The Husbands of River Song

"The Husbands of River Song" is an episode of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who. First broadcast on BBC One on 25 December 2015, it is the eleventh Christmas special since the show's revival in 2005. It was written by Steven Moffat and directed by Douglas Mackinnon. The episode marks the return of Alex Kingston as River Song, making her first appearance alongside Peter Capaldi's Twelfth Doctor, and also her last on screen appearance to date. This also features the first appearance of Nardole, who would become a companion starting from the next episode. Plot In 5343 on the human colony of Mendorax Dellora, the Twelfth Doctor is mistaken by a servant, Nardole, for a surgeon hired by River Song to attend to her dying husband, King Hydroflax. River, who is unfamiliar with his new set of regenerations, fails to recognize the Doctor as she takes him aside and tells him to decapitate Hydroflax so she can claim the Halassi Androvar, the most valuable diamond in the universe, which has become lodged in the king’s brain. However, they are interrupted by Hydroflax, who overhears them. Being a cyborg, he detaches his head from his mechanical body and orders it to kill them. While River defends herself, the Doctor grabs Hydroflax's head and threatens to put him in the garbage disposal, creating a stalemate and allowing Ramone, River's actual husband, to teleport her, the Doctor, and Hydroflax’s head outside. Believing Nardole to have information about River, Hydroflax’s body decapitates him to use his head as its own. River and Ramone track down the TARDIS and attempt to take off with the Doctor, but the ship's safeguards prevent it from taking off when it detects that Hydroflax’s head and body, although separated, are still linked to one another. Left behind, Hydroflax’s body tricks and uploads Ramone before following a homing beacon emitted by his head. Using Ramone, it forces its way inside, causing the TARDIS to travel to the starship Harmony and Redemption, where River requests that the maître d’, Flemming, deadlock seal the baggage hold where the TARDIS landed to prevent Hydroflax’s body from pursuing them further.