Episode 12 - The Pandorica Opens

[Hawkeyemeds]

Loved this episode. Sat there open mouthed for the whole episode. I think we're left with the fact next weeks show is either going to blow this forum away with excitement or will leave us in a state of depression.

This is though what Dr Who is all about, us aching for the next episode. I've not felt like this since Tom Baker did a bungee jump off a tower and forgot to connect the rope.

[Murk]

I've not felt like this since Tom Baker did a bungee jump off a tower and forgot to connect the rope.

That HAS to be quoted in the podcast!

[catbhoy]

or will leave us in a state of depression.

The depression will be inevitable as we will have ran out of new episodes until Christmas.

And talking about Christmas anyone think (as mentioned on the podcast) this could be a 3 parter finishing on Christmas.

[Ian]

or will leave us in a state of depression.

The depression will be inevitable as we will have ran out of new episodes until Christmas.

And talking about Christmas anyone think (as mentioned on the podcast) this could be a 3 parter finishing on Christmas.

Didn't the confirmation of the Christmas special and S6 not come in till after S5 had started?

[JahRose]

Each time I come back to the forums, I keep forgetting what I wanted to say, and now that I'm at work I remember!

When River Song and the Tardis are flying out of control we finally see the Tardis in the time vortex... and its the TITLE SEQUENCE!! I nearly fell of my seat when I saw that because not only did Moffat time in the previous episodes, but he also tied in the title sequence?  How amazing was that?!?!

So now I'm wondering that for the Christmas Special and for season 6 if we have a title sequence without the lightening bolts?   

[Willbreedog]

Well I have to say that this is the 1st time since 1980something that I've watched DW with absolute glee! I really can't praise this episode enough. Ok there are a couple of small niggles but it still gets 98% in my book!

I was extremely impressed with the sheer grandness of it all, fantastic sets & very atmospheric. The Cyberhead sequence is the 1st time since I was a child that DW actually made me go "ooh scary"! (I'm 37 now BTW!)  And it's also the 1st time in years that I can recall genuinely thinking, "how the hell are they getting out of this one!".

Well done Mr Moffat and all the DW crew, you should be extremely proud of yourselves.  (Just make sure it doesn’t go t**s up in the finale! )

[The Master]

Yeah my feeling in the end was, 'How the **** will they get out of this one?' Surely its the gravest situation the Doctor and friends have ever found themselves in. The Doctor cannot save himself this time and needs outside help. I can't see it being River so it leaves Auton Rory.
Have we ever seen the Doctor so helpless?

I really hope this isn't gonna be a Journey's End situation after The Stolen Earth which I loved and had a great cliffhanger. Its all about plot resolution!

[George Harrison]

What was TSE's cliffhanger? I forget these things...

[Ian]

SPOILER!! No one needs to worry, the resolution is fantastic!!

What happens next week is that we discover Rory isn't really dead, and has been touring all over the world telling people what a great chap the Doctor is. At the cruicial moment they all say his name and he rises out of the tomb Pandorica, arms either side in a cross floating position and kicks everyone out in a suitably messianicDoctorish manner.

He then rises up to script heaven to sit at the right hand side of our Lord RTD.

 

[Pyrovile]

I'm back!  I crossed an item off my bucket list...I watched an episode of Doctor Who, in real time, as it broadcast for the first time in the UK....and now I'm back. 

Anywho, on to the episode at had....wow.  Just wow.  Was it just me, or did the Cyberhead forget a line of dialog?  After it told Amy that she would be assimilated, wasn't it also supposed to inform her that resistance was futile?  When River was getting the vortex manipulator, was it just me, or was that scene very Star Trekish as well including the little musical sting right there at the end?  I think it was a frequent voice on Podshock, the 2nd Doctor who commented on a 'trousers' moment in the Time of Angels, but there was another one in this episode....no one fills out a pair of tight fitting trousers quite like Alex Kingston.  Between her and Daisy Haggard in The Lodger, the standard for fit birds in one season will be difficult to surpass.  I can't wait for the finale.  This is going to be the longest week of the year.  More so as I will be traveling again this weekend and won't be able to catch it until late Sunday afternoon. 

[BreathingMeat]

Was it just me, or did the Cyberhead forget a line of dialog?  After it told Amy that she would be assimilated, wasn't it also supposed to inform her that resistance was futile?

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ResistanceIsFutile

[Pyrovile]

It just occured to me who the blue guy reminded me of...Delvians from Farscape.

[rossbennett]

Rory to the rescue, mark my words.

I suspect you're right--or so close to it as for it not to be a difference. In the Grand Classic story arc, it would be love that conquers all, so it would be the connection between Rory and Amy, so perhaps it's the combination of the two that will save everything.

Or it could be the ring--the symbol of the same thing--plus the classical meaning of a ring being an endless form, ever cycling and repeating.  Everything ends.  Silence falls and there is darkness. The only thing left clinking to the floor of the Universe is The Ring.  Boom.  Big Bang.  Maybe.

But another possible flavor of it:  We've been heavily seeded with the solution being Hope.  Amy knows very well Pandora's Box (from her favorite childhood story) did have all those evils in it, but after all those things had escaped, she looked inside and found Hope.  So the only real danger is that we have an Amy or Rory meditation or concentration on "hope, hope, hope, hope, hope."

There was just one real moment the whole season that struck me as a little childish as a plot point resolution, and that was convincing Bracewell not to explode because it/he had emotions and could assert an identity of its/his own. I could hear the words as it was happening, right out of Pinocchio, "I *am* a real boy. I *am* a real boy!"

That was the only part of the whole season that seemed a bit too fairytale, and that's with full knowledge that the food tasting in Eleventh Hour was straight out of Winnie The Pooh where Tigger shows up and they need to find him something to eat. "Tiggers don't like haycorns."

I'll hazard one more callback:  We'll see the time ship from The Lodger involved somehow. It'll be a tool used to resolve an important point.  It might even be crucial that the Doctor still has that key and officially has a home residence.  It might even end up that the TARDIS can be saved after it blows up because that ship is there.  (What did the Doctor say would happen if he ended up touching those controls?  Big explosion?)

Oh, heck.  Moffat wrote it, so anything's possible.  Any or all or none of this. We've known he was good--but it's gone far beyond what I thought before. This man can plot slipknots. It seems like a big ball of mess, but as soon as you pull the ends, it snaps into an elegant, simple straight line.

[daisywitch]

Arrrggh.  After reading this thread, all I want to do is hold my head and scream while my brains explode.  You all seem absolutely bonkers AND absolutely dead on about what just happened in this Ep. and what's to come in Ep. 13.  Play nicely daisywitch or I'll have to remind myself how to remove insulting posts... you may believe your fellow forum members may have interesting ideas but deal with their points rather than insult them.  Thanks.

I've only seen it once, so far, so I've yet to formulate my own theories.  However, I hope it doesn't end like the final episode of "St. Elsewhere".

A few points:

• Rory being an Auton sucks!  I want him back, but not like this.                              
  
• I really thought an alternate timeline Doctor would already be in the Pandorica when it opened.  
• That voice sounded like Davros to me and to my boyfriend, too.
• I'm a horror movie buff, but that Cyberman scene had me tense and jumpy.  Good going, Moff!

Speaking of the Cybermen:

When I was young(er)... than I am... When I was a kid, the Cybermen scared me senseless. Far more than the Daleks. A Cyberman could make you like them. A Dalek could only kill you. And death-by-pepper-pot simply didn't register at that age, but stomping around the universe with no emotions? It made me think of becoming an actuary. Or it would have, if I'd known what an actuary was.

Yay, Tegan!!  I've started to think that I was the only one who felt like that about the Cybermen and the Daleks.  Everywhere I go it's all "Daleks, Daleks, Daleks.  Cybermen, meh."  Thank you.  You have literally taken the words right out of my mouth about the Cybermen.  Terrified me as a kid.  Still creep me out as a 41 year old.  The only thing I can add is that I was never scared of Daleks because if you could sneak up behind one (not too hard, I'm sure) you could tip him over.  

[Tegan]

The only thing I can add is that I was never scared of Daleks because if you could sneak up behind one (not too hard, I'm sure) you could tip him over. 

And early on you could stop one with a sheet of plastic laid flat so their power source would cut out.

They worked that on out pretty quickly though.