The Soothsayer

Time on Earth is stuck at 5:02 PM on the 22nd April 2011. A steam train is seen exiting from a skyscraper above the city of London while cars travel suspended from balloons. A news billboard announces that the War of the Roses has entered its second year, London picnickers are warned not to feed the pterodactyls and Charles Dickens is interviewed about his new Christmas ghost special.

At the same time Holy Roman Emperor Winston Churchill returns to Buckingham Palace, from a conference in Gaul with Cleopatra and wonders why it is always 5:02 PM on the 22nd April 2011. Surprised at this question his Silurian physician, Doctor Malokeh, tells him it is always that time. Winston Churchill though has his doubts that this should be so and he summons his soothsayer from the dungeon of London Tower. It is The Doctor, who tells him it is because of a woman.

In a flashback, The Doctor wants to know why he must die. Taking all the information on The Silence from a dying Dalek, he encounters the Teselecta shapeshifting robot (see "Let’s Kill Hitler") and its miniaturised crew who are currently posing as Father Gideon Vandaleur. The miniaturised crew of the Teselecta are able to point him in the direction of The Silence's agent, Gantok, who almost electrocutes himself in a game of live chess with The Doctor. To avoid death, Gantok takes him to the Seventh Transept - the resting place of the head of Dorium Maldovar, one of The Doctor's allies killed by the Order of the Headless Monks. There Dorium insists that The Doctor's death must happen and he explains that if The Doctor lives long enough, on the fields of Trenzalore, at the fall of the Eleventh, when no creature can speak falsely or fail to answer, a question that must never be answered will be asked. Dorium then asks The Doctor if he wants to know what the question is and The Doctor nervously agrees.

Holy Roman Emperor Winston Churchill

Taking Dorium's head with him The Doctor returns to the TARDIS. At first he is determined to continue his farewell tour but when he learns that his old friend Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart has died, The Doctor's defiance crumbles. The news of The Brigadier’s death makes The Doctor realise that he has no choice but to accept his fate and that his time has also come. To avoid crossing his own time stream, he gives the Teselecta crew TARDIS blue envelopes with instructions to deliver them to Amy, Rory, and River Song, inviting them to Lake Silencio – knowing that this will be the moment that he dies.

As already seen in "The Impossible Astronaut/Day of the Moon" The Doctor joins his friends at Lake Silencio when an astronaut rises from the lake and The Doctor goes to meet it. It is a younger version of River Song trained to kill The Doctor by The Silence and Madame Kovarian. Trapped in the suit River Song does not want to kill him but is unable to fight the suit's control and is about to kill The Doctor. He forgives her unconditionally and shuts his eyes as her arm rise to deliver the killing blows.

Dorium

There are five bursts that make him flinch. But when The Doctor opens his eyes and demands what she has done he discovers that instead of killing him she has discharged her weapons systems harmlessly into the ground – so draining the suit's weapons systems and averting his death, despite his warning against interfering with a fixed point in time. Unfortunately, by not killing The Doctor time becomes stuck at 5:02 PM on the 22nd April 2011 and all of Earth's history begins to happen all at the same time.

Back in the time-confused London, The Doctor and Winston Churchill discuss these events. The Doctor then realises they have lost track of time and tally marks are appearing on his arms indicating the presence of The Silence. As a nest of The Silence, on the ceiling, prepare to attack The Doctor and Winston Churchill an eyepatch-wearing Amy Pond, leading an army of soldiers, arrive. After dealing with The Silence Amy then shoots The Doctor with a tranquilizer. Some time later The Doctor wakes in Amy's office on a train bound for Area 52 that is inside the Great Pyramid at Giza. Due to the effects of the Crack in her bedroom wall, she remembers both timelines. She draws pictures of the other timeline, but cannot remember that her husband is Captain Williams in her taskforce. Inside the Great Pyramid it is revealed that they have captured more than a hundred of The Silence which are being kept in fluid-filled tanks. Madame Kovarian is also their prisoner and they have used her eyepatch to create eyedrives that let them remember The Silence even when they are not looking at them. River Song is also there. Aware that her actions have stuck time she refuses to allow The Doctor to touch her, an event that would cause time to become unstuck.

River Song has The Doctor handcuffed and tries to convince him to live. Aware of The Doctor’s presence The Silence begin to escape. The Doctor and his friends realise that this was a trap arranged by Madame Kovarian and The Silence, now free from their confinement, start to overload the eyedrives, killing and torturing their users. Madame Kovarian mocks them, until her own eyedrive begins to spark. As Amy and Rory fight off a wave of The Silence, River Song and The Doctor go up to the apex of the Great Pyramid. Madame Kovarian manages to dislodge her eyedrive but as Amy leaves, to join The Doctor and River Song, she forces it back in place, aware that this will kill Madame Kovarian - explaining that this is revenge for her taking Melody away. Amy and Rory (Amy now realising who Rory is) then join The Doctor and River Song at the top of the pyramid.

Amy Pond

River Song tries to convince The Doctor that this stuck time is acceptable and that he does not have to die. She explains that she has built a distress beacon, to send a message asking the universe for help across all time zones: ‘The Doctor is dying. Please help’. She reveals to The Doctor that many answers have come back saying ‘Yes’. The Doctor, however, insists that no one can help him and that all of reality will soon break down.

As River Song despairs The Doctor tells Amy to uncuff him. He then takes off his bow tie and uses it to marry River Song in a handfasting. Amy and Rory, her parents, consenting to this. The Doctor then whispers a secret into his bride's ear and tells her that she must never tell anyone what he has just told her: his name. As she looks at him in wonder, The Doctor asks for her help to prevent the universe's destruction. Realising there is no other way the two kiss, allowing reality to return to normal. As the original history showed, The Doctor is killed on the shore of Lake Silencio by River Song - an act she is sent to Stormcage prison for.

Some time later, Amy is sitting in her garden when River Song, fresh from the crash of the Byzantium in River Song's own timeline, arrives. As mother and daughter chat Amy wonders what the events from the aborted, frozen timeline say about her. When Amy explains to her that she has recently witnessed The Doctor's death, River Song disagrees. Amy notes that because of The Doctor’s ability to travel in time River Song is still having adventures with him in the hundreds of years before his death. River Song then reveals to Amy a secret which she probably shouldn't – That The Doctor didn't die at Lake Silencio. The Doctor it seems enlisted the Teselecta to take his place and that during the wedding, The Doctor allowed River Song to see him miniaturised inside ‘himself’ and that River Song actually shot the Teselecta, with The Doctor safe inside. When Rory joins them the three celebrate this news.

Elsewhere, The Doctor takes Dorium's head back to the Seventh Transept. There The Doctor explains that his perceived death will enable him to be forgotten and that now that the entire universe believes him dead it is time for him to step back into the shadows. However, as The Doctor leaves, Dorium warns him that the Fields of Trenzalore and the first question still await him. As The Doctor pauses by the TARDIS, Dorium is heard calling it after him: ‘Doctor who?’.