" The Pandorica Opens " is the twelfth episode in the fifth series of the English science fiction television program Doctor Who , first broadcasted on June 19, 2010 on BBC One. This is the first in the two-part final which is continued next week with "The Big Bang". This episode was written by chief writer and executive producer Steven Moffat and directed by Toby Haynes.
In that episode, the mysterious character of River Song (Alex Kingston) summoned the physician's alien time traveler (Matt Smith) and his colleague Amy Pond (Karen Gillan) to Roman Britain in 102 AD, under which Stonehenge lies a prison called Pandorica that legends tell the existence of the most terrifying creature in the entire universe. However, it was discovered that the Doctor had been put into a trap by his greatest enemy alliance to save the universe from cracks in time caused by Doctor TARDIS's time space. Amy fiancee, Rory (Arthur Darvill), who had previously been erased from the existence of one of the cracks in the universe, returns, though it is declared an auton duplicate that comes with his consciousness.
Moffat wants this episode to be "big" and "crazy". The making of the film was done in the original Stonehenge and in replica in early February 2010. The "Underhenge" collection is the largest built in Upper Boat Studios and Haynes helps the actors in the mood by playing music from Indiana Jones franchise. The enemy alliance is the first such meeting to be seen in the show, and the production team ensures they use the most iconic monsters they have in good condition. "The Pandorica Opens" was seen by 7.57 million viewers in the UK and received the Appreciation Index of 88, the highest of the series at the time. This episode was well received by critics and the two-part story won the 2011 Hugo Awards for Best Drama Presentation (Short Form).
Video The Pandorica Opens
Plot
Sinopsis
The Doctor and Amy Pond, following a message from River Song, arrived at the Roman Britain on Earth in 102 AD, where they found the River disguised as Cleopatra. River shows Vincent van Gogh's painting to the Doctor entitled " The Pandorica Opens ", which describes TARDIS exploding. The river has restored the painting in the 52nd century and traveled to space-time coordinates on painting using a time-vortex manipulator agent. The Doctor realizes "Pandorica", a famous prison for the most deadly creatures in the universe, to be kept in an unforgettable location near the coordinates: Stonehenge.
At Stonehenge, Doctors, Amy, and Rivers find the passage to the underground area. Inside, they find Pandorica, a giant metal box equipped with every kind of lock imaginable. When examining Pandorica, Amy goes to see Doctor about the engagement ring she previously found in her jacket pocket and felt a strong emotional attachment; he says that it belongs to a "friend", and nothing is really forgotten. Pandorica transmitted signals reinforced by Stonehenge rocks throughout the universe, and River warned the Doctor that the signal was drawing "everything [ever] to hate [him]" to Earth that night. Doctors are assisted by Roman legion volunteer groups; the officers in charge of them were lowered to Amy's fiancée, Rory. Neither Rory nor the Doctor can explain Rory's presence, since he was consumed by cracks in the universe during the "Cold Blood" event and erased from existence. When Amy comes after being attacked by a damaged Cyberman, she does not remember Rory, which is very disturbing to her. The doctor assures Rory that Amy will remember in time, and hands over the engagement ring.
The enemies of the Doctor began to orbit overhead, and the Doctor bought extra time with a threatening speech. He urges River to bring TARDIS to Stonehenge as he, Amy, Rory, and the legions prepare. When River tried to use TARDIS, outside forces took control and drove it to Amy's house in the present. After the River left TARDIS, the scanner screen cracked in the same shape as the cracks in the universe and the threatening voice said: "Silence will fall." River finds a landing pattern in Amy's garden and sees that someone has entered the house. She finds in Amy's room a storybook about Pandora's box and a children's book on Roman Britain. River communicated this to the Doctor, warning him that Pandorica should be a trap, created from Amy's memories. River identifies its current space-time coordinate - June 26, 2010, the date identified by the Doctor as the beginning of time energy explosion that caused cracks in the universe ("Meat and Stone"). The doctor warns him to leave immediately, but he finds himself again trapped in TARDIS as the central control console begins to become critical.
Back at Stonehenge, the Doctor discovered that the legion of volunteers, including Rory, was Autons, and he was quickly captured when other orbiting enemies were orbiting around him. Above the ground, when Rory struggles to preserve his human identity, Amy suddenly remembers it, but when her Auton identity comes up, she reluctantly shoots her stomach and she dies. The doctor fought against his captors, who revealed that they had formed an alliance to imprison him in Pandorica. Knowing the TARDIS explosion will cause cracks to destroy reality, they believe only Doctors can operate TARDIS, and thus removing it will prevent the explosion and save the universe. When the Doctor is sealed into the Pandorica, an explosion surrounds the Earth in space before it fades into black and silent.
Continuity
In the first episode of the series, "The Eleventh Hour", Prisoner Zero tells the Doctor, "The universe is cracked, Pandorika will open, the silence will collapse." The Pandorica was also mentioned by River in "Flesh and Stone" as the next time he would meet him, and Doctor dismissed Pandorica as a fairy tale. In this River time line occurs before "The Time of Angels"/"Flesh and Stone". TARDIS's blast painting passed several characters from the previous episode: the painting was made by Vincent van Gogh (Tony Curran) after his encounter with the Doctor ("Vincent and the Doctor"). The painting was invented in 1941 by Winston Churchill (Ian McNeice) and Professor Bracewell (Bill Paterson) of "Victory of the Daleks", and River stole a painting from Liz 10 (Sophie Okonedo), which previously appeared in "The Beast Below". The repeated phrase "silence will fall" appears in the next series with the introduction of alien species and the organization of Silence.
Maps The Pandorica Opens
Production
The reading for "The Pandorica Opens" took place on January 13, 2010 at Upper Boat Studios. It started much later than planned because the cold weather delayed the arrival of some players and crew. This episode was filmed in the sixth production block along with "The Big Bang". Half of the scenes with Liz 10 (Sophie Okonedo) were filmed earlier on October 22, 2009 along with the scene "The Beast Below" in an orange grove in Margam Country Park, Port Talbot. The other half, featuring Alex Kingston as River Song, was filmed February 5, 2010.
Showrunner and episode writer Steven Moffat wanted this episode to be "great" and said that "we turn it to level, we're really crazy with it". The atmospheric lighting was added by the photography director Stephan Pehrsson, who wanted to give him the feel of the movie. Moffat chose Stonehenge as the prime location for the episode because the monument was large and important enough to fit a person who was as strong as a Doctor. The filming was done at the original Stonehenge in Wiltshire on the night of February 2, 2010. The cast and crew must obey the rules; they are not allowed to touch stones, carry heavy equipment, and lighting must be done from the floor. They were only able to shoot for one night and spend the only hours of daylight in the morning with a three minute dialogue shoot. This proved to be a challenge, as it usually takes an hour and a half to record the same scene. The rest of the scene created at Stonehenge was filmed with a lightweight replica set up in Margam Country Park called "Foamhenge" for four nights. Director Toby Haynes thinks they have "founded" Stonehenge on the actual site and can now get away with a little more viewing. Doctor's speech for alien spacecraft was filmed February 3, while Rory shot Amy shot on February 4th. The weather conditions are very cold with the wind and rain which causes difficulties as it is difficult to communicate through the wind. Haynes wants the Doctor's speech to be his "big pop-star moment" and it looks as if he's talking on a big site like Wembley Stadium.
The "Underhenge" set is the largest built in Upper Boat Studios. Haynes wanted the room to be "dark" and "physical", and the art department added spider webs and stones. Because the room was supposed to be underground and therefore there was no natural light to illuminate the actors' faces, Haynes decided to use the gas torches as a source of light; Gillan was initially nervous about working with a torch and struggling with them. The script is similar to a temple found on Indiana Jones, and Haynes actually plays music from Raiders of the Lost Ark compiled by John Williams to help actors slow down as they explore the set. Haynes believes this will emphasize the admiration in the scene as well as the "haunted" and "haunted" feelings of the room. Gillan stated that he thought the music was very useful.
For scenes where Doctors, Amy, and Rivers ride on horses, the close-up of the riding characters is filmed by asking the actors to sit on a saddle mounted behind a truck and act like a horse riding. Gillan calls this "the weirdest thing" he ever did, and believes he "looks silly". They filmed this when the truck drove to reach the effects of a passing state. The wide shot was taken from the double action of three actors who rode the original horse. The scene was filmed on February 1, 2010.
At the conclusion of the episode, alliances of many enemies of the Doctor appear: Daleks, Cybermen, Sontarans, Judoon, Autons, Sycorax, Hoix, Silurians, and Roboforms. The alliance consists of the "best" costumes and equipment they have in good condition and the most iconic monsters. So many enemies standing side by side have not been seen in previous shows. This episode also shows Amy fighting with a Cyberman; Gillan stated that he "really wants" to work with that iconic monster. Since Cyberman has been keeping Pandorica for a long time, Haynes wants to make her look "rusty, creaky, and old" and compare her behavior with Frankenstein. The Cyberman was originally played by an amputee with one arm, but the production team was dissatisfied with the camera angle and decided to reshoot the scene from different angles, but different actors who had both arms performing parts as amputations were unavailable. A simple solution is designed to cover his arm with a green arm made of the same material as the greenscreen, and the last sequence is a combination of both shots. The Cyberman was killed by Rory, who did not realize he was an Auton; this is meant to indicate that there is something different about Rory, because he will usually panic in that situation. At the end of the episode, Rory is overcome by Nestene Conscious control and shoots Amy, reflecting Moffat's belief that all good love stories end in tragedy.
Broadcast and reception
"The Pandorica Opens" was first broadcast in the United Kingdom on BBC One and aired on BBC HD on June 19, 2010. For the first time in the series, the episode was not followed by a short trailer for the next episode, the cover. Early overnight ratings showed that 5.38 million viewers had watched the episode on BBC One, while 497,000 others watched on BBC HD, combining a total of 5.88 million. The latest consolidation figures show a total of 7.57 million viewers, with 6.94 on BBC One and 635,000 on BBC HD. The episode was given the "Excellent" Appreciation Index of 88, the highest for the series on broadcast, though this was subsequently defeated the following week by conclusion.
"The Pandorica Opens" was released in Region 2 on DVD and Blu-ray on September 6, 2010 with "Vincent and the Doctor", "The Lodger" and "The Big Bang". It was then re-released as part of the Fifth Series complete boxset on 8 November 2011.
Critical reception
"The Pandorica Opens" received positive reviews. And Martin from The Guardian praised the cinematic and cliffhanger spheres, calling it "the bravest of showstoppers". He thinks that so much is happening in the episode that Rory's return feels like a "small plot point", though he considers it because the audience knows it will happen. Gavin Fuller, writing for The Daily Telegraph, praised him for bringing "epic and cinematic stories to keep in mind" that the series was "not exactly lacking," although he thought the Alliance's hearing was "somewhat fanboyish on the part of Moffat ". He also praised Smith for "hitting the correct record" and the revelation at the end for being "absolutely shocking". Like Martin, he says that Rory's return is "not surprising", though "handled well" and with some touching moments between him and Amy.
Patrick Mulkern of Radio Times called it "probably the most epic, seductive Doctor Who ever" and praised four clues and Moffat for "packing a surprise and uniting a season puzzle with a dazzling plot, urgent speed and great dialogue ". IGN Matt Wales rated episode 9 of 10, saying it was "successfully packed in an absurd amount of prominent moments" and "beautifully delivered, if not quite satisfactory as a two-part opening by deliberate deliberation". However, he thinks that late slow motion "dips a bit too hard into melodrama", although it's "hard to blame that brave cliffhanger brave".
Richard Edwards presents five episodes of five stars, praising the "delicious touch", "great character", and "touching scene" between Amy and Rory. He thought that the Alliance was "impossible" but it worked because the series bows had been "ingeniously built". Sam McPherson of Zap2it gave it A, praising it as an improvement over the finales of the previous series. He also thinks the use of the Alliance has done well, because it describes them as more perverse than evil. The A.V. Club 's Keith Phipps delivers the A-episode, though expressed fears as to whether his conclusions will be able to meet the set-up.
"The Pandorica Opens", together with its conclusion, was awarded the 2011 Hugo Award for Best Drama Presentation (Short Form). This is the fifth time the Doctor Who won the award, and the fourth time an episode of Steven Moffat won. The Mill,
References
External links
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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