The Pandorica Opens: So, Yeah.

I’d twitter this, but (a) spoilers & (b) too much for tweets (c) I really need to write this one down.

My first blog post on Moffat’s first season is on the two-parter end. Partially it is the new twitter medium, partially I just wanted to wait and see. Not over-build it. There was that weak-in-parts two-parter …

But wow.

Partiularly the Moffat episodes, but even in general. It is different to the Davies era – not necessarily superior, but a different fish than what we’ve seen for a while. And, given Davies’ firm-founding series, Moffat enters at a delightful run.

Even the weak two-parter delivered on the second most terrifying concept for all three characters – Rory: Dying, & never having existed, Amy: Fiance dying, & never being able to remember him, Doctor: best friends are lost or can’t remember the love of her life, & only he, in all the universe, remembers.

I say second: Pandorica is first.

Rory: a duplicant of himself, shooting the woman he loves. Amy: remembering the man she loves, finally, then is shot by his double. Doctor: Trapped in a box, by all his greatest enemies, stopping him from saving the universe. River: World’s greatest escape artist, & she is trapped at the centre of the explosion at the heart of creation.

The teaser alone was awesome – referencing all those episodes, explaining Vincent’s suicide, then River Song. Oh, River Song. From the stick-figure ‘bye’ to the grafitti on the walls of eternity, to the cleopatra gambit. God. Brilliance becomes her.

The Doctor – staring down as big a number of races as has ever been seen together on Dr Who, & threatening them, & winning, (we think). Then having enough time to explain to Rory that his return may very well be miraculous, & that would be enough for him, telling him to go get Amy.

Yeah, I thought it was going to be him in it. Didn’t think he was going to be locked inside it at the end, rather than start. I’ve have a distant finale in mind for Daftwager – if he is a villain, then turn the prison concept on its head; have him offend every civilisation through time, each building a prison to contain him, the next allowing him to escape, & so on, until he places prison inside prison, like Russian dolls, until he can ride out the end of the universe.

Yeah, it pales in comparison to Moffat mastery.

Amy: Gillan managed to go from tragedy to light in single shake of the Tardis in Cold Blood. It was masterful. She does the reverse here. It is equally heartbreaking. She remembers Rory, & is shot by him. And it breaks your heart.

Then Rory:

“I knew it, I heard the Roman rumour, and he is pure hero & even gets over his angst pretty quickly, oh, and she remembers- Oh, crap.”

And by crap I mean cunning Moffat brilliance. Aw yes. From the scratching of the Doctor’s soles, truly tragic in its desperation, as the Conspiracy says: ‘Ready For You’, to the music we hear as the Doctor’s & co try, and fail, to stop it.

So, stuff for next time:

Don’t actually know.

Really. No.

Every other finale I could guess, from previews, from guesswork, from simple sense.

River Song has a Vortex Manipulator, we don’t see her die. But run where, when all time is exploding?

Amy: Maybe it was a stun shot – they only wanted the Doctor, and alive at that. But probably not. And:

Rory: But he is under the control of the Nestene consciousness. Who’ll dispose of him, & Amy, at best, except:

The universe is exploding.

The Doctor: Still alive, there’s the rub. Think about it. Pandorica, not as a distraction so he can’t save the universe, but as the ultimate irony that he is far, far safer than his attackers. Dalek tech has been mentioned as able to withstand the destruction of the universe – in two seperate finales! He ia alive, aware, & very perfectly trapped.

Hope?

Why yes, that is exactly what is trapped in Pandora’s box, of course.

So – it is all down to little Amy. Little Amy who has probably lost Mum, Dad, Aunt, & siblings to the cracks – why does she remember the apple-smiles? – & still believes in stars.

Who was controlling the Tardis? Dark Dreamlord Doctor? The Tardis itself. The mysterious tweed-doctor probably-continuity-error who told Amy to remember what he told her when she was seven? That dream-bit where kid-amy hears the Tardis returning?

Nope. Nothing. Except – Amy doesn’t remember the Daleks. Or the Cybermen. Or, possibly the Sontarans.

And – The only villains that didn’t recur were the Weeping Angels. And yeah, it is because it would be over-exposure, and because they can’t be reasoned with, and because they’ve already fallen through the cracks, and because it would be a bit of hubris for Moffat to double-feature his own creations against all the old series foes …

But – Also because the Angels know. Sure, they’re the best adapted to trapping the doctor, and in time no less. Sure, they know all about the energy at the heart of the Tardis. But they didn’t come because they know. They know the one thing you never put in a trap, not if you want to see tomorrow, the one thing you never put in a trap is the Doctor.

And: They made the point: the Tardis blows up in Amy’s time. Not 102 AD. So, theoretically – they have 1908 years, before the universe blows up. With the Pandorica – Excavated? Passed Around? Young Amy, doing … something?

Anyway:

Last Tragedy: After the day is saved, and Amy & the Doctor & River save everything … Amy will still remember Rory, and, going back to her house, she will remember her lost family, & then she will listen to the message Rory left on her machine, in Vampires in Venice, & really break her heart.

Seeya!