A Dazzling End

Following this finale, it’s really funny to go back and re-read our Let’s Kill Hitler reaction post, from what seems like so long ago already. In that, our biggest concern with the second half of Series Six was that Moffat had built too large of a house of cards this time around. That, as io9 recently put it, he wouldn’t catch all the balls he was juggling in the finale. He was doing so many wonderful, fascinating, unique things to the show, to the Doctor’s, the Ponds’, and River’s plotlines--but would it all come together in a way that both made sense and was satisfying?

In that sense, this finale did not disappoint in the slightest. Some things felt a bit rushed, yes, but that seemed mostly to be a consequence of the fact that the finale was only one episode long (which we’ll deal with later). And in the end--in those last ten minutes especially--everything felt complete. It made sense. The Doctor evading death was not a hand-waving, timey-wimey thing this time, as it was in The Big Bang last year. His emotional journey--at least for this season--has been completed in a way that actually brings us closure. River’s biggest mysteries were solved in a way that did not feel ret-conned. Sure, there are still some questions, but we were not left with the burning, gaping holes we were left with at the end of Series Five. And after all the doubts we had about Moffat’s ability to pull this off, seeing it all play out in this way was so incredibly satisfying.

Sending a child away: or, why the Night Terrors sucked

Clones, as usual, agree completely. It wasn’t that there was anything actually horrible about The Night Terrors. It was just that there wasn’t anything good.

It was terrifying, sure. But that was about all it had going for it. And it never did anything with the terrors - those dolls were creepy to begin with. No new horror for kids, the way gas masks, stone angels, and shadows have been. Whether you consider it scary or not depends on whether you respond to the traditional horror/thriller movie tactics. Laura was terrified, Suzanne was not. But we both were bored. Very bored.

It felt like Fear Him, except that where Fear Her had an interesting alien, a novel way of disappearing a person, and a great child actor, the Night Terrors had... an alien whose capibilities weren’t really discussed or explored, a boring way of disappearing people, and a child actor who didn’t do anything besides look scared. Oh, and there was no wonderful scene of the Doctor carrying the Olympic torch (which he must, by the way), or David and Billie looking cute. On the contrary, Rory and Amy were again shoved away and just got to run around a lot - but unlike Doctor’s Wife, their running scenes were entirely devoid of personality, much less conversation.

In Belated Praise of the Doctor's Wife

“Does he still stroke bits of the TARDIS?”
“Yea! I’m like, do you two want to be alone?”

Neil Gaiman is a fantastic, prolific writer. Together, we haven’t read as much of him as we should (neither of us have read the Sandman graphic novels. We’re working on it). But that didn’t stop us from being ridiculously excited when we heard he was writing an episode of Who. Perhaps one of Gaiman’s greatest strengths as a writer is that he cannot be pinned down into one genre as critics like to do. And writing this episode was another brilliant example of this. Yet though he may not have a genre, he definitely has a style. And though I can’t define it in words, this episode had Gaiman written all over it.

Needless to say, he did not disappoint. In one episode, he took an idea that had been circulating in the backwaters of the fandom since the very beginning and make it canon. Not only did he make it canon, he made it brilliant, funny, inspiring, and heartbreaking canon. The Doctor’s Wife was certainly the best episode so far this season. The concept of the TARDIS as the thing that the Doctor has and always will love best, through all his companions, is awesome. But to take that concept and pull it off, while making it seem real, requires genius. And Neil Gaiman has it.

The Impossible Astronaut review

First of all, wow. That was no calm, fun series opener. I’m not going to spend too much of this talking about plot, because I want to see what Moffat does with the second part of this story. Here, he threw an incredible amount of information at us, and while I want to criticize him for that, I think I’ll wait until it’s wrapped up to pass judgement. I also have some huge issues pending with Amy's final statement before the cliffhanger, but I will also leave that till next time.

That said, I have to give him points for sheer nerve. Who kills off the Doctor and ensures that he doesn’t regenerate in the first ten minutes of a season? Yes, this road had been sort of paved by RTD in Turn Left and The Stolen Earth. Yes, in some ways every viewer knows he won’t be dead in the end. But that didn’t stop it from being an incredibly powerful and arresting moment. I sort of cried. The scene where they meet his past self in the diner almost hurts. And the scene in the TARDIS, the companions trying to get the Doctor to trust them instead of the other way around, had incredible acting from all of them. You could almost taste the tension. For once, the audience is in the know, and the Doctor was out, and the reversal of that normal situation is so striking.