Starring Matt Smith as The Doctor, Alex Kingston as River Song, Karen Gillan as Amy & Arthur Darvill as Rory
Liz Ten: “This is the royal collection. And I’m the bloody Queen. What are you doing here?”
River Song: “It’s about the Doctor, ma’am. You met him once, didn’t you? I know he came here”
Liz Ten: “The Doctor?”
River Song: “He’s in trouble. I need to find him.”
Liz Ten: “Then why are you stealing a painting
The opening scene of The Pandorica opens, is by far one of my favorites as it explodes into a frantic race against time as friends of the Doctor are seen rallying around trying to figure out a way to contact him ending in an art heist conducted by River Song as she attempts to steal one of Van Gogh’s paintings from the queen aka Liz Ten, that Vincent painted entitled, “The Pandorica Opens” and depicts the TARDIS exploding. However, I did think at this point when I first watched it that it was a shame that Lady Christina couldn’t be the one to do the heist as its very much her M.O and would have been a nice way to let us all know that she is still out there fighting on behalf of the Doctor as in the case of Liz Ten, even so it was not meant to be and the intro worked out well.
Obvious to everyone involved that the painting is a message, the Doctor with Amy eventually follows clues left for him by those trying to contact him to Stonehenge where the action really begins.
We see Rory back from the dead and resurrected as a Roman Solider, Amy remembering who he is and all the alien forces, the Doctor’s enemies, in the galaxy coming together to set a trap for the Doctor, to finally put an end to him and stop him from stopping them with their plans for world domination. It’s quite funny to think that all of his enemies will work together to get rid of him because they are fed up with him ruining things for them. The end of the episode continues into the next episode The Big Bang and once again the Doctor saves the earth as were transported back in time to when Amy was the little girl, he first met years ago. We find out how Rory got his names Rory the Roman, the lone centurion and the last centurion and why he felt compelled to guard the Pandorica through time with his life.
“According to legend, wherever the Pandorica was taken, throughout its long history, the Centurion would be there guarding it. He appears as an iconic image in the artwork of many cultures. And there are several documented accounts of his appearances. And his warnings to the many who attempted to open the box before its time. His last recorded appearance was during the London Blitz in 1941. The warehouse where the Pandorica was stored was destroyed by incendiary bombs. But the box itself was found the next morning a safe distance from the blaze. There are eyewitness accounts from the night of the fire of a figure in Roman dress carrying the box from the flames. Since then, there have been no sightings of the Lone Centurion. And many have speculated that if he ever existed, he perished in the fires of that night, performing one last act of devotion to the box he had pledged to protect for nearly two thousand years.”
The Pandorica itself is a temporal prison and the light within it will keep whatever is imprisoned alive forever, even if it is seconds from death. The plan was to lock the Doctor in there forever to keep him out of the way but it turns out that the light is actually a resurrection field and restores the dead and dying. When the Doctor figures this out and realizes that he can’t stop the explosion from altering time and space and wiping out the universe, he flies the Pandorica into the heart of the explosion and reboots the universe with the resurrection light, restoring everything back to how it was but wiping out the memory of him from everyone’s lives. Just before his final moments happen, he goes back in time to tell young Amy a story as she sleeps.
The episode ends with Rory and Amy finally getting married with a cleverly written piece of wedding tradition that involved the TARDIS. Something old, yet something new, something borrowed even though it was technically stolen, and something blue! This is the story that the doctor told Amy when she is a little girl and one he hopes will help her to remember him when he is gone. Amy’s memories are the key to bringing those she loves back to life and without them, neither the Doctor nor Rory would have come back from the dead.
Amy: “When I was a kid, I had an imaginary friend, the Raggedy Doctor, my Raggedy Doctor. But he wasn't imaginary, he was real. [shouting] I remember you! I brought the others back; I can bring you home too! Raggedy man, I remember you, & you are late for my wedding! I found you. I found you in words just like you knew I would. That's why you told me the story of the brand new, ancient blue box”
I don’t think there is a Who episode starring Matt Smith that I don’t like, although I much prefer the dynamic he had with Rory and Amy than I do with Clara. He was part of Amy and Rory’s family having married their daughter and you always got that when watching them all together, even though he was 100’s of years older than them and not even human you still knew that they were a close family and he was their son even if it was completely impossible.
I liked the edge they gave Rory, the man who keeps on dying and found a plausible way to bring him back to life for good so that he could watch over Amy for 2 thousand years. It was a great romantic gesture and a massive insight into their relationship to tell us all that true love knows no bounds, although I was pleased to see him become human again so that they could grow old together. There are just one too many immortal human companion’s courtesy of the Doctor, (Jack Harkness, Clara Oswald and Me) and I would have hated for Rory to carry on eternally after Amy had gone as his life would have no purpose so it was a welcome storyline for them both.
I especially liked the fact that looking back on Amy when she was a little girl again that we see a different version of events as to the day she first met the Doctor. In the future time is ending and collapsing in on itself because the TARDIS exploded. The Silence planned to kill the Doctor by blowing up the TARDIS (to prevent him from reaching Trenzalore) but they did not know that River Song could fly the TARDIS. Thus, resulting in the TARDIS blowing up inside the Time Vortex instead
“The universe is cracked, the Pandorica will open and silence will fall” Prisoner Zero
The explosion was felt in space and time and changed the events of the past so that the stars went out. (Journey’s end – The stars are going out) and even though we know that the stars went out before for different reasons it’s still a nice way to tie the Doctors together. As the past begins to change to compensate for the explosion, stars become a myth, a story of what used to be that parents told their children, and young Amy had never seen a star before as there wasn’t any but she drew pictures of them from memory so even though she hadn’t met the Doctor in this time line, she still remembered him somehow. Confusing but at the same time, very nostalgic and completely amazing.
Its these 2 episodes and the who Doctor / Amy / Rory storylines that showed off the brilliance of the writers who literally breathed life into the characters, entwining them throughout the years so that they would always be together, even years after Amy and Rory died in their future lives. It’s a dynamic rarely seen on screen within the Whoniverse now and the heart of the Doctor, or hearts of the Doctor completely solid in his foundations of everything the show inspired to be when it first started years ago.
Thinking back on the immortal companions, it would be awesome for another DW spin off series starring Captain Jack and Me (Ashilda) if she hadn’t left the show in a diner shaped TARDIS with the undead Clara then I think the two of them would have worked brilliantly together but I guess its not meant to be.
So, in conclusion, The Pandorica Opens and The Big Bang are like comfort episodes. Ones you can rewatch 10 times over and not get bored with them as they just seem to pack so much in that it’s a race against time from start to finish, 12 minutes at one point.
The Doctor: “Right! I’ve got twelve minutes. That’s good”
Amy: “Twelve minutes to live. How is that good?”
The Doctor: “Oh, you can do loads in twelve minutes. Suck a mint, buy a sledge, have a fast bath.”
Or even save the world with the big
bang!!!
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