| 1: The Pandorica Opens
2: The Big Bang
Cast The Doctor Matt Smith
Crew Written by Steven Moffat
Associate Designer James North
VFX Co-ordinators Alex Fitzgerald Lorna Dumba
The Doctor and Amy Pond travel to the oldest planet in the universe where a legendary message turns out to be another "calling card" of River Song. Following the coordinates from the message, they arrive at Roman Britain in 102 AD and find River posing as Cleopatra. River explains that she has received warning of the destruction of the TARDIS from a painting by Vincent Van Gogh ("Vincent and the Doctor") that in 1941 reached Winston Churchill and Professor Bracewell ("Victory of the Daleks"). Churchill had attempted to warn the Doctor himself, but the TARDIS instead connected his call to River; she subsequently escaped from prison and encountered Liz 10 ("The Beast Below"), who had Van Gogh's painting in her collection, and then used a Vortex Manipulator to transport herself to the oldest planet then to the coordinates in the painting. The Doctor realises the painting and destruction of the TARDIS may be connected to the "Pandorica", a fabled prison for the universe's deadliest being, and rationalises that it must be stored in a memorable location, the site of Stonehenge.
At Stonehenge, the Doctor, Amy, and River find a passage to an underground area, which the Doctor terms "the Underhenge". Inside, they find the Pandorica, a room-sized metal box outfitted with every type of lock imaginable. The Doctor and River become concerned when they discover that the Pandorica is opening from inside and transmitting a message across time and space, drawing many of the Doctor's foes to Earth. River warns that "everything that ever hated [the Doctor] is coming tonight". The Doctor refuses to flee and instead asks River to seek help from the nearby Roman legion while he remains with the Pandorica. She finds the legion's commander reluctant, though one mysterious centurion and fifty others do volunteer.
Back underground, while Amy questions the Doctor about the engagement ring she has found, the pair are attacked by the debris of a Cyberman's suit trying to find a new host. The Doctor is stunned and Amy sedated with a flechette. She runs away and is rescued by the mysterious centurion, who turns out to be Rory Williams. The revived Doctor is baffled to find Rory alive, since he is supposed to have been erased from history by a crack in the universe ("Cold Blood"). Rory is even more confused and says he simply remembers dying one second and being a Roman soldier the next.
As more enemies gather in orbit, the Doctor temporarily delays the aliens and instructs River to bring the TARDIS to Stonehenge. Although shown to be an expert TARDIS pilot ("The Time of Angels"), River now finds the machine impossible to control and gets locked on course for Amy's house on 26 June 2010 - the very date of the time energy explosion that caused the cracks in the universe ("Flesh and Stone"). Whilst she ventures outside, the scanner screen suddenly cracks into the same shape as the other cracks in the universe, while an ominous voice declares "silence will fall". River finds large burn-marks on the lawn, and then begins to explore Amy's bedroom, still full of representations of the Doctor and the TARDIS. She also finds elements such as Pandora's Box and the Roman soldiers within Amy's drawings and books. She relays this to the Doctor, who starts to worry they might all be imaginary constructs taken from Amy's mind to entrap him, and believing their own cover story until they are activated.
Rory meanwhile has an emotional conversation with Amy as he tries to connect with her using the engagement ring that he had left aboard the TARDIS, but she is still unable to remember him. The TARDIS begins to malfunction dangerously. Upon discovery of the date to which River has been taken, the Doctor orders her to get out of that timezone, but the TARDIS is now controlled remotely. He urges her to get out, as the TARDIS engines are supposed to shut down automatically when no one is on board, but she finds herself locked in.
Suddenly, Rory and the 'legionaries' with the Doctor are activated: they are Autons. The Rory Auton remains with Amy, struggling to retain his human consciousness and stop himself from killing her. Shortly after she remembers who he is, he loses control and shoots her. Meanwhile, the other Autons capture the Doctor and take him to the now-open Pandorica, which proves to be empty. Daleks, Cybermen, Sontarans, and other enemies arrive and reveal that they have formed an alliance and built the Pandorica as a prison for the Doctor, as they believe he is about to destroy the universe. The Doctor pleads that they have made a mistake and the TARDIS, not him, is about to destroy the universe but the aliens refuse to believe that anyone else can pilot the TARDIS.
River frantically manages to hot-wire the TARDIS door, but finds her way blocked by a stone surface. She declares, "I'm sorry, my love," as the TARDIS goes critical and explodes. Rory is still cradling the lifeless Amy. The Pandorica closes on the Doctor, and a dramatic reveal shows explosions surrounding the Earth, which slowly fades to black as silence falls.
In a universe devoid of everything but the Earth, its Moon and a Sun-like light source, young Amelia Pond prays to Santa about the crack in her wall.[4] In the rewritten timeline, the Doctor does not appear, however. The next day, she finds a museum pamphlet posted through the letterbox of her house. On it is a message to go see the Pandorica. She convinces her aunt to take her, where she finds another note on the Pandorica itself that tells her to stick around. She hides until the museum closes. She approaches the Pandorica, which opens upon her touching it, and inside is her adult self.
It turns out that, through time travel, the Doctor had given Rory his sonic screwdriver thereby allowing Rory Williams to open the Pandorica just moments after his imprisonment. They then placed the adult Amy in the Pandorica so that it would revive her and keep her in stasis until her younger self opened it. Rory adamantly chose to guard Amy through the intervening 1,894 years, whilst the Doctor used River Song's Vortex Manipulator to travel directly to the museum where Amy and Amelia are. Upon arrival they are immediately attacked by a Dalek, which remained as an echo of the erased history of the collapsing universe before being revived from the light emanating from the Pandorica. Rory, who is now guarding the Pandorica as a security guard, saves them. The Doctor then travels back in time to give Rory his sonic screwdriver and to give young Amelia the messages that brought her to the Pandorica.
Moments later the Doctor from twelve minutes into the future arrives, having been shot by a Dalek, and young Amelia disappears as the universe continues to collapse. The future Doctor tells the present Doctor to distract the Dalek whilst he rigs the Pandorica to fly into the sun-like light source, which is in fact not the sun but the Doctor's TARDIS burning up. River Song is trapped inside in a time loop, and the Doctor rescues her with the Vortex Manipulator. The Doctor then works out that the Pandorica contains the last remnants of the previous uncollapsed universe, which was how the Dalek was revived, and if those remnants can be transferred somehow to every point of the exploding universe, a Big Bang II, then the universe could be restored. The Doctor, River, Amy and Rory run away from the Dalek, which eventually shoots the Doctor, who travels twelve minutes back in time. River then mercilessly kills the Dalek, which is still regenerating its systems and thus defenseless as it pleads for it's life.
Meanwhile the Doctor who is from twelve minutes into the future has completed rigging the Pandorica to fly into the TARDIS. The exploding TARDIS will allow the contents of the Pandorica to touch every part of the universe through the cracks. The Doctor also tells Amy that, since she lived her whole life with a crack in the universe on her wall, she has the power to bring people back from the cracks just as she did with Rory. He then flies the Pandorica into the burning TARDIS and the universe is restored.
After Big Bang II, the Doctor finds himself rewinding through his life as an observer. Amy is able to hear him, however, and he tries to tell her to remember him.[5] Finally he ends up on the day young Amelia is sitting outside her house waiting for her raggedy Doctor to return.[4] The Doctor carries the sleeping Amelia to her room where he tells a story about a daft old man who had borrowed a really blue magic box that was brand new and ancient at the same time. Then he chooses not to rewind further back into his life and enters the crack in Amelia's wall, allowing all the cracks to close completely, locking himself out of the universe.
Amelia lives out her life with the family that she had remembered back into existence, including her mother and father. On her wedding day she begins to feel that she is forgetting something important, and seeing River and her now-empty blue diary, tips her off. She finally remembers that it is the Doctor through his story of something old, something new, something borrowed and something blue. The TARDIS and the Doctor reappear and he joins the celebration of her wedding to Rory. Afterwards, with its writing restored, the Doctor gives River back her diary and her Vortex Manipulator. River uses the latter to go back to her life, though she sadly warns the Doctor he will soon learn who she truly is, and that it will change everything.
The Doctor returns to his TARDIS, explaining to Amy and Rory that there are still unanswered questions about why the TARDIS exploded on that particular day and who is behind it all. However, he receives a telephone call alerting him to the presence of an escaped Egyptian goddess on the Orient Express in space. Rory and Amy decide to join him, and the three leave on their next adventure.
Analysis by Cuisle This was a fantastic two part finale. I want to say that from the start, because some critics have been picking holes in it and complaining about deus ex machina plots, paradoxes and easy resets etc. In fact, none of those accusations are fair or accurate. The accusation of deus ex machina is unfairly applied to too many Doctor Who episodes, but in fact, it isn’t the case. A deus ex machina ending to a story is one where something happens that is completely irrelevant to the ongoing plot. That has never happened on Doctor Who. Those who make the accusation have simply not paid attention to the details of what are very well written episodes.
Well, anyway, to the Pandorica. I had, in fact, worked out some time ago that the most feared thing in the universe is The Doctor. His enemies are far and wide and they fear him. I guessed even before the concept artwork was revealed online showing The Doctor as the Pandorica’s prisoner. So I was waiting for it to open and prove to be empty, and I wasn’t disappointed. Meanwhile, Rory as an Auton Roman was a very big surprise. It was a very good way of bringing back the dead character. When he accidentally shot Amy while fighting his programming and holding onto his humanity it was a truly tragic moment almost eclipsing The Doctor being locked in the Pandorica.
The assembled alliance of monsters didn’t do a lot for me, because I have never really been interested in the monsters on Doctor Who. The Doctor himself is what interests me. But for those who do dwell on such things it was an impressive collection. It might have been more impressive if a few more of the classic monsters mentioned by River Song had appeared. It is a little obvious that they simply opened up the new series costume box. The presence of the Hoix, which had a one off appearance in Love and Monsters and the Kudlak and Weevils, from Sarah Jane and Torchwood, rather confirm that. What WAS impressive in part one was the Stonehenge setting, especially with the alien spaceships in the sky above it. The Doctor doing his Wembley moment in the middle of the stones was amazing stuff.
And the cliffhanger – The Doctor imprisoned, Amy dead, River Song trapped in the exploding TARDIS, the universe disintegrating all around the Earth. Where next....
The critics didn’t like Amy bringing The Doctor back from outside of time, either. They compared it to the way The Doctor was brought back by the power of prayer in Last of The Time Lords. But that’s only a problem if you don’t believe in the power of prayer and had issues with Last of The Time Lords. I don’t have any problem with either. I thought the scene where The Doctor rises up and defeats The Master was magnificent. As for Amy, at her wedding, putting the pieces together until she remembered The Doctor, that was more understated, but equally fantastic. I have always hated that ‘old, new, borrowed and blue’ rhyme. But as she began to recite it, I remembered The Doctor telling the sleeping Amelia that he ‘borrowed’ his TARDIS and it actually made sense for the first time, ever. The ancient and new, borrowed blue phone box that we all know and love appeared at her command. The Doctor danced the daftest dance ever and then she, Amy and Rory all went off to adventures new. And why the heck not? Some people expect Doctor Who to be dark and serious and angst-ridden like Battlestar Galactica and Lost and other such series. But it ISN’T. Doctor Who is basically a romp through time and space, having fun, defeating tyrants, winning the day against all odds. Anyone who doesn’t like that can watch something else. Roll on Christmas when the fun goes on again.
|
 |
 |
