(768) The Pandorica Opens

How would a Steven Moffat series finale work? We have had four from the RTD era and they have generally featured a story that ended in the second episode at the forty-minute mark and then there was a lot of sentimentality. The crack in the wall storyline reaches its conclusion and after being impressed with how the show and the different feel that Steven Moffat has come up with, I wanted to see how Moffat would deal with the finale. You could tell from the pre-title scene what he was going to do and it’s as definelty different from what RTD did.

The episode starts with Vincent Van Gogh making a cameo appearance and has painted something which is then owned by Winston Churchill who phones River Song in 5145 who then escapes and bumps into Liz Ten. The painting is then revealed to be the TARDIS blowing up. The thing is that it takes seven minutes for this be revealed and that long before the titles play.

The action takes the Doctor to Stonehenge. I can’t believe it’s taken this long for the show to film at Stonehenge and its used in a rather creative way.

There are many cool things that appear in this episode such as a headless Cyberman. Amy and the Doctor are attacked by a roaming hand and Amy is attacked by its head which has tentacles and splits down the middle to reveal a quite horrific skull before clattering at Amy’s face trying to bite it off. This episode feature an alliance of the Daleks, Cybermen, Teriltptil’s (The Visitation), Slitheen’s, Chelonian, Judoon, Nestene, Drahvin (Galaxy 4), Sycorax, Haemo-goth, Zygon, Atraxi, the weird monster from Love and Monsters & Draconian (Frontier in Space). The sight of them standing in front of the Doctor when he is sitting in the Pandorica is one of the highlights of the episode. It’s only at this point that you get an impression of the vastness of the problem that is happening in the story. There is no other reason why the Daleks and Cybermen would even entertain the same space.

The return of Rory is rather funny because the Doctor knows its Rory and yet doesn’t put two and two together for quite a while. At first there is no real explanation given as to why he has ended up as a Roman and saves Amy. The fact that he is in fact an Auton is something that I didn’t expect and that all the Romans. The reunion between Rory and Amy is rather sweet and if this had been Mickey and Rose then things would have been slushy and rather frustrating whereas due to the performances from Arthur Darvil and Karen Gillan, it is anything but annoying and when Rory shoots Amy is so

The Pandorica is according to River Song for the “Most feared thing in all creation”. The design of the Pandorica is spectacular and the thing about this episode is that the revelation is the story. The build up is done rather well and I remember speculating even at the time as to what it was. The revelation that it was a creative decision to imprison the Doctor is a brilliant idea. The idea is that the Doctor is the most dangerous thing in creation is clearly a stupid idea and

The scene where the Doctor is yelling at all the spaceships that are racing around above the Stonehenge. He gives a great speech about stopping each and everyone of them at some point and then seem to frighten them off. This is clearly just delaying the inevitable and the episode ends with the Doctor being locked in the Pandorica and things clearly going wrong straight away. It’s a great way to end the episode and it’s a great cliffhanger and hopefully things will continue to be just as good in the final episode of the series.