After big epic finales for four years, and a big epic cliff-hanger for the previous episode, it was refreshing to see a different approach taken for this episode. The stakes are still almost comically huge: the entire universe has been destroyed, except for Earth, and the Doctor has to find a way to fix that, even though he’s been locked into an inescapable prison. But the resolution of that problem doesn’t hinge on a big, dramatic space opera. Instead, it’s four people running around inside of a museum, occasionally being chased by one, single, solitary Dalek.
It takes us a bit to get there. First we have the reintroduction of little Amelia Pond, sadly drawing stars that scare and confuse the grown-ups because they know that stars aren’t real. She still has a crack in her wall, but now she also has weirdoes dropping invitations to museums through her letter-box. And then she’s meeting a future version of herself. Moffat is back to using time travel as an actual mechanic for story resolution, and not just an excuse for this week’s alien or historical celebrity. Jumping the story back nearly two thousand years and having a future Doctor set Rory up to make his own escape possible is very nearly pushing the “too clever” button. But by keeping the events of the story largely linear, despite the jumps backwards and forwards in time, the story remains coherent. What gaps that do exist are presented in such a way that the audience is allowed to fill them in, with a minimum of exposition.
There are two things that I find most remarkable about this episode. The first is the way that it brings the entire season full circle. We opened with the Doctor promising to fix the crack in Amelia’s wall. It took him thirteen episodes, the destruction of the universe, and his probably exile to a void outside of time and space, but the Doctor does, in the end, fix the crack. And for good measure he gives Amy back her childhood. Now, instead of being a lonely, weird girl with no parents and an imaginary friend, she’s just a weird girl with an imaginary friend.
The second notable thing is that we have a finale without an antagonist. We’re used to seeing the Doctor with an enemy to fight against. The one and only Dalek in the museum fulfills that function to a certain degree, but he’s really more of an obstacle, much like the coalition of aliens last week. Tools, rather than a mastermind. The “enemy” for most of the story is the end of the universe. It’s a more abstract villain than the Master or Davros, but it fulfills the same function. Granted, we still have a huge dangling plot point with the whole “silence will fall” thing, but I rather like the idea of a plot strand carrying over to a new season. It’s more satisfying than those cliff-hanger finales that American genre shows seem so fond of.
The only factor that leaves me with a sour feeling, then, is the Amy/Rory relationship. Not their relationship itself. I love the idea of a married couple as the companions, and I think we’ve seen quite enough of the Doctor/Companion routine in the last five years, so a return to the Doctor/Companion/Companion bit is welcome. And I like Amy, her brashness and her self-assurance. And I love Rory and his hang-dog expression and his world-weary optimism. But, we’ve seen time and time again what Rory does to be “worthy” of Amy. He waits 2,000 years to keep her safe, and that’s a massively romantic gesture to throw into your sci-fi fantasy show. But, after all that, on her wedding day, Amy is right back to making comments about kissing the Doctor. We’ve seen why Rory deserves to be with Amy, but what the heck has Amy done to deserve being with Rory?
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Great episode to cap off a great season. And to get the best quote out of the way: “It’s a fez. I wear a fez now. Fezes are cool.”
Not to rip on the older seasons too much (they are what got me interested in the show), but I enjoyed this finale so much more. I think it speaks volumes to Moffat that one half-dead Dalek and the Doctor dancing badly made for more compelling TV than a a war between Daleks and Cybermen.
The most striking part for me was the rewinding of the season. For once new DW had a season-long arc that was tightly plotted, that made you see where the events had come from and made you revisit them.
Amy is just…Amy. Amy’s not perfect, she doesn’t express her feeling to Rory very well and she makes rude jokes about ‘snogging’ someone else on her wedding day. She acts more like the stereotypical boy than the more ‘mature female’ that we usually see on TV. All that said though, if that’s good enough for Rory then it’s good enough for me.
Such a brilliant finale! It really did all come together in the end. Marvelous. I also love the idea of the plot threads literally tying together the seasons. And married Companions! The Doctor dancing like he really is the Wobbly Doctor! (Those little girls are sooooo spoiled for other men/women, now, BTW.) Woohoo!
Yeah, like Andres said: if Amy’s what Rory wants, then whatever.
Prone to hyperbole as I can occasionally be (never! always!) I want to say that this was the most enjoyable and emotionally satisfying “big conclusion to a season/arc” for any show I have ever been a fan of.
I found the time-travel, hopping back and forth, delivering notes and sonic screwdrivers and such a clever — even witty — bit of plot advancement/resolution (and that’s the fun of a show with time travel at it’s heart, yes? this scene’s plot advancement is two-scenes-from-now’s resolution, and like the clever bits in a pop-up book you admire not just the art of it but the mechanics as well). This was storytelling that was graceful, economical, entertaining and, considering the stakes, done with a quick, light touch. The greatest symbol of this for me will now always be the fez (which Smith looks adorable wearing, I am compelled to add). Purely from a storytelling standpoint I needed an instantly recognizable symbol to tell which Doctor was when (when Doctor was which?). And yet it also works as a tease (what on earth…?) and as a comic grace note. (And River/Amy’s moment of unspoken agreement and action about it? Again, it’s those things, in which the story respects the audience enough to know we’ll “get it” which makes Who more than just good fun.)
I could go on and on and on, but I think that can become a little rude to do, in someone else’s Comments Section (if you’ve got that much to say, start your own damn blog on the subject, eh?) but I want to add two quick things please:
How genius was this? Genius! It gave me a Happy Ending I didn’t even know I wanted, in a way, and that’s amazing. Certainly I wanted a happy resolution to these characters’ troubles — and in the way of all ongoing stories you know that somehow it’s got to work out — but I didn’t even know how right, how delightful, it would feel to have Amy AND Rory, married and in love, all the triangle business done with, welcomed by the Doctor (with only a sly wink to the series business of “well, I’m afraid this is goodbye…” when really, we don’t want it to be and we know it’s probably not) sailing forward into their next adventures. To have your Big Ending feel much more like a Great Beginning — that’s some stellar storytelling and I loved it.
Lastly… Amy.
umm, okay, I just wrote this big long thing and it was too long and cut it. I’ll just stick with this: Somehow, after all has been said and done this season, I have more affection for her than when we started, and I see her, in her own way, as a bit of a force of nature, as clumsy and inappropriate as The Doctor on occasion, but not diminished as a character for it. Rory? He just loves her, and while he’s proven to very much be his own kind of hero (“Good on ya, Mate.”) his ego is second to his love for her. 2,000 years? Sure. Mr. Pond? Okay. Momentary flashes of inappropriate snog attempts on the part of your bride? Well… **shrug** he loves her.
Thank you, Dorian for all your posts, and the Commentors (ers?) in general, on Who overall and this Season in particular.
Now the long wait till Christmas… **sigh**
I think Amelia makes Amy. Amelia reminds us that inside irrepressible, sometimes inappropriate Amy Pond is a sad, worried Amelia Pond praying to Santa Claus for a policeman to fix the crack in the wall.
So, anybody else bothered by the (almost) complete lack of gay/lesbian inclusiveness this season? That’s a real difference from the previous ones.
Apart from that, I quite enjoyed it.
Francois: Well, at least the “You Got Your Gay Agenda In My Doctor Who!” people must be happy. Except now “You Got Your Heteronormativity In My Doctor Who!” are outraged. And I’m sure the former are complaining about something else. As Dorian says: nerds ruin everything!
But more seriously, I wasn’t bothered in the least by it. Having boys and girls kiss and get married isn’t an attack on gay rights. Steven Moffat is a straight man with a decidedly heterosexual romanticism (see Coupling, which is brilliant in many ways); he was never going to be as gay as Russell T. Davis. And that’s fine. It’s not like they suddenly started going “Ewwww! Gay people are gross!” It was still around (I mean, “superginger” aside, you can’t tell me Vincent didn’t really want to fuck The Doctor). And I’m sure Captain Jack will pop up in the next season, and that automatically ups the gayness by about 1000.
If it’s any consolation, Moffat’s Sherlock is loaded with homosocial/homoerotic undertones. I’m sure we’ll see more gay characters in Doctor Who in the future.
And Doctor Who fans are happy only slightly more often than comic book or video game fans.
Oh, I never said I didn’t like Amy and Rory’s story, in fact I loved it. It’s a great idea to have a stable couple traveling in the Tardis. It’s just that the difference with the previous seasons, with all the gay inclusiveness, was a bit jarring for me. And I know it’s not only because I’m gay, a straight friend of mine noticed it too.
The first episode of Sherlock is great, very entertaining. All the gay jokes were fun and completely integrated, which I enjoyed too.
Dorian, please give us your review of “Sherlock”. I was surprised by you saying that it was loaded with homosocial undertones. I saw the show last night, and my feeling was that there was a lot of effort put into making it very clear that Holmes and Watson were *not* gay. It’s interesting that so much effort has to go into that, while there’s no need at all in the source material. It’s also interesting to compare that with how the drug angle was dealt with, again a very minor part of the books, except for 1-2 stories (I think).
My only disappointment was that Holmes said “The game is on”, which is just plain wrong :)
- Andrew
Andrew, two grown men taking a flat together nowadays *are* thought to be gay. It had to be addressed, and I thought it was very well done, though I’d have loved Watson to have been gay. No chance of that happening, though.
That was a bit of Holmesian fanteasery, I think. I mean, it’s probably semantically pedantic, as well – “afoot,” and all that.
I watched Sherlock this morning, and found it most agreeable, despite the occasional moment of cultural brainache. Also, Martin Freeman was good.
(now)Speaking of Who, I loved the convoluted plot of the final episode. I was oddly surprised to see The Ponds staying with the Tardis, though. The Doctor dancing was hilarious and wrong and fantastic.
As to what Amy has done to deserve Rory, well…there’s an undercurrent of old-fashioned chauvinism there, perhaps. Spunky redheads with great pins don’t have to do anything – it’s certainly how I operate, and it works fine for me.
(Disclaimer: no)
I think what Amy has to do, ultimately, is grow up a bit, and embrace the fact that whistful romantic notions of guys dropping in out of nowhere to wreck her shit before running out of her life as fast as they entered it aren’t really quite as worth mooning on about as someone who’ll stand by her – and more importantly, go on the adventure with her. Fido beats Hobo. Mary Jane beats Black Cat.
I dunno. Rory was always kind of a hero, anyway, right? But like all Holy Fools, if he ever works it out, the spell witll break. Or something.
The ongoing slow-burn plots – the mysterious voice in the heart of the TARDIS (and the Dreamlord?), River and her Deepening Shit – are going to be good to come back to next year. I do find that I’m a little thrown by the break in the deck-clearing between series (although, the Christmas Special may do that, who knows?), but hey: bring it owhn.
//\Oo/\\
Andrew–In addition to the banter and the assumptions, jokey as they were, Sherlock’s response to Watson asking if he has a boyfriend is to tell Watson that he’s not interested in him. That’s not the same as a denial, especially when coupled with his utter disinterest in women. I’m not saying that Moffat and Gatiss are writing Holmes gay, my guess would be that he’s asexual, but it does suggest that they’re playing with cultural assumptions about two men leaving together.
“semantically pedantic” !wordgasm! **swoon**
I think Rory needs and wants someone to push him, someone who doesn’t let him get too comfortable, and Amy certainly does that.
One thing: did anyone else notice it was very similar, plot wise, to Zero Hour? I’m not even joking.
So, was Rory always an Auton, like from the beginning of the series? I can’t quite figure that part out, or if it’s a dangling plot point.
Tim, I think Roman Rory (and forwards in time until the universe was reborn) was the only time he was an Auton. When the coalition traveled to Amy’s house to copy/paste her memories to devise a trap for the Doctor they got her memories of Rory, including one of Rory in Roman fancy dress.
I like TV Holmes’ to be like the original, so I don’t want him gay *or* jumping into bed with Irene Adler :) The Wikipedia page on Adler has a nice quote from “A Scandal in Bohemia”.
Having said that, if Moffat does send Holmes in new directions (e.g. a team-up with the Doctor), then I’m sure I’d watch it. :) BTW, throw in Dr. Jackman/Jekyll as well :)
“… what the heck has Amy done to deserve being with Rory?”
Here! Here! Though I have to confess whilst i like her well enough, I don’t understand why everyone is so over the moon about Amy.
Rory is awesome.