The Pandorica Opens

Season 32, episode 12.

Hey look, it's everyone!

The episode begins with everyone who has ever been in this season just showing up again for a brief cameo for no fucking reason. Van Gogh gets a psychic vision, because apparently that's a thing he does now, and paints a picture that Winston Churchill sees, so he tries to phone the Doctor but gets River Song instead, because... fuck knows.

River then breaks out of prison, using hallucinogenic lipstick. OK, there are several things wrong with that plan. Problem one: She puts it on her own lips and suffers no effects, but the guy she kisses starts tripping balls. She's immune for some reason I guess? Problem two: The guard she tricks into kissing her is new. It's his first day. And he's just walking around unsupervised with the keys to all the cells? Problem three: HOW THE FUCK DID SHE GET THE LIPSTICK INTO THE PRISON? And why did she wait till now to break out?

The rest of her escape after snogging the guard goes unrecorded, and somehow she gets away and steals a painting from Queen Elizabeth X. Because I guess if you can escape from hyper-secure space-prisons, stealing valuable paintings from royal collections is easy.

Then River gets a time machine from fat Delvian space pirate, by making an idiotic threat: "I have just planted a bomb on you, and this thing I am holding can defuse it." If I were the Delvian, my next instruction would be for one of my goons to shoot her in the head, at which point I would simply defuse the bomb myself, but apparently this guy was stupid enough to trade her the time machine for the defuser. But anyway, River goes back in time to put some graffiti on the oldest landmark in the universe, a cliff made of diamond.

By an amazing coincidence, the Doctor suddenly remembers about this cliff that's the oldest landmark in the universe that has some text on it that's never been translated, and he decides to go find out what it says. By using the TARDIS's automatic translator function. Did they forget that there used to be a whole fuckload of Time Lords and lots of them had access to that same technology? Also, you've changed how your time travel works yet again. Again, I know it's difficult, but you contradict yourself pretty much every week these days. Could you maybe try just a little bit harder?

Romans

So the Doctor follows the directions River left him and finds her in England during a Roman invasion and she's pretending to be Cleopatra and has, by some unknown means, managed to convince the Romans she's with that Caesar looks exactly like the Doctor.

So River shows the painting to the Doctor, and it's a picture of the TARDIS exploding, which causes the Doctor to have a flashback to the fact that he ALREADY FUCKING KNEW THE TARDIS WAS GOING TO EXPLODE FROM THAT EPISODE WITH THE SHITTY FUCKING ANGELS!

So anyway, the Doctor decides that since he's only got two episodes to go he'd better do something about those time cracks and the whole Pandorica thing, which apparently is a legendary thing (that has never been mentioned before this season) that imprisons the most dangerous being ever to live in the whole universe ever. But where could it possibly be?

Stonehenge, duh.

Of course it's on Earth. Isn't everything important on Earth? The rest of the universe pretty much just exists so that humans have some people to talk to and fight. But wait, how did he work out that it was on Earth? No fucking idea. One minute he's all "It must be hidden." and the next it's "Wait, if you hid something like that, you'd want to remember where you put it. I know, Stonehenge!"

So, rather than taking the TARDIS like sane people, they ride horses to get there. And they bring some Romans, 'cause why not. Oh, and River uses her disintegrator gun (she has a disintegrator gun now) to convince the Romans that she and the Doctor are not to be fucked with.

So they open up the secret chamber underneath Stonehenge, and if it seems like I've forgotten a bit where they explain how they know Stonehenge was the place and how they know there was a secret chamber under it and how they know how to open it, well, that's because the writers forgot that bit too.

Oh, Amy's boyfriend's back. What a shock.

Totally did not see that coming. In fact, I think my exact words were the overwhelming message here is "Ooh, maybe Amy's boyfriend isn't dead forever, guys! Did you catch that hint, audience? Don't worry if you didn't because we'll be hammering it into your head a few more times before the episode is over!" So yeah, he's back. And Amy still doesn't remember him, but subconsciously she does or whatever. Who gives a fuck.

Oh, that's why you didn't bring the TARDIS

It was to have an excuse to send River back for it. Because there is no good reason for her to be in it alone otherwise. So she goes to get it but a mysterious voice takes her to Amy's house in 2010 instead, the day that the TARDIS is scheduled to blow up. So River goes to explore Amy's house, because I guess she had nothing better to do. Fair enough, it's a time machine, going for a look around isn't going to be a problem. You can just travel back to whenever you want.

But she discovers that the whole scenario with the Romans and Stonehenge is a trap created from Amy's memories. And she tries to warn the Doctor but it's too late! Oh noes! He tells her to get the TARDIS back to him because she's on the explodey day, but she can't!

Meanwhile, Amy and her boyfriend chat for a while, with Amy almost remembering things and her boyfriend trying to get her to remember, until suddenly he and all the Romans all turn into robots

were robots the whole time. Only they weren't making robot noises before, but now they are. Because now they know they're robots? And that makes them make robot noises? Anyway, they aren't actually robots, they're autons, because someone at the BBC fucking loves Nestenes.

Love conquers all Hahaha, fuck you, Amy!

So Amy's boyfriend is turning into an auton
was always an auton but is trying to also keep his fake Amy's boyfriend personality, and Amy is trying to save him with the power of love, because as we all know from that Dalek episode, love is more powerful than science, but then... he shoots her! Blam! It was hilarious. I literally laughed aloud. Best thing that's happened all season. Pity she's pretty much guaranteed to come back to life in the next episode.

Oh look, it's everyone. Wait, different everyone.

So, turns out all the bad guys have teamed up to lock up the Doctor in the Pandorica, because they think he's going to destroy the universe. You'd think they'd know him better than that, because that is pretty much the opposite of what he's about, but you know, whatever. There are stupider things about this idea.

Daleks: Dalek priority number one, their ultimate goal, the thing they care about more than anything, is exterminating everything that is not a Dalek. If Daleks end up surviving, that's a plus, but hey, if you've got to sacrifice yourself to kill those filthy non-Daleks, that's a sacrifice worth making. Ending the universe is obviously not plan A, but I can't really see why they'd have a problem with it as an option.

Sontarans: Look, in the grim darkness of the Sontaran empire, there is only war. They are always fighting the Rutans. That is all they do. Sontarans are a race entirely composed of cloned soldiers fighting a never-ending war that no one even remembers the reason for any more, but since everyone is a soldier and all they're bred and raised for is fighting, that's what they do. They don't even notice the rest of the universe exists, except as resources that can be used to help them beat the Rutans. It's not that they wouldn't care about the universe being destroyed, they just don't know how to deal with anything except fighting Rutans.

Cybermen: These guys are just too self-absorbed to get involved in a big alliance. They don't negotiate any more than the Daleks do. They either assimilate you or kill you.

Nestene: Seriously, what is it with these coming back again and again? They are fucking retarded. Magic plastic that comes to life and works by remote control! And then it didn't even need to be magic plastic, just any plastic! Why the fuck would you ever want to bring them back?

Slitheen: For fuck's sake, why do people in the show keep talking about these people like as though they're a species? It's a surname. They are a family. Not a race. They're Raxacoricofallapatorians. You came up with the fucking retarded name, you dipshits, so if you want to keep using them, live with it.

To be continued!

So the Doctor gets shoved in the box, screaming about how only he can save the universe and "you're all fools, fools I say!" and River is about to blow up the universe, and Amy's dead (hahahahaha) and Amy's boyfriend's an auton (so still dead I guess?) and there is absolutely no way the conclusion to this story is going to be in any way satisfying.

Oh, and if it seems like this is a particularly long review or that it jumps from topic to topic without any apparent pattern or connection, just consider that I didn't even talk about the zombie Cyberman or several other things that they crammed into this ridiculously overcrowded episode. I mean, this show is normally overcrowded, with way too much trying to be stuffed into too short an episode, but this one is just... words cannot do it justice. Just so much unnecessary stuff. So much. Let's see if they can top that with the next one!