Born as Melody Pond on Demon’s Run, the daughter of Amy and Rory (52nd century – A Good Man Goes to War)
Kidnapped by Madame Kovarian and raised at Graystark Hall Orphanage on Earth by the Silence as a weapon to kill the Doctor (1960s – Day of the Moon)
Shot as a young girl by Amy Pond in a Florida warehouse (1969 – The Impossible Astronaut)
Regenerates for the first time in a back alley in New York City (1970 – Day of the Moon)
Travels to Leadworth and, calling herself Mels, befriends young Amy and Rory so she can grow up with them (1990s–2000s – Let’s Kill Hitler)
Forces the Doctor to take her back to Berlin, 1938, to kill Adolf Hitler (2011 – Let’s Kill Hitler)
Shot by Hitler, Mels regenerates into the woman who will become River Song (1938 – Let’s Kill Hitler)
Attempting to complete the mission she was trained for, River tries to poison the Doctor. Shortly before the Doctor’s death, she uses her remaining regenerations to save him (1938 – Let’s Kill Hitler)
Taken by the Doctor, Amy and Rory to the best hospital in the universe. When she wakes, she finds a police box-shaped diary next to her bed (52nd century – Let’s Kill Hitler)
Enrols to study archaeology at the Luna University, gaining a Doctorate (52nd century – Let’s Kill Hitler)
Madame Kovarian returns, forcing River to complete the task she was trained to do (52nd century – Closing Time)
At Lake Silencio, while wearing the NASA spacesuit, River fails to kill the Doctor (22 April 2011 – The Wedding of River Song)
This leads to all sorts of timey-wimey problems, involving Emperor Churchill, secret agents, the Silence and pyramids (22 April 2011, probably – The Wedding of River Song)
River marries the Doctor – possibly (22 April 2011 – The Wedding of River Song)
The timeline is put right and River kills the Doctor at Lake Silencio (we’ll explain later) (22 April 2011 – The Wedding of River Song)
Imprisoned at the Stormcage facility for killing the best man she’s ever known. The Doctor immediately springs her to go on a date to Calderon, although it doesn’t go to plan as two older versions of herself gate-crash the party – including a River from the future who is about to visit Darillium (52nd century – The Wedding of River Song, First Night, Last Night)
Continually breaks out of prison to have lots of exploits with the Doctor. These (possibly) include a picnic at Asgard, trips to Easter Island and the Bone Meadows, and other adventures involving the dam-building Jim the Fish, a euphonium, a biplane and Marilyn and a transmuted Queen of England (52nd century – various)
The Doctor throws River a surprise birthday party during the 1814 London Frost Fair. Stevie Wonder provides the tunes (1814 – A Good Man Goes to War)
On the day Melody is taken from Demon’s Run by Madame Kovarian, adult River arrives to say hi to her shocked mum and dad – Amy and Rory (52nd century – A Good Man Goes to War)
A TARDIS-blue envelope arrives, summoning River to Lake Silencio where she witnesses herself killing the Doctor (22 April 2011 – The Impossible Astronaut)
Assists the Doctor in defeating the Silents’ invasion of Earth (1969 – The Impossible Astronaut / Day of the Moon)
Back to prison at Stormcage. Big snog with the Doctor! (52nd century – Day of the Moon)
Receives phone call from Winston Churchill at Stormcage, warning her that the TARDIS will explode (52nd century – The Pandorica Opens)
Steals a Van Gogh painting from Starship UK (33rd century – The Pandorica Opens)
Leaves a message for the Doctor on Planet One, then travels to Stonehenge on Earth and poses as Cleopatra to wait for the Doctor (AD 102 – The Pandorica Opens)
Opens the Pandorica (AD 102 – The Pandorica Opens)
Gets trapped in a time loop inside the TARDIS as it begins to explode (2010 – The Pandorica Opens)
With the universe dying around them, is rescued from the exploding TARDIS by the Doctor (1996 – The Big Bang)
Kills a stone Dalek and helps the Doctor sacrifice himself to restart the universe (1996 – The Big Bang)
Witnesses the wedding reception of her soon-to-be parents in Leadworth (2010 – The Big Bang)
Back to Stormcage (51st century)
Recruited by the Church to investigate the starship Byzantium and its deadly cargo (51st century – Time of the Angels / Flesh and Stone)
Summons the Doctor to help defeat the Weeping Angel in the hold of the Byzantium on the planet Alfava Metraxis (51st century – Time of the Angels / Flesh and Stone)
Pardoned and becomes a professor of archaeology (51st century)
Zips back to 1938 to investigate a suspected Weeping Angel invasion of New York. Sets up the Melody Malone Detective Agency and gets trapped due to temporal disturbances caused by the Angels (1938 – The Angels Take Manhattan)
Escapes the 1930s with her husband, but loses her parents to the touch of an Angel (1938 – The Angels Take Manhattan)
Writes a pulp detective novel based on the events in 1938 which will eventually lead the Doctor to travel back in time (The Angels Take Manhattan)
The Doctor takes River to the Singing Towers of Darillium. Crying, her hubby gives her a modified version of his sonic screwdriver. It is the last time she sees him in his eleventh body (51st century)
Hired to lead an expedition to The Library, which has been invaded by the Vashta Nerada (51st century – Silence in the Library)
At The Library, River meets the Tenth Doctor. She’s shocked to see how young he is. For him, it is their first chronological meeting. For her, it’s the last (51st century – Silence in the Library)
River Song dies. But… (51st century – Forest of the Dead)
COMPANION ROLL CALL: THE 2010s
played by KAREN GILLAN
First regular Doctor Who appearance: The Eleventh Hour (2010)
Final regular Doctor Who appearance: The Angels Take Manhattan (2012)
Karen Gillan developed a love of acting at an early age, and trained at the Italia Conti Academy of Theatre Arts. Following graduation, Karen worked successfully as a model, but acting remained her first love and TV roles soon came her way, including The Kevin Bishop Show and a small role in the 2008 Doctor Who episode The Fires of Pompeii. Two years later she beat fierce competition to win the role of companion Amy Pond opposite Matt Smith as the Eleventh Doctor. Karen left Doctor Who in 2012, moving on to an already lengthy list of movie and television roles, including TV drama We’ll Take Manhattan, the comedy series A Touch of Cloth and the film Not Another Happy Ending (2013).
Amelia Pond was the girl who waited… waited for the raggedy man who had appeared in her garden when she was just a child. Amy’s travels with the Doctor were everything she’d hoped for and more, and when her fiancé Rory joined the TARDIS crew, her life was complete. She may have been a trap set by the Doctor’s enemies to prevent the universe being destroyed, but that didn’t matter. Amy was never going to give up her adventures with the Doctor – something terrible would have to tear them apart. Something terrible, like a Weeping Angel…