Monday, June 28, 2010

Doctor Who S05E13-The Big Bang

With The Doctor trapped in the Pandorica and everyone else not doing do well, there is very little keeping the universe together. The only way to prevent the erasure of Earth, the last world left in existence is to pull off the ultimate gamble: a gamble involving an age old android, a past and present Amy Pond, and a fez sporting genius. But even with all of this in place, who will be forced to make the ultimate sacrifice to restore the entire universe? Is this the end of the road for The Doctor?

Hard to believe it’s been thirteen weeks already. But now we’ve come to the end of Series Five and Steven Moffat has been left with no choice but to pull out all the stops to make this the best finale ever. Does he succeed? Oh yes, even with a few things unanswered.

Not going to lie, you are going to have to be one sharp viewer and practitioner of Doctor Who speak, (did I really just say that?) to keep up with the massive amounts of back and forth time jumps and planning scenarios. Scratch that. If you’ve seen enough Doctor Who, or even watched a few episodes of Leverage, then you should be fine keeping up with all of the action.

“The Big Bang” threw a lot at us and left me wondering how everyone was going to factor into the story. This episode was mostly a character driven story, rather than the intergalactic showdowns that were the staple of Russell T. Davies finales. Sure, we get one Dalek causing havoc for our heroes. But in the end, this episode is about the ties that bind The Doctor, Amy, Rory and River together.

The story of Rory and the Pandorica was very sweet and very romantic. Despite The Doctor’s concerns that Rory would go insane from eons of silence, the plastic replica of Rory stuck with his girl til her reawakening. Anyone who has ever questioned the relationship between Amy and Rory, even gone so far as to call it Rose and Mickey 2.0, should slap themselves silly as this episode practically defined love conquers all in regards to this lovely couple.

Oh Matt Smith. You’ve come so far since your one minute cameo at the end of “The End of Time Part 2”. This episode was Mr. Smith’s tour de force and his best performance as The Doctor yet. Of course you can thank Steven Moffat for giving him such good words to say, but it’s Matt Smith and his ability to warp back and forth between fez wearing mad genius (I like Fez’s, Fez’s are cool-my best friend’s favorite line, mine too), to dying yet still clever hero, to the old man who tearfully reminisces about his life thus far during his Eleventh incarnation. Matt Smith has time and time again proved why he is such a fantastic actor to bear the title of The Doctor. But this episode was his…well I could go on but I think I would end up repeating myself constantly, so I think you get the point. The guy is awesome, nuff said. I also like how they stuck with The Doctor observing events from his Eleventh incarnation rather than going back further and further. “I hate reruns,” he says refusing to go back further than his first meeting with Amy. I like that though. It’s Moffat’s way of saying “not yet”, that they shouldn’t fall back on the old stories just yet since they’ve still got a little ways to go in establishing their own Doctor Who world.

The grand finale reminded me a lot of The Never Ending Story, the scene where Bastian and the Empress begin to reset the world based on Batsian’s imagination. Likewise, Amy’s memory is key in restoring The Doctor, Rory and River to existence. You can’t help but feel happy for Amy as she gets her husband, her parents, and her best friend back, a nice payoff and happy ending for the once loneliest girl in existence. Oh and I must say, Amy looked so lovely in her wedding dress.

But after the wedding, we got a couple of reminders of unanswered questions. River Song, who was at her most sexiest and most bad ass in this episode, hinted the time was coming when everything would change between her and The Doctor, presumably when they finally hook up. Then there’s the matter of “the silence” which I totally forgot about after it popped up in “Vampires in Venice”. Nevertheless, the finale left us with no clear answers to these hints, which is no doubt going to make the wait for Series Six all the more unbearable. And now The Doctor has a married couple with him on the TARDIS, heading off to new adventures with a smile on their face. Ladies and Gentlemen, a round of applause for Doctor Who Series Five, written by Steven Moffat and starring Matt Smith as The Doctor and Karen Gillan as Amy Pond. It’s been a somewhat uneven but wild ride this season and most definitely ended with a big bang. But there’s no doubt now, I cannot wait for Series Six, I…want…MORE!!!


Next Time-Doctor Who returns Christmas 2010

Rating-10/10

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