All The Tropes

Doctor Who/Recap/S31/E12 The Pandorica Opens: Difference between revisions

Page Discussion

Doctor Who/Recap/S31/E12 The Pandorica Opens (view source)

Revision as of 04:31, 9 April 2014

32 bytes removed ,  10 years ago
m
Mass update links
VisualWikitext
(Fixed image markup)
m (Mass update links)
Line 4:
First part of the season finale, penned by [[Steven Moffat]].
 
The episode opens in [[Doctor Who/Recap/S31 E10 Vincent and The Doctor|France, 1890]]. [[Vincent Vanvan Gogh]] is ill and screaming his head off, and the entire town can hear him. His doctor explains to Vincent's landlord that he's ill, but she's more concerned about his new painting. It's weirder than usual.
 
[[Doctor Who/Recap/S31 E03 Victory of the Daleks|Cabinet War Rooms, 1941]]. The Allies have found a painting in Arles, and it's confirmed as a genuine Van Gogh. After seeing the painting, [[Winston Churchill]] gets on the phone to the Doctor. River Song, in a 51st Century prison, gets the call instead (relayed by the TARDIS) and breaks out after talking to Churchill. She makes her way to the Royal Gallery, and gets caught nicking the painting by [[Doctor Who/Recap/S31 E02 The Beast Below|Liz Ten]], who lets her go after ''she'' sees the painting. River then is able to procure a vortex manipulator fresh off the wrist of a Time Agent (well, not exactly...) after a bit of haggling, and, well, travels in time.
Line 52:
Rory tries to get Amy to remember him. She's crying, but she doesn't know why. She's happy, but ''why is she happy?''
 
The TARDIS is still uncontrollable, the doors won't open, and again that creepy voice from ''nowhere'' that says "silence will fall". The Pandorica gives off a high-pitched whine and suddenly all the Romans stop. [[Tomato in Thethe Mirror|Including Rory]]. A light comes from the Pandorica, and when the Romans start up again, the ones underground are frogmarching the Doctor towards it. In reality, the Romans are perfected Autons, part of the Nestene consciousness, made to forget what they really were -- until it was time. Rory's [[Humanity Is Infectious|struggling to keep hold of his humanity]], while trying to get Amy away. "I'm Rory! I'm Rory! I'm Rory --"
 
"-- [[Crowning Moment of Heartwarming|Williams. From Leadworth. My boyfriend. How could I ever forget you?"]] Oh, ''Amy''.
Line 82:
* [[Blonde, Brunette, Redhead]]: River, the Doctor/Rory and Amy.
* [[Body Horror]]: The Cyberman helmet tries to assimilate Amy. [[Alien|Does it remind]] [[Face Full of Alien Wingwong|you of anything?]]
** More reminiscent of [[The Thing (Filmfilm)|something else]], surely.
*** Or of... [[Naughty Tentacles|a different thing]].
* [[Buffy -Speak]]: "Hey you! You did the swordy thing!" "Thanks for the swordy."
** Rory also gets one, too: "... and then I was here, a Roman, a proper Roman, head full of Roman... stuff."
* [[Call Back]]:
Line 112:
** In "The Eleventh Hour", Rory told us that Amy had him dress up as the Doctor. We learn in this episode that he also dressed up as a Roman (in the photo).
** So basically he's spent his life catering to her fantasies? That's gonna be one interesting marriage....
* [[Conviction Byby Counterfactual Clue]]: In-universe example: "Only the Doctor can pilot the TARDIS."
* [[Darkest Hour]]: To catalog: {{spoiler|Amy is dead, Rory's the undead auton who killed her, the Doctor's locked in the perfect prison, River's exploding, the crack in Amy's wall is about to devour all of time and space, and that's ''because'' these things are all true.}} It could only be worse if there were snakes in here.
* [[Deadly Hug]]: Auton-Rory does this to Amy, who refuses to flee despite his increasingly desperate warnings.
Line 119:
* [[Downer Ending]]
* [[Eldritch Abomination]]: The Pandorica was built to hold "a nameless, terrible thing, soaked in the blood of a billion galaxies:" {{spoiler|[[Humanoid Abomination|the Doctor]]}}.
* [[The End of the World Asas We Know It|The End Of Everything As We Know It]]: The end of the episode - the whole universe is [[Ret-Gone]].
* [[Failed a Spot Check]]: Lampshaded. "I'm not exactly one to miss the obvious..." and, a few seconds later, "Missing something obvious, Rory, something big, something right slap in front of me, I can feel it!" "Yeah, I think you probably are..." "I'll get it in a minute!" He does. And "it" is that the guy he's talking to ''died and was erased from time quite a while ago.'' The look on his face is ''priceless.''
* [[Foregone Conclusion]]: River has favourable memories of the events pertaining to the Pandorica, as established in each of the two stories we've seen connected to her. Then again, this is Who; Timey-Wimey and all that...
Line 125:
<!-- %% For Fridge Brilliance/Horror, see Fridge/DoctorWho. -->
<!-- %%% -->
* [[Fridge Logic]]: "Does it ever bother you, Amy, that your life doesn't make any sense?", for an [[In -Universe]] example.
<!-- %% For out-of-universe FridgeLogic, see Headscratchers/DoctorWho2010Series. -->
* [[Funny Background Event]]: During the Doctor's phonecall with River, while she's at Amy's house, you can see a Roman briefly wielding the Cyberman's weapon, trying to look [[Badass]].
* [[Good Looking Privates]]: Fans love Rory's Roman military uniform. Gives him character, finally.
** In-universe, so does Amy. He came back as a Roman because she loves Rory and she loves Romans. He's her perfect man incarnate as Roman-Rory.
* [[Green -Eyed Monster]]: Rory wants to know ''which'' Roman gave Amy her blanket.
* [[Heroic Willpower]]: What Rory uses to stop himself killing Amy. And then, he falters for a moment. {{spoiler|Possibly he faltered because he was distracted ''[[Irony|because he was so happy that Amy recognized him?]]''}}
* [[Hidden Villain]]: Even though we know how they caused the cracks (by destroying the TARDIS), we ''still'' don't know who the real [[Big Bad]] is.
Line 139:
*** Oh, and like the story, {{spoiler|he's tricked. Big time.}}
* [[Instant Sedation]]: Averted, Amy takes a long time to go down after being hit with a tranquilizer, and feels significant affects before she goes down.
* [[Kansas City Shuffle]]: The entire legend of the Pandorica is just a cover story for the villain alliance's plan to lure the Doctor to the Pandorica and trap him inside. [[Well -Intentioned Extremist|By doing this, they aim to stop the cracks destroying the universe.]]
* [[Landmarking the Hidden Base]]: Stonehenge
* [[Large Ham]]: The Doctor's [[Badass Boast]] speech. And it is ''awesome''.
{{quote| '''The Doctor:''' Could you lot just stay still for a minute cause [[This Is Sparta|IIIII! AAAAAAAMM! TAAALKIIIIING!]]}}
* [[Legion of Doom]]: The Daleks, Cybermen, the Sontarans, the Judoon, the Hoix, [[Torchwood (TV)|the Weevils and the Blowfish]], [[The Sarah Jane Adventures (TV)|the Uvodni]], the Sycorax, the Silurians, the Autons and Nestenes, the Atraxi, the Terileptils, the Draconians, the Roboform, Slitheen, the [[Doctor Who/Recap/S3 E1 Galaxy 4|Drahvins]] and the Chelonians (from the [[Doctor Who Expanded Universe]]) have all joined forces to attempt to prevent the explosion of the TARDIS and thus [[The End of the World Asas We Know It]] by imprisoning the Doctor in the Pandorica. "Attempt" being the keyword here. Also counts as an [[Enemy Mine]] for the Daleks and Cybermen in regards to "[[Doctor Who/NS/Recap/S2 E13 Doomsday|Doomsday]]".
** Of note is that the Atraxi, Weevils, Uvodni and the Blowfish are merely easily-missed extras in crowd shots whereas the Terileptil, Draconians, Drahvins, Chelonians and Slitheen only "appear" as name-checks by River.
*** River also mentions the Haemogoth, an obscure race that were only mentioned in a recent novel.
** [[Well -Intentioned Extremist|Well Intentioned Extremists]]
** [[Big Damn Villains]]: The intergalactic coalition ''think'' they're pulling this off, while they just might be dooming the universe.
*** Or maybe {{spoiler|not, since without the Pandorica, the Doctor may have never have been able to fix the universe in the next episode.}}
Line 158:
** The Doctor has one as well when the Alliance reveal that they truly did make the Pandorica to trap what they consider the most dangerous being in creation: '''HIMSELF'''.
** The black market salesman in the beginning, when River Song reveals that she drugged his drink with micro-explosives.
* [[One -Scene Wonder]]: The disassembled, lone Cyberman's fight against the Doctor and Amy.
* [[Opening Shout-Out]]: The scene of River flying the TARDIS while dodging lighting strikes.
* [[Painting the Fourth Wall]]: A favourite of Moffat's: in the last few seconds of the episode ''even the BGM stops''.
Line 171:
* [[Running Gag]]: ''Hello, sweetie.''
* [[Schmuck Bait]]: The Pandorica certainly borders on this.
* [[Sealed Evil in Aa Can]]: "What ''are'' you? What could you ''possibly'' be?" As it turns out, nothing - the myth was just a ruse so the Doctor's enemies could shove ''him'' in the Pandorica, making him...
* [[Sealed Good in Aa Can]]: Although from the point of view of the people sealing the can, they're sealing an evil.
* [[Shipper Onon Deck]]: The Doctor tosses the engagement ring to Rory and tells him to go get the girl.
* [[Shout-Out]]: The Cyberman head saying "You will be assimilated" to Amy is a nod to the arguments about whether [[Star Trek (Franchise)|the Borg]] was copied from the classic Cybermen and whether the new series Cybermen were overly influenced by the Borg.
** The "oldest text in the universe" that River uses to communicate with the Doctor near the beginning sounds ''very'' similar in the Doctor's description to God's Final Message to His Creation from ''[[The HitchhikersHitchhiker's Guide to Thethe Galaxy (Franchise)/So Long And Thanks For All The Fish|So Long And Thanks For All The Fish]]''. <ref>although in the book they're only 30 feet high</ref> Especially since, thanks to [[Douglas Adams]] being a Doctor Who writer and script editor, there's already been a fair amount of crossover and cross-pollination.
*** It could also be a shout-out to the [[Virgin New Adventures|spin-off novel]] ''Set Piece'', where one of the Doctor's companions uses basically the same trick to arrange a rescue after being stranded in Ancient Egypt.
** The Cyberman head crawling along on tentacles is straight out of ''[[The Thing (Filmfilm)|The Thing]]''.
*** Or the facehuggers in ''[[Alien]]''
** The Cyberman reattaching its head is very similar to a scene in ''[[The Faculty]]''.
*** Or a certain death-scene from the game Dead Space.
** The idea of agents/replicants who do not know their true nature and, on a signal, activate their attack goes back to ''[[The Manchurian Candidate]]'' (hence the [[Manchurian Agent]] trope) and, more recently, ''[[Battlestar Galactica]]'' (Rory's shock as he activates and tries to march off is similar to the [[Tomato in Thethe Mirror]] Cylons).
*** Also a bit [[Dollhouse]].
* [[Skyward Scream]]: The Doctor calling out to every monster in the sky: "'''I. AM. TALKING!'''"
Line 188:
** [[Evil Versus Evil]]: Looks like the [[Legion of Doom]]'s been just fooling the Doctor with their fleet.
** [[Real After All]]: The Doctor has passed off the Pandorica as a [[Fairy Tale]], now he sees the real thing. Except it ''is'' just a [[Fairy Tale]], and this one has been created by the allied villains as both trap and bait for him
** [[Sealed Evil in Aa Can]] {{spoiler|was actually Sealed Nothing in a Can and a [[Batman Gambit]]}}.
** [[Badass Boast]]: The boast, while arguably awesome, did not really make the Legion of Evil Aliens flee, it was all part of the plan.
** [[Big Damn Villains]]: Hohoho, they think {{spoiler|they're saving the universe. [[Unwitting Pawn|They're not.]]}}
Line 198:
 
* [[Sympathetic POV]]: When all of the alien species conspire together to put the Doctor in the Pandorica, it shows us that from their POV, the Doctor is the bad guy, whereas we've always seen him as the good guy who always defeats the evil aliens.
* [[Tailor -Made Prison]]: The Pandorica for {{spoiler|the Doctor.}}
* [[Tears of Joy]]: Amy, once Rory names himself to her. And she has no idea why.
* [[This Is My Boomstick]]: River awes the Romans this way.
Line 212:
'''River:''' Maybe I did. But I haven't yet. But I will have. }}
* [[Title Drop]]: ''The Pandorica Opens'' is the title of Vincent's painting.
* [[Tomato in Thethe Mirror]]: Rory
* [[Took a Level In Badass]]: Rory, though taking them at A-level happens in the next episode.
** How many fans felt about the Cybermen in this episode.
* [[Unwitting Pawn]]: Vincent, Churchill, and River Song for the villain alliance's [[Kansas City Shuffle]], along with the Doctor himself. River again, and potentially the villains themselves, for the as yet unrevealed real [[Big Bad]].
* [[Victoria's Secret Compartment]]: In the jail scene, look carefully where River takes her knock-out lipstick out from.
* [[Villain Team -Up]]: Daleks, Cybermen, Sontarans, Autons, and several other evil and aggressive aliens want to prevent the Doctor from destroying the universe. Hence the Alliance.
* [[Wangst]]: Subverted: Upon learning that Amy doesn't remember him, Rory's about to enter a spiral of vocal despair when the Doctor bluntly tells him to shut up, chucks the engagement ring Rory left behind to him and tells her to 'go get her'; he's here now and still has another chance.
* [[Wham! Episode]]: So very, very much.
Line 226:
'''River:''' The kind I just put in your wine. }}
* [[You Will Be Assimilated]]: A Cyberman head to Amy, word-for-word.
** [[You and What Army?|You And Whose Body?]]: The one that's about to walk in and pick up its head again.
 
{{reflist}}
Retrieved from "https://allthetropes.org/wiki/Special:MobileDiff/919691"