The Pandorica Opens

Dear Gary—

“The question of the hour is, who’s got the Pandorica? Answer, I do. Next question.  Who’s coming to take it from me? Come on! 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.”

I really have to hand it to New Who. It has the audacity to face down its critics with the most impressive show of hot air it can manage on a limited budget and time crunch. Season finale after season finale it pulls it off; all the spectacle; all the extravaganza.

The Pandorica Opens is the beginning of the most spectacular and most extravagant one yet.

It is in its grand and epic scale that The Pandorica Opens fails, top heavy with trying. However it hides brilliance in its small and quiet moments that lifts the bloated behemoth up by its boot straps and calls it a success.

The opening convoluted, Mission Impossible scenario involving numerous characters and links to past serials in order to deliver a simple message to the Doctor signals the grand and epic nature of the tale. The brief glimpse of Vincent is nice and the exploding TARDIS he creates is beautiful, but it is stretching credulity to think anyone would take it for an urgent communiqué for the Doctor, especially since it has been collecting dust for decades in some hidden attic. But 1941 Winston Churchill sees the interpretation of an encounter with the Doctor from the mind of a mad genius and jumps to the obvious because-it-is-in-the-script conclusion that this is of dire importance and must be placed into the Doctor’s hands immediately, even if the TARDIS redirects his phone call from 1941to the far future of 5145. Why the TARDIS chooses to contact River in prison and several centuries out is another mystery, except that it provides the funny little hallucinogenic lipstick shtick. Then we have Liz Ten, the Blood(drenched)y Queen.  Apparently her body clock is in super slow-mo for this abhorrent monarch to continue her reign in 5145; and now I have to ask how it is that she never noticed this all-important painting in her Royal Collection. And why didn’t River go directly to Winston for the painting; why the need for this rather dicey transfer that calls upon every good luck charm in existence to ensure its survival and its certainty of location? But it is all in service to the grand scheme, and what fun it is. The script isn’t done with the hijinks yet, however. There is a neat little space café bit before we get to the “Hello Sweetie” graffiti. They might as well have scribbled a note in a bottle and flung it out into space. Sooner or later the Doctor would bump into it, as long as the script calls for it, but that wouldn’t be nearly as entertaining or grand or epic. And then we wouldn’t get the “you wouldn’t answer your phone” gag. (Sort of Mission Impossible as skewed through the lens of the Zucker/Abrahams team.)

Roman legions and Stonehenge—two more signposts of the serial’s tone. There’s really no other purpose for them. The tie-in with Amy’s memories is an excuse to make it appear as if Amy is the linchpin of the Alliance’s scheme to trap the Doctor, when in reality the Romans have nothing to do with getting the Doctor there. In keeping with the bold bluff of the episode, the Doctor makes the dubious claim that the Romans are “the greatest military machine in the history of the universe.” Nothing comes of this, however. The statement is never put to the test and the fifty volunteers who show up don’t do much more than mill about. One of them fetches Amy a blanket and a couple drag the Doctor into the Pandorica (because Daleks, Cybermen, Sontarans, Terileptils, Slitheen, Chelonians, Dravins, Sycorax, Haemogoths, Zygons, Atraxi, and Draconians wouldn’t get their hands dirty with such a task—leave it to the Nestenes in disguise) and that’s about it. With Stonehenge as the historic backdrop.

With the Roman Autons doing the Alliance’s dirty work there seems little need for the host of Doctor foes, and indeed they do very little other than provide that grand and epic scale to this nostalgia tour. (And is that a Silurian I see? Exactly when did they come out of their self-induced coma?)Their Alliance is unbelievable and their plan laughable. If they were really intent on stopping the TARDIS from cracking the universe the Doctor would be dead. The Doctor’s swaggering “let somebody else try first” challenge would have been met with a billion or more shots aimed at his two hearts. Which one of these races proposed the lifetime incarceration over capital punishment, and how exactly did it get the others to go along?  (And by the way, where was this Alliance the last time the stars were going out?)

However, the devil, as they say, is in the details. Or in this case, the ‘ary angel’ is in the details. (Dad is staying with us for the winter, Gary, and I had to stick in one of his highest compliments—‘you’re gooder than ary angel.’)  Thus, with a room full of Doctor Who villains to pick from, it is the single, dismembered Cyberman who steals the show.

It is Rory, though, who is by far the ariest angel. Rory is dead. Rory is not dead. Rory is dead again. Rory is not dead again. I’m so glad that Rory is indestructible because Rory is the best thing going in Doctor Who these days (these days of the Eleventh Doctor).  Even if he is Nestene Rory. Auton Rory. A Rory is a Rory is a Rory. “Well, I died and turned into a Roman. It’s very distracting.” Long live Rory. Combine Rory with Matt Smith’s Doctor and you have comedy gold; all of the laughs and tears and humor and pathos of human comedy on the subtlest of scales. Delivered by a plastic being and an extraterrestrial.

Of the three devastating cliffhangers, Rory’s is by far the most moving. The reunion between Rory and Amy is touching and Rory’s struggle with his humanity is heartbreaking as his Nestene Consciousness overcomes. As for Amy, does anyone really believe she is dead? Of course not. Amy is not dead. We all know that the show is holding a Doctor Who ace up its sleeve. But the fact that Rory believes Amy is dead, and that he killed her, is tragic.

River’s is the least successful because we really don’t know what the heck is going on. The TARDIS has her trapped and she’s sorry for something only she knows. Presumably the TARDIS is exploding, causing the miserable Crack, but again we are well aware of the Doctor Who sleight of hand at work. Up until this point River has been another highlight. Her dalliance with the Roman legion is gratuitous but enjoyable, and her demonstration of might to the Commander (“you’re all barbarians now”) makes this side track worthwhile. Her exploration of Amy’s house is another shining moment. Again, it is beside the point that Amy loved Roman history and the story of Pandora’s Box (and wouldn’t River recognize Rory and not have to see a picture of Rory and Amy together to realize who he is since she has an as yet untold history with the Doctor/Amy/Rory trio, but never mind), but Alex Kingston makes us believe that River’s discoveries are monumental.

Finally we have the Doctor being dragged into the Pandorica. The absurdity of the concept (of Daleks, Cybermen, Sontaran and the like imprisoning the Doctor rather than killing him) is countered by the upside down nature of it all. The groundwork has been skillfully laid; and all expectations are turned on their head. We are told, “It’s a fairy tale; a legend.” The Pandorica “was built to contain the most feared thing in all the universe.” With Daleks and Cybermen and Sontarans and a horde of alien monsters filling the room, the Pandorica opens with all of the anticipated grandeur only to reveal an empty chamber. The Daleks and Cybermen and Sontarans and the horde of alien monsters are the heroes of our tale; the Doctor is not the good wizard who tricks the hated being into the Pandorica; the Doctor is the “most feared being in all the cosmos” for whom the Pandorica was built.

The Doctor protests; he is their only hope; the universe is in danger of total collapse; without him silence will indeed fall. It is staged; it is ludicrous; it is untenable. But it is effective. Those quiet shining moments justify the overblown nature of the Pandorica, the Alliance, and all. We are on the edge of our seats because we care. We care about Rory and Amy and River and the Doctor. We know it will magically work itself out, but we want to see it happen.

The Pandorica is open, Gary. The Crack is cracking. One more episode to go and it will all be over. Until it starts up again for this treadmill of a generation.