Jay Stringer

Don’t read if you’re behind the UK.

I’m not kidding. Look away, come back in a couple weeks.

Seriously.

I noticed something watching DR WHO CONFIDENTIAL. Moffat said something like “this episode answered all of the niggling questions about Amy.” I’ve also noticed that a lot of the reviews and speculation that have followed have said much the same, “All of the loose ends wrapped up.” These same reviews generally then go to say, “OMG BEST HOUR OF TV EVERR HOW CAN HE COME BACK FROM THAT??!!!!”

Fair question. I’ll be returning to this in a minute or two.

No point doing a full review, they’re all over the place and they’re better written than I could come up with. Check this one out.

RTD I always got the impression that things were being made up on the spot. I’m sure they weren’t, but the writing was such that it felt that way. Watching this season, even in its weakest moments, its clear that there is a master plan.

One of the weaker episodes, the Dalek comeback, was really just heavy lifting for the finale; it was setting up the idea of robots that think they’re humans. So it wasn’t just a plot idea that would be thrown at us from nowhere, it was all set up work. It was the writers putting a shift in.

A running plot point has been the Doctor telling us, and the cracks showing us, that time can be erased or rewritten –which gives license for a reset button if needed- but then the Van Gough episode reinforced that there are rules. There are still some things that can’t be changed.

So nothing in this series is done by accident.

Here is a mix of questions and speculation. Feel free to either join in or ignore.

1.In the first episode we meet young Amy. She sits in her garden and waits for the Doctor, and we cut to about 11 years later before we see the Doctor come back. But watch late in the episode. As adult Amy is sleeping, we see young Amy waiting, and looking up toward the sky with a smile at the sound of the Tardis. Was that a dream or a flashback? Either way, it’s not there by accident. Did the Doctor come back to her from the future? And if so, why?

2. When Amy is in the forest in the second weeping Angels ep, the Doctor is being really grumpy and nasty to her, and he has lost his jacket. He walks off and leaves her. A second later, he’s back, and he’s being gentle, AND he’s wearing his jacket. So, again, did the Doctor visit Amy again from the future? Hmmmmm.

Which brings me back to this weeks episode, and the thing that Grand Moff said about wrapping up loose ends. Moffat is nothing if not a conjurer. He is amazing at sleight of hand.

He has made everyone think that the questions have been answered, when they haven’t been touched on. The Doctor himself raised the question, asking Amy about her house, her background, doesn’t it strike her that her life is an oddity?

THEN we get misdirected. The Roman legion. Pandora’s box. The books in her bedroom. We’re shown that the Dalek’s have been to her house and used her memories to set a trap. Wonderful twist, that totally answers the questions that are posed in the episode. But that doesn’t answer the questions that were already floating around; we’ve just been distracted.

The Dalek’s returning to Amy’s house to steal memories doesn’t address how Amy was there to begin with, what her origins are, or why the whole series has revolved around her. That doesn’t explain why the Doctor was so puzzled with her to begin with.

So, misdirection number one; Amy is the key to all of this.

We’ve seen it revealed that the Pandorica is an elaborate trap to capture the Doctor. Built thousands of years ago, a long con. Well, see, the Doctor is a Time Lord. In fact, he’s the last of them. So if there’s a war involving messing around with time and setting traps, I know who my money will be on.

Okay, so the bad guys can play on his vanity and use his companion to set a trap. Then the Doctor can use their vanity and his intellect to snare them in a bigger trap, a longer con. What if Amy is the key to this elaborate puzzle because the Doctor goes back and plans it that way? What is she is the reset button?

Misdirection number two; River Song.

River knows the Doctor survives, she’s met him “later”, so its entirely possible that –while she wouldn’t know the exact details- she would know the broad strokes and would know that she needed to lead the Doctor to Stonehenge and let him get trapped. Is it coincidence that she says in Amy’s room, “oh Doctor, why do I let you out?” She says that before the nature of the Pandorica is revealed, so unless you already knew what was coming it’s just a throwaway line. But if you know what the Pandorica is, then that line suddenly seems more deliberate. Also, is it really a coincidence that Churchill’s call reached River?

None of that is the misdirection though. That’s down to River being in the Tardis. Ooooh she’s trapped and it’s going to blow, how can she possibly escape? Well, she didn’t need the Tardis to travel back to the Roman era. She used a device strapped to her wrist. So, either she still has it, in which case she can travel anywhere she wants, or the Doctor has it, in which case the trap wont hold him for very long.

Of course, this cold all be wrong. I look forward to seeing what Moff has in store. Gawd it’s great to be able to get this excited over Doctor Who again.