11.13: The Big Bang

In which the Doctor reboots the universe. Y’know, as you do.

Broadcast: June 2010

Watched: November 2021

“Okay, kid. This is where it gets complicated.” Alternatively: “Something old, something new, something borrowed, and something blue.”

I think the best thing here is that it’s a total rug pull? Okay, it’s not obvious how you get out of a cliffhanger that sees the Doctor imprisoned, Amy and River both dead and the universe destroyed. But a *seven minute* pre-credits, which starts with a replay of The Eleventh Hour? With little Amelia in a world without stars, being invited to go see the Pandorica by a mysterious oh who am I kidding it’s obviously the Doctor... BUT even in the unlikely sense that you get to “future Doctor releasing himself”, it messes with your expectations by putting Amy in the box in his place. 

And then suddenly we’re in a sitcom scene about a man who accidentally killed his girlfriend as the world ended, thus making sure he was never born. And *then* the Doctor appears from nowhere, and the danger of last week’s cliffhanger feels a long way away and this feels like a romp, only in which the universe has literally already been destroyed. And a few minutes in the Doctor gets exterminated and the tone changes *again*. 

It isn’t just the tonal shifts that are insane: there is a lot of cheating going on here. A lot of things that seem to make no sense are either handwaved (Amy’s memory, Rory’s survival, why the Pandorica opens when Amelia touches it) or don’t even get that much explanation (why people in a timeline without stars would believe in them). 

There are also a lot of things that feel like they should be against the rules. The Doctor jumping about in time to fix things (smaller universe, yada yada yada), up to and including the fact Amelia is thirsty, feels like the dumb show version of the NA Doctor. Seeing himself die (the Blinovitch limitation effect does not seem to be in operation), then it turning out he was lying (a trick we’ll come back to *extremely* soon). Being able to reboot the universe.

It’s a mark of how good a writer Moffat is that, not only does this work, but it’s generally agreed to be really, really good.

I’ve heard interviews with the man, in which he said the “dark fairy tale” thing was nonsense, put about by Wenger when he wanted to differentiate the show from the RTD years... but I am calling bullshit. This story really does function like a fairy tale. Rory, waiting loyally for 2,000 years, and being rewarded for it; Amy remembering her mum and dad back into existence; the Doctor winding back time and speaking to Amy in previous stories, reassuring her in Flesh & Stone, going back to The Eleventh Hour so he can put Amelia to bed. It is strongly implied that Rory has a *soul*, FFS. Those who hoped the writer of Blink would bring some seriousness back after RTD’s “Well it makes emotional sense” story logic, must have been devastated. 

I was wondering whether, like Parting, this has been written with one eye on it being the last episode ever. Smith is amazing in the scene where he sits by Amelia’s bed, playing the Doctor as an exhausted old man (“You’ll dream about that box...”), and it does feel like Moffat’s mission statement for the series. That said, 

a) I was interrupted at this exact point, which might have made it feel more final than it was, and 

b) there are plot threads left hanging. So that’s probably shite.

Probably the cleverest thing, which I’ve never noticed before: at the start of the season, everyone thinks the Doctor is Amy’s imaginary friend. In the finale, he survives by becoming her imaginary friend, because that means she can remember him. The answer hidden in plain sight. 

It is, by any sensible standard, utter nonsense. But it’s also perfect.

A bunch of disconnected observations because it turns out my views are as scattershot as the episode.

• This is the second finale running in which the stars are going out. It’s the fourth with Nick Briggs.

• What is it with directors this season and Star Wars-style screenwipes?

• The actress who plays poor Aunt Sharon must have assumed she had a job for life. After the pre-credits, she is never seen again. The character must be shitting herself when she loses a child in a museum.

• God, remember when you’d mention Richard Dawkins in an approving fashion?

• The Doctor goading Rory into hitting him is him doing “McCoy, this time as farce” again

• All the museum stuff is lovely. Amelia apologising to the models of penguins she knocks over, the haunting fossils in time, the exhibit on the Pandorica seen through history, the truly sinister moment when Amelia winks out of existence. I wear a fez now. Fezes are cool.

• Rory shoots a Dalek! Next season he shits up the cybermen, too. Probably a bit Mary-Sue, this. 

• It is 23 minutes before River appears (24 before we get any new material). Then she pretends not to know who Rory is, which in retrospect feels a bit weird: how can she be sure this is the first meeting from his POV?

• The rooftop scene feels like another call-back to Eleventh Hour I’ve never spotted before.

• Amy’s dad being a shortarse is quite a good joke.

• There are Christmas trees at Amy’s wedding, weird. The Doctor dances. With kids watching. Oh god. Anyway, River almost gatecrashing her parent’s wedding dressed like she’s attending a funeral is A Look.

• I can’t decide if the idea of the lover who’ll wait 2,000 years is who Moffat wishes he were, or a comment on who he wishes his partner was, but I’m pretty sure it’s one of them.

• The phone call at end (“An Egyptian goddess loose on the Orient Express, in space”) is so great that they nicked it for an episode four years later. I sort of like the Doctor getting phone calls pulling him into random jobs, shame they stopped that. Anyway, the last shot of this episode very definitely carries a “Rory is a proper companion too” subtext.

• Interesting that this year keeps teasing us with the mystery of who River is, but it’s not actually the story of the season. I’m not sure the show has deferred anything this long or this consciously before or since, has it?