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5x013 The Big Bang (Grading/Discussion) SPOILERS!!

Grade "The Big Bang"

  • Who Da Man?!

    Votes: 112 69.6%
  • Good

    Votes: 34 21.1%
  • Average

    Votes: 7 4.3%
  • Bad

    Votes: 6 3.7%
  • Bring RTD back

    Votes: 2 1.2%

  • Total voters
    161
  • Poll closed .
or Davros and 45 billion Daleks were defeated by some knob twiddling (ooh er missus!)

One of the worst moments for Dalek kind. They turned into a cartoonish threat

"Argh! stop whirling me around! Curse you!"

Plus Donna's technobabble last minute save.

Thank goodness Moffat is trying to restore the threat/fear of the daleks

Of course, that would work a lot better if he hadn't turned the Daleks into a collection of plastic-looking rainbow Power Rangers villains, nor had a stone Dalek running around begging for mercy.

I agree on the power ranger front, but not on the mercy bit. for me that seemed typical Dalek strategy. "Mercy...show me mercy whilst I get my power levels up to a point where I can exterminate you!"

Clearly they realise the Dalek design isn't perfect. It wouldn't surprise me if it isn't tweaked before S6.
 
Rubberbands didn't just spring into existence but were manufactured that way. I think saying that loops can't be created from a linear something is a bit silly.
But the examples you discuss are physical objects. I think comparing to a paradox is not the best example. Rubber bands didn't spring into exitence, they were made that way, like a paradox is made that way without sticking the two ends together.

Rings of saturn? :p

My point is that that is all besides the point! The plot details as shown, including the paradoxes, can affect your enjoyment of the story. I think the paradoxes as seen (regardless of their exact origins) reduces my enjoyment slightly but I still thought it was a great ride!

Mr Awe
I like paradoxes, i thought it was fun.

Sure, they're physical objects. No one here knows definitively how time and paradoxes work. So, one viewpoint is good as another. Both could even be true. We simply don't know. To argue that it has to be one way is just silly given how little we know.

Sometimes the time paradoxes are fun. And I did say this story was on hell of a fun ride. But, sometimes they can detract from the drama. But, this was a great story with just a couple moments of letdown.

Mr Awe
 
My notes, originally posted on another board, so sorry for any repetitions:

- This is the first finale since the return of the show that ends on a truly positive note. No one significant dies, no one leaves the Doctor, and no one regenerates. The episode ends with the Doctor and his companions (plural! and MARRIED!) joyously diving into their next adventure.

- The Doctor describes a vortex manipulator as a "cheap" form of time travel. Perhaps it's dangerous, but it's certainly really quick compared to a TARDIS...

- So all the aliens from last week amount to glorified cameos, except for one Dalek and the Cybermen (who don't even show up here). The alliance of evil (sic) were all pawns, and "the Silence" is the real power behind what's going on, manipulating even the Daleks into trapping the Doctor. It/they/whatever wanted the TARDIS to explode, though perhaps not take all universes with it. And it/they/whatever are still out there. Were they the ones who built the Pandorica?

- All the Roman Autons started making robot noises when they shed their facade personalities, but Rory didn't. However, he can still use his Gadget Gun with the fancy newer sound effects. Also, he was much more detailed than the plastic Mickey from five years ago. Much closer to the Auton leader dummy from 1970, really.

- Line of the show: "It's a fez. I wear a fez now. Fezzes are cool." Followed by Amy and River unceremoniously destroying the thing. Thing is, Matt Smith had been hinting at a hat for next year - I wonder if that was really just a joke meant for this. The Confidential episode notes that the producers dreaded giving the Doctor a fez, thinking that Matt Smith is nuts enough to insist on continuing to it from then on if they DIDN'T explode it in the story. :)

- I can accept that the Dalek that was chasing everyone around in this ep was not fully restored, and thus was almost easy to deal with. But still, these ARE supposed to be the bigger, badder breed of Dalek. I hope that whenever they show up next, they prove to be pretty darned tough cookies.

- It was awfully convenient that the Pandorica not only heals people fully, but can fly too. It really helps the whole story, but I wonder how they would have saved the day if what amounts to a really easy to open prison cell couldn't float away when it needed to.

- I easily buy that Amy had the fairy tale-esque power to put everything back the way it was, or how she wanted it to be, thanks to her proximity to the crack and all that. But how does that work for the Doctor and Rory? Do they remember everything that happened? Does Rory have all 1894+ years of his Auton memories (he does remember BEING an Auton, he says so in the background as Amy vaults over her head table)? Does the Doc remember all the rewinding?

- The Doctor in his ninth incarnation could dance better. :) How many of his prvious incarnations have ever been caught dancing, anyway?

- Things I still wonder about: It doesn't really affect anything, but how much of the season still happened? Did the Daleks still invade Earth in 2008, and a Cyberking in the 19th century? What was the TARDIS noise Amelia heard in the original timeline? What about the silhouette that moved in her house that same night?

Overall, this season was just great. Like all seasons of the show since it came back, there were good and bad episodes; but like all seasons, you are satisfied with the overall product and can't wait for more. Matt Smith inhabited his role with gusto, and recreates the Doctor as an entirely different person than either of his direct predecessors. David Tennant was the most popular Doctor among fans, but Smith will make that title a hard-fought one to keep.

And for the first time in the entire series, the show doesn't tie the story up neatly by the finale: the bigger bad guy is still out there and there are likely deliberate loose ends left in at least the premiere episode that need to be explained. Even before the series returned in 2005, Doctor Who's previous attempts at story arcs were really just loose story elements that tied otherwise unrelated episodes together (The Key to Time, Turlough's story arc, and to more complex extent the Trial of a Time Lord season).

Also, the TARDIS is more crowded than it's been since the first year back, with three intentionally regular travellers plus River popping in and out. Quite a dynamic, while keeping the star man front & center. I'm definitely sold on the show's continuation, and can't wait till Christmas. Possibly on the Oriental Express! In SPACE!

Mark

PS - Anyone else think that there's no chance Amy and Rory, when it's their time to leave, will be going back to Leadworth, or even Earth? I get the feeling that whatever Steven Moffatt has planned, they won't be going back to a boring little country village when they finally decide to get re-stuck in time.
 
^ Hopping on board the TARDIS after the wedding with such glee that there was no time for any anguished will we/won't we shenanigans speaks volumes, I'd say.

OK, they could always go right back to the point they left, but it's obvious where their priorities lie at the moment.

:D
 
The Tardis exploding created a new star I assume or at least a facsimile of a star and the Doctor explained that was what was keeping the Earth warm.

I got that, but shouldn't the Sun going nova have wiped out the Earth (Generations style.. :p)?
And now that I think about it, if the TARDIS exploded in 2010, why did the stars go nova in 102 A.D.?
I was wondering too how could the Tardis be the sun from 102 AD when it exploded in 2010?
 
I was wondering too how could the Tardis be the sun from 102 AD when it exploded in 2010?

It makes as much sense as the Doctor getting out of the Pandorica. The TARDIS is the sun in 102 AD because it's a paradox, once you have a time machine, linear time goes out the window.
 
I was wondering too how could the Tardis be the sun from 102 AD when it exploded in 2010?

It makes as much sense as the Doctor getting out of the Pandorica. The TARDIS is the sun in 102 AD because it's a paradox, once you have a time machine, linear time goes out the window.
Ok, I got that, but the Tardis exploded in the future, it didn't time travel to the past nor do I imagine it could if it went boom.
 
- The Doctor describes a vortex manipulator as a "cheap" form of time travel. Perhaps it's dangerous, but it's certainly really quick compared to a TARDIS...
True, but if you have the TARDIS with you you'll never have to worry about where the closest bathroom is. :)

- It was awfully convenient that the Pandorica not only heals people fully, but can fly too. It really helps the whole story, but I wonder how they would have saved the day if what amounts to a really easy to open prison cell couldn't float away when it needed to.
The Pandorica flew because the Doctor had wired it into his vortex manipulator. So when he went, it went with him.

- I easily buy that Amy had the fairy tale-esque power to put everything back the way it was, or how she wanted it to be, thanks to her proximity to the crack and all that. But how does that work for the Doctor and Rory? Do they remember everything that happened? Does Rory have all 1894+ years of his Auton memories (he does remember BEING an Auton, he says so in the background as Amy vaults over her head table)? Does the Doc remember all the rewinding?
You can hear Rory saying "I was plastic, the Doctor was the stripper at my stag..." So yeah, I think he remembers, and all that happened this season really happened for them.

- The Doctor in his ninth incarnation could dance better. :) How many of his prvious incarnations have ever been caught dancing, anyway?
Hey, gotta give him credit for creativity - all the kids were doing his dance with him. That's how new dance fads are born. :lol:
 
- The Doctor describes a vortex manipulator as a "cheap" form of time travel. Perhaps it's dangerous, but it's certainly really quick compared to a TARDIS...

He also said it only worked as well as it did because there wasn't much time or space to get lost in. He also had to rejigger Jack's to be able to land them in the right spot when they escaped the end of the universe, which Jack pointed out was unusually good for a vortex manipulator. He should know, given that his attempt to travel 199,800 years in the past had him overshoot by a hundred and fifty years. Given the Time Agency is from the 51st century, I'd imagine it isn't rated for much more than ten or twenty thousand years. Though River was apparently able to use it to get to Planet One and back without burning it out or missing her target terribly. Maybe Jack just doesn't know how to use the thing.

At least the bit about the universe being smaller making the VM safer accounts for why they didn't have pop every joint in their bodies after using it, like last time.
 
Mark said:
What about the silhouette that moved in her house that same night?

As I said earlier, that was the Doctor on his 'rewind', arriving in the house, before he picked up young Amelia and put her in her bed.
 
- The Doctor describes a vortex manipulator as a "cheap" form of time travel. Perhaps it's dangerous, but it's certainly really quick compared to a TARDIS...

He also said it only worked as well as it did because there wasn't much time or space to get lost in. He also had to rejigger Jack's to be able to land them in the right spot when they escaped the end of the universe, which Jack pointed out was unusually good for a vortex manipulator. He should know, given that his attempt to travel 199,800 years in the past had him overshoot by a hundred and fifty years. Given the Time Agency is from the 51st century, I'd imagine it isn't rated for much more than ten or twenty thousand years. Though River was apparently able to use it to get to Planet One and back without burning it out or missing her target terribly. Maybe Jack just doesn't know how to use the thing.

At least the bit about the universe being smaller making the VM safer accounts for why they didn't have pop every joint in their bodies after using it, like last time.
Well, also they didn't jump 100 trillion years in this episode! Jack's was probably in nasty shape after everything he went through.

I liked that its special effect changed to match the new time vortex effect.
 
That was pretty poor. Not only is the main bad guy ignored in the finale but nothing much seems to happen, why the Earth wasn't blown up is still unsaid (the Tardis explosion kept the planet 'warm' for 2000 years but the sun itself would have incinerated everything.

Also, how did River have an empty book about the Tardis even though the Tardis was supposed to have been lost?

Mixed bag finale to a mixed bag season, so at least there is symmetry.
 
That was pretty poor. Not only is the main bad guy ignored in the finale but nothing much seems to happen, why the Earth wasn't blown up is still unsaid (the Tardis explosion kept the planet 'warm' for 2000 years but the sun itself would have incinerated everything.

Also, how did River have an empty book about the Tardis even though the Tardis was supposed to have been lost?

Mixed bag finale to a mixed bag season, so at least there is symmetry.

nit pick nit pick nit pick lets see anyone write such a complicated time story without plot issues. The bad guy or thing is not meant to show up its pretty clear from the speech at the end it will play a major role in season 2 so have some patience :rolleyes: nice to see a story arc get brought over to different seasons.

Earth being the eye of the storm kept it alive and how could a sun blow up when it never was born :p
 
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