Monday, June 28, 2010

Doctor Who S05E12-The Pandorica Opens

The Doctor and Amy land in the year 102. A.D. where they encounter a Roman legion and River Song, who delivers a message to The Doctor, one that has taking thousands of years to reach him. The haunting image of an exploding TARDIS leads the trio to Stone Hedge, where they find the mysterious Pandorica. Whatever is housed inside is attracting every single enemy The Doctor has ever faced. But even with this vast army of villainy surrounding him, The Doctor doesn’t realize until it’s too late that the greatest threat to him may not be an enemy at all.

It has been a while since Doctor Who has had several consecutive good episodes in a row leading up to its finale. Both “Vincent and The Doctor” and “The Lodger” reminded us why Series Five has been such an astounding success up until this point. And now we get the one episode we hoped would never come, the beginning of the end. Not that that’s a bad thing, but it just feels like last week that we saw the TARDIS crash into little Amy Pond’s back yard. Eh, enough of that, onto the review.

What a fantastic opening. It was great to see all of these fantastic characters from throughout the season realize the importance of Van Gogh’s painting and work to somehow get it to The Doctor. Even if they were only in it for a couple of minutes, it was good to see Churchill, Bracewell, Van Gogh and Liz 10 once again. I don’t think the show has done something like this yet and I hope they do it again in future series. Oh and we get a reference to a “handsome Time Agent” whose vortex manipulator is passed on to River Song. Sigh, I hope we get to see a Captain Jack Harkness/Eleventh Doctor team up one day.

The mystery of the Pandorica kept me guessing right up until the end. When the entire rouges gallery of Doctor Who showed up, I was beginning to guess that the person trapped inside was the only guy missing from the party…but then again I think it would have been too much to have John Simm return as The Master this soon. And sadly, outside of Daleks and Cybermen (great to see them again btw), my knowledge of the old villains is very limited, so I couldn’t fathom a guess as to who would be inside the Pandorica. But I’ll cover that in a moment.

RORY’S BACK!!!! I always had a feeling that he would return in some shape or form during the season finale and even though he did end up being an Auton and ended up shooting Amy at the end, it was great to see him back in the story again. I would have never thought I would care about Rory when he was originally introduced as a sort of Mickey 2.0, but his character has literally gone through so much this season and has earned the respect of The Doctor and his fiancĂ©e that he has truly shinned as a great companion. Arthur Darvill did a great job dealing with all of Rory’s conflicts and sadness. Watching him break down when he realized Amy couldn’t remember him was heartbreaking and you really felt bad for the guy.

The end of the episode had me so freaking baffled. The Pandorica was meant for The Doctor? The Rouge’s Galley (or the Alliance, I guess) deciding to save the universe? Amy’s mind being used to create the trap? My head was spinning. And then there’s The Doctor, powerless to do anything as he is sealed away. Matt Smith worked his magic once again, forcing The Doctor to realize that there was no way in hell his enemies would ever listen to his pleas, no matter how true they were in regards to the universe’s impending collapse. Then…Rory was found out to be an Auton, Amy gets shot, River is trapped on an exploding TARDIS and the universe gets erased. Now THAT is how you do a cliffhanger. What a fiend/genius Steven Moffat would have been if he had just left it at that for the seven month hiatus? So many questions to be answered, the most prominent being HOW THE HELL ARE THEY GONNA GET OUT OF THIS ONE???? Here’s hoping Moffat delivers on one heck of a finale, cause I don’t think the bar has ever been raised this high to deliver one.

Next Time-No preview for next week…so who knows.

Rating-8/10

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