Doctor Who Series Five Finale Comments

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.

Music Monday - Husker Du

Remember Night Flight? Anyone? I didn't have cable as a kid but they'd repeat the show in the middle of the night on NBC and I'd tape it once (a) I got a VCR and (2) I figured out it was a weird show that needed taping. The musical acts I picked up on from that show! Before I had access to 120 Minutes on MTV, when MTV played music videos back when dinosaurs roamed the Earth, I had Night Flight. One night they did a piece on Minneapolis and there was Husker Du!



The band was so janglely I didn't even realize that they were thrash punk. I mean, Night Flight said they were thrash but I was all 'am I gonna trust my ears or this late night show clearly assembled by drunks?' Trust the ears!



I bought what turned out to be their last studio album 'Warehouse: Songs and Stories' at the Camelot that used to be up by what used to be Northridge Mall. The store's a Half Price Books now so I still love the place. 20 tracks and I don't think there's a clunker in the lot. As time went on, I picked up older albums here and there but none of them entranced me the same way that 'Warehouse' did.



Punk rock needs more guys with handlebar mustaches. That's what'll revitalize the genre! More punk bands with mustaches! Doing covers of television theme songs!



You know how punk rock Bob Mould is? He was a writer for WCW for awhile. Sure that's when WCW was spending money on all sorts of crazy things but having a college rock icon write for wrestling is just full of awesome.

Warehouse: Songs & Stories     Metal Circus     Living End (Jewl)