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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 .
How is this a universe in which the Doctor doesn't exist?
Because both the Doctor and River said the rebooted universe would be a universe in which the Doctor never existed. :)

It seemed to me that the Doctor did not exist once he entered the crack. Then, once Amy remembered him, his life and time stream reentered the "rebooted" universe. And, thus, becoming part of it.
Yes, he entered the new universe. But his past didn't happen to the new universe, because he didn't exist, until Amy brought him across, until that moment. "The End is the Beginning" the first trailers said, and that's literally what we have -- at the end of the series is the beginning of the Doctor's new life. Smith is the eleventh Doctor -- and the first.

I believe you're quite mistaken.

While the Doctor was on the other side of the crack, he "never existed". Once Amy "remembered" him back through the crack, he had "always been there" again.

In short, nothing whatsoever is different, except that the cracks are gone. Anything that was ever "undone" by the cracks is now "re-done".
 
it swiftly resolved the cliffhanger and we moved on, just like in the old serials where seemingly inescapable situations were escaped in minutes.

Why go back that far?

"Go to your room!"

"And for my next trick..."

The TARDIS battery/Cyber grenade

Escaping the end of the Universe

Breaking Wilf out of the car with a hammer

The Doctor regenerating into his hand

The Doctor easily escaping a planetful of Master clones tied to a chair

Heck, the cliffhanger end of "Time of Angels" was resolved within that episode.

Unless they were going to have the finale be the Doctor-lite episode, he was going to escape pretty quickly.
 
Told my wife I'll never be able to go to another wedding and listen to someone say "something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue" again without cracking up. That had to be the best moment in probably the last 5 years, if not "the" best, certainly in the top 3.

If a breeze starts up and champagne glasses start shaking call us.
 
Awesome finale. I admit a small part of me was disappointed not to see more of the Alliance (or possibly a few Classic villain cameos), and yeah it DID feel like the Doctor escaped the Pandorica a little too easily, but those were just minor issues.

Thankfully the story we got was so fun and wacky and full of mind-bending twists that it was easy just to get swept along with it.
 
Perfect.

Moffat has crafted a fairy tale story here. That's his theme for Amy's story with the Doctor.

I would only say that I really wanted to see who the big bad was and had expected to think that way thanks to RTD, not Moffats fault :D

What is the silence?
 
everything happened. everything in this season and the previous 30 odd.

I suspect not quite everything this season happened- the people erased by the crack now weren't. Which includes the senior Ponds, Rory (and by extension his death), and (less fortunately) the army of Angels.

Everything else happened, through.

and quit bitching about the bill and ted bit. it was funny and it moved the plot along very quickly with minimum guff.

It's not like it's the first time the series has riffed on B&T anyway - it happens loads of times through the 7th Doctor's NA era...

Anyway I'm just disappointed we're stuck with wet-fish human Rory again instead of damaged more 3-dimensional Auton Rory...
 
Anyway I'm just disappointed we're stuck with wet-fish human Rory again instead of damaged more 3-dimensional Auton Rory...

Yeah it would have been nice to continue Auton Rory's story, but we saw that human Rory seemingly remembers being plastic, and so it's possible he remembers a lot of what he went through.

I'd be surprised if that didn't carry over somewhat into his character next year.

(Of course I thought the "wet fish" Rory was plenty fun to have around too, so honestly I'll be happy either way)
 
I still want to know how "thought" or "memories" could have brought the Doctor into existence
 
I didn't really care for how the Doctor got out of the Pandorica, I don't see how his future self could have gotten released in order to go back and release his past self. I suppose maybe that's why it's called a paradox (pair of Docs?).

Anyway, I tried to come up with a way to get the Doctor out of the Pandorica with a minimum of cheats. I don't usually do this sort of thing so maybe my solution is really wonky or groaningly bad but let me know what you think.

Here goes:
We see newscasts of how something is happening with the Sun and we see huge pulses eminating from it. We then see the Earth being buffeted ferociously by these pulses causing massive destruction. Next comes a massive explosion followed by a Praxis ring or whatever. Then we see *THE* crack has appeared in the Pandorica itself which allows the Doctor's arm to reach through and grab the vortex manipulator from the bag in the same position as shown in the actual episode. The Doctor's arm reappears through the crack holding the sonic, the psychic paper and the vortex manipulator. The items disappear as the Praxis ring rips through the Earth destroying it. The items appear back in the past and Rory picks up the sonic and reads the single word from the paper: "Pandorica". Episode proceeds as seen.
 
Only one Thing bothers me? Why was the Pandorica crack proof? it was built by the alliance which got erased.... why did it still exist?

I could see a couple of arguments:

1) With all the timelocks, deadlocks, stasis and containment fields and whatever its more resistant.

2) It's dead center in the "eye of the storm" so it just might be one of the last things to blink out and events haven't caught up to it yet.
 
I didn't really care for how the Doctor got out of the Pandorica, I don't see how his future self could have gotten released in order to go back and release his past self. I suppose maybe that's why it's called a paradox (pair of Docs?).

His future self got out because when he was in the Pandorica and thus the present self, his future self got him out. There is no "first time" in a paradox like this which is what makes it a paradox.

Really this is the exact same paradox as in Blink. The Doctor was only able to set everything up because a future version of Sally told him what to do. Everyone was fine with it then so I don't see why people have issues with it now?
 
Really this is the exact same paradox as in Blink. The Doctor was only able to set everything up because a future version of Sally told him what to do. Everyone was fine with it then so I don't see why people have issues with it now?

People had to high an expectation for the Pandorica and thought they would see some mind bending trick that would get the Doctor out. (BTW the first act of the paradox is the existence of the time machine aka the vortex manipulator). The Doctor got out in 5 minutes and they feel emotionally robbed.
 
It's not that I feel emotionally robbed, but it is a bit unsatisfying to have your protagonist get his answers from the future; the solution is just handed to him. The Doctor isn't the protagonist of "Blink," which is why it works there, I think.
 
His future self got out because when he was in the Pandorica and thus the present self, his future self got him out. There is no "first time" in a paradox like this which is what makes it a paradox.
No, there's always a "first time." Paradoxes are created, they don't exist of their own free will. In all likelihood, the loop started with the Doctor escaping some other way (possibly less desirable, and likely with someone dying hence his desire to cheat), then using the Vortex Manipulator to, well, cheat by creating the paradox loop. By doing so, the original means of escape was no longer necessary and thus never occured; the loop had taken over. Which is why it's a paradox.

This is the way pretty much all of them work. Some stories, at least, have the courtesy of showing us the loop being created. Such as in Back to the Future. Others just skip it entirely, like in Terminator.
 
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