Who News: River Song Return Teased

The first details on the role of Alex Kingston's character in Series Seven!
We know for sure that River Song will be back for the fifth episode of Doctor Who Series Seven to see off her parents in a finale adventure featuring the Weeping Angels and the city of New York. What we have yet to find out is just what kind of role Alex Kingston's character will play there, or indeed the overarching series narrative. Speaking in an interview weeks after their ComicCon panel, executive producers Steven Moffat and Caroline Skinner have been discussing with iO9 what the future will hold for River- here's a roundup of what they said...

• RIVER GOES NEW YORK: Caroline Skinner had this to comment on River's role in the final episode of Series Seven Part One: "She's so the queen of mischief in this episode!" Rumour has it that River will take on the persona of 'Melody Malone' in the 1930s version of the Big Apple which the Angels zap Rory back to, so could she be getting up to even more tricksome antics than she did as Cleopatra in the Series Five finale?
• RIVER'S POST-ARC ANTICS: Asked where River could go after what Steven Moffat confirmed was her "big arc" last season, the Who showrunner gave this reply: "There's also just having River turn up and have fun on an adventure, which is fun too. She's one of the people who can draw the Doctor into a mad adventure very, very quickly and very, very easily. That's a different way of doing it. Sometimes you'll see her just phoning the Doctor up and saying 'Let's go see that.' There's that part of the relationship too, which is big bonafida adventure." Perhaps we won't see later versions of River as frequently in this run, then, so that her foreknowledge (or lack of) of what's to come won't have an impact on the adventure at hand. Certainly, we're getting nearer to the moment when she elects to go to the Library, and thus it might even be that the 50th Anniversary celebrations wrap up her storyline at the Fields Of Trenzalore.

Doctor Who returns to BBC1 on August 25th.