Happy Free Comic Book Day everyone! Did you stop by your local shop today? Or are you too wasted on tequila for Cinco de Mayo to remember? In either case, I hope you had a great day. Personally, I slaughtered a group of hedges in my front yard that I have hated for ages now. It felt great. 

And after that, I watched River Song meet the Doctor for the very last time. So let's talk about that.

Silence in the Library

(TARDIS Data Core recap)

This is such a great story. Writer Steven Moffat is four-for-four in contributing an excellent, twisty story for each season of the revived season. The Empty Child / The Doctor Dances, The Girl in the Fireplace, Blink, and now this two-parter -- each of them a masterpiece of storytelling. In this one the Doctor receives a mysterious message on his psychic paper asking for help, and so they come to The Library. It's a planet that contains every single book ever published, and is so definitive that it needs no other name besides simply The Library. 

Upon arrival they find it completely abandoned, the only human-sized life forms on the planet are themselves. At least until a group of archeologists arrive, among them a woman named River Song who recognizes the Doctor immediately and fondly calls him "Sweetie". It seems that a hundred years earlier something happened in the Library, all 4,000+ people there disappeared, and the planet went into quarantine. This expedition is the first to return to The Library since that event.

Interspersed with all of this are a bunch of non sequitur scenes with a young girl dreaming about The Library, being treated by the mysterious Dr. Moon and watched over by her concerned parents. 

And, of course, there are the monsters. The Vashta Nerada, a swarm of creatures that hide in the shadows and devour any living thing that comes into their path. By the end of this first part they have eaten two of the expedition members, and in all the confusion Donna Noble is somehow transported completely away. The episode ends with Donna's face on a library information pillar, stating over and over again that "Donna Noble has left The Library. Donna Noble has been saved."

Oh, such good stuff! There's an ultra-creepy plot point about how the space suits have a bio-link to their wearer,  such that when the wearer dies they "ghost" for a few minutes with a facsimile of their consciousness living on in a very confused state and continuing to talk. Just that idea alone makes the story priceless.

And then there is River Song.

It's kind of weird watching this now, having ultimately seen the entire River Song story play out. At the time this episode aired, it was a fascinating concept - the idea of a companion of the Doctor who keeps encountering him out of step with his own personal timeline such that each time they meet they have to compare notes to see which memories they have in common. It is such a timey-wimey Moffat idea. Alex Kingston gives a great performance here, especially at the point where she realizes that this is in fact the first time the Doctor has met her, which by extension means that it is the last time she will meet the Doctor. Great stuff.

The story also features two characters named Proper Dave and Other Dave, so called because Proper Dave was on the crew first and the two picked up their nicknames so that everyone could tell them apart. I love, love, love this conceit for a very personal reason. And so now, I am obligated to tell my David / Dave / George story.

You see, back in my twenties (when dinosaurs roamed the Earth) I managed a pizza joint in a shopping mall. I had a very small crew, and at one point fully three quarters of my employees were named David. It was me, another employee, and then the three Davids. It got very confusing. It finally reached the point where one day I snapped and said, "You: from now on you are David. You: from now on you are Dave. And you: from now on you are....  George." They all nodded and accepted it, and from that day forward those were their names. Some years after that one of the Davids legally changed his name, but it wasn't George. The funny thing is, several years later I ran into the Third David working at a different restaurant and I was gobsmacked to find out that he still went by the name George. It just kinda stuck. For all I know, right now somewhere out there George is still puttering through his life with a wife and kids and occasionally has to explain to airport security or some such why his ID says David but he goes by George. Or maybe he legally changed his name as well, I have no idea. I think back now, and I guess I could have called them Proper Dave, Other Dave, and....  nope, he's still George.

STATS:

Doctor(s): Tenth
Companion(s): Donna Noble, River Song
Episode(s): Silence in the Library
Steps Walked: 7,645 today, 2,913,864 total
Distance Walked: 4.16 miles today, 1,520.35 miles total
Push-ups Completed: 100 today, 2,914 total
Sit-ups Completed: 0 today, 929 total
Is the Doctor So, So Sorry?: Oh, poor Proper Dave...
Weight: 253.44 lbs (five day moving average), net change -53.86 lbs