"Get me Joss Whedon!"
"He's unavailable."
"Then get me his non-union English equivalent!"
5x05 Flesh and Stone (Grading/Discussion) SPOILERS!
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"Get me Joss Whedon!"
"He's unavailable."
"Then get me his non-union English equivalent!"
Brilliant! Pretty much televisional perfection! That's a rare compliment from me, a tough reviewer. This was intense, action packed, and thoughfully quirky. The relationship between the Doctor and Amy is spot on. The only rough spot was River Song. The way they handled her seemed clunky. Seemed desperate to imply that she kills the Doctor eventually without saying, yet pretty much said it. Minor in light of the nearly perfect episode.
Mr Awe
Mr Awe
I'm guessing the Doctor is playing psychologist, atleast partly. He states in this episode that it's all about Amy and he needs to sort her out. Clearly, in the original timeline, when he accidently skipped out on her despite his promise it had a huge, negative impact on her. She fantisized over him for a lifetime. Perhaps this sense of need is what is keeping her with Rory. At any rate, part of sorting her out might be communicating with the younger Amelia and explaining why he couldn't take her with him. That would have a huge impact on the character. It would help sort her out.
They may work in more to that but I bet you that is part of it. She may even decide to stay with Rory in the end, but for better reasons.
Mr Awe
I'm gonna guess that the Doctor crosses his own timestream and both are at the same place/same time, probably weakened and River has to kill one of them so the other will survive (and close the crack to boot).
Ooh, a multi-Doctor story featuring only one regeneration. Has that even happened before? I know there was a time when there were two Third Doctors at once, and there was the brief moment when Nine and Rose ran into each other in "Father's Day," but a full on Doctor team-up?
(No, the metacrisis doesn't count)
(No, the metacrisis doesn't count)
Canada's turn!
Brilliant finale! Excellent performances by both Smith and Gillan (and these were their first episodes, remember!). Some interesting shout-outs to the past - The Next Doctor, but he could have also cited, say, the Cyberman invasion of 1968 or something like that.
I chuckled when I saw the ending. I thought it was great - some folks got upset about it in the UK but they need to grow up. It was refreshing to see Doctor Who actually move into "edgy" territory. Not just the seduction scene, but the chaplain's death scene and Smith definitely shows he can match Tennant in the righteous anger department - even River looked scared at one point.
Cool episode -- looking forward to the next.
Alex
Brilliant finale! Excellent performances by both Smith and Gillan (and these were their first episodes, remember!). Some interesting shout-outs to the past - The Next Doctor, but he could have also cited, say, the Cyberman invasion of 1968 or something like that.
I chuckled when I saw the ending. I thought it was great - some folks got upset about it in the UK but they need to grow up. It was refreshing to see Doctor Who actually move into "edgy" territory. Not just the seduction scene, but the chaplain's death scene and Smith definitely shows he can match Tennant in the righteous anger department - even River looked scared at one point.
Cool episode -- looking forward to the next.
Alex
In the television series, no.
Outside of that...
The closest situation I can think of happens in Lance Parkin's The Infinity Doctors, where the Doctor has to be in two places at the same time to begin the Sontaran/Rutan peace negotiations, so he crosses his own timestream to make it happen (and his best friend, the Magistrate, is not happy that he's done so).
Oh! Rich Johnston's A Room With a Deja View from IDW comics. The tenth Doctor has to solve a mystery involving a species that lives backwards in time, and the only way he can puzzle it out is if he crosses his own timestream multiple times. (There's a scene where there's like six or seven different tenth Doctors present, because they're all trying to interrogate an alien, but because they're moving forward in time and the alien is moving backwards, the Doctor has to keep rewinding his own perception of time to make sense of the conversation.) The story thinks it's more clever than it actually is, and it feels like a prologue to a much larger epic that I don't know that we'll ever see (assuming it's even contemplated).
Excellent two parter, good conclusion. I was surprised to see them directly dealing with the crack in the wall in only the fourth episode rather than the finale, good turn. Actually seeing the Angels move briefly was really creepy it didn't kill the mystique at all. Can't wait for the next River appearance, more to explain her mystery than for love of the character.
Correct me if I'm wrong (and it's been brought up already in the thread) but June 26th 2010 (the date the Doctor saw the bang happening on) would be the date of the season finale in the UK, wouldn't it? Nice bit of fourth wall breaking there if so.
And now for the US reaction --
I, for one, thought it was brilliant. Raised more questions than it answered. How is the Doctor going to get out of River "killing" him? Which regeneration does she "kill"? What is the secret of the Panopticon (or whatever it is)? How much is time going to be rewritten? And what about Amy? Is her sudden randy streak revelatory of something about the mystery surrounding her? Related to the upcoming adventure with the sexy vampires? Or just because she's a hot little redhead?
Questions, questions, questions! And me, sworn off spoilers!
I, for one, thought it was brilliant. Raised more questions than it answered. How is the Doctor going to get out of River "killing" him? Which regeneration does she "kill"? What is the secret of the Panopticon (or whatever it is)? How much is time going to be rewritten? And what about Amy? Is her sudden randy streak revelatory of something about the mystery surrounding her? Related to the upcoming adventure with the sexy vampires? Or just because she's a hot little redhead?
Questions, questions, questions! And me, sworn off spoilers!
Good ending to the story! The Angels were very creepy and I liked the death scene of the Father. The countdown thing with Amy was spooky, though her frisky turn at the end was quite fun. I thought Smith did very well as AngryDoctor, and those scenes with River were quite explosive. Looking forward to next week! 
Good episode.
Why was there a brief shot at the end of a few soldiers with Doctor, Amy and River at the end?
Why was there a brief shot at the end of a few soldiers with Doctor, Amy and River at the end?
But she also said the man was the greatest man she had ever known. That implies heavily that it's the Doctor.
I really loved this episode! It was the first time I felt like I could completely accept Smith as the Doctor - I know...it's been hard! Smith took charge and he owns the part now!
I liked this episode. It's not as brilliant as "Blink" but it was a decent sequel. Here are some thoughts based on the TBBS discussion so far:
- Amy coming on to the Doctor at the end of the episode was humorous. It did seem a little odd for the character and the series. That said, Amy has had a lifelong fascination with the Doctor that clearly has had some physical element to it (referring to the Doctor changing clothes scene in the season premiere).
- Regardless of what Amy said about not wanting a long-term relationship, it seems she still believes in fairy tales or tales in general (especially given the whole mystery man returns on the eve of the wedding and stuff happens).
- Many fairy tales, including the good ones, include some romance of some sort (or at least the concept of true love). If Moffat's Doctor Who is a modern take on a fairy tale, then let it have some romance. So far, I find the Amy-Doctor relationship more plausible than the Doctor's relationship with Rose or Martha because of the backstory.
- That said, I liked the previous Doctor's platonic relationship with Donna. It was rooted in the adventurism of the past.
- Good job catching the jacket-no jacket scene in the forest. I totally missed it.
- Does anyone else find it odd that the Doctor and the TARDIS have been having problems with precise times? (12 years, 2 years, a month, etc.) The fact that the TARDIS returned to Amy's original timeline five minutes after they departed reminded me of the discrepancies.
- BTW, I wasn't sure when we joined Amy's timeline until we saw the clock with the date. I thought it could've been sometime after 2013. In the season opener, we see the TARDIS is crashing in a London after the London Eye had been built (in 1999). Assuming we first met young Amy right when the eye was built, then 12 years later would be 2011. Plus another 2 years, we could've joined Amy's current timeline in 2013.
I do realize that a background shot may simply be a background shot, but the Eye was a pretty large and obvious landmark. If it wasn't considered when establishing Pond's timeline, I believe it should've been.
(Weird technical goof=Proxy-Connection: keep-alive Cache-Control: max-age=0 20)
- ETA: Little nitpicks referring to the BBC America On Demand version - I don't particularly care for the new BBC logo that appears at the start of the show (logo in a box with exploding circles).
Also, we've been getting a similar BBC logo at the end of the program, instead of the BBC Wales/Cymru logo (and the copyright date is in Arabic numerals instead of Roman%2Proxy-Connection: keep-alive Cache-Control: max-age=0 WTF?).
I'm also bummed that the theme music over the end credits hasn't had the "middle eight" since "The Beast Below."
- Amy coming on to the Doctor at the end of the episode was humorous. It did seem a little odd for the character and the series. That said, Amy has had a lifelong fascination with the Doctor that clearly has had some physical element to it (referring to the Doctor changing clothes scene in the season premiere).
- Regardless of what Amy said about not wanting a long-term relationship, it seems she still believes in fairy tales or tales in general (especially given the whole mystery man returns on the eve of the wedding and stuff happens).
- Many fairy tales, including the good ones, include some romance of some sort (or at least the concept of true love). If Moffat's Doctor Who is a modern take on a fairy tale, then let it have some romance. So far, I find the Amy-Doctor relationship more plausible than the Doctor's relationship with Rose or Martha because of the backstory.
- That said, I liked the previous Doctor's platonic relationship with Donna. It was rooted in the adventurism of the past.
- Good job catching the jacket-no jacket scene in the forest. I totally missed it.
- Does anyone else find it odd that the Doctor and the TARDIS have been having problems with precise times? (12 years, 2 years, a month, etc.) The fact that the TARDIS returned to Amy's original timeline five minutes after they departed reminded me of the discrepancies.
- BTW, I wasn't sure when we joined Amy's timeline until we saw the clock with the date. I thought it could've been sometime after 2013. In the season opener, we see the TARDIS is crashing in a London after the London Eye had been built (in 1999). Assuming we first met young Amy right when the eye was built, then 12 years later would be 2011. Plus another 2 years, we could've joined Amy's current timeline in 2013.
I do realize that a background shot may simply be a background shot, but the Eye was a pretty large and obvious landmark. If it wasn't considered when establishing Pond's timeline, I believe it should've been.
(Weird technical goof=Proxy-Connection: keep-alive Cache-Control: max-age=0 20)
- ETA: Little nitpicks referring to the BBC America On Demand version - I don't particularly care for the new BBC logo that appears at the start of the show (logo in a box with exploding circles).
Also, we've been getting a similar BBC logo at the end of the program, instead of the BBC Wales/Cymru logo (and the copyright date is in Arabic numerals instead of Roman%2Proxy-Connection: keep-alive Cache-Control: max-age=0 WTF?).
I'm also bummed that the theme music over the end credits hasn't had the "middle eight" since "The Beast Below."
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^ We hear the TARDIS materialize when it lands at Amy's, so it presumably traveled through time between flying over London and reaching her place.
You and me both sister! Well, I figured a regenerating TARDIS and a Doctor who wasn't quite all himself yet could account for the difficulties navigating through time.
When you think about it, it seems they can either hit it precisely or miss it wildly as the plot calls for it. The 9th Doctor brought Rose home 12 months later rather than 12 hours later, but hit the exact date and time of her father's death; the 10th Doctor missed some 50's concert and ended up in ancient Scotland chasing werewolves, etc. Happens all the time, so to speak.
ETA: Whoops, got my episodes mixed up - the 50's concert was the 2010 Olympics; they were heading somewhere else though when they ended up in Scotland. Haven't watched that season in a long time.
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