1)Here we have the big season-ending two-parter, with re-appearances form Vincent Van Gogh, Winston Churchill, Edwin Bracewell and Liz Ten (who's apparently still around in 5145). It's an interesting story device, but it does sort of mean that if you haven't seen "The Beast Below", "Victory of the Daleks" and "Vincent and the Doctor", you have no idea what's going on.
2)We also get the return of River Song, who gets to vamp it up as Cleopatra, and play hardball with Dorium Maldovar, another new character, who I'm sure will make plenty of headway in the future.
3)And we get the return of Rory, which return makes no sense whatsoever, but that's OK, since I'm glad to see him back, anyhow. I particularly liked the scene between him and the Doctor, and the whole "Legend of the Last Centurion" thing.
4)I liked Amy in this as well - I especially liked the bits with her and Amelia together. Also a nice emotional scene where she hears the story of how long Rory watched over her. Watching the scene at the wedding where she "calls" the Doctor back into the universe, I couldn't help thinking: "You'd've looked a right nutjob if that hadn't've worked, dear."
5)I couldn't help noticing how the Doctor essentially "Bill & Ted" -ed his way out of the Pandorica. A little shady, that. I was amused by the scene where he makes his big defiant speech to all of his enemies, but then it's undercut when you relaize that he's just fallen into their trap. Lots of "fun with time travel" here - you have to watch that, you risk exposing the fact that, as the late Barry Letts once said, "Tiem travel is nonsense." The Doctor's farewell to Amelia was very touching (She's very good, is our Caitlin, shame she'll soon outgrow her capacity to play "eight year old Amy".). Also, we finally get to see what happens when the Doctor Dances, and it isn't pretty.
6)I liked the battle with the Cyberman - it does strike that this Cybermen is a little too advanced to be a Lumic Cyberman - perhaps they've been in touch with "our" Cybermen and powered up. The skull in the headpiece was sufficiently creepy.
7)ΘΣ. Heh.
8)I wouldn't mind seeing the Drahvins again.
9)"Silence will fall." It seems to me that we still haven't gotten the complete story of who was behind the TARDIS blowing up.
10)Cliffhanger for "The Pandorica Opens": Rory shot Amy, River's trapped in the TARDIS, the Doctor's sleae din the Pandorica and the universe got blowed up real good! Resolution: It got better.
11)Space Florida?
12)Some fun quotes:
- "What kind of micro-explosives?" "The kind I just put in your wine."
- "You graffitied the oldest cliff face in the universe." "You wouldn't answer your phone."
- "I hate good wizards in fairy tales, they always turn out to be him."
- "Hello, you - have we met?"
- "Look at me, I'm a target!"
- "You will be assimilated." A Cyberman quoting the Borg - there's some metatextual recursion for you.
- "Never underestimate a Celt."
- "I died and turned into a Roman. It's very distracting."
- "OK, kid, this is where it gets complicated."
- "Come along, Ponds!"
- "Hi, honey, I'm home." "And what sort of time do you call this?"
- "I wear a fez now. Fezzes are cool."
- "I'm River Song - check your records again." "Mercy!"
- "Where's the Dalek?" "It died."
- "Bye-bye, Pond."
- "You just saved the whole of space and time. Take the evening off. Maybe a bit of tomorrow."
Overall:
A nice. rollicking epic with some good sentimental moments, so long as you can ignore the implausibilty of the whole thing. Very continuity-heavy, wouldn't be good for a new viewer's first episode.
And so, I am caught up on the new series. I will be re-visitng some of the older stories in time, but feel no particular rush on those.
[Part of list of Doctor Who episodes here.]
Replies
“The Big Bang” is the first episode which directly implies that the Doctor and River are (or will be) married.
[SPOILERS for FUTURE EPISODES – If you haven’t yet seen “A Good Man Goes to War”, “Let’s Kill Hitler” or “The Wedding of River Song” yet, the STOP READING NOW.]
The River Song who attends Amy and Rory’s wedding (and meets the Doctor afterward) is from much later in her own timeline than the one from earlier in the same episode and “The Pandorica Opens”.
Amy and Rory leave with the Doctor in the TARDIS on their wedding night. This is when Melody Pond is conceived.
I’ve never actually seen Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure, but I do know the scene you’re referring to. I wouldn’t call it “shady” but I would call it “implausible”… “impossible,” actually, a right proper closed loop paradox, a staple of classic science fiction time travel stories. That, and it’s a “nice, rollicking epic,” too. “The Big Bang” does, in microcosm, what the entire sixth season does on a larger scale. More on that (in the discussion threads of those respective episodes) anon, as I endeavor to wrap my head around it.
I watched "The Invasion" last night, which has very little to do with this, except that it's got Cybermen in it.