The Big Bang

There was a point in time when this was my least favourite episode in all of Doctor Who. I remember, following the knock-out cliffhanger of The Pandorica Opens, counting down the seconds until the following Saturday. I couldn't wait to see more of the Alliance! I couldn't wait to find out who blew up the TARDIS! And I couldn't wait to see how the Doctor would get out of this jam!

Needless to say, the episode didn't live up to my hyperbolic teenage expectations. I was left soured that the monster mash teased by the previous episode amounted to one barely functional stone Dalek. I was left soured by the fact we didn't find out who blew up the TARDIS (my annoying fan brain was really banking on it being Omega, for some reason). I was left soured by the fact that the note the episode ends on is the Doctor shrugging and going "eh, we'll get to that mystery next season, I guess". And I was left very, very soured by the fact that I was seemingly the only Doctor Who fan in the world who felt this way. All my friends and family, Gallifrey Base, Doctor Who Magazine... they were all effusive. The disconnect was enough to put me off the show for a while, signaling the start of a rift that wouldn't fully recover until the 50th Anniversary.

Of course, teen me was a fool for many, many reasons, least of all taste in Doctor Who. There are many episodes I didn't like in my youth that grew considerably in my estimations on rewatch - The Curse of Fenric, for instance, was one I just didn't get on first viewing, but is now in strong contention for my favourite Doctor Who ever. Same with The Caves of Androzani. And there are other fan-favourites, like The Day of the Doctor and The Talons of Weng-Chiang that I don't quite get on with in the same way others do, but I still understand the core appeal. And in the time since broadcast, I had cooled on The Big Bang somewhat. I remember catching a repeat a year or so later and thinking "eh, this isn't that bad". Without the weight of expectation, without the pressure of being the most recent episode of Doctor Who (and the last one until Christmas), it was a lot more palatable. I still didn't like it, but it no longer occupied my bottom spot. Another decade and a bit passed between then and the start of my Big 60th Anniversary Rewatch™, and I was eager to see how it might rise in my estimations even more.

Nope, sorry. I still can't get on with it.

The thing is, after the excesses of The Last of the Time Lords and especially Journey's End, I would've welcomed a more lowkey affair. But that's not what we got - this still inherits the ludicrously overblown stakes of those finales but without the low-key, quiet character stuff that made Russell's better efforts (like The Parting of the Ways or The End of Time) work. There are no climactic battles or action scenes, yet the pace doesn't let up for most of the runtime. What do we get instead then? A runaround farce. Look, I love plenty of comedic Who, but I don't care for The Big Bang's particular flavour of it. It's like The Curse of Fatal Death played achingly straight. Or - what it actually reminds me of - is the police station break-in from Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure. Like, verbatim. The exact same gags and punchlines without its tongue in its cheek. Excellent Adventure knew Bill and Ted's bootstrap paradox shenanigans broke the reality of the film and that was the joke. The Doctor, and the episode, seem to think this is actually a clever and well-earned solution for real.

Okay, the episode does finally start gesturing at character drama as it begins to wrap up... but I find it so, so ineffective. The sudden tone shift doesn't feel earned because nothing that's happened so far has been taken seriously by any of the characters. If Amy's death and the destruction of the entire universe were undermined by the Doctor's comic pratfalls, why the hell should I take the Doctor's totally out-of-left-field sacrifice play seriously? And for all the praise from fandom that we were finally past Russell T. Davies' deus ex machina endings... I'm sorry, but the Pandorica is every bit as much of a cop-out as the Metacrisis, or the Archangel Network turning the Doctor Super Saiyan. In The Pandorica Opens it was just a fancy prison. Now it can resurrect the dead and restart the universe. Its ability to do these things is first brought up right as the Doctor needs to use them. That's not satisfying set-up and pay-off, it's not dramatically earned, it's just... stuff happening. Because.

There is stuff to like here. Rory as the Lone Centurion guarding the Pandorica for two thousand years, young Amelia Pond believing in stars despite the pitch-black sky, "we're all stories in the end"... that stuff is genuinely evocative. But it doesn't coalesce for me. Amy bringing back the Doctor through the power of memory feels like it's gesturing at a theme, sure, but it falls flat for me in the same way the Ruby's mum stuff does in Empire of Death, an overly saccharine coda haphazardly tacked onto the end of a tale full of sound and fury signifying nothing. An episode trying to be about something doesn't actually make it about something. It's too little, too late. Also Amy expressing her desire to make out with the Doctor at her own wedding TWICE being played for laughs is just a really, really weird and unpleasant beat. I thought we were over this as of Amy's Choice! Especially weird is that those lines come either side of the Doctor's (seemingly sincere?) "oh, the boy who waited, good on you mate" remark. The one thing this episode could've had going for it is if it felt like the natural conclusion to Amy's arc this season, but I come away feeling like we're back to square one.

No longer my least favourite, but still a complete misfire for me.

The Big Bang is pretty great, overall. I had a lot of fun with the creative writing used to resolve all the big, sweeping content of the Pandorica Opens. When all seems lost and everything is up against the Doctor, it feels right that the Doctor solves it with some clever time travel. The use of the Fez to help illustrate to the audience the disjointed nature of this story telling was a lot of fun. There are a ton of great moments to the episode and some really memorable stuff that make this a pretty successful finale for Series Five.

I love the scene with Amy bringing the Doctor back. It's an excellent example of a companion playing a special role in the story while still being true to the nature of the companion's character. This felt earned compared to a lot of similar moments we would go on to see with Clara.

Fun stuff with River and Rory, too, while it feels like everyone is just trying their best, and giving excellent performances, while the crew really just threw everything at Big Bang to make it feel big and special. Some of the effects work better than others, but I can appreciate the clear sense of focus and energy put into this episode. The crew should be proud of the work they did. This was a new era with a new Doctor, new companions, new ideas and a new showrunner, yet I think everyone by and large did a great job. Sure, there are plenty of missteps in Series Five, but stuff like Big Bang, Eleventh Hour, and Pandorica Opens show off some of the better traits of Moffat's era - ambition, energy, and creativity.

The Big Bang is a perfect closing episode. Perhaps unrivaled by any other. Tightly plotted, satisfying to rewatch and timey-wimey without being tiring. It ties up all of series five perfectly, with young Amelia’s scenes being potent reminders of the beauty of The Eleventh Hour. It’s been a brilliant series. The best since Christopher Eccleston’s, it will be quite some time until something better comes along.

I was confident that this was a story I knew well, and while I recognised much of what was in The Pandorica Opens, it came largely as a surprise to me. My memory of The Big Bang overrode my memory of the full story, so the set up came pretty fresh.

The sense of scale and scope is exciting. I loved revisiting Vincent van Gough, not sure I needed Liz X and Winston Churchill, but they don’t outstay their welcome. The editing could be a little snappier in parts, some shots holding for a little longer than I would have liked.

The first part comes into its own when the realisation of how the Pandorica and the Romans are connected. How everything leads back to Amy. The drama of Rory the Auton killing his fiancé at the exact moment her memory of him is restored. It is high drama that outshines the whimsy of the rest of the episode.

For me, it’s the more intimate journey of part 2 where things really sing. The old house, the museum, the wedding. I’m a sentimental, nostalgic person, who loves the concept of hopping through time so it hits all the right notes for me.

If I had one quibble it would be that lovely Rory, who waits 2,000 years, is quite mistreated by an unappreciated Amy. Told to shut up, etc. How quickly she forgets.

I hope I don’t sound too down on the first episode, but in my head it was a flawless 10/10, so I was a bit taken aback that it wasn’t. But then again it’s setting the second half which is exactly as good as I remember it.