S5E12: The Pandorica Opens (Spoilers)

Vicki wrote:

scarywood wrote:

Drathro wrote:

scarywood wrote:

Disappointing episode... Very confusing...:

How so?

Well I did actually miss about 10 minutes in the middle, but either way, I still didn't like what I saw. I'm so very annoyed and upset that Moffat keeps killing the most significant characters, too.

Yes, very much that!!! Of course, I have to admit that although I love Amy, I love Rory more, and I feel like I've been cheated. I enjoyed the episode, but it wasn't satisfying in and of itself because of that kind of stuff. I am very much looking forward to part 2.

Yeah, hopefully part 2 will be better because in my point of view, instead of part 2 suffering the 'Terrible episode' fate (Although I actually haven't seen part 2 yet, obviously, so I can't really comment), part 1 has.

These are the times when I actually miss RTD. We need a new writer badly. Perhaps Moffat can just write the odd episode...

Holy Roman Autons, Batman!!!

I liked it. The Alliance was a bit cheesy. After seeing the Cyberman and Daleks face off during Tennant's tenure, I didn't really need to see this many Who villains standing around together, but I still liked it.

"Everyone who's ever hated you is coming here tonight!"

Classic line.

I adored this episode. Even if it goes all fuzzy this episode was just so damned exciting!

I loved the pre-credit sequence. Best pre-credit sequence ever! The planning that had to go into that... fabulous! I love River Song. I loved Amy. I loved Rory too... poor, poor Rory!

And when we learn the Doctor is the threat that must be locked away forever...

Amazing.

But who is the voice? Where do we go from here?

So exciting.

Meh, I didn't like it. There were a few bright spots -- River! -- but otherwise it felt like a cheap thrown-together excuse to get all of the Doctor's enemies together in one place without them blowing one another's heads off. Fine for a video game, not so much in an actual episode.

I wouldn't be surprised if the Doctor "dies" and it turns out that this series and all of the RTD episodes were just a dream, which would be really stupid.

I'm saving my rating for this episode until I see the next one, since they're obviously two parts of one story.

Spoiler:

Very very very confused I am. Great ride though.

Spoiler:

Honestly, I'm confused at all the confusion I'm seeing. What was so confusing about it? And I'm also perplexed at people calling it disappointing.

scarywood wrote:

These are the times when I actually miss RTD. We need a new writer badly. Perhaps Moffat can just write the odd episode...

And this confounds me even more. I couldn't possibly disagree more strongly. I've not been placed on the edge of my seat by this show like this since, well, since the days of the original series. I did not find it "cheap", nor "thrown together", because the entire season has been building towards this. This episode was indeed epic, as someone else has already said, and I absolutely cannot wait for the finale.

Keep in mind, Moffat didn't write every episode. He's the producer and head writer, but he didn't write them all. This season has, IMHO, been the most consistently good series of the show since it returned in 2005.

Let's see what happens in part 2 before slagging off on this story.

========================================
...^o^CORVUS^o^
Doctor Who: The Winds of Time

Well, just watched it the first time. Amazing set up, huge cliffhanger. I was so hoping for a Draconian after hearing their name! And a Zygon. Amazing thread thru the entire season. I hope Captain Jack regrows his arm quickly, if he is the hansome time agent who lost his vortex manipulater! The Alliance has proved the old saying that the enemy of my enemy is my friend! I so hope next week is brilliant! If it half as good as this one, this will be an epic final.

I agree Corvus, I was on the edge of my seat!

I thought it was awesome. I don't put much stock in some of the complaints, to be frank; some posters seem to vacillate between loving this season and hating it with no real logical explanation for either reaction, or for the week-to-week reversal in said reactions. Opinions are wonderful things, but unless they're couched in logical and consistent terms, they can't really be discussed or debated in any productive manner.

I thought the excitement level stayed high throughout the episode. While it was fairly obvious what was going to happen with the Pandorica in this, the set-up episode, the stage is set for a wild resolution next week! I can't wait to see how the Doctor gets out of the fix he's in.

High points of the episode:

1. The incomplete Cyberman might be the scariest Cyberman appearance yet, at least on the new series. The mummified head inside the cranial casing, the tubes flailing like an octopus' tentacles...creepy stuff.

2. The sheer cleverness and resourcefulness of River Song. Anyone else get the impression that she just lets them keep her in prison for some reason?

3. I don't care what anyone says: the alliance makes sense. Not one of these powers has ever been able to defeat the Doctor on their own. If the universe is on the verge of destruction and his foes are convinced that they have to defeat him once and for all to ensure their continued survival, they really had no choice but to band together, no matter how distasteful the idea of doing so. Really, it's absurd that it's taken them this long to come up with the idea! The only question is this: why not just kill the Doctor? Does the Pandorica serve a purpose greater than mere prison?

4. The Doctor not realizing Rory was, well, alive! Funny stuff.

I am looking forward to seeing the season wrap up, and I'm looking forward to seeing how (or if) people's opinions of this season change between the end of this season and the beginning of the next. As fans rewatch the episodes without being so focused on the transition from the RTD era, will the verdict change for better or for worse? Intriguing!

mysterylad wrote:

Opinions are wonderful things, but unless they're couched in logical and consistent terms, they can't really be discussed or debated in any productive manner.

Very, very true. Which is why I strive to remain consistent in my views towards the show. And honestly, its not that hard.

mysterylad wrote:

1. The incomplete Cyberman might be the scariest Cyberman appearance yet, at least on the new series. The mummified head inside the cranial casing, the tubes flailing like an octopus' tentacles...creepy stuff.

Agreed! I was simultaneously thinking about the later Silver-Age Brainiac in DC comics, AND John Carpenter's The Thing. That was awesome, and it looks like these Cybermen have gotten themselves some serious tech-upgrades too. Or so it seems!

mysterylad wrote:

2. The sheer cleverness and resourcefulness of River Song. Anyone else get the impression that she just lets them keep her in prison for some reason?

The drawing she scribbled on the wall seriously cracked me up. And yeah, its clear she runs mental rings around anyone short of the Doctor.

mysterylad wrote:

3. I don't care what anyone says: the alliance makes sense. Not one of these powers has ever been able to defeat the Doctor on their own. If the universe is on the verge of destruction and his foes are convinced that they have to defeat him once and for all to ensure their continued survival, they really had no choice but to band together, no matter how distasteful the idea of doing so. Really, it's absurd that it's taken them this long to come up with the idea!

Oh, I'm in total agreement here. You'd think they'd have considered such a thing EONS before now, which is why I just can't agree that it seemed cheap and thrown-together, because its a logical conclusion to come to where these races were concerned. After they save the universe, they can happily go back to killing one another like before. Or, at least that's what each of them would think.

mysterylad wrote:

The only question is this: why not just kill the Doctor? Does the Pandorica serve a purpose greater than mere prison?

Good point! And it all makes me wonder about the nature of who is truly manipulating all of these events.

========================================
...^o^CORVUS^o^
Doctor Who: The Winds of Time

mysterylad wrote:

I don't put much stock in some of the complaints, to be frank; some posters seem to vacillate between loving this season and hating it with no real logical explanation for either reaction, or for the week-to-week reversal in said reactions. Opinions are wonderful things, but unless they're couched in logical and consistent terms, they can't really be discussed or debated in any productive manner.

What would there be to discuss? I found the episode disappointing, and it's highly unlikely that you're going to convince me that I should LOVE it -- or that I'm going to convince you that you should dislike it. There can be discussion of things on which we agree, and maybe a potentially interesting tangential discussion of what does/doesn't work with particular kinds of episodes could spring from a disagreement, but that's unlikely to happen given your apparent view that opinions that differ from yours don't really matter. I mean, I could write a page or two detailing why I didn't like this episode, but would you bother responding to my points/observations/reactions/etc.? Be honest -- you'd likely read the first paragraph, think, "Meh," and scroll down to the next poster who was on the edge of his seat. At best, you'd post a brief response basically saying any disagreement that this episode was super awesome was invalid and illogical and whatever other stock criticism happened to spring to your fingertips at the time... like you just did.

In any case, our responses to these episodes aren't going to be perfectly logical or rational -- if that were a reasonable expectation, then we could expect that rational individuals would respond to each episode in the exact same way. Doctor Who episodes are not calculus equations.

I will say, however, that I rarely enjoy TV episodes that can be described as "epic." Epic things are generally great and vast in scope -- and while I appreciate a miniseries or a movie to which the descriptor applies, I often feel like TV episodes to which the term applies had too much shoved into them with insufficient treatment. My problem with the alliance isn't so much that it doesn't make sense, but rather that all these aliens showed up arm-in-arm at the end of the episode for an "awesome" moment that will probably have dissipated by the conclusion of the finale. I'm reminded of similar alliances from Teen Titans and Justice League Unlimited... except in those shows, the alliances were revealed at the beginnings of the seasons in question and the villain teams spent the remainders of the seasons working in tandem to bring the heroes down. Here? They just kinda stood shoulder-to-shoulder as the Doctor was dragged away, and it's not clear what any one group brought to the alliance (besides the Autons) or even why certain factions were there besides the simplistic "Doctor must be stopped to save universe(s)" rationale.

Could this be explained next week? Possibly, but I doubt it -- and admittedly it'd be kinda boring if they dwelled on that at this point. The alliance was clearly meant to be fan-baity cliffhanger stuff rather than part of an intricate story in which the Doctor's foes actually collaborated to bring him down, and -- like much of the episode, and even the way this series "built" to this moment by not really telling us much of anything except "Cracks in the universe!" and "OMG piece of TARDIS; it must explode!" -- I just don't generally find that kind of thing to be very exciting.

I'm sorry if that's not sufficiently logical or consistent or whatever for some of you.

I thought this was a great episode, and it was nice to see things finally coming together. I think Rory has been a plant from the start, and that will explain why his name tag had the wrong year on it in "The Eleventh Hour." It was a clue that he wasn't right, and now we know why. Is it possible Amy's also "not right" in the same way?

While the identity of who is in the Pandorica was not a surprise to me--there were way too many hints along the way, I think--there were so many genuinely surprising moments, including the cameos and the scenes with the Cyberman. I was also completely taken in my the Romans. Great twist.

I also thought the Doctor's description of who was in the Pandorica--the goblin who came down from the sky and destroyed your civilization, etc--sounded more like the seventh Doctor. Good way to establish a connection between them, sure, but the 11th Doctor hardly seems like a goblin to me.

Now let's hope it doesn't end with people all over the world thinking/saying/praying "Doctor" after River travels the planet for a year . . .

PS.

I agree with jonwes that it was a great pre-credit sequence, but I still think the one for "Time of the Angels" was the best of the series, if not the whole darned show! Oddly enough, both feature River. I think the Moff has a crush!

Just finished watching it awhile ago. A very good cliffhanger (most episode 12s have been). Hopefully, the final episode won't be a washout as has been in the past. Enjoyed the pre-credit sequence as well. Wouldn't mind more regular visits from River.

Well I didn't see any confusion in this episode I thought it was brilliant, although RTD was good and all he has nothing on the Moff, he made the Cybermen scary again! Something RTD had no idea how to do and he did it with like two scenes instead of two overdrawn episodes! And we still don't know who the real villain is yet! At this point it could be anything. I am really impressed with this season we haven't had it this good since the old days.

Well, watched 3 times now, love it more each time. This is going to be a long week!


"Silence will fall!"

jaredofmo wrote:

I'm saving my rating for this episode until I see the next one, since they're obviously two parts of one story.

Spoiler:

OMG. I'm so full of fannish angst now!

...and because for whatever reason, the spoiler tag in my reply before editing didn't work...

Spoiler:

...btw, since this is a spoilery thread, I've only used the tag because the original statement I'm responding to was under one...consistency, you know...

Interesting episode, looking forward to the conclusion. However, I'm wondering just how many unanswered things this season will be answered? Like the TARDIS on the roof of Craig's apartment, those sorts of things.

And when did Autons make robot whirring sounds? Just a minor nit to pick, but it annoyed me.

I don't know why, but I was hoping the 8th Doctor would be trapped inside the Pandorica. How that would have fit into the series timeline, I don't know, but it would have been pretty cool to see him again.

Rogue wrote:

And when did Autons make robot whirring sounds? Just a minor nit to pick, but it annoyed me.

This is why I don't think we're seeing Autons although they could've had an upgrade but I doubt it.

I figured the whirring was how you know it's an Auton. Previous Autons didn't need to make noises because the visual was enough to identify them!

Wow, Wes...I guess I cheesed you off. Unfortunately, what cheesed you off wasn't actually what I said, just how you interpreted it. Amusingly enough, I wasn't talking about you, but since you felt I was...

Wes Crayon wrote:

There can be discussion of things on which we agree, and maybe a potentially interesting tangential discussion of what does/doesn't work with particular kinds of episodes could spring from a disagreement, but that's unlikely to happen given your apparent view that opinions that differ from yours don't really matter.

That's not what I said. I said I don't put much stock in arguments with no logical foundation, meaning that if a person doesn't explain why they feel a certain way, the statement is itself not particularly useful on a message board, since it can't be discussed. The irony here is that scenario you describe in the above quote is exactly what I wish more posters would do!

Quote :

I mean, I could write a page or two detailing why I didn't like this episode, but would you bother responding to my points/observations/reactions/etc.? Be honest -- you'd likely read the first paragraph, think, "Meh," and scroll down to the next poster who was on the edge of his seat.

I'm responding to your points/observations/reactions right now...exactly as I've done on numerous other occasions with numerous other posts. There is absolutely zero basis for the suggestion that I'd not bother reading it, nor bother to respond; in fact, there's ample evidence to the contrary. Sometimes these debates even continue into in-depth private messages!

Quote :

At best, you'd post a brief response basically saying any disagreement that this episode was super awesome was invalid and illogical and whatever other stock criticism happened to spring to your fingertips at the time... like you just did.

Again, that's a reaction to your interpretation of the statement, not what I said. If a rival opinion had points, I would trade points with it (see above). My complaint was that many dismissive statements have nothing in them to discuss.

Quote :

In any case, our responses to these episodes aren't going to be perfectly logical or rational -- if that were a reasonable expectation, then we could expect that rational individuals would respond to each episode in the exact same way. Doctor Who episodes are not calculus equations.

That's an argument based on a flawed assumption. The assumption is, "then we could expect that rational individuals would respond to each episode in the exact same way." That's absurd, and not at all what I would expect. Two perfectly rational people can have totally differing opinions on a subject because of how they weigh certain factors in certain situations; they both arrive logically at their conclusions, though those conclusions don't match (this is why there are multiple academic papers written by numerous researchers on any given subject). If people say why they reach a certain conclusion, then we have something we can discuss!

Quote :

I will say, however, that I rarely enjoy TV episodes that can be described as "epic." Epic things are generally great and vast in scope -- and while I appreciate a miniseries or a movie to which the descriptor applies, I often feel like TV episodes to which the term applies had too much shoved into them with insufficient treatment. My problem with the alliance isn't so much that it doesn't make sense, but rather that all these aliens showed up arm-in-arm at the end of the episode for an "awesome" moment that will probably have dissipated by the conclusion of the finale. I'm reminded of similar alliances from Teen Titans and Justice League Unlimited... except in those shows, the alliances were revealed at the beginnings of the seasons in question and the villain teams spent the remainders of the seasons working in tandem to bring the heroes down. Here? They just kinda stood shoulder-to-shoulder as the Doctor was dragged away, and it's not clear what any one group brought to the alliance (besides the Autons) or even why certain factions were there besides the simplistic "Doctor must be stopped to save universe(s)" rationale.

Could this be explained next week? Possibly, but I doubt it -- and admittedly it'd be kinda boring if they dwelled on that at this point. The alliance was clearly meant to be fan-baity cliffhanger stuff rather than part of an intricate story in which the Doctor's foes actually collaborated to bring him down, and -- like much of the episode, and even the way this series "built" to this moment by not really telling us much of anything except "Cracks in the universe!" and "OMG piece of TARDIS; it must explode!" -- I just don't generally find that kind of thing to be very exciting.

I'm sorry if that's not sufficiently logical or consistent or whatever for some of you.

There you have it: NOW you've expressed your opinion in terms that can actually be discussed! You've made a series of belief statements, supported and/or explained each of them with either a predisposed perspective or a progression of thought, and made a critical analysis of how the episode was executed. That is a logical argument for why you don't like the episode.

Television does often fail to be as "epic" as it sets out to be, due in no small part to its episodic nature, and I admit the alliance certainly carries a faint aroma of fan-service. By your own admission, though, there is a possibility the alliance's purpose (and each species' role in said alliance) will be made clear in the next episode, and I'm not prepared to dismiss this plot device on the assumption that it won't be explained, or that the explanation will be boring. Now, if they don't explain it, or if that explanation is poorly executed or sloppily-conceived, I will join you in passionately and wholeheartedly damning the whole narrative "twist" at the end of the episode as a cheap and stupid gambit, because that's what it will have proven itself to be, and I'm not nearly as close-minded as you've painted me. I've spent an entire academic career learning to be smarter than that.

Your example of villain alliances on Justice League (I didn't care for Teen Titans, and as such can't comment on it; I stopped watching after the first few episodes) solidly underscores the sheer risk the production team took here. They've got a plot device (the Pandorica), the purpose of which is to eliminate the Doctor as a threat to the Universe, but they didn't foreshadow the alliance it apparently took to address their problem. The problem was that they couldn't foreshadow it, the reason being...that's not how this show works. The Doctor has to be smarter than everyone around him; he has to be smarter than the audience. If we were to see first-hand evidence of a conspiracy of his greatest foes coalescing around the Doctor without him noticing anything of the sort, it would undermine the character. The way it's been played out, we can forgive the Doctor his lack of foreknowledge because we weren't watching him miss all the clues! Psychological studies have shown that people who know something someone else does not are far more likely to view the "ignorant" person in a more negative light, as if the answer should be obvious; the same holds true in some drama, and almost certainly holds true in a drama the lead character of which is defined by his intelligence and reasoning! It was a huge risk, though, because now there must be an explanation for how it all came to pass, and modern audiences don't care for exposition...

Wes Crayon wrote:

I figured the whirring was how you know it's an Auton. Previous Autons didn't need to make noises because the visual was enough to identify them!

Agreed. An audio cue for the uninitiated, perhaps? It has been a while since the Autons showed up, after all.

It would be cool if the voice was Hartnell and the other Doctors had to free Matt Smith, but it wont happen