Review:
Doctor Who: The Big Bang

513 – The Big Bang

‘It’s a fez. I wear a fez now. Fezzes are cool.’ – The Doctor

This is such a hard episode to review. On one hand, it’s completely underwhelming and a little disappointing. On the other hand, it’s easily the best series finale yet. Tough call.

Silence has fallen. The trap has closed. An alliance formed of every single alien race in the universe has banded together and sealed the Doctor within the Pandorica. A plastic centurion Rory has shot Amy dead. A mysterious force has managed to destroy the TARDIS from within, leaving River inside the explosion. The cracks in time have torn open and the universe has ended.

The earth is all that remains, the final planet, hanging in a black void, the eye of the storm. Amelia Pond, age seven, is the only hope for the universe. Following a series of clues left by a stranger, she must somehow open the Pandorica…

The major problem with the episode is that all the drama was packed into the setup. This means that, for the entirety of the finale, there is no dramatic tension. Everything’s already happened, there’s nothing left to be setup, all that remains is to undo the damage and call it a night.

With the drama apparently gone on holiday for the duration of the episode, Steven Moffat has instead packed in a series of stunning character moments – comedy, revelations, realisations, etc – that keep things at least feeling dramatic. The Doctor’s time bending is both brilliant and funny, with Moffat playing with the concept of time more than he ever has before. It’s fast, furious and funny, but it does help to undermine what little was left of the drama – after all, within fifteen minutes, the supposedly secure Pandorica has been reopened.

In fact, the only real sense of drama in the episode comes from a single Dalek that stalks the cast for all of ten minutes. It feels strangely bolted-on, as though somebody pointed out that there was nothing chasing the Doctor at any point in the script.