Doctor Who 5x12: The Pandorica Opens

A message carved into an ancient cliffside warns the Doctor and Amy of a grave threat. The Pandorica, long thought to be just a myth, is real and is about to be found. Traveling to Stonehenge in the year 104AD, the pair are reunited with River Song (although she's meeting them prior to the Weeping Angel affair from her perspective...) and encounter a detachment of Roman legionnaires.

The Pandorica Chamber lies beneath the stone circle, but in the skies above it, a vast fleet of ships is gathering... oh, and another vast fleet of ships. And another. Oh, look - there's another one! The Doctor's enemies are flocking to Earth: Daleks, Cybermen, and more - including some we haven't heard of since the days of the First Doctor. But what is it that's locked inside the Pandorica? What could be important enough to have drawn such a cohort?

And with so many of his old foes arrayed against him, could this be the day the Doctor falls?

Sweet Jesus can the beeb stop with this nonsense? Why, near the end of every season, does this shit have to happen? "Ooooh! Let's pile on 846 villains! It will be soooo kewl!!1!!!"

Also, I really don't like Alex Kingston. I think the River Song character has potential but the actress is just plain awful.

^I quite like her. Although that may be down to her playing Moll Flanders and looking like the kind of girl you'd actually be grateful about catching the clap off, mainly as you'd have got it from ruining her every orifice with the deepest of dickings...

Just one question to those who have seen it - and spoil for those who haven't - but do they remember that the 5th doctor had something to do with the Stonehedge called the Augre (spelling not correct in all probability)?

No problem with Kingston, but I do otherwise agree with you. nuWho seems to have a formula that it needs to live up to. Such as:-

The Doctor must no longer have a mean, ruthless, suspicious and nasty element to his personality, particularly evidence in the First, Third, Sixth and Seventh Doctors. Instead he either must be bouncy and giddy all the time, or wrestling with melancholy and regret.

• Each season must be "one upped" on the previous. First, loadsa Daleks and a regeneration. Next loadsa Daleks....and Cybermen too! Next, The Master has to come back with a vengance. Next, oh well, we've done everything now so lets just chuck the Daleks in again, but we'd best make it bigger so lets just move the whole planet earth chuck Davros in and have every companion we've had....oh and also their companions. Next, well we're really running out of ideas now and The Master isn't really enough if we're going to regenerate the Doc, so fuck it, lets just chuck in the whole of the Timelord race and Gallifrey to boot and make sure the regeneration is the longest in history. Well, that doesn't leave much left does it? We know, lets just put in every villan under the sun since we only have three 11th Doc companians to put in. Its really getting a bit old and tiresome. A quite finale with a new villan would make a change.
  
• Each episode features the Doctor having an A-Team quick fix moment. Even when he's convinced there is no hope, he almost always has a split second "lightbulb" moment in which he's able to solve everything and save the day. In Classic Who sometimes the Doctor failed and that was that.
  
• The sonic screwdriver must be used as the ultimate plot point neutraliser. Stuck in a fix? No problem, the Sonic will somehow be able to get you out. And to think once upon a time there were Doctors who didn't even use one.
  
• Each companion must be more than just a companion and have some sort of issue. Gone are the days of the Sarah Jane style "just in it for the ride" companion.
  
• The mainstream audience must be catered for so there must be bangs and flashes or fancy effects in almost every episode.
  
• The Doctor must do a lot of running about.
  
• The Doctor must always talk very quickly during explanatory sentences.
  
• The Tardis must be seen every few epsidoes flying around like the Starship Enterprise.
  
• Villans must have issues, even the Master and the Daleks.
  
• We must feel sorry for the incidental characters.

I like the show, but these repeated elements to it are getting tiresome.

That was pretty damn awesome.

Be interesting to see how it gets resolved!

I had been spoilt - thanks to the BBC for giving out preview discs to blabbermouths like Timeboy on GallifreyBase - so few of the "shocks" in this ep affected me, but there was a lot of heart to the dialogue surrounding the reveals. The "whoa shit!!!" factor of the cliffhanger is definitely there though, in that I don't know quite HOW the Doctor (Amy, River, anyone else that's gonna magically appear out of nowhere) is going to solve all this. I've got some ideas, but they're just that at this point.

Nice to see some new and very scary features added to one of the Doc's old foes... the enemy used to lure him into the trap needs to be employed more as well - they've always had more potential than their two appearances in Classic Who and one on NuWho should warrant...

River Song rocks the combo Leia/Han outfit. Amy very good this week as well.

I hope they don't 'forget' about something controlling the TARDIS and causing the explosion though in the fixing of things.

And since they've linked a lot of eps, I wonder if what was controlling the TARDIS will involve the darker aspect of the Doctor seen in Amy's Choice?

^Doesn't make any sense, they only formed an alliance in the face of the destruction of everything.

They studied the cracks and came to the conclusion the Doctor destroys everything by blowing up the TARDIS, so why would they blow up the TARDIS in the knowledge they'd only be doing what they accused the Doctor of?

Yeah that was pretty good!

Looking forward to next week's ep also to see how the Doctor gets out of this jam...

Some of these storytelling techniques are getting a bit formulaic.

Still doesn't fit based on the idea that the Alliance is under the impression that only the Doctor can control the TARDIS.

That was actually a cool episode.

Too bad everything that happened this season is all in Amy's head.

Yup. It definitely looks like they're all being played by the "silence" voice.

How do you figure? The only things that were "in Amy's head" were the Romans and the Pandorica, and they were made real based on her thoughts.

I hope that isn't the resolution.

I was at one point wondering if the Master was involved - silence will fall=no more bloody drumming! - but I think that would've leaked.

Notice how all the galaxies started winking out of existence the moment Amy "died"?

^They all started exploding, and the Doctor had said every star would go supernova, iirc, when the TARDIS went all boom-a-bang, so I figure that was down the TARDIS exploding rather than Amy dying

Or maybe the Silastic Armourfiends were unwisely added to the alliance

Speculation for the next episode, the start of my speculation is based on a couple of spoilery photos from a while back so has been given spoiler tags for the sensitive:

Beyond that I have no clue what direction the story can go.

Well, I really quite enjoyed that. Again, I don't know how its going to be resolved, although it does scream out "reset button".

My thoughts are:-
[spoilers]

There is much more to come from River Song. This is the 5th episode she has been in and so far we still have not learned who she is. I suspect that she is either a Timelord, or perhaps even a future incarnation or manifestation of the Doctor. Either that or maybe she has some of the Doctor's memories somehow. The only think that makes me think she is not a Timelord is the manner in which she died, but then she may have been on her final incarnation.

I'm not sure I agree with Bailey's take on the Doctor being trapped for 1900 years. Hell, he's only half of that in age and the First Doctor regenerated due to old age so you'd think he'd run out of lives in that time. That is unless he is suspended in time somehow.

The final episode ends with Rory alive I reckon.

The voice heard during the Tardis flight will be the big reveal in the next episode. On other boards they are speculating it is Davros, but I do not think so. The Master and the Timelords are thus far nowhere to be seen in the show. While the latter aren't really the Doctor's enemy's, could perhaps they have something to do with the voice?

We do not actually see the Tardis blow up. This could be relevant in the next ep.

The young Amelia we see could be anything. In this episode the Doctor spoke of sometimes things happening that you could not explain. Could it be that Any is somehow an manifestation of unatural origin?

[/spoilers]

Whatever happens, it will be interesting!

True, but surely it wouldn't be the first Tardis in Timelord history to go boom, in which case why is it only the Doctor's Tardis that can destroy the universe?

I'll add to the speculation that, whilst the Mystery Voice may be revealed next ep, the Doctor won't find out who it is - this will be setup for Series 6.

You ITK?

Oh, and a thought........

[spoilers]Is Amy from the future? River Song goes back to her house in June 2010, yet it looks like it did during the young Amelia scenes in the opening episode. Could there be anything in this?[/spoilers]

Nah, just guessing. Though the finale will be PACKED if the Doctor needs to escape, fix the cracks, save Amy, save the TARDIS and defeat a mysterious enemy who he's had no inkling was manipulating things behinds the scenes.

You forget the one thing legions of Daleks, armies of Cybermen, troops of Sonatarans and hoardes of Sycorax stand helpless against.

The Plot Device.