18 years later...Amelia's house and she reads a Dear Santa letter at Easter, which is the same scene from 5.1 The Eleventh Hour. She wants someone to fix the crack in the wall. She has a painting with stars and her aunt Sharon (Susan Vidler) and another woman say there are no stars in the sky and none can be seen. (No, cos Vincent Van Gogh painted them all, okay another bad joke!) Whilst she's listening on the stairs a man drops a leaflet through the door - left by the Doctor (Matt Smith) of course. Marking the Pandorica exhibition and the words, "Come along Pond." Pointing to the museum. Amelia (Caitlin Blackwood) stops at the Dalek exhibit before slurping her drink, so you notice her drink. A Post-It note on the Pandorica reads, "Stick around Pond." Since her aunt couldn't find Amelia why didn't the search for heh continue, or is that the norm in museums, to leave missing children, missing.
Amelia touches the Pandorica and it opens, revealing Amy (Karen Gillan) inside. Amy: "Okay kid, this is where it gets complicated." Well only parts of it.
1894 years previously...Rory (Arthur Darvill) holds Amy and tells her about the universe ending in 102AD. Rory wasn't born twice and neither was she. Rory asks for a "ridiculous miracle." And the Doctor appears sporting a Fez and a mop. Rory must release him from the Pandorica. He gives Rory the Sonic and then re-appears telling him to leave it in her top pocket. Rory releases him and the Doctor asks how he did that. The Doctor's still got his own Sonic with him. It's down to different points in the time stream. Doctor: "I've got a future - that's nice." He explains all the Daleks, Sontarans etc, were echoes, after-images, as the universe never happened. They're the last lot to go out.
Rory killed Amy and the Doctor describes him as a "lump of plastic with delusions of humanity" from the Nestene conscious. The Doctor says he'd rescue Amy if she had the time, she's not as vital as the rest of the universe. Rory punches the Doctor. He had to be sure he's really Rory. He's got a "bit of a plan." The Nestenes took Amy's memory print and he locks foreheads with Amy, leaving a message for her when she wakes. The Pandorica is the "ultimate prison, forces you to stay alive." It will scan her living DNA in 2,000 years to restore Amy.
Amelia touched the Pandorica, it's 1996 and Amy looks at the 'Pandorica As Seen Through Time' poster on the wall. The Doctor uses River's (Alex Kingston) time/vortex manipulator to travel back and forth. Rory stays behind to guard Amy inside the Pandorica. He'll be completely conscious and she'll be safer with him around. Doctor wonders why Rory is so human.
According to legend, the centurion was there guarding it and he was last seen during the Blitz, dragging the box from the flames. Amy cries. The Dalek also awakens. The Doctor arrives, "two of you, complicated." Rory is also there with his torch and gun hand. Amy and Rory smooch, well 2,000 years to catch up on! As the Doctor tells them to breathe several times. Doctor:"Well, somebody didn't get out for 2,000 years." The light from the Pandorica affected the Dalek. Amelia asks for a drink. The Doctor wears the Fez and Rory tells him he also carried a mop when he gave him the Sonic and returns back in time to give Rory the Sonic. Amelia gives him the leaflet for him to write on and put through the letterbox and he takes Amelia's drink, when she was in the crowd to give it back to her now. The Doctor falls down the stairs. It's him, "me from the future." Future Doctor whispers to present Doctor. When they showed his double from different angles, he had more rounder cheeks than Matt does. He's got 12 minutes to live.
Amelia's disappeared. History is still collapsing, they're all anomalies. Doctor: "Today just dying is a result." Amy is adamant he won't die and time can be re-written. The Dalek awakens once again. They go outside on the roof, for the Doctor to look for the TARDIS. Every star in the universe hasn't shone, then the one shining is actually exploding. It's the TARDIS and it makes it's customary noise. It's been keeping the Earth warm. Rory hears River, "I'm sorry my love" repeated over and over. Rory: "trust the plastic" pointing to his ears. The TARDIS put River into a time loop to save her. The Doctor enters the TARDIS: "Hi, honey I'm home." River asks what time he calls this. River: "What in the name of sanity have you got on your head?" Doctor: "Fez's are cool." The Dalek flies up to kill them. IT will kill him in 4.5 minutes. The restoration field from the Pandorica, when it blew up caused a time explosion, every atom was blasted, except inside the Pandorica. The Pandorica has a memory of the universe and light transmits the memory, that's how they'll do it.
Transmit light from the particles to every single area of the universe - he only needs a spark for Big Bang 2. The Dalek exterminates the Doctor, but not quite. Amy tells River he went down 12 minutes ago and died. River stays to destroy the Dalek - killer that she is and this part showed her dark side. Dalek: "Records indicate you will show mercy." She's River Song and he should check the records again. So the daleks had records about River too. The Dalek begs for mercy and she kills it. The Doctor isn't downstairs but in the Pandorica. He told them he was dead. River: "Rule number 1: the Doctor lies." As he said last episode. He's done what future Doctor told him to do.
River says reality is collapsing, speeding up and he's working on Big Bang 2. The TARDIS is still burning. He'll throw the Pandorica into the heart of the fire, then "let there be light." The light would explode everywhere at once. The vortex manipulator is wired to the box so he can fly the Pandorica into the heart of the explosion. They'll wake up where they're meant to be but won't remember what happened. The Doctor will be at the heart of the explosion, the cracks will close and he'll be trapped on the other side, the nether side. River: "All memory of him will be purged from the universe - he will never have been born." He doesn't know River yet, "now he never will." But River will remember him, so all memory of him won't be purged.
The Doctor talks about the girl who waited in her garden. Amy was worth the wait. He lied (surprise, surprise) there was a reason why he took Amy with him. Her house was too big, where were her parents. Amy lost them, she can't remember. The crack in time was eating at her life. Amy Pond, all alone. "The girl who didn't make sense, how could I resist...nothing is ever forgotten, not really." She must remember her family and they'll be there. The universe is pouring into her head, she brought Rory back. So will he be brought back. Amy won't have her imaginary friend anymore. "Amy Pond crying over me - guess what - gotcha." River receives a message from the Doctor: "Geronimo." He sacrifices himself, knowing Amy will remember and he'll return!
Flashes to past episodes, 5.11, 5.12 and he wakes up in the TARDIS. "Bow tie, cool." He tells Amy about the automated sand, but he's rewinding, erasing. The crack appears in the monitor of the TARDIS. "Hello universe, goodbye Doctor!"
Episode 5.11 The Lodger, shows Amy having put the card in the window and she can hear him. The crack appears on the road. Episode 5.5: where he told her she has to trust him. What he told her when she was 7: she must remember and leaves. This Doctor was from the future.
Amelia's house when she was 7, when she waited and fell asleep in the garden. He carries her to her room and tells her a story, so she'll remember him. If she could hear him, he could hang on. "Silly old Doctor." She won't remember him - only a little, a story in her head: "a daft old man who stole a magic box." (He borrowed it as will be said in 6.4 The Doctor's Wife.) She'll dream about the box: "big and little at the same time. Brand new and ancient and the bluest blue ever." (What he really means is 'something old, something, new, something borrowed, something blue.')
The times they had still in her dreams. "The Doctor and Amy Pond and the days that never came." The crack is closing and closes completely when he's on the other side, he doesn't belong here. "I hate repeats - live well, love Rory. Bye bye Pond." Amy wakes to her wedding day and her parents are back. Amy calls Rory, she's forgotten something important but she can't remember. Her father, Augustus (Halcro Johnston) will need some more time for the speech. Amy sees River outside but doesn't know her. She left a blue book for her. Amy's crying, she's sad. River's journal is just like the TARDIS from the outside. Rory reminds Amy of the old wedding saying. The journal is empty. Amy notices the bow tie on the boy and a man's braces. A tear falls onto the journal. Someone important is missing. Amy recalls her imaginary friend. "The raggedy Doctor, my raggedy Doctor - I remember you...and you are late for my wedding!" The brand new, ancient blue box. Something old etc.
The TARDIS materializes (surprised none of the guest passed out from the shock.) Rory remembers the Doctor. How could they forget him. He didn't expect that - so that's why he had his suit and bow tie now. Amy wants to kiss him again! But he's here to dance. Doctor: "2,000 years, the boy who waited, good on you mate." The TARDIS lands in Amy's garden and River asks if he danced. He always dances at weddings. "Spoilers." There's writing in her journal but he didn't look. (Hell, we'd have looked!) The Doctor asks if she's married. River: "Are you asking?"
Doctor: "Yes."
River: "Yes."
Doctor: "Did you think I was asking you to marry me, or asking if you were married?"
River: "Yes."
Doctor: "Was that a yes or a yes?" He asks who she is and he'll find out soon.
River: "Yes and I'm sorry that's when everything changes."
The Doctor returns her vortex manipulator. He tells her the TARDIS exploded for a reason, but why now. "The Silence, whatever it is, is still out there." The phone rings, there's an Egyptian goddess loose on the Orient Express in space. Amy and Rory go with him. That would have made for a good Christmas episode.
Rory tells Amy's parents the Doctor was a stripper at his stag do (from the Vampires of Venice epsiode) and that he was plastic, did they need to know. The first scene of this episode is reminiscent of 5.1 but the Doctor doesn't crash into Amelia's garden. The Doctor in the episode Flesh and Stone is from the future, as the current Doctor in that episode didn't have his jacket. Amy stroking the cat wasn't seen in 5.11. (But the Doctor later spoke with the cat on the stairs.) The crack in the road wasn't shown in this same episode either.
The Doctor mentions his legs when he wakes up in the TARDIS and he said the same in the episode, The End of Time. The Fez scene and the Doctor holding the mop was also done by the seventh Doctor (Sylvester McCoy) in Silver Nemesis Part 1. Amy's line is also repeated from the episode In Space and Time : "Okay Kiddo...complicated," when she was in two places at once.
Lots going on in this episode and plenty of tear jerking moments too and not just for Amy when she recalled the Doctor at the end. Rory instantly remembered him too; as the Doctor said, she was the one who had to remember him. The Doctor in 5.12 said to Amy he lies and River tells her the same here. He even tells her later that he lied when he took her with him.
The Doctor and River now making those comments about being married or not; and if he's asking her, now asked by them two. Before it was Amy who asked River and the Doctor and he seemed to answer dubiously, with a double meaning. I.e. you could take it to mean they were married, or they weren't. But why will things not be the same between River and the Doctor, since everything has yet to happen between them: Amy and Rory - in their future. River wasn't giving anything away again as to what happened to the Doctor in this episode, as she already knew.
There was a paradox here: the Doctor could only escape and tell Rory what to do; after Rory had gotten him out of the Pandorica. One reason why it could be confusing to viewers. Once again, Matt Smith portrays the Doctor with much emotion, especially when he's in the Pandorica doing what must be done; not once, but twice, since he then has to step into the crack in the wall, which is just waiting for him to no longer exist. What a spectacular and elaborate scenario dreamt up by the Nestene conscious just to rid the universe of the Doctor; but why did they have the Pandorica keep him alive, making it possible for him to return and save the day and the universe. Seems they didn't realize that or neglected to think about it when attempting to save themselves. As well as not thinking about the consequences that the universe will be destroyed irrespective of them holding him prisoner in there.
No one said this, but it was as if the universe was enacting its revenge on the Doctor for interfering in matters and the world where she shouldn't have. Also the Silence being mentioned for a reason, viz, for the purposes of season 6.
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