The Pandorica Opens/The Big Bang |
BBC The Pandorica Opens |
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| Story No. | 230 | 
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| Production Code | Series 5, Episode 12 | |
| Dates | June 19 2010 |
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With Matt Smith,
Karen Gillan
Written by Steven Moffat Directed by Toby Haynes Executive Producers: Steven Moffat, Piers Wenger, Beth Willis. |
| Synopsis: Everything that ever hated the Doctor is being drawn to the Pandorica. |
Showdown by Noe Geric 19/7/25
And after 11 episodes of incredible build-up, it's time for Moffat to show all the cards in his hands, to conclude the great arc of the time cracks appearing everywhere and everywhen in time and space! In an incredible battle, the Doctor will have to face ALL the monsters he previously defeated and meets the creature trapped inside the Pandorica... This has everything to drive every fanboy mad! What could go wrong? It's written by Steven Moffat! The guy who brought Blink, The Girl in the Fireplace and The Eleventh Hour to our screens.
Since he took over the role of head-writer, Moffat has lost some of his previous qualities. Writing crap such as The Beast Below and losing all the interest in the Weeping Angels with his recent two-parter. But The Pandorica Opens isn't bad, it's just that it's build-up upon build-up and feels quite empty thinking back about it. There's the return of River Song, the resurrection of Rory, cameo from most of this series' characters, fake Romans, ALL THE MONSTERS we've ever met in the show, a mysterious Pandorica, Stonehenge...
Busy is the right word for it. The pre-title sequence is the perfect example: it runs for five minutes at an incredible speed so we can see van Gogh, Liz Ten meeting River Song (after she escaped her space prison, of course), Churchill and Bracewell, then the Doctor and Amy going to the oldest cliff in the universe and then travelling back to meet a Roman and finally see the painting of Van Gogh depicting the TARDIS explosion. I've seen this story a dozen times, but I still wondered if it was ever going to end? Moffat always writes long, overstuffed pre-title sequences (the Silence two-parter next season is another perfect example). I was trying not to catch my breath watching it. It's thrilling, but I would've been dead if I stopped breathing for five minutes.
I'm going to pass briefly over the fact that the twists are all really good. I liked the mention of the Chelonians, River Song was bearable and Rory's return quite funny. The cliffhanger is particularly interesting, and the introduction of the Silence arc is clever. Unlike most of the viewers, the speech never had any effect on me. I still think it's trying to be too clever for its own good.
My first main complaint is about the music. It comes randomly in each scene, sometimes detracting from the dark atmosphere. Murray Gold has always been very good, but there's barely any new tracks here, and it's not really fitted for the story itself. The second irritating bit is Amy. The whole series, she had just been okay; I'm not a fan of Karen Gillan, but she's at her worst here: pulling weird faces in dramatic situations and turning everything into comedy. I've never felt so embarrassed watching the character walking around and being annoying (and Adric was a lot more annoying than her!). Her constant use of ''Time can be rewritten'' always makes me think about these guys who learn a new complicated word and use it over and over again without really knowing the true meaning of it. Amy should've been in Father's Day against the Reaper, she would've used it less often (but now that Moffat has changed the rules of time, the Reapers can't exist anymore).
Apart from all this, it's an enjoyable story if you don't think about The Big Bang that makes all that build-up crash down violently without any chance of recovering. The Pandorica mystery is one of my favorite concepts of the show and should've been another arc rather than just a brief mention nine episodes ago. The last time Moffat is having interesting idea for a finale. 8/10