Clone, Robot or Time travel duplicate? Taking all bets! I also offer video poker!
- Bender, The Farnsworth Parabox, Futurama
(and if you need to ask what Futurama is…well there’s no helping you frankly!)
What’s the use of a good quote if you can’t change it
- The Two Doctors
The set up right at the beginning of the series promised a nail biting conclusion, oh well. In addition Steven Moffat insisting that the Doctor was definitely going to die built up the tension as to how he would escape (then Moffat spent the series dropping in plot devices for different ways the Doctor could get out of it). The fact that the Doctor would escape was beyond question in my mind – the Christmas special being a big hint. Naturally there were lots of theories floating around as to how he would escape; would the flesh be involved? Would the Doctor re-write time so there would be no meeting at lake Silencio? Surely some complex time extravaganza was going to have had happen in order to resolve the series, or as Rimmer puts it:
Poppycock! It will be happened; it shall be going to be happening; it will be was an event that could will have been taken place in the future. Simple as that. Your bucket’s been kicked, baby!
In the end the ‘resolution’ was the last five minutes of the episode!
Spoliers (actually there is no way I can spoil this but for those who want to retain some mystique stop reading here…)
The ‘fixed point in space and time’ has been used throughout Doctor Who’s history. The story that immediately springs to mind is ‘The Visitation’ where the fifth Doctor is instrumental in starting the Great Fire of 1666. Since RTD took over the ‘fixed point’ plot device has been used time after time. The Doctor’s death in this series was supposed to be one such fixed point, but as I have already mentioned we knew it was not going to be. In a sense we were prepared for a conclusion that would see the Doctor ‘cheat’ death. Unfortunately the episode spent about 40 minutes meandering around and procrastinating before we arrived at the conclusion. I suppose it could be argued that the point of this time wasting was to show the Doctor that he was in fact loved and no-one wanted to see him go. Or perhaps it was to show that the date at Silencio lake was unavoidable and the whole of time would be in jeopardy if the Doctor somehow side stepped it. I think that was Moffat’s excuse for what followed, namely wouldn’t it be fun if: you had trains coming out of the pyramids, or hot air balloons carrying cars, or steam trains using the gherkin as some sort of station. Actually I liked the look of the world Moffat created I just wish there had been a better use for it all.
Although I am complaining about the resolution of the episode there were elements of it I quite liked. The fact that the Doctor had this in his mind all along and he was going to use it as an excuse to disappear completely (Hmmm elements of Sherlock Holmes here?) was very interesting. Did he intend to let Amy, Rory and River Song think that he was dead? Was it the fact the that they simply wouldn’t let it drop that made him give the message to River that he was going to weasel out of it?
The beginning of the episode I found to be the saddest and most touching. The fictional death of the much loved, much respected, much missed Brigadier Alistair Gordan Lethbridge Stewart. Sadly Nicolas Courtney passed away earlier this year, and the Brigadier was such an amazing character, it was inevitable that it would be mentioned in the series nevertheless it came as a surprise and to hear it was incredibly sad.
Overall I would rate this episode at about 4 out of ten. It didn’t keep me glued to my seat. The resolution just said ‘cop-out’ to me. Again if I may employ another quote from Futurama:
Paradox resolved! Someone get a mop!
