The Pandorica Opens- why is Admiral Ackbar never around when you need him?
For those of you who don’t get the channel, during some of the commercial breaks on BBC America, they show what they call ‘Inside Looks at Doctor Who’. They’re like 5-second interview clips with the actors or writers (I think they’re probably little bits of stuff from the Confidentials, but I’m not sure since I still need to watch those). In the one they did for this episode, Steven Moffat talked about how this season’s finale can be enjoyed by anyone no matter how many episodes they’ve seen, but people who have stuck it out and watched all of season 5 thus far will get so, so much more out of it.
About a minute before said Inside Look comes on, my dad, who has supposedly watched and paid attention to the most basic plot details of each episode this season, comes upstairs and asks my mom and me, ‘Hey, whatever happened to [that person who…something happened to at the end of Cold Blood]?’ Whee, irony… (Hopefully that was vague enough not to be spoiler-y for anyone who doesn’t know what happened, but specific enough for those who do. Apologies for the shitty wording. It sounds much better when you’re able to replace the stuff in brackets with [that person’s] actual name.)
An invasion of hot Italian spoilers in this post.
Poor Vincent. Someone needs to hug him again. Good to see that robo!Bracewell’s still working, though.
Damn, they sure like using that hallway as a set, don’t they?
Aha! So somehow River is the one Jenny learned that from! (Don’t ask me how she managed to retroactively ingrain that into Ten’s DNA despite Equal-To-or-Greater-Than-Eleven being the first Doctor she met. She’s River. She just did.)
Huh. Would have thought that they’d gotten better at making sure prisoners don’t have any contraband in the next 3,000 years. Guess not.
’Stay exactly where you are! She had the lipstick, hallucinogenic lipstick; she tried to use it on me. Your tricks don’t work in here, Doctor Song!’
{O} <(Bye!)
--|--
/\
Someone’s either in for a very long period of teasing, or they’ve just completed their ‘new employee initiation/hazing’ ritual. And hopefully you all can tell that thing I typed up there is supposed to be her stick figure. (Arrgh! Why won't LJ let me fix the spacing?!)
River and Liz X should host an arts show together where they go around and talk about paintings and sculptures (most likely the naughty ones, a la Sister Wendy), y/y?
’A Vortex Manipulator, fresh off the wrist of a handsome Time Agent. *sigh* I said off the wrist…’
Don’t worry, Blue Guy-if it’s the one I’m thinking it was, he’ll be fine. Probably a bit peeved at you/your henchman, but fine.
’Not cheap, Doctor Song. Have you brought me a pretty toy?’
‘This is a Callisto Pulse. It can disarm micro-explosives from up to 20 feet.’
‘What kind of micro-explosives?’
‘The kind I just put in your wine.’ =D
If Alex Kingston hasn’t been one already, she needs to be the next Bond girl. It will be a crime if she isn’t.
Is he saying ‘Planet What’?
’The oldest planet in the universe, and there’s a cliff of pure diamond, and according to legend, there’s writing on the cliff. Letters 50 feet high. A message from the dawn of time, and no one knows what it says cos no one’s ever translated it. ‘Til today.’
‘What happens today?’
‘Us. The Tardis can translate anything. All we have to do is open the doors, and read the very first words in recorded history.’ *walks out and looks around*
HELLO SWEETIE
Bwahahahaha! *dies* I wonder if the universe is more covered in River’s ‘hello sweetie’ notes or Rose’s ‘bad wolf’ graffiti?
No wonder the Doctor is never on time, he can’t even manage AM/PM against AD…
’Cleopatra will see you now.’
*
‘You graffitied the oldest cliff face in the universe.’
‘You wouldn’t answer your phone.’
River Song is officially my new favorite person in the universe. That is all. ♥
Does Stonehenge actually have a basement? My mom said that they’ve found stuff like they built what’s there now over something else, but does it really have catacombs and whatnot like this underneath?
I’m pretty sure Cybermen heads are not supposed to be around during the Roman occupations of ancient Britain.
Not a very secure way to shut a door to the room containing the box/prison/cage containing the most feared being in the universe, is it?
Man, Winry is gonna be pissed when she finds out that Ed not only trashed his Automail again, but left it in a dungeon to boot. *I foresee flying wrenches*
’One day it would just drop out of the sky and tear up your whole world…’
Gee, why does that sound familiar?
’Yes, okay. Okay, okay, okay. Dalek fleet-minimum 12,000 battleships, armed to the teeth…waaughaha! But we’ve got surprise on our side! They’ll never expect three people to attack 12,000 Dalek battleships… cos we’d be killed instantly, so it’d be very short surprise. Forget it.’
Just a slight change from that speech Nine gave about having no weapons or plan, but still going to kick the ass of every Dalek and saving Rose.
’Sontarans! Talk about cross. Who stole all their handbags?’
I know that’s what he said because this is the third time I’ve watched this, but still…what?
Um, no offense to the Romans and their military prowess, but I don’t think they’re quite up to withstanding nearly every variation of alien-death-beam in the universe one at a time, let alone all together.
Can’t remember the last time I saw a literal foreshadowing like that soldier’s got going on right now.
I always just assumed that Amy had a big house all to herself because the aunt she was living with died at some point and left it to her. Does he mean that she’s got more rooms that she hasn’t noticed before, or that Craig isn’t the only one to have an entire floor created by a perception filter or whatnot?
’You know how sometimes I have really brilliant ideas?’
‘Yeah?’
‘Sorry…Look at me, I’m a target!’
When Eleven eventually regenerates into Twelve, and assuming Steven Moffat is still head writer, I highly doubt it’ll be because of something this silly (the Moff will most likely come up with something epic, and heart-breaking, and amazing for it instead), but I really can’t disbelieve the possibility that it will be because he tripped over a brick or something.
How many times does this make it that the Doctor’s been electrocuted now, this season alone?
Ack! Okay, all the creepiness that the Weeping Angels were missing in their second appearance? It now belongs to that severed Cyberman-head with the tentacle!cables. Also, since when do Cybermen have blowdarts?
They don’t even have horror movies in this universe, do they? How else could Amy not know that if you put your head against a door like that when something’s after you, something will always punch through it right next to you? Ooh! See? Now there’s a sword! And…
HOLYFUCKIT’SRORYBACKFROMTHEDEAD Yay! Wtf, but yay! Er, why is he a Roman soldier?
’Yes, I know that, Rory. I’m not exactly one to miss the obvious.’
But… He…oh, nevermind.
*pokes* ‘Hello again.’
‘Hello.’
‘How have you been?’
‘Good! Yeah. Good, I mean…Roman.’
‘Rory, I’m not trying to be rude, but…you died.’
‘Yeah. I know. I was there.’
‘You died, and then you were erased from time. You didn’t just die, you were never born at all. You never existed.’
‘Erased. What does that mean?’
‘…How can you be here?’
‘I…don’t know. It’s kind of fuzzy.’
‘’Fuzzy’?’
‘Well, I died, and turned into a Roman. It’s very distracting.’
Rory adapts so well to the absolute weirdest shit. It’s amazing. Almost as amazing as him somehow coming back to life and existence as a Roman soldier thousands of years before he would have even been born.
If this box that holds the most feared being in the history of feared beings is opening, should he really be standing right next to it while it does so?
*screech*
‘Sorry, sorry, dropped it… Hello, Stonehenge! Who takes the Pandorica, takes the universe! But bad news, everyone, cos guess who? Ha! Listen to you lot, all whizzing about, it’s very distracting. Could you all just stay still a minute because I AM TALKING!’
*spaceships all stop*
‘Now, the question of the hour is: who’s got the Pandorica? Answer: I do. Next question: who’s coming to take it from me? C’mon! Look at me-no plan, no backup, no weapons worth a damn, oh, and something else I don’t have: anything. To. Lose. So! If you’re sitting up there in your silly little spaceship with all your silly little guns and you’ve got any plans on taking the Pandorica tonight, just remember who’s standing in your way! Remember every black day I ever stopped you, and then! And then! Do the smart thing! Let somebody else try first.’
*spaceships fly the fuck away*
‘That’ll keep ‘em squabbling for half an hour.’
Damn. Well, that (all the enemy ships turning tail when the Doctor gives them the chance and being sensible for a change) won’t happen again for years.
Does anyone else find shots of the Tardis going through the Time Vortex in the middle of an episode really weird because it looks exactly the same as the opening credits? It weirded me out with the seasons 1-4 animation, and it still weirds me out now.
’She’s Amy, and she’s surrounded by Romans. Not sure history can take it.’
Hey, look on the bright side-at least it’s not Captain Jack up there! He’d be doing a lot more than just thinking about putting the F in ‘fubar’.
Whose voice is that saying ‘silence will fall’ (character-wise, I mean)? It sounds familiar, but as far as I know right now, that could just be because of it being Nicholas Briggs or something, and not actually a specific character we’ve seen before (don’t know if it’s even him, it just sounds a bit like his Dalek voice).
Everything that’s happening is from the books in Amy’s room…? Huh? And is that the Harry Potter font on the Pandora’s Box book?
’There’s something wrong with the Tardis, like something else is controlling it!’
‘You’re flying it wrong.’
‘I’m flying it perfectly! You taught me!’
Soo… he did teach her how to fly it then? But I thought that she said someone else had to…? Or did he teach her some stuff, but then a second Timelord/lady taught her about things like the blue stabilizers and taking the brakes off? Does this mean that the Master/Romana/etc. is coming back (if River isn’t a fobwatched!Timelady herself, like I suspect she might be, that is)?
Other than the Timelords on Gallifrey, who’s able to remotely control a Tardis?
Oh shit, people are not supposed to make whirring noises. Especially not people who are supposed to be Rory. Fuck, fuck, fuck, they’re Autons. No! Auton!Rory is not the happy ending I’ve been theorizing would happen!
Oh, look, it’s the Power Rangers. …didn’t the orange and blue ones get to come?
’The Pandorica is ready!’
‘Ready for what?’
‘READ-Y FOR YOU!’
Haha! I knew it! So the Pandorica isn’t opening to let something out, it’s opening to let something in. Crap.
Gah! No. NO! Oh god, it’s like Hughes and Envy!Gracia at the phonebooth all over again, but worse because the fake Rory actually loves Amy like the real one did and didn’t mean to shoot her!
FFFFFUUUU-why, why is the episode stopping right now?! Dammit! (The music suddenly stopping right at the end is a nice touch, though.) The BBC seriously needs to stop this ‘to be continued’-instead-of-an-actual-trailer nonsense on the first halves of season finales. It wasn’t cute for season 4, and it isn’t cute now. It’s not as evil of a cliffhanger this time since we know the main cast is signed on for at least another season, whereas no one knew for sure if David Tennant was staying yet, but still…
I don’t know what to say! I really liked this episode, but I’m kind of scared about how The Big Bang will turn out because of how the last two two-parters ended up being rather disappointing. I still have hope for it because of how this episode has clearly been so carefully planned out from the very beginning of the season, although I can’t help but worry until The Big Bang airs. I'm sure I'll have more thoughts then, but for now I'm done.
About a minute before said Inside Look comes on, my dad, who has supposedly watched and paid attention to the most basic plot details of each episode this season, comes upstairs and asks my mom and me, ‘Hey, whatever happened to [that person who…something happened to at the end of Cold Blood]?’ Whee, irony… (Hopefully that was vague enough not to be spoiler-y for anyone who doesn’t know what happened, but specific enough for those who do. Apologies for the shitty wording. It sounds much better when you’re able to replace the stuff in brackets with [that person’s] actual name.)
An invasion of hot Italian spoilers in this post.
Poor Vincent. Someone needs to hug him again. Good to see that robo!Bracewell’s still working, though.
Damn, they sure like using that hallway as a set, don’t they?
Aha! So somehow River is the one Jenny learned that from! (Don’t ask me how she managed to retroactively ingrain that into Ten’s DNA despite Equal-To-or-Greater-Than-Eleven being the first Doctor she met. She’s River. She just did.)
Huh. Would have thought that they’d gotten better at making sure prisoners don’t have any contraband in the next 3,000 years. Guess not.
’Stay exactly where you are! She had the lipstick, hallucinogenic lipstick; she tried to use it on me. Your tricks don’t work in here, Doctor Song!’
{O} <(Bye!)
--|--
/\
Someone’s either in for a very long period of teasing, or they’ve just completed their ‘new employee initiation/hazing’ ritual. And hopefully you all can tell that thing I typed up there is supposed to be her stick figure. (Arrgh! Why won't LJ let me fix the spacing?!)
River and Liz X should host an arts show together where they go around and talk about paintings and sculptures (most likely the naughty ones, a la Sister Wendy), y/y?
’A Vortex Manipulator, fresh off the wrist of a handsome Time Agent. *sigh* I said off the wrist…’
Don’t worry, Blue Guy-if it’s the one I’m thinking it was, he’ll be fine. Probably a bit peeved at you/your henchman, but fine.
’Not cheap, Doctor Song. Have you brought me a pretty toy?’
‘This is a Callisto Pulse. It can disarm micro-explosives from up to 20 feet.’
‘What kind of micro-explosives?’
‘The kind I just put in your wine.’ =D
If Alex Kingston hasn’t been one already, she needs to be the next Bond girl. It will be a crime if she isn’t.
Is he saying ‘Planet What’?
’The oldest planet in the universe, and there’s a cliff of pure diamond, and according to legend, there’s writing on the cliff. Letters 50 feet high. A message from the dawn of time, and no one knows what it says cos no one’s ever translated it. ‘Til today.’
‘What happens today?’
‘Us. The Tardis can translate anything. All we have to do is open the doors, and read the very first words in recorded history.’ *walks out and looks around*
HELLO SWEETIE
Bwahahahaha! *dies* I wonder if the universe is more covered in River’s ‘hello sweetie’ notes or Rose’s ‘bad wolf’ graffiti?
No wonder the Doctor is never on time, he can’t even manage AM/PM against AD…
’Cleopatra will see you now.’
*
‘You graffitied the oldest cliff face in the universe.’
‘You wouldn’t answer your phone.’
River Song is officially my new favorite person in the universe. That is all. ♥
Does Stonehenge actually have a basement? My mom said that they’ve found stuff like they built what’s there now over something else, but does it really have catacombs and whatnot like this underneath?
I’m pretty sure Cybermen heads are not supposed to be around during the Roman occupations of ancient Britain.
Not a very secure way to shut a door to the room containing the box/prison/cage containing the most feared being in the universe, is it?
Man, Winry is gonna be pissed when she finds out that Ed not only trashed his Automail again, but left it in a dungeon to boot. *I foresee flying wrenches*
’One day it would just drop out of the sky and tear up your whole world…’
Gee, why does that sound familiar?
’Yes, okay. Okay, okay, okay. Dalek fleet-minimum 12,000 battleships, armed to the teeth…waaughaha! But we’ve got surprise on our side! They’ll never expect three people to attack 12,000 Dalek battleships… cos we’d be killed instantly, so it’d be very short surprise. Forget it.’
Just a slight change from that speech Nine gave about having no weapons or plan, but still going to kick the ass of every Dalek and saving Rose.
’Sontarans! Talk about cross. Who stole all their handbags?’
I know that’s what he said because this is the third time I’ve watched this, but still…what?
Um, no offense to the Romans and their military prowess, but I don’t think they’re quite up to withstanding nearly every variation of alien-death-beam in the universe one at a time, let alone all together.
Can’t remember the last time I saw a literal foreshadowing like that soldier’s got going on right now.
I always just assumed that Amy had a big house all to herself because the aunt she was living with died at some point and left it to her. Does he mean that she’s got more rooms that she hasn’t noticed before, or that Craig isn’t the only one to have an entire floor created by a perception filter or whatnot?
’You know how sometimes I have really brilliant ideas?’
‘Yeah?’
‘Sorry…Look at me, I’m a target!’
When Eleven eventually regenerates into Twelve, and assuming Steven Moffat is still head writer, I highly doubt it’ll be because of something this silly (the Moff will most likely come up with something epic, and heart-breaking, and amazing for it instead), but I really can’t disbelieve the possibility that it will be because he tripped over a brick or something.
How many times does this make it that the Doctor’s been electrocuted now, this season alone?
Ack! Okay, all the creepiness that the Weeping Angels were missing in their second appearance? It now belongs to that severed Cyberman-head with the tentacle!cables. Also, since when do Cybermen have blowdarts?
They don’t even have horror movies in this universe, do they? How else could Amy not know that if you put your head against a door like that when something’s after you, something will always punch through it right next to you? Ooh! See? Now there’s a sword! And…
HOLYFUCKIT’SRORYBACKFROMTHEDEAD Yay! Wtf, but yay! Er, why is he a Roman soldier?
’Yes, I know that, Rory. I’m not exactly one to miss the obvious.’
But… He…oh, nevermind.
*pokes* ‘Hello again.’
‘Hello.’
‘How have you been?’
‘Good! Yeah. Good, I mean…Roman.’
‘Rory, I’m not trying to be rude, but…you died.’
‘Yeah. I know. I was there.’
‘You died, and then you were erased from time. You didn’t just die, you were never born at all. You never existed.’
‘Erased. What does that mean?’
‘…How can you be here?’
‘I…don’t know. It’s kind of fuzzy.’
‘’Fuzzy’?’
‘Well, I died, and turned into a Roman. It’s very distracting.’
Rory adapts so well to the absolute weirdest shit. It’s amazing. Almost as amazing as him somehow coming back to life and existence as a Roman soldier thousands of years before he would have even been born.
If this box that holds the most feared being in the history of feared beings is opening, should he really be standing right next to it while it does so?
*screech*
‘Sorry, sorry, dropped it… Hello, Stonehenge! Who takes the Pandorica, takes the universe! But bad news, everyone, cos guess who? Ha! Listen to you lot, all whizzing about, it’s very distracting. Could you all just stay still a minute because I AM TALKING!’
*spaceships all stop*
‘Now, the question of the hour is: who’s got the Pandorica? Answer: I do. Next question: who’s coming to take it from me? C’mon! Look at me-no plan, no backup, no weapons worth a damn, oh, and something else I don’t have: anything. To. Lose. So! If you’re sitting up there in your silly little spaceship with all your silly little guns and you’ve got any plans on taking the Pandorica tonight, just remember who’s standing in your way! Remember every black day I ever stopped you, and then! And then! Do the smart thing! Let somebody else try first.’
*spaceships fly the fuck away*
‘That’ll keep ‘em squabbling for half an hour.’
Damn. Well, that (all the enemy ships turning tail when the Doctor gives them the chance and being sensible for a change) won’t happen again for years.
Does anyone else find shots of the Tardis going through the Time Vortex in the middle of an episode really weird because it looks exactly the same as the opening credits? It weirded me out with the seasons 1-4 animation, and it still weirds me out now.
’She’s Amy, and she’s surrounded by Romans. Not sure history can take it.’
Hey, look on the bright side-at least it’s not Captain Jack up there! He’d be doing a lot more than just thinking about putting the F in ‘fubar’.
Whose voice is that saying ‘silence will fall’ (character-wise, I mean)? It sounds familiar, but as far as I know right now, that could just be because of it being Nicholas Briggs or something, and not actually a specific character we’ve seen before (don’t know if it’s even him, it just sounds a bit like his Dalek voice).
Everything that’s happening is from the books in Amy’s room…? Huh? And is that the Harry Potter font on the Pandora’s Box book?
’There’s something wrong with the Tardis, like something else is controlling it!’
‘You’re flying it wrong.’
‘I’m flying it perfectly! You taught me!’
Soo… he did teach her how to fly it then? But I thought that she said someone else had to…? Or did he teach her some stuff, but then a second Timelord/lady taught her about things like the blue stabilizers and taking the brakes off? Does this mean that the Master/Romana/etc. is coming back (if River isn’t a fobwatched!Timelady herself, like I suspect she might be, that is)?
Other than the Timelords on Gallifrey, who’s able to remotely control a Tardis?
Oh shit, people are not supposed to make whirring noises. Especially not people who are supposed to be Rory. Fuck, fuck, fuck, they’re Autons. No! Auton!Rory is not the happy ending I’ve been theorizing would happen!
Oh, look, it’s the Power Rangers. …didn’t the orange and blue ones get to come?
’The Pandorica is ready!’
‘Ready for what?’
‘READ-Y FOR YOU!’
Haha! I knew it! So the Pandorica isn’t opening to let something out, it’s opening to let something in. Crap.
Gah! No. NO! Oh god, it’s like Hughes and Envy!Gracia at the phonebooth all over again, but worse because the fake Rory actually loves Amy like the real one did and didn’t mean to shoot her!
FFFFFUUUU-why, why is the episode stopping right now?! Dammit! (The music suddenly stopping right at the end is a nice touch, though.) The BBC seriously needs to stop this ‘to be continued’-instead-of-an-actual-trailer nonsense on the first halves of season finales. It wasn’t cute for season 4, and it isn’t cute now. It’s not as evil of a cliffhanger this time since we know the main cast is signed on for at least another season, whereas no one knew for sure if David Tennant was staying yet, but still…
I don’t know what to say! I really liked this episode, but I’m kind of scared about how The Big Bang will turn out because of how the last two two-parters ended up being rather disappointing. I still have hope for it because of how this episode has clearly been so carefully planned out from the very beginning of the season, although I can’t help but worry until The Big Bang airs. I'm sure I'll have more thoughts then, but for now I'm done.