 Excluding the two Children in Need specials, the first episode, of this two part story, is the 50th episode of Doctor Who since the show returned in 2005. Also depending on how you count the stories it is also the 200th story of the whole show since it started in 1963 This is assuming you include the unbroadcast "Shada", treat the 1986 The Trial of a Time Lord season as four separate stories and treat "Utopia" as a separate story to "The Sound of Drums/Last of the Time Lords".
Very late in production episode 2, "Forest of the Dead", was due too be called "River's Run". However Executive Producer Julie Gardner was not happy with this name and so Steven Moffat had to think up a new name. For a short while it was known as “Return of the Dead” before Steven Moffat - who still preferred “Forest of the Night” - decided to merge the two titles and christened the episode "Forest of the Dead".
Just before this story’s broadcast it was announced that writer Steven Moffat was to take over from Russell T Davies, as Doctor Who's Show Runner and Head Writer. By the time this story was broadcast, Steven Moffat was already in the midst of planning his first season with Executive Producer Julie Gardner's successor, Piers Wenger. Interstingly Steven Moffat has won both Hugo and BAFTA awards for his previous Doctor Who scripts and he is the only writer, other than Russell T Davies, to have contributed scripts to all four seasons of the revived show.
Steve Pemberton, who plays the part of Strackman Lux, is the second member of The League of Gentlemen to guest star in Doctor Who. Last year Mark Gatiss (who has also written for Doctor Who) guest starred in "The Lazarus Experiment". Steve Pemberton also previously co-starred alongside David Tennant in an episode of the revival of Randall And Hopkirk (Deceased).
Alex Kingston, who plays the part of Professor River Song, is best know for playing Dr. Elizabeth Corday in 158 episodes of US medical drama ER.
River Song is not the only archaeologist to have shared adventures with The Doctor. Back in the 1990s, Paul Cornell created Professor Bernice Summerfield as a companion for the Seventh Doctor in the Virgin Books' The New Adventures novel "Human Nature". Bernice Summerfield (aka Benny) appeared in dozens of books before getting her own spin-off series of books and audio adventures, in which she is played by Lisa Bowerman.
The main library scenes for this story were filmed at Swansea Library and Brangwyn Hall, Swansea. The current holder of the record for being the World's Largest Library is the Library of Congress in America, which holds approximately 29 million books.
As shown on the page to accompany this story in the BBC Doctor Who website, there are a number of books in the library that reference previous stories. Those seen are the operating manual for the TARDIS, Origins of the Universe ("Destiny of the Daleks"), The French Revolution ("An Unearthly Child"), the Journal of Impossible Things ("Human Nature/The Family of Blood"), The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy (written by Douglas Adams, former Doctor Who writer and script editor), Everest in Easy Stages ("The Creature from the Pit") and Black Orchid (a book first seen in the Fifth Doctor story of the same name).
Several scenes were filmed at Swansea's Brangwyn Hall. These include the library reception area where the TARDIS arrives, and the staircase where The Doctor and Donna Noble look out over the empty library. The climactic scenes of this story (in the library core) were filmed in an electrical substation of a disused Alcoa factory in Waunarlwydd, Swansea.
The 'squareness gun' used by River Song to help the party escape from the impending Vashta Nerada is the same one that was used and left in the TARDIS by Captain Jack Harkness in the story "The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances". Writer Steven Moffat has suggested that it was most likely taken from the TARDIS by her in The Doctor's future. The name 'squareness gun' was coined by Rose Tyler in the earlier story.
It's probably a coincidence, but CAL was also the name of the computer graphics company that created the title sequence used between 1987 and 1989 for the Seventh Doctor's adventures. A result of this work was the creation of the first photo-realistic CGI TARDIS, featured in 1987's "Time and The Rani".
The cartoon that can be seen on the girl's television is Pedro & Frankensheep. Charlotte also has a toy 'Robbie the Robot', from the film Forbidden Planet. And if you look closely at the wall in Charlotte's house you will see two of her drawings are of a blonde girl and a wolf....
The wedding dress Catherine Tate wears in episode 2 is the same dress she wore in "The Runaway Bride".
The phrase 'Not one line!' in reference to rewriting history has been used before in Doctor Who, specifically by the First Doctor in the 1964 story"The Aztecs".
At the end of the story "Planet of the Ood", Ood Sigma announces that the ‘Doctor's Song’ may soon end.
The Doctor states several times, while questioning River Song about the origins of her sonic screwdriver, that he never gives them away. While technically true, he did give Sarah Jane Smith a sonic lipstick, a lipstick-shaped item with a similar range of functions, as a parting gift along with K9 at the start of The Sarah Jane Adventures television series.
Professor River Song uses The Doctor's name (not heard by the viewer) in order to gain his trust. The secret behind The Doctor's true name was first explored in "The Girl in the Fireplace" (also by Steven Moffat), and later referred to in "The Shakespeare Code" and "The Fires of Pompeii".
Josh and Ella, Donna's two children in the computer-generated world, were named after Steven Moffat's son and his son's friend.
This is not the first time that the Tenth Doctor has brought someone close to him back to 'life'. In the 2007 Christmas Special, "Voyage of the Damned", he managed to retrieve the data from Astrid Peth's teleport pattern, allowing her to enjoy a 'life' after death, floating through the stars.
Viewers had to wait an extra week from the end of the previous story "The Unicorn and the Wasp" before watching the first episode of this story due to the broadcast of the The Eurovision Song Contest on the 24th May.
Like the previous double episode story in this season the first episode of this story does not include the usual title card reading "To be continued...". Instead there is just, after the credits, a trailer for episode two. The ending of the second episode of this story includes a trailer for the next story - This being "Midnight".
Before the title sequence in episode two there is a brief recap of the main events that took place in the first episode.
Following on immediately after each episode of this story, on BBC3, were the eighth and ninth chapters of the fourth series of Doctor Who Confidential. These being "Shadow Play" and "River Runs Deep". Both were presented by Anthony Head.
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The Firsts:
Alex Kingston's first involvement in the show playing the part of Professor River Song.
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(Position = 3 out of 11)
(Position = 24 out of 200)
(Position = 31 out of 241)
