Posted in: BBC, Doctor Who, TV | Tagged: alex kingston, bbc, doctor who, peter capaldi, steven moffat, tardis, the husbands of river song

Doctor Who: The Husbands of River Song Was Moffat's Funniest Special

Doctor Who: The Husbands of River Song, the second Twelfth Doctor Christmas special that Steven Moffat produced, is his funniest Christmas special, though it has very little to do with Christmas itself other than it's set at that time and was broadcast on Christmas Day. It's a hoot and finds Moffat in Screwball Comedy mode. There's a difference between romantic comedies and screwball comedies. Screwball comedies are often romantic comedies with an edge – the characters and situations are nuts! They're nuts in specific ways and the situations they're in, often brought on by their being nuts, are often farces. Screwball comedies are harder to write than plain romantic comedies because the characters are very specific and the chaotic farce they're in is more complicated than in romantic comedies. Romantic comedies are about the conflicts that might keep the lovers from getting together.

Screwball comedies are about the conflicts that force two people together and keep them stuck together until they fall in love. The beauty of Doctor Who is it's a flexible enough format to do any genre, and "The Husbands of River Song" lets Moffat indulge his jones for romantic and screwball comedy.

The Doctor (Peter Capaldi) finds himself in a case of mistaken identity when he's recruited by River's henchman Nardoe (Matt Lucas) to help her in a heist – she's married a dying evil despot (played by comedian Greg Davies, a master of bulging-eyed ranting) and needs a doctor to administer to him so she can steal something. For the first time, River doesn't recognize the Doctor, so the shoe's on the other foot. The Doctor gleefully allows the misunderstanding to go on for as long as possible just to see how long it would take before she finally realizes who he is. He discovers what she does when she's not with him – she takes lovers and husbands for reasons varying from just fun to elaborate heists (of which this is one), she steals his TARDIS whenever he leaves it lying around on his adventures.

They arrive at that final romantic moment she told him about it the first time he met her, which is the last time she spent with him. Capaldi and Kingston, being closer in age, make a pairing of equals more than when she meets up with the younger Doctors. The script features Moffat's funniest comedy banter since his hit sitcom Coupling, proving he's as adept at romantic comedies as Richard Curtis, possibly better because of his expertise with plot and structure. Virtually every line, every moment in this Christmas special is designed to shamelessly make you laugh. No other episode of Doctor Who has set out to do that before or since.

"The Husbands of River Song" rounds off River Song's (Alex Kingston) love story in Doctor Who. It comes full circle in Moffat's saga that began with "Silence in the Library" where the Doctor, then the Tenth (David Tennant) met River for the first time back in 2008. His first meeting is her last meeting – she sacrifices herself so that he can go on to have a long romance with her over several regenerations. It's Moffat's riff on Audrey Niffenegger's novel The Time Traveler's Wife, but here both lovers are time travelers, and one of them is an archeologist and a thief. This is a Doctor Who Christmas special that's Chrismas-y by default, but it manages to feel like a special event like all the other Christmas specials. Moffat originally planned this to be his final episode but his successor Chris Chibnall asked for a year's reprieve to plan what he wanted to do with the show, so we were actually spared from him for a year while Moffat went on to produce a really good classic season of Doctor Who with Capaldi for another season.

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