I thought it was all sorts of awesome, a great season, easily my favorite. I’m thrilled that the Smith/Gilliam pairing will continue at least another year, and am glad they’re not doing the “romantic tension” bit that existed between the Doctor and Rose.
Matt Smith: Of the three “new” Doctor’s, he’s the only one that convinced me that there was something, in fact, different about this guy (Eccelston played the Doctor like he was merely doing a role, Tennant was too much the dandy). To quote Amy: “Why didn’t I take my wedding band with me when I ran off with another guy the night before my wedding? You really are alien, aren’t you?”
My wish for the new season: More interplanetary locations, less historical Earth settings.
I think I’m going to have to watch it once (or more) again just to get The Doctor’s time line straight.
So when Amy and Rory are dressed for the beach inside the Tardis, I guess they were headed for or just left Rio, instead of hitting the big drilling thing in Wales in 2020?
ETA: Apparently an unaired adventure/vacation between “Amy’s Choice” and “The Hungry Earth.” Rory and Amy may have had several trips aboard the Tardis that we never saw.
I’m talking about the World Without Stars that existed after the rest of the universe ceased to exist.
The one where Amy was seeing a psychiatrist because she painted stars, and where Richard Dawkins was involved in a ‘Star Cult’.
Would van Gogh have painted ‘The Moon On a Clear Night’ in this world? Or would he have still painted ‘Starry Night’, and people would have taken it as a further sign of his insanity?
The measure of excellence of this episode was that at the end, I yelled. “Yes! Rory’s staying!” He really has become the most interesting character of this season, to me.
Also loved the hint that next season’s story arc is about River. Very much want to see more of her.
Number Four (Tom Baker) traveled with a male and female companion - Sarah Jane Smith (yep, same actress) and a Royal Navy MD named Harry Sullivan. The usual Doctor-companion bickering dynamic was in this case between Sarah Jane and Harry - Harry was a bit of a male chauvinist, and you can imagine how well that played with Sarah Jane.
If we’re just going to list when the Doctor travelled with a man and a woman, that goes all the way back to number One.
From the first episode, the First Doctor travelled with his granddaughter, Susan, as well as Barbara Wright and Ian Chesterton. While his actual companions changed, if I’m remembering correctly, the ‘Susan, a woman, and a man’ pattern was continued until Susan left.
Oh, I see. Would these people, other than Amy, even exist? Vincent might stick around longer than others because he did travel to the 21st Century then back to his own time.
They did for a while - the universe was collapsing slowly - the Earth existed up until about the year 2000, and history was remarkably similar to the real world for the whole time, which could be the Doctor’s doing, or the TARDIS’s. Or it may simply be that a cosmically brief, but complete history of Earth up to the 21st century wouldn’t vary quite that much.
While it would have been ballsier to leave him erased, I’m cool with having him back around. He may not be the best companion, but he’s nowhere near the worst. And I have a feeling that marriage is going to help him lose a lot of his dweebiness; he doesn’t have to fret about whether Amy’s really committed to him.
Well, once Susan left, the ‘Susan, woman, man’ pattern couldn’t, by definition continue…
I ended the comment there because I wasn’t sure if he continued travelling with both sexes continuously after that (though I thought so, I just couldn’t confirm it), so thanks for confirming that. (I’d also thought thought Ian and Barbara left before Susan, actually. Been way too long since I’ve seen the First Doctor episodes.)
