Doctor Who’s Alex Kingston has plans for River Song to meet “second wife” Jodie Whittaker onscreen
River would give the Thirteenth Doctor “a big kiss!” – and the actress has an idea for how they could pull off the meeting
Among all the reactions to Jodie Whittaker’s unveiling as the new face of Doctor Who last July, the response from former series actor Alex Kingston (who played the Doctor’s wife alongside David Tennant, Matt Smith and Peter Capaldi) has to rank among the best.
Making kissing noises and declaring herself a “cradlesnatcher,” Kingston’s tongue-in-cheek response was a hit with fans – and now she’s keen to take it further and actually unite River with the new incarnation of her spouse for a future episode. Consider us FULLY signed up for this idea.
“I think [River would] just take her in her arms and give her a big kiss!” Kingston said of Whittaker’s Doctor at Edmonton Expo in Canada earlier this week, also referring to Whittaker as River’s “second wife” after a previous same-sex marriage that has been referenced in the series.
“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.
“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?
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“So yeah, let’s wait and see.”
It’s an intriguing idea that new head writer Chris Chibnall might do well to consider – and if he was worried that River’s last appearance in the series (where she spent decades of happiness with Capaldi’s Doctor on the planet of Darillium) had written her out of contention, Kingston had an idea for how they could get past that too. After all, 24 years is a long time to fill without any sneaky time-travelling…
“She has a vortex manipulator,” Kingston explained, “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.”
Kingston went on to say she didn’t think River’s story had ended with The Husbands of River Song in the 2015 Christmas special, so all in all we’d say it’s not impossible that we’ll see her back in action in the new era of Doctor Who.
Though of course, she wouldn’t tell the crowd if she’d actually had any contact with Chibnall yet – even now, she knows the power of spoilers…
Doctor Who returns to BBC1 this Christmas
