(769) The Big Bang

The final episode of Matt Smith’s first season comes to an end with a story that has a lot to achieve. The pre-title scene starts with Young Amy who goes to visit the Pandorica which is now at a museum and the scene ends with Amy in the Pandorica and says “This is where it gets complicated!”. That is the understatement of the episode. The thing about RTD finales is that they had too much sentimentality whereas Moffat’s problem is that he sets things up well in the first part but kind of backs himself into a corner.

Things continue to get complicated when the Doctor suddenly appears in front of Rory. It doesn’t make sense at the time and later on it fills in the blanks but then things start even more complicated where its clear that Moffat doesn’t really have any care about how people get to certain places in certain times. I will be honest and say that I don’t fully understand most of what is going on but to be honest I don’t mind that because the whole episode roars along

There is something quite nice about the fact that Rory guarded the Pandorica which at this point has Amy in it.

The stone looking Dalek is quite a good design. After the massive alliance of monsters, its curious that only the Dalek makes it into this episode. It would have been nice if the Sontarans or Cybermen had made it.

History being erased and time is running out are two phrases used countless times. It almost seems like it is being mentioned every couple of seconds which indicates that at times Moffat was running out of things to say and used these lines to get out of situations.

The Doctor thinks that he has died in the Pandorica when the big bang happens but instead he wakes up in the TARDIS in a rather interesting way because things start to play backwards. One of the backwards scenes is the bit in the Weeping Angels two-parter where he is talking to Amy and the camera is really close and it reveals that there are two Doctors there. The best scene from the Doctor is when he is talking to Young Amy where he talks about how he stole the TARDIS and it’s a superb performance from Matt Smith and he has been largely very good in this series. I have commented that he has showed that the show could survive without David Tennant.

The end of the episode sees River says that the next time they meet is when everything ends which is a rather interesting way of leaving River’s return at the front of our minds. Another interesting thing happens at the end when the Doctor mentions that Silence and that is when The Silence becomes an actual thing.

This is an episode that I think will work for some and not work for others. I think that Moffat just about gets away with it but now the honeymoon period is over for both Steven Moffat and Matt Smith. Overall I think that the two parter is one that starts off really well and ends with craziness. One thing is for sure, it is a finale that doesn’t reduce itself to emotional stuff to fill a third of the episode. Yes there are emotional scenes but it’s not too much. Now onto the next Christmas Special.