DOCTOR WHO: "The Pandorica Opens"

[rj_anderson]

So at the end of the episode my husband turns to me and says wryly, "So they've done it to us again. The end of everything. Well, whatever makes them happy."

HEE.

My poor husband. He knows I love DOCTOR WHO the most of all, and he watches it with me to keep me company and occasionally even says, "That was a good episode," but he can't stand time travel stories. And he especially can't stand ones that push the reset button... but obviously somebody HAS to press the reset button or there can't be a "To Be Continued" for next week.

My thinking, though, is that the reboot of this universe is going to involve some serious consequences from what happened in this episode, and indeed in all of S5 so far. I don't think it's going to be as easy as everybody forgetting and things going back to normal. I think the victory, when it comes, is going to be bittersweet. It seems like something Moff would do.

Is the Doctor going to be shut up in the Pandorica for 2000 years? Well, given Moff's history of using "ten thousand years in a sodding sewer" as a throwaway joke on the Master in THE CURSE OF FATAL DEATH, I wouldn't be surprised if he decided to put a serious twist on it and make use of the Doctor's Time Lordiness in a quite unpleasant way. Remember the Doctor this season's been so fidgety about time passing in the ordinary sense? How agitated he was at being stuck in dream!Ledworth in "Amy's Choice" and how "BORING" he found that quiet life? What a horror for him to be trapped in the Pandorica for not just days, or weeks, or even years, but millennia? Of all the experiences he's had in his life so far, I think that would change him most dramatically.

I wonder if we're ever going to see that fidgety, mercurial version of the Eleventh Doctor again. I wonder if the gentle, sensitive Doctor who came to Amy in "Flesh and Stone" and told her to remember what he told her when she was seven -- I wonder if that's the Doctor who's going to come out of the Pandorica in two thousand years.

All I can say is, if Moffat makes any kind of "Second Coming" reference (and you know RTD wouldn't have passed up a chance like that), I am going to scream and not in a good way. Please don't do it, Moff.

In other, less serious news:

- River was unspeakably gorgeous in this episode. I don't even consider myself a big River fan -- I can take or leave her in most cases. But wow. She and Liz Sladen must be drinking the same magic potion, or something.

- Liz Ten again! Bweee! And looking at the two of them I could imagine they might be related, though I don't expect the show will go there.

- Amy's life doesn't make any sense. Good to see the show acknowledging this. Even from the beginning people have been asking questions like, how does a kissogram make a living in a sleepy little village full of elderly people? Where are Amy's parents, and why is her aunt so absent? Now it seems the size of Amy's house is a conundrum as well... I'm going to be really interested to see how this turns out.

- Roman!Rory. Hellooooo. Also, broke my heart. *sob*

There is more, but I have to stop or I'd go on forever. Brilliant, shattering episode. I only hope Part Two lives up to it.

Comments

[lizbee.livejournal.com]

Is the Doctor going to be shut up in the Pandorica for 2000 years?

HOMG THAT WOULD BE AMAZING. Torchwood did it to Jack, I believe, but there were no consequence as far as I could see.

[avarill.livejournal.com]

So the Doctor might be imprisoned in the Pandorica for a long, long time? Interesting. Some sadistic part of me thinks that would be cool. Cruel, yes, but fascinating. And, if I'm reading some of the spoilery-stills correctly, entirely possible. Hm.

[deutscheami.livejournal.com]

I don't know if it's the budget cuts in action or just superior storytelling chops, but I'm kind of in love with the last scene of the galaxies blacking out and the DW universe ending in silence-- sans bombast and emotionally manipulative orchestra music.

[alawston.livejournal.com]

I have been assuming that the crack ate Amy's family, and that's why she was scared of it without really knowing why in Eleventh Hour, in the same way that she keeps crying without knowing why.

[rj-anderson.livejournal.com]

OooooooOOOOOoooo. You know, I bet you are RIGHT. Brilliant.

[infiniteviking]

! That's a fantastic theory.

[kerravonsen]

"So they've done it to us again. The end of everything. Well, whatever makes them happy."
(laughs)

Is the Doctor going to be shut up in the Pandorica for 2000 years?
Oh my. I don't think it's likely, but that's a brilliant idea.

Roman!Rory. Hellooooo. Also, broke my heart. *sob*
Yesss. So sad.

Amy's life doesn't make any sense. Good to see the show acknowledging this.
Well, I'm assuming it's deliberate rather than lampshading a flaw.

[ionaonie.livejournal.com]

After such a brilliant set up, I do worry that the Moff might do a RTD and give us a disappointing anti-climax.

But, since this is the Moff, I think that, as you say, any victory will be bittersweet and nothing as easy as a reset button that takes everything back to normal. I don't think the Moff works that way. I think he likes consequences and the like.

My favourite bit of the episode was, without a shadow of a doubt, the bit where the Dr didn't realise Rory was back and Rory just stood there, waiting, knowing the penny would drop eventually.

[infiniteviking]

My thinking, though, is that the reboot of this universe is going to involve some serious consequences from what happened in this episode, and indeed in all of S5 so far.

Agreed. Moff doesn't just drop stuff.

I wonder if we're ever going to see that fidgety, mercurial version of the Eleventh Doctor again. I wonder if the gentle, sensitive Doctor who came to Amy in "Flesh and Stone" and told her to remember what he told her when she was seven -- I wonder if that's the Doctor who's going to come out of the Pandorica in two thousand years.

I hope he isn't changed that much. *shivers* He's the best thing ever the way he is, darnit! And we still don't know when in his timeline that bit of 'Flesh and Stone' happens, do we? And he still had his usual coat in that episode and there was something he told Amy when she was seven and we still don't know what it is, right? So I think there's a possibility the Doctor'll be threatened with millennia in there but it won't actually happen.

Seconding everything else you said too. OH THIS EPISODE. *will be twitching in a corner for the rest of the week, also needs a Rory icon right now* ;;

[dweomeroflight.livejournal.com]

Glad to know that I'm not the only one that thought River was really, really hot in this episode XD

I love The Moff. I actually feel like we might get a decent finale for once :)

I love Knife!!!!

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