Doctor Who

Moffat has said that the focus this season was on stand-alone stories that could lend themselves easily to a traditional movie poster. So far, so good - though with the recurrent themes of the Doctor's Christmas list and the dichotomy of the Ponds' lives, there are scaling definitions of "stand-alone".

Next week looks like a change in pace though - unless the vibe they're going for is a movie poster like Peter's Friends. A "year with the Ponds" isn't exactly high concept.

So, the Doctor telling Brian that Amy and Rory aren't going to be in the group of his former companions that die means they're totally going to die, right?

I'm sure Oswin's going to be great and everything, but I would love it if Brian were the next companion. I love him.

Brian is great, I would love it if he was the new companion.

I really loved the domestic aspect of this episode and getting to see a little bit of Amy and Rory's life, but the alien of the week didn't make a lot of sense -- I wish they would have done without that entirely.

I'd like to spend some more time with Kate Stewart. Fan-service backstory and played by a Redgrave? Yes please.

Her and Brian together? Would be awesome. And a very welcome change of pace from the last dozen companions.

This episode made me really sad. It was really good, but it made me really sad. The scene with the Doctor and Amy sitting outside the Tower, the scene with Brian and the Doctor at the party, the scene where Brian pushes Amy and Rory back onto the TARDIS... even the scene where Kate pecked the Doctor on the cheek and he commented about getting kissed by a Lethbridge-Stewart. It was all so bittersweet.

I am *really* going to miss the Ponds.

I almost wondering if I should just not watch the next episode, so if something horrible happens to the Ponds I can just pretend it never happened and go on thinking Amy and Rory just decided to stay home and do some traveling with Brian.

I love them, I don't want anything bad to happen to them.

Like Luthien, this is the first time I've been watching "live". It's much harder than just merrily going on to the next episode on the disc!

Thanks muchly to everyone here about being good about tagging spoilers, as I'm a total spoiler-phobe. I did recognise Oswin in the first episode, even though I'd only seen a single picture of her one time.

Thoroughly enjoyed the first three episodes. I didn't figure out the twist in the first Dalek one, so that was fun. Dinosaurs on a spaceship delivered on its premise, and I liked the dark moments from the doctor. The western was good, but Rory and Amy were woefully underused.

The most recent one had an interesting story and some fun moments but suffered from a 'wrap it all up without too much explanation in the last two minutes', so that kinda bugged me.

But...my biggest problem with this season involves the Ponds leaving. I love them and will miss them, and realise it's the nature of the show (and I've liked all of the New Who companions, so it's not like I don't have faith that I'll continue enjoying the show.) But I don't want it to end horribly and have that sour their entire story. Rose got a crappy ending (but then a revised, good one), Martha's wrap up was ok, Donna really got the short end of the stick. I just don't want it to end badly for them. ::sigh::

Yeah, I keep thinking of a way for them to leave without it ending badly, and I don't really see any. I'm really torn about watching the next episode, I have a feeling it will make me depressed and I don't really need that right now.

My main problem with the last two series is that I think the splitting them up makes us lose momentum. It does me a bit anyway. A half season of five episodes is just too short. I don't like it when US shows have a midseason hiatus and I like it even less here. I want all twelve episodes one after the other! *pouts*

The angels are stupid and I hate them.

Well fuck.

Fucking TEARS. Heartbreaking and heartwarming at the same time, and my heart CANNOT take the contradiction.

That was so sad but I am so glad that it left everyone more or less whole. Also I am choosing to believe that at some point Amy and Rory meet up with little Melody after she regenerated in 1969 and get to raise her. That 's why River was okay with them going back in time and why Mels already knew that Amy and Rory were her parents when she met them in Leadworth.

Eris Rising wrote:Fucking TEARS. Heartbreaking and heartwarming at the same time, and my heart CANNOT take the contradiction.

My heart can. And it's a lovely ending for them in a way. All endings happen. All endings are bittersweet and sad.

For a split second, I was REALLY WORRIED the second line wouldn't appear on the stone. I may have had to temporarily break up with this show if that had happened, because this was [sniff] enough.

Though, I do appreciate that (just as in "Blink" where the Angels didn't move when we, the audience, were looking at them),

Spoiler:

Still...[sniff]. I'm gonna miss this dynamic. And, and, what about Daddy Weasley Williams Pond? How does Eleven start THAT conversation?

lisaslobe wrote:For a split second, I was REALLY WORRIED the second line wouldn't appear on the stone. I may have had to temporarily break up with this show if that had happened, because this was [sniff] enough.

Though, I do appreciate that (just as in "Blink" where the Angels didn't move when we, the audience, were looking at them),

Spoiler:

Still...[sniff]. I'm gonna miss this dynamic. And, and, what about Daddy Weasley Williams Pond? How does Eleven start THAT conversation?

Chana was wondering the same thing.

And don't get me wrong, it was a remarkably touching and fitting sendoff. But I'm still a bit of a wreck from it.

I, too, think the Angels are stupid and I hate them.

I was almost disappointed at how unemotional I felt during the finale. But about five seconds after the credits started to roll I realized that it was over and I just started bawling.

I did think it was spectacularly awesome that after almost a whole season without dying, Rory got to die *three times* in his last outing (okay, one was off screen, but still).

I don't get why the Doctor couldn't go back and get them? I mean, so he can't land in New York. Hasn't he heard of trains? It's like the only form of travel is by TARDIS or something. And what about River's little device?

River wasn't nearly as annoying as usual, for some reason.

My main problem with it is that it was basically the ending that has been guessed over and over since it was known that the Ponds would be leaving. Didn't seem very creative. Although I did like that Amy finally took Rory's name - I'm not a big fan of name-changing in general but thought it was a bit much that he ended up with hers the first time, so it's only fair!

I don't get why the Doctor couldn't go back and get them? I mean, so he can't land in New York. Hasn't he heard of trains? It's like the only form of travel is by TARDIS or something. And what about River's little device?

The explanation given is that by reading the name on the tombstone, Rory created a fixed point in time around his own death. Such a fixed point had already been created once by Rory watching himself die in 1938, but they broke that by creating a paradox. But if the Doctor went back to save Rory again, it would have created another paradox, which the space-time around New York wouldn't be able to survive. Going back in the TARDIS would be impossible, but even going back somewhere else and walking in would still damage space-time if they did anything to change Rory's fate. So Amy's fate was in flux, but Rory's wasn't. Amy didn't have to go back, and if the Doctor hadn't read the tombstone, he might have been able to go back and get her - assuming she would choose to leave Rory after willingly giving herself to the Angels to be with him.

Except they could have averted that by putting up a tombstone with Rory's name on it. It isn't like they dug up the grave to see if his body was actually in there.

I kind of wish that last episode Rory and Amy were just like, "Yep, starting a life and enjoying it! Come visit when you can Son-in-law."

punzy wrote:Except they could have averted that by putting up a tombstone with Rory's name on it. It isn't like they dug up the grave to see if his body was actually in there.

That's the thing - the only thing they knew is that the gravestone existed. A gravestone can exist without a body in it. It's like the book - River's wrist didn't HAVE to be broken, she just had to say the words that were in the book, which she did before breaking her wrist.

They were going for done-final-no-going-back and it just didn't work for me. Personally, being a sappy so-and-so, I'd have written something in that basically said 'you travel in time again and you'll rip the universe apart you paradox-causing people so you're stuck in 1930-or-whatever-New-York', left it open for the Doctor to visit them and shown a quick series of images of their lives, including visits from the Doctor and yes, poor Brian, with them ageing over the years, then pulled back and shown him standing in front of the gravestone. THEN I'd really have believed there was someone in there.

Esseilte wrote:

punzy wrote:Except they could have averted that by putting up a tombstone with Rory's name on it. It isn't like they dug up the grave to see if his body was actually in there.

That's the thing - the only thing they knew is that the gravestone existed. A gravestone can exist without a body in it.

You mean, like the end of "The Reichenbach Fall"? Surely, I can't be the only one who thought, "Oh, so that's how Sherlock survived," when Rory and Amy jumped off the roof. Well, when I wasn't having Life on Mars flashbacks. Snarkiness aside, I did love the scene between Amy and Rory on the roof. I thought it was well-written and beautifully, sincerely acted. I also adored that they lampshaded Rory's multiple deaths.

I was actually OK with this episode, until Random Surviving Angel showed up to zap Rory yet again. It made the episode too maudlin for me, like Stevie was sitting in front of his computer going, "AHA! I can make them cry more than Russell did!" All it did was make me roll my eyes.

Why did they have to go back, anyway? Couldn't the explanation just have been that Rory couldn't time travel any more at all or otherwise he would undo the paradox or rip a hole in space and time? He had to stay in the modern day. Then, Amy can still make her choice to stay with Rory, give up her childhood obsession with her Raggedy Doctor, and move on to being an adult? I wouldn't have to worry about Amy's parents and Brian, then, either.

I like your version better. I am adopting it as headcannon.

Oh, god. Unshot scene from Angels, delivered as the pencil sketches with partial narration by Arthur Darvill.

The actual episode didn't manage to wring even an almost-sniffle out of me, but this? Heartbreaking.

PS - What Happened to Brian and the Ponds

So, they didn't film that because they hate closure? Also, these onions I am chopping at my computer are really getting to me.

That was beautiful. I would like to think that the BBC might spring to bring back Mark Williams to actually film it. But even just as this... so wow.