Faithful readers, all two of you, I'm sure you are aware that I work to keep this as spoiler free a zone as possible. In order to discuss these episodes properly, there will be details reviewed. If you've not seen these episodes, then these comments will be spoilers. You have been warned.
'The Pandorica Opens' makes no sense. At all.
The trouble is started by a Vincent Van Gogh painting that gets collected by Winston Churchill. who ends up getting in contact with River Song on accident. She then breaks out of jail and steals the painting from the Queen of Spaceship UK in order to take it to the Doctor. Complicated much? Lucky that painting survived 3000 years. Are we to understand now that Vincent Van Gogh's suicide was brought on by visions of the TARDIS exploding and fearing his friends were inside? Dark beginning.
This leads to 100AD and a Roman Legion around Stonehenge. The Pandorica is here and is opening. Why now of all times?
Around the Pandorica itself are the remains of a Cyberman, broken into sections. This creature is considered the remnants of a scout destroyed in the battles over the Pandorica and its contents. Indeed, the ships of multiple races are in the night sky, jockeying for position. Wait. How did they get here? Daleks have long had time travel capabilities but no one else, traditionally at least. There was talk that time travel technology slipped out to the greater universe as part of the Time War but is it this out and about now? Any everyone knows to show up now?
Amy's fiance Rory reappears with the Roman Legion but it turns out that they are all Nestene duplicates. The situation is a trap, built out of the interests of Amy. How did they get an imprint of Rory's mind? If they took it before Rory was erased from history, it would have been erased with him. If they scanned Amy's mind after he was erased from history, and since he knows he was erased from history this seems likely, he wouldn't have appeared as an important figure as she can't remember him. Even when she sees him, it takes time for her to remember him. So why copy Rory then?
The big payoff to the episode is that the Pandorica is empty. Its meant as a prison for the Doctor as the assembled creatures have projected that the TARDIS will explode, destroying the universe. Since 'the Doctor is the only one that can pilot the TARDIS', they will cage the Doctor and fix things themselves. So they don't know about River Song then? If they were setting up the Doctor, then where does the damaged Cyberman that almost killed the Doctor and Amy come from then? It wouldn't have been from infighting. And why almost kill the Doctor if you're planning to cage him? For that matter, why cage him at all? Why don't the Daleks just kill him? Do they think he can't be killed? It's not like they haven't tried before.
And why are the Silurians there? When Earth becomes the only planet left in the universe, why do they disappear? They're from Earth!
It makes no sense!!!
Wait. It makes no sense.
When Replica Rory first makes himself known to the Doctor, he goes unnoticed as the Doctor mutters that he's missing something obvious. Rory, and the viewer, knows it's his presence and we laugh at the Doctor's absentmindedness.
What if Rory isn't what the Doctor was thinking about? What if the Doctor was realizing that this situation isn't making sense and Rory is a distraction from that realization? What if all this is a distraction? I mean, once the Doctor is safely caged, the universe disappears immediately. It's not long after that that the Doctor's free again. It can't be that great a prison if the Doctor can get free that quickly. As it turns out, the Pandorica holds the tools to 'reboot' the universe as it was, with some modifications. Handy that.
By the end of the episode, the universe is restored, Amy brings back her 'lost' parents, Rory is human again, and the Doctor is returned from the Void. While the universe is restored, Time can be rewritten, allowing these changes to be made. Hmm.
At the end of the episode, we still don't know who caused the TARDIS to explode or why. There's more to come, it isn't a forgotten point.
That's the key. It's not 'what' caused the TARDIS to explode but 'who'. Some one did this and this is why it makes so little sense. This mastermind's plot is designed to destroy the universe knowing that the Doctor will restore it successfully. To what end? To bring someone or something back, to rewrite history, as Amy did. The Pandorica plot is designed to distract the Doctor, keep him off guard, but keep him from preventing the destruction of the universe so that he'll have to fix it.
Who would do this? Visibly we have two likely options: the Doctor's 'dark' subconscious from 'Amy's Choice' and River Song. The Doctor remembered Rory and could have replicated him. River's appearance at Amy and Rory's wedding is odd, a bit suspect. It's almost implied that she knows to drop the diary off to trigger Amy to remember the Doctor but that would mean she might remember the Doctor. If River remembers the Doctor, then why does Amy have to remember him? Tricky.
But to what end? What might be restored? Well there is something currently missing from the mythos.
Perhaps this 'reboot' erased the Time War from happening. Perhaps Gallifrey is back.
Or perhaps not.
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6 comments:
Hey, I read this while searching for an image of Van Gogh's painting of the TARDIS for my own review. I just wanted to clear one thing up for you about the Silurians. The ones in the sky above stonehenge were nothing to do with those on Earth. The Silurians are a race mentioned much earlier (in the old episodes) and are spread throughout the universe. Much like the humans in the later history. The ones inhabiting Earth were probably still in hibernation.
Hi, it's me again. Sorry ofr the double comment, I just read it completely and wanted to clear another thing up. About everyone being there and being able to time travel. The Pandorica was sending out a signal. Also... none of it was real. It was created to trap the Doctor from whatever was scanning Amy throughout her life :)
Leah,
First off, thank you for reading and bothering to comment. I do appreciate it.
I'm curious where you get the impression that the Silurians are spread throughout the universe. In their three appearances in the show before this series('Doctor Who and the Silurians', 'The Sea Devils', and 'Warriors From the Deep'), the creatures are always shown having been revived from a hibernation chamber on Earth. All their stories have them appearing on Earth. It's certainly possible that they will or did get about in the universe, but there's no overt evidence of that in the series. (I did once write a fan fiction story that offered the possibility that the Silurians originate on another planet and moved to Earth before humans but that doesn't count because that was my fan fiction and not an actual episode of the series.)
As in your second comment, I'm leaning towards this being an 'unreal' trap to some degree. I look forward to finding out.
Thanks!
-Steve
Things did seem to play out fairly easy for the doctor.
For the Rory angle they played it off of as a quirk or Miracle which the Doctor acknowledges is mathematically possible but finds it hard to believe himself. I think he was created from Amy's mind. A last minute creation to sell the trap. Just a thought. They went a little existential with this one in the whole remembering the Doctor bit which I liked. It was a lot more accepting then the TARDIS pulling the Earth back into place.
River Song's dark past is definitely curious. Some of the dialog and way things are handled..could she possibly be one to kill the Doctor.
The Doctor's Enemies I believe through him into the Pandorica because they have tried to kill him in the past and failed, had it back fire on them most of the time so they may have figured better to just lock him up. But I agree it was probably all just a huge distraction for....wait for it.
The rest of the Time Lords to pull themselves back from the void and give Timothy Dalton more work.J/k but could this not have been an elaborate plan by them. They could have the power to blow up the TARDIS and the cracks could have been a way to escape. Anyway I look forward to the next season...damn have to wait for 6 months.
'River Song's dark past is definitely curious. Some of the dialog and way things are handled..could she possibly be one to kill the Doctor.'
For what little it's worth, consensus around the lcbs (Local Comic Book Store) agrees with your theory here. She's admitted that she killed someone, why not say who it was unless it was him? Considering it might be the Doctor then the use of 'kill' might be up to some interpretation.
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