In the penultimate episode of this season of Doctor Who – and Moffat’s first run at show runner – all threads begin to come together. From Vincent Van Gogh’s dreams to the Queen of Future Britain, all of it begins to connect as River Song dashes across time to get her message to the Doctor – “Hello, sweetie.” The Doctor is brought to a point in time where he comes face to face with one of the greatest legends that ever lived – the Pandorica. A box so powerful that it is the only thing that could ever contain the most dangerous being in the entire universe. And what’s worse? It’s starting to open.
Arguably the most intense episode this season, follow me behind the cut as I discuss it a tad. For the record, massive spoilers will be mentioned. We’re talking “crack in the wall” creating spoilers here, so if you haven’t watched the episode, I’d hold off reading this article. However, if you’re a) living in London and watching the show as it airs or b) as clever as the rest of us are with your teleportation device that allows you to go to London for an hour every Saturday to watch the show then go home again, let’s chat.
Anyone who has been watching Doctor Who since 2005 knows the pattern of the show by now – a pilot episode to start us off and introduce us to our new companion, a season of fun episodes as the Doctor hops about time, and the final 3 episodes. The first of the three usually brings to light what had previously gone unnoticed in the background – a recurring element signifying the final catastrophe. The second brings the Doctor straight to the face of his enemy, and seemingly all hope is lost. That’s where we are right now – the second to last episode of Moffat’s first run. Moffat is handling things a bit more differently than Davies did, though. Davies never revealed what the recurring element was until the final 3 (although if you were clever you could sometimes pick up on it (p.s. Vote Saxon!)). Moffat has had the crack in the wall visible from the moment we began – it’s in the first episode, it’s highlighted in the second and third, and so on and so forth. Up until this point, I was always edgy on it because I thought it gave away too much. While I’m still partially of that opinion, I must say, in absolute professionalism – holy crap.
As the episode played out, I began to get a tad bit smug. As the Doctor is describing what is inside the Pandorica, I began replying, “Well, isn’t that you?” This made watching the episode that much more intense as the Pandorica began to open, because I half expected to see Matt Smith caged up inside. However, Moffat still had a few tricks up his sleeve because there were some pieces of the puzzle I couldn’t connect. What was so important about Amy? What was with all the references to her? Well, it was all a scam – after the rebirth of the Daleks, they managed to bring together every race that had ever been thwarted by the Doctor to analyze the cracks, and they had found that it was his fault. Then again, he claims that it wasn’t so much his fault as it was the TARDIS exploding due to an unknown threat. What I found great was that even those that might have thought it was all a trick had a nice moment of misdirection as all the ships lowered over Stone Henge in order to “retrieve” the Pandorica. As the Doctor stood atop one of the stones screaming at them until they all ran away, we really believed that they were no longer connected. But it’s never that easy.
As I mentioned, the greatest part of any season of Doctor Who is seeing how it all connects. While we’ve had some throw away episodes (“The Vampires of Venice,” for example), having everything pay off in this way was pretty great – and even a tad different than how Davies used to do it. With Davies, there would be one connecting element that would be revealed at the end. With Moffat, we see now how the pieces all came together through out each and every episode, including the ones he himself did not write. If nothing else, it helps to make a lot of the work put in by other writers seem more validated when originally I or others felt they lacked more importance. The return of the Daleks, for example. I knew we’d be seeing them again because the Doctor can’t exist without some of his classic villains (especially in this new series), but I liked how they returned in a new form. The Daleks have always been a self-preserving race, not caring about any other species, but the new ones embrace the fact that without the help required in chaining up the Doctor, everyone will die. It makes things a tad more interesting and gives us a plausible form of evolution that can be explained via the mythos of the program.
Continued belowWhat’s really great is Matt Smith in this episode, though. I’ve been praising his performance all season, from the moment he first appeared. The big fear was that he wouldn’t be able to replace David Tennant in his run of the show, but Smith has really stepped up in making the Doctor his own. Already I’m rooting for a long and fruitful run as the Doctor in the same way Tennant had, because Smith is so brilliant. He’s made the Doctor his own – a zany and much kookier character than the others, bringing a sense of comedy that the other characters didn’t always have as he runs back and forth like a mad man trying to solve everything. On top of that, when the Doctor is triumphant, the Doctor is triumphant. The aforementioned scene of him standing at Stone Henge and screaming at all the collected space ships was great, and he managed to give that same sense of bravado that Tennant would always bring with him. As much as I had envisioned myself dressing as the Doctor for halloween in a long brown trenchcoat, suit, and Chuck Taylors, now I can see myself agreeing that yes, bowties are indeed cool.
What we ended up getting was an episode full of great and terrific moments and performances, some edge of your seat suspense, more mysteries (with no preview of next week’s episode to give us any hints), and a great way to bring everything together for us.
So what now? River Song and Amy Pond are dead. The TARDIS has exploded. The Doctor is chained up in a box filled with thousands of intertwining locks and defense mechanisms. Oh, and the universe – and all of existence – has been destroyed. Well, here’s hoping he can fix everything, right?
