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eve11Okay, so here are my contemplations about the Pandorica, the cracks in the universe and a few other spoilery things that have been floating about.
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(sorry, channeling my inner Bender the Robot there)
I saw two spoilery pics in this thread. One is a blowup of one of the images BBC released on the official site (which I have also seen and which show a stone Dalek --wtf?) and the other is a new one. They are:
a) the Doctor with a Vortex manipulator on his wrist, holding some kind of red... ball? and talking to 7-year-old Amelia Pond. They are at what looks amazingly like Uluru (Ayers Rock), but as noted further down the thread, they most likely are at a museum.
b) Amelia walking into a room in the museum in which the Pandorica is roped off and obviously on some kind of display, but it is now opening.
There is also:
c) a slew (apparently) of leaked artwork and stuff linked here but the only thing I looked at was the little image on the webpage there, of the Pandorica being rescued from the London Blitz, I believe. I think it told me enough!
I also didn't read most of the comments on either of those threads. BUT that will not stop me from speculation based on these few photos. AND ONLY ON THESE FEW PHOTOS for now. Tomorrow after they release whatever clip they're goint to put out, I may have to come back here and revise, and in general there may be other stuff out there about plot and the Big Mysteries but I don't want to hear it!
-- Okay so... I'm thinking that my theories that I mentioned prior to seeing either part of the finale are at least partially correct. He wasn't in there to begin with as I'd thought, but it looks like they're setting up the fact that the Doctor spends a loooooong time in the Pandorica. Like, centuries. Multiple.
-- Another thought: the "key" to the Pandorica (and the reason why it started opening in the Underhenge) is Amelia Pond. It's keyed to her memories, so it makes sense that she would be the force that would make it open, regardless of whether or not the Doctor was inside. We don't know why it started opening in 5x12 but it's possible that it started opening when it felt that Amy wanted it to open. So that sets up the finale: little Amelia visits the Pandorica in a museum, and by being there, little Amelia opens the Pandorica and frees the Doctor from millennia of imprisonment. This is also an indication btw that Amy Pond is not a construct and is in fact the same person as Amelia.
-- There is something really weird-looking about the museum in the pictures. I'm wondering if little Amelia Pond isn't herself taken out of time, and is from eg, a much more distant future than we had imagined. Because as per the promo pic, there is also a stone Dalek or at least a Dalek statue in the museum. So at some point when she was a child, Amelia/Amy knew about Daleks, and her history has since been erased. On the other hand, the whole museum there could be some kind of MindScape of the Doctor. That would bum me out; I want it to be real.
-- There is some kind of way that being trapped in the box for thousands of years doesn't make the Doctor wither and die. I wonder if River Song has anything to do with it, OR if it's the TARDIS. Because despite the fact that I'm almost certain the Pandorica survives for a long, long time, I'm also pretty sure that they just showed, oh, you know, the Universe exploding into silence right after it got shut. So, something happens that staves off the impending TARDIS destruction until the Doctor is let out of the box in a few thousand years. Does the Pandorica fall through a crack and end up relatively far from the implosion of the Universe?
This is where it's useful to think in five dimensions instead of the usual four. I believe, to understand how "every moment" could blow up and there is still some sort of "time" through which you can escape, you have to think of each moment having its own trajectory as embedded in some kind of meta-timeline, accellerating almost surely toward a failure point. Man, I was way better at visualizing that kind of stuff when I was studying Measure Theory and convergence... Anyway, the question is, is the end of The Pandorica Opens just a projection of that five-dimensional timeline down into four-dimensional space, constricting all the explosion moments into one point in spacetime? Or... um... ow. My head hurts.
-- We also have, from the teaser "A message on the oldest cliff-face in the universe, a puzzle box opening from the inside and a love that lasts thousands of years... the fates are drawing close around the TARDIS-- is this the day the Doctor falls?" So I wonder if this is where the "love that lasts thousands of years" comes in. Somehow, the TARDIS is trying to save the Doctor who is stuck in the Pandorica, protect him from the passage of Time. And maybe that is what starts the cracks in the universe to begin with. She protects him from the centuries, and he keeps her from blowing up, until he's let out, and the link is broken? That's a long shot. But I'm wondering again if the "love that lasts thousands of years" is between the Doctor and River, or the Doctor and the TARDIS, as he waits out his imprisonment. Um, that kind of leaves Sinister Voiceover Man out in the cold though. I still don't know what he is. But anyway I'd heard somewhere that this series really highlighted the relationship between the Doctor and the TARDIS, so maybe now's the time when they step that up.
-- To tell you all the truth, I will be glad with ANY resolution that doesn't have the Doctor magically free himself from the Pandorica in oh, a day or something. THAT would be something I would totally expect from Mr, Russel Oh-I'll-Just-Transfer-My-Regeneration-To-My-Handy-Hand Davies. I HATE cliffhangers of doom that are built up and built up to amazing proportions and then immediately resolved with no consequences whatsoever. It's a total cop-out. Say what you will about Last of the Time Lords, at least it started off a year later than Sound of Drums ended, and the shit had way hit the fan. 'Course it was a big reset... so, hopefully Moffat took any inspiration from the beginning of that ep and not the end.
The whole reason I started seeking out these spoilery pictures was because someone said "Oh hey, the Doctor uses the Vortex Manipulator to escape the Pandorica!" And I was so angry I had to go re-watch and make sure he (a) wasn't wearing it when he was sealed in and (b) really had no way to get it out of his pocket and even then I was worried enough to go seek solace in spoiler pictures. Let me say right now if that happens (the Doctor escaping the Inescapable Prison Box with a stupid plot device) then Moff gets a big FAIL from me for the finale. There is so much potential for this finale; they'd better at least hit somewhere close to the mark.
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(sorry, channeling my inner Bender the Robot there)
I saw two spoilery pics in this thread. One is a blowup of one of the images BBC released on the official site (which I have also seen and which show a stone Dalek --wtf?) and the other is a new one. They are:
a) the Doctor with a Vortex manipulator on his wrist, holding some kind of red... ball? and talking to 7-year-old Amelia Pond. They are at what looks amazingly like Uluru (Ayers Rock), but as noted further down the thread, they most likely are at a museum.
b) Amelia walking into a room in the museum in which the Pandorica is roped off and obviously on some kind of display, but it is now opening.
There is also:
c) a slew (apparently) of leaked artwork and stuff linked here but the only thing I looked at was the little image on the webpage there, of the Pandorica being rescued from the London Blitz, I believe. I think it told me enough!
I also didn't read most of the comments on either of those threads. BUT that will not stop me from speculation based on these few photos. AND ONLY ON THESE FEW PHOTOS for now. Tomorrow after they release whatever clip they're goint to put out, I may have to come back here and revise, and in general there may be other stuff out there about plot and the Big Mysteries but I don't want to hear it!
-- Okay so... I'm thinking that my theories that I mentioned prior to seeing either part of the finale are at least partially correct. He wasn't in there to begin with as I'd thought, but it looks like they're setting up the fact that the Doctor spends a loooooong time in the Pandorica. Like, centuries. Multiple.
-- Another thought: the "key" to the Pandorica (and the reason why it started opening in the Underhenge) is Amelia Pond. It's keyed to her memories, so it makes sense that she would be the force that would make it open, regardless of whether or not the Doctor was inside. We don't know why it started opening in 5x12 but it's possible that it started opening when it felt that Amy wanted it to open. So that sets up the finale: little Amelia visits the Pandorica in a museum, and by being there, little Amelia opens the Pandorica and frees the Doctor from millennia of imprisonment. This is also an indication btw that Amy Pond is not a construct and is in fact the same person as Amelia.
-- There is something really weird-looking about the museum in the pictures. I'm wondering if little Amelia Pond isn't herself taken out of time, and is from eg, a much more distant future than we had imagined. Because as per the promo pic, there is also a stone Dalek or at least a Dalek statue in the museum. So at some point when she was a child, Amelia/Amy knew about Daleks, and her history has since been erased. On the other hand, the whole museum there could be some kind of MindScape of the Doctor. That would bum me out; I want it to be real.
-- There is some kind of way that being trapped in the box for thousands of years doesn't make the Doctor wither and die. I wonder if River Song has anything to do with it, OR if it's the TARDIS. Because despite the fact that I'm almost certain the Pandorica survives for a long, long time, I'm also pretty sure that they just showed, oh, you know, the Universe exploding into silence right after it got shut. So, something happens that staves off the impending TARDIS destruction until the Doctor is let out of the box in a few thousand years. Does the Pandorica fall through a crack and end up relatively far from the implosion of the Universe?
This is where it's useful to think in five dimensions instead of the usual four. I believe, to understand how "every moment" could blow up and there is still some sort of "time" through which you can escape, you have to think of each moment having its own trajectory as embedded in some kind of meta-timeline, accellerating almost surely toward a failure point. Man, I was way better at visualizing that kind of stuff when I was studying Measure Theory and convergence... Anyway, the question is, is the end of The Pandorica Opens just a projection of that five-dimensional timeline down into four-dimensional space, constricting all the explosion moments into one point in spacetime? Or... um... ow. My head hurts.
-- We also have, from the teaser "A message on the oldest cliff-face in the universe, a puzzle box opening from the inside and a love that lasts thousands of years... the fates are drawing close around the TARDIS-- is this the day the Doctor falls?" So I wonder if this is where the "love that lasts thousands of years" comes in. Somehow, the TARDIS is trying to save the Doctor who is stuck in the Pandorica, protect him from the passage of Time. And maybe that is what starts the cracks in the universe to begin with. She protects him from the centuries, and he keeps her from blowing up, until he's let out, and the link is broken? That's a long shot. But I'm wondering again if the "love that lasts thousands of years" is between the Doctor and River, or the Doctor and the TARDIS, as he waits out his imprisonment. Um, that kind of leaves Sinister Voiceover Man out in the cold though. I still don't know what he is. But anyway I'd heard somewhere that this series really highlighted the relationship between the Doctor and the TARDIS, so maybe now's the time when they step that up.
-- To tell you all the truth, I will be glad with ANY resolution that doesn't have the Doctor magically free himself from the Pandorica in oh, a day or something. THAT would be something I would totally expect from Mr, Russel Oh-I'll-Just-Transfer-My-Regeneration-To-My-Handy-Hand Davies. I HATE cliffhangers of doom that are built up and built up to amazing proportions and then immediately resolved with no consequences whatsoever. It's a total cop-out. Say what you will about Last of the Time Lords, at least it started off a year later than Sound of Drums ended, and the shit had way hit the fan. 'Course it was a big reset... so, hopefully Moffat took any inspiration from the beginning of that ep and not the end.
The whole reason I started seeking out these spoilery pictures was because someone said "Oh hey, the Doctor uses the Vortex Manipulator to escape the Pandorica!" And I was so angry I had to go re-watch and make sure he (a) wasn't wearing it when he was sealed in and (b) really had no way to get it out of his pocket and even then I was worried enough to go seek solace in spoiler pictures. Let me say right now if that happens (the Doctor escaping the Inescapable Prison Box with a stupid plot device) then Moff gets a big FAIL from me for the finale. There is so much potential for this finale; they'd better at least hit somewhere close to the mark.
no subject
Date: 2010-06-22 05:22 pm (UTC)I also like that everything you describe could, essentially, take place in ten minutes of show time, thus leaving the rest of the episode for things like revisiting Amy in the forest and fixing the whole universe.
Yes, indeed. My guess is there will either be a montage of some kind to show the passage of time at the start of the story, or that the artwork (and I only saw the one pic) will be pictures on the walls at the exhibit in the museum, tracing the Pandorica's journey in a few well-placed scenes. And also the finale runs 55 minutes, so I've heard, so they could take 8 minutes to tell the opening of the story and the Doctor's release and still have a full episode allotment of time to address all of the rest of it.
I think it all hinges on how well it's done and whether it gives genuine insight and growth into characters or is just an easy out for the writer.
It could be, if your theory below is correct and the Pandorica shields the Doctor from the time-plosion much like a Void Ship would, that the Doctor's mind would be the only thing left from which to build the universe up. 'Course, that has quite a "Neverending Story" ring to it, doesn't it? Too much magic, not enough science for my taste ;)
It's really interesting how much of this episode is reminding me of Big Finish audios. I know Lawrence Miles panned it by calling it basically a Big Finish audio but hey, some of those have been really, really good. Case in point, Big Finish were the first to do sentient Autons (Brave New Town), and they also had a literal cliffhanger ending that picked up with the Doctor having been stranded TARDIS-less for six-hundred-odd years on a planet (Orbis) of sentient jellyfish-- oh yes, there are advantages to the audio format, surely!
I mention it now because there was also an audio adventure (Dreamtime, with Seven, Ace and Hex) that featured both mindscapes AND Uluru! BUT, it was total rubbish. Holy heck was it bad. So, perhaps a notch added to the "could be dreamscape" theory ;)
I mean, keeping your captive in suspended animation and thus unable to think is a pretty good way to keep them from getting out.
That's true, of course, but less satisfying as a character development (or as a showcase of Awesome Alien Time Lord Powers) than a scenario in which the Doctor is in a stasis field of some kind and only thing he can do for those centuries is think. Ouch.
I remember trying to argue with someone that the crack in Amy's wall could have been caused by a disaster in the future and did a very bad job of explaining how that would work.
LOL if there's one thing higher mathematics has done for me, it's made it easier to think with extra dimensions. Just increase the length of your vector and voila! But actually, the ideas of random variables and convergence concepts really help out here, too, in how to think about evolving functions of many possible outcomes.
I hope it's 1)the TARDIS 2)the Doctor 3)just a garbled echo of Prisoner Zero's original warning.
I don't see how it could be the TARDIS, though I could see how it might be an evil version of the Doctor. I keep trying to think of who would want "silence" so badly, and coming up blank other than perhaps the White Guardian. I wonder if it's someone or something new! That would really be a twist, after finales with Daleks, Daleks and Cybermen, the Master, and more Daleks and Davros, and then Rassilon.
Two bits of spec from elsewhere that might be pertinent to what you're thinking:
1) But then how would he get out? Who would be left to rescue him? Though that interpretation would gel well with the notion of a Mindscape.
2)LOL yeah, "two things are always bound to end up in a museum"... I wonder how the Doctor would score this one???? :D :D :D
Here's hoping that Moffat will come through with something brilliant. I did so love The Eleventh Hour, and had a great time with the rest of the series, and this last episode has really raised the bar.
no subject
Date: 2010-06-25 05:58 pm (UTC)Hey! Yes, I frequent both those comms--your screenname certainly sounds familiar. And I love this icon so much :-) I've gotten mesmerized by it myself.
'Course, that has quite a "Neverending Story" ring to it, doesn't it? Too much magic, not enough science for my taste ;)
Not really familiar with Neverending Story. Personally, I'd kind of love a Dr. Who episode whose resolution is more metaphorical than real, but perhaps not for a season finale.
It's really interesting how much of this episode is reminding me of Big Finish audios.
I've never listened to any. I've heard good things, of course, but I haven't even gotten to Classic Who yet and I'm really, really not an auditory person, so I can't say I'm super excited. I'm sure I'll get around to them eventually.
a scenario in which the Doctor is in a stasis field of some kind and only thing he can do for those centuries is think. Ouch.
I'm kind of holding out for the stasis chamber idea because I can't bear the idea of the Doctor trapped with his own thoughts for thousands of years. Most effective form of torture anyone could devise. *shudder* Less character development than character annihilation.
I don't see how it could be the TARDIS, though I could see how it might be an evil version of the Doctor. I keep trying to think of who would want "silence" so badly, and coming up blank other than perhaps the White Guardian. I wonder if it's someone or something new! That would really be a twist, after finales with Daleks, Daleks and Cybermen, the Master, and more Daleks and Davros, and then Rassilon.
If it's the TARDIS I figure it's less of a threat and more of a warning--all warped and such from the stress it's under. My issue with everyone trying to come up with who it could be is that Moffat isn't much one to bring in something entirely new in the last minute. I mean, his endings are usually surprising, but when you go back and look you realize it all really was there from the beginning. I'd feel cheated if suddenly we find out it's _______ pulling the strings and I never knew about them before.
Anyway. Less than 24 hours to go. *crosses fingers and hopes for awesomeness*
no subject
Date: 2010-06-25 06:20 pm (UTC)It could also be a good grace note. I'm thinking specifically about the way that Buffy season 4 ended, with the Big Bad getting defeated in the second-to-last ep, and the dream sequence of a finale.
I've heard good things, of course, but I haven't even gotten to Classic Who yet and I'm really, really not an auditory person, so I can't say I'm super excited. I'm sure I'll get around to them eventually.
Big Finish audios take a while to get used to, but once you do they are great. They are perfect for commuting and road trips, at least for me. I have a long commute every day (36 miles one way) and so I could listen to basically one play every two days. Didn't take me long to get caught up with the whole run.
Most effective form of torture anyone could devise. *shudder* Less character development than character annihilation.
I think that they could make it work. The Doctor after all has a much better capacity for mental toughness and for waiting than an ordinary human. Still, a few centuries would probably push him to his limits.
I'd feel cheated if suddenly we find out it's _______ pulling the strings and I never knew about them before.
I kind of have a crackpot theory about this, that might end up going down that route, and I too am worried about it. Not sure if it's right though; I've spent the past few days convincing myself otherwise, so I'm back to the "no idea what will happen" stage. *sighs*