Classic plot out of Greek Mythology there.
A lot of people misunderstood that line, which was, “Oh, Doctor, why do I ever let you out?” So it’s not referring to a specific event. It’s more the kind of thing a frustrated wife might say upon discovering that her well-meaning but hapless husband has messed up yet another impressionable young person’s psyche.
I brought that up a couple of pages (and months) ago. Best response was that since each companion is a stand-in for the audience, people want to feel special (more so than in the day of the, say, Fourth Doctor.) So the companion is now an important part of the major story arc. And I agree.
Obviously, things can’t end this way. We already know that River survives, because she’s already talked to The Doctor about the Pandorica opening (at the end of “Flesh and Stone”), so that means that the TARDIS exploding isn’t what we thought it would be.
Rory, however, is a different kettle of fish. It’s obviously the consciousness/memory of him grafted to or implanted on a robot. Now, is he a pseudo-Cyberman, or one of the Autons that we saw way back in the first episode featuring the Ninth Doctor & Rose Tyler?
And how did the reptilians from “The Hungry Earth” get invited to this party? During the Roman occupation, they were in hibernation a couple of dozen miles below the surface of the Earth.
Are you US viewers just waiting on the last episode now? So BBCAmerica had another week off? That must be a bit annoying!
The BBC really needs to let its commercial arm do more timely broadcasts
Yeah, we’re still waiting. Final episode will be shown this Saturday night on BBC America.
For some reason, neither Space nor BBCA will show Doctor Who in the general vicinity of a major holiday - so both have pushed episodes back a week twice - at the end of May (Victoria and Memorial Days) and the beginning of June (Canada Day and the Fourth of July).
Although I’d rather they didn’t, I’m glad they at least agree on whether to or not - I’d hate them to get too out of sync because one did, and the other didn’t, leaving Canada, the US and the UK ALL out of sync, meaning I couldn’t discuss it with anyone. >_>
You’re in for a real treat, with a number of Crowning Moments of Awesome.
Hmmm. Not good for BBCA subscribers - encourages massive pirating if nothing else. I know that the BBC are looking at allowing overseas access to iPlayer on a subscription basis (and indeed a larger platform for all UK broadcasters), but it is not a straightforward thing at all. The major difficulty is music rights, sadly.
I liked the Doctor contemplating the Pandorica and ‘what monster must be within’ only for it to be himself.
I’m trying to tie all the pieces together in my mind in order (Doctor, paraphrasing: “so this is what it’s like for humans when time just moves in one direction - boring”).
The “Mysterious Voice” wants to sabotage or kill The Doctor. The “Silence Will Fall” makes me think of The Master and his desire to keep his incessant drumming out of his mind. The old voice makes me think it is a later Evil Doctor Incarnation wanting to erase everything.
Anyway, the Voice causes the Cracks on the Doctor’s behalf and all the universal Bad Guys start to notice and begin to track the source. They trace it to the Doctor in this incarnation and get together over tea to discuss a trap. They figure somehow to base the trap on the Companions memories and wishes. They station the Autons in the past because they’ll wait a long time. Everyone else is impatient.
When the Crack snuffs out Rory, Amy’s time travel nature and being at the hub of things means Rory’s significance can’t be erased from time easily so instead Time displaces him into another anomally - a Roman Auton.
So how do you fix things if the Universe explodes? Well River can tele/time/port because she has the Handsome Agent’s Manipulator. Time is ending but there’s always a bit of Time left at the end for someone to get the Doctor out. River should have given The Doctor the manipulator so he could Houdini himself out. Then he could go back with the Manipulator and explode the Tardis to keep the Tardis from exploding… {ow, my head hurts}
It is annoying, but understandable. The nights they skipped are nights that hardly anyone is at home, so why waste it on a show that normally gets high ratings?
“Hello Sweetie”
But at the time River and The Doctor were last together (before he send her to bring the Tardis to Stonehenge from the Roman camp), neither of them knew that the Pandorica was a cage for The Doctor, so River would have had no reason to let him have the Timey-Whimey Thing formerly owned by (a now one-armed (guess this is the start of him becoming just a giant head)(stop me before I sub-reference again)) Captain Jack Harkness.
From what I’ve seen of River, she wouldn’t hesitate to give The Doctor what she had to let him accomplish the job, but if she didn’t think he needed something she had, there’s no way she’d even let him know she had one. Of course, there was no shot of her giving him the device, and he had to know she had something to get her from 5145AD to somewhere between 20BC and 20 AD (just a guess - Cleopatra died in 30BC). So maybe he does have her device.
But since his arms are locked into place, how’s he going to activate it?
Where did you get the idea that the Vortex Manipulator the River’s buying is Jack’s? The Time Agent it was stolen from is never named, and Jack, last we saw him, was still intact.
(Checking the Doctor Who wiki (so hard to avoid spoilers), evidence seems to suggest that River’s VM is not only not Jack’s but not even the same model.)
Well Moffat went to great lengths to imply that it was. The guy that River got it from said it was fresh off the wrist of a “handsome Time Agent”, which Jack claimed to be. As for the timeline, the year this happened was 5145, we last saw Jack in the bar drowning his sorrows after the Torchwood Children of Earth mini (when the Tenth Doctor sent him that note) in 2010.
Captain Jack would have just regenerated a new hand anyhow…
There’s no reason to assume that the “Handsome Time Agent” was Jack. 52[sup]nd[/sup] Century Time Agents are and established part of the Whoniverse. Weng Chaing was from around the 51[sup]st[/sup] or 52[sup]nd[/sup] Century, and he was afraid that The Doctor was a Time Agent. Surely there would be more than one who could be considered handsome.
It would have to from before Jack met the Doctor. Tennant took his vortex manipulator from him; and at that point he was no longer a time agent anyway.
…well, have you guys seen the Big Bang yet?
Smiles all around.
Is this the first time the Doctor will be travelling with a married couple?
I like how the companion wasn’t the reason everything happened, she was a VICTIM of te things that were happening. Things like ‘how do you know it’s a duck pond if there have never been any ducks’ was kinda cool…dodging the whole 'how did the crack make the ducks dissapear if they weren’t near Amy’s bedroom…Dr Who is for entertaining, not meticulously tearing apart every plot point. 
The 2nd Doctor traveled with a Scotsman (Jamie) and a female companion. The trio made a great team.
They never had married companions before. It should be interesting next season.