Did River age oddly or skip a decade?

[senko]

In the day of the moon a young River is left wandering the streets of New York in 1969 yet I always thought Amelia was supposed to be born in 1989 and grow up with a River roughly the same age. So either River aged weirdly as 20 years after her apparent regeneration in 1969 she's still close enough to her mother to be a friend the same age and then ages at the same rate so Amy doesn't notice anything odd. Alternatively at some point after her regeneration in 1969 she travels or is taken forward to 19?? to meet up with her same age mother. In which case who did it and why?

[Stormcrow]

Yeah, I noticed that. Either the writers weren't paying close attention to the discrepancy, or Melody was taken forward in time by the Silence to become Amy's friend as a sort of deep operative.

[misterharry]

I think River being a child of the TARDIS has given her an extended longevity as well as being able to regenerate. so she doesn't age at the same rate as humans. After all, she didn't age visibly during the 24 years she spent on Darillium, between The Husbands of River Song and Silence in the Library.

[senko]

Dec 11, 2019 16:45:44 GMT misterharry said:

I think River being a child of the TARDIS has given her an extended longevity as well as being able to regenerate. so she doesn't age at the same rate as humans. After all, she didn't age visibly during the 24 years she spent on Darillium, between The Husbands of River Song and Silence in the Library.

That was my first thought but Amy says she knew her since they were kids so they'd need to age at roughly the same speed there or shed have noticed not only did a raggedy doctor show up in a magic box but her childhood friend never aged a day.

[Stormcrow]

Dec 12, 2019 1:19:59 GMT senko said:

Amy says she knew her since they were kids so they'd need to age at roughly the same speed there or shed have noticed

Exactly. It's at this point that the wise viewer stops themselves and realizes that they're thinking much harder about this than the show's creators did, and the best course of action would be to shrug and say, "Oh well."

[misterharry]

Dec 12, 2019 1:19:59 GMT senko said:

Dec 11, 2019 16:45:44 GMT misterharry said:

I think River being a child of the TARDIS has given her an extended longevity as well as being able to regenerate. so she doesn't age at the same rate as humans. After all, she didn't age visibly during the 24 years she spent on Darillium, between The Husbands of River Song and Silence in the Library.

That was my first thought but Amy says she knew her since they were kids so they'd need to age at roughly the same speed there or shed have noticed not only did a raggedy doctor show up in a magic box but her childhood friend never aged a day.

So she aged at human speed during childhood and adolescence, and when she reached physical maturity, her metabolism stabilised and her ageing slowed down.

[senko]

Which would argue someone at some point picked up this little girl, took her forward in time 20 years and dropped her off near her mother and father. Which raises quite a few questions.

[Stormcrow]

Moffat is great at building suspense and tension. Not so great at resolving the hairball situations he invents.

[misterharry]

Dec 12, 2019 18:33:21 GMT senko said:

Which would argue someone at some point picked up this little girl, took her forward in time 20 years and dropped her off near her mother and father. Which raises quite a few questions.

Not necessarily. We don't definitively know that the newly regenerated River in 1969 is the same incarnation as Mels circa twenty years later. We know next to nothing about those twenty years. A lot could have happened.

[Stormcrow]

Dec 13, 2019 15:43:20 GMT misterharry said:

Dec 12, 2019 18:33:21 GMT senko said:

Which would argue someone at some point picked up this little girl, took her forward in time 20 years and dropped her off near her mother and father. Which raises quite a few questions.

Not necessarily. We don't definitively know that the newly regenerated River in 1969 is the same incarnation as Mels circa twenty years later. We know next to nothing about those twenty years. A lot could have happened.

If we are to suppose that the next incarnation of the girl in 1969 wasn't Mels, then that probably means that the middle incarnation would have been nearly thirty-something years old, then regenerated back into a child. Or that the middle incarnation didn't age at all, unlike the original and Mels. Or that River can age in either direction at will (she does mention something about dialing back the age, which was, of course, because Alex Kingston was a few years older when that was filmed). Any way you slice it, it's pretty contrived, much like most of the "powers" of River Song. Frankly, the idea that Kovarian takes her forward 20 years is the least unlikely explanation of the lot.

[senko]

It does work.

Impossible astronaught "kills the doctor"
River no longer needed is left to wander and die on the streets.
Kavorkian realizes the doctor is still alive and moves her forward to befriend her parents so that eventually she'll meet the doctor again for a second attempt in kill Hitler.

[da professor]

In let's kill Hitler, during the brief babble immediately following her regeneration Mels/River made a comment about aging backwards which suggests to me that, except during the late stages of a particular life, a Time Lord, or at least River, has some control over apparent age, allowing her to remain a little girl till she met her parents and age at the same rate as them until she regenerated.

[senko]

Well I suppose that does go back to my pondering in other threads if there's a limit on timelord regeneration of if Capaldi could have regenerated into a 6 year old girl for a fresh start. Though this does have its own issues. I suspect the most likely explanation is someone moved her.