I want River out of the Library as much as the next person, but I always assumed the writing was not inherently “bad” per se but written 1) before Moffat knew the extent to which he could flesh out her story; 2) so that the two-parter would have a slightly less depressing ending wo regard for big-picture depression; and 3) to make it slightly less crushing for 11 to meet her and allow himself to fall for her. Was obviously crushing regardless, but I think a 100% dead River would have been worse.
I don’t know man.
I understand that Moffat maybe didn’t have all of River planned out to begin with, but afterwards, when they did her entire S6 arc, there should have been more.
It’s not that River is in the database that gets my goat, it’s that Moffat left himself a way out, but never really finished it? Especially after TNOD where she just fades away back to the Library database...I need closure??? What happened? Is she still there for eternity? That’s what I consider bad writing - when you have two larger than life characters (River and the Doctor) who BOTH believe there’s always a way out - but neither of them figure out how to save River??? Bad characterisation, bad writing.
I know the way it happened means we can live in hope she’ll return to our screens, and we can at least have fanfic, but I’d much rather have had her just die. Because I can’t deal with the bad characterisation and the lack of closure.