The Big Bang (Doctor Who)

212b – "The Big Bang"
Doctor Who episode
Cast
Doctor Matt Smith (Eleventh Doctor)
Companions Karen Gillan (Amy Pond) Arthur Darvill (Rory Williams)
Others Alex Kingston – River Song Caitlin Blackwood – Amelia Susan Vidler – Aunt Sharon Frances Ashman – Christine Barnaby Edwards – Stone Dalek William Pretsell – Dave Halcro Johnston – Augustus Pond Karen Westwood – Tabetha Pond Nicholas Briggs – Dalek voice
Production
Writer	Steven Moffat
Director	Toby Haynes
Script editor	Lindsey Alford
Producer	Peter Bennett
Executive producer(s)	Steven Moffat Piers Wenger Beth Willis
Production code	1.13
Series	Series 5
Length	2nd of 2-part story, 55 minutes
Originally broadcast	26 June 2010
Chronology
← Preceded by Followed by → "The Pandorica Opens" "A Christmas Carol"

"The Big Bang" is the thirteenth and final episode in the fifth series of British science fiction television series Doctor Who, broadcast on 26 June 2010 on BBC One. It is the second part of the two-part series finale started with "The Pandorica Opens", written by Steven Moffat and directed by Toby Haynes.

Following the end of the previous episode, alien time traveller the Doctor (Matt Smith) is trapped in an unescapable prison, the TARDIS has blown up with River Song (Alex Kingston) inside, the Doctor's companion Amy Pond (Karen Gillan) has been shot by an Auton replica of her fiancé Rory Williams (Arthur Darvill). As the universe is collapsing, the Doctor using time travel to solve these problems and ulitmately reboot the universe.

The episode sees the climax of Amy's character arc and the story arc of the series regarding the cracks in the universe, though Moffat chose to leave a few things unexplained. Moffat used a fez as a motif to help the audience understand the complicated plot. Taking place mainly in a museum, most scenes in the episode were shot at Brangwyn Hall in February 2010. "The Big Bang" was seen by 6 million 696 thousand viewers in the UK and received the highest Appreciation Index of the series at 89. It received mainly positive reviews from critics, though many commented on the complicated nature of the plot and whether some aspects made sense. The two-part story won the 2011 Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form.

Plot

Following from "The Pandorica Opens", the Doctor has been sealed in the Pandorica, a trap created by his greatest enemies; River Song is trapped aboard the exploding TARDIS; and an Auton version of Rory has shot and killed his fiancé Amy. The TARDIS's explosion has caused the whole universe to have never existed, except for the Earth, its moon, and a sun-like object, otherwise leaving a dark infinite void. Only stone versions of the Doctor's foes surround the Pandorica.

As Rory is mourning over Amy, the Doctor appears using River's vortex manipulator. He hands Rory his sonic screwdriver and explains how to use it to open the Pandorica and free his younger self. Following these instructions, Rory frees the Doctor, who then places Amy's body inside the Pandorica. He explains that the Pandorica, being the "perfect prison", will restore her once given an imprint of her DNA. The Doctor then retrieves River's manipulator and uses it to jump ahead nearly two millennia; Rory, in his ageless Auton body, decides to stay with the Pandorica and guard it, creating the myth of "The Last Centurion" over the years.

In 1996, seven-year-old Amelia Pond finds instructions from the Doctor leading her to the National Museum, where the Pandorica is on display. Her touching the box allows it to revitalise Amy and let her out. They are soon joined by the Doctor and Rory, now a museum guard. After a tearful reunion, they are chased by a Dalek restored by the light of the Pandorica. The Doctor uses the vortex manipulator to go back and give Rory his screwdriver, as well as leave Amelia the clues to the museum. Amelia soon disappears: a sign, according to the Doctor, that the universe is collapsing rapidly. The injured body of a future version of the Doctor appears and whispers something to his earlier self. The Doctor takes off with Amy and Rory to the roof of the museum, where he discovers that the "sun" is the still-exploding TARDIS. Rory hears a voice coming from the exploding TARDIS and the Doctor amplifies the voice and discovers it is River Song in a time-loop, implimented by the TARDIS to keep her alive. The Doctor saves River, and as the quartet reunites, the Doctor is shot by the Dalek and sends himself backwards in time. Amy and Rory depart while River threatens the Dalek before shooting and destroying it.

Amy and Rory discover that the wounded Doctor had told his earlier self to create a diversion, allowing him to rig the Pandorica to fly into the TARDIS explosion. The Doctor postulates that enough of the original universe still exists in the Pandorica to completely restore it via the exploding TARDIS. After a tearful farewell to Amy, Rory, and River, the Doctor engages the Pandorica and flies it into the exploding TARDIS. A second Big Bang occurs. The Doctor comes to consciousness and begins witnessing events in his life in reverse as the cracks in the universe close.

Amy wakes on 26 June 2010 in her home to discover that her parents have been brought back into existence and she and Rory celebrate their wedding day. At the reception, River leaves her blank diary for Amy which prompts Amy to recall the Doctor and something he told her when she was seven during his rewind. She interrupts her father's speech, imploring the Doctor to come back. As she recites the old wedding proverb ("something old, something new, something borrowed, and something blue"), the TARDIS and the Doctor appear. The Doctor joins the wedding festivities and afterwards, he returns River's diary and the vortex manipulator to her so she can return to her own time. She sadly tells him he will soon learn who she truly is and that it will change everything. Aboard the TARDIS, the Doctor explains to Amy and Rory that unanswered questions remain about the destruction of the TARDIS and the nature of "the silence" that will fall. The Doctor receives a telephone call alerting him to the presence of an escaped Egyptian goddess on the Orient Express in space. Rory and Amy decide to join him, and the three leave on their next adventure.

Continuity

The episode revisits several scenes from earlier in the series. The first scene in the episode mirrors the start of "The Eleventh Hour". As the Doctor rewinds through his life, he sees events which relate to "The Lodger", but which were not shown in that episode. His conversation with Amy during the events of "Flesh and Stone", however, appeared in that episode. It was shot in extreme close-up but the Doctor's tweed jacket is still visible, which the present Doctor in that episode had previously lost to the Weeping Angels.

Production

Writing

Moffat used a fez as a device to help explain the complicated plot to viewers.

Aspects of "The Big Bang" were outlined by lead writer and executive producer Steven Moffat as he planned the arc of the series. Moffat stated he left room to improvise on the story and was pleased with the result, describing it as "mad" and "amazing". Moffat stated that the title "The Big Bang" is his favourite dirty Doctor Who joke as it is a reference to the fact that Amy and Rory conceive River on the TARDIS that night, as revealed in the next series in "A Good Man Goes to War". Gillan described Rory's vigil for Amy as the "ultimate romantic gesture" which showed how much he loved Amy, and was where Amy realised how much she loved him. Moffat thought that standing guard for two thousand years would make up for shooting her. Moffat described the conclusion as the story of how Amy has been changed by the Doctor and the Doctor's success at restoring her spirit to the girl he first met, believing that a man could drop out of the sky and "fix everything". However, he did not return for her as he had promised and she grew believing that he was a liar and could not be trusted; Amy returns to her original belief when she stands up at her wedding and proclaims the Doctor is real and that he will arrive. Though the episode is the end of the series, Moffat left questions to be answered in the next series, including the mystery of River Song's identity and the "Silence" which appeared to cause the TARDIS to blow up.

Moffat found it interesting that the Doctor regularly experienced time out-of-order and was used to a whole different kind of causality. He believed that the Doctor would attempt to cheat and break his own rules to save the universe from collapsing. As the episode features many "time-jumps" when the Doctor travels back to do things seen in the opening credits, Moffat decided to make it less complicated by allowing the audience to figure things out before they occured. He did this by calling attention to the future-Doctor in the opening scenes by having him wearing a fez and holding a mop, and as the viewers saw the Doctor later acquire these items they would begin to connect the events. Moffat mentioned the fez to fellow executive producers Piers Wenger and Beth Willis; they both were worried that Smith would become too attached to the hat and want to incorporate it into his costume, but Moffat assured him that he was planning on destroying the fez. Wenger later stated that Smith was "one of the few people who can pull off a fez".

Filming and effects

The read-through for "The Big Bang" took place on 13 January 2010 in the Upper Boat Studios. The episode was filmed in the sixth production block along with "The Pandorica Opens". The beginning of the episode, in which the fez-wearing Doctor from the future confronts Rory, was filmed on 5 February 2010 at Margam Country Park, Port Talbot. Brangwyn Hall was used as the museum. Director Toby Haynes wanted the museum to feel "massive and eerie", and coached Blackwood to "live in the moment". Though Blackwood appeared as the seven-year-old version of Amy in "The Eleventh Hour", the episode marked the first time Gillan and Blackwood—who are actually cousins—acted together. Gillan initially found this "weird", but she commented that they quickly got used to it. The set was filled with things that would seem like typical exhibits in the daytime, but appeared spooky at night. The exhibits also included historical anomalies which were the result of history collapsing, such as penguins on the Nile. A stunt performer for Smith performed the sequence in which a future version of the Doctor who had been shot by a Dalek fell down the museum stairs; he did the stunt three times before Haynes captured the angles and shots he wanted.

Gillan stated that the episode was the "most difficult" for her, as it was "a big climax for Amy and her story that's been building through the series...it just required a lot of kind of concentration and emotion." In August 2011 she stated that the Doctor and Amy's farewell was the most emotional scene for her to film. Amy and Rory's wedding reception was filmed at Miskin Manor. Gillian found wearing the dress strange, while Darvill felt as if he was gate-crashing someone else's wedding, as he did not know any of the extras there. Haynes wanted to first show the revelation that the TARDIS would appear at the reception in a small way with minor changes such as the glasses tinkling and chandelier shaking, and build it up from there. Moffat had always intended for the two to get married "from the off". Moffat thought that Amy would want a big wedding with a lot of dancing. In the script it was written that the Doctor was a "terrible dancer" and danced like a "drunk giraffe", and Smith additionally came up with his own routine.

Broadcast and reception

"The Big Bang" was first broadcast in the United Kingdom on BBC One on 26 June 2010. The extended 55 minute episode lasted from 6:05 p.m. to 7:00. Possibly due to the early start time, overnight ratings showed that the episode was watched by 5.09 million viewers, with 4.64 million on BBC One and 445,000 on a simulcast on BBC HD. Final consolidated ratings calculated by BARB reported that the episode had been watched by a total of 6.696 million viewers, with 6.118 million on BBC One and 578,000 on BBC HD. The episode also received an Appreciation Index of 89, the highest of the series and the four main channels the day it was broadcast..

A Region 2 DVD and Blu-ray containing this episode together with "Vincent and the Doctor", "The Lodger" and "The Pandorica Opens" was released on 6 September 2010. It was then re-released as part of the complete series five DVD on 8 November 2011.

Critical reception

"The Big Bang" met with positive reception amongst critics. Richard Edwards of SFX gave the episode five out of five stars and wrote "Steven Moffat pulls off the remarkable feat of making it feel like the logical denouement of last week's outing." While he noted that the "end of the world" scenario was very common, he said that it had never "been quite so pleasingly complex" and that "even if there are several plot holes, it's difficult to get too worried about them when the story packs such a strong emotional wallop". Den of Geek's Simon Brew also gave the episode a positive review, writing "if you were awaiting a simple, easy-to-explain blockbuster of a Doctor Who series finale, you simply didn't get it here. Instead, if you were looking for something really very ambitious, often quite confusing, yet ultimately far more satisfying, then 'The Big Bang' absolutely hit the mark."

IGN's Matt Wales gave the episode a 10 out of 10 rating of "Masterful", describing it as "wonderfully wide-eyed, genuinely magical adventure" and adding that it "ended the series on an unquestionable high". Keith Phipps of The A.V. Club gave "The Big Bang" a B+, describing it as not "wholly successful...the climactic action is a bit too rushed and the epilogue too relaxed". While it was "still beyond-statisfactory and filled with great moments", he thought it felt "like a letdown after last week's superb 'Pandorica Opens'". Zap2it's Sam McPherson gave it an A and described it as "a great conclusion to a great season" and while "the entire universe-rescue plot was a little boring...the characters made the episode one of the best ever". However, he did wish that it kept more of the darker tone from "The Pandorica Opens", labelling "The Big Bang" as "a bit of a tonal letdown".

Dan Martin of The Guardian wrote that the "finale was brilliant – a classic modern fairytale unfolding before our eyes". Gavin Fuller, writing for The Daily Telegraph, summarised the episode as "interesting and enjoyable, but not quite the spectacular conclusion you might hope for." He particularly praised Matt Smith's portrayal of the Doctor in the scenes of his sacrifice and rewinding of his timeline, and also described the presentation of the universe collapsing as "effective". However, Fuller had some criticisms of the plot, seeing it as potentially confusing. He also expressed disappointment with the "easy" solutions to some of the problems facing the Doctor in this episode. Fuller also wrote that the episode's solutions were "rather paradoxical in nature [since the Doctor] only escapes as Rory lets him out once given the means to do so by the Doctor travelling back in time once he's escaped.", though Martin in The Guardian excused this paradox due to the episode being set "in the eye of the storm as history collapses [and so] ... hardly working to the same rulebook".

Along with "The Pandorica Opens", "The Big Bang" was awarded the Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation (Short Form), the fifth time Doctor Who has won the award, and the fourth time a Steven Moffat episode has won.

External links

• The Big Bang on TARDIS Index File, an external wiki
• "The Big Bang" at the BBC Doctor Who homepage
• "The Big Bang" at the Internet Movie Database
• "The Pandorica Opens" / "The Big Bang" at Doctor Who: A Brief History Of Time (Travel)
• "The Pandorica Opens" / "The Big Bang" at the Doctor Who Reference Guide