Talk about horrible pulp fiction
openings, but that was the level of writing back in the late 30's and
the 40's, before TV there was radio and books written cheap and quick
and published on pulp stock were the biggest entertainment and what
better genre, than the one that gave us both the “hardboiled
detective” and lots of good old Sci-fi to use as inspiration for
this story. If you'd like to read up on pulp fiction head here: http://www.vintagelibrary.com/pulpfiction/introduction/What-Is-Pulp-Fiction.php
For a long time now we have been
prepared for the departure of Amy and Rory, as we have been prepared
for the departures of Doctor 9, Doctor 10 and all of the companions,
but damn it, even though I knew this would be a tear jerker, I wasn't
prepared for how much of a tear jerker it would be. I say that and
it's not really that it was Rory and Amy, the story could have been
about two characters that we had just met and invested a lot in. I
have to give props to Mister Moffatt, even though most will not.
WHAT I LOVED
Kudos to all three of our main
characters, they did an amazing job.
Amy's reading glasses – she looked
hot!
WHAT I LIKED
Nice slightly ironic use of Sting's
“Englishman In New York” with its lyric "I'm a legal alien" the opening titles, was kind of cute.
Might have been even more interesting had they used his “When the
Angels Fall” near the end, maybe as Amy and Rory fell off of the building and the angels were zapped by the paradox. Anyway - for your entertainment, the complete "Englishman in New York".
We have seen The Doctor mad enough to
kill, or at least cause others to be killed, as seen in “Dinosaurs
on a Spaceship”, saddened whenever anyone gives their lives for his
quests for good, but Amy's choice to join her one true love and have
somewhat of a “normal” life with him and The Doctor's anguish was
incredible. His emotion was born out of pure selfishness, to be
sure, but it was true. There was no way he was going to “figure
something out”, in my opinion, he just wanted that first face that he saw with his
current face to be there all the time, or at least available to him
all the time.
The flipping Statue of Liberty as a
Weeping Angel – too funny – but it made sense since it is the ultimate statue in both New York and the United States.
 |
| Hello There! |
Killing off the Weeping Angels, or so
it seems, except for that last annoying one in the cemetery They
were great for 2 stories, this and their birth in “Blink”, but
their time had come and gone, but you'd have to explain to me how one
could have survived the paradox to still be there, hanging around a
grave yard 74 years later (1938 to 2012), just waiting for Rory??? I mean what was so special about him that the Angels had to get him out of the way??
Matt Smith's party scar on his head was
pretty prominent. Maybe I had missed it before, actually I do
remember it from earlier, just noticed it more this time for some
reason.
“One psychopath per TARDIS.” Great
line!
Bouncing off of 1938 – very cool. If there was a year worth bouncing off of it was 1938!
 |
| BOING! |
WHAT I DIDN'T LIKE
OK – I have been to New York and
there is no way for the Doctor and Amy to have travelled from Times
Square (sight of the ONLY New Year's celebration that matters) to where the TARDIS was parked in the time it took The Doctor
to answer Amy's question about how Rory could be in a book – it
takes 17 minutes in a car – I know The Doctor travels through time
and all that, but he ain't that good. Pretty crummy to keep Amy waiting an hour, or more, for an answer to her Times Square question (approximate walking time).
“The TARDIS can never come back to
New York, the time lines are too scrambled,” said The Doctor.
But then he goes back and gets Amy's “Afterward” from the book –
hmmmmmmm. Maybe it was just going back to 1938 he was referring to.
A friend of mine brought this up and I
am not really sure if I don't like it or it's just a nit pick.
Bringing in Brian Williams for 2 episodes, setting up the importance
of Rory's family and what might happen to anyone traveling with The
Doctor, and not one mention of Brian or even Amy's family for that
matter, not even a “Tell our families we love them.” from Amy
before she backed into the angel. Maybe a bit nit picky, but I saw
my friend's point.
I know New York City is a pretty
international kind of place, but nowhere is there a Winter Quay
(pronounced “key”) - or anywhere else pronounced that way in NYC.
Last but not least - with all of this talk about paradoxes and such, The Doctor goes back to Amelia in her back yard to tell her of all of the adventures Amy had with him??? I realize that people do weird things when in mourning - and he was in mourning - but we already know that Amy had no idea what happened to The Doctor after he left her in the back yard. I know it was a nice qway to bring her story full circle, but it kind of made no sense, ut then it you're REALLY picky, you could argue that her entire story made no sense.
Last but not least - with all of this talk about paradoxes and such, The Doctor goes back to Amelia in her back yard to tell her of all of the adventures Amy had with him??? I realize that people do weird things when in mourning - and he was in mourning - but we already know that Amy had no idea what happened to The Doctor after he left her in the back yard. I know it was a nice qway to bring her story full circle, but it kind of made no sense, ut then it you're REALLY picky, you could argue that her entire story made no sense.
WHAT I HATE
Having to wait for the "official" debut of Jenna-Louise Coleman at Christmas. I get why Moffatt and The Beeb split the season in two - 1) to compartmentalize "The Departure of the Ponds" and 2) so Moffatt could work on his other cash cow, "Sherlock", but I still hate waiting until Christmas and then still not knowing when the rest of the season will be broadcast (shakes fist at Moffatt and the BBC).
Obviously the Doctor didn't go back in time and tell a younger Amy all about her future self's adventures, unless a semi-cloaked fly-by counts as a visitation. Both Amy and the Doctor knew he couldn't go back and tell her what her future would hold. But if you go back and watch The Eleventh Hour (or was it The Big Bang?), that scene where Amelia Pond waits for the Doctor does have the TARDIS sound overhead as she waits for her Raggedy Doctor to return for her.
ReplyDeleteAnd you know what? That whole paradox thing stinks. History has a number of ways of resolving paradoxes in time and space, not all of them destructive. For example, in Back To the Future, the alterations Marty McFly makes to the past don't fundamentally change the event that originally sent him back in time. Doc Brown still gets shot, and the younger Marty still escapes the Libyans by taking the time car to 1955. But afterward, he gets up and reveals that he had read Marty's letter to him after all and worn a bullet proof vest. The paradox was avoided. In the first sequel, Marty's nemesis, Biff, goes back in time and alters his own past, creating a new timeline onto which Marty and Doc Brown have been dragged. To return to their own timeline, they return to 1955 and steal back the almanac Biff stole from Marty, thus preventing the creation of the bad 1985.
So, what can be done to bring Amy and Rory back, even if only for a guest appearance? Well, one can presume that fixed points don't exist in time itself, but in history. Did we see Amy and Rory die? Did we see the Doctor scan the ground underneath that headstone to make sure his friends' remains were there? No. All we saw was a headstone with their names and their ages at the time their deaths were recorded. As long as that headstone remains intact in history, anything can happen. If Moffat really wanted to kill off Amy and Rory for good, he could have shown them dying in the past, and that would really have been the end of it. What's more, Amy's and Rory's adventures together with the Doctor don't really take off until they're around twenty-one years old, and by the time the characters are written out of the show they've been traveling with him on and off for ten years from their own temporal perspective. This makes them around thirty-ish, and since they died in their eighties, this means they were zapped back perhaps fifty or sixty years, not necessarily to the 1920s. (That headstone looked awfully recent, and no dates of death are given.) Therefore, the Doctor or River could easily go back in time and fetch them back.
It was an emotionally powerful episode, but as is typical of Moffat's inconsistent writing, the handling was extremely weak.