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More thoughts about the Pandorica
Like everyone else, I’ve been reading and thinking and re-reading and thinking some more in the hope of coming up with a theory as to what the hell is going on and how on earth our hero is going to get out of this one!
Apart from the crack itself, there have been so many clues and trails of breadcrumbs planted throughout the series that it’s quite hard to keep track of them all, and in fact, I’ll be very surprised if ALL of those issues are resolved next week, for two main reasons. 1) I reckon there’s a large number of red herrings in there, because Moff strikes me as the type who knows only too well that there’s a contingent of us out here who will be analyzing the crap out of even the smallest things and 2) because it would take an hour of Matt Smith just talking to camera to explain it all, and that won’t really make for a great hour of TV (unless you’re a Matt fangirl, which I’m not.)
Here, anyway is a bunch of random stuff that has occurred to me over the past few days and weeks and since I watched ep 12 yesterday.
Interesting – River in the “Star Wars” style Cantina, which was the last place we saw Jack in EoT. Ten’s matchmaking tendencies clearly live on in Eleven. *g* And the reference to the “handsome time-agent” was clearly meant to make us think of Jack, even if our next reaction was “eeeeew - his arm’s in that box!” But hey - it’s Jack! For all we know, he was killed for the Vortex Manipulator and then grew a new arm/hand when he woke up. Or he’ll be “the one-armed-man” in the next series of TW.
And of course, I’m sure (as DT would say, given this is the Beeb) – “other handsome time-agents are available” – so it might not have been Jack and just Moff winking at the audience.
BUT. Look at this.
See the little guy sitting just behind the Princess Leia lookalike?
Guess who had the arm-in-a-box?
And when I saw that, I was reminded of the Front Row interview SM did just before the start of the series, when he said that Rusty had asked him to send over the episodes on DVD so he could see them… and then Moff said that there was one episode that RTD had HAD to see. Of course, he wouldn’t say any more… but maybe it was to do with that scene? Which would make it pretty unimportant really... meh, just an observation.
I think it’s pretty clear by now that the Doctor DID in fact go back for little Amelia when he said he would – we just didn’t see it – and that whatever he told her is the thing he needs her to remember. Although I think that it’s the actual act of remembering that’s important, rather than whatever it is he said. Because if it was the latter, then he could have told her himself. It could have been something as simple as “don’t forget me” or something along those lines, because Amelia is clearly the key to this. Or one of them. And there has been a persistent focus on the importance of memory and stories throughout the series. Each episode has contained a reference to it somewhere – from the repeated “time can be rewritten” to the Doctor’s speech in 5x12 about memory being able to bring things back.
He’s clearly been aware all along that there’s something up with Amy. I remember thinking that his evasion when she asked him “why her?” at the end of TEH was suspicious. I’ve wondered that all series, to be honest!
What I’m asking myself now is – is Amy really Amy? Is she an Auton, too? Planted by the alliance to keep tabs on the Doctor? It could certainly account for her inconsistent behaviour throughout most of this series, and for the fact that she’s not a particularly well-drawn character. If the other Autons have been created using Amelia’s memories as a “template”, then it makes sense that grown-up Amy would be a bit … different. If she’s based on what a little girl’s idea of a grown-up is, while retaining some of the self-absorbtion and selfishness of a child.
Although grown-up Amy must exist in reality, because Karen Gillan has signed on for another series. BUT. If, as many suspect (and I’m beginning to), this is all going to culminate in a big-red-button-type reset, then none of this will have happened and Amelia will have grown up into a much pleasanter young woman and the Doctor can find her again in 2010.
River. She’s stuck in the TARDIS which is about to explode. We’ve already seen her die once, in the Library, and we’ve seen her post-Pandorica in the Angels two-parter, where she clearly stated that she REMEMBERS it [the Pandorica] well. Time IS being rewritten, because if she dies in the explosion, she can’t meet her Doctor; she can’t summon Ten to the Library and she can’t be present at the Crash of the Byzantium.
Moffat said in the DWC for ToA (I think) that we would see River’s story played out – although he didn’t say it would necessarily be in this series. Personally, I hope it’s not, because I’d like to see her again in future series.
So. How does the Doctor escape from the Pandorica? I don’t think he does – not in 102AD anyway. There’s a photo from the next episode which shows a picture of it in what looks like a museum, but even before I’d seen that, I was thinking that perhaps he is actually stuck in there until somehow little Amelia is able to release him in 1995/6 or whenever it is. Which could be the thing he told her to remember when she was seven. (Which, I'm aware contradicts what I said before about the act of remembering being more important than the thing to be remembered). That, however would mean that he’s been stuck in a box for almost 2000 years; and even given a Time Lord’s long lifespan one would assume he’d need some form of sustenance to survive all that time. BUT – the alliance would surely know how dangerous the Doctor can be when he’s desperate, and given that most of them know him of old and that he’s escaped from them time and time again, it makes sense that they’d have taken steps to disable him completely. For some reason, they didn’t want to simply kill him, so maybe, inside the Pandorica, he’s put into some kind of suspended animation.
And this is where the reset could come into play – because if the Doctor is imprisoned in 102AD and not released by Amelia until 1995/6 (I’m assuming it’s 1996 because if Amelia is 22 in 2010, she’d be 7 in 1995/6) then he’s not been around and all the things that have happened in the Whoniverse can’t have happened. But that not only undoes everything that’s happened in nu-Who, it undoes EVERYTHING from all of DW because there’s no Doctor.
So yeah. Maybe not.
I’ve not even begun to touch on the “Future or jacket!Doctor crossing his own timeline to put things right” theory; or about why the TARDIS is exploding; what's caused the cracks; why Leadworth is the village "that time forgot" and all the rest of it because my brain is pretty much fried at this point. Maybe later in the week, if I get a chance to think about it all some more.
And if I don't, well I'll be sitting here next Saturday with my head in my hands as I reread this and wonder how I got it all so badly wrong!
Apart from the crack itself, there have been so many clues and trails of breadcrumbs planted throughout the series that it’s quite hard to keep track of them all, and in fact, I’ll be very surprised if ALL of those issues are resolved next week, for two main reasons. 1) I reckon there’s a large number of red herrings in there, because Moff strikes me as the type who knows only too well that there’s a contingent of us out here who will be analyzing the crap out of even the smallest things and 2) because it would take an hour of Matt Smith just talking to camera to explain it all, and that won’t really make for a great hour of TV (unless you’re a Matt fangirl, which I’m not.)
Here, anyway is a bunch of random stuff that has occurred to me over the past few days and weeks and since I watched ep 12 yesterday.
Interesting – River in the “Star Wars” style Cantina, which was the last place we saw Jack in EoT. Ten’s matchmaking tendencies clearly live on in Eleven. *g* And the reference to the “handsome time-agent” was clearly meant to make us think of Jack, even if our next reaction was “eeeeew - his arm’s in that box!” But hey - it’s Jack! For all we know, he was killed for the Vortex Manipulator and then grew a new arm/hand when he woke up. Or he’ll be “the one-armed-man” in the next series of TW.
And of course, I’m sure (as DT would say, given this is the Beeb) – “other handsome time-agents are available” – so it might not have been Jack and just Moff winking at the audience.
BUT. Look at this.
See the little guy sitting just behind the Princess Leia lookalike?
Guess who had the arm-in-a-box?
And when I saw that, I was reminded of the Front Row interview SM did just before the start of the series, when he said that Rusty had asked him to send over the episodes on DVD so he could see them… and then Moff said that there was one episode that RTD had HAD to see. Of course, he wouldn’t say any more… but maybe it was to do with that scene? Which would make it pretty unimportant really... meh, just an observation.
I think it’s pretty clear by now that the Doctor DID in fact go back for little Amelia when he said he would – we just didn’t see it – and that whatever he told her is the thing he needs her to remember. Although I think that it’s the actual act of remembering that’s important, rather than whatever it is he said. Because if it was the latter, then he could have told her himself. It could have been something as simple as “don’t forget me” or something along those lines, because Amelia is clearly the key to this. Or one of them. And there has been a persistent focus on the importance of memory and stories throughout the series. Each episode has contained a reference to it somewhere – from the repeated “time can be rewritten” to the Doctor’s speech in 5x12 about memory being able to bring things back.
He’s clearly been aware all along that there’s something up with Amy. I remember thinking that his evasion when she asked him “why her?” at the end of TEH was suspicious. I’ve wondered that all series, to be honest!
What I’m asking myself now is – is Amy really Amy? Is she an Auton, too? Planted by the alliance to keep tabs on the Doctor? It could certainly account for her inconsistent behaviour throughout most of this series, and for the fact that she’s not a particularly well-drawn character. If the other Autons have been created using Amelia’s memories as a “template”, then it makes sense that grown-up Amy would be a bit … different. If she’s based on what a little girl’s idea of a grown-up is, while retaining some of the self-absorbtion and selfishness of a child.
Although grown-up Amy must exist in reality, because Karen Gillan has signed on for another series. BUT. If, as many suspect (and I’m beginning to), this is all going to culminate in a big-red-button-type reset, then none of this will have happened and Amelia will have grown up into a much pleasanter young woman and the Doctor can find her again in 2010.
River. She’s stuck in the TARDIS which is about to explode. We’ve already seen her die once, in the Library, and we’ve seen her post-Pandorica in the Angels two-parter, where she clearly stated that she REMEMBERS it [the Pandorica] well. Time IS being rewritten, because if she dies in the explosion, she can’t meet her Doctor; she can’t summon Ten to the Library and she can’t be present at the Crash of the Byzantium.
Moffat said in the DWC for ToA (I think) that we would see River’s story played out – although he didn’t say it would necessarily be in this series. Personally, I hope it’s not, because I’d like to see her again in future series.
So. How does the Doctor escape from the Pandorica? I don’t think he does – not in 102AD anyway. There’s a photo from the next episode which shows a picture of it in what looks like a museum, but even before I’d seen that, I was thinking that perhaps he is actually stuck in there until somehow little Amelia is able to release him in 1995/6 or whenever it is. Which could be the thing he told her to remember when she was seven. (Which, I'm aware contradicts what I said before about the act of remembering being more important than the thing to be remembered). That, however would mean that he’s been stuck in a box for almost 2000 years; and even given a Time Lord’s long lifespan one would assume he’d need some form of sustenance to survive all that time. BUT – the alliance would surely know how dangerous the Doctor can be when he’s desperate, and given that most of them know him of old and that he’s escaped from them time and time again, it makes sense that they’d have taken steps to disable him completely. For some reason, they didn’t want to simply kill him, so maybe, inside the Pandorica, he’s put into some kind of suspended animation.
And this is where the reset could come into play – because if the Doctor is imprisoned in 102AD and not released by Amelia until 1995/6 (I’m assuming it’s 1996 because if Amelia is 22 in 2010, she’d be 7 in 1995/6) then he’s not been around and all the things that have happened in the Whoniverse can’t have happened. But that not only undoes everything that’s happened in nu-Who, it undoes EVERYTHING from all of DW because there’s no Doctor.
So yeah. Maybe not.
I’ve not even begun to touch on the “Future or jacket!Doctor crossing his own timeline to put things right” theory; or about why the TARDIS is exploding; what's caused the cracks; why Leadworth is the village "that time forgot" and all the rest of it because my brain is pretty much fried at this point. Maybe later in the week, if I get a chance to think about it all some more.
And if I don't, well I'll be sitting here next Saturday with my head in my hands as I reread this and wonder how I got it all so badly wrong!