Before I begin this review, I just want to say I’m sorry for the delay in posting. I’m finishing my last couple weeks of school, and trying to balance keeping everything up to date here. This is my review of the conclusion of the 2-part season premiere of Doctor Who. As usual, there are massive spoilers included. Read at your own risk.
The last thing we see in part 1 is Amy shooting at the astronaut. We start this episode 3 months later. The Doctor has been taken to Area 51 and everyone else is running from Canton. It’s all very confusing until we realize it’s part of a plan Canton has worked out with the Doctor and everyone.
Back in the TARDIS, the Doctor comes up with another brilliant idea and implants things in each of their hands that will record what goes on around them to remind them when they encounter a creature and warn them of past incidents they will have forgotten. Between the jump in time and all the issues characters have with memory loss, this episode does a fantastic job at making the viewer question what is real and what is an illusion. One is never sure if they can trust what their senses are telling them.
One thing we can trust in this episode is in Rory and Amy consistently making me cheer for them. When Rory says that Amy can always hear him and knows that he is coming for her, it reinforced my belief that they are the best couple EVER. Rory is especially great now that he’s lived all that time as the “last centurion”. It gives him something in common with the Doctor, which is an extra long past trailing behind him. The difference is that Rory did that all for the love of a woman. How can you not love someone for making that big a sacrifice?!
Speaking of couples, Matt Smith and Alex Kingston have fantastic chemistry in this episode! Their banter when they drop in on the Silence and Amy is absolutely priceless. This is the first time I can really picture the two of them becoming a couple, as is suspected will be the case eventually.
Going back to the actual episode, how the Doctor solves the problem of defeating the Silence and the memory issues is one of the most brilliant yet simple ideas ever. Canton records a Silent saying that humans should kill their kind on sight, and the Doctor inserts it into the broadcast of the moon landing. This is a brilliant idea, and also brilliant on the part of the writers. For one thing, the entire world was watching this broadcast, so there is no worry about someone missing this. The other bit of brilliance is that it “explains” the gap that the broadcast we are familiar with had.
The “end” of this episode isn’t really the end though. We are still left with many questions. First up – Amy’s pregnancy. She thinks it was a false alarm, but the Doctor’s scans are confusing. At times it showed positive, at other times it was negative. What’s up with that? We also seem to be hinting that the little girl in the space suit might be Amy’s daughter. There is a lot of mystery here, because she also seems to be a Timelord, based on the fact she regenerates at the end of the episode. My best guess is that traveling in the TARDIS for so long will have had some effect on the pregnancy. I highly doubt we’re going to try to say Amy had a child with the Doctor, not after all the work they’ve done making Amy and Rory into the strong couple they are now.
The other two mysteries left unsolved involve the Doctor. One is that River obviously remembers a timeline that has been altered some. This is based on the fact that the Doctor was surprised when they kissed because it never happened before, even though River seems to believe this should not have been a first occurrence. The other mystery revolves around the Doctor’s death at the beginning of the season. It looks like my theory was off and it was really the girl in the space suit that did it. What was her motive though? And is this event still going to happen after all the other changes that have been made to the timeline?
That concludes my review/recap of this episode. Feel free to comment on anything here, or ask your own questions that I may have overlooked.
Edit: I was reading the review of this episode over at Nerdist, and we both have the same thoughts about Amy and Rory as a couple, so I decided to share.
“A lot of attention was paid this episode to Rory still feeling inadequate when compared to the Doctor and believing still that Amy would rather be with the Doctor than him. By the end of the episode, Amy proves twice that she loves Rory and Rory alone and THAT, my friends, had better be the end of it. I suppose it was necessary that Moffat address the issue, but I’ll be very happy to not have to deal with a perceived love triangle anymore. Rory is awesome and has more than earned a place in both the TARDIS and Amy’s life. So there.” – Kyle Anderson, Nerdist.com
I agree that it was good to address this issue in the beginning, but this really needs to be the end of it. I would add that when Rory and Amy finally leave the show, it needs to be them going off to some countryside together and living happily ever after. No more love triangles, and NO MORE DYING. That is all.