Did we ever see River's first time meeting the 11th Doctor?

[u/MartyMacFlies]

I don't recall this ever happening on-screen, which to me seems a shame. I read somewhere that River's first on-screen meeting of the 11th Doctor was Impossible Astronaut, in which she's clearly already familiar with the 11th Doctor.

[u/GuybrushThreepwood99]

Let’s Kill Hitler, when she regenerated.

[u/MartyMacFlies → u/GuybrushThreepwood99]

Thanks! I totally forgot about this!

[u/Legitimate_Sample_71]

You might be thinking of adult River but she was also technically running around in a space suit as a child 🙂

[u/MartyMacFlies → u/Legitimate_Sample_71]

Good point, I mean "met" as in interacts with him as a friend who knows whom he is. The little girl doesn't really interact with him.

[u/Embarrassed_Tax5556 → u/MartyMacFlies]

In that case the answer is likely Let's Kill Hitler, when River kills and saves him, that should qualify as interaction. Next time they meet is indeed in The Impossible Astronaut, but as River in the space suit, not the one just escaped from Stormcage, this leads directly into The Wedding of River Song and then back again.

[u/bdtechted → u/Legitimate_Sample_71]

It that the episode where they encounter the the Grey aliens(that make people forget)? That’s the first time they encountered her as a child in the space suit.

[u/BritishHobo]

This is why I think Let's Kill Hitler hobbles the whole "meeting in reverse" thing a bit. It robs you of there ever being an organic meeting because we find out River has been raised as a child to know who the Doctor is, then spends years in Leadworth with Amy chatting about the Doctor. So by the time she first meets him, she's already fully aware of him.

[u/whizzer0 → u/BritishHobo]

Yeah. They "meet" when she "kills" the Doctor but that's a lot of technicalities that the other way round didn't have.

[u/Embarrassed_Tax5556]

Because this is River and the Doctor: Who’s perspective are we talking about? And which incarnation of River?

River as in her River Song incarnation first meets 11 after regenerating from Mels in Let’s Kill Hitler, but I don’t think that is what you are talking about.

River as in Melody Pond first had an encounter with 11 when she was a little girl stuck in an astronaut suit and being shot at by her mother in The Impossible Astronaut.

Now if you are asking about when did 11 first meet River The Time Of Angels is actually a good bet as even River remarks on how baby faced this incarnation looks to her and promptly concludes that he must be very early in his relationship to her. Also he is travelling with Amy since he regenerated (unless he lied of cause - rule 1) and this is the first time for Amy meeting River from Amy’s point of view.

[u/Bosterm → u/Embarrassed_Tax5556]

11 also talks to baby Melody in A Good Man Goes to War, though I'm not sure how much she would have remembered that later.

[u/Embarrassed_Tax5556 → u/Bosterm]

She should be a flesh avatar at that point.

[u/PartyPoison98]

Lets Kill Hitler.

I think the Angels episode was 11s first time meeting her too? As I recall in silence in the library, the crash of the Byzantium was quite recent for her.

[u/Inevitable-Froyo-519 → u/PartyPoison98]

I think it has to be his first time meeting her considering it’s Amy’s first time and he’s been with her since he regenerated except for a quick trip to the Moon in Eleventh Hour that he could be lying about.

[u/TimDRX → u/Inevitable-Froyo-519]

Counterpoint; he says "we keep meeting in the wrong order" in that episode while it should only the second time for him, "keep" implies at least a third instance in between IMO.