The Big Bang (Doctor Who)

212b – "The Big Bang"
Doctor Who episode
Cast
Doctor Matt Smith (Eleventh Doctor)
Companion Karen Gillan (Amy Pond)
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
Directed by	Toby Haynes
Written by	Steven Moffat
Script editor	Lindsey Alford
Produced by	Peter Bennett
Executive producer(s)	Steven Moffat Piers Wenger Beth Willis
Production code	1.13
Series	Series 5
Running time	2nd of 2-part story, 55 minutes
First broadcast	26 June 2010
Chronology
← Preceded by "The Pandorica Opens" Followed by → "A Christmas Carol"

"The Big Bang" is the 13th and final episode in the fifth series of British science fiction television series Doctor Who. It is the second part of a two-part season finale started with "The Pandorica Opens", at the end of which The Doctor is trapped, the TARDIS destroyed, and Amy Pond has been shot by an Auton replica of Rory Williams. It was written by Steven Moffat, the head writer and executive producer of the series. The two-part story won the 2011 Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation.

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 fiancée 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, while only stone versions of the Doctor's foes surround the Pandorica.

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, where it will be restored over time. 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, the Doctor arrives and, using the vortex manipulator, arranges for young Amelia Pond to visit 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. 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; he 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, put there 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. 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", except this time the Doctor does not crash into Amelia's garden, instead appearing later to direct her to the museum. Upon the TARDIS's restoration, Rory tells Amy's parents that "I was plastic" and that the Doctor was "the stripper at my stag do", the latter event having been seen in "The Vampires of Venice".

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" appeared in that episode; clearly it was the version of the Doctor who is rewinding, because his tweed jacket is visible, which the past Doctor lost to the Weeping Angels earlier in the episode. Finally, he arrives in seven-year-old Amelia's house the night she waited for him in "The Eleventh Hour".

When the Doctor first wakes up in his rewind, he mentions his legs, a reference to his first words after the regeneration in The End of Time, and his bow-tie, a reference to his fondness of bow-ties.

The Doctor briefly wears a fez ("I wear a fez now; fezzes are cool") while holding a mop. The Seventh Doctor likewise tried on a fez whilst holding a mop which he and Ace found in a Windsor Castle attic in Silver Nemesis, Part 1. In the series 6 short, "Death Is the Only Answer", it is established that the Doctor's fez once belonged to Albert Einstein.

Amy reprises the line "Okay, kid, this is where it gets complicated" in "Space" and "Time" (as "Okay, kids," etc.), which similarly deals with her being in two places at once due to a near-cataclysmic paradox.

Production

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". 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.

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.

Broadcast and reception

"The Big Bang" was first broadcast in the United Kingdom on BBC One on 26 June 2010. The longer 55 minuted 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 viewers, with 6.118 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 both fans and critics, with considerable praise aimed towards Smith's acting and Moffat's writing. 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." 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. Warts and all." Dan Martin of The Guardian wrote that the "finale was brilliant – a classic modern fairytale unfolding before our eyes". IGN gave the episode a 10 out of 10 rating of "Masterful", describing it as "wonderfully wide-eyed, genuinely magical adventure", adding that it "ended the series on an unquestionable high". 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 Wiki, the Doctor Who Wiki
• "The Big Bang" at the BBC Doctor Who homepage
• "The Big Bang" at IMDb
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