Doctor Who's Season Ends Not With a "Big Bang," But a Whimper

Last week, I may have spent, oh, say, my entire Doctor Who recap talking about how I was somewhat – but not totally – disappointed in the second to last episode of the season. My hope was that the last episode would completely redeem both episodes, coming together in mind blowing fashion, and bringing Matt Smith’s inaugural trip as The Doctor to a smashing close. So did it?

Maybe.

After an awesome cold open where the young Amy Pond, trapped in a world without stars, opens the Pandorica to discover not the Doctor, but a much alive Amy Pond, we were off and running. Or at least, off and galloping at a comfortable pace. The Doctor proceeded to Bill & Ted his way out of the Pandorica*, battle a rogue Dalek, and reboot the universe, eventually getting thrown back through his own timeline before disappearing forever. Or, he would have, if it wasn’t for the love of Amy Pond! Hooray!

Here’s my problem: there wasn’t enough of anything.

To clarify: I love the idea in theory of the Doctor hopping along the timeline of the entire show, fixing his problems before rebooting the Universe, but there wasn’t enough of it. He hopped throughout the episode in very, very small ways. And he got sucked back tangentially into three episodes throughout the season. But I wanted a bit more of an “Oh s**t!” moment. Something that I didn’t see coming. Something that totally re-contextualized everything I’ve watched before... And I didn’t get that.

All of the moments we saw with the Doctor hopping back through episodes? Yeah, I kind of called 'em in my recaps already. And though I didn’t know why or how he’d end up in, say, the forest during the Weeping Angels episodes, talking to Amy, I knew he was going there. I wanted something to surprise me.

And though the ending with Amy remembering the Doctor at her wedding was very sweet and exciting, I wanted a solution that was a little less dues ex machina.

I’m not saying the episode was bad – far from it. It was fun, exciting, and very funny. It even made Daleks scary again, which is no mean feat. I really like not revealing who the big bad is, leaving mysteries for the next season. And Rory, so hated before, got off some of the funniest lines in the episode. I just expected something far more clever from Steven Moffat, given the build-up.

Ah well... See you at Christmas.

*Bill & Ted-ing, for those of you too young to know, is the process of saying, “I can time travel, so I’m going to get out of this situation by remembering to get myself out of this situation later, once I’m free. Some people call this a paradox.