Doctor Who Is Coasting On His Rep As "The Pandorica Opens"

I’ve been eagerly looking forward to the last two episodes of this season of Doctor Who – not because I think it’s been bad (though looking back over the titles of my recaps, one might tend to disagree) – but because ever since I chatted with Steven Moffat, Matt Smith, and Karen Gillan a few months ago, there’s been the promise this would all tie up in spectacular fashion. That the last two hours were, quite possibly, the best, most trippy hours in the show’s history. So after watching the first half of this finale, “The Pandorica Opens,” does it all pay off on the promise?

Maybe.

The episode starts out just right, with an awesome opening that jumps from the Van Gogh episode, to the Winston Churchill episode, to River Song, to even the Queen of Britain from the second episode this season – ending with The Doctor discovering the most ancient message in the universe says, “Hi, Sweetie.” It’s a message from River Song, and in those first few minutes, I was sold on how this was all going to tie together.

...And then we got the rest of the episode. I’m going to get to the ending in a moment, because it certainly ramped things up a bit, but in the middle we got one of the worst mysteries the show has ever given us. The Pandorica, a cube-like prison that holds the most destructive forces, is opening from the inside, and The Doctor can’t figure out what could be in there, what could be so destructive and secret that only he wouldn’t know about it. And then all of his old enemies show up, drawn by the signal of The Pandorica opening, and still, The Doctor can’t figure out what’s inside.

Turns out, it’s him. Or rather, it will be him. And the entire audience goes, “Well, dur.”*

And that’s where the episode, after spinning its wheels for 90% of the running time, got good again. The crack in time that is destroying the universe for the entire season has become so unstoppable that every single one of The Doctor’s enemies, from the Daleks, to the Cybermen, to even the underground Silurians teamed up to lock him in a prison he’ll never get out of. And meanwhile, against his will, a resurrected Rory shoots Amy Pond, the Doctor’s companion, in the gut. “To be continued!”

It’s not that the middle was bad, persay – it was well acted, well filmed, and Rory is seriously growing on me in one short hour, after having the least interesting death in TV history. It’s just that with the final two hours on the line, it’s time to make us think all those “eh” episodes in the middle of the season were worth something. Here’s hoping next week does the trick.

Random Note:

I’m going to keep this to one note, actually: can we stop having The Doctor beat his enemies by giving a speech about how he’s previously beat them? It makes me wonder if the last time he beat those baddies, if he gave the same speech – and if he’s ever beaten them at all.

I understand that given The Doctor doesn’t kill, there’s only a few ways out of a sitch:

1) Someone else kills the baddie.

2) Scifi craziness.

3) He talks them out of it.

I also understand #2 is the hardest to do on a regular basis. But c’mon, the “I’m the Doctor,” speech is so repetitive, you made fun of it last episode. Figure something else out, guys. 

*Okay, to be perfectly honest – though I was pretty sure it was either a trap, or Matt Smith was going to walk out it – I was secretly hoping that David Tennant would be the one trapped in the Pandorica. Or Christopher Eccleston, Or any previous Doctor. Though the cliffhanger worked, it felt like the least exciting of the choices, because at no point do I believe The Doctor’s enemies can build a prison capable of holding him.