Day 826: The Husbands of River Song

I started this blog, not only to document my viewing of every episode of Doctor Who in order, but also as a reminder; something to keep me active in pursuing this foolish endeavour. And I did the very sensible thing of ensuring that I told a lot of people about the blog as I was planning to start it, so that whenever I would be tempted to stop it, I would think about letting them down and those thoughts would be gone from my mind. And whilst that was a very sensible decision at the time, I couldn't help but regard it as a mistake for roughly 75% of the time that I've been doing this blog.

This has not been an easy ride, and I would never recommend anyone to copy me in doing this. Even one a day was not slow enough for me, and I would occasionally be driven to madness in trying to balance my studies with the blog (fortunately everything turned out alright in the end, particularly after a well deserved study break late in 2015 which really helped relieve my mental health). I also don't have particularly fond memories of watching certain episodes, with Timelash Part 2 almost driving me insane with boredom and certain lengthy Patrick Troughton episodes leaving me fond of them out of a weird sense of Stockholm Syndrome. And whilst I won't say that Time-Flight was the cause of my minor breakdown, I will say that it did happen to be on in the room whilst the breakdown was happening. So I'm not going to do the blog again, and if I do do something like this, I'll make some serious changes to it.

But, for all that I've regarded this blog as a mistake, I'd be lying if I didn't say that it was the best mistake I've ever made. I have had amazing fun with this blog. Thanks to it, I've been able to re-evaluate so many episodes in their proper time and I've been able to rekindle my passion for this fantastic television series. I've been able to grow to love and care for every single companion and every single Doctor. I've been able to redeem The Armageddon Factor, previously my least favourite story of all time and now one of my secret pleasures. Similarly, I've found that The TV Movie, despite every fibre of my being wanting to dislike it for effectively killing the franchise, is still absolutely marvellous and I love watching it every time. Some stories, like The Sensorites or The Greatest Show in the Galaxy have become new favourites of mine, joining the ranks of others that I've been anticipating since the day I started the blog, like Kinda or Bad Wolf/The Parting of the Ways. I've laughed at Carnival of Monsters, and cried at The War Games. And, really, anything that gives me an excuse to watch Series 5 again gets a thumbs up from me.

And there's one story that sums up the entire experience for me. Silence in the Library got a fairly mixed reception from me when I saw it in the blog. I liked it, but I didn't love it and I was a little disappointed about that. But then, I watched Forest of the Dead. Forest of the Dead is a story that improves massively after watching The Husbands of River Song - it feeds into it beautifully providing the kindling for the fire that will later develop. Seeing River's final speech to the Doctor is something that's so much more heartbreaking when you know everything that's come before, and the beautiful tones of their relationship. And seeing the Doctor save her drove me to tears, becoming, for one brief moment, recognisably the future Doctors that I would love as some of the outright best in the entire series. And I can't help but thank this blog for giving me that opportunity of re-evaluation.

And that's where this story ends. With the happiest regret that I've ever had.