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Doctor (Doctor Who)

The Witches Familiar – Doctor Who (S9E2)

by hutchm September 29, 2015

written by hutchm

Lets start with the positive on this episode as it must be said, there were some misses, but still quite a bit to like and while this episode was not as good as The Magician’s Apprentice, it still moved forward in a fairly quick and interesting fashion.

While we all knew that Missy and Clara were not killed at the end of the previous episode, their means of escape from the Dalek’s was explained quite well and their interactions throughout the show were spot on. I especially liked the “view” that Clara had of the Doctor’s escape in a similar fashion and her explanation of his gift for similar escapes from other enemies in the past. Missy specifically while seeming “almost good” last episode, continued that trend here, but gradually and convincingly started to revert to type in a more and more demented fashion and started to remind me of the Joker in some weird and wonderful ways!

Similarly the Doctor and Davros’ conversations and interactions were exceedingly well done and you could absolutely get into it. While anyone would assume that Davros was bluffing and playing on the Doctor’s feelings, more and more throughout the episode, he managed to persuade you of the genuinness of his feelings and his eventual betrayal when it came, as well as how it came was a surprise.

Quick Recap

If you recall from last weeks episode, Clara and Missy were supposedly killed by the Daleks. Well this week starts with them explaining how they escaped (basically Missy had reprogrammed their teleportation devices to send them elsewhere when they were shot by the Daleks) and then discussing how they can break back into the city that is filled with murderous Daleks so that they can save the Doctor.

Entering the sewers of the city – Clara rightly asks, why do Daleks even have sewers? Missy informs her that the sewers are not for removing waste from the Daleks but as they are essentially immortal, when their shell decays the remnants of the Dalek pool in the sewers of the city. While they no longer have the ability to navigate and drive a Dalek shell/body – they still continue to hate as a Dalek and Missy uses this knowledge to trap and kill a Dalek that has come into the sewers searching for the intruder.

“genetically hardwired to keep on living, whatever happens”.

Placing Clara in the Dalek shell – with eerie similarities to Clara’s first appearance on the Doctor in epic Asylum of the Daleks – Clara is “taught” by Missy how to navigate and use the Dalek body. Scarily emotions and words like love and hate and exterminate are the tools that power the Daleks disintegration beams and Clara is quickly frightened by what she’s gotten herself into.

‘How are you supposed to make it go without pedals?’ Clara asked.
‘Telepathic control.’
But inside when she spoke, to her horror she found everything was automatically translated into Dalek-speak.
‘I am Clara Oswald’ came out as ‘I am a Dalek.’

Meanwhile the Doctor and Davros continue their repartee and in a short interlude it seems that the Doctor might have found a quick and easy way to escape when he removes Davros from his chair and uses it to taunt the Daleks in their control chamber.

‘Davros is an insane, paranoid, genius who has survived among several billion trigger-happy mini tanks for centuries,’ he told the army of Davros’ ‘children’. ‘Conclusion? I’m definitely having his chair!’

While this interlude is short, the interaction between the two in the latter half of the episode is both poignant and moving, and Davros particularly does an exceptional job in his portrayal of a dying madman that has seen the truth. When he opens his eyes – well I’ll be honest, thats a scene I NEVER expected to see!

Davros even wept as he asked: ‘I need to know before I go. Am I a good man?’

However, as we’ve come to expect from both the Doctor and his most bitter enemy, leopards just don’t change their spots and while the Doctor is seemingly trapped in his efforts to restore Davros to life so that he can see one more sunrise, in reality the Doctor has realized that its all a setup and trick. Bequething his Time Lord energy to Daleks, the Doctor has realized that its not going just to Davros and those Daleks still in their bodies, but to ALL Daleks on the planet including the bodies of millions and millions of quiescent Daleks that were previously only in the sewers.

generations of Daleks just woke up very cross and they are coming up the pipes ! This city is about to be sucked into the ground, your own sewer is about to consume you !’

Realizing that Clara is trapped in the Dalek shell when she utters the word “mercy”, the Doctor helps her get out. Missy meanwhile is forced to flee as while she’d saved the Doctor from Davros, she’d commited a more heinous crime when she attempted to trick him into killing Clara by pretending that the Dalek body she was inhabiting had actually been the one that killed her.

While we were left last week with the Doctor facing a young Davros seemingly about to destroy him, this week we see the conclusion to that and the Doctor instead exterminates the handmines and saves Davros’ life. The boy wanted to know if was a friend or an enemy though.

‘I’m not sure any of that matters – friends, enemies..’ the Doctor assured him. ‘So long as there’s mercy.’

No!!! Not the Sonic Screwdriver!!

Overall a bit of a mixed feelings here. I mean the first and most obvious thing that must be said here, is that millions of toys around the world have now been consigned to the dustbin of history and I’m sure whole factories full of toy makers are cursing the BBC and Moffat for what he’s done in this most recent episode. If you recall from last week’s episode (The Magician’s Apprentice), the Doctor had given his Sonic Screwdriver to a young Davros, well now its gone (perhaps for good?) and has been replaced by “wearable technology” – sonic (?) sunglasses! I’ll be honest, that’s one thing I really didn’t like – if they wanted to introduce a new line of toys or gadgets, wouldn’t a smartwatch have made more sense? Sunglasses while admittadly cool, just aren’t the right tool in certain situations and just don’t make sense. Of course, in terms of a (secret) grand reveal it’s quite appropriate, as I’m sure everyone was rightfully surprised when it happened! As Capaldi has been featured wearing these shades in episodes being filmed for the remainder of Season 9, it can be assumed that they are here to stay – at least for this season & while the Sonic “Screwdriver” was most definitely not a screwdriver, its a gadget that I will personally miss.

Finally this episode has done nothing more than reenergize the Daleks as while it might seem they are setback by the muck from the sewers, we all know they will be back and if the Doctor knew that Davros was pretending, he’s done nothing more than give him additional life which seems a bit wrong to me? In addition, the same can be said of Missy couldn’t it? She’s an excellent character and I really love the spin she’s brought to the show, but previous iterations of Who had done what they could to stop her … here, he’s just told her to go away. Seems like a bit of a cop out.

Overall I didn’t love this one as much as I did the previous episode. There was some good stuff for sure, but the negatives in my opinion did more to hurt it.

September 29, 2015 0 comments

The Magician’s Apprentice – Doctor Who S09E01

by hutchm September 22, 2015

written by hutchm

Loved it, loved it, loved it! Many girlish squeals of joy also! 🙂 Now that we’ve got that out of the way, lets get down to it shall we? There was just so much to enjoy and love in this episode I know that I’m going to miss something however I’ll try to cover the high points and would appreciate any reminders for things I might have missed in the comments below.

The first thing that struck me right from the start is that this episode is definitely being shown in a “Star Wars year” as one of the earliest scenes is of an alien wandering through a bar that reminds me of nothing else but the Mos Eisley Cantina on Tatooine. Literally snaking through the crowd (this reference will be made clear later) we see the Oood and other familiar characters from Dr. Who lore, however most important perhaps is the search that this mysterious hooded figure is on.

Colony Sarff (looking very much like a Sith Master – another reference to Star Wars) is on the hunt for the Doctor and when he’s unable to find him in all of his regular jaunts, he returns to his master … Davros. Davros it seems has remembered something, something important and something about the Doctor. What you may ask? Well that was actually answered in one of the coolest prologues I’ve ever seen!

In the prologue, the Doctor comes across a little boy on a war torn land. Similar to other rescues that we’ve seen him make countless times before, this looks like just another run of the mill encounter. The boy however is stuck in a field with “hand mines” that are one of the more interesting and gruesome weapons provided by Doctor Who. Able to literally suck a person into the ground to their doom, they are able to see people to attack and while the Doctor is good at saving people, you really need to wonder how he’s going to make this miracle happen?

The answer in this case however, is that he isn’t! The boy it turns out is someone we all know and hate – Davros the creator of the Daleks himself is the one trapped in the field of hands and the Doctor surmises that by leaving him to die, he can possibly change the path of the future and save trillions from extermination.

Silly Doctor … this time he forgot that Davros himself must be a fixed point in time … the creator of the Daleks cannot be killed by non-action. The Doctor really only has two choices here … either kill Davros or save him. Unfortunately neither option guarantees that the Dalek’s still won’t be built.

However, Davros himself is not the only villain in this episode … perhaps the one that we all loved and hated the most … the Master in his female incarnation Missy is back! If you recall from the episode Death in Heaven (the Season 8 finale) – Missy was seemingly disintegrated by one of the Cybermen – somehow the Doctor’s finest foe resurrected herself (“Ok,” she deadpans. “Cutting to the chase. Not dead. Back. Big surprise. Never mind.”), and now she really wants to be considered more of friend. At least a frenemy.

The Master/Missy has always been a character right on the edge of sanity – while the Dalek’s are simply evil incarnate, the Master has always been someone that could have been on the side of light if things had just gone just a little bit differently. With the return of Missy in The Magician’s Apprentice, we see a capricious foe, one that while still an enemy of the Doctor is also perhaps his oldest and truest friend and from what we’ve seen over the previous seasons – this is actually somewhat true! I’d be the first to acknowledge that the Master was always one of the Doctor’s greatest foes, however was he not in some ways made this way due to the meddling of the Time Lords?

When she (Missy) stops all the planes in the world to get Clara’s attention & likens her to a dog that is being walked by a nearby couple, it’s supremely classic and in some ways give you the best indication of how the Time Lords (perhaps including the Doctor himself) see us. Pets to be cared for and nurtured, but ones that they are infinitely superior to – not only in knowledge, but also in ability and determination. With Clara’s help, Missy is able to track the Doctor down who has been hiding in the renaissance era, this is probably the weakest part of the episode as while it’s fun to watch, its nothing more than a rip-off of Back to the Future & while some of the aforementioned scenes also rip-off other movies/shows, they are done in a way that is subtle, whereas this is definitely not!

Missy however is nothing more than brilliant in this scene and it’s probably one of her strongest ones on screen. While she was excellent in her conversation with Clara, her she is sublime. She plays the perfect foil to the Doctor and his over the top ego & acts as the villain to his hero in his ramblings to the crowd. She’s just amazing and I can’t wait to see what else she brings to the screen this season!

Sarff arrives while Missy and the Doctor are interacting and while Missy is trying to get the Doctor to answer the question of why he sent her his will and why he thinks he’s dying, Sarff tells him that Davros has remembered & the Doctor immediately goes white. As both Clara and Missy point out, its a new look for him – one of shame.

Taken to a citadel seemingly hovering in space, the Doctor meets up with Davros and while the scenes and conversations of all of Davros’ previous encounters with various incarnations of the Doctor play on the screen – including the brilliant Genesis of the Daleks with Tom Baker as the Fourth Doctor – Peter Capaldi seems up to the challenge of replacing this memory in all of our minds. When Clara and Missy discover the the citadel is not actually hovering in space, but is in fact on the surface of Skaros – the home planet of the Daleks themselves, well that’s where the plot really thickens!

While Missy tries to persuade the Daleks that she should be their new leader & help them take over all of space and time with the aid of the TARDIS, they are less than interested and proceed to EXTERMINATE her, followed by Clara and the TARDIS while the Doctor looks on in horror. While you might think that was a suitable cliff hanger to leave us on till next week, its not over yet – the Doctor appears back on that war torn battlefield with the little boy … this time however it seems he’s made a decision and its not to save the boy but rather to kill him & perhaps end the reign of the Daleks before they even begin!

Ohhh, boy … this was definitely a good one and if the rest of the season matches this episode in terms of story and production values, we’re in for a very exciting journey. This episode has the potential already to be one of my favorite ones, possibly second to the Doctors Wife. Can’t wait till next week!

September 22, 2015 0 comments

Doctor Who

DOCTOR WHO – INTO THE DALEK (S8E02)

by hutchm August 16, 2015

written by hutchm

While getting coffee for Clara, The Doctor uses the TARDIS to rescue Journey Blue, a soldier fighting the Daleks, from her exploding spaceship. Returning her to command ship Aristotle, he avoids being executed as a Dalek spy by agreeing to treat a Dalek that has malfunctioned and ‘turned good’. The Doctor retrieves Clara from Coal Hill School, where she has just set a date with maths teacher and former soldier Danny Pink, and they set off in the TARDIS for the Aristotle. On the way, The Doctor asks Clara if he is ‘a good man’ but she does not know.

The Doctor, Clara, Journey and soldiers Ross and Gretchen are miniaturised to go inside the Dalek whom The Doctor has nicknamed ‘Rusty’. They are attacked by Dalek antibodies and Ross is killed. The Doctor seals the radiation leak causing the Dalek’s damage, which provokes Rusty to lead an attack on the Aristotle. Gretchen sacrifices herself so The Doctor and Clara can recover the memories that made Rusty ‘good’. Linked in to The Doctor’s mind, Rusty destroys all his fellow Daleks. The Doctor refuses Journey as a companion because she is a soldier. Clara tells Danny she is not so prejudiced.

The script for ‘Into the Dalek’ is much tighter and more coherent than ‘Deep Breath’ though there is far too much time wasted on talking about The Twelfth Doctor’s moral ambiguity. The sparse storyline and reduced number of characters helps enormously, and even the extraneous cut-away to Missy in the ‘Promised Land’ season arc is kept to an absolute minimum. The miniaturisation idea, liberally borrowed from the movie Fantastic Voyage and previously used in the Tom Baker serial ‘The Invisible Enemy’, works well although the unique jeopardy of the situation is occasionally forgotten about and it becomes just another labyrinth.

As with other Dalek episodes in the Moffat era, the use of The Doctor’s most iconic adversaries is fairly incidental. There’s no longer any continuity between the Dalek stories and often it feels like they are metal MacGuffins moving the plot along on castors. Though The Doctor talks about his first run-in with The Daleks, there’s a very fractured sense of the Dalek mythology. They seem more like abstract philosophical concepts of good and evil than fully-realised antagonists. The captured and conflicted Dalek storyline is perhaps a little too close to 2005’s Dalek and was arguably done far better then.

The Radio Times for 30 April–6 May 2005 covered both the return of the Daleks to Doctor Who and the forthcoming general election. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

‘Deep Breath’ was a bridge between the Matt Smith and Peter Capaldi eras but ‘Into the Dalek’ gives us a much better idea of how the series will progress. We see that The Doctor will be dropping by Coal Hill School to whisk Clara away to the universe rather than her being a permanent resident of the TARDIS. With the introduction of Danny Pink, we get a link with contemporary earth and possibly a new companion. It looks like we’re only going to get glimpses of Missy and ‘The Promised Land’ in each episode, until at least the season finale.

This is also the first time we’ve seen The Twelfth Doctor outside of his post-regeneration haze, and he shapes up to be a deeply pessimistic and cynical incarnation of the character. The Doctor seems terribly fatalistic about the inevitability of Ross’s death and the impossibility of a ‘good’ Dalek, also notably less certain of his own moral authority. Consequently, Clara has to become more confrontational with The Doctor, which hits the viewer hard when she roughly slaps him across the face in a moment of callous disinterest. She also starts to function as the antidote to The Doctor’s increasingly judgmental attitudes.

The second story featuring a new Doctor is usually where we see what we’re going to get from the character but Peter Capaldi came in so strongly with his abrasive and strange portrayal that there’s not much work left to do, and The Doctor’s sinister side seems to have peaked in this episode. Rather ‘Into the Dalek’ is a chance to get back to more rugged storytelling and pure action after a ponderous and arty season opener. I’m not angling for a return of the Russell T Davies-era where Daleks were overused and all-consuming, but I do think that the stories they feature in could be more quintessential to the Daleks and their history in the series, rather than having them as a piece of metal to hang a premise on. Overall, ‘Into the Dalek’ is very satisfying sci-fi but doesn’t do much for The Doctor or The Daleks.

August 16, 2015 1 comment

Doctor Who

DOCTOR WHO – LISTEN (S8E04)

by hutchm July 12, 2015

written by hutchm

In Doctor Who Listen, The Doctor hypothesizes that no-one in the universe is ever alone. He travels to Clara’s flat to share his theory, and finds her home from a date with Danny which went horribly wrong after the topic of his military service came up. The Doctor wants to use Clara’s childhood to investigate a common dream that he thinks proves his contention. Clara connects with the TARDIS’ telepathic circuits to find the dream in her past but, still thinking about Danny, they end up visiting him in a children’s home in Gloucester in the 1990s.

In trying to protect the child from a mysterious figure under his bedcovers, Clara inadvertently causes him to change his name from Rupert to Danny and become a soldier. The Doctor takes Clara back to try and salvage her date, but they are interrupted by time-traveller Orson Pink, Danny’s grandson, who The Doctor has rescued from the end of time. All three return to the last planet to try and ensnare the elusive eternal companion. Upon leaving, Clara ends up on Gallifrey, comforting a childhood version of The Doctor scared of the dark, which is what motivated his original hypothesis.

This is very much an episode of two halves. The first is a suspenseful piece of paranormal horror while the second teases out The Doctor’s psyche and timeline, much like 50^th anniversary special ‘Day of The Doctor’. It’s not surprising that the two should come together in an episode written by Steven Moffat, as they are both his writing defaults, but the two don’t really gel. The horror half is much stronger dramatically and though the twist is wholly original in the history of Doctor Who, trying to tie it into The Doctor’s past history goes a step too far.

The script goes to rather elaborate lengths to keep Danny out of the TARDIS, which is one of many odd choices made here by Moffat (including a redundant ‘time cannon’ sub-plot) that you idly hope will eventually come to fruition in later stories. In hindsight, the concept would have worked better without the futuristic section and Gallifrey scenes, as the idea of a Doctor Who story without monsters is so unique and powerful it could easily stand on its own. Though the biggest problem is that tension cultivated in the first half is undone by the time-hopping of the second.

Although The Doctor’s psyche is at the centre of the episode, the idea that his personality comes from childhood fear of the dark is something that Moffat has rather forced upon his characterisation in this episode rather than it explaining past behaviour. Either that or Moffat’s cod-psychological explanation of how this forged The Doctor’s ‘superpowers’ is simply unconvincing. That said, these biographical nuggets gives Capaldi’s authoritative Doctor some much-needed vulnerability. We get a better sense of Danny’s backstory (and hints about his future) while his scenes with Clara put her in a much less sympathetic light than we’re used to.

Clara’s encounters with Danny’s past and future lead to a rapid development of their romance but otherwise the episode acts as a consolidation of what we found out about The Doctor last season, with a brief clip from Day of The Doctor bridging the gap. It’s indicative of how this season lives in the past rather than giving Capaldi’s Doctor a clean break. The season arc is ignored (for once!) and for the most part ‘Listen’ is a self-contained story with some mythology revision thrown in as an afterthought. Though I suspect we might return to the episode later on.

I’m not really sure what to think about ‘Listen’. I was so enthralled by the ‘monster under the bed’ segment of the story that, even with the innovative ending, it was disappointing when it once again boiled down to a series of coincidental time paradoxes. Part of me would have been happier if it had turned out to be a monster! There’s too much going on too fast for the episode to be as suspenseful as it could have been, and I’m not sure it knows what its strengths are. We’re supposed to find more satisfaction in seeing The Doctor as a child on Gallifrey than the unprecedented revelation that for once there is no antagonist. Still, the episode contains the most concentrated bout of scares we’ve seen in Doctor Who for a while, and it’s good to see Moffat experimenting for a change rather than resting on his laurels.

July 12, 2015 0 comments

Doctor Who Television

Dr. Who – Last Christmas (S8 Christmas Special)

by hutchm June 28, 2015

written by hutchm

It’s a long story … well no, not really, its actually not that long at all so stick with me. Santa Claus is real – well you already knew that right? … well, maybe he’s real and maybe not. OK, I know – pretty wishy/washy, but what do you expect … it is Doctor Who after all so expecting something that completely makes sense is probably not a valid expectation. Expecting to have fun though … well he always delivers on that doesn’t he!

In Last Christmas a couple of questions are answered, some old friends are seen again but like all good Dr. Who episodes, we never get the whole picture. One question I (and I’m sure Parents everywhere) had was how would they include Santa Claus without ruining Santa Claus for a generation of kiddies? I’m happy to say that the inclusion of Santa Claus (played by the aptly named Nick Frost) was exceptional. The elves … really funny & extremely witty … were awesome and it was so nice to Clara and the Doctor back again.

Let’s talk Turkey (Christmas Turkey)

For those of you new to Doctor Who (where have you been) you might not know that this is actually his 10th Christmas special. Some of them have already been reviewed on this blog:

and while you’d like to think that a Christmas Special matches or exceeds the writing and story-line of the preceeding season, unfortunately that’s not always the case. There have been good Christmas episodes (David Tennant’s battle with the Sycorax) and bad ones (wooden creatures in the previously mentioned Christmas special) , but in most instances they have served to advance the story of the Doctor forward and I’m glad to say that this episode is no exception to that rule. One other positive about this episode … scary monsters!

So what is it all about?

If you’ve read my previous posts on Doctor Who – Death in Heaven, you’ll remember that the Doctor and Clara had both lied to each other as they thought that would make each other happy. The Doctor had lied about finding Gallifrey and Clara had lied about Danny returning from the dead. In reality of course neither statement was correct and when Santa Claus walks into the Tardis at the end of the episode I’m sure you too were thinking what the hell are they going to do now?! Basically and in a nutshell – this episode is Inception … in a different guise … stick with me and you’ll see what I mean.

Quick Synopsis

Clara having been woken by some strange noises on her rooftop comes exploring and there she finds Santa Claus and his elves. Initially disbelieving, she very quickly realizes that he is in fact real but before she can do anything, the TARDIS and the Doctor reappear. The Doctor tells Clara to come with him and they both enter the TARDIS. After insisting she doesn’t speak, he takes her to an arctic research station. Why? It’s a long story (you’ll find that repeated somewhat regularly) – one of many long stories claimed by the base’s inhabitants, all brushed over with pointedly fuzzy logic.

At the research base the four inhabitants are attempting something to escape the base for some reason. We’re not initially informed of what the evil baddie is, but when the Doctor and Clara arrive on the scene they quickly discover a new alien creature unlike any foe they’ve fought previously. These alien crabs (that look and act just like the facehuggers from Alien) are quite a bit more disturbing than the run of the mill villains in Doctor Who as they are basically not evil … they simply are. Once they latch on to a host, they anaesthetise victims with pleasant dreams while their brains are liquefied. A grisly fate to be sure, but one born of a biological imperative, rather than extravagant plans to take over or destroy the Earth.

Click on the next page link below to continue.

June 28, 2015 0 comments

Doctor Who

DR. WHO – BIG BANG (S5E13)

by hutchm June 26, 2015

written by hutchm

Not with a bang but a whimper …

While I know that it would have been very difficult for Moffat to exceed the thrills and spills of last week’s episode, this week’s just did not provide the same level of satisfaction. We ended with The Doctor trapped in the Pandorica, River Song and the Tardis getting blown to smithereens and Amy Pond lying in Rory’s arms after getting shot. The tension as you can well imagine was rather extreme and we were on track for one of the most intense season finales ever!

The obvious question was could the tension be maintained or would it all fall down around its own weight? Unfortunately – for me – while it started well and ended well, the middle of the episode was anticlimactic to say the least and very disappointing.

In The Beginning

The story starts with the young Amelia Pond … showing her aunt a picture of the moon and stars she is taken outside to look at the night sky and asked to point out the stars which she admits she cannot see. While her aunt talks to the councilor a leaflet is dropped through her door (the reflection of the person dropping the leaflet through looks like The Doctor and the immediate question asked of course is how did he get there if he was trapped in the Pandorica??) to a museum display of ancient antiquities including … the Pandorica! Amelia and her aunt make their way to the museum where Amelia sees a petrified Dalek a Cyberman and other ancient monstrosities that “never existed” and Amelia is informed she should “hang around” … escaping from her Aunt, Amelia waits till the museum is closed and the goes to the Pandorica and touches it. As soon as she touches it, it starts to glow and opens up … inside it we find …

…

I know the suspense is unbearable isn’t it!

…

Amy Pond!!! What the? … how did she get there when it was The Doctor that was trapped in the last episode??

Doooo Dooo Dooo

Back in Time

See like I said … it started out quite cool and interesting … but unfortunately it really went downhill from here (although there are some cool bits strewn around).

Almost immediately afterwards we are back in the time when The Doctor was sealed in the Pandorica and Rory is holding Amy’s lifeless body in his hands. The Doctor materializes wearing a fez and carrying a cane and tells Rory that she’s not really dead at all. He hands him his sonic screwdriver and jumps away again and then pops back telling Rory that after he uses it to open the Pandorica and release him, he should put Amy inside and make sure that he puts his screwdriver in her pocket.

Rory goes to the Pandorica, points the screwdriver at it and releases The Doctor – who is rightly surprised … see what I mean? Really anticlimactic.

What about the Daleks and the Cybermen? If the universe has ended meaning that they never existed, w hy was Rory still there if everyone else was gone …
How can he just open up this massive prison by simply pointing the screwdriver at it when all last episode The Doctor was questioning the whole thing and didn’t understand that it was even his prison???

The Doctor is surprised at his escape (grrr … me too … I almost would have loved to see a real prison break type sequence vs. this simple thing) … but helps Rory load up Amy into the Pandorica. He informs her that all she needs is a sample of her DNA and she’ll be right as rain again, as the Pandorica ensures that there is no escape (including death) … when Rory asks where she’ll get her own DNA, The Doctor says that will happen 2000 years in the future and until then the Pandorica will keep her in a state of suspended animation. The Doctor takes River’s time jumping device (which to me seems a heck of a lot more efficient and accurate than the Tardis – that’s not right is it? I mean The Tardis was developed by the Time Lords … you’d think they’d do it right!!) and tells Rory that they can jump straight to when Amy wakes up. Rory however asks The Doctor whether or not Amy & the Pandorica will be safer if he stays behind to protect her and The Doctor is forced to reluctantly agree (Remember, this Rory isn’t really human but rather a recreation as part of the trap from the last episode).

All of this is happening at a frantic pace and while its fun to see … it really leaves a huge gaping hole in that – how did The Doctor escape in the first place to start the sequence off? I hate it when they use time travel as a “get out of jail free” (literally in this case) card … there still has to be an initial point where the sequence kicks off and that didn’t happen here.

Back to the Future

The Doctor now appears in the future where Amy and Amelia are both together. Amy has discovered that the protector of the Pandorica – the Centurion – died in the blitz during World War II, but for the past 2000 years he has always been there protecting the Pandorica. (see there are some cool bits and this is one of them) Amy realizes that this is/was Rory and that she has now lost him. The Doctor appears and has a plan to resolve the situation but all of a sudden the petrified Dalek starts to come to life! It seems that the light from the Pandorica has partially restored the Dalek and it is threatening to kill them all!!!

Rory Williams (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

All of a sudden a security guard appears and blasts the Dalek … its Rory … Yeah!!! Rory survived the Blitz after all and has still been there protecting the Pandorica. Big reunion and much smooching ensues (bit of a sucker for that when its warranted) but everyone is happy again. The Doctor runs out of the room with both Amelia’s and Rory and heads up to the roof … but he meets … … The Doctor!!! Shock, horror … The Doctor (#2) is injured (dying) but is able to summon the strength to speak The Doctor (#1) and then he dies. Doctor (#1) continues to head to the roof where (oh yeah, Amelia has disappeared now as reality continues to collapse) he pries off a satellite dish and “listens” to the Sun (or at least what we thought was the sun) … turns out that the “sun” was actually the exploding Tardis which had been exploding throughout all times and all universes. It is only the Tardis that is keeping Earth alive while the rest of the universe is now in darkness (by the way – what about the moon that Amelia saw right in the beginning, shouldn’t that have disappeared also? ). Listening to the Tardis exploding he hears River’s voice in a time loop. The Tardis had put her in a loop to protect her so she had been repeating the same 5- seconds for over 2000 years.

The Doctor uses River’s time travelling device to jump into the Tardis (remember what I said about it seeming to be more efficient? Also, can anyone do this or only The Doctor? Seems like pretty lax security in the Tardis if anyone can access it like this?) and rescues River, jumping her back to the roof of the museum, where he informs her and the others that his plan is to use the Pandorica itself to kick start the universe – basically another Big Bang as The Pandorica has a record of all parts of the Universe in it and just like it was able to revive Amy and the Dalek if it gets a strong enough energy source it can do the same for the universe itself.

The Dalek arrives (hovering) at the edge of the roof and starts to shoot at them … running away, The Doctor is shot by the Dalek (with striking similarity to how David Tennant was shot when rushing to meet Rose in the episode Stolen Earth) and using the time travel devise he jumps back to when he saw himself earlier on the stairs going up to the roof. Now The Doctor (#1) becomes (#2) and this is what Amy and Rory realize. They rush down the stairs to see if he’s still actually alive while River stays behind to deal with the Dalek. The Dalek realizing that he is doomed requests mercy … which River does NOT grant (another cool sequence in my opinion) and then goes to join the others.

The Big Bang

They now discover the Doctor wired into the Pandorica preparing to jump it into the Tardis. River quickly realizes that if the Doctor’s plan is to work, he will need to close all of the cracks in time … leaving himself on the other side and it would be as if he’d never existed. To save the universe, the Doctor must sacrifice himself and the Tardis. Using a memory of the universe stores in the atoms trapped in the Pandorica, he can pilot the box inside the exploding TARDIS and restore the universe. It’s a second big bang and one that will reboot the universe.

Telling Amy that when the universe reboots she will have an opportunity to “wish” herself a perfect life with her parent’s back, The Doctor jumps into the heart of the exploding Tardis with his catchphrase Geronimo!!

Almost immediately he reappears on the deck of the Tardis and believes that he has escaped his impending doom, but unfortunately it is not to be … in a mini flashback sequence, The Doctor travels backwards in time through his own (short) life and we see him trying to reach and speak to Amy on the way. His decision to stop watching the rewind when he first met Amy is a nice touch and the speech that he gives to Amy when she is in bed about the Tardis is excellent. I love the way that they are able to tie this speech into the next sequence which is ….

Amy’s Wedding

Amy’s wedding!!

Really happy that Amy and Rory finally get together after everything that they have been through and when Amy calls for the Tardis – SOMETHING OLD, SOMETHING NEW, SOMETHING BORROWED, SOMETHING BLUE – really, really good.

Now, while the cracks in time are gone … the strange voice on the Tardis calling for Silence has not been explained and is something we can only hope will be addressed in future episodes. Considering how difficult it is to tie up a whole season and the over-riding plot lines in one episode this was a good episode – unfortunately it just wasn’t as good as the previous one, which is the only reason I am slightly disappointed.

June 26, 2015 0 comments

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