature a new prequel teaser for series nine entitled The Doctor’s Meditation. In addition Wil Wheaton, former Wesley Crusher and now multiform internet sensation, will host a special interview with Peter Capaldi and Jenna Coleman.
The two-part season finale featured the return of The Master, in the form of Michelle Gomez, who has already been confirmed to re-appear in the two part series nine opener The Magician’s Assistant / The Witch’s Familiar, set to premiere several days after this presentation on September 19.
Fathom Events has had a several-year partnership with BBC, beginning with a national broadcast of the 50th anniversary episode The Day of the Doctor, which the company described as bringing the “largest surges of traffic ever” to their website. They’ve since broadcast the Series 8 premiere episode Deep Breath, as well as a presentation of the David Tennant two-parter Rise of the Cybermen/The Age of Steel. Fathom have presented a number of genre-friendly events, including an ongoing series of science fiction films “commented on” by MST3K alumni at RiffTrax, and an upcoming return to theaters of the animated classic The Iron Giant.
Tickets go on sale July 31 – check the Fathom Events website for a list of participating theaters.
In a continuing torrent of news and excitement from a regional comic convention on the west coast, BBC America announced the premiere date of series nine of Doctor Who – September 19th.
Having filmed in Cardiff since January, Peter Capaldi said:
“Soaring through all of time and space, series nine sees the Doctor throw himself into life with a new hunger for adventure. The Cosmos is there for the taking, thrilling, epic and enticing, and his to play in. But he’s almost reckless in his abandon. It’s almost like he’s running from something, something that if it ever catches him will turn his life upside down.”
Michelle Gomez will return as Missy, the latest incarnation of The Master, in the season’s two-part premiere The Magician’s Assistant / The Witch’s Familiar. Highlights of the series so far revealed include the return of Kate Stewart, U.N.I.T., Osgood, and the Zygons, an episode featuring Vikings in space, a city of Daleks, and a new race of mercenaries known as The Mire.
Mark Gatiss returns to writing for the series, as well as new contributors including Sarah Dollard and Catherine Tregenna.
After numerous teases and sneak peeks, Lego released the official video for the Doctor Who playset for their contribution to the “Toys to Life” video game category, Lego Dimensions.
It’s happening! Oh my God it’s happening!
In addition to the interaction with the starter set characters of Batman, Gandalf and Wyldstyle, the trailer features a tantalizing crossover with fellow Doctor Emmett Brown and the town of Hill Valley from Back to the Future. With the Daleks, the Cybermen and a few other friends at the end, the best advice for watching this video is…don’t blink.
At San Diego Comic Con, an event with the cast of the show revealed that not only will Peter Capaldi lend his voice to the game, but Jenna Coleman will appear as Clara and Michelle Gomez as The Master. The playset as shown in previous photos features The Doctor, the TARDIS, and Baker-era companion K-9. No product information has been shared concerning physical figures of Clara or Missy, though Dalek and Cyberman figures will be made available as a Fun Pack, currently scheduled for January.
Of all the properties appearing in Lego Dimensions, none more than Doctor has the potential to feature additional figures and playsets. So far only the three-figure Dimensions set has been announced, and along with Portal, will be featuring a stand-alone playset through their Lego Ideas line. An article at Gamespot.com reveals a staggering amount of screenshots and potential gameplay, suggesting that there may be more game available than first expected.
My long-time friend and colleague Martha Thomases does not like wearing high heels. This, of course, is her right. I have been sympathetic to her position, even to the point of referring to it as a contemporary form of traditional Chinese foot-binding.
That was until this past Sunday. Now, meh, not so much.
I’ve been to many a Gay Pride rally, including – yep, I’m bragging – the very first in New York. I’ve been to such rallies in several different cities; I’ve been to them after terrible tragedies such as the Stonewall Inn riots and, less than ten years later, the discovery and growth of HIV. Yet each and every march and rally has been fantastic fun, each one a deeply meaningful, fun-filled and life-affirming event. I have always walked away from the rallies and parades feeling much better about my fellow humans – even in my most cynical times that account for some six decades of my life.
More to the point, I always had a great time. Always.
So this year’s Gay Pride march and rally in New York City, coincidently held two days after the Supreme Court finally made marriage equality the law of the land, was something I wouldn’t miss even if I had lost my arms and legs and had to be carried in a basket. Thankfully, I was fully able to walk.
If Elon Musk had been there, he would have figured out a way to capture the energy of the event and use it to fuel a battery that would run every car in America for a year.
There’s no question the gay culture that has always affected our mainstream culture no matter how closeted it had been in the past. Several of our ComicMix columnists have commented on this point and several more may yet: right now, it is the perfect topic for a pop culture site such as this one.
The New York City parade, which attracted more than two million onlookers and, it seemed, about as many participants, was fraught with politicians and corporate sponsors. No, Mike Huckabee didn’t march, nor did any of his fellow Republican presidential candidates. That wasn’t a surprise and, besides, the parade route always was crowded. Delta Airlines, NBC/Universal, Master Card, and Coca-Cola were among the many who entered elaborate floats. So did a great many religious organizations – but certainly not all. Parents brought their children, both as onlookers and as participants.
This year’s parade marshals were two British peers: Sir Ian McKellan, also known as Magneto, Sherlock Holmes, Gandalf and others; Sir Derek Jacoby, a.k.a. Emperor Claudius and both Doctor Who’s arch-enemy The Master as well as The Doctor himself; and Ugandan LGBT activist Kasha Jacqueline Nabagesera. All around, a class-act. It was sort of like the St. Patrick’s Day parade, but without the – what’s it called again? Oh, yeah. Blatant bigotry.
The parade ran in a light rain from 36th Street and Fifth Avenue to the Stonewall Inn, a distance of nearly two miles. From my vantage points I couldn’t conduct a scientific study, but I believe there were more adults wearing high heels than not. Of course, I’m also counting the dozens (at least) of paraders wearing stilts.
Seeing all those folks marching in their fine footwear, I think I’ve got to backtrack on that foot binding thing. I figure, it must be worth it.
Now… you say you don’t like gay marriage? You’re opposed to it? Somehow, it lessens the value of your marriage? Well, congratulations. You’re in luck. There is no more “gay marriage.”
Now… there is only “marriage.”
(Photo notes: At top – PBS’s rolling billboard for Vicious, starring McKellan and Jacoby. Up there on the right – part of the massive Delta Airlines presence, including a flight attendant with an astonishing hat size. Down here on the left – your humble columnist, posing with the newly transgendered crimefighter, The Shadow.)
“But if I get elected president I will bring it back bigger and better and stronger than ever before, and we will make America great again. Because I don’t need anybody’s money. It’s nice. I don’t need anybody’s money. I’m using my own money. I’m not using lobbyists, I’m not using donors. I don’t care. I’m really rich.”
Who said that?
This being ComicMix, and you being a comics fan, I wouldn’t be surprised if you said it was Superman’s arch-enemy, Lex Luthor.
This being ComicMix, and you being a comics reader, I wouldn’t be surprised if you picked up on the interesting concept of life imitating art as you witnessed Barak Obama’s arch-enemy, Donald Trump, announce his candidacy for the office of the President of the United States on Tuesday, June 16, 2015.
Yesterday, out for a stroll with Alix, Jeff, and little Meyer, we browsed an outdoor celebration of Jersey City’s multi-cultural milieu, which included a terrific, mesmerizing, head-nodding, toe-tapping “Bollywood” dance performance by a professional Indian theatre group. What would “the Donald” say about that? Oh, wait, they weren’t Mexicans, so I guess they’re okay.
Anyway, continuing our stroll, we went to Jersey City’s greatest (and only) independent bookstore, The Word. While browsing the shelves, I picked up Neil Gaiman’s – and please don’t tell me that I have to remind you who Neil Gaiman is, this being ComicMix and you being a comics reader – new collection of short stories, Trigger Warnings: Short Fictions and Disturbances. Here’s some of what the New York Times had to say about it (and about Neil):
“One of the most enjoyable pieces of writing in Trigger Warning, which assembles a range of previously published material from the past seven or eight years, along with a new story that revisits the world of Gaiman’s best-selling novel American Gods, is the author’s introduction, delivered in the chatty, generous and digressive style familiar to readers of his blog. He supplies contextual anecdotes for every story or poem in the book, apologizes (unnecessarily) for its inherent shagginess and lack of thematic clarity, and expends rather too much effort explicating his title, a puckish reference to the Internet-spawned notion that all potentially provocative material should be flagged in advance, lest it engage latent trauma in its audience.
“I wonder, are fictions safe places?” Gaiman writes. “And then I ask myself, should they be safe places?” He means to suggest that his fiction may indeed prove disturbing and that we’re on our own, but that last part isn’t quite true. We have a guide. In practice, Gaiman’s writing answers the introduction’s questions both in the negative and in the affirmative. In his fictional worlds, reality is frequently subject to disturbing or hilarious slippage: A moonlight stroll in search of a defunct local attraction shifts without warning into a Shirley Jackson-style murderous ritual (“A Lunar Labyrinth”); a talkative woman in a small-town pub turns out to be a spectral jilted lover with a gruesome secret to reveal (in ‘Black Dog,’ a new adventure of Shadow Moon, the hero of American Gods); a teenage girl’s addiction to tanning lotion may result in the creation of a shimmering orange entity known as ‘Her Immanence,’ or to her sister as ‘the Great Oompa-Loompa.’ (That story, ‘Orange,’ is skillfully constructed as a litany of unsatisfying answers to official questions.)
One of the things I love about Neil is that he embraces his own fan sensibility and geekhood; Trigger Warning not only includes the afore-mentioned Oompa-Loopa, but also stories featuring Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Who.
I was also amused – well, I’m not sure if “amused” is the right word, unless it’s used in the ironic sense – to find G. Willow Wilson and Adrian Aphona’s Ms. Marvel series in the “Graphic Novels/Comics” section of the bookstore. I couldn’t help wondering if Kamala Khan, who lives in Jersey City, sometimes comes into The Word. (Um, that’s the “ironically amused” part.)
And I also couldn’t help wondering if “the Donald” would be okay with her. But she’s not a Mexican, so I guess he would be.
Quick lesson on how to change a new video game from “mild interest” to “Why isn’t this in my hands already” … add Doctor Who!
Lego Dimensions, the new entry in the interactive collectible mash-up videogame category has just fired a shot across the bow of amiibo, Skylanders and Disney INfinity by adding a timelord to its ranks of playable (and purchasable) characters.
While the game had already announced inclusion of its most popular licensed lines like Batman, Jurassic World and The Simpsons, it was quite a surprise when they announced the inclusion of properties they’d only licensed for their limited run Lego Ideas line.
Lego Ideas allows people to design their own suggestions for building kits, which Lego reviews and approves once they achieve the required 10,000 upviotes from the user community. Sets for Back to the Future, Portal 2 and Doctor Who have already been approved, with the Doctor Who set not even released yet.
One must assume these license contracts included the ability to add the characters into videogames in future, because included they are. In addition to figures from their Lord of the Rings, and Scooby Doo lines, as well as their in-house properties Chima and Ninjago, Lego release photos of figure sets for the Ideas-only properties.
The Lego series of video games are already staggeringly popular, with titles based on worlds like Indiana Jones, Pirates of the Carribean, and Harry Potter. Dimensions will allow players to do what kids have been doing for years – play with them all together. More details are popping up every day, but the sheer number of character lines they’ve negotiated to appear dwarfs any other. Disney Infinitiy’s recent announcement of the Star Wars line being included has got some serious competition.
Lego Dimensions will be released on September 27, 2015.
UNIT scientist Osgood, played by Ingrid Oliver, returns to Doctor Who for season nine. Having been killed by Missy (Michelle Gomez) in the show’s season eight finale ‘Death in Heaven’, Steven Moffat decided to bring back the Doctor’s biggest fan.
Steven Moffat, lead writer and Executive Producer, said: “Osgood is back, fresh from her recent murder at the end of last series. We recently confirmed that Osgood was definitely dead and not returning – but in a show about time travel, anything can happen. The brilliant Ingrid Oliver is back in action. This time though, can the Doctor trust his number one fan?”
This time she’s back in action and comes face-to-face with the shape-shifting extra-terrestrial Zygons, as they also return for the new season. They last appeared in ‘The Day of the Doctor’ for the show’s 50th anniversary episode.
One of the most popular fan theories about Osgood’s not-deadness involves the events of the anniversary episode. She was impersonated by a Zygon, but as the episode progressed, they seem to achieve some sort of mutual understanding. Many have clung to the hope that the Osgood we saw reduced to particulate matter was the Zygon duplicate.
Of course, we also saw Missy’s device perform a number of functions – who’s to say one of them wasn’t a teleporter, like the shredders in Time Heist? How will she ever come back?
Speaking on set, Ingrid Oliver commented on her reappearance: “As every actor who’s worked on Doctor Who will tell you, there’s always the secret hope you’ll get the call asking you to come back. To actually receive that call is both unexpected and brilliant. The word ‘honour’ gets banded about a lot, but it really is, it’s an honour. Especially because I was so sure Osgood was a goner after the last series!”
The two-part episode is currently being filmed in Cardiff, Wales, and is written by Peter Harness (Doctor Who – ‘Kill the Moon’, Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell, Wallander), produced by Peter Bennett and directed by Daniel Nettheim (Line of Duty, Glue).
Also joining Peter Capaldi (The Doctor) and Jenna Coleman (Clara Oswald) and confirmed for guest roles in the double episode is Jemma Redgrave, Jaye Griffiths, Cleopatra Dickens, Sasha Dickens, Abhishek Singh, Todd Kramer, Jill Winternitz, Nicholas Asbury, Jack Parker and Aidan Cook.
River Song’s timeline with The Doctor has always been a topic of great discussion among fans. From her point of view, her first appearance in Silence in the Library / Forest of the Dead was the last time she saw The Doctor, having died and all. Up until the recent episode The Name of the Doctor, all of River’s appearances have been from earlier in her life / timeline – only in the latest one have we seen her from after the events of that first (well, I say “first”…) meeting. So there’s no knowing from whence we’ll be seeing her appear this time.
