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aunt_zeldaThe Pandorica Opens:
We begin with … Vincent van Gogh. He’s freaking out while a man tries to restrain him and a woman has the audacity to complain about the mentally unstable man’s screams of agony disturbing the village. Apparently Vincent’s painted something particularly strange, even for him. Not that we get to see it.
1941, London, Winston’s bunker. Android Dude delivers the painting to Winston, saying that it’s obviously a message and Winston should deliver it.
Stormcage Containment Facility, 5145. A phone rings, and a guard answers. “The Doctor? You mean Doctor Song?” River is nearby in a cell and calls him over, saying she’s entitled to phone calls. He hands it over. Winston talks to River: he’s trying to find the Doctor, but the Time Vortex re-routed the call. He delivers the message. River asks the guard if he’s new and he admits that it’s his first day. She apologizes and kisses him, YoSaffBridge-style. Alarms go off and guards run to the cell. New Guy says that she tried to use the halluginagenic lipstick on him, but he sure fooled her! Yeah, he says this as he’s pointing a gun at a stick-figure with a speech bubble reading ‘bye!’ drawn on the wall. LOL.
River’s in that big old cathedral museum thing. She steals a painting. Badass Queen Liz catches her. *SQUEE* River says she needs to find the Doctor and give him the stolen painting. Badass Queen Liz (*SQUEE*) looks at the painting and looks serious.
The Maldovarian, 5145. I don’t know what that means, but River’s inside a Star-Wars cantina type place talking to a fat blue man. He knows she’s in the market for a time-travel thing, and he’s got one, “fresh off the arm of a handsome Time Agent.” (Ooooooooo!/Squiiiiiiiick!) He says it isn’t cheap and asks if she’s brought him “a pretty toy.” She hands over an earring, saying “This is a Calisto Pulse. It can disarm micro-explosives from up to 20 feet.” He asks what kind of micro-explosives. She says, “The kind I just put in your wine.” YIPES!
On the TARDIS, Amy contemplates her ring under the console. Eleven pops his head down and is excited: today they’re gonna read a shout-out to the Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy Series! They go out, and it says “Hello Sweetie,” followed by a series of Time Lord squiggles. YAY!
They follow the squiggles (which were coordinates) to Britain, 1:02 am … or, rather, 102 A.D. *SQUEE* Roman Legionaries! Eleven tries to explain and Amy says she knows “My favourite topic at school. Invasion of the hot Italians. Yeah, I did get marked down for the title.” HEE! Hee hee!
Of course, that joke is nothing compared to what happens next. A Roman soldier runs u and says “Hail Caesar! We are honored by your presence!” to which Eleven says “Well, you're only human. Arise... Roman person.” HEE! Amy whispers “Why does he think you’re Caesar?” and we see the soldier has lipstick smudges on his lips before he says “Cleopatra will see you now.”
*SQUEE*
River, decked out like Cleopatra, welcomes Eleven and Amy. HEE! HEE HEE!
Eleven says “You graffiited the oldest clifface in the universe.” She retorts “You wouldn’t answer your phone” and hands over the painting. “He had visions, didn’t he? I thought you ought to know.” It’s of the TARDIS getting torn apart in a vortex of gold and blue. OH NOES!!!!!!!!!!!
Theme song! *bounces about* Ok, I like it now!
This next scene is of them reading the info on the painting and discussing it, and also of the trio riding horses across the countryside. The painting is titled “The Pandorica Opens.” Yipes. So River and Eleven have to explain to Amy (and the audience) that the Pandorica was a fairy tale about the box that held the most feared thing in the universe. Eleven looks at maps, saying that if you buried the scariest thing EVER “you’d want to remember where you put it.” Oh, I’d know where this was going even if I hadn’t seen the promos …
Cut to the horse-riding scene showing them heading to (where else?) Stonehenge. (No one knows what the fuck a henge is … before Stonehenge there was Woodhenge and Strawhenge … *kicks self* Sorry, quoting Eddie Izzard was too much of a temptation!) They scan Stonehenge and Amy asks River why, the last time they saw her and River mentioned the Pandorica opening, she didn’t tell them more. River puts on her mod hat and says “spoilers!” and says that she hasn’t said that yet. Ah, right, she’s broken out of prison to do this, but she hasn’t met Amy before this episode. Makes perfect sense! They use magical technology to move a large stone and find a tunnel and go down, somehow missing a Cyberman head that starts to whirr ominously. Rut-row!
Eleven sonics a torch to ignite and ignites River’s torch as well. There’s a sex joke somewhere in there, but I’m not gonna make it. They grin at each other and then open the large door to Indiana-Jones-esque music. There is indeed a large stone box in the cavern. There’s also a Cyberman arm on the floor. Eleven notes that and moves towards the box, stupidly TOUCHING the damn thing. (You FOOL! How many things on this show have been activated by the touch of a Time Lord, or, really, the touch of any being?!) He says “There was a goblin, or a trickster, or a warrior. A nameless, terrible thing, soaked in the blood of a billion galaxies. The most feared being in all the cosmos. And nothing could stop it, or hold it, or reason with it. One day it would just drop out of the sky and tear down your world.” *shivers* Spoooooky. Amy asks how it ended up here. Eleven says a “good wizard” tricked it. River sighs that she hates “good wizards” in stories, because they always turn out to be the Doctor. HEE! Personally I get mad because high fantasy is always full of wizards and knights and GUYS … but if there are any girls they’re the damsel or the healer or the sassy barmaid, but that’s just me. Amy makes the connection to Pandora’s Box, which was apparently her favorite book as a kid. Eleven notes her favorite book and favorite school topic (Roman invasions of Britain) “Never ignore a coincidence, unless you're busy. In which case, always ignore a coincidence.”
Eleven sensibly notes that he wants to know what’s inside the box before he would go and open it … but River says that it’s already being unlocked from the inside. Eleven listens to the box and says “What could inspire that level of fear? Hello, you. Have we met?” (I certainly hope so!!!!!!!!!) Amy asks how Vincent could have know about the Pandorica opening if he won’t be born for centuries, Eleven and River figure out that the stones of Stonehenge are broadcasting the message “the Pandorica is opening” to everyone. River stops and realizes it before Eleven: “Doctor, EVERYONE?!” Eleven gets it. OH NOES! They trace the signal to find out who else heard the message: there’s about a million starships in orbit around the planet. Oh no.
They hear the Dalek broadcasts and get scared. Eleven babbles “Minimum, 12,000 battleships, armed to the teeth. 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 would be a fairly short surprise. Forget surprise.” Then they hear Cyberman ships. “Well, we need to start a fight, turn them on each other. It's the Daleks... they're SO cross...” Then Sontaran ships. “Sontarans! Talk about cross, who stole all their handbags?” HEE/*hides under the bed* River reads from the scanner “Terileptil. Slitheen. Chelonian. Nestene. Drahvin. Sycorax. Haemo-goth. Zygon. Atraxi. Draconian. They're all here. For the Pandorica.” Good GOD! Eleven says a line for the trailer and they run outside to see and hear battleships zooming around. River pleads “Doctor, listen to me! Everything that ever hated you is coming here tonight. You can't win this. You can't even fight it. Doctor, this once, just this one time, please, you have to run.” He asks “Run where?” and she retorts “Fight how?” Eleven peers through his binoculars and says “The greatest military machine in the history of the universe.” Amy asks “What is, the Daleks?” And he says no, “The Romans.”
Ok, I CALL FOUL! Yes, the Romans did some pretty amazing stuff, but their military was not the best. In fact, they kinda sucked sometimes. They were NOT the best military machine in the history of Earth, the history of Europe, or even during the time of the Roman Empire. Especially in Britain, where they FAILED multiple times because they hated the climate. If you want to have a history-nerd-wet-dream battle between the Roman Legion and evil aliens, fine, but don’t call the Romans the best military machine ever because it is just not true.
River arrives back and camp and is captured. A commander growls before her “So, I return to my command after one week and discover we've been playing host to Cleopatra. Who's in Egypt. And dead!” HEE! River gets impatient and vaporizes something with her gun and says “Your world has visitors. You're all Barbarians now.” Ouch. Commander wants to know what the raygun is. River says “A fool would say, the work of the gods. But you've been a soldier too long to believe there are gods watching over us. There is, however, a man. And tonight he's going to need your help.” Ok, would it really have been so hard to say she was Athena or that the Doctor was Apollo or Apollo’s son or something? No need to snark about the gods, for all she knew the Commander was a very religious man! That wasn’t badass, that was mean! A shadowy man who is certainly NOT Rory (honestly! *rolls eyes*) whispers to the Commander, who turns to River and says “Well, it seems you have a volunteer.”
Pandorica Cave. Amy confronts Eleven about the ring in the ring-box. In a touching scene, Eleven tries to hint that if Amy could possibly remember something … but sadly it doesn’t work. Yet. Eleven tells Amy that there was a reason he brought her with him onto the TARDIS, because her house is too big with too many empty rooms. “Does it ever bother you, Amy, that your life doesn't make any sense?” Before we can get an answer the Cyber-arm attacks. They hide behind the box and Eleven says he needs a proper look and will have to draw its fire. Amy asks how. “You know how sometimes I have really brilliant ideas?” Eleven asks. He leaps out, waving his arms and yells “LOOK AT ME, I’M A TARGET!!!” LOL! I love Eleven. He explains Cybermen quickly to Amy and says “The organic part must have died off years ago, now the robot part is looking for fresh meat.” Meaning a kind of organ doner, except you’re alive and screaming. He grabs the arm and tries to disable it, and then … and then …
… and then the show turns into a tentacle hentai for some reason. A Cyberman head attacks Amy, wires wrapping around her legs and arms. Do you think someone on the writing staff has a fetish for Karen Gillan, preferably in fetish-tastic situations?
It’s actually quite a good scene if you forget that it’s one gigantic love letter to those of us who edit the Fetish Fuel pages on tvtropes. Let’s count, shall we? Eleven gets electrocuted unconscious (1) while the wires wrap around Amy (2) who is a redheaded (2.b) attractive young woman (2.c) She throws it off (3) but it zaps her neck with a stun dart (4) that causes her to hallucinate (5) while it menacingly walks towards her and backs her into a corner (6) and she is left alone in the dark, helpless (7.) Let me know if I missed anything.
But Amy is recued by RORY! RORY stabbed the Cyberman thorugh the chest with a sword! SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE! Amy passes out. Rory recognizes her, which rules out what I was thinking the show was going to do, and carries her out. Eleven wakes up and takes stock: Romans, good! Only 50? Not so good, but whatevs; Amy’s fine; the Cyberman was probably left behind; “Never underestimate a Celt” … the Doctor’s missing something, something big and in front of him. Rory says yeah, he is. Eleven says it’ll come to him and walks out … and stops. Rory waits. Eleven sneaks back in and pokes Rory in the chest. Rory says he’s fine, and awkard ‘funny situation’ music plays while Eleven says “Rory, I'm not trying to be rude, but you died.” Rory says he knows, he was there for that. Eleven says that he wasn’t just killed, he was erased from existence! Rory doesn’t know about that. He says it’s all “fuzzy.” Eleven presses and Rory says “Well, I died and turned into a Roman. It's very distracting!” HEE! Hee hee! ILU RORY! It hasn’t been the same without you!
Rory strokes Amy’s cheek and asks “Did she miss me?” Eleven looks nervous and sad. Oh dear … that’ll be awkward when she wakes up.
Except we haven’t the time for that! The pretty CGI ships are massing over Stonehenge and the Pandorica is opening! It’s all green and clockpunk and eeeeeeeevil looking! Rory goes up to his Romans, who look nervous. I’m pleased to note that they made the legion racially diverse, as they were in real life. River radios in to the Doctor and asks if he’s got a plan and he says yes, she needs to bring the TARDIS to him.
Eleven makes a speech with a sonic megaphone thing, asking the spaceships to please stop whizzing about because it’s very distracting and HE IS TALKING!!! They stop. HEE! He makes a fantastic speech about how he’s got the Pandorica, and he’s defeated the guys up in the sky many times, and they should do the “smart thing” and let someone else try to take the Pandorica first. The ships zoom off. All of them. Rory heaves a sigh of relief. Eleven grins, “That'll keep 'em squabbling for half an hour!” You know, I wouldn’t mind seeing that, all the Daleks and Cybermen and Sontarans and other enemies bickering like kids on the playground for half an hour. Like the U.N., but with Rubber Forehead Aliens.
River starts up the TARDIS, but the TARDIS isn’t doing so good.
Amy wakes up … and doesn’t recognize Rory. Well, she thanks him for the “swordy-thing” and leaves. Rory’s face when he realizes that she doesn’t remember him is truly heartbreaking.
Eleven explains that something explodes (on Amy’s wedding day, to be exact, but he doesn’t tell Rory that) and that sends cracks out through time and Rory fell through one. After hearing Rory explain his side of the story Eleven decides this is probably an actual miracle (he’s never seen on before, btw) and sends Rory up with the ring to get Amy. Awwwww!
River’s been brought to THE Date. She goes outside, but we see the scanner tell the date. Then it cracks like the crack, and a creepy male voice rasps “SILENCE WILL FALL.”
River scans Amy’s backyard and finds … tiny crop circles? The door has been pulled off of its hinges, and yet still she goes inside. (YOU FOOL!) She finds Amy’s room, and Amy’s creepy Stalker Fangirl paraphernalia, and tsk tsks “Oh, Doctor, why do I let you out?” Then she finds two books: one on Romans and one of Pandora’s box. River says “Oh no …”
Rory goes up to Amy and they chat. He tells her his real name and she says she wasn’t expecting that “What’s it short for, Roranicus?” Honey, if you’re that much of a history buff, and especially a Roman history buff, you should know that pretty much all Roman men had three names: a family name (what we would think of as a surname) a given name (that family and close friends used) and a nickname. Most people went by their nicknames. Caligula (Little Soldier’s Boot) is a good example. Amy starts crying without noticing it, but Rory notices. Utto …
River calls the Doctor.
Amy’s crying … but she’s happy … it’s weird and scary.
River tells Eleven that the Romans are characters from a picture-book in Amy’s room. It’s all fake, a trap of some kind, a scenario to trap the Doctor. Psychic residue from Amy’s house created this so he’d believe it. River then finds a picture of Amy and Rory at a costume party (at least, let’s pretend it’s a costume party and leave the speculation to the fanfic writers) with Rory dressed as a Roman soldier. Aha! *shudders* Eleven says “They might think they're real. The perfect disguise. They actually believe their own cover story, right until they're activated.” Eleven finds out the date of the TARDIS scanner and tells River to get out, or shut it down, but she can’t. Amy holds Rory’s face and he pleads with her to remember him. Alarms start flashing and the scary male voice rasps “SILENCE WILL FALL.”
A horrible noise happens, making all the soldiers turn into automatons. It’s very, very creepy. Some external force is driving the TARDIS. Eleven tells River to land the TARDIS: the TARDIS exploding causes the cracks in time, but if she lands they’ll stop it from every happening. Rory yells that he’s not going, “I’M RORY!” Oh god. The Pandorica opens. ULP.
River can’t get out of the TARDIS, which would shut it down. The soldiers turn into those plastic Nestene things and grab the Doctor. Amy remembers Rory, but Rory isn’t Rory and he’s pleading for her to run away before he kills her.
Those stupid stupid Skittles Daleks beam down. It’s about here that I started to realize.
There’s no good way of transcribing all of this, it all happens so quickly, so I’ll have to be quick about it. Watch it for yourself, but I can’t make any jokes or clever insights at this moment:
All of the enemies have banded together, not to get what’s IN the Pandorica, but to put something INSIDE the Pandorica. Namely, the Doctor. They’ve all banded together to save the universe from the Doctor, because the cracks are caused by the TARDIS and only he can pilot it, right, so by locking him up they’ll save the universe. Eleven is dragged into the box and strapped in and it’s not even sexy, it’s just horrible and SAD. Rory’s programming ets the better of him and he shoots Amy dead. River finally gets the doors open: to a wall of stone. She can’t get out and the TARDIS explodes. The Pandorica closes and the universe … dies.
Well, how the hell do they continue the show after that?!?!?!?!??!!
I'm so glad I don't have to wait a week for the next episode. I can watch it right away!
We begin with … Vincent van Gogh. He’s freaking out while a man tries to restrain him and a woman has the audacity to complain about the mentally unstable man’s screams of agony disturbing the village. Apparently Vincent’s painted something particularly strange, even for him. Not that we get to see it.
1941, London, Winston’s bunker. Android Dude delivers the painting to Winston, saying that it’s obviously a message and Winston should deliver it.
Stormcage Containment Facility, 5145. A phone rings, and a guard answers. “The Doctor? You mean Doctor Song?” River is nearby in a cell and calls him over, saying she’s entitled to phone calls. He hands it over. Winston talks to River: he’s trying to find the Doctor, but the Time Vortex re-routed the call. He delivers the message. River asks the guard if he’s new and he admits that it’s his first day. She apologizes and kisses him, YoSaffBridge-style. Alarms go off and guards run to the cell. New Guy says that she tried to use the halluginagenic lipstick on him, but he sure fooled her! Yeah, he says this as he’s pointing a gun at a stick-figure with a speech bubble reading ‘bye!’ drawn on the wall. LOL.
River’s in that big old cathedral museum thing. She steals a painting. Badass Queen Liz catches her. *SQUEE* River says she needs to find the Doctor and give him the stolen painting. Badass Queen Liz (*SQUEE*) looks at the painting and looks serious.
The Maldovarian, 5145. I don’t know what that means, but River’s inside a Star-Wars cantina type place talking to a fat blue man. He knows she’s in the market for a time-travel thing, and he’s got one, “fresh off the arm of a handsome Time Agent.” (Ooooooooo!/Squiiiiiiiick!) He says it isn’t cheap and asks if she’s brought him “a pretty toy.” She hands over an earring, saying “This is a Calisto Pulse. It can disarm micro-explosives from up to 20 feet.” He asks what kind of micro-explosives. She says, “The kind I just put in your wine.” YIPES!
On the TARDIS, Amy contemplates her ring under the console. Eleven pops his head down and is excited: today they’re gonna read a shout-out to the Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy Series! They go out, and it says “Hello Sweetie,” followed by a series of Time Lord squiggles. YAY!
They follow the squiggles (which were coordinates) to Britain, 1:02 am … or, rather, 102 A.D. *SQUEE* Roman Legionaries! Eleven tries to explain and Amy says she knows “My favourite topic at school. Invasion of the hot Italians. Yeah, I did get marked down for the title.” HEE! Hee hee!
Of course, that joke is nothing compared to what happens next. A Roman soldier runs u and says “Hail Caesar! We are honored by your presence!” to which Eleven says “Well, you're only human. Arise... Roman person.” HEE! Amy whispers “Why does he think you’re Caesar?” and we see the soldier has lipstick smudges on his lips before he says “Cleopatra will see you now.”
*SQUEE*
River, decked out like Cleopatra, welcomes Eleven and Amy. HEE! HEE HEE!
Eleven says “You graffiited the oldest clifface in the universe.” She retorts “You wouldn’t answer your phone” and hands over the painting. “He had visions, didn’t he? I thought you ought to know.” It’s of the TARDIS getting torn apart in a vortex of gold and blue. OH NOES!!!!!!!!!!!
Theme song! *bounces about* Ok, I like it now!
This next scene is of them reading the info on the painting and discussing it, and also of the trio riding horses across the countryside. The painting is titled “The Pandorica Opens.” Yipes. So River and Eleven have to explain to Amy (and the audience) that the Pandorica was a fairy tale about the box that held the most feared thing in the universe. Eleven looks at maps, saying that if you buried the scariest thing EVER “you’d want to remember where you put it.” Oh, I’d know where this was going even if I hadn’t seen the promos …
Cut to the horse-riding scene showing them heading to (where else?) Stonehenge. (No one knows what the fuck a henge is … before Stonehenge there was Woodhenge and Strawhenge … *kicks self* Sorry, quoting Eddie Izzard was too much of a temptation!) They scan Stonehenge and Amy asks River why, the last time they saw her and River mentioned the Pandorica opening, she didn’t tell them more. River puts on her mod hat and says “spoilers!” and says that she hasn’t said that yet. Ah, right, she’s broken out of prison to do this, but she hasn’t met Amy before this episode. Makes perfect sense! They use magical technology to move a large stone and find a tunnel and go down, somehow missing a Cyberman head that starts to whirr ominously. Rut-row!
Eleven sonics a torch to ignite and ignites River’s torch as well. There’s a sex joke somewhere in there, but I’m not gonna make it. They grin at each other and then open the large door to Indiana-Jones-esque music. There is indeed a large stone box in the cavern. There’s also a Cyberman arm on the floor. Eleven notes that and moves towards the box, stupidly TOUCHING the damn thing. (You FOOL! How many things on this show have been activated by the touch of a Time Lord, or, really, the touch of any being?!) He says “There was a goblin, or a trickster, or a warrior. A nameless, terrible thing, soaked in the blood of a billion galaxies. The most feared being in all the cosmos. And nothing could stop it, or hold it, or reason with it. One day it would just drop out of the sky and tear down your world.” *shivers* Spoooooky. Amy asks how it ended up here. Eleven says a “good wizard” tricked it. River sighs that she hates “good wizards” in stories, because they always turn out to be the Doctor. HEE! Personally I get mad because high fantasy is always full of wizards and knights and GUYS … but if there are any girls they’re the damsel or the healer or the sassy barmaid, but that’s just me. Amy makes the connection to Pandora’s Box, which was apparently her favorite book as a kid. Eleven notes her favorite book and favorite school topic (Roman invasions of Britain) “Never ignore a coincidence, unless you're busy. In which case, always ignore a coincidence.”
Eleven sensibly notes that he wants to know what’s inside the box before he would go and open it … but River says that it’s already being unlocked from the inside. Eleven listens to the box and says “What could inspire that level of fear? Hello, you. Have we met?” (I certainly hope so!!!!!!!!!) Amy asks how Vincent could have know about the Pandorica opening if he won’t be born for centuries, Eleven and River figure out that the stones of Stonehenge are broadcasting the message “the Pandorica is opening” to everyone. River stops and realizes it before Eleven: “Doctor, EVERYONE?!” Eleven gets it. OH NOES! They trace the signal to find out who else heard the message: there’s about a million starships in orbit around the planet. Oh no.
They hear the Dalek broadcasts and get scared. Eleven babbles “Minimum, 12,000 battleships, armed to the teeth. 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 would be a fairly short surprise. Forget surprise.” Then they hear Cyberman ships. “Well, we need to start a fight, turn them on each other. It's the Daleks... they're SO cross...” Then Sontaran ships. “Sontarans! Talk about cross, who stole all their handbags?” HEE/*hides under the bed* River reads from the scanner “Terileptil. Slitheen. Chelonian. Nestene. Drahvin. Sycorax. Haemo-goth. Zygon. Atraxi. Draconian. They're all here. For the Pandorica.” Good GOD! Eleven says a line for the trailer and they run outside to see and hear battleships zooming around. River pleads “Doctor, listen to me! Everything that ever hated you is coming here tonight. You can't win this. You can't even fight it. Doctor, this once, just this one time, please, you have to run.” He asks “Run where?” and she retorts “Fight how?” Eleven peers through his binoculars and says “The greatest military machine in the history of the universe.” Amy asks “What is, the Daleks?” And he says no, “The Romans.”
Ok, I CALL FOUL! Yes, the Romans did some pretty amazing stuff, but their military was not the best. In fact, they kinda sucked sometimes. They were NOT the best military machine in the history of Earth, the history of Europe, or even during the time of the Roman Empire. Especially in Britain, where they FAILED multiple times because they hated the climate. If you want to have a history-nerd-wet-dream battle between the Roman Legion and evil aliens, fine, but don’t call the Romans the best military machine ever because it is just not true.
River arrives back and camp and is captured. A commander growls before her “So, I return to my command after one week and discover we've been playing host to Cleopatra. Who's in Egypt. And dead!” HEE! River gets impatient and vaporizes something with her gun and says “Your world has visitors. You're all Barbarians now.” Ouch. Commander wants to know what the raygun is. River says “A fool would say, the work of the gods. But you've been a soldier too long to believe there are gods watching over us. There is, however, a man. And tonight he's going to need your help.” Ok, would it really have been so hard to say she was Athena or that the Doctor was Apollo or Apollo’s son or something? No need to snark about the gods, for all she knew the Commander was a very religious man! That wasn’t badass, that was mean! A shadowy man who is certainly NOT Rory (honestly! *rolls eyes*) whispers to the Commander, who turns to River and says “Well, it seems you have a volunteer.”
Pandorica Cave. Amy confronts Eleven about the ring in the ring-box. In a touching scene, Eleven tries to hint that if Amy could possibly remember something … but sadly it doesn’t work. Yet. Eleven tells Amy that there was a reason he brought her with him onto the TARDIS, because her house is too big with too many empty rooms. “Does it ever bother you, Amy, that your life doesn't make any sense?” Before we can get an answer the Cyber-arm attacks. They hide behind the box and Eleven says he needs a proper look and will have to draw its fire. Amy asks how. “You know how sometimes I have really brilliant ideas?” Eleven asks. He leaps out, waving his arms and yells “LOOK AT ME, I’M A TARGET!!!” LOL! I love Eleven. He explains Cybermen quickly to Amy and says “The organic part must have died off years ago, now the robot part is looking for fresh meat.” Meaning a kind of organ doner, except you’re alive and screaming. He grabs the arm and tries to disable it, and then … and then …
… and then the show turns into a tentacle hentai for some reason. A Cyberman head attacks Amy, wires wrapping around her legs and arms. Do you think someone on the writing staff has a fetish for Karen Gillan, preferably in fetish-tastic situations?
It’s actually quite a good scene if you forget that it’s one gigantic love letter to those of us who edit the Fetish Fuel pages on tvtropes. Let’s count, shall we? Eleven gets electrocuted unconscious (1) while the wires wrap around Amy (2) who is a redheaded (2.b) attractive young woman (2.c) She throws it off (3) but it zaps her neck with a stun dart (4) that causes her to hallucinate (5) while it menacingly walks towards her and backs her into a corner (6) and she is left alone in the dark, helpless (7.) Let me know if I missed anything.
But Amy is recued by RORY! RORY stabbed the Cyberman thorugh the chest with a sword! SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE! Amy passes out. Rory recognizes her, which rules out what I was thinking the show was going to do, and carries her out. Eleven wakes up and takes stock: Romans, good! Only 50? Not so good, but whatevs; Amy’s fine; the Cyberman was probably left behind; “Never underestimate a Celt” … the Doctor’s missing something, something big and in front of him. Rory says yeah, he is. Eleven says it’ll come to him and walks out … and stops. Rory waits. Eleven sneaks back in and pokes Rory in the chest. Rory says he’s fine, and awkard ‘funny situation’ music plays while Eleven says “Rory, I'm not trying to be rude, but you died.” Rory says he knows, he was there for that. Eleven says that he wasn’t just killed, he was erased from existence! Rory doesn’t know about that. He says it’s all “fuzzy.” Eleven presses and Rory says “Well, I died and turned into a Roman. It's very distracting!” HEE! Hee hee! ILU RORY! It hasn’t been the same without you!
Rory strokes Amy’s cheek and asks “Did she miss me?” Eleven looks nervous and sad. Oh dear … that’ll be awkward when she wakes up.
Except we haven’t the time for that! The pretty CGI ships are massing over Stonehenge and the Pandorica is opening! It’s all green and clockpunk and eeeeeeeevil looking! Rory goes up to his Romans, who look nervous. I’m pleased to note that they made the legion racially diverse, as they were in real life. River radios in to the Doctor and asks if he’s got a plan and he says yes, she needs to bring the TARDIS to him.
Eleven makes a speech with a sonic megaphone thing, asking the spaceships to please stop whizzing about because it’s very distracting and HE IS TALKING!!! They stop. HEE! He makes a fantastic speech about how he’s got the Pandorica, and he’s defeated the guys up in the sky many times, and they should do the “smart thing” and let someone else try to take the Pandorica first. The ships zoom off. All of them. Rory heaves a sigh of relief. Eleven grins, “That'll keep 'em squabbling for half an hour!” You know, I wouldn’t mind seeing that, all the Daleks and Cybermen and Sontarans and other enemies bickering like kids on the playground for half an hour. Like the U.N., but with Rubber Forehead Aliens.
River starts up the TARDIS, but the TARDIS isn’t doing so good.
Amy wakes up … and doesn’t recognize Rory. Well, she thanks him for the “swordy-thing” and leaves. Rory’s face when he realizes that she doesn’t remember him is truly heartbreaking.
Eleven explains that something explodes (on Amy’s wedding day, to be exact, but he doesn’t tell Rory that) and that sends cracks out through time and Rory fell through one. After hearing Rory explain his side of the story Eleven decides this is probably an actual miracle (he’s never seen on before, btw) and sends Rory up with the ring to get Amy. Awwwww!
River’s been brought to THE Date. She goes outside, but we see the scanner tell the date. Then it cracks like the crack, and a creepy male voice rasps “SILENCE WILL FALL.”
River scans Amy’s backyard and finds … tiny crop circles? The door has been pulled off of its hinges, and yet still she goes inside. (YOU FOOL!) She finds Amy’s room, and Amy’s creepy Stalker Fangirl paraphernalia, and tsk tsks “Oh, Doctor, why do I let you out?” Then she finds two books: one on Romans and one of Pandora’s box. River says “Oh no …”
Rory goes up to Amy and they chat. He tells her his real name and she says she wasn’t expecting that “What’s it short for, Roranicus?” Honey, if you’re that much of a history buff, and especially a Roman history buff, you should know that pretty much all Roman men had three names: a family name (what we would think of as a surname) a given name (that family and close friends used) and a nickname. Most people went by their nicknames. Caligula (Little Soldier’s Boot) is a good example. Amy starts crying without noticing it, but Rory notices. Utto …
River calls the Doctor.
Amy’s crying … but she’s happy … it’s weird and scary.
River tells Eleven that the Romans are characters from a picture-book in Amy’s room. It’s all fake, a trap of some kind, a scenario to trap the Doctor. Psychic residue from Amy’s house created this so he’d believe it. River then finds a picture of Amy and Rory at a costume party (at least, let’s pretend it’s a costume party and leave the speculation to the fanfic writers) with Rory dressed as a Roman soldier. Aha! *shudders* Eleven says “They might think they're real. The perfect disguise. They actually believe their own cover story, right until they're activated.” Eleven finds out the date of the TARDIS scanner and tells River to get out, or shut it down, but she can’t. Amy holds Rory’s face and he pleads with her to remember him. Alarms start flashing and the scary male voice rasps “SILENCE WILL FALL.”
A horrible noise happens, making all the soldiers turn into automatons. It’s very, very creepy. Some external force is driving the TARDIS. Eleven tells River to land the TARDIS: the TARDIS exploding causes the cracks in time, but if she lands they’ll stop it from every happening. Rory yells that he’s not going, “I’M RORY!” Oh god. The Pandorica opens. ULP.
River can’t get out of the TARDIS, which would shut it down. The soldiers turn into those plastic Nestene things and grab the Doctor. Amy remembers Rory, but Rory isn’t Rory and he’s pleading for her to run away before he kills her.
Those stupid stupid Skittles Daleks beam down. It’s about here that I started to realize.
There’s no good way of transcribing all of this, it all happens so quickly, so I’ll have to be quick about it. Watch it for yourself, but I can’t make any jokes or clever insights at this moment:
All of the enemies have banded together, not to get what’s IN the Pandorica, but to put something INSIDE the Pandorica. Namely, the Doctor. They’ve all banded together to save the universe from the Doctor, because the cracks are caused by the TARDIS and only he can pilot it, right, so by locking him up they’ll save the universe. Eleven is dragged into the box and strapped in and it’s not even sexy, it’s just horrible and SAD. Rory’s programming ets the better of him and he shoots Amy dead. River finally gets the doors open: to a wall of stone. She can’t get out and the TARDIS explodes. The Pandorica closes and the universe … dies.
Well, how the hell do they continue the show after that?!?!?!?!??!!
I'm so glad I don't have to wait a week for the next episode. I can watch it right away!
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Date: 2011-01-03 01:11 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-03 02:30 am (UTC)Did you see me complaining? ; )
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Date: 2011-01-03 01:44 pm (UTC)Also, when Aunt_Zelda thinks something isn't sexy...you know it's bad news. ;)
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Date: 2011-01-17 02:49 am (UTC)*blushes* Have I really gotten THAT kind of reputation already? *giggles*
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Date: 2011-01-21 06:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-22 12:12 am (UTC)Any specifics? I'm curious, I didn't think I was noticeably kinkier than the rest of the internet ... ; )
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Date: 2011-01-22 12:14 am (UTC)But if it came down to it, we could have a kink-off... ;)
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Date: 2011-01-22 04:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-22 04:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-23 06:44 pm (UTC)