Doctor Who: The Big Bang
In years to come, Doctor Who fans will talk with reverence about how much of genius Steven Moffat is. And I reckon this episode will be the one they cite as the definitive proof.
Because this episode showed just how large the canvas that Moffat has been painting on this season has been. This wasn't the thirteenth episode in a TV season - it was the climax and conclusion to the previous 12 episodes. But it was also a stand-alone story in its own right. The locations, the narrative thrust, the whole structure showed an story that was part of a greater whole, yet still an essential piece of viewing on its own.
Best of all, this episode showed an attention to detail that bordered on the anal, but just about managed to stay on the right side of genius. Don't believe me? Well, what about the moment when the apparent continuity error in Flesh and Stone was revealed to be a future version of the Doctor imparting vital information to Amy? How good was that? It is an example of what Moffat does best - not only in this episode, but across the season. He takes your expectations and your assumptions, and subverts them.
And there were so many moments to savour aside from the rewarding narrative devices at play. Rory was finally shown to be a genuine hero. He saved the Doctor and stood guard over Amy for two thousand years. That's true love. Indeed, when the Doctor was temporarily erased from reality, Rory's terrified and cowed reaction to Amy on the 'phone showed just how much he as developed as a character. Both Amy and Amelia were given a great deal to do, and it was nice that Amy was the one who saved the Doctor in a more comprehensive way than perhaps any companion has ever managed before. And the Doctor... the Eleventh Doctor was firing on all cylinders here, and all facets of his character were nicely represented in this episode. He has become a scatter-brained, alien genius with little regard or care for what others think of him. And his dancing at Amy's wedding brought a broad grin to this reviewer's face.
It also has to be said that the new Daleks - or the fat Daleks, as I like to think of them - look far better when encased on stone. Long may that continue. And I also feel a slight sadness as the passing of Auton Rory. A companion with a gun in his hand would be a useful addition to any TARDIS team.
Ultimately, great television should leave you thinking about it long after the end credits have rolled, and The Big Bang does that. Furthermore, as a measured and controlled piece of writing, it didn't answer all the questions that were posed, thus giving us a reason to go on watching. And with the Doctor, Amy and Rory all in the TARDIS ready for new adventures, why wouldn't we go on watching?
Frankly, Christmas can't come quickly enough.
Labels: Doctor Who, Reviews, TV
posted by The Nameless Libertarian @ 12:24 am
14 Comments
14 Comments:
yup, i was worried it'd be an RTD deus ex. but that was special, seriously good. Let's hope they can keep it up next series!
Yeah - it was great fun. Not certain about the story - I may have to watch it again - but I enjoyed it. Glad you did too!
The best season ending for a long time, better than RTD's crash bang finales, more cerebral and so much going on... I will need a couple of re-watches - I posted a stream of conciousness post during the episode that I was going to tidy up, but I quite like it now... http://notasheepmaybeagoat.blogspot.com/2010/06/dr-who-big-bang.html No Doctor Who until the Christmas Special now, can I cope?
Absolutely brilliant. I think I shall now iPlayer the whole series again with a different eye.
I bet three was barely a dry eye in the house!
“I have questions. But first…”
…but first, The Pandorica Opens and The Big Bang were, in very many respects, absolutely great. Series 5 finally realised its potential with a finale packed with terrific moments and breathless excitement: genuine can’t-take-yer-eyes-off-the-telly Doctor Who. Oh, and Matt Smith deserves a medal for his performance.
Now, try to remember that I said that! ;-)
However, can’t we calm down just a little bit about our supposed ‘reverence’ for Moffat’s ‘genius’…? Granted, it’s very good writing; but not that good. I’ve written scripts and novels myself, and I assure you that it doesn’t take anything approaching genius to have enough grip on a story-arc to drop a ‘hidden’ scene into an earlier episode and then to reveal its true significance later. That’s certainly good technique, and it’s a pleasing trick to create an ‘aha!’ moment, but it’s really not genius, especially in a time-travel drama.
Moffat is, I think, generally superior to other writers on the show; but he’s not immune to something very close indeed to the much-bemoaned RTD deus-ex-machina. He masks it well by moving an episode along at a frantic speed, but it’s there. For instance, the Pandorica is revealed to have the unexpectedly convenient ability to re-boot Amy on the dubious grounds that ‘it’s a prison that doesn’t even let you die’. Hmmm. Lucky that they built it that way – can’t imagine why they did, though. Moreover, the miraculous properties of its light later turn out to have (quite literally) universally re-booting qualities: even luckier. I can’t help thinking that if RTD had written quite such an obvious plot device into the design concept of a prison box, a lot of people would be rolling their eyes. Don’t get me wrong – this is Doctor Who and I’m not really objecting to it; but equally, don’t tell me that Moffat is a stranger to such sleight-of-plot.
The Pandorica is impossible to open from the inside, but, remarkably, a cinch to open from the outside. So presumably the possibility of a rescue-attempt didn’t occur to the Alliance?
Why did the Alliance build this eternal, life-giving prison anyway? Why not just shoot him when they had the chance? Is there a logical reason?
How did the Doctor get out of the Pandorica anyway? Yes, yes, he dropped back from the future to tell Rory how to open it. But that’s entirely circular. On the Doctor’s own timeline, Rory releasing him is the a priori event that makes any later free travel possible. If someone can explain how this works, great (I might be missing something!) but be warned that it’s no good invoking time-travel being of its nature paradoxical, or muttering obscurely about ‘timey-wimey stuff’ (much though I like the phrase). On this logic the Doctor would be popping back every couple of minutes to change unwelcome events in his own time-line, which he patently does not (and cannot) do. Furthermore, the rest of the episode is at pains to explain the ‘logic’ of his travels back and forth (which it does rather well). What was that about Moffat’s amazing ‘attention to detail’? A logical impossibility leads not so much to deus-ex-machina as doctor-ex-machina.
All the stars in the universe go supernova at the same time. This includes our sun. So why didn’t the supernova explosion engulf the earth? I’m aware that this can conceivably be ‘explained’ by some improbable guff about being in ‘the eye of the storm’, but …well, c’mon!
What irritates me a bit is that these implausibilities are unnecessary. All of them could easily have been scripted to avoid the problem, and maybe – he said, deliberately controversially – a better writer would have done that.
So. It was great, and it had me on the edge of my seat like a little boy. And as that’s the major point of Doctor Who, it was terrific. But it was full of holes. It wasn’t ‘genius’, it wasn’t always very logical, and it contained about as many thoroughly improbable plot-devices as the average RTD finale.
So there. You may now attempt to kill me for heretically denying the divinity of Moffat! :D
Jim, welcome back. I was wondering what your thoughts on these two episodes were. Glad you enjoyed them... even if it is with some reservations.
I'm not going to go through the problems you have with the plot - I think the solutions are all there in the story. It just comes down to whether you find them credible or not. And I'd agree that, to some extent, Moffat used a deus ex machina solution to the story, but it was at least credible and well set up by the plot. Rather than the big lever that saved the world in, say, Doomsday.
As for Moffat's genius, I'll concede that Moffat comes across perhaps far stronger as a writer partly because of the relative weakness of many other Doctor Who writers. He's better than RTD, and he's certainly much better than many of the hacks who wrote for the original series (yes, Pip and Jane Baker, I'm talking about you). But the genius of Moffat for me is in his ability to write some of the best Doctor Who. It isn't just about his superior understanding of plotting and his ability to use time travel far more effectively than other writers for the show - it is also about his ability to make everyday scary and his use of real emotion in the show without making it as overwrought as RTD often did.
Of course, Moffat is no Dennis Potter, but then again for the job he does, he doesn't need to be. His genius lies in writing some of the most effective Doctor Who stories of all time, at the same time as producing a season of the show that has been deeply rewarding and wonderfully thought-provoking.
TNL
Yes, true, the relative weakness of other writers probably does over-enhance Moffat’s reputation to some extent. That said, he is undoubtedly very good: I had to remove from my previous comment (too many words) some compliments – the ‘dark edge’, command of tone / atmosphere and – as you said – superior (and usually more original) plotting. He’s also very consistent, and that alone puts him in a class of his own, certainly in the modern era.
Weirdly enough, whilst he might be no Dennis Potter, there’s a kind of connection between the two in their penchant for playing with levels of reality. Hmmm, well, I guess ‘Double Dare’ isn’t really on for the teatime audience, but in some ways I get the feeling that Moffat would like to give it a go if he could get away with it :D
Plot gripes: yes, there are half-solutions there if one looks for them and stretches things a bit. But a minor re-write could have removed such potential credibility-gaps and would have resulted in a truly polished performance. As said, most don’t really matter. The exception’s the Pandorica-escape (maybe I really am missing something, and I’d be delighted if someone can explain it to me) but the logic seems to be similar to being exterminated by a dalek and then popping back from ten minutes later to save yourself. Someone else might be able to do that, but you can’t do it yourself, on your own timeline. That’s the only one that I’d call a real problem in the script.
Doctor Who doing Double Dare on Saturday night TV. Now, that would be worth seeing!
Of course, Moffat's writing shares a similarity with Potter's in another way - they are both very interested in sex. Moffat's Coupling was, to a large extent, about humping, and he had made Amy into someone who doesn't so much love the Doctor as just want to get him into bed. That said, I shouldn't push the Moffat/Potter link too far, as fun as it might be.
As for the Pandorica escape... for me, the logic was a lot like leaving a note for yourself in a shop window telling you what flat to go to save the world. I'd say that's a bit different from going back in time to give yourself a warning. The Fez Doctor jumped his timeline in order to rectify a difficult situation rather than to prevent it. It would have been a massive copout if Fez Doctor had gone back in time and given himself the warn "ooo, looky, they're all ruddy Autons". As it was, he did something a bit different. Sure, the Doctor doesn't do this all the time, but this was a pretty urgent set of circumstances - what with everything ending. Of course, how credible you find that is down to your own judgment - personally, I'm fine with it, but I realise not everyone will be.
Anyway, it is a lot better than the Doctor finding a magic switch in the Pandorica. Which is probably what would have happened had RTD scripted this one!
TNL
One big, gaping, mammoth logic hole: If River could remember the Doctor, and apparently did when she showed up at the wedding and gave Amy the notebook in order to get Amy to remember... um... what do we need Amy for, again?
@ Kitty: ha! Gooooood point! :)
@ TNL: well, personally I’d vote for Doctor Who does Blackeyes – might as well go the whole hog :D
Now, at the risk of banging on about it (I’ll shut up soon, I promise) your idea of Fez Doctor warning his earlier self about the Autons is actually far more plausible than the Pandorica escape. Yes, it would be a massive cop-out plotwise, and I’d guess that the show introduced the idea that interfering in your own timeline is generally a no-no in order to prevent such ‘easy fixes’ from occurring every other week. However, once freed from the Pandorica, it would at least be logically possible (if unsatisfactory) for the Doctor to travel back and do pretty much whatever he liked to change things.
However, it is not logically possible for him to be the direct cause of his own release in the way that the Pandorica escape pretends. The logic of this one is entirely circular. On his own timeline, he’s imprisoned. He’s stuck in a box and unable to do anything. The cause of his release cannot be his free-future-self, as without an additional intervening factor his future self would never have been set free in the first place. Some EXTERNAL factor to release him is absolutely required, otherwise the logic here is “after I freed myself I went back in time in order to free myself”. Actually, that’s very like a heavily disguised ‘magic switch’ – but less plausible ;-)
Kitty - watch the episode again and you should understand why Amy was so essential. Only she could bring back the Doctor - although the reasoning as to why is implicitly explained rather than explicitly spelt out.
Jim - I'm not sure what you're getting at. For me, it is all quite simple and logical. The Fez Doctor went back in time to tell Rory to free the Pandorica Doctor. Rory did so, thus allowing Pandorica Doctor the freedom to become the Fez Doctor in the future. It is a case of "after Rory freed me, I went back in time to tell Rory to free me" - subtly different to the scenario you give. And this is very different to the Fez Doctor going back in time and warning the pre-Pandorica Doctor about it being a trap; that scenario is something that would have created a time paradox.
I can understand how you might feel that the resolution isn't as satisfying as you might like, but I don't see how it is illogical. I can see how you might see it as a "magic switch" - but even if it is one, it is far more plausible than the magic switch devices so beloved of RTD.
About the Pandorica-escape....
I think it would have made a little more sense if this version of Dr. River Song had her sonic screwdriver which has been completely forgotten as far as I know!!!
Then she could have conveniently left it for Rory. Then there would have been no continuity errors!
But that's my view. I told myself to just accept the way it was written, but it's been slowly eating at me as being incongruently impossible!
The best explanation/simile I can think of to it would be "Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure" when, in order to get the historical figures out of the prison, they merely have to say to themselves "Remember the trash can" or "Remember the key." Moffat probably wanted us to believe that in the few minutes that the Doctor spent in the Pandorica, he came to the conclusion that if he remembered to go back in time to tell Rory to use his screwdriver and let him out, then it would happen. My issue is that in so many other episodes, the Doctor made it clear that he could not go back in time inside of his own timeline. Granted, this had been thrown out the window in the old series "The Two/Three/Five Doctors", but it seemed to be a very important theme in the RTD years that I figured would be carried on. That could just simply be a TARDIS thing, though.
I'm kind of getting sick of repeating myself, but the Doctor doesn't go back in his own timeline as such - he does nothing to prevent what we have seen on screen to date, and he does not directly interfere with what is happening to him. Rather than going back in time to try to prevent his own imprisonment in the Pandorica, he goes back in time to help Rory free him from that prison. This isn't a paradox; it is a neat use of time travel. And it is far more rewarding than, say, the use of time travel at the beginning of RTD's The Sound of Drums, when it is used as a bland, almost pathetic, resolution to an otherwise fine cliffhanger.
Ultimately, it is a matter of opinion whether you like this element to the story or not. Of course, you're entitled to find it unsatisfying, but I do rather wonder why anyone would watch a time-travel drama like Doctor Who if they don't like time travel being used as part of the plot.
TNL
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